American Pie, the Letter, and the Spirit

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Don McLean produced a hit 8 minutes and 42 seconds long called “American Pie.”  And while most red-blooded Americans know the song, and maybe have even sung it at a karaoke bar, I imagine that as generations get further and further from its release in 1971, fewer and fewer people know that the song, which is mostly upbeat, speaks about the loss of innocence in America, beginning with the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper in 1959.  
    As we heard the Gospel today, we heard about the Pharisee who stood as far removed from the Law of Moses as many young people do today from “American Pie.”  The Pharisee knew the words.  He knew the right answer that the two greatest laws to uphold included the love of God with all of one’s self and the love of neighbor as oneself.  But he didn’t know the deeper meaning.  

    And so Christ has to give him a parable to talk about love of neighbor and how love of neighbor is demonstrated.  The Samaritan, the one outside the law, actually demonstrated love of neighbor, rather that the priest or the Levite.  Those who should have known the law the best, and certainly its deeper meaning, practiced the law the least, and become the bad guys in the parable.  The one who had no direct access to the law, because his people had abandoned the law when they intermarried with the local pagans, lived the law of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, even sacrificing his own money to care for the robbery and assault and battery victim, though the neighbor in this case was a stranger.
    There can be a challenge for us as Catholics, and Catholics probably better educated that in any century before.  If you want to know what the Church teaches on any issue, simply Google it.  I understand there’s even a Catholic AI that can help synthesize the Church Fathers, Doctors of the Church, and Magisterial documents to answer questions.  But are we like the Pharisee, who knows the right answer, but lack the gift of understanding to know how to put that knowledge into practice?  
    Many will refer to the practice and the deeper reality of what God has revealed as the spirit.  We hear that dichotomy today from the epistle between the spirit and the letter.  The spirit gives life, while the letter kills.  Sometimes this dichotomy is used to advance things which are patently contrary to the letter by placing it under the spirit of the law.  Some will say, for example, that while St. Paul clearly teaches that those who obstinately practice homosexual actions cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven (and notice that the actions separate us from God, not necessarily the disordered affection), that because our Lord taught us to love people, we cannot say that homosexual activity is wrong, because St. Paul was referring to the letter of the law, while the desire to let people love whomever they want to love (to use their phrase, not our understanding of true love) is part of the spirit of the law.
    But, that’s like saying that we can’t say adultery is wrong simply because Christ loves the person who commits that sin against the sixth commandment, and would never want to condemn that person.  Christ doesn’t want to condemn that person, but that person does have to choose the good that God has revealed, which is part and parcel of how God made us.  
    The spirit of the law does not mean anything goes.  But it does mean we have to look more deeply than the surface.  There’s a difference between looking beyond and looking more deeply.  To look beyond means that we ignore what we have received.  To look more deeply means to investigate how what we have received can be more fully understood.  It is the difference between changing a teaching (looking beyond) and legitimate development of doctrine (looking more deeply).  
    I think one good example of this is the more nuanced teaching of the Church on suicide.  The Church has taught, and in some cases will always teach, that taking one’s own life means committing a grave sin.  God clearly states in the Scriptures that He is the author of life, and the only one who can legitimately end an innocent life (though sometimes people have to end lives in the interest of defense of self, family, friends, or country without sin).  However, we have come to understand the complexity of a human mind that thinks that the best way to ease the psychological pain that he or she undergoes is to take his or her own life.  In some cases, and really the full knowledge of what is going on only God knows, a person is not free to make a choice because of chemical imbalances in the brain.  And, as we know, if a person cannot freely choose an action, no matter how grave it is, it cannot be a mortal sin.  So when a person commits suicide, unless we know it was made with a clear mind, we have some doubt as to how culpable that person was for an objectively evil action.  
    This is also what makes assisted suicide, also known as euthanasia, so horrible.  If people of any age feel that their lives have no value (and often times society tells them they have no purpose if they can’t be fully active or somehow benefit society), they are vulnerable to depression and rejection, and a doctor or nurse who comes to them to help them kill themselves takes advantage of that depression in an action which does not admit, generally, of repentance because of its finality; once completed you don’t get a do-over.  On the one hand, the Church reminds us that if we undergo euthanasia or assisted suicide and we know what we’re doing, we don’t know how that person could go to heaven, and that person would be denied anointing of the sick beforehand, and a Catholic funeral afterwards.  However, only God knows fully the mind, and so we also need to not presume omniscience and have some understanding for a person who may have dealt with mental illness in some form while trying to make the decision, especially if it was more encouraged by those who swore an oath to do no harm.
    The face value of the law and the commandments is not always the final word.  We don’t go beyond what God has revealed for our moral life, as if there are no moral absolutes or as if God’s teaching always changes with cultural adaptations.  However, we do need to go deeper to better understand the full implications of what God has revealed of how we are to love our neighbor and how we are to love God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Who Is My Neighbor?

