Sin should never be tolerated

Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Tolerance is a highly valued attribute in today’s culture, perhaps seen as its greatest virtue. According to this value system, the only thing which cannot be tolerated is an intolerant person. This is why Christianity, the Church and our set of moral teachings are most frequently vilified because they are perceived by the world’s magnanimous standards as rigidly intolerant. Should anyone in the Church have the audacity of proposing a set of moral norms to us, they would most likely be met with this question: “who are you to judge?”

Today’s passage is made up of two sections which provide us with what seems to be opposite ends of a spectrum. The first part seems to have an extremely tolerant and inclusive Jesus reprimanding His own disciples for their narrow-minded intolerance. However, our Lord in the second part launches into this vitriolic diatribe against those who cause scandals and in fact, even condemns them to destruction and hell fire should they fall into error. So, how do we make sense of this bi-polarity? Is our Lord Jesus the model of tolerance or intolerance? I believe the question is misguided. Our Lord is neither the epitome of tolerance or intolerance. Tolerance has nothing to do with His actions. Context is needed in reading both sections.

Let’s begin with the first section. Pay close attention to the words used by the Apostle John in his complaint to the Lord: “Master, we saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him.” Take note that this man who is the subject of John’s complaint is being accused of not being “one of us,” the “us” here specifically referring to the Twelve Apostles who had been chosen and commissioned by the Lord to preach and cast out demons. There is no indication that this man is not one of our Lord’s followers; he could very well have been a disciple or follower of the Lord, as is evidenced by the fact that this man casts out demons using the name of Jesus and not his own nor by any other power. It would appear that the Apostles, or at least John, thought that this authority was exclusively theirs and they had a monopoly over these matters. They had forgotten that their authority is derived from the Lord who can choose to share it with anyone whom He chooses.

A similar situation is narrated in the first reading, where it is Joshua who complains to Moses that two men who were not part of the original group of seventy elders were now exercising the authority of prophecy. Moses answered him, “Are you jealous on my account? If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his Spirit to them all!” This is an important reminder that the Spirit of God blows where He wills and who are we to put limits on His actions. We should be rejoicing at God's generosity rather than complain out of jealousy if He chooses to favour others. Although we must respect the freedom of God to give what He wills where He wills it, there must also be prudent discernment of spirits to ascertain whether the origin of such action or teaching is the Holy Spirit or from some other source. As St Paul reminds us in 1 Thes 5:21-22, “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil.”

In the case of the gospel, our Lord provides us with a criterion of discernment: “no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.” Is our Lord advocating some form of indifferentism, that all religions, all philosophies and all churches are the same and equal paths to salvation? Notice that our Lord is not asking His disciples to accept, include and tolerate all and sundry. Blind tolerance is not the objective of the Church. Those who are the enemies of truth, the enemies of the teachings of Christ and His Church, those who serve values opposed to ours, can never be accepted nor tolerated. To tolerate such behaviour would be to work against the very mission of Christ and the commission given to the Church. It is for this reason that heresy (erroneous or false teaching), apostasy (total renunciation of the Catholic Faith) and schism (disobedience against the legitimate authority of the Church) are met with the harshest of penalties - excommunication. One cannot claim to be “with us”, if the person or persons are clearly working “against us.” For this reason, we cannot shake hands with a false gospel or cooperate with those who would lead the flock astray.

This becomes clear in the second half of the passage. Those who are in fact working against the Body of the Christ, leading others astray are to be met with zero tolerance. Don’t take it from me. Listen to what the Lord Himself had to say: “anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck.” The word translated as “obstacle” is “skandalon” in Greek, which literally means “to trip up, to make someone fall.” This is what scandals do - they cause others to sin. Our Lord reserved His harshest condemnation for such a scenario - it is better that they meet with a Mafia-like execution than to continue leading others into error. Traditionally, this is reflected in the Latin maxim “error non habet ius,” “error has no rights!”

The irony we see in today’s world is that maximum tolerance is accorded to all forms of depraved behaviour where sexual sins are often presented as legitimate alternative life styles which need to be recognised and celebrated. Today’s society applauds itself for being highly enlightened and open-minded and that those who would take offence with such behaviour and lifestyles are the ones who should be opposed for their rigidity and bigotry.

