Rev. Michael Kilpatrick
A prayer,
Blessed, praised, worshiped, and adored be Jesus Christ on his throne of Glory and in the hearts of his most faithful people. amen
Good Morning, and a blessed All Saints’ Sunday!
All Saints Day is a day we remember all our loved ones who have passed into the greater life. We also celebrate the lives of all the saints, nearly 10,000 of them who lived, defended the faith, and were the best and holiest examples of the Christian life. Modeling the saints is hard work. Loving our enemies may be harder still.
Tertullian, a church father of the 2nd century, stated, “to love friends is a custom of people, but to love your enemy is a custom only of Christians.”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus said, Love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless and pray for those who curse and abuse us. If struck on the cheek, offer the other as well; give them the shirt off our back once they have taken our other clothes, give to beggars, if your stuff is taken, forget it, and in all things, do unto others as you would have them do to you.
It’s more than a custom; it is a mandate. And it is really, really hard to do.
Jesus was political, countercultural, and partisan in choosing God’s side. Politically, Jesus challenged the Jewish theocracy for ignoring the needy and the marginalized, for not using common sense in the application of the Law, using their offices to acquire power, wealth and practicing “empty ritual” in the Temple. And because Israel was under the thumb of Rome, Rome was also challenged. Like the prophets who preceded Jesus 500 years earlier, Jesus is a full truth teller, not a fortune teller, who pulls back the curtains, exposing the preferred storyline of the time, challenging the status quo, and encouraging, as Richard Rohr describes as, “holy disorder.” In short, “Jesus comforted the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable.”
The struggle here for me is that I am one of the disturbed. Oppression, taking power at any cost, and causing people to suffer, is our reality now. A divided country politically, morally, and religiously isn’t new in history, and it always begins, as it has here, by identifying a target to blame our troubles on, thus creating a reason to fear and to hate. Jesus lived in it. We are living in it now.
Those who lead and support this movement scare me. I am angry, frustrated, and I am doing a very poor job of loving my enemy. I am not alone. This anger can devolve into hate, so if they hate me, I can hate them back!
I see the other side as enemies of democracy and freedom. I cannot understand the mob mentality of simply ignoring truth and reality, and allowing, even cheering on, the destruction of democracy and the liberty so dear to us. I fear those who have weaponized the Prince of Peace into a cheerleader of hate and division.[1]
Jesus says to love them anyway. There are no exceptions.
A few weeks back, a friend of mine and I were taking a walk one afternoon, and I shared my struggle of loving my enemies. My friend, a professor of theology, said to me, “Well, Michael, maybe you are setting the bar too high.” Says I, “Well, isn’t love just love?” After some discussion, being the good professor that he is, silence fell on the subject, as he left it to me to figure out!
So, I started with Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. You know, love is patient, kind; it is not boastful or arrogant, it does not insist on its own way, and it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. My reaction to this is, how can I love those who reject all of this? Isn’t this asking way too much of me, or us, to love them? Can I just hate them? It’s easier! Then, there’s this little voice that says, “Not so fast there, Kilpatrick, it is too easy, keep working!
Both C.S. Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. are relevant in discussions of the types of love. Eros is that love that is a gentle, yet passionate and beautiful love. Stoge is the affection family members have for one another. Philia is the love and affection between friends, and Agape is a supernatural cosmic love God showers on all people. It is the love translated as charity, one of the three highest of virtues, and charity is exactly what Paul describes love to be. Agape is not love tied to emotion, as are the other three; Agape love is a matter of our willpower.
Dr. King urges us to examine ourselves to find anything that hinders loving our enemies.
“How,” he asks, “do we go about loving our enemies?” We know that some people may not like us for myriad of reasons, some silly and unreasonable, some spot-on. What he is asking is this: “Did we have a hand in causing them to dislike us?” Has our own disdain, anger, and frustration expressed in word or actions been, to whatever extent, a cause for their reaction to us?
His second question is, “Do we see any good in our enemies? I think the question is, “can we separate the “sinner from the sin” or “separate the person from the problem?” because in doing so, we will be able to “see” them as human beings with many of the same issues of life that we have. We humanize them.
His last question is, “Does our own hate distort our view of reality?” Strong emotions, such as anger or hate, can distort reality. This is often when we use words that we may regret, which can damage our credibility. The old adage ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ is false. Bones heal; words are forever; the hurt is forever.
