Enemies to Friends

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48 ESV).

It took sixteen years for them to be friends. Years before Senator John McCain made his run for the presidency, he eulogized a former enemy, David Ifshin, who died at age 47 after a five-month battle with cancer. The two had made their peace together many years earlier. You know McCain may be our country’s most famous prisoner of the Vietnam War. Ifshin, on the other hand, may be the most famous protester of that same war. He went to Hanoi and spoke against the United States’ involvement in the conflict early and often. In fact, his radio broadcast of the protest speech was often heard in the POW camps. McCain recalls having heard Ifshin protesting the war while hanging by his broken arms for hours each day, shriveled to less than 100 pounds, during his five-year imprisonment.

Both men would end up in Washington in 1984. McCain, by then a Congressman, sharply criticized Ifshin’s antiwar activities. Ifshin, a lawyer working on the Mondale presidential campaign, continued to be an enemy to McCain. However, two years later, Ifshin saw McCain at a Washington event and over the course of the next few weeks and months the two set aside their differences and became friends. In fact, they worked together to set up the Institute for Democracy in Vietnam.

Two weeks before Ifshin’s death, McCain visited him, his wife and three young children. He said later, “I thought, thank goodness we didn’t waste any more time in anger. You can’t put off setting your life right.” In his eulogy, the Senator from Arizona remembered defending Ifshin, the former general counsel of the Clinton campaign, in the Senate after demonstrators assailed the lawyer’s patriotism at a Memorial Day speech by the President. “ I wanted the protesters to know that they were bearing false witness against a good man. That this small gesture that meant so much to David meant even more to me. David Ifshin was my friend. His friendship honored me and honors me still.”

John McCain is a living example of what Jesus taught concerning our “enemies.” It is so tragic that we fail to recognize that the only real enemy we have is the devil. Our responsibility as Christians is to seek reconciliation with every man. We are to be kind to every man, even when we disagree with him!