Witnessing to a Politics of Love of Neighbor

Brothers and sisters: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

-Ephesians 4:30 - 5:2

Greetings of peace!

When I heard this reading on a Sunday in mid August, it spoke to my heart. As we move through another bitter and divisive election season in our country, we are truly so far removed from this Christian vision St. Paul offers us. There is no shortage of “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling … along with all malice.”

What is a Christian to do? St. Paul offers us clear instructions: “be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another … be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loves us and handed himself over for us.”

It’s certainly daunting to write anything about politics and elections these days. But, we very much need to reflect on the connection between our Christian faith and our political life. A Catholic News Service story reports on a recent talk by Pope Francis in which he calls for Catholics “to be active participants in political life and be a force against the decline of democracy worldwide” (usccb.org/ news/2024/pope-indifference-cancer-democracy).

So, then, the question becomes: how should we, as Christians, participate and help shape the political life of our country? I would argue that our participation can be transformative if we allow the vision of the gospel to guide us. To illustrate this, I would share some reflections I have come across in recent weeks that I believe speak clearly to our Christian witness in the midst of toxic political partisanship and division.

First, I was struck by a reflection I read on the gospel reading for August 9, where Jesus teaches: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

In the resource, Give Us This Day (giveusthisday. org), Justin Bartkus notes how Jesus’ words offer an alternative to the “competition and conquest” prevalent in our world:

The French philosopher René Girard, a distinctive Catholic intellectual of the twentieth century, was a theorist of violence…. In Girard’s theory of violence, desires for things like power, money, or superiority function as a twisted social fabric

that stitches people together into common ambition, even as the lust for preeminence produces an ever-simmering and sometimes eruptive hostility between people, groups, or nations.

Jesus seems to believe his mission was to unstitch this fabric of competition and conquest. Favoring instead a fabric of generosity … I take him to mean: Those who seek security inside the maelstrom of worldly ambition act against the generous abundance of the Kingdom of God.

It is Jesus’ cross that reveals the distinction between this dismal world of rivalry and his own humble way, in which greatness manifests in smallness, and power takes the form of vulnerability and service.

We are called by Jesus, Mr. Bartkus reflects, to stitch together a “fabric of generosity” in our lives and communities. As Christians, we seek to promote “the generous abundance of the Kingdom of God … in which power takes the form of vulnerability and service.” It is the way of the Cross, of humility and self-sacrifice, and not the way of “rivalry” and “greatness.”

Second, in a recent post on the Catholic news site, The Pillar (pillarcatholic.com), Ed Condon shares some thoughts on the state of our country in light of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. He writes:

Wedge issues, competing constituencies, the mechanics of campaigning and the binary choice of every ballot makes political power a zero sum game. A body politic can only survive it intact for so long if one’s neighbor becomes first rival and then enemy.

[President John] Adams understood that democracy is inherently adversarial in its practice and is "wholly inadequate" to the task of holding a nation together if its people do not, cannot, and have no reason to love their neighbor.

Nothing constructive comes from hate. And nothing good is communicated through hate.

A house divided, Lincoln quoted Christ saying, cannot stand. And Lincoln’s time in office was wholly consumed with a bloody war in which half the country elected to fight for the right to enslave their neighbors. It ended with a bullet in his head from a man who hated Lincoln for ending it.

Fast forward to today, what matters more than one man’s attempt on the life of a candidate is the context: an America in which people seem broadly resolved to hate their neighbors. Until that changes, violence will find its inevitable place.

Again, the challenge for us, as Christians, is to reject the dominance of rivalry, division, and coercive power in our political life - viewing our neighbors as “rivals” or “enemies” - and to hold up and give witness to a generous love of our neighbor.

This brings me to my third, and final, point of reflection. In an article at the Catholic media site, America (americamagazine.org), the Most Rev. Gustavo García-Siller, M.Sp.S. (Archbishop of San Antonio), challenges Catholics voting in the 2024 election to ask, “Who is my neighbor?”

Do we dare ask, "Who is my neighbor?" Or are we even bolder, so as to accept the challenge of becoming neighbors to God approaching us under the guise of the sick, the stranger, the imprisoned, the unbeliever, those who do not think or worship as we do? To whom may I become a better witness of God’s love with the help of God’s grace? How willing am I to allow for my loving outreach to turn me into an outcast?...

Love of God is made concrete through love of neighbor, and love of neighbor leads to love of God. The Lord’s law is very simple to understand but not easy to live by.

Love of God is made concrete through love of neighbor, and love of neighbor leads to love of God. The Lord’s law is very simple to understand but not easy to live by.

… We cannot love God and hate his children. The Lord leaves no room for us to have enemies. This requires the strength that comes from a new perception, capable of seeing the good that exists in each person. This will lead us to remember that we are all created in God’s image.

Love of God. Love of neighbor. “The Lord’s law is very simple to understand but not easy to live by.” Indeed, how true this is! And, yet, it is what we are called to, even and especially in a time when so much of our political culture (and even, most sadly, of our ecclesial culture) promotes a spirit of hostility and division. Let us, as followers of Jesus, seek to honor St. Paul’s words by giving witness to kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and to live in love. Deo Gratias!

Many people today feel as if there is no hope, as if they are powerless. God promises something new. Things can be different, but it must begin with each of us. We must change our hearts, our attitudes and then our actions. In loving and serving others - especially the least - we can truly change the world. This transformation is up to all of us. Let’s make something

- Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller (from the article cited above)