This Lent, we have been listening to Jesus’ call in the Sermon on Mount to take on love, God’s love with prayers for our hands and actions for our feet. Last week, we began our journey on Ash Wednesday as we asked the question – Does Jesus love me, even me? YES! Then we looked at Love Your Neighbor on last Sunday as we heard the call to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. Today, as we continue taking on love – we turn to those we have known as our enemies or who have persecuted us.
It was radical and shocking as Jesus gathered and taught those gathered on the mount two thousand years ago. It rubs us the wrong way still today. How can we be asked to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? How can we be asked to be perfect as God in heaven is perfect?
Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Quaint to hear. Powerful to live. For those family members who lived through the shooting of domestic terrorism at Charlestown’s Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church June 17th , 2015, they had an opportunity to live another day like everyone else or live in witness to the Bible and faith they were studying. They could live like Jesus. At the sentencing for shooter, Dyalnn Rood, Felicia Sanders spoke about her son, Tywanza Sanders, who was killed. “We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with welcome arms,” said Felicia Sanders, her voice trembling. “Tywanza Sanders was my son. But Tywanza Sanders was my hero. Tywanza was my hero….May God have mercy on you.”
“I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, said at the hearing, her voice breaking with emotion. “You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.” (1) The families of Charleston nine banded together to live out radical love. A love that reminds us if you only love those who love you, what reward do you have? A love that reminds us are you praying for those who persecute you? A love that reminds us that hatred, racism, and white supremacy have no place in the lived faith of Christians seeking to live and love as Jesus did.
In a polarized and divisive world, we can allow much to divide us. Loving your enemy and praying for those who persecute you means that we are tempted to say someone is “other” on the side of the equation believing differently, acting differently, living differently, Jesus calls us to still live in community and love.
Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. When we believe that Jesus’ call to love and prayer is not for us, we find ourselves believing that cannot love our enemy and pray for those who persecute us we change our own connection with humanity. We look for people and groups of people to blame. Our scapegoating can be detrimental to ourselves and others, dividing a world view into us and them. Jesus calls the powers of the day into question by describing an entirely different way to relate to each other, inviting us into relationships governed not by power but by vulnerability grounded in love.
There then can be no room for violence and bigotry, hatred and fear. The love we know in Jesus has no space for the actions that transpired on Friday in Christchurch, New Zealand outside of the Al Noor mosque. 50 people dead and many more injured due a growing fear of those who do not know the full love of Christ who lives love in which the immigrant and native a voice.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. When I was going through the ordination process, I encountered a member of the Board of Ordained Ministry who wrote sexist and misogynist comments on my ordination paperwork. I was deeply hurt. The person was ultimately held to account for their comments. I prayed for this person. I thanked God for this person, and I prayed for a day in which we might come to know each other. For it is in knowing each other, that we change. We came to work together through the conference. Across many years, we have grown in respect for one another. Apologies had transpired, bread has been broken, gifts have been exchanged. From hurtful comments, I chose love and prayer. It has taken years. This is work we can do with our family and friends, with those who say things and do things that divide us.
Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Let me say a word about abusive situations.
Those of you who were in situations that you were in physical and emotional abusive danger and needed to get out of those situations. Please do not reconcile or return to those relationships. This is not what we have been talking about and not what the heart of Jesus’ message of radical love refers to.
Too long has the church been silent or even complicit in returning women and men to abusive situations and relationships, in the guise of
– Love your enemies
– Turn the other check
– Submit to those who are over you in power.
This is not the relationship that we are talking about today.
Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.
There may be some of us who have no enemies. No one comes directly to mind, when I said love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. No one we hate and no one who hates us! For which, I give thanks to God. But I want to push us a little further, we can say love, without really liking a person, can’t we? In that case, we tend to avoid contact and avoidance is not what we are called to do or be. We are called to pray. And prayer almost always changes us. We have often imagined that prayer would change the hearts of others. And sometimes, it may. But prayer changes us as we see others differently. We see them not just those on the persecutor or the one on the other side. But we begin to see them as human.
If no one comes to mind for you, perhaps you are being called to pray for and love a public figure. One who riles you up and who irks you, every time you see them or hear them.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Let me invite you to do these three things:
1. Every time you hear their name, say they are a child of God. Jeff is a child of God. Jamie is a child of God. First and foremost, if we follow the footsteps of the love of Jesus, we remind ourselves that each person is a child of God.
2. Second, thank God for something about that person. When I was so hurt about the sexist comments made to me, I gave thanks to God that this person served the Conference on the Board of Ordained Ministry. A sacrifice I understand better now serving myself on the other side. Giving thanks to God for the person helps us to see the person as God created, not just as we have experienced them. Sometimes, this may be a stretch, but let it open your heart.
3. Third, be open to how the reconciliation path might present itself. We would like this to happen suddenly and easily. Most commonly, this taken time and energy. Be gentle with yourself.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
So, whether your mother or a co-worker came to mind, a neighbor or a friend, a brother or aunt, may God move with you to take on love this Lent. To pray with your hands to give thanks and allow your heart to be changed and then act with your feet and let your life be changed!
I invite you to join me in prayer as we close. Open yourself to allow someone to settle in your mind:
God of my friend and God of my enemy, you have called me to love my enemy and pray for those who persecute me. Bring to mind the name of one I have treated as other. Let me see Jesus in them as they might see Jesus in me. Open my heart to the path of love and reconciliation, I pray, Amen.