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    “‘Who is my neighbor?’”  Our country finds itself in the midst of a great debate on this very issue.  Jesus’ own parable throws society on its head by making the Samaritan–the foreigner and heretic, as Samaritans were a mixed race of Assyrians and former Jews who had abandoned the faith for a mix of Judaism and other near-Eastern religions–the hero.  The scholar of the Law rightly knows, from the Books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, that those who follow God and want to go to heaven are called to love God with all of who they are and love their neighbor as themselves.  But the question, then as now, as to who constitutes my neighbor whom I must love, beguiles the scholar.

    Love demonstrates itself by action.  The priest and the Levite do not truly love, because they pass by their own fellow countryman when they could have stopped to help.  The Samaritan–again, a foreigner and a heretic–loves his neighbor, even though his neighbor, lying on the road helpless, probably would not have given the Samaritan the time of day if the roles would have been reversed, or even if both the victim and the Samaritan had been in good health.
    The struggle our country endures right now finds its root in the competition of two goods: the human person and law.  Of course, the human person is the greatest good, after God, and all laws have to be exercised in a way that supports the dignity and thriving of the human person.  At the same time, a country has the right to defend itself and create rules for people who want to enter the country, so that those human persons can contribute to society rather than endanger it.
    When we look at those who enter the United States illegally, there are different types of people with different motives.  Some are fleeing, especially from Central America, violence from drug cartels.  Some are looking for better economic opportunities.  Some have family in the US who are here legally.  Some come to this country because they want to sell drugs here.  Some come to the country to engage in human trafficking, which is a more antiseptic way of saying sexual slavery.  No doubt, some are terrorists who want to destroy this country.  Not all who enter this country illegally are bad; not all who enter this country illegally are good.  All have broken some sort of law, of varying levels, to enter this country without the proper permission.
    Who is my neighbor?  Is it the illegal immigrant, each likely having a different motive?  Is it my fellow citizen who overdoses on fentanyl brought into this country illegally by illegal immigrants?  Is it the child who was born here in the US from parents who entered the country illegally and who, at least in current jurisprudence, enjoys citizenship, though the parents do not?  Is it the member of MS-13 or Tren de Aragua who has made the evil choice to dedicate his or her life to violence, sexual assault, and the trafficking of drugs?  The answer to all of these questions is “yes.”  They are all my neighbors, and God calls me to love them as I love myself.
    So how do I love everyone I just listed?  If love of God and love of neighbor are how I inherit eternal life, how can I get to heaven with such a vast array of people in very different circumstances and who are interconnected so that their lives, directly or indirectly, impact each other?
    At the end of the day, each of us have to stand before God at our judgement and answer the question: did you treat the other as a neighbor.  I will not judge you.  The Democratic and/or Republican Parties will not judge you.  Neither President Trump nor Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez will judge you.  Only God.  And only you will know in your heart if you loved the other as a neighbor.
    Can love include amnesty or a path to citizenship?  Can love include securing the borders to ensure that only legal immigrants are allowed in based on a fair and accessible immigration process?  Can love include incarcerating those who have broken US laws, of varying levels, in a facility that treats them like humans but also encourages people not to break the law?  The answer to all of these questions is “yes.”  Love of neighbor includes people of any status and includes both the people I don’t know and the people around me and closest to me.
    Here’s the secret: the government doesn’t want you to consider love of neighbor.  Political parties don’t operate on the great commandment.  Whatever party you caucus with, they would rather have you get angry and throw verbal darts towards each other than actually solve the issue.  Part of the reasoning is that any answer which include love of neighbor is going to be complex and treat people individually, which bureaucracies are not generally able to do.  Part of the reasoning is that when you don’t solve the issue, you can use it in a campaign video for the next election and encourage people to vote for you.  
    I have known outstanding and legal immigrants who lived in a state of grave sin because they were applying for citizenship and wanted to get married, but if they got married they would be forced to go to the back of the long line hoping to become citizens.  I imagine I have interacted with illegal immigrants, some of whom came here because the other choice was living in a city controlled by the cartels and risking violence or death if they did not cooperate in the drug trade in their native country and who legitimately feared for their life if they did not flee.  I know families personally whose lives have been turned upside down because of fentanyl which was brought into the country illegally.  I work with the Michigan State Police to protect society and make those who break our laws suffer the legal consequences, including incarceration, for breaking various levels of laws, State and Federal.   I can see many sides of the arguments that are made because I have encountered my neighbor in all of those groups and more.
    At the end of the day, though, whatever action we choose, whatever politician we support, we will have to defend our actions based upon two questions: did I recognize my neighbor?  Did I love my neighbor?  And woe to us if we, like the scholar of the law ask, “‘Who is my neighbor?’” 

