By: Jeremy Berry

I was sweating bullets. My stomach was in knots, and the panic inside my soul was making it difficult to breathe. This is not hyperbole. I was struggling to breathe, think, or function in all the ways that you would assume involuntary muscles would work. I sat in the back of my father’s SUV, trying to respond to the faint sound of my name being called.

“Jeremy!” My dad got through and our eyes met.

“Calm down. Breathe...you sing all the time.” He said gently trying to comfort me.

I was about to do the most terrifying task I had ever done in my 12 years of living. I was going to sing during an audition. Here was the problem: I had nothing prepared. I had not prepared a song. My mind was blank, and I could not even think of a melody, let alone words to a song. I did not even know I was supposed to sing or would have to sing to get the part.

“Son, why did you think you wouldn’t be singing? The play is called The Music Man?” My father’s question did make sense. I should have realized that in a play called, The Music Man, the Musical, I may have to sing. What would I sing? Truly a blank was coming to mind.

“Dad, I don’t know what to sing.” I threw my head back and sighed. The question was not if I would quit - it was how to convince the old man who drove 25 minutes to bring me to an audition that quitting was the only option if he wanted his son to ever have a social life.

“What’s that song you sing all the time in the shower? You know that song well. What’s that group called? You just got their CD.”

With that suggestion, tears began to build, and even more pressure started to mount. I felt so helpless, as if humiliation was inevitable. The song being referenced was “I’ll Make Love to You” by Boyz II Men. The suggestion was meant in good faith, but only further troubled me because even as I searched my mind on what to sing, it was as if my dad’s suggestion was stuck on repeat. I imagined myself and that classic mid-pubescent voice screeching through the sultry ballad to the middle school parents who would be judging my audition. Not only would I not get the part of Winthrop Paroo, the 10-year-old boy with a lisp made famous by Ron Howard, but no doubt what I would receive would be a lifetime of mockery and ridicule from anyone who ever found out about this.

“Come on, think of a different song...think of a different song.” I kept telling myself this, but it was stuck in my head. It was time to arrive to the audition where I would be laughed out of the room for sure, as I would sing to bunch of parents on how I wanted to make love to them. The nice lady at the door called three of us into the audition room. One was a kid who was actually 10, and he literally looked like Ron Howard. His stage dad gave him last minute tips (none of which were to sexually harass the judges with a pop-song). The other was a girl, and she was the prettiest girl I had seen in a week, which means for a 12-year-old that I was in love.

I volunteered to go last out of the three. I swear I heard the terrifying gongs of Vecna’s grandfather clock. It was my turn. I approached the stage, desperately trying (and failing) to think of another song. There was no turning back. This was it. I could either stand up there silent and look like an idiot or...sing the greatest love song ever to be gifted to young boys. The only question now: do I sing the song with a lisp?

“What are you going to sing for us, Jeremy?”

It is moments like this that you hate. And is hating all that bad? Should I have loved this moment that was to bring about sure humiliation or was hate the appropriate emotion?

Hate is, I believe, one of the most misunderstood aspects of humanity. As Christians, we feel guilty for hating and we have been told that we are to be always loving, never angry, or hateful. But is that true? There’s that verse in Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 8, “There is a time for everything...a time to love and a time to hate.” Let me argue that the question is not “should we hate,” but rather, “when do we hate.” Greater yet, could I hate the judges for how they would inevitably react to a pre-teen’s erotic melody? If not then, when can we hate?

Are we permitted to hate when children are hurt by sexual abuse or by violence? Are we permitted to hate those who hurt the most innocent among us? Must I love pedophiles and abusers? Should victims love the abuser while hating their abuse? The closer this question gets to home, the more difficult of a time we have with it, if we are honest. When pain gets closer to what we love, hate becomes much easier. The reason for that is because I believe that hate and love are two sides of the same coin. If I love my child, I will hate what harms him. If I love the Lord, I will hate what defames Him.

Going back to my squeaky rendition of “I’ll Make Love to You,” why did I hate the humiliation? I hated the humiliation because I loved myself. That which attacks what we love is, by nature, met with hate. Is that okay? Well, not always - but sometimes. That is an answer that is about as clear as mud! Maybe we can use scripture to help us inform when we should hate and when we should not.

