Be like God. Love your enemies.

That’s what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:43-48.

He starts with enemies.

When it rains, it rains on everyone. Though we wish there were little clouds that followed some people and little suns that followed others, it rains on everyone. Everyone in the parking lot I’m looking at as I drink my coffee is seeing sunshine and knowing this brief day of February warmth.

“It’s not fair,” we say when good stuff happens to people we don’t like, to people who are unkind. “It’s not fair,” we say when bad stuff happens to people we like, to people who are caring and loving and spiritual.

But God is capable of being even-handed, of giving the warm and cool, the sun and the rain, on farmers who love him and on farmers who despise him. He is capable of being even-handed, of letting roses grow in the gardens of people who plot destruction and in the gardens of the godly.

And it isn’t fair at all.

But it gives credence to the command to love your enemies. Because God does.

But what if they are actually persecuting you? What then? How do you love them then?

Jesus says “pray for them.” And though we would tend to have those prayers sound like “God, destroy them,” that’s not much of an option, at least not from Jesus.

See, part of our invitation in following Jesus is to look at how he lived and to live like that. And when we look at Luke 23, and we read that Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing,” we find out what he meant by saying, “pray for your persecutors.”

Hanging on a cross, praying for his enemies, asking for forgiveness.

Like Father, like Son.