A few of the Friends Church Youth Group are currently going through the confirmation process, and this past Sunday was our class on the humanity and divinity of Jesus, and what it means to be a follower of “the Way.” I always look forward to our discussions, as the youth often introduce new insights or thought-provoking questions. One of the last questions asked was what it might look like to follow the radical call made by Jesus to love our enemies. Some of the responses stated that even if we don’t particularly like someone, or have a positive history with them, we’d still like for them to have their needs met in life, and that we wouldn’t wish them harm.
And then a follow-up question was asked that I keep thinking about.
“But is that love?”
But is that love? What a question. How do we define love? Who gets to define love? Which then begs the question of who our enemy is. Who is an enemy? Is this collective or individual?
We began contemplating how each person’s experiences in life could alter their understanding of love and enemies at any time. A child who grows up in a home where they are exposed to a cycle of violence may not recognize love and enemies in the same way as a child who has not. We are all, in some way, a product of everyone whom we have met, every environment in which we have lived, and everything we have experienced in between.
The way that I understand love is not how I understood it before recognizing my own trauma, developing healthy relationship patterns through therapy, and adopting a system of boundaries. And it is due to these changes in my life that I have also developed a very different understanding of enemies.
Our conversation during this confirmation class went back to the scripture on which Pastor Dan recently preached, about the Parable of the Fig Tree. We may often look upon a perceived enemy and think that they are incapable of producing good fruit. But sometimes trees have been planted in toxic soil. If we were to ask that tree what love looked like to them, would we both have the same answer?
We can’t just keep cutting each other down, but what is also important is the recognition that growth doesn’t happen instantaneously. What if, instead, we looked at a person and hoped for the chance to enrich the soil of their life, and to grow something together? Not every tree may welcome that sort of relationship, but it does help me approach people with a little more tenderness. And in turn, I hope they might approach me with the same kindness.