Preached by the Right Reverend Grant Lynn Ford at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, October 22, 2006, at the 8:40 and 11:10 am services.
The Phoenix Affirmations: # 8
The Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers love those who consider them their enemies as much as they love themselves, striving humbly to embody the ‘fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.’
When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.
18If the people of this world hate you, just remember that they hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, its people would love you. But you don’t belong to the world. I have chosen you to leave the world behind, and that is why its people hate you.
A priest came to a dying man to read him his last rites. “Do you reject the devil?” asked the priest.
“What kind of fool do you take me for?” replied the man. “This is no time to be making enemies.”
Enemies. Who are they? We think of them as the opposite of ‘friends’. But is that really true? To determine someone or some group as ‘enemy’ one must utilize the practice of demonization. Simply put, demonization (or making a demon of someone else) is the cause of racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism and homophobia.
If all God created is ‘good’, then how can anyone be legitimately be demonized? How can we say anything bad about someone, even when they say bad about us?
General Robert E. Lee was asked what he thought of a fellow officer in the Confederate Army who had made some derogatory remarks about him. Lee rated him as being very satisfactory. The person who asked the question seemed perplexed.
“General,” he said, “I guess you don’t know what he’s been saying about you.”
“I know,” answered Lee. “But I was asked my opinion of him, not his opinion of me!”
Don’t be surprised when people speak of you poorly, Jesus warns us. Let’s look beyond his words. What is he wanting us to learn?
How’s this for a start? If you’re doing something wrong and you are criticized, give thanks to God. Don’t ignore justified criticism, even when it’s given in a wrong spirit. Simply saying “I have a right to do what I want” doesn’t make a wrong word or action right. It only means we’re ignoring the possibility for growth, meanwhile continuing unacceptable behavior rather than correcting it.
The Greek scholar Antisthenes tells us: “Pay attention to your enemies. They are the first to discover your mistakes.”
There’s a Jewish proverb that says: “Listen to your enemy, for God is talking.”
If, on the other hand, the criticism is unfairly applied, then how about saying this? “I have another lesson to learn. I am now called to do as Jesus said: ‘Love your enemies.’”
This wasn’t something new that Jesus made up. In Leviticus 19:18 it says: “Don’t seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Eternal.”
Charles Fillmore wrote: “Love is more than mere affection, and all our words protesting our love are not of value unless we have this inner current, which is real substance. We should deny the mere conventional, surface affection, and should set our mind on the substance of love.”[i]
Loving your enemies takes real commitment, real energy, real stuff. It’s not about pious platitudes, but about honestly refusing to judge another as an enemy. It is not when we quit seeing them as enemies, but when we see them as God sees them: as representatives of God’s good creation.
A Course in Miracles teaches us: “One moment of real recognition makes everyone your brother [or sister].”
That brings to mind our affirmation today: “The Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers love those who consider them their enemies as much as they love themselves…”
Which brings to mind the quote by Oscar Wilde: “Always love your enemies—nothing annoys them so much.” I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind, however, when he warned us that others—by what they said about us—would stretch us to grow in Spirit.
But stretching is what it’s all about. Growing and stretching and becoming more than we ever imagined we could be.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”
If a stranger is a friend we have not yet met, then couldn’t an enemy be a friend we have not yet made?
Speaking of strangers becoming friends: I’m excited about the opportunity facing us in Jamaica. A group there has asked and agreed to become part of the Sunshine Cathedral. Not just MCC, but members and participants in this particular branch of MCC: the Sunshine Cathedral.
It means a whole new outreach for us, and making new friends who will be ministry partners with us. It’s a real risk for the Jamaicans. Coming out as gay Christians can be a death sentence in that most-homophobic country in this hemisphere. But it’s also a blessing for them and for us. Working together as partners and friends can bring a change in that country and in the lives of so many there. What an opportunity!
We’re also looking at opportunities right here in South Florida. Imagine a worship site of the Sunshine Cathedral in North Miami or in Pompano or in Coral Springs. Imagine a worship site in a night club or a restaurant, or in an Odd Fellows Hall.
I don’t know where, but I do know that one day soon we will be worshipping all over South Florida. We simply can’t cram everyone in this building. But we can utilize this Cathedral as the heart of the network. All our remodeling will be utilized to make a video and sound recording facility par excellence in addition to being a fabulous performing arts center.
If we are to accomplish all God has laid out for us, we will be making friends in many geographic places and in many special settings. Adult living facilities, prisons, retirement centers…we’re already meeting there, and we’ll include more locations soon. But Spirit is calling us to grow and stretch and get the vision. People need us, our good news, and our friendship.
And what about those who say hateful things about us on religious radio and
television programs? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his sermon at Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, said: “It’s not only necessary to know
how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of
why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love
our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking,
is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil
in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit
me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends.”
Dr. King continues: “Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil.”[ii]
You see, Jesus warned us: “If the people of this world hate you, just remember that they hated me first.” In other words, it ain’t no big thing, he’s telling us. Get over it and get on with it. Get on with what? Making new friends of strangers, and making new friends of enemies. How? By loving them!
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of these United States, tells us: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”
Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator, has it right. And you know what? That’s the truth!
I vibrate with the gifts of Spirit:
love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness and gentleness,
and self-control.
I know no strangers:
only friends not yet met.
I have no enemies:
only friends not yet made.
I am filled with God’s love,
and I like it like that!
And so it is! Amen.
