There are radical religious divides among Christians in the U.S. today. On one hand, there are some conservative Evangelicals like Texas Pastor and President Trump adviser the Rev. Robert Jefress, who states unequivocally that "Biblical Commandments regarding charity are directed toward individuals, not governments," and that all good Christians should unite behind the leadership of President Trump, who is vowing to protect our nation, which is the greatest good. The underlying religious assumption here, of course, is that only individuals, or perhaps church groups, are responsible for helping the poor, not governments or institutions. And that the first "governmental good" is protecting the nation from those desperate individuals who make too great demands on our nation to provide charity. ("Protection" currently is our President telling refugees that our country is "all filled up" and "can't take anyone else.")
Of course, an underlying message here can be false notions of what righteousness before God is. In Pastor Jefress' viewpoint, is "the righteous nation" those who are economically secure? "In Jesus' culture," Fr. Michael Simone, SJ,. explains, "many assumed that wealth, prosperity, happiness, and social inclusion were signs that a person's life was right in the eyes of God. Luke (in his Gospel, especially in Jesus' proclamation of the Beatitudes) made sure his readers knew that Jesus called this 'trash theology.' Poverty, hunger, grief, and exclusion are not signs of the absence of God's love." ("Prophet of Perception" in "America" magazine, Feb. 4, 2019.)
Jefress' completely individualistic viewpoint lets governments and institutions morally off the hook. They can happily seek power and money and success without having any responsibility to the poor and vulnerable. They can win votes by proclaiming that they are "pro-life," while devising budgets that directly and unfairly undermine the poor and the vulnerable and affect family and community structures.
And the "poor and vulnerable" are far more Americans than we often like to think about. They often include us! John Thornton, Jr., a Baptist Pastor in Durham, N.C. states that "A recent survey found that 61% of Americans couldn't cover a $1,000 expense with their current savings. Similarly, 40% of Americans couldn't even manage $400.00. It seems like everyone I know, save the wealthiest few, is just one job loss and hospital visit away from financial ruin.
"In 'The Financial Diaries,' economics Professor Jonathan Morduch and financial expert Rachel Schneider studied the financial lives of 235 families, some in poverty and others solidly middle-class. They discovered a hidden force in people's lives: financial instability. Income and expense fluctuations from year to year and even month to month mean that many families - even those whose end-of-year income places them above the poverty line - spend time below it...."
"...Looking out at the congregation from behind the pulpit, I (see) senior citizens living off Social Security checks, 20-somethings with thousands of dollars in student debt, a family whose financial hardships threatened to tear their marriage apart, a young couple with a mortgage, and a kid losing a job."
Thornton then points out: "That the United States is a country of inequality is no secret.... According to Scripture, economic inequality is sinful."
Thus, the ecumenical (including Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, and United Church of Christ faith leaders) "Reclaiming Jesus" Movement unites in a call for individuals, Churches, institutions, and governments to do Justice. They issued a 2019 Call for Prayer, Fasting, and Action during Lent, stating:
"...we ask how we can apply Lenten spiritual practices to our lives and to the dangers facing our democracy.....We pray for the soul of the nation and the resilience of our government's processes. We pray for those who have lost hope.....We pray that all will come to know that Jesus is Love and that this knowledge will permeate our lives. We pray that we may have wisdom to discern and speak truth, and courage to stand for it in our public squares. We pray that we may be bridges that bring God's love to our angry national discourse....We call upon church leaders, pastors, and local congregations to respond to the ongoing devastation that so many people face. We also call upon church leaders to stand up to the misuse and abuse of political power, in protection of the constitutional checks and balances of government and the common good....We call on clergy to offer prayers that our political leaders will make decisions not for their self-interest but for what is right for our nation and those whom Jesus called 'the least of these.'"
These representatives from various religious denominations may disagree about how to approach various faith issues such as divorce and remarriage, how to treat persons of different sexual orientations, or, the roles of women in the church. But they are united in their call for justice for all.
