Our greatest enemy is not the world around us, but the demons within.
-Henry James
Enemies (as a plural) occurs 140 times in the New Testament. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus implies that we all have enemies. He says, "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you!" It's a beautiful verse. I've quoted it often. To someone who lives in Ukraine and sees the Russians as their enemy, this verse makes a demand I can hardly understand. There are people I don't like and those who don't like me. Maybe I've been picked on a time or two but never to the level that would meet the “persecution” standard, as Jesus (or your average Ukrainian or Sudanese caught in a civil war) would know. It feels trite to quote the verse. I'm a white man living in the United States. What do I know about being persecuted or having enemies? Nothing. Who or what is my enemy? My enemies are the inevitability of prostate cancer and cholesterol.
In a time of worldwide polarization, we are conditioned to see "the other" as our enemy. For example, China may be the most significant geopolitical adversary to the United States, but millions of Americans purchase Chinese-made goods at Wal-Mart. Our two economies are interwoven, and we cannot survive without the other. China isn't our "enemy" in the traditional sense. We need them, and they need us.
Who is the other? We await an answer. The process of othering doesn’t come naturally. People learn enmity. We are taught the sin of othering.
We live in an age of anxiety. Our worldview is redefined every few hours. We want to get rid of our anxiety as quickly as we can. Our lives are a constant quest for stability. This isn’t a new phenomenon. The Bible says, "Do not be afraid" almost 150 times. If we cannot hold a certain degree of anxiety, we will always look for somewhere to expel it. Expelling what we can't embrace gives us an identity, but it's a negative identity. It's not life energy; it's death energy. Deciding what we are against gives us a swift and straightforward sense of ourselves. Thus, most people fall for it. People more easily define themselves by what they are against and whom they hate instead of what they believe in and love.
Hope rests in the conviction that things are not how things must be. Yet hope, especially in the future, makes us nervous. What if tomorrow doesn't work out? Won't we look stupid? Who wants to invest in hope? It is much easier to live in the anxiety of the moment. We are comfortable with our enemies. Hate, so we've come to believe, keeps us on our toes. It's a vicious cycle. No, it's the dopamine we love. We want the rush of embracing anxious hostility while claiming we despise the system we can't do without. The anxiety of today kills our hopes for tomorrow. On the other hand, we could live differently. We always have a choice.
The New Testament records Jesus as saying, "Love your enemies." Humanity hasn't found a better word for people we don't get along with other than a word laced with negativity and militaristic connotations. "Enemy" carries lots of baggage. It's a word steeped in the imagery of war, violence, death, and destruction. We are primed to kill, conquer, and destroy our enemies. It’s in our DNA. The last thing we want to do is love our enemies. That's an unhealthy way to live. Try love instead of hate. Look for the good in people. Maybe Jesus chose "enemies" for a reason: our self-described enemies are the most demanding people for us to love.
Yeah, maybe Jesus chose that word because he knew that our small discomforts, disagreements, misunderstandings, differences, world views would become attached to a person and then become more of a threat than they should be.