EXHIBIT A: Psalm 139:20-22

20 They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22 I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.

I hate them, with complete hatred? Wow! Isn’t that a bit harsh? How do we square that with Jesus saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44). Are we not to love what God loves and thus, by logical demand, hate what God hates? Let’s look at a few options of how we can reconcile all of this so we can get down to knowing what we can hate.

Some may say: One is the Old Testament and one is the New Testament.

Answer: No...and stop. God’s nature is the same. All of the scripture is God’s word and not one bit of it is null and void. God does not give us a song to sing on Earth and in Eternity (Psalm 139) just to say later that we should not actually hate things that God hates.

Others may say: Hate the sin; love the sinner.

Answer: Yes...but it really doesn’t solve the problem here. Let us look at Exhibits B, C and D.

EXHIBIT B: Psalm 5:4-5

4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. 5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.

EXHIBIT C: Romans 9:11-13 (Paul is quoting Malachi in v. 12)

11 ...though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

In both of these examples...God is not hating the sin. God is hating the sinners. Notice in Exhibit B, God hates EVILDOERS, not the actions of evildoers. Also, the last time I checked, Esau is not an action but a person. The Lord even goes as far as to say, “BEFORE THEY COULD DO GOOD OR BAD.” So sinful actions are not even in play. It is clear, God hates some people. So does that mean I can hate people? And what I REALLY want to know is “can I hate the judges who were about to laugh me out the room during my tantalizing performance as I threw ‘my clothes on the floor!’”

So maybe we can make some very needed distinctions and clarifications. Maybe to better understand hate, we need to understand its counterpart - love. Now, before you start quoting Tina Turner at me, let me explain.

WHAT JESUS IS SAYING

When the Lord says, “love your enemies” God is NOT asking for you to have an emotional love for your abuser. The passage stating LOVE YOUR ENEMIES is a call to serve. Quite literally it is to “LOVE IN A SOCIAL SENSE.” The passage in Matthew was largely dealing with a people who felt like the law to “love your neighbor” only applied to their Jewish brother and not their Roman oppressor. In other words, Jesus is telling them to openly welcome them to the gospel. Call these people to repentance.

WHAT JESUS IS NOT SAYING

Jesus is not saying is that they needed to love the Roman Empire. The Lord never wanted the people to love the Egyptian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire or the Greek Empire.  However...God always had His people serving in a way that gave them the truth. Rather, God’s people were to abhor & loathe these foreign kingdoms, and yet still be willing to allow conversion. The reason for hate...their kingdoms are the antithesis to God’s.

WHAT JESUS IS SAYING

When the Lord says that He loves Jacob and not Esau, that word LOVE is the same word used in Matthew 5. There are many types of “love” that scripture speaks of (5 exactly), but the social sense type of love is what is being spoken of in both of these passages. Just like we are to love socially, that is to teach the truth and invite repentance, the Lord does the same with Jacob. He decided, before he was born, that he was going to do this...the Lord would love by serving, and invite repentance, entering into a covenant with Jacob. Now God’s grace is irresistible, thus Jacob’s future is sealed. The hatred God shows to Esau is simple...he’s not making a covenant with him.

To hate does not always mean an emotional angry hatred, though that should exist towards sin. When we see God’s people having a holy hatred, USUALLY, it is at a group. It is unwilling to make a covenant because, in doing so, they betray God’s covenant. It would be Israel (northern Kingdom) making a covenant with the Babylonians, which of course led to judgement for both parties. It is to serve what God hates.

So I think we are ready for OPTION 3: Love & Serve until You Can’t

Daniel, Esther, Nehemiah, Moses, Joshua and more...these people spoke to foreign kingdoms. They socially loved by teaching truth and repentance. They also understood they were to hate groups who sought to destroy God’s kingdom. Solomon is right...there is a time to love and to hate. It is important that we know when that time is. Let me argue that this is what Jesus actually teaches. Let us go forward a bit in Matthew. Here is an example of agapaō (loving socially, preaching truth and inviting repentance) spoken about in chapter 5.

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matthew 10:5-7)

Jesus tells the disciples to serve these people. To serve and love them, proclaiming the message of John the Baptist, and proclaiming that the Messiah has come. They are loving by inviting them to this conversion. But what happens if they do not listen? Jesus continues.

