Citizenship = Responsibility

In Disney's "The Lion King"--one of my personal favorite Stories--we see Simba the young Lion King's journey go thru several ups and downs, twists and curves, even bumping a few curbs.  Simba is born a prince, intended to be the next King of the Pride Land.  He is raised with a seemingly stringent code of tradition which dictates each individual and each species of animals' purpose and place in the world.

Simba's father Mufasa tells him, "Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance.  As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope."  Simba asks, "But, Dad, don't we eat the antelope?"  "Yes, Simba, but let me explain.  When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass.  And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life."

Simba eagerly anticipates his place as eventual King but his wicked and jealous Uncle Scar has other plans.  He successfully plots with the hyenas to murder and overthrow Mufasa and send Simba into exile.

While Scar rules the Pride Land, Simba grows up in another land essentially being raised by Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog.  Timon and Pumbaa are free-spirits, basically fending for themselves and living an independent and care-free lifestyle.  They teach Simba this same way of life known as HAKUNA MATATA: It means NO WORRIES, a problem-free philosophy.  Timon tells Simba that "when the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world!"

Simba chooses to live out this philosphy with his new friends for some time.  But eventually his past--and his destiny--catches up with him.  His best friend, and future bride, Nala, discovers Simba and his friends.  Simba had been assumed dead but now Nala suddenly has HOPE.  Although Simba, fully entrenched in his HAKUNA MATATA me-first philosophy, at first refuses to go back with her.

Nala challenges Simba to do something, begging him to see that in his absence everyone in the Pride Land has suffered.  He tells her bad things happen, and there's nothing you can do about it, so hakuna matata, why worry?  Nala replies, "Because it's your RESPONSIBILITY!"

A friend shared this week an opinion article from The Register Guard newspaper about CITIZENSHIP.  The article, written by Rick Mangnall on September 12 (2017) describes how citizenship used to be defined, "Through the years I grew to understand that citizenship meant behaving myself.  It meant subordinating my impulses.  It meant realizing that I was only one person in the group, and not the most important one.  It meant I had to play fair, and to earn a mark of 'E', for excellent, I had to be generous to others.  Citizenship was not a condition, it was a set of behaviors.

"Over the decades, we have shrink-wrapped citizenship in a tight plastic package that squeezes it down into one, relatively trivial consideration--where one was born, or whether one has the requisite paperwork to make where one was born irrelevant.  Our idea of citizenship has been squeezed down into a national version of Costco membership..." (The Register Guard, Rick Mangnall, September 12, 2017, "Improving Citizenship Should Be a High Priority")

In ancient cultures the responsibility of the individual to the rest of the community always took precedent over their independent rights.  Sons took on the profession of their father.  Children raised their own children while living in the home of their parents so that three to four generations lived together.  Even the faith or religious practices were carried on by the family as a unit, as evidenced in Scripture in the Book of Acts when the Philippian jailer becomes a follower of Jesus and his entire household followed suit; it was not simply a matter of a powerful testimony, it was an expectation to follow suit as a family, as citizens in that family-community.  It was part of the cost of citizenship of the community, to put the needs of the many above the few, or the one.

In this famous, important, classic scene from cinematic history (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), the Vulcan Captain Spock places himself in mortal danger in order to give the starship Enterprise and its crew the chance to escape an exploding nebula just in time.  Spock tells Captain James T. Kirk that it is "logical" for him to sacrifice himself, and reminds Kirk, "I have been, and always shall be, your friend."

This entire scene echoes the words of Jesus, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay one's life down for one's friend" (John 15:13).  On one hand it makes perfect sense for the logical Vulcan to give his own life away to save the rest of the crew.  Yet it also shows us a very HUMAN side of Spock, that he loves his ship and crew, that they are family, that they are worthy of his sacrifice, his love.

While both those sides of Spock--the logical, dutiful side, and the friend and love side--are importantly featured in this scene, we also see a deeper understanding of CITIZENSHIP IN and RESPONSIBILITY TO the community.

This is a totally topsy-turvy philosophy from what our modern culture expects of us.  We live in an individualistic me-first, my-rights, my-opinion, my-feelings, my-needs culture.  Even when we are concerned about others ultimately we are still willing to do so only in so far as it is reasonable in the sacrifice or expectation demanded, only so far as it fits with my view or my needs and desires.  Ultimately it is still all about me.

Eventually, like Spock, Simba got it right.  Nala managed to convince him that HE was needed in order to set things right; the rest of the community was suffering because of his absence.  He returned to the Pride Land and stepped up to overthrow Uncle Scar and the hyenas and became the King he was meant to be.  The needs of the entire kingdom were more important than Simba's individual needs or rights and by putting them first Simba, too, was made whole again.

Whether we like it or not we are all citizens in some community.  Whether it be our family, our town or city, our nation, our church, our school, our faith community, our team, our place of employment.  Whatever it may be, we are part of something bigger and we do have a RESPONSIBILITY to it.  Ask not what your community and citizenship there can do for you...

It's time to stop worrying about my rights, my feelings, my opinions, my needs.

It's time to start making my part in the whole more important than my individuality.

It's time to step up and own my responsibility to the people, place, time in which I have been placed.

It's time to let my individuality shine as it was designed to, not by itself, glorifying itself, but as part of the bigger mosaic.