Let me start with a parody of the Gospel message. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, but hate is a great motivator.”
I heard Ta-Nehisi Coates make this remark about hate as a motivator when I was listening to him talk with Ezra Klein on a podcast. (The Ezra Klein Show, New York Times, September 28, 2025). Mr. Coates was talking about the hatred that other people have for me or us or whomever. He meant hate in a broadly political context — hate for the coastal elites, for Democrats, for liberals, and so forth
But his remark struck me hard because I heard it as also going to my own heart. For me, Mr. Coate’s remark brought to light a truth that all of us know and that we sometimes, even often, live by. And we can’t articulate it because it envelops us. The truth is this: Hate is inside us too.
Have you ever taken an immediate unthinking dislike to someone you just met? Have you ever taken a dislike to someone you have never met? Well, these days you can name just about any politician on the planet Earth. Which of them would you actually trust in and of himself or herself? Do we actually rely on our favorite politicians as partisan chess pieces against the other guys we really hate? And how about leaders of nations that advance destructive war or exert the pressure of possible war? We hate them too.
In today’s Gospel there are two people you can really hate. The Pharisee is proud and filled with self regard and self righteousness. He talks to God as if he knows God’s mind. He fulfills complicated and comforting rules that are a yardstick of his righteousness. His ritual obedience is to him perfect living. It leaves him free to scorn his neighbor, in particular the man who is praying somewhere behind him in the temple precincts. But the Pharisee is free to love his own kind in relationships of mutual congratulation.
The tax collector is also not such a wonderful person. The name of his profession says it all. In the name of government, which includes the Gentile Roman government of Palestine, he takes money that a person has no choice but to pay. John the Baptist talked to tax collectors at the Jordan. He said: “Take no more money than is prescribed.” (Luke 3:12-13) This advice implies that the tax collector was known as a scammer, enlarging the tax payer’s bill and maybe even pocketing the excess rather than giving it to the taxing authorities. The most famous tax collector besides Saint Matthew was Zacchaeus, and he said “If I’ve ever cheated anyone, I will pay him back four times the amount.” (Luke 19:8) Wow, he must have been a real crook.
But both of these men have their good points, too. You may want to punch the Pharisee in the nose, but actually he’s not a thief, a rogue, an adulterer, or a tax collector. In fact, he donates a tenth of his income. He even fasts. All that is really good. Frankly, it’s a little harder for me to find the tax collector’s good points. We do know that he’s humble before God. This honesty does make him endearing. He ignites compassion. We are made to realize that his self-abnegation is fertile spiritual ground. And Jesus really wanted tax collectors to come to him along with other sinners. (e.g., Luke 15:1-2) They were lost sheep. On the other hand, tomorrow, our tax collector may be cheating the widow and orphan as usual.
But we are supposed to love both the Pharisee and the tax collector. As Jesus and the Law say: Love thy neighbor as thyself. Nonetheless, hate is also inside us. This desire to take sides, to scorn, not to listen, not to talk overwhelms us in this day and age. The tax collectors want to slap the Pharisee to kingdom come. The Pharisees want to do the same to the tax collectors. But how do we get to the love and leave out the hate? Maybe the key to loving is learning to hate less. And often this means taking some time to dwell with our own hearts.
I have some ideas.
First, live with the Gospel. I mean, read it. Read it over and over. Get into the parables. The parables are fascinating because often they draw us into the parable’s own story. We take a role. We have to make a judgment.
Look at it this way. As to the tax collector, the Pharisee won’t give him a second look. He is too contemptible and impure. And the tax collector is also wounded in his soul as his prayer shows. So we have to step in and become the Good Samaritan because the tax collector is our neighbor.
As for the Pharisee, the Gospel passage says that he will be cast down and humbled. So, he becomes spiritually the Prodigal Son. And in his time of lowliness, we become his father or his older brother even. Remember another person who was cast down: Peter who denied his friend and Lord. (e.g., Luke 22:54-62) The Pharisee is surely our neighbor too.
Second, God is impartial. I don’t mean that God overlooks injustice. But he never overlooks people. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says (I paraphrase): Love your neighbor as yourself and, you know, the sun does shine on the good and the bad and the rain does fall on the good and on the wicked. (Matthew 5:45-48) I take this as a directive to see how both the good and the wicked are God’s children. And look at Peter’s great surprise in the Book of Acts when Cornelius, a Gentile, and a Roman even, and an army officer to boot, wants baptism. What does Peter say? Now, I know that God shows no partiality. (Acts 10:34-35)
Third, as Jesus said: Judge not, for you will be judged by the same yardstick. (Matthew 7:1-2) In my view, God knows that our judgment is weak He knows that hatred hurts us deeply in our souls. So, he will do the judging. Because he knows everything, and he says to us: Time for you guys to shut up — not about justice, but about unjust judgment founded in hate.
Fourth, how about those politicians? None of us know the Pharisee’s heart or the tax payer’s heart. In the same way, we do not know the politician’s heart. We know his or her actions which we may agree with or not agree with. We are entitled in the USA to participate, to express our point of view on policies, to protest actions. But we have to be brave and as wise as a serpent because, when we enter the world of the State, Caesar’s world, we have to expect no love. I think that, as today’s reading from Second Timothy shows, Saint Paul in prison was deeply aware of this. As was Dietrich Bonhoeffer in prison, whether you agree with him or not.
Fifth, don’t dwell on the newspapers or social media. In this day and age, they can be a kind of pornography. They provide an addictive stimulation of adrenaline, but sometimes not much else.
Sixth, pray a lot. As Father Rocky says: There is no such thing as bad prayer. So, go for it. Go to a quiet room or join with another. Like, I mean, every single day. Pray for your kids, for peace in all the places where it does not exist anymore, for the success of the Gaza agreement, or as much of a success as Caesar’s world will give us, and so forth. Prayer is a big deal. Christians are indeed a little out of the mainstream, but we do possess the habit of prayer.
Seventh, turn to another virtue, the cardinal virtue of Hope. Hope is the great sustainer when we are in trouble, as we seem to be these days. (Romans 5:3-5) Hope is expansive. Hope is refreshing. It does not look to some Eden on Earth created by artificial intelligence. Rather, it is the hope in something that I don’t think about often: the fulfillment of God’s plans or ideas for creation. It is the blessed assurance. Hope can lift us out of the present.
I’m sure there are a thousand other suggestions you can make besides these few that I’ve listed. And I’ve been stimulated by today’s short little Gospel parable. The parables are just infinitely beautiful. They wake us up. They make us an active part in their stories. They really help us to accept the Good News. They will never encourage us to hate.
Amen.
