In a section of “the Sermon on the Mount”, Jesus says in Matthew 5:43-48:
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Over the past few weeks I have spoken to you about love - it’s difficulties and rewards. We are commanded to love God, because only He can satisfy us. The idols we make for ourselves - riches, the approval of others, our own egotism - will always let us down.
But here, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us the most difficult command about whom we are to love - our enemies!
What was the situation for the Jews at the time said Jesus made this command? The Jews lived under an oppressive government led by the Romans. The Jews hated living under Roman rule. While they were free to worship, they still had to pay taxes to Rome through reviled Jewish tax collectors, people considered to be traitors. Roman centurions roamed the land and could basically make Jews stop whatever they were doing and force them to perform servile work.
Jesus refers to this situation right before he tells us to love our enemies. “But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” Of course the people of His day would have thought of the Romans, but Jesus still speaks to us about all who oppress or hate us.
Through these examples we see that Jesus wants us to be courageous and selfless towards our persecutors than to return violence with violence and evil with evil. Now he does not us to offer ourselves up for abuse. After all when Jesus was arrested and slapped by officer of the chief priest, He did not turn His other cheek to be slapped. As with so much He teaches, Jesus is concerned with the state of our souls and the actions that result from our attitudes. If we are courageous and humble people, we will not want to strike back at our oppressors and return evil for evil. We will want to repay evil with good.
We see examples of this in the Bible. Joseph the favorite son of Jacob, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, but rose to great prominence in Egypt. When a famine broke out in Canaan, his brothers went to him to buy grain. He forgave them and was able to save his family and bring them and his elderly father to the protection of Egypt.
David, when King Saul wanted to kill him, did not kill Saul when he had the chance. What did Jesus say as he was being nailed onto the cross? “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” The first Christian martyr, Stephen, a martyr being someone who dies for his beliefs, prayed as he was being stoned to death, “Father, do not hold this sin against them.”
What can help us overcome our hate for our enemies and pray for them? The Rev. Martin Luther King, the Great Civil Rights Leader and a man who knew the hatred of people as much as anyone, said we should first look at ourselves. In his sermon titled, Loving your Enemies, he said , “...we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something that we’ve done deep down in the past, some personality attribute that we possess, something that we’ve done deep down in the past and we’ve forgotten about it; but it was that something that aroused the hate response within the individual. That is why I say, begin with yourself. There might be something within you that arouses the tragic hate response in the other individual.”
He further says, “A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and every time you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.”
Finally he says, “Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must not do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual.” (italics mine) These are the words of a man who fought tirelessly to bring to African Americans the same rights held by whites. For his efforts he was persecuted, jailed, and finally murdered.
We have to pray for our enemies. Pray for them as you would yourself. Something will change. I promise, because I have seen it in my own life. I don’t know if it was I who changed, or whether it was my enemy. But the animosity I held toward my enemy disappeared.
If we don’t love our enemies we build up hate within ourselves and deform our character through spite, retaliation, and the anger and rage born of hatred.
If you have someone in your life your consider an enemy, through prayer and love you can help them change their attitude toward you, or you will notice a change in your own heart and come to realize the person is not really your enemy at all, but rather a person just like you with all the faults, bad habits, and selfishness that come with being a fallen human being who depends on God’s grace for forgiveness and changed hearts.
As I have said before, despite our faults and sins, God loves us, and we must imitate God by loving everyone, friend and foe. By doing so, we can work to follow Jesus’ command to be “perfect as (our) Heavenly Father is perfect.”
