He will be present in both the 'blues' and the 'pinks'

Second Sunday of Lent Year A

My good friend, who happens to be a Jesuit, and I often take digs at each other especially when our eccentric idiosyncrasies start showing up in public. In jest, we express great concern for each other and take turns asking, “Have you taken your pills today?” The imaginary pink pills are the uppers and the blue ones are the downers. Whenever I return from a pilgrimage, I would secretly wish that my stash of pink pills are real and not just some fictitious creation. I usually suffer not only the ravages of fatigue, from a demanding itinerary and extensive travelling, but also a certain emptiness and disappointment caused by PWS or “Pilgrimage Withdrawal Syndrome” (I’ve invented the term myself so don’t try looking it up in any medical dictionary). As much as I wish to prolong the experience of 'touching heaven on earth', the reality of my everyday mundane existence comes crashing down, to remind me that I’m not in heaven yet. I’ve got to contend with a mountain heap of backlog in paperwork, a list of appointments to catch up on, and pages of unattended emails waiting to be answered in my Inbox.  It’s back to the hum drum drudgery of business as usual. It’s the whole experience of coming down from the mountain.  This is the REAL world!

This must be the experience of the three disciples, Peter, James and John. Above all of the foreshadowing of dark things predicted by the Lord Himself, above all the dark things that will soon follow, today’s mountain story rises above a brooding plain. It was a ‘pink pill’ experience. The Lord takes Peter, John and James up to a mountain and there, His glory shines through in some inscrutable way. The Greek word that describes this mystery is “metemorphothe”- the verb form of “metamorphosis.” The wondrous unfolding of a butterfly as she spreads her glorious wings upon emerging from the dark and colourless cocoon. And, as an icing on this picture perfect moment, two Old Testament greats appear beside the Lord.

For Peter, this experience, however you imagine it, is a wonderful “upper” coming just after the “downers” of the last day where Jesus had reiterated His prediction concerning His own passion and just before the abysmal pit of sorrow that awaits during Holy Week. It’s a glory moment and Peter, caught up in a spiritual high, says in effect, “Let’s just stay up on this nice mountain. Let us hold onto this wonderful postcard perfect moment.” Peter wanted to make the memory last. He wants to hang on to the moment by building a physical Monument or Museum, so that they can all stay up on the mountain and be happy forever after. Perhaps, by staying secure up on the mountain, Peter could prevent the Lord from carrying out His threat to be killed. Peter had failed once to convince the Lord to abandon His course of action. Now, a wiser Peter has learnt the art of subtlety. No point arguing. Just distract.

It’s hardly fair to make Peter a foil. His reaction is so natural. There are at least two things that you and I are wont to do with fond memories. One choice is Peter’s first reaction. Let’s just retreat into memory. Let’s live there. It really is alluring to hunker down with the sweet memory and just settle in it. When the future veritably swarms with uncertainty, how wonderfully secure it is just to hide away in history. The other choice, is to take those fond memories, those glory moments, and find in them nourishment for an even more glorious future. Memory can be an escape, or memory can light the way when the present is unclear and the future is dark. 

The Lord, therefore, challenges Peter and all of us to take the second option. This is the reason why He refuses Peter’s request to stay on the mountain. A sentence later, they are on the path back down into the real world. Just when Peter suggests that they pitch a tent and stay there forever, Jesus leads him back down the mountain. He invites them—and us—to journey with Him back into life’s valleys. But Peter's memory of that mountaintop was something he would carry with him throughout the week of confusion in Jerusalem. And I would guess that it gave him hope in that valley of the shadows. After the life-changing experience of beholding Christ's divinity, the apostles must come down from the mountain and return to their daily lives. They are surely changed, yet they must continue their “ordinary” work of following the Lord and spreading His Good News.

Having worked in parish ministry for the last thirteen years, there were many times when I would rather experience spiritual ecstasy than go about the business of my daily parish duties. Writing bulletin announcements, planning for formations, attending meetings, handling conflicts and dealing with disgruntled parishioners are all a tad less appealing than encountering the Risen Christ at Mass or at a retreat or during a pilgrimage. Like Peter, I am ever so tempted to make all these things go away by holding on to that one sweet memory of being alone with the Lord.

