Beyond Reciprocity
“And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” — Luke 6:33-35, NIV
Most of us are pretty good at being kind when that kindness is returned—easy enough, right? We can show up for the people who show up for us. We can help the friend we know would help us in a heartbeat. We give when we know the other person would probably do the same. Honestly, that is just how most human relationships work, and there is nothing truly wrong with that — mutual care is a good thing.
But Jesus points out something in Luke 6 that can feel a little uncomfortable: that kind of goodness is not actually remarkable or extraordinary at all. He says, “Even sinners do that.” In other words, simply returning good for good does not make us look different from anyone else in the world. Everyone already understands reciprocity—you do something for me, I do something for you; you support me, I support you; you are kind to me, and I will be kind to you; and so on.
Jesus is calling us beyond ordinary reciprocity. He says, “Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting anything back” (Luke 6:35, NIV). Ouch, that is a lot harder. Now, the other person’s behavior is no longer the deciding factor in how we respond or act.
This particular passage comes in the middle of one of Jesus’ “harder-to-swallow” teachings. A few verses earlier, he says, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28, NIV). So when Jesus then talks about doing good without expecting anything in return, he is not merely encouraging us to be a little more generous with our close friends. He is describing an entirely different way of relating to people, one that is not determined by what they have done or could do for us. He quite literally says to do the exact opposite of our human nature…
That can be difficult for us, because reciprocity feels fair. We may not consciously think, You no longer deserve my kindness, but we can begin living that way. However, if we only do good when someone deserves it, appreciates it, or can return it, then our kindness is really only transactional. There is an unspoken expectation attached to it—we may not say it out loud, but somewhere in our minds we are keeping score.
If we are honest, we are all pretty excellent scorekeepers…We remember the people who texted on our birthday, who checked in during a tough time, who returned a favor, who thanked us, who invited us, who did not, and who has consistently taken more than they have been given. We can very quickly decide who is “worth” our effort.
“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6:35, NIV).
Jesus is clearly not interested in our transactional system and points us back to the very character of God: “he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” Our tendency is likely to immediately begin making a list of all the people we know who are ungrateful or difficult (be careful, you may just be on someone else’s “list”). But the reality is, we have all received the kindness of God in ways we did not deserve—I certainly have.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NIV).
Note that—not once we were purified and spotless, had it all together, were grateful enough, or were finally able to offer something worthwhile in return (what do you even give someone who died for you?)—while we were still sinners…
God’s kindness toward us has never been based on whether we could repay him. We are all recipients of undeserved kindness. God has been patient with us when we have ignored him. He has provided for us in seasons when we barely acknowledged him as the Provider. He has forgiven sins we could never possibly begin to repay him for forgiving. Christ did not wait until we became deserving before moving toward us. The Gospel is built on the exact opposite idea—grace, by definition, comes to people who cannot earn it. We, as believers, are all recipients of that undeserved grace.
That realization and knowledge should change the way we love and give to other people. When Jesus tells us to do good to people who cannot—or will not—return it, he is asking us to love out of the abundance of what we have already received from God rather than out of what another person can give us.
“Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6:35, NIV).
When Jesus says that we will be “children of the Most High,” he is talking about resemblance. Children often bear something of their parents—mannerisms, expressions, ways of speaking, sometimes even habits they never intentionally learned. In the same way, the lives of God’s children should increasingly reflect something of the character of our Father. When we show mercy that has not been earned, when we give without demanding repayment, when we refuse to answer hurt with more hurt, we are showing the world something about what God himself is like.
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36, NIV).
Of course, this does not mean we abandon wisdom or remain indefinitely in harmful relationships. Loving someone does not mean giving them unrestricted access to our lives. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not always the same thing, and trust sometimes has to be rebuilt. Jesus is not asking us to pretend evil is good. But he does take revenge, bitterness, and scorekeeping out of our hands.
Sometimes living this out may involve an actual enemy (or “frienemy” as they say now). More often, I think it happens in much less dramatic situations than we imagine or expect. It is the person who never seems to notice everything you do. The friend who cannot return what you have given. The coworker who makes your day a little harder. The family member who tests your patience. The person who has absolutely nothing to offer you socially, professionally, financially, or otherwise. It is choosing to be kind, generous, and counter-cultural to those who are “difficult” to us.
I think that is what it means to actually be the hands and feet of Jesus. We see throughout Scripture that his hands touched people others avoided; his feet carried him toward people society had dismissed; he gave his time, attention, compassion, healing, and ultimately his life to people who could never even begin to repay him.
Of course, we will never love perfectly the way Jesus does. He does not ask that of us. But the more we understand how generously we have been loved, the less tightly we have to calculate what everyone else owes us. Our generosity can become less about whether someone has earned something from us and more about whether our response reflects our Father.
That is the thing that actually begins to make us look different from the world. The world already knows how to love people who are lovable, repay people who are generous, and return kindness for kindness. Jesus calls us to something that goes beyond that ordinary exchange. He calls us to a kind of goodness that makes little sense apart from grace—a goodness that can keep giving because it knows how much it has already received.
We are not generous or kind because everyone deserves it. We live this way because we belong to a wonderfully generous, kind, loving God. Jesus is not just asking us to be nicer people—he is asking us to reflect the character of our Father.
bytaylormcgee
