“But I say to you love your enemies . . . Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Jesus the Christ, The Gospel of Matthew, chapter five.

“He is his own worst enemy.”  Are you familiar with that phrase?  I first heard it spoken by my parents.  I don’t recall the context, but it probably had something to do with a friend, family member or neighbor who had made a mess of their lives, or who had allowed their life to make a mess of them.  Funny—in a tragic kind of way– how we have a tendency to do that.   

When we hear the word “enemy” what comes to mind?  Someone from another country who we think wants to kill us?  Perhaps a co-worker or colleague with whom we simply can’t—or won’t—get along?  During these emotionally charged election year times it might be the president, the other candidate for president, or whomever fervently and feverishly follows one or the other. I wonder to what extent making another person into the adversary, getting angry with someone, spewing vitriol and venom their direction is merely a mental exercise in shifting focus away from ourselves?  A clever ploy of which we are probably not even conscious, in which we can conveniently ignore what it is in our selves that is causing us so much pain that we simply can’t help but project it unto others.

“She is her own worst enemy”.  How true is that statement for you?  In what way might it be applied to different aspects of your life, or attitudes in your mind?  There’s truth, deep truth, in that saying.  The truth becomes clearer when one considers what Jesus is teaching in The Sermon on the Mount.

Take a moment if you’d like to read over this fifth chapter of Matthew.  It is so beautiful, beginning with the serene setting of Jesus sitting on a mountainside.  The first thing He says is “Blessed”.  The words that follow have come to be called the Beatitudes.  Do you see the word “beautiful” in there?  How beautiful that Jesus begins by talking about being “bless-ed”.  Imagine how different our lives, our interactions with others, our relationships, our communities, our nation and our world would be if the first word that came to mind and out of our mouths was “blessed”.  “Bless-ed are you . . . “  That is love language.  In order to speak it to others we must hear it spoken by and  about ourselves.  “I am bless-ed, the beloved of God.”  Do you believe that?  It’s true, you know.

Jesus follows these initial words with some rather hard teachings about murdering and lusting and living out of a place that is NOT love.  I believe He does this not in order to inspire or motivate us to work harder at “being the best that we can be”, in the process raising the bar of “Godly behavior” to such a height that no one can reach it, but rather to do just the opposite.  I believe that Jesus is trying to help his listeners grasp that it is in fact impossible to attain perfection.  What we all desperately need is the perfect love of God.  When Jesus says “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”, His intention is not to channel some Cosmic Santa Claus who demands that we try harder to be good in order to gain some great gift, but to recognize that no matter how badly we fail or how far we fall we are still loved.  This, after all, is the main message of the Messiah;  that we are each loved for who we are, not for what we do.  God loves you!  The entire Gospel message can be condensed into those three words. To God I am the beloved.  I am the bless-ed.  I am the Beauty-full.  And there is really only one thing that God wants of me, and that is FOR me to embrace this, myself, and others.  I am NOT the enemy of God, therefore I need not be my own worst enemy.  And as a result there is no need to make enemies of anyone else either.  I can beatify them, befriend them and bless them, as God has done, is doing and will do for me.  That is perfect love.