“Bad Guy” Blessings

Recently, our five-year-old son, Luke, innocently asked, “Mommy, why do we have to love our enemies too?”

Simple question.  Not-so-simple answer.

At first, I said, “Because Jesus tells us to love them.”  But then I realized this was the spiritual equivalent of “because I said so” and I decided it wasn’t good enough.

I was searching for words, doing that thing that parents of small children have to do, when you want to give them an honest answer but need it to be simple and concise.  You take a big, complex topic and whittle it down to the most important thing in a matter of seconds (it’s exhausting, but a great challenge).

So I said, “We have to love our enemies so we won’t become like them.”

At the time I wasn’t even sure if it made any sense, but Luke accepted it and moved on.

I wrote down Luke’s question so I could mull it over later.  And then last week Lela took my hand, and out of the blue, we had this little conversation:

Lela:  “Mommy, you know when bad guys capture good guys?

Me:  “Um, yes?” (not yet sure where this was going)

Lela:  “Well, I think the bad guys don’t know that God made them and He loves them.  So I don’t think they know they are being bad.”

Me:  “I think you are right.  That’s why, when Jesus was on the cross, He prayed “Forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”

Of course, after this, Lela bounced away and the conversation was over.

But there was something about what she said that caught my attention.  I found myself asking if I see the “bad guys” with compassion.  In a way, Lela’s view of a bad guy gives him the benefit of a doubt.  It’s hard for her to imagine anyone choosing to be bad if they know that God loves them.

When you have little kids, you have to grab on to those random moments when you can see into their hearts and minds to remind you that God is at work.  I don’t know about your kids, but mine can spout something CS Lewis-worthy, and then turn around and sing the diarrhea song and have a burping contest.  They are incredibly wise little creatures sometimes, but the wisdom is hidden among all things loud, silly and gross.

Lela’s statement did remind me of a CS Lewis quote:  “You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping.  You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly:  while you are making them you cannot see them.  You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk.  Good people know about both good and evil:  bad people do not know about either.”  Mere Christianity, CS Lewis

We all love to divide things into right or wrong, good or bad – it’s nice when the answers are clear.  But Jesus muddies this up by telling us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. (Matt. 5:44)

It might be crystal clear to us that “they” are bad and “we” are good.  “They” are wrong and “we” are right.  But Jesus blows up our neat little “us vs. them” world.

A lot of Jesus’ teachings are counter-intuitive and make us scratch our heads in confusion.  If someone hates me, I’m supposed to love him?  If someone treats me like crap, I’m supposed to pray for him?

And He took it a step further because He didn’t just teach it; He lived it.  After being persecuted and treated in a way that would make anyone want to explode with anger, Jesus still loved.  He prayed for the forgiveness of His oppressors.  He had compassion on us when we didn’t understand.

I told Luke that we have to love our enemies so we won’t become like them, but this is only partially true.  Yes, hate generates hate, and if we treat our enemies the way they treat us, then we become like them.  But the greater reason we have to love our enemies is so we can love the way God loves us.

I hate to admit that I don’t spend a lot of prayer time on people I don’t like.  There have been a few times in my life where I felt forced to because I didn’t know what else to do.   But I’m not generally an angry person, so it is rare for me to feel compelled to pray for someone who makes me angry.

Casey, our oldest daughter, came to us when she was sixteen years old.  The way God formed our family is truly amazing and I hope to tell that story one day.  But in those early days, I was pretty angry with her biological mother for some of the decisions she made and the negative impact those decisions were having on her daughters.  I knew I had to deal with the anger because I never wanted to diminish or tarnish the love that Casey had for her mother.  So I reluctantly began to pray for her Mom.

At first it was hard to pray for Casey’s Mom.  I started the way we humans tend to pray . . . asking God to change HER.  But it didn’t take long for me to realize that praying for her was instead changing ME.  God didn’t just make my anger go away – He made it much more personal than that and began to ask me a lot of hard questions, like:  “Do you know what it is like to walk in her shoes?  Do you know what she has been through? If you had been raised the same way and were presented with the same circumstances, do you think you would have made better decisions?”

It was humbling.  I just wanted God to take away my anger.  I didn’t want Him to ask me hard questions or create compassion (kind of reminds me of Jonah’s reaction when God saves the city of Nineveh – ugh, it sucks when you relate to bad Bible characters).  Looking at people through the right/wrong, good/bad filter is much easier than seeing people the way God sees them.

“How we relate to God always reveals how we will relate to people, and how we relate to people is an almost infallible indicator of how we relate to God and let God relate to us.”  Richard Rohr, Things Hidden

If we can’t love our enemies, do we really know God’s love?  If we can’t pray for those whom we dislike, will we ever see people the way God sees them?  

I can’t fully explain it, but if I cannot pray for my “enemies,” then I think it disconnects me from my own sin.  Maybe that’s why Jesus tells us to deal with the plank in our own eye before we start picking specks out of someone else’s eye (Matt. 7:4).  Enemies look really terrible to us and we think we are nothing like them, but that sort of thinking just leads us to feel superior – we lose the human connection, and we lose the mirror to our own souls.

The simple questions of a five-year-old have definitely made me ask myself some hard questions.  When is the last time I prayed for the souls of terrorists (can you imagine living a life of such hatred?); that crooked politician; the kid or teacher or coach who is not kind to my child?  What about the “perfect” parent whose mission is to make everyone else feel inadequate; the cruel and rigid fundamentalist who claims to represent God; the a-hole who caused a car accident because he was texting and driving?

I say I am a Christian, but it makes me a little sick to think about praying for “those” people.  Maybe because I hate the things they represent.  But I don’t have to excuse their behavior or be vulnerable to them (believe me, I am all about healthy boundaries!).  I need to be vulnerable to God.  If I have truly experienced His love and forgiveness, I have no right to withhold from someone else what He has lavished on me.

So I’m going to try again . . . praying for people I dislike, my “enemies.”  It is going to be hard and I’m not going to like it.  But I would want someone to do it for me.

And maybe it will help me remember that the greatest enemy is that invisible line that we draw between “us” and “them;” between “our sin” and “their SIN.”

Maybe it will help me remember that Christ died for ALL because of His great love for us.

And maybe, instead of adding more hatred and bitterness to the world, God will both strengthen and soften my heart to love as He loves me.

Romans 12:14-21

14 Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. 15 Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

17 Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. 18 Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

19 Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord.

20 Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
 If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.  
In doing this, you will heap
 burning coals of shame on their heads.”

21 Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good