Repentance and Discipleship

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Someone once told me that St Peter is such a likeable character and I had to agree. Here we have a person who wears his foibles like a badge. Whether it be his imprudent bravado to follow the Lord, his utter horror at hearing how the Lord must suffer at the hands of his enemies and the natural reaction of trying to reason Him out of committing suicide, his concern for status, his penchant for taking leadership even when uninvited, and finally, even his cowardly denial of the Lord when the Lord most needed him. He sounds too much like us. 

And yet, we see here the first among the Apostles, the first Pope of the Church, taking the lead in continuing the mission of Christ immediately after the latter’s departure. The Acts of the Apostles shows that the gospel preached by the apostles was a clarion call to repentance. At Pentecost, Peter concluded his sermon by inviting his audience to acknowledge that God has made Jesus “both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). The message penetrated his listeners’ hearts, and they asked Peter what response was expected of them. Peter said plainly, “Repent, and let each of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). Repentance was and is always the first step.

Why would St Peter make repentance the capstone of his preaching? Well, his prayer at the end of today’s gospel would provide us with the answer. “Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.” The Lord had borrowed Simon Peter’s boat and preached a sermon to the listening crowds. After He had finished the discourse, He instructed them to launch out into the deep and let down their nets again. They obediently did so. A strange thing for experienced fishermen to do, especially when a landlubber was giving the instructions. They at once took so vast a haul of fish that the boats could not contain all and the net began to break.  Surprised  at  this  strange  miracle—overawed probably, by the One who had worked it, Simon Peter thought himself  quite unworthy to be in such company—and fell on his knees (note a position of worship) and cried out this strange prayer. “Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

What a strange prayer this is. On the one hand, it is almost as if St Peter is trying to cast out the Lord from the boat as if the latter was a demon tormenting him. To paraphrase it, it may sound like this, “Get away from me! Stop harassing me!” When some troublesome friend or preacher tells us something we do not want to hear, specifically confront our sins, prick our conscience to the point that we cannot sleep or rest, we would certainly want to shoo them away. But thankfully, this was not Peter’s motive for uttering these words.

So why did Peter say, “Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man?” Well, it was because he recognised three simple truths about himself when confronted with the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. First, Simon Peter acknowledged that he was merely a man, a mortal creature, standing before someone far greater, someone whom he could only guess at this stage as a man of God, someone whom he would eventually confess as the Messiah, and finally, someone whom he would preach as “the Lord and Christ,” a message he would live and die for. Secondly, Simon Peter also recognised himself as a sinful man. As a sinner, he stood alarmed at the dazzling holiness of the All Holy One. Just like the prophet Isaiah in the first reading who confessed, “What a wretched state I am in! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips...” And finally in knowing that he was merely a man and a sinful one at that, he became humbled.

Humility does not involve deliberate self-denigration – “I’m not good!” “There are other people better than me!” Though these statements may be true, they do not necessarily disqualify us. You see, the call of a disciple isn’t about ‘US’, it’s always about God, it’s about Christ, who provides the necessary grace to those whom He calls, even if they are undeserving and do not merit such a lofty calling. So, it may be true that you are a sinner, that you are untalented, that you are unsuitable by human standards, yet, the call isn’t about ‘YOU!’ It’s about Christ and the mission which He wishes to entrust to you. The Lord calls sinners, just like Peter, sinners who are prepared to repent from their old ways and follow Christ on a brand-new life-giving way. What does it mean to repent? Repentance is sorrow for one’s sins. But repentance is also turning from one’s sin and going in the opposite direction, in the direction of Christ and grace.

Yes, humility precedes true repentance. A humble man can honestly judge himself and render a fair verdict, without distorting facts or inventing excuses. On the other hand, if we stubbornly hold on to our pride, there can be no true contrition or repentance. The Jewish Talmud tells us that it is quite difficult for an egoistic person to repent, for three reasons: First, he constantly finds various justifications for his evil behaviour, attempting to proof or argue that he was in the right. Second, if he does something so clearly wrong that he cannot provide a reasonable justification for his uprightness, he attributes the fault to his environment or he blames someone or something else. He thus remains blissfully free of responsibility. Finally, if he does not find an external cause or a pretext for his sin, he simply ignores it. If you want to continue telling a lie or living a lie, just silence the Truth. Thus, people who find themselves trapped in immorality, would often turn their backs on religion, the Church and God, and instead, blame these for making him feel guilty. The truth is that religion, the Church or God doesn’t make us guilty. It’s sin! In fact, it is religion, the Church and God that can provide us with the remedy for sin and thus the solution to overcome our guilt.

