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You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
They were commanded to love their neighbors. From that they inferred that they were free of responsibility to any others, especially to enemies. As a persecuted people they probably imagined that this hatred was the source of the strength that kept them in existence. Wasn't it at minimum a rigorous separation from others that seemed to be key to maintaining their own identity? Roman oppression and persecution did not seem like problems that love could solve.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you
In the face of this apparently practical wisdom of his audience Jesus commanded a love that had no blind spots, that included even enemies, where everyone was potentially a neighbor and brother. He commanded a love that must have seemed exceedingly impractical. Fully realized, wouldn't the Jewish people simply disappear into history as had so many other conquered nations of the past?
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.
Jesus explained that his Father himself loved with this kind of love that was even for those who opposed him, for the bad as well as the good. While we were yet enemies the Father sent his Son to die on the cross for us in the most profound act of love ever performed (see Romans 5:8-10). Our love was therefore not a call to surrender, not a call to accept sin and strife, but a call to love the people in spite of the persecution, the sinners in spite of the sin.
In the dark hour during which it was taking place the cross had every appearance of futility, of a thing too insignificant a thing to bring salvation to the world. And so too does all love for one's enemy seem in the short term to be misspent effort. It always appears to be more practical to fight back and to aggressively insight on our rights. But the entire history of the growth of Christianity is not a growth of conquest, but a demonstration that this apparent futility of love actually has the power to change hearts and even the course of history.
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.
We are called to imitate the Father not primarily by the way that we separate ourselves from others, but rather by the way that we reach out to them. The Father is able to continue to love us in spite of how we respond because he is not in need of the validation of our approval. But we are for the most part still eager for the approval of others and have a hard time loving without that sense of reward. The only way that we will be able to be perfect as the Father is perfect is by having the life of Jesus himself rooted in us. It is his love flowing through us that can rain down comfort on the world, not merely on those we like, on those who are easy to love.
It is certainly the case that we have fallen short of the standard of the Father's limitless love for us. But no matter how far short we have fallen there is always mercy available. It is mercy that does not leave us guilty and look the other way, but actually transforms us into agents of the mercy and of love that we first ourselves experience.
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.
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