The Economics of the Cross

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

One of the most common vices which has taken a firm grip on us is our penchant to whine and complain. Who hasn’t complained, grumbled and ranted about others or a situation? We constantly complain about our parents, our children, our spouses, our leaders, our bosses, our subordinates, our fellow church members, our priests, and of course, God - no one has been spared from our list of complaints. What underlies our disgruntled feelings, unbeknownst to most of us, is our sense of entitlement. But here’s the irony. We feel entitled to respect from others, often without giving respect in return. And worse-yet? We feel that God owes us everything because we feel that we’ve either earned it or deserved it.

The sense of entitlement rears its ugly head in today’s gospel parable. It is what transforms the initial sense of gratitude into a gnawing sense of resentment. The story is told by the Lord in response to Peter’s question. A modern rephrasing of Peter’s question would sound like this, “What’s in it for us?” Peter wanted to know what reward would be given to those who give up everything to follow Jesus. In a sense, Peter wanted to know what his entitlement is.

Yet there is something in Peter’s comparative attitude and his need for the assurance of reward that does not fit well with labouring in the Lord’s vineyard. If Peter is worrying about a poor payoff which does not match the sacrifice he is called to make, the Lord overwhelms him with vision of gratuitous abundance. To Peter’s self-serving motivations, our Lord proposes another paradigm, that of generosity – a generous heart is one filled with gratitude and sees everything as grace. A generous heart considers the struggles, difficulties, the welfare of others, instead of just focusing on the injustices that life has dished out to us.

The story starts out with a conventional plot, hiring day workers, which already suggests that they were unemployed till that moment. But it has an unconventional ending - people who worked the least got equal pay, and got paid first. The owner of the vineyard orders that all be equally paid a denarius, whether you had worked the entire 12 hours or less than an hour. Something immediately strikes us as wrong. Conventional social dealings would dictate that those who only worked one hour would receive a twelfth of what the first group agreed to. But there is a greater surprise. To add injury to the already incensed members of the first group of workers, the latecomers get paid first. The master’s generosity, which is a pleasant surprise to the latecomers, becomes a cruel disappointment to the early birds.

The dissatisfaction of the first group of workers is understandable. They had endured the unrelenting heat of the sun, the hot scorching desert winds throughout the whole day, while the others worked for far less during the cool of the evening. Economic justice would demand that “to every man (be given) what he deserves.” Weren’t these workers entitled to a larger pay-out and extra benefits for the time and effort which they had put in? Therefore, thinking in terms of standard social and economic conventions, they expected more. But was their complaint justified? Didn’t they get what they deserved, what they had agreed upon at the beginning, and even more than the prevailing market standards? The landowner’s offer of one denarius for a day’s work is indeed generous. They had accepted it happily at the beginning. Furthermore, where vineyard day workers were victims of an exploitive socio-economic system, the graciousness of the landowner to provide work opportunities to them at a wage that was unequal to their job, was not a sign of meagerness but rather generosity.

We, therefore, come to realise that the root of their indignation came not from an exploitive wage scale but from seeing the good fortune of others whom they felt were not deserving of the same. The landowner had not been unjust, he has every right to do what he wants with his money. The real problem is that the grumblers harbour envy. The master’s generosity is an expression of gracious freedom, not callous arbitrariness, while workers’ complaints are an expression of their loveleness, not of their unfair treatment.

It is here that we see the radical difference between their sense of justice and that of the landowner, who symbolises God. The parable thus shows that God’s justice is not according to man’s calculations. God’s justice bestows mercy on the hapless and rebuffs the proud claims of merit. In contrast to human justice which rewards “every man what he deserves,” the divine principle of justice accords “to every man what he needs.” This is the economics of the cross. Our Lord Jesus died on the cross for us not because we deserved it. He died for us because we needed His perfect sacrifice of love. Thus, the bestowal of grace is not correlated to the work done – the sacrifice made, the amount of prayers offered, the expanse of one’s missionary efforts. It flows from the nature of God who is good, loving and gracious. Grace operates on the basis of the free choice of God, who dispenses his gifts with generosity.

Our society has truly been infected by an epidemic of envy and complaints. Rather than blaming God for the injustices in the world, the parable calls for honest self-examination – have we truly allowed our obsession with self-interest to dampen our joy and blind us to the needs of our neighbours? Pope Francis rightly states the problem in the second paragraph of Evangelii Gaudium, “The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless.” (EG 2)

The generosity of God should always awaken us to greater mercy, compassion and generosity, rather than be a cause for complaint and grumbling. At the end of the day, for Christ’s disciples, all rewards are really “gifts” or expressions of divine favour and not earned “wages” or “mercy”. Don’t ask “what’s in it for me?” but rather, “What’s in it for the other guy?” That is a hard lesson to learn, because oftentimes when we go to God in prayer we think we deserve something from Him. We believe He owes us something. The same goes with service offered to the community of the Church. This parable is a painful but necessary reminder that what we receive from God is an undeserved gift. The Church owes us nothing. God owes us nothing. In fact, we owe the Church and God who works through the Church, everything.

A wise priest once gave me this potent piece of advice, “in God’s business, rule number one is that no one works for himself. Everybody takes care of somebody; in that way, all our backs are covered. If you doubt this kingdom paradigm, you will never be happy… so instead of looking at your neighbour as a nuisance and a burden, pray that he be your opportunity and strength.”

