Things We Wish Jesus Had Never Said: Love Your Enemies

 

Things I Wish Jesus Never Said – Love Your Enemies

Matthew 5:43-48

 

It was a beautiful day in Capernaum. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the smell of falafel and hummus filled the air. Off in the distance, the Sea of Galilee was so still, it looked like a glass mirror. The fishermen were casting their nets, and the women were preparing for the shabbot, the Sabbath dinner.

 

There had been talk of a Rabbi, a Teacher, who had been traveling throughout the region of Galilee, teaching in synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of Heaven. He healed every kind of disease and illness. People from all over were bringing their sick and hurt. Everyone desperately wanted to meet this man. 

 

That morning, there was a lot of scuttlebutt. Hundreds of people were walking through the village to the mountain. And then, there He was. The Teacher. The Rabbi. Jesus. Everyone dropped their flatbread and followed the crowd. He stood high on the mountainside, a group of twelve men standing closest to Him. The crowd stopped further down the mountain, toward the Sea, His voice bellowing into hills that formed the shape of an amphitheater. He began to teach. The crowd hung on every word. 

 

He spoke the Beatitudes, and then about salt and light. He taught on the Law of Moses, and then about anger, adultery, and divorce. He spoke with such authority, as if He was God. And then He said this: 

 

But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! 

Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. 

Pray for those who hurt you. 

 If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. (Luke 6:27-29)

 

 

Things I wish Jesus had never said. Things I wish Dr. Steven Bell had never asked me to preach on… Number one. Love. Your. Enemies. 

 

Each time I read this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, my eyes squint, my ears perk, and I do a double-take, thinking, “I’m sorry. What did You just say? Love your enemies? Turn the other cheek? You have got to be kidding me. Is there any way I can get out of this, and still be considered a follower of Christ? Give me a loophole!” 

 

The insensitivity of Jesus is all the more striking when you hear His follow up suggestions, or commandments: “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” 

 

Wait, we not only have to love our enemies, but now we have to pray for them? And I suppose this doesn’t mean the sort of prayer that says, “Dear Lord, change my enemy’s heart, so he’ll stop being so mean to me!” That’s a prayer for ME, not my enemy. When Jesus commands us to pray for our enemies, we’re meant to ask for God’s blessing for them. Yes, you heard that right. Jesus wants us to ask that good, not evil, fall on our enemies. 

 

I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t want to love my enemies. In my worst moments, I want to hurt them, gossip about them, undermine them, and generally make them pay. In my better moments, I simply want to ignore them, sideline them, or ostracize them. If I can’t retaliate, maybe someone ELSE will, and then I can enjoy the warm satisfaction of knowing that they’ll finally get what they deserve!

 

But no… Jesus said none of that behavior is an option for His followers. And even more than that, none of those DESIRES are an option for His followers. If we want to follow Jesus, we cannot hate others - even others who hate us.

 

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to twist and turn this passage. I try to justify it and butcher it to make it fit nicely into my ideology. I love it because it sounds like a utopia; I hate it because I know that if I were to live out this command to “love my enemy”, I will likely get hurt in some way. Honestly. Why would Jesus say such a thing? 

 

I think it may begin with that first word - love. The word love appears 551 times in the Bible. Love the Lord Your God. Love your neighbor. Love one another. Love your enemy. The Greek word for love here is agape.  

 

Agape is unconditional love. It’s the kind of love that translates to mercy and charity. It’s the love of God to man and of man, for the good of God. One scholar explained agape love this way: “to will the good of another.” Will the good of your enemies. Will the good of those you do not like. Will the good of those who speak against you. Will the good of those who want what you want or take what you have. Will the good of those who seek to harm you. Will the good of those who persecute you. 

 

How do we do this? How do we will the good in others? I often tell people that if you spend more than five minutes with me, I’ll likely work 1 of 3 things into the conversation: Jesus, Missions, & Quakers. Today, friends, is your lucky day! You’re getting all three!

 

A year ago, I was standing in Ramallah, Palestine. This is a place I had been dreaming of going since I was a child. You see, in Ramallah, there is a school. A Quaker school! 

