Loving Your Enemies

              Ye have heard this is hath been said,
             Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate
             thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love 
            your enemies, bless them that curse you,
             do good to them that hate you, and pray
            for them which despitefully use you, and
            persecute you; that ye may be children of
                 your father which is in heaven.
                         Matthew 5:43-35

     Probably no admonition of Jesus has been more difficult to
follow than the command to "love your enemies." Some men have
sincerely felt that its actual practice is not possible. It is
easy, to say, to love those who love you, but how can one love
those who openly and insidiously seek to defeat you? Others, like
the philosopher Nietzsche, contend that Jesus' exhortation to
love one's enemies is testimony to the fact that the Christian
ethic is designed for the weak and cowardly, and not for the
strong and courageous. Jesus, they say, was an impractical
idealist.
     In spite of these insistent questions and persistent
objections, this command of Jesus challenges us with new urgency.
Upheaval after upheaval has reminded up that modern man is
traveling along the road called hate, in a journey that will
bring us to destruction and damnation. Far from being the pious
injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy
is an absolute necessity for our survival. Love even for enemies
is the key to the solution of the problem of our world. Jesus is
not an impractical idealist; he is the practical realist.
     I am certain that Jesus understood the difficulty inherent
in the act of loving one's enemy. He never joined the ranks of
those who talk glibly about the easiness of the moral life. He
realized that every genuine expression of love grows out of a
consistent and total surrender to God. So when Jesus said "love
your enemy," he was not unmindful of its stringent qualities. Yet
he meant every word of it. Our responsibility as Christians is to
discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to
live it out in our daily lives.

