Love from a Distance

In (1 Samuel 24:16-21), King Saul tearfully admits that he has done wrong to David. He had sought David’s life, but David had shown him mercy. David's mercy on that occasion represents the way that the Lord Himself meets evil with mercy. It’s clear that we’re meant to follow that example. In the gospels, the Lord says that we’re to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:35).

Because David showed mercy to Saul, there was a reconciliation between them. That wouldn’t have happened if he’d struck back at Saul. But, not long after that, Saul is hunting for David life again, to try to kill him. So much for their reconciliation! And... David shows mercy to Saul again, and Saul repents, again. But it’s clear that David doesn’t trust Saul anymore. He and Saul go their separate ways, and here’s the very next thing that the Word tells us:

And David said in his heart, “Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me anymore in any part of Israel. So I shall escape out of his hand.” (1 Samuel 27:1)

Saul had said, “I will harm you no more” (1 Samuel 26:21), but it’s clear that David no longer believes those sorts of promises from Saul. And who can blame him?

It’s still a good thing that he showed mercy to Saul — that he forbade his companion to stab the king while he was sleeping (1 Samuel 26:8). The Lord wants us to meet evil with mercy. Over and over He tells us to forgive. But what are we supposed to do when people seem to treat our forgiveness as carte blanche to do the bad stuff all over again? How do we show mercy to people who are actively doing things that hurt us — or to people that we don’t feel safe with, because of a pattern that’s been established over time? Let's explore that. In a nutshell, it IS possible for us to love people and protect ourselves from them at the same time. How?

Here's something that the Lord says about how we balance reconciliation with setting boundaries, in Matthew 18:15-17. These instructions outline the process that the Lord wants us to follow when someone is doing things that hurt us.

"If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother. But if he doesn't listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.

He says, “if your brother sins against you” (Matthew 18:15), but it’s pretty clear that He’s using that word “brother” to mean our neighbor in general (see Arcana Coelestia 2360:6, 7; Apocalypse Explained 746:15).

These instructions apply whenever someone that we have a relationship with is doing something that hurts us.

The last thing the Lord says is that if we can’t work it out with our “brother,” we’re to treat him as “a heathen and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17). If that’s the only part of these instructions that we pay attention to, then they sound pretty harsh. But if that’s the only part of these instructions that we pay attention to, then we’re missing the whole point — which is that we mustn’t jump straight from having a problem with someone to shunning them. There’s a process that we’re meant to follow, and we’re meant to take it one step at a time, and we’re only meant to go to that last step if we absolutely have to. As human beings, we’re prone to all-or-nothing thinking. This is especially true if we’re mad at someone, or if their behavior is making us feel unsafe. We think, “either I’m close to this person, and there are no boundaries between us, or I’ve separated myself from them and there’s no bond between us.” Cognitively we may know that it doesn’t have to be like that, but often our emotions say that that’s the way it needs to be. It takes maturity and it takes wisdom to hold the middle ground — to acknowledge and address the harm that another person’s behavior is doing to us, without completely cutting ourselves off from that person. It isn’t the easiest or the most natural path to take. But it’s the path the Lord asks us to take.

He says that if our brother sins against us, the first step is to, “go and tell him his fault between you and him alone” (Matthew 18:15). It makes a lot of sense that this is the first step. If you have a problem with someone, talk to them about it. The thing is, we need to make sure that this is the first step we take. Step two is to get other people involved, and sometimes we take step two before we take step one. We complain to our friends about the person who’s offended us, before we’ve even talked to that person about their behavior. When we do that, we usually just sink deeper into resentment. Sometimes we want to get advice before we talk to the person who’s hurt us — and it can be appropriate to seek advice from a mentor or a professional. But we need to not make the problem someone else’s business. At least not right away. If you’re upset with someone, start by talking to them as one grown up to another. This is what gives us the best shot at actual reconciliation. The Lord says, “… if your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15).

Obviously this doesn’t mean that we should put ourselves into dangerous situations. If someone’s hurt us badly enough, it might not feel safe to meet with them one-on-one. The spirit of this teaching is that we mustn’t skip step one unless we have to. And there are things that we can do to protect ourselves during that initial conversation. We can take a leaf out of David’s book, and talk to the person who’s hurt us from a distance (1 Samuel 26:13). Talk to them on the phone, or write a letter. Or we can have the conversation in a public place, like a restaurant, where we’ll feel safer.

