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Every year at St. John’s College, which keep in mind is a school with discussion-based classes, we were put into what we called a “core group”. These were students, usually 5 in total, that spent the whole year attending all classes together: seminar and all 3 tutorials.
When we found out our senior year core groups, let’s just say my core group was not very happy with the results. Now we all go by our last names with no honorifics at St. John’s, so everyone goes by “Mr.” or “Ms.” One of our group members came up to me and told me another member, who we’ll call “Mr. Smith”, was very upset. Apparently on learning we’d be in the same core group he had said that to this other member, “Oh no, Mr. Kennedy hates me.”
It was true I was not fond of Mr. Smith. We had been in seminar together our very first year, where he was one of four people dominating our seminar, making it hard for anyone else to get a point in without being contentious. It was such a problem that a group of us got together to try to fix the situation, and I ended up being the diplomat of sorts. It didn’t really work though, and we all ended up trying to make the best of a bad situation. I held on to that grudge.
At the time, either before or after Mr. Smith ended up in my core group I can’t remember, I started praying for my enemies. Part of that prayer was that they might turn to friends, and Mr. Smith was on that list.
So after the next class we had together, I went up to Mr. Smith. The only thing I remember saying is the first thing I said to him: “Look, I don’t hate you.” We had a conversation after that, the particulars which I don’t remember. It didn’t fix everything, though it did make things better.
That was a really good thing. Both of us got heavily involved with the Community Service group on campus. Both of us loved serving with Habitat for Humanity. Both of us were licensed to drive the 11-passenger van. I don’t know that I can say we became friends, but we grew to respect one another. Even with all the mayhem he caused our freshman year in seminar, I think about him fondly to this day.
Having our enemies become our friends is the goal. It’s what we all should be hoping for. It’s at the heart of what we see in our readings today.
With our reading in Exodus, showing the preparation of the Passover, we get the climax of the Plagues of Egypt as Moses and Aaron deliver God’s message: “Let My People go!”
There are some things that Exodus makes very clear. One is that God is in full control at all times. Also, as we see in our reading today, the Lord is showing through each and every one of these plagues that God is more powerful then the so-called “gods” of Egypt.
By doing that, what God is really trying to do is convince others. Maybe that’s the Egyptians, though maybe they are too far gone. Maybe it is to the rest of the world. What the Lord is ultimately trying to do is convince the enemies of God’s People to join them.
What we see here is a hope that someone will be turned, though if not, God is still in control.
We can see God calling us to reach out to our enemies more clearly in Matthew today. Their Jesus lays out the steps of reconciliation to members who are at odds with one another. The hope is that they will reconcile. If not, then the guilty party will be thrown out.
Though that’s not quite what happens. Jesus tells us that the wrong-doer should be treated like a Gentile and tax collector. Yet, as a good friend and colleague pointed out, Jesus keeps getting in trouble for spending time with tax collectors and Gentiles. Three weeks ago we even saw Jesus reaching out to a Canaanite woman, someone none of His People or followers would dare talk to.
There’s distance and space for those who try to cause harm, yet there’s also still hope. The outskirts Jesus tells us to send them to are the same outskirts Jesus visits.
Jesus is providing us all a way back, even to His enemies. We should take that as sign for how we should act in the world.
Ultimately, this brings us back to the message that Paul gives us in Romans: Love. Love, not hate, is what Jesus is calling us towards. Love is what it means to follow God’s commandments. Love is ultimately what will save us all.
Not every situation will lead our enemies to becoming friends. Yet this is the situation we hope for. We hope for the day that we all will lay down our arms and be one with one another. We live in hope that even if we have enemies now, that they do not lie too far from the very same outskirts that Jesus once got chastised for visiting. We hope that maybe in those outskirts, Jesus will reach them, and that then they might come back to be with us again.