When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him, but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them.
Luke 9:51-55 (NRSV)
I often miss the challenge of the easygoing Jesus. He says “love your neighbor,” and I think that sounds easy. He says “blessed are the meek,” and I think he’s talking about me. But even I can’t miss the challenge in this reading.
Jesus has harsh words for James and John. The amazing thing is that earlier in the very same chapter in Luke’s Gospel – literally on the page before this passage – James and John saw Jesus feed five thousand strangers. Then, they saw him transfigured on a mountaintop.
They still didn’t get it.
The urge to wish God’s vengeance on our neighbors is a powerful one. Jesus reminds us not to presume that our enemies are God’s enemies. And many of us have been taught since our childhood that to “love our enemies” is a blessed thing to do.
That doesn’t mean we actually do it.
On an intellectual level, I understand that the line between good and evil doesn’t run between people, or between nations, but through the middle of every human heart*, including my own. But in daily life, I still fall into the trap of seeing the world like an old Western, with “white hats” and “black hats.” I think we’re hard wired to think that way.
This “black and white” thinking defines our politics – most obviously, in the way partisans on both sides attempt to turn our workaday domestic disagreements into an apocalyptic battle between good and evil, but more perniciously in foreign policy, as we are urged to rally around our flag and see people who live under a different flag as our enemy.
It creeps into our Scripture, as our evening Bible study group learned when we studied the Gospel of John, with its images of light and darkness, and harsh contrasts between the people inside and outside of John’s community.
And it creeps into my faith. I’m not one to go out and give my testimony unbidden, but when I am asked about my faith, I should be able to give some kind of account of the hope that is within me – but I’m more likely to talk about what I don’t believe; how I’m not like those “other” Christians they may have heard of.
So yes, I have trouble with the whole “love your enemies” thing. And it comforts me that James and John had trouble with it too.
God, help me to know that when I feel someone is my enemy, that you don’t share that feeling. Amen.
*-From The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.