Obedience
to God’s Will of Love
Monday, November 2, 2020
Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister is a theologian, author, and speaker, whose wisdom and approach to social justice I take very seriously. I offer you these encouraging words from her about what it means to work for the common good. Joan writes:
In all my years of traveling around the world, one thing has been present in every region, everywhere. One thing has stood out and convinced me of the certain triumph of the great human gamble on equality and justice.
Everywhere there are people who, despite finding themselves mired in periods of national or personal marginalization refuse to give up the thought of a better future or give in to the allurements of a deteriorating present. They never lose hope that the values they learned in the best of times or the courage it takes to reclaim their world from the worst of times are worth the commitment of their lives. These people, the best of ourselves, are legion and they are everywhere.
It is the unwavering faith, the open hearts, and the piercing courage of people from every level of every society that carries us through every major social breakdown to the emergence again of the humanization of humanity. In every region, everywhere, they are the unsung but mighty voices of community, high-mindedness, and deep resolve. They are the prophets of each era who prod the rest of the world into seeing newly what it means to be fully alive, personally, nationally, and spiritually. . . .
It is that steadfast, unyielding, courageous commitment to the eternal Will of God for Creation—whatever the cost to themselves—that is the prophetic tradition. It sustains the eternal Word of God while the world spins around it, making God’s Word—Love—the center, the axle, the standard of everything the faithful do in the midst of the storm of change that engulfs us as we go. . . .
Our task is to be obedient all our lives to the Will of God [which is Love] for the world. And therein lies the difference between being good for nothing and good for something. Between religion for show and religion for real. Between personal spirituality that dedicates itself to achieving private sanctification and prophetic spirituality, the other half of the Christian dispensation.
Yes, the Christian ideal is personal goodness, of course, but personal goodness requires that we be more than pious, more than faithful to the system, more than mere card-carrying members of the Christian community. Christianity requires, as well, that we each be so much a prophetic presence that our corner of the world becomes a better place because we have been there. . . .
The quality of life we create around us as “followers of Jesus” is meant to seed new life, new hope, new dynamism, the very essence of a new world community.
Solidarity:
A Public Virtue
Sunday, November 1, 2020
Citizens of the United States will finish voting this week. Many of us are feeling demoralized, and many others carry serious distrust of American political institutions. The most vulnerable in a society have already experienced the discouragement from which so many are suffering today. They know firsthand that the system has not worked, at least not for them, for a long time.
Two years ago, I wrote in Sojourners magazine that for me, personally, voting is a deeply moral act—a decisive statement of Christian faith that I matter, that justice matters, and that other people matter.
Sadly, for many religious people, the public forum has historically remained the most disconnected from our faith. Unlike its Jewish forebears, Christianity, in its first two thousand years, has kept its morality mostly private, interior, and heaven-bound, but with very few direct implications for what is now called our collective economic, social, or political life. I am not talking about partisan politics here, but simply the connecting of the inner world with the outer world.
This week our meditations will be focusing on what I call “public virtue.” The virtue in which I was trained in the seminary, I’m sorry to say, was “private” virtue that taught me how I could be virtuous in my interior life. As my novice master put it in a good 1961 fashion, “Try to make it as easy as possible for all others to love you.”
Perhaps I, myself, was good and could go to heaven. But such personal salvation does not come close to the mystery of the Body of Christ, which turns focus outward, to ask: how can I be good for the sake of my neighborhood, my city, my church, my community, and the world? It really is a different starting place. It’s not seeking my own ego enhancement, but the spiritual and physical well-being of others, as Jesus did.
There really is no such thing as being non-political. Everything we say or do either affirms or critiques the status quo. Even to say nothing is to say something. If we say nothing, we communicate that the status quo—even if it is massively unjust and deceitful—is apparently okay. This common “non-political” stance is an illusion, and the powerful have always been able to use it to manipulate people.
We must use the power of the Gospel to critique and affirm both the Left and the Right on most public positions, even while knowing that political or programmatic changes—of themselves—will never fully bring about the goodness, charity, or transformation that the Gospel offers the world.
What I mean by public virtue is primarily about solidarity with others, as opposed to an exclusive concern with “my inner life.” As different parts of the Body of Christ, we each have strengths and gifts that are needed by the entire body. We are called by the Spirit to use these gifts in service and love for our hurting world and not just for our private sense of “holiness.”
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