Epiphany
February 19, 2017
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:38-48
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. –Matthew 43-48
Strong’s Concordance describes an enemy as one who is actively, hostile, hating and opposing another*. We may think more often of people who are hostile toward us rather considering when we are in the role of enemy and I do not think we can deal with our enemies until we deal with being an enemy ourselves.
In my career over the past 40+ years, I found myself in many meetings being the only woman participant or perhaps one of two. One such meeting regarded a very important initiative for which I had the lead and was making a major presentation. One of the men present was one of those people who went out of the way to assert his authority not always in a pleasant manner. During the meeting, he got up several times pacing around the room which I interpreted as his message that I was wasting his precious time. The third time he did it I called him by name and said in a strident voice, “Would you please sit down.” He did. After the meeting my boss who was in the room told me that this was the first day the man had returned to work after having hemorrhoid surgery and that he was probably still uncomfortable. I was mortified and I learned a very valuable lesson not to always judge another’s behavior as being targeted at me.
I closed out my book, Houses Divided, with the issue of learning to play well with others because our goal is for all of God’s children to be in his presence for eternity. We need to do a lot of work perfecting getting along or we are in for some real culture shock in the Kingdom of God.
Prayer: Lord, be our mirror so we can see how we treat each other, guide us in loving each other, even those who do not love us back. Amen.
*http://biblehub.com/greek/2190.htm