While in our reading of the Old
Testament this morning the psalmist
may go on and urge you to smite his
enemies, in the gospels, the good
new, Jesus has told us to love our
enemies. Love our enemies!? Turn
the other cheek?!
You can’t really mean that! - we
fight with our enemies – loving them
is not part of what we call “the
real world”.
Turning the other cheek is seen as a
sign of weakness – besides look
where failing to fight back got
Jesus – he was crucified. We don’t
really want to hear this command, so
we rationalize our way out – we
claim to love whom we call the
sinner, hating only the sin – an
abstraction probably lost on those
we scorn and mistreat.
But God, you know our weaknesses and
so you have tried to make your will
known as simply as possible –
Love your God completely,
and love your neighbor as yourself.
This certainly seems more
reasonable, even something we might
agree to. The problem is you gave
us such a sweeping definition of
“our neighbor” – the way Jesus
explained it in the story of the
good Samaritan, it seems to include
everyone – even those we call
“enemies”. Yet how can we claim to
love you, the creator of the full
family of humanity, while we keep
dividing that family into “us” and
“them”? And surely we must tremble
when we recall that the only people
Jesus had harsh words for were the
hypocrites.
But God, you do understand us better
than we understand ourselves, for I
am struck by the command:
“Love your neighbor
as yourself”.
Perhaps our failing is that we don’t
truly love ourselves - oh, perhaps,
we are self-satisfied, I don’t mean
that – but that at some deep level,
we don’t even know who we are – that
we are your special creation, and
that we are loved completely and
unconditionally. So Dear God, I ask
that you
Help us reconcile with
ourselves –
Help us to understand that we
do not have to compete for your
love;
Help us to accept who we are
– your children;
Help us to come to peace with
ourselves so we do not seek to
impress others; Help us to a mature
love of self, deeply rooted in our
relationship with you. Perhaps
then, O God, we won’t even know what
the word “enemy” means.
Amen
