Loving Our Enemies

Independence Day Sermon 2012

8 am

Matthew 5:43-48

          Today’s Gospel reading makes me want to run—I think I’ve started many sermons with some version of that statement.  But that’s what the Gospel often does to me; I’m being honest—when I first read or hear it each week, I want to throw up my hands and say, “What’s the point?  I can never do all the things we are being asked to do.”  But I don’t run, and you don’t run.  We return week after week seeking, stretching, striving to be—to grow into being the people of God.  That is, in fact, what we are being asked to do.  Today’s Gospel is indeed telling us just that.

          On this Sunday when we recognize Independence Day and we give thanks for our great country and the privilege of living in it, it would seem appropriate to preach about loving our enemies—to talk about different countries and our relationships with them; appropriate—and yet I’m not going to begin there.  Jesus is pretty clear we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you—.  I would like us to start with the part which says be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.  On the surface, that sounds like a command that is absolutely impossible to follow.  Seems like here would be a good time to talk about, to preach about grace and forgiveness because we know we can’t be perfect—again I’m not going to do that.  Instead, I would like to explore what the original meaning of perfect was.

          In Greek, the word perfect comes from the stem telos which means “goal”, “end” or “intended.”  It is not an end onto itself, but rather more of a verb—a verb of movement.  Jesus is asking us to grow into; to strive to be that which we were intended to be.  And what is that?  We were each and every one of created in the image of God—not created to be God, but rather created to be in His image—to be His children.  As beings created in God’s image, loved completely by God, we are to emit that love, that care, to every person, every nation.  Jesus is telling his disciples and telling us to strive to be, strive to live as he lived.  Perfect is not an end, it is not a completion; to be perfect means that we are actively purposefully striving to live into our image as people of God—God’s holy people.

          Now that we’ve cleared that up—it’s easy right?  If only that were so.  One of the hardest parts of this for me is recognizing that God isn’t just saying this to me.  God isn’t just saying this to you or to the other people who show up each week at Calvary, or to the people who show up in churches in our Diocese, in the Episcopal Church, in the Anglican communion, in any Christian church.  No, God created each and every human being; Jesus came for all—not just the ones I deem worthy or you deem worthy or anyone else deems worthy.   I was created in the image of God, you were created in the image of God, every person was created in the image of God.

          I’m going to tell you a really not nice part of me.  When I lived in England and was in discernment, I was given many essays and tasks to do.  One of these tasks was choose someone who—for lack of a better explanation bothered me; annoyed me; and to pray for that person; to learn to love that person—it wasn’t necessarily to become best friends with that person (thank goodness), but to recognize that he or she was a child of God just like I was.  So I chose this woman in our village who I could not stand—still today thinking about her, I get a little miffed.  I found her arrogant, snobby, condescending—you name it.  She was always telling me how Americans were and she was usually wrong.  Well we had children the same age, lived rather near each other, and had mutual friends.  So my task was each time I saw her whether she saw me or not I was to say to myself, “God loves her just as much as God loves me.”   Let me tell you when you are charged with a task like this, that person begins to show up everywhere!  But I did it, most of the time.  In the beginning I did it with a clenched jaw, and honestly, I didn’t necessarily believe it.  Or if I did believe it I would think, “God may love her as much as me, but I’m still a better person.”  Over time, however, it got easier.  Over time, I began to see parts of her that I had either ignored or been too closed off to see.  I would love to be able to stand here and tell you that we became the best of friends, but that’s not true.  She still said rude, arrogant, wrong things about life in America, but it didn’t annoy me quite so much.

          I’m sure that we all have people in our lives like my villager.  They could be in our lives or pass through our lives—perhaps the rude person in the checkout lane, or the driver that cuts you off, what if instead of seething you quietly said to yourself, “God loves that person has much as God loves me.  That person was also created in the image of God and is God’s beloved child.”  And if we could do that with people we actually encounter in our daily lives, wouldn’t we also then have to consider that God loves people of different political ideologies, different races, different genders, different cultures, different faiths as much as God loves us?  Would considering this be a start to loving our enemies?

          Please don’t misunderstand that I am saying this is easy—remember I still get rankled thinking about the villager—but I am challenging us to just consider beginning interactions with others consciously remembering that that person, those people are also beloved children of God created in His image.  I recently saw a t-shirt that said on the front, “God loves everyone.” And on the back it said, “but I’m his favorite.” 

          Jesus loved; Jesus—God-- loves all—Jew and Gentile, saints and sinners, democrats and republicans, Americans, Europeans, Africans, Muslims, Christians—all.  God doesn’t always love all our actions, but who we are, who all people are at our very cores is children of God created in His image.  St. Augustine said while presiding at the Eucharist, “Receive who you are; become what you’ve received.”  This morning as we come forward to the altar, let us remember that we are God’s beloved children, created in His image; let us receive that, and then let us leave the rail forgiven, transformed, and empowered by the Eucharist.  Let us  leave having been filled; with God dwelling in us and we in Him, and move into the world to live into that identity we claim—to live into the image of God, and yes living in to that includes loving and praying for our enemies.  Amen.