What Pastor Jefress, and many others like him, miss out on is that 1) all human life - every person - is God's own child, sacred and precious. The dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society. Because, 2) the person - every person - is not only a sacred individual but is also a social individual, born to live and thrive in community. Since people are more important than things like money or mistaken priorities like power, the premiere social justice question is: how do we morally organize our society, in economics and politics, in law and policy, because the development of every structure, every institution, every law, every policy, directly affects human dignity and the capacity of individuals to grow and flourish in community.
The human being and the family are the central social institutions that need to be supported and strengthened, not undermined. People have a right and a duty to participate in society, seeking together the common good and well-being of all, especially the poor and the vulnerable. A basic moral test of a society is how our most vulnerable members are faring.
The idea of social justice is indeed Biblical. Starting in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) we can always trace God's anger to an anger against injustice, as voiced most often in the prophets. In the voices of the prophets, God cries out, demanding that "justice roll down like waters, righteousness like an overflowing stream." (Amos 5:24)
And In Isaiah 1:16-18, God cries out, "Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim; redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow. Come, let us set things right, says the Lord...."
Jesus follows solidly in this prophetic tradition. His message is two-fold: to denounce injustice and to announce a new way of being in the world. "The Spirit of God has anointed me to proclaim liberty to captives," he says in Luke 4:15. We often like to read this spiritually, for example, that Jesus frees us from captivity to sin. But, also, look at Jesus' Beatitudes and his description of the Last Judgement, in which Jesus says that we are called to see him in the faces of the suffering, to free them from literal captivity to hunger, thirst, nakedness, poverty, ignorance, and abuse. As disciples of Jesus, we too are called to denounce injustices when we see them and announce new just ways of living in community. We can do this best by scrutinizing the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.
In looking contemplatively - through the mind and heart of Jesus - at society today, we can discern many needs and many evils, on both the national and global levels: economic inequality, wars, poverty, human trafficking, child soldiers, refugees, the death penalty, all kinds of abuse and domestic violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, rampant abortion, homelessness, the growing trend towards euthanasia.... At both the national and global levels, Pope Francis challenges us to convert from a throwaway culture - a culture that literally throws unwanted people and goods away - to a culture of inclusion in which everyone is respected and part of the community.
Human dignity can only be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met. Therefore, every human being has a fundamental right to life, including the unborn, prisoners, the aged, those with disabilities. All have a right to those things required for human decency, such as jobs, and decent housing. The economy must serve people, not the other way around. The dignity of work and the rights of workers are to be protected and upheld: the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization of and the joining of labor unions which protect these rights and worker safety, to private property, and to economic initiative. It is sad to see how many Governors are trying to "break" labor unions today!
The care of God's Creation is also a major part of Social Justice. We show our respect for the Creator by our stewardship of creation. Care for the earth is a requirement of our faith. We are called to protect people AND the planet, living our faith in relationship with all of God's creation. This environmental challenge has fundamental moral and ethical dimensions that cannot be ignored. Thus if a Government - like the U.S. Federal Government today - excises environmental protections from the Rulebooks, and removes vital protections for consumers in every area from food regulations to clean water and air regulations, even to deregulating requirements about nuclear power plant emissions - this destruction of the Environmental Protection Agency is MORALLY WRONG!
It is tragic to see the divide today between pro-life and social justice Catholics. Bishop Robert Barron addressed this issue at the Cornerstone Conference, which arose in response to the division between "pro-life" Catholics and "social justice" Catholics and the lack of communication and cooperation, sometimes distrust and disdain, between these two groups. Bishop Barron says that we should be totally against this type of dichotomy:
"In the post-conciliar period there was a tendency within Catholicism to fall into these two camps, and I’ve watched that all my life in the church. Call it left-right, liberal-conservative, or, as we see it in the Catholic context often, this: Are you more on the life issues or more on the justice issues? And it’s just a false dichotomy, and it’s not in the great saints, it’s not in the teaching of the church, it’s not in Vatican II, but it’s a divide that happened in the wake of the council. And I think it’s really regrettable.
