HOW TO PRAY FOR OUR ENEMIES

A sermon by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk

Harundale Presbyterian Church

Glen Burnie, Maryland

Text: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” (Luke 18:11)

First Reading: Joel 2:23-32

Second Reading: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

A few weeks ago one of you asked me to preach a sermon on how to pray for our enemies. I thought about that for awhile and then when our story presented itself this morning it seemed like a natural fit. The Pharisee definitely had a dislike for the tax collector and the tax collector didn’t see himself in the same league as the Pharisee. Both of them offer us some hints as to what to expect when we attempt to pray for our enemies.

When I worked for the national church I did a workshop on prayer for the women’s triennium held every three years at Purdue University. Prior to the workshop I’d assembled all the papers and made packets for each day’s event. I even had tote bags printed for them to fit in. Each day I would put the packets on the seats of the classroom where the workshop was held and each day the people would tell me how well the session had gone and how much they appreciated the discussions and the content. They were pleased and I was very pleased.

Two weeks later I was asked to do the same workshop in the Synod of the Northeast at Whitman College. Fresh off the positive experience the women’s gathering had been I decided to replicate the content and the approach. The first day of the workshop I did exactly as I had done at Purdue, had the packets on the seats when the participants arrived and myself ready to have similar discussions. The people came in, took a look at the packets and accused me of being arrogant and not caring about what they wanted to talk about, only what I was supposedly going to force them to talk about. The rest of the week went downhill from there!

I learned a very important lesson from that encounter. Arrogance of any kind often breeds enemies more so than humility and that’s what happened with the Pharisee. He arrogantly admitted that he was thankful that he was not like those other people like the thieves, rogues, adulterers and even the hated tax collector. It’s hard to pray for our enemies if we somehow feel ourselves better than they are. It would be easier to pray for our enemies if we saw them as the same creatures in God’s eyes as we see ourselves. It would be easier to pray for our enemies if we saw the good in them and not just the evil. It would be easier to pray for our enemies if we tried to understand why they hate us and want to destroy our way of living. It would be easier to pray for our enemies if instead of arrogantly telling them what we want them to hear, we humbly take time to listen to what they want to tell us.

Now bear in mind that what we have in our story this morning is a caricature. Luke has made both the Pharisee and the tax collector larger than life in order to make a point. So, as we turn to the tax collector we see him standing off at a distance not even able to look to heaven, overcome with his own guilt and sinfulness, beating his breast and asking for forgiveness. The lesson we can glean from such behavior is that prayer for our enemies may not only begin with our own humility rather than arrogance, but it also would be good for us to look to our own confession of sinfulness as well. Again, the point we need to come back to again and again is why do people hate us? What caused them to become our enemies?

You may have heard about the denomination’s decision to consider selective divestment in some companies doing business in Israel, as a way to protest Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. Well, this has caused quite a bit of consternation with our Jewish friends and a group of pastors in the Baltimore Presbytery, with me being one of them, went on record as disagreeing with the action. Let me quote a portion of our letter to the Baltimore Jewish Community.

“The General Assembly stated its ‘opposition to the construction of a wall and other barriers,’ ‘welcomes the possibilities for peace contained in the ‘Geneva Accord,’ described the ‘horrific acts of violence and deadly attacks on innocent people, whether carried out by Palestinian suicide bombers or by the Israeli military, as abhorrent and inexcusable by all measures,’ and authorizes exploration of a selective divestment of church funds from those companies whose business in Israel is found to be directly or indirectly causing harm or suffering to innocent people, Palestinian or Israeli.

“What troubles us is that taken as a whole, these statements were not even-handed or adequately analyzed—especially in the call for our denomination to proceed with ‘selective divestment’ of companies that do business with Israel and the expressed concern for the plight of Palestinians without an equal concern for the terror inspired by the actions of the Palestinian Authority or the jihadist terrorist groups.

“Although previous General Assemblies have expressed strong support for Israel, and described Jews and Christians as ‘partners’ who both stand in covenantal solidarity with God, the actions of this assembly dealt a disturbing set back to the vitally important relationship between our two communities. In our opinion, these actions failed to convey a sense of balance and fairness in regards to the struggle between Israel and the Palestinian people.

“We, the undersigned, disagree with these actions by the national church but find some hope in the assembly’s call for a new dialogue between Presbyterians and Jews. We pledge ourselves to work within our denomination for increased sensitivity to the concerns of our Jewish neighbors regarding Israel, while seeking to work as true partners to hasten an end to the conflict that has caused so much pain for Jews, Christians and Muslims.”

Since then I have received a response from the a Jewish synagogue in Annapolis grateful for our response in which the Rabbi writes, “Presbyterians have a long history of involvement in the Middle East, and have much to offer in helping Israelis and Palestinians conclude a just and secure peace for both peoples. We welcome your input.”(Congregation Kol Ami, September 9, 2004, Charni Flame Selch, Rabbi.)

Regarding Israel and Palestine, the policy of the General Assembly has been pretty consistent and pretty balanced. We firmly support the right of Israel to exist as a state; we also firmly support the right of Palestinians to live in a sense of security and a sense of land as well. We say that building the security wall on the West Bank isn’t moral, but we also say that blowing up buses full of civilians is not moral as well. But the truth of the matter is the General Assembly holds stock in Caterpillar Inc. which has built bulldozers the Israeli army has used to demolish Palestinian homes, farms and orchards. So, we haven’t heard the last of the matter, but we have heard the plea from both Christian and Jewish communities for further dialogue on how the issue of selective divestment can be resolved.

We live in a world where our enemies are not as visible as they once were. They could be living in the Baltimore area just waiting to do us bodily harms. As in Israel they may attempt terrorist acts upon civilians and like in Palestine we may respond with unrelenting fire power. In the midst of it all we need to pray for them as well as the people whose lives they’ve disrupted. Arrogance won’t work; ignorance and denial won’t work; intolerance won’t work. Our enemies expect that kind of response and will see no meaning in it. What may work is seeking to understand their hate of us. What may work will be our humbly understanding what we’ve done that’s caused them to hate us. What may work is seeking some leverage as our General Assembly did to engage Jews and Palestinians, Christians and Muslims in some specific conversations. It’s going to take work and a lot of effort at understanding by all the parties involved. But prayer is work if we do it right and whatever effort we make toward resolution of some of these issues may be the best way at this time we can prayer for our enemies. It’s worth that effort.

Thanks be to God,

Amen