17 June 2014 - he makes his sun rise

17 June 2014 - he makes his sun rise

But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,

It seems like loving ones enemies is impossibly by definition.  If we regard others as our enemies then loving them is indeed impossible.  We are called, therefore, to regard no one as our enemies.  Yet they may regard us that way.  They may treat us that way.  They may persecute us.  In fact, Jesus promises us that they will.  "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (cf. Joh. 15:18).  It isn't just the people in our lives that irk us, that get our goat, that provoke us more or less unintentionally that we must love.  We must even love those who are openly hostile toward us.  In doing so we are children of our heavenly Father.  After all, our salvation came "while we were enemies" and "while we were still sinners".  Yet even then "God so loved the world."  In fact, God's love for us is most profoundly on display at the very moment when we are the most hostile toward him.

But we are mere flesh. Fine words, we think, but I know how I'll response the next time I'm cut off in traffic.  The pattern is hard to deny.  We know we don't have it in us to "be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."  We are reassured that Jesus knows that "this is impossible for man, but with God all things are possible" (cf. Mat. 19:26). Even with this grace offered to us we know that we often fail to avail ourselves of it.  We fail to love.  We treat others as our enemies just as Ahab and Jezebel do.  We trample others to get what we want.  Even the convenience of a closer vineyard is sometimes sufficient justification to disregard others, to hurt them, and to deny them due justice.  Fortunately, God does not regard us as enemies even when we make ourselves his enemies, even when we hurt him, driving nails into his hands and feet.  We see this mercy on display as Ahab is allowed to repent of so heinous a crime.

“Have you seen that Ahab has humbled himself before me?
Since he has humbled himself before me,
I will not bring the evil in his time.

We should cry out with the psalmist, "Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned."  We should join with Ahab in repenting for treating others as our enemies.  We forget our enemies are not flesh and blood, but rather our struggle is against "the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (cf. Eph. 6:12).  Forgetting this, we fail to treat our brothers and sisters in love.  This misplaced hatred is the cause of so much suffering in our world.  But in his mercy, God can bring new joy from our failings.

Free me from blood guilt, O God, my saving God;
then my tongue shall revel in your justice.

Jesus wants us to be children of our heavenly Father.  He wants to help us to love those who do not love us, even those who persecute us.  By his Holy Spirit he makes present his own love in our hearts so that we can love like he does.  He loves us while we treat him as an enemy.  He empowers us to love those who treat us as enemies with that same love. 

And while that still sounds loft, the grace starts with the simple and everyday moments.

And if you greet your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So let's start by asking the Holy Spirit to help us to greet those who aren't our brothers.  Let us ask him to show us those whom we fail to greet.  When we do so, we recognize their shared dignity and personhood.  We see that Jesus wants to make them children of his Father in heaven as well.