Matthew 25:31-46

Year A - New Year’s Day

January 1, 2014

Matthew 25:31-46

Here is another Day of Resolution. How nitty-gritty are you willing to get.

I resolve to work on both the personal and structural realities of hunger.
I resolve to work on both the firsthand and business realities of clean water.
I resolve to work on both the interpersonal and institutional realities of welcome.
I resolve to work on both the charitable and corporate realities of shelter.
I resolve to work on both the singular and societal realities of prison.

That will be sufficient for one year; for one lifetime. Working on any one of these will get you trouble with family, friends, and community. I pray you are up to facing the consequences of not attending to these resolutions, for they will come around and not just in some final judgment sort of way.

Based on the resolutions and enactments of this day, there will be positive or negative consequences for the next seven generations. Will we care for them as much as we do for our own immediate comfort? Aye, there's a rub.

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If you need another prod to significantly resolve, read this conclusion to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech on the Four Freedoms with the refrain, "Everywhere". [Epiphany (January 6) 1941]

Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. 

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are: 

• Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
• Jobs for those who can work.
• Security for those who need it.
• The ending of special privilege for the few.
• The preservation of civil liberties for all.
• The enjoyment -- The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living. 

These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations. 

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples: 

We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance 

We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care. 

We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it. 

I have called for personal sacrifice, and I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call. A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message I will recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today. No person should try, or be allowed to get rich out of the program, and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation. 

If the Congress maintains these principles the voters, putting patriotism ahead pocketbooks, will give you their applause. 

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. 

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. 

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. 

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. 

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world. 

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb. 

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. 

Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society. 

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.