Daryl Davis is a blues musician who, for the last 30 years, has been collecting KKK robes. He has over 200 in his home, which he saves as a reminder of the work he has been doing. Mr. Davis is an African American man whose uses his spare time to befriend members of the KKK. He visits them in prison, drives their families to visits and appointments, and does what ever else he can to show love to folks who have built their lives around hating him and people like him. His 200 robes have been given to him by 200 men he befriended and converted from the Klan. He says that as folks come to know him, they recognize the error in their ways of seeing the world and eventually renounce their hatred. The approach is so unique in our culture, that it is downright shocking. I’ve read that Mr. Davis is simply living out his Christian faith. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs his followers to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecute them. This is a central idea to the Christian faith, most famously demonstrated in Christ’s prayer for the soldiers who were overseeing his crucifixion: “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Though our culture identifies heavily with the Christian faith, this is a teaching we don’t see very often. It’s unusual to find folks who love and serve people who mistreat them or seek to love their enemies. Daryl Davis is so unique and shocking in our world because, as a culture, we have relegated this teaching of Christ to the “nice but impractical” file. It is much easier to hate our enemies and do our best to fight them in whatever way we can. Loving our enemies seems too weak to make sense. It is this sort of teaching that prompted Friedrich Nietzsche’s accusation that the Christian faith was “feminizing” western civilization and rendering it weak. The trick is that the strength and endurance of the Christian faith has been its willingness to run contrary to the natural inclinations of mankind. The truly most difficult part of learning life according to this revolutionary teaching of Christ is that we can read about it and easily think of all the people who really need to learn to do this. You can easily picture the folks in our circle of relationships who need to learn to be loving or our political enemies who are all over the news. The problem is that Jesus did not teach that “other folks should love their enemies.” He said that *you* should do it. It’s easy to see other people in hard teachings. It’s so much harder to look at hard words and see them as a mirror that challenges us to become who God meant us to be. The thing that is amazing about Daryl Davis is that he saw the teachings of Jesus as an actual set of marching orders, and he did them. In doing so, he changed the hearts of 200 men who hated him. Also, he didn’t do it with words alone. He did it with practical action and service. He loved folks who are simply unlovable. This is what God calls you and me to do. We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. I think prayer is the first step in this, mainly because it takes a lot of prayer to change our own angry hearts. This is not to say that we can or should abandon practical action. There’s an important disclaimer here: this doesn’t mean we enable or ignore evil behavior. We cannot turn a blind eye to abuse or enable folks in their wicked ways. Rather, we are to love and preach the truth. The starting point is really easy. If a complete stranger sat down and listened to your conversations or scrolled your facebook feed, would they say you’re doing this? Or would they identify you as hating your enemies? Look at your daily interactions and habits. Look for ways to love your enemies. Pray about them and maybe seek counsel from mature believers, then take action. The world can change, but we must act to make it happen.
