The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

Heart Transformation for Love, Part Ten – Love Your Enemy as Your Friend:  Mt.5:43 – 48

^5:43 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

On Christmas Eve, 1914, a very unusual thing happened on a battlefield in Flanders during World War I. As the German, British, and French troops facing each other were settling in for the night, a young German soldier began to sing Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.  Others joined in.  When they had finished, the British and French responded with other Christmas carols.  Eventually, the men from both sides left their trenches and met in the middle.  They shook hands, exchanged gifts, and shared pictures of their families.  Informal soccer games began in what had been no-man’s-land, the space between the trenches.  And a joint service was held to bury the dead of both sides.  The generals, of course, were not pleased with these events; they ordered the gunfire back on.  But, following that magical night the men on both sides spent a few days simply firing aimlessly into the sky. Then the war was back in earnest and continued for three more bloody years.  Yet the story of that Christmas Eve lingered - a night when the angels really did sing of peace on earth.  Folksinger John McCutcheon wrote a song about that night in Belgium, titled Christmas in the Trenches, from the viewpoint of a young British solder.  Several poignant verses are:

The next they sang was ‘Stille Nacht,’ ‘Tis ‘Silent Night’,” says I.

And in two tongues one song filled up that sky

“There’s someone coming towards us!” the front line sentry cried

All sights were fixed on one lone figure coming from their side

His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright

As he bravely strode unarmed into the night.

Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man’s land

With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand

We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well

And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave ‘em hell.

We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home

These sons and fathers far away from families of their own

Young Sanders played his squeeze box and they had a violin

This curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more

With sad farewells we each began to settle back to war

But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night

“Whose family have I fixed within my sights?”

‘Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung

The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung

For the walls they’d kept between us to exact the work of war

Had been crumbled and were gone for evermore.

         Does Jesus really want us to love our enemies, even in extreme situations like war?  The earliest Christians thought so.  Origen wrote, ‘We no longer take sword against a nation, nor do we learn any more to make war, having become sons of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our commander.’1  Tertullian wrote, ‘Christ in disarming Peter ungirt every soldier.’2  They called Roman officers engaging in warfare to resign if they became Christians.3  They did permit Christians who were Roman soldiers to perform a domestic policing function.  So apparently they recognized that there was an appropriate use of force still allowed under Jesus’ teaching.  I’m glad for that!  I, as a parent, use force with my young children when I discipline them.  And when I call the police on drug dealers in my neighborhood, I am using force there as well.  The early Christians were not complete non-violent pacifists as we would understand it.  But they do appear to have drawn the line with killing and with warfare, i.e. lethal force.  After all, it’s rather hard to love your enemies when you’re killing them.

         Thus, many Christians throughout the ages have tried to follow ‘just war’ criteria, or follow the ‘just peacemaking’ path.  In situations of conflict between peoples, Christians are called to play a human-rights-oriented, civil-rights-oriented, mediating role.  They try to preemptively act to bring about peaceful and just responses.  While nations might ready their war machinery in whatever ways they will, Christians need to ask soul-searching questions about working in the defense industry, especially if they are making offensive weaponry.  We must consider how our society’s thirst for natural resources like oil, gas, and water are leading us into massive global conflicts.4  We must care about urban violence and domestic violence and seek healing.  We must call people to recognize that our human nature is fundamentally and stubbornly part of the problem, and that we believe personal relationship with Jesus of Nazareth is a fundamental part of the solution.

Hope in Jesus is not triumphalism, but it is real hope, because there is a reality of a new, God-soaked humanity that Jesus offers to us because of his birth, life, death, and resurrection.  Jesus loved his enemies as he loved his friends.  As Roman soldiers were pounding metal stakes through his hands and feet, he prayed, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ (Lk.23:34).  Jesus offers to place the Spirit of his new humanity in us, for our sake, and stir up a new human community in the midst of the world that manifests the reign of God in human flesh.  The soccer match in the trenches is an unfinished work.  Will we continue it?  Perhaps you can consider how your career interests intersect with conflict and war.  Perhaps you can read one of the books below.