I dislike the tendency of Christians to pit the worship of Jesus against obedience to Jesus, whether it comes from the Left or the Right.
Examples of it from the Right are endemic and an entire tyrannical regime committed to gooey piety at the expense of the love of neighbor is just about to come to power, so I needed dilate on that. But there are also examples of it from the Left, like this:
Either way, Left or Right, I regard it as the most toxic schism in the Church since it tends to always reinforce an opposition that did not exist either in Jesus’ mind, nor in the mind of the early Church and consistently do damage to the Faith (though, as I say, the most prominent and powerful form is the Conservative “Thoughts and Prayers” version.
Here’s the thing: The worship of Jesus is not the opposite of social justice. Jesus taught us to look for his Presence both in the least of these and in the Holy Eucharist (and for all you conservatives out there, he taught his Presence in the least of these before he revealed it in the Eucharist. See the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats).
But for you lefties out there, he did in fact teach his disciples that he is God Almighty and that, as the Jewish tradition taught, worshipping him as “My Lord and my God” was the fitting response for anyone who was his disciple. He accepted, not rebuked, the worship of Thomas at the climax of John’s gospel and he accepted, not rebuked, the worship of the disciples at the climax of Matthew’s gospel. In the Jewish tradition, that means and had meant since the beginning, singing songs of praise, among other forms of worship.
The gospel is not a zero sum game. Works of love done for one’s neighbor are, O Conservative, done to Christ and works of love denied one’s neighbor are denied to Christ. But likewise, love and worship given to Christ is not time-wasting piety and is supposed to be the preparation for, not a prophylactic against, love of neighbor. They are the way in which we feed our souls on Christ so that we can love our neighbor in the power of the Spirit. We are to love God and love our neighbor both. The meme above means well, I think. It is objecting to bullshit “Thoughts and Prayers” conservative piety that uses so-called “worship” as a prophylactic against doing the hard work of loving one’s neighbor. It is a toxin endemic in MAGA Christianity. But embracing a toxin that minimizes the greatest commandment in order to emphasize the second greatest commandment is to simply exchange one toxin for another. The key is to remember that both commandments must be obeyed with equal vigor and not pit them against one another.
Advertisement
4 Responses
Yes, Lefties can be hippy-dippy, but right wing Catholics seem fixated on rules,rules and more rules. Rules are a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves.
Interpreting the tweet generously (perhaps moreso than it deserves?) we can compare it to psalms and epistles saying that God desires love, not sacrifice.
I don’t know the person so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on this, but it’s a bit of a moot point: That whole idea that any form of “religion” is opposed to “what Jesus actually taught” is, undisputably, out there. An equally indisputably, it is wrong. Christ overtly instructed his disciples to pray, to fast, etc. He warned them not to do it for show, but it was more than just implying that they would do it: “When you fast,” and “When you pray,” not “if” and certainly not “do not.”
To say, “Jesus never asked us to do that,” is technically correct: He wasn’t asking.
Any time anyone starts trying to “either/or” good things, I get suspicious.
Either you honor chastity and virginity or you honor sex and marriage.
Either you honor fasting or you enjoy feasting.
Either you worship Jesus or you obey Jesus.
Either you provide for the poor or you make beautiful buildings and art.
Either you sleep or you wake.
Either you live by faith or live by reason.
Either you like Star Trek or you like Star Wars.
Because the Church is wise, the Church lives in a cosmos of “both/and” when it comes to good things. Reject what is evil, but cling to what is good. And because we live in such a rich, magnificent cosmos, there are many good things. We tend to get in trouble when we make one good thing THE good thing and reject the others. That’s actually a pretty decent basic definition of heresy in many cases.
We can honor both virginity and marriage. Some people in the Church have a negative attitude towards sex, even within marriage. I think much of this comes from a celibate (supposedly) clergy, who don’t understand marriage or sex. All we hear is “Thou shalt not, thou shalt not.”
I tuned them out long ago.