July 2, 2025, 12-step Eucharist, praying for Enemies.
Matthew 5:43-48 Independence Day, Voyage of the Dawn Treader
We have spent this day in prayer for ourselves, our neighbors, our city, our state, our country, and our world. We have prayed for peace. We also prayed for our enemies, as directed by tonight’s reading from Matthew’s gospel on Independence Day. Praying for others who have harmed us/ or we have harmed is also a significant part of 12-step recovery. As long as we have people we perceive as enemies, we are carrying resentments about people who have harmed us/ or whom we believe are our enemies. We become obsessed with these people and how they have/ or could hurt us. They become our higher power as we spend so much time thinking about how to get even/ or expose them. Therefore, we must forgive them for the sake of our own inner peace of mind. A significant part of forgiveness is praying for those who hurt us or hurt those we love. We must pray until God has changed us. It is not a quick fix. It is painful.
In our forum, we recently studied one of C. S. Lewis’ books in the Narnia series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a favorite among children of all ages. In this story, Eustace is such a difficult young boy that he turns into a dragon. That is what having resentments, sins, defects of character, and enemies can do to us. Eustace the dragon comes to realize who he really is and wants to become a boy again. He tries to take off his dragon skin. He takes it off, but it comes right back on again. Aslan, the Christ figure, says, “Let me undress you.” Aslan does, and it is painful. Eustace again becomes a boy, a much nicer boy,/ most of the time. On our own, it is difficult to rid ourselves of resentments, our defects of character, our sins, and our desire to return evil for evil. We acknowledge our sins,/ then ask God to help us/ ask for forgiveness for those we have harmed/ and for us/ to forgive those who have harmed us.
Take another look at the 12 steps in our service. Look at Steps 6 and 7. Just before thee two steps. we acknowledge our mistakes 4, admit them to someone we trust 5, and then 6, we are ready for God to remove them. We then 7 humbly ask God to remove the defects of character and shortcomings in our lives. It is a process, being ready, and then asking, in which God is deeply involved. We acknowledge our mistakes and then put ourselves in a position for God to change us.// We cannot do it on our own, just as we could not become clean or sober on our own./////
Today, celebrating Independence Day, we give thanks for a British writer who wants us to know the loving God who made us, putting God’s message in a language that children can understand, so we can as well.
Joanna Seibert