Patience is Divine

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

After having listened to complaints from parishioners for the past nineteen years, I’ve come to realise that one of the most common requests is that I should summarily reprimand and dismiss all the ‘troublemakers’ in the parish. However, my usual reply is that if I were to act on every complaint, including the complains I get about the complainers; then I would end up sacking over 90% of the people in the parish! I guess this phenomenon goes beyond the parish. We seem to have a natural human desire to root out and destroy all that troubles us. We want to look for the final solution to all our problems. But in attempting to get others cancelled, we end up cancelling ourselves. Or in wanting to destroy evil, we end up wreaking more destruction. Perhaps, the best example is found in Hitler’s Final Solution – millions of Jews and others had to die in this mad search for perfection. The very defenders of peace eventually turned into the greatest perpetrators of violence.

Strangely, it is not the Hitlers, the Pol Pots, the Maos or the Lenins of this world that are solely guilty of such horrendous crimes. The trait is also present with many well-intentioned activists, visionaries who believe that it is incumbent upon them to fix the problem wherever and whenever they see fit, whether it be in society, the Church or the world. Some people just can’t stop themselves from meddling. We have to fix it; get rid of the undesirables. Do it our way. The problem with 'people with a cause', is that they often do more harm for their cause than if they did nothing at all. Trying to bend the world or reform the Church or shape others according to the way they see it. So they spend a great deal of effort and time trying to control what can’t be controlled. Even though their original motive may have been noble, they actually make things worse, whilst trying to make them better. Instead of building God’s Kingdom, they end up building their own. We mess things up when we choose to get in God’s way.

Today’s parable is bent on frustrating these would-be Saviours of the world. The message goes against the grain because it seems to be soft on evil. In response to the servants’ desire to root out the darnel, to fix the problem, the Master orders, “Let them both grow till the harvest.” This is a stunning proposal: Just leave the weeds alone? You mean, “Let them have their way?” On the surface, the parable seems to be calling for passivity in the face of evil or worse, the tolerance of evil. Why would the master say what he said to his servants?

The counsel of our Lord is prudent. It is a reminder that life can be messy and we need not and should not, play God or vigilantes. Since this is God’s Kingdom, He should be in charge. He sets the agenda, He lays out the path, and He determines the deadline. The problem is that the difference between the wheat and darnel is not always going to be obvious, and that there is potential danger of mistaking the good for the bad, the will of man for that of the will of God.

Whether we would be willing to admit it or not, both wheat and darnel may be mixed up within every person. Goodness and evil, love and hate, prosperity and adversity, joy and sorrow all are so intimately intertwined. We may risk getting rid of the good in our zealous desire to root out the bad. Destroy the possibility of evil and you also destroy the possibility of goodness. What may seem to be a mess may actually be God’s way of providing a solution. The perceived curse is actually a blessing.

The patience of the farmer in letting the darnel grow on until harvest time, exemplifies the infinite mercy and wisdom of God toward sinners. The parable reminds us that sinners are to be dealt with patiently, it offers us assurance that in the end God’s way will be victorious. That one day “the virtuous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father”. The darnel could not change its nature, but the sinner can change his ways and God gives him every chance and every help to do this, up to his last moment of life. But in the end, there will be Judgment. God is never soft with evil or sin, but He is ever patient in providing opportunities to the sinner to repent. The sinner who chooses not to repent, however, will have to face judgment because the God of Mercy is also the God of Justice. Without Justice, His mercy would be vacuous.

We must learn a double lesson of patience from this parable. First, to be patient with those who make our spiritual progress more difficult for us—they are actually helping us to be better Christians if we bear with patience the injuries they inflict on us. Second, we must try to imitate the patience God shows in His dealings with sinners. Such patience, however, can never be interpreted as mere passivity. I don’t think God wants us to wait ‘patiently,’ twiddle our thumbs and do nothing. We should never tire of striving against evil. While we must not approve of evil deeds or sins of others, we must still look on them as our brothers and sisters and do all in our power to put them back on the right road to heaven. We can do this by our good example, and by fervent prayer for their conversion. Always remember that it is an act of mercy to admonish a sinner and correct error.

When you take a closer look at what is happening in the world, in society, in your family or even in the Church, do not panic when you only perceive chaos. God remains in charge. Everything may seem to be getting completely out of control. But God remains in control. God does not only tolerate the messiness but in fact subverts the messiness and uses it as the raw material of His Kingdom. He often chooses and uses the defective, the rejects, the marginalised, the sinners to be His instruments of grace.

We long for the time when the Kingdom will be complete, but that perfection would not be found in any earthly or human constructed Utopia. For now, we have to recognise that this is the way that God creates and works, and brings good life. God allows the mess. He demonstrates the value of the mess through the death of His Son on the cross. At the moment of the crucifixion, it becomes clear that evil is utterly subverted for good. The Kingdom is built on the blood of martyrs, rather than on success stories. Let us never forget that persecution cannot destroy the Church, it can only make her stronger.

