"Love Your Enemies; Do Good; Bless; Pray!"
By Rev. Phil Pinckard, Chaplaincy Director for the SHARE Foundation
Medical Center of South Arkansas, Eldorado, Akransas

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who persecute you ...’ ” (Matt. 6:43a; Luke 6:27-28, NIV). In my opinion, no command of Jesus is more difficult to follow than to “love our enemies”. This is particularly true of human relations. Many of us are like one of Schultz’ Peanuts character who said, “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand!” After more than two millennia racial prejudice and injustice still plague us. Perhaps some personal insights can shed light on “loving our enemies”.

A few weeks before my 17th birthday, an assassin’s bullet cut down the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, TN. As a white, middle-class teen, his death meant little to me then. However, I have since learned the importance of ‘the dream’ that Dr. King embraced. In October 2001, I chaperoned a group of EHS students to the National Civil Rights Museum, housed within the former Lorraine Hotel, site of the assassination of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is well-worth a weekend drive to Memphis!

I was raised in Morrisville, PA, a small town on the banks of the Delaware River adjacent to Trenton, NJ. We knew few blacks and had few problems (though the two are not synonymous). The river separated us from the larger, predominantly Black neighborhoods in Trenton. My awareness of race relations was heightened as the neighborhood around our Trenton, NJ church changed from being mostly Jewish and white in the 1940's to being largely black in the 1960's. To our members it seemed obvious that we could no longer minister to our neighborhood. The church leaders sold the property and moved to the suburbs, giving me firsthand experience with ‘white flight.’

While in college, I met a few dedicated Christians who happened to be black. One of them, the son of a Nazarene pastor, was my roommate for a semester. Don and I became good friends. Gradually, I hoped and prayed that I would become ‘color-blind.’ While in seminary I bought a house between two fine, hard-working black families, who broke every negative stereotype of the black community for me.

My second pastorate was in Norfolk, VA, where the effects of racial prejudice were evident in the public schools. In 1959, rather than complying with a court order to integrate, all public schools closed. That year several private schools opened, many that continue to operate today. Our congregation, which was mostly enlisted U.S. Navy men, welcomed a family of mixed racial origin. Without realizing it, my children were becoming color-blind. This summer our daughter Heather married the love of her life, Katari Hawthorne, a wonderful young man, who just happens to be African-American.

I share these experiences to help us understand that members of other racial, social and economic groups are not our enemies. They may be different in color, custom or status, but they are still people created in God’s image, for whom Jesus Christ died. His command remains: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who persecute you” (Luke 6:27-28, NIV).

In his sermon “Loving Your Enemies,” Dr. King writes, “Our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives” (Strength to Live, p. 35). During his 39 years, Dr. King sought passionately to live out this admonition in his life. This is why he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. It is a cruel irony that one who so adamantly preached and advocated non-violent change, should have his life ended by an act of violence.

How may we love our enemies? “First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive,” writes Dr. King. “The degree to which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we are able to love our enemies.” Second, we must love our enemies with the same agape’ love with which God loves us. Dr. King writes, “An overflowing love which seeks nothing in return, agape’ love is the love of God operating in the human heart.” It is more than mere sentiment. It is the only way “that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:45, NIV). May we embrace ‘the dream’ of ‘loving our enemies’ as Dr. King Jr. did, until it becomes a reality in our hearts, our lives, our community and our world.

Return to Poems, Prose, and Pastoral Writings