SERMON “The Bizarre Intimacy of Hatred” Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein
I got a message through social media from someone I knew in childhood. He lived on my street and we took the same bus to school. The message said something like “Hey Vicki, how are you, great to see that you seem to be doing well…”
My first thought was to type back, “Why are you contacting me? I hate you!”
I did hate Andy. He was a vicious child who bullied me, calling me the worst anti-Semitic names that I won’t repeat here, putting a swastika on my locker, throwing a sharpened pencil through a bouquet of balloons I got for my birthday, spitting on construction crew that we passed by. He practices law in Quincy now.
Just seeing his name made my face burn. So I took to my prayer chair and checked in with myself. What is this emotion? do I need something, if so, what? I decided that I needed a few minutes off and a walk. So I did that. As I walked I checked in on the health of my reaction. Was it fair, was it true, and did I need to do anything about it?
I decided that my reaction was fair, that it was kind of true (because I don’t think I have a strong enough bond to Andy to hate him anymore), and I decided that I didn’t need to do anything, because crafting a response to would take emotional bandwidth and time that I didn’t feel obliged to give. Just coming to that conclusion was somewhat demanding, and reminded me of how strong a bond hatred is between people; it is a cage. Sometimes love and understanding opens the cage, sometimes time opens the door, sometimes part of us remains locked away in it. If Andy was getting in touch to apologize, he should have stated that right away. Because he didn’t, I couldn’t trust that he even remembered his behavior (how could he not!, but many people have a talent for blocking out their viciousness or blaming others for it). I would not be the one to start the conversation on an honest footing.
When the subject of hatred comes up, well-behaved people – who have learned what they are supposed to say to the extent that they often do not know how they honestly feel or believe – will say, “Hate is a very strong word.” We start saying this to our children very young: “We don’t say hate in this family.”
I have no argument with either of those statements: hatred is a strong word, and it is up to every parent and guardian to set language boundaries in the household. But hatred is not easily waved away and should not be avoided. It is a reality, and children need to know that and adults to face it.
We wish it wasn’t so, but it is, and the inclination is within all of us. The Father of American Unitarianism, William Ellery Channing, said that our “true religion consists in a growing likeness to the Supreme Being,” whose divine nature was argued to be loving, benevolent and akin to the best version of parental love ever enacted upon the earth, but in heaven.
So Unitarians and Universalists both have focused for centuries on the goodness and loving nature of God, and on the potential for goodness among God’s people, in whose moral image they believe humanity to have been created. This has led to some measure of denial, avoidance or excuses for hatred, and has left us and other religious liberals on shaky legs in acknowledging and confronting it.
Hatred is having a big moment right now, it is almost a winter fashion. Watching its emergence and bold expression I am left fairly dumbstruck although not surprised.
Here is one example, and this was big news: Bishop Mariann Budde, Episcopal bishop in Washington DC, gave a very lovely and straightforward gospel message at the National Prayer Service. In that sermon, she addressed top officials and asked them to have mercy on their constituents.
Every word out of Bishop Budde’s mouth was directly from Jesus’ teachings, delivered in the mildest of tones to supposedly Christian leaders. The House of Representatives promptly drafted a resolution condemning Bishop Budde, calling her sermon a “display of political activism, and condemning its distorted message.” The conservative news outlets called her gentle sermon a “rant” and subjected her to a barrage of insults and name-calling.
Getting right to the subject at hand, a man named Ben Garrett, a deacon in his church, posted, “Do not commit the sin of empathy. This snake is God’s enemy and yours too. She hates God and His people. You need to properly hate in response.”
“You need to properly hate in response.” Let’s look at that, since it is advice given in explicitly religious terms and deserves a considered religious response.
Is there a way to properly hate?
No. No, there’s really not.
