A young Samuel in today’s Old Testament reading believes he is being called and responds, “Here I am.” Andrew in today’s Gospel believes he is being called and responds by following Jesus who lives in and keeps building a community.
It is natural to consider our lives and our life’s calling in individual terms – ‘Here I am’ – ‘I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps.’ For individualism to be healthy, however, it must live in balance with care and gratitude for community. It often does not in the U.S. For example, it happens to be NFL playoff time. Every member of a football team works hard to create that team. Amidst that team building, special attention is often given to an individual, the quarterback. He can remain humble, showing care and gratitude for the team. If not, and addicted to the spotlight, his ‘Here I am’ ego will denigrate others and show little concern for the loss of community. This seems the plight of quarterback Aaron Rodgers. His loss of relationship to community was most recently observed in suggesting Jimmy Kimmel was on Jeffrey Epstein’s list of allies, which Rodgers knew to be false. Rodgers did not mention his idol Donald Trump being on the Epstein list. Rodgers was not speaking from conscience nor for truth. He was speaking as a spectacle on a spectacle called ESPN’s Pat McAfee Show. McAfee is also a Trump defender and also shows little regard for conscience or truth. Rogers and McAfee will speak their lies again as ratings and thus money-making indicate. Donald Trump too is an individual without humility and also without community. Like Rodgers and McAfee he has fans, a shortening of the word ‘fanatic,’ meaning “insane persons.” Addicted to the spotlight, the ‘Here I am’ spectacle of ego and lies that is Trump, speaks neither for conscience nor for truth. Rodgers, McAfee, and Trump are permitted to be individual spectacles because they are members not of any community but of a privileged group – white supremacists. The most such individuals with their fans can gain – and it is the worst – is a mob, a mass of people diminished of conscience, strangers to the truth. That mob is currently destroying community. Individualism in the U.S. was once shaped as a healthy element by such men as Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. Both men lauded individualism but as an expression of conscience. Witnessing conscience is witnessing our relationship within community. It is the witness Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) recently provided when responding to MAGA Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). Mace claimed “white privilege” in the justice system was attacking Donald Trump. From Crockett, “Let me tell you something, y’all don’t know what white privilege looks like… y’all wanna talk about a two-tiered justice system. And this is the only time that y’all have ever referenced it, but this country has a history when it comes to black and brown folk having two separate sets of rules.” “Y’all lie. That’s just the bottom line.” “You talk about free and fair elections but you back a guy who we know tried to steal the election.” “You say “January 6th was nonsense, but y’all… were grabbing y’all’s gas masks and y’all were running to your offices because you didn’t know if they were coming to kill you.” Now “you wanna play games… all you care about is Trump getting re-elected.” Re-electing the white supremacist Trump is more likely when his fans Rodgers and McAfee and others speak from their white privilege while conscientious truthtellers like ESPN anchor Jamele Hill speak from their Black community experience and get canceled/fired, “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” “His rise is a direct result of white supremacy. Period.” From such witness to conscience, we can stem the rise of white supremacy and create community.
“I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes. But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong… I, too, am America. (I, Too – Langston Hughes)
Prayer: Spirit of Conscience, keep me humble in speaking truth.
Question: What is my privilege and how does it harm community building?
January 14, 2024 Gospel John 1:35-42 Second Sunday in Ordinary Time