There is something in the teachings of Jesus that is worth contemplation, for anyone who seeks to be a better person, no matter what your faith or personal beliefs are. And that is the urging of Jesus that we should love our enemies. Not just “Love our Neighbor”, which in itself can be a difficult thing. But “Love our enemies”.
We find this passage in the Bible in the book of Matthew:
Matthew 5: 43-44: “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor —but hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.” (The Inclusive Bible)
That’s a powerful message, and it turns out, one of the greatest challenges in life.
Why is this message an important one, no matter your belief system? Because we have become a society of hate. We feel hatred — hatred for other people, hatred that wells up inside of us and causes destructive actions, and hatred for people who have harmed us in some way. But in the end those people we hate are fellow human beings who we must live with in a common society.
This idea of loving our enemies was taught not only by Jesus, but also by Buddha, Gandhi, and many other great people and religions.
Now you might be thinking to yourself, “I don’t hate anyone.” And that may be true — you don’t feel hatred towards anyone. So let me ask you this: Is there anyone in your life who you just can’t stand? Maybe someone who just irritates you to no end, whom you resent and feel bitterness towards? Is there anyone in your life who has picked on you, or called you names, or disrespected you in some way, causing you anger?
These people become your enemies. These are the people Jesus is asking us to love.
And what does it mean to love our enemies? It’s not romantic love. It’s not the love we have for our parents or our children, or our spouses, or our best friends.
To “Love our Enemy” is to find it in our hearts to put aside any wrongs, and to love them as a fellow human being. To simply have loving feelings toward them … and if possible, express it through words, or actions. It’s not easy, I know.
Right about now, you are probably thinking, You gotta be kidding! There is no way I am going to express loving feelings towards this person who hurt me so badly. I know. I know! I have felt the exact same way. So, let’s take a moment and talk about why we ever want to love this person, how we could ever love this person, and what we could even get out of the situation except to look like a fool.
First of all, if we can love our enemy, we will be happier. If we have anger or resentment inside of us, even if we don’t think about it all the time, there will be times when it surfaces. And that makes us unhappy. Anger and resentment are destructive. They eat us up inside and cause us to do destructive things. To ourselves and others. Our anger impacts everyone around us. So, removing anger towards our enemy will make our lives happier and more positive.
Secondly, we should try to love this person — our enemy — because we could change this person’s life. Our enemy is a human being. A flawed, fallible person, who may be regretting harming us, but doesn’t know how to fix it. Our hatred and resentment towards that person is probably causing grief, tension or hatred in them. If we remove our feelings from the situation, we help them to heal and to change. Let’s be honest. We have all messed up. We all want and need to receive grace. Yet we all struggle to give it to other people. When we choose to love our enemy, we are offering the gift of grace. We are taking the high road.
Finally, I think it’s important to love our enemies because it’s better for society. One little relationship might not seem to make a difference to society as a whole — who cares if I hate one person? But if we all hate other people, it creates a more divisive and fractured and angry society. I see this happening all around us these days. We are far more angry, polarized and resentful of each other than I have ever sensed before. If we can overcome hatred, and learn to love our neighbors AND our enemies, society is better off in so many ways.
And now the big question: HOW? How can I move from this place of anger, resentment and hatred to a place of love? I think we need to detach ourselves as best as possible, from our feelings, and practice true empathy. We need to try to see the situation as objectively as possible. We need to try to imagine our enemy as a real human being, not just someone who is evil or wrong. All human beings try to do good things, but they make mistakes, or they have different perspectives. Seeing the situation from the other person’s perspective is very difficult, but very important.
Next comes acceptance. It’s best if we can accept that what has happened is already done. It can’t be different. It is now a part of life. And when we accept that, then we can move towards forgiveness — another really difficult step. If we can’t accept our enemies and forgive them, it is difficult to love them. So we need to try to find something to love. There is something in this person that is good. Outwardly or inwardly. There is at least one good trait in them. This requires us to open our hearts — probably more than we ever wanted to. Our hearts have been closed off just to keep ourselves feeling protected and safe. If we can open our hearts just a little, we will find something to love about our enemy.
The true solution to how to love our enemies lies in the simplicity found in this translation of the Bible passage we looked at a few minutes ago:
Matthew 5:44 — “But I tell you, love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you.” (International Children’s Bible)
Isn’t that what it’s really about? Our enemies are people who have hurt us. We need to find a way to pray for those who have hurt us. But HOW do we pray for our enemies?
Well, it might go something like this:
Please join me as I pray:
God,
Every single person in this room, and on this planet has an enemy. We all have been hurt by someone. We all have people that just irk us, and make us crazy. So, right now. We are asking for your help. As we each focus on just one of the people that we struggle to love right now, we give this person to you. We ask you to fix our struggle. We ask you to mend hearts — ours and theirs. We are out of our depth with this person. We can only do so much, and we are hitting a wall. So we give this to You. We ask You to bless this person, and heal their hurt, so that they will stop hurting others. We ask for Your healing for us and for our frustration with this relationship. We thank you God, for being there, for being so much bigger than we are, for being the source of love. As unbelievable as it sounds, we ask for Your help to love this person who is our enemy.
Thank you, God. Amen.
I think that the real reason we are encouraged to pray for our enemies, is because it’s difficult to keep hating someone that we are praying for. Praying for someone softens and changes our hearts towards them. Praying for someone helps the bitterness and anger we have towards them to melt away. Praying for our enemies helps them, and it helps us. When we pray for our enemy — the person who hurt us, we step away from revenge, and we enter the world of mercy. I think that is exactly why Jesus asks us to love our enemies and to pray for them. Amen.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, wrote: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will continue to try to pray for those who hurt us: our enemies, because that is the best way to solve the problem. I will pray for all of us to be willing to give this a try.
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