Enemy: someone who hates another; someone who attacks or tries to harm another; something that harms or threatens someone or something. Synonyms: opponent, adversary, foe, rival, competitor, antagonist, nemesis. Antonyms: friend, ally
The devotion I was reading from Solo was based on Luke 6:35-38, where Jesus says to love your enemies. The passage is one I thought I was very familiar with, but Solo shed some new light. The devotion asked an interesting question: Who are your enemies?
As I thought about this, I thought about a similar question that a lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” As Jesus’ parable goes on to point out, neighbors are not just the people who live next door.*
How do you define “enemy”? Since “enemy” is the antonym of “neighbor” in the sense that Jesus used it in his parable of the Good Samaritan, perhaps an enemy is someone who acts unkindly toward us.
There are a lot more synonyms for “enemy” than there are for “friend”, and some of those synonyms have subtle implications. Unlike ancient times, when your enemy could be threatening your very life, our enemies today may be much more subtle—the people next door (in fact, our “neighbors” in another sense!) whose dog is killing our grass while marking his territory or whose dead leaves are blowing onto our property or whose mess in the front yard is bringing down the tone of the neighborhood—or, if we are those people who are doing those things—the neighbors who complain about our non-actions! The people who you are pretty certain are gossiping about you behind your back—or who pretend they haven’t seen you and turn the other way to talk to someone else. The people at work who want your job—and think they could do it better. The people who cut you off in traffic. The “other woman”. The person who is one-upping us. The person who “makes us look bad” in front of others.
Enemies today may not have the “slings and arrows” of Biblical times to aim against us. An enemy may be the person who whispers behind my back. The person who denigrates my abilities. The person who is not nurturing. Maybe even the person who professes to love me, but tries to stop me from living up to my potential.
But, on the other hand, are they really my enemies? People generally do the best they can with what they have and what they know at a given time. The Bible says that that neither princes nor principalities [people of flesh and blood] are the real problem on this earth. The real problem is that people are deluded into believing Satan’s lies. The more they are deluded, the more likely it is that they will not react in a loving way toward us. That makes Satan our enemy, not the person himself.
But I can choose to love.
I think what Jesus is saying is to love my enemies into neighbors. Everyone has quirks, and I need to allow for other people’s quirks. I can’t (nor should I want to) control what others believe, think, say, do, or feel. I can’t control their attitudes toward events or people or life, or likes or dislikes. What I can control is myself, to a certain extent. (Self-control, one of the seven fruits of the Spirit!) I can feel whatever I am feeling, but I am also mature enough (maybe) to look at those feelings and see what is underneath them. For me, that underlayer of feelings often turns out to be misplaced pride and fear.
If that is MY underlayer, what do other people have lurking beneath nasty words or other deeds of unkindness? Hmm… maybe something similar. A little different for everyone, but I think the basic layers are often the same. Am I going to be good enough at what’s important to me? Echo so often answereth, “No…”
So if they also have that same underlayer of fear, I can choose to understand where those angry words come from, although I can also choose to say that I do not like to be in the same room as angry words.
I can choose to love.
Love is a choice. Love can never be forced. And Jesus was not trying to force us to love our enemies. What the verse is saying, I think, is to look at our enemies as if they were our friends, in terms of how we feel about them. Understand who the real enemy is. Understand where angry thoughts, words, and deeds are coming from—whether ours or theirs. Treat them with kindness, wherever we can find it in ourselves to do so…because we ourselves would like to be treated with kindness. Being generous and not automatically thinking the worst. That doesn’t mean excusing or enabling sin, as Peterson points out in Solo. It does mean not assuming the worst motive and then imagining that that worst motive is, indeed, the truth.
Karen Kingsbury, in her Leaving series, points out that if we thought that everyone in the room with us had nothing but our best in mind, we would think about them and act toward them very differently. Of course, because all humans are broken, we do have to be a little protective of our inner selves, but taking that attitude toward people in our lives might make us start seeing those people very differently. It might even be the beginning of a new era for us, one that does not have us cowering in metaphorical corners, afraid to speak to people for fear they will find out we’re not as good as they are (exaggeration, of course, but … )
I can choose to love.
*25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii[a] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”
37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”—Luke 10:25-37 [ESV]
“…whomsoever we have need to receive kindness from, and find ready to show us the kindness we need, we cannot but look upon as our neighbour; and therefore ought to look upon all those as such who need our kindness, and to show them kindness accordingly, though they be not of our own nation and religion.”—Matthew Henry’s Commentary
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.—Ephesians 6:12 [KJV]
But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control; and here there is no conflict with Jewish laws.— Galatians 5:22-23