14 And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. 15 Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. (Matthew 10:14-15)

Now when we think of hate...we see it differently. But just like there are different types of love (romantic, social, sexual), there are layers to hate. We see they are no longer serving, no longer preaching. It is a type of hate that is not blinded by anger or emotion but understands that there are others to whom we are to go and lovingly tell of this covenant. Let’s jump over to Hebrews.

4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

You may be asking, “What is your point and why write about hate?”

My Father-in-law, whom I love very much and of whom I am deeply appreciative, has been used by God to disciple me more than he knows. He says something often, that I absolutely agree with. When the kids talk about how they “hate” sour cream (and I do not blame them because it is gross), or I stare off, gritting my teeth, spitting hateful words about those judges who snickered at my seductive squeal...he says, “There is too much hate in the world.” He’s right. There is too much hate in the world in areas that are undeserving of hate. The problem is, we often struggle in discerning when it’s a time to hate versus a time to love. We love all the wrong things, and we struggle to know when and what to hate. We are often entertained by what is evil because we have not trained ourselves to hate and abhor what God hates. Sometimes we hate others, ignoring God’s call to go to them and preach the good news. Our hate is not emotional...it’s an inactive hate. A hate that tells much more about what we love.

Maybe that’s the point. I think it is good to examine what we hate so we can see exactly what we love. Do you neglect to repent? Do you neglect to discipline your family? Do you neglect to reach your neighbors? Scripture would call that neglect by a different word - hatred. Just as there is righteous love and an unrighteous love, there too is righteous hate and unrighteous hate. We need pray for wisdom so that we can discern between the two.

So can I hate those judges who were about to tell all their friends about the little teen who scraped through an audition? No...my humiliation is not a cause to hate them. That is not a righteous hate. First, just because they are my enemies does not mean they are God’s enemies, which should give me some cause to repent. Furthermore, nowhere in scripture am I commanded to love myself so much that in order to protect me...I hate others. There are two types of hate that I can see that we are commanded to embrace in scripture.

1)         An emotional hate towards sin. We are called to hate sin. If it offends my King, it offends me. This is where we often get in trouble. We hate with an angry hate about the amount of sour cream on our taquitos. We give the waitress a hard time because we are entitled and our response to others not worshiping us the way we worship us is to have an angry laced hatred towards others. Again ask, does God hate this? If the answer is no, then repent.

2)         A hate that manifests in turning them over to the judgment of the Lord. This is what we saw in Matthew 10 & Hebrews 6. It is refusing to pursue them with God’s promised covenant. This is probably rarely needed, because if we are honest, we are not seeking people the way we should be to begin with (because we have an unrighteous hate of being humiliated). My favorite magician, Penn Jillette, made a video one time expressing how much a Christian (he’s an atheist) must hate someone to NOT tell them about Jesus given they believe He is their only chance of eternal salvation. It’s odd that an atheist can grasp it better than some Christians.

I understand the discomfort of embracing things like hate, but like all emotions or states of mind, they are complex and worth discussing. Truth is, it’s uncomfortable to talk about turning others over to the judgment of the Lord. We all once were members of a different family, who were at war against Jesus. He took us, who were once His enemies, and made us His friends for the purpose of taking this message of reconciliation to everyone (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).

“Before you sing and read your lines, how old are you?” One judge asked...it was the first time my mind could think of something other than the song of sensuality. I sputtered around and finally remembered my age.

“I am 12. Well, I just turned 12. Like not long ago...recently...yeah.” My sentence faded with great uncertainty of why I was still talking and where I was going.

“Well happy belated birthday!” One judge spoke up, trying to cut the awkwardness with a kind lifeline. But it was more than a lifeline. It was an idea...for the first time the voice of Shawn Stockman vanished, and no longer was I hearing him about him undressing his lover but instead a new song emerged.

“What are you singing today?”

I rocked the best rendition of Happy Birthday you’d have heard. I put Marylin Monroe to shame. There was no mockery. There was no laughter, no embarrassment - also no part in the play for me, but my hate was premature. I learned that my hate was unfounded. That my reason for hating, was self-centered and rooted in self-idolatry. So make sure that when that time to hate comes, you examine and make sure you are loving righteously so that you can have a holy hate.