“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” — MATTHEW 5:43-44

Our attitude to those who may commit a crime against us can’t be just a legal one. Though we uphold the law and must let it take its course, the attitude that characterizes our behaviour is to be love for our enemies – our enemies are, in fact, our neighbours.

The Jews in Jesus’ time did some faulty calculations around the command to love their neighbours as themselves. “Love my neighbour? Okay, then I don’t have to love my non-neighbour, and especially my enemy.” Jesus understood their thinking, and when asked by an expert of the law, “Who is my neighbour?” He answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Samaritans were people with whom the Jews had no dealings, and for 700 years had been despised by them. In the story Jesus told, a Jewish man had been beaten, robbed and left half dead on the side of the road. A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So did a Levite, but the one person who knelt down to help the Jewish man was, of all people, a Samaritan. He bandaged his wounds, put him on his donkey, brought him to an inn and paid the innkeeper to care for him. Who was the neighbour? The despised Samaritan.

The Jews had wrongly concluded that the command to love your neighbour implied that you could hate your enemy. In Luke 6:27-28, Jesus said, “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” In this world, with so much contention, bigotry, injustice, and crime affecting many of us, how are we able to keep those commands? Perhaps we need to ask ourselves, “Are we looking at our enemies through our eyes or through God’s eyes, knowing that He loves them?”

Loving our families, friends and good neighbours is easy, but Jesus asks, “What credit is that to you?” (Luke 6:32). The challenge in loving our enemy is allowing the love of God to govern every interaction with all our fellow people. The golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” comes from Jesus (Luke 6:31), but it begins with us.

PRAYER: Dear Precious Lord, Help me to be as loving and compassionate as You are. Bless me with your incredible grace that I may extend to others and love them the way You love me. Thank You, Lord.

TO REFLECT UPON: Has the love of Jesus helped me in my interactions with those who offend and antagonize me?