This is a tough one. To love an enemy-- say some random person from a country that is an "enemy" of your country-- could be fairly easy because you don't know the person and they don't know you. Rather it's the idea of a person some distance away. If we were enemies with Antarcticans, we could say, "while our countries or continents are at war, I love the Antarctican people." But to love someone closer to home who hates you, wishes harm to you and your family-- how do you love them? Fighting hate with hate doesn't work. Fighting hate with love can change the world. Does someone have an example of this kind of love in action? Please share.
Readings: Genesis 13:5-15:21; Matthew 5:27-48; Psalm 6:1-10; Proverbs 1:29-33
I think MLK had that love. I think about those times and how unjustly the Blacks were treated by the white people. I would have been BURNING with anger towards those people if I had been in their shoes. I would have been marching with Malcom X, not with MLK. But, he had it right.
ReplyDeleteI heard a totally cool explanation from Ray Vanderlaan about the whole smoking pot story in Genesis 15. He describes the covenant process as it was in that culture: the dominant party (call it Party A) approaches the lesser party (Party B) and offers a deal. Since Party A is in charge of the covenant, he sets the conditions. Party B either agrees or there is no deal. To seal the deal, the animal is sacrificed and is completely hacked in half. The two halves are laid apart from each other so that their blood flows together in the path between them. Party A then walks through the blood, getting the blood on his feet, and then Party B walks through the blood after him. The symbolism is that if either party breaks the covenant, what has been done to this animal here will be done to the defaulter.
Abram was Party B. If he had walked through that blood, the moment he sinned, he would have been in default of the covenant, so he would have essentially been signing his own death warrant. Instead, God walked through as Party A and then walked through again (the smoking pot) as Party B, thereby assuming the burden of bloody death should Abram default on the covenant. Which Abram did. And, which God then did, too. Cool stuff.
Oh, that was Paula, not John. Forgot to sign off.
ReplyDeleteVery cool stuff. Thank you, Paula!
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