  

The Quakers began serving in Palestine in 1869. And the school has withstood the test of time - through the Ottoman empire, the British Mandate, the Jordanian Rule, the Israeli Occupation, and now the Palestinian National Authority. It’s even withstood yearly rockets and bombings… which begs the question, how has this school endured over 150 years of conquering and conflict? The answer: it has made “loving its enemies” its number one testimony. 

Ramallah Friends School is a beacon of light in the rubble of its community. Its leaders and teachers seek to will the good of those around them by cultivating an oasis of hope; a sacred space of transformational love and resilience.

 

As we walked down the hallway, touring the school, we heard personal testimonies of how the teachers had been treated, especially as they cross the border to and from Israel. We listened to story after story of turning the other cheek and loving those who hate them, simply because of their home zip code and their school address. 

 

How can they possibly extend agape love? How do they will the good in those who hate them? Each time I asked the question, the answer was the same… SPICE. Yes, you heard me right - SPICE. 

 

We Quakers have an acronym – SPICE – to remind ourselves of the life Christ calls us to imitate, especially when loving our enemies. Let’s unpack this acronym!

 

S - Simplicity

I don’t know about you, but I tend to complicate things. I hear the commandments to love God and to love others, and I look for a chart, or a handout. It can’t be that simple! There has to be more! 

 

Our memory verse for the week, which is printed in your bulletin, is from Romans 5:8. Paul writes, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

I love this verse because it simply reminds me that love is from God. He revealed His love by sending His Son into the world, so that we can live through Him. 

 

There is nothing we can do to earn God’s love. I am a sinner. In my sin, I separate myself from God. And through that sin, I become God’s enemy. But instead of condemning me, God welcomed me and sent His Son to die for me. This is the greatest gift I have ever received. 

 

If God so lavishly loves us, then the least we can do is love each other. It’s that simple. 

 

My favorite author, Henri Nouwen, coined the phrase, “The Christ in me sees the Christ in you.” Or as Ashley would say, “My brokenness sees your brokenness.” Love and forgiveness go hand-and-hand. What if I loved my enemy with this same grace and forgiveness that God offered? What if we gifted and blessed our enemies with love? Each day, I wonder, how can we seek to love others through the eyes of Christ? 

P – Peace

Everything that Jesus taught was grounded in the teachings of the Old Testament Law. The Torah required the Jews to treat ALL people, even the foreigners that lived in their land, as they would treat their fellow Israelites. The golden rule was taught by all the great rabbis, because to treat others as you would like to be treated is nearly a universal law. The idea behind this is: 

·      If I don’t extend peace, who will? 

·      If I don’t start living my life by willing the good of another, who will? 

·      If every moment of my life is dedicated to getting the best for only myself, 
where does that leave the rest of the world?

 

In 2011, I was living in Haiti and installing solar-powered clean water systems. My home was a monastery in the mountains, south of Port Au Prince, and I would take week-long trips from the monastery to check on our water systems around the country. This particular time, I was staying in a small village up north, and I was saddened to find the community living in fear of a voodoo priest. Every night, I went to sleep listening to loud, banging drums and a lot of chanting. 

 

One morning, I woke up to the sound of roosters. (Oh, those roosters cock-a-doodled-do all night long!) I opened my bedroom door to the courtyard and stumbled over a dead chicken. Come to find out, the voodoo priest had killed the chicken, spilled its blood over my door, and written a curse. Now, I had never seen anything like this before, and I was more than a little freaked out, and ready to give this voodoo priest a piece of my mind!

 

The pastor where I was staying, though, taught me a valuable lesson. In that same Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” 

 

Because of the fall, we live in a divided, conflicted, hate-filled world with angry and broken people. But… we each carry the stamp of God’s creation. And because of this, we are called to promote peace - peace with our enemies and our neighbors. We are called to acknowledge in our lives, those emotions, attitudes, and prejudices, which lie at the root of destructive conflict. We are challenged to pave a path that brings peace, dignity, and respect to all. 

 

So, what did we do? Instead of retaliation, we surprised that voodoo priest with love and peace. 

 

We fried up that chicken, said a blessing over the priest and his family, and served a meal to the whole community. 

 

I - Integrity

Paul writes to the Ephesians, “Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way, more and more like Christ. So, stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth.” Quaker integrity translates this, “Let your word be your word.” Our words and actions must reflect our Christian testimony, even when it’s hard. 

