I have been thinking - and writing - a lot recently about the nature of love, of caring, of concern. And on this, the final Brothers and Sisters for 2009, I would like to continue that exploration.
My focus will be in part biblical, and in part topical.
It is a personal reflection - those words should sound familiar when offered by teacherken :-)
And it is of course an answer to the question raised in Genesis 4:9 by Cain:
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
The answer of course is yes, And for better or worse, he is mine as well.
That is the basis of this reflection, which I invite you to read, and upon which I invite you to comment.
In the New Testament we encounter another expression of this concept. Too often people mistake the story for a real account, which it was not. It is a teaching parable, the one we know as The Good Samaritan. And too often we forget that the parable is told in a larger framework, in response to a question from a lawyer:
And who is my neighbor?
A good teacher does not answer the question of the student, but helps the student achieve the answer on his own. We tend to forget that Jesus often demonstrated how masterful a teacher he was. Especially in Luke 20:25-37. Allow me to offer the complete King James version, then offer my analysis.
25 ¶ And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
27 And he answering said,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind;
and thy neighbor as thyself.
28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
29 ¶ But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?
30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
34 and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him: and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?
37 And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
First, allow me to note the overall structure.
Lawyer ask question - what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Jesus, being a good Jew (and great teacher), answers that questions with 2 questions of his own - What is written? How do you read?
The Lawyer answers referring to Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.
Jesus as teacher affirms that the student KNOWS the answer to his own question.
Note format - L-J-L-J with the first two being questions, the second two being statements.
That structure is paralled in the rest of the quoted verses.
Lawyer - who is my neighbor?
Jesus prefaces his next question with the teaching parable
Jesus - who was neighbor unto him set upon by thieves?
Lawyer - the one who showed mercy on him - NOTEthe lawyer, a Jew, can still not properly call the man as Jesus did, Samaritan, perhaps because of the hatred of Jews towards Samaritans. That is PART of the teaching.
Jesus: Go, and do thou likewise.
Go, and do thou likewise.
to anyone, regardless of their tribe, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, race, or politics.
Go, and do thou likewise.
Who is YOUR Neighbor? He who shows mercy as we should show mercy.
In the Paschal Verses of the Orthodox Church, the last sung during the Matins of the Resurrection on Pascha (Easter), just before the Catechical Sermon of John Chrysostom is read, goes like this (translation used by Orthodox Church in America):
This is the day of resurrection.
Let us be illumined by the feast.
Let us embrace each other.
Let us call "Brothers" even those that hate us, and forgive all by the resurrection, and so let us cry:
Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death.
And upon those in the tombs bestowing life.
(the Christ is Risen is sung 3 times)
All of the great traditions have some form of the Golden Rule, and I will not rehearse them all. It should suffice to note the near universality of the understanding of our commonality, despite other parts of the traditions that seem to indicate particularity.
Pascha/Easter is in fact the heart of Christianity - for without the Resurrection there would be no Christianity, death would not be "overthrown." And in the tradition of the ancient churches of the Christian East, consider the openness of heart contained in the jubilation of that feast:
Let us call "Brothers" even those that hate us, and forgive all by the resurrection
This nation is yet again attempting to address the issue of health care for all Americans. That is in my mind insufficient, because the legislation now being debated excludes those within our borders who are undocumented. We thereby violate the religious, the Biblical, understanding of what should be the extent of our mercy. As we can read in Exodus, 20:21:
You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
and in Leviticus 19:33:
And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.
We are all neighbors to one another, we should all show mercy to one another, we are - ultimately, genetically - all related to one another.
This has become ever more concrete to me this past year. I had an intellectual awareness of the need. Then in July I went to Wise, VA, and volunteered at a health fair, co-sponsored by Remote Area Medical Missions (RAM) and the Mission of Mercy (MOM) of the Virginia Dental Foundation. I have written about that event. I have also written about my subsequent volunteering at a similar event in Grundy VA in October. I have told this community that for the first time I will not attend the annual convention because the date for Las Vegas conflicts with next year's event in Wise, and I am committed to continuing to return so long as I can.
My volunteering does not make me superior. Please do not misunderstand. It is personal, a way I can remind myself that I am connected with all.
Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris. John Donne begins Meditation XVIIof his Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions with those Latin words. Donne writes in the context of a church catholic, universal. As often as people quote the most famous part of the meditation, I wonder how many fully absorb its meaning?
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Let me reduce that even further :
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
Part of my involvement in mankind is my vocation of teaching. But even as I have noted that such is my essential political action, it is not the limit of my involvement.
Perhaps because I have wandered through multiple religious traditions and studied even more, I feel somehow connected to the aspirations and hopes of people very different than me. The faults I may see in the actions or ideologies of others are also very human, and when I am honest with myself and my nation and my society, I can see tendencies towards many of those I find most repugnant in myself, my nation, my society.
I try to think of persons - individuals, each unique, yet each having so much in common with me.
It is why I prefer to try to be subjective - to see each as subject in herself - rather than "objective" and thereby losing the focus on the individual.
Too often I fail. There are simply so many persons. Even with my 180+ students i sometimes lose sight of the individuals, to my shame and regret.
I then think of the answer of the Abba in the Desert among the early Christians who answered a question about what they did in the Desert with a simple idea: we fall, we pick ourselves up, we fall, we pick ourselves up, we fall, we pick ourselves up.
Perhaps if one is Christian one remembers Jesus saying that one needs to forgive one's brother not merely 7 times, but 70 times 7. To which I would note my own need of such apparently unlimited forgiveness, not so much for the big and deliberate hurts I may do, but for the pettiness, the small actions of mindlessness, or sometimes the hurts caused by simply not paying attention, not recognizing the other person in front of me.
Am I my brother's - and sister's - keeper? Yes, even if I am not a very good one.
But then I am lucky - so many are my keepers. They are neighbors unto me. They show me mercy.
How can one not be thankful when one realizes how much s/he receives from others, some of which s/he will never meet?
I realize our finances - as individuals and as a nation - are not without limit. The making of public policy and some judgment of our individual actions of necessity must include considerations of financial limit, of opportunity costs of money and of time and energy.
But our decisions, as individuals and as a nation, should not be determined solely by those limits. We should consider how our actions and words, even within the limits of finances and time and energy, are merciful. Whom do we see as our brothers and sisters, as our neighbors? To whom will we show mercy? How much will we open our hearts and begin to experience what love can truly mean, and how it can heal others and thereby heal ourselves and our society?
If we can deny justice, basic human rights and civil protections to anyone, how can we complain when they are denied to us, to our kith and kin, our friends, . . .???
Brothers and Sisters at Daily Kos: we are each others' neighbors, we are each others' keepers.
And not only each others' - but all those we see and encounter; and even those whom we do not know.
In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the lawyer asks a question. Jesus's question in return enables the lawyer to realize that he already knows the answer.
But then the lawyer asks his second question - Who is my neighbor?
After the parable, Jesus asks another question, and the lawyer's answer makes clear he knew the answer to his second question. Jesus deliberately told of a person who was not of the law, not a Jew, perhaps even hated by the Jews. In recognizing the neighborness, the mercy shown, the lawyer apparently could not bring himself to say the hated word "Samaritan." Jesus does not address that directly, merely directs him to do as he already knows he should: Go, and do thou likewise.
We can decide that some are Samaritans and some are not, and whether that appellation is a blessing or a curse. If we do, we miss the point, completely.
We are each other's keeper, we are to one another neighbors. Samaritan, Jew, Christian, agnostic, Hindu, gay, straight, white, black, tall, short, skinny, fat, American, Muslim, blonde, blue-eyed, brunette, atheist, socialist, conservative, communist, female, bisexual, progressive, capitalist, transgendered, male, Ph.D, high school dropout, Republican, Green, Democrat, liberal, moderate . . .
For all the labels we can append to ourselves and to others, even in our differences and our uniqueness, we are far more identical, down to our very genetic material.
Shakespeare gave Shylock these words:
If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
We are brothers and sisters. We should be neighbors. And as we would have done to us, so must we do to others. As we would not have done to us, we should not do to others.
We know the lesson. And we know the command. It applies in our politics and policy as well as in our personal lives. We see many examples, and thus the words should resound to us all, regardless of our particular faith or belief:
Go, and do thou likewise.
As best as we each can do, remembering that when we fall, we can pick ourselves up.
Peace.