Love Your Enemy

Thursday, March 8 2012

Love your enemy.  I wrote about this a couple of days ago but it’s hard to get around this command in Palestine.  It’s humbling to hear Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews talk about their experiences of learning to love their enemy.  We have the theology of love but most North American Christians haven’t had to put it into practice the way Christians in Palestine have.  Preaching love for enemies and actually doing it are two different worlds and this is not lost on me as one who preaches from Sunday to Sunday.  Today, I listened to speaker after speaker who have real enemies and who have taken Jesus’ word as a direct order.  One man I’ve listened carefully to is Sami Awad – a Palestinian Christian born and raised in Bethlehem.  He has an incredible story which is too long to relate here but see if something he said grabs you the way it grabbed me:

“You can’t talk about loving your enemy until you’ve achieved oneness with them.” 

That’s a lot further than I want to take things.  Love for my enemy means putting up with them but not becoming one with them.  It’s difficult to get my mind around what that would mean in real-time with a real-world context like Palestine.  I’m challenged here because my “love your enemy” theology has only been done in theory and not in practice.

            Mike Kooy and I took a field trip (sponsored by the conference) to the ancient city of Hebron.  Remember that place?  Abraham settled there when he came into Canaan.  When Sarah died he bought a cave there.  In fact, we took a tour of a mosque built over the tomb of both Sarah and Abraham.  It used to be a church (via the Crusaders) but was turned into mosque once the crusaders were defeated by Saladin.  Hebron is of interest in modern history too because it has been literally cut in half between Palestinians and Jewish settlers.  In order to accomplish this the Israeli government blocked off key roads and even divided buildings between Palestinians and Jews.  The mosque of Abraham and Sarah is divided into two halves with a section for Muslims and for the Jews.  The picture I posted is of a netting or fence stretched over the top of a marketplace roadway which is beneath the apartments of some of the Jewish settlers.  Garbage is thrown down on the Palestinian shoppers by the settlers so protection had to be constructed over the marketplace.  Just take Oak Lawn as an example and imagine erecting a barrier that would cut it in half.  It’s almost impossible to imagine such a scenario.  What I saw today was tragic, sad, and nearly unbelievable. 

            I’m hearing and seeing all of this from the Palestinian side.  There are, of course, two sides to this story.  This comes out very clearly listening to the conference speakers.  The danger is to paint a one-sided story.  When that’s done, people/nations get demonized; victim mentalities prevail; and it becomes impossible even to think about reconciliation.  I appreciate the fact that this perspective is emphasized by the Palestinian Christians speaking at the conference.  I’ve been writing about one side of the story and it’s important to at least recognize that this is one-sided.  But it cannot be denied that, on the whole, the Palestinians have taken the brunt of the suffering in this conflict.  Like the city of Hebron, they are a people who have been cut off by the wall.  Life gets hard when you effectively become a prisoner within your own town.  Your world shrinks down to the size of a few square miles and that brings on a whole host of hardships.  Again, that’s one side but it is safe to say that it is a more difficult one. 

            Friday is the last day of the conference.  I never expected to be challenged in the way that I have been in the last few days.  I do pray I can be a good steward of the perspective gained here.  On Saturday, Michael Kooy and I will be heading to Jerusalem for a few days of seeing the sights.  Looking forward to that too and to share our times with you.