The Blessing of Not Being Hated By Our Enemies

The gospel lesson from the Revised Common Lectionary contains Jesus' commandment that we love our enemies. Normally, we think about this text in an active manner--in terms of our obligation to love our enemies. But the text also means that the same commandment applies to our enemies. Our enemies are called to love us. This is good news for us. No matter who we are in this world, there are those who hate us. And that is going to be true no matter what we do. We can be the most virtuous people in the world, and there are going to be those who hate us.

God's Spirit is active in our enemies to compel them to love us. In the Wesleyan tradition, we believe that God's Spirit is at work in us even before we know what God's Spirit is; this is referred to as prevenient grace. That means that God is at work within the souls of those of our enemies who do not know God to compel them to stop hating us, and God is at work within our souls to get us to stop hating them.

Jesus' statement that we love our enemies says a lot about God's nature. God's role is not to take sides with us to help us in hating our enemies. God's role is not to take sides with our enemies in hating us. Instead, God stands above us and above our enemies and compels us to all stop hating each other. God does this because God wants us to be reconciled with one another.

The commandment to love our enemies also reflects God's willingness to love us even when are enemies to God. We all sometimes fail to live according to the example of Christ. In those moments when we are enemies to God, God could choose to hate us. In the person of Jesus, God even reached out in love to God's enemies on the cross. Even in those moments and times when we are enemies to God, God's agenda is not to hate us, but to love us. God's agenda is to continue to work within us and bring us grace.