3rd June, 2009

LLOYD HARKNESS

Hate! Hate?

What an unusual choice of words.

I HATE YOU: Hate seems an easy word to define but Lloyd Harkness says hate, in terms of how the word is presented in the Bible, needs to be better understood. PICTURE: Enver Uçarer (www.sxc.hu) "Hating sin but not the person is neither weak nor an idea that belongs in la-la-land. It finds resonance in John’s first letter when he states that hating a fellow Christian is murder."

Theology, the Bible, can hardly lay claim to ownership of hate.

But the word certainly has its place in any Christian approach to life, to others, to God.

So there must be more to hate or hating other that arriving at the point where you are fuming and that bubbling emotion has been festering for some time.

There is more to hate than recognising that if you are seeing someone as "the disease upon the puss upon the dirt upon the scum upon the backside of a maggot eating its way through the rotting flesh of a road kill" then you are not in a healthy place.

And if all that gushing ill will is vented upon someone... well...

Maybe Christians need some new material on the topic - ‘The five languages of hate’... and such.

Yes, I am being frivolous but, hey, if I am going to talk about hate then the least I could do is write a light-hearted introduction.

Hate needs to be better understood. Thinking of hate as just the opposite of love will only take us so far in dealing with it.

The Bible has a range of general guidelines for us. Like God, we are to hate evil, injustice, idolatry and the hypocrisy of behaviour that is at odds with a public show of worship.

Conversely Christians should expect to be hated by the world and, despite what might be coming at them, they are not to hate their enemies or fellow Christians. And can I add, sometimes, it’s the latter which is more difficult to work through.

So we have the mantra; hate the sin and not the person. It’s a concept that gets parodied at times as weak or sugary sweet or hollow and therefore out of touch with real life and real people.

Hating sin but not the person is neither weak nor an idea that belongs in la-la-land. It finds resonance in John’s first letter when he states that hating a fellow Christian is murder. This is because the sin is in the stance taken long before there is a bloodied knife slashed across someone’s throat.

So we are to hate sin and not position ourselves to hate others.

Apart from this sample of broad guidelines on what to hate and not hate, it is important to recognise the range of emotion expressed as hate.

In the Old Testament the prominent Hebrew word for hate is sane. This word covers emotions ranging from intense hatred to something milder and more akin to being against an idea or a person and what they are doing.

An example of the milder form of hate is found in Jethro’s advice to Moses on choosing judges for Israel who hate dishonest gain. You need trustworthy people in this office, people who on principle will not tolerate corruption, people who hate the very idea of taking bribes.

At the more intense end of the spectrum is the situation which developed between Joseph and his brothers.

It was one thing for Joseph to be the spoilt youngest son born to an aged father and for that favoured position to be rubbed in their faces every time he wore dad’s special coat, but when he gave a bad report on their flock tending, tensions rose. Hate began to coagulate in the pool of jealousy Joseph’s brothers had been adding water to.

Then came the grandiose dreams of the brothers, and the rest of the family, bowing to him. That coagulated hatred was now taking on the shape of a knife, or a rock, or a fist. Their disdain and contempt can be heard in their questioning of him. Drooling sarcasm they said; “Will you actually rule us?” Things had festered to the point where they now wanted to do him damage.

Time moved forward and opportunity knocked on their door. “Here comes that dreamer!” Contempt, anger and hatred were all merging into one plot; “let’s kill him”. Reuben, the oldest son, looking to protect Joseph and maintain unity among the brothers, prevailed and the next phase of Joseph’s life was in Egypt.

At some point, and you can draw the line where you will, their anger, frustration, indignation, disappointment and envy became totally venomous.

Was there any element of injustice in the brother’s plight? No doubt there was.

Is it wrong to be upset? Indignant? Angry? Frustrated? Disappointed? No. But these are things we need to let go of rather than fertilise. The brothers had to deal with their emotions when they were at the mild end of the hate spectrum, when they were simply against favouritism.

This cocktail of emotions, a stance which takes hate onboard, wreaks havoc when we do not apply the love of Christ to the situation, when we do not say "That is enough - I choose Christ’s way, I choose to follow His guidelines with the help of the Holy Spirit".

In understanding hate we have to recognise the trigger point and not allow that to fester. When does frustration become more than frustration? When does disappointment become more than disappointment? At what point does resentment and hostility enter the equation? At what point does hate take root?

Understanding hate in this way - not just the ranting, screaming stuff referred to in this piece’s opening - should bring a sense of empowerment in handling situations where we have to apply the balm of Christ’s love.

Hate needs to be combatted with grace, forgiveness and love. Not letting the sun go down on our anger is not just a good idea. It is life changing.

Christ’s challenge is to let love conquer and give no soil for hate to take root. In the midst of that challenge we need to recognise the moment when darkness is creeping in and the light is being displaced in a given situation.

Postscript. Hate is sometimes used in the Bible as a contrasting reference point. Jesus said we are to hate our parents claims on us, relative to His claims on our life. He also said it is more important to acknowledge his claim on our life than take a safety first approach to life. Basically He said, in varying ways, choose me and hate the other options.

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