“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your
neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your
enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that
way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and
the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If
you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that
much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are
you different from anyone else? Even
pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is
perfect. Matthew 5:43-48
Sisyphus is a notable in Greek mythology. He was a king, so clever, his schemes to increase his power and wealth are common to
this world’s ways. In the myth, chief
god, Zeus, sentenced Sisyphus to rolling a rock up a mountain, only to have it
escape his grip each time he neared the top, rolling down to the base of the
mountain. The dethroned king had to roll
it up again and again, for all eternity.
The teaching of the myth was the pointlessness of avarice and power…it
only leads to the mindless task of increasing effort to maintain what is, in
the end, neverending worthlessness. It’s
empty, unable to slake even the slightest thirst.
It's kind of like paying a mortgage, month, after month,
after month, ad nauseum. But in
this case, the only deed you have is the assurance of a place in hell.
Jesus turned Sisyphus’ status-climbing on its’ ear,
telling His disciples to bend lower, rather than climb higher. Loving requires lifting…most often heavy
lifting. To lift another who is
struggling is heavy enough, but Jesus points to doing the heaviest of lifting,
loving those who struggle against you.
We are instructed to love our enemies. Now THAT is rolling some
huge kind of rock uphill. And it would
seem a Sisyphean task, because you KNOW it’s gonna slip
right through your hands and end up in the valley. And you’ll be left with nothing but bruises.
And that’s just the point, Jesus says: Do it anyway!
And, as with Sisyphus, we wonder – why? Why love them when it’s just going to turn
out bad?
And Jesus’ punch-line is a jaw-dropper: …you are to be perfect, even as your
Father in heaven is perfect. The
purpose, meaning, and cause of all this loving your enemies, is to draw closer
to the fellowship we seek with our Creator.
Against all human wisdom, we are to trust God’s ways, not our feelings
(especially that anger against our enemies).
That is what God did, knowing infinitely well how much pain it would
cost Him on the cross.
John Wesley called it going on to perfection in
love. We are not going to be
perfect in all our attitudes and actions in this life, but we can move in the
direction of loving perfectly. And, like
it or not, that includes treating our enemies with respect, and the kindness we
all crave.
For You Today
You may never develop a fondness for an
enemy, especially when he’s got you by the throat, or picking your pocket. But God doesn’t require you to have fond feelings;
He expects you to remember how to treat your enemy:
Do to others as you
would like them to do to you. Luke 6:31
THAT is an act of perfecting grace, possibly for your
enemy; definitely for you!
There are about 2,000 devotional
posts in the Rocky Road Devotions library.
To dig deeper on today’s topic read:
Wikipedia Commons on Sisyphus and
What Did John Wesley Mean? and A Life of Polar Opposites
[1] Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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