Jesus certainly equated faith - and being saved - with not only our beliefs but with our actions. He tells us, "I assure you that anyone who gives you a drink of water because you belong to me will certainly receive his reward."
Jesus also speaks of temptations to faith. He says,
"If your hand makes you lose your faith, cut it off! it is better for you to enter life without a hand than to keep both hands and go off to hell.... And if your foot makes you lose your faith, cut it off! It is better for you to enter life without a foot than to keep both feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye makes you lose your faith, take it out! It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with only one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into hell."
Now isn't it interesting that when Jesus speaks about temptations to faith, he isn't talking here about intellectual temptations, doubts about the truth of certain doctrines, for instance. No, Jesus is talking about ACTIONS taken by our hands, feet, and eyes that can endanger our faith and our salvation by actively leading us to worldly pleasures instead of towards union with God.
In commenting about Jesus' warnings, Bishop Robert Barron says,
"Friends, in our Gospel, Jesus speaks, with incredible bluntness, about cutting off one’s hand and foot and plucking out one’s own eye. If these things are a block to your salvation, get rid of them, for it is better to enter life maimed than to enter Gehenna with all of your limbs and members.
"The hand is the organ by which we reach out and grasp things. The soul is meant for union with God, but instead we have reached out to creatures, grasping at finite things with all of our energies.
"The Lord also speaks of the foot. The foot is the organ by which we set ourselves on a definite path. We are meant to walk on the path which is Christ. Do we? Or have we set out down a hundred errant paths, leading to glory, honor, power, or pleasure?
"We are designed to seek after and look for God. Have we spent much of our lives looking in all the wrong places, beguiled by the beauties and enticements of this world? And are we willing to pluck out our eye spiritually, to abandon many of the preoccupations that have given us pleasure?"
Jesus, in other words, is asking us to examine our lifestyles, our priorities. Do they reflect the world's faith in money, adulation, power, prestige, and pleasure as being the most important things in our lives? Or do they reflect our faith in Jesus, whose priority is union with God, Who is Love, Who commands us to actively serve others in love.
Jesus counsels us to have a set of priorities and a lifestyle which are directly contrary to those propagandized by the world. He is asking that we strip down our lifestyles, get rid of all excess, and actively use what belongs to us to care for others who are in need. Faith, according to Jesus, is something we have to live out, body and soul, to prove that we believe in him and his teachings, that we are REALLY his disciples. In both the Old and the New Testament, God assures us that God's priority is always active care for the poor, the abandoned, the powerless. This is both God's Justice and God's Mercy, God's Priority and God's "Lifestyle"!
This call to faith-filled, active works of justice and mercy is not just for the individual. It is also God's call to society, to the nations. "Take Five for Faith" tells us that "one of the most significant documents the American Roman Catholic bishops issued in the 20th century was Economic Justice for All. Issued in 1986, it calls fulfilling the needs of the poor the 'highest priority' of economic policy and employment the 'most urgent priority for domestic economic policy.' Economic rights are fundamental human rights, as much as freedom of speech and religion. Some on Wall Street responded: What can a group of bishops know of high finance? A living Christianity, however, will always speak economic justice to economic power."
Why were the Wall Street billionaires so upset and offended by "Economic Justice for All" - and still are? Because their hands, feet, and eyes were leading them to grasp at finite things such as wealth, honor, power, and pleasure. These were and are their priorities, their lifestyles. Their priority was - and is - a corrupted capitalism that worships profits and uses people as tools to achieve even more profits. Anchored in a century of Catholic social teaching, the Bishops' document reprimands Wall Street and its priorities that lead away from God, and instead supports government policies to aid the poor.
The Bishops say,
"Followers of Christ must avoid a tragic separation between faith and everyday life....
"Economic life raises important social and moral questions for each of us and for society as a whole. Like family life, economic life is one of the chief areas where we live out our faith, love our neighbor, confront temptation, fulfill God's creative design, and achieve our holiness. Our economic activity in factory, field, office, or shop feeds our families—or feeds our anxieties. It exercises our talents—or wastes them. It raises our hopes—or crushes them. It brings us into cooperation with others—or sets us at odds....In this case, we are trying to look at economic life through the eyes of faith, applying traditional church teaching to the U.S. economy....
