Reading Francis

To whom do we belong?

I’ve been thinking a lot about a truism about religion that social scientists point out. For most of us, our faith (including secularism as a form of faith) isn’t so much something we adopt through reason, or something to whose principles we assent cognitively. 

Instead, for most of us, we progress from finding a group where we feel we belong, adapting our behavior to match theirs, and then over time internalizing their beliefs. 

Belong -> Behave -> Believe. 

This is as true for extremist groups and cults as it is for the local innocuous social club and anything in between. Our parents were right, after all (dang it!): eventually, we become the company we keep.

So to whom do we belong? And to whom should we belong?

If you look at the passages used for daily Mass this week, you get some interesting answers.

Over the course of the week, there are readings from three different Old Testament books (Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah) about the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem. After generations of Israelites had been dispersed across the known world, a series of Persian rulers supported the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple. 

On the one hand, this is a story of knitting back together a tribe around a shared faith; the remnants of Israel that return “home” belong to each other, even if that home is new to them and needs to be rebuilt almost from scratch. On the other hand, their ability to undertake this ambitious project relies greatly on the benevolence of neighbors and rulers who do not, themselves, belong. Cyrus the Great and his successors aren’t Jews, so they don’t belong, but they are key to the story.

Jesus seems to have a different definition of belonging. On Tuesday, we get the poignant scene from Luke in which his family shows up, and Jesus challenges the crowd. “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” It seems that, for Jesus, belonging isn’t a matter of tribal identity but of choice and obedience. In fact, in the next day’s Gospel, (Luke 9:1-6), Jesus sends his apostles out to spread the word and commands them to take nothing with them, relying on those who choose to take them in. This doubles down on the idea that those who belong are those who choose to help out.

Then we get to Sunday, and, hoo boy. Amos and Luke both describe the person who belongs only to himself. Amos condemns those who take care of their every desire without lifting a finger for God and others. In Luke, Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus, in which the rich man acts like those that Amos describes, treating Lazarus as a doormat before his death and an instrument of relief after the rich man goes to hell (and Lazarus to heaven). There is a faint sense in which the rich man belongs to his family, as he asks God to send Lazarus to warn them, Jacob Marley-style. Essentially, though, he only belongs to himself.

Meanwhile, Sunday’s Psalm (146) is TOUGH:

Blessed is he who keeps faith forever,

Secures justice for the oppressed,

Gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets captives free.

The LORD gives sight to the blind;

The LORD raises up those who were bowed down.

The LORD loves the just;

The LORD protects strangers.

The fatherless and widow he sustains,

But the way of the wicked he thwarts.

The LORD shall reign forever;

Your God, O Zion, through all generations.

As I read it, those who believe they belong only to themselves or their close kin are clearly on the path to ruin. Those who claim a broader allegiance based on tribe or shared community are closer to right. But God calls us to see that we all belong to each other, which we show in how we care for the oppressed, hungry, captive, blind, beat down, strangers (meaning immigrants), orphans and widows.

We live in a moment when a lot of us Christians seem to be stuck in that middle gear. We know that self-centeredness is bad, but if we can claim a faith community that looks and acts like we do and feels like home, then that’s good enough. (This may not be that unusual a moment.) 

God always pushes us farther though. If our community doesn’t push us to love people that we don’t really want to love, by including them in our circle of belonging, by behaving like those who are different (and especially those who are dispossessed) are equally part of God’s family, by expressing the uncomfortable belief that God showers a lot more love on the outcasts who need it than on the inner circle who don’t, and calls us to do likewise, maybe we belong to too small a Church.

To whom do we belong? Answer carefully, because apparently this is really important.