The Conundrum of Loving One's Enemies

This is what I wrote for my home church's website, to run January 25-29. I was very limited by the word limit so I really could not get into the topic at hand. But, it should just wet the appetite...to give pause on the topic of Loving One's Enemies. Let me know what you think. I honestly want to know. Perhaps, I should have gone with my other choice for a short essay: the early Christian practice of kissing :-). Here it is:

"I was in my school library recently and I was having a discussion with a friend. She was questioning the differences between the established patterns of traditional thought found in the old testament and Jesus’ antithesis of these accepted behaviors found in the new testament. My friend asked, “How can we stand up for justice in the world and still love our enemies? When we love our enemies are we somehow justifying their wrong doing, or excusing the injustices they impose on others?” What does Jesus mean as it’s attributed in the gospel of Matthew, “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,...” (Matt 5:43-44).

After our discussion, I went to my main source of wisdom for topics like this, Martin Luther King Jr. In November of 1957, King delivered a famous sermon on the subject of loving our enemies. For King, love held redemptive power and even though there is no excuse for the behavior of the injustice, the redemptive power of love can transform. King said that hate for hate intensifies the existence of hate, but if you can inject the hate with love, then the chain of hate is cut off. King said that loving our enemies starts with ourselves. It’s seeing the other with love because God loves that person. “When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.” For me, what remains is a tension of hating the consequences of the action while still loving the offender. Something to pray about."