Loving Your Enemies: But What About Islamic Terrorists?

I've lived in the "Bible belt" for almost 30 years. I've been saved for almost 15 of those years. I've been to Bible college and Seminary. I've literally listened to several thousand sermons in my lifetime. All the churches and schools I've been involved with have been conservative, Evangelical, and "Bible believing" churches.

Yet to date, I can confidently say I've never heard a single sermon dedicated to the topic of "loving my enemy."

That's not to say somebody hasn't mentioned it in passing at some point. Indeed, I briefly have heard it talked about. And that's not to say there aren't preachers out there in America that don't preach on the topic. Indeed, there are, as a simple Google search will reveal it to be so.

But I've never heard such a message preached in any church I've been a part of, and my guess is you probably haven't either.

Therefore, I worry that one of the central ethical teachings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, has not only been largely overlooked, but has been almost entirely forgotten.

So far as I've heard and studied, any brief mention of loving our enemies is generally reduced to a command that only advises us on how to deal with interpersonal drama.  It deals with things you might see on "Dr Phil" or the "Jerry Springer Show."  That is, we see Jesus as teaching us to do nothing more than find ways to get along with people we don't like at work, and how to deal with family members whom we wish were grafted into somebody else's family tree.

As I get older, I've become increasingly aware of what a dangerous world we actually live in, and the fact that there are people out there who actually want to do mortal harm to me, my family, and this nation.

Yet, as I read my Bible, I find myself confronted with this teaching of Jesus where He commands me to love my enemies, and I start to think He might have something more in mind than how to deal with personality conflicts and otherwise rude people.

When I crawl into my time machine and find myself transported back into the times of Jesus, as I hear Him preaching to the multitudes in His famous "Sermon on the Mount," I can't help but be arrested by the fact that Jesus's teaching to love my enemies had a much greater application than I  regularly appreciate as a middle-class white-boy who grew up in America.

As I listen to Jesus preaching on a hill side in Judea, I look around and see a lot of Jewish people who have lived under the brutally oppressive Roman Empire.

I see a people whose hearts are broken,  angry, and confused.  They don't understand why God has allowed a foreign and pagan army to occupy and govern a land that He had promised them.   They are forced to pay heavy taxes, are forced into servitude, and live under a police state.  Justice is administered coldly, swiftly, and decisively (which is to say, not really at all).  They are a people who want to rebel, they want to fight back, and they want to get out from under the boot of Rome.  But Rome frequently squashes all hope of that ever happening, and regularly tortures and kills anybody who dares to fight back, and try to gain freedom.

History tells how the Romans dealt with Jewish rebellions in their day.  For example, one day they reportedly crucified 3,000 people, and set them up on the highway as an object lesson.  The lesson was simple: Don't even think about messing with us.

This happened during the time of Jesus.  He may have personally seen this event as a small boy.  If He didn't see it, He would've definitely heard about it.

Yet for all the brutality the Jews suffered at Roman hands, Jesus taught that they should not hate their enemy.  Instead, Jesus taught the Jews of His day that if they wanted to be a people who were rightly related to God, that they would have to love their enemies.

That is, they would have to love the Romans.

Jesus taught the Jews of His day to love the very enemies who not only crucified 3,000 Jews, but would one day crucify Him.

Jesus taught the Jews of His day to love they very enemies who would one day conduct a military siege against Jerusalem.  According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, more than 1 million people were killed in the fall of Jerusalem, and almost 100,000 people were enslaved.

Love those people, Jesus said.

The application would have been loud and clear.

The Jews would have understood Jesus's sermon as teaching them to love people who were truly their enemies, and not simply people they had a hard time getting along with.  They would've understood Jesus to be teaching them to love people who could actually physically and mortally harm them and their families.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:43-48; NASB)

...Fast forward 2,000 years to the present.

Outside of some co-workers and some family members that you consider your enemies, can you think of anybody that threatens you in the way the Romans threatened the ancient Jewish people?  Do we have any enemies who actually threaten to physically harm and kill us and our loved ones?

If Jesus were to preach a sermon at your church this Sunday, and taught you to love your enemies, do you think He might make a PowerPoint slide that listed Islamic terrorists as one of the people we ought to love?

If Jesus appeared on Fox News and was interviewed by Sean Hannity, how do you think Hannity would respond if Jesus said He thinks the solution to the crisis in the Middle East was for us to bomb ISIS with something resembling "care packages" instead of something a little more explosive.

If Jesus were to advise President Obama on the Middle East crisis, do you think He would tell the president to love his enemies and pray for their well being?  Or do you think He would quote the famous country music star Toby Keith, and tell the president to "put a boot in their ass."

In our heart of hearts, if we were really honest with ourselves, I think most of us know what Jesus would say on these matters if He were given the platform to speak today.

The problem is, as so often is the case, we simply find the straight forward teachings of Jesus too hard to accept.  I believe we simply don't have the capacity in our hearts to accept such truth.  The problem therein is not the words of Jesus being too hard to accept, so much as it is the hardness of our hearts to accept them.

So we largely ignore such teachings.  We pass over them very quickly in our reading of the Bible and in our teaching in the church.  We don't want to dwell on such things.

For we ultimately know that there is a lot of risk involved in loving our enemies.  Loving our enemies means we let something of our guard down.  Lowering our guard makes us vulnerable.  We don't want to be vulnerable as a general rule of thumb, let alone vulnerable before our enemies, who have an interest in putting us and those we love to death.