Rather than construing the last few statements of our Lord in today’s passage as evidence of our Lord advocating some form of hudud punishment in the form of bodily mutilation, we need to recognise the ecclesial and symbolic meaning of His words. If St Paul describes the Church as the Body of Christ, what we are seeing here is the fundamental basis for the penalty of excommunication. Excommunication excludes the offender from taking part in the Eucharist or other sacraments and from the exercise of any ecclesiastical office, ministry, or function. On the face of it, it sounds unreasonably harsh. But we need to remember that excommunication is meant to be corrective and remedial, rather than punitive. By the penalty of excommunication, the Church does not condemn anyone. Rather it is a teaching tool - it is meant to emphasise the seriousness of certain sins or offences that cuts a person off from sacramental grace. Without this warning, the person may be deluded to continue in his or her error and wrongdoing.

Certainly, there are many things which we must learn to endure - the quirks and idiosyncrasies of others. God knows we have our own annoying traits which others have to put up with for the most part. But there is something which cannot be tolerated and should never be tolerated even in the name of being nice and peaceable - it is sin. Sin corrupts not only our lives but the community. But just like God, we must show forbearance and mercy to the sinner with the hope and expectation of his repentance. If we truly love our neighbour, then it is our fundamental duty where possible to reach out and lead him or her to the truth and to righteousness. We do so not because we are envious or judgmental. Charity demands we do something to stop the rot and prevent the person from being "thrown into hell where their worm does not die nor their fire go out." Let us never forget that it is not our reputation but the salvation of every soul which is at stake.

Engraved in Love and Mercy

Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C

Familiarity with this story has made most of us inattentive to gaping holes in the narrative.

First, this famous incident took place within the precinct of the Temple, and this is no insignificant detail. Why would this woman be brought into the precinct of the Temple, even if this took place in the outer Court of Women? Shouldn’t the scribes and Pharisees who were most careful about matters concerning ritual purity know that to have a public sinner dragged into the compound of the House of God would be a great affront to God Himself?

Second, who was this unnamed woman? Is she the same woman in Luke 7:47-49 who entered the house of Simon the Pharisee and bathed the Lord’s feet with her tears? And to think that this woman was forgiven once and now caught in another compromising situation? Shouldn’t she deserve a more severe punishment for this repeat offence?

Thirdly, and this may seem oddest of all - the Lord’s parting words to this woman are, “go away, and do not sin anymore.” Curiously, Saint John does not report any penitential resolve on the part of the woman. Although the Lord also does not condemn her, neither does He absolve her of her sin.

But the fourth mystery of this story is one which has puzzled most scholars and commentators, and given rise to many speculations - what was our Lord writing on the ground? One common answer was that He was writing the names of the men, many of whom were standing in the crowd accusing this woman, guilty of having committed the act of adultery or fornication with this woman. This is a plausible answer as no one can commit adultery or fornication alone by himself or herself - it takes two to tango. This may be reminiscent of the prophet Jeremiah’s scribbling the sins of the Israelites.

But there is also another possibility offered by St Thomas Aquinas. He sees in this woman a symbol and representative of sinful humanity, and like fallen humanity, she is in need of mercy, even though her accusers demand justice. There seems no way out. According to St John Paul II, her accusers “intend to show that (Christ’s) teaching on God’s merciful love contradicts the Law, which punished the sin of adultery with stoning.” How can God be just and yet merciful toward our fallen human race? But then something wonderful happens. Jesus bends down and begins to write in the earth. And this is all done in silence. What does this mean?

St Thomas Aquinas, with the keenness of his mystical insight, says that this action signifies that God in His mercy is stooping down to assist sinful humanity. In fact, he says, that whenever Jesus stoops down, this signifies an act of God’s mercy, and that whenever He stands up straight, this signifies an act of God’s justice. For the Greek word for justice literally means, “uprightness.” It is the same word in the Greek for what Jesus is doing by standing upright. But what does the writing in the earth signify? The Greek word there is katagraphein. It is a hapax legomenon, which is to say that it is a unique word which appears only once in the New Testament, and that is here. It doesn’t exactly mean “write”—that would be graphein—but katagraphein means “to engrave.”

What was our Lord “engraving”? We return to the Old Testament to see how God engraves the commandments with His finger in the tablets of stone. So the Fathers of the Church say that the Lord is here writing the commandments into the earth. But according to St Thomas, this act also signifies the mystery of the Incarnation—when by the finger of God, the Holy Spirit, the eternal Word was written into our human nature, as Isaiah the prophet once wrote: “Let the heavens rain down the Just One and the earth bring forth a Saviour” (Isa 45:8). The earth is a fit symbol for human nature since God had shaped the first man from the earth. And all this is done in silence to signify the ineffability of this mystery. It is as if Jesus is saying to the scribes and Pharisees: “Yes, according to Moses she ought to be condemned and stoned to death, but now through the Incarnation, mercy has been made available to her. Therefore, there is now hope for sinners.” Jesus is the perfect sin offering, the Lamb of God, who truly takes away the sins of the world.

