The Hardest Teaching
“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Luke 6:27-31
Does anybody else think that this is one of Jesus’s most challenging teachings?
I went to see the new Captain America movie last week. Sam Wilson is the main character who becomes Captain America, and out of all of the Marvel superheroes, Sam has a lot of empathy. He was a soldier and a social worker who counseled veterans after they came home from war. So he often tries to talk to people, including talking to his enemies. He hopes that making a connection will reduce harm. He has a pattern of behavior where he tries to see the good in people, even when it feels hidden. There’s one time in the movie when he says to an enemy, “if we lose sight of the good in one another, then we’re already lost”.
I think Jesus is encouraging us not to lose sight of the good. In this passage from Luke, we hear that there are enemies and people who do real harm. Rather than focusing on their behavior, which we don’t control, Jesus focuses on our behavior, telling us exactly what to do.
- Love
- Do Good
- Bless
- Pray
The Internal Work
None of those things condone evil (love, do good, bless, pray). None of those actions place us in agreement with our enemies. Jesus is teaching us to ground ourselves in a spiritual identity, so that no matter how we’re treated, we are still committed to being like Jesus. No matter how we are treated, the good news is still good.
It’s hard work, and we might think that what is needed is to change the other person.
I’m reminded of Mother Theresa, who dedicated her whole life to loving and serving the poor in Calcutta. Did you know that there are lots of people who think she was a terrible person? She joined the poor in their poverty when she could have spent her whole life fundraising to try to lift them out of poverty. People criticized her, saying that she should have worked harder to change the system. Instead, she changed herself. She did what we all aspire to, but also what we all fear. She became poor in order to be a sign and embodiment of God’s love and God’s presence with those people.
In doing this she was following Jesus, who became poor to be a sign and embodiment of God’s love and God’s presence with us just as we are. I’m not saying we shouldn’t address unjust systems, but before the external work comes the internal work. That’s why Jesus starts with love.
Love Your Enemies
The first thing that Jesus tells us to do is love, and to do that we must be present. We cannot follow Jesus if we are hiding. Jesus’ teachings were not meant to be followed in isolation, they are always part of community. Jesus is inviting us to bring our full presence to the table as a sign and embodiment of God’s love. Jesus isn’t asking us to like people, he’s teaching us that He loves people. If the love of God is growing within us, then it also grows our capacity to love others.
This brings up so many questions, like how to love those who consistently harm. I think that’s why Jesus gives so many examples of what that looks like.
Jesus gives us an image of someone who has such a strong spiritual grounding in the good, that their love and generosity is unphased by the actions of those around them. But I can see how someone else might read these passages differently. We see someone get slapped and turn the other cheek. Someone asks for their coat, and they give up their shirt voluntarily. They lend money without wanting it back, and on and on. I can see how someone might read that and think, “wow, what a pushover” or “what a weak person”. They’re not standing up for themselves or protecting their stuff. They’re losing in a competitive sense. If community is about competing with and beating one another, then this person loses every round.
What I see is someone with profound strength who has reached a transcendent perspective. I see someone who is no longer playing by the rules of the system. They have exited the game. The game of our culture might tell us that the winner is the one who slaps the most faces or who takes the most coats.
Jesus is asking us to have the most love, and to see the competition as being like vapor, something that has no substance and distracts us from the real work of community. If instead of wielding weapons, we extend love, it changes things. It might not immediately change the other person, but it changes us. It grows our capacity to love, and we never know who is watching and who might be desperate for a sign or embodiment of God’s love and presence in this world.
That is the real work, the transcendent perspective that we embody the good news: the transforming and reconciling love of Jesus for all people.
We are the ones who embody it. We can’t hide or wait until the conflict is over and tension is gone. We can’t hide until peace is found, because we are the peacemakers when we embody love in those spaces.
We are the sign and embodiment of God’s love and God’s presence in this world, and we do not stand alone. We stand as a community with a heavenly kingdom behind us, and our King is not shaken by a slap in the face or by losing a coat. He wasn’t shaken by dying on the cross, he was loving and forgiving the people who put him there. Jesus was not playing by the rules of their system, or their game. They thought he looked weak, as if all things had been taken from him. They didn’t understand that he had already given all things away for our redemption.
