Tough, tough words from Jesus today: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” For me, this is the hardest thing Jesus asks of me as a disciple. When you consider that by love Jesus meant, “Seek the good of your enemies,” and that by “pray for” he meant, “ask God to help them,” this seems to be beyond human comprehension or capacity. Or beyond my capacity. I might sell all I own for God, but I want to hold on to my ability to put my enemies in a “bad box” and reject them. Today Jesus says “no, that is not God’s way and you can’t do that when you live under God’s rule.” Ouch!
Developmental psychologists tell us that an infant is born with an innate capacity for several emotions: love, happiness, fear, anger, sadness, curiosity—and hate. The root of hate is something called “dissmell.” It is the reaction in which we curl up our nose at things that smell bad–disgust. One hypothesis is that it helps babies stay away from things that might be dangerous. As a child develops, he or she learns from others what to see as disgusting and how to express it. We learn from our experiences and by observing others how to live out prejudice, vengeance, abuse, meanness, and hate. Jesus is asking us today to act in opposition to our natural inclination and our social learning. No wonder it is so hard!
While what Jesus asks is radical for us today, it must have been even more radical for those Jesus was teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. The old covenant between the Jewish people and God had included “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” Just as dissmell is helpful to infants, rejection of surrounding peoples was a help to survival when there was a small, vulnerable, chosen people of God. It helped the people of Israel stay separate enough to be safe from melting into surrounding peoples.
But now Jesus was laying out the blueprint of a Kingdom that is to extend to the ends of the earth. God saw (and loved) all the many varieties of people, cultures, beliefs, and ways of being in the world. He wanted to bring them all under His rule. He saw and loved primitive aborigines, lords and ladies of the middle ages, billionaires of today in private planes, and a poor man dying alone in a quiet doorway in any age.
God’s wisdom also knew that bonding is the opposite of dissmell, love is the opposite of hate. If those who heard Jesus were to change the world, they would do it by attracting, joining with, caring about, serving—LOVING each and every person—no matter how different they were, and no matter how they treated his disciples.
How hard that is for me! For the most part I have no desire to deliberately harm my enemies. I have worked hard through the years at forgiveness, and I recognize the value of letting go of past hurts—for myself as well as for God and the good of the other. But I still sometimes like to put people in a “bad box” and turn away from them. I don’t want to take my time and spend my energy to seek their good. I don’t want to run the risk these quiet or active enemies will hurt me more.
I don’t want to be actively aggressive. I want to practice the “tolerance” so popular in contemporary culture. Tolerance says, “Accept people as they are. Leave them be as they choose.” Tolerance is built on an underlying worldview that there is no right or wrong and on the accompanying perspective that “I am not my brother’s keeper.”
I’m pretty sure that is not what Jesus is saying here.
Jesus is specific, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Seek the good. “But what if this enemy is not safe?” I argue back in prayer. “This person has hurt me. There is no reason to believe he won’t hurt me again.” Or, in another situation I say, “But this person is so difficult, Lord. She gets on my last nerve. Surely I don’t have to actively love her. Let me turn away.”
Jesus loves me and loves any person I label enemy. He gently persists, “So be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Our innate ability to hate or be indifferent is part of our fallen nature. It is not how God is. God seeks the good of all. He sought my good when I ignored him, turned away from him, hurt him. He died for me when I was being like that. Our faith teaches us Jesus would have died for me, to bring me into a state of love within the Trinity—even if I had been his only enemy.
It was by loving me that God won me over. It was and is by loving each person that God calls to, seeks, yearns for—loves—that person. Perhaps he is calling to, seeking, yearning for, loving this person whom I’m labeling “enemy” today. Perhaps he is calling to, seeking, yearning for, loving them THROUGH ME.
If I turn away from that person, just tolerate him, or do something rejecting to express my disdain, I am blocking God’s work in him through me. Ouch! Ouch!
Recognizing that it is Ok to protect myself from harm from another, as Jesus protected himself “before his hour had come” by quietly exiting a dangerous moment, and, recognizing that sometimes confrontation is the appropriate way to love, nonetheless, my desire and common habit of just pretending my enemies don’t exist or don’t matter does not match with today’s Gospel.
Prayer:
“Lord, as I have written this reflection, the names of several people for whom I have not been actively seeking good have come to mind. Right now, let me pray for them, that Your love will reach out to them, that You will bring them goodness. Lord, help me to will that—even if my emotions are not in my words. Help me keep them at the front of my prayer. Help me keep praying for them until You show me something specific and concrete I can do that can be a true act of love. Ouch, Lord, today Your Word pinches and pulls. Give me the grace to mean these words I am saying and the grace to continue saying them until You bring them to fruition.” Amen.