Ordo Amoris

Quinquagesima
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I try to communicate accurately as much as I can, though I do sometimes err.  As a third order Dominican, the truth occupies a special place in my life and in my interactions with others.  When I make decisions, I try to have all relevant information that I can, to help me arrive at the right decision for a particular circumstance.  The more accurate information I have, the better decisions I can make, whether for the immediate present moment or even for the future.
    But truth, while greatly important, should not occupy the highest priority in our life.  St. Paul tells us that love, or charity (that type of love that reflects the love of God) is what is most important.  God could have given you special charisms, like speaking in tongues or prophecy.  You could know everything.  Your faith could be so strong that you, as our Lord said, move mountains or trees.  You could be the most generous person alive, giving away all that you have to the poor.  You could even offer up your body.  But if you do not love, all of that counts for nothing.
    What a good gut check!  How easy we can find it to do the right things.  We check off the lists of the precepts the Church asks us to follow: we go to Mass; we give money to support the parish; we pray daily; we abstain from meat on Fridays or do some other penance.  But even if we do all those things, if we do them without love, there is no merit for us.  All our daily deeds are like dehydrated food.  They have what they need to sustain us, but we need the water of love to rehydrate the food and make it edible once more.
    What many Catholics struggle with today is understanding what love is.  So many people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, do not understand love.  They reduce love to an emotion or a desire.  They make non-sensical statements like “love is love.”  Or they react like children who want candy from the check-out line and say that if we really loved them, we would let them do whatever they wanted.  But that’s not how St. Paul describes love.  Love doesn’t seek after itself.  If I do not display patience with another, I’m not loving that person.  If I’m only looking out for myself, I’m not loving.  If my desires are perverse and contrary to nature, I do not desire love.

