God does not have favourites

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Being the youngest boy in a Chinese family comes with a certain stereotype. In Cantonese “lai chye” implies that the youngest boy is being (permanently) tied to the apron string of his mother. In other words, the youngest is thought of as the one most pampered of the lot. I beg to differ. I often believed that my eldest brother was the most favoured child of my parents. “Favouritism” is generally defined as giving preferential or unfair treatment to an individual or one group at the expense of another. I believe that many of us have similar negative experiences, whether this happens in the family, at school, in the workplace or even in Church. Our elders, our teachers, our superiors and even our priests (or bishops in the case of priests) are often accused of having favourites, especially when we feel that we are the un-favoured one.

So, does God have favourites? The first reading assures us that “the Lord is a judge who is no respecter of personages.” But then Sirach goes on to state that God “shows no respect of personages to the detriment of a poor man, He listens to the plea of the injured party. He does not ignore the orphan’s supplication, nor the widow’s as she pours out her story.” From what Sirach has been saying, God does seem to have favourites – He seems to show favour to the poor, the orphaned, the injured party, and the widow. How do we make sense of this?

A distinction must be made between “favouritism” and “favour.” Although God does not show favouritism, He does show favour. “Favour” here means approval of something or an act of kindness beyond what is due. It is a pure act of generosity to those who are undeserving, to those who have not earned it through their own merit. Our Lord Jesus Christ was preeminent in enjoying the Father’s favour. We hear the Father expressing His special favour during the baptism of the Lord at the River Jordan, and later at the Transfiguration. The three apostles who were present were favoured with this revelation, whilst others were not. Likewise, though our Lord often spoke in parables, He favoured His own intimate inner circle by unpacking the mysteries hidden within these stories for them. God clearly grants certain people with His favour throughout the Bible. But, again, God's favour is not the same as human favouritism.

Human favouritism usually includes better treatment, decreased responsibility, and a higher social standing. It is given to those who have not earned it (meritocracy), or simply by virtue of their close ties with the giver (nepotism and cronyism). This is the world's definition of favouritism. However, having God’s favour does not result in an easy life. Often it includes increased demands and even challenges; it requires great responsibility, and ultimately, those who enjoy God's favour, must be prepared to deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow Christ. The Blessed Virgin Mary, was greeted by the angel Gabriel with these words: “Greetings, O so “highly favoured” one, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). We don't know why Mary was chosen, as favoured by the Lord, but as a result of it, she had to endure much hardship.

In today’s readings, we are reminded that God especially shows favour to the humble, the lowly, the poor, and the repentant sinner.  St James tells us that “God opposes the proud, but shows favour to the humble” (James 4:6).  In fact, this is what happened in the parable told by our Lord in today’s gospel. The gospel of the two men praying in the Temple, the Pharisee and the tax collector, reveals to us what kind of prayer penetrates to God. We first notice a difference even in their respective postures. One stands with unbowed head as if the temple belongs to him, while the other “stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast.” The second man behaves as if he has crossed the threshold of a house in which he really does not belong. Interestingly, our Lord notes that the first man “prays to himself”, not even praying to God but reviewing to himself the list of his virtues, assuming that, when God Himself notices them, God will respect them and marvel at them. It is as if he is expecting God to fall down and worship him. Moreover, the Pharisee catalogues his virtues as a means of setting himself apart from other men, none of them can hold a torch to him, none have attained his level of perfection. When one thinks of oneself as perfect, as self-sufficient, as having it all together, one no longer has any need for God. The tax collector, on the other hand, acknowledges that he is far from perfect, far from sufficient. In fact, he recognises his own depravity and therefore in need of God’s mercy and grace. God filled the vacuum of this man’s emptiness with His abundance.

This parable, therefore, unravels the mystery of why God, though not having favourites, continues to show favour to the weak, the lowly, the humble, the oppressed and the repentant sinner.  When a man acknowledges that he is in a vulnerable situation, he acknowledges that he is unable to rely on his own personal strength or resources. In such a desperate situation, he ultimately comes to recognise that his only recourse is God. Those who are contented, trouble-free, happy, satisfied, self-sufficient, who claim to be morally perfect do not think of God, because they have no need of Him. It is only when we are divested of every human security; when we recognise our abject impoverishment and utter weakness that we begin to turn to God with great desperation. It is only in such situations that we are prepared to relinquish control, in fact, we humbly confess that we are not in control, that we must surrender ourselves entirely to the providence of God. This is why the poor and weak man finds favour with God, for only a poor and weak man acknowledges that he has an empty place for God to occupy. The proud and the righteous are too full of themselves – there is no room for God in their lives.

