Love Your Enemies

Matthew 5:43-45

Who is my neighbor? Who is my enemy? Can those who were once my neighbor become my enemy? Can someone be both my neighbor and my enemy?

Lately, I have felt very unvalued by my friends. Everyone is so focused on their life, or the lives of those they chose to be a part of, but my life is taken for granted. I feel this has been a constant way of my life. So, although these are friends who claim to love me, their disregard for my feelings make them an enemy to my life.

I've spent most of my life taking care of others, with no one to take care of me. Most of the time I'm ok with this, but at other times it gets overwhelming. I then withdraw until I realize I don't want to be alone and unused anymore. So I resume my role as helper, without addressing anything. I don't know if this is what it means to love our enemy. Loving our enemy doesn't make them any less of an enemy. By ignoring what's been done, we diminish our love for them. We say "I will forget about what you've done so I can love you" instead of "despite what you've done I will love you." The verses in Matthew prior to these talk about turning the other cheek.

There is an inherent problem with the phrase "forgive and forget." While we must forgive before we can love, and forgiveness means we don't hold things against others, to forget allows us to become vulnerable to the same thing happening, to us becoming part of a horrible cycle. Remembering allows us to put up necessary boundaries. We are not called to keep everyone close. Even Jesus had a few close friends among his many followers. It is necessary to know what role people play in our lives so we can love them for who they are, not resent them for not being who we created them in our mind to be.

"We must listen with our ears and our hearts or we will not get past the judgement of our eyes." - Malcolm Gladwell