Love Your Enemies

I have been quite fortunate in my life to have made many friends and very few enemies. However, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that there are certain individuals who, for one reason or another, have been the object of my hatred. I can fairly say that this (thankfully) small group of people represent those who have done things to me (or those close to me) that are so awful—so inexcusable—so unjust (even by the most generous of standards) that I find it difficult to perceive of them in any other way than my enemy.

One of the most distinguishing teachings of Christianity is to love your enemies (see Matthew 5:43–48 and Luke 6:27–36). Since I am a Christian who believes it is important to avoid hypocrisy (another distinguishing feature of Christianity), I often find myself dismayed by the deeply conflicting nature of this command.

Of course, the tension between doing what one knows she or he ought and yet the urge to do the contrary is something that almost all people experience (see especially here Romans 7:7–24). This tension is so commonplace that we generally take it for granted.

Yet, there is something far more radical in the call to love your enemy than most other Christian duties that makes it so painful. To hate those who to want to hurt you is a fundamental self-preservation tactic and, as such, it hits to the very core of who we are.

There are certainly other commands that likewise conflict with our natural impulse for self-preservation, because they involve some form of self-sacrifice. However, I contend that in many of these cases we can more readily make emotional sense of such altruistic actions, which may in turn function as a strong motivation to do them.

For example, we might incur a great personal cost in choosing to help friends and family who are close to us. That is laudable. Yet, as Jesus points out, even ungodly people generally feel compelled to love those who love them. It still may not always be easy, but it is, all the same, relatively unremarkable.

Many of us might also be willing to perform altruistic deeds on behalf of complete strangers—people who may never become aware of what we have done for them. That is perhaps more laudable. Then again, who doesn’t find joy in the prospect of doing good for others? And doesn’t this joy conveniently serve to offset (at least in some measure) the sacrifices we have made engaging in these loving acts?

But unlike loving your loved ones or even a stranger, the emotional resources one may draw upon to love those who are actively and unrepentantly seeking us harm are, in my view, far more elusive.

We can tell ourselves that our ultimate motivation for doing anything should be born out of our love for God. We can contemplate the fact that when we were still God’s enemy, God showed his love for us through the self-sacrificial death of Jesus Christ (see, for example, Romans 5:8–10). Finally, we can imagine a hopeful, victorious scenario in which our persistent love for our enemies brings about a miraculous reconciliation.

And yet, as for me, oftentimes the anger seems too overwhelming, the desire for justice too great, and the promise of God’s reward for demonstrating such love too distant for me to actually do so.

It is here, even if nowhere else, where I find myself completely exposed before God in all my “fallenness.” Maybe this is part of the reason why loving your enemy is so central to the Christian tradition. In this command I find, above all others, my greatest need for a savior.

Help me, God, to do good to those who hate me, bless those who curse me, and pray for those who spitefully use me.