And so, my fellow Mennonites and Menno-curious folks: Not that we have always done it well, but Menno’s people are the sheep in the wild flock of Anabaptism that have attempted to love, rather than kill, their enemies.  Mennonitism was born as a nonviolent response to violence committed in the name of God.  Our origin story is one of wrestling with the implications that Jesus actually said and meant for us to love our enemies.

…What do these stories mean for those of us who are not martyrs? For those of us whose grief is quieter, less dramatic, but no less real? And what do they mean for those of us who must learn to see ourselves not only as sufferers, but sometimes also as participants in another’s suffering?

One of the early Anabaptists’ favorite verses, cited in letters and court records, was Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too.”  This simple verse had profound implications on how the Anabaptists thought of themselves in relation to the accusations brought against them.    

Jesus suggests in Matthew that there might be times in our lives when we encounter a person who is hungry or thirsty or a stranger. Or maybe there is a person who needs clothes or needs a visit. And what we don’t necessarily realize at the time is that that person is Jesus. And so to try to alleviate this restlessness that I was feeling in my own life, I started looking for strangers.