In the Sermon on the Mount we read… we should love the enemy? Do good to those who hate us and pray for the ones who persecute us?

Indeed these great ideals are integrated in the noble fabric of the Holy Book itself. These are the instructions of the Lord our God and Savior. However, the meaning of these gracious words goes past most people and ends up misconstrued and badly applied or even exploited.

In an attempt to clarify the intended meaning, St. Paul (Romans 12:20)quotes the Old testament saying – and I paraphrase here – that if your enemy hungers, give him something to eat or if he thirsts give him something to drink “…for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on his head”. He never says – and you cannot find it anywhere in the Holy Bible – that you should hand your enemy a knife or a gun or give him any means to help him hurt you or hurt your loved ones. It would be ludicrous to undermine your own safety or use what you perceive as love – misguided as it may be – to fulfill the commandment.

When the Lord made a rope and kicked out all the people who desecrated his Holy Temple and overthrew their tables and turned their pigeons loose …was he contradicting His own divine words? Of course not…

When He asked the guard who maliciously slapped him at the house of the chief priest, “…why did you slap me?” was he contradicting his divine words? Again no…

When St. Paul refused to leave Philippi without first getting a public apology (Acts 16:16-40) was he stepping outside the boundaries of the commandment?

You see…the intended meaning of “Love your enemy” is basically that you never try to hurt any one…even if it is your enemy i.e. Be peaceful as a dove, as it is expressed in Mathew 10:16. But the prudent – and actually the logical choice – is to avoid a fight whenever you can i.e. Be wise like a serpent. We see this when the Lord left Bethlehem and fled to Egypt. And we see it again when the Christians began mass migration out of Jerusalem after the martyrdom of St. Stephen.

What many pacifists fail to understand is that no matter what you do, you cannot always avoid a confrontation. For even when you love your enemy, there is no guarantee, that your enemy will love you back !! More often than not, the enemy will consider your kindness a sign of weakness. And yes, you shall always count on the Lord to defend you, but the Lord had given you the faculties to be alert and if you cannot avoid the conflict, at least you can be able to defend yourself and your loved ones. It sometimes comes to a point when you have to stand up for what you believe in. That is the reason for the edict at Mathew 10:33 “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” in other words, at the peril of our own life we have to stand and declare the truth. We have to say to the enemy, “Stop, you are killing innocent people” not only that, but if we have the means to stop that enemy from hurting the children of God, we should not hesitate to do so. Otherwise, why does the church sanction enrollment into the military? And why do we boast that Emperor Constantine, though vastly outnumbered by his enemy, could prevail and conquer that enemy in a great decisive battle carrying the banner of the Crucified Christ? Only heretics like Jehovah witnesses will prohibit the enrollment into the military and concede the duty of defending them and their families to someone else.

So the meaning is basically not to be belligerent or aggressive, but to be loving as in “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”(Romans 12:18)

Listen…when the Christians were confronted by Nero or Diocletian they were slaughtered in the arenas and were given to the beasts as food for the entertainment of the savage Romans. So now the savage Romans are only replaced by different savages, like the Islamists. What is old is what is new as the book of Ecclesiastes reminds us.

We have choices. We can flee if we have the opportunity…that is good and we do encourage our children to migrate away from the persecutors as our fathers of the first century did (It goes without saying that the old time immigrants should do everything they can to help and support the newcomers). We can stand up in fearless defense of our faith if we must. Or if we have the opportunity and means, we should stop the aggression and defend what is ours. None of these choices violates the spirit of the commandment.

But there is more…

Do good unto those who hate you. Yes. Those who discriminate against us and against our children in the schools and at the work place…or in high ranks or leadership positions, we don’t deal with them in the same fashion. We are Christians. We give each one the rightful earnings and we don’t discriminate because we are discriminated against otherwise we would be doing the same error for which we blame others. Those who deny us the grades at school or the job or the position are benefiting from our Christian faith when they come to us Christians to teach them or cure their illnesses or give them money to survive (not to buy a gun to kill us). The divine words, nevertheless, do not mean that I should take what belongs to my child and give it away to those haters just to prove that I am honoring the commandment. Christian aid is being distributed around the globe every day to all people of different religions and even to people who are known to strive to kill Christians any time they have the opportunity. (Remember the Tsunami in Malaysia)

Now let’s talk about pray for those who persecute you. What does that mean? When we pray, we pray for the wellness and salvation of people. Even in the Liturgy we do pray for peace of “people in every city, nation, island and monastery” we also pray for those who have nobody to pray for them…those poor souls whom we don’t even know. We never pray to destroy people or to kill people or to harm anyone. It is contrary to our Lord’s will to pray in such negative manner. We know that the Lord who told us to pray in this exalted manner had also promised in Mathew 21:44 “whosoever falls onto that rock – the faith in Christ – will be bruised but those wicked upon whom that rock will fall…they shall be crushed into powder” so as we pray we know that it is not up to us to decide the fate of people…who is going to be bruised or who shall be crushed or even who shall repent. God knows the Arianos, mighty Moses or Augustines of the world and He will convert them in due time if they repent before it is too late. That is why we pray for their salvation. I like here to remind myself of the beautiful liturgical litany “Lord disperse and disband their council as you Lord discredited the council of Ahithophel”

One last important point must be explained. Today’s persecution and war against the faith is not only in the savage arena and bloody rampage of the wicked persecutors but also in a more dangerous and subtle arena of ideas and in the intellectual sphere. The adversaries are learning the devilish, deceitful and devious ways of their master. They are using politics, economics and the media in all its forms and the educational system and even science itself to wage war against the faith in Christ. Directly or indirectly, they are using all the resources available in the twenty first century to undermine the Christian faith of the new generations and that shouldn’t be news to us because the Lord told us long ago that this will be the case (Mark 13:13-23). Whether they admit it or deny it, we can ignore it at our own peril. If we convince ourselves that they only mean well and we shouldn’t fight against some ‘misguided’ people. We are going to wake up one day and find our children suffer ten fold our own suffering…and we shall have contributed to their demise by our lackadaisical response to a clear and present danger…So, what do we do?  You ask…

Let’s get a grip on reality. It is an undisputed fact of life…if you cannot identify your enemy, he will certainly sneak up on you when you least expect it and devour you. It is imperative that we recognize the enemy for what it is…an enemy…an adversary whose principle goal is to defeat us and subjugate us into the slavery of its wicked ideology. The Lord himself had warned us against “those wolves who come wearing sheep’s clothes” Indeed if we are not alert and vigilant to identify the enemy for what it is and then take the proper steps to ward off its heinous attacks and subtle poisons, we shall be consumed by its various kinds of assaults.

By the same token, we need to identify our friends and brothers and all those who are on our side…so that we put our heads together and stand shoulder to shoulder in our battle against our common enemy. You can see how unfortunate it is when different believers attack each other and call each other names while the enemy salivates at our stupidity and enjoy seeing us distract each other and undermine each other to become easy targets for its aggression.

In the Holy Bible, when one was performing miracles and casting out demons in the Name Of Christ (Mark 9: 39), the disciples questioned the Lord whether they should stop him “because he was not following them” But the Divine wisdom gave them a different answer “But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man who shall do a mighty work in my name, and be able quickly to speak evil of me.”

Let everyone who loves and believes in the Christ as God and savior get together and instead of tearing each other we unite to tear our common enemy apart and expose its malicious and murderous schemes and glorify our God.

Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

2 Timothy 3: 12-13