Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. 
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

In today’s first reading from Deuteronomy, we hear Moses recount to the people of his time how Abraham—”A wandering Aramean was my father”—had led his household down into Egypt where they lived as foreigners, but where they also flourished and became a great nation. Then he says “And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage” (26:5-6).

In the Passover celebration of meal-sharing and storytelling of the exodus event and subsequent liberation, the people gathered around the table are invited into a ritual form of remembrance—in Hebrew zikkaron—by which they do not merely recall this event of liberation but relive it in the present. As is the case in the Passover Service, notice in this passage from Deuteronomy that Moses uses the first person plural pronouns we, us, and our rather than the third person plural pronouns they, them, and their despite the historical distance. “Then we cried to God . . . and God heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression”(Dt. 26:7). Moses says this isn’t a case of Remember When. This isn’t merely Taking a Look Back. Why? Because Moses says in essence, they are us, and we are them. His spoken words become an act of solidarity.  God “brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and outstretched arm . . . and bringing us into this country gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.”

At the celebration of Mass during the Eucharistic prayer, Catholic Christians participate in a similar ritual practice—in Greek called anamnesis—by which the power of Jesus’ liberating death and resurrection are remembered not as mere nostalgia but rather in such a way that worshipers actively participate in and experience the power and reality of the past event brought into the present impacting the future. Instead of “That was then, this is now” the ritual remembrance transfigures the experience so that “That was then, that is now.”

(Photo by Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Perhaps the historical gap that is closed by the remembrance activated in zikkaron and anamnesis can be applied to closing the geographical and experiential gap as well. Here deep sympathy can activate re-membering ourselves to others, for example, the Ukrainian people, not across time but distance of miles, worldview, and lived reality.

Much has been made of late about the divisiveness in America and in the world today. Though we yearn for the day when all shall be one, and though Jesus calls us to be makers of peace, workers for justice, and initiators of healing and reconciliation, it is also up to us to choose sides, to decide where and with whom we will stand as we work on behalf of peace, justice, healing, and reconciliation.

Jesus invites us into a “geography of faith.” I suspect if the choice were between what do you believe and with whom are you standing, Jesus would encourage us toward a geography of faith, a spirituality of social location, of solidarity and association. It’s association by justice (right relationship) as opposed to association by guilt.

Other than love, if we are judged by anything else, I suspect it will be with whom did we stand. The litany of characters in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5—the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, those who show others mercy, the pure of heart, the makers of peace, those who are persecuted—and the cast of characters in the well-known passage from Matthew 25—when did we see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you drink—are emblematic not only of where and with whom Jesus stood, but also where and with whom those who take his name—Christ-ones—are to stand.

We live in the age of the Selfie. Even more so, we live in the age of the Posted-Selfie. It’s as if God gave us arms and hands solely for the purpose of extending them two feet in front of our face and snapping a shot of moi. Equally telling is how fashionable it has become to take a Selfie with another more famous Self or Selfies. The more famous, the better the Selfie. No one is running around the neighborhood or city or world eager to snap shots of themselves with the unknown and unseen, the anawim—the bent low and most vulnerable. Not many are interested in having their pictures taken with the cast of the Beatitudes or Matthew 25. Jesus takes the question “What is your standing in life?” and transforms it from a question of status to a question of association, solidarity, deep sympathy, and sacred kinship. “Where and with whom are you standing in life?”

How horrible, unjust, tragic, and sad have been the pictures on the news of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, of the bodies of the dead and wounded, the lines of people fleeing for their lives from their country. But also, how encouraging, inspiring, hopeful, and telling to see how many people around the world are standing in solidarity with the oppressed Ukrainian people saying in essence You are us. We are you. Your utterly unnecessarily murdered father is our father. Your screaming frightened child is our child. Your hunger and thirst for freedom is our hunger and thirst for freedom. Your right and desire to flourish—in a land of milk and honey—is our right and desire to flourish. This is what Dr. King meant by the network of mutuality.

This is the grand scale. This is important. But closer to home, the same is true as well. The long list throughout history of the friends of God finds a common theme: you don’t need to do big things, flashy things, front-page things, public and noticeable things. Doing little things with love will do. We just need to keep our eyes out for family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, and strangers who are hungry, thirsty, sad, perenially unseen, in need of touch or word or gesture or act of kindness and tender mercy; those who are anxious, lonely, discouraged, distraught, sick; those who are exhausted and weary, self-loathing, tormented, afraid, addicted, despairing, and dying in our midst who long for peace.

I will end as I began—with poignant and provocative words by Martin Luther King, Jr.

I choose to identify with the underprivileged,
I choose to give my life for the hungry,
I choose to give my life for those who have been left out
of the sunlight of opportunity . . . this is the way I’m going.
If it means suffering, I’m going that way.
If it means dying for them, I’m going that way,
because I heard a voice saying Do Something for Others.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

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