In Great Measure
Eric H Janzen
Sometimes you don’t know what will happen to you when you sit down, coffee in hand, to spend some time reading. You can’t predict how a certain phrase or idea may abruptly take hold of your mind and heart, find a space to live, and never leave.
In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus teaches something so challenging that you hope you maybe heard him wrong. Yet, you didn’t…you heard him right: You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…. A more challenging statement is difficult to imagine. Why would we do this? Why would we choose such a counterintuitive way of living in relation to our enemies? He goes on to tell us why: …so that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your Father who is in heaven.... In verse 48, Jesus even takes this command to love our enemies to yet one more impossible level. He says if we love our enemies, we shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. This teaching of Jesus isn’t new to me but it has spent the last few years becoming the command I ponder the most. It causes me plenty of angst. At times, it even makes me angry. However, most of the time it fills me with wonder and questions.
How did I end up in this pondering state? I had read this passage many times in my life but was never particularly perturbed by it…mostly because I couldn’t understand or connect with the profound truth and reality in the words. As I mentioned in the opening lines above, it would take reading to cause the eyes of my heart to open and see just how deep (and troublesome) these words truly were.
There was a man named Saint Silouan the Athonite who had an incredible understanding of Jesus’ words. He believed something about this command that shook me and took hold of my heart. In his book, Remember Thy First Love, Archimandrite Zacharias, speaking of St. Silouan, puts it this way:
“St. Silouan said that love for our enemies is the surest criterion of the presence of Holy Spirit in us: whosoever loves his enemies possesses the Holy Spirit in great measure.”[1]
It is one of those statements that cause you to take a deep breath…pause…and put the book down. St. Silouan believed that the deepest sign, the surest mark, of the Holy Spirit living in us is this ability to choose love for our enemies instead of what we want to choose, which seems more natural to most of us. When faced with those we consider enemies, we do not think to show them love, but rather we think to avoid them, repel them, punish them, prove them wrong, resort to violence…I’m sure you can think of other responses you would have in the face of an enemy. The worst of it is hatred. We all know the feeling of it.
Yet, I cannot escape these words. Love your enemies…if you love your enemies, it is a mark of the living Presence of Holy Spirit indwelling my heart. This is my own deepest desire. To be the home of God, a resting place for Him…to know Him. How am I to meet this challenge? How can I become like Jesus and stretch out my hands in love and not violence when faced with an enemy? This isn’t Sunday School spirituality anymore. This isn’t the forgettable Sunday sermon. These are the words of God spoken in Jesus: Be perfect like your Abba in heaven: love your enemies and pray for them. This is where the heart must gather courage and be honest: I’m not sure I can do this but I want to be filled by the Holy Spirit in ‘great measure’. I love Him. I can’t imagine not doing all I can to be that heart where He finds the kind of home He wants to live in.
And so, I ponder these inescapable words of Jesus, underscored by the words of St. Silouan. It has taken hold of my heart and my mind. I find myself taking small steps, deliberately choosing to pray for those I consider my opposites in thinking and theology. I have begun praying for those who act in ways that I would never choose to.
I can’t sit here and write that I have this all figured out. I don’t. Yet, there is something I have realized, which is helping me to follow Jesus in His Way of enemy-loving…love. We can’t learn to love our enemies in our own strength. This isn’t our natural way as human beings. We need help to do this. This is why loving our enemies becomes such a powerful sign of the Spirit’s Presence: it is His transformation of our hearts that creates in us a new way of being that allows us to become like Jesus and truly love our enemies. We begin this deep journey the same way we began our journey with Jesus in the first place: with a ‘Yes, I am willing,” prayer.
There is a beautiful mystery along this difficult road of learning to love our enemies, a wild hope that stands up and looks the spirits of fear and hatred in the eye with incredible strength. This hope says, “One day, I will be incapable of enmity and I will not see an enemy in anyone.” Until that day, I will continue to pray and invite Holy Spirit to change my heart so that I have the courage to love those who may see in me their enemy and to love those in whom I see mine. I want to become someone in whom the Holy Spirit lives “in great measure”. That sounds perfect to me.
[1] Zacharias, Archimandrite. Remember Thy First Love (Revelation 2:4-5) The Three Stages of the Spiritual Life in the Theology of Elder Sophrony. Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2016. p.318
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