Love Your Enemies

You have heard it said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. - Matthew 5:43-44

I was taking the back streets to my OA meeting, and stopped at a stop sign. As soon as I pulled forward, I heard someone behind me lay into his horn. Not just a short toot to call something to my attention, nor a single blast of frustration, but repeated pounding. I looked in my rearview mirror, and saw a man giving me the finger, still pounding his horn, face screwed up in fury. What did I do? I wondered. (I'm female, plus I'm from Minnesota, so I always think it's something I did.) I didn't think I cut him off, there was no opportunity. Meanwhile, he continued to pound his horn, and jab his middle finger at me, even as he turned the corner. Quite an accomplishment of coordination, actually. But why?

I suddenly remembered my bumpersticker that reads: "We support the freedom to marry. Unitarian Universalists standing on the side of love." There's a rainbow off to the side, in case you didn't quite get it. Well I'll be, I thought. I've finally stood up in such a way as to draw ire. I thought about my church, and the story we proudly tell about hosting James Farmer to speak to us about integration in the 1960s, and someone burning a cross on our lawn. This is certainly on a smaller scale, but it feels like a badge of honor.

And I think about Jesus' instruction to us to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us. Now in his day, that probably meant the Romans, and one certainly need do nothing to have an enemy in one's life. But there had to have been ways for you to keep your head down, never speak out, never draw a hostile response. And that wasn't the choice he made. In our day, I think for those of us in the majority - white, middle class, part of nice, wholesome heterosexual marriages - it takes a lot for us to even have an enemy, or come face to face with them. It's pretty easy to preach about love, and I often do. Seldom do I stick out visibly enough in loving someone that others find objectionable that the hatred comes out in response.

And I am praying for this man.