The White Queen told Alice in Wonderland that she practices believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast.  If we stretch ourselves to go beyond the limits of our rational minds, we risk going mad.  Tom Kinder says that madness can be divine.

            “Divine madness” is what Plato called the inspiration of artists.  Brother Kinder suggests it is “a good name for the unconditional love and nonviolence and bold justice of Jesus Christ.  It takes divine madness to challenge the powerful and stand with the poor and the oppressed.  It takes divine madness to love enemies and do good to them rather than hate and attack them.  It takes divine madness to follow a star or listen to angels.”

            Today, this fourth week in Advent, the last week before Christmas, our theme is LOVE.  Jesus taught unconditional love — agape-love.  He said, “I love you even as the Father loves me.” (John 15:9)  “Love each other as I love you” (John 15:12)

            Jesus spent time in prayer and meditation.  He spent nights in the Garden.  He went for peaceful cruises on the lake.  In that way we might say he was an ascetic of sorts.
            Many other great religious leaders were also ascetics.  But Jesus spent most of his time demonstrating his love.  That is to say, he didn't just tell us what to do; he did it!  He spent time with society's drop-outs, while not ignoring the up-and-inners.

            As believers, our calling is to love the unlovable, even our enemies.  Our commission is to relate lovingly to those who don’t love us — love the completely unlovable!  Jesus calls us to respond to the unresponsive. 

            Some time ago I preached on the importance of loving.  After the service a lady asked, “How can I love someone who is hurting my loved ones?”  That is a legitimate question.  How can we love the unlovable?

            First, let’s acknowledge that it is possible.  If it were not possible, Jesus would not have asked us to do it.

             Next, let’s acknowledge that it is a commandment, not an option.  “A new commandment I give you, that you love each other as I have loved you.”  Not just a suggestion, not just a good idea — a commandment!

            “As I have loved you . . .”  How did Jesus love us?  Enough to give up heaven and come down here to dwell among us as a man!   Enough to heal and teach and preach when he was tired.  Enough to find the lost sheep and bring it back to the shelter.  Enough to break down the barriers between Jew and Gentile, between races and sexes, personalities and classes, to make us all one in him — one with Jesus and the Father.

            Alright . . . so he loved us a lot!  But I still need to know how to love my unlovable relative.  I still need to know how to love my unlovely “enemy.”  I need to know how to love those I don’t like.

            Love is not just a romantic feeling which sends you to Cloud 9 when a certain someone holds your hand.  Love is a principle.  Since it is a command, it is possible. 

            Well, if it is possible, let’s figure out a modus operandi. Let’s learn how to respond responsibly, even to those who don’t respond to us!

            When I was a freshman at Union College, I disliked a fellow whose name was Walter.  I don’t remember why I didn’t like him.  I just remember that he was “egotistical and conceited,” and I do remember standing in the hall, sharing this vital information with a classmate.

            A voice from behind me invited me to come into an office for a brief visit!  It was Linnie Keith, my English teacher, and a close friend of my mother.

            “How well do you know Walter?”

            “Well, not all that well, I guess.”  She was not satisfied with that answer.

            Miss Keith then handed me a blank 3x5 card, with instructions to bring it back in 3 weeks with a list of the things I didn’t like about Walter. 

            On the reverse side I was to list the things I did like about Walter.  “And there better be something on that side” was her last word!
            Three weeks later I returned the card . . . with 3 traits I did not like on one side, and 11 favorable items on the other!

            Of course I didn’t care for Walter. I didn’t know him!  We don’t love people we don’t know.  Maybe Jesus implied that we should learn to know people!  When I took the time and put forth the effort to know Walter, I learned to like him!

            Charles Lamb, famous British writer, was walking with a friend.  “See that man over there?  I hate him!”

            “Hate him?  You don’t even know him!”

            “Precisely,” answered Lamb.  “We only hate that or whom we don’t know.”

            In some languages the word “enemy” also means “stranger.”

            Since then I have several times run that experiment on my own.  One was in regard to Jimmy Hoffa.  I personally knew a couple of men who were on his “hit list.” They were opponents.  I saw how he treated his enemies.  I didn’t like anything about him.

            So to be fair, I listed things I could admire about Jimmy Hoffa.  I did some reading, research.  Sure enough, I came up with a list of admirable traits.  I still resented his greed, his mismanagement of union funds, his treatment of enemies.  But I came to respect him for some characteristics I had not known about.  I almost learned to like the guy!

            Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount to pray for our enemies. That’s absurd!  But then, nearly all Christian behavior is absurd . . . unless you are a Christian!
            Obviously, we aren’t going to pray for the success of a thief or a robber or a murderer or a terrorist.  In fact, we are going to do all we can to thwart their intentions.  But we can pray for a person while not approving his evil behavior.  It may take a lot of research, and prayer, and honesty!

            To get yourself into a pray-for-your-enemies frame of mind, think of the enemy as a person, a person who laughs when something is funny, cries when he hurts, falls in love, cares for his children, weeps when he stands by the casket of his mother, a person who gets hungry, tired, lonely, scared.  In other words, put yourself in the other person’s shoes.  Maybe it would be more like putting the other person in your shoes!

            A third grader sat at his desk, when all of a sudden there was a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants were wet.  It had not happened before; he was devastated.  When the boys see it, they will never let him forget it.  When the girls see it, they will never speak to him.

            He put his head on his desk.  When he looked up he saw a classmate, Susie, coming carrying a goldfish bowl full of water.  She tripped just ahead of the boy, spilling the water in the his lap.
 
            Suddenly, a tragedy has been averted.  Instead of jeers, he is extended sympathy.  Susie gets the jeers!

            At the end of the day, as they waited for the bus, the boy whispered to Susie, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”  Susie whispered back, “I wet my pants once, too.”
            Next, to get into a pray-for-your-enemies frame of mind, try to imagine why the enemy is what he is.  What led him to the point of doing what he does, to the point of being what he is.  Again, it may take some time, some study.             

            Then I tried another experiment: to learn something about Fidel Castro.  Why did he become a rebel?  a dictator?  an unlovable person?

            You may remember that when Batista was dictator, the common people in Cuba were unbelievably exploited.  They were treated very much like black people were treated here in America during the days of slavery.

            Castro, after finishing a doctor’s degree at Columbia University, went back to Cuba to overthrow Batista.  Surely that was as noble as was our War for Independence and our Civil Rights movement.  He promised to institute a democratic form of government when he had won the revolution.

            Unfortunately, when he succeeded, he lost his vision.  We contributed to that! American businessmen had been getting filthy rich on the exploitation of the Cuban people.  Our payoffs to Batista were meager in relation to the millions we were taking out of Cuba.
           
            Castro's acute bitterness toward American capitalism was in turn exploited by the Soviet Union.

            All that does not excuse Castro for failing to keep his promise to institute a democracy in Cuba. 

            He’s a turncoat, if you please!  Inexcusable!  But considering Cuba’s history, maybe we get a different slant on the man.

            Someone said, “Morality is the first casualty of power.”  What would you do if you got all that power?  What would I do?  Would we be true to our ideals?  Or would we be corrupted, as was Castro?

            The point is:  We must pray for the man.  Not for his success as a dictator, but for him as a person  It is easier to pray for him if we remember how he got to where he is.

            There was a discussion on public radio the other day about why so many of our legislators become corrupt.  It is important, it seems to me, to ask how we would react to the pressures of the job and the flattery of all the lobbyists.

            Another example:  I knew a young lady who was reared in a very prosperous family.  She had everything a girl could want — education, money, clothes, friends . . .  She told me of the parties she had once enjoyed, the extravagant life she had lived.

            Her parents live in the fast lane of a wealthy Detroit suburb.  They had little time to share love and affection with Ruth (not her real name, of course).  So she turned to alcohol.  After all, her parents drank!  Then to drugs.  Then prostitution to finance her drug habit.

            You would have been impressed by her beauty.  You would have been completely turned off by the filthy flat in which she lived with a rude, crude pimp, and by the cruddy society with whom they hung out.
            If I ever knew someone who needed praying for, it was “Ruth.”  Don’t bother to pray for her now.  It’s too late.  She’s dead, of a drug overdose.  The last time I saw her was in the hospital.  At that point she told me she was going to go back home.  Unfortunately, she never got the chance.

            As a chaplain for the Wayne County sheriff and a long-time minister in inner-city Detroit, I know many of society’s drop-outs.  I have visited them in hospitals . . . or in the city morgue!  I have conducted several funerals for prostitutes, one for a drug dealer, two for murder victims.  What a blessing to walk where Jesus walked!  And what a depressing experience.

            Why did “Ruth” become what she became?  Remember her childhood!  I can tell you there are many poor souls in Detroit’s inner city just like “Ruth.”

