“On Hate and Hope”
Romans 12:9-18; Mark 6:17-29
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
Sept. 21, 2014
James Foley grew up in New Hampshire. After college, he taught at a Phoenix, Arizona elementary school with Teach for America. As a photojournalist, he covered wars and supported development efforts. He helped put together a series of training seminars to rebuild Iraq’s civil service. He spoke at McAuliffe Charter School in 2011.
Steven Sotloff was raised in Pinecrest, Florida. He was a freelance correspondent known for his generosity in the field, sharing his expertise with other reporters. He was the grandson of a holocaust survivor.
David Cawthorne Haines was an aid worker from Britain who had helped victims of conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Africa and the Middle East. He was part of Nonviolent Peaceforce, an unarmed civilian peacekeeping group in South Sudan. Most recently, he was in Syria with a group called ACTED, assessing locations for refugee camps.
Three people who sought to make a difference—telling the stories that were not being told, working for healing and reconciliation. Three people beheaded by the terrorist group that calls itself Islamic State. The beheadings were professionally videotaped and disseminated world-wide through social media.
We are horrified. We know there is a lot of hate in the world, but this particular expression of hate is so naked, so bold. The lack of compassion—a recognition that this is a fellow human being—seems absolute. I am cautious about the word evil—it has been used to dehumanize enemies and justify horrible responses–but I will use it here. I understand evil not as a person or a force, but hate that has become so twisted into itself that it has hardened and taken on a life of its own. These acts are evil—hate twisted and hardened. We turn on the news and hear of yet another beheading, yet another act of evil, and we think, “What is happening to our world?”
As we ask that question, it is worth pausing for a longer view. In 2011 historian Steven Pinker published a book, Our Better Angels, arguing that human violence has actually decreased over the course of human history. Humans are now much less likely to be killed by war or crime than at any time before. Think about World War 2, World War I, the American Civil War, the 100 Years War in Europe—the numbers of people killed are staggering. If you go back further, to biblical times, a picture emerges of communities that lived with constant violence, or at least the threat of violence. The outrageous story of the beheading of John the Baptist reminds us that Jesus lived in a harsh, dangerous world. Our Bible Study groups are just starting the book of Isaiah, with its beautiful poetry, that was written in a time when the threat of invasion—sieges and scorched earth policies and genocide—was constant.
If our world is actually a safer place than it used to be, why does it feel so dangerous? The simple answer is our 24-hour news cycle. We hear about all the violence—immediately and from multiple sources. In many ways, that is a good thing. James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines are our brothers, and when a brother or a sister has been murdered, we should know about it.
“Weep with those who weep,” the apostle Paul writes. Behind his words is a recognition of the worth of every human being, an acknowledgement that we are all children of God–brothers and sisters. In honor and recognition of our shared humanity, we grieve with the families of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines.
To acknowledge that the world is more peaceful than it used to be does not make these beheadings any less horrifying. It reminds us that the questions they raise are not new questions. They are questions biblical authors tried to address. They are questions about the nature of humanity, the nature of hope.
Looking at the long view gives us one perspective on these beheadings; it is equally important to look at the broad view—to see these three men beside all the people who have lost their lives in the conflicts of the last thirteen years. Our Christian faith calls us to be especially concerned about people the rest of the world ignores: soldiers living silently with the hidden wounds of war; children caught in the crossfire; someone’s mother, someone’s uncle, someone’s best friend killed in a US drone strike, collateral damage. They too are God’s beloved. They too are our sisters and brothers. We weep for them, for their death diminish us all.
That is a lot of weeping. Too much weeping, it sometimes feels. It is tempting to shut off the news, to allow ourselves to become numb, to cut ourselves off from the pain of our common humanity.
How does our faith speak to all this weeping? How does the biblical witness help us make sense of these acts of brutality? How does Jesus call us to respond?
A few weeks ago, after the third beheading, I sent out a pastoral letter. I began with these words: “Love is more powerful than hate or fear.” For me, these words speak to the heart of our faith. They are the message Jesus proclaimed through his actions and his teachings. Jesus didn’t ignore the reality of hate or fear. When hate or fear became twisted and hardened into evil, he named it for what it was and confronted it boldly and directly. He confronted it with the promise that the realm of God—the realm of love—was at hand and that nothing could contain it. He refused to meet hate with hate. He refused to meet violence with violence.
That is why he was crucified. His message of love was so threatening to people who were invested in hate that they executed him. His friends, his disciples, his loved ones, all those who hoped for a better way—they wept. They wept at the loss of a beloved friend, and they wept at what seemed to be the loss of hope. Hate, it seemed, had won.
But that was not the end of the story. Three days later, the tomb was empty. Jesus, the gospels declare, had risen from the dead. The disciples received the Spirit, and with it the strength and passion to proclaim Jesus’ message all over the world.
In the resurrection, whether we understand it literally or metaphorically, we proclaim that God’s love triumphed. Hate, fear, even death—they could not stop Jesus’ message of love.
“Love is more powerful than hate.” Sometimes these words match my experience—when I witness an act of compassion that softens hearts and overcomes barriers. Sometimes these words challenge me to take a longer view—to recognize that the promised victory of love doesn’t happen on my timetable. Other times these words don’t fit what I see and hear and feel—especially when I am watching the news. In those times, I have to make a choice to believe them anyway. In those times, I have to make a choice to try to live those words even as I struggle to believe them.
“Love is more powerful than hate.” I grapple with how to live that conviction as I listen to our President talk about expanded air strikes and as Congress votes to provide arms and training for someone else to fight. Meeting violence with more violence leads to more widows and orphans and grieving parents—more devaluing of human life, more weeping, rage multiplying. Every American bomb that explodes potentially leads to an explosion of hatred directed back at us. We might be able to defeat the terrorists–maybe–with our overwhelming air power, but bombs will never defeat hate. How does “Love is more powerful than hate” translate into foreign policy? What would it mean for our nation to confront evil boldly and directly, without violence and with love?
I come back to another piece of the apostle Paul’s advice: “Do not pretend to be wiser than you are.” I don’t know what our nation should do in response to the very real threat of ISIL. I do know our calling as Christians is to continually raise the challenge to our elected officials to keep seeking a better response than violence.
At a deeply personal level, our faith challenges us to respond to these horrifying acts of terror by honoring the sacredness of every life lost and by reaffirming the central Christian conviction that love ultimately triumphs. At the big picture level of national and international response, our faith challenges us to be voices calling for the creativity, will, and courage to seek other responses besides violence.
There’s another level of response in between those two, one that moves us beyond the immediate crisis to the transformation of hearts and minds and ultimately the world. Paul exhorts us to “extend hospitality to strangers.” We are called to create community that breaks down barriers, turns strangers into friends, community that builds understanding, offers a sense of purpose and dissolves alienation. It is what we seek to do here–a Day of Spirit, an Interfaith Rosh Hashanah meal, a mission trip to West Virginia, shared prayer, music that uplifts, a place where we can wrestle with the hard questions and find comfort for the hard times. What we do matters, building bridges toward peace, creating pathways through with God’s healing river can flow.
God’s power is the power of love. God’s love is deeper, wider, stronger than we can ever comprehend. And God’s love needs our love to bring it to fruition. When we choose to act on our conviction that love is more powerful than hate, love triumphs.
Love is more powerful than hate. Let us live that truth. Let us be that truth. Amen.