Now here is a twist that puts into play an element of my friend’s observation about the bar being too high. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we must “like” our enemies. Think about the three loves: Eros, Storge, and Philia. These loves are based in emotion, and emotion opens that pathway to love through knowing and trust; You learn to like this person. “Like” is a critical step in establishing those three loves, but has nothing to do with Agape, because Agape does not require that you know anyone, much less like them. Agape is a divine blanket love for mankind, and its application by us requires a committed act of one’s will to love even a stranger. It is precisely what Paul tells the Corinthians that love is. I am a romantic, so in my struggle, I could only see love as one of the emotional loves, never considering Agape.
Jesus knew that hate only intensifies the existence of evil in the universe. Hate creates fear, and fear creates more hate. Hate has no favorites to protect, it feels no compassion, and it destroys any sign of human warmth. Hate in all its forms has no purpose but to destroy without conscience. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly, and the ugly becomes beautiful, good becomes bad, and bad becomes good, and what is true becomes false, and false becomes true. Objectivity and reason are destroyed.
We must have the moral courage and willingness to take the risk of saying “STOP,” and place Agapa love squarely in the middle of this darkness, to bring light. Love is the building block of forgiveness and reconciliation that will allow bridge-building, an act of love.
We must love because, in loving our enemies, they won’t be able to withstand it for long. Back in my disc jockey days, one of my colleagues ended his show every day saying, “Kill them with kindness, it will drive them crazy!” The hope is that it will drive them crazy to love.
And if we are truly loving our enemies, the first sign that love is winning is that they get mad at you for loving them! Their hate might intensify. But we keep loving them with that love that is patient and kind; not boastful, or rude, or selfish. Our love, God’s love, never rejoices in wrongdoing but rejoices in truth.
Here are a few practical suggestions for those of us who struggle with loving our enemies, and keep in mind Dr. King’s three questions.
- Kill them with kindness, demonstrate the attributes of Jesus.
- Pray for them and for yourself.
- Always take the moral high ground and never embarrass your enemy.
- Always rise above pettiness
- Deflect hostility, don’t get into a fight; resistance is likely futile.
- Help them with a task, but if possible, do it anonymously.
- If you have the opportunity to hurt them or destroy them. Don’t!
- Think of the best thing you can do for the person you despise most and do it! (N.T. Wright)
- Turn the other cheek because it is a signal to the other that you are saying “no” to retaliation.
- Don’t quality your love with BUT
- Do everything consistent with the Golden Rule.
Then there is forgiveness? Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that the world will know we follow Jesus in our love for one another, but it will take our loving our enemies to convince the world of the love of God for real.
Tutu explained that forgiveness and reconciliation aren’t about denying the past. They’re about uncovering the truth and pain, even if it worsens things; confronting facts leads to healing. Forgiveness offers a new start, an explosion of joy that rises from truth over lies, freedom over oppression, and light over darkness.
Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1957, emphasized that love in the face of oppression can be shown through large nonviolent protests rooted in love. This is John Lewis’s “good trouble,” and Rohr’s “holy disorder.”
Loving our enemies doesn’t mean accepting evil; it means opposing wrongs and supporting justice. Love involves confronting lies with the truth, advocating for access to healthcare, food, scientific research, free speech, and religious freedom. Love includes defending diversity, opposing kidnapping, insisting on due process, and opposing revenge, rewriting history, and tyranny. We know that love is the only thing that has power completely, because when we love, we seek no power, and therefore, we have power.
And in doing these acts of love, we show our enemies the love of God, which can sometimes surpass all understanding. Through our will to love, we reveal and demonstrate that we will act in love and truth, as did the saints celebrate today. Dignity and mercy will be the calling card of love. In Agapa, we will love them not because we like them, or know them, but because Jesus commands it and because they are God’s beloved. Jesus, through his will, loved from the cross, and his sacrificial love reopened the gates to paradise that had been closed to us. We are called to do no less than love our enemies for the greater glory of God.
Amen
[1] They find joy in oppression, suppression, cheating, lying, and revenge. They have undermined our institutions. They take food from the hungry, deny healthcare to millions, yet claim to be pro-life. They treat certain groups as subhuman because they love or look different, symbolically burn books out of fear of history, science, intellect, and change. They view God as transactional, as they preach the heresy of prosperity theology. They rewrite history to erase the contributions of non-white people to ensure a white only history.
