To live in the name of Jesus is to develop the courage and imagination to live peaceably in a violent world. We so often want to immediately find the loopholes to what Jesus is saying about loving our enemies and not resisting evil, before sitting in awe at his vision for his people. Nonviolence is not passivity, but a struggle to find alternatives to violence - our weapons become kindness, forgiveness, and peaceful resistance.
Learning to love our enemies purges us of hate so we can become perfect like God. Where the Old Testament writers were content to pray for God’s vengeance upon their enemies, Jesus encourages us to pray patiently for them. Loving our enemies reveals to us the violence in our own hearts, opening us up to consider how God deals with God’s enemies - not by retaliatory revenge, but through the love of the cross. Ultimately this gets to the core of what we believe about God, and what God accomplished through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to overcome evil.
(based on Matthew 5:38-48)
O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth: deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
We pray for our enemies around the world, that they may come to see the vision of your peaceable Kingdom as the only path to justice and truth.
Pray for our enemies internationally and across religions.
We pray for our enemies within our own country, that You would bring down the dividing walls of hostility between ideological tribes that turn neighbor against neighbor.
Pray for peace in our divided nation.
We pray for our enemies within the Church itself; whether across denominational lines, or those sitting in the row next to us. May our allegiance to You transcend all prejudice and discord.
Pray for peace within the Body of Christ.
We pray for our personal enemies - all who threaten us, whether by their words or actions; or who, by their mere presence, invite us to confront the fact we are not as loving as we would like to think.
Pray for your personal enemies.
Lord Jesus, prince of peace, we repent of the hatred in our own hearts.
Give us eyes to see all people as You do - people to be loved and not threats to overcome.
We repent of the violence we have perpetrated in the name of retributive justice, whether through thought, word, or deed.
We relinquish our desire for revenge, and trust in Your redemption through the cross.
Grant us courage to live peaceably as far as it is possible, and develop in us the patience necessary to see your Kingdom revealed in our time.
May we not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.
Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.