And not because hatred is never justified, but because our respected prophets have instructed us that to hate is like setting your own house on fire and expecting someone else’s to burn to the ground. This guy’s version of Christianity is unrecognizable to Jesus, but that doesn’t stop him and those like him from claiming to be the righteous ones among I don’t know, blasphemers. Whether or not those they accuse of destroying our godly nation are religious or not isn’t the point, it is simply important for all of us on the receiving end of their spittle-strewn condemnations to know that they think their worldview is grounded in a legitimate religious position. For a thousand reasons, they are not. You know that, and I don’t think there is much need to argue it with anyone, as those who agree are lost to zealotry. Leave them where Jesus flang them* and save your energy.
Hatred is powerful, it is intense, and its fire may illuminate important truths. But it undeniably dangerous and does equal harm to the one hating as to the object of their hatred. Hence Martin Luther King’s comment,“I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
I wish us to develop strength to see hatred, to face it, and to not try to explain it or excuse it, because we do not have time for that, and every effort to analyze or investigate hatred directed at us is a theft of our time and mental energy. James Baldwin said,
“We are capable of bearing a great burden once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is.”
It can be demoralizing or frightening to know that we are being spoken of with contempt and attacked, perhaps as individuals, perhaps as UUs, perhaps as Americans, perhaps as people of a certain race, nationality or sexual orientation or gender. It is important in those moments and seasons to gather support around, to keep good company, to nourish one another with food, song, laughter, rebellion, beauty, creativity, the solace of nature, and to bar the door of the soul against incursions of those vile sentiments and ideas being lobbed at the window and door of our psyches. In the name of God, the angels and the ancestors, the guardians of earth, air, fire and water, this hatred shall not have purchase on your spirit.
The energy that hatred generates is exceedingly dangerous when organized, but if we are to survive, and resist, and advocate for ourselves or others, we must invoke that prayer of protection around us so that the hatred cannot erode our hearts, which is exactly what the opponent wishes. Their hearts are eroded, they operate on fear and shadow, and they want company in their tormented condition. We will not provide it.
“When love prevails on heav’n and earth, how can I keep from singing?”
I have a few practices and teachings that I hope will help you in standing with grace, pride and self-regard in the face of hatred:
First, remember that we are all capable of hating and that it is likely we all harbor warm and active hatreds deep within ourselves. Any monster whom I behold expressing hatred toward me and mine, I must acknowledge that I can be that monster as well. I do not want be, and make efforts to avoid becoming so, as I find hateful people pathetic and boring. Perhaps you can find within yourself an equally dismissive attitude that helps you brush off animosity.
Second: hatred is a form of intimacy. You may have noticed that when you have hated someone, they have taken up residence in your thoughts, sleeping dreams and waking fantasies. That is how it is for the ones hating you or me, too. We live rent-free in their heads, they are obsessed with what they think we are, what we do, and how we supposedly threaten their perfect world.
That’s bizarre, and sad. There are many psychological and developmental and sociological reasons for it, but you don’t have to spend a moment thinking about it, nor should you bother. Know that the relationship is one-sided and pray that the universe will use that fiery energy for other purposes. Redirect it, like Xena the Warrior Princess.
There is plenty to do focusing on those you love and care about, and those with whom you share common values. Beyond that may be, we hope, opportunities to build relationships between those who have significant differences in opinion, belief and priorities, but who are not entirely lost to pure hatred. We want our energy for things like that.
Those who are deeply invested in hate as their primary unifying and bonding principle are lost and may eventually experience a conversion. I hope that for them. I pray that God will work in their hearts through human beings to lead them out of the hell they have made for themselves and others. But that is their path, and that is in God’s hands, not mine.
We arrive at reality. We arrive and see it, and assess it and we can also shape it. We will continue to shape it, together. And finally, we remember this: where hostility is present, so ever is there the love and regard of friends and allies, not only here and yet to be met, but also in the ancestors whose very hope you may be the culmination of. Together, past and present, here and at a distance, we also generate a fire that warms and does not burn.
