Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The stereotypical Catholic home in the early 1960s, so I’m told, had 3 pictures in their house: one picture was of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; one picture was of the Pope (which would have been Pope John XXIII); and one picture was of John F. Kennedy. The first two make sense without explanation. The third makes sense to any Catholic, because John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic elected president of the United States.
On 12 September 1960, while still running for president, JFK gave a famous address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. That speech specifically touched on his religion (there was then, as there remains today, a certain popular anti-Catholicism), as well as religious liberty. He had many good points in that speech, talking about other important issues as well, including encouraging others to work together, rather than let confessional differences tear the country apart. Of course, in that time, there was still a general Judeo-Christian culture, prayers were said even in public schools, and many businesses were closed every Sunday and Good Friday.
But, in that speech, JFK seemed to also suggest, if not outright say, that one’s religion should not dictate how one acts in a pluralistic society. Because there are so many religions in America, when it comes to the choices that individuals make in politics, they should check their faith at the doors of the chambers of the legislature or the doors of the oval office.
Fifty years later, Archbishop Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, wrote a critical response to Kennedy’s speech, which, he says, did not so much talk about different faiths and the roles they play in American society, but sought to make politics a no-man’s land when it comes to religion. In part of Archbishop Chaput’s speech, he cites part of the Gospel we heard today when he says, “Human law teaches and forms as well as regulates; and human politics is the exercise of power – which means both have moral implications that the Christian cannot ignore and still remain faithful to his vocation as a light to the world.”
When Jesus says today, “‘You are the salt of the earth’” and “You are the light of the world’” He does not add the caveat, “unless you live in a pluralistic and polyreligious country.” In fact, Jesus spoke these words in a country that was under foreign occupation, with only a puppet king, whose strings were pulled by a pagan, Roman government, many of whose values directly contradicted God’s revelation in the Tanakh, the Jewish Scriptures. No, Jesus tells us that we are to give the earth a certain flavor, and we are to provide for the world a certain light, so that others may see our good deeds and glorify our heavenly Father, the true God.
Salt in Jesus’ time wasn’t just about flavor, either; it was a preservative. It kept things from becoming rotten. And light wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch; it didn’t exist along roadways automatically when it became dark out. Light required fuel of some kind, but that fuel kept people from tripping and harming themselves, and guided their feet to their destination. Light helped individuals encounter each other even as the darkness of night surrounded them.
Brothers and sisters, I don’t think it’s grossly unfair to say that, in many ways, our society has become rotten. People no longer encounter each other in the light, but seek to control and harm each other in darkness. Why has this happened? It would be too facile to say that it is because so many politicians (though not all) check their religion at the door. But think of how many Catholics are in government today, and how many of them say, “My faith says X is wrong, but I can’t force my faith on others, so I’m going to support X.” Reasonable people can disagree on how best to implement different aspects of the Gospel, but so many today don’t even think the Gospel has any place in American society.
But politicians are not the only ones to blame for our current state of affairs. It is also because Christians do not always try to be salt and light. In fact, we have, in too many circumstances, become flavored with a taste that is not from the Gospel, and have been guided by a light which does not come from Christ. We have fallen victim to the ideology that states that we have the freedom of worship, not the freedom of religion. We can worship God however we want in our churches, but we cannot take the teachings of Jesus out of the church buildings and into our homes, workplaces, and even our government. I believe that Kennedy sought to assure people that Catholics could be good Americans; but the result we see today is the same that Kennedy’s Irish forebears saw when they came to the US: Catholics need not apply or be engaged in American society.
If we wish to preserve what is good in society; if we wish to be a truly enlightened society, we must first be convinced by what Jesus teaches, and then live it out in all aspects of our lives. Do we take the Word of God seriously when it says, “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them. […] Remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech”? Or are those just pious words that are meant to do nothing else but bounce off the brick walls of this church and die in the air?
If we are not the salt of the earth and the light of the world, then our culture, our nation, our politics will continue to spoil, and will soon become rancid. Darkness will surround us. Our vocation, our call in Jesus, is to be salt and light. To paraphrase Kennedy in another speech, let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the Catholic answer. Let us be salt and light.