Love your enemies
Matt. 5:44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you.
The teaching of Jesus Christ was completely new and amazing! After all, people at all times loved those who did not harm them, their friends. Christ gives his disciples a new command: “Love your enemies.” Don't do the same to them, don't treat them neutrally without paying attention, but love them! But what does it mean to love your enemies, and how can you practically fulfill this Word? We see here that Christ showed us the way to do His will
To love your enemies is to bless "
bless those who curse you.” Probably, each of us has had to hear words of grief addressed to us in our lives. Jesus teaches us that showing love to those who curse and tell us bad things will consist in our blessing them. There was a beggar standing on one of the corners of the city. Those passing by tried not to pay attention to him. Someone put in change, someone was in a hurry to quickly pass this place. One woman, walking with a sad face, stopped and began to scold him. “A lot of you are divorced now, you’d better go to work.” The beggar looked at her and said in response, “Happiness to you!” . People who saw all this asked him why he said that? “You know,” he answered, “this woman, if she were happy, if everything was fine with her, she would never say that, so I wished her happiness.” Indeed, we live in a world where unhappiness reigns. Where the enslaver of people is Satan, causing them pain and evil. And that’s why people sometimes express their grief and their inner spiritual world in words. But God wants us Christians to destroy the strongholds of the devil. How often a kind word can touch a person and turn him to God. Bless those who curse, the Lord calls us. Jesus himself showed us a great example to follow when, dying on the cross, He, although slandered, did not slander each other. If in your life you encounter someone slandering you, say a kind word to him, and you will see how God can help a person and change him through this.
Loving your enemies means doing them good
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” The next thing it means to love your enemies is to do good to them. Doing good deeds to our enemies is what the Lord calls us to. On the pages of the Old Testament we find the story of how the Syrian army came to fight Israel. Prophet Elisha saw him and prayed to the Lord, asking him to strike them with blindness. And God did this according to the word of Elisha. It seems to me that the “blindness” that affected the Syrian horde was not only physical. It seems to me that the Syrian army was also blinded by the kindness and complacency of Elisha. He did not hate them and generally spoke a different language and meant something else: “This is the wrong road... follow me.” Where was he leading them? What are you planning? Having trusted him, many armed soldiers follow deep into the rear of the Israeli army. Only now their eyes open - they are surrounded. “And the king of Israel said to Elisha when he saw them, “Shall I slay them, my father?” And he said: Do not kill. Have you taken them captive with your sword and your bow to kill them? Offer them bread and water; let them eat and drink, and go to their sovereign. And he prepared a great meal for them, and they ate and drank. And he released them, and they went to their sovereign. This story ends surprisingly: “And those hordes of Syria went no more into the land of Israel.” The hearts of the soldiers were conquered and touched by the kindness and love shown to them. In our lives, we also meet people who cause us harm. One sister, while in prison for her faith in God, was subjected to severe persecution by the warden. He abused her greatly. But God preserved her and helped her survive. Having freed herself, she continued to serve Him, laboring in the work of evangelism. Time passed and she heard that the prison governor who treated her so badly for some financial fraud was convicted and sent to prison. Having learned about the place of his imprisonment, the sister collected a package and went to see him. Arriving on a date, he never expected to see her, and when she gave him gifts, he fell to his knees with tears and asked her forgiveness. This act touched him so much that he turned to God, dedicating his life to Him. Good is a great force, only it can defeat evil. Let us act as the Lord teaches us, doing good to our enemies.
Loving your enemies means praying for them
“And pray for those who use you and persecute you.” Another manifestation of love for one’s enemies is expressed in prayer for them. Unlike the previous two, this action may not be visible to people. But by doing this, we are in right standing with God. By this we show that we have forgiven the offender and do not wish him harm. “And when you stand in prayer, forgive if you have anything against anyone,” Jesus taught. How difficult it can be to do this, what a strong struggle occurs at this moment. But by forgiving we find peace. By praying, we open the way for God and give Him the opportunity to act. We read in the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles about the first martyr of the New Testament Church - Stephen. When he was stoned, he prayed for his enemies, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Do you remember who else said these words? Of course, our Lord Jesus Christ dying on the cross. Stephen showed by his prayer whose son he was by doing the works of his Father. But the death of this husband, who was stoned, did not pass without a trace. His prayer brought good fruit. The young man Saul, the keeper of the clothes of the beatings, saw all this. I think that this was the first seed that fell into his heart. If we want Pauls to grow out of our enemies, we will pray for them and God will accomplish great things with His grace.