But the scribes and Pharisees do not understand the mystery, and they break the reverent silence with a cacophony of cries: they want justice, they want blood. And as they continued to ask Him, our Lord stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” By straightening up, our Lord is now signifying that He is dispensing justice by passing judgment. They have asked for justice and justice they will receive, but now it is they who also stand accused. Our Lord does not pass judgment on this woman but on her accusers. But let us be clear that the Lord does not make excuses for the sins of this woman. He does not deny that she deserves death, but He adds to this that so do these scribes and Pharisees. Mercy is never given to the deserving. It is always offered to the undeserving, if it is to be mercy.

But what happens next? Our Lord stoops down again, as if to offer mercy to the newly accused. And this time He begins to write again, but the word now is graphein. He is not engraving but simply writing lightly in the earth, and as you all know, that whatever is written in sand, is malleable and can be easily erased. And the Fathers of the Church tell us that now He is writing their sins, but lightly as if to indicate that these can be easily wiped away, if only they will accept that they too need God’s mercy. How often do we fail to grasp this? How often have we etched and engraved the sins of others in our hearts as we refuse to forgive them but we forget that our sins are so quickly and easily absolved by God, as would writings in the sand be simply erased with a sweep of the hand?

Then what happens last of all? Our Lord stands up again to render His judgment, a judgment both just and merciful: Our Lord looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And she is right - all her accusers have fled the scene in shame - they who deserve God’s judgment had been reminded by the Lord that they too have been recipients of His mercy. How could they demand a different standard for this woman? The woman now stands upright because she has been justified by the mercy of Christ, not because she was justified by her own merits. Hence, she hears the sentence: And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you … go away, and do not sin anymore.”

St John Paul II provides us a perfect conclusion to this story: “This Gospel passage clearly teaches that Christian forgiveness is not synonymous with mere tolerance, but implies something more demanding. It does not mean overlooking evil, or even worse, denying it. God does not forgive evil but the individual, and He teaches us to distinguish the evil act, which as such must be condemned, from the person who has committed it, to whom He offers the possibility of changing. While man tends to identify the sinner with his sin, closing every escape, the heavenly Father instead has sent His Son into the world to offer everyone a way to salvation… On Calvary, by the supreme sacrifice of his life, the Messiah will seal for every man and woman the infinite gift of God's pardon and mercy.”

It's Christ's Church

Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Some have called it a schism (a sin that breaks the unity of the Church). Others have called it a civil war. Call it what you may, it is quite clear to many, both within and outside the Catholic Church, that she is deeply split and fragmented with not just a binary but a multifaceted factionalism, made out of various factions who often adopt irreconcilable positions that are diagonally opposed to each other.  Modern and secular commentators often see it as a rift between left and right, liberal and conservative. To those who believe that they are defending the Sacred Tradition of the Church and her Magisterium, it is a fight between orthodoxy and heresy, plain and simple. To progressives, it boils down to either supporting or opposing the reform of Vatican II. It is indeed painful and saddening to witness the Body of Christ wounded by this, a Body that has been further scarred by the sexual abuse scandal, with various camps blaming the other for the mess.

Some say that it all boils down to the question of what can or should be tolerated and what is intolerable. Now the word “tolerance,” though quite common in modern parlance, is hardly featured in any official Church teaching. Furthermore, the modern concept of tolerance is also problematic, being a kind of oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. For example, tolerance seems to suggest accepting without judgment “all and sundry”, but that isn’t the case. Tolerance stops at the point where someone else disagrees with my idea of tolerance. Thus, the many factions within the Church often tolerate a great deal of nonsense by those whom they judge as either allies or who share their own ideological positions, but would tolerate nothing from the other camp even though the “other” side is capable of doing something objectively good. It is not too far from the truth to state that the Gospel of Tolerance is often quite intolerant, especially to those who do not share similar sentiments, preferences, and theological positions.

It would be easy for the various camps to spin today’s readings in their favour, but then a complete, instead of cursory reading of the texts, would soon reveal that both positions are incomplete if they fail to take in the opposition’s perspective. You see, the gospel passage has not one but two parts. The first part speaks of the permissible and the tolerable, the second of the unbearable.

