Scripture: Matthew 5:43-48; Romans 12:9-21.
The idea of loving your enemy comes, of course, from Jesus. We heard it again this morning as part of the reading from Matthew. Those of us here at Sojourners, all but the newest visitors here, have also heard one of our own members, R.G., express this need as a prayer concern on more than one occasion and in a way that has often reminded us by his words and by the feeling behind the words that “loving our enemies” is not an incidental part of our faith but lies somehow at the very heart of our faith. I wanted to begin today by saying to R. that I am grateful for those reminders in the form of requests for prayer.
This is a matter for prayer. R. has asked us to pray about this. Jesus has asked us to pray about this. He said, “You have heard it 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…” I had thought that I might say something about loving our enemies when I was talking about forgiveness last week, but since I didn’t, at least not directly, I felt I needed to come back to it this week, and when I did come back to it, what it in fact still felt like was that this is a matter for prayer. And so what I felt drawn to do was to give the sermon in the form of a prayer. I wasn’t real comfortable with this idea since my real prayer life is private and personal, and I have never become fully comfortable praying for public consumption, as it were. And so there would be something artificial about this. Still, I felt somehow that what I wanted to say somehow needed to be addressed to God, and so I thought: Well, I’ll just try it and see what happens. So I sat down at the computer and I started to write:
Dear God…
On my computer, when I type dear God, a bell rings and a box appears at the bottom right of the screen. There’s a little person there, and a message that says: “It looks like you are trying to write a letter. Do you want some help?” No, I told my computer, I don’t need any help. Actually I did need help, but I certainly didn’t want it from this character. So I made him disappear, but it occurred to me that maybe he was right. Maybe that’s what I am trying to do. Not so much offer a prayer, but at least write a kind of “open letter to God”. So I apologize if it sounds strange or gimmicky, but I think I need to speak this morning in the voice of a letter, or maybe of prayer…
Dear God,
I’m listening. I’m listening to what Jesus says about loving my enemies, and I’m thinking that if I’m listening to him, then I’m listening to you, and I’m thinking that if this is part of who Jesus is, then it’s part of who you are, and I guess that means it’s supposed to be part of who I am too. So I’m taking this seriously, God. I am.
But I also have some questions. Or is it you who have the questions? There always seem to be so many questions when I’m dealing with you, God. Not too many answers, but a lot of questions, and it gets frustrating sometimes, all these questions. It would be nice to have answers once in a while—good, solid, once-and-for-all answers, so that I could put some of these questions away and never have to think about them again, because I got the answer already. Well, that doesn’t seem to happen too often, but questions do keep on coming and I do wonder whether this is me, and whether I’m just stuck in my questions, or whether it’s you, who keeps showering me with questions so that I don’t get stuck anywhere.
But to get back to loving my enemies, I do have some things I am wondering about. I’m wondering about love, for one thing. I’m wondering about what love is like when it’s my enemy I’m supposed to be loving. I know I’m invited to pray for my enemy, and I know I can do that, and in fact that’s not hard to do at all, especially when what I pray for is for them to be different, for them to be kinder, gentler, more agreeable people. I don’t seem to have trouble praying for my enemies to become more like I want them to be, but in all honesty, God, that doesn’t quite seem like love, and I’m guessing you have something else in mind, but I’m also wondering what that is.
And then I’m wondering too who my enemies are. Maybe I’m a little dense here, like that guy who Jesus told to love his neighbor, and then he couldn’t quite manage to figure out who his neighbor was. I know he was playing games. He might not have been able to define what a neighbor was, but if he had wanted to he could have found a neighbor to love without much trouble. So maybe I’m just being stubborn here, just playing word games and trying to avoid the issue. I could easily start just by trying in some imperfect way to love the enemies I know about, the ones who I feel already as enemies, without worrying about definitions. I could start with a prayer for someone I don’t really care for very much, and even if was not pure or perfect, that would be a step in the right direction. So o.k. God, I will promise you that. It’s almost Lent anyway. I will make that part of my Lenten discipline. I will pray for someone who makes me angry, deep down angry. I won’t stop being angry. Jesus didn’t tell me not to have enemies, just to love them. So I won’t stop being angry, but I will say a prayer the best way I know during Lent every day for someone I feel is my enemy.