Conclusion
Loving your enemies is not some abstract concept. Christ, having spoken these words, showed us their practical application. Let us remember His commandment to treat our enemies as He taught: to bless them, do good to them, and pray for them.
Orthodox Life
Christ tells us: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
How difficult it is to embody these words of our Savior in your life! With your head you can understand and agree with everything a million times, but how can you force your soul, your heart to reconcile and learn to really love your enemies? Where is this “button”, this “toggle switch”, clicking on which “turns on” love?
Our modern politics, news and even cultural and historical spheres are filled with the rhetoric of war and hatred. All this poisons human life, which, in the end, itself falls on the “rails” of anger. All this is somehow forgivable for people who do not know God, but unforgivable for us Christians. That is why it is worth turning to the works and thoughts of St. Silouan of Athos, the “red thread” through which runs the theme of love for enemies.
First, let's define who we usually consider an enemy. First of all, this is a person. Of course, the “enemy” can be a state, any social association or political party, but all of them, ultimately, also consist of people. In the context of talking about enemies, it should be noted that the object of hatred can only be a living and intelligent creature. It happens that people cannot stand spiders, snakes or some other creatures, and at the same time they experience fear, disgust, disgust, but not hatred towards them. We usually hate for something: actions, thoughts, positions, and their spokesman can only be a person, even if he belongs to some social, cultural or political group. An individual who has offended or committed violence also turns into an enemy, but this, again, will always be a person. That is why when we hear the words of Christ about love for enemies, then, without even thinking about it, we attribute them to people.
From the above reflections, a corresponding question arises: what can you love about a murderer, a rapist, or simply a vile and low personality that does not evoke any positive feelings other than disgust? To love, just like to hate, cannot be abstract, abstract. You can talk about love for humanity until you come across specific examples and specific people. You need to love not some inaccessible enemy, somewhere behind the front line, or an abstract politician sitting on the right or left side in the French National Assembly, but a completely “tangible” neighbor. But how can you force yourself to love him, how can you force your heart to find in this “unsightly” neighbor something not just good, but even dear? And here we need to turn to the teachings of St. Silouan of Athos, as his disciple the schema-archim said. Sophrony (Sakharov), about “all Adam,” without which it is impossible to understand why the elder attaches such importance to love for enemies.
Let us turn to the words of Holy Scripture: “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will live” (1 Cor. 15:22). Following the Apostle Paul, St. Silouan sees in Adam the head of all humanity with all the ensuing consequences. "Adam's Lament" - the famous poem of the elder - begins with the memory of expulsion from paradise. Our forefather, as St. Silouan, yearned for God and cried out: “My soul yearns for the Lord and tearfully seeks Him. How can I not look for Him? When I was with Him, my soul was cheerful and calm, and the enemy had no access to me; and now the evil spirit has taken power over me, and shakes and torments my soul, and therefore my soul yearns for the Lord even to death, and my spirit yearns for God... I cannot forget Him for a minute, and my soul yearns for Him , and from the multitude of sorrows I cry with a groan: “Have mercy on me, O God, Thy fallen creation.” As we see, these words apply not only to Adam, but also to each of us, and to all of humanity. The Athonite elder cries with Adam, Adam’s repentance is also our personal repentance. A soul separated from its loving Creator is not only the soul of Adam, but of all humanity and each individual individually. Moreover, the sorrow that permeates Adam’s cry became not only human sorrow, but also that of the entire creation, which became an involuntary participant in the Fall: “So Adam wept, and tears poured down his face onto his chest and the earth, and the whole desert listened to his groans; animals and birds fell silent in sadness; and Adam wept, for because of his sin everyone had lost peace and love.”
Elder Silouan makes it very clear that we are all guilty of Adam’s sin, but not in any logical or legal sense, but because of the commonality of the entire human family. Each of us is responsible for ourselves, but we are all responsible for each other. If anyone is saved, then not alone, because the salvation of an individual soul is directly related to the salvation of all humanity. Let us remind ourselves of the words of Christ that if we do not “eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood,” then we will not “have life in us” (John 6:53), and the Sacrament of the Eucharist is celebrated at the liturgy, the name of which is translated as "common cause".
This is precisely the understanding of “the whole of Adam.” Elder Sophrony already on this basis says that when we say the prayer “Our Father,” we turn to God not only on our own behalf, but also on behalf of all humanity, “we ask for the fullness of grace for everyone, as for ourselves.” We participate in the nature of Adam, we participate in his fall, and therefore when we ask “and forgive us our debts,” we ask this both on behalf of ourselves and on behalf of “all Adam.”
