How Can You Pray For Your Enemy? (pt. 2)

Don't you remember?

“Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

Luke 6:27-36

Last week we talked about praying for our enemies, and we will again this week.¹ But first, I have to tell you about what’s been happening in the field.

In the past few weeks, I noticed that while I wasn’t looking, someone with a snowmobile had been carving up the snow in the field behind the manse. At first, I didn’t understand—was he lost from the trail? Was this some old obscure Vermonter practice I don’t know?

Then, after another snow, it happened again, only this time I watched him do several laps. This was no accident. And my confusion turned to being a little upset…is this guy just doing backyard donuts? Doesn’t he know people live here? Doesn’t he know the preschool kids in the church basement play here?

Well, as it turns out, he did know that. Later that afternoon, I looked out the back kitchen window, and I saw a small corps of three and four-year-olds wading their way out in tiny skis following the looping path the snowmobiler had made. I realized I had totally missed what he was trying to do in giving this wonderful little gift so that the kids could play in the snow. I just didn’t see it. That was the first grace.

So yesterday morning, I get this knock on the door. It’s a local guy I haven’t seen in months asking if I want to go snowmobiling with his friends, because they saw the snowmobile tracks in the field and assumed I must be a rider. “I know you’re still new and it can be really hard to make friends in Craftsbury.” Let the reader understand that ever since last winter, I have had FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) about not having a snowmobile. We live right across the street from the entrance to the Vermont state network of trails, and it looks so fun, but I can’t justify the cost and upkeep. I was struck by his gesture, a grace that only came because of the first grace I didn’t know about. Sadly, I had to tell him “No man, sorry, I would love to riding with y’all, but I don’t have a snowmobile. Somebody just made that little trail in the backyard for the kids.” He laughed at this and guessed who did this (another friend I know). I thanked him again and he headed back out. So after the pain of not having a snow-tercycle subsided, I left the house for a while to go skiing with my friend.

When I came back yesterday afternoon, the little narrow snowmobile loop in the backyard had been transformed, fully groomed, into a wide, absolutely perfect ski loop. They even did part of the hill to make it perfect for sledding. And I have a guess as to who did this. Grace begetting grace begetting grace.

From the outset, I had totally missed it. Last night, I still wasn’t sure exactly what I would preach today about loving our enemies. But once it hit sunset, I threw my skis back on for a beautiful little backyard sunset ski. Gorgeous skies, perfect powder, and I could not stop laughing like the kid these trails were actually made for, and I could not stop saying what I’ve been saying since I moved, “We get to live here!” And I just could not shake the feeling I was swimming in grace. The spontaneous generosity from everyone involved in giving this gift to the kids (and letting me be one of them again) conspired to preach the gospel to me.

Last week, we talked about how it’s a lot easier to pray for your enemies when you really trust in God’s justice and trust him to hold your anger. Now I can tell you that it’s a lot easier to love your enemies when you are skiing at sunset.

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I’m not trying to be silly with this. I’m not trying to trivialize the bad things your enemies have done or may be doing, whether you find your enemy in Washington, at your work, in your personal life, or somewhere else in the world. I know there is serious stuff going on in the world. There was serious stuff going on in Jesus’ world.

Sometimes I think about the time when Jesus told his disciples everything that was about to happen: he was going to suffer a lot, even be killed, and then raised.² But Peter is so fixated on the first parts that he totally misses what he just heard, and he winds up actually rebuking the gospel. His defense mechanisms got up so fast that he couldn’t hear the good news.

I think Jesus teaching us about enemy love is like that. I still believe this is one of the hardest teachings of Jesus to follow for many of us, whether in the Church or outside of it. It’s certainly not popular with today’s politics, and I suspect many Christians happen to have amnesia about it. And then, when we hear Jesus telling us again to love our enemies, we often do not greet it with a wave of relief, but like an annual tax reminder, “Oh, man, do I really have to?” Then the caveats and pleas for nuance come in: “What if it’s this enemy?” “What if my enemy does that?” “What if Jesus didn’t know my situation when he said ‘Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you, turn the other cheek, give the guy who takes your coat your shirt, don’t ask for what’s been taken from you’?”

Now, at risk of doing that exact thing: there are, of course, nuances to this teaching of loving our enemies, complexities that come about when we listen to Jesus more throughout all of Scripture. He gives this instruction after he has healed people, just as he would feed people and cast out demons and make sure their needs were met so that they could be able to hear the Word. He tells us to love our enemies after teaching us of his upside-down kingdom of justice, and in his perfect justice, Jesus has plenty of woe to spread around to those who abuse the world and ignore the downtrodden,³ for those who blaspheme God for their profit,⁴ and for false teachers who are like wolves and fail to protect his sheep.⁵ To love our enemies doesn’t mean not intervening in evil, twisting ourselves in knots to say evil isn’t that evil, saying whatever you do doesn’t matter, forcing others to forgive on your timeline, or not allowing ourselves to feel anger (though I suggest you ask God to help you with it).