How happy are you who are poor

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

We are finally reaching the end of the Chinese New Year festive season with the famous Chap Goh Mei (or simply, the 15th day) celebration on Tuesday. I believe many of you have broken new records of the number of yee sang tosses for the current year, number of ang pows you’ve received and for the adults, a record deficit in your personal account. One of the festive greetings that you will hear most frequently to the point of ad nauseum, is Gong Xi Fa Chai or its many dialectical equivalents. Most non-Chinese speakers would mistake this as simply meaning “Happy New Year”, only to be surprised and shocked by its actual literal translation: “May you have increased wealth/ prosperity!” The greeting seems to reaffirm the unflattering stereotyping of the Chinese as people who are obsessed with money and wealth. Well, I can assure that for many, even the non-Chinese, happiness is often tied to how much money you possess. So, for the last time this year: “Gong Xi Fa Chai”.

A good friend of mine once asked why we Catholic priests can’t preach like famous televangelists, the likes of Joel Osteen. She was referring to the message which is commonly known as the gospel of prosperity. Joel Osteen once told Time Magazine: “I preach that anybody can improve their lives. I think God wants us to be prosperous. I think he wants us to be happy.” And so, my friend’s contention is that instead of making Catholics feel guilty for being rich, can riches be justified and even promoted in our preaching? Can this simple formula be expounded more frequently and more assertively from the pulpit: “the more you give the more you get”? Can every homily sound like a Chinese New Year greeting?

The answer which I will give is going to disappoint my friend and anyone else who would expect to hear us preach about God’s blessings in the form of wealth, good health and endless happiness. But disappointment is too mild a term. St Luke’s Gospel uses the harshest language toward the rich and also treats the poor in the most flattering way. For example, in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes which we heard today, Our Lord not only pronounces a blessing on the poor, He also pronounces curses on the rich. Instead of wishing you a prosperous life, our Lord issues this strange blessing: “How happy are you who are poor: yours is the kingdom of God.” On the other hand, He addresses the rich in this way: “But alas for you who are rich: you are having your consolation now.”

What seems most disturbing about the Lukan beatitude, especially the first, is the inexplicable canonisation of poverty and the ensuing situations which normally spell tragedy. It has none of the spiritual dimension that is found in St Matthew’s version - “poor in spirit” - a term which could equally include the rich as well as the poor, because spiritual poverty can afflict anyone regardless of their economic status.

What is it about poverty that is so “blessed” or “happy” or even authentically “human”? We must first make a critical distinction between poverty and destitution. All human beings are entitled to have their basic needs met. The fact that millions are living in our world in the state of destitution, where hunger and disease ravage entire nations, is a great sin against humanity. There is certainly no blessing in this, neither should it ever be a cause of happiness. Every time we withhold our cloak from the naked or our food from the hungry, we sin, not only against the human person, but also against the Lord Himself. But poverty, or at least evangelical poverty, is not identical with destitution. The destitute may think of themselves as forsaken, but the poor are definitely not forsaken by God. Poverty is the state of simplicity, that is the state of having only what one needs. God is the supreme wealth of the poor.

To advance in the life of virtue, poverty must come first. This is due to the chasm that lies between God and the world, the Creator and His creatures. This world and all its riches are God’s gift to us to be used as a means for our return to Him. Simply put: God is the end; things are means to this end. On the other hand, the possession of material goods beyond that of basic necessity, brings with it the risk of using goods as ends in themselves. Things therefore become our ‘idols.’ The outcome would be the proliferation of vices like greed, envy and possessiveness. It is interesting that, while Christ cured the sick, made the blind see, made the deaf hear, but He never once made a poor man rich. Illness, blindness, and deafness are deprivations; poverty is not. Likewise, when one is deprived of the basic needs of life, this physical state of destitution necessarily brings with it the challenge of spiritual destitution. This is why we must work to eliminate destitution in the world, not primarily because of the physical suffering it brings, but because we wish to allow God’s people the freedom to worship Him in health of body, mind, and soul.

Christ, in this first beatitude, does not say, “To those who are impoverished, I say to you, the day will come when I will relieve you of this poverty and make you rich.” That’s the gospel of prosperity. Instead, our Lord says, “happy are you who are poor.” Poverty itself brings with it a blessing, or rather, sanctity. The poor understand their need for God. The poor’s security and wealth lie with God. The more we possess, the further we find ourselves from pursuing our proper end: God. We cannot serve both God and mammon. The further we are from our proper end, the less human we find ourselves. This explains the unique theme of reversal, present in St Luke’s beatitudes, the so-called four ‘woes’, as opposed to the four ‘blessings’. Wealth, full stomachs, contentment and human respect, though good in themselves, can also risk becoming dangerous. They can lead us to believe only in ourselves and our resources, and forget our true end which is God and His Kingdom.

Despite what my good friend claims, the Catholic Church has not canonised material poverty as the ladder to heaven. The state of poverty cannot just be purely material; material poverty alone does not bring salvation. St Basil warns us, “for many are poor in their possessions, yet most covetous in their disposition; these poverty does not save, but their affections condemn.” Material poverty, in order to be humanising and divinising, must be accompanied by spiritual poverty – being “poor in spirit.” On the other hand, neither is the state of poverty purely spiritual. There are those who want to reduce Christ’s call to poverty, to the mere spiritual detachment from goods, and continue to live scandalously lavish lives at the expense of the poor. This too is a distortion of the Gospel message. This beatitude should certainly not excuse us from our responsibility to assist those who are in a state of destitution.

