The Blessing of Enemies

Jesu Juva

Romans 12:9-21                                             

August 30, 2026

Proper 17A                            

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        I keep my friends close, but my enemies even closer.  That seems like a pretty good strategy where enemies are concerned.  Keeping enemies close means you can keep an eye on them. It helps you anticipate their next move.  And it might enable you to launch a preemptive first strike if necessary.  Keeping your enemies close is good advice.      

        Today’s reading from Romans 12 contains even more good reasons to keep your enemies close.  It’s a reminder that, while it’s good to have friends, for the Christian it’s even better to have enemies.  For Jesus never said, “Blessed is the man who is loved by his wife, cherished by his children, and admired by all.”  But Jesus did say, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” (Matt. 5:11).  The fact is that enemies can be a blessing. And, if that’s true, then blessed are you, for your life has its fair share of enemies—and if not now, just wait.

        Romans chapter 12 isn’t only about enemies.  This section of Romans has to do with living out your Christian faith.  In last week’s reading from earlier in the same chapter, we were told to offer our bodies as “living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.”  Today we get some straight talk on just how to live holy, sacrificial lives. 

        And it’s done very simply.  Motivated by the mercies of God, living the Christian life is sweet and simple.  Paul writes:  Let love be genuine.  Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.  Love one another with brotherly affection.  Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.  Contribute to the needs of the saints.  Show hospitality.  Overcome evil with good.  It’s all easier said than done, to be sure.  But there’s really no great surprise in any of that.

        What is surprising—what really goes against our every instinct—is what it says concerning our enemies.  Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  Repay no one evil for evil.  Never avenge yourselves.  Paul even quotes an old Proverb about enemies: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  For by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head.

        It’s good for you to have enemies because enemies create opportunities.  Enemies provide a perfect path to live out your Christian faith.  Your enemies provide the perfect opportunity for you to walk the walk and talk the talk—to be doers of the Word.  Thanks to your enemies, you can provide food and drink to those who wish that you would starve.  You can provide clothing for those who would like nothing better than to strip you of your possessions and your good reputation.  You can defend those who attack you.  Thanks to your enemies, you get plenty of practice at refraining from revenge and overcoming evil with good.  Thank God for enemies.  For without enemies, when would you ever have the chance to fulfill the law of Christian love?  This is why Christians keep their friends close, but their enemies even closer.  With enemies like these, who needs friends?

        There’s one more good reason for you to keep your enemies close:  they are a constant reminder of how much we admire ourselves.  It’s true.  We all think quite highly of ourselves—especially compared to our enemies.  We’re proud of our progress in virtuous living.  We’re confident about our competence in the art of Christian living.  I thank thee, God, that I’m not like everybody else—abortionists and arsonists, rebels and rioters.

        When you catch yourself feeling that way (smug and self-satisfied), then do this:  Think about your enemies.  Take note of your thoughts and feelings toward that person who has wronged you—that person who has cursed you, twisted your words, lied about you, stolen from you, cheated you, cheated on you, denied your promotion, ruined your reputation, treated you like excrement.  How do you feel about that person? 

What you think and feel about your enemies tells the whole truth about just how far you’ve missed the mark—how uncharitable, how unchristian, how unloving and unforgiving we really are.  And without bona-fide, grade A enemies, we’d never know that terrible truth about ourselves.  It’s good to have enemies, for they are painful reminders of the sin and death that dwells deep within us.

        For everyone who follows Jesus, let there be no revenge, no retaliation, no retribution.  Repentance is what we need.  We need to repent of how much we love ourselves and for how much we hate our enemies.  You are never more alone than when you are alone with your sin.  But you never have a bigger cheering section than when you repent.  For if the angels of God rejoice over one sinner who repents, then surely the angels are rejoicing over your repentance—and you owe it all to your enemies!

        Well, not quite.  For behind every enemy you face and behind every cross you bear stands Jesus, the Son of God.  He knows about enemies.  And He knows about crosses.  In fact, as the nails went into His hands and feet, He prayed for His enemies:  “Father, forgive them.”  And we are, by nature, God’s enemies.  “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”  But in Jesus Christ God shows us what it really means to love your enemies.  The enemies of God never had it so good.  God’s love in Jesus is the kind of love that feeds you when you’re hungry, gives you who are thirsty a drink, clothes you when you’ve got nothing, and keeps right on doing it even while we kick, and scream and fuss like immature little children.  And children is what we are.  Children of God, holy and dearly loved, died-for, forgiven and redeemed—all with a resurrection promise.  That is what we are—we who know the love of Jesus.

        If you want to know what God is really like, look at Jesus.  Look at how Jesus lived while He was here on earth—what He said and did for those thirty-three years while living here in the enemy camp.  That shows us who God really is.  For Jesus was not overcome by evil; Jesus overcame evil with good.

        Sadducees and Pharisees and teachers of the law fought tooth and nail to bring Him down.  But Jesus shouldered it all, joyfully and willingly, so that He might have you as His own.  Jesus, who overcame evil with good, was overcome by evil men.  On Good Friday we see our Savior in the hands of angry sinners—spider-like men who wrapped Jesus in a web of their lies, nailed Him to the cross, and drained His blood.

        But that blood once drained from the corpse on the cross now fills the chalice.  And the resurrected Jesus—the living Christ—now offers you the blessings and benefits of His body and His blood in the Lord’s Supper.  This is my body, given for you.  This cup is the New Testament in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.  Here at this altar sinners get to eat and drink with the Friend of sinners.  In this holy meal Jesus overcomes all the evil in you with all the good He is.  And He gives away all that good to you as a gift.  And every time that happens, angels rejoice, and we are reminded again of the simple truth that God is love. 

