You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’

But I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that

you may be children of your Father in heaven. —Matthew 5:43–45

In the United States few public figures have spoken more plainly and powerfully about

Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies than the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This

was not an abstract theological question for Dr. King. He wrestled practically and at

great cost with how to love his enemies, both through prayer and through nonviolent

direct action. The following is an excerpt from King’s sermon “Loving Your Enemies.”

Probably no admonition of Jesus has been more difficult to follow than the command to

“love your enemies.” Some people have sincerely felt that its actual practice is not

possible. It is easy, they say, to love those who love you, but how can one love those

who openly and insidiously seek to defeat you? . . .

This command of Jesus challenges us with new urgency. Upheaval after upheaval has

reminded us that modern humanity is traveling along a road called hate, in a journey

that will bring us to destruction. . . . Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian

dreamer, the command to love one’s enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival.

Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world. Jesus is

not an impractical idealist: he is the practical realist.

I am certain that Jesus understood the difficulty inherent in the act of loving one’s

enemy. He never joined the ranks of those who talk glibly about the easiness of the

moral life. He realized that every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent

and total surrender to God. So when Jesus said “Love your enemy,” he was not

unmindful of its stringent qualities. Yet he meant every word of it. Our responsibility as

Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it

out in our daily lives. . . .

When Jesus bids us to love our enemies, he is speaking of neither eros [romantic love]

or philia [reciprocal love of friends]; he is speaking of agape[love], understanding and

creative, redemptive goodwill for all people. Only by following this way and responding

with this type of love are we able to be children of our Father who is in Heaven.

What if you ask God to show you what it would look like to love your enemies this

week?