It is almost axiomatic that the more authoritarian and/or distant a government or society seems to become in the experience of its citizens, then the less actively engaged and effective will those citizens' experience likely be likely. This was illustrated somewhat in the ineffective-to-silly behavior of Democrats at the recent Presidential Address to Congress. Some absented themselves entirely - the ultimately passive disengagement, which demonstrated their complete and utter powerlessness. Of those who attended, some seemed to sit on their hands, failing to applaud even at the sorts of feel-good stunts that traditionally get widespread applause. Some wore silly outfits. Some held silly little signs, which might have caused them to be mistaken for bidders at an auction. And, of course, one congressman stood up and waved his cane to protest the Administration's possible cuts to Medicaid. That was, by the way, the only mention of the impending threat to Medicaid that whole evening! Of course, the congressman's futile gesture just got him thrown out of the chamber and then officially censured a few days later (a censure supported unbelievably by 10 Democratic votes). The irrelevance and ineffectiveness of such stunts is really quite breathtaking. The obvious reaction to such silliness is why did anybody bother?
Why does anybody bother? Moral helplessness is a real thing. People who might otherwise feel compelled to care about the condition of the world and the sorry state of our society sense that they are failing to make a difference and are helpless to accomplish anything beyond expressing outrage, which in turn degenerates into a sort of mere virtue signaling, which in turn further highlights their moral ineffectiveness and helplessness.
From the start, Christians have lived under inhospitable regimes - some extremely repressive, many much less overtly so (more something like some 1960s notion of "repressive tolerance"). Modern societies have unique capacities for overt repression, but also - more challengingly - are increasingly capable of a more subtle sort of repression, which simply isolates would-be citizens and reduces them to ineffective and helpless consumers. The 20th-century provided abundant examples of such regimes, in which it was quite possible to live from day to day, disengaged and passive but hardly persecuted or repressed in any plausibly recognizable sense of that word. (I had relatives who lived for a time in Fascist Italy, for example, a society which for many - at least prior to the war - appeared sufficiently satisfactory to live in, but one which fostered political apathy and moral helplessness.)
Active or apathetic, however, political citizenship can never completely express who we are - not, that is, if who we are, first and foremost, is disciples our one ultimate Lord, Jesus Christ, who as we hear again in today's Gospel reading (Luke 4:1-13), reprimanded Satan, reminding him, You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.
In out utilitarian world, we inevitable measure ourselves by our power, by our effectiveness. That is the significance, of course, of the Gospel's temptation scene, with its terrifyingly inviting image of all this power and glory of all the kingdoms of the world.
Of course, there is nothing inherently virtuous about being ineffective. There is nothing commendable about being unable to improve the condition of our world or the sorry state of our society. The challenge is to rediscover what may matter more than all the power and glory of the kingdoms of the world.
In the immediate term, one challenge is to discern how one can advance the kingdom as a disciple in the contexts - family, work, neighborhood, etc. - in which we are called to play a part for the better, utterly regardless of how powerless and ineffective we may be on the larger social stage.
It may be that the more constricted the area in which one can act, the less effectively helpless one may become.
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