Accommodation, Hostility or Counter-Cultural

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Malaysia often prides itself as being multi-cultural, a “melting pot” (or some would insist a “boiling cauldron”) of diverse ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious communities. Although everyone acknowledges that culture matters, often, most people have little inkling of what ‘culture’ really means. So what is culture? It’s really hard to give a single word or sentence answer because as most anthropologists would state - culture is invisible, and this is what makes it potentially ‘dangerous,’ because we seldom realise its hold on us. It’s the lenses by which we view the world. And if you are wearing your lenses, you would most likely not notice it until you take it off. Culture is the world in which we are born and the world that is born in us, which means we are talking about everything. So, culture cannot be reduced to any one thing, but instead, it is an entire way of life. It's our perspective on the world. It doesn’t simply give a context for our values, it shapes our values.

But it’s not that we are just born into a culture and we have no choice in the matter. Ultimately culture is self-created. Culture is something we invent, create and fashion. Either the culture of others shapes us or we shape it. That is why, though we live in the midst of a larger ‘mainstream’ culture, we can choose to live by different cultural standards or values. The vexing questions that are relevant to us: How should we Christians respond to the broader mainstream culture? In a culture increasingly hostile to religion, should Christians retreat or engage?

Let’s consider our different options.

The first way is accommodation. This is probably the largest threat and temptation for Christians today. In an effort to appeal to outsiders, in seeking to be “relevant”, in wanting to “fit in” and not be ostracised, some Christians simply copy culture. They become a Xerox of what they perceive as hip, in the hope that people will perceive them as “cool” and give them a chance. This ranges from the music we sing in the liturgy to moral accommodations of the latest fad in lifestyle. Unfortunately, this pursuit of staying relevant removes the Church from its necessary anchor to both Sacred Scripture and Tradition. Eventually, accommodating ultimately means compromising certain values. Something has to give (and it’s usually the Church’s traditional teachings)! This is a recipe for disaster. You see, Christians are not meant to fit. In fact, we should naturally feel out of place in any larger society. We were not made for this world. We were made to pass through it. Our future, of course, is going to depend on what we do now. This world is not irrelevant. It is the place where God wants us to work, out of our selfishness into generosity and self-sacrifice. If we do that, we have the promise of the eternal citizenship in heaven, which is what life is all about now.

The other end of the spectrum is hostility. This could work out in two different but related responses. The first is separatism –responding to the mainstream culture with condemnation and retreat. Removing ourselves far away from the corruption of culture with the hope that we will not be tainted. But Christians who remove themselves from the world in hopes of self-preservation fail to realise that true cultural separation is impossible. More importantly, separation ignores the duty we’ve been given, to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The second would be to adopt an antagonistic position. Some Christians see little in the current culture worth redeeming and have decided to fight against almost everything culture promotes. Offended by the current cultural disposition, they want to flip over the tables of society, instead of negotiating the difficult terrain of working it out from within. They are great at pointing out the problems of society, but rarely offer good or practical solutions.

Finally, we are presented with the third option. Being countercultural. Christians are not called to be separatists, antagonists, or striving to be “relevant.” Yes, we were never meant to “fit in” but we are also called to shine as lights in the darkness and that cannot be possible if it is hidden beneath a basket or used to burn the world. Being lights, the world would often feel the discomfort of being around us, as lights tend to reveal the cobwebs and dusty corners that are in need of cleaning. Christians should see themselves as salt, preserving agents actively working for restoration in the middle of a decaying culture while availing of Christ’s redeeming power to work through them. We are called to be prophetic witnesses swimming against the current, denouncing deception and false prophets. We understand that by faithfully living out our Christian faith, we have to and must fight against the cultural norms and often flow counter to the cultural tide. This is where we belong – in the world but not of the world - right where God has placed us – fitting into God’s plans rather than that of man.

The readings today provide us with great examples of prophetic counter-culturalism. First, we have the example of the Prophet Amos, who hailed from the southern Kingdom of Judah, called by God to denounce the moral rot of the Kingdom of Israel in the North that had fallen into sin because of accommodating and assimilating the values of its pagan neighbours. Likewise, we see in the gospel, the Twelve being sent out on mission and called to live a prophetic life that would ultimately lead to their estrangement from society. Being Christ’s followers they would have to follow Him into the margins of society. Their lifestyle is going to be prophetically counter-cultural – a witness to Christ’s radical dependence on God. For to be truly counter-cultural, one truly needs to be Christ-like. We cannot convey anything related to the truth of Christ apart from reflecting Christ Himself. Jesus Christ flipped the world upside down; He was counter-cultural then and He still remains so today. He gave us a depth of understanding, a challenge to become fully human, and a way to exist by loving others with complete abandon. He told us if someone hits you, turn the other cheek. He said to love those who hate us. He told us to love the outcast, to give away all you have, to love beyond the way our culture “loves” others. He asks us to take up our cross and to be crucified in His name.

