Love Your Enemies

Clarence Jordan is particularly well-suited to speak on this subject, and his examples of both anger and love are vivid. For many years before his death in 1969 he was a leader of Koinonia Farm, a Christian community in southwest Georgia, dedicated to living out the way of Jesus. The clear witness of Koinonia Farm against race prejudice made it the object of hostility in the 1950s. For several years Clarence Jordan, his family, and friends withstood shootings, beatings, and an economic boycott. A host of friends throughout the world helped Koinonia survive the nightmare. The crisis of overt violence finally passed, though over the years since there have been occasional acts of violence directed toward the community or its members. Through this troubled time, those at the farm have been committed to respond with compassionate love. Clarence Jordan was a southerner, with the dialect and lore, the gentle manner, and rippling humor of the South flowing through his veins. He was a scholar with a doctoral degree in New Testament Greek, as well as a degree in agriculture. The work to which he dedicated his life continues. Until his death he was deeply involved in a new movement centering at Koinonia Farm, but worldwide in scope. Called Koinonia Partners, this movement has three prongs: 1) communicating the gospel message through speaking, writing, books, and records; 2) instructing serious Christians in the radical ideas of the gospel; 3) applying the message that is presented and taught. On the 1,400 acre farm, blacks and whites work together in a spirit of partnership in farming ventures and in a pecan processing plant. A 42-house subdivision for displaced rural families is in development. Money for these ventures is made available through the voluntarily-shared gifts and non-interest loans of concerned people and from profits of the partnership enterprises.

“You have heard that it has been said to the old-timers, ‘Take an eye for an eye, and take a tooth for a tooth.’ But I want to tell you all, never resist evil with evil. But whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other. (I have found it even better, if someone slaps you on the right cheek, to turn to him both heels, but …) And whoever wants to go to court with you to take away your shirt, let him have your undershirt. And whoever makes you go a mile, go with him two. Give to everybody who asks, and don’t turn your back on the guy who wants to borrow from you.

“You all have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I want to tell you, ‘Love your enemy, and pray for those who try to do you in, so that you may be sons of your spiritual Father; for He makes His sun to rise upon the wicked and the good, and He lets His rain fall upon the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love only those who love you, what’s your advantage? Don’t even beatniks do that? And if you greet only your brothers, what is your distinctive? Don’t even uncommitted people do as much? Now you, you people must be mature, just as your spiritual Father is mature.’” (Matthew 5:38-48 Cotton Patch Version)

Beyond all doubt, man’s most vexing problem, from prehistoric times to the present, has not been to pass a final examination, has not been to get a degree, a high salaried job, to marry a beautiful girl and get a slick car and live in a swanky house in the suburbs. Those problems are but trivia in comparison to the problem of learning how to respond maturely to those who oppose us. We have learned how to respond to our friends. But to respond to our enemies, ah, that is the problem! How can we be mature? How can we make a grown-up response to people who want to do us in, to hound us, to beat us, to persecute us? We would expect our Lord to be quite clear in his teachings on this subject, and he was.

He begins by going deep back into history, and digging up various responses that men have made. All of us respond in one of four ways:

I. One is the method of unlimited retaliation. Somebody knocks out your eye, you knock them both out. If somebody knocks out your tooth, knock them all out (if you can get to him). If he kills your dog, you kill his cow; if he kills your cow, you kill his mule; if he kills your mule, you kill him. No limit to the amount of retaliation: unbridled anger, unbridled vengeance.

Mankind seems early to have outgrown this idea, but has lapsed back into it with the invention of the atom bomb. This seems to be the principle which dominates the State Department which dominates most of the so-called “civilized nations”: “You bomb us, we’ll obliterate you. You bomb a little city, we’ll annihilate a whole nation.” Unlimited, massive retaliation.

Now this was so childish, so barbaric, so beastly, that it never occurred to our Lord that anyone within his hearing would ever resort to it—he just didn’t know 20th century man!

II. Jesus picked it up there and said, “Now wait, if somebody knocks out your eye, don’t knock both of his eyes out … ” The old prophet, Moses, said, “One eye for an eye, one tooth for a tooth.” If he knocks out your eye, don’t knock out both eyes, just knock out one. If he knocks out your tooth, don’t knock out all of his teeth, just knock out one tooth. This was the first effort at restraint on the strong. Now he says, Moses gave you that idea, but it is not enough; let’s move on up to another one:

III. And so the old prophet came along and said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” This was the first glimmerings of limited love. If your neighbor knocks out your tooth, forgive him; but if he’s a person of another race or another nation give him the works. In other words limit your love to your own little group, your own nation, your own race. This is the rule of limited love.

This concept enables men to live together as a nation, limiting their love to their own nation, but it does not enable them to live together as a world family. Now, this seems to be the place that most of us really are today. We love America, and limit our love to the shores and boundaries of the United States.

I think most of us reflect the idea that is inscribed on an old tombstone down in Mississippi: “Here lies John Henry Simpson. In his lifetime he killed 99 Indians and lived in the blessed hope of making it 100 until he fell asleep in the arms of Jesus.” Now Indians don’t count—99 of them. You can live “in the blessed hope” of getting just one more, and round it off to get an even hundred, and still “fall asleep in the arms of Jesus.” But if you had killed just one white man, you’d fall asleep in a noose. “It’s all right to kill Indians, because we don’t care about Indians, but you’d better not kill a white man.”

So a nation can drop an atom bomb on brown people, the other people, and annihilate two whole cities of people and we give him the congressional Medal. If he kills one man in the United States, we give him the electric chair. “Love your neighbor, those of your own race, your own group.”

Down in Georgia some kids working in the civil rights movement ran out of gas. They were an integrated group. They were out in the country and two of the white ones decided to go for some gas. They came out to a farmer, and he got them out a gallon of gas, and said, “Where’s your car?”

