Haves and Have Nots

Learning and living Catholic social justice

02/16/2019

Mark 8:1-10 In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus summoned the disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?” Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They replied, “Seven.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute,and they distributed them to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also. They ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets. There were about four thousand people.

In the United States we tend to think of religion as a purely private matter. Prayer is something we practice in church or at home, behind closed doors. But we do not take our faith into the public square or into social settings. So, we all feel awkward praying in restaurants. We all know the popular adage: “Do not discuss religion and politics in polite company.” But G.K. Chesterton once observed shrewdly: “Religion and politics are the only two things worth talking about in any company!” Why? They concern how we relate to each other (politics) and how we relate to God (religion), that is, the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbor. But we all remember Chesterton was from England and not from El Dorado, so who really cares what he thinks.

Here, however, in our humble country we prefer the policy of separation of church and state. We do not discuss God in public schools and we remove the Ten Commandments from public courthouses. Religion’s role, therefore, is to deal with sin and spirituality in private, not social justice in public.

But over against this tendency towers a veritable mountain of Catholic social teaching. The Church insists that religion, especially Catholicism, must transform society from top-down and inside-out. The popes started writing about social justice back in 1891 with Pope Leo XIII’s ground-breaking encyclical Rerum novarum, through Pope St. John XXIII’s Pacem in terris in 1963, then Pope St. John Paul II’s Centesimus annus in 1991, enlarged upon by Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in veritate in 2005, all the way to Pope Francis’ Laudato si’ in 2015. The popes have been preaching social justice for over one hundred years, and they all insist our faith is not private but public, and ultimately needs to transform the whole world. Social justice deals with things like a just wage for workers, balancing private property versus the common good, basic human dignity, the pro-life movement, just war, poverty, and the environment, etc. Any Catholic who thinks religion is only about sin and spirituality (or purely private matters) has not paid attention to the popes, and not just the liberal popes, but all the popes.

Now of course the popes did not invent Catholic social teaching out of thin air; rather, they took it right off the lips of Jesus in the gospel today. Mark shows Jesus teaching three aspects of social justice by his behavior in the bible: (1) solidarity, (2) human dignity, and (3) distribution of goods. First, solidarity is a genuine and heart-felt concern for the plight of the poor that moves a person to action. Solidarity is not simply empty sentiment, and just feeling bad for poor people. Jesus says, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,” then he did something about it. That’s solidarity. Secondly, human dignity means people have rights simply because they are human and created in God’s image, children of God. In the gospel, the hungry people have a right to eat, and that right must be respected, which Jesus does. And thirdly, the distribution of goods means those with more should gladly give to those with less. Hence, Jesus takes the seven loaves and the few fish from the “haves” and feeds four thousand people, the “have nots.” In other words, Jesus certainly preached private sin and spirituality but he did not ignore the demands of public social justice. Religion must be both private and public, transforming everything and everyone.

One of the things that I admire deeply about Immaculate Conception Church is our tireless pursuit of social justice; it is written in our DNA. Every Sunday we deal with sin and spirituality in church, behind closed doors. But the rest of the week, but burst through those doors out into the streets to live the gospel in the public square. Dc. Greg lovingly and patiently helps the homeless. Our parish council serves a monthly meal at the Hope Campus. We are generously supporting the Baby Bottle Campaign for Heart to Heart pregnancy center. We just hosted a banquet for the Benedictine Sister’s Guatemala program. Next week we will go on a mission trip to Honduras. We attend fundraisers for the Ronald McDonald House, the Cancer Support Center, the Mercy Ball, Girls Incorporated, Maggie House, not to mention countless second collections for the poor locally and world-wide. Anonymous parishioners put money in the poor box as they leave church. We may not have read Rerum novarum, or Centesimus annus, or Laudato si, but we live Catholic social teaching every day. I feel very proud to be the pastor of this parish.

And more importantly, I believe Jesus is very proud of you. You are like the disciples who gladly give your seven loaves and few fish to feed thousands. Heck, even G. K. Chesterton would be proud of you.

Praised be Jesus Christ!