Why is it so hard to cross boundaries? In other words, why is it so hard to love enemies? I say that it is not because my enemy is wicked and ungrateful but because we don’t know them. In a deeper level, we are afraid to know our enemy, fearful to recognize their human face and their sameness like us. Rather, we prefer segregating them from our safe zone, considering them the enemy or the unclean. But the truth is that it is almost impossible to love someone whom we really don’t know. To me, until I recognized that North Koreans looked the same like me not like wolves with red faces, I was not able to cross boundaries. Politicians, media and bad education had haunted me for a long time. However, when the families in North and South Koreas that were scattered after the Korean War first met at the border in the early 1980s through the Red Cross’ effort, I saw their sorrow and pain are the same as we had. We all remain in the line, recognizing for the first time each other’s grief and loss and being able to throw ourselves into each other’s arms and crying together.
Everyday I see a bombing and killing in Iraq in the newspaper. Often I am shocked to find myself flipping over the paper, feeling nothing about it. About 4,200 death tolls of Americans since March 2003 and much more deaths for Iraqis seem not to touch me at all. I think it happens and our enemy does this all the time. But who is our enemy? Are they simply Osama Binladen, Al-Quida, or terrorists, insurgents in Iraq? They could be, but I believe the real enemy is not far away but near. Even though I have never met a North Korean, I had been educated to believe that they were our enemy and I should hate them. But I saw their cry filled with suffering and sorrow like ours; I cannot insist that they are our enemy. Rather, I see the real enemy is faceless animosity, blind fear and selfish patriotism in our heart that segregate and set uncrossable boundaries. Knowing the enemy is the first step to trespass boundaries and love them. To know them, we need to look closely at them. In the newspaper, there are always crying mothers and fathers who lost their beloved one because of violence. They are not different at all from our mothers and fathers who lost their sons and daughters there.
In Jesus’ time, many Israelites believed that the Romans were their enemy. The chief priests and scribes urged the people to hate and curse them. They nourished animosity, fear and patriotism in the people’s heart. Here Jesus stood up and crossed boundaries, saying, “Love your enemies.” How new and revolutionary teaching might be! He challenged the people to know not only the Romans and the unclean but also the heart they secretly kept. In God there are no boundaries. God does not discriminate anyone for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
And the authority of Jesus’ new teaching comes out of his congruence between his words and deeds. He himself crosses boundaries and embraces enemies and the unclean which eventually causes his death. Do you dare to cross your well-established boundaries out of compassion? Are you able to dare to love your enemy, do good to them, bless and pray for them, and even love them? Is this a shocking new teaching to you?
As we somehow find ourselves powerless and hopeless to follow Jesus’ command to cross boundaries and to love our enemies, he does not leave us burdened. He strengthens us, gathering in the Eucharist where he shows the example and asks us to do the same in memory of him. Likewise, I also pray someday I am to minister to North Koreans as a priest, crossing over the boundary.