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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion January 16, 2006 Love Your Enemies Martin Luther King Day |
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FRONTLINE DEVOTION FOR MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2006 by Fritz Foltz
When historians write the history of Christianity in the sixteenth
century they always place Martin Luther near or at the top. The reason is the
great reformer added a new dimension to faith. He went beyond Paul adding
“alone” to “justification by grace through faith”.
When historians write the history of Christianity in the twentieth century they
will undoubtedly place Martin Luther King at or near the top. The reason is he
added a new dimension to love. He went beyond the usual understanding and
presented love as a tool for social action. Love became a nonviolent way to
change history.
And it worked. Too often we ignore the profound truth that he led a civil war in
the United States that was almost without bloodshed. It also worked in
overcoming colonialism in India and apartheid in South Africa with little
violence.
You can feel the power of love in his sermon
“Loving Your Enemies”. Below is an excerpt. If you want to read the whole of
this great sermon, you will find it in the collection entitled Strength
To Love. The beginning of the
sermon describes how we love our enemies. The middle answers the question, "Why
should we love our enemies?"
"The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiples
hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot
drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only
love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and
toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction."
"Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul
and distorts the personality. Mindful that hate is an evil and dangerous force,
we too often think of what it does to the person hated. This is understandable,
for hate brings irreparable damage to its victims."
"But there is another side which we must never overlook. Hate is just as
injurious to the person who hates. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his
objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as
beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the
true"
"A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only
force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an
enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy be getting rid of
enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature,
love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power"
The sermon concludes with these powerful words:
“To our most bitter opponents we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we shall wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory.”
Although
we do our best to ignore the fact, the Christian faith is very practical. Honor
King and Jesus by contemplating ways you can overcome evil with love today.
The prayer is also his. It is found at the end of another sermon of the same title,
“Loving Your Enemies” and can accessed at http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/sermonsFrame.htm
Let us pray: Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas. Oh, we talk about politics; we talk about the problems facing our atomic civilization. Grant that all men will come together and discover that as we solve the crisis and solve these problems—the international problems, the problems of atomic energy, the problems of nuclear energy, and yes, even the race problem—let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus. Give us this strong determination. In the name and spirit of this Christ, we pray. Amen.
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