I grew up watching those old black and white Westerns—the kind
where the bad guys wore the black hats and the good guys wore white hats, and
you always knew which one was which. Those were the days of heroes.
The good guys were good and the bad guys were bad.
But movies changed with the advent of color. What you
thought was a black hat turns out to actually be royal blue. What you
thought was a white hat is actually bright yellow. And the gray dress
that the leading wore—it's a red dress after all. Does that distort the
way you see her? It may, if you understand color symbolism at all.
The fact is that color changes everything. Red dresses mean
something, don't they? And if the hero turns yellow, what does that say
about him? And what about a royal color worn by the "bad guys?"
Now we're all confused, aren't we?
Modern writing recognizes that real human beings are more
complicated than the flat characters of black-and-white Westerns. Modern
movies are more apt to reveal both a hero’s flaws and a bad guy’s
conflicted emotions. Good guys aren’t
all good, and nobody is completely bad. The
anti-hero
has emerged in literature and in movies, realistically revealing the internal
struggles experienced by all good guys and bad guys.
But that’s not the way we see it—at least not in our own
lives. We tend to group people into categories
of “good” and “bad.” And, of course, we’re
the ones wearing the white hats. It’s
impossible that we might be the bad guys, isn’t it? And, since we’re the good guys, then the ones
who oppose us—let’s call them “enemies”—they must surely be all bad.
Of course, we have good reason for perceiving people as bad when
they appear to us as threats. Some of
our enemies threaten our physical safety.
Terrorist organizations like ISIS and nations like North Korea appear at
the top of our lists, while certain individuals may come to your own mind. Then other enemies threaten
relationships. While they are no
physical danger, they mistreat or mislead the ones you love. You may feel your place has been usurped in a
friendship or marriage. Perhaps your
younger teenager is hanging out with a new bunch of friends, and you’re having
a difficult time dealing with the fact that as a parent you are no longer the
primary influence in his life. All these
can qualify as enemies if they make you feel defensive.
Your enemy might not be a physical or relationship threat, yet
they challenge your ideologies in a way that makes you angry. Maybe they have a different morality from
you, and you’re concerned about the influence they will have on your
grandchildren, or on society as a whole.
Ideological enemies might have different politics than you, or a
different biblical interpretation from you.
They make you feel uneasy because, if you’re honest with yourself, you
just don’t know how you might handle the shift if you were to find out that
they were right and you were wrong.
(And, of course, you’re positive that you’re right.)
Financial enemies might be the people who moved in next door to
you, who have those loud parties at night, and who throw trash around their
yard. Because they let their house get
run down, it brings down the property value of the whole neighborhood. Maybe they’re even willing to work the same
job for less money than you, or maybe they don’t work at all, so you see them
as a threat to your financial security.
This makes you feel selfish in your dealings with them.
Defensive, angry, selfish—the list goes on and on. An enemy is someone who brings out the
negative in you. When you cry out for
justice, what you really mean is revenge.
They make you rage. They make you
want to launch a preemptive strike against them. Get them before they get you.
But is this God’s way?
In Luke chapter 6, Jesus gives a different strategy for dealing
with enemies. He tells us to love them
and pray for them. Bless them, do good
to them, and even yield to them. Give to
them. Lend to them, expecting nothing
back in return. In short he said, “Treat others the same way you want them
to treat you (6:31 NASB[i]).” We call this the “Golden Rule.” You see, Christians are supposed to be
different. We’re not supposed to act
like the rest of the world, which cries out for an eye for an eye. Instead of a preemptive strike of violence or
hatred or manipulation, why not try a preemptive strike of love?
You might say, “You just don’t understand who I have to deal
with. This person is just plain evil!” Yet Jesus says that the Father is “kind to ungrateful and evil men (6:35b).” Christians are supposed to be like Christ—it’s
just that simple. Jesus says that in
response to people like this you should “Be
merciful, just as your Father is merciful (6:36).” You may insist that these people are
horribly sinful, and deserve judgment or punishment. But the Bible says, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).” This includes you, too. The more you insist on judgment and
punishment for them, the more you insist on it for yourself, because you’re no
less a sinner than they are. It’s so
much better to pray, “Forgive us our
debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors (Matthew 6:12).” In Luke 6:37-38, Jesus says:
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and
do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be
pardoned. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. They
will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken
together, and running
over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”
This means that God will use the same measure to judge you that
you have used to judge others. God will
use the same measure to punish you that you have used to punish others. So, even if you’re thinking selfishly then
you should know that treating your enemies with love is just spiritual
self-preservation.
So be good to your enemies—and not so that you can transform them,
but so that you can change your own heart towards them. One mistaken way that Christians often “love”
“sinners” is that we forgive and accept them as long as they change their ways
and become “like us.” We tell them that
God will love them if only they will stop being—well, them. We make public
statements about how bad they are just so that no one will mistakenly believe
that we actually approve of them. We
want them to know just how bad they are so that they will want to be like
us. But
why would they want to be like us if we’re going to be like that? Which is worse, their sin—or your
judgment and treatment of them because of their sin? How are you any less of a sinner than
they? Maybe it’s your heart that needs
to change, before they’re ready to change theirs in response to you. In Luke 6:39b, 41-42, Jesus says:
“A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both
fall into a pit?...Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye,
but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how
can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in
your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You
hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
Jesus says there are a lot of Christians who are locked in a
blinding sin of judgment of our neighbors, labeling them as “bad guys” when
they’re really just “guys” who are struggling the same way that we are. Who is worse—the one who is honest about the
speck that she has in her eye, or the Christian who denies the log that he has
in his own, all the while trying to make the speck-eyed person more like
himself? Why would she want to be like him?
When it comes to our enemies, our goal is not to destroy them by
violence or hatred, or even by making them “fix themselves” and become like
us. Abraham Lincoln had it right when he
said, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” In other words, don’t change them—change yourself
by praying for them and doing good
things for them until your attitude toward them has become like Christ’s. God wants to help you stop seeing people as
if they’re characters in an old black-and-white Western. He wants to open your eyes and help you see
in vibrant color, to understand that your friends and your enemies are deeper
human beings than you once imagined. Instead
of pointing your finger in judgment, open your arms in acceptance and
friendship. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (6:36).” And the Father of mercy will have mercy
on you as well.
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