Do You Have Any Enemies?

By faith Abel offered to God a greater sacrifice than Cain’s. – Hebrews 11:4a (NRSVUE, adapted) 

My four-year-old grandson loves informational videos about animals. We stumbled across an online series recently that has a pretend interview format. Each cartoon animal is asked questions like “Where do you live?” and “What do you eat?” and even (for those on the getting-eaten end of the food chain) “Do you have any enemies?” 

For reasons known only to his growing mind, my grandson has decided that the enemy question is an excellent icebreaker. He squatted next to another adorable tot on the playground, and I overheard him ask her very sweetly if she had any enemies. We had one of those “We’re not exactly worried but…” conversations with his preschool teacher during which we found out he’d been polling his classmates, too. 

In the mythology of our faith family, as well as in our own lives, it’s tempting to create enemies by viewing others as simply as my grandson’s videos do: predators up the food chain. I mean, look at Cain and Abel, probably the prototypical enemies. We don’t really know much about them, but is it possible their story is more nuanced than we know? Is it possible they shared other things besides their last, terrible fight: hidden places where they played as boys, or favorite meals eaten at mom’s table, or even inside jokes?  

I don’t believe that every act can or must be forgotten or forgiven. But I do wonder if we sometimes try to see enemies with all the simplistic ignorance of children, when we could instead encounter others as they are: complicated humans and God’s beloved ones. Messing up sometimes, certainly. But not reducible to just a place up the food chain.  

Prayer
Holy One, help us to find you, instead of an enemy, in whomever we may encounter today. Amen.

About the Author
Rev. Jennifer Garrison (formerly Brownell) is a writer, spiritual director and pastor living in the Pacific Northwest. Her published work most recently appeared in the book The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for the Struggle, available from The Pilgrim Press.