Yes, perhaps if the prayer of St Peter truly needed amending, it should sound like this, “Come nearer to me, Lord; I need you, for I am a sinful and weak man.” Thus, humility leads to true wisdom, the wisdom of understanding that all things are possible, even what seems humanly impossible, with the grace of God. Only God, can purge our unclean lips, clean our putrid hearts, strengthen our weak limbs and set us on the path of “fishing” for other sinful men.

The sad tragedy we face today is that many continue to have an aversion to the message of repentance and many churches and pastors have also fallen into the trap of confirming this delusion. In many thriving and popular churches, we seldom hear a word preached about repentance. In fact, sin is often omitted. Perhaps one of the reasons is that many pastors feel that repentance is too offensive. Most likely you would hear what you want to hear about God’s love, His blessings, how Christ is inclusive and welcoming, and only provides us guides in coping with life, but not a word about sin or the need for repentance. The sad truth is that many would also like to transform our Catholic Churches into spas for our egos, rather than hospitals for the sick sinners that we are. Yes, we can hear messages on loving others and being a good, nice and kind person, and we love to hear these messages too. But the message that we really need to hear, the only message that guarantees our salvation, is that of repentance.

As precious as this truth is, that Jesus welcomed sinners and called them to share in His ministry, we must never falsify the gospel to claim that Jesus approved of sinful lifestyles and perhaps may have even applauded them. The call to repentance is at the heart of our Lord welcoming and calling sinners. Jesus was indeed a friend of sinners - sinners like Simon Peter, like you, like me - in that He had come to save us from sin and offer us the life-giving and life-transforming gospel, in order that we may imitate Him, the Sinless and Spotless Lamb, who came to take away the sins of the world.

The Job of a Prophet is to be hated

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

A joke that I tell my priest friends who know Latin goes as follows:  If I ever get a dog I’ll call him ‘Anathema’ so that I can shout out regularly ‘Anathema –sit’!  The word “anathema”, which is actually Greek in origin, originally meant “an offering” or “something dedicated”, eventually came to be used as the ecclesiastical ‘curse’ or decree of excommunication used by the Church from the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century until Vatican II, to condemn erroneous or heretical teachings and those who promoted them. As harsh as this may sound, the anathema curse actually has scriptural origins and is used by St Paul against those who preach a false Gospel: “As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be ‘anathema’ (Gal 1:9).

St Paul uses such harsh language in his condemnation because he understood how utterly evil and incredibly damaging it is to the faith of the faithful to preach a false Gospel. There really is no issue more serious for a Christian. Yet so few Christians take this subject seriously. Few care in the least or bother to determine whether they are deliberately or inadvertently holding to or teaching a false or corrupted gospel. Personal preferences and sentiments often trump Truth. Ambiguity seems to be the rule of day. On the other hand, doctrinal certainty is often labelled as rigid and unbending. The irony today is that it is not those who spew heresies and false teachings from the pulpit who often get cursed in this manner, but rather, the ones who defend orthodox teaching and speak the truth who risk being thrown out of the pulpit either by an angry audience or by their more politically-correct superiors.

This was the fate of our Lord. Today’s passage follows immediately last week’s episode where our Lord after reading the passage from the Book of Isaiah was treated like the local hero. They marvelled at the wonderful things He said among them. He was one of their own, He grew up among them and they knew His background. Now He spoke with eloquence and graciousness and this “won the approval of all.” They felt proud that their town could produce such a man. He told them that the words of hope they treasured in the Scripture were being fulfilled in their hearing. He was basically telling them that “all is well,” because God has come to save the day. That wonderful warm fuzzy feeling – who could deny or reject this. Everything was going well, until our Lord began to challenge their expectations, perception and belief system.

Jesus takes up the attitude and role of a prophet and in so doing, begins to provoke His listeners. He ‘judgmentally’ tells His audience that His prophetic words will not be accepted or recognised “in his own country”, citing two examples of great prophets in the Old Testament who were also rejected by their own people. When the Lord shifted the tone of His sermon, the crowd’s response also moved from hospitality to hostility. We might well think Jesus was imprudent in the way He provoked His own relations and fellow townspeople. It is always wise to look for allies rather than make enemies. We may even be tempted to fault Him for being the cause of the people’s indignation and wanting to drag Him out of the town to murder him. Yet, later Christian teaching and preaching will imitate His method. The martyrs and confessors of the Church had to pay the price for it. One can tiptoe around diplomatically only for a short time before it leads to the point where one has to jump feet first into truth-telling.

