| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 11 |
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We owe other people more than their rights; we owe them love. To some of them it is not hard to pay this debt. They are lovable and winsome. They are thoroughly respectable. They are congenial spirits, giving us in return quite as much as we can give them. It is natural to love these and be very kindly and gentle to them. But we have no liberty of selection in this broad duty of loving other people. We may not choose whom we shall love if we claim to be Christians. The Master’s teaching is inexorable: “If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? For even sinners love those that love them. And if ye do good to them that do good to you, what thank have ye? For even sinners do the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive again as much. But love your enemies, and do them good, and lend, never despairing; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil.” The Good Samaritan is our Lord’s answer to the question, “Who is my neighbour?” and the Good Samaritan’s neighbour was a bitter enemy, who, in other circumstances, would have spurned him from his presence. Other people may not be beautiful in their character, nor congenial in their habits, manners, modes of life, or disposition; they may even be unkind to us, unjust, unreasonable, in strict justice altogether undeserving of our favour; yet if we persist in being called Christians ourselves we owe them the love that thinketh no evil, that seeketh not its own, that beareth all things, endureth all things, and never faileth.
No doubt it is hard to love the other people who hate us. It is not so hard just to let them alone, to pass them by without harming them, or even to pray for them in a way; but to love them – that is a sore test. We are apt to ask:–
“Dear Lord, will it not do,
If we return not wrong for wrong,
And neither love nor hate?
But love–O Lord, our souls are far from strong,
And love is such a tender, home nursed dove–
How can we, Lord, our enemies bless and love?
“Fasting–Oh, one could fast–
And praying–one could most pathetic pray;
But love our enemies! Dear Lord,
Is there not unto thee some easier way–
Some way through churchly service, song, or psalm,
Or ritual grand, to reach thy heaven’s calm?”
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