Rachel Srubas writes about
her experience after being ordained and serving as an assistant pastor:
Once, a parishioner in the
first church I served made a joke of my family name, Srubas, which is derived
from sruba, the Lithuanian word for
“soup.” The parishioner nicknamed me
“Rev. Screwus,” then worked hard – and successfully – to unite diverse church
members in attributing the congregation’s problems to my presence on the staff.
I imagine somewhere,
sometime, each one of us has had some kind of an experience similar hers.
When you heard the word
“enemy” read from the Gospel of Matthew just moments ago, who came to
mind? Perhaps you thought of a radical
extremist training in a Mideast desert camp.
Maybe you thought of a coworker who is out to get you. You may have thought of a politician or an
ideological perspective you believe is harmful to our country. Some of you might have thought of a
neighbor. For a few, the word “enemy” just
might conjure the image of a family member.
Walter Wink, the author and
seminary professor states, “love of enemies has, for some time, become the
litmus test of authentic Christian faith.”
That loving your enemy may be the most important manifestation of
discipleship is not good news because it is certainly one the most difficult of
Jesus’ teachings to follow.
Jesus understood the diverse
and personal nature of one’s enemy. He
talks about the “evildoer who strikes you on the cheek.” In this relationship, you have the ability to
strike back. You and your enemy are on
equal ground. Jesus instructs you to
give up your power by offering your other cheek for striking. Next, he describes a person bent on pressing
litigation against you. While this enemy
has the upper hand, it is within your ability to resist. Jesus counsels you to offer even more to your
enemy than he is asking for. The third
scenario involves the ability of a Roman soldier to force you to carry his pack
for a mile. Here, you have no power and
no option but to do as you are ordered.
Jesus tells you to carry the pack a second mile. The final instruction considers a situation
where you have all the power over your enemy who approaches you either as a
beggar or with a desire to borrow from you.
Jesus says you are to give; you are not to refuse.
I find these teachings
terrifying. I want to tell Jesus not to
meddle in my affairs. I will deal with
my enemies on my own, thank you very much.
A 20th century Russian Orthodox mystic by the name of Silouan
the Anthonite said, “People are afraid to cast themselves into the flames of
Christ’s love.” When it comes to loving
my enemies, you can count me in as one who does not want to burn with Christ’s
love. But, this seems to be really,
really important to Jesus and I suspect Jesus will not let me or you off the
hook without a struggle.
We have so many witnesses in
our time to the power and importance of Jesus’ teaching. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this:
To our most bitter opponents
we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to
endure suffering. We shall meet your
physical force with soul force. Do to us
what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your
unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as
is cooperation with good. Throw us in
jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb
our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence
into our communities at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead,
and we shall still love you. But be ye
assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only
for ourselves. We shall so appeal to
your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory
will be a double victory.”
His prophesy is still in the
process of coming to fruition, and it has come at a cost. Still, it has initiated tremendous change.
Mahatma Gandhi recognized how
hatred of one’s enemy creates a poison within.
He insisted frequently, “My first fight is with the demons inside me, my
second fight is with the demons in my people, and only my third fight is with
the British.” He is not the first person
to acknowledge the difficult truth that looking into the face of your enemy is
in some ways like looking into a mirror.
Walter Wink writes:
The enemy, too, believes he
or she is in the right, and fears us because we represent a threat against his
or her values, lifestyle, and affluence.
When we demonize our enemies, calling them names and identifying them
with absolute evil, we deny that they have a part of God within them that still
makes transformation possible.
He goes on to note something
truly remarkable; observing that every South African black he met during the
apartheid period had forgiven their torturers.
This forgiveness paved the way for their enemies to begin to see their
actions in a new light. Love and
forgiveness inaugurated change.
Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, a
professor of literature and author, articulates the foundational truth
upholding Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies: “I believe I must love you
because you have been loved – lavishly, incomprehensibly – by the One who loved
me, and who has put us into each other’s hands to care for one another.” Every parent of two or more children knows
the experience of those children fighting with each other. Your mutual and unmatched love for each child
creates within you a deep longing for them to love each other. The greater the enmity between the two the
greater your heartache will be. This is
how God experiences you and your enemy.
I find myself
short-circuiting the possibility of loving my enemy by imagining the most
difficult relationship possible and determining love will cost me too
much. Perhaps the place to start is to
set aside this situation and work first on a relationship more manageable. Here are some things to do:
· Learn your enemy’s
story. If you envision your enemy to be radical
extremists, read up of their history. No
one is formed in a vacuum. We are shaped
by a story. What is the story of your
enemy?
· Imagine how the world looks
through the eyes of your enemy. What is
his/her greatest hope and deepest fear?
How might gaining this perspective begin to transform your response from
resistance to compassion?
· What might you offer to your
enemy? Complement the good work of an
adversarial co-worker. Let your sibling
inherit the family china. Help your
antagonizing neighbor rake up his fall leaves.
· And finally, my most
important suggestion. It is one I
thought up all by myself. Pray for your
enemy! The Book of Common Prayer gives us a prayer to use:
O
God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them
and us from prejudice to truth: deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and
revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you, through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(page 816)
Perhaps the best thing about
this prayer is how it casts our relationship with our enemy not as a “them”
problem, but rather as an “us” problem.
“Truly I tell, love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
This certainly is one of Jesus’ most challenging teachings. When I have lived into it, difficult
relationships were defused of their toxic energy. When I have not, well, those failures have
been incredibly painful, damaging, difficult, and draining.
In our lifetime, Jesus’ counsel
has influenced people like Gandhi, King, and the apartheid resistance movement
in South Africa. Loving your enemies has
changed the world. This reality gives
witness to how it could change each of our lives if we start to live into it.
