Lent Day 33… If I Cannot Find The Face Of Jesus

Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command to love our enemies is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and civilization, love even for enemies. —Martin Luther King Jr. (sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, November 17, 1957)

Jim Forest, in his book Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment says…

If I cannot find the face of Jesus in the face of those whom I regard as enemies, if I cannot find him in the unbeautiful and damaged, if I cannot find him in those who have the “wrong ideas,” if I cannot find him in the poor and the defeated and damaged, then how will I find him in bread and wine or in the life after death? If I do not reach out in this world to those with whom he has identified, why do I imagine that I will want to be with him, and them, in heaven? Why would I want to be for all eternity in the company of those I avoided every day of my life?