"Human dignity can be realized and protected only in community. In our teaching, the human person is not only sacred but also social. How we organize our society—in economics and politics, in law and policy—directly affects human dignity and the capacity of individuals to grow in community. The obligation to 'love our neighbor' has an individual dimension, but it also requires a broader social commitment to the common good....
"All people have a right to participate in the economic life of society. Basic justice demands that people be assured a minimum level of participation in the economy. It is wrong for a person or group to be excluded unfairly or to be unable to participate or contribute to the economy. For example, people who are both able and willing, but cannot get a job are deprived of the participation that is so vital to human development. For, it is through employment that most individuals and families meet their material needs, exercise their talents, and have an opportunity to contribute to the larger community. Such participation has special significance in our tradition because we believe that it is a means by which we join in carrying forward God's creative activity.
"All members of society have a special obligation to the poor and vulnerable. From the Scriptures and church teaching we learn that the justice of a society is tested by the treatment of the poor. The justice that was the sign of God's covenant with Israel was measured by how the poor and unprotected—the widow, the orphan, and the stranger—were treated. The kingdom that Jesus proclaimed in his word and ministry excludes no one.
"Throughout Israel's history and in early Christianity, the poor are agents of God's transforming power. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, therefore he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor" (Lk 4:18). This was Jesus' first public utterance. Jesus takes the side of those most in need. In the Last Judgment, so dramatically described in St. Matthew's Gospel, we are told that we will be judged according to how we respond to the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger. As followers of Christ, we are challenged to make a fundamental 'option for the poor'—to speak for the voiceless, to defend the defenseless, to assess life styles, policies, and social institutions in terms of their impact on the poor. This 'option for the poor' does not mean pitting one group against another, but rather, strengthening the whole community by assisting those who are most vulnerable."
Today, many of the U.S. Catholic wealthy who are far-right politically battle against Church teaching which challenges their extreme libertarian economic agenda. They would prefer the Church to only speak out about hot-button sexual issues such as abortion, contraception, divorce and remarriage, and gay marriage, and leave economic morality and social justice out of any current Church teachings. "Their devotion to individualism, unrestricted capitalism, and diminishment of government services, especially to the poor and marginalized, runs counter to the central tenets of Catholic social teaching." (from "The Rise of the Catholic Right," by Tom Roberts, in the March 2019 issue of "Sojourners" magazine.)
A favorite Scripture passage which seems to contradict Catholic social teaching and support cutbacks in Food Stamps and Medicaid is St. Paul's admonition in 2 Thessalonians: "For even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “If anyone is unwilling to work, he shall not eat.' Yet we hear that some of you are leading undisciplined lives and accomplishing nothing but being busybodies.…" But Paul's admonition is for the lazy, the physically fine, the able-bodied, who CAN work, but DON'T. Certainly there are those who "abuse the system." But the majority of people who use social services are those who are physically, emotionally, mentally, or developmentally disabled, who are literally unable to hold jobs. Or else they are people caught in the middle of a life catastrophe who need temporary assistance.
For many far-right rich, however, only the physically and mentally fit, perhaps only those who are white, deserve to prosper. Among some, there is the belief that if your are "right" with God, your whole life will be a bed of roses. This is a false Christianity! This is the major reason that many of the U.S. wealthy who are politically far-right are so opposed to Pope Francis. He says this, which is a moral challenge to the politically far-left: "Abortion isn't a lesser evil, it's a crime. Taking one life to save another, that's what the Mafia does. It's a crime. It's an absolute evil." But he also speaks out strongly about economic morality and social justice, challenging the wealthy far-right's lifestyles, priorities, and consciences with statements like this: "Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities."
"Faith is not so much something we believe; faith is something we live." Faith is believing intellectually that God loves everyone, desires the salvation of all, and lives in everyone, that everyone is God's child. But faith in action reaches and expands our hearts, so that we do not dehumanize people, whether they are poor, disabled, unborn or a refugee, straight or gay, black, brown, red, yellow, or white, faith-filled or faithless, grateful or ungrateful. Faith in action recognizes the intrinsic worth of all life and supports economic reforms that will empower our society, our human community, to protect the human dignity of everyone. Remember, Jesus didn't ask about the religious affiliation, social class, color, or sexual orientation of that person who gave a cup of water. Jesus merely says "If he gives it to you because you belong to me, he will receive his reward."
Wall Street, where are those cups of water? And did you hear the one about cutting off hands and feet?