This Gospel is like a microcosm of the whole story. As the Prologue to the Gospel of John says: “He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not.” (John 1:11). He was one of their own, and they were more than happy to go along with him for a time. How often this happens in the life of Jesus – that people follow Him and then go off in a different direction when things don’t suit, when the gospel He preaches is no longer “nice” but has a sharp painful sting to it with a big price tag. There is no problem when you tell people what they want to hear. The man whose message is ‘repent’ sets himself against his age, and will be battered mercilessly by the age whose moral tone he challenges. There is but one end for such a man…either rejection or death!

The spiritual gift of a prophet is not so much foretelling, as it is forth-telling. The prophet sees a problem and addresses it. Such was the role of the prophets in Israel. The Old Testament prophets called God’s people to repentance, revival, and renewal. They could not and would not settle for status quo. Being a prophet was never an easy calling, then or now. A prophet’s uncompromising truthfulness was both utterly confronting and utterly ego-deflating. To be prophetic is to call sin, sin. It is to say, without apology or reservation, “The Lord says ...” and sometimes, He says things which are not very comforting or pleasing to the ear, especially when He is confronting our sinfulness.  He did so, not because He was intentionally mean and wanted to hurt His listeners. St Paul was right in the second reading. The prophet is motivated by love, never by spite. Love doesn’t seek to hide the truth. Love doesn’t lie. 

A priest friend once told me that the job of a Parish Priest is to be hated. I guess this includes someone who plays the “prophet.” If he is doing his job, and doing it right, there are bound to be people who would disagree with him or eventually hate him. I’m not sure if I have the thickness of his skin to endure this. Bishop Emeritus Anthony Selvanayagam once shared how the legendary late Monsignor Aloysius gave him this piece of advice, “A bishop must have the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job and the hide of a rhinoceros.” No wonder we have so few bishops and God forbid if any of us priest ever got chosen to be one.

The truth is that whether it be a priest, or a parent, or just an ordinary Christian, our job is not to be popular. Our job is to be faithful and that’s the hardest part of our calling. The litmus test of a true Christian is best measured not by how many bouquets that have been pinned on him, but rather by how many brickbats that have been pitched at him. Prophets have been on the receiving end of mud more than medals. I’ve personally experienced this truth - the preacher who jests and jokes with his people all week will soon find that he cannot stand in his pulpit on Sunday with power to reprove, rebuke, and exhort. He may be the life of the party but it will be the death of the prophet. Popularity has killed more prophets than persecution. I understand that my role as a true pastor must not only be to feed the flock, but also to warn the flock. To turn black and white into grey doesn’t honour God, it just makes sinners feel better about themselves.

The prophet’s calling is lonely, sometimes discouraging and usually misunderstood. People will either run from a prophet or try to destroy him – only the remnant minority receives the prophet and his message with gladness. But remember this - the only reason a true prophet speaks is because he is compelled by God and moved by Love, a love that “takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth.” The prophet may not be perfect. He often isn’t. He too is broken by sin but he desires God’s people to experience God’s best and experience what he has experienced – forgiveness and mercy at the point of repentance. And if we doubt whether we would have the gumption or the “hide of a rhinoceros” to do the job, let us be reminded that we have something far greater – the promise of the Lord to make us into “a fortified city, a pillar of iron, and a wall of bronze to confront all.” He assures you: “They will fight against you but shall not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you – it is the Lord who speaks!”

Listen!

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Let me start off by stating what is obvious as well as seemingly contradictory – “Listening is one of the easiest things you’ll ever do, and also one of the hardest.” In a sense, listening or at least ‘hearing’ is easy – it does not demand the same amount of effort and energy required in speaking. No one would call you a fool unless you open your mouth. But despite this ease, or perhaps precisely because of it, we often fight against it. We would rather trust in our thoughts and opinions, amass our own righteousness than receive another’s, and speak our thoughts rather than listen to someone else. Oftentimes we falsely assume that having ears equates to listening. This is especially applicable to a modern culture that is saturated with headlines, texts, hashtags, posts, ear buds, and tweets. We are swimming in a sea of words while listening to very few of them.

Today’s readings remind us that Christians, following the tradition of the Jews and the Hebrews before them, are intentionally auditory. Israel was a nation of prophets, not philosophers. Prophets listen to God. Philosophers envision. For the Greek philosopher, intellectual understanding came through the eye. For the Hebrew prophet, it came through the ear. The eye sees and dissects. The ear, on the other hand, hears and obeys. The Hebrews began their scriptures by saying that God spoke and all came into existence. The most fundamental statement of the Law (Dt 6:4), begins with the Hebrew word, “Shema” translated as “Hear” or “Listen” or “paying attention.”  The logic of the Hebrew scriptures is the logic of revelation and in the logic of revelation, the most illogical thing is to refuse to listen to the Voice of God.

