WEAK HATE, WEAK LOVE
One of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith is the fact that saints (believers) often do not get along with each other. Consequently we see divisions in the Christian church, among fellowships and among individuals. What is seen today has been seen from the days of the early church when Paul disagreed with Peter and also with Barnabas on different occasions. If God is a God of love and if this love becomes immanent in the lives of his followers, why do they end up with discord? Before explaining how this ‘weak’ hate is really weak love, we need to take a step back and examine the progress of love in a believer.
God is love, he will never stop loving and this love is expressed in the way he deals with man. If God stops loving he will cease to be God. It follows without saying that when man reaches a stage of perfect love, he has truly found union with God. On the other hand, the complete absence of love is what characterizes a person who is intimately wedded to Satan. Such a person, who is yet to find salvation in Christ, can be said to have strong hate, which is characterized by a snobbish pride that refuses to see one’s own unworthiness, and readily sees one’s own faults in others. Such a person lives life with the attitude, ‘I hate others, and I don’t care’. In his worldview, all of life, people he comes into contact with and the limited resources around him exist to serve him. An example is the story of the rich man who barely noticed Lazarus at his gate, and finds easy access to hell where he finds the company of like-minded folk who simply cannot love. Interestingly, even in hell, he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to him to comfort him, because that was his world-view: all men and all things exist to serve him. (Luke 16)
When a person becomes regenerated as a believer, he becomes aware of his own unworthiness and moves into the stage of weak hate, weak love. Thomas Merton elaborates on this condition with his usual brilliance,
‘the man who is aware of his own unworthiness and the unworthiness of his brother is tempted with a subtler and more tormenting kind of hate: the general, searing, nauseating hate of everything and everyone, because everything is tainted with unworthiness, everything is unclean, everything is foul with sin. What this weak hate really is weak love’ (1)
And so when a person becomes a Christian, it usually follows that he becomes more intolerant and often this intolerance is directed at fellow believers. Much like a person who debates and opposes you is much better (because he cares!) than a person who ignores you; if believers could understand that intolerance and discord are actually signs of weak love, it becomes easier to make progress. And God does wish his disciples to make progress and move toward a stage of strong love, because the whole purpose of salvation is to replicate here on earth the life that will be in eternity- one of union with God in perfect love. In fact, the theme of 1John is all about making this progress.
We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. —— And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:19-21)
Any hate, even if it be weak hate is unacceptable as a goal. How do we make progress toward that goal? First, stop looking at the other’s faults and focus on your own. As John says, that was the failure of Cain.
Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. (1 John 3:12)
Next, actively develop empathy for others and follow the Natural law- ‘do unto others what you would want them to do unto you’. Consider to what extent you can make sacrifices for the other, even those you hate.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters… Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:16-18).
Lastly, have the mindset of reconciliation, which the Bible emphasizes. Even Paul in his old age, and obviously much wiser, had kind words to say about Mark, whom he had condemned several years earlier and himself became a facilitator of reconciliation between Philemon and Onesimus.
And as a disciple steadfastly submits to God and becomes more united with the nature of God, he moves toward the stage of strong love. He has over time and usually with much suffering and many failures found the mercy of God so real despite his own unworthiness, that the issue of worth (or unworthiness in him or in those around him) no longer is a relevant issue. Forgiving becomes second nature for him because he knows he has been forgiven by God. He gladly accepts the pain that comes along with the process of loving the unlovable and working along with those whose wavelengths might be quite different. And through it all, his focus is no longer on the earthly kingdoms that can be built but on the eternal prize that awaits.
1. Thomas Merton: A body of broken bones. New seeds of contemplation. New Directions paperbook, 1962.