In the light of what has been said, the words of the Savior begin to transform: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19). Now we can “feel” in ourselves that very “button” that turns on love, now there is something for the heart to “catch onto.” I must love my neighbor because we are one in “all Adam,” because my neighbor is not someone else, but myself. That is why I need to pray for others as for myself: “The love of God is ardent,” writes St. Silouan, - for her sake the saints endured all sorrows and achieved the power of miracles. They healed the sick, raised the dead, they walked on water, rose into the air during prayer; through prayer they brought down rain from the sky, but I would like to learn only humility and the love of Christ, so as not to offend anyone, but to pray for everyone as for myself.” Whatever the person, his suffering becomes my suffering, and his healing becomes my healing, and moreover, the life of a neighbor, even an enemy, is my life too.
It follows from this that since the incarnate and humanized Son of God contained “all Adam” within Himself, suffered and atoned for “his” sin, then I need to see “my eternal brother” in every person. The Christian heart must experience the history of the world as its own, and see all of humanity as one person. This is why you need to love your enemies. The enemy is not a person opposing me, not distant or cut off from me, but myself. The life of my enemy is my life too. St. Silouan pays so much attention to love for enemies precisely because it is a natural consequence of the teaching about “the whole of Adam,” our interconnection in “him.”
The disciple of the Athonite elder, Father Sophrony, adds an excellent illustration to everything stated above. The commandment to love one's neighbor is a universal, huge tree, the root of which is Adam. We are all people - leaves on this tree, but this tree is not alien to us, it is ours and all of us, and each of us individually, belong to it. To pray for all of humanity, for the whole world, means to pray for this entire tree.
Let's make one more clarification. St. Silouan in no way separates love for one's neighbor and love for enemies. An enemy is not just my neighbor, but the fullness of true love for one’s neighbor is determined by the presence or absence of love for enemies. Moreover, love for enemies also verifies the reality of acquiring grace, since “we cannot love enemies without grace.” This is a rather scary conclusion for us Christians. After all, we constantly participate in the sacraments, pray, observe fasts, but grace does not remain in us if there is at least someone with whom we are angry, hold a grudge, condemn, or worse, hate. To confirm this idea, it is enough to recall the words of the Apostle Paul from his famous hymn of love (1 Cor. 13: 1-8). And here there can be no exceptions, since St. Silouan calls to love not only your enemies, but also the enemies of God, i.e. those who deliberately reject Him or hate the Church, faith, Truth.
Everything that is written about here will remain a theory set forth in the text until we really become imbued with the words and thoughts of the Athonite elder, until that very “universal tree” becomes a reality for us. Love for enemies cannot be separated from love for God, therefore, together with St. Silouan and we will ask: “Merciful Lord, teach us by Your Holy Spirit to love our enemies and tearfully pray for them... Lord, as You Yourself prayed for our enemies, so teach us by Your Holy Spirit to love our enemies.”
Archpriest Vladimir Dolgikh
“Bless those who curse you...” Prayer. Saint Nicholas of Serbia
Lord, bless my enemies, and I bless them and do not curse them.Enemies push me into Your arms more than friends. My friends tied me to the earth, and my enemies deprived me of the land and destroyed all my hopes associated with the earth.
My enemies made me a stranger in the kingdom of the earth and superfluous among the inhabitants of the earth. Just as a beast finds better refuge when it is persecuted than when it is at rest, so I, persecuted by enemies, have found a reliable refuge under Your protection, where neither enemies nor friends can destroy my soul. Lord, bless my enemies, and I bless them and do not curse them.
They confessed my sins to the whole world.
They beat me when I cowardly spared myself.
They tormented me when I avoided torment.
They scolded me when I began to praise myself.
They spat in my face when I started thinking highly of myself.
Lord, bless my enemies, and I bless them and do not curse them.
When I tried to appear wise, they called me crazy.
When I tried to appear strong, they made fun of me.
When I wanted to lead the people, they pushed me back.
When I was in a hurry to get rich, they struck me with an iron fist.
When I was about to sleep peacefully, they woke me up.
When I was building a house for many carefree years, they destroyed it and drove me away.
Indeed, my enemies have cut me off from the earthly world and have stretched out my hands to grab the hem of Your robe.
Lord, bless my enemies, and I bless them and do not curse them.
