Resurrecting Enemies--February 7, 2020

Resurrecting Enemies--February 7, 2020

[Jesus taught:] "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 he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." [Matthew 5:43-45]

Sometimes the workings of resurrection are mysterious and hidden from our senses, like the miraculous raising of Jesus from the dead from behind a large stone in the darkness of a Saturday grave.

And sometimes, the way God raises what is dead in us can be not only be seen, but it can be taught and practiced.  And it starts with learning to pray for those we most struggle to get along with.  Every act of prayer for the sake of our enemies, and every refusal to return evil or evil, is a small act of protest against the transactional logic of death that we all seem mired in.  Every choice to pray for those we cannot get along with creates breathing space for God to work a little resurrection--both in them and in us.

Some folks seem bewildered at the idea that we might pray for people we do not like, or people we disagree with, or people whose agendas and priorities run counter to ours.  Or, sometimes the idea of loving your enemy is treated like it's Advanced-Level Spiritual Discipline for Expert Christians and Saints.  But honestly, this is like Jesus 101.  He isn't even speaking to a closed group of card-carrying disciples when he speaks these words, but in the presence of "the crowds" who are amazed at his teaching (see Matt. 7:28, for a bit of context).  Jesus doesn't think this is baffling or especially advanced spirituality--he sees it as an obvious consequence of believing in a God who is also good to stinkers and loves us when we make ourselves God's enemies.  

Praying for those who are opposed to you doesn't mean we're asking God to help someone succeed in doing wicked things or to endorse evil. Praying for those who are hostile toward us doesn't mean we pray for wickedness to be victorious, either. And that's for two reasons: first off, we don't like to admit this, but each of us may be wrong ourselves, and we should be a little cautious before assuming "my side" is 100% in the right and that "their side" is 100% evil.  And second of all, when they are in the wrong, praying for "enemies" puts them in God's hands to allow God to change their hearts, to redirect them, and to turn them around. It means that we ask God to work in them for good while we are also asking for God to work in our own lives and hearts for good.

And this is where something close to resurrection happens: when I pray for the people I have the hardest time with in my life, rather than hitting or attacking or insulting or hating them, I see those folks as human beings, made in the image of God, and therefore I see them as people potentially capable of redemption and change.  When I pray for those I do not like, do not agree with, or am at odds with, I give our whole situation--both me and the other--to God for mending and healing.  It's like giving God the dead relationship and asking God to resurrect it.  That doesn't mean our differences or disagreements are unimportant or that they magically go away in a puff of pious smoke.  But it does mean that we dare to believe that the God who can raise the dead back to life can surely work in hearts in such a way that old crookedness can be put right, old animosities can be forgiven, and old scars can be healed.  Surely the same Christ who can get Lazarus' stopped heart to start beating again in the tomb can work in our still-beating hearts to cure us of the rottenness inside.

And then one more thing happens when I pray for my enemies--something inside of me changes.  Something that was dead inside is breathed back to life.  Some part of my soul that was getting gangrene from all the hostility is healed and restored to life.  When I pray for my enemies, I am in a very important sense set free from their power to make me afraid or bitter, and I am also set free from the prison of hatred.  I don't have to wait to like them before I pray for them. I don't have to think happy thoughts about them or understand how they could possibly do or say or think the way they do.  I don't have to be in the same room with them or wish them a happy birthday on Facebook.  But when I pray for someone I see as my enemy, I do have to see their face in my mind--I do have to recognize their humanity, even if they are not at a point yet where they can see mine.  And when I see someone else as a person rather than an abstract "them," something comes back to life that had been dead in me.  What other word do you call it for when that part of my heart is summoned back to life but to name it some kind of resurrection?

Today, then, our work may simply be to name (to ourselves) the people we have the hardest time sharing a planet with... and to pray for them.  Not as an endorsement of what they do or think or say that we cannot agree with, but to pray that God's will would be done in them while we are also praying that God's will would be done in us.  And maybe, just maybe, we'll see what comes of such a courageous act as praying for the ones we can barely be in the same room with.  Maybe we'll surprise some folks in the watching world who can't comprehend how one could pray for one's enemies.  Maybe we'll be surprised ourselves at how God answers those prayers... through us.

Lord God, we lift up to you our enemies--those we are most opposed to, those we disagree most strongly with, those who provoke bitterness or anger or fear or anxiety in us.  We do not know what needs to happen, in them or in us or both, for your will to be done.  But we trust that you know how to shape those we see as enemies and to shape us as well, so that we might be aligned with your goodness, your justice, your mercy, and your Christ.  Here we are--make what you will of us.