Do I Really Have To Hate You?
Pentecost 13, Proper 18, Year C
Becky Robbins-Penniman
538 Love Messages Quilt – a 538 pieced quilt representing 538 mentions of the word “love” in the Bible.
I hate you.
It seems really, really odd for me to stand up here on a Sunday morning. and say that to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ. But, well, Jesus says I have to hate you. I have to hate you to be his disciple. But. Wait. The writer of the epistle says I have to love you, my brothers and sister in Christ. If I hate you, basically I’m murdering you. No wonder being a good Christian is hard. What am I going to do with this?
I think I’ll go back to what I heard from one of my favorite priests, Jim Miner, when, in my late 30s, I was just starting out on my adult journey of faith. While contemplating two seemingly incompatible verses of Scripture, Jim quoted Niels Bohr, a physicist who won the Nobel Prize: (How Episcopalian for a priest to quote a physicist!) Bohr said: The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
In this case, context is everything for understanding these opposing truths.
To read the full sermon text, click HERE.
WORSHIP BULLETINS ADDITIONAL SERMONS