"What we have to do is go back to Christ. You return to Christ, and what you find there is this integrated view of life. And you see, of course, this profound concern for the inherent dignity of every individual person and the respect for life from conception to natural death clearly on display. At the same time, you see a clear passion for justice, from the Hebrew prophets all the way up to Jesus and then through the great tradition. So, to my mind, it’s just glaringly obvious: These two things have to be central to the church’s preoccupation.
"So that’s speaking generally. Where people debate sometimes is over prioritization. Yes, the church will say things that are intrinsically evil have to take a certain priority. So euthanasia and abortion are prime examples of things that are intrinsically evil, so they have to be opposed in a kind of prioritized way. But I think this should never blind us to the mutual implication, really, of these two sides.... .
"I think, in my mind, what brings together the great pro-life people and the great social justice people in our tradition is a love for the Eucharist. In the Eucharist we have Christ really, truly and substantially present. We have Christ offering himself to the Father. We find the unity of the mystical body in Jesus, and we find therefore this deep, deep connection to all people in the mystical body. We join ourselves to the sacrifice of Jesus on behalf of the whole world: This is my body given for you, my blood that’s poured out for everyone.
"So I would take the Eucharist as the way forward — the Mass itself, that feeds both a deeply pro-life perspective and a deeply social justice connection. ...the Eucharist and the Mass (is) the thing that draws us together and shows us the way forward.
"Look at just the way we gather for Mass. We come from every walk of life, every corner of the world, every educational background — we come together without the divisions that characterize ordinary society. We sing together — so the singing is not just decorative, but it’s part of what we’re about at the Mass. We listen then to the great stories of the Bible — not the stories of the world, not the stories of contemporary literature or contemporary political discourse — we listen to the stories of the Bible.
"We’re becoming, in that process, conformed to Christ. We’re becoming conformed to him. And then, at the end, we’re sent back out. So those are the very sacred words of dismissal, when you’ve been sent out now into the world, to take what you’ve gotten here and then make it real. So the cohesiveness of our coming together, of our singing together, of our listening together to the word of God, and of our being conformed to Christ, now sent out into the world to evangelize, to care for the poor, etc. So the Mass is it, man — the Mass is the source and summit.
"I’m with John Paul II when he said that essential to the New Evangelization is the church’s social teaching. So I think it has a huge evangelical impact, and here’s why: We can talk about the teaching of the church on God and Jesus and the Trinity and the Eucharist and so on, but it’s seeing the church in action that often evangelizes people. And then go back to the early centuries — 'how these Christians love one another' — that’s what grabbed the attention of a lot of pagans. And then I think up and down the centuries, it’s people living the Christian life in its radical form that has a huge evangelical power.
"And I don’t think John Paul would mind this at all when I say he was the second-greatest evangelist of the 20th century — because the first, in my mind, was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. That no one evangelized more effectively than she is because of this radical commitment to the church’s social teaching. So it has a huge impact for evangelization, which is not just a matter of ideas but often a matter of witness."
Bishop Barron believes that one of the greatest threats to recognizing human dignity in the world today is our flawed values system. This is the totally individualistic concept of freedom/liberty: "I choose my own truth" and "I choose what's best for me" without any recognition of objective Truth or the rights of the other.
"It’s this idea that we invent our own value system. I think that’s the most abiding ideology today, is that my will determines what’s good and right. To give it its formal name, it’s voluntarism — the dominance of the will over the mind, or of my desire over truth. And see, what that does is then it brackets the essential dignity of the other. If I’m making up values as I go along, then as people get in the way of that, well, they become expendable. It becomes, as Nietzsche said, the will to power. I think that’s the abiding and underlying problem, is this sort of Nietzscheanism, this voluntarism — that I invent my own values.
"What’s key to the Catholic thing is that values confront us, we don’t invent them. Great values confront us, and we conform our lives to them. And the supreme value, at least as it appears in the world, is the value of a human life. If I start making up as I go along, there’s your Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision from 1992: It belongs to the essence of liberty to determine the meaning of my own existence. Well, if that’s true, then human dignity is going to be out the window pretty quickly. To me, that’s the greatest threat to it."
