The By-stander Effect

Faith Rowold recently reflected on a phenomenon that social psychologists describe as the "by-stander effect": the more people around a situation that requires action, the less likely anyone is to actually respond. Researchers seek reasons why this happens but it might be reduced to simply thinking that "someone else will do it."

Someone else will give the guy on the corner something to eat. Someone else will organize the yard sale for the parish. Someone else will visit the lonely looking lady that sits in the back pew.

But Scripture call us out by asking, "Why are you waiting to show mercy? Why are you waiting to lend a helping hand?

How often do we think that help will come from some other external source? When we do that, we forget the simple truth that we are literally the "body" of Christ: we are God's hands on earth. Only through us can God show others that they are loved by the God who loves us.

Christ has no body but yours,No hands, no feet on earth but yours,Yours are the eyes with which he looksCompassion on this world,Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,Yours are the eyes, you are his body.Christ has no body now but yours,No hands, no feet on earth but yours,Yours are the eyes with which he lookscompassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
                               --Theresa of Avila

New Clothes

As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. (Colossians 3:12)

It is significant to note that every one of the graces here mentioned by St. Paul have to do with relationships between people. There is no mention of gifts like cleverness or diligence. Not that these are not also important in the Christian disciple's life, but the great values that govern a Christian's life are those that govern human relationships -- Christianity is first and foremost community. 

Compassion. If the ancient world needed anything, it was compassion. It is no wonder that this value was at the very heart of Jesus' teaching. In that world, the sufferings of animals meant nothing. The sick and maimed were pushed to the margin and sometimes even exiled. The feeble were treated poorly. 

Kindness. The word Paul uses here describes the kind if virtue practiced by an individual whose neighbors good was as important one's own. Call to mind the parable of "The Good Samaritan." It is the same word that Jesus used when he described his yoke as easy (Matthew 11:30). Too often goodness taken by itself can be a stern thing. But kindness is the kind of goodness that has been mellowed by compassion.

Humility. It has been said that humility was a virtue created by Christianity. In the ancient world, humility always had a touch of servility to it. To be humble was to recognize that one was "less than." In the gospel way, humility is not a cringing cowering thing. Rather, it is based on the awareness that human beings are creations of God, made in God's image and likeness. Secondly, it is based on the belief that all human beings are the children of God. There is no room for arrogance when we are living among men and women who share a bloodline that is shared with the Son of the Most High God.

Meekness. Aristotle taught that the person who possessed this virtue was the person who lived the happy mean between too much and too little anger. For Paul, this is the person who exercises an appropriate level of self-control: always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time, an individual who simultaneously exercises strength and the sweetness of true gentleness.

Finally, Patience. This is the spirit that sees foolishness and seeming unteachability and never reaches to cynicism or despair. Insults and ill treatment never drive it to bitterness or wrath. It is a human reflection of that divine quality that gives us the confidence that God is always ready to withstand our shortcomings and failings and offer forgiveness at every turn.

These are the garments of Christian grace at work in our lives. These are the clothes we put on at baptism and which, during this holy season of Lent, we seek to rediscover and renew.

"He raises up the lowly"

At Ash Wednesday Vespers, we traditionally recited the Song of Mary (Magnificat). Each time this canticle comes my way I am increasingly convinced of God's purposes in "raising up the lowly."

It's way too easy simply to apply this concept to the maiden of Nazareth and leave it at that. However, Scripture repeated tells the story of how God calls the outsiders, those whom the world has marginalized, to play a significant role in the salvation of the world. As far back as Sarah (a barren elder woman) who bears a child of promise (Isaac), Ruth (the foreigner) who mothers the Davidic dynasty, Moses (the adopted Egyptian) who led Israel to freedom from oppression. Among these, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth, conceived out of wedlock, who consorted with prostitutes, tax collects, and heals the lame and the blind (who were thought to be cursed by God because of sin).

Abagail Nelson said it well: "For those who have been consistently ignored, marginalized and even forgotten by the world, the idea that God might choose the lowly to be heard, to be noticed, to be preferred is something that bursts into reality like a gift, a possibility for transformation." (ERD Lenten Meditations 2014)

With that said, consider the directions of American political society over the last three decades where the poor are again pushed to the margins, where the foreigner is castigated and denied opportunity for civic redemption, where those who seek to speak truth to power are named as traitors to "the American way."

Nelson concludes, "God does not choose the poor in order for them to remain quiescent in there secret preferred state. Scripture instead shows us that the Samaritan, the prostitutes, the exiled are called to act out God's love in faith in the world, and in so doing, become the leaders we all want."

We All Have Choices

People are capable of doing an awful lot when they have no choice and I had no choice. Courage is when you have choices.

-- Terry Anderson

Lent is a time to remind us that we have choices. 

It seems that more and more today, we hear how our lives are somehow determined . . . . by nature and/or nurture. New defense strategies in trials of individuals alleged to have committed horrific crimes range from the now infamous "Twinkie Defense" to more believable determinisms that arise from physical and mental abuse as children. 

Some of these may indeed be valid. However, our wholesale acceptance that we are not individually or communal responsible for the evil that we commit is based in an increasing abdication of responsibility. 

Flip Wilson's comic line from the 1960s, "The devil made me do it" is a more simplistic way of looking at it. Indeed, the devil (however we may conceive of him/her) may in fact be at the root of the problem, BUT we can never forget that the me in the equation is free to turn away from evil and toward God or the good. 

