Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
Thanksgiving is coming up. It’s a much anticipated day in America, a day of sharing a meal in communion with family and perhaps some friends. After the floating turkey balloons, the Sesame Street and Charlie Brown floats of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, televisions switch over to the green of the gridiron for some Thanksgiving Day football. Glorious smells pour out of the kitchen throughout the day, preparations ongoing for a dazzling array of comfort foods that will be devoured swiftly. Turkey is the central dish of the traditional American Thanksgiving. It sits at the center of the table, complemented by equally delicious counterparts. Perhaps pumpkin pie, cornbread, mashed potatoes covered in gravy? Families will lock hands in prayer and meditation over this offering, in communal gratitude for harvest, hearth, and home.
Some families will not have this. Some individuals will not have families to share this ritual with. They will have no ritual at all. They may have no home, no food, or simply inadequate amounts of these. They may have their Thanksgiving meal – out of cans. They may have to beg strangers for a few dollars, sit in the cold, and have a sandwich. By themselves. Unemployed, kicked out of their homes at the behest of bank executives, living in shelters, absolutely destitute or homeless or some combination thereof, many will be left in the cold this Thanksgiving. As Occupiers camp out amongst the homeless and destitute, the Machiavellian politicians, financially incompetent bank executives, and some of the lawless police officers who are working to undermine Occupiers’ cause of justice will join hands with their family and friends and offer words of praise and flattery to that very deity who said that what is done to “the least of these” is so done to him.
One needn’t be a believer to understand the moral obligation of each of us, as individuals, to the poor, to the destitute, to the least of these. If we can afford to feed the hungry, we should feed them. If we were hungry, we would hope that others would feed us, especially if our hunger was the result of a system that serves the wealthy, and turns a cold shoulder to the needy. A society that fails to employ increasing numbers of Americans, fails to give them an opportunity to do their part, and then blames them for not having a role in society, is a senseless society. A man must be either stupid or cruel to blame another man for failing to have what is not available to him, what is repeatedly denied to him. Yes, a woman must be stupid or cruel to blame victims for their own suffering.
When others cannot pick themselves up, and we can pick them up, we have an obligation to, as individuals, as a society. Only the most socially inept amongst us would say otherwise. Most of us understand that if you don’t do unto others as you would have them do unto you, you’re a hypocrite. Most of us.
Yes, such moral obligations do not just pertain to individuals. Like it or not, they pertain to all of society, and a society which fails to meet the needs of the least of these, which blames poverty on the poor, unemployment on the unemployed, suffering on victims, is a society guilty of a grievous moral turpitude. At the least, it is an amoral society. At the worst, when it also prefers war and violence, and all other manner of flagrant immorality to the care of the least of these, it is an outright immoral society engaged in an unsustainable subservience to barbarism.
“Am I brother’s keeper?”, says Cain to God after he has murdered his brother Abel, but feigns ignorance of what has truly happened to him. Whether that ancient Book of Genesis, wherein these words are found, is literature, the inspired Word of God, or the inerrant and infallible Word of God, its message is clear: Yes, you are your brother’s keeper. What’s fascinating, in the stomach-turning sort of way, is that at the heart of the political party most entrenched in its opposition to assisting the poor and needy is America’s self-professed “moral majority”, America’s “Religious Right.” Yes, they’re rabidly religious, and rabidly right-wing. That America’s Religious Right could so ignore society’s moral obligations to the poor, as presented in the very Bible which they claim to esteem, is a testament to either ignorance thereof, or a great hypocrisy. I have repeatedly targeted (and will continue to target) America’s Religious Right in my more political writing. This Religious Right, a political force at the heart of America’s Republican Party, seeks the enforcement of their private interpretations of morality, by government, for the entire body politic. On the most contentious moral issues, they demand collective civic obedience. And yet, on moral issues about which there is no question, on the obligation of all to one another, especially to the most needy, they rail against public morality enforced by government! They repeatedly stand in the way of social justice. That sort of Pharisaic hypocrisy is unbearable.
As we give thanks this Thanksgiving, let’s be mindful of those with very little to be thankful for. Let’s be mindful of the roles we play in contributing to the suffering of others, and the roles we can play in alleviating suffering, as individuals, and as a society. Let’s be wary of those who engage in false gratitude and vain piety, and let’s open our hearts in that sincerity of gratitude and action that would make us people – and a people – of integrity. I know this Thanksgiving, I’ll be thankful for workers of justice and compassion the world over: Occupiers, volunteers, family and friends. People of integrity, keep your hearts on justice. Happy Thanksgiving.