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Connections&
July 23, 2000
16th Sunday of the Year
"Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while." Jesus' heart was moved with pity for the vast crowd, for they were like sheep without a shepherd. Mark 6:30-34
When hate sees an opening
There is an ugly edge of hate in this country -- neo-Nazi groups, racist gangs, skinheads. While most kids have nothing to do with such groups, a frightening number of teenagers -- and pre-teens -- are responding to such organized hatred.
The Southern Poverty Law Center recently completed a study on the inroads that organized hate groups are making among angry white youths in communities that are struggling despite the economic boom. The center's findings, titled Youth at the Edge, is chilling. With the development of a two-tiered economy, a new underclass of white youth is especially susceptible to the lure of hate groups. The report found that such hate groups are having a field day recruiting youngsters, often from suburbia, whose families are beleaguered financially and losing faith in their dream of a stable middle class existence.
These kids are seduced by the organized haters into believing that they are special, they're white and yet they're getting the short end of everything. And it's the fault of the government, the establishment, or whatever racial or cultural group they target.
Believing that hope is vanishing around them, that evil nonwhites are taking what is rightfully theirs, these poor young souls readily embrace the cause of hate.
And as we all know too well the "cause" manifests itself in violence, drugs and murder.
[From "When Hate Sees an Opening" by Bob Herbert, The New York Times, January 17, 2000.]
CONNECTION: Jesus' compassion for the "shepherdless sheep" echoes our own sorrowful bewilderment at the young souls lost to such hatred and violence. In Christ, God gives us a shepherd to guide us along the way of compassion and justice, a shepherd who calls us beyond the empty riches of consumerism to the priceless treasures of reconciliation and peace, a shepherd who journeys with us through our life journeys not in fear and self-interest but in the joy of community and compassion. The call to discipleship demands that we give life and voice to the hope and reconciling love of Christ the shepherd. <
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