Bless and multiply them, and make them even more bitter against me,
so that my flight to You will be irrevocable;
so that my hope for people will be dissolved like a web;
so that humility completely reigns in my soul;
so that my heart becomes a coffin for two twin evils: pride and anger;
so that all my treasures are collected only in Heaven;
in order to immediately free myself from self-deception, which entangled me in the nets of an evil life.
Enemies taught me - what few people know - a person has no enemies in this world except himself.
Only he hates enemies who has not yet realized that all enemies are his harsh friends.
It’s hard for me to assess who has done me more good in this world: enemies or friends.
Lord, bless therefore both my enemies and my friends.
The slave curses his enemies out of ignorance, but the son blesses them because he is in knowledge.
The son knows that enemies cannot touch his life. Therefore, walk freely among your enemies and pray to God for them.
Lord, bless my enemies, and I bless them and do not curse them.
In this short note, I would like to invite, dear reader, to reflect on one well-known commandment. And then answer honestly to yourself, without any religious pretense - is there any guile here? So…
“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. . For if you love those who love you, what will be your reward? Don't publicans do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what special thing are you doing? Don't the pagans do the same? Therefore be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:44−48).
I am ready to subscribe to every word! It sounds noble and beautiful... at first glance... and on paper. But life is much more complicated and not always what is written can be fulfilled (those who built socialism-communism in the USSR know this well). Humanity knows many such utopian ideas, and for some reason those who preach this commandment themselves have repeatedly neglected it. The history of the church is clear proof of this! Suffice it to recall the times of the Inquisition - in the Middle Ages alone, under the guise of fighting witches, 8,000,000 (!) women were destroyed! What about the best, those who know and know how to think! You can remember that all the bloodiest and most terrible wars that humanity knows were started... by Christian countries! Such strange “love” for one’s enemies was asserted with fire and sword. Moreover, the “bearers of love” felt a special hostility towards those who brought Knowledge to people - Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, the list can be infinitely long... I emphasize that these are not fictions at all! These facts of history are widely known today!
A short excursion. All the virtuous commandments attributed to Christ were known to mankind long before. Many prophets who came spoke about them. For example, Zarathustra (Zarathustra). If we take into account the message of the Pahlavi chronicle that Zaraustra lived “258 years before Iskandar,” i.e., Alexander the Great, then the time of activity of the prophet of Zoroastrianism falls on the 7th - 6th centuries. BC e. Zarathustra was also illuminated by the unearthly light of truth (in Christianity by the Holy Spirit) and, also according to the concept of Zoroastrianism, should appear in a new incarnation three thousand years after his first appearance in the world, already as a saoshayant - the savior of the world. And history knows many such saviors of this world. But that’s not about that now!
Many millennia before Christ, Zarathustra called to follow goodness and reject evil. And the commandment he preached, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” was clear and logical - whoever wants to live in a harmonious world must respect his neighbor, fellow citizens and all people on earth who follow this same commandment. Since then, another commandment has been known: “He who does not fight evil increases it.” And this is also understandable. If evil is not stopped and remains unpunished, then it will gradually increase like a snowball. If you don’t stop an evil person, a boor, he may think that everything is allowed to him, and the people whom he offended this way... entangled under his feet are themselves to blame. If evil is not stopped, chaos is born. So, Zarathustra did not say anything about “Love your enemies...” This is already attributed to Christ as a step forward in human perfection. And they convince us of this. Again, it sounds beautiful and noble. But, in my opinion, this is one of the deceits of the Bible, because, as mentioned above, it contradicts the essence, the human psyche. You can’t fool Mother Nature—the sense of self-preservation is one of the strongest feelings of any living creature. Protecting yourself and your offspring from danger, protecting your territory is included in the concept of primary reflexes. You can argue as much as you like that only animals are ultimately subject to impulses of reflex, and man “created in the image and likeness” should be above all this. A person must love his enemies, and at the same time turn the other cheek to the enemy (if he wants to hit him again) (maybe we should also say thank you to the enemy? But nothing has been written about this). And this is presented to us as an irrefutable dogma. But let's try to figure it out - maybe enemy is different from enemy?
Example 1: A man stole several apples from your garden. Can you forgive such a person? Well, why not - a person is confused in his mistakes, we need to help him get rid of his vice and you can even pray for his sinful soul. After all, as you know, a respectable Christian cares not only about the salvation of his soul, but also other souls. Another thing is that no one asks him about this!
Example 2: You were defrauded of a VERY large sum of money, putting you and your children in terrible debt! Introduced? No, just imagine - you were deceived for a VERY LARGE AMOUNT! Or they deprived you of your home, making you homeless... Use the full power of your imagination! It's getting scary. Is not it?
