Today we celebrate the Seventh Sunday of the year, and the last Sunday before Lent, which starts Wednesday. For several weeks, our lessons from Corinthians and Luke have concentrated on love — on what love is, and on how we are to love. Today’s readings take that a step further. Jesus tells us whom we are to love — our enemies.

Now the concept of loving your enemy was not completely foreign to the Jews of Old Testament times. One of the best examples is in today’s reading from First Samuel. David spares the life of Saul. But then, David was special, and so was Saul (He was God’s anointed before David was). The only person in the Old Testament who regularly practiced love of enemies was God. (Many of David’s psalms, including today’s, sing about God’s mercy.) But for the most part, the people of Israel loved their friends and killed their enemies.

What makes Christianity different is the fact that Jesus requires that we adopt love of our enemies as standard practice. He doesn’t say we should be a little careful how we handle an enemy who happens to be a prophet of God. He doesn’t say it would be nice if we were merciful enough to dispatch our enemies relatively painlessly. No. He says, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you and pray for those who maltreat you. Turn the other cheek."

Now that’s revolutionary. You won’t find that in the book of Deuteronomy! Many of the teachings of Jesus are in the Old Testament, and the Golden Rule is in just about every religion known to man. But this teaching "Love your enemies" is uniquely Christian.

When I was in grade school, I had an enemy. Well, maybe not an enemy. More an adversary, a nemesis. His name was Spike Schultz. He was the schoolyard bully, and I was the class geek. We went all through grade school together. As luck would have it, both Spike and I were sweet on the same girl — Shirley Schwein. Naturally (little tub of lard that I was) I never had a chance. After about four years of this, things somehow came to a head. I don’t even remember how it came about, but Spike and I were committed to a duel. It was to take place after school in a vacant lot on the next block. To get to it, we had to pass by my house. So the crowd put my coat over my head and surrounded me so my grandmother wouldn’t see me going by and interfere.

We arrived at the vacant lot, surrounded by this huge crowd, and the fight began. Now Spike was built like Dick Butkus; and I was built like Rodney Dangerfield. But I wasn’t scared; I was petrified. Nonetheless, there seemed no honorable way out, so I fought. For what seemed like an hour we scrapped among the rocks and broken bottles. Finally, somehow, it came to an end and was declared a draw. No serious damage was done to either of us.

At the time, I looked at this as an enormous victory. I fought Spike Schultz and survived! And for a while I wasn’t teased quite so unmercifully as usual.

But as I look back on that incident, I’m not so sure. I never made Spike a friend. I certainly never won the heart of Shirley Schwein. About the only thing I won was a boost in my self-esteem, for I had always considered myself an unmitigated coward.

A quarter of a century later, I had just completed 101 combat missions in Vietnam, and was stationed for the second time in Kunsan, Korea. The troops there, with no way to fight the enemy to the north, turned on each other. Serious racial problems were developing between the Black Panthers and the rednecks. Things were turning violent. For some reason, I volunteered to take on this problem for the wing commander.

I was warned that my most serious problem would be dealing with the head of the Black Panthers. Everybody was scared of him. They were just waiting for some excuse to throw him in the brig.

I decided not to handle this like I had Spike Schultz. I appointed a commission to help me solve the problem, and appointed the head of the Black Panthers to it, as well as the ringleader of the rednecks. At first, the black leader was beligerrant. They had a zillion gripes. The dining hall served nothing but redneck and honky food, and played nothing but cowboy music. The barbers didn’t know how to cut kinky black hair. The BX didn’t carry the combs they needed, and all the magazines were geared to the rednecks. There were fifty different country western magazines, and not a thing for African-Americans. So the first thing I did was solve all those problems. All it took was some phone calls. Well, when he saw that I was actually doing something to improve their life on the base, his attitude changed. Together, we turned our attention to the more serious problems of interracial violence. The leader of the Black Panthers personally went around confiscating switchblades from the black troops, and turned them in to me. Together, we walked into an off-base bar which had been excluding our black troops (The Koreans are even more prejudiced than we are.). When the manager tried to keep my black companions out, I told him that if they couldn’t be served there, no one would. If there was one more incident of discrimination, I would put his establishment off limits. Before long, we had teams of Black Panthers and rednecks going around together breaking up fights and nipping potential racial incidents in the bud. In all this, my right-hand man was the leader of the Black Panthers.

Now, I had no emotional attachment for the leader of the Black Panthers. I don’t even remember his name. But I had treated him with respect and met his needs. And by doing that, I had turned him from being an enemy to being a partner in meeting the needs of the community as a whole.

Seven years ago, our country faced a schoolyard bully named Saddam Hussein. Before the Gulf War started, he agreed to leave Kuwait unconditionally. But rather than let him capitulate while saving face by declaring victory, we insisted on humiliating him and wreaking havoc and devastation on his people. We killed a quarter of a million Iraqis. Since then, another million have died because of the lack of clean water caused by our bombing and the lack of medicine caused by our embargo. Hundreds of thousands of the dead have been children.

And what did we gain by our immoral, unjust war? Saddam Hussein still leads Iraq. And Kuwait once again is under the dictatorial rule of the Emir and his family. We not only failed to love our enemy. We failed to avoid killing people who were never our enemy. We butchered our friends along with our enemies.

How would Jesus have dealt with Saddam Hussein in 1991? How would he deal with him today?

Perhaps a more pertinent question: "How would Jesus deal with George Bush?" Because of the slaughter he authorized, he is a far worse war criminal than Saddam Hussein. And how will he deal with Bill Clinton if we bomb Iraqi civilians again?

"Love your enemies" sounds like foolishness to the ears of the world. It sounds like an impossibly high standard. It also sounds like something that can get you branded as a coward, something that can get you beat up. After all, you have to protect yourself, right? You have to protect your family, right? You have to protect your country, right? You have to protect the overseas financial interests of your multinational corporations, right? You have to execute criminals in Old Sparky, right? You have to kill your enemies in wars around the world, right?

Wrong! "Love your enemies," Jesus says.

In the 1980s, I spent years battling Reagan’s "Star Wars" space weapons scheme. I debated many government spokesmen. Among them were General Graham, the head of High Frontier, and General Abrahamson, the head of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in the Pentagon. General Graham always tried to attack me personally in his talks. One time he was so rude to me that the audience booed him and he was humiliated by media reporting of his ineptness and mean-spiritedness. He never debated me again. General Abrahamson, on the other hand, always treated me with respect. On one occasion, when I had not been scheduled to speak, he invited me to give an opposing view. We disagreed vehemently on the issue, and we were opponents in the public debate. But because of cordiality, respect, and consideration, we remained friends. When he retired from the Air Force, he became a top executive in industry, while General Graham faded into obscurity.

Which approach to an adversary proved to be the wisest in the long run? Maybe "Love your enemies" isn’t so ridiculous after all. "Love your enemies," Jesus said. What if he really meant it? Let us pray.

Dear Lord, you are merciful indeed. While we were still your enemies in our sin, you loved us. Help us to follow your example and love our enemies in turn. It isn’t easy, Lord. Our whole culture rebels against it. But with your help, Lord, we can do it. Amen.

Return to Bowman Sermons List

Return to #Top of Page