Here's a joke: A priest is giving a homily based on Jesus's command to love your enemies.
"Now," he says, "I'll bet that many of us feel as if we have enemies in our lives," he says the congregation. "So raise your hands," he says, "if you have many enemies." And quite a few people raise their hands. "Now raise your hands if you have only a few enemies." And about half as many people raise their hands. "Now raise your hands if you have only one or two enemies." And even fewer people raised their hands. "See," says the priest, "most of us feel like we have enemies."
"Now raise your hands if you have no enemies at all." And the priest looks around, and looks around, and finally, way in the back, a very, very old man raises his hand. He stands up and says, "I have no enemies whatsoever!" Delighted, the priest invites the man to the front of the church. "What a blessing!" the priest says. "How old are you?
"I'm 98 years old, and I have no enemies." The priest says, "What a wonderful Christian life you lead! And tell us all how it is that you have no enemies."
"All the bastards have died!"
Most of us, sadly, go through life with, for better or worse, and no matter how hard we try, a few people we may feel are our "enemies." Or, more broadly, people seem to hate us. There are people whom we've offended and to whom we've apologized, but who refuse to accept our apologies. There are people at work who we've angered, who are jealous of us or who have set themselves against us. There are people in our families who hold a grudge against us for some mysterious reason that we can never comprehend. And there are people who seem to dislike us or wish us ill for no good reason. It's a sad part of human life.
And it's a hard part of life. And sometimes, when we hear Jesus telling us to love our enemies, it seems to make things even harder.
In the Gospel of Matthew (5:38-48), Jesus contrasts what his disciples had heard in the past with what they must practice as his followers. "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye.' But I say to you offer no resistance to one who is evil," he says. "You have heard that it was said that you must love your neighbors and hate your enemies. But I say to you love your enemies." Jesus is trying to move the disciples beyond what they knew into a realm of practice that will help them follow Jesus, to live according to a new law, the law of love.
But there's a problem: it seems impossible! How are we supposed to love our enemies sincerely? Are we really supposed to pray for ... whom? For people who hate us? For people who work against us? For people who want us to fail? It seems almost masochistic -- a surefire recipe for psychological disaster.
A few things might help us understand what Jesus means. Now, I'm not going to water down these passages, but as in all the Gospel narratives, it's important to understand the context of Jesus's comments, and how they may have been understood in his time.
For example, when Jesus talks about someone turning the other cheek, many Scripture scholars feel that he's talking about a particular act. The Gospel of Matthew specifies that the "right cheek." This means the blow comes from the back of the assailant's left hand, and therefore constitutes an insult not a violent assault. So some scholars say that when Jesus says the "other cheek," the idea is that when you're insulted by a slap on the cheek you should turn away and not retaliate. It's not so much an invitation for someone to keep hitting you as it is for you not to retaliate. So that may help us understand things.
Likewise, the word Jesus used when he talks about loving your enemies is not the same word that is used in other discussions of love. In ancient Greek, the language of the Gospels, there are three words for love: first, philios, which was a kind of fraternal or friendly love (and where we get the word Philadelphia) and second, eros, a romantic love.
But the word Jesus uses here is the third kind of love, agape, a sort of unconquerable benevolence or invincible goodwill. We're supposed to agape our enemies. Jesus is asking us to agape people no matter what they do to us, no matter how they treat us, no matter how they insult us. No matter what their actions we never allow bitterness against them to invade our hearts, but will treat them with goodwill.
So it doesn't mean that we have to love our enemies the same way that we speak about "falling in love" with someone or the way we love our family members. It simply means we must open our hearts to them.
And pray for them, too. In my experience, it's easier to agape someone you dislike (or who dislikes you) when you pray for them. Because when you pray for them, God often opens your heart to seeing people the way that God sees them, rather than the way you see them. And you can often have pity for people who may be filled with anger toward you.
But even when you understand all these things, and even if you read Scripture commentaries, these remain difficult things to hear. Even harder to follow. Loving your enemies and pray for those who persecute you is hard. In my life I've found it probably the most difficult thing to do as a Christian. Many years ago, for example, I lived with another Jesuit who simply refused to talk to me. He despised me. And I couldn't figure out why and efforts at reconciliation failed miserably. No matter what I did, nothing changed his attitude.
Over the course of many years, in light of that experience, and in light of meditating on the Gospels, I realized three things about loving your enemies.
First of all, some people may simply dislike you. So it's useless to try to "get" them to like you, much less to love you. It's useless to try to change them. You can be open to reconciliation, but you have no control over whether someone will reconcile with you. Part of this process is embracing your own powerlessness. Letting go is paramount.
