Community, Thurman, Deception, and Hate

Today, while doing an interview for a covenant camp, I was asked "What role do you play in a community?" I had to laugh a little, but I still wasn't sure of the answer. What is MY role? We've talked about the benefits of community, and we've experienced a little of what living in community is like, but I am still uncertain about personal roles. If someone were to ask you whether or not you knew your role in community, would you know? This will be something I think about as we continue fellowship at Reba.

Thurman discusses both deception and hatred as something that stems from being constantly discriminated against. They are both ways to make up for being disinherited, so as not to lose your soul. Hatred, especially, can be a way to provide the weak with a "basis for moral justification" (p. 84). It is through hatred that they are able to rebuild rather than hate themselves. When I was a child my mother always told me "hating others hurts you more than it hurts them." This great piece of advise took me a while to understand but has made more sense as I've gotten older. As Thurman points out at the very end of his chapter on hate, Jesus rejected hatred because it was death. Hatred meant death of the mind, spirit, and communion with God. Hatred consumes you, just like money can. However, hatred is something that is very difficult to reject, especially when an entire group of people are constantly discriminating against you regardless of what you have done. While I can sit here and reject hate, I cannot even begin to fathom how difficult this would be if I were a black man in the south before the Civil Rights Movement. Knowing that love is better than hate, and that Jesus tells us to love even our enemies, is much harder than it sounds.