Today I am not feeling very loving. Today, I am filled with rage at the state of the world. An innocent mother was just shot dead by an agent of the government, the despot over the border has said [insert the latest craziest thing you’ve heard him say here], and international tensions are through the roof. In the face of such blatant injustice, it feels like a daunting task to try to address the question of what it means to love our enemies. It also feels like it might just be one of the most important questions for people of faith to address at this particular moment in time. As cultural polarization continues to rise, it can feel like enemies are lurking around every corner. Are we a people who believe in the world of us vs. them? Or do we believe that Jesus invites us to a different way of life? And if we believe in Jesus’ vision, how in the world do we go about loving our enemies, while at the same time standing for justice for those who have been marginalized by these enemies?
Luckily for us, the Scriptures provide a lot of help in answering this question. Jesus also lived in a world dominated by an oppressive regime. His instruction for loving our enemies was spoken into the context of a marginalized people living under the thumb of the Roman Empire, and that’s what makes it all the more remarkable. The people who heard these words were held captive by the exorbitant taxes of the greedy Roman Empire. They were hoping for a powerful leader to come and deliver them from their enemies. And then Jesus tells them to “pray for those who persecute you,”[1] and “do good to those who hate you.”[2]
At first glance, Jesus’ directives could seem to imply a kind of “doormat theology,”[3] a theology of letting the enemy walk all over you as they see fit. At times, the concept of loving our enemies has been used to excuse the actions of oppressors or force people to stay in abusive situations. I can unequivocally say this is not what Jesus meant when he talked about loving our enemies.
The exhortation to love our enemies in the Gospel of Luke comes after the Sermon on the Plain. In this passage, Jesus stands on “a level place,”[4] and delivers a message banishing hierarchy and inequality. The Lukan Beatitudes are a beautiful series of blessings God offers to those who are poor, hungry, mourning, and hated. He follows up these blessings with a series of woes to those who are rich, full, laughing, and popular. When we hear these woes, we feel good. We want God to give those people what they have coming to them. We want vengeance. But then comes the “love your enemies” speech, and Jesus flips the script. He says no; revenge is not the way.
There is a section concerning revenge in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Jesus tells his listeners to turn the other cheek, to give away their clothes, and to go the extra mile. In each of these situations, Jesus is giving his followers a non-violent way to resist the dehumanizing actions of the oppressor. When you turn the other cheek, you are effectively saying to the one who hit you, “I’m not afraid of you.” When you give the person who takes your coat, your shirt, shame is brought upon them when they see you naked in public. When you walk the extra mile, you force the one who makes you walk the mile to break Roman law.[5] Loving your enemy means helping them remember that you are human and that you are equals. When the apostle Paul expounds on this teaching in the book of Romans, he says when you do good to your enemies, you “heap burning coals on their heads.”[6] Jesus’ goal was to overcome dehumanization by shaming those in power through non-violent resistance.
When ordinary people stand up against exploitation, they are expressing deep love for all humanity, including for the oppressor. For the one who oppresses is just as much dehumanized by the harm they do as the oppressed is by receiving that harm. Pastor and theologian Melissa Florer-Bixler writes, “It is the work of liberation to create the conditions of a world where enemies are freed from enacting harm and victims are freed from receiving it.”[7]
Over a decade ago now, I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Cornel West speak at the University of Winnipeg on the power of love in the face of great evil. One line from his impassioned lecture sticks with me to this day: “justice is what love looks like in public.”[8] Love in public transforms anger at injustice into action to protect that which is loved. The civil rights movement, Indigenous water protectors, and the clergy and ordinary folk who are protesting ICE in Minneapolis at this very moment are good examples of what loving our enemies looks like in our time. This isn’t an easy path, or a popular one. Revenge is the way of the world, and it takes courage and hope to go in a different direction. Theologian Dorothee Soelle, drawing on Saint Augustine, wrote, “Hope has two lovely daughters, Anger and Courage. Anger so that what cannot be, may not be, and courage, so that what must be, will be.”[9] Loving our enemies is impossible if we do not first name our enemies and tell the truth about the injustices we see.
In the days after Trump’s second election, I found myself drawn to the Psalms. The Psalms are full of uncomfortable prayers that ask for the destruction of enemies. We tend to be wary of anger, afraid of the impact that voicing these rage-filled passages may have on our hearts—and on the hearts of others. But these prayers are a reminder of the enormity of suffering, and that the world is not as it should be.
In praying with the Psalms, I join with prophets who pray for deliverance from their enemies, and with Mary, the mother of Jesus, who called for the powerful to be brought low, and the rich sent away empty. The anger and powerlessness that I feel find an outlet. In praying these words, I do not become more violent; I become more honest. I give my desire for retributive violence to God, and in doing so, refuse to let that desire shape my actions to work for the kind of world in which enemies are an impossibility.
Jesus was in the business of forming a new kind of people–a people designed for liberation and freedom. Loving our enemies is not about conjuring up a good feeling about the people we see doing damage to the world. It is not about upholding the status quo or softening the demands of justice. It is about refusing to let the rhetoric of domination–of empire–have the final word. It is holding fast to the conviction that God is working to overturn all systems of oppression and usher in the Kingdom of God in which “all things,” including our social and political systems, are transformed and redeemed. This is the good news of Christ, and it is for the whole world. It is for victims and victimizers; it is for the oppressed and the oppressors. May we have the courage to love boldly as we work for the liberation of all.
[1] Matthew 5:44.
[2] Luke 6:27.
[3] Diana Butler Bass, “Sunday Musings,” The Cottage (Substack), February 22, 2025.
[4] Luke 6:17.
[5] This video by the theologian Walter Wink, explains these concepts in detail.
[6] Romans 12:20.
[7] Mark Florer-Bixler, How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace (Harrisonburg, VA: MennoMedia, 2021).
[8] Cornel West, Axworthy Lecture, University of Winnipeg, May 8, 2015.
[9] Dorothee Sölle and Shirley A. Cloyes, To Work and to Love: A Theology of Creation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).