    Recently, our Vice President mentioned a teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas: the ordo amoris or order of love.  He referenced it in regards to the ongoing immigration debate.  I’m going to side-step the immigration debate, and simply focus on the ordo amoris, which will hopefully help you decide how best to implement what is most loving.  If you want the actual and full treatment from St. Thomas Aquinas, you can go to the Summa Theologiae, the Second Part of the Second Part, Question 26.
    The general order of love is: God, self, neighbor.  We then further delineate neighbor into family, city, country, and world.  We should love God above all else.  We owe everything to God as our Creator, and the first commandment our Lord gives us is to love God with all of who we are (and He cites the Book of Deuteronomy).  The second law is that we should love our neighbor as ourself.  But to love our neighbor as ourself, we have to love ourself first.  Love of self can be sacrificed for a higher good, the love of God, as we see in martyrs, or in parents for their children, but we need to have a proper love of self.  Lastly, we love others after God and self, based upon how close they are to us.  Generally speaking, the closest to us are family members, then members of our community, then other people.
    If we follow this to its natural conclusion, it makes perfect sense.  If I didn’t believe that there are priorities in love, then I might skip Mass on Sundays to spend time with a friend playing basketball or drinking bourbon.  Or if I don’t have a hierarchy of loves, then when I give money to charitable contributions, I should give the same amount of money I spend on groceries each week to each of the following: my parish; my Diocese; my local food pantry; the homeless shelter; each religious order that exists; each food pantry that exists in the US; each homeless shelter that exists in the US; every orphanage around the world; every charity around the world; etc.  Of course, that would lead to poverty, and the family would lack necessary goods, to which they have a right, while others, who are not even known to us, would receive the same financial support.  

    The Holy Father rightly brings up the parable of the Good Samaritan as our Lord reminds us to care for our neighbors who are not like us.  The Samaritan had no family or even national connection to the man left for dead.  But the man on the brink of death was close to him, and the Samaritan could do something at that moment to help the man, without neglecting any of his other legitimate responsibilities.  The man was in immediate need of assistance, and so, even in the ordo amoris, the Samaritan, like the priest and the levite before him who failed, had a duty to assist as a way of expressing love.
    The Scriptures also challenge us to remember that love of God cannot fully be divorced from love of neighbor.  St. John writes in his first epistle: “whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”  Love of God, strictly speaking, does outweigh love of neighbor.  I should be more concerned with what God thinks of me than what my friends or family think of me.  However, more often than not, we show God we love Him by loving the people He loves, that is, our neighbor.
    The argument of modern society is that we should love everyone equally.  To the extent that we generally will good for all people, that is true.  But we cannot, strictly speaking, actually love every single person on this planet equally, because we have closer ties with some than with others, and the resources by which we show our love are limited, even while love is not limited.  So we should order our loves, putting God above all else, then myself next, then my neighbor, and my neighbor starting with my family, then my friends, then my other communities both locally and internationally.  I also have to order my love so that I deal with what is in front of my face: the rich man had a duty to care for poor Lazarus because Lazarus was at his doorstep and needed the rich man’s help.  
    But we also have to understand what love is and what love is not.  Love is not just a feeling, or license to do whatever we or another want to do.  Love means willing the good, for ourselves and for others.  If we allow a person to do that which is harmful, or if we want to do something which is harmful, we are not loving.  
    We could do so many good things, or have so many spiritual gifts.  But love, willing the good of the other, has to undergird all of what we do.  Otherwise all of our good deeds and actions are worth nothing.  If we ever have a question about how love looks, then gaze at the crucifix.  Because that is the greatest example of love: to lay down one’s life for God and for neighbor.  If our actions connect us to the cross of Christ, then there is good chance that they are truly loving actions, and therefore join us to the God who is Love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Samaritans and Politicians

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When it comes to familiar Gospel passages like today’s parable of the Good Samaritan, it’s easy to gloss over the text because “I’ve heard this one before.”  We know the message, and we know the point.  Christ is quite clearly teaching us that we are called to love our neighbor, even the neighbors that we don’t find so lovable.  The Samaritans, after all, had separated from the united Kingdom that David had led, and because of that separation, had wandered away from God to follow false gods.  Eventually their sin of idolatry led to them being exiled by the Assyrians, who conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.  What remained, then, was a hodgepodge of Judeo-pagan practices and worship (we would use the word synchronism today).  And yet, it was the Samaritan that cared for the man taken upon by robbers.  The shock of a Samaritan helping a Jew is also echoed in the story (not parable) of our Lord interacting with the Samaritan woman at the well in John, chapter 4 (she says, “What do you, a Jew, have to do with me, a Samaritan?”).  
    But well-known passages like this give us an opportunity to go beyond the surface level.  It’s so easy to say to ourselves, ‘I do my best to love my neighbor.’  We might even think of people of different races or religions that we get along with as evidence that we’re not like the lawyer who asks, “‘And who is my neighbor?’”  But let’s look beyond race and religion, and go to something which, currently, is perhaps an even more divisive indicator of belonging: politics.
    We are in the midst of election season.  The rhetoric has been vitriolic, to say the least.  Former-president Trump survived an assassination attempt in July.  If words were bullets, we’d be in a heated firestorm on the battlefield.  There are more than two parties, but the two parties that have the most power currently accuse each other of being a threat to democracy and to our nation.  The sense that politicians communicate conveys that belonging to the other party indicates some sort of evil present in the soul of one type or another.  

