A new house with new furniture is heady stuff! It's exciting, terrifying, and mind-boggling. Few people get to purchase a new house and put all new furnishings in it at the same time.
We bought our dining room set a few days ago, believing it will meet the needs of the size and make-up of our family. Now I must avoid looking a dining room sets lest I discover that I have made a poor choice, or that there was one out there that would have been so much better. It's preferable to believe that what we have will be wonderful and look forward to the many family memories that will be created around it.
Choosing the dining room set, once I found one that seemed to fit our criteria, was not nearly as difficult as planning the decorations for our living room. First, we found two different living room sets that we liked. Should we go with seafoam green or cinnabar red? The decision to go with the red set has produced another whole set of decisions: Should we get a loveseat or a chair? Should we keep everything red or mix things up? Do we need a rug to tie things together?
Changes in our lives seem to always require decisions. Decisions about decorating a house, while they seem important at the time, are not the kinds of decisions that will matter much in the long run. There are other kinds of decisions where the outcome is much more critical: How will I react to a change in relationship with a family member? How will I (or will I) help someone I know is in need?
There have been many changes in our nation as well. While we are a country that believes in the separation of church and state, we are at war with a country where its politics and religious ideology are mixed up together. Many articles have been written supporting this war including many from a Christian perspective. Often they cite the evil that is being carried out as the reason for supporting the war.
We often forget that Jesus and his followers were also confronted with evil. They lived in the kind of society we fear: one in which they were persecuted, jailed, and even killed for their beliefs. Jesus was killed because he was perceived to be an enemy of the Roman Empire as much as because he challenged the religious leaders of his day. I don't believe Jesus agreed with the evil perpetrated by the Romans. Yet we have no record of Jesus inciting his followers to take up arms against them. Instead, he said, "Love your enemies, 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, offer the other also (Luke 6:27-29).
When we read this passage, we think of the neighbor next door with whom we have a disagreement, or the person at work whose work ethic drives us crazy, or the competitor who stole our great idea. The attack on September 11, 2001 was a strike on our cheek by our enemy. People in favor of the war often suggest that pacifism is doing nothing. I would suggest that it is doing nothing only when we do nothing. Loving, doing good, blessing and praying are far from doing nothing. These are all active verbs that require much of us. When Christians find the courage to be Jesus to others rather than doing what is "logical," we will be able to claim the peace Jesus brings, rather than living with fear on our faces and anger in our voices.
This is a new world, and change is not always easy. Nonetheless, Jesus offers us a formula for living with our enemies. Do we have the courage to follow it?
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