Love Your Enemies – Luke 6 (2/20/2022)
A guy was out in a remote area of the Grand Canyon hiking alone along one of the trails. His footing gave way and he fell over the cliff. Luckily he caught hold of the branch of a tree and found himself hanging precariously – with the bottom of the canyon being a loooong way down. He decided to pray.
He yelled out to the sky, “God if you are up there, help me!”
The man hears a booming voice reply, “I am here, Kevin, and I hear you!”
The man says, “Thank You!! Can you help me?”
God says, “Yes I can. Kevin, do you trust me?
Kevin says, “Yes, Lord, I trust you!”
God says, “Then let go of the branch….and I will save you.”
Kevin looks down at the canyon floor and thinks for a minute. He then yells back, “Is there anyone else up there?”
When I read something like today’s gospel, I find myself wanting to yell, “Is there anyone else up there?” and this reading from Luke would very much fit into a small volume I’d like to write titled, “Things I wish Jesus had never said…” Historically I think this passage has been one of the most difficult for his followers to take up or even take seriously.
We hear Jesus say, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.” Perhaps we wonder, “He can’t be serious, right?” Is Jesus really asking us to sit back and passively accept mistreatment and injustice? Is he suggesting we let people step all over us and do whatever they want to us? Should we pretend like nothing happened and just ignore those who hurt us?
Hardly.
Jesus is fully aware of the harm that people do to each other. He personally knew the pain of oppression and betrayal. He walked among those who had been marginalized and abused.
And he wanted it all to stop.
But Jesus – like other prophets throughout the history of humanity – knew that you cannot fight harm with more harm.
He wanted healing for the world – which even included healing for the people who harmed others. And he tried to show his followers how to do this by giving us a path that addresses harm and violence without causing more harm.
And so he says to us, “Don’t do back to them what they are doing to you.”
At this point in the conversation, I would want to say, “But, Jesus, slapping them would make me feel so much better!”
And he would reiterate, “Don’t do back to them what they are doing to you.”
Now it probably goes without saying that the counsel of Jesus rubs up against something very deep inside of us. When we get hurt by somebody, we want to do something about it. We want to react, and “loving someone” isn’t, generally, what we are interested in doing!
Furthermore, we live in a culture that tells us that violence is an acceptable response when we get hurt and that punishment equals accountability. Violent and punitive responses have become so normalized that they simply appear to be the nature of things and are considered “what works” to address conflict and harm.
So when we hear Jesus say to love our enemies and do good to those who hurt us we think it can seem so impractical and out-of-touch. That’s just not how the world works, Jesus.
I also have to say that when Jesus uses the word “enemy,” he means it literally – like the Roman army that occupied Palestine where he lived. But he also used it to mean the people who insult us, try to exert power over us, demean us, gaslight us and trigger us. It might be the people we think are stupid or judge to be beneath us. And it can be the people who have hurt us – physically or emotionally. So while you may not have enemies in the literal sense, but I’m guessing that you have people in those other categories.
And we’re supposed to love these folks?
Kazu Haga – a modern prophetic voice for nonviolence in the tradition of Martin Luther King – says that whether we recognize it or not – “violence has an impact – on those who experienc
