I went out on the front porch to pick up my newspaper Wednesday morning.  The headline read: Israel kills Palestinian officer.  The story continued: “In a carefully planned strike Israeli helicopter gun ships tracked down and assassinated a Palestinian police commander Tuesday in retaliation for allegedly attacking Israeli citizens.

Thursday’s lead story was predictable:  Eight killed, twenty injured as Palestinian bus driver rams vehicle into crowd.  The attack followed by a day Israel’s assassination of a Palestinian security officer.

Jesus tells us: Love your enemy…do good to those who hate you..bless those who curse you…pray for those who abuse you.

Has Israel forgotten the lesson of their ancestor Joseph who forgave his brothers who once sold him into Egyptian slavery?

To worldly realists, Jewish or Christian, Jesus teaching on love may seem naïve, even a bit mad.  He would probably support an abolition of the death penalty for heavens sakes. Get real Jesus. This isn’t how the world works.

And yet, given our options…between living out the Golden Rule as well as we can and living by the law of eye for an eye…it is a non-choice…even for the realist.

Look again at our daily paper.  Is it better to perpetuate a cycle of violence and near war or is it better to forgive and seek ways to reconcile differences? Jesus tells us to make that first move.

Here at home we have had our own domestic war…a political battle of spite and counter spite that has confounded any real Congressional work…Governing has given over to infighting.  Indeed as Bob Woodward says in his recent book the Shadow, ever since Watergate spite has only increased and civility in the political realm has all but disappeared.

A spiteful story has been circulating this past month. I heard it from so many people, I began to believe it myself.  Even so I had to wonder why Clinton and his aides would do anything so stupid as to take every movable object from ashtray to silver from Air Force One.  And while I was still trying to figure that out, last week at a meeting of the ministerium one man told me that even the plane’s carpet had been ripped up.

In Friday’s paper President Bush said it never happened. That Air Force One was intact.  The President could have allowed the vicious rumor to circulate, but he didn’t…and his action was a small step toward healing…an act of Christian love…Someone has to take the first step.

There has been far too much spite in these past years and it is truly hard to live by the law of love where the basic law is survival of the fittest, even the meanest.

Love may not be easy…yet just think of the choice.

Even when we commit our lives to living out Jesus Golden Rule, when it comes right down to practical instances, it is not always clear what the loving thing is that we must do.

Life does not come in blacks and whites.  We spend a lot of life in a gray zone, and it is normal for us to have to ask: WHAT IS THE LOVING THING TO DO?

Word reaches us that Iraq’s radar system has been bombed.  An act of war…what was the loving thing to do?  Would it be more loving to allow British and American planes on duty over the no fly zone to be targeted and hit?

If one commits to Christ’s way all decisions must pass through the filter of love, and some decisions can only be made in terms of which is the better choice..not  which is the perfect choice.

What about the executive who sees the business going down the tube unless it downsizes and regroups…is it loving to let good workers go or is it more loving to let the whole business go?

There is a whole field of theology called Christian ethics…what a Christian must do in this kind of situation and in that…What I am saying here is simply that it is often difficult to discern the loving action when it comes right down to choosing. But we must try…prayerfully try to find the better way…make the most loving choice.

But the loving choice is not only difficult at times to discern.  It can be costly. It can cost you your life…look at Gandhi…look at King…look at Jesus Christ…Loving can be very costly. Because the power of evil in this world is aroused by effective love and retaliates.

Indeed they stand ready…ready and organized all over the world…people who love to hate…live to hate.  They target immigrants.  They target people of color. They target love.  They get their life’s energy from hate.  They find their life’s meaning in violating the humanity of others.

If love is an imperative, why does hate persist?  Probably deep down because there is a power of evil at war in our world with all that is good, competing with each choice we make for our hearts and our minds.

In recent years in the political realm there has been a groundswell of hatred…the Nixon haters…then the Clinton haters.  Maybe in times of peace, people need to do battle with something or someone…But what is the good of the hate?  Both men, when it comes down to it, were gifted, complex and flawed. What good does it do to revile them. One is dead.  One is gone…more or less.

Some of us of a certain age have been blessed to see the power of non-violence that effects great change…defeats the powers of oppression.

We have seen it in Gandhi whose non-violent determination drove the British from India.  We have seen it in King, who adopting Gandhi’s non-violent methods, brought our land to recognize the depth of its racism and its cost.

Yes, those of us of a certain age have actually seen the power of non-violent action opposing the forces of oppression and hate.  Gandhi and King chose the non-violent way, though others challenged that choice.  Yet ironically both men were shot and killed.  But why should that be a surprise when Jesus himself was crucified?

Leading a life of non-violent revolution against the forces of hatred and discrimination can lead to a violent end. Yet it is the power of love, Easter tells us, that in the end prevails.

When Nelson Mandela, released from some twenty years on Robbin Island, was elected president of the new nation, he said:  We will need our enemies to build this nation..pragmatism if not love.

He asked Bishop Tutu to oversee the healing of the national wounds and gave Tutu the awful assignment of presiding over the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  The Commission subpoenaed all those accused of torturing and killing in the name of apartheid.  Victims of torture and survivors of the killed were called in to witness to their experiences of brutality and hate.  Those accused of the crimes were obliged to sit there and listen to this public exposition of their shameful past.  They were asked to publicly ask forgiveness…and then, and only then, granted immunity from any further prosecution.

Rather than a bloodbath of vengeance, the new nation was born in truth and reconciliation and is presently seeking to move on to a better place.  In some ways ahead of us.

Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you.

Love is the better way.  It is the only way.

Partners for Progress has put a lot of thought and time into this community and its needs. Civility is what they conclude this community needs above all else. Why settle for anything so thin as civility? We survive on civility…we grow on love.

In today’s powerful sermon Jesus calls us to radical love…love that makes no sense, and yet I have given it a try…deciding to pray for an adversary and seeing before my eyes a transforming recognition of that other person’s humanity.  We dehumanize our enemy to make our anger legitimate. Praying for that other restores their humanity. It does work, and so does the rest of it. Showing unexpected kindness to your enemy. It astonishes at first, but it does change things.

God  is calling us today from the dirty trenches of human spite and conflict to love’s high ground. And it is there that we will find our Lord awaiting us.