With Hanukkah and Christmas in our rear-view mirror, Christians and Jews should remember that this time of the year is filled with divine light which illuminates our lives.
Whether it is the light from the Menorah or the celebration of Jesus, the Light of the World, divine light invites us to bring light to our world.
As Isaiah in the Hebrew Scriptures tells us: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. This common metaphor tells us that so much more unites people of good will than divides us.
Light enables us to see in the dark and recognize our common humanity, regardless of the darkness of our world.
Muslims, Jews and Christians may be different because of our various religious traditions but, in this day and age, we are absolutely equal in our responsibility to care for our world, to care for one another and to care for the most vulnerable among us. The Koran, the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament echo each other in celebrating peace, generosity, unity and care for humanity.
Extremists in all faith traditions give organized religion a bad name. In the United States, the fastest growing cohort of people are “nones.” These are people who check the box, none of the above when asked about their religious preference. Muslims get bad press because of the treatment of women in Iran and Afghanistan. Some Jews are viewed negatively because of the way the Israeli government treats Palestinians and some Christians give Christ a bad name by harboring very negative views about members of the LGBTQ community.
As a subset, the Catholic Church is still reeling from the clergy sexual abuse scandal. It is no wonder that more and more people are distancing themselves from the religious traditions of their ancestors.
As we approach the New Year, all of this should be a wake-up call to all believers of whatever stripe. It should particularly be a clarion call for religious leaders to recognize the importance of preaching unity in our divided world.
When a congregant cuts off another car when leaving Church after midnight mass, it is a clear sign that what took place inside the church had no impact on what took place outside the church.
The car in the Temple parking lot with bumper stickers that boast insults and violence about political adversaries is clearly being driven by a person who does not have God or Allah on speed-dial.
It has often been said that the role of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
This overstatement casts into bold relief the challenge of helping people to see that religious ritual of any sort is meaningless unless it is accompanied by actions. The connection between everyday life and religious practice is more important today than ever.
Divisions within our nation weaken us and contribute to the paralysis that exists in addressing major issues. The most glaring example is the inability of successive administrations to craft an immigration policy that is humane, respectful and generous.
As long as this complex issue is viewed through a partisan lens, the sufferings of border communities and immigrants will continue.
The immigration issue is just one of many concerns that our nation and our world are facing.
Climate change is real and threats to our environment are not partisan in nature. They cry out for solutions that will impact generations that are yet to be born. Pro-life and pro-choice divisions continue to roil our social landscape and contribute to the unhealthy tensions within our body politic.
The list of complex issues that get reduced to partisan, simplistic solutions is very long indeed.
This is the landscape ahead of us in the next year. The “nones” will continue to grow in proportion to the inability of major religious traditions to become part of the solution to our nation’s ill and not part of the problem.
Rabbis, imams and priests need to be non-partisan and respectful of legitimate political differences. They do not have rarified knowledge of the truth. What they do have is a responsibility to help people think beyond political differences in order that our most intractable problems can be solved.
Msgr. Paul Garrity is a senior priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and former pastor at St. Mary’s Church in Lynn.