Bishop Barron also has a great love and respect for Pope Francis: "Everyone sees automatically the social justice side of Francis. But listen to him, listen to him regularly, and he’s railing against abortion whenever he can — this ideological colonialism he talked about, where we’re exporting our own kind of poisonous views on the rest of the world. Listen to him on the whole gender issue. He’s very strong on the life issues, and he sees no contradiction — in fact, just the opposite — between those and the social justice side. So I’d listen to him. Watch Pope Francis."
Watching Pope Francis, we see a leader who, convinced of the necessity of human communities organizing for global justice, calls on interfaith connections, especially among followers of the three great Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Recently the Pope focused on Islam.
"No one should be afraid that God has allowed there to be different religions in the world, Pope Francis said. "But we should be frightened if we are not doing the work of fraternity, of walking together in life" as brothers and sisters of one human family, he said.
As is customary, at his general audience April 3, the first after his March 30-31 trip to Morocco, Pope Francis reviewed his visit.
"People might ask themselves, 'Why is it the Pope visits Muslims and not just Catholics?'" The Pope said that "Catholics and Muslims are both "descendants of the same father, Abraham," and the trip was another step on a journey of "dialogue and encounter with (our) Muslim brothers and sisters."
The Pope said he wanted to follow in the footsteps of two great saints: St. Francis of Assisi, who brought a "message of peace and fraternity" to Sultan al-Malik al-Kami 800 years ago, and St. John Paul II, who visited Morocco in 1985.
Pope Francis said that people also may wonder why God allows there to be so many different religions in the world.
"Some theologians say it is part of God's 'permissive will' allowing 'this reality of many religions. Some emerge from the culture, but they always look toward heaven and God," the Pope said.
"What God wants is fraternity among us," he said, which is why "we must not be frightened by difference. God has allowed this." But it is right to be worried when people are not working toward a more fraternal world, he added.
"God did not create religious diversity, but rather allows it to happen, as he created human beings who possess free will."
During the general audience, the Pope also spoke about the many encounters and events during the two-day trip, making special mention of his visit with migrants -- some of whom told him how their lives only became "human" again when they found a community that welcomed them as human beings.
"This is key," the Pope said.
The Vatican supported the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which was adopted by the majority of U.N. member states at a conference in Morocco in December, so that the international community could strengthen an approach that focused on welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating migrants.
"It's not about assistance programs coming down from 'on-high'" but about everyone working together "to build cities and countries that, even preserving their respective cultural and religious identities, are open to differences and know how to see their value" as part of a sign of human fraternity. (from Carol Glatz - Catholic News Service, April 03, 2019, pub. in "America" magazine.))
While religious extremists have always and always will foment violence, "In fact, ecumenical groups have played a behind-the-scenes role in some of the world's most successful peace efforts. High-level mediators like Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped lay the groundwork for peace agreements, from mediating between rival South African factions in the 1990s to averting a bloodbath in Kenya in 2008. The World Council of Churches and All African Conference on Churches have also played a role in mediating peace agreements since the 1970s. Italy’s Sant-Egidio has supported interfaith dialogue and campaigns to prevent and resolve conflicts and promote reconciliation from Albania to Mozambique. And groups like Islamic Relief, among others, have long supported mediation and reconciliation activities in war-torn communities.
Faith-based groups have also frequently led the way in shaping international treaties and social movements to make the world safer. While far from the media headlines, Quakers, for example, have helped launch treaties banning landmines and other weapons of war, supported the development of protocols to outlaw child soldiers, and instigated action on conflict prevention, peace-building and human rights. While religious groups have adopted varying positions toward capital punishment, many of them are unified in their opposition to the use of torture, advocate for banning nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, and support grassroots campaigns to promote human rights and reconciliation." (from "Religious violence is on the rise. What can faith-based communities do about it?" by Robert Muggah, Co-founder, Igarape Institute and SecDev Group, and Ali Velshi, Senior Economic and Business Correspondent, NBC News, for the World Economic Forum, 25 Feb 2019)
To reiterate, Social Justice principles teach us that we human beings, all God's sacred children, are not only individuals, we are social beings. Therefore, practically speaking, we can't approach our own individual financial responsibility to share using the lens only of our own financial insecurity. Otherwise, how can we live out the Gospel message about being responsible for our brothers and sisters, who have equal God-given dignity with us? Again, if we become too individualistic, we end up saying, as individuals and as individual countries - "We have our hands full. We have our own problems. None of our money is leaving our hands. No one else is allowed into our country or our lives. And, let's cut Medicaid, while we're at it..." We need communities to live in, to share with, including about our own financial vulnerabilities, and then we can become free enough and knowledgable enough about others' needs to share. Baptist Pastor John Thornton, Jr., continues,
"When people describe the kinds of community they're looking for in a Church, they often use the word 'authentic' - a group of people willing to be open, honest, and trustworthy about their lives....People also want a place to be vulnerable, where leaders name their own struggles and people don't fear talking about the problems in their lives.