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

Who Do You Say That I Am?

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 16:13-20                                     

August 23, 2026

Proper 16A             

Dear saints of our Savior,

        “Who do you say that I am?” 

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

This question and answer is foundational to the Christian faith.  Christ is how we know God; and Christ is how we know man; and we Christians proclaim both to a world that knows neither.  Our pastors and missionaries proclaim the true God with boldness amid all the idols of this age.  And our ministries of mercy proclaim true man with boldness amid every dehumanizing force.

        This Q and A between Jesus and the Twelve is a unique moment in our Lord's earthly ministry.  There’s nothing else quite like it anywhere else in the gospels.  At what other time does Jesus sit the disciples down, look them in the eye, and ask:  What do you guys think?  Let me hear what you’ve got to say.  Or, take the unique setting of this Q and A: the district of Caesarea Philippi.  What does that matter?  Why do the evangelists bother to include that geographic detail?  Well, this may have been the farthest from Jerusalem that Jesus ever roamed.  It was about 25 miles north of the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee.  As the name, Caesarea, would indicate, the Roman Emperor was venerated there.  But the entire region was replete with religions and idols and ideologies.  Jesus had taken the Twelve deep into a territory filled with a diversity of deities, to reveal Himself as the Son of the living God.

        Jesus’ question and Peter’s answer must lead us also to confess with clarity that Jesus is God—that He alone is the way, the truth, and the life—the one Mediator between God and men—who gave Himself as a ransom for all men.  And we Christians make that good confession concerning the Christ in a world not unlike the region of Caesarea Philippi.  We live in a brave, new world—a world where the idols are no longer easily recognized or defined. 

Our idols are seen most clearly whenever we look in the mirror.  Who do I love more than me?  Who do you love more than you?  In our worst moments we are dead-set on making ourselves gods in the place of God, making our own laws to live by—on a constant quest for power, for pleasure, for control.  And all this while we signal our virtue and align ourselves with whatever it takes to be popular.

        Jesus’ question and Peter’s answer must continually call us to repentance.  You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.  Jesus is God, and we are not.  But . . .who are we?  Who do you say I am?  Who does Jesus say I am?  Who does the church say I am?  What does the humanity of Jesus mean . . . for humanity?

        Who do you say people are?  For if Jesus Christ is God and Lord, that says as much about us as it does about Him.  With Jesus at the center, we can know our place.  We know where we stand.  And we know where we stand in relation to our fellow human beings—or, as Jesus called them:  the least, the lowly, and the lost.

        Who are we?  We have received an identity that no one can take away.  Note that carefully:  Your identity is given to you, not chosen by you.  We are created by God and made in God’s image.  That creative work—that core of our identity—begins in the womb.  Who do you say that is in the womb?  The womb is where life begins—where it all began for all of us.  Who do you say is there, in the womb?  Demonic voices declare that what resides in the womb is an unwanted inconvenience—an obstacle, an accident, or just medical waste to be burned. 

But we who confess that Jesus is the Son of the living God—we know—we know that the womb is the first home of every human baby.  The womb was the first home of the Lord Jesus!  In the womb is life from God.  Those unborn babies deserve to draw their first breath.  They deserve love and protection.  They deserve a mother and a father.  And, dare I say, it’s not enough to quietly believe that—to silently assent to what the preacher is saying.  When Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” silence is not an option.  How differently the gospels would read if Peter had just sat on his hands and kept his mouth shut for once.  But Peter speaks and confesses what he has been given, and so must we.  We must neither be silent, nor silenced.

        We too must confess.  We must speak out against abortion, and against every demonic ideology that seeks to rob us of our God-given identity.  Any belief system—any ideology that diminishes our humanity, or distorts our humanity, or degrades our humanity, is an assault on the humanity of Jesus, who was made to be like us in every way yet without sin, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. We confess: Male and female He created them. We confess: Marriage should be honored by all.  We confess: Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s. (Jesus is God; Caesar is not.)

        Our task in the church is to confess.  Our task is to tell people who Jesus is; and to tell people who they really are in relation to Jesus.  The world, of course, doesn’t want to hear it.  The world says, that’s just your religion (as if anything religious can be immediately disregarded).  But how much religious fervor does it take to believe that a man can become a woman, or that a woman can marry a woman?  Start disregarding religious beliefs because they are religious and soon enough you are left with nothing.

        But we in the Christian faith have been given everything.  We know.  We know because it has been revealed to us.  We have been given the faith to believe it:  Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  He died.  He rose.  He lives!  That truth changes everything. That truth orders the universe.  That truth brings into submission all the forces of chaos.  And so, we must continue to confess it. 

This is what we have been given to do, as surely as Peter piped up at the question posed by Jesus.  We take no pride in this.  We don’t boast about this.  Nor do we apologize for this.  This has been given to us.  Here we stand; we can do no other, God help us.

        And so we in the church of Jesus Christ must never stop confessing.  We will never stop answering that most foundational question of identity.  We will never stop proclaiming the gospel answer that has been revealed to us from heaven.  We answer anyone and everyone, from the greatest to the very least: We claim one and all for the human family. 

Who are you?  You are created by God.  Your life is no accident, no random quirk of evolution.  Your life is by divine design. 

Who are you?  In Christ you are redeemed.  You are died for.  You are loved.  Jesus Christ has answered for your sin by His death on the cross. By faith He is restoring in you His divine image, making you truly human—destined not for destruction, but for resurrection. 

Who are you?  You are a son of the living God.  You are a daughter of the living God.

        Upon this rock the Lord is building His church, as the gates of hell rage impotently on.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.