Love YOUR enemies

I would like to share with you some reflections that have been occupying me for some time.

These reflections, though supported by many lectures, are mine alone and I take full responsibility for them (don't put the blame if you disagree anywhere else) but this is something I have been thinking of for quite a long time and I guess I am ready to share with you at least part of it.

One of the most famous Biblical quotations can be found in Matthew 5:44: "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you" (New King James). It is directly lined to Leviticus 19:18: "You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord." (New King James).

Around those verses lots of wonderful theological teaching has evolved - both in Judaism and Christianity and also in completly secular but deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian values ethical systems.
But somehow lately I have an impression that this sentence in quoted and reminded (most often in perfectly secular situations) to forgive or demand forgivness for somebody else's enemies.

People wko rarely if ever remember these Biblical verses when somebody cuts them on highway, cheats when they do shopping, speaks to them vulgarly or is irritating at work openly demand forgivness for perpetrators of serious moral and sometimes legal misdeeds (crimes included) but... committed against somebody not known (and preferably distant).

A good example may be discussion after killing of Osama ben Laden by American comandoes. No matter what you think about capital punishment, the role of the USA in creating Ben Laden or decision about his execution the voices spilling tears over "poor, murdered man" (there were many of such) and calling upon forgiving him after those years (when questioning the sense of killing him 10 years after 9/11) were - from my point of view - voice of contempt for his victims (all of them, not only those connected to 9/11).
And it is not that I don't believe in forgivness - even of the awful deeds - but the only one entitled to granting forgivness is the victim (victims are also near and dear of those murdered). Only the victim - out of his/ her free will - has a privilege to forgive. Nobody can do it instead or demand from victim (often as tactless as possible) that he/ she forgives and forgets so it can be nice and cosy again. And it is not about vengance but about ingering into delicate and individual psychological and emotional process of the victim.

It is so easy to forgive sins against somebody else!


Another example is Dutroux who before raping and murdering by starving to death two 8-years-old in  Belgium was in prison for raping children and was let go - forgiven by system that considers inhumane to keep such as him for life. In many cases in contemporary Europe it is DEMANDED that we forgive lawbreakers - they suffered hardships as children, they were ill-treated (presumabely), it is society that is guilty (including, I understand, the victims in society - had there not been 8 years old Dutroux wouldn't be tempted). The system is so full of compassion... for sinners against someone else.
For me it is sad proof of contempt for victims - of crimes, mistreat, totalitarianism... They are not fun to be around and we want to forget, and we want them to forgive and forget. Let's get together and feel all right!

This unique social terror to forgive (to be able to forget about evil living among us) reminds me essays by Ditrich Bonhoeffer, the leading German theologist, opposing Nazizm and murdered in Dachau. He was writing about cheap and dear (expensive? - sorry, I have never read his work in English) grace.
If Christians proclaim "do whatever our sins have been paid for" theology, if we consider ourselves redeemed as Christ has died it is cheap grace, in fact sinfull. 
But to live according to God's will and expectations, to let him lead our choices, to try and live according to Bible it is the dear grace, the true one.
Of course the above is very shortened but I hope you know what I mean.

Forgiving sins against somebody is like cheap grace. Being with victims through their healing process, through their pain and struggle and process of forgiving (sometimes everlasting) is the real. dear grace.

But God has asked us to forgive OUR enemies, not God's enemies (like the most notorious enemies of humankind) and not somebody else's!