Dine With Your Enemies

 

 

DINE WITH YOUR ENEMY   Sermon Notes 

 

 

What’s an enemy? It’s a pretty broad term actually. A very simple working definition is ‘someone who doesn’t have your best interest at heart’. If you think about that for a moment, you’ll conclude that’s 99.9% of the human population.

 

A more narrow definition could be, ‘Someone who opposes you’. That’s quite a bit narrower, but it’s still a LOT of people. Think about being online in a chat, or a comment section of a video… people that oppose you are many.

 

Even narrower still, ‘someone who intends to harm you’. That’s still quite a few people as this isn’t restricted to physical harm. How many here have had other spread rumors about them? It’s still a lot of people.

 

Regardless of how narrow you want to define an ‘enemy’, it’s not a small group of people, and by many standards, anyone who isn’t your friend, is your enemy.

 

DO YOU HAVE ENEMIES?

 

If we evaluate ourselves, our thoughts and our words in the third person I would dare say we have lots of enemies.

 

Our next-door neighbors; do they have your best interest in mind?

What about the people you ‘used to’ go to church with, do they oppose you?

What about the people who talk about you and start rumors and disparage your faith, do they intend to harm you?

What about people that you do not know that talk bad about your church on BannedBy; are they your friends?

 

DO YOU WANT ENEMIES?

 

Now that we have a definition, do you want enemies?

I don’t think we have to dig too deep to answer that question, I’m pretty sure that, at least on some level we don’t want enemies. Do we enjoy the stress of opposition? Do we enjoy rumors? Some of you will probably be thinking, ‘wait a minute, we’re SUPPOSED to be hated by all nations.’ I too was raised with that idea. Let’s look at what exactly that passage says, because there is a common error that’s made in interpretation that changes a very important point. Matthew 24:9 Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.

Now, ignoring the context, including, to whom and what ‘age’ He is referring, what is the focus of the hatred?  It’s not Christians that are hated, it’s the name they proclaim. What I want to point out is that WE are not supposed to have enemies for our sakes. It’s the name of Christ that draws the attention.

You don’t have to take my word for that, Romans 12:18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

 

We will come back to that passage later for the context, but Paul implies that we should be actively trying to NOT have enemies. So, do you want enemies? I don’t think you do.

 

So what makes enemies? 

Lots of things make enemies but here a few, I’ll start with one of the biggest causes, ignorance. Ignorance is probably the number 1 cause of adversarial relationships in general. Simply put, you have enemies because, you don’t know. ‘what don’t I know?’ you might ask, Exactly my point. Ignorance. How many times have you had a rocky start to a relationship just because the other person said something you didn’t understand? After just a couple minutes of conversation you realized, oh!, you meant ‘xyz’ that makes sense now. This happens all the time. One of the biggest ways Ignorance causes enemies in our time is through technology. Zoom, Chat windows, Texts, and Social Media. These technologies are quite interesting paradoxes. We call them ‘social medias’ and they function by facilitating communication… kind of. The irony is in the fact that they only facilitate the sharing of limited communication.

Some worse and in different ways than others, all these platforms more or less only transmit words. At best they transmit a video of someone speaking. You might be surprised to know MUCH more information is shared in an in-person conversation than just the ‘words’.

 

The Canadian Parliament has been suspended for about 2 years now, with another 2 years planned. The entire function of Parliament has been reduced to a zoom call, with MPs in dressshirts and pajama pants. Political pundits and journalists alike have noticed a giant shift in conversation from a previously heated debate, to now; constant ad-hominem name calling, yelling, screaming obscenities, curses and down-right childish tantrums.

 

It's no surprise either, it’s a documented phenomenon, and it’s directly related to the ‘virtual’ nature of the meetings.

 

How many of you have been up late at night and see someone say something stupid on the internet? Show me your hands, I know you have. I know I have, in fact I’m a regular on chat sites like bannedby, and sometimes, whooie. How many times have we responded to things we see on the internet in a long harsh way? When we leave reviews for really lousy products on Amazon do we write them colorfully?  

 

Yet, how many of us have stood face-to-face with someone we don’t know very well and cussed them out, or yelled obscenities at a waiter? How many of us have been in an in-person conversation and ‘let them have it’? I dare say our own online and offline behaviors are quite different.

 

That’s a product of many different things, but one of them is the myriad of data sets that are being communicated in an in-person conversation. Body language, like posture, expression, the presence of sweat, etc. Whether a person is leaning back or forward, the way their noses twitch, the direction of their eyes, the color of their cheeks, the way they shake hands, all these things are real-time communication devices. Online conversations lack most of those, and most platforms lack all.

