David Bahn – Reflections

Luke 6:27-28

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

The government, since the 1930’s has a list of enemies that includes the term, “Public Enemy Number One.” It referred to the likes of Al Capone, John Dillinger, or Bonnie and Clyde. There certainly was not a prayer department in the government that made these their focus! Nor, I doubt, did many churches take the public enemies list and make it their prayer list.

In the months after the 2001 9/11 attacks a young member of the church I was serving told me that he was praying for Osama bin Laden: for his capture and conversion! Most of us would simply pray for his capture and demise. Whether or not that was a matter of child-like innocence, or a mature Christian thought: we’ll lay that aside. But  it is clear that at least on some level he was taking Jesus’ words to heart.

Praying for your enemies requires deep faith. It requires a faith that is informed by the truth about us all: we’ve all sinned; we’ve all rebelled; we’ve harmed our neighbor and dishonored God in many ways. It requires, however, another equally important dimension of faith: God loves us. He looks us in the face without disgust, but with kindness and good will. He considers us worthy of His Son’s death. He deeply desires that we be in communion with Himself.

That same truth and grace that applies to us applies to our enemies. Nouwen:

Praying for our enemies is a real event, the event of reconciliation. it is impossible to lift our enemies up in the presence of God and at the same time continue to hate them. Seen in the place of prayer, even the ruthless dictator and the vicious torturer can no longer appear as the object of fear, hatred and revenge, because when we pray for them we stand at the center of the mystery of Divine Compassion.

When the enemy for whom we pray, however, is close at hand – father, mother, wife, husband, or boss – it often requires a double portion of God’s Spirit in order for us to pray for him. This is no easy task; it is made possible only by the grace and kindness of God making its way into our hearts in deep and profound ways. When we do this, however, we most fully experience and express the grace of God in Christ.