My Blog

Tag: hate

  • Red, Yellow, Black, and White, they are precious in God’s sight

     

    When I was a child, I loved attending Sunday School. I had some amazingly loving and deeply faithful teachers whose influence profoundly affected the formation of my faith in a loving God. I can see them and hear their voices now as if it were only yesterday – Mr. Frantis, Mrs. Brittian, Mrs. Baber, and others. They loved us and share their faith in Jesus with us. They reinforced the faith into which our parents were trying to guide us.RedYellowBlackWhite

    However, when I looked back on that time from the perspective of a young adult in the late 1960's, I realized something was wrong. They taught us to sing (with gusto) "Jesus Loves the Little Children." In that song, there is a line that says, "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight." But the church I attended was 100% white. From its members I overheard conversations from time to time about the place of our neighbors who were black, brown, and yellow. When I looked back, I realized that, while Jesus loves people besides white people, my white church people didn't. Jesus might love them, but they weren't really welcome in my church. Jesus might love them, but they weren't worthy of the dignity and respect enjoyed by white people. Jesus might love them, but our behavior toward them didn't have to look like we love them as he loves us. Jesus might love them, but they had better not act "uppity."

    If you grew up in a racist culture like I did, you know what I am talking about. Perhaps for you, as for me, recognizing that something was wrong was an epiphany, a time for repentance, and the beginning of transformation. My world could no longer be all white with a little color around the edges.

    This all came to me during a time when black people were turned away from white churches. It was a struggle for one like me, who was taught that people of all colors are precious in the sight of Jesus, to reconcile that message with the actions I was witnessing. Given the rhetoric of the day, I suppose I could have rejected that message and clung to what seemed to be the majority view reflected in the rhetoric and behavior of my white world. But the security, control, and privilege of that world was slipping away. Abandoning it or confronting it could be dangerous. White people said harsh and hateful things to other white people who didn't participate in keeping non-white people "in their place." The message wasn't wrong; my white, privileged, dominant world was wrong and I couldn't live in it anymore. I had to set out on a journey toward someplace else. I'm still on that journey.

    Events of the last week and year have brought me to the sad truth that many of my fellow white people are still trapped in that world. It is even sadder that they seem to be completely unconscious of it. They say and do things that are blatantly racist yet are oblivious. I know it's true because I've been there and I still find myself trying to overcome some of those prejudices that were planted in me long ago. People of color who loved me enough to point out the harm, sometimes hatefulness, of my words and actions stuck with me until I began to understand where they were coming from and how my words and my behavior affected them. Many of those people are still in my life. I give thanks to God for them. I've sort of been their lifelong project and I'm still not finished. They patiently continue on the journey with me. And as we travel, we sing that song hoping our rainbow beliefs are evident in our lives. Maybe the colors of our rainbow are still a little bit pastel, but we hope they are growing stronger with each step we take together. Together.

    So, what I wanted to suggest today to my friends of all colors, races, religions, genders, and nationalities is that it might help heal our fractured, hurting world if we would sing this song and test ourselves to see if our words and actions show that we really believe it is true. Whether you believe that Jesus is God Incarnate, a wise prophet, or just a very gutsy nice guy, could it be true that he loves all the children of the world? Are all of us – red, yellow, black, and white – really precious in his sight? If I am one of the Jesus people, shouldn't they be precious in my sight as well? How do I love and treat people who are precious in Jesus' sight? Who are precious in my sight?

    This isn't a final exam! It's a pop quiz to monitor progress in a lifelong course. I invite you to take it with me and see if we can be the difference we'd like to see in God's amazing, changing world.

     

    I'll see you in Church!

    Ron Short Sig Blue

     

     

     

    The Very Reverend Ronald D. Pogue
    Interim Dean
    Saint John’s Cathedral
    Denver, Colorado

     

  • What kind of love has to be commanded?

    A couple of weeks ago on Maundy Thursday, we read the account of Jesus and his disciples in the Upper Room.  In that passage, Jesus commands his disciples to love.  What kind of love has to be commanded?

    My reaction to execution of terrorist Osama bin Laden motivated me to search for a fresh answer to that question. 

    Gay and I were on a flight home from our nephew's confirmation.  Within seconds after the wheels of the aircraft touched the tarmac, the man in the seat behind us said, "We've killed bin Laden!"  He had turned on his smart phone and was reading the news that had been released while we were in flight.

    My first response was one of relief.  That seemed reasonable, given the number of innocent lives he took and the threat he represented.  Then I felt a sense of joy.  That didn't seem right, given what I preach.  For the last week, I've struggled with the disconnect between my human feelings and my theological views.  On the one hand, I found myself saying, "Good riddance!  We got him!"  On the other hand, the words of Jesus to his followers rang in my ears, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn. 13:34, 35).

    Yes, Jesus, but you were talking to your friends who had been following you around.  Osama bin Laden was our enemy.  He murdered thousands of people and not just Americans.  He did it in the name of God.  Why can't we be happy he's dead?  How does one reconcile feelings of hatred and happiness for retribution with this commandment to love?

    In case you think Jesus doesn't answer such questions, here's the next epiphany that came to me.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?” (Mt. 5:43-46a).

    What kind of love has to be commanded?  Certainly not the feeling of love.  Feelings sort of happen on their own, not because we make them happen.  It is easy to love someone who is loveable and easy to hate someone who is hateful.

    The love that Jesus commands is not grounded in human emotions.  Love divine is grounded in the heart and mind of God.  Such love has always been God's desire and God's decision about how things need to work in God's creation.  It is the love that conquers human emotions, such as fear and hatred.  Jesus demonstrated how this love is expressed in his dealings with both friends and enemies.  His friends denied, betrayed, and deserted him.  His enemies plotted against him, mocked him, and crucified him.  He could have hated both his friends and his enemies.  Instead, love divine became flesh and reigned from the cross.  We are commanded to love like that – not because we feel like it, but so that our natural emotions will not enslave us.  True freedom is found in that way of loving.  It is a merger of human will with God’s will.

    There is an old rabbinical story of when Moses led the people of Israel through the parted Red Sea. The armies of Pharaoh pursued them, but the water enveloped them and they died. The angels in heaven started dancing and rejoicing.  But the low voice of God was mournfully heard to say: “Dare you rejoice when my children are dying?”  My Israeli friend Mishi Neubach told me that this story is printed on the first page of the handbook that is issued to every person in the Israeli Army.  “Its purpose,” he said, “is to teach that while you may have to kill your enemy, you may not hate him and you may not rejoice over his death.”

    Just before Holy Week, Gay and I toured the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.  These words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are inscribed there:  “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

    Anyone can hate.  After all, the actions of bin Laden and his followers were motivated by hate.  Did we not see images of them dancing in the streets after 9/11?  Are we any better if we engage in similar demonstrations over the death of their leader?  What is a better response?

    The followers of Jesus will be recognized by the love they choose to demonstrate instead of hate.  That kind of love has to be commanded.  It doesn’t come naturally.  Feelings such as hatred emerge from the primitive reptilian part of our brains.  The love that has to be commanded is the result of the exercise of higher human intelligence seeking the mind of God.  It is the inspired decision to resist emotions that harm so that God can love through us.

    The love that Jesus commands us to exhibit has to be smarter and more reliable than human emotion.  When Jesus sends us out like sheep in the midst of wolves, this love will make us “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Mt. 10:16).   The reason the love that has to be commanded will ultimately triumph is that the wiser decisions leading to the welfare and peace of the world depend upon it.  It is the way to true freedom for all God’s children.

    Ron