If we have that one-on-one conversation and our brother still refuses to hear us, then the Lord says we can take with us “one or two more.” (Matthew 18:15). In other words, at that point we can get other people involved, if we need to. Just one or two people. We’re not supposed to rally a posse — that’s escalating too fast. And of course, it’s important to pick the right people. The people we involve should be wise, level-headed people. Ideally, they’ll be people who are trusted by both ourselves and the person we have a grievance with, because those people can build bridges and act as mediators. We need to bear in mind that when we get third parties involved, we are escalating things, and there’s a chance that the person we have a grievance with will feel ganged up on and react badly. If we need to get other people involved, the Lord says that we can — but we shouldn’t take this step unless we have to.

The third step is to “tell it to the church” (Matthew 18:17). This doesn’t mean that we should air our grievances with each other when we gather for refreshments after worship. The Greek word here translated as “church” (ἐκκλησία) really just means “gathering,” or “assembly.” So the Lord’s point is that if someone won’t listen to us or change their hurtful behavior — though we and a handful of trusted people have talked to them about it — then we’re allowed to speak openly about our grievance. We can get our community involved, if that’s a useful thing to do. Perhaps “telling it to the church” implies that we’re allowed to seek some sort of public arbitration. In ancient times, the leaders of the church would have done that sort of thing. Nowadays, if we want public arbitration we usually go to court.

The last step, according to the Lord’s words in Matthew 18, is to regard our brother as “a heathen and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17). This doesn’t mean that we’re allowed to disdain or revile or hate the person we have a problem with — we’re never allowed to do those things. It simply means that if all else fails, and the person who hurt us is continuing to hurt us, we’re allowed to separate ourselves from them. We’re allowed to treat them as someone who isn’t part of our sphere. In practice, this would involve limiting our interactions and communications with the person who’s hurt us.

The Lord says that we’re allowed to do these kinds of things — we’re allowed to set boundaries, if we have to. But there’s a process to follow. We can’t escalate straight from getting our feelings hurt to cutting ties with the offender. And here’s the really challenging part: right after the Lord says these things about the boundaries we’re allowed to set, He has this conversation with His disciples:

Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”

Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21-22)

In the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church we’re told that “seventy times seven” means “always, without counting” (Apocalypse Explained 257:4, 391:21).

In our recitation from Luke the Lord says something similar:

If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, “I repent,” you shall forgive him. (Luke 17:3, 4)

The Lord says that we’re allowed to set boundaries, but He also says that we need to forgive people every single time they hurt us. And the whole point of this sermon is that we can do both at the same time. Forgiveness is not the same thing as giving people permission to treat us badly. To forgive someone is to give up your right to hold that person beneath yourself, in your mind and in your heart. To forgive is to give up the right to hate. This is something we do for our own sake, for the sake of our own peace, because hate poisons the soul.

In a way, forgiving a person isn’t even about the person we forgive. To forgive is to get ourselves right with the Lord. When Joseph’s brothers asked him for forgiveness, he answered, “am I in the place of God?” (Genesis 50:19). In other words, he said that it wasn’t his job to either judge his brothers or absolve them of their sins. That was God’s job. Determining whether or not another human being is worthy of forgiveness isn’t our job. We are commanded to love our neighbors — to love even our enemies — and that commandment governs every interaction that we have with every other human being. And if we’re going to love someone, we cannot hold on to resentment. We cannot give ourselves permission to hate. But loving a person and setting boundaries with them can happen simultaneously. To hold on to that truth is to hold a space in the middle, to steer clear of “either-or” thinking — either we’re close and there are no boundaries, or we’ve separated and there is no love. To hold that middle space takes wisdom and maturity — and that’s what the Lord asks of us.

We’re going to wrap up by looking at a passage from the Heavenly Doctrine, a passage that describes the way the angels treat us when we choose evil.

The angels are always with us, protecting us in ways that we can neither see nor feel. (Arcana Coelestia 5854)

It’s good that they’re there! In a different passage we’re told that if they weren’t present with us, we would “immediately perish” (SH 50). But those angels can’t be present in the midst of evil thoughts or evil affections — so when we choose evil, we push the angels away.

But they don’t go all the way away. When we choose evil they’re still with us — but remotely so. The deeper we sink into evil the further away they’re driven, but they’re still there. They’d prefer to be near to us: they’d prefer to love us up close. But if they can’t do that, they love us from a distance. Sometimes we assume that love and distance are mutually exclusive: that we’re either close to someone, or we can’t love them at all. But it isn’t so. We can follow the example of the angels. We can love from a distance, if we have to. The angels themselves are following the example of the Lord — who will not say that evil is good, who is nonetheless ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all who call upon Him (Psalms 86:5). ¹

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