brianzblawg

I heard once that a definition of an enemy is someone that has set themselves in opposition against you.

Put that way an enemy is much less evil and rare and could be much more friendly and commonplace. Usually when I think of an enemy I think of someone like the lady who lives behind me who throws away my kids toys; hateful, angry, and mean. I think of Nazis, or Pol Pot, or Josef Stalin, or the Devil. The word ‘enemy’ normally conjures images of aggressive and blatant malfeasance and evokes a strong negative emotional response.

But by this definition enemies are in all sorts of places and sometimes we don’t discern a person is our enemy until it’s too late. These are wolves dressed as sheep, as the Bible says. Jesus warned his followers that they’d have enemies. Jesus had enemies. All of the apostles had enemies. I think it’d be fair to say that all the martyrs of Christian history had enemies.

Anyone who disagrees with your point of view and sets themselves in opposition to your view is your enemy. Dude, that sound harsh you may say. True. It does sound harsh. But reality sucks sometimes and it’s best to face the truth instead of insist on a lie just because it makes us feel good.

The truth of life is that people we hang out with, people we work with, people we work for, our neighbors, our favorite author, the televangelist on TV, the guy slicing fries at In-N-Out Burger, or even our own family members can be and often are our enemies. Heck, half the time my worst enemy is the guy with the loopy grin on my driver’s license. How many cop shows have you watched where someone said of the deceased, “He didn’t have an enemy in the world!”. Nice thought, but untrue. Everyone has enemies. It’s inescapable. In fact, generally speaking, the more you actually align yourself with Christ the more enemies you’ll have. It’s part of the price of true discipleship.

On the flip side, you are an enemy. And so am I. To someone else somewhere you and I are their enemy. Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. When you really set your mind to obey this command of Christ you instantly set yourself as an enemy to most of the people around you, including some fellow believers. Perhaps this is part of what he meant when Jesus said that he came to divide brother from brother. He came to divide religion from relationship. True commitment to Christ divides people and creates enemies. That’s blasphemous! No, it’s not. In a perfect world this wouldn’t be so and someday in the new world the lion will sit with the lamb. But in this world the lamb better be quick on his feet.

If I stand for righteousness then I am standing for the rightness, the holiness, the character of God. The prophets did this and were mostly stoned and rejected for it. Most of us don’t like the righteousness of God and while we pledge allegiance to it with our mouth our hands and feet oppose it. And when someone around us tries to align their feet and their hands with their mouth it makes us uncomfortable and squeamish. Our natural response is to begin to qualify their actions, to malign their beliefs in attempt to bring ‘balance’ to their viewpoint, and little by little we set ourselves in opposition to their point of view (God’s pov) and become their enemy, and his. We all do it.

So, we all have enemies and we all are enemies to someone else. What to do about it? Jesus is a pretty smart guy and he was ready for this one back in the day when he was here in the flesh. He told us to love our enemies. He told us to pray for them. He said to bless them. He said to go the extra mile for them. He said to turn the cheek to their insults and pain inflicting actions. He said to forgive them to infinity and beyond. {insert track of boys choir singing ‘Kumbaya”}

Two things can be said here. First, doing this really, really sucks. I want to return insult for insult, pain for pain, and tit for tat. The Bible says an eye for an eye right?! Well, sorta. The context of that verse is fairness and attempts to reduce punishment rather than advocate it. I want to get me a piece of the action when someone hurts me.

It’s at times like these that being a Christ follower sucks the big one because it’s so hard to actually do this. Isn’t it ironic that the two things we rely on the most from God, forgiveness and grace, are the very things we struggle to give freely to others? Truly. It’s at times like these that we have to depend on the grace of God to help us. Well, it is for me that’s for sure.

The other thing is that even when you stand for what’s right in this regard, you’ll inevitably alienate yourself from some of your friends who want to be like the zealots of Jesus’ day and drop the hammer on the enemy. They love you and want to help you annihilate your enemy. You have to admire their heart and appreciate their love for you. But your love for God requires that you stop them and admonish them to lay the offense at the feet of Jesus. If they disagree and persist then you become the enemy of some of your most passionate friends. And the circle gets smaller.

But from the beginning of the biblical story men and women of God blessed their enemies and God rewarded them for it. Abram did it twice in a matter of a couple of pages in Genesis. Even when his nephew Lot greedily and ungratefully chose the better lands and fields for himself when Abram suggested their clans split up due to infighting, Abram graciously gave him his wish. And then when Lot got his butt in a sling Abram came and bailed him out. We all know how this story turned out in the end.

And Jesus prayed while hanging on the cross, “Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Perhaps this is one of the stories Peter had in mind when he wrote “For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly…But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.”