Be Counter Cultural: Love Your Enemies!
WED Evening Prayer Reflection 042821 (Luke 6:27-38) ON LOVING OUR ENEMIES
Jesus told us: “Love your enemies”. Can anything be as counter cultural as this? When we are hurting, our entire being would like to scream against this thinking: is it even possible to love our enemies? Especially when the enemy keeps oppressing and hurting us? Let us try to imagine what must have been going on in the minds of Jesus’ listeners. Did they rebel in their hearts against it? I suppose so. Whatever strong resistance they might have had, I am thinking we have it too! Of course, in our minds, the worse the offense, the harder it is, to imagine loving the enemy. Jesus provides us with a reasoning for his theory: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you, even sinners love those who love them.” Nothing is special about that if sinners can also do that. In other words, this is not counter cultural. But this is rather the way you should walk in: “Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most-High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.” This is counter cultural.
It is very hard to be counter cultural. I will explain: In my Christian African upbringing, there was this notion of honor and shame system. Being counter cultural may mean being radical by disregarding this system, especially when it clashes with one’s Christian beliefs. It takes a person of strong character to stand your ground vis-à-vis the family, the groups, the clan, the tribal/ethnic groups. If my notion of loving my enemy seriously disturbs the entire group, so be it! I may be considered as an outcast for bringing shame to my group. In this context, a western mind may perceive it as a matter of personal responsibility, but in many cultures, no person is an island (One tree does not make a forest!) You are who you are because of your family, your group. This instruction is not a responsibility of one person only, even if it begins with one person. I am convinced it is mostly a family affair: Love your enemies! Jesus instructs us. St Augustine said: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” Most often we are afraid to go where it hurts, but it is necessary, if we want to be healed. Sometimes we need to face the hard truth.
Doctors have to clean the wound and apply medicine, so it can heal. One way of loving our enemies is to try to walk in their shoes. How can we understand each other if we have not walked in each other’s shoes?[1] In my short life, I found that it is hard for the comfortable to imagine walking in the oppressed shoes. It is because suffering has to be experienced to be known. Jesus’ instruction to love enemies is simple and says nothing about reconciliation, but it puts us at a great advantage to begin. After the war that led to the Genocide, I experienced injustice, torture, discrimination and I can say that it hurts, a lot. I felt that I can understand the suffering of others; what the Rohingya people of Myanmar are going through now, and how it would be hard for them to love their persecutors. Also, I understood how it would be hard for the Natives, Aborigines, Armenians to live amongst those who wiped out their families.
These are real realities of our world and each person uses his/her own lenses as we look at these tragedies and how we expect each other to behave in the way forward. Some would say, if you just submit to the new authorities and forget all the atrocities of those unforgettable battles, things should be fine! Is that a good and considerate solution? Who does it profit? We don’t learn from the past, do we? In the midst of all this mess, the voice of Christ becomes clear… “Love your enemies!” Could this be our antidote to all the anxieties and ills we have introduced to our societies? What could Jesus possibly be suggesting we do by loving our enemies? That might be a million-dollar question but those who have surrendered their wills to Christ, will understand. It may mean coming down from our high horses and love others as I love myself. It may just mean to be merciful and considerate always and bring and respect the dignity of others. Yes, it sounds hard to love our enemies [if you haven’t had enemies, it might be helpful to ask those who have, so you can learn the intensity of this proposition.) If Jesus thinks we can do it, it means we can do it. Perhaps, we need to open our hearts to God’s grace and truth through the power of the Holy Spirit so we can see exactly what Jesus wants us to see, so we can curb the cycle of violence. We need to be this counter cultural if we are to expect change.
Comments
Post a Comment