# On the 4th Sunday of every month, Pastor Mizuguchi gives a lecture of reflections upon, “The Sermon on the Mount.” This session today is the eighth of the series.

1. Love Changes Enemies Into Friends
Today’s lecturing theme is ‘Love your enemies.’ I would like to commence by defining what is “enemy.” We have, in Japan, an old saying concerning the enemy: a man has seven enemies just outside the entrance to his house. In general, enemies are those who seek to harm or defeat. They are to some extent competitors, who would seek to damage our favorable conditions. Nonetheless, Jesus compels us to accept such an antithesis: “You have heard that it was said, ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’” (Matthew 5:43-44).

The third book of the Bible, Leviticus, introduces the basic elements of the Jewish faith. In reference to ritual and the life of holiness, we read something similar to the above words, quoted by Jesus: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). There is no explicit command in Jewish literature to hate enemies. However the interpretation process seems natural because the notion of love is the direct opposite to hatred. Normally we love only those who are close to us and who share the same feelings or ways of thinking. Consequently, it is difficult to love those who are different. Certain types of apartheid are generated from that tendency. it is so easy to become an enemy through conflict. As a member of a social groups or sporting clubs we are often taught to hate the enemy in order to protect and maintain unity and identity within the group or sporting body. But Jesus tells us to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Jesus says, as long as we cannot love those who seek to persecute or harm us, we cannot love our neighbors authentically. But it is very difficult for humans to do so. Soon after I received my Baptism, several colleagues said to me, “we don’t understand the way Christians think. “How can you love your enemies? If we love our enemies they are no longer enemies. ” I thought my colleague’s remarks explained exactly what Jesus taught. By loving our enemies, we in effect annul the notion of ‘enemy’ itself. Once we love our enemies and give them our heart there should be no enemies at all.

2. Becoming Gods’ children

In the New King James Version, we find a slightly different translation of the passage we have been focussing on today: “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” ( Matthew 5:44). We must love even those who curse us. When we come to love those who curse and persecute, we are actually offering our love in return of the offence. This Christian attitude will eventually help to change former enemies into friends, and help us to become children of God.

Why do we love God ? The answer is: that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” ( Matthew 5:45). Loving one’s enemies is the way to become children of our heavenly Father. That is God’s will as we pray the Lord’s prayer, ‘Our Father which art in Heaven.’ The Bible does not command hatred toward one’s enemies. Jesus extends the command to love neighbours (Lev. 19:18) to everyone, in imitation of God’s indiscriminate love and life-giving mercy to all, both good and bad.

Very often we consider ourselves to be good. But Jesus’ compels us to recognize our sinful nature. He gave his life on the Cross to save poor sinners. Such knowledge of a sacrifice poured out by Jesus, should change our life and understanding to one of love and forgiveness. Considering what Jesus did for us, how can we not love our enemies, offenders, and aggressors? Redemption through the Cross. Very hard to understand. Yet, numerous people have witnessed this divine act, and many more continue to experience God’s will through Jesus’ death on the cross. We are sinners made clean through Jesus’ cleansing blood.

The final and summarising sentence, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect (Matt. 5:48), means the people are to be all inclusive in their love, as God is.

3. Those who loved their enemies

I chose Luke 23:34 for today’s invocation verse. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus taught to love one’s enemies and acted accordingly to His words. This verse faithfully records the fact that Jesus prayed that God would forgive his enemies. He ended his earthly life practising what He preached. Love and forgiveness, conciliating prayers for persecutors. And that very prayer has changed the lives of many people throughout the years. I present you now an example by summarizing the autobiography of a Japanese Pastor, Fuchida Mitsuo.*

Fuchida was the captain of an airborne unit of the Japanese navy, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor. At that time he was vengeful, and filled with hatred against the Americans. He was proud of commanding such a strike, which he thought was very successful. But, after 4 years of flying active combat missions, Imperial Japan surrendered. Fuchida was blamed by his neighbors for having been a military officer who had praised the Japanese aggressive policy. He was summoned as a witness to the court of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The court was meant to judge war criminals who violated humanitarian rights. But, he thought the Tribunal was being directed by victorious countries who were seeking revenge against their former enemies. So he was always filled with hatred and resentment.

In that court other former Japanese soldiers captured by US armies were involved. Fuchida found some occasions opportune to ask questions about their life and conditions in the prison camps. Listening to their stories he heard a heartwarming episode. It was about an young American woman who visited one of camps. She came to do charitable work for the Japanese prisoners, to care for their injuries, for example. Prisoners got curious and questioned her about her kind and charitable work. To their continued persistence, she began to talk about her deceased parents, who were former missionaries in the Philippines.

At the time of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, they had hidden themselves in a mountain. But 3 years later they were found and arrested by Japanese soldiers. They were condemned to death on the charge of spying. Any explanations was rejected categorically. So her parents asked their captors for 30 minutes to read the Bible and pray to God before their execution. When the young woman received the news about the death of her parents in the US, naturally she cried tears of sadness and anger. But, as the time past by, she commenced to seek the contents of her parents’ final prayers and came to understand. It was the Prayer of Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Fuchida found her story beautiful, however he could not as yet understand its deepest meaning. He needed some time before he would recognize the significance of this story. It was only when he read a pamphlet distributed at the entrance of a railway station. The title of the pamphlet was: ‘I was a war prisoner of the Japanese army,’ written and distributed by Jacob DeShazer.** DeShazer was a staff sergeant of the US army, and he eventually became a missionary in Japan. The pamphlet, showing his photo, was his testimony of conversion and confession. The message impacted strongly upon Fuchida.

He began to reflect upon the reasons for his hatred of humans. DeShazer, who suffered under cruel conditions of life in prison, said he was captured by ‘Jesus’ love,’ which is able to change vengeful and self-centered people into loving humans. Fuchida was moved by this statement. Shortly after he purchased and read the Bible at random, then he fell upon Luke 23:24, which reminded him of the story about the young American woman. The verse was Jesus’ prayer that God would forgive his executioners.

The young American woman’s story revealed that love really can drive us to forgive our enemies. Fuchida could not prevent himself from crying. On that very day he decided to receive baptism and follow in Jesus’ footsteps. Fuchida became a Pastor and spent the rest of his life preaching. I had an occasion to listen to one of his speeches. He said that Jesus’ teachings and ministries motivated the parents of the young American woman, and their last prayers changed the mind of their daughter, and then ultimately the life of Fuchida himself.

A German Protestant theologian and New Testament scholar Gerd Theissen, ***wrote a book titled “Sociological Analysis of the Earliest Christians.” The work tried to analyze how the coming of Jesus changed the world. The author gave a general conclusion that Jesus gave the world a vision based on love and reconciliation. Only a few people accepted the vision, and died for Him by advocating that vision. But since then that vision emerged to the surface of History, and in every generation there appeared a few people who decided to live according to the vision, by believing in Christ.

By the coming of Jesus, at least some people were changed authentically in their way of living. I think that fact is the most important point of the book. And those who changed and became Christians do not complain anymore about the actual conditions of surrounding societies, filled with evil and sin. But they seek and find what they can do to make this existing world a better place. Today’s invocation verse must continue to motivate Christians everywhere. Just as we changed and became followers’ of Jesus, and worship Him here today, we must continue to spread the message of His love and forgiveness all over the secular world.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuo_Fuchida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_DeShazer

[Memoirs of the Commander of the air attack on Peal Harbor]
-Autobiography by Fuchida Mistuo, ISBN: 978-4-06-214402-5
Kohdansha 2007/ 12.

***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_Theissen