Have you ever felt like someone was an enemy? Whether in the schoolyard, at work or in the community, many of us have had the experience of feeling at loggerheads with an individual or a group. Sometimes it is because of differing values or personalities; sometimes it is political and sometimes it is because of regional or national conflict. What do we do when our animosity for someone lodges itself in our soul?
Jesus is clear about this. In Matthew,
Jesus says we are to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43, NRSV). Luke phrases it slightly differently: “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who revile you” (Luke 6:27-28).
While Matthew uses the verbs love and pray, Luke adds do good and bless to those actions. The reason for doing so, says Matthew, has nothing to do with our enemy and everything to do with the character of God. God does not withhold the sun and rain from those who are evil, and we are to treat others with the love, good will, and blessing that God gives to us all. If we want to be more like God, we need to act as God does.
It is not easy. But praying for someone is a first step. And by praying, I do not mean “praying against” someone. Praying against someone is what we do when we pray that God will change them; that God will help them see the error of their ways; that they will be nicer, etc. Our judgments of them are woven into prayers like that and just reinforce our animosity towards them.
Praying for someone is thinking about them and what their life is like, and then asking God to meet them in their difficulties or to bless them in their activities or to heal their pain or to surround them with love.
If we can’t do that — and sometimes we are too angry for anything positive — we can always say to God, “I’m too angry at this person (or my hatred of them is getting in the way of prayer). I give them to you. Please love them because I cannot right now.” That too is a prayer for them.
The funny thing about praying for someone in this way is that it can be transformative. They may or may not change, but we often do.
At one point in my young Christian life, I was a student in a household of students choosing to live together in Christian community. We had evening prayer times, held a Bible study together, shared the household tasks, and so on. But after a few months, we also discovered that we could irritate one another, disagree on points of belief and struggle over who was in charge of what. Our common life disintegrated.
In desperation, I began to pray for the person with whom I had the most difficulty. We had stopped speaking to one another, so praying in the absence of daily interactions was a way of seeking reconciliation when it seemed impossible. What I discovered was that my attitude toward them changed even when they did not. I was less judgmental about them and less likely to talk critically about them with others.
Praying for them made them less of an enemy because prayer was creating within me a space for compassion and love. Slowly the fractured life of our community began to repair. We were able to come together to deal with issues and resume the activities we shared.
One additional piece of wisdom from Jesus on this: “Do not judge others” (Matthew 7:1). Judging others is one of the steps in making others our enemies. In our current political and social climate, judging others is commonplace. We judge people we don’t know on the basis of little real information about them and then wonder why social tension and hate crimes are on the rise.
As we begin Lent and determine what our Lenten discipline might be, consider trying not to judge others — even those against whom you have a good case. Instead let’s pray for those with whom we disagree or whom we dislike. If we do that we might be surprised by the resurrection of love and joy in our lives by Easter!
Canon Cheryl Toth is a retired priest in the Diocese of Qu’Appelle still actively involved in congregational life. She is an honorary assistant at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
