Loving Enemies

There are a few "lessons" I remember from childhood that seem, whether faithfully followed or not, to make consistent sense. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," for instance. Whether learned in Sunday School or on the playground (whether as a strategy for life or a realization that "what goes around" really does "come around"), that one never gave much cause for doubt or concern. "Children obey your parents" made sense too - didn't often follow it, but not because I had any doubt in the practice, fundamentally I mean. Right?

There are also some ideas that somehow stick in my mind, but always seemed pretty tough. Tough from the outset...from a "how does that really work?" perspective, and then even tougher the more exposed I became to the world. The deeper I searched, the less sense they made. The more I interacted with and became challenged by and grew to be frustrated or angry or disappointed with others. Even the more I came to realize the truth of real evil: Hitler or Sudan or the evening news or insert-your-unbelievably-horrible-story here. Some ideas just didn't fit.

"Love your enemies." Jesus said.

What?

The turn the other cheek thing? That at least has some resonance in a Ghandi-like, civil disobedience, "you may win but I will still win through my meekness," kind of way. But "love" my enemies? As a strategy for life? I haven't, to my knowledge, built a long list of enemies for myself in this world. I think there are far more times in my life that "feel" as though I'm battling an enemy...when I'm really not. But lets assume, at times, that I've felt like my boss is my enemy...or a competitor...or a neighbor...or a pastor...or a friend.

Love my enemies? Really?

Is that really a serviceable technique for impacting the world? And if it impacts the world...it surely doesn't carry the likely "impact" of helping me "win," does it? Not even on the holier-than-thou, I win in the end front. And, with love being a pretty powerful word...and the phrasing of this command being a pretty specific assignment...I mean, am I just supposed to "try" to love them? To "look like" I love them? To "act" as if I love them? Because, lets face it, I don't...love...them. Right?

Or is it just "in general?" Is it simply the fact that I can't sit back and "hate" a "people group" because of Pearl Harbor or 9/11 or because hacking off someone's arms with a machete or raping women is detestable and clearly worthy of "hatred?" That instead I "should" be willing to "go" and "love" them...in hopes of seeing them change...in hopes that my love affects that change? So that my love of them is really, I don't know, a love "for" or even "toward" them that is contingent on the possibility that it will influence and impact and change them? Is that it?

But that seems odd because the command is really pretty simple: Love them, he says. My enemies. Not "show them love" or "go do love to them" but...love them. The actions -- the hope for impact, the desire for change -- are all good and even perhaps a necessary outflow or result of love. But it all starts just with, well, love. How can that be?

Over the course of the past few years I have had the chance to hear the life stories of several men. I don't mean to say I've "spent time" with some guys and "picked up" on the story of their lives. No. I mean I've heard men begin their story with the date and place they were born...and tell it up until today. Well, yesterday maybe. Sometimes these stories stretch across weeks. Sometimes hours. The story of a man's life; how he came to be who he is today - both broken and whole.

I have heard stories that I did not want to hear. I have heard of terrible things done to the storyteller...and terrible things done by him. And some have heard the same from me. Across all of these stories I have learned one thing that is inevitably true of every man's story. One commonality that happens again and again and again.

I love each of them.

I cannot, it seems, hear your life story without loving you. Even against my own expectations...even against my own "better" judgement.

I know you may not believe this...you might have things in your story that you have promised never to tell another human being. Terrible things that make you unlovable. Or surely would if they were known.

But that's not true.

What I've found is that "knowing someone" and "loving someone" are ultimately synonymous. It is unavoidable. And through knowing them I discover that I am rooting for them. I can see the path that they are on today as it grows out of the path of yesterday...and I am rooting for their tomorrow. To see them win... To see them overcome... To see them fulfilled...

To see them rescued. Or to see them live into the rescue that is already taking place.

So, this odd perspective on Loving Enemies has dawned on me. It isn't that I should act in love or try to love or work toward loving...it isn't that I should do anything. I can simply trust that, if I knew the real story, I would love them. I would love them in the midst of their circumstance, perhaps hating some things that they've done or are doing or might do, but loving them all the same. Rooting for them all the same.

And trusting that I "would" love isn't all that far from simply "loving" after all.

What I do next, then, about my love? That is the only question.