Kill Them with Kindness

I read this somewhere once, “The surest way of defeating your enemies is by turning them into friends.” Sounds a little naïve, I know, but I like it. It reminds me of Jesus. I recall the apostle Paul also writing something about leaving vengeance to the Lord (Romans 12:20-21), “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Or, as my mother might have said, “kill them with kindness.”
I was reminded of all this in my Bible study last night, and I started imagining what would happen if we really did this. What if we actually showered our enemies with kindness instead of insults? What if we offered our opponents blessings instead of animosity? I am astounded at the possibilities.
What if members of the Tea Party movement invited President Obama to a banquet celebrating his tenure as the U.S. of A.’s first African-American president?
What if Israel actually stopped building settlements in Palestinian areas, and Palestinians returned the favor by helping to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem?
What if local PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Gays and Lesbians) showed up to clean the bathrooms of local chapters of the KKK (Ku Klux Klan)?
What if members of Hispanic communities offered to baby sit the children of ICE workers?
What if we built ESL schools instead of fences along the Texas-Mexico border?
What if Reverend Terry Jones invited Muslims in his Florida community to a dinner to listen to why they love the Koran so much?
Crazy ideas, I know but, whenever I start imagining like this I start thinking that this is the kind of thing Jesus was doing. And of course, it drove the establishment in his day absolutely crazy, and that’s why they killed him. Amazing that such out-of-the-box ideas about how to live could get people so upset.
I don’t think I have quite the nerve to do some of the things I’ve just imagined just now. I am not Jesus, after all. But I wish I was more like him. Then I’d be through with all my enemies, because they would be my friends. Or else, they would kill me.
Hmmm, I guess that’s why we keep the walls up. That’s why we keep up the animosity. In a sick way, it’s kind of funny. We’re willing to kill and be killed to keep the walls up. But we’re not willing to die to tear them down, for Jesus’ sake.
I don’t want to end on such a despairing note. The truth is that there are people who are imagining the world and living life as Jesus did. Jim Fleming is a teacher who runs a school in Palestine in which he teaches children, often bringing Christians, Muslims and Jews together, to learn about the Biblical world. His example encourages me that there are ways to bring enemies together that they might recognize in each other the face of a friend. And I am encouraged to “kill my enemies with kindness,” like Jesus, and my Mother, would have me do.