This post deals with loving our enemies in the world we face in our time. In it, I share much of myself – warts and all. I invite any and all of you to comment and share your experience of this time. I especially encourage our pastors to comment or write a full post. And by our agreement, Pastor Brent will respond on the posting of 9/19/25.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” -Matthew 5:43-45 NRSV
“You are familiar with the old written law, ‘love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘hate your enemies.’ I am challenging that. I am telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.” The Message Translation.
I AM UNABLE TO LOVE MY ENEMIES
By Graham Campbell
I try to faithfully follow the path that Jesus taught to the best of my ability. That path includes loving my enemies which in the darkness of these times I am unable to do.
The people running things want to hurt me and more importantly my family and many of the people I love. They oppose everything I have worked toward for 77 years. It is not just president “Heel Spurs” along with the “Tesla Buffoon,” but also the billionaires hiding in the shadows behind the walls of their palatial penthouses.
Frankly, I delight in the worldwide crash of the Tesla Swastikicars.
“Hey, Elon, what does it feel like to get no empathy?”
I won’t burn or destroy cars or sales rooms, but I’d like to.
I am new to this enemies thing. I’ve had people I did not like or who did not like me but never someone or a group of enemies systematically determined to hurt everyone and everything I love.
I am not used to being so consciously, intentionally mean spirited. In the past, if I perceived someone as an enemy I simply walked away. And no one ever slapped me across the face, so I never had to turn the other cheek. Of course, there were bullies in school, but it was easy enough to stay out of their range. But now, people I love are in range.
I’m not a fan of biblical literalism or of predictions of “the last days” from the book of Revelations, but for two thousand years the church warned of the approaching “Anti-Christ” (I John 2:18) or as Paul refers to him “The man of lawlessness” (II Thessalonians 2:3-4). And now that he seems to finally appear, much of the church votes for him. I don’t feel too kindly toward most of them either.
Many of us are in the cross hairs of ICE sniper rifles with targets on our back: immigrants, LGBTQ+ community, and less directly those of us dependent on social security, health care, and education visas. Recently RFK Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, added people diagnosed with Autism. Attacks on social security and health care will cripple the ability of many of our members to keep up with our pledges. As an immigrant to this community who became a citizen when my parents did, I see this administration changing the rights of those who have ‘birth right’ citizenship and know the rules that make me a citizen might be next. For the first time in over seventy years, my country no longer feels safe. For the first time, I feel what others feel. I feel what African Americans have felt about the police for far too long. Early in April, I rode with an African American woman LYFT driver hoping all her lights were working appropriately so we would not be stopped. What if they ask me for my ‘papers’ of citizenship. Ten minutes of fear for me, ten generations for her.
And I don’t forgive those who threaten those I love. God might, but I don’t / can’t. They can slap me. I am not sure how I would respond. But touching my family and loved ones is an entirely different matter.
In the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dylan wrote in his song “Masters of War,”
You hide in your mansions
While the young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world.
For threatenin’ my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins.
They threaten my babies and their babies and their potential babies.
I have lived my life, as a white, straight, old, guy in the shade of privilege I barely knew I had but which is now evaporating.
I know in a very real way this threatens to allow the hate-filled people to win. In this, my inner light of Jesus is dimmed, not extinguished but definitely dampened. It pulls me into their hate-filled and destructive energies which are exhausting. My inner light flickers. I want mostly to sleep.
Remembering that Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear” helps. But he is a better man than I. I am not as strong as he was. He was barraged with more hate than any man in the second half of the 20th century and still refused to retaliate.
And I will not back down. As Tom Petty sang, “You can drag me through the gates of hell. But I won’t back down.” At least I hope not. And I will not silently stand by until it is too late. I will learn from Pastor Martin Niemoeller in Germany.
First They Came
By Pastor Martin Niemoeller
First, they came for the communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade Unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak for me.
Niemoeller was a pastor in the German Church and like much of the church was complicit with the holocaust and later repented.
I will speak out, often not very politely or quietly and not without bitterness about how much has been lost. I will speak non-violently. As I said earlier, I will not burn Tesla vehicles, but I will be at the Tesla protests in Auburn. What my inner disrupter wants to see is a fund raiser for those being deported or imprisoned which finds a discarded Swasti-car and charges $10 for three hits with a sledgehammer. That is unlikely to happen, but I admit I’d pay for at least nine cracks myself. I know that Jesus might not approve, but not acting on that fantasy is the best I can promise.
I will show up at every peaceful event I can get to. And perhaps I will grow enough over time, to love even my enemies but to be honest I am not there yet. At the next protest/ rally/ demonstration event I plan to wrap myself in our two flags from the front steps (Canada & Ukraine) of our home.
So, I call upon our pastor(s) to reply and help me with this struggle. And I also encourage any of our church family to also join in the dialogue.