Today’s readings also remind us that humility is a necessary condition if we wish to come before the Lord to worship Him. Sirach promises that “the humble man’s prayer pierces the clouds.” Authentic worship requires a humble heart, a humble disposition and a humble posture. Have you noticed how so many have reduced reverence to performing mere perfunctory head bows (often with great reluctance) from the days when we used to genuflect whenever we came before the presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Modern man seems to be so absorbed with his own self-importance that he bows to no one, not even to God. God is no longer deserving of our bowings and genuflections. But when a good man, a humble man, a man who recognises his own unworthiness, is in the presence of greatness, he knows how to abase himself whether it be in posture or attitude.  The humble man does not presume familiarity in the presence of greatness. He knows this would be contemptuous. True humility leads to exaltation - not of ourselves, but of the God who created us, saved us, and loves us.

Yes, God does not have favourites because there is no need for God to play favourites when there’s enough grace for everyone. His supply of grace is unlimited, and there’s absolutely nothing God’s grace can’t cover, no sin so deprave that cannot be forgiven. As St Augustine assures us, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us (to be loved)”. But be ready to accept the gift that comes with God’s favour – the cross. The Christian journey starts at the foot of the cross. There’s no way around it. There’s no shortcut. There’s no exception. There’s no favourite. So, if you’ve been wondering why life seems difficult even after you’ve done everything necessary to be a good Christian, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not that special. If Christ, whom the Father loved exceedingly, would have to suffer and die on the cross, do you think “favoured” life would be a bed of roses? Remember - those who enjoy God’s favour, would not be denied the privilege and glory of the cross, for it is through the cross, as St Paul promises, “the Lord will rescue me from all evil attempts on me, and bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 

We pray to know we are not alone

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Some of you may remember the movie Shadowlands, a moving tale of the great Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, and his wife Joy. At one point in the film, after finding out that Joy’s cancer had gone into remission, one of Lewis’ friends says to him, “I know how hard you have been praying, and now God is answering your prayer.” Lewis, brilliantly played by Anthony Hopkins, replies, “That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.”

As much as some of us can understand the truth of this claim in a limited sort of way, most people would rather wish to believe that their prayers can change the mind of God. The readings we’ve heard today seem to lend support to this expectation that prayer can and will change the mind of God. For if prayer didn’t have this effect, if prayer is incapable of changing anything, then it would make little difference whether we choose to pray or not. Why bother praying?

In the first reading we have the strange but interesting tale of Moses interceding for the Israelites as they fought a battle with their enemies, the Amalekites. Whenever Moses held his hands up while holding the staff, the Israelites were winning the battle over the Amalekites. But whenever he lowered his hands, they lost the battle. This seems to give the impression that Moses was actually controlling the Israelites like a puppeteer would control his marionette with invisible strings.  Modern folks would find it incredulous and superstitious that we should even attempt to make a connexion between Moses’ hand- positions and the fate of the army. But rather than seeing Moses as the main protagonist, his raised hands actually point to the power of divine intervention. Holding up our hands to heaven, or the orans position, is actually an ancient symbol of a praying Christian asking for God's divine intervention.

This story is a reminder of how prayer is connected to action. This is how a Christian community is constructed: some fight on the outside, do all the work of the apostolate, carry out the mission of the Church; whilst others pray on the inside – in our monasteries, intercessory prayer groups, “private chambers” of our homes – for those who are fighting on the outside. For without prayer, the Church’s mission cannot succeed, its battle with evil, sin and the world cannot be victorious. If the Church, and every single one of her members, is to avoid being routed in the difficult battles of our day, all of us must pray, persist in prayer, storm heaven for assistance and grace, instead of everyone just being lost in busyness and activism.

In the gospel, we are given the example of a widow as a person of prayer. Nothing unusual about this. But what often confounds many Catholics is the analogy drawn between the unjust judge and God. It seems to reinforce a popular image of God of being a harsh despot who requires appeasement from His subjects. As He often does, our Lord takes the immoral and imperfect realities of our world as His point of departure. Here it is the corrupt judge, elsewhere it was the dishonest steward who defrauds His master, the exasperated and self-centred neighbour. Certainly, we can see that it was not our Lord’s intention to associate the faults of these characters with the nature of God. It’s not meant to be an “apple to apple” comparison. Rather, beginning with what is familiar, our world with all its imperfections and faults, our Lord wants to move up to the supremely higher and purer values of the Kingdom of God. The point of comparison is the persistence of a request – if even the wicked will do it out of selfish reasons, then all the more God who is good would do it out of unconditional love for us.

