Seven Learning To Bless Those Who Curse Us

The law of the limits of love and the right to vengeance was clear and familiar to all Jews, coming straight from Leviticus: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:18).

Loving your neighbor was the basic expectation, the minimum standard, in the same way that giving money to your kin was a basic requirement of the law. But if a person was not your neighbor or kin, then you were not obligated to love him or her. And it was perfectly acceptable to hate your enemies. These were the dominant narratives of those who listened to the Sermon.

But Jesus asks for much more. He commands his people to love their enemies. What does it mean to love someone? To most people love is a feeling, an emotion. But the Greek word agapao (or agape4) refers not to a feeling but to an action. To love (agapao) is to will the good of another. It does not entail an emotion, loving or even liking a person. We will their good and demonstrate it in action. This is a crucial point. Loving our enemies seems impossible to us because we think, I can never feel love for a person who abuses me. Jesus is not asking his apprentices to feel love but to act in love toward everyone, including our enemies.

It’s easy to love those who love us: even the tax collectors do that. It is hard to love those who would harm us. It’s easy to pray for people we love, but not for those who persecute us. Nonetheless, it can be done. And when we do, we are behaving as our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:44). God loves his enemies by acting for their good.

When we love our enemies, we are acting like our Father and Jesus.

Jesus practiced what he preached. He was beaten and spit on, yet he did not retaliate. He was tortured and did not lash out. He loved people who hated him and forgave the people who executed him. Jesus is not asking us to do something he himself would not do. He invites us to a way of living that transcends the normal course of action. Again, outside of the kingdom and without the strength of the indwelling Christ, we cannot do this. In our own flesh (sarx) we do not have the capacity to behave in these extraordinary ways. However, we follow an extraordinary God who offers extraordinary resources.

David Augsburger observes, “[Jesus] chose the way of the cross as the clearest expression of how God confronts and deals with human evil, not by responding in kind, giving evil for evil, but by extending self-giving, nonresistant love.” Jesus’ apprentices refuse to use violence not because of an abstract principle but because we are his disciples; we do things as he did. We do what he taught in order to become the kind of person he was.

Every time we retaliate we are operating by the narratives of the kingdom of this world. Each time we curse our enemies we are affirming our faith in the narratives of the life without God. When we refuse to freely give, we demonstrate our allegiance to the world’s narratives of scarcity and fear. When we hate our enemies we betray the God who loves his enemies. Conversely, when we pray for and bless those who curse us, we align ourselves with God and his kingdom. We are doing what Jesus did.

To cross the bridge from selfishness to generosity we need even more than new narratives; we will need the power of the indwelling Christ. In two beautiful passages Miroslav Volf explains how Christians are “more than enough” people:

We are “more than enough” people not because of the size of our bank account or the number of our accomplishments, but because Christ dwells in us. Our value is immense, and our world is safe, safe for us to give and to sacrifice our resources.

Outside of the kingdom we are not-enough people, always searching for our identity and happiness in material things; our “wanting will always outpace our having.” Volf describes the one indwelt by Christ as “a rich self”:

The spiritually rich self is a “more than enough” person who is conscious of being indwelt by Christ. Such a person is able to cross the bridge from self-centeredness to generosity because there is no fear of coming out short. God is with us and for us and able to provide for us.

God is with us—so the need to retaliate is diminished. God has an endless supply of resources—so the need to hang on to possessions decreases. God is looking out for our needs—so we can take the time to go the extra mile. God is the real owner of all we have—so the need to hoard and protect it diminishes. Kingdom identity (I am one in whom Christ dwells) and kingdom awareness (I am in the strong and secure kingdom of God) are the keys to doing what Jesus calls us to do. With these we can learn how to become radically generous and to live extraordinary lives.

Jesus is calling his apprentices to be extraordinary. Earlier in the Sermon he told us we could become the salt of the earth and light of the world. He urges us to live with a higher standard than mere justice. He calls us to live by the law of love. He tells us that in so doing we become “perfect” as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). The word perfect causes a problem for many of us because we think it means moral flawlessness, which we know is impossible. The Greek word used here is teleios, which refers to a kind of spiritual maturity. We should not expect to be able to fulfill all that Jesus is asking of us right away. Maturity takes time. But we must give the kingdom of God a chance to operate in our lives. The following are three stories of people who dared to be extraordinary.

Pope John Paul.

Steven.

The mothers of Boyle Heights.

What I love about these stories is how they bear witness to God. We behave this way because God behaves this way. God loves his enemies and forgives those who hate him. We conform to this reality over time, and should not expect overnight change. In time we learn to love and pray for those we once thought of as competitors, and perhaps one day we will face our enemies and be able to wish them well.

I opened with a story about my friend Jane, who was fired yet dealt with those who criticized her with kingdom aplomb. It did not take long for her to find another coaching job. Halfway through her first season with her new team she sent me the following email:

After reading it I opened my tattered copy of Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy and read these words aloud from a page I had dog-eared long ago, because they reminded me of what Jane had experienced. Dallas is describing how those who live in the kingdom of God find comfort, even in trial, and stand firm when under duress:

Jane is living proof that the kingdom is never in trouble, and neither are those who dwell in it.

Most of us will not be slapped or sued this week, and hopefully none of us will be cursed or persecuted. For this reason we can easily sidestep this section of the Sermon on the Mount and think, Good thing I don’t have to turn my cheek or offer my accuser my whole wardrobe. But the core teaching is to begin seeing those who are a threat to us in a different light. Instead of retaliating, Jesus is asking us to bless those who harm us. It might be a good practice to think of someone who is your enemy—someone who you know is actively pursuing your demise. Many of us will be hard-pressed to come up with an authentic enemy.

So I would like you to scale it down a little and take a smaller step in obeying Jesus commands. I want you to pray for the success of a competitor. A competitor is anyone you are measured against, anyone whose success in some way diminishes yours. It might be a business competitor or someone you compete against in school or in sports. Perhaps it is a parent whose child competes with your child in athletics or the fine arts. If you are a pastor, you might want to pray for the success of nearby churches.

Ask God to reveal these people or institutions to you.

Some have said to me, “To be honest, I really do not have any competitors.” If that is the case, think of someone who causes difficulty in your life. My wife calls these people “irregular persons”—people who get under our skin or do things that causes us problems. Choose a competitor or difficult person. Pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit about who you should pray for.

It usually doesn’t take long to figure out which persons or institutions are our competitors, but once we begin praying for them we notice an inner tension; namely, we don’t really want them to succeed. At first we merely say it and don’t necessarily feel it. That is OK. Be at peace about this. This is a slow process. As we do it over time we will begin to notice our feelings change. Whenever I engage in this exercise something strange happens. I won’t tell you what that is. You will soon discover it for yourself. And when you do, you’ll appreciate the wisdom of Jesus and his command to pray for your enemies.