 

That’s not all though. In the absence of those data-sets which makes us ignorant, we resort to labelling. Online, there are no people. Humans don’t live in the internet. On the internet there are only words and pictures. The way that works is that we see a name, and a statement and we combine those two things and that’s it.

John Smith tweeted, “ I hate spaghetti”. Therefore, John Smith is a guy that hates Spaghetti. He is nothing else because there IS nothing else, just I hate Spaghetti. We are completely ignorant of John Smith.

 

Online people ARE what they say they are and nothing more.

 

This is why we have 2 generations of humans that really do think that Identity is fluid. They grew up with the internet and on the internet you CAN be whatever you say you are because your Identity is whatever you say it is.

 

Without all the devices of in-person communication PEOPLE aren’t human, they are just avatars or name badges for their ideas and words.

 

That’s how Ignorance causes enemies, we don’t know.

 

 

Absence of Humanity

 

Another thing that causes enemies is the absence of humanity. This is deeply tied to ignorance, but it needs to be considered on its own. We are told to Love our neighbor as ourselves. What does that mean to you? 

It’s not at all uncommon for us to ‘plead our case’ when we are cornered. When things aren’t going right and conflict appears we are quick to share our intentions. We proclaim our own intentions in tears, and we say ‘I’m only human’. Yet, just like the parable of the unforgiving servant we do not listen to other’s ‘reasons’. 

Solomon wrote ‘to have friends, one must first, show himself friendly’ . Many enemies are caused by a lack of humanity.

 

Think about your next-door neighbor for a minute, preferably one with whom you do not get along so well with… Is God as proud of them as He is of you? Think about your answer for a while and observe your metrics. What measuring tape did you just use to calculate your answer?

 

WHAT TO DO

 

So, what should you do about the enemies you have? How would you go about having LESS enemies?

 

In the words of Rowan Atkinson, ‘you have three choices, first you can kill Bob.’

 

Could you ‘do-away’ with you enemies old-west style? Well, I mean you could but would that shorten or lengthen your list of enemies? Well, I think the Police, the FBI, friends and family of the hither-to enemy, as well as the judge and jailers would all ADD to your list of enemies. I say that in jest, but many people have tried that route, and it ONLY makes your problems worse.

 

What about avoidance? Just stay far away. Well that COULD help in some scenarios, and I have to say, in the case of a dangerous or violent enemy you need to flee danger. However, we’re not focusing on violent enemies right now, we’re focusing on the broad idea. Isolating away from your enemies doesn’t decrease the number of enemies you have… it just puts space between you.

 

What we want to know, is how to have LESS enemies.

 

The only way to do that is to Befriend your enemies.

 

We have been studying a topic here in CGI Tyler after services; We’ve been studying “what is the Kingdom of God?’.

 

I don’t want to get too far off track, but we are a part of that Kingdom RIGHT NOW. That kingdom exists already, and it’s growing. 

 

One of the questions that has come up a few times in our study is ‘what does it mean to ‘seek first the kingdom’?

 

I suggest, one of the meanings is ‘be inviting’. Do you want your neighbors to be a part of the Kingdom? I really mean that question, do you ACTIVELY WANT your neighbors to be a part of the Kingdom of God? 

 

I may offend you when I say this, but I mean it of myself too, I don’t think we do. Certainly not all the time at the least.

 

You know how quick we are to plead our cases when we’re cornered? Are we aware of our neighbors and the corners they are in? Do you seek the expansion of The Kingdom of God in your neighborhood? 

 

I want to tell you a personal story. This really happened and it changed something in the way I think. 

 

I had a neighbor for several years that was probably, the biggest human enemy I’ve ever had as of yet. His name was Eddie. When we moved in Eddie was nice, Jack was a baby and when he learned to walk Eddie and his wife would let Jack walk over and eat pickles on their porch. A year or two later, on Christmas morning, Eddie had a heart-attack. He was taken to the hospital, and they were able to save him. After a couple weeks he came back home an angry curmudgeon. From that day forward he had a hatred for me that caused him to turn red in the face and spit and cuss at me EVERY day. He raised hell. He began to call the city complaint department about me every day, saying my grass was long, or I had too many trailers, or there were too many people there or, he didn’t like the way we were remodeling the house. This was happening nearly every day, and he and his wife would walk around to the other neighbors and bully them into calling the city too. He told the other neighbors, who thankfully didn’t call about me, that he intended to chut my business down and kick us out of our house. He was out to destroy me. Over the course of the next few years I spent several afternoons in the courthouse fighting claims against me. Unfortunately, Eddie had a friend in the city code inspector who was not someone you could call a nice person, and I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars in fines for things I proved were wrong. 

