Wamplers Lake in
Michigan is a beautiful setting for a
vacation. For some families it has been a battleground ! For 25 years,
six neighbors have fought over the use of a footpath that leads from
cottages to a boat dock on the lake. Because
of their friction, they have gone to court numerous times . Court rulings have
included that they are not to physically harm, or kill each other and they are not , if at all possible, to make
eye contact with one another ! The presiding
judge has said about this continuous lakeside squabble : “It has to stop.”
Loving our friends and
destroying our enemies is a built-in
response. We naturally want to retaliate. Look at Bugs & Yosemite Sam:
“Ooh- you long eared, flea bitten varmint- I’m
going to blast you to smithereens!
(Yosemite Sam)
An enemy is someone who threatens me or harms
me, or who I believe will do so. Enemies can be
individuals or groups of people that we don't care for:
nasty neighbors, devious co-workers, folks who have injured me or others.
I was told about a church in Indiana where two
men in the same congregation could not get along. When Communion was served at
the altar rail, they would not go and kneel at the same time. They wanted it to
be known there was no love lost between them.
Jesus' teaching in the
Scriptures about treating our enemies with compassion is a puzzling lesson. How can
you be kind in the midst of mudslinging?
Maybe Jesus did not know anything about
enemies... except that he did.
In his life he faced numerous
enemies. He lived in territory occupied by the Roman army. When Jesus was a young child, Herod's
soldiers attempted to take his life when they brutally invaded the Bethlehem
village.
Jesus was Jewish and the Jews
were enemies with their neighbors, the Samaritans. The Samaritans were looked
down upon and their neighborhoods were avoided. (Jesus however told some positive stories about good
Samaritans.)
Jesus had personal
enemies: others of faith who thought he
was a trouble maker, and therefore they threatened his life. He was well acquainted with conflict and
animosity. His teaching came from his
own experience.
Is it even possible to live by
Jesus words? Let's look at the story of
Gracia Burnham and her husband
Martin who were Christian missionaries in the Philippines.
Martin was a pilot and they
provided medical and supply support. They were on a vacation on a Philippine
island when they were kidnapped by a militant group who thought that they could
get ransom money.
For a year, the Burnhams and other hostages were at the mercy of their
captors. Often chained to trees and with meager food, they were forced to
travel with the group from hideout to hideout.
Toward the end of their
ordeal, Gracia and her husband had a conversation about this experience with
their enemies.
Martin said “Here in the
mountains I've seen hatred; I've seen bitterness; I've seen greed; I've seen
covetousness; I've seen wrongdoing.”
Gracia agreed thinking of all the horrors they had seen. Then she realized that he
hadn't been talking about their captors.
Martin said “I've seen each of these things
in myself.” He had hated the kidnappers
and wished that he could chain them to trees and starve them while eating in
front of them. Martin continued “We are to be servants of all, even those
that we have every right to hate. “
Gracia writes that they did
begin to pray for the young men who held them in chains.
One of their guards had horrible headaches, and Martin
shared with him some of the
ibuprofen that he had. In small ways,
they did what they could to show grace in a bad situation.
Sadly when the Philippine
army attempted to rescue them, Martin Burnham
was one of the ones killed in the
crossfire. Since then, Gracia has
continued to tell their powerful story of two people caught up in a situation where the enemy was real,
and they tried their best to follow Jesus' words.
In his teaching on enemies,
Jesus uses a helpful illustration about rain and sunshine.
No matter whether we are
right or wrong, one side or the other, God sends his blessings to all of
us. The rain falls and all our gardens
are nourished. God is a God of abundant life.
Colonel Tom Moe is part of
our congregation and during the Vietnam War, he was a POW for 5 years in Hanoi
prison. He wrote an article about his
experience which was published in the Notre Dame Alumni Magazine in Jan.1996.
The writing is not easy to read because it describes the extreme suffering and pain that can be
afflicted by one human being upon
another. It is also a story of extreme courage and perseverance.
For me, his story holds a deep truth. It was not hate
that gave Tom the ability to survive.
Tom knew and felt hatred, and he realized that hatred
was “ a corrosive element of the spirit,
a “horribly destructive action” .
I believe what did give Tom strength was his
training, his fellow soldiers, his sense of humor, his searching faith in God , and his many
prayers.
Both from the Gospels and
from Paul's writing in Romans, we have guidelines about how we treat our
enemies. I would like to focus on one
action: prayer . It might be the hardest of them all. In order to pray for someone you don't have
to like them, you don't have to want to be in the same room with them , but you
can still commend them to God and his grace.
To pray for them does not
lessen or dismiss the harm that was done. It does not erase the consequences.
The wounds and scars are still there. By
my saying their name in prayer, I am taking a big step toward recognizing that
they too are part of the human race and handing
them over to God.
We think of the cross ,
and the salvation through Jesus'
death , and a question comes to mind, does God have favorites?
Are we loved more than those we call our enemies?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached
on our Scripture passage in Germany
prior to WW11. He said: “Everything depends on this: that whenever we
meet an enemy, we immediately think: this is someone whom God loves; God has
given everything for this person.”
Jesus did not just teach words about loving
our enemies. He gave his life living out those words.
This photo captures an
unlikely meeting between two very different people ,Pope John Paul 11 and Ali
Agca. The Pope was seriously injured in
1981 by this gunman and two years later, they met , as you can see, in his prison
cell. They were of different religions
(Christian and Muslim), different nationalities (Polish and Turkish); one was
known throughout the world by thousands , and the other became famous because
of an act of violence. The first time they interacted it was so harm could be
done; the second time, they met it was a time of hope and possible
understanding.
The Pope would not reveal what they talked
about in their meeting, other than they
did talk about forgiveness.
Stephen Taylor, a Christian
composer, wrote a song about this photo,
and it begins with the line:
“I saw a man he was holding
the hand - that had fired a gun at his heart.”
Song goes on to talk about
the marks we leave upon one another thru love or hate.
The song ends with the line describing Jesus :
“I saw a Man with a hole in His hand who could offer the miracle cure.”
In our world, where it seems
there is no end to the squabbles and the fights, it is Christ that offers the miracle of
hatred and bitterness being changed.
In our relationships, we can choose to add fuel to the fire, or we can ,
by God's grace, live out Jesus' words:
“Love your enemies, do
good to those who hate you, bless those
who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
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