Love Your Enemies …Sort Of?

Posted Feb 14 2013 by Craig M. Watts with 5 Comments

Love Your Enemies Right

    I was looking online for some graphics about love I could use for a project on which I’d been working. I came across pictures of bumper stickers and posters that contain the words of Jesus, “Love Your Enemies.” I was struck with the variety of ways the words were used. For the most part a second sentence was added to qualify, or even undercut, the intention of the Lord. Some of these tried to clarify what Jesus was saying. Most were meant to be humorous. A few directly contradicted the aim of Jesus’ words. All of them missed the mark in some way.

    Here are a few examples.

    “Love Your Enemies…It Pisses Them Off” or “…It Makes Then So Damn Mad” or “…Nothing Annoys Them So Much.” No doubt these lines are supposed to be funny. But in fact they diminish the love Jesus called for by delighting in the negative response some people might have when they are greeted with unexpected love. Such statements infer that the very aim of loving those at odds with us is to strike a blow against them, albeit of an unconventional sort. Yet the love that Jesus advocated was not some sort of unconventional blow but a blessing.

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    Jesus immediately used words like “do good,” “bless” and “pray for” when he told his followers to love enemies (Luke 6:27-28). Sure, it will undoubtedly astonish people when their attacks are not with the same. But the point of this love is not to “mess with their minds” but to touch their hearts. As we walk with Jesus we are to enrich the lives of the people around us with the love we have received from God. We very well may “piss off” or “annoy” or make some “so damn mad.” Certainly scripture teaches that doing good to enemies “will heap burning coals on their heads” (Romans 12:20). But we don’t love with such a response being either our aim or desire.

    Far worse is the bumper sticker that reads, “Love Your Enemies…But Keep Your Gun Oiled.” The meaning of that particular message seems to be one of several related possibilities, none of which have anything to do with following Jesus. (1) “Love Your Enemies…Not Really!” (2) “Love Your Enemies…But Only as a State of Mind, Not Action.” (3) “Love Your Enemies…But Prepare to Harm Them in Case They Threaten You.” Whatever “love” means to those who designed and display this bumper sticker, their definition ignores the teachings and life of Jesus. Instead, violence-trusting values are promoted.

    The one variation that I found most commendable says, “Love Your Enemies…I’m Pretty Sure That Means Don’t Kill Them.” And I’m pretty sure that it means at least that much. Doing no harm is a decent start. But love is certainly more.  It is not just refraining from deliberately causing injury or death. It is to will and to work for the good of another. Love works for right relations, wholeness and harmony. Bridge-building, not wall-building, reconciliation, not annihilation is the work of love (2 Corinthians 5:14-20).  Love is kind and is not self-seeking even when faced with an enemy (1 Corinthians 13: 4, 5).

    All this starts with prayer. As our Lord taught, we are to pray for those who abuse us (Luke 6:28). Roman Catholic peace activist John Dear recently offered these wise words: “In prayer, we feel the infinite love of God and are stirred to love ourselves and others, even our enemies. We give God our inner violence and resentments, our hurts and anger, our pain and wounds, our bitterness and vengeance. We grant clemency and forgiveness toward those who have hurt us and move from anger, vengeance and violence to compassion, mercy and nonviolence.” In prayer the sense we have of God’s embrace is renewed and we are moved to pass it on to all others, whether they love us or not.

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    One bumper sticker that I didn’t see was one that says, “Love Your Enemies…Though It Might Get You Killed.” Such a message doesn’t stroke our naïve idealism but it does reflect biblical realism. Offering love to enemies doesn’t guarantee a pleasing outcome. Jesus never promised such love would “work” as a strategy to win their friendship and create peace. While we are to “live peaceable with all” (Romans 12:18), such behavior might leave us more vulnerable to those with harmful intentions. Nevertheless, this is the way of Jesus: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps…. When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten” (1 Peter 2:21, 23).

