“’But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.’” – Matthew 5.44-45
Jesus’ call is a hard one. Personally, I have a hard enough time loving people I love, much less my enemies. Why would he command us (and it is most definitely a command) to do this? There is a very practical reason why we are told to love our enemies. How well does retaliation usually work? Ask Israel and Palestine. Ask the Capulets and Montagues. Ask participants of messy divorces. Evil for evil and violence for violence and anger for anger only builds evil, violence, and anger. It results in both parties bowing down to the god of being right, or the power of human might. The only way to disarm the power of evil is to not play the game. But, ultimately, it is not the utilitarian nature of active love that compels us to follow Christ’s teaching. We’re not merely called to “just get along.” We’re called to conquer the world.
And how did God conquer? Through brute force? Violence? Destruction? A rhetorical, argumentative beat-down? No, though in his perfect justice that would have certainly been his wont. It was actually through the sacrificial death of His Son. It turned everything upside down. Life through death. Victory through defeat. Christians are called to follow their humble King, Jesus. We are called to proactively love those who set themselves against us. Because that’s exactly what he had done for us. While he was hung on the cross, he prayed “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.” Paul writes in Romans 5.8 that “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” So, we are called to imitate God as we interact with our enemies. More than just refusing to retaliate (mercy, which is not giving people what they deserve), we are called to love (grace, which is giving people what they don’t deserve). C.S. Lewis wrote that “Love is not (merely) affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” To desire good for others, even our enemies.
This requires humility, and a recognition of our standing apart from Christ. Yale theologian Miroslav Volf encapsulated this ethos in writing: “Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners.” We distill people into those who are like— minded who are for us, and those who are not. Those who are not for us are against us and therefore our enemies. Sinners and saints. And, of course, I am the saint.
What is a person, what is a Christian, to do? This is where Christianity gets tough. Christ’s call is to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” How do we look on those we disagree with in a compassionate, kind, and humble way? Again, Volf: “[N]o one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long… without transposing the enemy from the sphere of the monstrous…into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness.” We give them, the others, the enemies, what they don’t deserve: grace. Because while we were enemies of God, that’s what He gave us. The second we say, “Well, they hurt me and were wrong and they’ve got it coming!” Meaning they are deserving of my scorn and anger— we are confronted by the words of Clint Eastwood in the movie Unforgiven: “Kid, we all got it coming.”
Do people actually do this? Christians not only are called to love their enemies, but are given the Holy Spirit to enable and equip them to do so.
Theologian Frederick Buechner wrote: “The love for equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy—love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured one’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.”
Maybe it’s not a torturer…not even really an enemy…but someone a dear friend or family member with whom I conflict. Maybe that someone is my brother in Christ or my sister on the Church leadership team. And that loved one becomes, even for a moment or a season, an enemy. How do we respond?
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In my family, there occasionally comes a moment when one of us is on the razor’s edge of saying something that will “set things on fire” (James 3.6a). Those words may be true, or merely provocative, but said out of anger or frustration, they burn. By God’s grace, most of the time we swallow those words and temper our anger with grace and mercy. However, sometimes, regrettably, the words come out. I fight with the one I love the most. And while it may be seldom, there are times when those words are so hurtful that the breach is not easily overcome.
This can happen in a family, and often does, but maybe just as often within the Church. A ministry staff, an elder board, or congregants who get sideways with each other and are stuck in their conflict. One word, or a pattern in the way they communicate and relate to each other, can create a rift wherein each party digs in their heels and won’t budge. Who was once a brother or sister in Christ becomes an arch-nemesis…who shares the same pew.
Sometimes we need help. And while, if I’m a party to the fight, I’d like to include someone who will take my side and let the other party know they were wrong…I realize that most of the time it isn’t “the other” who is the problem. I am, too. What is going on in my own heart that plays a part in the conflict? Why do I get set-off, angry, frustrated, unable to bridge the gap of conflict? Often-times I don’t really know. ServingLeaders wants to help heal the conflict, but also help each of the parties acknowledge what is going on in their own hearts that led to the conflict in the first place. We want to point them back to the Gospel of grace. My wife and I, when we are on the verge of saying something hurtful out of frustration, will often articulate, out loud, “We are on the same team.” A way of affirming that we aren’t enemies. Rather, we are both fighting against the same thing. And we are for each other.
In mediation, ServingLeaders works with each side of the conflict to honestly express their frustration honestly (rather than sweeping it under the rug), but also by fighting “cleanly,” expressing themselves with respect and humility. In doing so, we are trying to lower the temperature in the room when the parties do finally come together. I’m always amazed when a conversation goes from a pattern of anger and accusation to a pattern of humility: “This is the part I played in our conflict, and for that I am sorry.” We want to get to the longing under the longing. What does the individual really desire? Maybe it is control, or recognition, or to alleviate loneliness. Maybe there are un-articulated expectations that haven’t been agreed to. If we can begin to explore those deeper issues with the parties, we can move from anger at the enemy to a shared human condition and the tenderness that comes with recognizing our own frailties.
Humility, forgiveness, restoration. We want to point the parties in conflict back to the hope of reconciliation that ultimately comes through Jesus Christ.