But I have to tell you, God, that I’m not sure right now who that’s going to be, or what my prayer is going to be, or whether there’s anything more to love for an enemy than prayer. I think of love and I think of those words in the reading…to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. And then I think how hard that is even with people who are not my enemy, not at all my enemy, to discover those places where we weep and rejoice and to weep and rejoice together. If we’re going to be real about this, God, I don’t see this happening with anyone I might call my enemy. I know I can have some sort of intellectual realization that my enemy is a human being, but I don’t really know what it is that might make my enemy rejoice, or where he or she might hurt, or whether I could rejoice with him, or cry with her. So it seems like we’re talking about some sort of abstract kind of loving here, God. I think I’m going to need some help.
Besides, I’m still thinking about who my enemies are. Because mostly I don’t think my enemies are people who I have something personal with. When I think of enemies I don’t think of people who are persecuting me, or who wish me harm or who I wish harm to. I think of people who stand for something different from me. I think of people who seem to want a world very different from the one I want, and I dare to believe the one you want, God. I think of people who hurt other people. I think of people who perpetrate or perpetuate hatred, or injustice. I think of people who do unjust, unloving things even in your name, God. I think of people…
Well, you know what, God? I think of myself. I have met the enemy, and the enemy is me. I may not be my only enemy. I may not even be my own worst enemy, as the saying goes. But I am the enemy I know best. And I wonder if, when you tell me to love my enemies, if that includes me, if you are telling me that I need to learn to love myself.
I’m really not sure about this, God. We’re already so self-centered down here, here on earth, I mean. So centered on the self. And I’m not sure that we really need any more messages that focus ourselves on ourselves. And I’m really not sure that we love ourselves very well by loving ourselves, if you know what I mean.
Then too my doctor tells me that I need to take care of myself. That’s her job, to help me do that. McDonalds assures me that I deserve a break today, and if I follow that advice and take my break at McDonald’s, then of course I will not be following my doctor’s advice to take care of myself. And then, of course, I can beat myself up for not taking better care of myself, and when I do that then I am taking even worse care of myself. This can all get pretty confusing, God. It’s not easy figuring out how to love the enemy that is me. And I’m not even sure that the idea of loving myself is even pointing me in the right direction.
But I do know that sometimes we need to forgive ourselves, God. And sometimes we need to be not too hard on ourselves, don’t we, when our love for our enemies is not perfect, and when our love for our friends is something less than perfect, and when our love for ourselves is something less than perfect. And sometimes we need to love ourselves by asking ourselves to do a little better at seeking justice, and loving mercy, and walking humbly with you, God. It’s not just learning to love ourselves, is it, God, it’s learning how to love ourselves in the right way. I think I’m going to need help on this, God.
And, dear God, and this is why I need to address my words to you today, I need to tell you—I’m not quite sure how to say this, so I guess I’ll just say it–sometimes you are my enemy, and sometimes I have to struggle to love you.
I feel funny saying it just that way because, God knows, well, you know, that I don’t want you to be my enemy and I don’t want to be your enemy, and I don’t really believe that it’s true in the end, but sometimes it seems that way. Things happen down here—on earth—that cause an awful lot of pain, and it’s tempting to hold you responsible. And it’s hard to get those ideas out of my head—that you ought to be the sort of god that just fixes things, fixes everything, gets rid of diseases like AIDS or cancer, gets rid of diseases like racism and homophobia, gets rid of enemies altogether.
Instead you say that you will walk with us through AIDS and cancer, that you will walk with us through racism and homophobia, that you will teach us and help us to love, even our enemies. And so deep down I know it’s not really you who are my enemy, but someone pretending to be you, or someone I want to exist, some false god who I can bend to my purposes, some false god who would release me from all my questions and even from the need to love.
Still, dear God, it’s hard sometimes to get through all that falseness to the you who is true. Sometimes it is hard for me to love you, and I know this is true for some of my sisters and brothers too, it is hard for me to love you the way I need to love you for you to stop being my enemy and for you to come to me, and I to you, as nothing but Love.
I do pray, dear God, for you to help me love my enemies, all of them. I do need your help. Amen.
Jim Bundy
February 25, 2001