A commitment to being countercultural rather than being removed or “relevant” isn’t always easy. Living differently can be hard but it is possible with the grace of God. As the apostle Peter encourages, “But even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear or be disturbed, but honor the Messiah as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:14-15) St Peter offers three simple principles in living counter-cultural lives in a world where we are “strangers”: courage, clarity, and civility. In other words, it’s not enough for us to have the courage to stand up for what we believe. We also must work hard, study, and understand what it is we are trying to communicate. What’s more, we should do it with gentleness and grace.

We are foreigners and exiles because we have been born anew into a new homeland. We are prophets who are tasked to provide a vision that goes beyond the horizon of this world. But being members of another kingdom makes us outsiders here on earth. We have become strangers because we have become strange. Our values, lifestyle, and priorities will always be radically different from the surrounding culture. Our faith makes us strangers in our own land. We do not fit in. We are not meant to. We are on the margins, just like the poor and the weak. But that will be our redemption because Christ awaits us in the margins too!

This is my programme

Third Sunday of Lent Year B

Pope St. Pius X was asked after his election, what would be the programme of his pontificate. He pointed to a crucifix and said, “This is my programme.” As the Lord began to instruct His disciples on the purpose and goal of His mission, it became increasingly clear that the cross lay at the very heart of His programme. In a similar vein, when we speak of Lent, we too can point at the crucifix and say with the same conviction, “This is my programme.” Today’s gospel leads our Lord closer to the very goal of His programme. Each trial which He faced and overcame, each revelation of His personal identity and mission, each action which resulted in the escalation of conflict with the powers-that-be, led Him one step closer to the goal of His programme – the Crucifix that awaited Him on Mount Calvary.

Of all four evangelists, the Fourth Evangelist alone records our Lord’s cleansing of the Temple at the beginning, not the end, of His ministry, during Passover. The scene the evangelists describes as taking place in the temple area is a common one. Merchants are actually conducting business in the Court of the Gentiles (the outer most courtyard of the temple complex). Some are selling animals for sacrifice (as a convenience for those traveling long distances and needing an animal for sacrifice upon their arrival). Others are moneychangers, there to exchange profane currency for the religious one so that the half-shekel temple tax can be paid (profane coinage have portraits on them believed by the Jews to be idolatrous and therefore are not allowed in the temple). All of the goods and services being provided are for the temple rites. The hustle and bustle of market life is compounded by the editorial note that this event took place during the Feast of the Passover, one of the three great pilgrimage festivals, which could witness the crowds swelling to phenomenal proportions. Imagine the chaos that must have descended upon the city when those crowds all hit the temple market. 

What exactly did our Lord find objectionable, since those selling cattle, sheep, and doves as well as the money changers were providing a legitimate service for pilgrims to the Temple? There was a stated purpose to the outer court or the Court of the Gentiles and a veritable marketplace was not it. As its name indicates, the Court of the Gentiles was a space that everyone could enter regardless of culture, language, or religious profession. In a highly complex system that discriminated against those who risk contaminating the Temple worship, having a section of the complex dedicated to the Gentiles is fascinating and quite telling. Already, there is subtle hint that the Jewish religion was meant not just exclusively for the Jewish nation but for all nations. This space was where the rabbis and the teachers of the law gathered, ready to listen to people’s questions and to respond to these questions. It was a place for teaching and evangelisation, for stirring the embers that lay dormant in stone cold hearts and igniting the flames of faith, for drawing the crowds in to worship the One True God. But its intended purpose was vitiated, corrupted even by the market.

What was Jesus’ response to this scenario? The gospel tells us that making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with all the animals. And He poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And He told those who sold the pigeons, “Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.” The word translated “market” is the Greek “emporion,” from which we get our English word, “emporium.” The marketplace, rather than facilitating true worship in the Temple, had blurred its primary purpose – man’s primary purpose – to worship the One True God and anything that detracts or distracts from this, is neither worthy of God, nor of divine worship.