 

One of the lessons I have learned in traveling over the world is that in many cultures, it is very acceptable to mislead your enemies, and even your friends, in order to come out on top. It is justified with the thought, “Oh, I don’t want to offend you, so I will just tell you what you want to hear.” Because of this mindset, I’ve spent too much time in Uganda, Ecuador, Haiti, and the United States of America discussing cultural norms versus the Gospel message. Yes, I want to be sensitive to understanding your culture and your context, but yes, I alsowant to be authentic to biblical teachings. 

 

So, I continue to pose the question, “At what point does the Gospel message trump cultural norms?” Living with integrity is not easy, but Jesus did not die on the cross for us to live comfortably and easily. As disciples, we’re called to live authentically, truthfully, and honestly, and to integrate our values into our actions. Jesus taught us to live counter-culturally in the upside-down world of the Gospel. When the world tells us otherwise, we are challenged to love our enemies. This is what agape love is all about… to will the good in others. 

 

C - Community

In John 15:12, Jesus says: “My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you.” 

 

A few years ago, in the midst of my dissertation research and writing, I was attending a worship service at Desmond Tutu’s church in Capetown, South Africa. The priest used a Zulu term – ubuntu – in his sermon. U-B-U-N-T-U. Of course, after the service, I had to ask what ubuntu means, and the priest explained it this way: “I am because we are. My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours. A person is a person through other persons.”

 

A lightbulb went off in my head. I was neck-deep in writing about cross-cultural partnerships, and this one word – ubuntu - seemed to explain everything I was missing. Community is at the core of who we are. We were created to be in relationship with God and relationship with others. Christ gives us the example to do everything for mutual benefit, not just for ourselves. I think it’s within relationships that we learn about who we are as individuals, as we see our love and action through the eyes of another. Because of this, we need each other – to learn, to grow, and to live in authentic community. God uses different people every day - our friends, and our enemies – to teach and mold us throughout all seasons of life. This includes the celebrating the joy-filled times, and it especially includes walking through tension and bringing reconciliation with our enemies. 

 

E - Equality

Each of us are important, not only to God, but to each other. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created mankind in his own image; in the image of God He created them.” We are all children of God. Every person is equally beloved by God, regardless of gender, creed, culture, color, or social status. When we begin to think that we are more important than another, we begin to participate in that continuous cycle that leads to death and destruction. Yes, some have different abilities, and yes, some have different gifts, but as the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians, all of us, together, are Christ’s body, and each of us are a part of it. We are instructed to will the good in others, to live our lives in such a manner that all around us are better off because we are here. 

 

When Jesus says love your enemies, He is encouraging us to find ways to change the direction of life. He is encouraging us to stop looking at those around us as enemies. That includes… loving people who don’t look like us, act like us, have the same zip code as us, or even think like us; people who annoy us, poke at us, and persecute us. 

 

As the director of Ramallah Friends School said, “I realized that we really are not enemies; we are just people. People with hopes and dreams. People that want a better life for ourselves and our children. We are all human beings loved by God. To love an enemy is to hope for mutual good.” 

So, friends, how do we do this? How do we love our enemies? 

How can we love those around us, 

who continue to do the very things that infuriate us? 

We, of course, can bathe ourselves in Quaker SPICE – 

Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community & Equality. 

But how can we endure, when we have tried everything else we can possibly think of? 

 

I’ll leave you with one final thought. 
When I think I can take no more, 
I think of Jesus’ words on the cross: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

 

Even at the end of His life, in His final minutes of agony, Jesus extended this grace. 

He asked the Father to forgive His enemies and love them all the more.

He asked the Father to love & forgive me. He asked the Father to love and forgive you. 

 

When you feel your enemy has you on the cross, 

pause for a moment to think about Jesus himself 

and His greatest act of love. 

Jesus forgave everyone, not just the people He liked, 
and not just the ones who believed He was the Messiah.

He showed us that forgiveness is the deepest gesture of love and mercy; 

forgiveness wills the good to those around us. 

 

When you have done all that you can to love your enemies, imitate Christ. 

May you turn to God and ask Him to love and forgive them, 

until they, too, can see the light and "pay it forward" in their own lives.  

 

Amen & Amen.