Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you

This passage has one of the most difficult commands in the bible…, “Love your enemies.” This teachings picks up from yesterday’s reading where Jesus is essentially progressing the law forward. Yesterday, we spoke about the law of an eye for an eye, today we discus how we relate to our enemies. The law of Moses was indeed a major social change in the way that the world viewed justice. Before Moses the world was not “eye for eye” it was “your life for an eye.”

The world was run by strongmen, and was brutal and hopelessly unfair. When the Lord established the law of requisite justice, He changed how the world looked at life and the inherent dignity and worth of all humanity. But that was just the first step. If the Lord told Moses, 2000 years ago that he should not respond to any aggression with violence, and that we should love those that persecute us, it would likely not be possible for humans to understand or even accept. So that was phase one of shifting peoples minds to equal justice, and today’s reading is phase two, of not returning violence for violence.

But even now, in this modern age the idea of non-violence and loving enemies is hard to accept, or even sometimes understand, but Jesus has shifted the way that the world looks at these subjects. And while we have not been able to fully achieve these things in this world, we will in the next, and that will be the phase three. Heaven will be a place where the beatitudes will be lived out in daily life, and these teachings will not be a “pie-in-the-sky” dream, but the real lived experience of all of the blessed in heaven.

That is the point of this life, to convert your heart to the wisdom of this teaching. And the joy and love that comes from sacrifice and service to others. Hatred, vengeance, and sin are paths only to suffering and pain, this world and this time that you have been given is God’s gift to you to get your mind right, and to stop thinking as humans do, and to start thinking as God does. When you accomplish that, you will be ready to enter the pearly gates of heaven. Love your neighbor and pray for those that persecute you. That is the law of heaven, get used to it, and start following it now, so you will be ready when you get to heaven.

Oh Lord, purify my mind, clarify my understanding, and pacify my will to your plan for my life. I want more than anything to be with you in heaven, help me make the next steps I need to make to be there with you. Amen.