But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, (ESV)

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, (NIV)

“But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. (NLT)

Dive Deeper:

Love In the Clouds
When was the last time a rom-com trailer came out that caused anticipation? The explosive movie genre of the 90s has since seemed to vanish from the box office. In its place, we as a culture have become fascinated with self-discovery stories. You know the ones where the main character journeys to figure out who they really are. Now these are compelling stories to watch unfold because the dominating philosophy today is to love yourself. So we have traded in glamorized love stories between actors like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan for Margot Robbie uncovering what it means to be Barbie.

Now I would submit that the reason both these genres have their day on the big screen is because they are a dream to our reality. We have to go watch them in a theater because in the real world, things don’t work the same way. Relationships have real challenges that movies won’t cover. Discovering yourself only leads you on a path of your desires which are fleeting and often destructive. The point is that movies, whether centered on romantic love or self love, are up in the clouds. They make for good stories, but they don’t work in our real-life experience.

Concrete Love
As we continue to consider what it means to walk worthy of our calling from God, and specifically zone in on love which binds every other virtue together, we are met this week with one of the most challenging, counter-intuitive teachings from Jesus. Love your enemies. Pretty straightforward and to the point and I don’t think that is an accident. Jesus, when teaching on love, focused directly on our attitudes, words, and actions. He doesn’t talk about romance or pleasing ourselves, He shares stories like that of the Good Samaritan. He speaks of sacrifice, generosity, and outward focus on others.

This strikes our hearts to the core because the more we sit under Jesus' teaching the more we recognize love is concrete. Love is not wispy like the clouds. Love is solid. And like concrete, love is hard. Dorthy Day said, “Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” Isn’t that the truth? Take a moment and think, have you ever tried to love someone who felt like an enemy? I bet it was anything but romantic. It is excruciating to offer continual mercy and get hurt. It is horrible to extend generosity and only get hatred back. It is cruel to attempt to love an enemy. But that’s what Jesus did.

How To Overcome
“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:10; emphasis added). Jesus came teaching and living concrete love to overcome the evil that plagues our world. Now today, for us, the call is the same. It is ridiculously hard to do and that's the point. We are incapable alone. Therefore, we can’t trust ourselves to do this, but when we recognize the love of God and rely on His Spirit, we are empowered to sacrifice for others. Even our enemies. That kind of love or sacrifice, displayed in us, is the only hope for our world. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it’s looking for.” This type of love is painful but it’s what lasts in the end. Unlike the love in the clouds our culture chases, concrete love like Jesus on the cross has concrete consequences. Love that overcomes.

Written by Ben Hesch