On Prioritizing at
election time
The Old Testament speaks about the Law of Moses in the
singular. Yet rabbinical tradition piled up a confusing maze of 613 majors
laws, plus a whole constellation of minor laws, rules, regulations, observances, statutes, decrees. The gospel
alludes to this mountainous heap when it reminds us that, "Jews have to
scrupulously wash theirs hands before eating. They may never eat anything from
market without first giving it ritual ablution. And they have to observe the
correct washing of pots, pans, copper kettles, and beds" (Mk 7:4‑5).
They must also scrupulously pay tithes
on mint, cumin, and dill.
Then there were
those countless do’s and don’t’s for observing the Sabbath, which always got Jesus into trouble with the religious
authorities: “How come your disciples
pick corn on the Sabbath when that’s
against the Law?” (Lk 6:1-5). “How come you cure this woman ill for eighteen
years on the Sabbath?” (Lk
13:10-17). At times this huge maze was so
exhausting for the Jewish faithful, that Jesus cried out one day, “Come to me all you who are heavily
burdened, and I will lift the burden from your backs, and refresh you” (Mt
11:28-30).
Of
course, we Catholics should talk. Right
up until the eve of the Second Vatican
Council (October 11, 1962), we too had our
confusing maze of 613 major laws and countless minor ones. We too had an endless list of rules, regulations,
observances, statutes, decrees. We
had our laws about fasting from food and abstaining from meat at various times
of the year and before Holy Communion. We had
laws that made marriage valid or invalid. Priests had laws that made Mass valid or invalid. All of us
had laws that made our confessions valid or invalid. <<In a sense, we too were heavily burdened in those
days, and in a sense Vatican II was saying to us, among many other things,
“Come to me you who are heavily burdened and I will lift the burden from your
backs, and I will refresh you.”>>
The question of priority
It is not surprising that the question of priority
should sooner or later arise in religion.
That question seeks to know
what is of the first importance, then of the second importance, and then
of the third importance. And it seeks to know also what isn’t important at all.
Despite the maze, the Old Testament did
have such a sense of priority built in to it. Moses commanded the people
saying, “Shema Yisrael! Hear, O Israel!
You shall love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, whole
soul, and whole mind.” Then he directed them to take that Law and “write it on your hearts, and tell it to your children over and over again, and
fasten it upon your wrists and foreheads, and
nail it on your doorposts” (Dt 6:4-9). Of no other law did Moses ever give such a
directive. That’s the Law of all laws. That’s the Law before all other laws.
That’s the Law that’s written with capital “L.” That’s the Priority of all
priorities. “So tie it to your foreheads so that you will always keep it in mind, and nail it to your door-posts, so
that in all your comings and goings you will always be reminded of what’s
first.”
The people took Moses literally. They wrote this one great Law to love God
with whole heart and soul upon little pieces of parchments and inserted them into little vials called “mezuzahs,”
and nailed them to their door-posts.
They encased the parchments
also in little boxes called "phylacteries,"
which they strapped to their foreheads and wrists at prayer time. Many
Jews still observe this practice.
The question of priority is raised frequently in the N.T. More than
once Jesus is asked, “Rabbi, which commandment of all the commandments is the
most important one of all? Sometimes
the question is an idle one: not much more than a case of different rabbis
playing around with their differing arrangements of the 613 laws. Sometimes
the question is downright evil: one day a Pharisee asks Jesus the priority question, and Matthew
says, "The man was out to trap Jesus" (Mt 22:35).
Sometimes the question is quite honest. On another
occasion another Pharisee approaches
Jesus, asking “Rabbi, which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus
answers by reciting the Shema: “This is the first commandment: ‘Shema Yisrael!
Hear, Oh Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone. Thou shalt love the Lord, your
God, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.'" (These are Moses’ word from
the Book of Deuteronomy 6:4-9. ) Then,
without being asked, Jesus adds:
"And the second commandment is like the first: `Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself.'" That too is a scripture quote, and it comes from
the Book of Leviticus 19:18.
The new
Shema
Jesus now is the new Moses and lawgiver. He nails two great laws together (one for
loving God from Deuteronomy, and another for loving neighbor from
Leviticus). Out of the two of them he
makes one new commandment. He, in fact,
writes a new Shema for us: “Hear, oh Christians, you shall love your God with whole heart and
soul, and you shall love you neighbor as you love yourself.” The new commandment is perfectly complete, for it commands the love of God, the love of the other guy, and even the
love of self. And that one perfectly complete commandment Jesus declares to be first,
before all others laws, rules,
or regulations.
At Jesus’ answer, the Pharisee exclaims,
“Bravo, Rabbi!, Excellent Teacher! I love your answer! Yes, the command
to love God and neighbor, as we love ourselves, does come first before
all our burnt offerings and sacrifices and the rest of that 613 plus laws” (Mk
12:28-34). This Pharisee is a good man: he’s not playing around, he’s not being
tricky. He is serious about priority, and Jesus’ answer delights him.