This takes courage. 

In a self-deprecating way, Terry Anderson reminds us of this important truth. Anderson is actually a hero. He could have chosen to turn his mind and heart toward his captors but he did not. He held firm to his identity and to his purpose in life. In this way, he maintained himself as a discrete individual capable of the freedom to choose. 

Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent that follows, is a continual reminder to us and to the world in which we live as disciples of Christ that we are free -- free to choose the path, the way of life -- or to let our lives be determined by forces that seek not to upbuild but to destroy. 

This season, heed the voice of the Lord as he calls us to reconnect with the source of life. Truly, in our world, this will take courage. Just remember, courage is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit and is ours simply for the asking. 

Money Makes the World Go 'Round

"Money makes the world go around
The world go around
The world go around
Money makes the world go around
It makes the world go 'round"

Lyrics from the award winning musical "Cabaret" speak a truth that most of us would prefer not to recognize. Many of us would prefer to think that love makes the world go 'round, or at least some similarly "noble" value.  But the plain truth is that it is money: not the dollar or the yen or the Deutschmark, or the pound, but the notion that somewhere, we have a store of power that can change our lives and the lives of those we encounter for good or ill. In the words of the Clinton campaign committee, "It's the economy, stupid!"

This is a fact.

Even Jesus recognizes the same.

I think that is why Jesus spoke so frequently about money and our attitudes toward it.

Let's look at ourselves for a moment. For most people, truth-telling about their monetary worth is a taboo subject. In my own family, it has been considered rude to ask about "how much someone is worth." Even more so, we were trained not to give a direct answer to such questions like, "How much did you pay for that house/car/suit . . .?" much less answer a question like how much is in the bank or in one's paycheck.  This all despite the fact that most of this information is easily accessible if someone really wants to know. For example, my salary is a matter of public record for the parish (annual meeting must approved the budget); the value of our home is available on websites like zilo.com; and anyone who purchases a car, or a suit, for that matter, knows the ballpark figure of how much it is worth.

What strikes me about all this is the relationship between generosity and truth-telling.  It seems that we guard our financial secrets so that others will not know whether or not we are authentically generous. The gospel calls us to a preferential option for the poor (or another way, solidarity with the poor), so to admit that I may not actually be poor may call into question just how generous I have been with what I have. By extension, we may see how the Church falls short of its gospel call when we add up all that it owns, has and provides for. If we are totally transparent about money in the Church, we may end up seeing that we nearly miss answering the call to a preference for poverty. We have so often seen the call to poverty as an ideal - as something ascribed to those capable of sainthood - rather than as something that each and every believer is called to live. It would do us well to tell some truths about what we have and what we think we control so that we can honestly respond to the needs of the poor, whom we will "have with us always."

Is it wrong to criticize?

Is it wrong for Christians to criticize? How often we have heard or have said ourselves, "Don't judge." It's as if using our critical faculties (the ability to observe and assess) is not friendly to the Christian Way. I don't think this is the case. A friend recently shared with me the following quote:

"Many Western Buddhists believe that judging runs counter to insight and unconditional compassion, that passing judgment automatically implies a troubling duality, a delusional moral hierarchy. The Buddha, however, warned not against judging, but against being judgmental. The former implies clear comprehension of appropriate action and the latter implies bias and misconception." --Mary Talbot, “No Justice, No Peace" This is a really helpful distinction. In studying Paul's first letter to the Church in Corinth in which he is most critical of the believers there, I found that he had a unique and similar approach. Before he upbraids the believers for their shortcomings, he makes sure they understand who(se) they are. As believers baptized into Christ, he intimates that it is not their spirit that is false. Rather, it is their failures that are untrue. He tells them essentially not that they have failed to measure up to an ideal that they have yet to attain, but that they are not fulfilling the character with which they have already been gifted. In other words, they are not failing to attain something outside of themselves, but that they are not exploiting what already exists inside them-life in Christ Jesus.  In this way, Paul sets for us an example: that godly, Christian critique (criticism) must always take the form of an exhortation to fully receive what we have already been given! (Alan Gregory)

Blessing begets blessing

Increasingly, we live in an age that finds it hard to trust. Cynical and unsure, suspicious and pessimistic, unable to enjoy the gifts we have when they are right in front of our eyes, we vote reluctantly or not at all, despair of our political choices (“They’re all crooks anyway”), assume the moral bankruptcy of every institution on our society (“Government does not have a problem, government is the problem”). Facts don’t seem to matter; weird conspiracy theories emerge at every turn. We live in an age that finds it easy to suspect and increasingly difficult to trust.

That is not just too bad. It creates an environment where faith becomes more and more difficult. The spiritual life is all about trust. We grown spiritually when we trust in God and not by covering our flank and greeting every new opportunity with suspicion and mistrust. We simply don’t grow when we think that way. Rather, we shrink from a full and active life.

The abundant healing of Christ readily washes over us but only the heart that is open can avail itself of it. Those who have open hearts know how possible life seems when one dares to believe and acts on that faith. It is the at the root of a confident life.

It becomes, in a way, a self-fulfilling prophecy – this trust. The more I trust in the goodness of God and its action in my world, the more evidence I have for it and I am able to see more opportunities for its impact. It is this way that I become one who builds up rather than one who tears down.

This is how blessing begets blessing in the economy of God.