                                I
     Let us be practical and ask the question, How do we love our
enemies?
     First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.
He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power
to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one's
enemies without prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over
again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It
is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always
be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of
some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the
absorber of some terrible act of oppression. The wrongdoer may
request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the
prodigal son, move up with some dusty road, his heart palpitating
with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor,
the loving father back home can really pour out the warm waters
of forgiveness.
     Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or
putting a false label on an evil act. It means,rather, that the
evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship.
Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a
fresh start and a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or
the canceling of a debt. The words"I will forgive you, but never
forget what you have done" never explain the real nature of
forgiveness. Certainly one can never forget, if that means
erasing totally for his mind. But when we forgive, we forget in
the sense that the evil deed is no longer a mental block impeding
a new relationship. Likewise, we can never say,"I will forgive
you, but I won't have anything further to do with you."
Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again.
Without this, no man can ever love his enemies. The degree to
which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we
are able to love our enemies.
     Second we must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-
neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he
is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy.
Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality,
tragically divided against ourselves. A persistent civil war
rages within all or our lives. Something within us causes us to
lament with Ovid, the Latin poet, "I see and approve the better
things, but follow the worse," or to agree with Plato that human
personality is like a charioteer having two headstrong horses,
each wanting to be go in a different direction, or to repeat with
the Apostle Paul,"The good that I would I do not:but the evil
which I would not, I do."
     This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us
and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are
less prone to hate our enemies. When we look beneath the surface,
beneath the impulsive evil deed, we see within our enemy-neighbor
a measure of goodness and know that the viciousness and evilness
of his acts are not quite representative of all that he is. We
see him in a new light. We recognize that his hate grows out of
fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in
spite of this, we know God's image is ineffably etched in his
being. Then we love our enemies by realizing that they are not
totally bad and that they are not beyond the reach of God's
redemptive love.
     Third we must not seek to defeat or humiliate the enemy but
to win his friendship and understanding. At times we are able to
humiliate our worst enemy. Inevitably, his weak moments come and
we are able to thrust in his side the spear of defeat. But this
we must not do. Every word and deed must contribute to an
understanding with the enemy and release those vast reservoirs of
goodwill which have been blocked by impenetrable walls of hate.
     The meaning of love is not to be confused with some
sentimental outpouring. Love is something much deeper that
emotional bosh. Perhaps the Greek language can clear our
confusion at this point. In the Greek New Testament are three
words for love. The word eros is sort of aesthetic or romantic
love. In the Platonic dialogues eros is the yearning of the soul
for the realm of the divine. The second word is philia, a
reciprocal of love and the intimate affection and friendship
between friends. We love those whom we like, and we love because
we are loved. The third word is agape, understanding and
creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. An overflowing love
which seek nothing in return, agape is the love of God operating
in the human heart. At this level, we love men not because we
like them, nor because they possess some type of divine spark; we
love every man because God loves him. At this level, we love the
person who does an evil deed, although we hate the deed that he
does.
     Now we can see what Jesus meant when he said, "Love your
enemies." We should be happy that he did not say, "Like your
enemies." It is almost impossible to like some people."Like" is a
sentimental and affectionate word. How can we be affectionate
toward a person whose avowed aim is to crush our very being and
place innumerable stumbling blocks in our path? How can we like a
person who is threatening our children and bombing our homes?
This is impossible. But Jesus recognized that love is greater
that like.
     When Jesus bids us to love our enemies, he is speaking
neither of eros nor philia;he is speaking of agape, understanding
and creative, redemptive goodwill toward men. Only by following
this way and responding with this type of love are we able to be
children of our father which is in heaven.
                               II
     Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical
why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly
obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper
darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot
drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out
hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence
multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a
descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says"love your
enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately
inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in
the modern world that we must love our enemies-or else? The chain
reaction of evil-Hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars-
must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of
annihilation.
     Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate
scars the soul and distorts the personality. Mindful that hate is
an evil and dangerous force, we too often think of what it does
to the person hated. This is understandable, for hate bring
irreparable damage to its victims. We have seen its ugly
consequences in the ignominious deaths brought to six million
Jews by a hate-obsessed madman named Hitler, in the unspeakable
violence inflicted upon Negroes by blood-thirsty mobs, in the
dark horrors of war, and in the terrible indignities and
injustices perpetrated against millions of God's children by
unconscionable oppressors.
     But there is another side which we must never overlook. Hate
is just as injurious to the person who hates. Like an unchecked
cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital
unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity.
It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as
beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false
with the true.
     Dr. E. Franklin Frazier, in an interesting essay entitled"
The Pathology of Race Prejudice," included several examples of
white persons who were normal, amiable, and congenial in their
day-to-day relationships with other white persons, but when they
were challenged to think of Negroes as equals or even to discuss
the question or racial injustice, they react with unbelievable
irrationality and an abnormal unbalance. This happens when hate
lingers in our minds. Psychiatrists report that many of the
strange things that happen in the subconscious, many of our inner
conflicts, are rooted in hate. They say, "Love or perish." Modern
psychology recognizes what Jesus taught centuries ago:hate
