Note: On Saturdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
“If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you belonged to the world,[f] the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19, NRSVCE)
Seriously, who wants to be hated?
We need look no further than the martyrs included in the First Eucharistic Prayer: for starters, Lawrence, burned to death; Anastasia, beheaded; Ignatius of Antioch, thrown to wild beasts. And martyrdom isn’t something limited to those early Christians; at a 2019 general audience, Pope Francis called martyrdom “the air of the life of a Christian, of a Christian community.”
But that doesn’t make it easy.
Few of us will face the prospect of immolation or decapitation or destruction by animals. But make no mistake, Christians are hated, just as Jesus was. We are hated, despised, judged when we stand up for life from conception to natural death. We are hated, despised, judged when we choose not to participate in the competition for the biggest house, the best car, the greatest job title. We are hated, despised, judged when we love and care for the unlovable.
People pityingly tell us we’re missing out on the material and positional treasures of the world. And they are right. And hard as it is sometimes, we know in our hearts and souls that those treasures are transitory. We know it is better to be shunned and misunderstood by the world because we do not strive to belong to the world—but remain in God’s love. And we believe that that trumps any hate the world can muster up.
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