    Bumper-stickers won’t teach us what it means to love enemies. That is the sort of lesson we can learn only by paying attention to how Jesus loved his own enemies, whether they were personal enemies or enemies of his nation. There was no covert viciousness or overt violence in his love. He loved enemies with compassion, mercy and truth…all the way to the cross. And from there he said, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).

    —
    Craig M. Watts is the minister of Royal Palm Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Coral Springs, Florida and Co-Moderator of Disciples Peace Fellowship. He authored the book Disciple of Peace: Alexander Campbell on Pacifism, Violence and the State (Doulos Christou Press: Indianapolis, 2005) and his essays have appeared in many journals such as Cross Currents, Encounter, the Otherside, DisciplesWorld and more. Craig blogs on the Disciples Peace Fellowship’s, “Shalom Vision.”

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      • Pat

        And some churches undermine the message in the way they administer that love. I can remember one church I was a part of where the mission statement was changed to “Love God and love people unconditionally”. Boy, the Ad Council meeting that night was hot when lay leaders (leaders, mind you!) asked what that meant. They were concerned that it would be taken the wrong way or that this holiness church would somehow have to compromise it’s beliefs. I was never so appalled in all my life to hear Christians (some of whom had been in church a long time) question the meaning of love.

        • otrotierra

          Evangelical disdain for the Greatest Commandment is indeed quite strong. Yet Jesus said to overcome evil and extend
          compassion to others. This task is
          likely the most important challenge of discipleship in the 21st
          century.

          • SamHamilton

            Evangelical disdain for the Greatest Commandment is indeed quite strong.

            How so? Can you elaborate?

            • http://www.facebook.com/philip.zylstra Philip Zylstra

              Let me offer an example. I recently joined a Facebook discussion group on Calvinism, where one poster mentioned a bumper sticker which stated that God loved all of the nations, which he and the group agreed was heretical because God hated sinners and had created them specifically to be “vessels of wrath”. That is, they exist purely to be hated and eventually tortured in hell, which somehow demonstrates God’s glory. They have no capacity to choose heaven because God is sovereign and his decision has already been made – although they will still be held responsible for their rejection of God despite the fact that they do so because he has hardened their hearts.

              I responded by asking how they reconciled this with Jesus’ teaching that God loves his enemies and is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, but in pages of discussion not one single person was prepared to consider that teaching. People brought up hate statements from the OT and poorly interpreted words from elsewhere in the NT to try to negate his words, but at no point did anyone ever try to show how his words may possibly have meant anything else. I was eventually told that by focusing on these words of Jesus I was reading the Bible selectively and attempting to lead the group astray, then after encouraging me to repent and believe in the “God of the Bible” I was banned.

              Just to be clear; this group was not an outlier or a group of weird zealots. They were a collection of polite, educated and friendly pastors and others just discussing teaching that is core to much of the Evangelical church, but their beliefs have absolutely no room for Jesus’ teachings on love for enemies. I was made to leave the discussion not because I was rude or offensive, but because the words of Jesus I insisted we face directly challenged their beliefs.

              There is a cultured, orthodox face on much of the modern church’s disdain for the greatest commandment, but that rejection is alive, well and growing unfortunately. It is reflected in recent surveys that show Evangelical
              Christians are more likely to support torture of suspects by US authorities
              than any other church affiliations, and that the level of support for torture
              increases with the frequency of church attendance. It shows up in the fact that the southern Bible belt states of the US also have the highest murder rates in the country, and is painfully obvious to the non-church community in the reality that so many Americans see as Christian the right to own a gun so that you can shoot another person if you think it necessary.

              I think the issue is deeper even than a simple rejection of a commandment; I have become convinced that it is a product of a fundamentally false image of God. As one person in the discussion group put it: “God hates Esau and every other reprobate destined for hell” – to which the rest of the group responded with enthusiastic support. Try to fit that with the “friend of sinners” who is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

      • rani solo

        i think that putting hot coals on someone’s head(as Jesus said) would be the same as ‘pissing them off’ or ‘ driving them crazy’

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