Love Your Enemies - November 7, 2021
Matthew 5:43-48
Deborah Laforet
Love Your Enemies
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by the Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
A friend of mine posted an excerpt of an article on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. This article was originally in the United Church Observer in 2003 and was written by the Reverend Ted Mitsui. I’d like to read it to you.
I was a child during the second world war in Japan, and I had a simple faith. Perhaps that’s what sustained me throughout the war and after. I had been evacuated from Tokyo and lived in the fishing port city of Numazu at the foot of Mt. Fuji. One beautiful day in June, 1945, I was walking home with my friend from school. The streets were covered by a canopy of fresh green leaves. The “all-clear” siren had meant that bombers had left the area. We were happy, kicking stones, fooling around.
Suddenly there was the sound of a bomb falling. We hit the ground and covered ears, eyes, and the nostrils with both hands as we had been trained to do. After a deafening bang that shook the ground, eerie silence fell. No where was my buddy except a long piece of intestine hanging from a tree branch. It was a direct hit He was blown to bits completely. I was unscathed, not a scratch.
War is ugly. That’s why many veterans suffer PTSD or don’t want to talk about what they went through. I survived this. My nerves were numbed; seen too many charred bodies and body parts. Dead everywhere. The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to a quick end of the war. By then, we were starving and so exhausted that we were shouting “Please, stop!” And it did stop. It was a great relief.
Since I came to Canada in 1957, I have always felt ambiguous about the Remembrance Day. I have never felt the war dead in my family are properly remembered and appreciated, because they died fighting for Japan hence they are not on the list.
My granduncles, Masao and Shiro, died fighting Tzarist Russian forces in 1904 - 05. It’s a little known fact that it was the only war Russia had lost, ever. My favourite uncle Mitsugu is still officially “missing in action” in the Pacific, presumed dead. Then, Japan was fighting Americans and the allies including Canada. He was seventeen years old in grade twelve.
When the vanquished are not included in remembrance, it takes away their dignity as people who mourn them, and a faith that sustained them. Only by remembering all the war dead gratefully, can we mean that we pray for peace. Then we can sincerely pledge, “never again.”
When we remember the dead on Remembrance Day, those who died during military conflicts, we are remembering the ones who fought for this country, for Canada. I guess it's only natural for a country to remember its own. When I lived in the states, November 11 was Veteran’s Day and we remembered the Americans who had died for their country. On Flag Day, in June, tiny US flags were placed near the gravestones of US veterans. We remember those who fought for their country and sacrificed their lives for their country.
I wonder though. Since I read this article, I’ve thought about the immigrants who come to live in Canada, those immigrants who come from countries who were on the opposing side of the wars. Those from Japan, Germany, Russia, Italy, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East. When they come to this country, how must they feel, as new Canadians, to know they can’t honour their dead publicly, because they were on the ‘wrong’ side of the war.
John read for us a passage from Matthew that is easy to remember and it's one we hear often, but with words not easy to put into practice. Love your enemies. When we talk about the world wars, our enemies were Germany, Italy, and Japan, to name a few. Later, our enemy was communism as we sent troops into Korea and Vietnam, and entered into what was called a “cold war” with Russia. A few stories from that time showed the complexity of those who fought in these wars, on all sides, but most stories portrayed the opposing side as evil, bloodthirsty, tyrannical, wrong, and sometimes portrayed them as less than human or sometimes as nameless and ambiguous. Those that looked more like settler Canadians, like Italians and Germans, were more quickly forgiven, but if you were Asian, or Middle Eastern, or spoke with a Russian accent, you were looked at with suspicion, sometimes ignored and sometimes oppressed.
Love your enemies, Jesus said. This will show you are children of God. After all, the sun shines on people, good and bad, and the rain falls on all people, just and unjust. It’s easy to love those who love you or to be friendly with your neighbours, but how much closer are we to God if we can attempt to share our love with all people. When Jesus hung on the cross, he said, “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do,” forgiving even those who put him to death. We can’t all be like Jesus, but as Christians, we strive to follow his example. We are asked to love our neighbour, which is our greatest commandment, and we are also asked to love our enemy, who, in our ever-shrinking world, have become our neighbours.
Loving our enemy means loving those who fought and killed our loved ones. Loving our enemy means showing compassion towards those with whom we disagree. Loving our enemy means being open to those with whom we are angry. Loving our enemy isn't easy; Jesus knew this. In fact, he said to love our enemy is to be perfect as our God in heaven is perfect, which makes me wonder whether Jesus was assuring his followers, that they are not God and that they will make mistakes. Only God can truly love all people, but, as children of God, it’s our responsibility and our privilege to try.
Reverend Ted Mitsui said in that article that, “Only by remembering all the war dead gratefully, can we mean that we pray for peace. Then we can sincerely pledge, ‘never again.’” A world at peace is what we as Christians call God’s kingdom on earth. It will be a long time before this vision is revealed. In the meantime, we hear the words of our faith to love our neighbours and to love our enemies. One step at a time, one act of a love at a time, we come closer to this vision, towards a world of peace, a world where we remember all those who fought and died or fought and survived, all those who laid their lives on the line, for their country, for their community, for their loved ones, all those who have fought or who are fighting for a better world.
It would be nice not to have to remember people who have died in wars, but until we can live up to the slogan of ‘never again,’ we have to keep remembering. We have to remember the many who lost their lives, the loved ones left behind, those who survive traumatized, and the ravage of war on communities and on our earth.
May our acts of remembrance honour all those who fight for their countries. May our acts of remembrance be a time of comfort for those who have lost loved ones to battles. May our acts of remembrance remind us that we strive for a world of peace and a world where saying, ‘Never again,’ is prophetic and not an empty promise. May we follow the example of Jesus, remember we are children of God, and allow the Spirit to lead us towards a world of peace. May it be so. Amen.