“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, so that you may be
children of your Father in heaven—for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?...Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’”(Matthew 5:43,46, 48)
Why does He make it so difficult for us? Doesn’t the Lord Jesus see and understand what our enemies have done to us? A church in the South was recently ordered to remove from their marquee the phrase: “Jesus Loves Osama bin Laden.” Tell me, my Orthodox Christian sisters and brothers: Do you agree with that pastor or with the ordinance?
You may ask: What does He want from us? How much is too much? Is there no limit to love?
And the answer is there above—not if you want to be perfect. Oh, we expect the Lord of love to be filled with love—that’s why He is our God. But are we His, and can we be, if we are not growing into His perfection? We might protest: We cannot love such an enemy, or those terrorists bent on killing Americans and destroying our blessed nation. And Jesus Christ would say: “Cannot? Or will not?”
Herein lies the challenge of love. We are not expected to love those who hate us the same way we love our family members. Even then we don’t love our family always and in all ways; but, nevertheless, our Lord Jesus takes for granted that we naturally love our parents, siblings, children and other relatives. Animals do the same. And when we grow to puberty and become attracted to a person of the other sex, it’s called “falling in love.” We can’t help it; there’s something drawing us to that person. It can even get out of control. When it does, we consider it quite natural. It’s a matter of the heart. We celebrate the emotion on Valentine’s Day. Our world would be so weary, bland and boring it we didn’t have that urge to reach out and pull one another into that charming orbit.
Love for the enemy is quite different. It’s not normal. We may define the causes for alienation that leads to hatred, hostility, even war and killing. The worst part is that we take for granted that’s the way the world is. Get tough or get out. Love for the enemy is a matter of will, not of the heart. If it means understanding them, that may never happen. If we are ordered even to be friends, that may be too much, if we are honest. But to see in them the same image of God in which we were made, to realize that the basic DNA comprising who we are is the same as who they are, and most of all if we recognize that the Holy Trinity has not abandoned the world that God made, but rather is acting to convert it into the universe in God’s mind when it was all created, and that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are not only active in the world but within us to bring about order, peace, harmony and love using us as divine instruments, there’s an entirely new way to come to terms with it all.
What about the Muslims, the Jews, the Humanists, the non-believers and the rest? I think the Lord of love would say: “A new commandment I give to you” (John 13:34). The sign of newness in you is the love that you have for one another, and for the world. Your task is not to judge, but to love. And to keep working at it until it becomes part of your nature.