My request for suggestions for possible reflections received several responses. Thank you. I will try to address these as I can. Here is the first.
One of the most radical and defining teachings of Jesus was found in the collection of sayings named the Quelle (German for source) document, referred to as Q. This saying was inserted in both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Obviously the writers of Matthew and Luke had access to this Q, and used the sayings they discovered there to help shape and express the particular theological emphasis of their respective gospels.
“Love your enemies” is placed in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:43-45) and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:27-28). The version in Matthew goes,”You have heard that it was taught, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Abba in heaven; for the Holy One makes the sun shine on the evil and on the good, and sends rain down on those who are just and on those who are unjust.”
Matthew presents Jesus to his Jewish audience as the new Lawgiver – like Moses. So Jesus in this gospel, on his own authority, offers the fuller meaning of the Law, using the phrase, “you have heard it taught, but I say…” several times. Whom you were to love was to be restricted to those with whom you have a personal relationship: family, tribe, nation, friends and those who live nearby, if they were good. If they were labeled as sinners, you need not, and should not, love them. Jesus requires more.
Among the tribes of what we now call the Middle East it was accepted wisdom that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but the friend of my enemy is my enemy. They believed that this attitude would help to strengthen and to preserve the tribe. Have we grown much beyond this way of thinking?
In contrast, the Gospel of Matthew presents God as an equal-opportunity lover. One who shares the necessities for life – sun, rain – with everyone: friend, enemy, our tribe, their tribe, good, evil… This is the high bar set for us to reach.
The version in the Gospel of Luke goes like this: “But I say to you who are listening, ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” The first requirement here is that we listen, that we pay attention, that we take in and take to heart what Jesus says. Then we are invited to act like God does, doing good to those who hate us, blessing those who curse us, and praying for our abusers – anyone who doesn’t treat us well.
We are not to repay hurt with hurt, offense with offense, hate with hate. If anyone harms us, we are to help them. If someone utters false and evil words about us, we are to find kind and good things to say to them and about them. If a person treats us in hurtful and damaging ways, we are to pray for all good for them. (Think of Jesus, on the cross, asking Abba to forgive those responsible for his cruel and unjust treatment.) The evil stops with us when we transform it into good rather than returning it, or escalating it against anyone.
Who can do this? I can’t, and I don’t believe anyone can – without the infusion of God’s Holy Spirit. The grace is always there, but we need to go beyond our immediate reaction to run away or to fight back, to be paralyzed or to try to stop the attacks by defensively and insincerely flattering those causing us harm.
Jesus calls us to be imitators of our good God by making compassion, mercy, our response. This compassion wells up in us when we step back and see the brokenness of the one who despises us and does bad things against us. They, too, are wounded, hurting, in deep need. And, they really do not know what they are doing, even if they (and we) think they do. When we are able to respond in these ways, enemies do not remain enemies. There will be no enemies – at least from our side…