A consistent life ethic

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to ponder a challenge to develop a consistent ethic of life.

Ethic for Life Decisions

Today is marked by the USCCB as the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children.

In the reading from the First Book of Samuel, David challenges Goliath and prevails over the Philistine with a sling and a stone.

 * [17:12–31] Here the final editor begins an alternative account of David’s encounter with the Philistine hero, which continues in vv. 50–51 and concludes in 17:55–18:5.1

Psalm 144 is a prayer for National Deliverance and Security.

 * [Psalm 144] The Psalm may reflect a ceremony in which the king, as leader of the army, asked God’s help (Ps 144:1–8). In Ps 144:9 the poem shifts abruptly from pleading to thanksgiving, and (except for Ps 144:11) shifts again to prayer for the people. The first section (Ps 144:1–2) is a prayer of thanks for victory; the second (Ps 144:3–7a), a humble acknowledgment of human nothingness and a supplication that God show forth saving power;2

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus cures the man with a withered hand on the Sabbath.

* [3:1–5] Here Jesus is again depicted in conflict with his adversaries over the question of sabbath-day observance. His opponents were already ill disposed toward him because they regarded Jesus as a violator of the sabbath. Jesus’ question Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil? places the matter in the broader theological context outside the casuistry of the scribes. The answer is obvious. Jesus heals the man with the withered hand in the sight of all and reduces his opponents to silence; cf. Jn 5:17–18.3 

A biblical account of Elhanan and Goliath 2 Samuel 21:19 tells how Goliath the Gittite was killed by "Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite." Storytellers probably displaced the deed from the obscure Elhanan onto the more famous David.

Malcolm Gladwell looks at the battle between David and Goliath from a different view point.

Andy Alexander, S.J. comments it is a special occasion to reflect on the sacredness of all life from conception to natural birth. When we find ourselves reaching out, in our reflection, to human life we can not see - human life in its development - we can grow in a deeper respect for all human life. Defending unborn human life can help us be more conscious advocates for all human life after birth. Especially, the human lives of those who are not so easy to defend: murderers on death row, enemy combatants, people are on the margins of our society.

 Becoming more sensitive to human life can help us become more sensitive to our common home - this planet - which we have abused so much as to change the amount of CO2 and Methane in the atmosphere - trapping gases into the greenhouse effect, which has steadily raised the temperature of our planet. The effects of these changes - as Pope Francis reminds us so vividly in his encyclical On the Care of Our Common Home (Laudato Si) - hurts the poor of our world first and the worst. Ultimately, human life itself could be challenged unless we make significant changes in the way we choose to live, all around this planet. I've been in a third world country with no pollution laws, and visited and held children in an orphanage with birth defects we haven't yet seen in the first world. It is terrifying to see what these unborn children have suffered.4

Don Schwager quotes “The tender compassion of the Lord,” by John Chrysostom, 547-407 A.D.

 "Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, 'Come here.' Then he challenged the Pharisees as to whether it would be lawful to do good on the sabbath. Note the tender compassion of the Lord when he deliberately brought the man with the withered hand right into their presence (Luke 6:8). He hoped that the mere sight of the misfortune might soften them, that they might become a little less spiteful by seeing the affliction, and perhaps out of sorrow mend their own ways. But they remained callous and unfeeling. They preferred to do harm to the name of Christ than to see this poor man made whole. They betrayed their wickedness not only by their hostility to Christ, but also by their doing so with such contentiousness that they treated with disdain his mercies to others." (excerpt from THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 40.1)5

The Word Among Us Meditation on Mark 3:1-6 asks “But what difference could I possibly make? Abortion is such a polarizing issue. How can I turn the tide?” Jesus told the man, “Stretch out your hand” (Mark 3:5). But the man’s hand was useless. He couldn’t do what Jesus commanded, but he obeyed anyway. And in that obedience, he found healing.

 As we pray for the unborn today, let’s remember today’s first reading. David was able to rescue his people with only a few stones and deep faith. In a similar way, we can triumph over fear, cynicism, and despair by stretching out our hands and witnessing to the preciousness of life.6

Friar Jude Winkler summarizes the battle between David and Goliath. He mentions Elhanan the Bethlehemite. We also can rely on the strength of the Lord to act through us. Friar Jude reminds us of the invitation of Saint John Paul II to add service to the weak and needy to our Sunday worship.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, in speaking of the relationship between contemplation and action, introduces Diana Butler Bass who describes the natural flow from solitude to prayer to active love.

 For those who went to the desert, “come follow me” [Matthew 19:21] was not an escape; rather, it served as an alternative practice of engagement—the first step on the way toward becoming a new people, a universal community of God’s love. 
[Their response to Jesus’] “Come follow me” was intimately bound up with the practice of prayer. For prayer connects us with God and others, “part of this enterprise of learning to love.” Prayer is much more than a technique, and early Christians left us no definitive how-to manual on prayer. Rather, the desert fathers and mothers believed that prayer was a disposition of wholeness, so that “prayer and our life must be all of a piece.” They approached prayer, as early church scholar Roberta Bondi notes, as a practical twofold process: first, of “thinking and reflecting,” or “pondering” what it means to love others; and second, as the “development and practice of loving ways of being.” [1] In other words, these ancients taught that prayer was participation in God’s love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves, away from the familiar, and conforms us to the path of Christ. [2]7

Ae we ponder the challenge of a consistent life ethic, we live out that commitment in our service to those in need.