I've been working through Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount, as described by Luke in his Gospel. The last two weeks have been around the idea of loving one's enemies and responding differently to those that stand against you. Jesus' ethical teaching is forming a group of peacemakers; those who set aside violence, self defense, and rights, and trade them for grace, mercy and love.
I have found that reading and studying about loving your enemies is much easier than actually living it out. Being a peacemaker is hard. It is hard to be a peacemaker that lives with this kind of love, because we have a hard time accepting the "other". What I mean by the "other", is those that are different from us. The difference might be in ideas, or practices. The differences might be in worldview or religion. Whatever the differences are, we allow the differences to separate us to the point we see them as "the others', not recognizing common ground.
Of course, when someone is hostile towards us, it is easy to see them as "the other", yet Jesus' call in Luke 6 is to see them as friend or family. We can achieve this radical idea if we allow God to show us what we have in common with the one(s) who have harmed us. We are both in need of grace....we are both imperfect in our actions...we are both children of God. When we focus on what we have in common, and that we are both in need of forgiveness and grace, we can truly see our enemy as someone that can be forgiven and even take the further step of understanding them, and where they come from.
So the most important step in being a peacemaker is not focusing on the one that hurt us, but on God. When we focus on him we see ourselves for who we truly are, people in need of forgiveness and grace, and we see the commonality we share those that stand against us.Labels: etc., love your enemies, Luke 6, peacemaking |
