Love Your Enemies

Two recent news stories caught my attention. First, Jason Kelce, the retired Philadelphia Eagles star football player whose more famous brother is Travis Kelce, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on November 21 promoting his upcoming late-night sports show. As he exited Kimmel’s theater, Kelce was confronted several yards away by a man who had climbed a telephone pole and began hurling a steady barrage of f-bomb-laden insults at Kelce for declining to sign autographs. (I won’t provide a link to this video because of the profanity, but you can google the incident and find a couple of YouTube videos.)

Kelce, as you may know, recently drew media attention for controversy surrounding his November 2 smashing of a heckler’s cellphone, whereby this troll baited Kelce by calling his younger brother a homophobic slur while on the grounds of Penn State’s Beaver Stadium where Kelce had appeared on a pregame television show. Kelce promptly and publicly apologized for his behavior, expressing regret that he “chose to greet hate with hate.” He stated that he tries to “live my life by the golden rule” and that he would “keep doing that moving forward.” While some cynical observers might have attributed an ulterior motive to Kelce’s public mea culpa, possibly allegedly due to his not wanting to jeopardize his lucrative sportscasting and advertising contracts, an NBC Sports commentator saw a more noble motivation for his behavior, and he commendably lauded Kelce’s actions as “an impressive gesture,” adding that our society needs “more redemption, forgiveness, and reconciliation.” I couldn’t agree more.

And so, how did Kelce respond to this other menacing heckler’s meltdown after the Kimmel show, which occurred nearly three weeks after the cellphone incident? After first entering his waiting SUV, Kelce shortly emerged and walked over to where this man (and a number of fans) stood, calmly saying, “I’ll sign.” He proceeded to sign a number of autographs, including signing a small poster belonging the guy who became unhinged. (After all, was this guy truly a fan, or merely an opportunist who intended to sell Kelce’s autograph on eBay?) However, this guy visibly changed his tune, exclaiming, “I’m ashamed … I apologize …God bless you!” Kelce kept his cool, his facial expression unperturbed throughout the encounter. Believe it or not, Kelce even extended his arm in a gesture of goodwill and actually shook the guy’s hand. For me, this was an extremely moving moment to watch.

Flash forward to November 28, Thanksgiving morning. Pastor Nick Neves of the First Family Church in Antioch, California, responded to an alarm at his church, only to find an axe-wielding intruder had broken in, presumably bent on burglarizing his house of worship. But Neves, a father of five who had studied the martial arts, had other plans. The jiujitsu-trained Neves fended off the intruder, nonviolently wrestling with him and harmlessly pinning him to the ground until the police arrived to make an arrest.

Pastor Nick never once felt animosity toward the would-be thief. Instead, he lamented that the guy hadn’t dropped by for free groceries that his church gave out to 130 needy families the day before Thanksgiving. The intruder’s destructive break-in will set the church back a couple of thousand dollars. Was Pastor Nick upset? Not in the slightest. Did he wish for retribution against the vandal? “I hope he changes his ways and chooses good over evil,” Neves said.

Longtime readers of this blog may recall times when I’ve occasionally skewered our contemporary society for the widespread decline in courtesy, honor, truthfulness, and related basic virtues that we seemingly witness everywhere nowadays—a real dwindling of ethical standards that is pervading society and, in my opinion, contributing to its rapid breakdown. However, these two men, Jason Kelce and Pastor Nick Neves, are to be commended for their standout attitudes and behaviors (“actions speak louder than words”), whereby they demonstrated by their very actions the truth of Jesus’ powerful saying, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28–29).

While such actions won’t nip bad behavior in the bud or stop the acute spewing of hatred we see around us, the words and actions of these two men serve as models of ethical behavior that we can and should emulate in our own lives. If enough of us do, we can help turn this ugly tide of hate that has swept through our society, and maybe we can further act as forerunners who spread a new contagion of practicing common courtesy, expressing kindness, and exemplifying “redemption, forgiveness, and reconciliation” toward one another. “Love your enemies.”