Who deserves your compassion and empathy?

John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath turned 85 years old a few weeks back. Steinbeck’s clas­sic hit the reading public during the Great Depression and dramatized the mass migration of poor Oklahomans to California in the 1930s through the story of a single family — the Joads.

I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath more than once. There are many rea­sons I’ve returned to it.

First, curiosity. More than a few critics over the decades have hailed The Grapes of Wrath as the Great American Novel. As a curious 20-something just learning the won­ders of reading for pleasure, I picked the book up in the 1980s to see if the critics were right.

They were.

Second, California history. For a time in the 1990s I lived in that state’s Central Valley around Stock­ton, a locale favored by many Okla­homans in the 1930s who worked the fields in the state’s major crop-pro­ducing region. The in-migration of Oklahomans caused deep upset, even violence, as Californians’ resentment festered into accusations that the newcomers were taking their jobs and weakening their bargaining pow­er for higher wages. Not to be blunt, but 1930s America sounds a lot like 2024 America.

That brings me to the third, and most significant reason I’ve returned to The Grapes of Wrath time and again. It is the powerful ethical ques­tions Steinbeck demands of his read­ers. Who deserves your compassion and empathy? Put another way, who is your neighbor and what do you owe him or her?

As a child raised in the Deep South of church-going parents in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, these were potent ques­tions in my growing up years. Not because they were particular to my family, but because they were ques­tions of particular significance in the Deep South of my childhood and youth during the Civil Rights era when many white Southerners (the people around which I spent most of my time growing up) touted their bona fides as Christians. Many white Southern Christians of that era do not look good from the vantage point of 2024.

I wonder how Christians will look to future generations of Americans looking back on our times. Let me be clear, I have no problem with people celebrating their faith, whatever faith it is. But as a person raised on the Bi­ble — my childhood and youth were spent in thrice-weekly church ser­vices and weekly Bible studies — I hear echoes of Jesus’ ethical admoni­tions in his parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25: 31-46) when I read The Grapes of Wrath: Jesus ex­pressly tells his followers that those who help the least of these — the most vulnerable, the needy — are, in effect, helping him. Among Je­sus’ exhortations in this passage also is a call to welcome the stranger, a repeated ethical obligation ancient Israelites were more than familiar with, as was Jesus, thanks to He­brew prophets repeatedly reminding them of God’s ethical expectations: because the ancient Israelites were once foreigners in their own land af­ter escaping Egypt where they were enslaved, they should show kindness to strangers and foreigners them­selves.

I do not bring up these biblical pas­sages to instigate an argument over how best to interpret biblical passag­es. I mention it because as a person raised on the Bible I find in Jesus’ parables a particularly persuasive model of how one should live their life. But I am also a person who’s been around politics for years. And, frankly, I’m at the point that when a politician or political candidate men­tions God, Jesus or the Bible on the campaign trail, I roll my eyes. It’s unfortunate. I’m certain there are earnest, devout politicians among all the candidates and elected officials.

But I’ve witnessed so much done in the name of God and Jesus by op­portunistic politicians who under­stand that using God, Jesus and the Bible as props is a cheap way to win votes or legislative support, that I’ve become skeptical of name dropping the sacred. Another biblical passage pops into mind when I see displays of public piety: the one in which Je­sus exhorts his followers to not be like the hypocrites who pray on street corners and public places so that they are seen, but to pray in private where no one knows you are praying.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Trip Jen­nings started his career in Georgia at his hometown newspaper, The Augusta Chronicle. Since 2005, he has covered politics and state gov­ernment for the Albuquerque Jour­nal, The New Mexico Independent and the Santa Fe New Mexican. In 2012, he co-founded New Mexico In Depth, a nonpartisan, nonprofit media outlet that produces investi­gative, data-rich stories with an eye on solutions that can be a catalyst for change.)