“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”  –Matthew 5:43-45

“But I say to you, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” –Luke 6:27-28 

Over many years I have studied these passages with numerous Bible Study groups and congregations.  Countless people have asserted, “This is really hard!”  But when I have pressed further, asking them to describe their efforts to love their enemies (even unsuccessfully) so that we might wrestle with the teaching together, most have had difficulty identifying a single example.  It is a teaching we have tended to bury in the church.  What would we do without our enemies?  Our understandings of the world around us, and ourselves in it, would necessarily change.

By definition, an enemy is someone with whom we are in a state of enmity, someone to whom we are actively opposed, hostile.  The person who has betrayed us, wronged us, spoken painfully to us, argued with us, hurt a family member or loved one, cut in line in front of us, held convictions that seem the opposite of our own.

But our understanding of “enemy” has also ranged far from our personal experiences.  Margaret Guenther writes: “Often our enemies are faceless and far away: the people we have been taught to fear, the people who are different than us, those who (we are persuaded) only live to do us harm.  A common enemy can be a remarkable unifying force.  The single-minded focus on an enemy assures us that we are righteous . . .”   (Guenther, At Home in the World)

These misunderstandings do little or nothing to encourage a commitment to peace and the welcoming of new life.  When we reckon honestly with them, we awaken to some of the distorted ways we ourselves have been shaped historically.  I like the prompt in Slavoj Zizek’s declaration:  “An enemy is someone whose story you haven’t heard.”

Jesus intends to free us.  Thankfully, he begins where we already are.  Invoking the kind of dualism that has characterized us, he begins: “You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  He then contrasts our common practice with an inspired alternative, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” Our love will be a reflection of God! We love this way because God loves this way, and such love is available to us as we share deeply in the human life of Jesus.  It is a whole new curriculum.  Will it require considerable industry?  The risk of honesty?  A willingness to become the change we wish to see in the world?  Of course.  The world needs this, as do we.  I am reminded of the caution from my seminary professor Thomas McDaniel: “Never forget that you are someone else’s Philistine.”

With Jesus, love is embodied, enacted, given.  The New Testament verb for this love is agapao, the verb form of  agape.  It is a particular kind of love.  Dr. King described it beautifully: “Agape is more than romantic love, it is more than friendship.   Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive will toward all men.  It is an overflowing love, which seeks nothing in return.   Theologians would say it is the love of God operating in the human heart.  When you rise to love on this level, you love all men not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but you love them because God loves them (MLK in Washington, A Testament of Hope).  It is an outpouring of God’s give-ness, and eventually, ours.

This teaching to love our enemies is not an exception or an outlier, but integral to his entire life and ministry.  When asked which commandment is the greatest, Jesus responds with two that he says are inseparable: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength; and love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:30-31).”  In the Sermon on the Mount, he offers the applied teaching:  “In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7:12).”

This is an assertive love, particularly in the face of injustice.  In the passages immediately preceding this teaching, Jesus instructs active nonviolent resistance in responding to subjugation, diminishment, and “legal” practices which dehumanize and crush God’s vulnerable people (Matthew 5:38-42).”  The responses are creative, asserting human worth while breaking reactive cycles of violence and illuminating the nature of these injustices for everyone to see.  These passages are worth a deep dive in Bible Study ( see Walter Wink, The Powers That Be).  Love does not collaborate with hate or destruction.  For-giveness, in all its forms, breaks cycles of of violence and diminishment, recognizing image of God in all people.

What I call the Disciplines of Active Love, taught by Jesus, include: (1) praying for enemies  (2) doing good to enemies (3) doing good in the face of enemies, i.e., doing the right thing in the face of wrongdoing (4) for-giving (5) listening deeply (6) breaking down the dividing walls of enmity (7) living like the gospel is true.

Alex Pretti died while lifting and shielding someone who was being abused by ICE agents.  He had been documenting ICE activities.  His actions embodied the kind of love we are discussing.  Such love has been abundant and constant in Minnesota, assertive and nonviolent; we would all do well to take note and learn.  In communities around the country, people are not only mobilizing to resist government violence and dehumanization, but to embody the alternative, acting to protect people and communities under threat with a gospel solidarity.  Go back to my Disciplines of Active Love above, and  identify where you see each of those disciplines in action.

Concurrently, my nation has attacked Iran in the name of peacemaking.   The distortions are obvious.  One can condemn and even respond actively to the horrible injustices of the Iranian regime over the years.  That would mean acting for the well-being of a suffering people (there has been precious little of this).  But to take life in-kind merely compounds the evil and reveals a sickness in our collective heart.  It erases the humanity of the Iranian people, who need very much to be in our attention. And in that vein, we do well to learn the history of our relationship, including our participating in the overthrow of their legitimate government in the 1950’s (for economic reasons), the support of the Shah and his murderous SAVAK, and the shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner by a US warship in the 1980’s, killing several hundred people.  There was no US apology. And while it is a compelling wish that the regime not have a nuclear weapon, the country with thousands of them hardly has the authority to act in this manner.  New history will require repentance.  What can love mean from here on?  Let’s apply Jesus’ teachings, and see where they take us.