Evangelical poverty can never mean a rejection of all material goods, which are good in themselves. But it is an invitation to see that these things are better when they are shared with those who have-not. As we launch into this new year and encounter Christ in different people and situations, let us give true glory and worship to God in all that we do, in whatever we say, and in all that we possess, for He became poor so that we may become rich in His graces.

The Feast of Plenty

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Malaysia, the Land of Plenty, a food paradise renowned for a variety of cuisines and culinary delights, had never known hunger on a large scale (except during WWII perhaps). Rather than wondering when the next meal will arrive, Malaysians often struggle with the myriad of choices that can drive one mad. Malaysians generally eat not because they are hungry, but as painful as it is true, we eat because we are greedy.

But these months of lockdown, with so many losing their jobs and their only source of income, hunger has become a reality. White flags can be seen flying outside homes and poverty relief organisations across Malaysia have been overwhelmed these past few weeks as citizens cry out for food and other assistance, amid the country’s latest seemingly never-ending lockdown. As some commentators have noted, the white flag is not a sign of surrender but has become a powerful sign of human solidarity, as people from all walks of life rush to give assistance to alleviate the suffering of their neighbours and fellow Malaysians. This uncommon sign of solidarity has strangely caused alarm to the authorities, with some even viewing it as a subversive symbol of defiance against the administration. “How dare common Malaysians do the job of the government?” The answer is simple. The government machinery, for all its boasts, has miserably failed.

As our political leaders endlessly theorise as to how to deal with this crisis, ordinary Malaysians and entrepreneurs have rushed into action. This seems reminiscent of the conversation which takes place between our Lord and His apostles in today’s gospel. While the apostles continue to debate on the next course of action, our Lord moves into action. The readings turn our attention to the problem of hunger and how God provides for His people. This is especially moving when we read it in the background of the ravages of COVID. After having contended with the Coronavirus for over a year, we now have to face the more lethal “virus” of starvation.

It is interesting how the apostles sound so much like our inept political leaders. Let’s be honest. Despite our complaints and arm-chair pontification, none of us have found a fail-safe solution to our present predicament. Like the apostles, we may be constantly arguing over the scarcity of resources and practicality of our responses. But the gospel draws our attention to the Lord and begs us to imitate Him - He sees the crowds, He recognises their need, He looks at what is available, and then trustingly surrenders it to God before He shares it with the people. And the amazing thing is that when we are no longer cracking our heads and worrying about our limited resources, we would be able to share it willingly with others and God will bless our gift and multiply it with abundance. The truth is that everyone can do something, even though it may seem as insignificant as five loaves and two fish. But this is way better, than doing nothing.

But the readings point to a deeper truth. As much as starvation and hunger are realities which must be combatted at every level, the world’s hunger for food will only be satisfied when man learns to live not simply for himself, but for others, as Christ did. It will be satisfied only when the inner law of love, and not merely self-interest and greed, governs our individual and collective existence, inspires our policies and regulates our social structures and institutions. The world’s hunger for food will only be satisfied when man learns to hunger for God.

And this is why we partake in the Feast of Plenty, the Eucharist, a taste of the heavenly wedding banquet. We partake in the Eucharist because we are hungry. Ours is an elemental hungering. We want sustenance. We crave nourishment beyond food and drink that sustain our physical lives. We hunger for life to be spiritually meaningful and for it to be redeemed from the evil and viciousness that all too often mar it. Our hunger is the human appetite to be in communion with one another. Like the thirst of which the psalmist spoke so long ago, it is also our inescapable longing for God.

The Eucharist is not a symbolic meal of intellectual concepts. It is real food and real drink, ordinary food made from wheat and grapes that we lift up to God, returns to us as the extraordinary sacrament of Christ. This is why the online Mass, though providing us with help for our prayer and spiritual lives, will never be an adequate substitute for the real thing. You cannot satisfy your hunger by reading a cook book or by watching Jamie Oliver on television. The Eucharist is not just to be admired from a distance, but to be consumed before it can release its greater power in us. In Holy Communion, our Lord unites Himself with us and we unite ourselves with others through our union with Him. It is made possible by Jesus’ act of complete surrender to the will of the Father, whereby He offers up His life, His love, and finally His body and blood on the Cross. With five loaves and two fish, our Lord feeds the crowd and satisfies their physical hunger. But with His body and blood, He feeds and saves the world!

The popular spiritual author Henri Nouwen wrote about this: “The great mystery of the Eucharist is that God’s love is offered to us not in the abstract, but in a very concrete way; not as a theory, but as food for our daily life. The Eucharist opens the way for us to make God’s love our own... Whenever you receive the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, His love is given to you, the same love that He showed on the cross.” Just as food is consumed not just once but daily, we must continually go to Mass and receive the Eucharist.  It is something that gives daily nourishment and fulfilment.

Someone once suggested that in the post-COVID age of social distancing and online services, the Eucharist and Holy Communion have ceased to be relevant. But the truth is that the Eucharist will always remain relevant, it will always remain necessary as food for the journey, antidote to death, and sustenance for the soul. To paraphrase the reply of the martyrs of Abitene to the magistrate as they faced the sentence of death for attending Mass, a prohibited activity under Roman rule: “We cannot omit the celebration of the Divine Mysteries. The Christian cannot live without the Eucharist and the Eucharist without the Christian. Don’t you know that the Christian exists for the Eucharist and the Eucharist for the Christian? … The Eucharist is the hope and the salvation of Christians.”

