Your Enemy Is Human and Needs Grace
Johnny grew up across the street from me. We lived in a twelve house cul-de-sac. I lived in number 11 and Johnny lived in number 8. Even though he was a few years older than me we would occasionally play cricket together in the back garden. When I started making Airfix scale models, Johnny was a great help as he, in my opinion at the time, was an expert. He had all sorts of model planes hanging from the ceiling in his bedroom, each one finished with a fabulous paint job.
Johnny’s parents and my parents were lifelong friends. The kind of close friends that we, as kids, referred to them as uncle and aunt. In the summertime, when we were up north our dad’s would frequently play golf together and occasionally we would join them, me with my slice and Johnny with his hook. For a couple of years my dad would drop Johnny off at Belfast’s College of Business Studies before dropping me at the gates of Inst for another day at school.
Over the years Johnny and I lost contact with one another and it has been at least 20 years since we last spoke. I have however continued to follow his career over the years and he now works as the ITV News Senior International Correspondent, John Irvine.
Most recently he was in Kabul, Afghanistan as the Taliban came to reclaim control of the country. In a news piece he spoke of sitting in the Serena hotel restaurant in Kabul as the Taliban walked in, “Unable to avoid one another, we exchanged awkward pleasantries through our translators. It dawned on me that the last time Taliban gunmen had entered this restaurant was in 2014. Then they sprayed the place with machine-gun fire and killed nine diners.”
I was struck by his comment that they exchanged, “awkward pleasantries.” People with radically different views of the world, exchanging “pleasantries'' with one another. The Taliban, a radical Islamist group seeking to remove all western influence from Afhganistan, a sworn enemy of the West, having an all too human moment with a childhood friend of mine. They were looking one another in the eye, face to face.
More often than not it takes a close connection to a person, or event, to make us think about things in a new way. To exchange pleasantries feels so normal, so basic to being a decent and reasonable person. Yet the Taliban are definitely the enemy, so how do we, as Christians, approach our enemies?
Jesus told us to, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
The apostle Paul, quoting Proverbs, instructs Christians in this way,
“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary:
‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
All too often we look at our enemies, whoever they may be, and define them by their worst traits. It’s easier that way. It allows us to dismiss them and keep them at a distance. It allows us to justify extreme violence against them as we consider them worthy of disdain.
The problem for Christians is that Jesus doesn’t consider enemies worthy of hatred or disdain. Jesus considers enemies as worthy of love. Paul understands this too and tells us there was a time when we were God’s enemies, but were reconciled with God through the death of Christ (Romans 5:10).
Jesus sees the redeemable humanity in all people. No one is beyond the hope of God’s grace.
Jesus calls Christians to see the redeemable humanity in all people. To see that no one is beyond the hope of God’s grace.
Perhaps one of the greatest tests for our fidelity to Christ is how we pray for, think of, and treat our enemy.
