Loving the Enemy: Practical Tips
The Reconciliation of the Montagues and the Capulets over the Dead Bodies of Romeo and Juliet by Frederic Leighton
by Susan Dewitt, CSJP
Love my enemy, do good to those who hate me, bless those who curse me, pray for those who mistreat me – how do I begin to do that? How do I even begin to want to do that? Don’t we all know the pleasure of curling up inside our anger, tense and ready to strike? Don’t we all know the fierce joy of being right, being on God’s side of the argument, and knowing how wrong that other person is? Don’t we all hear the news, read the tweets, and fling a curse at the terrible people on the other side, the side of wrong? And then maybe we catch ourselves and remember hearing these words in Luke’s gospel and wonder how we possibly can live from them. How can I, how can we meet the Holy One in this other difficult, aggravating, demanding person?
I can learn to walk softly. I have to tell you that often when I’m hurt or angry I have put a lot of energy into rehearsing my anger, making up dialogues with the other person in which the full weight of my righteousness is unleashed. But inevitably, over the years, I’ve noticed that actual encounters are nothing like my imagined dramas, that all the time I’ve spent rehearsing just gets in the way of an actual meeting with the other.
And so, we go in armed and hostile to a confrontation with an unreasonable boss or a family reunion with impossible Uncle Bob. But what if we approached them softly, with curiosity instead of condemnation? What if we did our best not to set off alarms? What if we see the face of God’s beloved in this person who has been so difficult for us? Then everything changes.
I used to be a mediator with the King County Dispute Resolution Center, and I always remember one mediation between two couples who lived in the same apartment building and were at each others’ throats in a dispute involving – well, I can’t even remember now what it involved, but back then it felt as if we were going to be in this mediation for a long, thorny, painful time. But then, when the first couple was invited to talk about the dispute, they began by apologizing, acknowledging that they hadn’t thought how their actions could affect others. And everything changed. The other couple now could also be generous, understanding. The rest of the mediation was a piece of cake: they really didn’t need me anymore.
What Jesus asks of us in this terrible, challenging, impossible gospel is to keep doing in ways small and large what the first couple did, to move into our enemy’s space with our hands open, to bless instead of curse, to offer prayers instead of hatred, to give instead of withholding and so to make it possible for everything to change, for the enemy to become the beloved.
We all know, I surely do, how comforting it is to be among the ones who love us, and that’s precious, love that’s comfortable and comforting, intimate, reliable, enduring. For those of us who are fortunate to live in a circle of loving family and loving friends, it’s the ground under everything we do. But as Jesus tells us, that’s the easy part. The challenge is to reach out past the familiar circle and love those who seem to be ungrateful and wicked, to be merciful the way God is merciful
The reward is astonishing: “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” (Luke 6: 37-38)
What’s the measure with which I measure, with which you measure? How can you make your measure more spacious, how can I let my measure take in more people, how can we forgive and give? I think with sadness of the sister of a dear friend of mine who has never been able to forgive my friend’s divorce and remarriage, who will not speak to my friend, but who every week, and probably every day, prays “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
We all have our places of untempered rage, of unforgiveness, of spiritual stinginess. God longs to forgive us, to pour forgiveness into our laps, God who loves our enemies. The steps we need to take are simple: be curious, be open, be hospitable, get outside our own righteousness and meet the face of God where we might least expect it.
This article appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of Living Peace.