Second, turning away from insults, hatred and contempt and "offering the other cheek" is emotionally healthy. Now, some schools of psychology say that you should always give vent to anger (rather than let it fester) but always responding with vituperation or vengefulness is rather a childish thing to do. Only a baby gives vent to his or her anger all the time. You can acknowledge your anger, perhaps express frustration you have in a calm way, but you don't have to respond in kind.
Basically, and to put it less elegantly than Jesus, if your enemy behaves like a jerk toward you, there's no reason you have to act like a jerk toward him.
Third, loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you is liberating. Too often we can find ourselves in pitched battles with the people who hate us, always seeking the upper hand, always noting who's up and who's down, always analyzing every slight. You see this in families and even in office environments, where people are trapped into cycles of vengefulness. It wears both parties down and dehumanizes everyone involved. I've seen couples, for example, whose marriages are utterly destroyed by the inability to forgive; the two become like scorpions in a jar. Jesus is offering us a way out of all that.
So what Jesus is telling us is hard, but it's not impossible. And it's necessary, too, because ultimately he is inviting us not only to forgiveness and charity but to something else: freedom and happiness. So you have heard that it was said, and you have heard that it was said to you by Jesus, who wants you to be happy.
Paul Brandeis Raushenbush: 'Forgive Us Our Trespasses': The Complexity of Forgiveness
Mark Osler: The Christian Social Mission of Loving Your Heckler
Richard T. Hughes: Jesus and Strangers: What the Bible Teaches ...
Loving Your Enemies (Even When You Don't Want To) - Nadia Bolz ...
Jesuit priest James Martin moves in Mass, mass media - USATODAY.com
I have no transparent God as you do, but this IS the point. You and I and the serial killer are all equal in God's eyes. Real love is not possible from a position of self-righteous superiority.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
How does one love looking down?
Ask a Christian why they support our wars of aggression. They will tell you that it's because Jesus wasn't talking about people over there. He meant your neighbor, or the guy at work.
"And you can often have pity for people who may be filled with anger toward you." But I don't really think Jesus really said that you should look down at your enemies and pity them because you are better than they are.
Personally I think it's just about not worrying about who's right and wrong or on top, and just accepting that we are all bits of flotsam being blown about by the wind on the sea of life and we are all in this thing together. But for a Christian that is a very hard thing to do. Christianity has developed into a religion that is all about being right and on top. It even claims to have the absolute answers to life. It seems to have very little to do with what Jesus said.
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Absolutely! And correctly. Shall Christianity follow, and if so, who? Shall they be on the bottom, crushed and ruled by others? What does the rule of "others" look like?
"Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that procedes out of the mouth of God"
THRIVE!
Christians are not supposed to settle for surviving, but thriving. Jesus was very clear in his teaching against extremism. Jesus was not an extremist and commands us to challenge extremism. Extremism is best challenged in debate.
No, Christians do not have to take it laying down. Do they do not have to accept violence against them. They are challenged to "change" because life is "change", or it's dead. Christians are challenged to "change" the law when the law is unjust, and irrational. Christians pick and choose, or we would still be stoning people, cutting off their hands, or releasing murderers onto the general population as Cain was.
Christians are to advance in knowledge, not regress. Christians are called to be Co-Creators, not slaves.
Christians cannot change by bread alone, but by everyword that procedes out of the mouth of God; iow's.....Did God say? Did he?
If God is irrational, are His people? If the people are irrational, is God? Is God irrational, or the people? And if not, why is it about us, or what we believe about God that is?
We all know what is good for ourselves, but we all choose the other. When we become spiritually mature, we will come to know that the real enemy is YOU, ME. Until we conquer the ev 1l wars within ourselves first, for one cannot give what is good, until one has it, for themselves first.
When we become ONE within ourselves, meaning our, mind, heart, soul and strength, all wanting the same Will & Desire, to do only what is good, then we come into the perfection of Holiness, become, ONE with God. For God is ALL HOLY. Thus the meaning to me, God said: A house divided (us) cannot stand.
Our mind tells us one thing, to do, tells us this is not good, and this is good, but our heart wants to do another, good, but our strength is weak and we choose, what is not good. Example, Like we smoke, or some like to fight, jealousy, etc, our mind knows it is not good for our health, our heart knows it is not good, for us, but our weakness, in the flesh, wins, the battle, and we continue to so, anyway. The desire of the flesh, the enemy (not good) wins over our Heart and Mind. Some days our mind wins, and the other 2 loses. Sometime our heart wins over the other 2. But when our mind, heart, soul and strength, all have the same, Will and Desire, only chose what is all good, then the enemy within us, loses the battle, we conquer the enemy with us. Then we can give what is good and love to others, we have to LOVE ourselves first.
Is that really so silly ?? What I feel from you OneFish is a desire to avoid how unloving (i.e. sinful) you have been ... go there just for a moment to see how painful that is .. then you will realize your true motivation for saying that "the concept of sin is pretty silly" ...
Best of luck to you on your journey ...