The morality of Jesus’ followers

1187 words, 6 minute read. [A Spanish translation is available here.]

If Jesus returned today, how could he tell who his followers are? He’d look not at what people say, but at what they do. Who is it that feeds the hungry, welcomes strangers, encourages the disheartened, is ready to give their life for their friends? He’d look for those who embrace the excluded, ease the pain of the suffering, defend the defenseless, not those who shout “Lord, Lord” or who declare that their presence renders a place “holy ground.” He’d look for those who waste time with the worthless, are brothers and sisters to the lonely and who take the last seat at banquets. He’d look for those who recognize Him in their neighbors and who put the needs of others ahead of their own.

In other words, he would look for those who live moral lives, since morality is nothing other than choosing good over evil, choosing love over hatred or indifference, choosing others over myself. For a follower of Jesus, morality starts with the good news that God so loves us that he sent us his only son, who loved us like a brother, who called us his friends. A Son who even accepted being forsaken by his own Father, moments before dying on the cross, so that no suffering, failure or separation would be insurmountable, so that no one would ever think that they are off limits for God’s love or the love of his followers, so that all would know that His resurrection is for them, open to them, waiting to welcome them.

Wherever there is division, suffering, exclusion, oppression, Jesus is firmly on the side of the forsaken. God’s self-giving, self-noughting love makes every person sacred and of intrinsic value. All of Christian morality follows from this central reality of God’s love for his creation and for us, humans, whom he made so that we may freely respond to his love. And He invites us to choose Him, to choose what is good, with every single choice we make and in every single action we perform. Should I feel jealous of another person’s success, or should I rejoice with them in their achievement? Should I say a certain thing about another person, or would it be gossip that wounds them? Should I buy this product, or another, knowing that a purchase impacts the lives of many who worked on bringing it within my reach, where one choice may contribute to just wages while another may line the pockets of modern day slave owners and destroy the environment? Should I sleep with my girlfriend or boyfriend as an expression of love for them, or would it be a reckless gamble with her or his life and the potential life of a child? Should I denounce abortion, or do I also need to seek the good of those who committed it, recognizing their anguish and suffering too and being aware that I don’t know and can’t know the state of their innermost selves?

God waits patiently, longs for all to come ever closer to Him and His mercy has no limits. And since following Jesus is an invitation to imitating him, I too am invited to love in the way in which God loves me and every single other person, no matter how imperfectly I or they may respond to God’s invitation to reciprocate His love. There is always a choice open to me that brings me closer to God and therefore to every other person too. No matter how far I am from God, choosing to move closer to Him is the moral thing to do and no matter how often I make the wrong choice, every present moment gives me alternatives that are more moral than others.

Not only is choosing good always available to me, but God Himself is there with me in my innermost self, in my conscience, to guide me and help me discern good from evil. Even in my most intimate self I am not alone, but it is there that God invites me to choose Him who is Good, who is Beauty, who is Truth, who is Love. And He sends me his followers to help me listen to His voice, to help me form my conscience so that it may be ever more attuned to God, to help me persist in choosing good over evil. And He helps me further still by making what is good deeply embedded in the very nature of the universe and accessible to reason.

The choice of good over evil is centered on self-giving, which is participation in God’s creative act of love. It requires self-noughting so that giving may be perfect and ready to perfectly receive a gift in return, holding nothing back and leaving nothing out. So that giving and receiving may be in imitation of the life of the Trinity itself, where the Father gives himself wholly, generating the Son, the Son empties himself wholly in return, giving Himself to the Father without exception and the Holy Spirit makes Himself nothing so that the Father and the Son may love one another in Him without constraint. Such loss comes at a price, but one that is far outweighed by the love that follows and the joy it brings.

Like the inner life of the Trinity, morality is not primarily a matter of individual perfection or achievement, but the quality of a life lived in a community that journeys towards God, a community that journeys with God. Imperfectly, failingly, but with the God who emptied himself, suffered forsakenness and died for his friends, walking among his brothers and sisters. Being composed of imperfect members, this community’s morality too is imperfect and evolving, and its perfection is commensurate with the degree to which it lives in the presence of Jesus in its midst. It strives for an ever deeper understanding of what choosing good over evil means, an understanding that grows over time as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. What once was considered acceptable becomes absolutely forbidden and what at one time was out of bounds is welcomed. Capital punishment and inter-denominational marriage respectively are past examples in the Catholic Church; what will be future ones? Everything changes and nothing does at the same time, since God’s self-giving, all-embracing love for us, whom he endows with intrinsic value by that love, is the immutable core to which we tend on our journey towards Him and with Him.

A consequence of this journey is also the need for particular sensitivity to what is on the boundaries of morality at any one time, since some of these, as yet forbidden choices may be where the journey towards God leads next, while others slope off and away from union with Him. Only an openness to God’s voice in my innermost self, in the hearts and minds of my brothers and sisters, in the voices of the suffering and forsaken and in silent prayer will lead to discerning right from wrong here, to understanding what God’s love and mercy call for in the here and now.