It’s Not Easy to Love Your Enemies – That’s Why They Call Them Enemies

It’s 11:40 on Friday night.  My wife and daughter are both asleep.  The final suspect in the Marathon bombing has been located and brought into custody.  Everyone is relieved.  Lots of people are very happy.  And while my heart joins my Facebook newsfeed in crying for Justice, I’m stuck, jammed hard against another equally powerful idea:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’  But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

Turn the other cheek.  These word of Jesus Christ are probably one of his three most well-known statements (“Judge Not” and “Do unto others” are the other two perennial favorites).  You don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate them.  Many very great moral philosophers have grasped onto these words.  Thomas Jefferson flatly rejected the religion of Christianity, but he loved the ethical teachings of Jesus.  And Gandhi embodied the power of these word’s when he fashioned his program of nonviolent resistance (in combination with ideas from lots of religions and philosophies).  Gandhi famously paraphrased this quotation by saying “An eye for eye makes the whole world blind.”  It seems like Turning the Other Cheek is an idea most of us can get behind.

In theory.

Actually, when it comes down to it—when our own cheeks get slapped—most of us decide that turning the other one might not be such a good idea.  Nietzsche actually thought it was a terrible idea and useful only to the weak.   When scores of random people are brutally injured, when three people are murdered, when on of those people is an eight-year-old boy, turning the other cheek starts to sound crazy to me.  When police officers are coldly murdered, turning the other cheek starts to sound like weakness.

But even if we’re sure that want turn the other cheek, what on earth does it look like to turn the other cheek to the perpetrators of such stunning violence?   Worse yet, Jesus’ moralizing doesn’t end here.  He goes on to say that we ought to actually love the guys! 

He adds:  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

This attractive, insane, compelling, and repulsive (all at once!) suggestion is that human beings not only ought to behave favorably toward people who attempt to harm us, but we ought to genuinely love them. 

Who could possibly do that?  And again, what could that possibly look like?

Well, I’m not typing this up because I have great wisdom to offer.  I’m not a pastor, and I have a great deal to learn.  But I can point to two things.

First, here is what turning other cheek does not look like.  It doesn't mean giving up on justice.  But it doesn’t look like joy and satisfaction when our enemies suffer.  One suspect is dead.  We should not be rejoicing over this.  We can be glad that he has been stopped.  We can be glad that he will not hurt another person.  But we cannot take joy in his demise.  He too was human being.  His downfall too is a loss to us all.  In fact, we ought to mourn him.   Mourning his downfall should begin with the circumstances and choices that lead him to do such horrible things.  But it cannot stop there.  We must mourn him all the way.  And for the one who yet lives, we cannot wish or hope for his death.   We can long for justice, but we cannot long for him to suffer.  Whatever else turning the other cheek means, whatever else loving them means, it at least means this.

Second, I can offer one thing loving our enemies does mean.  Actually, this isn’t my idea at all.  Jesus himself said it.  He said to pray for them.  Many of us have prayed many times this week for the victims of these horrors.  And rightly so.  But if we are going to love our enemies, we also have to pray for the perpetrators. 

Can we do that?  Can we even begin to approach doing that?  Can we really love such criminals?  Can we pray that a desperate, terrified, bleeding, wounded nineteen-year-old kid might recover?  Can we pray that he would live?  Can we pray that he would be healed of the inner wounds that drove him to such insane and repugnant action?  Can we pray that he would learn to empathize with his victims, to feel genuine remorse for what he has done?  Can we pray for him to restored to full humanity?

What Jesus is really telling us, is that we must.  If we are to be fully human ourselves, we must.  We must pray for our enemies.  It’s for own sake as much as for theirs.  It’s for the health of our own souls.

Where will we get the resource for such a thing?  How could we possibly bear such a burden?  Well, that’s a question that bears a lot of discussion, and I’m convinced that Jesus has the answers to it as well.  But if you, like Jefferson, like Gandhi, and like many others, find Jesus’ ethics compelling, please come and pray with our little gathering.   We’ll pray for our city, for the victims, and yes, for our enemies.  It’s not easy, and it would do our hearts good if you would join us in the difficult time.  I’ll put the details below.

Christ the King will meet at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday at 169 Amory Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130.

This is not exactly a formal church service, but a time to pray, support each other, and consider how Jesus words might lead us and heal us. 

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