divides the personality and love in an amazing and inexorable way
unites it.
     A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love
is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get
rid on an enemy by getting rid of enminty. By its very nature,
love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive
power.
     Lincoln tried to love and left for all history a magnificent
drama of reconciliation. When he was campaigning for the
presidency one of his archenemies was a man named Stanton. For
some reason Stanton hated Lincoln. He used every ounce of his
energy to degrade him in the eyes of the public. So deep rooted
was Stanton's hate for Lincoln that he uttered unkind words about
his physical appearance, and sought to embarrass him at every
point with the bitterest diatribes. But in spite of this Lincoln
was elected President of the United States. Then came the period
when he had to select his cabinet which would consist of the
persons who would be his most intimate associates in implementing
his program. He started choosing men here and there for the
various secretaryships. The day finally came for Lincoln to
select a man to fill the all-important Secretary of War. Can you
imagine whom Lincoln chose to fill this post? None other than a
man named Stanton. There was an immediate uproar in the inner
circle when the news began to spread. Advisor after advisor was
heard saying "Mr. President, you are making a big mistake. Do you
know this man Stanton? Are you familiar with all of the ugly
things he said about you? He is your enemy. He will seek to
sabotage your program. Have you thought this through, Mr.
President?" Mr. Lincoln answer was terse and to the point:" Yes,
I know Mr.Stanton. I am aware of all the terrible things he has
said about me. But after looking over the nation, I find that he
is the best man for the job." So Stanton became Abraham Lincoln's
Secretary of War and rendered an invaluable service to his nation
and his President. Not many years later Lincoln was assassinated.
Many laudable things were said about him. Even today millions of
people still adore him as the greatest of all Americans. H.G.
Wells selected him as one of the six great men in history. But of
all the great statements about Lincoln, the words of Stanton
remain among the greatest. Standing near the body of the dead man
he once hated, Stanton referred to him as one of the greatest men
that had ever lived and said" he no belongs to the ages." If
Lincoln had hated Stanton both men would have gone to their
graves as bitter enemies. But through the power of love Lincoln
transformed an enemy into a friend. It was the same attitude that
made it possible for Lincoln to speak a kind word for the South
during the Civil War when felling was most bitter. Asked by a
shocked bystander how he could do this, Lincoln said,"Madam, do I
not destroy my enemies when I make them friends?" This is the
power of redemptive love.
     We must hasten to say that these are not the ultimate
reasons why we should love our enemies. An even more basic reason
why we are commanded to love is expressed explicitly in Jesus'
words,"love your enemies....that ye may be children of your
father which is in heaven." We are called to this difficult task
in order to realize a unique relationship with God. We are
potential sons of God. Through love that potentiality becomes
actuality. We must love our enemies, because only loving them can
we know God and experience the beauty of His holiness.
     The relevance of what I have said to the crisis in race
relations should be readily apparent. There will be no permanent
solution to the race problem until oppressed men developed the
capacity to love their enemies. The darkness of racial injustice
will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. For more
that three centuries American Negroes have been frustrated by day
and bewilderment by night by unbearable injustice, and burdened
with the ugly weight of discrimination. Forced to live with these
shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and
retaliate with a corresponding hate. But if this happens, the new
order we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old
order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.
     Of course, this is not practical. Life is a matter of
getting even, of hitting back, of dog eat dog. Am I saying that
Jesus commands us to love those who hurt and oppress us? Do I
sound like most preachers-idealistic and impractical? Maybe some
distant Utopia, you say, that idea will work, but not in the
hard, cold world in which we live.
     My friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for
too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper
confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with wreckage of
communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the
salvation of our nation or mankind, we must follow another way.
This does not mean that we abandon our righteous efforts. With
every ounce of our energy we must continue to rid this nation of
the incubus of segregation. But we shall not in the process
relinquish our privilege and our obligation to love. While
abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is
the only way to create the beloved community.
     To our most bitter opponents we say:" We shall match your
capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure
suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do
to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot
in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because
noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is
cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love
you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still
love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our
community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half
dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will
wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win
freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your
heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and
our victory will be a double victory."
     Love is the most durable power in the world. This creative
force, so beautifully exemplified in the life of our Christ, is
the most potent instrument available in mankind's quest for peace
and security. Napoleon Bonaparte, the great military genius,
looking back over his years of conquest, is reported to have
said:"Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I have built great
empires. But upon what did they depend? They depended on force.
But centuries ago Jesus started an empire that was built on love,
and even to this day millions will die for him." Who can doubt
the veracity of these words. The great military leaders of the
past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes.
But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the
foundation of love, is still growing. It started with a small
group of dedicated men, who, through the inspiration of their
Lord, were able to shake the hinges form the gates of the Roman
Empire, and carry the gospel into all the world. Today the vast
earthly kingdom of Christ numbers more than 900,000,000 and
covers every land and tribe. Today we hear the promise of
victory:
                Jesus shall reign wher'er the sun
                Does his successive journeys run;
            His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
             Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

               In Christ there is no East or West,
                    In Him no South or North,
                But one great Fellowship of Love
                Throughout the whole wide earth.

     Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the
bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him. May we
in the twentieth century hear and follow his words-before it is
too late. May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true
sons of our heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray
for those who persecute us.
                                   -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.