Next week is St Valentine’s Day and the shops are already full of cards and chocolates, and the flowers will soon appear. Many will be thinking of that one person who is special to them.
When we lived in the United States, because of their separation between Church and State, in our area the students were not allowed to give Christmas cards to one another.
Jowever, in the primary school, at this time of year, every student had to give every other student in their class a Valentine’s card – even to those students they did not like or who had been mean to them or bullied them.
There are lots of groups of people Jesus told his followers to love, including their enemies. These enemies fall into two groups. First there were those in their community, their neighbours or fellow-members of the synagogue or church, and then there were those who more extreme, the occupying army of the Romans. As we are not occupied by an alien army, what did Jesus say about the former group?
Jesus told his followers to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28).
Here we see three types of enemies.
First, those who hate us, which often manifests itself in them shunning us or treating us unkindly. We love them by doing them a good turn. That’s hard, but it is not impossible to show a small kindness.
Second, there are those who curse us, say unkind or untrue things about us. We love them by blessing them – the Greek word means ‘to speak well’. That, again, is hard, but it is not impossible to say a kind word.
Then, there are the third group, those who mistreat us badly.
In such an extreme case it may be that we cannot bring ourselves to show a small kindness or say a kind word. In that case let us pray for them and, when we do so, you never know … that may soften our heart.
Michael Penny is the chair of Churches Together in Reading and Berkshire
