Dear Trekker,
If you want to make a person really feel guilty, a sure fire challenge is to utter the ultimate decipher of life… “Love your enemies?” And throw in for good measure, “and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” This Sermon on the Mount command by Jesus is more than a divine challenge. It ignites emotions of overwhelming impossibility for the human mind to grasp. I’ve been wrestling this month with the dimensions of Jesus’ matter-of-fact statement. The following is where the Spirit has led me. There is a lot here… so dive with me deeply. (Read Matthew 5:43-48 now.)
If the the Scriptures tell us anything, there are two overwhelming, all-encompassing themes… God’s love (his-story) for the man He created (Genesis 1:27) and man’s ongoing, futile attempt to “live His love” when one does not recognize or accept the existence, authority and effective redemption of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “Our foolish hearts are darkened indeed,” we must admit with the Apostle Paul. Truth, Life and Way escape us. We unconsciously flounder and founder in the sea of life…generations upon generations.
So when Jesus declares “love your enemies,” He is giving us, in our “lost” state, an impossible task. He is highlighting the difference between God’s ways and man’s (see Isaiah 55). Therefore, if “in Christ,” we must first acknowledge, we will have enemies. If we deny we have them, we are asleep to reality and the meaning of “separation from God.” Pastor and Message author, Eugene Peterson, says it succinctly: “If we don’t know we have them (enemies), we live in a dangerous naiveté, unguarded from the “pestilence that stalks in darkness” and “the destruction that wastes at noonday,” witless when we pray “deliver us from evil.”
Hate begins clearly as a by-product of being separated from God. God, Jesus specifically, is the embodiment of love. When out of His presence, the result is hate. Naturally, apart from Him, we “hate” others. I believe God “highlights our hate” to enlist us in benevolent compassion for “other” victims. The only fuel for compassion is love. Hate does nothing but kill. This does not mean that “loving our enemies” and “praying for them” will turn them into friends. No, our acceptance and follow through of the challenge to love merely “rights the boat” and overcomes the ever-present dilemma of the “lost world.” “Enemies” could care less about our love. Without seeing any response to our love, we may become discouraged. Yet, our love simply defines the immense gulf between compassion, forgiveness and vulnerability and “man’s desire” (the enemy) for control and domination over others and circumstances. We must remember, Jesus’ “enemies” were not convinced by His sacrificial love. His enemies that He prayed for (“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”) killed him! I like Peterson’s precise comment, so descriptive and complete: “Sin is not what is wrong with our minds; it is the catastrophic disorder in which we (in our fallen state) find ourselves at odds with God.” When we (in Christ) love and pray for our enemies (usually “lost”), we live in and practice the essence and presence of God. So of course, this has nothing to do with their response.
So, “love your enemies” is more than “a tall order.” It defines God and underscores a solid base for all human endeavors. But indeed, we do not “love our enemies” and pray for those who persecute us. It is against our fallen human nature and we must grow out of it. The word for love here, we must remember, is agapō, “loving with and as He loves.” So what is Jesus really saying?
Let’s be clear. God is not saying we should “love our enemies” as we love family and friends. That is easy, or should be. Even when we say we “fall in love”… we are doing the inevitable. But “agape love” is not a feeling of the heart, or something we are prone to do. It means a presence of God the Holy Spirit in our lives (love as a fruit) and a commitment to express and put on display His love even to those who hate us and seek to injure us! Agape love (His love) is the power of God to love those we do not like and who often never will like us. Such love takes place only through Christ and can overcome our natural tendency to anger, disdain and bitterness.
Now, thinking as the soldier my background demands, the last thing “loving your enemies” means is I, a Christian, must allow people (or nations?) to do as they like without any barriers. “Separate activity” from God is always disastrous to other humankind. As for a child, we should protect ourselves and our God directed values…or we all die. But we don’t “check” the enemy for revenge or because he is out-of-line; we do it for his ultimate benefit if he chooses to respond. Enforcement and restraint is never mainly retributive; it must always retain a remedial element.
Now a couple more points in closing. I do believe (not withstanding the thoughts of the last paragraph) that Matthew 5 is speaking primarily about personal relationships. So I decry using this passage to justify pacifism. I’ve publicly debated this issue numerous times over the years. To go from the general description of life apart from God to how a nation should or should not define and protect its God-given values is a mighty big and dangerous leap. It is much easier to prat about how there should be no war among nations and Christians should never go to war under any circumstance, than for each of us (soldiers and civilian alike) to live our lives in such a way that bitterness or anger never dictate our personal relationships. When Jesus says love your enemies, he means I should love the person next door, and reach out to him. Godliness always begins near!
Finally, trekker, if we do not see all people before us as those for whom Christ died, we will never approach the meaning of “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Only God’s grace enables us to love as He loves and reach out to others in the Spirit of Christ. The hard truth is no one can follow Divine guidelines unless Jesus dwells within him or her. That is a reason why I so often use the phrase… “you are (to be) Jesus with skin on!”
When the presence of God pervades, there is no room for hate. Simply stated, that is why Jesus commands us to love even our enemies. We practice the presence of God when we do so. And when we practice the presence of God and pray for others (and ourselves, too), good things are bound to happen. This is the ordination of His life in us!
Seeking to love all, even my enemies,
Your friend,
Jim Meredith
