But I say to you, love your enemies,
and pray for those who persecute you
We are quick to give lip service to the teaching that we should love our enemies. We rightly give high praise when we see examples, like the Amish community that forgave the school shooter, or when John Paul the Great forgave the one who attempted his assassination.
We tend to relegate this teaching of Jesus to extreme cases and isolated examples. We like to tell ourselves that we don't really have any enemies anyway. And as a matter of general policy for the world, this teaching seems naive and impracticable. If we will the good of those who will our ill will we not simply accelerate and empower their ability to do us harm?
Because we don't recognize that there are in fact some people toward whom we act as enemies we fail to realize that work that we still need to do. We fail to pray for those who cut us off in traffic or those who cut in line. We fail to pray for those who have the audacity to not recognize our efforts even after we do something difficult on their behalf. We fail to pray for those who have slighted us, even slightly. We place people like this in a neutral zone, where we won't call them enemies, but where we feel free to neglect them. We reason that they haven't done anything to earn our love, though it is of course more than this. It is active neglect that begins from a hostility to which we refuse to own up.
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
Fortunately, God does not show his love only to the deserving. If he did, none would be good enough to receive it. He proves his love in that while we were still sinners, still enemies, Christ died for us (see Romans 5:8). From the cross he prayed in a special way for those who crucified him. He didn't ignore them as he prayed for other things or make them wait until the end of a list of priorities. They, and therefore we, were his priority (see Luke 23:34). From the very beginning we can see that this sort of love and forgiveness distinguished Christians from those around them, from Saint Stephen onward (see Acts 7:60).
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers and sisters only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
We may wonder, though, does this practice of forgiveness scale? Is it something that we can expect of individuals within a community but from which we exempt politicians and states? It seems clear that hatred of the enemy is at the root of so many problems both domestic and international. In so many cases actual issues have given way to entrenched rivalries, to tribalism, to hatred of the enemy simply for who they are. But can love really solve this? Or would it instead open us up to abuse and make us vulnerable? We are called to believe, as only faith can, that forgiveness and reconciliation are possible even between the bitter rivalries of political parties, tribes, and nations. We are called to believe that the Gospel of peace can triumph over the motivations of war which, as we saw yesterday, begin in the hearts of each of us. Politics can't be one thing and daily life another if we want to thrive. Forgiveness doesn't mean we fail to insist on appropriate boundaries and take care to protect ourselves. But it does mean that hatred never usurps the desire for unity and reconciliation as our motivating force.
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
It may seem that what God asks of us, to walk so perfectly in his statues, commandments, and decrees, and to hearken to his voice, is beyond us. Perhaps this is why we don't visibly appear as a people peculiarly his own, why we fail to be the city on a hill, and why our light often seems so dim. But we know that what God commands he empowers. Jesus himself did first what he now asks of us. And he will make his own heart manifest in us, if we but ask.
Blessed are they who observe his decrees,
who seek him with all their heart.
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