Amy and Loving Your Enemies

Loving Your Enemies

But I say to you who are willing to hear: Love your enemies...(Luke 6:27 CEB)

When you rise to the level of love, of its beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system. from "Loving Your Enemies," sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on November 17, 1957, by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

How do we love our enemies? Why should we love our enemies? Isn't Jesus teaching passivity and tolerance of abuse and injustice in this passage?

While there are some in the Christian tradition that do misuse these verses to justify the unjustifiable, there are many others like twentieth-century theologian Walter Wink who argue that Jesus is teaching a third way here. This third way is not retribution and meeting violence with more violence, nor is the third way is passivity and surrender and apathy to violence and harm.

Martin Luther King preached often on the practicalities of loving enemies. This brief excerpt from a 1957 sermon gives us another look at love. We love one another as Jesus teaches - we love ourselves as Jesus teaches - we love God as Jesus teaches - when we focus our energies on defeating the societal and cultural system that separate us into enemies and friends, oppressors and oppressed. We actually love our neighbors when we work to defeat these systems that have us all caught up in cycles of violence that deny our humanity.

We continue hearing Jesus' Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6: 27-38) this upcoming Sunday. Pray through this passage this week. What do you hear?