Labels: dangerously powerful

"Love your enemies"

Seventh Sunday after Epiphany C - Genesis 45:3-11, 15, 1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50, Luke 6:27-38

Image by Christine from Pixabay

I have long believed that Jesus and John the Baptist were close. When John was murdered by Herod as party entertainment, I imagine that Jesus must have felt not only grief but rage and the despair that comes from feeling powerless. Admittedly, more in my imagination than in the text¹, after John’s death, Jesus withdrew for a while to figure out what to do with those feelings.

It helps me to believe that “love your enemies” came from someone who knew the heartbreak, rage and despair of losing a loved one to another person’s cruelty.

I do not believe that God uses cruelty or evil in order to achieve a good result. It is always wrong to assault someone, throw them in a pit and sell them into slavery as in the Joseph story. Or to crucify them as in the Jesus story. Period. That Joseph and Jesus could later forgive does not mean that God wills or endorses evil.²

So. What do we do with “love your enemies.”

Hearing Sunday’s gospel this year, I am thinking about the power of labels. As anyone who has ever tried to remove a label knows, they hide a lot. They are not always accurate and they can be hard to get off.

Labeling a person as “an enemy” is dangerously powerful. A label objectifies and dehumanizes. Someone who is “an enemy,” can with less remorse be terrorized, arrested, separated from family, sent to a concentration camp and left there. Or worse.

Whether the label is attached to an ICE agent or a refugee, it hides the humanity — the image of God — which we believe is to be found in every person.

Some days I find it difficult to remember that. It helps me to believe that “love your enemies” came from someone who knew the heartbreak, rage and despair of losing a loved one to another person’s cruelty.

Peace.

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I am taking a break so no post next Friday. The Sunday following — March 2 — the gospel is the Transfiguration. You know the story… Jesus goes up the mountain to pray and is seen in conversation with Moses and Elijah.

Mosaic of the Transfiguration, Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai [PD-US,Art]

If you were going up the mountain to pray, who would you want to be in conversation with? Enjoy exploring the possibilities! Feel free to share the two or three (more?) you decide on in the comment section to this post.

I’ll be posting again on March 7, the Friday before Lent 1. As always, I am grateful for your presence here. Thank you for reading!

1. The text only says that after John was arrested, Jesus fled Judea for Galilee (Mtt.4:12.) Still in Galilee when he learned of John’s murder, Jesus “withdrew… to a deserted place by himself.” (Mtt.14:13)

2. "Turn the other cheek” is a distinct question. “Love your enemies” may not always mean “turn the other cheek.”