The Freedom of Loving Our Enemies
Very early in Jesus’ ministry he attempts to teach his disciples something that is seemingly ridiculous. In Matthew 5:44, Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who mistreat you.”
Now, anyone who has ever had a proper enemy before intuitively knows that “love” is not what you do with your enemies. Everyone knows that you hate and despise your enemies – that’s why we call them “enemies.”
What Jesus is trying to teach us is seemingly absurd and counter-intuitive – but that is just it. Once again, Jesus is trying to rescue us from a situation where our moral compass is intuitively wrong. He isn’t offering us naïve advice on how to be nicer people, but trying to save us from being the enemies of our own souls.
It would be helpful here if you’ve already read “The Gift of Anger.” I hope you have – or will. For now though, I’ll just point out the really important differences between the feeling of anger and the feeling of hatred.
Anger is the protector emotion. It tells us that something is wrong, that something needs protecting. It cues us into danger and injustice and gives us the energy and drive to take action. Is every action that people take in anger moral, just, or productive? Of course not. This is why the Apostle Paul, an early follower of Jesus, instructed the community of believers in the town of Ephesus, “In your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Anger is a good and important emotion. What we do with our anger is a question of wisdom and judgment.
Hate on the other hand, doesn’t drive us to protect but to destroy. The focus of hate’s energy isn’t toward the thing that is valuable and vulnerable that needs protecting against wrong and harm. Hate’s focus is the thing it wants to see destroyed or made to suffer. In other words, hate’s focus is on the enemy.
Hate also extracts a terrible price from our souls – it will always hurt and twist us first as a payment to play its game. It will steal your peace, your well-being, and make the object of your hatred your obsession – and as you fixate on the thing you hate, you will inevitably become more like it or them. We always move towards and become like what we focus on – and hate focuses us on what we loath. And if somehow, someway we do get to hurt or even destroy what we have hated, our hate will not be satisfied – it will only grow and dig its hooks further into us. We will have more contempt and loathing for the person who has now become our victim.
Eric Hoffer in his book True Believer, said it this way, “To wrong what we hate is to add fuel to our hatred.”
Jesus is so wisely and lovingly trying to free us of this dark trap by telling us to, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” It is the only thing that breaks the spell of hatred.
Hoffer put it this way, “To treat an enemy with magnanimity (kindness, generosity, graciousness) is to blunt our hatred of him.”
Hatred never keeps us safe from our enemies, anger does that. Hatred makes us slaves and what we hate, our masters.
Jesus is trying to rescue us and show us the way to freedom.
May you live free in your soul all the days of your life.
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