Likewise, Christ’s miracle of the multiplication of loaves continues to have contemporary relevance. This world needs SHARING. But more importantly, this world needs SAVING. Let us not forget that it is only when, in faith and love, we give away the little that we have—a few loaves and fishes—that God blesses our poor efforts and, in His omnipotence, multiplies them to meet the hunger of the world. It is also through our little efforts of sharing our faith, that we can offer Christ’s gift of salvation to the world.

Mercy covers Justice

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B

The readings for this Sunday help us to reconcile two aspects of God’s nature - He is a God of mercy who wants to save us and He is also a God of Justice who will hold us accountable for our deeds. On the face of it, these two aspects of God may seem to be on diametrically opposite ends of a spectrum. When you show mercy, are you not excusing someone from the dictates of justice, and when you demand justice, are you not withholding mercy?

Scripture reminds us that God is rich in mercy (Eph 2: 4). Modern man has no issue with this. This is the preferred face of God. Who would like a harsh and demanding parent, what more a God who metes out justice without batting an eye? But what is mercy? Just like many other terms and concepts, the concept of mercy has often suffered distortion under the hands of those who live under the woke banner of “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Mercy has become another synonym of these fundamental values of modern society.

But true mercy is the face of God’s love turned toward sinners, searching them out, and offering them pardon and salvation. This is what the Lord declares in the gospel, perhaps one of the most quoted verses of the bible, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.” That’s it - the ultimate goal of mercy is our salvation.

When we reflect on mercy the question naturally arises about the relationship of mercy to justice. God is not merciful at the expense of His justice. Mercy does not exclude His justice, nor is it opposed to it. God’s justice entails that He takes sin seriously. God does not gloss over sin nor does He pull blinkers over His own eyes pretending as if sin does not exist. And because God takes sin seriously, He is willing to pay the greatest price in order to be rid of it - He sent His only Son to save us by dying for us. Jesus Christ’s finished work is the full and sufficient cause of our salvation. He has undergone the cross because of our sins, redeeming us from them, healing us from the deep wound of original sin and its effects and reconciling us to the Father. So, when we ignore the gravity of sin in the name of false mercy, we are actually diminishing and trivialising what our Lord did for us on the cross. When God’s justice is obscured, His mercy is reduced to something insignificant.

The gospel wishes to highlight that although the Father has given the Son the authority to judge the world, the Son has chosen not to do so. Rather, people are judged by their own reaction to the Son. Throughout the gospel of St John, we encounter individuals who are judged by their peers and society but as they come to the Lord, they receive no judgment. Instead, if they are judged, it is because of their response to the light of truth which our Lord brings. They are either drawn to the light and are transformed and saved, or they shun the light and condemn themselves to remain in the darkness. In other words, if hell does exist, and it does, it is not part of God’s creation or sentence. Hell is the product of man’s free choice- his choice to reject the light, to reject God and the One whom God had sent into the world to save us.

It is clear that justice and mercy are not opposites because both have their origin in God’s holy love. These two, says Saint John Paul II, “spring completely from love: from the love of the Father and of the Son, and completely bears fruit in love”. Pope Francis explains that “[justice and mercy] are not two contradictory realities, but two dimensions of a single reality that unfolds progressively until it culminates in the fullness of love” (Misericordiae Vultus §20).

In sum, the cross takes our sins away because it is the act of God’s gracious judgment on Christ for our benefit. In layman’s language, Christ takes the fall for us, He takes the punch for us. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). Why would He do that? The answer is simple: He loves us.  “Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)

Today, we encounter the God of Mercy and Justice in the sacrament of penance - in confession. Many people are afraid to confess their sins to a priest for fear of judgment. Others believe that God is so merciful that He would not demand that we subject ourselves to such awkwardness and humiliation by exposing our most sordid secrets to a priest. And yet, we see the truth of what takes place in this sacrament. We are invited to come before the fountain of love, for both mercy and justice springs forth from the same source. We must take our sins seriously, as seriously as our Lord did by dying on the cross to atone for our sins. We must also be confident that the Lord will embrace us in mercy, if we come before Him with penitent hearts. For the sacrament of penance is a rehearsal of the Final Judgment. To the unrepentant sinner, there is reason to be afraid as he will be condemned by his sins. But to the repentant sinner, he should stand before God’s judgment without fear, because “there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 Jn 4:17-18).

Scripture does not reveal a God of justice in opposition to a God of mercy. Instead, Scripture discloses a just and long-suffering God, who intervenes in history to mercifully restore our dignity defaced by sin, precisely by leading us towards a renewed righteousness and justice. At the end, mercy triumphs over judgment. I enjoy teaching servers and little children that when they clasp their hands in prayer, with the right thumb (which symbolises mercy) placed over the left thumb (which symbolises justice) in the shape of a cross, it signifies this eternal truth – at the end and on the cross, mercy covers over justice.

It would not be Love without the other

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The answer which our Lord gives the Pharisees seems to be a super offer or bonus - two for the price of one. They had asked Him to identify the greatest commandment from a list of 613 commandments but our Lord points to two - love of God and love of neighbour. So, which is it? Which is the greatest commandment - to love God or neighbour?

