It’s Not the Absence of Hate
This past week, violence came to our area in a mass shooting at a grocery store, one that we have all shopped in. The week before mass violence pained the Atlanta community and beyond as some of Asian descent were targeted. And because communication and media have made ours a global community, each of these tragedies impact us as if they happened in our town. While the slain Boulder Police officer Eric Talley and King Soopers store manager Ricki Olds, two of the 10 who lost their lives, were geographically down the road, all are our neighbors (Luke 10:25).
As I type this, the motivation of Boulder’s shooting and why ten people lost their lives has not been communicated and or maybe even discovered. But we already know. We already know that it was hatred. That hatred has lashed out sometimes against the visible like skin and ethnicity, other times against the unseen like ideas and beliefs, and then even at random. Hatred to one is hatred for all, including God (1 John 3:15).
So what can we do?
The Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Stekel, in his 1921 work The Beloved Ego, is credited as being the first to publish the line – The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. It’s tempting to do nothing because we couldn’t stop or prevent the violence in Atlanta or Boulder. It’s easy to just bemoan the actions of some because we haven’t committed those societally despised acts hate. It’s even convenient to raise our hands in support of a corporate statement. But that’s when Jesus steps to the microphone and stretches out His hands in the form of a cross reminding us that it is not so much the absence of murderous hate that is needed, it is the active presence of love. His followers Jesus declares, are to love those who are even our enemies (Matt. 5:44) and that it is this love of others (John 13:35) that changes the world.
We, the followers of Jesus, must speak out in love to those hurting, of every color and creed, and act out in love against all hatred.
Pr. Micheal Goetz
Where to Start
• Ask others how they are doing, really doing.
• Seek out those who are connected by color or creed to a group currently hurting. • Knock on the lives of others intentionally impacting them with acts of love.
