Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his book Life Together this way:
“The Christian cannot simply take for granted the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. In the end all his disciples abandoned him. On the cross he was all alone, surrounded by criminals and the jeering crowds. He had come for the express purpose of bringing peace to the enemies of God. So Christians, too, belong not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the midst of enemies. There they find their mission, their work.”
I think Bonhoeffer is on to something about our Life Together. Our calling as Christians does not lead us to a quiet and calm sheltered life away from the world. But life in the midst of the chaos, violence, fear and even enemies in the world. That is where our calling to love resides. Our work to bring peace and reconciliation.
As Jesus preached it in his sermon on the plain in the Gospel of Luke:
“I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you... Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
The Golden Rule for friend and enemy alike. And we often don’t have to go very far to find enemies.
Ask Joseph from our first reading from Genesis. His brothers sold him into slavery and after a famine struck his homeland, he finds himself face to face with his enemies, his kin.
His brothers too were disheartened finding Joseph in Egypt. But it is Joseph who loved them and righted their relationship. They wept and they began to talk with Joseph.
Joseph, who was wronged, puts it all in perspective. He brings peace and reconciliation to his enemies and he reunites his family.
In our own day, it is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who reminds us that “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... Love is the only thing that can turn an enemy into a friend.”
The young chaplain was not prepared for what she experienced the first weeks at the hospital. First, there was the Vietnam vet whose kidneys were failing him. He routinely insulted and demeaned the nurses assigned to his care with cruel and crude jokes. At first, the inexperienced chaplain was appalled at the man’s behavior, but, in time, came to understand why he acted as he did: Once powerful and vital, he was losing his easy strength and control over his body. He was suddenly vulnerable before women young enough to be his daughters, so grasped at whatever control he could find. The chaplain began to see him “doubly,” as the boor and the beggar — and against her best instincts, the chaplain was moved by his plight.
As the months passed, the chaplain began to see more people “doubly.” Patients were routinely racist, sexist, demanding, aggressive or cruel with the nurses and staff — and they are afraid, exhausted, in pain, helpless. In the hospital, the illusion of control — over the function of a limb or organ, the strength of the hands, the length of the life — is shoved in the little closet alongside shoes and street clothes, and most people clutch at anything that might give a taste of it back.
The chaplain writes of those first days: “I would have preferred not to return to the rooms whose occupants turned their suffering on everyone around them, but duty and my supervisor’s insistence sent me back. I would have preferred to find excuses for the transgressions confessed to or committed in front of me, but responsibility to the transgressor stilled my tongue. I still would prefer those options. But my role demands a persistent and sharp-edged compassion, a capacity to behold both the sin and the sinner, to understand that humans do bad things that cause real harm and yet remain human. The best service a chaplain provides for a patient is treating them not as a symptom or a saint but as a whole person, complete with the pack of small evils all of us contain alongside our better angels. Even after years of practicing this double vision, some days it is more than I can manage . . . ”
It’s a struggle. Sometimes we can find a way to overlook or get past someone’s bad behavior; at other times, the only thing we can do is walk away, to punish them by our silence or ostracism. But the now-veteran chaplain has learned compassion, “compassion I have had to discover [that] requires effort and a willingness to hold onto tension, but it is not complicated to practice. It is as simple as completing the sentence: They are young, and they cause harm in their thoughtlessness. They desire acceptance, and they act cruelly to get it. They are vulnerable, and they are punishing others to feel stronger. They are hurting, and they hurt others. Always and. Always stay long enough for the and.” [From “A chaplain’s compassion” by Bailey Pickens, The University of Chicago Magazine, Winter 2018.]
Over time, a hospital chaplain develops the compassion urged by Jesus in today’s Gospel. Jesus’ hard teaching on loving one’s “enemies” challenges us to understand and acknowledge the hurt and pain in the lives of those we find difficult to tolerate, let alone “love.”
“Many Americans do not live in a totalizing bubble. They regularly encounter people of different races, ideologies, and religions. For the most part, they view these interactions as positive, or at least neutral. Yet according to a new study by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and The Atlantic, a significant minority of Americans do not live this way. They seldom or never meet people of another race. They dislike interacting with people who don’t share their political beliefs. And when they imagine the life they want for their children, they prize sameness, not difference…” (The Atlantic)
In every relationship, in every set of circumstances, the faithful disciple of Jesus seeks to break that destructive rut of hatred and distrust by doing the hard work of seeing the “and” in everyone’s life, that we are all more than just our failings and sins — we are also our vulnerabilities and hurts. We don’t look to sameness. We look at reconciliation.
Always, Jesus says (and the chaplain learned and Joseph practiced), “stay long enough for the ‘and’ in everyone’s life.” Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return and we might just get surprised in our work by the peace and love that arises. Amen.
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