Day 34 - Hate

Large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14: 25-26)

 Jesus often taught in a style, popular in his day, that used extreme statements or cartoon-like opposites to emphasis a point. The effect was often funny and not to be taken literally. The society of his day was organised around closed structures of belonging, where loyalty was shown first to family and friends. He hated that these closed family-based worlds of self-interest destroyed the possibility of a society based on justice, equality, inclusion, generosity and compassion. The hatred to Jesus calls us is not the opposite of love. It is love rightly directed, passionately opposed to all that destroys, obstructs or undermines his radical community of welcome and justice. It is evil that we hate, not the people caught up in it. Poet William Blake called it ‘seeking the form of heaven with the energy of hell’.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 For Reflection

We all throw the word ‘hate’ around now and again, in relation to many things from foodstuffs to songs. Do we really ‘hate’?

Prayer

Jesus, help me only to hate what you hate, out of the love with which you love.