Our fear is what ultimately keeps us from loving our enemies.

But love, true love, the kind of love that can only come from God, can grant us the supernatural transformation we all need in our hearts, to give us the capacity to genuinely love our enemies.  It is the kind of love that Jesus had in Him, and is the kind of love that ultimately drove Him to the cross to die on our behalf.

And if Jesus can cause us to love even the men that want to put us to death, then just imagine what He can do to the hearts of those who want to kill us.

He did this once to a man named Saul of Tarsus, who was involved in killing the first Christian martyr.  Today, we all better know this man by the name of Paul, the apostle.  He started dozens, if not hundreds of churches.  And in the process, he wrote most of the New Testament.

Naturally Born Haters

Whether we admit it or not, one experience that is common to all humanity is that we identify people who are our enemies, and then whenever possible, we hate them as much as we can.

It's as if we are naturally born haters.

Recent news headlines (which seem abundant lately) illustrate this point quite well:

• Riots and looting have overwhelmed the small town of Ferguson, MO, after a white police officer there shot and killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown.
• ISIS has been establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria, persecuting Christians, and beheading small children.
• Israel and Hamas/Gaza have been lobbing missiles back and forth at one another.
• Russia and Ukraine have been under a tense stand-off, with possible war looming.
• A flood of immigrant children have been dropped off at our nation's border, and are overwhelming the system in place, leaving politicians sharply divided on how to solve the problem.
• Big banks have been paying out multi-billion dollar settlements for lawsuits over bad lending practices that helped create the last mortgage crisis.

A lot of these headlines stir up deep feelings within all of us. We often end up identifying with a particular person or issue in a story, and choose sides in the process. Our passions become increasingly inflamed as we learn more and more about injustices going on all around us.  We dig our heels in deep in support of our cause, and no amount of facts spoken to the contrary will ever convince us we are in the wrong.

Such a phenomenon isn't limited to global geo-political issues either. We see such strife in our everyday lives as well.

Managers and their employees square off against one another. Family drama creates factions that no longer speak to one another. Romantic relationships are soured. Neighbors feud. And the things that make for an episode of Jerry Springer abound.

It's as if we are naturally born haters.

At the end of the day, so many things boil down to "US" vs. "THEM."

Distrust abounds.  Dirty glances are exchanged.  Crossed words are spoken in haste.  People are vilified and demonized.  We speak in absolute terms about "ALWAYS" and "NEVER."  Fear and panic flood our minds.  Battle lines are drawn in the sand.  War erupts.

Such seems to be an endless cycle we simply cannot seem to escape from. And as much as we say we hate the cycle of violence that unfolds, at the same time we find it impossible to turn away from. It's as if we secretly crave it.

Instead of looking for reasons not to go to war, we look for reasons to "justify" war, and write long philosophical books on the subject. And soon, what was once only supposed to be done under exceptional circumstances becomes a way of life.

As soon as any sort of conflict raises its ugly head, somebody on TV or Facebook starts a campaign in the name of taking swift and decisive action against somebody tens of thousands of miles away.

It's as if we are naturally born haters.

No wonder Jesus had to command us to to "Love your enemies." (Matthew 5:44) He had to command it, for loving your enemy is not a naturally occurring thought or desire.  It is counter intuitive to our first impulse, yet in the command we find that which is God's very heart.

It's hard enough to like somebody you have a hard time getting along with, let alone loving them. But loving your enemy is another matter altogether.  Your enemy, after all, is not only somebody who you find it hard to get along with, but is somebody who feels hatred for you.  They hope for bad things to happen to you, celebrate when they do, and as much as possible, actively campaign against you, even to the point of taking your life.

Yet, these very enemies are the people that Jesus commands us to love.  

Love your enemies, Jesus said...

...even the young black man in the ghetto who hates you because you are white.
...even the trigger happy police officers who abuse their authority and oppress minorities.
...even the Islamic radicals who fly airplanes into towers and behead people on YouTube.
...even the Jewish solder who randomly kills unarmed civilians in Gaza.
...even the parents who abused you, and played favorites.
...even the ex-husband who cheated on you, and spreads lies about you.
...even the boss at work who writes you up to save his own tail.
...even the President who won the election, even though you voted against him.
...even the man who breaks into your house at night to rob you.

We need to get out of the business of hating people who are our enemies, and fighting against them.  We need to get out of the business of merely loving the people that love us back.  The most vile and godless men are capable of the same.  We need to think new thoughts, and think about the challenge of loving our enemies.

Of course, such a thing puts us in a tremendously vulnerable position.  Loving your enemies opens yourself to a lot of risk.  These same people may take advantage of you.  They may even harm you and your loved ones.  They may shoot you dead in the street.  They may bomb you into oblivion.  They may treat you even as they treated Jesus.

But we as the people of God can afford to take such risks.  Kill us though they may, we know that our lives are ultimately in the hands of God, and we know that even though we die, yet shall we live.  And we take the risk of loving those who hate us, with the hopes that through our demonstration of God's love for them through us, that they might be transformed from a people who are naturally born to hate, to a people who now even love their enemies.

Such is nothing short of a miracle.

And such is a greater cause to rally behind than any "justice" we may attempt to uphold and execute against those who wrong us and those whom we naturally love.  

Love your enemies.  It may not come to you naturally.  But it's not supposed to come to you naturally in the first place.