    What intrigues me about all this is that religion has been condemned for decades for requiring total obedience of the person.  People have been asked why they can’t think for themselves if they follow what their religion teaches.  Religions are condemned as the source of most violence and wars.  And yet, when it comes to politics, the two major political parties each demand total obedience from their members, or else they are fake or members of their party “in name only.”  I would dare say that more violence and civil disturbance has been done in the name of politics over the past ten years than religion.  Indeed, if people could get away with witch-hunts and burning people at the stake, streets across our nation would be illumined by the tar and feathering of “heretics” of modern politics.
    But beyond the out there, our Lord encourages us to look in here, at myself.  I cannot control what others do, but I can control what I do.  Sin, and virtue, has a social aspect.  When I live as Christ calls me to live, that encourages others to do so.  When I do not live with the love of God and neighbor in my life, others find it easier to ignore the great commandments Christ expounded in today’s Gospel.
    So how do I treat those who do not agree with me politically?  Of course, I’m not advocating that we simply roll-over and allow poor policies and laws to continue.  Healthy and respectful debate are exactly how we change minds and hearts (at least partially) so that we come to a greater understanding of the truth and the impact it has on the way we live our life.  But if you’re anything like me, you probably find it easier to just ignore the person who espouses other political theories, to cut them out of your life, rather than to engage the other, and even to treat them like a human person.  The Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, famously wrote, “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.”  And that’s exactly what our society tends to do when we disagree with someone.  We unfriend or unfollow them.  We call them names, in our head or with our mouths, to make them seem less human, less worthy of our love.  We puff ourselves up with the righteousness of our position so that we can put them down for the error of theirs.  
    At the end of the day, we fail to recognize in the other the fact that our political enemy is a creation of God, a human person, worthy of respect and love for no other reason than he or she was created in the image and likeness of God.  We apply labels to the other to excuse ourselves from what Christ commanded us today: to love the other regardless of what separates us from them.  
    Now, Christ did not praise the Samaritan because he worshipped false gods.  The Samaritan’s life certainly had room for conversion.  But the Samaritan was praised because he recognized in the Jew beset by robbers, languishing on the side of the road, someone whom God thought should live; someone God willed into being and loved infinitely.  We don’t have to agree with bad policies or laws.  We should fight non-violently against those who promote error and bad policies and laws.  But we should, first and foremost, recognize that they are a creation of God, worthy of love and respect, a person for whom Christ died on the cross.  
    And yes, sometimes the talk about politics becomes so poisonous that we have to take a step back.  Sometimes people are unwilling to listen to the truth and we realize that we cannot reason with someone who is unwilling to consider that his or her position may be wrong.  But, no matter what a person advocates, no matter how a person votes, God loves that person, and so, as He taught us today, we should, too.  
    It’s easy to say that I’m not generally a hateful person.  It’s easy to think that I do my best to love my neighbor.  But don’t just think about the neighbors who are easy to love, who agree with us, whose identity doesn’t clash with ours.  Consider those who annoy us the most, and ask yourself if you have been a neighbor to that person.  Because that person is created in the image and likeness of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

