Love Your Enemies
Matthew 5:43-44
“You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you…”
Comments:
Matthew chapters 5-7 contains the Sermon on the Mount, the heart of Jesus’ teaching. It is the Sermon above all sermons. If you want to be a disciple of the Lord, use this Divine GPS to navigate your way to heaven. His words provide a how-to manual for the Christian heart.
The Sermon on the Mount is packed with Divine insights. Highlights include the Beatitudes (5:3-12), lusting in your heart(5:28), the prohibition of divorce (5:32), loving your enemies (5:43-46), the imperative to “Be perfect” (5:48), the Lord’s Prayer (6:9-13), and the Golden Rule (7:12).
Books have been written about the Sermon on the Mount by people far more learned than the Catholic Wise Guy. I will use my limited skills to reflect on Matthew 5: 43-44, which begins a section on love of enemies (43-48).
I see two levels of Christian response to “love your enemies”. The first is at the political/national level and the second at the individual.
As to the political/national level, I’ll just mention that the Church, taking our Lord’s words literally, was pacifist for the first several hundred years but eventually sanctioned “just wars.” Since then a few individual Christians have remained pacifist – often at personal sacrifice, and a few Christian denominations have taken a pacifist stance, e.g., the Quakers and the Seventh Day Adventist.
At the individual level we respond to our Lord’s difficult teaching in various ways: some ignore it, many dismiss it as Semitic exaggeration, others attempt to live it.
Those Christians who try to “love their enemies” have trod many steps along the Christian Way. With the help of God, they have learned to love their neighbor as they love themselves. Now they are on the final and steepest part of their trek – learning to love their enemies.
Who are our enemies? They are the people we instinctively dislike. They are the people who have been mean to us. They are the people who disagree with us, argue with us, belittle us. Perhaps they persecute us, causing us to suffer.
Our enemies may differ from us by ethnic group, race, color, religion, country.
It’s not easy to love them. The Lord did not say it was easy. He just told us to do it.
It doesn’t mean we like them or agree with them. It means we treat them kindly and pray for God’s blessing upon them. Just like we ask for His blessing on our family and friends.
Yes, friends, let’s love our enemies and wish them well.
Peace