SermonStudio

Hatred rings out in the world like the shrill clash of metal
against metal; the hammer against the nail.
Hatred is the force of darkness that covers the face of the
earth, reaping destruction where it goes.
Hatred is most often aroused by our self-righteous
resentments. It is easier to shoot the villains, to seek
retribution for the satisfaction of our moral feelings, than to
get at the root of villainy or to transform the villain. It is
easier to kill bad people than to build bridges.
The passion hatred, which periodically sweeps through people
like a storm is almost always misdirected. It is easier to kill
the villain than to build bridges of trust and understanding.
Ethnic mistrust breeds and thrives on hatred. It is hatred
that breeds apartheid, anti-semitism and other forms of ethnic
mistrust. Hatred causes strife in places like Yugoslavia,
Palestine, South Africa and Los Angeles.
The actions of that hatred often create poverty, sin and human
misery. What a difference it would make if our hatreds were
redirected.
"Hate the evil, love the good, and you will establish
justice," said Amos.
Hatred does not begin on such a full-scale level. It begins
within each one of us. When our rights, our goals, our interests,
our jobs are threatened -- these things which are so central to
our identity, our purpose, our being -- it is then that we strike
out in fear and hatred.
Bishop Nygren once put it this way in a commencement address
at Carthage College:

Let us imagine that we are walking on a large plain. We can see
in all directions. If I look around, I see the line of the
horizon like a line of a circle. Where does this circle have its
center? Answer: Just where I happen to stand! Wherever I view the
world I always stand quite naturally in the center. Wherever I
go, I take the center with me. Wherever I am, I have always the
zenith above me. All the lines from the horizon converge in the
individual "I" at the center.

It belongs to the nature of the "I" to occupy a central position.
Theoretically viewed this creates very little difficulty. Even if
I see everything from my own point of view, even if it appears to
be so for me, as if I were the center of the universe -- still I
know that I am not the center of the universe, but just a small
speck of the universe, chosen at random. I know how it is, and so
this illusion does not have any serious consequences.

Great complications, however, develop within the sphere of the
will and of human action. Here, too, there exists the same
centralization around the individual "I." I see it clearly: it is
my interest, my private business that is in the center. The
interests of my fellow men are more or less on the outskirts.
This is how man thinks of himself. And when there is a conflict
between different interests, the fight begins: the fight between
individuals, the fight between different social classes, the
fight between the races, the fight between nations, the fight
between East and West.

It must be so in a world without a real center, where everybody
walks about having the center in himself.

Hatred grows out of a limitation which is forced upon us by
having to live with one another and it reaches out to destroy
that limiting presence. Hatred is the force and power of
destruction. It leads away from life to death.
Psychologists tell us that the emotion of hatred produces more
immediate effects on the chemical balance of the body than any
other emotion, including fear, and that while the emotion itself
may pass swiftly, the damage doesn't. "It's all over in a
minute," we say. So is a cyclone ... but then the wreckage has to
be cleaned up.
Hatred is also the cry from one who has not fully realized the
purpose of his life. Like the baby who screams in rage, "Somebody
took my rattle," men and women scream in blind rage, "Somebody
stole my glory, somebody ruined my life, or the best years of it,
somebody infringed upon my rights."

They say you can tell the size of a person by the size of the
thing that makes the person mad. They also say that persons
wrapped up in themselves make a small package. How often are
anger, hatred, wrath aroused over this small package.
The world loves to tell us that what is most important is what
makes "me" most important. The world loves to tell us that value
is measured by the strength of my voice, the size of the group
which will come and hear it; the world loves to tell us that
value is determined by success, not lowliness. Success is the
ability to stand while others fall, the ability to climb over and
above the others.
Christ came preaching a different message. "Deny yourselves,"
he said. In humility count others better than yourselves. Look
not merely to your own interest, but to the interests of others.
Be even like me ... who came not among you to display power and
glory, but to empty myself, to take the form of a servant.
Does the world like this standard? No, it loves only those who
abide by the world's standards.

"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but
because you are not of the world, but I choose out of the world,
therefore the world hates you."

"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and
utter all kinds of evil agains you falsely on my account."

Anger, resentment, bitterness; show ostentation; power,
conflict, hatred ring out like a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal;
the harsh sound of metal against metal; the hammer against the
nail -- disrupting, bleeding, destroying human relationships. But
the power that heals, that reconciles, that blesses us is more
like the silence of eternity, interpreted by love.