            This world is full of “yucky” people, people we don’t like, repulsive people who need our prayers.  Some of them we know personally.  Some we know by name.  Most of them, we don't know at all.

            We won’t pray for the success of their life-style, but knowing them, knowing their backgrounds, we should see them as human beings, as tragic victims, not as evil people.  By considering people as people, people who have been influenced by many unfortunate circumstances (most of which we do not even know about) we can more easily pray for them.

            Jesus also said, “Do good to those who despitefully use you.”  That is as preposterous as anything Jesus ever said! 

            Doing good things has long-range benefits, like giving up your favorite dishes in order to lose weight, quitting smoking to protect your heart and lungs, exercising more than is comfortable to tone up your body.  But doing good things to bad people?

            Abraham Lincoln called the people to bind up the nation’s wounds, to hold malice toward none.  No revenge.  No getting even.  No make-them-pay attitude.  He was severely reprimanded by his aides for his approach.  His answer was, “If I make friends of my enemies, have I not conquered them?”  Do good to those who despitefully use you!

            A man who did not care for the great preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, said he would not walk across the street to hear Beecher preach. Later, someone noted that the man and Beecher had become good friends. 

            The explanation was simple. Whenever someone did Beecher an evil turn, he was not satisfied until he had done a good turn to that person.  It became a proverb in Brooklyn:  “If you want a favor from Beecher, kick him.”

            Our commission as followers of Jesus is to love and sympathize with and work for the oppressed.  It is to hate injustice and prejudice and bigotry — while at the same time loving the person in whose life those terrible characteristics exist.  Wow — talk about a challenge!

            We who know Jesus Christ, and have adopted his name (actually, we have his name because he adopted us!) are commissioned to share our salvation, our abundant life, our good news, our life-style, our love with the world.  As he did.
            “Go into all the world” and teach others, he told us, what we have learned from the him and from the Holy Spirit.

            Paul Tillich was a famous preacher and teacher.  He said Jesus Christ did not bring a new religion into the world, but a new reality — the power and presence of God’s unconditional love.

            Love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matthew 19:19) and love even your enemies (Matthew 5:44).

            We have noted before there are four different Greek words for “love.”  One is eros, from which we get the word “erotic.”  There’s nothing wrong with eroticism.  God created sex, after all, and it is a beautiful experience.

            Another word translated “love” is philos, from which we get philanthropy, and Philadelphia.  Brotherly love, concern for others.  That is also a beautiful word.

            The third is storge, the love for one’s family, children.

            The word Jesus used in teaching us to love, is agape.  This is a love which is other-centered, outgoing.  The best English equivalent may be altruism.  No hidden agenda, no ulterior motive.  Just sincere interest in others.  “Love others as much as you love yourself.”  That is a challenge!

            Karl Menninger once wrote: “It is this intangible thing love, love in many forms, which enters into every therapeutic relationship.  It is an element of which the physician may be the carrier, the vessel. 

            “And it is an element which finds and heals, which comforts and restores, which works what we have to call, for now, miracles.”

            Some time ago, 200 psychologists and sociologists from all over the world met in the first International Conference on Love and Attraction.  They listened to several speakers tell how romantic love is dying, replaced by sexual permissiveness.  The word “love” was rarely used at all.  They used the word “amorance” to replace it.

            “Amorance is the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feeling by the object of amorance.”

            Now, aren’t you glad you know that?  Love in action is a basis for love in return. 

            In James Michener's book, The Source, we read of Urbaal, who lived about 2 millenniums before Christ.  He worshiped a god of death and a goddess of fertility.  The temple priest instructed Urbaal to bring his son as a sacrifice.  After he dragged his son and his wife to the temple, the boy was put on the altar and burned, along with several others. Then Urbaal was instructed to spend a week with a temple prostitute.  Urbaal’s wife was stunned.  She left the ceremony shaking her head and saying, “If only he had had different gods, he would have been a different man.”

            Dear saints, the God we worship IS love incarnated, love exampled, love demonstrated, love commanded of his followers.
            If I pray for my enemy, and do good to him, learn to know him . . . Well, he won’t be an enemy for long, will he?  Loving the unlovely isn’t easy . . . but it is possible.      

            Please think seriously about the call of God to be faithful disciples, true witnesses at this important season.

            Thank you, Father, for the example of John.  Grant us the vision and the will to follow his example.