What Matters Most

In any election year, we typically hear slogans and speeches which aim at galvanizing the electorate around what matters most according to the candidates. The trappings of conventions, stumping, debating, etc. help to define the contours of the issues and get most of the electorate to take a stand with one side or another.  However, I don’t think it would come as surprise to say that this election year is unlike most that have come before. The world is still in the grip of a global pandemic, numerous businesses have shuttered, millions are without work and have lost loved ones.

In the US in particular is experiencing heightened social unrest due to fatal encounters between police officers and African Americans. Multiple cities have experienced protests, rioting, and an increase in crime and the prospect of an upcoming election has both sides feverishly taking to news and social media to ensure their take on the events of the day gets heard and refutes the countervailing narrative.

Lessons from Above

It is easy enough to get caught up in the evanescent issues of the day in a normal election cycle. In a year like this, it’s almost impossible. It is equally tempting to become apathetic in these circumstances as well. However, I think we can draw lessons from some of the Sunday Gospels this month to help us navigate these tumultuous times.

This month we have gospels from Matthew 22: 1-14, MT 22: 15-21, and MT 22: 34-40. In the first reading, Jesus tells the parable of the King who held the wedding banquet. Those who were invited didn’t care for attending and so the King then invited “the good and bad alike” to attend. The second reading is the famous encounter with Jesus and the Pharisees in which they seek to trick Him and ask about the lawfulness of paying taxes to Caesar. In the third Gospel, after hearing Jesus’ answer regarding taxes, the Pharisees ask Jesus which commandment is the greatest and He responds to love God with all of your being and your neighbor as yourself.

Finding What Matters

One lesson from the first Gospel is that God values all of us, regardless of status, sinfulness, race, etc. And God shows mercy to us all. If God values us and desires this for us, regardless of any of our faults or without special treatment for race, class, etc. shouldn’t we do the same? So, our concern then should not principally be on this or that policy or this or that item within a party’s platform. Our chief concern should be the genuine wellbeing of neighbors and our country.

Even if we disagree on what that wellbeing might look like, if our desire is authentic then that will drive us to dialogue and mutual respect. It is easy, especially now, to get caught up in slogans, ideas, and policies. But at the end of the day, we don’t live with 330 million ideas or policies we live with 330 million human beings. We can be critical, dismissive, and even incredulous towards ideas, but we cannot adopt this same attitude towards the people who hold them. It is a recipe for resentment and unrest.

This is not to say that some ideas aren’t held in bad faith, or are so reprehensible that people who hold them should be condemned. It is to say that our primary consideration should be towards our neighbors and their wellbeing, not on ideological purity. If the problems we currently face as a society could be boiled down to a statement, I would say that many millions feel that their humanity is not recognized for the sake of political, economic, and/or ideological reasons. We cannot fix that with more policies and ideas. We can only fix it by being inviting and welcoming as the King the parable is.

First Things First

In our second Gospel, Jesus utters the famous phrase “Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar and render unto God that which belongs to God.” This fits well with the first lesson. Just as we ought to put people over ideas, we also ought to put the eternal over the ephemeral. As Christ said, “My Kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). It seems to me that religious people in American often ask themselves why God allowed x to be elected, or for our country to go through x event. We tend to think of events in 1-to-1 relation with God’s actions. I would argue the lesson of this Gospel tells us that these are the wrong questions to ask. Rather we should be asking ourselves, what is this situation demanding of me? How can I live the Gospel here and now where I am?

To ask the first question is to politicize and materialize the Gospel. As St. Paul said, we have no lasting city here. The political and economic landscape changes, day to day, year to year, generation to generation. God is not so much directly causing this or that event as He is allowing it to happen to provide us the opportunities to serve Him through others. What matters here is not so much what happens, but what we do about what happens, how we react to it, and how we serve our neighbor through it. Taking this lesson to heart would go a long way in not only promoting peace and justice but in keeping tensions and tempers cool.

The Greatest Commandment

Finally, Jesus tells the Pharisees the greatest commandment is to love God with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves. Upon this “all the law and prophets depend.” It is telling that this question about the greatest commandment comes after the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus with the question about paying taxes to Caesar. After Jesus confounds their materializing of the spiritual order with the previous question, he then shows them what the true ordering of one’s life ought to be.

If we love God with all of our being, then we cannot fail to love our neighbor. Why is this? Because as we’ve seen from the first parable, God desires all to be with Him and shows His mercy upon them. If then we love God, we will do the same. Note, however, that this is not apathy or escapism. It calls us to act within this world. We cannot love our neighbor and do nothing. Our neighbors are not abstract ideas but concrete persons with hopes, fears, pain, dreams, etc.  Loving our neighbor impels us to act. Since the love of neighbor is rooted in the love of God, loving God impels us to action. The difference is, this action will be genuine and done solely for the good of the neighbor rather than for any material or political end.

Next Steps

Living these lessons will help us to maintain a healthy balance in our moral and political lives. It will help us to ask the right questions in the right circumstances, keep our priorities straight, and to do the right things for the right reasons. A good recent example of this is Joe Biden wishing President Trump and the First Lady well-given their recent COVID-19 diagnosis. There is no question these two disagree vehemently.  However, former Vice-President Biden decided to show compassion and concern rather than politicize an opponent’s illness. If we all did more of that, I think we would find that most of our political differences would solve themselves.