SOLIDARITY

Scripture of the day: Matthew 22:34-40

READ ALOUD: Whenever people look for guidance laws are sure to follow. We start with general responsibilities like the Ten Commandments and then these general norms give birth to thousands of detailed behaviors. Regulations start to multiply on everything how to pray, how to bless food, what ritual to employ when visiting the sick, and so on. Surely we Christians are no stranger to this phenomenon. “Was the law meticulously and literally followed? Was the right thing done?” If it was, then that is enough. God is content. Doing the law is what counts. This is the vantage point of the Pharisees and Sadducees in numerous exchanges with Jesus. But Jesus in Matthew 22:34-40 says it’s not only what we do that counts but from where we do it; our inner intention. Jesus synthesizes all 613 Jewish commandments into just two – and they are about love.

When Jesus said “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’; but I say to you, love your enemies.’” For 1st century Jews, the effect would have been the same as if a preacher were to stand up today and say, ‘The Bible says … but I say to you ….’” Can you imagine the fall out of that statement in most Christian circles today? Yeah…Jesus was THAT guy.

Jesus says all our laws stem from our loving relationship with God and with our neighbor. We are to love God with all our hearts and all our souls, and all our strength and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Exclusive emphasis on the action does not give the proper attention to the spirit in which the action is done. Jesus is concerned with the inner state of the acting person. Mindless compliance with the dictates of multiple laws make one a robot, or a child – conforming but not understanding.

When the law reads “you shall not put a stumbling block before the blind on “the law abiding person refrains from putting obstacles in front of sightless people but when love of God and love of neighbor are at center and inform our conscience we know that this law means not to take advantage of anyone’s vulnerability or weakness. We recognize the full spirit of the law and its wide application knowing its ultimate purpose; to make us a loving people. So we know when to heed the laws, when to modify them and went to dismiss them – just as Jesus healed people against very explicit Sabbath commandments among his many other violations of the law.

It is important to note that Jesus never speaks of our love of God separate from our love of neighbor. It is impossible to say we love God if we are not also showing love and care to our neighbors. Jesus in essence makes these two commandments one and in other gospels they are presented as just one unified commandment. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is asked “Who is my neighbor?” and he responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan suggesting that anyone in need that crosses our path we must love as we would love God. Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 25 states that the criteria for entrance into heaven will be determined by whoever loved God in the form of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, and the prisoner. We do not get to choose the neighbor we are to love – they choose us through their need. And if we ignore our neighbor in need we ignore God.

So what does it mean to love? Jesus surely is not talking about romantic love and doesn’t mean liking people a whole lot. We are not to idealize the poor and we don’t have to be their best friends. Rather, loving our neighbor (who we might know personally or not) means to not knowingly wrong or oppressed anyone. One example, our Bible, like the Quran for our Muslim neighbors, forbids lending money to the poor and demanding interest. So to love our neighbor means we must be fair to others and we cannot exploit the disproportionate power and wealth that we have been given.

But our tradition says that love compels us to do even more than simply play fair. Jesus doesn’t spurn the law but he DOES significantly raise the bar. He says the whole law flows from our love of God and neighbor. So instead of just asking ourselves “what does our religious tradition and history tell us is right to do?” we are challenged to ask ourselves “what is the loving thing to do?” which is always the harder of the two. Jesus bids us to make our entire lives an act of love.

What does this love concretely look like though? If we were given one small stick and asked to break it, we could easily snap it in half, but if we were asked to break many sticks gathered tightly in a bundle they couldn’t be broken. We love our neighbor by binding ourselves with them so closely that no one will be broken. We are our brothers and sisters keepers wherever they live. We are one human family. Practicing the virtue of solidarity means learning that loving our neighbor has global dimensions in an interdependent world. As followers of Jesus we are to bind ourselves together with the poor – those without a voice in our society in a commitment to the common good of all people not the narrow interests that benefit only a few. We are designed for this life-giving connectedness. If we are looking for genuine joy, solidarity is the most solid route to the “fullness of life” promised to us by God.

WATCH TOGETHER: https://youtu.be/hYa4YuQ33g4?si=_ShYeRmvmTi9eijm

Discussion questions based on the text and quotes:

1. How would Jesus’s command to “love your enemies” have been particularly radical in Jesus’s time? Do you believe it is still radical today?
2. Fr. Gregory Boyle speaks about “kinship” and “erasing margins.” How do these ideas relate to the overall message of Jesus about love and solidarity?
3. Do you believe it is impossible to separate love of God from love of neighbor? How does this idea challenge or enhance your understanding of religious devotion?
4. The parable of the Good Samaritan is mentioned in relation to the question “Who is my neighbor?” How does this parable expand the concept of “neighbor” beyond its usual meaning?
5. How is the notion of solidarity related to Jesus’s teachings on love? Can you think of modern examples where practicing solidarity might be challenging?
6. How does what you read today about Jesus’s teachings challenge our modern understanding of success, compassion, and social responsibility? Do you agree with this interpretation? Why or why not?

Review as time allows: Some quotes from Fr. Gregory Boyle on the topic of Solidarity…

Two unwavering principles we need to hold and live by to create the community of cherished belonging that Jesus dreamed for our world: 1. Everyone is unshakably good. No exceptions. 2. We belong to each other. No exceptions. Now do I think all our vexing and complex social dilemmas would disappear if we embraced these two notions? Yes, I do. The answer to every question is indeed compassion. The only enemy is the enemy that would make us enemies to one another.’”

― Gregory Boyle, Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times

“No daylight to separate us. Only kinship. Inching ourselves closer to creating a community of kinship such that God might recognize it. Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.”

― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

“Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.”
― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

“Kinship– not serving the other, but being one with the other. Jesus was not “a man for others”; he was one with them. There is a world of difference in that.”
― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

“Compassion isn’t just about feeling the pain of others; it’s about bringing them in toward yourself. If we love what God loves, then, in compassion, margins get erased. ‘Be compassionate as God is compassionate,’ means the dismantling of barriers that exclude.”
― Gregory Boyle , Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

“The strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place—with the outcast and those relegated to the margins.”
― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

“Scripture scholars contend that the original language of the Beatitudes should not be rendered as “Blessed are the single-hearted” or “Blessed are the peacemakers” or “Blessed are those who struggle for justice.” Greater precision in translation would say, “You’re in the right place if…you are single-hearted or work for peace.” The Beatitudes is not a spirituality, after all. It’s a geography. It tells us where to stand.”
― Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

“You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly, and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear.”
― Gregory Boyle

“Just assume the answer to every question is compassion.”
― Gregory Boyle