Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, July 6, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Murder: to kill (a person) unlawfully and unjustifiably with premeditated malice. (Merriam Webster) Is hatred really as bad as murder? Is anger (Matt 5:21-22)? It seems a stretch. By this definition, murder certainly involves hatred (premeditated malice), but seems to be a step further down the way. Aren’t there plenty of people who nurse hatred in their hearts but never actually end someone’s life?
Yet 1 John is clear that anything less than love for a sibling (i.e. another human being) is entirely unacceptable to the point of losing eternal life. It’s a tall order. Frankly, I wonder if many people can say they are entirely without hatred. Are we all at risk of God’s ultimate promise because we fall prey to our anger and frustration with others? I have a hard time believing that even murderers “do not have eternal life abiding in them.” As I understand it, salvation and eternal life are gifts freely given, whether or not we have earned them by whatever standard one might come up with.
That being said, when we truly hate someone, don’t we wish they didn’t exist? Wouldn’t we prefer it if they were dead and gone so we don’t have to think about them anymore? Aren’t we, in some small way, committing murder in our hearts even if we don’t act on it literally? And ultimately, that kind of hatred also murders the hater—it poisons the mind and heart and makes peace impossible. The only antidote for that poison is love—the love that is an action, rather than a feeling. As they say in the rooms of recovery, we can’t think ourselves into right action, but we can act ourselves into right thinking. Let us act in love to assuage our hate and be exonerated from our murderous desires.
Do I think that hatred is as bad as murder? Why or why not?