It is interesting to note that the etymology of the word ‘obedience’, which comes from the Latin ‘obedire’, means to listen. In fact, the word “shema” in the Old Testament means both to listen and to obey. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why listening is so under-rated in today’s society that places ‘doing’ or activism as the benchmark of achievement. In a “just do it” culture, the whole notion of obedience seems absurd and even anachronistic. Everything in our culture resists obedience, because we are made to feel that any loss of control over self-fulfillment is a loss of self. It’s a culture where everyone wants to be heard, so few ready to listen. Which explains the deafening noise, the shouting, the incessant bombardment of social media postings that characterises our modern culture that glorifies self-expresison. Because of the emphasis placed on freedom, self-will, autonomy and personal determination, obedience does little to suggest a good life. Obedience seems to be a suffocation of life rather than the promotion of it.

Yet obedience is a core element of the story of creation as well as the story of salvation. The first lesson man learnt in the story of creation was obedience. And the first sin and every other sin thereafter, is about disobedience. Every covenant God sealed with His people, every message uttered by the prophets, were calls to obedience. And finally, obedience is also at the heart of the gospel, it was central to the life of Jesus and His relationship with the Father, but it also summarises what it means to be a Christian. Jesus not only listened and obeyed the word of God, He totally identified with it. Thus, at the end of today’s gospel, He could confidently announce that He is the fulfillment of the prophetic word. For many centuries the Jews strained to listen to the Word of God through their prophets, but then the Word came even closer. The Word became flesh. That is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that “the Christian faith is not a ‘religion of the book’. Christianity is the religion of the ‘Word’ of God, a word which is ‘not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living” (CCC 108).

Today’s readings remind us that obedience is more about an encounter with this Living Word, Jesus, than about merely following rules. It is more about effective listening than blind obedience to the dead letter of the law. It means getting in touch with the voice and life of the Spirit. The three readings provide us with different levels of listening.

In the first reading, we read about the reconstruction of the moral and religious fibre of a foundering nation that has lost not only its independence but also its integrity. The foundation of this reconstruction would be the Law, which is the name given by Jews to their scriptures. As they listened attentively to the words of their holy book being read by Ezra the scribe, the crowd was moved not only to tears but ultimately to worship. For them, the Law was not just a set of religious and moral rules and obligations, it was the voice of God, the God that had not abandoned them, the God who was now restoring their fortune. Thus the first level of listening is listening to God, a listening which inspires worship, a listening that inspires conversion, and a listening that demands obedience and surrender to the sovereignty of God. That is why at every mass, the Liturgy of the Word precedes, and eventually leads to and culminates in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

The second reading proposes a second level of listening. In obedience we also listen to the voice of the Church, the Body of Christ. In the face of the human heart’s tendency towards narcissism, individualism and exclusiveness more than towards the needs of the other, obedience as attentive listening to the other members of the Body of Christ frees us to live for the other and become an integral part of the family, we call Church. Obedience can challenge our worldviews and prejudices which often filters our perception of God’s will.

Finally, the gospel speaks of the third level of listening – listening to the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalised. By citing a text from Isaiah, Luke attempts to explain Jesus’ mission as a proclamation of gladness for the poor, liberty for the captives, sight for the blind, release for prisoners and a year of favour for all. These categories are often regarded by the larger society as invisible, thus not deserving its attention or time. The rich and the powerful have our ears, but not the poor. Thus, the cries of the poor are a great corrective to our self-importance, selfishness and pride. If our heart’s desires are gifts from God, then listening to the cries of the poor reveals the demands these gifts make on us. Any Christian life which does not listen to the voice of the poor effectively shuts out the voice of God.

Christ’s powerful words spoken to us at Mass are meant to change things, to change us, to change the hearts and the lives of all who hear them. Every mass requires more than just our attention, it demands a total investment of ourselves, it demands obedience. Unless you are deaf or hard of hearing, you should put aside your missals (and smart phones). These are useful tools to prepare for holy mass, but when the mass begins, we should put these aside. This is because reading along and listening attentively are very different activities and have very different results. In a certain way, when we read the Word during the mass, we continue to assert mastery over the word by subjecting it to all forms of analyses. But we are a people called to ‘listen.’ Now, this is much harder than reading. Listening makes us uncomfortable because we strain to listen not just with our ears but also with our hearts. Listening treats the word in a personal way, rather than just a subject to be studied. Listening is relational. Thus, we listen to God, we do not read or study Him. In listening, we make no demands of the Word – we merely listen, embrace the Word and obey. We seek not to substitute the Word with our words. But rather we allow the Word to form, challenge, comfort and finally consume us.