“Love your enemies 2024”

“I say this to you who are listening: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly.” This is what Jesus is saying to us in today’s gospel from Luke 6:27-38. First of all, Jesus is only speaking to those who can listen. And “to listen” is not just to take in the words. It is to absorb the real sense of what these words mean. It is to see the enemy in front of you; it to feel the hatred that is directed at you; it is to bear the weight of the curse that is hurled at you; it is to relive the moment when you were treated like a dog. This type of listening takes a lot of courage and demands enormous strength of mind and spirit. One person who comes to mind who had this courage and inner spirit was Nelson Mandela. He brought a whole nation together by refusing to allow his enemies dictate to him how he should spend his life weighed down by bitterness, anger and fear. There are others whom we can recall, people who had the freedom to live on their own terms and not on the terms of those who sought to mangle and twist their spirits. But this is a challenge not just for those who face the evil of forces that control nations or races. It is also a challenge we face in our day-to-day lives. It is not to quickly react to those who cruelly tease us or belittle us. It is to find that peace in our hearts that comes from having listened deeply to words of Jesus, placing ourselves into those situations where I have felt like striking out at someone and finding that peace which comes a sense of freedom and calm in the face of cruelty and abuse. And in the end, you not only free yourself but also and hopefully the person or people who seek to hurt you and bring about a new relationship of respect and even possibly love.