Preached on Sunday, February 23, 2025, the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, at Trinity Cathedral, Little Rock.

“Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies’” (Luke 6:27).

To love our enemies is the Christian ideal, isn’t it? And to this ideal, we all aspire, prompted by our Lord Himself in His so-called “Sermon on the Plain,” recorded in Luke’s Gospel.

The command to love our enemies commends itself to us in the quieter moments of routine annoyance with others: members of our household after one too many snow days; colleagues at work who get on our very last nerve; that poor, misguided car in front of us on 630––but “love our enemies,” we remind ourselves! And it commends itself to us in the quiet, though far less trivial, moments of daily life, too: loving those who seem hell bent on obstructing us, on dealing damage, on seeing us or our work or our values harmed. And this command from our Lord also commends itself to us in the far louder moments of life, the extremes of human history, our reckonings with enemies foreign and domestic. Across the whole stretch of time, in season and out, Jesus Christ preaches to each of us: “love your enemies.” As Martin Luther King, Jr. said in a 1957 sermon over in Montgomery, “the words of this text [from Luke’s Gospel] glitter in our eyes with a new urgency” [1]. That’s the immediacy of God’s Word spoken to us from Scripture. That’s where we are today, hearing afresh from Luke’s Gospel: “love your enemies.”

Now, on the one hand, to love our enemies is what we Christians do best. It’s what Christianity is known for, ever since its earliest days. Early on, rarely would one find an ethic like this one in the religions of the world––except for those Christians with their Jesus! Even amidst anxiety and persecution, early Christians miraculously preserved this teaching from Jesus: “love your enemies.” It’s at the heart of what we do. It’s a virtue which, in many ways, is uniquely ours, and which any disciple can embrace. Loving the enemy is, we might say, an apple pie of Christian ethics” [2]: an unimpeachable classic, an option for novices and experts alike, a timeless staple that makes good for any attempt at a holy life. Whether you’re in the first century Mediterranean or the twenty first century United States, whether you’re a new member of the Church or a long-time one, “love of enemy” is standard fare for the Christian. It’s what we do best.

But on the other hand, to love our enemies is what we Christians do worst, isn’t it? It’s hardly our standard fare. It’s always in such short supply. And no matter the urgency with which Scripture commends this ethic to us, often, we don’t break our stride, we don’t stop to listen, we don’t “intend to lead a new life,” as the old Prayer Book puts it.

But today, I find that the Gospel confronts us––or at least, confronts me––reminding me again of the high calling placed upon my life as a Christian in a world that seems increasingly full of enemies and increasingly lacking in love. “I say to you that listen,” says Jesus, “love your enemies.”

Okay, Lord. Show us your way. What does it look like to love our enemies? How do we do it?

The “how” of this ethic is lofty indeed, a noble pursuit for the Christian. But maybe so lofty and so noble that it remains impractical. So preached Dr. King in that 1957 sermon of his:

“Many would go so far as to say that it just isn’t possible to move out into the actual practice of this glorious command [to love our enemies]. They would go on to say that this is just additional proof that Jesus was an impractical idealist who never quite came down to earth…But [here], far from being an impractical idealist, Jesus has become the practical realist” [2].

So, hear the Practical Realist Himself: “Love your enemies,” says Jesus. “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek,” take it, and, in fact, “offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat don’t withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your belongings, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Don’t expect a pat on the back for loving the ones who love you. That would be like lending to someone only because you know that you’ll get something from them in return. But what credit is that to you? No, love your enemies, do good, and give things away, expecting nothing in return.”

This is an ethic that touches the ground. This is an ethic that we can recognize in our daily lives: at home, at work, in the car, but even with the more consequential enemies of our lives, the ones who deal great damage on us and on those we love, on our community, on our society, and on the world. Jesus knows that this command is incredibly difficult––one of his “hard sayings.” But the difficulty here is not because of its impracticality. No, it’s difficult because it’s extremely practical: we know exactly what “loving the enemy” looks like. We know what it would look like for us to do these things, to walk in this narrow way, to follow after Christ––and that is what makes it difficult.

Karl Barth, the great twentieth century dogmatician, thought highly of Martin Luther King, Jr. Herr Barth called Dr. King “courageous,” which is no small compliment, coming from a man who had been expelled from his teaching position and deported from Germany for his refusal to swear unqualified loyalty to Adolph Hitler in the 1930s. Like Martin, Karl had his own list of enemies to love.

Well, in 1951, just a few years before that sermon of Dr. King’s, Karl Barth published these words:

“Love does not question; it gives an answer. Love does not think; it knows. Love does not hesitate; it acts. Love does not fall into raptures; it is ready to undertake responsibilities. Love puts behind it all the Ifs and Buts, all the conditions, reservations, obscurities, and uncertainties that may arise. Love is not only affinity and attraction; it is union. Love makes [us] indispensable to each other. Love compels [us] to be with each other” [4].

That’s what happens when we love the enemy: a union is formed. We are with our enemy. And, as Barth would write a few years later, when we love our enemies, they cease to be our enemies. This union “is the end of the whole friend-foe relationship” [5]. For you see, distancing ourselves from others only perpetuates distancing. Returning violence with violence only doubles the violence. What we need is for this friend-foe existence to end. And that takes embrace, union, love. As Dr. King preached in that Montgomery sermon, “the strong person”––the faithful Christian––“is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil…Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe, that strong and powerful element of love” [6]. And so, Jesus says, “I say to you that listen, you who seek to be faithful: love your enemies.”

Practical though it may seem, and necessary though it may be, it still feels quite impossible, doesn’t it? Maybe this is what Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was getting at: that flesh and blood weigh us down, that our earthly existence just makes all this impossible.

But if we Christians know anything, it’s this: impossible things find possibility in God––“the impossible possibility,” as Barth liked to put it, that God is able to do what we, in our own striving and effort, cannot do.

And friends, that’s why I’m here in church today, a Christian struggling to remain open enough to see what my Lord is trying to show me, struggling to take to heart this command to love my enemies, repenting when I fall short, and then giving it another go. Coming to church is an excellent way to reckon with the seeming impossibility of the Christian life––“worshipping weekly,” as Danny encouraged us last Sunday. Here, in the words of the Psalmist, we wait patiently for the LORD. Here, God speaks to us and nourishes us, by His grace rendering possible the impossibilities of flesh and blood. Here, we find companionship with others who share in the struggle of discipleship. And from here, we are sent into a world that needs a miracle. Amen.

[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” November 17, 1957, Montgomery, Alabama.

[2] Katherine Sonderegger, Sermon, January 11, 2025, Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC.

[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” November 17, 1957, Montgomery, Alabama.

[4] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/4, 221.

[5] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/2, 549–550.

[6] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” November 17, 1957, Montgomery, Alabama.