A Deeper Law

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes what is obvious is not as obvious as it seems.  When we hear this Gospel of the Good Samaritan, I am willing to bet that most of us can’t understand why the priest and the levite don’t help the man who was accosted by robbers.  We likely feel that it’s obvious what a person should do.  In fact, many States have laws called “Good Samaritan laws” that protect people who are trying to help, even if things do not go well, as long as there is no malfeasance intended or vincible negligence allowed.
    But listen to Leviticus 21:1-3: “The Lord said to Moses: Speak to the priests, Aaron’s sons, and tell them: None of you shall make himself unclean for any dead person among his kindred, except for his nearest relatives, his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother or his unmarried sister.”  It continues in verses 10-11: “The most exalted of the priests, upon whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been ordained to wear the special vestments…shall [not] go near any dead person.  Not even for his father or mother may he thus become unclean.”  All of the sudden, with this in mind, the priest and the levite don’t sound quite as bad, or, at least, there’s a question as to what they were supposed to do.
    Of course, our Lord’s point is quite obvious: we are still supposed to help those in need.  Love of neighbor, which is part of inheriting eternal life, means caring for others.  The man was left for dead, and if the priests were truly living out the law, then they should have helped the man who had been robbed.  
    We learn, then that there is a kind of hierarchy of laws.  The levitical laws were important.  God gave them so that the priests could offer worthy sacrifice, and obtain mercy and blessings for God’s Chosen People.  But there was a more basic law, also found in Leviticus, two chapters earlier: “The Lord said to Moses: Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.  […] You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Love of neighbor is part of the way that the Israelites were to be holy, like God.  And it was a law for all Israelites, not just the priests or levites.  
    It reminds me of the scene from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where Aslan, who has risen from the dead after he sacrificed himself on the Stone Table, says:
 

…though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.  Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time.  But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.  She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.

Yes, the priests and levites were supposed to stay ritually clean, but they had a previous commitment to love as God loves, and to care for the most vulnerable.  And they didn’t even check to see if the man was dead.  They simply walked on by.
    Ironically, it was the priests and levites who could not distinguish, though they were well-educated, between the letter and the spirit.  I know this dichotomy is often abused to mean that anything goes.  And I’m certainly not advocating that position.  But Christ came to help us understand what it truly meant to live as children of our heavenly Father.  Elsewhere he condemns the fact that a person could free their beast of burden from being entrapped on the Sabbath, but He could not liberate a person from demonic possession or from illness on the Sabbath.  Again, some had lost sight of the point of the law: to help the People live as God’s own possession, and to witness to His life and love by their own actions and words.  
    And Christ could make this point, because, as the Church Fathers say, the parable of the Good Samaritan is really an allegory for what God did for us.  God displayed His holiness by seeing us beat up on our path.  We were walking the wrong way, away from Jerusalem, the city of the Temple, to the city of Jericho, the city cursed by Joshua after they destroyed it.  Satan and his horde had accosted us, taken away from us our rightful inheritance by tempting us to sin, and then left us for dead after we caved to sin.  The law and the prophets were sent to us, but they could not fully help.  But then our Savior, who was both one of us but also God, came to our rescue.  He put us on His shoulders as He bore the weight of the cross, and made sure that we could be healed at His own expense, even promising to do whatever was necessary for healing even after He departed from earth.  
    Strictly speaking, God had no need of us.  He didn’t need to save us.  He would lack nothing if all of humanity were damned to Hell.  But, because He loves us, He descended to hell so that we wouldn’t have to.  He came to our rescue through no merit of our own.  And so God desires that we do our best to live in imitation of Him.  God desires that we participate in and share His holiness with others.  And that is part of evangelizing.  When we demonstrate the love of God in our actions and words, especially when others know that we are Catholic, they can be drawn, even if only little by little, to a relationship or a deeper relationship with God.  
    The parable of the Good Samaritan seems obvious.  In some ways it is.  But at the end, the point is that, in order to inherit eternal life, we must do our best to demonstrate the holiness of God.  Sometimes, perhaps most often, the laws help us demonstrate God’s holiness.  But any law that exists always draws its authority from how it helps us to be holy as God is holy.  May we be helped each day to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to love with all of who we are God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Who Are Our Neighbors?

