WHERE THERE IS HATREDReading: John 15: 9-27
We are no strangers to hatred, whether we admit it or not. The old adage that hatred and love are two sides of the one coin is true. It is so easy, if something is out of kilter within us for us to tip over into hatred. Very often the chief target is self. Self hatred is one of the most destructive forces not only for our own being but for others with whom we come into contact. When we find it very difficult to love ourselves then the consequences of that difficulty can have devastating effects on those around us, both in our reactions to them and our behaviour towards them. It was Nietzsche who said, “Do not gaze too long into the abyss lest the abyss gaze into you.” There is a sense in which we can ‘become’ our hatred. If we dwell on it too long, it becomes the place of familiarity, the place where we feel at home. It is at that point that the abyss has started to gaze into us – and we are trapped by this powerful negative emotion. This can happen not only for individuals, but for communities and, indeed, for whole nations. And it is true for all the other places of shadow mentioned in this prayer – doubt, despair, darkness and sadness. And when we cannot face what is within, then we project it outwards on to others.
Lord, make me! How do we let the process of transformation begin? Well, first of all we have to desire it. And here I need to affirm for all of us that God honours the desire of our hearts. If the desire to be ‘made’ or moulded is there, even if we can’t seem to translate it into any sort of action, then the Holy Spirit is given permission to work. At first that work may seem to lead us into greater chaos, into the wilderness, (as the Spirit did Jesus), the place of madness or temptation, the place, maybe for us, of greater hatred or doubt or darkness. And we will resist it. We will want to turn back to the old securities. We will be consumed by a fear of the unknown and it may seem to us as if God is playing games with us, that he is hiding himself. It can, indeed, be a lonesome valley. We cling to the old because how would we cope if there was no more hatred to fuel the negative energy within us or justify behaviour that stems from self-loathing? How do we stand up to the hatred within and the hatred that we encounter outside of ourselves? For encounter it we will. Jesus even said that we might expect it if we are his friends. He said, “The world would love you if you belonged to it, bit you don’t. I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you.” But he also said, “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.”
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