St John is featured in today’s gospel as the complainant. In the Fourth Gospel, he’s known as the Beloved Disciple but his remarks in today’s Marcan account does little to endear us to him. He goes to the Master and complains, “We saw a man who is not one of us casting out devils in your name, and because he was not one of us we tried to stop him.” Notice his choice of words, “not one of us.” Interestingly, he did not say that this man was not a disciple of the Lord. He was simply “not one of us.” The point of reference, the grounds of this judgment, is that this man does not belong to their faction. It didn’t matter whether he was a disciple of the Lord or not. Neither does the passage, as so many commentators have attempted to say, speak of this man as being representative of non-Christians. The apostles are worried and annoyed because somebody is able to do good without being part of their group. Their monopoly over all that is true, good and beautiful is being threatened by this “outsider”.

But then the Lord reminds them, as does the first reading, that the Spirit is not the exclusive property of any particular individual or group. The Spirit blows where it wills. It is also good to remember that the Church does not belong to any faction. The Church is the Church of Christ, it belongs to Him. The point of reference is “Christ”, not “us.” Thus, it is tolerable that someone who does not belong to this group of Apostles does something good in our Lord’s name. The group needs to know that we do not have a monopoly over what is good. God is powerful enough to let a good deed – for example offering a cup of water – occur outside the group and to reward the benefactor. The story in the first reading is an explication of this first part of the gospel. Two of the seventy men singled out by God who were not part of Moses’ original choice also received the gift of the Spirit. Can you fault God for His generosity?

The readings here invite us to rethink the parameters within which God works. God is indeed a God of Surprises. He often works outside our familiar categories and beyond the parameters of expected normalcy. But we must avoid making the simplistic conclusion that this means that there are no basic differences between truth and falsity, between one ideology and the other, one religion and another, one denomination and the other. Notice that Christ’s words do not admit all and sundry but contain a caveat, only those who are “not against us is for us.” In other words, the recognition of the parallel ministry is posited on the fact that there is no contradiction between the teachings of Christ and the Church and that of the other. Immediately after challenging the narrow mentality of His disciples, Jesus begins to draw clear parameters and impose heavy penalties, including excommunication, for any infringement of the limits which He had set. The God of Surprises is not the God of confusion or chaos or “anything goes.” 

Notice the harshness of our Lord’s words in the second part of the Gospel passage. In contrast to the tolerant spirit in the first part of the passage, the Lord insists that it is unbearable when someone outside or inside the Church misleads those who are spiritually or morally weak (“one of these little ones”). Clear examples of the sexual abuse scandal come to mind. Leading the simple believer astray is satanic and merits merciless annihilation. But man can seduce himself: his evil desires lie in his hands, feet, and eyes, and he ought to move as mercilessly against these as against the seducer of others. Whatever leads astray, should be destroyed; in graphic terms, the members that stimulates one to evil should be hacked off and cast into hell.

These principles of tolerance and intolerance are most certainly relevant in the context of our current sexual abuse scandal. For far too long, the cover ups of these sexual crimes under the misguided guise of mercy and tolerance, has resulted in further injustices and continued perpetration of the abuse. As the Pope had said, there must be zero-tolerance for these crimes. This cannot mean that we should demonise certain individuals and groups. From a Christian perspective, all persons deserve unconditional respect and love for the simple fact that they are persons. But this does not extend to behaviour that is sinful and ideas and thoughts that are erroneous. Evil and falsehood should never be tolerated. It is intolerable to call evil good.

The Church continues to founder from the sexual-abuse crisis, and, she needs all the support and prayers she can get to steer the faithful past the shoals. The Body of Christ is already wounded by these despicable crimes committed by wolves in sheep clothing against members of their flock. She does not deserve to be further wounded by division, factionalism and in-fighting. More than 40 years ago, Venerable Pope Paul VI gave his great first encyclical the title, Ecclesiam Suam, which in Latin means “His Church.” It is always important to remember this simple truth. It is a reminder that the Catholic Church does not belong to the bishops, or to the priests or deacons or nuns or laypeople, let alone the Pope. The Church belongs to Jesus Christ.  It is His Church. This is what we can be certain of. This is what will save us in the end. What else is there to say? Let us take this opportunity to renew our faith and trust in Christ, who will continue to protect His Church, who offers her lasting peace and guides her safely through the storms of temporary difficulties to the glory of eternal life.