Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength …. Love you neighbor as yourself.” Mk. 12: 29
Love God. Love your neighbor.
These two commandments summarize “all the Law and the Prophets” Jesus tells us.
And yet …
We live in a country filled with self-proclaimed followers of Jesus sending bombs intended to kill people; attending rallies that thrill to chants of denigration and hysteria; promoting symbols of hate; gunning down students in schools; joining groups intent on racial purity; separating children from their immigrant parents; shooting worshippers in Jewish synagogues; and a host of other hate-filled activities.
What has happened to us?
Where has all this this hysteria come from?
Why all the hatred?
I certainly don’t pretend to know all the answers to this question, but, as a psychologist, I would like to offer at least two reasons why people develop such deep hatred that allows them to behave so viciously and violently (aside from the reality of mental derangement) – even those who profess to be “Christian” followers of the One who staunchly upheld the teaching:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength …. Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The first possible reason people hate to such a criminal degree is that often they want an identifiable outlet for their feelings of anger.
And their anger usually comes from one of three places within them:
they feel hurt because of something that has been done to them;
they feel sad because of something that they have been deprived of;
they feel afraid because of something scary that has happened to them.
Or, a combination of all three!
Why are they feeling deeply hurt and wounded?
Often because they feel deprived, left out, displaced. Deprived of job opportunities. Deprived of educational prospects. Deprived of insurance benefits. Deprived of housing possibilities.
So, they feel they must take for themselves.
Why are they feeling so sad, so miserable?
Often because they feel all alone. They feel no one cares about them. They feel no one is concerned about the problems they have. Mother Theresa described this feeling best when she wrote: “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody.”
According to a recent article in the New York Times, “every year nearly 45,000 Americans respond to isolation and despair by ending their lives. Every year an additional 60,000 die of drug addiction. The rising levels of depression and other mental health issues are yet another manifestation of this tragedy. These issues are no longer attributed just to chemical imbalances in the brain, but to protracted loneliness, loss of meaningful work, feeling stressed in the absence of community.”
So, they feel they must be noticed.
Why are they feeling so scared, so afraid?
Often, because they have been traumatized themselves. They have been victims of assault, terror, abuse.
So, they respond in like manner. They rage. They terrorize others.
The second reason people hate to such a criminal degree is that anger, and its accompanying fury, are energizing.
When people feel helpless, frustrated, or disempowered, hating another becomes a way to climb out of those difficult feelings. And , people who are going through this inner trauma feel they can redirect all this pain to an external, well-defined target. They then feel strong, powerful, in control.
That is what seems to be happening right now for too many people in our country.
The real sadness, of course, is that this kind of rage and terror only begets more of the same.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is asking us to follow another roadmap.
Jesus more than understands the terrible pain so many people have to endure in life. Actually, he felt the pain so internally himself that he joined us, accompanied us, “pitched his tent among us,” walked with us, ate with us, cried with us, endured horrifying pain with us, experienced terrible trauma with and for us.
This is why Jesus came “to dwell among us,” to accompany us, to demonstrate that he is “God with us, for us, among us.”
And this is the same God who wants us to see that anger and hatred and rage and violence are not the answer. They never have been. They never ultimately solve anything. Instead they only lead to more heartache and more division and more intense, unresolvable pain.
Name calling, bomb throwing, finger pointing, slander, rage, hate – all of this only makes our differences more absolute and more unsolvable. Nothing positive, nothing good will come out of it. Only harm and more division. Only more irreparable damage.
Jesus – the Merciful, Compassionate Jesus – offers another solution:
Love.
The kind of love that involves the laying down of arms.
The kind of love that calls people to work together to solve the real problems that cause all the hurt and sadness and fear.
The kind of love that is pictured so dramatically and movingly in the story of the father and his prodigal son, or in the story of the Good Samaritan, or in the story of Jesus washing the feet of his followers and telling them they must do the same.
Jesus calls us to another kind of program that will energize us even more than rage. He calls us to join together to work for the cure of the social causes that are contributing to people’s pain and outrage. He calls us to renew our pledge to heal the sick, comfort the afflicted, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless.
Jesus calls for us once again to remember – remember the most important of all the commandments God ever gave us:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength …. Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.
11809194.1
10/30/18
