Jesus addressed a great crowd of his disciples, together with the multitude from Judea, Jerusalem, Tyre and Sidon. "I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do good, to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

"I you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back"

- Luke 6:27-38

In outlining the conduct of his disciples Jesus is pointing to an ideal to be aimed at rather than to a program for life to be followed exactly in all its details. As the Beatitudes must be understood in the light of the "woes" that bring out their true meaning, so the conduct of Jesus' disciples is best understood if considered in the light of what they do.

The basic command is to love. And Jesus begins by the most difficult form, love of those who do us harm and wish us evil. The Christian attitude is not to return evil by evil but rather, by good. Jesus is not asking us to make bosom friends of those who persecute us but to have a kindly, courteous attitude towards all persons; one that is the expression not just of a happy nature but the results of seeing all persons as children of God. This will lead us to be helpful when necessary, to bless and to pray.

Jesus then gives some practical examples. Turning the other cheek is not a natural reaction, but is a psychologically sound one both for the slapper and the slapped. It is the truth vividly stated in the Book of Proverbs: "A mild answer turns away wrath" (Prov 15:1), and "Do not answer a fool in the terms of his folly for fear you grow like him yourself." (Proverbs 26:4)

While we may question the wisdom of not asking for our property back from a thief, nevertheless the principle of generosity and forgiveness on which it is based is the one held up by the primitive Christian community as the ideal: "The whole group of believers was united in heart and soul: no one claimed for his own use anything he had." (Acts 4:32)

Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. The ideal that Jesus traces is in danger of remaining only an ideal unless we see it in practice. Each one is to reflect on his need of God's mercy and generosity. And at the centre of it is the thing that motivates and gives colour to the whole: you are to be like this because that's what God is like.

God is generous to all people, generous, in the eyes of the stingy, to a fault. God provides good things for all to enjoy, the undeserving as well as the deserving. God is astonishingly merciful, anyone who knows their own heart truly, and still goes on experiencing God's grace and love, will agree with this. How can we, his forgiven children, be any less? Only when people discover that this is the sort of God they are dealing with will they have any chance of making this way of life their own.

In fact, the list of instructions enunciated above is all about which God we believe in, and about the way of life that follows as a result. We must admit with shame that large sections of Christianity, down the years, seem to have know little or nothing of the God who Jesus was talking about. Many who have called themselves by the name of Jesus seem to have believed instead in a gloomy God, a penny-pinching God, a God whose only concern is to make life difficult, and salvation nearly impossible.

But Luke gives the lie to the idea, which was prevalent in Jesus' day as well as out own, that all religions are really the same, that all gods are really variations on the same theme.

This God is different. If we lived in a society where everyone believed in this God, there wouldn't be any violence. There wouldn't be any revenge. There wouldn't be any divisions of class or caste. Property and possessions wouldn't be nearly as important as making sure our neighbour was all right. Imagine if even a few people around us took Jesus seriously and lived in this fashion. Life would be exuberant, different, astonishing. People would stare.

When one realizes how much one is dependent on God's compassion, then it is easier to be compassionate, forgiving and generous to others. Jesus not only preaches this, but lives it, even in his passion. His prayer on the Cross, "Father forgive them: they do not know what they are doing." is the final realization of this ideal.

And of course people did stare when Jesus did it himself. The reason why crowds gathered, as Luke told us earlier, was that power was flowing out of Jesus, and people were being healed. His whole life was one of exuberant generosity, giving all he had to give to everyone who needed it. He was speaking of what he knew: the extravagant love of his Father, and the call to live a lavish human life in response.

When they struck Jesus on the cheek and ripped the coat and shirt off his back, he went on loving and forgiving, as Luke will tell us later. He didn't show love to his friends, but to his enemies, weeping over the city that had rejected his plea for peace. He was the true embodiment of the God of whom he spoke.

The kingdom that Jesus preached and lived was all about a glorious, uproarious, absurd generosity. Think of the best thing we can do for the worst person we know, and go ahead and do it. Think of what we would really like someone to do for us, and do it for them. Think of the people to whom we are tempted to be nasty, and instead lavish generosity on them. These instructions have a fresh, spring-like quality. They are all about new life bursting out energetically, like flowers growing through concrete and startling everyone with their colour and vigour.

There are two particularly astonishing things about these instructions. First, their simplicity: they are obvious, clear, direct and memorable. Second, their scarcity. How many people do you know who really live like this? How many communities do you know where these guidelines are rules of life? What has gone wrong? Has God changed? Or have we forgotten who he really is?