“Out there” (pointing).

“Well get in. I’ll take you up there.”

“Oh, no, we’ll just walk.”

He said, “Why, no, it’s too hot. I wouldn’t think of letting you walk. Get in.”

“No,” they said, “we’d rather walk. We need the exercise!”

“Well,” he said, “no, it’s too hot. Get in. I’ll take you up there.” So, very reluctantly the two white kids got in with this white farmer, drove along, and finally he said, “Where’s your car?”

“Oh, over there it is.” They stopped and got out. Then the farmer realized that it was some of those integrationists. He became infuriated; he grabbed his can and put it in his car and drove off in a huff. If they had been all white, he would have been a fine southern gentleman, a deacon in the Baptist church, “asleep in the arms of Jesus.” But now he’s dealing with people of a different race, and he can’t love these people.

IV. Jesus said it’s not enough to limit your love to your own nation, your own race, your own group. You must respond with love even to those who hate you.

This concept enabled humanity to live together, not as nations, but as the human race. We are now at the stage of history where we will either take this step or perish.

We have learned with consummate skill to destroy humankind. We have learned how to efficiently annihilate the human race. But somehow or another, we shrink with horror from the prospect, not of annihilation, but of reconciliation. We shall either be reconciled, we shall either love one another, or we shall perish.

Now, Jesus did not advocate nonviolence. He was not advocating passive resistance. He doesn’t say, “If your enemy slaps you on the right cheek, put on a demonstration, protesting your rights to preserve at least the rouge on that particular cheek.” He did not command us to demand our rights: the only right love has is the right to give itself. Now this at times may be passive; that is, you may do nothing to a man who opposes you.

I was at the Sumpter County livestock sale sometime back, buying some calves that we needed at the farm. I bought them and was just about ready to leave when the town’s arch-segregationist came in. Well, I didn’t want to have a consultation with him at that moment. I kind of shrunk down behind everyone else and looked for a mouse-hole, but couldn’t find one. Finally he came in and looked around and saw me and he came over and stood about two or three feet in front of me and yelled at the top of his voice, even above the noise of the auctioneer, “Here’s that old Jordan fellow, folks. We ain’t killed him yet, but we can kill him now. We got him here by hisself.” I started looking for a knot-hole to get through but couldn’t find one. Then he looked at me and raised his voice again and said, “You ain’t nothin’ but a s—. You ain’t nothin’ but a …” Well, he made a positive statement that on my mama’s side I had some canine ancestry! Let’s put it that way. (Now, down where I come from when someone attributes to you that kind of pedigree, you’re supposed to respond. And I felt my fist getting in a position to respond.) And about that time, he used God’s name and called me that kind of an animal, gave me that kind of a pedigree. And then I noticed that, while he didn’t have any teeth, he did have tonsils. And I thought this would be a nice time to perform a public tonsillectomy! But somehow God gave me the power to restrain myself. (And the little fellow kept calling me increasingly long names. I didn’t know there were that many species around until he called me those names.) Well, he finally gave up and went outside.

And I noticed there was a great big old farmer, sitting next to me. And every time this little fellow would call me one of those names, this farmer would [grimace]. Finally, this farmer moved over next to me and said, “You know what?” And I thought he was getting ready to pick up where the little fellow had just left off.

I said, “What?”

He said, “I want to know how come you didn’t hit that little fellow. You could have beat … you could have really sooped him, with one arm tied behind your back.”

I said, “I think that is a correct appraisal of the situation.”

He said, “Well, how come you didn’t hit him?”

I said, “My friend, there’s two reasons why I didn’t hit him. One is purely selfish: If I’d have hit that little segregationist, everyone in this sale barn would have jumped on me and mopped the floor with me. And I just don’t want my wife married to a mop. That’s one reason I didn’t hit him. But the real reason was, I’m trying to be a follower of Jesus. He has taught me to love my enemies.” And I said, “Now, while I must confess I had the minimum amount of love for this little fellow at the time, at least I did him no harm.”

And this old fellow said, “Is this what it means to be a Christian?”

I said, “Friend, that isn’t all that it means, but that’s a part of it.” And we sat for awhile, talking about being a Christian.

So I might say that it is not merely to not harm our enemy. Somehow or another we must go beyond that. Love is not merely a weapon; it is not a strategy. And it may or may not work. To do good to those who hate you is such stupendous folly that it can’t be expected to work. Love didn’t work for Jesus. No man has ever loved as he loved. But it didn’t “work,” even for him. He wound up on a cross.

And yet it does “work,” if your motive is not to make it work. Love works in the home, but, you know, if you say, “It really works to love your wife. If you love her, she’ll darn your socks and bake you a pie every day,” if that is the motive for love, I doubt that your wife will darn your socks and bake your pies. But love does “work.” I think Abraham Lincoln said it so well, when one day, old Thaddeus Stevens, a very bitter man from Massachusetts who was in the Cabinet…. (After the war was over, there was much sentiment in the North to just crush the South.) Thaddeus Stevens shared this viewpoint. One day when Mr. Lincoln was advocating binding up the wounds of the nation, forgiveness, and reconciliation, old Thaddeus Stevens pounded the table and said, “Mr. Lincoln, I think enemies ought to be destroyed!”

And Mr. Lincoln quietly said, “Mr. Stevens, do not I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend?”

In the long run it is the only way that really does work. For when the cards are all in, and the final chapter of history is written, when time is rolled out as a garment, and God is All and in all—in that final day, it will be the peacemakers, not the warriors, who will be called the sons of God.

Clarence Jordan was a leader of Koinonia Partners and is author of the Cotton Patch translations of the New Testament.

This talk was given at Goshen College and reprinted by permission, Koinonia Partners.