Fifteen Sunday in Ordinary Time
    It seems like we are perpetually in an election cycle, with politicians running for this or that office.  And already we are now in presidential election mode, even though the day for voting is one year away…from November.  I don’t know about you, but it can sure get exhausting for me, watching all the ads, seeing all the coverage of the debates, and the back and forth between our two dominant political parties (though, it’s important to note, there are more than just Republicans and Democrats!).
    As Catholics, we are often at odds with both parties in particular ways, which makes it tough, and which gets a lot of Catholics into arguments with other Catholics and even within their families.  I know I wish that there was one major party that we could wholeheartedly embrace, but that’s not currently the case.  And even if there was, the recent general practice has been to preach about issues, not parties or candidates, which can be wise.
    I bring this up because Jesus today talks to us about loving our neighbor, which is precisely the realm of politics: how we treat our neighbor.  If we ignore our religion when it comes to our political activity, then we can’t really say that we’re loving our neighbor as ourselves, because our belief in what God has revealed to us about who we are, how we are to live, and how we are to treat others affects the make-up of society.
    As Moses said, though, it’s not that you have to be a genius to understand what God has revealed about how we are to treat our neighbor.  We don’t have to go up into the sky, or go across the sea.  God has revealed it through His Word in Sacred Scripture, and through the teaching of the Church, to which we owe religious submission of will and intellect when it comes to the doctrines of the Church.
   
    So in our own day, we are challenged in how we are to love our neighbor.  Jesus instructs us to love those who have a homosexual attraction.  They are created in the image and likeness of God and deserve respect, courtesy, and love, just like any other person.  We should not discriminate against people with homosexual attractions.  But, at the same time, God created marriage between a man and a woman, and we cannot support any other definition of marriage.  Nor can we accept sexual acts between two people with homosexual attraction, as sexual acts, are reserved for marriage.  Just as Jesus challenged the Jews with His parable, we are challenged to love persons with homosexual attractions, even without supporting the choices those persons may want to make.
    We are challenged to love our neighbor when it comes to immigration.  We cannot support any action which is contrary to the dignity of any human person, no matter where they come from, or how they entered our country.  We are called to welcome those who are fleeing violence and oppression in their countries, especially when that oppression is based on a political view or a religious belief.  At the same time, we are allowed to have legal ways to enter the country, and make sure that those who wish to enter the country are not trafficking in illegal drugs or even trafficking human persons, and we can even utilize physical barriers at the border.  Just as Jesus challenged the Jews with His parable, we are challenged to love the immigrant, both legal and illegal, and respect their human dignity, even while we defend our border and the legitimate laws of how to enter the country.
    We are challenged to love our neighbor when it comes to the infant in the womb.  We cannot support any legislation or any politician who supports the killing of an innocent human being, simply because it’s in the womb of the mother and is not desired, or not “convenient” to the lifestyle that the parents want.  If an innocent human being in the womb can be killed, then no innocent human being is safe.  At the same time, we are also called to care for and support mothers who often have difficult decisions to make to bring their child to birth, as sometimes they have no support from the father of the child, or from their own family.  We should remind them of the beauty of life, and of the opportunity to give their child up for adoption for those couples who cannot conceive.  Just as Jesus challenged the Jews with His parable, we are challenged to love the infant in the womb and all life from natural conception to natural death.
    Love of God and love of neighbor is not complicated to say.  But the practical applications of how we love our neighbor need to be based in what God has communicated to us, and can often be complicated.  Hopefully we will strive, not only to know that we need to love God and our neighbor to be happy, but also to put that love of God and neighbor into practice as members of God’s chosen people, the Church.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy, either.  Jesus’ example of the story of the Good Samaritan would have challenged the Jews in Jesus’ day.  Samaritans were pagans, and not just any pagans, but pagans who used to belong to the Chosen People.  They abandoned their worship of the true God to worship pagan gods.  In the parable, the priest and the Levite (one of the lower members of the priestly class), leaders of the Chosen People, walk on the opposite side of the victim.  But the Samaritan, who knows no loyalty to a Jew, cares for the victim and even spends money to nurse him back to health. 

