Ordinary 29

The Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

_{Isaiah 45:1, 4-6; Psalm 96; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b; Matthew 22:15-21}

Have you ever been concerned, even frightened, to gather for prayer and worship in our church? I expect your answer is no. However, I was made to wonder and experience what it is like for Jews.

Within the week after the attack on Israel by Hamas, I was present at Congregation Beth Emeth. On Monday I went to be in solidarity with the Jewish community to pray for peace and on Shabbat for the installation of a new senior rabbi. Nothing out of the ordinary in this time of interfaith and ecumenical relations, except for…

Except for the presence of the city police and having to go through security as if I were at an airport. “But I’m here to pray,” I thought. That is easier said than done if you are Jewish, Muslim, from a historically Black congregation in our country or a Catholic or Orthodox Christian in many other parts of the world. Worshipping God can be deadly. Going to work can be deadly. Going shopping can be deadly. Going for a walk can be deadly. Out for a evening with friends can be deadly.

Deadly, why? Because people hate.  People hate Jews, black people, Pacific Islanders, Muslims, gay people, Palestinians, Asians, women, Uighurs, Coptic Christians, Hindus, in short all the people your relatives hate— Why do people hate? Is not hate a choice? Why this choice? Why does one generation pass on their hate to the next generation?

Hate is rooted in fear. Fear of what we do not do understand. Do not want to understand? Fear of the stranger. Fear that we might have to change how we view the world and ourselves. Fear that what we were taught is not true. Fear of difference. Fear of change.

Why is it easier to be suspicious that breeds fear and hate than to be open to new and different ideas and people? Our lawn signs and bumper stickers say there can be no place for hate. Nevertheless, hate is ever-present and is never eradicated. Hate only goes underground to hide and fester; waiting to be given permission to raise its monstrous heads again to the sunlight.

How is hate given permission? It is all too simple.

A hateful comment couched in humour. A silence that does not counter a bigoted tweet, a hateful remark, or an offensive Facebook post. Being subtly taught by our parents, families, religions and fellow citizens.

Rogers and Hammerstein put this last permission to song in their Broadway musical, South Pacific.

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,You’ve got to be taught from year to year,It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,Before you are six or seven or eight,To hate all the people your relatives hate—You’ve got to be carefully taught!

The monk Thomas Merton in his essay, “The Root of War Is Fear” brilliantly and unsettlingly turns the critical focus inward and invites all of us to a deep examination of conscience. He writes: “At the root of all war is fear: not so much the fear [people] have of one another as the fear [people] have of everything. It is not merely that [people] do not trust one another; they do not even trust themselves. … It is not only our hatred of others that is dangerous but also and above all our hatred of ourselves: particularly that hatred of ourselves which is too deep and too powerful to be consciously faced. For it is this which makes us see our own evil in others and unable to see it in ourselves”. 

We may find Merton’s challenge to moral self-examination off-putting when few of us are directly responsible for the sort of hatred, violence and bloodshed we see around the world today. But Merton wants us to look beneath the superficial descriptions and breaking news, to ask ourselves the tough question: Why does this kind of violence exist and what role might we have in it? In other words, why do people hate?

In this way Merton agrees with Abraham Joshua Heschel, who wrote in his classic 1962 book The Prophets, “Above all, the prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible.” 

If all are responsible, that is why a Catholic priest entering a synagogue must experience what Jews experience: the presence of police officers and security so as to pray because of hate.

_{[See Reflecting on Thomas Merton’s “The Root of War Is Fear” today by Daniel P. Horan, National Catholic Reporter, 19 October 2023.]}