People Look Like...

When I was growing up in the 50's and the 60's, I remember there being a strong sense of national responsibility and accountability for the great gifts that we shared as a nation.  There were programs like Peace Corps and VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) established to provide avenues of sharing our wealth, our talents and our time with others in the world who were not as fortunate as we.  We recognized how blessed we were as a nation.  Following upon that came the concomitant responsibility for those gifts.  We somehow knew, if only in our unconscious hearts that "from whom much has been given, much will be expected" (Luke 12:47).

All that began to change in the 1980's.  With the rise of the "Greed Is Good" culture, we started to view those who were less fortunate than we as a threat to our own material security.  Rather than recognizing their human dignity and right to participate in the goods of the earth, we adjusted our perspective so that they became responsible for their own material situation.  Since they had created their own circumstances, we were no longer obligated to alleviate their misery by sharing our abundance.  We were free to simply accumulate and enjoy without thought of responsibility to others.

This background history has been underlined and highlighted in these last months of electioneering as we have come up to the voting next week.  As I listen to the buzz words of the political ads, I am struck by the selfishness that seeps out between the cracks.  The worst name that can be given to a candidate is "liberal".  That used to identify someone who wants to share the wealth and abundance with those who have not.  Now it has come to signify someone who wants to take everything away from YOU and give it THEM (THEM being those who do not deserve anything except the miserable conditions they have put themselves in).

The underlying question that has been raised for me is, how do I (we) view people around me (us).  Do I see them as human beings with a dignity given by God?  Are they my equals with a right to the blessings of the earth with which I have been blessed?  Or do I see them as parasites on the human race trying to get something for nothing?  My attitude towards them and judgment of them will affect not only how I view these elections and how I vote.  More importantly, it will influence my day-to-day interactions with each person I meet.  Ultimately, my perception of reality and the people around me will create my eternal stance before God.  It is impossible to view individuals as anything other than human reflections of the Divine and still be included in God's family.

The only passage in the New Testament where Jesus speaks of the judgment that we will face at the end of our life is in Matthew 25:40.  "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers you do to me."  How we view and respond to those around us has not only political implications, but eternal consequences.