In the Presence of My Enemies
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Editor’s note: Psalm 23, the beloved song written by King David, is the foundation for K.J. Ramsey’s new book The Lord Is My Courage. Enjoy this exclusive excerpt.
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Part of what keeps us from sitting at the table of courage and communion is a refusal to identify the reality of enmity. I love that David uses the word enemies in his prayers. I love that he does not pretend away the pain of being condemned and chased. Instead, he dares to name something our contemporary Christian niceness generally leaves vague or even venerated. The experience of enmity is embedded in our bodies, wringing our hands into fists and hearts into hiding when others threaten our safety.
- When David delights in the table God has prepared for him in the presence of his enemies, David is affirming that Love is so completely on his side that God is willing to absorb the hostility being hurled at him.1
I love that David does not hide his pain behind platitudes, because platitudes can never penetrate our pain. Only God can take the weight of enmity.
- In a world full of harm and hatred, only God’s presence can give us peace that reaches every part of our souls.
The symbol in which we most witness where God positions our enemies is the Eucharist, the ultimate place where enemies are made friends. But far too often, Christians prefer to dilute the wine of Christ’s sacrifice into the grape juice of niceness. Wherever wrong has been done or experienced, someone is following close behind with the paintbrush of platitudes. “There are two sides to every story,” they say. “There are no perfect churches,” they chide. “All things work together for good,” they paint and paint and paint. Sometimes it seems that Christians like to put lipstick on lies instead of fighting to remove their stain from our souls and communities. It is easier to dismiss pain than deal with changing the circumstances that produce it.2 We forget that noticing and naming enmity is a prerequisite to knowing whom and what to love and protect.
Neutrality is the nicest kind of evil. Not taking a side is taking a side. Neutrality shows victims that their health is worth less to you than avoiding awkwardness or not having to make relational changes. Neutrality tears open the wound of trust over and over again.
If we cannot name our pain, it just remains a chain. If we will not name the reality of evil, we will remain defenseless to defeat it. David’s prayers are like dialysis for Christians who have been drinking the sugary-sweet preaching of platitudes for so long that we’ve become diabetic to the dissonance at the heart of the cross.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,” David prays.3
“Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors,” he laments. “I am forgotten as though I were dead... For I hear many whispering... They conspire against me and plot
to take my life.”4
Alexander Schmemann writes that “evil is not to be ‘explained’ but faced and fought. This is the way God dealt with evil. He did not explain it. He sent his Only-Begotten Son to be crucified by all the powers of evil so as to destroy them by His love, faith and obedience. This then is the way we must also follow.”5
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When Jesus reveals Himself as the realization of David’s Psalm 23 story, He does not just flaunt His love in the presence of enemies; He invites them to the table too. In Luke 15, when Jesus tells the story of the good shepherd and the good woman who, upon finding what was lost, prepare a table with a feast and invite their friends, the Pharisees present would have heard their names called. The “friends” or haberim were an elite group of Pharisees who were even more intense in their separation from common folks — not visiting them, not traveling with them, not studying the law with them, and definitely never eating with them.7 Jesus calls His friends and neighbors to come celebrate with Him, to move toward the lost ones they have spent their whole lives judging.
Cognitive neuroscientist Thomas Fuchs writes that as we reenact the Lord’s Supper together, the church’s collective body memory of receiving Christ’s presence renews our participation in Christ’s life.8 When we suffer or are abused, evil scrawls forsaken, forgotten, and unloved all over our neural pathways, coiling our bodies with contempt and contention.
- The sound of Christ’s words in our ears, the texture of the bread in our hands, the taste of red wine on our lips, the scent of candles, and the sight of kind eyes meeting ours can bring our whole bodies and minds back into a story where we are beloved.
The communal practice of communion gathers our grief with grace at the foot of the cross, enfolding us together into the life of the world to come.
The table of communion is the place where curse meets blessing. As we long for and seek the justice and reconciliation of the world to come, we can take our place at the table, even in the literal or figurative presence of our enemies, daring to believe that in Christ all that has been cursed can come back to life.
- Kenneth E. Bailey, The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 57.
- And, yes, I am talking about systemic racism and poverty in addition to abuse.
- Ps. 23:5a, emphasis added.
- Ps. 31:11–13.
- Alexander Schmemann, Of Water and the Spirit: A Liturgical Study of Baptism (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974), 23.
- Bailey, Good Shepherd, 111. 204
- Thomas Fuchs, “Collective Body Memories,” in Embodiment, Enaction, and Culture: Investigating the Constitution of the Shared World, ed. Christoph Durt, Thomas Fuchs, and Christian Tewes (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), 333–49.
Excerpted with permission from The Lord Is My Courage by K. J. Ramsey, copyright Katie Jo Ramsey.
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Although the world and especially the church may pretend that what has been done to you doesn’t matter, and the people who did it to you don’t owe you anything, Jesus knows differently. He doesn’t forget that we have real enemies who intended real harm. But, He doesn’t leave us to our hatred. He calls us to break bread, and not just bread, but Himself, the Bread of Life, together.
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Based on the beloved Psalm 23
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The Lord Is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love
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$22.99
$16.09 (30% off)
+ FREE shipping on all orders $35 and more
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Walking through Psalm 23 phrase by phrase, therapist and author K.J. Ramsey explores the landscape of our fear, trauma, and faith. When she stepped through her own wilderness of spiritual abuse and religious trauma, K.J. discovered that courage is not the absence of anxiety but the practice of trusting we will be held and loved no matter what.
How can we cultivate courage when fear overshadows our lives? How do we hear the Voice of Love when hate and harm shout loud? This book offers an honest path to finding that there is still a Good Shepherd who is always following you. Braiding contemplative storytelling, theological reflection, and practical neuroscience, Ramsey reveals a route into connection and joy that begins right where you are.
The Lord is My Courage is for the deconstructing and the dreamers, the afraid and the amazed, for those whose fear has not been fully shepherded but who can't seem to stop listening for their Good Shepherd's Voice.
LEARN MORE ►
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This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers
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This Too Shall Last offers an antidote to our cultural idolatry of effort and ease. Through personal story and insights from neuroscience and theology, K.J. Ramsey invites us to let our tears become lenses of the wonder that before God ever rescues us, he stands in solidarity with us. We are all mid-story in circumstances we did not choose, wondering when our hard things will end and where grace will come if they don’t. We don't need to make suffering a before-and-after story. Together we can encounter the grace that enters the middle of our stories, where living with suffering that lingers means receiving God's presence that lasts.
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FREE 31 DAYS OF PRAYER CALENDAR
Download the FREE printable calendar and start praying with Scriptures all month long in July!
These 31 days of biblically-based prayer prompts are from Jodie Berndt, author of Praying the Scriptures for Your Life, Children, Teens, and Adult Children.
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