And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly, to love kindly,
and to walk humbly with your God. 

~ Micah 6:8

The vision, essence, and life pattern that characterize what it means to be a Christian are perhaps most succinctly and clearly found in the counter-intuitive and counter-cultural eightfold path of Christ laid out in the Beatitudes,1 in Jesus’ radical manifesto as enunciated in the Sermon on the Mount,2 and in Jesus’ closing discourse at the end of the gospel of Matthew dealing with the litmus test for confirming one’s alignment to Jesus.3 In addition to these three passages, we might add the three practices named in Micah 6:8. They too capture the spirit and core actions of the gospel, make clear what it means to live the Christ-life, and spell out what is required of us as people of God. What doesn’t appear in these passages ultimately is either less important, incidental, or irrelevant.

What seems to be lost on many United States citizens who self-identify as Christians and over-identify as American or with a political party or political figure, I humbly submit, is just how much the vision, message, and life of Jesus flies in the face of what the dominant American culture promotes, peddles, celebrates, and rewards. What many of us who are Christians and Americans too easily lose sight of as we dig our political trenches, line up our artillery, and face off against one another is that we are supposed to be the body of Christ, a counter-sign to, not the epitome of, the nonsense the dominant culture proclaims as gospel when, in fact, its vision, values, behavior, and consequences are so often trivial, transitory, or antithetical to the gospel of Jesus.

Our dual allegiances are not equivalent. We are Christians who happen to be Americans, not Americans who happen to be Christians. No one happens to be a Christian unless their understanding of the word is reduced to an adjectival pablum that is nothing more than a synonym for a sense of propriety, good taste, and modesty: “Oh, Mildred, she’s such a lovely, Christian lady. Her peach cobbler is to die for.” Or “Marvin is such a handsome Christian man. He’s got an amazing set of power tools and a 9 handicap to boot.” Being a Christ-one is a choice and what we choose when we self-identify as an apprentice to Jesus is to walk the beatitudinal path which, as you may have noticed, is the antithesis of what our contemporary culture insists makes for a life of blessing and happiness.

Let’s remember, the early Christian community was a tiny resistance movement, a sign of contradiction whose paradoxical vision and way of life rooted in the kenotic (i.e. self-emptying) love exemplified by Jesus was a threat to the faux Pax Romana which, as is the case in all dominant cultures, favors those with power, possessions, privilege, and is governed largely by self-interest.

The trouble with the message of Jesus is not that it is difficult to understand but rather that it is difficult to live. In G. K. Chesterton’s book What’s Wrong with the World, he famously states, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”? It is difficult to live because it messes with our desire to be safe, secure, comfortable, financially stable, pain-free, on top, in control, and thought highly of by all those who are safe, secure, comfortable, financially stable, pain-free, on top, in control, and think they are highly thought of. By this measurement, Jesus, his disciples, and followers were the bad news bears, losers or loafers, underachievers, misfits, malcontents, rebels, or zealots.

The trouble with the gospel is that on its way to setting us free its truth turns us upside down and shakes out of our pockets all of the prized possessions we’ve been holding onto—the shiny agate, the Indian head nickel, the pocket knife, the baseball card, the fortune from the cookie—not to mention all our easy assumptions, prized convictions, secret prejudices about ourselves, others, God, and how life “ought” to be. Why is the gospel difficult? Because it promotes a spirituality of relinquishment. Because, whereas the earthly powers-that-be encourage us to “get a grip,” the gospel message counter-intuitively urges us to let go of our grip on things, on life, on what we want, on what Fr. Thomas Keating called the false programs for happiness. The truth will indeed set us free. But the truth, at times, hurts like hell and tends to be very self-implicating. In reality, Jesus’ message is quite clear and simple for those who have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the heart daring enough to risk being undone by his words and deeds, his death and resurrection.

The Christ-life, as Father Greg Boyle has suggested, is as much a geography as a theology or spirituality since the burning questions are consistently where and with whom do we stand? In other words, the sign of our faith, allegiance, and commitment to be an apprentice of Jesus and a member of Christ’s body involves the unwavering choice to stand on the side of the poor, to stand with the most discriminated against, marginalized, exploited, persecuted, and violated in our communities, country, and world. It requires that we stand alongside the destitute, tormented, disheartened, and broken in spirit with mercy and compassion.

Simply put, when we refuse to stand with the anawim–literally, the bowed down–that is, with the earth’s most vulnerable and violated, we refuse to stand with Jesus, we refuse to stand with God in God’s hour of need as manifested here and now in the suffering of humans, the crucifixion of the earth and its plethora of creatures who, like us, live and move and have their being in and because of Divine love. When we fail or refuse to stand with “the least of these,” we are on the wrong side of the road, the wrong side of history, the wrong side of justice and mercy and the dream of God. When we stand with Christ by standing with the world’s dispossessed, we are on the road to communion and joy, “and we’ll walk with each other as sisters and brothers united in love!.”

Musica Memento 3

What I love about the video clip of the song below sung by the spirited Notre Dame Folk Choir are the looks on the faces of the choir members. It reminds us that living in the light of Christ as elucidated in the scripture passages above, loving God by serving the least of these with mercy and hope, forming connections with beleaguered humans and kinships with endangered other-than-human creatures and life forms, and participating in making the reign of God a reality “on earth as it is in heaven,” though counter-cultural and costly, is paradoxically, the life of enduring deep satisfaction, significance, and joy. Forever joy.

We Are Called

1. Come! live in the light!
Shine with the joy and the love of the Lord!
We are called to be light for the kingdom,
to live in the freedom of the city of God!

REFRAIN: We are called to act with justice.
We are called to love tenderly.
We are called to serve one another,
to walk humbly with God.

2. Come! Open your heart!
Show your mercy to all those in fear!
We are called to be hope for the hopeless,
so hatred and blindness will be no more!  REFRAIN

3. Sing! Sing a new song!
Sing of that great day when all will be one!
God will reign and we’ll walk with each other
as sisters and brothers united in love!  REFRAIN

MUSIC: David Haas, We Are Called, GIA Publications, © 1988. Notre Dame Folk Choir, Conductor Steven C. Warner

ARTWORK: Vincent Van Gogh, The Good Samaritan, 1890.

1 Matthew 5:1-12a. Technically, there are nine beatitudes but I consider the last two beatitudes as one.
2 Matthew1 5-7
3 Matthew 25: 31-46. Here Jesus portrays the last judgment based on whether or not we recognize Christ in the needy and respond with compassion, mercy, and generosity. “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you drink, a stranger and welcome you, naked and clothe you, ill and care for you, in prison and visit you?” And the king will say to them in reply, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers[sisters] of mine, you did for me. . . OR “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?” He will answer them, “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.”

♣ Friends, if these reflections from THE ALMOND TREE on The Sacred Braid benefit you in even a small way, consider passing it on to others who might enjoy it as well. Thank you ~ Dan