Sermon Preached at Northbrae Community Church, September 11, 2005, by Ron Sebring

"Hate knows no frontiers, neither racial nor ethnic. Hate is contagious, wearing different masks. It can be found in all religions and social communities." This is a quote from Elie Wiesel, who could very well be one of our modern day "torchbearers."

Wiesel was born in 1928. He suffered under the Nazis at Auschwitz. After the war, he studied in Paris and wrote extensively of his experiences in the Death Camps. He has over 40 books to his credit and holds over 100 honorary degrees from various academic institutions. In 1980, he became the founding chair of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

His goal is to help create a world where the atrocities of the Holocaust, the genocide of Rwanda, the ethnic cleansing that we see in various parts of the world are not possible. A world cleansed of the filth of hate and adorned with gardens of peace.

The Elie Wiesel Foundation sponsors international conferences, bringing together leaders and scholars from around the world to present papers and discuss social problems. A series of these conferences focuses on the "Anatomy of Hate."

In August 1990, the Czechoslovakian president, Vaclav Havel, delivered a profound presentation. Here are some of his ideas:

Hate is not the opposite of love.

The opposite of love is apathy, indifference, not caring.

Hate is the flip side of love … misdirected love … love that has collapsed in on itself.

Hate comes from harboring lingering feelings of injury.

Hate comes from feeling that one has the truth. Particularly religious truth.

Hate involves wanting to be the center of the world.

Hate accuses neighbors, and through them, the whole world, of being wrong.

Most profoundly, hate is a desperate and diverted search for the Divine.

 

I might add a quote that has long stuck with me. "Hate hurts the hater more than the hated." Often the injured carry the injury, while the perpetrator has another life.

I am reminded of Eric Hoffer's book, The True Believer, which explores how low self-esteem needs relate to the need for an enemy. Individuals and groups who hate need to have an enemy, someone or some group to hate. Indeed, there is a dependency on the enemy.

Forgiveness is about letting go of hatred, or as many of us experience it, feelings of subtle and lingering resentment. Forgiveness means personally letting it go, finding resolution. Forgiveness also means collectively washing it out of the minds of groups.

I use to think, and in some ways, I still do, that forgiveness is like a beach. People picnic on a beach. Children dig holes and build sand castles. After everyone leaves, the beach is scarred and littered - footprints - candy wrappers. The tide comes in, and the next day, the beach is clear and pristine.

In reality, one moment remembers the next. The beach may be clean, but the ocean is littered.

I use to think, and in some ways, I still do, that forgiveness is like a magic drawing pad. We had them as children … a film over a dark mat-like backing. Children draw pictures on the film, and when they get tired, or if they want to start over, they simply lift the film … it clears the picture, and they start over.

What we fail to notice is that traces of the picture imprint on the dark backing. The backing holds a record of every mark ever made. What happens in life is forever etched in the Collective Consciousness of humanity – there for wisdom and correction.                                 [TOP]

Forgiveness may not be as simple as it first seems. One way to think about forgiveness is to realize that hate is not the same as anger. The scriptures tell us to "be angry, but sin not." They also tell us, "don’t let the sun go down on your anger."

I once visited with an elderly woman who had lost her husband. They had something like 60 years of marriage. We were sitting in her living room. She had just fixed me a glass of ice tea. She proceeded to reflect on their lifetime together. She looked at me with kind eyes and said, "We had a wonderful marriage." Then she asked, "You want to know the secret of our marriage." I nodded. She said that when they were first married, they made an agreement, taken from this verse in the Bible. She said that they agreed never to let the sun go down on their anger. They agreed to kiss each other, each night, just before falling to sleep. Now that is one of the healthiest models of forgiveness that I know.

Our vacation was a whole lot of fun. We went to Bellingham, to the San Juan Islands, and then on to Canada. Canada is a different world. There is a subtle difference in their use of words. We say "also," they say "as well." We call it a "bath room" or a "rest room." They call it a "wash room." Instead of "slices" of bacon, we ordered "rashers" of bacon. They use the metric system. Speed limit signs were in so many kilometers per hour. We had to learn to read the blue numbers on the speedometer. You purchase gasoline in liters. $1.00 a litter in Canadian money. We thought gas was much cheaper in Canada … until we figured out that a liter is quite a bit smaller than a gallon.

Canadian money took a little getting use to. The exchange rate is something like 20%, with a 15% sales tax (which helps pay for the Canadian health care system). They have $1 coins, $2 coins, and will eventually go to a $5 coin. Their $2 coin, they called "loony-toony" money. We asked one Canadian why. He explained that they had a public contest for how to design a $2 coin. They chose the craziest design and used it … a silver ring with a copper center.

The problem is when the weather gets cold, the copper center falls out … and if they lose that, they lose their $2. So, they had to redesign the coin.

Canada is very clean, and Canadians are very polite. Landscaping is done with pride, and there is no litter on the sides of the roads. They have something we had never seen before … a "nexus" lane on the highway. We still do not know what that is.

Lining up at the boarder to get back into the country, we found ourselves in the "nexus" lane. Very few cars in that lane. The American drivers were angry and would not let us in the main lane. So, we kept driving in the "nexus" lane. This meant we were crowding further ahead. Drivers kept giving us a sour looks. Finally, Connie rolled down the window and begged, and someone rolled their eyes and let us out of that "nexus" lane.

About then, a Canadian driver pulled around us, rolled down her window, and yelled at us. "You’re not supposed to do that!" No profanity. No obscene gesture. Just a simple, albeit stern, warning. That was the kindest "tongue lashing" I had ever received.                                   [TOP]

That woman, I think, did all right. She felt her anger. She expressed it. We got the message. She probably went on to have a great day. I hope so.

Forgiveness is a fundamental need of humanity.

Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, presents graphic image of the human condition. He compares humanity to a group of porcupines, huddled together on a cold winter’s night.

It is cold, and for warmth, they huddle together to share each other’s warmth. The more they huddle together they stick each other. So, they pull apart, separate from one another, to avoid getting hurt. The more they become isolated from one another, the colder they become.

Schopenhauer says that the problem of humanity is that in the "lonely night of earth’s winter, eventually we drift apart and wander out on our own and freeze to death in our loneliness. One writer calls this, the porcupine dilemma. One sure way to resolve this dilemma is to negotiate what it means to forgive.

One minister alludes to a universal need for forgiveness by referring to one of Hemingway’s stories, about a father, whose son runs way from home (bad blood between father and son). The father searches for him and traces him all the way to Madrid. Unable to find his son, the father places an ad in the newspaper. It reads, "Dear Paco, I love you, all is forgiven. Meet me at noon tomorrow, by the front door of the newspaper office. Love. Your father. The next day, the father went early so as not to miss his son if he happened to show up. There, standing around the front door of the newspaper office were 800 young men named "Paco."

So universal is our need of forgiveness!

The resolution to the porcupine dilemma …

The answer to this universal need of humanity …

The eventual and necessary healing of our nation, once justice finds balance …

… Is forgiveness.

It is "never to let" the sun go down on your anger.