Scripture: Luke 6: 27-37 Jan Savory
Loving our enemies! When I read this and similar passage, I think: Jesus couldn’t really mean all that could he? How can we love our enemies? Forgive those who harm us? Never judge. Be merciful … After all, we’re only human. I love what Biblical commentator Vaughn Crowe-Tipton writes this about this passage::
“[we] respond to this text in the same way my children respond to seeing cooked spinach on their plate at dinner. No matter how much I explain the nutritional value, no one around the table really wants to dig in.”
Can it really be spiritually nutritious, to love our enemies, when it feels so impossible, so unnatural?
Can it be done?
How can we love our enemies? Why should we love that person who is antagonistic to us, anyone seeking to injure or defeat us. How can we love someone who is out to harm us? Did Jesus really mean what he said? Yes, he did. We shouldn’t try to soften this, for example by telling an abused person to turn a blind eye to abuse and just suck it up because they should love the abuser or their enemy. This is so wrong. Accepting violence because you don’t want to hurt the abuser is never love. Injustice, against me or another, must be confronted and named and shown for what it is. Jesus worked to heal those hurt by others; to call those doing the hurting to change; and to work for the abolition of hatred in this world. The only way he could do that was by love.
Freedom Sunday
Today is , a global movement of prayer, worship and action to address the crime of human trafficking. In the Anglican Church of Canada, Freedom Sunday shines light on the connections between human trafficking, labour exploitation, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and discrimination against 2SLGBTQ persons. These things are wrong, as is all discrimination whether based on gender preferences, race, age or anything else. People who do these things are enemies to all of us, not just to the people they exploit. Jesus demonstrated and taught that another world was possible, here and now. A world of love for friend and enemy, and ourselves. And we must fight injustice where ever we find it, but with love not hate. We must do as Jesus did.
Loving our enemies who are close to us
But what about enemies closer to home? What about the family members with whom we just cannot get along? What about the neighbor who seems to care nothing about the needs of others in the neighborhood? What about people with drastically different political or religious worldviews? What about the person at work, or at school, who has ruined a friendship, blocked a promotion, or done something else to hurt or harm us?
What it’s not
Let’s get out of the way what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean: being a doormat and accepting everything dished out to us such as letting an abuser keep abusing. Leaving is a non-violent response, but often not an easy option. nor does it mean Ignoring injustices, hurts or insults to ourselves and others. Or acting as if the hurt never happened. Thinking a situation will resolve itself never works and you are giving permission for the abuse to keep on abusing. it’s not enabling the other in hurtful or destructive actions. Tough love is hard. But giving in to destructive behaviour never works – for example: giving alcohol or drugs to an abuser, or funding a family member who won’t [not can’t] work
We should not accept reconciliation without change or reparation from our enemies – again, it implies they can go on harming or abusing with no consequence
So what does loving our enemies mean?
It means recognising that our enemy is, like each of us, is a child of God, containing a spark of the divine DNA. It means being able to say, and mean: “What you have done or are doing is not right. I refuse to accept your actions. At the same time, I won’t let go of you or cast you out of the human race. I have faith that you can make better choices than you are making now, and I’ll be here when you choose to do so. Like it or not, we are part of one another.”
Love holds opposites in tension
Jesus demonstrates and teaches us that love is what allows us to see and live differently. We see this not only in Jesus’ own actions and words but also in the way God reveals Godself through the prophets. We learn that God holds within himself both anger at sin and his overwhelming love for his people.
From the Hebrew Prophets
Hosea uses his life with his unfaithful wife to describe Israel’s relationship with God. In Jeremiah, after recounting the sins of the Israelites, God promises restoration. If you haven’t read Jerimiah chapter 31, please do. It contains some of the most beautiful passages in the Hebrew scriptures.
Is not Ephraim [meaning Israel] my dear son,
the child in whom I delight?
Though I often speak against him,
I still remember him.
Therefore my heart yearns for him;
I have great compassion for him,”
declares the Lord.
And
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest
We can do it!
Just like God, the loving parent of Israel – and us, we too are called to hold within ourselves our reactions to the abuse from our enemies and the love we have for them. It’s not easy. Jesus didn’t claim following him would be. But it is God’s way, and that’s enough for us, isn’t it? We can do it, God being our helper.