Love Your Enemies

Today in church the sermon was on Jesus's instruction to "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, turn the other cheek," etc. While I freely admit that the message is mainly aimed at personal relationships, I got to thinking about international relations. It hit me like a thunderclap that our (the U.S.'s) attitude towards "enemy" nations is anything but loving. Heck, we're barely loving to our friendly nations. I mean, we do some good here and there, and I know the U.S. helps a lot to international aid, but our leaders frame things very antagonistically, often throwing animosity at a whole country, not distinguishing between violent leaders and largely peaceful people. Even when I was more "Republican" than I am now, I thought calling Iran, Iraq, and North Korea the "Axis of Evil" was a stupid, stupid idea. Even if that were the case, why frame it that way, unless you've already given up on diplomacy? Think about it. Saying something like that is throwing peaceful, rational dialogue right out of the window. It is exactly the same as Muslim leaders calling us "The Great Satan." If in any way we aim to be a Christian nation (or rather, uphold the values of Christ), we are to repay evil with good, not up the ante in name-calling and aggression.

I'm starting to agree with Barack that we should talk to any leader. Talking is not appeasing. That's nonsense. If Iran or whomever poses a legitimate threat, and we can appeal neither to its people nor its leaders with peaceful means, then force may be necessary. But I don't think you can make any plausible claim to have tried the peaceful way unless you actually speak to the other party.

Or put it this way: do you suppose the hawkish types pray (in any positive, non-judgmental way) for the people of Iran and its leaders? Maybe some do, but I doubt very many of them do. To truly pray for someone requires love, a willingness to tear down barriers and extend our hand and our cheek, even if it was struck the first time.

Call me naive if you like. Accept this war torn world as inevitable and stockpile your nukes. Store up for yourselves weapons on earth, weapons which are treasures neither here nor in heaven. You do not trust God enough to act as His Son explicitly asked you to. Who or what do you really trust? Who or what do you really serve?

Independence Day

As we take a day to be thankful for our freedom, I wonder: do we really know what being free means? A lot of us take it to be, in the words of Henry Higgins, being able to live exactly as we like and do precisely what we want.

Is that all there is? No world, no country, no city, no family, no soul was saved with that kind of freedom. It's not far from being a slave to passion. No one seriously thinks giving a child "freedom" to do everything he wants would be in the child's best interests, so why do we think it is in our best interest to have no outside influences on our behavior, no one educating us?

That being said, so often the "righteous" are not interested in educating their brothers as much as judging them, making them understand just who knows what's going on, making them understand who's a sheep and who's a goat. But that's backwards. Far healthier to, when faced with the unknowable of our neighbor's heart, to look for the sheep in him, and to look for the goat in ourselves. We are to have salt in ourselves and be at peace with each other. Or, to put it another way, maybe the speckled-eyed man we least expect it is able to help us remove the plank from our eye. And then, when our sight is clear and we breathe the fresh air of truth and beauty and love, only then shall we truly be free.