Love Your Enemies...

I just finished Brother to a Dragonfly, an autobiographical novel by Will Campbell. Set in the South, the author tells the story of his own ordination into the Church only several years prior to the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s. While he worked towards integration, Campbell became an unpopular figure to individuals set on preserving segregation. During this time a deputy sheriff gunned down one of Campbell’s close friends and fellow ministers while he sat drinking a soda with two Blacks in a grocery store. The deputy was acquitted. In the midst of all his sorrow and wrath, Campbell had a revelatory moment.

Another friend of Campbell’s, named P.D., did not go to church but prided himself on being a pagan. P.D. separated himself from a Church he personally believed was in no way different from the rest of the world. He had a good argument on that point. In one of their conversations, P.D. confronted Campbell and commanded him to share the Gospel with him in ten words or less. Flustered and agitated, Campbell barked out, ‘All of us are bastards, but God loves us anyway.’ That simple statement came back to Campbell when Thomas Coleman gunned down his friend. From that simple Gospel statement, Campbell realized he could not say who was a greater ‘bastard.’ Was anyone less deserving of death or judgment? At that moment Campbell realized there was no ‘Enemy,’ that the KKK and every other pro-segregation individual shared an infinitely important commonality with every ‘radical liberal’ and pro-integration activist; they were all human.

If we really believe in a Gospel that changes people, in a God that shapes us, molds us, and transforms us while directly opposing our sinful nature, then how could any one individual be less deserving of grace? By definition, grace is never merited. There is no righteousness in humanity that deserves the love of God. Whether minister or murderer, pacifist or war-monger, lover or rapist, philanthropist or thief, all are guilty before a perfect God. By vilifying the evil in the world, by isolating the ‘perverts’ and labeling the serial killers and sociopaths, we somehow convince ourselves that we’re better off in the long run. We may have problems, but they aren’t like those problems. We are all generally good people and decent folk. We compare ourselves to those worse off, expecting God to somehow function off comparative salvation, as if humanity will be placed on a spectrum and a certain percentage located on the ‘righteous end’ will get Paradise as a reward.

But what does Scripture teach us? “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). In this there can only be one response. We must love one another; we must forgive one another. This is no easy task; in fact it’s damn near impossible. But in that pain of love and forgiveness, in living out the Gospel like Campbell did with the blood of his friend fresh on his mind, we can be ever mindful of the blood of God shed on a Cross while we sat guilty and alone in the dark.