Monday, September 25: “Making Friends”
2 Kings 5: 2, 3: “Now the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel; and she waited on Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, ‘I wish that my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy.’ ”
Does Jesus really mean it when He says in today’s Gospel reading, “Make friends with your enemies”? (Matthew 5: 25) It would seem so. One would think that this little girl would deem no one a greater enemy than the man who had taken her from her home and enslaved her. Yet she wishes for his good. Perhaps that’s what Jesus means when He says later, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all” (Mark 10: 15). Children don’t automatically brand others as enemies.
