From the "Gracevine" newsletter article for Grace Lutheran Church, Thornville, Ohio, July 2023
But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:44-45 ESV (Monthly Watchword for July 2023)
Sometimes, things we read in the Bible are, shall we say, hard pills to swallow. God’s Word is often like that in the way it confronts our sinful nature. These words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew are not just a hard pill to swallow. For me, they are like one of those giant horse pills that children and even many adults dread having to choke down.
These words are also thought provoking. I’ve read the entire Gospel of Matthew many times, but it wasn’t until I sat down to write this article that I really reflected on this passage deeply.
Jesus speaks about “enemies.” The first question I asked in my reflection was simply this: “Do I actually have any enemies?” To be sure, there are people with whom I disagree about things, and vice versa. There are many people I have met in life who are not, for various reasons, my close and personal friends. I suspect I am not alone in this. But I honestly had a hard time thinking of anyone I would classify in such a harsh way. How does someone qualify as our enemy? For what reason is someone our enemy? Is it a personal reason, or does it have to do with our faith? Jesus’ words are relevant in either case, but it seems Jesus’ comments are directed primarily to loving and praying for those who persecute Christians because of their faith. It was not uncommon for Christians to face such opposition, and Jesus’ words speak to that reality.
In our time and part of the world, perhaps we have the luxury of not having such enemies, at least less often than other lands where Christian persecution is still common. For all that we observe about the declining influence of the Christian faith in our country, we still live in an area that is for the most part friendly to our faith, where we enjoy considerable freedom compared to other places. It is important to remember that disagreement does not necessarily equal hatred or persecution. Ralph Waldo Emerson once made the insightful comment: “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
But persecution against us can still unfortunately come our way. We might have people with whom we disagree, where such disagreements erupt even into hatred. We might encounter people who for whatever reason are opposed to us because of our faith in Jesus and our Christian life. How do we respond?
Christian faith comes with a cost. This is one of the paradoxes of our faith. On the one hand, our new life with God is a free gift of grace. We can’t take credit for the new birth into a living hope we have through Jesus Christ. But on the other, having that faith also leads us into a new way of life, one that necessarily makes us uncomfortable with the world around us in light of the will of God. This includes everything, including how we relate to those around us.
When we are wronged by others, a mark of our sinful nature is the desire for revenge or at least what we call “schadenfreude,” from the German words for “joy at the misfortune of others.”
But Christian faith changes our outlook on ourselves and the rest of the world. We know that we have received grace from God, love that we do not deserve. And that leads us to look at others differently. As hard a pill as it is to swallow, God’s love is for the whole world, even those opposed to us. And we do not know how God is working in their lives. The Apostle Paul, for example, was the strongest opponent of early Christians, but God turned him in the other direction.
For these reasons, Jesus calls us to a posture of prayer when we are opposed. It is important to remember that love and prayer for others does not excuse harmful behavior. There is much that we can’t control about what others might do. But we can control how we respond to it. It is a mark of our faith in our gracious God that we offer prayer for those who persecute us, that they might know the same grace we have received.
With prayer for our continued Christian witness,
Pr. Tom Jacobson