What matters most to you? Or, what should matter most? A friend of mine recently said that their highest values were honesty and loyalty. I think those are perfectly good values, especially honesty. Once I heard a speaker giving career advice say, “Always be beyond reproach.” Build your life, your reputation, and all your actions on the solid ground of Truth. And yet, honesty alone can be hurtful. Pity the man who honestly answers a woman’s question about how she looks.
“Loyalty” begs the question, To what or who should you be loyal? Today’s passages from The Bible In One Year include the story of Zacchaeus:
19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Luke 19:1-10
Why were tax collectors so despised? Well, for all the reasons we still don’t like paying taxes, plus the fact that they were responsible for transferring money from their own people to the occupying Romans. They were seen as disloyal. Yes, tax collectors were wealthy, but their material wealth came at the expense of their community connections.
The risk, though, is that blind loyalty can take you places you shouldn’t go. I am on the steering committee for APEC, a conference that was supposed to have been held in New Orleans on March 15. We are still trying to settle out the finances from canceling the in-person conference. When times are bad, the best and worst of people are revealed. What we’re seeing is that each individual is doing what they think is best for their respective organization, whether it be one of the three sponsors (PELS, IAS, PSMA), the umbrella organization IEEE (of which PELS and IAS are part), the conference itself, or the company or university that an exhibitor or attendee represents. As a result, nobody is happy. Everybody thinks someone else should suffer more. Everyone sees the impact of decisions on themselves, without the perspective of the other parties.
Wisdom is revealed in a famous, anonymous quote:
Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?
Anonymous
As well, there is wisdom in Paul’s famous words:
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13
Two different perspectives, one internal and one external, both culminating in this: LOVE. Loving your neighbor means seeing the world through their eyes, and acting accordingly.
As the pandemic rages on, we should each consider how our actions express our love. Which is more loving: to keep our community locked down, to remove all restrictions, or something in-between? How do we balance individual needs against community needs? I don’t have THE answer, but I do have one answer: we need to take care of those who are most vulnerable.
Zacchaeus had an epiphany, that is, he saw and recognized God. Immediately, he changed to a life of integrity, a life of loyalty to his people, and a life of love.