Humble and Kind

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

As I think I mentioned in a bulletin article, my favorite music is country music.  This past Thursday I had a chance to go to the Tim McGraw concert in Lansing at Common Ground with Fr. Brian Lenz, one of the newest priests of the Diocese of Lansing.  One of his recent big hits is “Humble and Kind.”  Some of the lyrics are: “Go to church ‘cause your momma says to” [one of my favorites], “always stay humble and kind.//  Hold the door, say please, say thank you/ Don’t steal, don’t cheat, and don’t lie/…Always stay humble and kind…When the dreams you’re dreamin’ come to you/ When the work you put in is realized/ Let yourself feel the pride but/ Always stay humble and kind.//  Don’t expect a free ride from no one/ Don’t hold a grudge or a chip and here’s why/ Bitterness keeps you from flyin’/ Always stay humble and kind.”

It strikes me as a sign of the times that an artist has to sing about holding the door, saying please and thank you, not stealing, cheating, or lying, and the rest.  These were things many of us, if not all of us, learned as children.  Somewhere, though, it stopped being taught, or maybe was just ignored.  And many of the problems we have in the world today could be solved by following these simple pieces of advice.

In our first reading today, Moses tells the people that the Law that God has given them is not overly complicated.  In fact, it is already in the hearts of the people.  They don’t have to go to extreme lengths to get the Law.  God has shared it with His People as a way that they can be fully alive in Him.

The scholar of the law in today’s Gospel tried to trick Jesus by asking him how to get to heaven.  The scholar must have figured this young man (Jesus was likely only 32 or 33 at this point, a fine age to be, I might add) wouldn’t know what to say.  But Jesus asks him about the Law that was supposed to be written in his heart.  The scholar replies with the second half of the Shema, the great profession of faith of Israel: “Hear O Israel: the Lord is God; the Lord is one.  Therefore you shall love the Lord, your God…” and we hear the rest of it today.  The scholar then also quotes the Book of Leviticus, as he says that we need to love our neighbor as ourselves.  But then Luke adds that the scholar was not humble, but wanted to show off his mental skills, so he asks Jesus, “‘And who is my neighbor?’”  

When we hear the story of the Good Samaritan (which is a parable, not an actual occurrence), we get the point quite quickly.  Of course the person is supposed to help the dying man on the road.  Of course you would help a dying man get to a place where he could be healed.  Though, I wonder how many of us would offer to pay a man’s hospital bills if he was taken to a hospital.  I’m not sure I would.

When we hear this, it does seem like common sense (which is not that common these days).  But how often do we do these things?  We have lots of reasons not to help people these days: times are tough; I have my own problems; everyone has a cell phone and can call for help themselves; there are some dangerous people out there who pose as people in distress to try to hurt others.  The list goes on an on.  Even I struggle to live this out.  About a month ago, I was on my way to Adrian from Lansing, and there was a bad accident on southbound 127 around Mason.  As a priest, I can often gain access to a scene to see if anyone needs a priest or a person to pray with them, whether the victim or the first responders.  But that day I was tired, and while I slowed down, and the thought entered my mind, especially since I was, at the time, a Fire Department Chaplain, I drove by.  All the rest of the way to Adrian I knew I should have stopped.  Odds are that they would have said everything was taken care of.  Odds are that they would have said they didn’t need me.  But I will never know, because I never stopped.

Certainly we need to know the dangers of a situation, and sometimes we are not equipped to actually help the situation.  But when we are, do we stop?  Do we help a neighbor in need?  It doesn’t have to be on the road.  Maybe it’s an elderly neighbor who could use a ride to church, or could simply use a visit.  Maybe it’s a family that could use help with their lawn.  Whatever it is, Jesus today invites us to live by the law that is in our hearts.  

Tim McGraw isn’t Jesus; Tim’s words do not save.  But the lyrics I quoted are examples that are based in the Word of God, and will help us to live as disciples.  “Hold the door, say please, say thank you/ Don’t steal, don’t cheat, and don’t lie/…Always stay humble and kind…”