"If Church is a place to be authentic and vulnerable, that should include our financial lives. A recent survey found that millennials more frequently fear debt than death, yet our reluctance to talk about money in church obscures its place of concern in our lives....
"But what if we assumed we're all financially vulnerable? What would church look like if we understood that we could speak truthfully and openly about our financial worries and imagine a different way of being community together?
"To start, we'd need to ask different questions. We often frame Bible passages about money as individual choices: Am I to sell everything I have and give it to the poor? How much is enough for me and my family?
"One thing with this is that it accords quite well with a capitalist economy that wants us to treat all matters of money, including its faithful use, as personal problems. Our present political and economic arrangements require us all to think of ourselves as lone individuals. I have my bank account, my earnings, but also my debt, my fear of a job loss.
"Scripture challenges that understanding....in the story of the young man with many possessions, Jesus doesn't just tell him to sell his possessions and give to the poor; Jesus also invites the young man to join Jesus' followers....
"Jesus instructs us to form a community that counters the individualism of our larger society. Our money divides us from one another through inequality and instability....
"We belong to one another. We need to shift our thinking from 'How can I live faithfully with my money?' to 'How can we live faithfully together?' To answer this new question, we need to confess our vulnerability and worry, redistributing what we have to ensure a different future. If asked to envision our financial future, that vision must include housing for the homeless, health care for the sick, and freedom from debt. If I try to imagine my financial future and it doesn't include my congregation...I haven't imagined the kingdom of God." (from "What the Bible DOESN'T SAY About Financial Security," "Sojourners" magazine, April, 2019.)
So what do the principles of Social Justice teach us? That every person, as a child of God, has unique and sacred dignity. But also that every individual person is a social person, needing to be part of the human community. Remember Pope Francis' visit with migrants -- some of whom told him how their lives only became "human" again when they found a community that welcomed them as human beings.
The human family is the key community we are part of, and every individual, family, and community needs just social structures - government policies and laws - that protect the individual and the smaller communities. Since people are more important than things like money or mistaken priorities like power, the premiere social justice question is: how do we morally organize our society, in economics and politics, in law and policy, because the development of every structure, every institution, every law, every policy, directly affects human dignity and the capacity of individuals to grow in community.
The idea of social justice is indeed Biblical. Starting in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) we can always trace God's anger to an anger against injustice, as voiced most often in the prophets. In the voices of the prophets, God cries out, demanding that "justice roll down like waters, righteousness like an overflowing stream." (Amos 5:24)
And In Isaiah 1:16-18, God cries out, "Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim; redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow. Come, let us set things right, says the Lord...."
Jesus follows solidly in this prophetic tradition. His message is two-fold: to denounce injustice and to announce a new way of being in the world.
What is the biggest enemy to Social Justice? Excessive human individualism. The desire to prioritize my country. My finances. To decide on "my truth," "my reason for living."
1) It's a wrong premise to think that Biblical Commandments regarding charity are directed only toward individuals, not governments, because God desires Governments to enact laws that protect and support the human rights of every member of society.
2) It's mistaken to think that as individuals we have the right to determine our own ideas of morality for us. There are objective rules of morality. As Bishop Barron puts it, "If I’m making up values as I go along, then as people get in the way of that, well, they become expendable."
