Ponderings

Friends,

In the quiet of winter and a time to reflect, I have been pondering more deeply about what it means to attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus and claim to be a Christian with integrity. One conclusion is that perhaps the greatest challenge in following the Christian faith for people like myself is that at heart the Christian teaching has a consistent bias toward the poor and marginalized that can make me feel confused and marginalized myself. (And this bias toward the poor is also true of the other Abrahamic traditions of Judaism and Islam, and most all empathetic religious practices, I must add.) The biblical narrative identifies Jesus himself born of poor parents in a dangerous, occupied country, subject to an authoritarian king. And consistent with his personal identification with the poor the narrative continues to record his emphasis on the care of the disinherited and outcast. 

It is interesting, however, Jesus teaching doesn’t equate care of the poor with political revolution. His teaching, instead, promotes a two part “love ethic” alternative that provides a guide for us to try to follow that I identify as nonviolence or, biblically, the Kingdom/Realm of God.

The first comprehensive emphasis of Jesus’ teaching, consistent with his Judaic prophetic tradition, is his condemnation of the indifference of the leadership and status quo toward the poor. Like his prophetic forebears he denounces the false piety that justifies the status quo and instead teaches that the true religious practice emphasizes compassion and provision for the poor and vulnerable, the hungry, the “widow,” and the prisoner, for example. To maintain a faith of integrity, and be consistent with a covenant of honoring God’s love and mercy, followers, too, are expected to help provide for the basic needs, dignity and rights of humanity.

The second emphasis of the Jesus narrative teaches that being a faithful follower of the Judeo-Christian tradition includes a covenant that we are to align one’s own life consistent with the love of God, love of one’s neighbor, and love of oneself - and, I would add, love of the natural world. We are to offer an inclusive acceptance of each other as a sacred and valued person, again consistent with the prophetic teaching of God’s love and acceptance available to all, even as we are challenged to overcome our prejudices and indifference. 

It is my understanding that these two principles in Jesus teachings are the transformative - if often difficult -  path to peace, liberation, and reconciliation that is the essence of the Christian teaching and the practice of nonviolence.

But I want to add an important coda to the above that addresses me personally. The radical part of the Gospel  economics of egalitarianism, compassion and mercy is in profound contrast to our culture’s capitalism and individualism. I am often well aware that my culturally middle class comfort and privilege make it especially difficult to faithfully and truly understand Jesus' teaching because I do not suffer the level of ostracism and poverty that he so often addresses. This disparity can make me feel guilty, and more likely,  inclined only to attend to the safer parts of the Gospel that I can more easily follow with my lifestyle, like being able to make contributions to charity and like-minded service groups. Most religious leaders - and I would add most others in public leadership positions - consider it risky to offer a "prophetic voice” on Gospel economics, and it is far “safer” to stay on the Jesus’ theme of inclusive relational love, which, of course, is also central to his teachings. Gospel economics is tough ethics, and we will likely always prefer to avoid the biblical prophetic tradition rather than consider them as contemporary warnings about our indifference, exploitation, injustice and poverty on nearly every page. (I apologize if this seems so judgmental of you - and me - but I consider it important to use our discomfort to ask deeper questions of ourselves and our world as we must now tackle the problem of life beyond Trump and the movement he has created.) 

The Gospel teaching of compassion and liberation is much more impactful for the poor, of course, as it offers a source of hope for the people theologian Howard Thurman calls those with their "backs against the wall." Even though one is a poor, uneducated, mentally ill, sick, a homeless refugee, a criminal, or any of society’s “underclass," they are still beloved through the universal compassion of God and Jesus’ Gospel of inclusiveness, . Can we in the middle class really understand how radical Jesus' ethic of love and truth is? And especially how reassuring it is for the marginalized? "You are really somebody, a person worthy of recognition and love,” it says to the poor campesino or the forgotten prisoner reading it for the first time. And eventually that message of encouragement and accompaniment provides a hope for liberation and engenders a movement for societal change. And gratefully and remarkably, the biblical encouragement for social change is also grounded within the teaching of nonviolence.

It is beyond my Saturday Evening Post to attempt to explore what it would mean to create a world committed to serving the common good. For guidance, however, I again commend to you to study the “New Deal” movement led by Francis Perkins* that introduced some very historical, if  highly controversial, socialist governmental policies like Social Security, unemployment insurance and human labor laws. We have established these progressive policies in the past and we can do it again as we rebuild from the catastrophe of the MAGA’s attempt to disassemble not only many of these progressive, socialist policies but the whole of the democratic experiment.

Heavy writing and heavy reading this evening. But an important invitation of a new year is to take stock and envision what is possible as we turn the page. And I truly believe a willingness to struggle for a just and loving “commons” is in our hearts, hopes, and minds, especially in light of what is so contrary in our current culture of violence and greed. But against all odds Jesus pulled off a long lasting revolution. And so did my heroine Francis Perkins in establishing the New Deal. And we can too, even at a significant challenge to our comfort and privilege.

Peace and blessings for the new year.

Tom

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*I recommend a biography of Francis Perkins entitled The Woman Behind the New Deal: the Life and Legacy of Francis Perkins, Kirsten Downey, 2010.