Well, our Lord had given the correct answer. The two parts of His answer are inseparable. One cannot love God without loving one’s neighbour and one cannot claim to love one’s neighbour if he fails to love God. These two parts are so intimately and intricately intertwined that the whole formula would fall apart if one part were removed from the equation. So, it is not wrong for us to call it the Great Commandment of Love - One commandment with Two parts.

Our Lord’s interrogators were certainly familiar with the first part of the commandment. It is an essential part of the morning and evening prayer which every pious Jew would pray daily and commit to memory - the Shema. It is a reminder to every Jew that the proper response to God’s grace and mercy is love, faithfulness, and obedience. Although Christians are not obliged to pray the Shema, its content should shape our priorities. Today, modern man seems to be beset by a fundamental absence of God in his life. What is being offered by modern society is a godless morality and a set of ethics, free of any religious anchoring. But without God, this man-made morality remains rudderless and without foundation. Having no direction or standard to fall back on, it ends up caving in to every popular pressure or the latest lifestyle fad.

The commandment to love must first recognise that human life will not work out if God is left out: its aspirations are nothing but contradiction. Nothing can be considered good if there is no ultimate basis for all good. Nothing can be considered true if there is no Absolute Truth which is ageless and always true, and not just true for a certain time and for a certain people. How could we possibly grow in love if there is no ultimate benchmark for love?

So, we shouldn’t just believe in some theoretical way that God exists. We cannot just relate with God at an intellectual level, though knowledge of Him is a prerequisite for our love for Him. Rather, if our relationship with God is defined by love, we must consider Him to be the most important and real thing in our life. He must penetrate every layer of our life and fill it completely: our heart must know about Him and let itself be moved by Him; our soul; the power of our will and decision; our intelligence, must be shaped by Him. He must be everywhere. And our fundamental attitude and relationship towards Him must be love.

If we lose sight of God, then all that remains as a guiding thread is nothing but our ego. We will try to grab as much as possible out of this life for ourselves. We will say that we are motivated by altruistic values or even love, but the truth is that we are in it for ourselves. We will see all the others as enemies of our happiness who threaten to take something away from us. Envy and greed will take over our lives and poison our world.

For this reason, it is critically important to remember that only if this fundamental relationship with God is right, then can all other relationships be right. Our whole lives should be driven by this motivation to practice thinking with God, feeling with God, willing with God, so that love may grow and become the keynote of our life. Only then can love of neighbour be self-evident.

Note that the second part of the great commandment is phrased in this way, “You must love your neighbour as yourself.” It does not demand any fantastic or unreal heroism. It does not say “you must deny yourself and exist only for the other; you must make less of yourself and more of the other.” These things are part of Christ’s call to His disciples to grow in holiness. But in this commandment of love, our Lord only asks us to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, no more no less. People who do not love themselves will not be really able to love others. Those who do not accept themselves take exception to others. True love is fair. We can’t give what we don’t have.

Loving God is the foundation of the very possibility of loving anyone else for the simple reason that, only in the relationship with God can we feel fundamentally loved. Only in the relationship with God can we feel truly forgiven despite our fragility, and offer forgiveness to others. We can only generate love if we feel truly acknowledged in this relationship that is rooted in the deepest depths of our hearts. Many people are unable to love because they are not willing to undergo the deep experience of recognising that they are sinners and yet loved undeservedly. If someone feels unloved because he feels that he is undeserving of love, he will likewise be unable to love others whom he thinks is undeserving of his love.

Loving our neighbour, especially the poor, the weak, and the marginalised can never just be a dictate of justice. Loving others without rooting it in the love of God eventually ends in a pale surrogate of love, a distortion of true love. This is why the love that our Lord speaks of is not a mere human love. It is not philanthropy; it is not a love that can be lived through a generic commitment to social justice. This love that our Lord is talking about is a foundational love: a love that finds its source in a relationship deeper and more original to which every man and woman is called – the relationship between the creature and his maker, the relationship between a child and God his father. Only if we are anchored in this primary relationship with God can we begin to love others in a wholesome way. Without such connexion, our weak attempts at loving end up following the idols of egoism, of power, of dominion, polluting our relations with others, and following paths not of life but of death.

Should we be envious of God's generosity?

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Throughout the world, bi-partisan politics in many countries can often be reduced to a contest of will between two economic systems – capitalism and socialism. The capitalist wants to support business growth by reducing taxes and the socialist would like to see a more equitable distribution of wealth by raising taxes for the rich to subsidise the poor. It seems like an easy choice for us Christians. The socialist option sounds pretty Christian. Didn’t Robin Hood steal from the rich to feed the poor? (Unfortunately, Robin Hood is not a Christian model for social justice) Is this what we are seeing in today’s gospel parable? 

 A shallow reading of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard may lead to a conclusion that our Lord was in favour of creating a socialist paradise. Everyone gets paid the same regardless of the work and time put in. Does that make our Lord a socialist? As we would see, our Lord is neither a socialist nor is he a capitalist. He is our Saviour and the salvation He offers is not just confined to having a political system where everyone is treated equally and where we have an economic and wage system that is equitable. In contrast, salvation reflects the abundant mercy of God shown to all, especially “more” for those in need. 

