Loving Enemies

Today’s reflection is a bit longer due to some more complicated content that I want to try to unpack.  Thanks for your patience!

My wife and adult children all play ultimate frisbee.  If you’re not familiar with the sport, it’s kind of like a cross between lacrosse (but instead of a stick and ball, you’re tossing a frisbee) and American football (trying to get the frisbee to your player in an endzone).  One of the unique aspects of the sport is that at most levels of play (except for maybe the highest national levels), there are no referees.  Players use what they call “spirit of the game” to decide infractions and penalties.  In essence, it invites players to go a little deeper and not just try to get away with something until they “get caught” by a ref. It invites them into a deeper spirit of play.

I think we hear something similar in today’s readings.

In Deuteronomy, Moses is addressing the people and encouraging them to pay attention to God’s decrees.  But Moses goes on, “Be careful, then, to observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. Today you are making this agreement with the LORD…walk in God’s ways…and to hearken to God’s voice.”  I hear Moses suggesting that this is not just about keeping the rules.  It’s about going deeper into the “spirit of the game.”  He says, in essence, let these come from your heart and soul – not just from outside of you.

And in the gospel, Jesus continues his, “You have heard it said, but I say…” sayings.  This time, he lays down a really significant one.  “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”

Now we may not have “enemies,” per se, but we all have people who get under our skin.  We all have people who have hurt us somehow or people that we’re angry at.  We all have people that we struggle to forgive. We all have people who have picked on us, targeted us or bullied us somehow.  And some of us have identities that are part of the structures of social oppression – like our skin color, social class, gender identity, etc.

Is Jesus serious about “loving” our enemies and the people who persecute us somehow? Are we just supposed to let people get away with what they have done?  What about justice?

Thankfully we live in a nonbinary world where multiple things can be true at the same time.  We can love our enemies and seek justice for what they have done.  We can pray for those who persecute us and not subject ourselves to continued persecution. We can hold compassion and accountability.

I recently preached about this gospel passage and spoke a bit about how Jesus is concerned with wholeness.  He knows that having an enemy, harboring hate or letting anger fester into resentments is toxic.  It erodes us from the inside out and it can cause serious fractures in the world.  So he says that loving the people who love you can’t be the only measure.  At some point, we need to figure out what to do with the people who hurt us. We need to go deeper if we’re going to heal the fractures that exist.

It’s probably important to acknowledge that some of the hate and rage we carry comes from being hurt very badly by people.  It doesn’t just shake off easily. I know that we are celebrating Women’s History Month in March, and I am constantly reminded of all the harm that has come to women and those who do not fit the gender binary through sexism and patriarchy.  Is Jesus suggesting that we overlook the harm and “make nice” somehow?

Nope.  It’s just not that simple.

What he is suggesting is probably like the metta (or loving-kindness) meditation in Buddhism.  In that meditation (and there are various forms of it), we start by wishing ourselves calm, ease, happiness and peace.  And we keep practicing this until we get more skilled at it.

If you’re like me, it’s not as easy as it sounds.  Just a few nights ago at our Thursday night mass, our phenomenal guest speaker, Kit Miller, was speaking – among other things – about the importance of nonviolence in speech.  And she honed in on nonviolent speech when we speak to ourselves.  She said that most of us reserve some of our harshest speech for ourselves.  We might do this because that’s what we have heard. Or, perhaps, we have internalized hateful voices from the world. Regardless, we might be one of the enemies Jesus would like us to make peace with!

So we start by working to wish ourselves peace, ease, happiness and calm. Only then do we wish it upon someone we love and are fond of.  So far so good.

But like Jesus counsels, the meditation does not stop there.  It goes on to have us offer calm, ease, happiness and peace on a “neutral” person or stranger that we have encountered.  Only after we have practiced all of those levels are we invited to offer calm, ease, happiness and peace on someone who we feel ill will towards.  The meditation concludes with wishing calm, ease, happiness and peace on all sentient creatures.

This progression – starting with ourselves and slowly, slowly working our way towards enemies – is important to acknowledge.  Loving enemies and those who persecute or hurt us is not a first step.  It’s the culmination of a process that we commit to.  And it is not for the faint of heart.  It requires cour-age (from the Latin root for heart). This is a path with heart. It is a path of nonviolence. And I suspect that it is the only way we will all survive together. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “the choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.” Loving enemies is part of this.

For today, practice centering yourself with a few deep breaths.  Say the following, “May I be calm.  May I be happy. May I be peaceful.  May I be eased.”  Say those over and over for a few minutes.  Should you wish to do more of the meditation, feel free.  But don’t go too fast. Be still. Let come up what comes up for you. If there are strong feelings of anger, rage, betrayal, sadness or grief, just stay with those and ask for God’s help to heal them.