Now, with the same power of your imagination, imagine yourself in the place of relatives of people who died in all sorts of wars: WWII, Afghanistan, Chechnya... Imagine yourself in the place of relatives of the victims of September 11, “Nord-Ost” (by the way, the official version of this incident is religious fanaticism ). Remember the dead children of Beslan, the atomic bombing of Japanese cities - the Japanese are still (!) burying their fellow citizens! Ask them about loving their enemies. What will they answer you? Just ask without television cameras and always real relatives (!), whose children, fathers, mothers died... They will answer you, in the kitchen, without pathos, what they would like to do with their enemies. By the way, our ancestors also did not lie and, when trouble came, they clearly fulfilled the ancient commandment: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and riveted the Germans in the Great Patriotic War, so much so that many of them are afraid to travel to Russia as tourists still! Our fathers failed to love fascism and evil! A beautiful, but fictitious commandment did not work - an internal reflex worked - for your loved ones, for yourself, for your Motherland!
And let’s take Christian America - despite the fact that the “POP” industry in this country covers a larger number of the population, where the president, taking the oath, swears on the Bible, they well understand that loving your enemies is dangerous! They say it honestly: “If you come to us and interfere with our plans, you will get hit in the teeth! So what if this is in no way consistent with the commandment: “Love your enemies.” BY THE TEETH and that’s it! But honestly. Without guile. Therefore, no matter what people say about it, everyone is forced to reckon with America! Only suckers, homeless people and Ivans who do not remember their kinship are not taken into account. Yes! Please note that they talk about NATIONAL (!?) interests, NATIONAL (!?) security in America today more than anywhere else. Although Americans are not a nation (immigrants, seekers of happiness from all countries of the world), they are well aware of the Power of a single nation! Unfortunately, not everyone in Russia understands this yet. In this way I want to remind you of the Russian fairy tale about a gullible sucker hare and a cunning fox. Let me briefly remind you of the plot of this fairy tale: a hard-working hare built a good-quality wooden hut, and a fidgety fox got lazy and made herself a temporary hut out of ice. Spring came and the fox's hut melted. The hare, taking pity, allowed the fox to live in his house. The fox got used to it, warmed up and... kicked the trusting bunny out into the street. The homeless hare sat down under a bush and cried bitterly. It is unknown how his fate would have ended if not for the rooster, which the wise Kon knew: “He who does not fight evil increases it.” And he kicked the fox on the first day, the cheat barely ran away. Justice triumphed only thanks to the actions of the rooster. A fairy tale is not a lie, but a lesson for good fellows!
If we follow the utopian advice of the Bible: to love our enemies, let's open prisons - thousands of murderers and rapists are languishing in them. Can you imagine what kind of “loving” society we will live in? But life is not paper, it shows us in reality, without dogmas and demagogy, that this is IMPOSSIBLE and society, obeying its primary reflexes, protecting itself from violence, is still forced to have such institutions.
Let's remember options 1 and 2 once again. In the first case, the person did not cross the last line, in the second, the enemies turned out to be beasts. But they don’t love an angry beast—they fight it and kill it.
Now you, too, answer honestly, and first of all to yourself, without indulging in religious demagoguery, like: “This is the spiritual feat of man - to be able to love his enemy the way Jesus loved his enemies while on the cross.” What Jesus was thinking about while on the cross was known only to Jesus himself (provided that he was, after all, a historical figure). If you are still tempted by this, then imagine AGAIN yourself in the place of a person flying on a plane 10 seconds before an explosion at the hands of a terrorist or being in the office of a shopping complex in New York 10 seconds before the destruction of the towers, waving a white rag to be saved. Or imagine yourself in the place of someone who has already jumped out of despair from the 80th floor and is flying to the ground (I don’t think that he would love his enemies). Imagine yourself once again in the place of a person who came to the performance of “Nord-Ost” 10 seconds before being captured by terrorists. These people are no longer there! So, it’s better to imagine yourself in the place of their relatives, who still live with unbearable pain for their loved ones. The thing is that they still love their loved ones more than their enemies. And that's reasonable!
Now you, dear reader, left alone with your Conscience, having reflected on what has been said above, answer honestly to yourself: Is the Bible deceitful when it advises you to love your enemies? Is there a catch here? Just don’t lie to yourself. What does your inner voice tell you?
“He who does not fight evil increases it.” An ancient saying.
