Matthew 5:44-45 “…I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons and daughters of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.’”
This is a passage of scripture that is a lot easier to quote than it is to apply to our own lives. If you are a mature Christian it is easy to see this written with red letters in your Bible, meaning that Jesus said it, and implicitly agree. When coming into contact with the words of Jesus it is difficult to build a strong case for going against what was said. The issue comes up when we recognize that Jesus doesn’t just want implicit agreement. Jesus wants us to live this out with our lives.
As far as “things Jesus asked of Christians” goes, this one is pretty high up on the difficulty scale. There is a reason we consider another person our enemy (in our increasingly divided world I hope your reasons for seeing someone as an enemy at least go deeper than their political affiliation). An enemy is someone that has personally wronged you in some way, and in feeling that hurt from being wronged Jesus asks us to do the hardest thing. Love that person in spite of what they have done.
Jesus gives us this command because he knows that being human is a struggle. I think that’s why he points out the rain and the sun, the best people and the worst people are still subject to things that are outside of their control. This pandemic is a great example, no one got to skip the disruption of quarantine because they were more just than someone else.
Knowing that we are all going to get rained on from time to time should help us pause when we want to trash “an enemy.” Part of the human condition is bad times, times we wish we could skip, but those bad times help us to more fully appreciate the good times. We can all think of someone we have considered an enemy.
Right now, take a moment, say a prayer for your heart or theirs, and at the very least wish you wished them well.