III. Gospel Living Values

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them (a scholar of the law) tested him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." (Matt. 22:34-40)

 

Since gospel values are the basis for living an authentic life of Christian witness and the core of the faith we wish to share, identifying major themes in Scripture and Church Tradition is an essential step. Most Catholics do not read the Bible, Church documents, or theological materials on their own, so they are generally only aware of what their local parish presents to them. Isolated passages or insights can take on much greater meaning when put into a larger context, so understanding key themes as they are developed throughout our faith sources is important. For example, we cannot fully understand the significance of Luke's portrayal of Jesus initiating his public ministry (Luke 4:16-30) unless we understand the Sabbath and Jubilee implications of that reading based in the Hebrew Scriptures.

But which themes are most important? For the purposes of informing the laity in their role, themes should have clear applicability to daily life issues in the United States today as well as being dominant and central to our faith. When asked to identify the most central directive in scripture, Jesus replied with the Great Commandment: love of God, love of neighbor, and (implicitly) love of self. This command is key to living a moral life of discipleship based around relationship. As Russell B. Connors, Jr. and Patrick T. McCormick express, the concept of sin is not following these directives:

Scripture tends to portray sin as a threefold alienation: alienation from the God who creates and loves us; alienation from our neighbors and from the rest of creation that we are called to love and care for; and alienation even from ourselves. Sin is a rift tearing at every fabric of our lives.1

Since Jesus, many Christian authors have attempted to compile lists of central biblical themes. For example, Connors and McCormick identify eight: creation, sin, covenant, incarnation, death and resurrection, discipleship, love of neighbor, and reign of God.2 I have selected three primary themes for gospel living which incorporate aspects of Connors and McCormick's themes and which each address the three parts of the Great Commandment. Stewardship addresses how we are gifted by God and how we should respond. Sabbath economics encapsulates a divine economy of grace in which God provides enough for everyone. Vocation describes how God uniquely calls each of us to service in the world.

 

1 Connors and McCormick, Character, Choices, & Community, 205.

2 Ibid, 106-112.