Do Good To Those Who Hate You
Do good to those who hate you. Again, Jesus not asking us to play their game, or to support anything they do. He’s telling us to do good. The first thing that came to my mind is that if we find ourselves in conversation (in person or online), one way of doing is to refrain from hateful speech. We can disagree with others, and we see Jesus in doing that in the Bible, but we can remember his call to be good and loving in the way that we address one another and in the way that we talk about others. We can voice disagreement and speak hard truths without hate in our mouths. By holding on to that call to love and to do good, we can impact the atmosphere of conversations and deescalate harm.
Bless Those Who Curse You
Bless those who curse you. This one is interesting in today’s world because we don’t talk a lot about cursing one another in modern America. We talk more about canceling each other, which might be our modern philosophical equivalent. In the Bible, God blesses many people, and in the Beatitudes, Jesus talks about all those who are blessed. But not one person is ever cursed by God. In the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, the Bible says that God cursed the serpent, and it describes the natural consequences of Adam and Eve’s decisions. It never applies the word “curse” to a person.
So when Jesus tells us, “Bless those who curse you”, he is asking us to embody God’s quality, the quality of blessing in response to human affliction, human pain, and human brokenness. In all of these examples of how to love, Jesus calls us to embody his ministry, to be the ones who love, the ones who bless. In transcending the competitive attitude towards one another, we can bless others who may have never been treated that way before. For us to transcend and choose to bless that person, could disrupt negative patterns of thoughts and actions. They might be the person who needs a sign of God’s love and presence in their life.
Pray For Those Who Abuse You
Pray for those who abuse you. I do not condone abuse of any kind, and I would never recommend that someone stay in an abusive situation. Often if we have experienced trauma or abuse, it can help to have a way of expressing or processing our feelings. For some people that is through music, or art, or journaling, exercise, or therapy. I think Jesus is telling us that another way of processing our feelings about abuse and abuse is through praying. You can tell anything to God, even the things you’ve never felt safe enough to say out loud. We find all kinds of prayers in the Psalms, including sad, angry, and even hateful prayers. Prayer can be a positive way of expressing and processing our complicated experiences. When Jesus tells us to pray for those who abuse us, I think that lines up with other patterns of embodying God’s love and God’s desires.
We can talk to God about the truth of our experiences, and we can pray for people to be held accountable for their actions. We can even admit to God the times when we come to pray and we find hatred in our hearts. Have you heard the song, “Praying” by Kesha?
She wrote this song about her abuser. In the chorus, she sings “I hope you’re somewhere praying. I hope your soul is changing. I hope you find your peace, falling on your knees, praying.”
That is an example of what Jesus is talking about. Here is a secular pop star who is being fully present, processing her experiences through prayer, and not losing sight of the good.
A Sign and An Embodiment
Don’t overthink this, just go with the first person who comes to your mind. Who do you need help loving? It doesn’t have to be someone who you label as an enemy, it could simply be somebody who you can’t imagine blessing or praying for.
It could be someone you know and interact with, or someone you’ve never met.
With that person in mind: “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
I challenge you to take some time this week, to listen for where Jesus is leading.
In which darkened relationship is Jesus asking you to shine his light, and embody the good news?
For whom is Jesus inviting you to be a sign of the love and the presence of God is a world that is full of competition, and curses, and abuses?
When we were lost in the shadow of sin and death, Jesus came himself to be the embodiment of God’s love. His love grows within us and beyond us to be a sign for those who walk in darkness, trapped in the cycles of hatred. Jesus said it is not the well who need a doctor, but the sick. It may be our enemies who are in the greatest need of the sign of God’s light in this world, and we embody the light. We are the Body of Christ, not just to those who love us. We are the Body of Christ.
Love. Do good. Bless.
Pray.
To read more posts, visit my column here. Check out my published writing in “Soul Food: Nourishing Essays on Contemplative Living and Leadership”. If you are interested in contemplative leadership and are between the ages of 25-40, visit Shalem.org to learn about Crossing the Threshold: Contemplative Foundations for Emerging Leaders.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In