 Most of us would agree that the landowner in the parable is depicted as someone with a skewed idea of justice. For most people, it is intolerable to think that some people are paid much to do quite little, and others are paid quite little to do much. Ultimately, for many, fairness and consistency are the keys– if I work hard and do more than you do at the same job, I should get paid more, and you less. If we get paid the same, conventional wisdom says, I am being punished for doing more and you are rewarded for doing less. That is why communism has not worked out so well in practice. People would have no motivation to put in the extra effort since everyone gets paid the same regardless of the amount of effort, innovation and time put into the project. Hard work is not incentivised. 

It is quite easy to translate such thoughts and feelings to the spiritual realm. Many would like to think that there are levels of reward in eternity. Those who have done more should be more greatly rewarded, right? And those who do less should receive less, right? And yet our Lord overthrows this line of logic, just as He does with so many other expectations that humans have based upon how the world works. As the prophet Isaiah reminds us in the first reading that God’s thoughts are not your thoughts, and His ways are not your ways, as “the heavens are as high above the earth.” 

The logic of the Kingdom is found in the last line of today’s passage, “the last will be first, and the first, last.” This connects the parable with what came before– the story of the rich young man who wanted to do “more” to gain eternal life and our Lord challenged him to give up everything and follow Him. An incredible demand and a seemingly impossible feat! But our Lord then tells His disciples that such sacrifice which seems impossible with man is possible with God, and that those who follow Him will receive a hundredfold blessing and inherit eternal life. In choosing to become poor for the Kingdom, one actually becomes rich. 

This logic is illustrated in today’s parable. The sense of the story is easy to understand. Every single worker got the same pay - a denarius, the average day’s wage for a labourer - even though they all put in different hours of work and labour. It is no wonder that the first set of workers would grumble. They expected to be paid more for putting in more hours of work. 

Now comes the paradigm shift. The landowner declares that he has done them no wrong. In fact, he has done what he had promised - everyone had been promised a denarius and everyone, including the original labourers, had agreed to this amount. At the end of the day, the landowner has the prerogative to determine the amount to be paid out and if he wants to be generous toward those who worked less, who can tell him that he is wrong for doing so? At the end of the story, the landowner asked this question: “why be envious when I am generous?” The landowner is not on trial for being unjust. He is actually being generous. In fact, it is the workers who are on trial for being envious when they could have chosen to be more charitable. 

So, although socialists may rejoice over this parable by viewing it through their ideological lenses, the parable is both a critique of capitalism as well as socialism. To those who wish to view this story through the lenses of capitalism, the parable is a reminder that salvation offered by God is never based on our individual merit but dependent on the generosity of God’s Providence. To the socialist, the parable exposes what Winston Churchill had to say about socialism, “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” The original group of labourers could not recognise the generosity and goodness of the landowner shown to the latecomers. They were just envious of their co-workers “good fortune.” 

The parable is clearly an allegory. The landowner of the vineyard is God. The vineyard is the Kingdom. The marketplace represents the world, and those in it waiting for work are those seeking truth which leads to salvation. Those entering the vineyard are those who respond to His call. Some begin serving the Lord from an early age, working many years in the Kingdom, and God has promised them the hundredfold inheritance and eternal life. Others enter at various stages of life. Some might even come to the faith at the end of their lives. But God does not discriminate. For anyone who heeds His call, no matter how late in life, God offers His gift of eternal life. Are we to begrudge Him for this benevolent gift shown even to the sinner who repents on his deathbed as he draws his final breath? This should be a cause for great rejoicing instead of complaining and grumbling. What greater joy can there be knowing that a sinner has repented, a soul has been saved? 

Salvation being offered to all is not a sign of disrespect to those who are early in the game or who put in more effort than others, but a reflexion of the magnanimity and generosity of God. This logic is offensive to the world but ought to be a source of joy to those in the Kingdom. It is not designed to damper our spiritual growth. It should not lead anyone to assume that they can just sneak into heaven without diligently seeking to serve God. Quite the contrary, this message is hope for the world. It does not matter whether you enter His vineyard at 9am or 5pm– the important thing is that you enter His vineyard, and once you are in it, to work diligently to serve the Master! Once you are in the vineyard, there is no time to laze around. 

Salvation can be had at any age– because salvation, ultimately, is more about what God has done for us and not about what we deserve - what we have done. Those who worked for a long time and those who worked for a short time will both receive it. Instead of making unhealthy comparisons and projecting our envy on the blessings others are receiving, let us praise God for the opportunity for salvation and eternal life, and let us all be active in His vineyard!

Law vs Love

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

I’ve often heard this argument dragged out of the closet to justify any departure from Church laws or teachings, “We have to be pastoral.” By being “pastoral”, according to this antinomian reasoning, is to have the well-being of people as the paramount consideration. ‘What exactly can be considered the “well-being of people?” you may ask. Well, in today’s age, this has often been distilled into people’s personal feelings. So ultimately in this context, being pastoral means not offending anyone or making them feel rejected or unwelcomed. Being pastoral seems to make that it is alright to break every rule, disobey every instruction, or even ignore every doctrinal truth, as long as this keeps people happy.

But this attempt to pit pastoral practice against doctrine and church laws flies against Catholic teaching and Scripture itself. The division between theory and practice of faith is a false dichotomy, because it would mean a division in the mystery of the eternal Word of the Father, who became flesh. Fr Dominic nails it on the head when he tells me that whenever “pastoral reasons” are cited to justify an action, it is actually “pastor’s reasons.” The goal of bending the rules and ignoring doctrinal truths has little to do with the well-being of the people. Often, it betrays the pastor’s own insecurities of losing popularity with his people.