After a couple of years of this non-stop harassment I decided to play hardball. He made a call to the city that he didn’t like the color of my house, so when I found out through an inside source, I went home and painted the entire side of my house that faces him in bright pink and yellow polka dots. Giant polka dots.

 

This, as you could guess, did not make the problem go away. It got worse.

 

Then, I tried something else. Prayers of imprecation. I figured, David prayed that God would kill his enemies, I’ll do the same. I prayed, God, he’s old, he’s angry and he’s non-stop harassing me, please let him die. 

 

His health got worse, and his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He got angrier. He would literally stand on his porch which is beside my driveway and yell at me, cussing and spitting every day as I got in or out of my truck. 

 

So, I learned to tune him out.

 

The next year or so, I built a fence, I spent extra attention to making sure the front of my house was extra clean, so the city wouldn’t feel the need to inquire, and I learned to ignore him.

 

Then he called the city one day about a shed I was building in my back yard and gave the inspector a ladder to look over my privacy fence, and I lost it. I cussed that inspector up and down and sideways, I cussed Eddie out, my face swollen in the same rage. Not only had nothing gotten better over these years, but I actually had MORE enemies, to this day me and the inspector do not address each other. 

 

I thought about this a lot over a long period of time and a not a little whiskey. One day about 7 years into this nightmare I let God have it. I was taught to be rather frank with God, and so I am, and I told God, Ok Ok OK! You say I should pray FOR my enemies, so I’m going to do it, but I don’t want to. I stammered out, with great difficulty a half-hearted prayer of peace on Eddie’s behalf. The next day, I said, ok God, I’ll try this again but I still hate him. This went on for several days with me slowly breaking down a little bit each day until one day I considered Eddie as a human and I prayed, sincerely that God would give him the view and the hope that I had.

 

The next day, I drove home from work and see Eddie out the corner of my eye yelling from the corner of his porch. I get out of my truck but he wasn’t cussing at me that day, he was saying some here, I need to talk to you.

 

I went over to him, and with tears in his eyes he broke down and apologized for being an ass. He then told me his story about his 4 different marriages and his kids that disowned him, and the surgeries he’d had, and how hard it was for him to get around and how hard it was for him and his wife to cook now that she had cancer.

 

I had 1 less enemy.

 

You know, he didn’t get off easy either. We and another neighbor couple began taking care of them, and bringing them food and stuff. Tabi and I took the wife to hospital one day and it so happened that that was the first time she had ever been able to get away from him, she got a policeman in the hospital room to take her testimony the he had been abusive, he got arrested and taken to a nursing home where he eventually as I understand, died of Covid, as his wife died of cancer in the care of estranged family who turned up with an unknown will and stole the house and furniture.

 

And I was sad. I could have wished all those things on them, and did… but as it turned out to be the case all along, it was just a sad and miserable story. He was just a miserable man, and I wasn't there to relieve that misery.

 

Ignorance, and a lack of humanity and humility cause enemies, and the only way to have LESS enemies is to befriend them. 

 

I mentioned last time that doing something just because God said to do it isn’t a good enough answer, someone emailed me recently and challenged me on that point and I appreciate it. I wrote him back and explained my point better, that God doesn’t tell us things JUST because He likes telling people what to do. There are reasons for the imperatives He gives. My point last time was that we should mature to see those reasons. Much to the same point, when He says, “pray for your enemies” and “if your enemy is hungry, FEED HIM.” He’s not saying that because He wants us to suffer. It’s because THAT’s PRECICELY THE WAY YOU GET RID OF ENEMIES. If you engage positively with your enemy, you can overcome the ignorance that separates you. Whether by kindness for evil, food for hunger, drink for thirst, clothes for nakedness, or Conversation for Insult, engagement is the only way reduces the number of enemies you have.

 

How can we make a practice of that? How can we Seek First the Kingdom and HIS righteousness?

 

DINE WITH YOUR ENEMIES

 

Romans 12:

Let’s read the whole short chapter.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

²     And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

³     For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

⁴     For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:

⁵     So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

⁶     Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;

⁷     Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching;

⁸     Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.

⁹     Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

¹⁰  Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;

¹¹  Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;

¹²  Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; ¹³ Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.

