Sabbath Devotional :: Love Your Enemies

Years ago I discovered an amazing book called “Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus” by Neil Douglas-Klotz. It shares explanations and meditations on the Aramaic meanings behind some of the most familiar King James Version scripture passages.

The book’s foreword gives some examples:

How much . . . might result from hearing, for example, that what we have translated as “be you perfect” really means, “be you all-embracing,” or that . . . ”blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” also means “soften what’s rigid inside and you shall receive physical vigor and strength from the universe . . . and that the overly familiar words “lead us not into temptation” can be translated in this way: “Don’t let surface things delude us, but free us from what holds us back.”

What brings this book to mind today — after a dramatic and disturbing week in American politics — is Neil Douglas-Klotz’s explorations of Luke 6:27:

Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.

There was hatred, bitterness, anger, hostility, ferocity, obfuscation, “othering”, blaming and rage on display during the hearings regarding a position on the highest court of our land. There were conspiracy theories, theatrics, histrionics, bullying, badgering, weeping and at least metaphorical gnashing of teeth at that event, in the media, on the late shows, in twitter feeds. It felt like the death knell of a dysfunctional democracy.

Everyone seemed like everyone else’s enemy.

When emotions are raw and so much is at stake, how can we make any sense of these bizarre commandments of Jesus?

Douglas-Klotz reveals in his Aramaic translations new layers of possibility. He notes that the word for “love” in these verses (ahebw) is vastly different from the word for “love” (rahm — meaning the more familiar feelings of charity, compassion and mercy) used in Matthew 22: 37-39:

. . . Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Loving our enemies, Douglas-Klotz explains, has nothing to do with gushy affection. “The statement does not say anything about being ‘nice’ to an enemy or letting that one walk all over you.”

Here instead is a radically different approach that emerges in the Aramaic. Luke 6:27 conveys an image of traveling a path with someone. Along the way, the other person’s jerky, unpredictable motions knock you off balance and off the path. Your task is to find some private way to regain the ability to continue on the path with them. You won’t have control over what they do, but you can seek a new way toward a different gait that allows you both to travel.

No mention of enemies, love, or good deeds. Instead there’s a focus on personal responsibility, action and a seeking after harmony despite differences.

Here’s another way of describing what Douglas-Klotz sees in the Aramaic use of the “ahebw” kind of “love”:

Open space for those who try to tie you up. Lay a trap that catches and releases all of their knots and binding complexities. Let your prayer for them be: “O God, use this force that pushes and contracts, that chases and entangles, to guide us all back to harmony and you.”

I suggest that Senator Flake found a way of laying that kind of holy “trap” that could somehow – magically? miraculously? — begin to untangle knots of suspicion and rancor. He refused to see enemies but sought a way to restore a connection, a community in a fractured and fractious Senate. Regardless of the final result of the hearings and regardless of whether Senator Flake votes the way you hope he will or not, he has modeled what it takes to fulfill the commandment of Luke 6:27. I thank him for his courage, outreach, humility, and boldness.

Last night — in an occasion of spirit-filled synchronicity — I attended a presentation by Sam Daley-Harris, the founder of Results.org/The Power to End Poverty. His organization, begun in 1980, and others he has initiated, have saved the lives of millions suffering from AIDS, TB and malaria. This is accomplished by training others to engage with legislators; with dogged persistence; with grass roots energy and commitment; with community building; with courage and a refusal to feel powerless.

One quote he shared by Alex Steffen feels vital to the attitude MWEG must maintain in our long term nonpartisan quest for ethical government:

Optimism is a political act. Those who benefit from the status quo are perfectly happy with a large population of people who think nothing is going to get any better. In fact, these days, cynicism is obedience. What’s really radical is being willing to look right at the magnitude and difficulty of the problems we face and still insist that we can solve these problems.

Toward our mortal goals of more ethical government, this other quote from Sam Daley-Harris provides practical help:

You might have a low opinion of your Member of Congress, but you have to decide whether your goal is to be right about that or to cause a transformation. It’s really up to you, but we will never get climate change reversed, poverty eliminated. . . or nuclear war prevented with Democrats only or Republicans only — it has to be a bipartisan, transpartisan effort.

Our task as an MWEG sisterhood is to educate ourselves with courage and clarity so that we no longer feel powerless. It is to take effective action toward our earthly goals of more ethical government and our eternal goals of “schooling God’s daughters” on using our voices with civility and clarity and to dedicate our lives to peace and love — both the “rahm” kind and the “ahebw” to all of our sisters and brothers.

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“Words Fall Short”(LDSMag.com) by Maurine Jensen Proctor
“Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus” by Neil Douglas-Klotz, Harper and Row
“Reclaiming our Democracy” by Sam Daley-Harris, Camino Books, Inc.