And yet loving our enemies is not a luxury belief, a commandment we only follow as an add-on to the house. It is part of the foundation. And however bad we have it, the first people who would hear these words from Luke’s pages were among those personally, directly, and violently persecuted on behalf of their faith, not to mention the more “mundane” brutalities of everyday life in Rome as a woman, slave, poor person, sick person, or otherwise spiritually tormented person. They still received this commandment to love their enemies because it is part of the new radical way Jesus is giving us to follow.

What is underneath that Way? Forgive me if it sounds trite, but it’s Grace. The thing I felt on the back hill of the backyard as the planets peaked out through cloud whispers in the blue and orange sky, the lights of our neighborhood homes carrying warmth: grace.

Why could I not stop laughing? Because all I could think was, “How the heck am I getting to live this moment right now?” And of course it doesn’t have to be skiing at sunset. It could be the joy of a family meal, or the joy of sacrificial service, or creating something that utters the previously unspoken, or doing something for someone who can’t repay you, or so many things. We all know it when we’re in it, and we can’t help but want to share it; I had to call my dear fiance to join me as soon as she got home so we could ski with headlamps under the stars. We didn’t deserve that evening and had nothing to do with it happening. I’ve sinned enough that every moment is a tender mercy, and compliments to The Chef above, this one really hit the spot.

There’s a lot about our call to remember. When you are in the midst of enemy hate, and you hear Jesus’ commandment to enemy love, don’t let your defense mechanisms keep you in amnesia of the joy of the gospel. It’s a lot easier to love your enemies when you really remember how much God has loved you and how much you’ve been given.

In this, it’s as if Jesus is saying, “Don’t you remember?”

“Don’t you remember the mercy you’ve been shown?”

“Don’t you remember how God gave you what you didn’t deserve first?”

“What good is it if you love people who love you, do good to those who do good to you, lend to those who can pay you back? That’s not what your Father did to you! Don’t you remember? Or have you forgotten? Or do you still not know? Your Father is merciful, and he already was merciful to you.”

As Paul said in a litany of quoting the Psalms, every human is a liar, there is no one who is righteous, no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God, all have turned aside (and that’s just in Romans 3!). Yet “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”⁶

Your enemy is someone who hasn’t gotten that gift yet. Who hasn’t seen, known, or really believed the good news, maybe because the defense mechanisms of their pride wouldn’t let them hear the bad news that any evil they do is true woe in the eyes of God. They, and we, ignore that to the damage of our soul. And so we are called to give the same gift to our enemy that we received when we have acted as enemies to God. And it’s a lot harder to give that gift unless we can delight in what we’ve been given.

I’ve talked to many people in my church, and I have two functional eyes to read enough of the hellscape of the internet to see that it is a hard time for many of us right now. However hard things are for you in the chaos of the world or in your personal life, I hope you can find delight in the grace you’ve been given. I forget to do it all the time, and I didn’t remember yesterday because of anything about me, it was just irresistible.⁷ Looking back on the hill, I couldn’t stop laughing. “Why should my heart be sad? This is my Father’s world, and he lets me live in it.” And he’s probably done things for you that at first enraged you like misunderstanding a philanthropic snowmobiler, only to see he was giving a gift that kept multiplying.

How can your enemy not break you? The genuine laugh in grace. Look up and see the planets and those distant suns. Look around you and see who God gave you in this moment to be with you. Your enemy can’t touch that. And if it’s easier to pray for your enemies from the top of a hill at sunset, it’s still easier to pray for your enemies from the security of true joy in God. And sometimes that’s fleeting, and we don’t know exactly how long of a time we get grace for or what specific form it will take. I had to go back inside that night. The snow is already re-piling up, and one day it will melt. Next year, that field will hopefully have the start of a new building for those kids in the place where I was standing, another gift this community wants to give them and all the parents around that they didn’t deserve.

For those who don’t live in Craftsbury, you probably don’t realize all the ways you’ve already played and have yet to play a part in repaying God’s mercy to those around you. But it is a joy that is undefeated and untouchable by any prince, power, or principality.

How can you pray for your enemies? Well, how can you keep from singing?

Remember and bask in the joy of what you’ve been given. Remember God’s justice and protect who your enemy threatens, but remember the mercy we’ve been given is meant for us to give again. Find your snowy hill in the backfield, and remember to love because you were first so loved.

How can you pray for your enemy? Delight in what you’ve been given.

Don’t you remember?

1. Another plug is in order for one of my favorite podcasts these days, At Home with the Lectionary, whose ideas on the text are often generative for me, as it was again this week.

2. Matt 16:21-23

3. Luke 6

4. (all of the Gospels)

5. John 10

6. Rom 3:23-24

7. Yes, a hidden Calvin joke