Praying for the enemy

 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt 5:43—45, ESV).

Sudeesh is honest and sincere with a good amount of curiosity. While passing by a church on Sunday morning he asked someone walking to the church what do they do in the church every Sunday. Tom, one of the church-goers whom he stopped, thought for a while and answered, “we pray for people like you.” Though it is the simplest answer that Tom come up with, it bewildered Sudeesh. "You pray for others?" Sudeesh was shocked. “We only pray for ourselves and for those whom we love and care for.” That is true. Most people limit their prayers to themselves and also for their dear ones, if they can find time for that. Jesus challenges us further demanding to love our enemies and even pray for them.

Enemies fall into two classes. One, the people whom we consider as our enemies—people whom we hate and hurt. However, a disciple of Christ is not allowed to hate or harm others. So enemy in this context are not those whom we consider as enemies. However, there is another possibility. These are people who hate and harm us. We have no control over them like the authorities who persecuted the poor, helpless Christians. They considered the Christians whom they persecuted as enemies. They could justify persecuting them once they view them as enemies because in their opinion enemies had to be done away with.

However, the value-system that Jesus taught his disciple is different. Jesus taught that our enemy is not the one we hate, but they are those who hate us. But it is our duty to love them and not hate them. In other words, though they consider us as enemies, we have to consider them as people who deserve our love.

Jesus raised the bar further. He said, it is not just loving; love is just a feeling. But love should lead us to pray for them. But Jesus didn’t clarify what should a Christian pray for their persecutors. Are we asked to pray that they should stop persecuting, or that their persecution is more bearable? 

The answer to these questions is in Jesus’ prayer on the cross. He did not pray that they will poke him with their spears a bit more gently, nor their ridicule is milder. His prayer was an intercession for forgivenes for his persecutors. He asked father God to forgive them since they don’t really understand what they are doing. He asked God to forgive their ignorance. 

Prayer for the enemy still focuses on the enemy and not on us. It is not our comfort that we seek when we pray for our enemies but theirs that God may forgive them.

The Sin of Silence

There is an Indian saying: Silence is the glory of the wise! It means the wise person keeps quite and by implication it means the fool keeps talking (certainly all nonsense!). But silence at times could be malicious, dangerous and even a grave sin. So let us say that like tumors, silence could also be of two types: the benign ones and the malign ones.

In his vision of God Isaiah confessed: "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" (Isa 6:5).

The word "ruined" could be a mistranslation. It is equally possible to translate it as "been silent" though many modern translations still follow the KJV in this regard. The translation "silent" fits the context too. The sin of the people of Isaiah has to do with speech (unclean lips) and the cleansing that God does has to do with speech. Moreover, the commissioning that Isaiah receives is to speak! All this happens in the context of the "holy" speech of the Seraphim. So it is right in concluding that the sin Isaiah confesses is the sin of being silent!

The timing of this very clearly dated vision is also important. It is in the year that king Uzziah died. Though the phrase "in the year" does not necessarily mean after the death of the king, it is highly probable. There is only one another instance where Isaiah dates a prophecy by the death of a king (Isaiah 14:28). So this date is important for our understanding of the nature of Isaiah's sin.

The title of the book says that Isaiah was active in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (Isaiah 1:1). The reign of Uzziah and that of Jotham overlaps since the former could not continue as king for health reasons and had to hand over the kingdom to Jotham who was the co-regent. We see Isaiah confronting the other two kings: Ahaz and Hezekiah. However, there is no mention of Uzziah or Jotham other than in the title (which is from the editor of the book) and in this passage (Isaiah 6) where the prophecy is dated.

The reign of Uzziah-Jotham was one of prosperity for Israel but was one of spiritual decline. It was not a reign that pleased God. However, the prophet of God was silent during this period of spiritual decline (2 Kings 15:34). He did not critique Uzziah's apostasy nor of the nation during this period. He just watched the nation slide down to apostasy, injustice and violence. So that later on Isaiah lamented on its capital city: "See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her-- but now murderers!" (Isaiah 1:21).

Isaiah woke up from his slumber during the days of Ahaz and Hezekiah who succeeded Uzziah. He challenged the kings and their religious and political decisions. Demanded that they return to God in full trust. However, he was silent during the days of Uzziah and Jotham.

That is the sin he confesses: being silent when he was supposed to speak up! That was a grave sin. His silence deprived the nation a voice that could have stopped them in their track to spiritual and social rot. His voice could have helped them to make an early U-turn, if he had the courage to speak out. Our malign silence could be equally or more damaging at times. Have we spoken out where we had to or kept strategic silence in order to protect our reputation, good standing with people. Did we hold our peace where our voice was crucial just to have more brownie points from those ungodly people and ungodly systems?

Isaiah realized his sin, he confessed and God was willing to accept his confession and commission him for a greater task. God hasn't changed and his Seraphim are waiting with burning coals in their hands. They are waiting for the words of confession from us so that the coal can touch our lips and release it to speak on behalf God.

Paulson Pulikottil Ph. D. is Professor of Old Testament at Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India and Pastor of the COMMUNITY OF THE REDEEMED (CORe) a Full Gospel Church in Pune, India

Paulson Pulikottil Ph. D. is Professor of Old Testament at Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India and Pastor of the COMMUNITY OF THE REDEEMED (CORe) a Full Gospel Church in Pune, India.