Love Your Enemies

            Do you have an enemy?

            Years ago, the BBC did a modern show about Sherlock Holmes called, appropriately, Sherlock (starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as Watson). In the opening episode, Sherlock sits at a café table with Watson and Watson tells him about an encounter he had with a strange, intimidating man. Watson says, “Just met a friend of yours.”

            “A friend?” asked Sherlock.

            “An enemy.”

            “Oh,” Sherlock nods more knowingly. “Which one?”

            “Well, your archenemy, according to him. Do people have archenemies?”

            An archenemy is defined by the online dictionary as “a person who is extremely hostile or opposed to someone or something.” Also defined as “the devil.” I don’t know if people have archenemies, but I wonder: who is your enemy?

            Have you ever been asked that before? I can think of characters in stories or movies that are meant to be the enemy characters: Lex Luthor from Superman, the Joker from Batman…in literature, the enemy of the story is known as the antagonist. We might even call the enemy the villain. There’s been an interesting upswing on villain’s backstories, giving them history that makes them sympathetic characters (like Angelina Jolie’s version of Maleficent). What makes someone an enemy and is an enemy automatically a villain?

            I think of a line from ABC’s show, Once Upon a Time when the queen tells Snow White, “I’ve always been the queen. You’re the one who dubbed me evil.”

            I tried to think of someone in my own life that I might consider an enemy. An enemy is someone with whom we disagree on a harmful level. I think that’s an important distinction. We can disagree with dozens of people on harmless levels. Just because you disagree with someone, does not mean they are your enemy. The girl I fought with constantly in middle school – the girl who prank called my house New Year’s Eve and purposely said my last name in an insulting way– she was not someone with whom I got along. But I would not say she was my enemy.

            I remember reading somewhere once, and I cannot for the life of me now remember where I read it, that “we all want to be the hero in our own story, which means we have to have an enemy.” I wonder if that’s true. The Bible talks about enemies. In the Bible, enemies usually turn out to be foreign adversaries or, on the large theological scale, the devil (also called the adversary, or the agitator). Proverbs 26:24 reads, “Your enemy shakes hands and greets you like an old friend, all the while conniving against you. When he speaks warmly to you, don’t believe him for a minute; he’s just waiting for a chance to rip you off.” An enemy is someone who wishes you harm.

            Perhaps for most of us, we don’t actually have an enemy. There are people who might be draining on us emotionally or spiritually that we need to cut out of our lives, but I doubt even those toxic presences are intentionally or actively plotting your demise.

            Maybe we need the reminder of what an enemy is and what an enemy isn’t when we interact with people. If see people as people and not enemies, perhaps that helps us build relationships instead of walls. Perhaps that helps us find common ground, which is a great place to start when we encounter someone who thinks/believes/acts/lives differently from us. Eric Law, founder of the Kaleidoscope Institute, whose mission is to “create inclusive and sustainable churches and communities”, would call this cultivating our currency of relationship. In his book, Holy Currencies, Law reminds us that as children of God, we’re all brothers and sisters to each other. “Like brothers and sisters in a family, some of us are really close; some of us might not get along well; some might really dislike each other. And yet we are family – we cannot do away with each other” (Holy Currencies, pg21). Law offers this exercise: to walk around your neighborhood, either on your own or with a small group of church folks. As you walk around, notice the people you see and imagine that everyone you encounter is a sibling. Share how that dialogue might look if you see everyone you encounter as a sibling.

            How might seeing everyone as a sibling in Christ change whether or not we think the person we thought of as an enemy is actually an enemy?

            Interact with me in the comment section. Do you have someone you think of as an enemy? How do you define enemy? Does this space for reflection cause you to rethink whether enemy is the right term or not?

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.’ So then, each of us will be accountable to God. –Romans 14:10-12