“‘You have heard that it was said ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.’’ (Matthew 5: 43-45)

Following Armistice Day on November 11th and our service of remembrance in St Albright’s church on Sunday, we remember with gratitude all who have lost their lives or sustained serious injury while serving their country and whose courage and self-sacrifice have protected the freedoms we enjoy today. The nature of warfare has changed over the years and conventional battles have been superseded or augmented by remote weaponry and terrorist attacks on a global scale. However, the problem of people’s inhumanity to each other remains unchanged. Today I would like to reflect not on the subject of conflict between nations but on how we as individuals respond to Jesus’s command to love our enemies.

First, a story: some years ago I went on a mini safari in Sri Lanka. We, the passengers, were riding in the rear of an open back truck, there being no apparent danger of encountering predatory animals, just herds of peaceful elephants standing in the shallow waters of an idyllic lake. Suddenly an enraged elephant came thundering through the undergrowth, clearly intent on attacking our truck. The driver accelerated but the elephant was gaining ground. It was terrifying. Two rangers stood in the back of the truck yelling and brandishing sticks. At the last moment the elephant gave up and veered off in another direction.

We later heard the elephant’s story. A year previously this elephant’s calf was run over and killed by a truck. This elephant refused to leave her calf and lay down beside it in the middle of the track for days on end. Eventually the rangers had to tranquillise the grieving animal in order to clear the track. A year later she had another calf and started charging any vehicle she came across. In her mind she was not going to let her new baby suffer the same fate. So what is the point of this story? My view of the elephant totally changed when I heard her history. Yes she was dangerous, and had to be stopped, but I understood the reason for her behaviour and it changed my perception. It’s the same with people. Loving people who appear unloveable can be a hard ask, especially if we do not understand where they are coming from. If we seek the opportunity to listen to their story, this may help us to see them as God sees them. It has been said that the act of listening is very close to love.

In the early church Christians, as we know, were often persecuted and lost their lives, and still do in some parts of the world. Here in the UK persecution is more subtle and ‘’enemy’’ ’is not a word that many of us use in our personal lives. The word enemy, defined as opponent, could relate to disagreement, disapproval, discouragement and hostility towards our faith. It is only by the grace of God and our prayers that we can love those who are opposed to us. This does not mean that we condone bad behaviour, rather that we reach out to bring them within the orbit of God’s transforming love.

Often it is also we who are the enemy, to ourselves. If we feel angry, disapproving, fearful about another person it can eat away inside us like a cancerous growth. Loving another person is interactive, relational, ultimately transformative. When they were young, my sons loved playing Star Wars; in their games the characters were polarised - goodies or baddies. This polarisation is probably necessary in the course of development but hopefully we grow beyond that, to the realisation that none of us are perfect, we all fall short of the glory of God. In a society which is in danger of losing touch with its Christian heritage and developing a culture of blame, we need to affirm God’s love for all people.

PRAYER

Dear Father in Heaven, we are reminded in your Word that you make the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and send rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. Help us to reach out to those whom we do not find easy to love, in the sure knowledge that through your grace and mercy all things are possible in Christ, who strengthens us.

Mrs. Dorothy Jameson