Priority
in religion
Priority
in religion: that’s not, “How come
your disciples pick corn on the Sabbath when that’s against the Law?” (Lk
6:1-5). Priority in
religion: that’s not, “How come you cure this woman ill for eighteen
years on the Sabbath when that’s against the law?” (Lk 13:10-17). Priority in religion: that’s not, “How come you skipped the creed at Mass
today?” Priority in religion:
that’s not, “How come you changed the words of consecration
over the bread and the wine?”
No. Priority in religion is this: “How come you don’t take care of orphans and
widows?” (James I:27). Priority in
religion is this: “You are scrupulous in paying tithes on mint, cumin, and
dill, but how come you neglect the weightier
matters of the law, like
justice, compassion, and honesty?” ( Mt 23:23). Priority in religion is this: “You scold me for eating with sinners. How come you don’t understand the
meaning of that scripture which says, ’It is
compassion I want from you people and not your sacrifices’”( Mt
9:13). In a word, priority in religion
is this: “How come you don’t love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and how come you don’t love your
neighbor as you love yourself?”
Priority in politics
But we must prioritize not only in religion but in
the totality of our daily lives. Our lives are far greater and far more
important than one small compartment of
it called “religion.” We are about to elect a new president. There is a
maze of issues out there confronting
us: the gun issue, the abortion issue, the morality issue (zipper morality or
justice morality), the tax issue, the school voucher issue, the healthcare
issue. And then there is the less substantial issue like “Which one of the two
is cuter (or cutest if you count Nader)?”
This
political maze, like the religious maze,
calls for a sense of priority. We need to sort it out and arrange
it. “Master, which of all these issues
is the most important one of all? And then, Master, which is the second most
important issue, and the third most
important issue? And then Master, which
issues aren’t really all that important at all?”
The way we vote depends a lot upon the stand we
take on various issues: our stand on the gun
issue, our stand on the abortion
issue, our stand on the morality
issue, our stand on the tax
issue, our stand on the school
voucher issue, our stand on the healthcare issue (our stand on
cuteness). At this political moment, the
critical question for us, the baptized, is basically the same this
Sunday as it was last Sunday: What does
our stand on the Gospel put into the whole process of prioritizing the various issues? Does it put
nothing into the process because we have no stand on the Gospel? What does our Catholic Christian faith put
into the process of sorting out the issues? Does it put in nothing because our
Catholic Christian faith is basically
harmless and irrelevant even when we go voting for a president?
It’s
difficult.
Lining up the issues in order of first, second, and
third importance (and also of no importance at all) can be a problem.
Let’s say we like a candidate because he represents a party that has a reputation of compassion for the “little guy”: //
compassion for hard-working uninsured people who need healthcare; //compassion
for the elderly sick who need food,
heat, and medicine – all three; //compassion for hard-working people who need a decent family wage
to decently raise a family;
//compassion for our little Mother the Earth
who needs protection from the “big guy.” But this great candidate of ours, who
has so much compassion, is also pro-choice!
That’s a code word for abortion. There is nothing compassionate about partial
birth abortion (e.g.) nor about any
abortion. This great candidate of ours tells us he is for the “little guy.” But
there’s no guy so little as a fetus.
Or
let’s say we like a candidate because he is very pro-life for the not-yet-born.
But this candidate doesn’t seem to be very pro-life for the already-born:
he’s not all that concerned about inner city kids who need decent schools for
that’s 75% of the solution. He’s also not very concerned about elderly people
who need decent nursing homes to put a sweet ending to their lives. In both cases we are perplexed about our candidate, and so we
simply have to sort things out and
prioritize.
Less than
perfect
But as we do, we must keep one thing in mind: this is not the best of all possible worlds:
so whenever we choose and whatever we choose, it will always be less than
perfect. Life is always a mix of good and bad, light and darkness, wheat and
weed. This is not a bid for mediocrity; it’s a bid for patience -- patience with the best that this life has to offer, and that will
always be ”less than best.” “The best is yet to be,” and with patience we actively wait for it.
<<Remember Jesus’ parable about the field? A
farmer plants wheat in it but up comes also a huge crop of weeds. The hired hands want to rip out the weeds
but the farmer cries out, “No, no no.
For God’s sake, take it easy, you
guys. Pazienza. Be patience. Let
the two grow side by side, till harvest. Then on the last day the son of man
will come to cut down the weeds and throw them into the fire, but the wheat he
will gather into barns” (Mt 13:24-30). Yes, that the mix of life: wheat and
weed side by side till harvest, till the end of time. The best of all possible worlds is not here; in patience we are
waiting for it.>>
In the meantime we Christian Republicans and
Christian Democrats will do the best we can. We’ll lay aside the ugly acrimony
of the campaign and also the cynicism generated in us by it. And we’ll take our
Christian phylacteries containing our
Christian Shema (calling us to love God and the other guy and even ourselves) and we’ll tie our phylacteries to our foreheads and
wrap them around our wrists. Then
entering the voting booth and pulling the curtain shut behind us, we’ll vote:
we’ll vote not just for God, not just
for ourselves, not just for the other guy. We’ll vote for the three of us, for
Christ has made us one.