The prophetic and radical action of Jesus in today’s gospel invites us to an honest and careful examination of our own Christian worship. What brings us here?  Hopefully we are here to adore the living God who shares His life with us, and to deepen our life in Christ through our prayerful dialogue with Him, expressed through the living word, through sacred hymns and canticles, through receiving His true body and blood and through ancient rites expressive of the beauty of holiness. We are here to participate in the harmonious song of salvation. Hopefully, we have come here because we have a zeal for our Father’s house that makes us want to be here, not because we have to, but because we want to!

But the fact is that this is not always the case. Our culture of worship seems to have been so overtaken by the secular culture of irreverence. Today, irreverence is understood as something that is humorous or entertaining, which is the standard for acceptability, particularly when the irreverent defies any standards of decency or conventional mores. Holiness, on the other hand, is often viewed as a neurotic disorder. We can witness the invasion of the “market”, the “emporium” into the “house of prayer,” in the form of the loss of the sense of the sacred, both in how we pray the liturgy and the way we act or present ourselves within the church, in the clothes we wear, the music we sing, the casualness of our behaviour. We have forgotten that our fundamental vocation is to worship God. Whenever we play to the crowd and seek to be popular, progressive and even fashionable, we risk transforming the Temple once again into the emporium. It is as if we are auctioning God to the highest bidder. We risk peddling the Word of God, whenever we attempt to manipulate it to fit historical, political or ideological circumstances, for the purpose of pleasing men and acquiring a reputation of being avant-garde.

As a public figure, I often labour under various pressures to act as a spokesman for this or that cause. There are times, I have been told, that I do not say enough about politics, or about the economic and financial crisis of our times. There are other times, I have been accused of being a quietist, in not speaking up on the many issues of injustice and corruption that plague our country and society. Perhaps, the reason why I do not seem to provide commentaries about these things, is certainly not because they lack importance, but is because I’m reminded of the words of the holy and humble Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship, Cardinal Sarah, who said, “The economy is important, politics are important, many things are important, but if we lose God we are like a tree without roots: it dies.” Without God, the cardinal said, “we are nothing. Without God man doesn't know where he is, where he is going and therefore it's a testimony of faith. Without God we are lost.” Very wisely, Cardinal Sarah warns us that “without God, man builds his hell on earth. Amusements and pleasures can become a true scourge for the soul when it sinks into pornography, drugs, violence, and all sorts of perversions.”

The church must therefore be that singular place in our society where the focus can be kept on what is most important – God. It is our duty to preach the centrality of God and to call people back to His true worship. It’s high time we return the Temple to its rightful purpose and cease to bend and reshape it to the market forces of society. It’s time to restore God’s primacy in the hearts of men and of societies, to restore “the eclipse of God” in contemporary society. “To preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23), this is and should always be our programme.

You are of my tribe

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Whether consciously or unconsciously, we often fall into the act of setting up barriers between ourselves and others. I think,  if we’re honest, we have to admit that we are basically ‘tribal’– we belong to ethnic and linguistic groups, families and classes; and each ‘tribe’ to which we belong has its own boundaries and limits, rules and expectations–and quite honestly, "we like that"! There are many alluring benefits of our ‘tribalism.’ We find strength and safety in our ‘tribe:’ we know exactly where we stand. It’s good to know there are people who think and believe as we do. However, there are some problems: We get pretty defensive about our ‘tribes’. We believe we’ve got it right, we’ve got it all figured out, we’re convinced that God is on our side and we can’t imagine anyone not thinking or seeing things the same way we and our ‘tribe' do! So, we refuse to open our ‘tribe’ to include anyone outside. You are welcome to be part of us – but, only on our terms!.

When God was setting up a people for Himself that would transmute to the universal community of God’s people, He began with the twelve tribes of Israel. This universal dimension was part of the promise made to Abraham: “by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (Genesis 12:3); “by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves” (Genesis 22:18). Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations. However, history shows that they failed in this. Because of their special undeniable election as God’s chosen, Israel as a people had developed an aura of uniqueness and distinction. They began to think that they were the only favoured ones and that God does not care about other people.

Today, the readings serve as an important reminder that we should not confine and limit God to our myopic vision of things. He cannot be placed into a pigeonhole of our making. Though, man often draw boundaries, put up barriers, and group themselves into ‘tribes,’ God refuses to be limited in like manner. He crosses the line. In the First Reading, the prophet Isaiah attempted to explode and expand the insular and parochial mentality of the Israelites by reminding them that God extended salvation and deliverance to foreigners and indeed to all who would come to Him in worship on His holy mountain, in His house of prayer. In the Second Reading, St. Paul takes the discussion further by assuring the Gentiles of God’s mercy which is open to everyone. He does this by reminding both Jews and Gentiles that all have sinned, all have been guilty of turning against God, and therefore, all are in need of salvation. God’s divine activities, His justice and mercy, His gift of salvation are not exclusively reserved for a privileged few, but for everyone irrespective of race or religious background. You are part of His tribe as long as you acknowledge that you are a sinner in need of His saving.

