Doesn’t Jesus have it just upside down? Doesn’t he have it just
backwards? Really? Love your enemies. Do good to those who hurt you.
Bless those who curse you. ...Give me a break! You know, I think what
we’re taught to do and what we do, is, if we have enemies, we keep an
eye on them. If we have enemies, we don’t trust them. And if we have
enemies at war, we demonize them and make sure they look less human
than we are so it’s easier to kill them, and for us to live on,
whether we are thinking about governments and nations, or thinking
about terrorists and insurrectionists or maybe, most to our benefit,
if we are thinking about our own hearts and our own attitudes. I
think honestly when someone wrongs me, the first step is anger.
That’s the first step. And, close behind that, is payback. I want to
get even. I want to get even. And then, on a bigger scale, it’s
retaliation, and it’s violence, even though history and life have
taught us again and again that retaliation escalates disaster and
violence escalates catastrophy.

Some people have chosen the path of non-violence. That is not what
Jesus is talking about because he goes further than that. But others
have chosen non-violence, people in our own lifetimes, people after
Jesus, people before Jesus. We have Martin Luther King working non-
violently for Civil Rights. We have Gandhi working for the freedom of
the colonies from the British Empire in non-violence. We have the
great Rabbi Hilal saying “Don’t do to someone else what you wouldn’t
want done to you....,” his teaching. And, before Jesus, long before
Jesus, we have Socrates in Athens and we have Confucius saying, “If
there is something that you would suffer from, don’t do it to anyone
else. Don’t inflict anything that you wouldn’t like on anybody else.”

A way of non-violence, it’s in this first story today, Saul and
David. David, remember, is the hero because he killed Goliath. And
he’s living at the court of the first king the Jewish people had,
Saul. He’s also a good musician and he’s good-looking. And he’s very,
very popular. So King Saul begins to get jealous and begins to say,
“This guy’s going to take over my throne. And I’m going to exile him
and I’m going to kill him.” And he leads three thousand troops out
into the desert to find David. And then, one night, when the troops
are all in bed and asleep, David and his nephew Abisai come creeping
through the camp. They must have had cloaks on. And they make their
way all the way to the king’s tent, and they go into the king’s tent
and there is Saul, sound asleep, sleeping away, with his spear stuck
in the ground at his head. Abisai says, “Let me kill him. It will
take one stroke. I won’t need another one. And he’ll be dead. Your
enemy is at your feet. Let’s kill the enemy.” And David, for whatever
reason, says, “No, no, no. We won’t touch him. I won’t do that. But
let’s take the water jug at his head and let’s take his spear, so
he’ll know we were here. And let’s sneak out.” And they do. The next
day, they wave from the other hillside to Abner, who is the commander-
in-chief for Saul, and they say, “Here is your king’s spear. Take it
back to him. I was there. I was standing over him, and I did not hurt
him.” And Saul is changed. Saul says, “Oh, my! I see the error and
folly of my ways. I will never harm you again.”

And, in that scene, non-violence works. But it’s not our way... It’s
not our way. Now, how do we get that way? How do we get to be the way
we are, away from non-violence? The Broadway musical, South Pacific,
says:

“You’ve got to be taught. You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear.
You’ve got to be taught from year to year.
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made and
People whose skin is a different shade.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight...” (I love this line.)
“To hate all the people your relatives hate...
You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

Well, I wonder if that’s why Jesus put a child, who was not taught
yet, and said “This is what the Kingdom of God is like. This is who
belongs to the Kingdom of God,” although it starts pretty young. Two
of our fifth graders were fighting with each other and the teacher
intervened and said, “Who started this?” The one with the bloody nose
said, “He did when he hit me back.” We have all been very carefully
taught .... to fear, to hate, to be afraid, to mistrust and to take
care of ourselves first. There are two interesting movies that came
out this season, both directed by Clint Eastwood. They are both about
Iwo Jima. And the first one, “Flags of Our Fathers,” follows the GI’s
who raised the flag on Iwo Jima and the way they were treated when
they came back to the United States. The second one is filmed in
Japanese and there is only one English speaker and that is the
General. It’s called “Letters from Iwo Jima.” And you see the
Japanese soldiers who are trapped in that island, who do not want to
be there, who long for their mothers and fathers, for their loved
ones, for their families, and who also are deadly afraid of those
monsters they were told about, the U. S. soldiers outside who are
demons themselves. And then one American soldier is wounded and comes
into their cave. The General speaks with him a little. Then when they
come back to him, he has died of his wounds. They go through his
clothing and they find a letter to him from his mother. And the
English-speaking General takes the letter and reads it to the
Japanese soldiers. And it’s their story. It’s their mother. It’s
their feelings. It’s their fear. And afterwards, two of the grunt
soldiers are sitting by each other, privates, about to die. And one
says to the other, “I never understood the enemy.... I never
understood the enemy.”

Maybe that’s the first step, to understand the enemy, whether it’s
the enemy next door. Some of us have enemies next door. Or the enemy
in our family. Some of us have enemies in the family. Or our enemies
across the world... Maybe the first step is simply to understand.
What a strange and different world it would be if we could do that.
Maybe it’s that strange and different world that Jesus had in mind.
Maybe it’s that strange and different world that our God has in mind
for us right now. May we pray that, at least, in our hearts, in our
hands and what we can do, in our voices and what we can say, that we
at least try to build that strange and different world. Amen.