Say No to Hate

I think I've shared this story before, but...

Some years back when I was a counseling student, I was part of a practicum support group. All of us were students placed at different organizations to practice our craft, and we met together to get support from our advisor regarding our individual experiences. One of the students in our group was working with domestic violence offenders. I remember shuddering a bit and saying to her, "I don’t think I could do that." And her reply has stuck with me all these years later, "But, you have to remember, they are victims, too."

No, she wasn’t meaning victims in a gaslighting kind of way where it was therefore someone else’s fault that they were abusive. It’s clear they were offenders, most of them in court-ordered treatment as they were being held responsible for their actions. Rather, what she meant is that people don’t become abusive in a vacuum. They were likely victims prior to becoming perpetrators. They all had histories of trauma of one kind or another. She had the grace to see beyond their actions to their pain.

It was a flash of mercy that immediately humbled me. It’s a lesson I’m still struggling with all these years later. With everything that's happening in our country right now, many of us - and I include myself - are struggling to come to terms with it all. There's so much hate hurling across both sides of a widening divide between us. There's hate and blame and bitterness... the seeds of which will certainly spoil any good fruit we try to harvest.

It is so easy to vilify those who disagree with us. To judge them, blame them for our suffering, and make them out to be the enemy. It's easy to hate them.

An enemy is depersonalized. Dehumanized, even. Easy to mistreat. Easy to discard. Easy to disregard.

It is so easy to forget there are reasons for the things people do and say and think. Everyone has a story. Just like we all have our individual stories. And it is not for us to judge or make people out to be the bad guy. After all, Jesus said, "Judge not, or you will be judged." (Matthew 7:1) On the contrary, Jesus calls us to love one another, not hate one another. Loving others means showing grace and compassion, which can be hard to do. It can be challenging to hold a compassionate space where we see beyond their actions to their pain.

In one of my classes this fall we’re studying the reformation. When Martin Luther posted his 95 treaties on the Catholic Church door, he had some real issues with the church and the way it was being run. A few years later, the Catholic Church assembled the Council of Trent to hash out those issues. To their credit, they took the accusations of the Reformers seriously. They didn't brush them off as irrelevant or heretical or "fake news". They reviewed them carefully. They found that in some areas Luther and the others were right - there was a need to reform. However, at the end of the day, there were irreconcilable differences between the theology of the Catholic Church and that of the Reformers, so the split was finite, but the conversation made them both better.

My professor asked, what would have happened if they had convened the council before Martin Luther posted his 95 treaties? If the problems had been discussed and worked out beforehand, would there even have still been a split? After all, up until the 16th century unity was the primary goal of the church. 

What would it take for us to come together today?

Hate won't do it, that's for sure. One could argue Martin Luther King, Jr. certainly had reason to hate, but he did not. He knew that "Hate destroys the hater" and "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Jesus commands that we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43). He said, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that." (Luke 6:32) And that is what He lived. We see Jesus on the night of His betrayal, washing the feet of the man who would betray Him (Judas). Did Jesus not know what Judas was going to do? No, He knew (see John 13:26). But He washed Judas' feet anyway. He showed Him grace.

Jesus, hanging on the cross in the most excoriating and humiliating type of death available at the time, still prayed for His persecutors: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34) Even in that moment of intense suffering and pain, Jesus still showed mercy, love and compassion to the very people who had mocked Him, beat Him, and hung Him up to die.

If we truly are followers of Christ, should we not imitate this type of sacrificial love?

This doesn't mean we roll over and passively accept evil. It doesn't mean we stop advocating for the oppressed and the vulnerable. As Shane Claiborne writes in "Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals", "Peacemaking doesn't mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free."

This is not an easy task - to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Sometimes, it feels like an impossible task. But change will not come through hate. Change will not come through violence and force. 

Change comes through love.

We cannot allow the circumstances around us turn our hearts cold. If we do, the enemy wins, and we have lost.

Rather, in love, we must continue marching forward, showing the way, shepherding the lost, being the light in a world which is getting increasingly darker.

Be the change.

Be the love.

Say no to hate.

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