What is clear from this parable is that our Lord wants us to ask God with persistence and determination, even to the point of risking sounding like an annoying pest. But then someone can raise this further objection, if God is omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful, and thus require no further assistance from His creatures, including us), and if we acknowledge that God’s plan is always perfect, then wouldn’t it be logical to argue that our prayers shouldn’t do anything. After all, we’re not going to tell God anything that he doesn’t already know, and we’re not going to have a better plan than the one He already has, right?

This objection can only be answered when we see that human prayer is actually part of the plan of God. If prayers are answered, it is because God wills it. But then again, God will never force us to ask Him for what we truly need. God’s greatest gift to man is his freedom and it is in prayer, that we see how that same freedom is exercised. Human freedom is never negated by God’s omniscience or omnipotence, for if that was true, we would be merely mindless puppets in the hands of God. But because we possess human freedom, prayer is necessary to salvation, and without it no one having the use of reason can be saved.

Prayer isn’t about persuading God to do what we want, however noble that may be; it is about inviting God to mould us in faith into what He wants for us. Prayer can’t change God; it should change us. Through our prayer our faith is nourished and deepened, we learn to die to ourselves in order that we may conform ourselves more closely and intimately to the will of God. It teaches us fidelity and how to be faithful friends of God, and not just fair-weathered ones.

Returning to the character of C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands, he says, later in the movie, “We pray to know we are not alone.” Yes, prayer is about not being alone, we pray because we believe that God is with us even in our darkest and hardest moments. Prayer is about Jesus crying out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” God is with us even in the most trying moments which feel like abandonment.

So let us continue to pray, even when we know that God knows what is best for us. Let’s persist in prayer, even when we believe that God has heard our prayer even before we have uttered it. The old Baltimore Catechism tells us that “we should pray: with attention; with a sense of our own helplessness and dependence upon God; with a great desire for the graces we beg of God; with trust in God's goodness; (and finally) with perseverance.”

Christ Himself is our model of prayer: He was a man of insistent prayer during His life, and ultimately on the cross, pleading for us and alongside us for our redemption. And this very same prayer on the cross is perpetuated at every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It was the early father of the Church, St Justin Martyr who saw Moses’ prayer with arms extended as prefiguring the cross. The self-emptying of the cross is the point around which all the scriptures and all history turn, and it must be the focus of our prayer as we seek to answer Christ’s call to follow him. So, why do we pray? As C.S. Lewis would have put it, “we pray because we can’t help ourselves. We pray because we’re helpless. We pray because the need flows out of us all the time, waking and sleeping.”  But finally, we pray because it changes and transforms us. We pray because we want to be like Christ and to be with Christ, now and forever. Amen.

Grateful for being saved

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Among priests, we often lament and complain about how the priesthood can be a thankless job. After a hard day’s work of attending to a myriad of needs and requests, celebrating mass, anointing the sick, counselling individuals and couples, instead of receiving a simple word of thanks, our efforts seem to earn us dirty looks or stares, or just an outright criticism that we had taken too long, not done enough, set the bar too high, failed to be sufficiently compassionate or should have just done it differently. I often stop myself when I begin this broken record litany of self-pity and remind myself, “Have I too been thankless for my priesthood, for my parish and parishioners?” “Have I forgotten to be grateful for the home cooked meals infused with love, the many dedicated lay persons who quietly carry out their apostolate thus making the work of a priest lighter, the kind words of encouragement and appreciation given when most needed, or the offer to chauffeur me, or the patience shown to me even when I was testy, impatient and annoyed?”

So, should I be complaining about the ingratitude of others when I suffer the same malaise too? I guess it is a good reminder that it is not just priests who occupy thankless jobs, but almost everyone too. It was G.K. Chesterton who said, “Gratitude, being nearly the greatest of human duties is also nearly the most difficult.”

In today’s gospel, among all the ten lepers who were healed, it was the Samaritan leper alone who distinguished himself when he returned to thank the Lord. To be fair, all ten lepers stepped out in faith and cried out to the Lord for help; they were obedient to His counsel to show themselves to the priests, and as a consequence they were healed of their disease. Yet only one expressed gratitude for the miracle. And to add irony to this story, this person was a Samaritan, despised by the Jews. The story illustrates two points. The first point is that no one is excluded from the love of God, God does not discriminate when He shows His abundant mercies to both saint and sinner alike, to the grateful and the ingrate.

