March 7, 2010 Sermon

Love Your Enemies
Matthew 5:38-48

After careful consideration I have added a movie to my short list of greatest of all timers.  (Atop my list, as it is with all right-thinking Americans, is Hoosiers.  Others on the list include Saving Private Ryan, Breaking Away, The Return of the King, and, of course, Young Frankenstein.  Uh, Fronkensteen.)  The newest member of the club is The Princess Bride.  I probably had not watched it since my then little girl sat next to me on the futon, but recently it popped up on a cable channel as I surfed through.  I had other things to do.  But I could not stop watching.

I will spare you an endless string of impersonations of the many funny lines and characters in the Princess Bride, but I cannot resist just one: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”  Mandy Patinkin acted the Inigo Montoya part and spoke that line repeatedly.  At another point in the movie he prepares to duel with the hero.  They chat first, and Montoya explains he has been picking up pocket money by punishing his employer's enemies but, alas, “there's not a lot of money in revenge these days.”  If only that were true. 

There is tremendous money in revenge these days.  Divorce lawyers make boatloads.  Revenge is alive and well.  But Jesus said, “Do not resist an evildoer.”  And, “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”  And, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  We have studied two-thirds of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.  He continues to use the strategy he has used throughout: hyperbole, or intentional overstatement to create a response in his listeners.  He ends our passage with the charge to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  If no other verse in his Sermon on the Mount convinces you he does not mean the whole thing literally this ought to do it.  Nobody can be perfect as God is perfect. 

Yet we can choose not to seek revenge.  We can choose to pray for our enemies.  These choices take terrific spiritual maturity.  But we can do them.  Pray for your enemies. 

Jesus preaches, “You have heard it said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'”  He refers to the Old Testament law of God, to the Pentateuch.  He speaks to a Jewish audience.  They knew all about this eye for and eye business.  It governed their entire social order.  It still does.  Israel, though a secular state, still practices the Old Testament law of revenge.  The Palestinians practice their own law of revenge.  This partially explains the endless and, to our way of thinking, mindless determination each side has to grind the other into the earth.

But in this passage Jesus also uses a second technique he employed throughout his ministry.  He introduces a reinterpretation, a new and more perfect take on God's Law.  Yes, on the surface, the Old Testament advocates revenge.  On a deeper level, however, the Law rests on the foundation of the love of our Creator.  God the Father has now, in the person of Jesus, made his love flesh.  He has set in motion the new covenant, the completion of his plan in the very man speaking these words.  As John, Jesus' disciple put it, “God is love.”  Jesus is God.  His charge to love your enemies makes God's love real.  It gives us a sense of direction, a clear purpose.  Make the love of God real by not seeking revenge.  Love your enemies.

On August 25, 2004, three members of the Traverse City West High School band used a break during band camp to grab a bite at a restaurant in front of WalMart.  After getting their food they tried to turn left onto South Airport Road by the Assemblies of God Church.  Timothy Schubert, who already had a long record of traffic violations, had just screeched away from a red light down by Pier One.  He wove between lanes to pass several cars.  By the time he reached the church, about one hundred and fifty yards away, he had accelerated to 68 miles per hour.  He struck Adrian Morris' car, killing her and Christian Dewitt, a passenger.  During the subsequent trial the Record-Eagle quoted Lloyd Morris, Adrian's father, as saying he was praying for Schubert, because he must be going through a private hell.  Last week Mr. Schubert, freshly licensed (in a restricted sort of way) received yet another traffic citation for speeding.  An enterprising reporter for the Record-Eagle approached Lloyd Morris, no doubt hoping for a fiery quote.  But in substance he merely repeated his earlier comment, this time saying, “I never held it against him for what happened because I know he did not set out to do that.  I've been praying for him.”

I do not know if I would have the spiritual strength to pray for a repeat, selfish, stupid offender who had killed my daughter.  But Jesus said, “Love your enemy.”  Is Mr. Schubert Mr. Morris' enemy?  They do not go out to battle like knights on their chargers or armies in the field.  Yet the actions of the one have made him the very real enemy of the other.  Is there a more powerful kind of enemy that any of us could imagine facing?  Would we have the spiritual power to follow Jesus' teaching?  What quote would the local newspaper get from us under such circumstances?

Jesus commanded us to pray for those who persecute us.  Few of us have experienced full-blown persecution over an extended period of time.  But virtually all of us have experienced unjust treatment at the hands of people who seem to hate us.  Virtually all of us therefore have the opportunity to practice what Jesus preaches.  Hanna and Rachel Cain-Kellman presented a skit during the Italian Dinner Theater in which their characters tried using Christianity as a weapon against each other.  Grow beyond that point.  Use prayer to grow beyond that point.  Pray for your enemies.  Pray for them quietly, so they do not even know you are doing it, so the prayer cannot become some kind of twisted weapon. 

Mother Theresa said, “I am quite sure that if people understood the true power of prayer, there would be a great deal more prayer.”  Pray for your personal enemies.  Pray for the enemies of our nation.  Pray for the enemies of Jesus.  Pray for the unknown terrorists who even as we speak plot to kill us and to paralyze us with fear.  What might happen if we were sincerely to pray for the enemies of America?  Does this seem like an unpatriotic question?  Does it seem like a blasphemous question?  It is neither.  Many of us like to think of America as a Christian nation.  If we truly are a Christian nation, we will do what Jesus preaches.  We will pray even for those who despise us.  We will pray even for those who plot our destruction.

Right now the United States of America holds an unknown number of men in the prison on our base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  The hardest of the hard, these men are enemies of our nation.  What if we were to pray for them? 

Right now a man or a woman whose name and face you know may have it in for you.  What if you were to pray for him or her?

Jesus instructs us to pray for our enemies.  If we did, how might the Holy Spirit might change them?  How might it change us?  Kelli Mahoney writes a blog on the website About.com called Christian Teens.  She recently urged her young followers to pray for school bullies.  Her call created a storm of response.  In early responses, teens shared stories about the brutal treatment they had received at the hands of bullies. Interestingly, many of her respondents were girls who wrote about the verbal techniques other girls had used to bully them, about the gossip and the sneering comments.  Then a second wave of comments came in, from young people who had prayed for those who bullied them.  They wrote of how they prayed very privately, so as not to attract more bullying and ridicule from even those whom they considered friends.  And this second wave included many results from those prayers.  Teens spoke of how God had changed their own hearts.  They spoke of how their true friends were noticing the peace that seemed to have come over them.  They spoke in one or two cases of how they had reconciled with the bullies.

Pray for your enemies.  Really pray.  And pray for those who really are your enemies.  Over the years we have had a few people leave our church in anger over things I said and did.  A few of these departed folks will say hurtful things calculated to do me and this church harm.  On rare occasions one of them will keep us this enemy-like behavior for years.  Within the past month one of you has reported to me an encounter with a former member who has not attended here for over five years, but who spent the better part of an hour saying vicious things about me and about this congregation.  I will not lie to you: this hurts.  I am no saint.  This makes me angry and sad—particularly because the elders and I made a genuine effort to reconcile with this person when he or she was in the process of leaving our church. 

But I will not lie about this, either: I honestly do pray for this person.  It does not make me a better person or Christian, but it does change my heart.  When I pray for him or her the Spirit of God usually floods me with healing peace.  I pray that someday, this person will experience the same powerful work of Jesus Christ.  Pray for your enemies.  It changes you.  It can change them.  It can help the peace of Christ to break out, taking the place of whatever warfare may be raging.  Pray for your enemies.  Pray for the enemies of the church.  Pray for our nation’s enemies.  Pray for your enemies.