Ordinary 29

The Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 45:1, 4-6; Psalm 96; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b; Matthew 22:15-21

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” Today’s teaching from Jesus underscores the difficulty of being a Christian in the world. Valid claims and responsibilities are made on us by both the society in which we live and our God. Yet how are we as Christians to respond when society’s and God’s claims are in conflict with each other?  

Last week I introduced the call issued 43 years ago by our bishops that as Catholic Christian citizens, we are “to become informed on the relevant issues, to become involved in the party or campaign of [our] choice, [and] to vote freely according to [our] conscience…”

“according to [our] conscience…” For the Church that means “formed” conscience. Conscience is a “knowledge within oneself” but not solely of oneself. We are not our own moral universes. Our moral consciousness stands on the shoulders of the Hebrew prophets and the teachings and life of Jesus, the Son of God. It is “the faculty of knowing what is right.” But, what is the right? That search is often behind the many questions that are posed in the sacred scriptures. Am I my brother’s [sister’s] keeper? Is it lawful to pay the census tax…? Who is my neighbor?

As part of that conscience forming process, there are four principles that serve to assist us, what is called Catholic Social Teaching. These principles are: the dignity of the human person, the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity. Of the four, the cornerstone of the church’s Gospel message and social teaching is the truth that every human being created in the image and likeness of God is endowed with an inviolable dignity from the moment of conception until natural death.

Having spoken to you about the dignity of the human being, we turn to the building block of the “common good”. The phrase itself belies or at least puts it into stark tension with the extreme individualism that so characterizes our present society. While humanity has come to appreciate the autonomy and value of the individual, there must be struck a balance with the community in which the individual lives, what is called, the “common good.”

The “common good” as understood by our Church’s teaching is “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily” [CCC, # 1906]. The Christian’s obligation then is to help create a society that is just and equitable, where everyone can flourish. One facet in creating a just and equitable society is through political activity, that is, voicing our Christian values in the public forum as part of the larger societal discussion.

We know that many people do not flourish in our society. Yet how many people hide behind the intricacies of the law to protect their individual interests? How often do people blame an individual or group for their situation and thus have their excuse to do nothing to help lift them up?

Pope Francis in his latest encyclical, Fratelli tutti, [Sisters and brothers all…] addresses this issue of the “common good” as he invites us to reflect on the parable of, what he calls, “a stranger on the road.” It is the story of a man assaulted by thieves and left lying injured on the side of the road. Francis explicates. Several people passed him by, but failed to stop. Did you ever consider why an injured man was passed by? For Francis, those who passed by lacked any real concern for the common good. Only one person stopped and personally cared for the man. This Samaritan enemy gave the injured Jewish man something that in our distracted world we cling to tightly: he gave the man his time. Certainly, the Samaritan had his own plans for that day, his own needs, commitment and desires. Yet he was able to put all that aside when confronted with someone in need.

Francis challenges societies by placing before us a mirror that reveals we have become accustomed to looking the other way, passing by, ignoring situations unless they affect us directly. Like a physician, Francis diagnoses this attitude as a symptom of an unhealthy society. For millennia the human community was more important than the individual. In many contemporary societies like ours that equation has been inverted, the individual has become more important than the community. We see this in the language of “rights”. An individual’s “rights” are over and above that of the society. Consider this in the light of simply being asked to wear a mask during a pandemic to protect…who? ….other members of our society. How many other societal issues are framed in the language of individual rights? Why are we not concerned for each other’s welfare? Which for the Jew and Christian is summed up in the command to love our neighbor?

How are people to reach their fulfillment and to flourish so as to contribute to society when  many nations have shifted their gaze away from the world’s refugee populations that are on the move due to war, state sponsored violence, famine and forms of slavery? We build walls; other nations leave refugees adrift in small boats on the Mediterranean. Does this attitude address the “common good”, the flourishing of all people?

Does not looking away and blinding ourselves to a situation not create the ground out of which an attitude of polarization grows? Polarization has split our nation into red and blue, black and white, poor and wealthy, legal and illegal. How does this attitude support social conditions in which people can flourish? How can we address and solve societal issues if we cannot civilly and respectfully talk with each other so as to find some “common ground”? And so those in need are left unattended. Their situation ignored because we have retreated into our opposing corner so that “they” – whomever “they” are – no longer directly affects us. We pass by. The cause for the “common good” is allowed to wither.

Is not the “common good” particularly at the heart of any environmental discussion? Addressing climate change is about the future of the planet and the entire human family, is it not? Do we care about coastal communities and cities or island nations being swallowed up by the oceans? What will we leave for future generations? …a burnt out, deforested, desert like world? What will happen as clean, fresh water becomes the most valuable commodity on the planet?

Thieves, whether in the dark alleys off our streets or in corporate offices, often get away with stealing and cheating society because of the complicity of people who remain silent, do not get involved and who themselves look the other way. These individual responses subvert the good of the community.

We need to ask ourselves as citizens and Christians, is everyone better off if there is a racial divide in our country? Does poverty, an inadequate educational system and lack of health care allow people to be fulfilled and contribute to the larger culture? If not, then are we not all robbed of the undiscovered and developed gifts of people?  

Work is more than making a living, it is a way of fulfilling the human potential. What do we need to do to encourage and support the private sector to address the issues of just wages, equal pay for women and advocate for basic rights for workers, owners and managers? Do not forget that Joseph and Jesus were manual labourers, Peter, Andrew, James and John were fishermen. Mary of Magdala, Suzanna, Joanne, Lydia were women of business. Paul was a tent-maker. When everyone has an opportunity to fulfill their potential, society as a whole is a better place.

No aspect of human life is beyond the purview of Gospel values.

An important detail about the people who passed by the injured man carries a warning for us. They were devoted to God: a priest and a Levite. This detail should not be overlooked. It shows that belief in God and the worship of God are not enough to ensure that we are actually living in a way pleasing to God. A believer may be untrue to everything that their faith demands and yet think they are close to God and better than others. As Christian citizens, our only course is to imitate the Samaritan who in this story happens to be the outsider, an enemy of the Jewish man. An uncomfortable twist, is it not? For any other decision makes us either one of the robbers or one of those [religious believers] who walked by a suffering person without compassion.

In affirming the dignity of every person we promote the “common good.” Whenever a group attains equity, can live in peaceful neighborhoods, can attend good schools, have access to job training and find satisfying employment, have access to good health care and rise to positions of leadership in any field and endeavor, then all of us are raised up. That is what is meant by the “common good.” And when we as Catholic Christians support that movement for as many people as we can we are rendering to Caesar and to God what is each their due.