In the gospel, we find our Lord Jesus Christ crossing such man-made boundaries and divides. He moved away from the Jewish region to the region of Tyre and Sidon; the ancient Phoenicia (present day Lebanon), an area outside Jewish boundaries. The questions asked could be, why and what did He go there to do? Well the answer can be found in the Gospel story. The story reinforces the point that though Our Lord’s mission had come first for the people of Israel, it was not confined to them. He came as a Saviour for the entire world. The Lord who is not limited by barriers and boundaries encounters another – a woman who also looked beyond the boundaries. She saw beyond the limits. There is crossing of a great divide taking place here: from the chosen people of Israel who have a sense of entitlement to God's favour, to this woman of no standing, now showing faith in the Lord by paying Him homage.

Altering St Mark’s story of the Syro-Phoenican woman, Matthew depicts the story of a Canaanite woman, Israel’s ancient archenemies. It is an understatement to say that Canaanites were despised by Jews.  The Canaanites actually returned the favour and despised them right back. What is it that would make a Canaanite woman reach out to a Jewish Messiah? In a word, desperation. In her torment and desperation, this woman no longer cares who helps her daughter as long as someone helps her! She is able to see beyond her tribal prejudices and hate. But she does more than that. She behaves as someone who has radical faith in the Lord. She called upon the Lord by His messianic title, “Son of David,” the very man and king who had fought with her ancestors, deprived them of their ancestral land and reduced them to landless refugees.

The gospel about the Canaanite woman sounds unusually harsh. At first, the Lord appears not to want to acknowledge that He hears her imploring request; then He says that His mission has to do only with Israel. His third statement underlies the second: the bread He offers belongs to the children, not to the dogs. Now comes the marvellous phrase from the woman: “Ah, yes” or to paraphrase it, “Yes, you are right.” She sees the point of the Lord’s argument and even concedes to it, but she adds, “but even the house dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table.” This, the Lord cannot resist, any more than He can resist the Gentile centurion of Capernaum: this humble, trusting faith in the Lord conquers His heart and her request is granted. In Capernaum, it was “Lord, don’t trouble yourself; I am not worthy”. Here, it is a willingness to occupy the lowest position, under the table. In each case there was faith, and so Jesus pronounces His judgment: “Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.”

In speaking about God’s universal plan of salvation, it is easy to overlook the fact that the earthly mission of Our Lord Jesus Christ really has to do with Israel: He is the Messiah of the chosen people, Israel, around which the Gentile nations are to flock, after it has been made whole and come to true faith. The first reading says this clearly. The Lord cannot make an end run around His messianic mission; He can act only by fulfilling it. This mission is accomplished on the Cross, where rejected by Israel, He suffers not only for Israel but for all sinners. Yes, the Lord came to save everybody. He is the Jewish Messiah as foretold, but He had come to offer salvation to everybody. The Messiah was to be a “light for the Gentiles” (Isaiah 42:6). He died on the cross as payment for all our sins, and He rose from death in resurrection, and He was the Good Shepherd and He predicted that His flock would be greatly expanded: “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16). He is the Messiah of the Jews, but He is our Saviour too.

We are living in times when there is an even greater fear of those who are different. There is a great impatience with those who do not speak our language; with those who have fled their country and sought refuge here without going through the proper channels. There is no denying that we live in a world marked by boundaries, and we cannot pretend that it is otherwise. And yet, we recognise that we worship a God who lives across boundaries, a God that does not belong to any tribe, and with no barrier, save except man’s wilful rejection of His offer of love that can keep Him from His goal of saving us.  The good news that Jesus brings to us again in this Eucharist, does not erase all of the distinctions that we find in our world. But it introduces a new principle—faith in the God who desires “to have mercy on all”, who desires to save us — that unites us across all our human divisions. It is now faith in God’s goodness and mercy, not any ethnic or national identity, that makes one an “insider” in His kingdom. It is our common faith in His abundant providence, that when we gather around the altar of the Lord, we can honestly look each other in the eye and say, “You are my brother. You are my sister. You are of my tribe.”