No Human Enemies

Today's Gospel reading sparked my conscience and nudged me to write this post: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:44-46 In our world today we perceive others as enemies, accusers, manipulators, and persecutors. The question is how are we responding? Sadly we use the same venomous techniques. This, by nature, gives birth to more of the same and most often, worse things. The interesting fact is that we have no problem seeing others as enemies, but we think we are friend to all (or at least I have thought this). Buying into this without realizing it, we find ourselves judging people who are rude, slanderous, and partake in other negative manner without looking at what we are doing. By judging others we are disconnecting ourselves from Christ and from them, placing us into the class of enemy. In addition to this we turn and proclaim our new class to all by cursing the recently judged neighbor to all in close proximity, persecuting them. By doing so we spawn even more sin: we fall into pride because we are now "above" the person we just trampled, we caused other to fall with us by backbiting our neighbor, and finally we have become an hypocrite. I only know this trap well because I do it constantly (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!). Looking back to the Scripture we see that we should love, bless, and pray for our neighbor. If we would just stop and remember God we would behave correctly. We wouldn't judge our brother (or sister), but remember God's amazing love for them and for us (as clarified by God's words above), despite our sinfulness. This should lead us to pray for not only them but also us, because it should trigger our memory about times we have participated in such actions. By doing this, we are saying a good word (or blessing) them and ourselves. Lord help me remember this!