I don't hate you, but I hate just what you are. The Gospel according to the Pharisees
When I saw this vignette of the naked pastor* I tried a déjà-vu. How many times, in my life, I have felt very similar phrases: "I don't have it with you, but with what you do, with what you are". It is that strange logical so someone claims to love you, but on condition that you stop being yourself. it's As if they told me: "i love you ... only if you are not yourself".
Yet the Gospel speaks to us of a very different love. San Paolo writes: "Love is not hypocritical" (RM 12.9). Jesus himself, when he meets people, never says: "I love you, but i hate everything that concerns you". No, he looks at Zaccheo on the tree and calls him by name (Lk 19.5), he lets herself touch by the hemorrhisma woman without first asking her to change (Mk 5,25-34), welcomes the thief on the cross without condition (Lk 23:43). The love of Christ does not distinguish between person and concrete life: it embraces everything, even what in the eyes of others appears wrong or scandalous.
This cartoon, with the white sheep who tells the rainbow sheep “I don't hate you, I hate just all you're. And this is love! ", unmasks the hypocrisy of those who reduce love to an empty slogan. I myself felt wounded by these "half" phrases, which Leave more pain than consolation. and it is here That the evangelical message becomes light: to love really means saying yes to the person in its entirety, without breaking it into acceptable pieces and refused pieces.
The rainbow sheep, in its fragility, reminds me that authentic love is what "everything sorry, everything believes, everything hopes, everything stands"(1Cor 13,7). Not A love in half, but a full love, which does not fear the colors.
* David Hayward, known as Naked Pastor, is a former Canadian shepherd who through simple and ironic cartoons naked (hence the name) the contradictions of churches and human relationships. His white and rainbow sheep have become an international symbol of inclusion, faith and spiritual freedom.
