Recasting Enemies

Enemies are not born. They are created out of our fears, insecurities, imaginings, and learned responses.

A grandbaby was just born into a toddler’s family. This toddler doesn’t care who holds the new baby, as long as it is not their mother. No matter how the family has references this newborn as her new baby, the presents and attention lavished upon the toddler, she considers the new one as interfering with her safety, security, and place. She has made the newborn an enemy, no input from the newborn required.

We create our enemies by choice. It has little to do with the other. It is about ourselves. Our lack of security, trust, confidence, and the way we have ordered the world feels under attack. It matters not whether we are being attacked. We misplace our confidence and security. Perhaps it is our sense of control, our understanding of how the world works, our sense of place, what gives us worth.

Fear-mongering sells us an enemy on which to pin all our angst. It never addresses our insecurities. They exist because we are insecure in ourselves, our own worth, our place in the world, our perception of the power we wield.

Jesus taught a different way of living. He taught that we are already loved. He taught that we are already of great value before the Father who cares for sparrows and knows the individual hairs on our heads. He taught transforming enemies into friends by loving them.

Real power and strength take the time to listen, to hear new ideas, to accept correction, to learn, to grow without feeling threatened. That is where true power emerges. That is where true strength is found. It is not in anger, hostility, or destructive force. It is not in punitive laws. Toddlers can have a temper tantrums. Greater strength, courage, and security look beyond enmity to love and accept. Power and strength need not insist on their own way. They are not threatened by uplifting other.

Enemies are our own creation. When we make them friends, the world looks much more like God’s Reign on earth as Jesus preached it. When we cast others as enemies, we are already at enmity with ourselves.

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” – Commander Oliver Perry

"Love your enemies." - Jesus



— ©Copyright 2024, Christopher B. Harbin 



http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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