Jesus tells us both to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44) and to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40).

I have spent a lot of years wrestling with what is the faithful thing to do when the two commands come into conflict. In violent confrontations is it right to use force to stop someone from hurting or killing you or someone else? How could using force against an enemy be loving to them? How could not protecting a neighbor that needs your help be loving to them?

Remember Jesus on the cross. That was him loving his enemies – loving you and me.  He is the model for who we are to be and how we are to live.

Violence has been in my life as long as I can remember. I have taken beatings before because I believed the God revealed in Jesus wouldn’t want me to fight back, wouldn’t want me to hurt my enemy. I still remember the blows. I think I would still live out that ethic if I were a single man or my kids were grown, but for now I think my kids need their dad and sometimes their daddy has needed defending when time and chance and the option to run has run out. Is that faithful to the way of Jesus?

One thing I have never been able to do is to sit by while other people suffered. I have stopped people from hurting others with violence. It was never what I wanted, but at the time it was the only way to make them stop. I remember those blows too.

How do you live out the ideals of Jesus – both loving neighbor the way Jesus did and loving enemy the way Jesus did – in a world that is often far from ideal.

I have often wished that Jesus began his story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) with the Samaritan arriving a little earlier while the man was still being beaten and robbed. I thought, maybe if he did that, then we could hear first hand from Jesus, how to love your enemy when he is hurting or even killing your neighbor.

Then earlier this year I was reading Dr. Charles Talbert’s Reading the Sermon on the Mount: Character Formation and Ethical Decision Making in Mathew 5-7 when I came across the following paragraph. It isn’t directly from Jesus but it is as close of an Biblical answer to my wish that I am likely to get.

There may be occasions when love of neighbor trumps one’s commitment to non-retaliation. Confronted by an evildoer, the disciple whose character incorporates both love of the neighbor and non-retaliation but privileges the former as more basic, would likely respond if necessary to defend, protect, and vindicate the neighbor. Variations on the Good Samaritan story illustrate two options open to Jesus’ disciples. Suppose, on the one hand, the Good Samaritan had come upon the robbers attacking a fellow traveler on the road to Jericho, and suppose he had earlier heard Jesus’ words “Do not retaliate against the evil doer” and had taken them as a law, then he would likely have waited until the attack was over, the robbers gone, and then have made his way to the victim, bound up his wounds with oil and wine, and set him on his animal and taken him to the inn to provide care for him. He would have thereby satisfied the two commands: do not retaliate and love the neighbor, in that order. Judged by the Matthean Jesus’ value system, however he would have acted improperly, because love of the neighbor was not central to his behavior. If, on the other hand, the Good Samaritan, with a character shaped by the Matthean Jesus’ priorities, had come along when robbers were attacking someone else on the road to Jericho, he would likely have taken his staff, cuffed the robbers about their ears and driven them off, and then gone to the man. In so doing he would have made his ethical decision out of a character that gave mercy and love for neighbor the priority. He remained a non-retaliatory person, but he was a loving person above all.

According to Dr. Talbert at least, actions to defend and protect our neighbor from the violence of the enemy are actions that are faithful to the one we follow.

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