It has always been the teaching of Christianity that the pastoral mission of the Church is ordered to the ultimate end of man, for man’s salvation. In fact, you could say that Church’s doctrinal teachings and her disciplines and laws always have a profound pastoral dimension. Therefore the Latin maxim, salus animarum suprema lex – “the salvation of souls is the supreme law.” Salvation of souls hardly means well-being of persons or affirmation of their feelings. Thus, being pastoral actually means teaching and doing what would ultimately lead to the salvation of the soul. One does not become more “pastoral” by departing from doctrine or church laws. In fact, the word “pastoral” has its origin in the Latin term “pascere” which means “to feed”. Therefore, one becomes truly pastoral by feeding the flock with the life-giving teachings of Christ and His Church and help them abide by the Church’s laws and disciplines, because these provide a clear path to the verdant pastures of salvation. This is precisely what our Lord is saying in today’s gospel.

To those who argue that our Lord chose mercy over the law, that He chose pastoral care over doctrinal truths, that He came to overturn the laws of the old, would either have to be ignorant of the words of our Lord in today’s gospel or would choose to deliberately give them an entirely different spin that radically departs from their original meaning. The Lord says, “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to complete them.” These words of the Lord can leave us in no doubt that His teaching, however radical to His contemporaries, was not intended to undermine the fundamental moral values enshrined in the Law. Jesus reinforced the commandments as absolute values rooted in the will of God. As such they were not subject to human accommodation. In His own words “not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the law until its purpose is achieved”.

If we are to understand this seemingly unbending stance on the part of the Lord, we must first consider what was meant when He said that He had come to bring the law to completion, that the law must stand until its purpose was achieved. A superficial and even adolescent caricature of the Law is that it was a rigid restraint limiting man’s freedom to grow and find fulfilment. The biblical understanding of the Law is quite different. The Law was God’s gift to His people. Man was destined to live in harmony with God and creation. Sin frustrated this destiny. The Law, as God’s gift to a sinful people, laid down the path whereby this end was to be achieved. Far from being a restraint upon man, the law was meant to free him of his selfishness and put him on the path to salvation. Sin, on the other hand, which is disobedience at its core - putting one’s own will above the will of the Creator, frustrates man’s destiny. It is in this sense that our Lord came not to abolish the law, but to bring it to completion. Communion with God can only come when we are in harmony with His will as revealed in the commandments.

Our Lord continued by demanding a virtue that goes deeper than that of the Scribes and Pharisees. This is truly a remarkable statement, because in Jesus’ day those very Scribes and Pharisees were considered the most virtuous. Our Lord goes on to show, by means of a series of five “antitheses” (“You have learnt how it was said  . . . but I say this to you”), that His life, and not of these hypocritical religious leaders, was the true fulfillment of the Law. In all these antithesis, our Lord seems virtually to replace the Old Covenant’s Law with a new law. But the new law is nothing other than what is revealed by the ultimate intent of the old law – perfection in imitation of God’s perfection.  In doing so, our Lord actually raised the bar instead of lowering it, by inserting His own standard into the law.  And what is this standard? “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). That is the point of the commandments: whoever wishes to be in a relationship with God must match God’s behaviour and intent. It is God who sets the benchmark, not man. Strangely, the pastoral fallacy practiced by so many well-meaning Catholic leaders often moves in the opposite direction – setting the benchmark at the lowest common denominator - to the point of bottoming out.

If the world tells us that perfection is beyond our reach, our Lord shows us otherwise. Jesus, as the Way, the Truth and the Life, is the fulfilment of that Law. In Him, the purpose of the Law, in communion with God, is fully achieved. He will spend His entire life modeling its ultimate meaning for us, “until its purpose is achieved.” Finally, the Lord accomplishes this purpose by His Death and Resurrection. Thus, we are not being asked to do the impossible, as the first reading explicitly says: “if you wish, you can keep the commandments, to behave faithfully is within your power.” To do God’s will is nothing more than fidelity, to respond in gratitude to what God offers. As the Lord promises in the Book of Deuteronomy (30:11,14), “The command which I enjoin on you today does not exceed your capabilities, it is not unreachable … for my Word is very near you, it is in your heart.”

So, what is required of us is not a change to the rules or the perennial teachings of the Church – but rather the hearts of sinners -  hearts of stone, hearts which refused to obey the commandments of God, had to be changed in order to become hearts of flesh, hearts willing to submit humbly to the laws of God.  

The disciplines, laws and teachings of the Church are not meant to infringe our human freedom; nor are they an impossible and unrelenting burden. This is because these laws, these teachings are that of Christ. They reflect the Truth which Christ brought into the world for its salvation and it is this “Truth which will set you free” (Jn 8:32). No friendly pastoral initiative, no relaxation of laws, no re-spinning of doctrinal truths, can solve man’s ultimate problems. Only Jesus Christ in His fullness, undiluted by our ingenious “pastoral” accommodations, can alleviate the sufferings of our brothers and sisters. The World needs the Truth in its fullness. The World needs Christ, who is the “Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14:6). What it doesn’t need is another ‘clever’ pastoral solution. What it doesn’t need is a counterfeit.