GETTING MY PRIORITIES STRAIGHT

Whenever I want to remember what is really important in life, I call my Mother. I call just to check in and she how she is doing, as she will be 91 in December. She never complains even as she is in quite a bit of pain from the rheumatoid arthritis that has afflicted her since childhood. She always and quickly steers our conversation toward two issues: our five daughters and what is happening in the world, especially with the poor.

   The children and the poor, they are Mom’s concerns. They always have been. If some issue in my life seems to get the better of me, if there is some priority that seems to consume my life, a call to Mom and everything is put back into perspective. Those whom the world disregards, who often seem to be of little or no account, these are the very ones at the top of Mom’s Care and Prayer list.

   They were at the top of Jesus’ as well. There was a special place in Jesus’ heart for the children, for the poor, for the forgotten of this world. No one and nothing was more important. He scolded those who would shove the children into the background and he set up the poor and their generosity as examples to those who thought they were so special because of their money or power or prestige. The marginalized of this society were Jesus’ focus of attention. He had little time and less use for those who would rather engage in theological debate than tend to the needs and concerns of the have-nots.

   Besides, all theology is speculative because we are dealing with the Truly Unknown: God. We never know for certain the mind of God because, as Isaiah said a few millennia ago, God’s ways and God’s thoughts are not the same as ours – which is unfortunate. Which is also why Jesus came among us, namely, to remind us of how God thinks, about God’s priorities. The moot question, of course, thus surfaces – and remains: should not our priorities be those of God and God’s Son?

   As we all know, there are two main theological and political battles we are waging in the church and society these days – the homosexual and war issues. They are clouding over everything else. While it is vital that we discuss these issues, in many ways they have become smokescreens (deliberate or accidental I will not judge) that hide the real issues that should be our top priorities, my Mom’s two priorities: the children and the poor.

   None of this is to say that we should not engage in serious political and theological discussions. It is to say that when such discussions begin to consume so much of our waking moments, so much of the life of the church, then we need to call my Mom. She will gently remind us about what our priorities should be. The time, energy and financial resources we spend, and all the rhetoric we expend, fighting over what is or is not a sin would better be spent and expended on redressing the results of the sins of selfishness we have committed and continue to commit every day – poverty and its fallout: disease, dislocation, and death and whose greatest victims are the children of the world.

   The list is a long one, but as starters George Bush, John Kerry, the Presiding Bishop, and both our House of Bishops and the African Bishops need to give Mom a call.