3) It's wrong to narrow our moral thinking so that we become obsessed with our own financial insecurities and vulnerabilities to the exclusion of everyone else's needs. Pastor Thornton reminds us,
"Jesus instructs us to form a community that counters the individualism of our larger society. Our money divides us from one another through inequality and instability....
"We belong to one another. We need to shift our thinking from 'How can I live faithfully with my money?' to 'How can we live faithfully together?' To answer this new question, we need to confess our vulnerability and worry, redistributing what we have to ensure a different future. If asked to envision our financial future, that vision must include housing for the homeless, health care for the sick, and freedom from debt. If I try to imagine my financial future and it doesn't include my congregation...I haven't imagined the kingdom of God."
And the Pope urges us to form communities of Christians, and communities of all faiths, including Muslims and Jews, to work together proactively on national and international Social Justice issues. This is the highest Work we can embrace as Christ's disciples and members of his mystical body - to love one another sacrificially as Christ has loved us.
For Christians, Life is all about becoming saints - disciples of Jesus. Life is a spiritual journey, an arduous climb up the mountain of the Lord, to at last behold His holy Face. While climbing upward, we simultaneously dig down deep, deep into our souls to find God's Presence within us, and God's ever-flowing Fountain of Grace, Living Water which will quench our spiritual thirst and give us energy to continue the journey.
We've seen, in this three part series about becoming saints, that God calls us to be Humble, to fall into the wonder that God has created us individually, that God is the Ground of our Being, that every breath we take comes from God, that we have eternal souls. Even our desire to love God, to recognize that God dwells within us, comes from God. Without humility, we live encased in our own egos, and God cannot touch us to help us spiritually grow.
God calls us also to love Mercy. Mercy is God's love enfleshed in healing us, especially healing us of the wounds caused by our sins. We need to take time daily to examine our consciences, to become sensitive to our soul's movements towards and away from God, Whom we find in the people around us. When we invite God into our lives, expressing our repentance for our sins, God pours His liquid silver and gold into those wounds from sin so they shine with the very Light of God, a light that attracts others to God through us.
And, finally, as Christ's disciples, God calls us to do Justice, to recognize that we are not only individuals on a spiritual journey, but members of the community of God's children, the human family. As members of God's entire family, we recognize that every human being is sacred, everyone has the right to life, to food, to drink, to clothing, to housing, to dignified work, to live free of war, prejudice, abuse, racism, sexism, economic inequality. God cries out for justice for all of God's People. Justice, in addition to Mercy, is God's Love in Action. "Come, let us set things right," cries the Lord.
As Bishop Barron so beautifully points out, in the Mass - in fact in all Christian worship services, - we're called to "join ourselves to the sacrifice of Jesus on behalf of the whole world: "This is my body given for you, my blood that’s poured out for everyone." We are sent to be God's hands, feet, voice, and heart reaching out to serve others. This is what the saints do - make their lives living sacrifices using their bodies and their blood every day to seek humility, love, and service of others, for the good of the community, the nation, the world. Can we daily choose to climb this arduous mountain of the Lord as followers of Christ?
My sister, Linda Benincasa, wrote a beautiful poem, "Would I Have Followed In Your Footsteps?" that I'll share with you.
If my feet had walked on Mother Earth
at the time of your manger birth,
not knowing what would happen next,
would I have followed in your footsteps?
If I had heard you speak,
If I had seen you
turn your other cheek,
would I have been so very meek?
If I had seen you
heal the sick,
would I have said,
"You have just a clever trick!"
If I had seen you raise the dead,
would I have said,
"The devil is in your head!"
Would I have had faith in a stranger,
if my life had been in danger?
Would I have stayed
by your side when you were crucified?
It only is in retrospect
that all of the jigsaw pieces fit.
When the puzzle was incomplete
would I have let you wash my feet?
Crown of jewels,
Crown of thorns,
I could not choose when I was born.
If I followed in your footsteps,
knowing what I know today:
If I helped you with your cross,
would my hands and feet bleed the same way?
If I walk alone,
and my path is dark and cold,
would you send your bright star
to light my path.
Would you send your angel's strong hand
for my fragile hand to hold?
I will follow in your footsteps!