Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
January 26, 2003
Matthew 5: 43-48
Alice was following a path through the forest in Wonderland when it divided in two directions. Standing irresolute, she inquired of the Cheshire Cat, who had suddenly appeared in a nearby tree, which path she should take. “Where do you want to go?” asked the Cat. “I don’t know,” said Alice. “Then,” said the Cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes it clear that the direction we choose to go does matter, it matters very much. For he is on a path, a journey, which he calls the Kingdom of God. He invites his disciples to join him on that path. And in the teachings we considered two weeks ago, last week, and in the text before us today, he shares with them just what life in this Kingdom looks like, just what path he wants them – and us - to take.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” Understand that Jesus does a little creative interpretation here. The Old Testament never actually says, “hate your enemy.” The trouble is, many people who followed the law interpreted it as putting limits on their love. “Yes, I love my neighbor, those I know, my own kind; I’m following the law. But I have no obligation to love or care for my non-neighbors, those different from me, hostile toward me, those who don’t believe like I believe.” “Neighbor” in Jesus’ world usually was defined very narrowly. So I might love my neighbor, as the law instructs me, and still do all manner of hateful things to those did not consider to be my neighbor.
Then Jesus shows up and, and as so often happens, things begin to change. (You sometimes wonder why he can’t leave things well-enough alone?) In this case, he suggests a rather radical reinterpretation of the familiar law. Once again, he does not throw out the law. He still tells us to love our neighbor. But look what he does to the concept of neighbor. He expands it, deepens it, broadens it...you might say he boldly takes us where no one has gone before! “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Suddenly my neighbor is not just the family next door. It is also the family across town, the family half way around the world, even the family I might call enemy. Treat your enemies, he says, as neighbors to be loved.
How can we possibly do that? Could it be that Jesus has finally gone too far? Last Thursday morning during our Men’s Bible Study, we wrestled with this idea of loving our enemies. Different opinions were expressed, there was a lot of honest soul-searching, we made a sincere effort to hear each other, but in the end we did not reach any final conclusions. We, Christian men of good will, couldn’t even reach agreement. No one ever said the Gospel is easy.
You think about this text, and then you think about our world today with its many dangers, and you begin to understand why Jesus spoke of his way as “the narrow way.” So it is with great humility, yes even uncertainty that I dare to preach a sermon on this text. For I am well aware that even as I speak, like it or not, we as a nation have identified an enemy and are preparing for war against that enemy - a war that some in this congregation view as necessary, something we must do as distasteful and tragic as war is; a war which others in this congregation vehemently oppose as unnecessary and unjustified. And framing all of this discussion is this text – “love your enemies.” What do we do with this text? What might Jesus be saying to us?
A scene from the film, All Quiet on the Western Front, comes to mind. The lead character, Paul Baumer, kills an enemy soldier, only to discover that this “enemy” is a man very much like himself. Looking into the dead man’s face, Baumer says, “I had thought you just an idea. But here I see you face to face, and you must have had a mother, and been afraid to die, and been very much like me.”
In The Two Towers, the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the hobbits, Frodo and Sam, witness a battle between opposing armies of men, supporters and opponents of the evil Lord, Sauron. One of the soldiers of the evil army is killed and falls not far from where Frodo and Sam are hiding. Understand that Sauron also wants to destroy Frodo and Sam and capture the ring of power, which Frodo carries. But rather then celebrating the death of one of Sauron’s servants, Sam has this reaction, as described by Tolkien: “It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, and if he would not really rather have stayed home in peace.”
Why love my enemy? Could it be that because whoever that enemy is -- that guy who lives down the street who never stops his dog from barking, that child of God who cut me off in traffic, some evil face on the other side of the world -- whoever the enemy is, could it be that he or she remains very much like me, which is to say, very human with hopes and dreams, fears and anxieties, and loved ones who care? In the immortal words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
In the novel, My Father Aleichem, a village Jew tells about his son who served with the Russian army at the front during World War II. During the heat of battle, his sergeant noticed the young man firing his gun into the air instead of straight ahead at the German troops. The sergeant poured a flood of curses and abuses on his head, then showed him where to aim the gun. “But,” the boy protested, “there are people there.” Maybe that is what Jesus is suggesting with this challenging teaching. There are always people there. Oh, we may call them enemies, but, like it or not, they are people who just might be very much like us…neighbors.
Bertrand Russell, no great friend of Christianity or religion in general, still sounded very much like Christ when he wrote, “Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death.” Love your enemy; remember your shared humanity.
And a further thought on this text. In Boris Pasternak’s great novel, Doctor Zhivago, there is a moment when Zhivago speaks to a dedicated Bolshevik with these words: “We are talking at cross purposes, and even if we argued for a hundred years we would never see eye to eye. I used to be very revolutionary, but now I think that nothing can be gained by brute force. People must be drawn to good by goodness.”
Drawn to good, not by force, but by goodness. Those words remind me of some other words, words uttered by the man who led this country through its bloodiest conflict, The Civil War. It was said that Abraham Lincoln felt all the pain and none of the glory of that war. During his second inaugural address, truly one of the greatest speeches ever written, he seemed to recognize that violence and weapons and force could never finally guarantee peace. And so he said, “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations.” After so much violence and suffering, he could still insist: “With malice toward none; with charity for all.” For Lincoln, this was the only path to true and lasting peace. Sounds a lot like Jesus.
The questions Jesus continually set against the human heart were not those of “Are you successful? Are you safe? Are you comfortable?” He asked rather, “Are you human? Do you love…even your enemy? And how do you suppose goodness will ever come to earth but by way of those who take great risks to bring it?” And can there be a greater risk than loving our enemy? Or finally, any greater security?
I have never been a pacifist. My study of history has convinced me that there have been moments when enemies have been faced who could only be dealt with finally by force. No, not a pacifist. There are times when deadly force may finally be the only choice, as terrible as it is. And let’s not forget how terrible it is. And yet, even as I say that, I am haunted by words such as these from Lincoln: “There is only one way to destroy an enemy; and that is to make him a friend.” Or these words from Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies…”
I recall that moment in the film, Saving Private Ryan, when the character played by Tom Hanks turns to his men and says, “I only know this…with every man I kill, I feel a little farther from home.” Perhaps with these challenging and even troubling texts, Jesus is trying to show us the way home. It just seems that in our tired, broken world, the old ways of greed and hate and fear are conspiring to destroy us. We abuse our neighbor and we end up in a vicious cycle of abuse. We hate our enemy and we inevitably die a little. Then Jesus comes among us and offers a powerful, unimaginable alternative, a new way of being in an armed and fearful world. You’d have to be crazy to take him seriously, or crazy not to. For such craziness just might be our only hope.