Tuesday, June 19, 2001
Tuesday, June 19, 2001
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
As the Confederate troops got near the Union line, they broke into one long, defiant rebel yell.
Then something quite remarkable happened. Unable to restrain themselves any longer the
Yankees burst from behind the stone wall and flung themselves upon their former enemies. Only
this time, fifty years later, they did not do battle with them. Instead they threw their arms around
them. Some in blue, some in gray, the old men embraced one another and wept.
What a difference fifty years made. In that moment they understood that they were created not to
do battle with each other but to love each other. For a few brief moments these veterans lived out
that truth.
(Matthew 5:44
NRSV)
In the Ken Burns' series on the Civil War a few years ago on public television there were a
number of scenes of the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913. A group of old
Confederate and Union veterans, returned to commemorate the occasion. Old films show the
men talking over old times, swapping stories and eating together. Then there was a re-enactment
of Pickett's Charge. The old Union soldiers took their places, as they had fifty years earlier,
among the rocks on Seminary Ridge. The old Confederate soldiers took their places on the
farmland below. After a while the Confederates started to move forward across the broad, flat
field where just fifty years before many had died. "We could not see rifles and bayonets," an
eyewitness said, "but canes and crutches" as they made their slow advance toward the ridge with
the more able-bodied ones helping the disabled ones.
God of peace, help me to better love my enemies. Amen.
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