Choosing sides and loyalties
Exodus 2:11-15A
On one occasion, after Moses had grown up, when he visited
his kinsmen and witnessed their forced labor, he saw an Egyptian striking a
Hebrew, one of his own kinsmen. Looking about and seeing no one, he slew the
Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out again, and now two
Hebrews were fighting! So he asked the culprit, “Why are you striking your
fellow Hebrew?” But the culprit replied, “Who has appointed you ruler and judge
over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses
became afraid and thought, “The affair must certainly be known.” Pharaoh, too,
heard of the affair and sought to put Moses to death. But Moses fled from him
and stayed in the land of Midian.
When I was
13 years old I became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Back then, the INS (Immigration and
Naturalization Service) allowed you to become a citizen if you were under 18
and had lived continuously in the U.S. for 5 years. But you did have to take a simple test, and
I’ll never forget one of the questions.
The INS official asked me, “Will you take up arms to defend this country
against a foreign invasion?” I knew what
the right answer was, but I hesitated as I wondered: what if American went to
war against India, would I be able to shoot at my own family? Now, there were times I wanted to kill my
brother, but that was different. I felt
a deep divided loyalty that perhaps people who are born U.S. citizens never
feel. Don’t worry, I answered, “yes,”
don’t report me to the INS! Ask yourself
today, how deep is your loyalty and love to this country we call home?
In the
first reading from Exodus, we meet another man who felt a divided loyalty
between two countries, namely, Moses. By
birth he was a Hebrew and belonged to the people of Israel, but by adoption he
became an Egyptian and grew up in Pharaoh’s household. Moses was never asked the question I was by
the “Egyptian INS” but he faced the same dilemma: would he defend Egypt against
a foreign threat? I had said “yes,” but
Moses’ answer was “no.” In fact, he
chose to defend his kinsmen and killed the Egyptians instead. For Moses blood was thicker than the water of
the Nile River.
My
friends, I would suggest to you that that simple question I was faced with as a
13 year old may confront all of us sooner or later. Not that the U.S. will have a conflict with
another country, but that the U.S. could have a conflict with the Catholic
Church. It is very disappointing and
troubling to see this nation take a decisively anti-Catholic direction – in
allowing abortion, in its immigration laws, in allowing same-sex marriage, etc.
– and every Catholic may feel a deepening divided loyalty. Our honored motto of “separation of church
and state” may turn into “church versus state.”
Let’s pray that never happens, but if it did, whose side would you be
on?
Sometimes
when I visit people’s homes they proudly display the Bible verse, Joshua 24:15,
which reads, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” But the larger context of the verse was the
same divided loyalty that Moses and I faced.
The whole verse reads, “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to
you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods
your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in
whose land you are living. But as for me
and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Would you take up arms to defend this country against a foreign
power? What if that foreign power was
the Catholic Church?
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
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