Saturday of First Week in Lent: Loving And Forgiving When It Is Difficult

Today's Scripture Reading

Matthew 5: 43-48 (NRSV)

 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to 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 his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 

Blog Reflection

If you opened this blog post and found this Gospel reading about loving your enemies and just want to turn away, because it pisses you off, you are not alone.  This Gospel reading can really make me sick in the head.  If the Gospel itself doesn't make me angry telling me that I have to forgive my enemies, the often poor spiritual abuses that come from pulpits all over Christendom using this reading, does.  

Loving your enemies, is easy when you are a white, heterosexual, Christian male who has been privileged just because since the day you were born.  For those of us who have lost while they all gained, asking us to love our enemies is not so simple.

Often the hardest thing for children who have been abused by their parents, is that they love them very much. As they get older and the reality of how devastating the abuse was, it becomes really hard to forgive and to love those who were so cruel.  How difficult it is for us to love those whom God entrusted to love and nurture us.  Many of us, have wounds so deep, that we just cannot forgive God or those who have abused their relationships to us.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr once said:

First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one's enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It is also necessary to realize that the forgiving act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression. The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or the canceling of a debt. The words "I will forgive you, but I'll never forget what you've done" never explain the real nature of forgiveness. Certainly one can never forget, if that means erasing it totally from his mind. But when we forgive, we forget in the sense that the evil deed is no longer a mental block impeding a new relationship. Likewise, we can never say, "I will forgive you, but I won't have anything further to do with you." Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again.

Without this, no man can love his enemies. The degree to which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we are able to love our enemies.

Second, we must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy. Each of us has something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. A persistent civil war rages within all of our lives. Something within us causes us to lament with Ovid, the Latin poet, "I see and approve the better things, but follow worse," or to agree with Plato that human personality is like a charioteer having two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in a different direction, or to repeat with the Apostle Paul, "The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."

This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. When we look beneath the surface, beneath. the impulsive evil deed, we see within our enemy-neighbor a measure of goodness and know that the viciousness and evilness of his acts are not quite representative of all that he is. We see him in a new light. We recognize that his hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this, we know God's image is ineffably etched in being. Then we love our enemies by realizing that they are not totally bad and that they are not beyond the reach of God's redemptive love.

Now if a man like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who faced the racists of his time can come to an understanding like this, so can all of us.  Dr. King knew death threats on a daily basis.  Eventually, he was shot and killed by an individual who demostrated the worst of us, when carrying prejudice with violence as a solution in our hearts.  

Forgiving someone does not mean that we do not continue to "speak the truth in love" (see Eph. 4: 15)..   It means we continue to speak out so as to help one understand.  Loving our enemies does not mean we sit back and allow them to spread further injustices at our expense.  It means that we continue to enlighten others by telling our stories of how we came out as LGBT people of Faith, and found Jesus Christ to be our best friend and Savior, while the rest of the Church was trying to shame us and tell us we need to change who we are.  We need to tell about how God continues to inspire us to holiness and wholeness by living in healthy and life-giving relationships with our partners, friends and families.  Even while Christianist groups continue to spread false information,and corrupt politics in the Name of their god who hates and judges.  We need to live our own lives, as in the presence of a holy and inclusive God, who in Jesus Christ redeemed us through his death and resurrection and continues to sanctify us and call us to be examples of God's hospitality and reconciliation.

Prayers

O God, by your Word you marvelously carry out the workof reconciliation:  Grant that in our Lenten fast we may be devoted to you with all our hearts, and united with one another in prayer adn holy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (Collect for Saturday of the First Week in Lent. Holy Women, Holy Men, Celebrating the Saints, p. 41).

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have
made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and
make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily
lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission
and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen. (Collect for Ash Wednesday, Book of Common Prayer, p. 217).

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us
through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole
human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and
confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in
your good time, all nations and races may serve you in
harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.  (Prayer for the Human Family, Book of Common Prayer, p. 815).

 O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love
our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth:
deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in
your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for our Enemies, Book of Common Prayer, p. 816).