But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Matthew 5:44
Nobody Wrote This Down
This verse starts with "but," which means something important and contradictory came before it. Jesus quotes something in verse 43. Half of it is scripture, but the other half is something that isn't scripture, but came to be the logical next half that ancient Israel added on. Jesus says: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'"
The first half of that is scripture, because Leviticus 19:18 says to love your neighbor as yourself. The second half is not, but there is no verse anywhere in the law telling Israel to hate an enemy. It was just the part everybody assumed was in there, and Jesus quotes it back the way people said it.
The command he overturns here was never God's command in the first place. It was the extension people had added on their own, and it's the same extension we add, because if I'm told to love my neighbor then I'll draw a line around who counts as my neighbor and treat everything outside the line as fair game. That's human nature.
As A.J. Swoboda wrote in The Gift of Thorns, "'Hate,' New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce contends, is an ancient biblical idiom basically meaning 'to love less.' That is, Jesus is teaching about having set priorities in one's love." Read the added line that way and it gets both more familiar and more uncomfortable. Love your enemy less. We may never say we hate anyone, but loving them less is exactly what we do.
Then Jesus takes both readings off the table with "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," which is a long way from tolerating them or avoiding them. He gives the reason in the next verse, "that you may be children of your Father in heaven."
Pray for One Name
This might look like putting one name on your prayer list. You probably already know which name you want on your list. It could look like asking God to bless them rather than to fix them. This looks like praying for their marriage, their health and their work, which are the same things you would pray for a friend. This looks like doing it again next week when you still don't feel any different.
Jesus gave you something to do while the feelings still don't feel right. It's hard to keep praying for somebody's good and keep considering them an enemy.
I wrote about the Father Jesus is talking about in Kind to the Ungrateful, where Jesus describes a God who is kind to people who never thank him. Praying for an enemy is how you start to look like your heavenly Father.
My encouragement to you today is to pray for that person by name and then to leave them with God instead of rehearsing your case against them.
Prayer
Jesus, you prayed for the people who killed you while they were doing it, so we know you're not asking us for something you avoided yourself. Bring one name to mind. Help us to pray for their good, and to mean it each time. Take the case we keep rehearsing and let us set it down at Your feet. Make us children who look like our Father. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.