Loving and Hating

There is a time for everything... "a time to love and a time to hate" (Ecclesiastes 3:8).

There is a time to love...we get that, don't we? Even in a culture that has, effectively, traded love for mere sex, many of our movies, novels, songs and stories still reflect a longing for love. Real love. True love. While many people don't believe such a thing exists, there is still, deep within us, a longing to be loved on more than a superficial level.

Those of us who are part of the church or, even more, those of us who have grown up in the church know there is a time to love. We're told that constantly. Love your neighbor. Love God. Love others. Love the stranger. All great, wonderful truths. Jesus was a man of compassion, of love, and he was more than a man. He was God incarnate, the full love of God shed abroad in this difficult and unloving world. Is there any greater picture of love than the words spoken by a dying man from the cross: "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing"? Jesus calls us to love God and love others. There is a time to love, and the time is now.

We get the "time to love" stuff. The time to love is every moment of every day.

But The Teacher says there is also a "time to hate." We recoil at that thought. Even though we do secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) harbor hate toward some people, we know in our heads and hearts that we shouldn't. We taught our children not to say they "hate" someone or something (though "strongly dislike" sometimes just doesn't cut it!). Especially in religious circles, we won't talk about hating someone or something. We'll say we're praying for that person or we're struggling to love that thing. Love the sinner, hate the sin—that's our mantra.

And so maybe the "time to hate" is in the presence of sin.

Or maybe the "time to hate" is seen in the way Jesus reacts to injustice. Maybe we're called to hate the things God hates. You remember Jesus in the Temple. Once, when he was younger, he taught there. He asked probing questions and challenged the Teachers of the Law. He called the Temple "My Father's House" (Luke 2:41-50). Later, in that same Temple, he found himself angry (maybe once, maybe twice, depending on who you ask). He cleared out the moneychangers and those who were selling things and declared, "My house shall be a house of prayer" (Luke 19:45-46; see also John 2:13-17). Now it's his house! And it's being misused by those who think they are in control.

Jesus weeps over the grip that death has over this world. Jesus hurts over the way the poor and the marginalized are being treated. Jesus hates the things that his heavenly Father hates, and so should we. If there is a time to hate, it is in the face of genocide, war, inhumanity, the misusing of holy things and the way the strong overpower the weak.

But we do not "hate" those things for hate's sake. We don't just simmer and stew and feel good that we are angry. No, we're called instead to do what Jesus did in the Temple. Maybe not quite so violently, but with just as much determination. End the things that God hates. Work toward a just world. Seek the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven. Turn the hatred into something positive—a world where love can flourish and there is no longer any need for hate. A time to love...and that's it. What a world that would be!

A time to love and a time to hate...what time do you find yourself in the midst of today?