I attended a symposium recently where the keynote speaker was a man exactly my age. Since we had lived through the same cultural and religious changes in our lives, I empathised with much of what he said and with how he felt about things. And in his assessment of both the state of affairs in our politics and our churches today, he was pretty critical, even angry.
Not without reason. In both our governments and our churches today there isn’t just a bitter polarisation and an absence of fundamental charity and respect, there’s also a lot of blindness, lack of transparency and self-serving dishonesty. Our speaker was eager to point this out.
And for the most part I agreed with him. The current state of affairs, whether you’re looking at politics or the churches, is depressing and cannot but leave you feeling frustrated and accusatory. But, while I shared much of his truth and his feelings, I didn’t share where he landed, which was in pessimism and anger and indignation.
He also ended very negatively in terms of his attitude towards those whom he blames for the problem.
I can’t fault his observations and I can’t fault his feelings. They’re understandable. But bitterness and anger, no matter how justified, are not a good place to stay. Both Jesus and what’s noble inside us invite us to move beyond anger and indignation.
Beyond criticism of all that’s dishonest and unjust lies an invitation to a deeper empathy. This invitation doesn’t ask us to be stop being prophetic in the face of what’s wrong, but asks us to be prophetic in a deeper way. A prophet, as Daniel Berrigan so often said, makes a vow of love, not of alienation.
But that’s not easy to do. In the face of injustice, dishonesty and wilful blindness, all our natural instincts militate against empathy.
Up to a point, this is healthy and shows that we’re still morally robust. We should feel anger and indignation in the face of what’s wrong. It’s understandable, too, that we might also feel some hateful, judgmental thoughts towards those whom we deem responsible. That’s a beginning (a healthy enough starting point); but it’s not where we’re meant to stay.
We’re called to move towards something deeper, namely, an empathy which previously we did not access. Deep anger invites deep empathy.
At the truly bitter moments of our lives, when we’re feeling overwhelmed by feelings of misunderstanding, injustice and indignation, and we’re staring across at those whom we deem responsible for the situation, anger and hatred will naturally arise within us. It’s OK to dwell with them for a time (because anger is an important mode of grieving), but after a time we need to move on.
The challenge then is to ask ourselves: how do I love now, given all this hatred?
What does love call me to in this bitter situation? Where can I now find a common thread that can keep me in family with those at whom I’m angry? How do I reach through the space that now leaves me isolated by my own justified feelings of anger?
And, perhaps most important of all, where can I now find the strength from not to give into hatred and self-serving indignation?
How am I called to love now? How do I love in this new situation? That’s the challenge. We’ve never before been called upon to love in a situation like this. Our understanding, empathy, forgiveness and love have not been tested in this way. But that’s the ultimate moral challenge, the “test” that Jesus himself faced in Gethsemane. How do you love when everything around you invites you to the opposite?
Almost all of our natural instincts militate against this kind of empathy, as does almost everything around us. In the face of injustice, our natural instincts spontaneously begin, one by one, to shut the doors of trust and make us judgmental. They also invite us to feel indignation and hatred.
Now, those feelings do produce a certain catharsis in us. It feels good. But that kind of cathartic feeling is a drug that doesn’t do much for us long term. We need something beyond feelings of bitterness and hatred for our long-range health. Empathy is that something.
While not denying what’s wrong, or denying the need to be prophetic in the face of all that’s wrong, empathy still calls us to a post-anger, a post-indignation and a post-hatred. Jesus modelled that for us, and today it is manifestly the most needed thing in our society, churches and families.
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