But the gospel pays greater attention to the second point - the former Samaritan leper gives us a powerful lesson in gratitude. Gratitude is not about ‘looking at the bright side’ or denying the realities of life. It’s not saying, ‘Thank God, it could be worse!’ Gratitude goes much deeper than that. The leper’s action reveals the heart of gratitude – it is treasuring Christ more greatly and savouring His redeeming work more sweetly. In the first reading, in the story of the foreign general Naaman, we recognise that gratitude has the power to heal. But this is only part of the mystery of God’s grace. In the second reading, St Paul reminds us that gratitude also liberates. But it is in the gospel that we discover climatic apex of this godly virtue – gratitude saves.

Notice that although the nine lepers were ‘cleansed’, but our Lord reserves these words for the Samaritan leper alone, “Your faith has saved you.” Only the foreigner is grateful for the grace received and that is his salvation. The others think solely of the benefits received, physical healing and social acceptance; but neglected to pursue the path of well-ness right to its very end, which is salvation. Salvation is the one thing which we must desire most above all gifts from God. Most people search for a cure to our disease, longevity to life, a solution to life’s problems; but ultimately lose sight of the greatest gift of all, the reason for the Father having to send His Son to die on the cross for us – our salvation. No work of God's is more worthy of gratitude than salvation.

If gratitude opens the window to heaven, then ingratitude is what unlocks the gates to hell. It was St. Ignatius of Loyola who asserted:  “The essence of sin is that of ingratitude.”  We have forgotten that before coming to know Christ, each of us lived in a self-imposed prison of guilt, spiritual blindness and sin. But Christ not only rescued us from the power and penalty of our sins, He also lifted us to the realm of grace. He delivered us from punishment and brought glory. He defeated death and won for us eternal life. He took away the threat of hell and gave us the hope of heaven. Gratitude is therefore keenly linked with memory – memory of the grace of salvation we have received from God and who continues to complete and perfect the work which He has begun in us.

Gratitude isn't something that should pass from our minds with the passing of a season. It's an attitude, a God-centred response to circumstances that should pervade every season of our lives. Perhaps the most difficult time to be thankful is when we're in the midst of a setback, a challenge, or a trial. When the storm comes, giving thanks is rarely our first reaction. Being thankful for adversity is never easy, but it is always right. Our faith reminds us that the difficult times are the ones in which God seems to be most at work in our lives, strengthening our weak spots, comforting our hurts, and drawing us to greater dependence. A person cannot be complaining and thankful at the same time, nor can they worry about money or health or anything while being thankful. With gratitude comes joy, hope, peace and love.

At the very heart of the Eucharist, described by the Second Vatican Council as the “source and summit of the Christian life,” is gratitude. The word ‘Eucharist’ comes from the Greek word, “eucharistia,” (εὐχαριστία) meaning to give thanks (for the good graces we have received).  The Eucharist is the primary place where we can express our gratitude to God. The entire Mass is a prayer of thanksgiving – it is first and foremost, Christ’s thanksgiving to the Father, and secondarily, the Church’s thanksgiving for Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. It is here that we give thanks because the Sacrifice of the Cross re-enacted at every Eucharist has saved us and continues to make us whole – completing, bringing together and finishing the grand work of salvation which God has begun in us. The Eucharist contains and carries many deep and inexhaustible realities; it helps continue the incarnation of God in history; it is God’s physical embrace; it is the new manna that God gives to nurture His people; it is the antidote to death and the true elixir of immortality, it is God’s gift of reconciliation and forgiveness; it is an invitation to a deeper discipleship; and it is an anticipation of the heavenly banquet that the Lamb and Bridegroom has prepared for us.

Yes, we’ve often heard people complain (and perhaps we have been guilty of it too), “I don’t get anything out of Mass.” My reply is that, “The problem is not that you are not getting anything but because you fail to recognise how much God is giving to you through the Eucharist.” When we lack gratitude, when we only have complaints, the Eucharist becomes an empty, boring and meaningless ritual. We have been healed from the effects of sin. We have been freed from the bondage of sin. We have been saved! Rather than adding on to our litany of woes and complaints, let us add on to our list of praises and thanksgiving. Thanking God for saving us should be the unceasing occupation of our lips. Gratitude should make us sing of salvation, talk of salvation, and finally witness the salvation we have received in our daily lives. And so we give thanks not just because God has healed us or answered our prayers, but primarily because He has liberated us from sin, fear and anxiety. The prospect of being made whole, being healed, being liberated and being saved should be enough to make us turn around, rush back again to Jesus, and say thank you, Jesus. “Thank you so much.”