In Jesus’ time honor to parents, fathers specifically, was so highly valued male rulers sanctified it as a holy Commandment. In today’s Gospel Jesus tells a parable that shocks his listeners, “chief priests and elders” who are hypocritical keepers of that Commandment system of honor. It extols a son who publicly dishonors his father – the son ultimately follows his conscience. Jesus is rejecting the ruler’s honor system and transcending it with conscience, for his time and all time.
Living conscienctiously enables us to be a person for our time and a person for all time. Jesus’ parable and its message about hypocritical rulers and their honor system are applicable when discussing rulers throughout history who violate conscience and thus violate their moral responsibilities. It is oftentimes conservatives who defend historical persons, specifically rulers. They are esteemed as honorable though are guilty of immoral behavior. For example, misogyny – Paul and Augustine, slavery – founding fathers, rape – Jefferson. Conservers of the system usually defend these persons by claiming they were people of their time expressing the values of their time. This is problematic for two reasons. It is hypocritical to enroll as a conserver of moral virtue but then be selective in its application. Also, conservers tend to claim they are moral absolutists, meaning they assert good and bad exist independent of time or culture. Yet in this regard, they prove to be moral relativists. They are asserting prior rulers were victims of their times and its values. Conservatives are willing to defend history’s human rights violators by negating the personal moral responsibility conservers claim to hold so dear. While conservatives assert moral relativism and personal ir-responsibility to previous rulers such as the slave owning founding fathers, they assert moral amnesia about the people of that same time who worked to abolish slavery. Abolitionists were people of their time. They were also people of all time because they were not primarily conservers devising and maintaining the honor and values of rulers. They were human beings doing their best to live by conscience.
As abolitionists were people of their time and all time, so too were people providing sanctuary down the ages – during the 3rd Reich, for draftees during the Vietnam war, during the U.S./Latin American death squads. So too are nonviolent labor organizers people of their time and all time, as are conscientious objectors. What is to be done now in this time of Muslim bans, LGTBQ discrimination, DACA rescinded, police brutality, neo-Nazi confederates marches, and unending wars? Will we be people of our time who are also people for all time because we live from conscience in a time of trial?
Prayer: Spirit, give us courage to be people for all time.
Question: When have I been a person for all time?
October 1, 2017 Gospel Matthew 20:28-32 Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time