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“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” – Matthew 5:43-48
It is a stunning and confronting truth that the very first record of Jesus ever speaking about love, He calls us to the seemingly impossible: to love our enemy. Let’s be clear, in the previous verses Jesus makes it clear that our enemies are those who hate us, never those whom we hate. We are to love those who least deserve it from us.
To add to the indignity, Jesus also commands us to prayer for those who make us suffer. Again, let’s not be too quick to miss the significance of this. We get complacent in our understanding of Scripture through over familiarity. To pray for our enemies is to intercede for them before God- to stand between them and God, pleading for mercy for their abuse of us.
Yesterday a friend of mine told me that the night before he watched his friend severely beaten. He wanted to intervene, but he could not because someone held a gun to his head. No one was shot, but the wounds went far deeper than the bruises and cuts his friend endured. They were powerless.
Several of us found ourselves in the terrifying place of pleading with our friend not to retaliate with a drive-by shooting. The endless cycle of gang violence would only grow, perpetuating itself. But he was angry, understandably, justifiably angry. I could not bring myself to be upset with him- concerned, yes! But not angry. I was furious at the thought of what he had experienced.
In the end, when our friend saw his own words- words of his deep and true faith in Christ that he had posted online some time ago- he finally stood down and promised not to do anything stupid. Does he love his enemy? No, but he took a step away from hate and violence. And we took that step with him. It is all too easy for me to miss the depth and cost of Jesus’ command to love our enemies, especially from the relative comfort and privilege of my race, gender, socio-economic status, etc. Yet the command is no less pertinent for me. No less difficult.
“So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, ‘I love you. I would rather die than hate you.’ And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who despitefully used us.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tags: Missional
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