In my last post, 4th of July fireworks still ringing in my ears, and mindful that a) our humanity is best revealed in Jesus and, b) Jesus spoke in terms of obligations, never in terms of rights, I wondered if we’d be closer to fulfilling our Jeffersonian aspirations as a nation if the first ten amendments to the Constitution had been a Bill of Obligations rather than a Bill of Rights.
It is certainly true that, as Jesus-followers (particularly progressive Jesus-followers), we talk a lot about rights: human rights, civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights. And we do so for good reason. Too many in the world in general and these United States in particular are marginalized because of their race, their ethnicity, their gender (or understanding of gender), their religion, their sexual orientation.
Indeed, it is worth asking ourselves how much our vision of the Kingdom of God itself is based on what we can claim for ourselves and others as a right, and do we miss the radical heart of the Gospel in the process?
We should spend some time with the 20th century philosopher, activist, and Christian mystic Simone Weil. In what may well be her most influential book, The Need for Roots, written amidst the devastation of World War II, Weil famously argued that obligations take absolute precedence over rights and, in the process, articulated the limits of a rights-based faith.
Weil argued that the concept of a right is inherently transactional, belonging to the realm of commercial bargaining and legal contracts.
Rights, she argued, are conditional. A right can be granted, taken away, or forfeited depending on context or legal status.
Rights are competitive. They often prompt us to ask, “Why does someone else have more than I do?”
Rights center the ego. They encourage us to look inward at what we are owed, rather than outward at what we owe others.
If, therefore, our theology relies solely on rights, we tend to treat justice like a courtroom battle, looking for a legal minimum rather than a holy abundance.
In contrast, Weil notes that obligations are unconditional, universal, and eternal. They do not depend on whether a government recognizes them, nor do they require the other person to “deserve” them.
Obligations are independent. They remain fully binding regardless of changing laws.
Obligations are one-way. They do not require reciprocity to be active.
Obligations stem from need. They are born directly from the vital needs of the human soul and body.
Weil famously observed that an individual stranded completely alone on a desert island would have absolutely no rights because there would be no one around from whom to claim them. Yet, this individual would still have obligations—to respect life, creation, and their own human dignity.
For Jesus-followers, Weil’s argument mirrors the concept of kenosis, the self-emptying love of Jesus given voice in Philippians 2:6-11.
Jesus, who could’ve walked the earth demanding his Divine rights, didn’t. Instead, he subjected himself entirely to the obligations of servanthood and agape, going to his knees to wash the feet of his disciples, going to the cross to redeem the brokenness of all humanity.
If we shift our focus from rights—what we are owed—to obligations—what we owe our neighbor—our understanding of our humanity and how we are to live it (indeed, the very way we look at the world and our role therein), changes dramatically.
We move from charity to responsibility. Feeding the hungry is no longer altruism; it is fulfilling a basic obligation of one child of God to another.
We see systemic oppression more clearly. If one person is suffering or marginalized, we own our complicity in failing the obligations we have to all people.
We anchor our work in the Kingdom. We treat the vulnerabilities of others not as problems of policy, but as a sacred responsibility demanding our energy and resources.
Weil was asked to draft a plan for rebuilding a new society in postwar France free of what she perceived to be the mistakes of the French Revolution of 1789 (and, by extension, the similar mistake made by the so-called Fathers of American independence): basing a country on universal rights of the individual rather than on a framework of obligations. Indeed, she labeled those decisions a “disaster.”
Living amidst the realities of World War II, she had reason to (in spite of the fact that Charles de Gaulle dismissed Weil’s plan—and Weil—as “nuts,” which says as much about de Gaulle as it does Weil and her plan).
The case can be made that we, too, have reason to question the collective price many have paid in this country given our emphasis on rights rather than obligations, on privileging (and, in this context, I use that word advisedly) me over us.
It is a question I’m reflecting upon with earnest as work on creating Beloved Community where I live in Colorado has just in these past couple of days begun to take shape in substantive ways because Beloved Community insists we must think in terms of our obligations to one another; that, indeed, the very idea of asserting rights apart from a fundamental embrace of obligations is short-sighted at best, and—yes—disastrous at worst.
Because is it not true that if we each embraced and honored our obligations to one another, the need for rights would be something very different than what it is?
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