¹⁴  Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.

¹⁵  Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.

¹⁶  Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.

¹⁷  Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.

¹⁸  If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.

¹⁹  Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

²⁰  Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

²¹  Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

 

Invite your enemies to eat at your table, have a real conversation with people that oppose you; IN PERSON. Shake their hand, engage in the proper social etiquette of conversation. Make eye contact. Listen. Ask real questions of them and listen for their answers. 

One of my heroes of sorts says, ‘treat other people as if they know something that you don’t’.

 

Invite your next-door neighbor to dinner at your table. Perhaps, there’s a potential friend next door to you. Perhaps that ‘annoying guy who leaves his trashcan out an extra day’ isn’t an idiot worthy of expulsion from the town square. Maybe he has his reasons.

 

Invite that person you ‘used to go to church with’ to your parties. Have a conversation about why you’re in different places.

 

Do all of this IN PERSON. I heard a someone say recently, ‘It’s very hard to hate someone in person’.

 

This internet age is not good for our social health. We are constantly reducing people to statements and ideas. Look at the political or celebrity news pages, people, real people with lives, problems, strengths, and reasons are reduced to memes. We talk about other people as if they’re just memes, an image with some text on it. 

 

We have so many who are still home and not in church, come back to your congregation we need you, and you need us. You probably have reasons, let’s talk about them. When the author of Hebrews says ‘do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together’ was not because the author wanted more food on the table at potluck. It also wasn’t said so the Super Deacons could check the attendance roster and determine who was a Christian. He said that because this in-person interaction we have, where we can see people’s eyes dart, we can see people squirm when we say something in appropriate, where we can see others nodding their heads in agreement as we share something personal. These devices of communication are fundamental to our mental health. Saying happy Sabbath to all on the webcast isn’t the same thing.

 

Eating and Conversation seem to be wired together, if you look through the life of Christ, you’ll notice the vast majority of recorded conversations He had were over a meal.

 

All throughout history ‘breaking bread together’ is considered to be a bonding experience. Google search the studies about families that eat dinner together, the results of these studies are incredible. The level of bond people who eat together share is undeniable.

For some reason when we eat with another person we feel the need to talk, and we share stories. These stories explain to the other person who we are, how we act, and why we are the way we are, but that’s not even the coolest part.

 

 

Do you know that when people share a meal, there’s a biological change that happens? When you eat a meal with someone or sit down for a real conversation, studies show your bodies increase their production of oxytocin. That oxytocin is nicknamed the ‘snuggle hormone’ It’s the hormone that’s partially responsible for the bond between a nursing mother and an infant. It’s the hormone that’s partially responsible for the emotional bond between as husband and wife. By means not well understood yet, though observed, BOTH parties do this in response to each other. When you spend time with other people, in person you are in a real sense, BIOLOGICALLY growing closer to them, chemically and emotionally you are recording that person as PART of you.

 

Do you see some connection to Loving your Neighbor as yourself there?

 

This world has endless distractions that divide us. Everywhere you look there are clubs, ideas, parties, titles, doctrines, geography, politics and religions to separate us. Most of these are manmade, we have enemies because we MAKE them. 

 

Do you have enemies?

 

Do you WANT enemies?

 

To all those watching, wherever you are, and whenever you watch this, come visit us in person. You folks on BannedBy and similar places who are critical, but still interested enough to engage in constant religious conversation, we’re in Tyler Texas the address is on Google, services are at 11am, and we have extra seats, come visit.

 

For us here, engage with people around us, consider other people in the light of ‘do I want that person to be a part of the Kingdom of God?’

 

In Conclusion.

We’re given a weird instruction Matthew 5:23, Christ says that if you're in the process of worshiping God and you remember that your brother has something against you… that’s some backwards wording to us in the West, be it’s exactly what He meant. If you’re in the process of laying a gift at the alter and you remember that your brother has something against you, the burden is on YOU to go fix it.  When Paul said 'as much as depends on you...', how much depends on US?

 

We could go on and on about all the scriptures that talk about being our brother’s keeper, who our brothers are, saving those who are stumbling, seeking the lost, etc. 

 

Seek first the Kingdom and His Righteousness, we cannot save people on our own, it’s not within our ability, but… we CAN ‘seek’ to expand that Kingdom. We CAN view our enemies with humanity, we can educate our ignorance and we CAN overcome Evil with Good.

 

Dine with your Enemy, maybe, just maybe by the end of dinner you won’t have quite so many.

Seth Forrestier 7-13-22