But I guess the story of the Transfiguration is a good reminder to me that though the Lord can bring us up to the mountaintop to have a glimpse of God’s glory and a taste of heaven, and to experience His love so tangibly, we can’t stay up there. Life is lived in the low places, in the valleys. God has work for us to do. We should not forget about the mission of the cross that we are to pick up as servants of Christ. To gain our life we must lose it, to follow Christ is to take upon us the cross. To answer His call, to go and make disciples of all nations.

Yes, the gospel does not end with the Transfiguration. The ordinary continues, the habitual and the routine continues.  Sometimes, life can feel like a chore. But do remember, when your life passes through some pain or loss, remember your Transfiguration moment. After having encountered God, just like the three disciples, our lives are never the same again. The revelation of God’s glory has forever widened the horizons of our lives and that is both wonderful and terrifying. Terrifying because it sometimes feels safer to go through life blinkered, as it gives you an excuse for not doing anything. Something is at risk, we risk facing possible hostility, ridicule, shame and uncomfortableness, but these are all part of the call.

And this, is the mysterious nature of our faith. Faith is always drawing us onwards, drawing us further. Just when we thought we knew the answers, we have to set those answers down and move on empty handed. Just when the disciples thought they had reached the mountain of glory, they had to go down and start all over again - they did not ever grasp that they would have to lose all, to gain all. This is the God who calls us to let go again and again, as we move forward in trust. Our faith, our experiences of God has to be lived out, not only on the tops of mountains, but in the cold reality of the valley among people who are sceptics, people who are hostile and the spiritually ‘unwashed’. 

Ultimately, the transfiguration is not just about reaching the tops of mountains.  You see, it’s about the transfiguration of all of our lives and that includes the concealed rubbish too. Not only will Christ be revealed in glory on the mountain but He will also be revealed in glory in the loneliness, forsakenness and agony on a cross. And, He will transfigure that cross too - from a sign of death into a sign of life and hope. Yes, He will be present at the top of mountains and also in the darkest valleys. And, wherever we are, we must “listen to him”.   For an encounter with the living Christ is no less profound as we go down the mountain and go about our day-to-day work.

The Anatomy of Temptation

First Sunday of Lent Year A

This First Sunday in Lent, we’re going to spend some time talking about temptation and about our old adversary, the devil. But even more importantly we’re going to think about Jesus’ own battle against temptation and how his response is such good news for the world and us. When it comes to the subject of temptation, we have a mother lode of riches, don’t we? Wasn’t it that proverbial Hollywood bad girl Mae West who said, “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” Everybody faces temptation and everybody gives in to it occasionally. Some of it is pretty harmless (that extra slice of chocolate cake) and we can laugh about it. But some of it isn’t.

But that’s the supreme subtlety of the Devil. He has perfected the act of trivialising something quite serious and making sin not look like sin. In fact, his disguise is his best work. It was Dante’s Inferno back in the early Middle Ages that presented the world with an image of a nefarious, horned creature with a pitchfork. Disney added the red suit. Scripture does not give us such an image.  The Evil One is much too sly to present himself in such an obvious garb. In fact, his ancient name ‘Lucifer’, the Shining One, says it all. He is the most radiant and beautiful among the celestial beings. The Devil’s first accomplishment is to convince you that he doesn’t exist. And then he proceeds to insinuate doubts to make you believe that conscience is a figment, that prayer is a projection, and finally that God is only a defence mechanism.

In today’s gospel, we read about how Jesus was tempted by the Devil. As modern day sceptics, it is easy for us to dismiss this story of a real devil as the primitive musings of unsophisticated people. I am not here to debate with you the validity of personifying evil. I am here to tell you that evil is real, and whether it takes the form of a breathing creature who whispers in our ears or not, the power of this story resides in the deep Truth that it conveys.

As much as the story seems to cast the spotlight on our arch-villain, the Truth is that this is actually a story of faith and obedience to the authority of God. It is about singularity of purpose and an undivided heart. Our Lord is the main protagonist, not the devil. A parallel is drawn between the experience of Jesus and that of the Israelites during the Exodus. Both stories share a parallel in the wilderness setting. Notice that Jesus quotes exclusively from Deuteronomy, texts set against the backdrop of the Exodus. But Jesus’ response to the event is in sharp contrast with Israel’s. Because of their unfaithfulness, the Israelites had to wander in the wilderness for forty long years before they could enter the Promised Land. Where Israel failed, Jesus perfectly obeys and because He perfectly obeys, the Devil is defeated.

Of course we wonder what relevance this story about Jesus and the devil has in our lives. The common denominator is that of temptation – Christ in embracing our humanity, allowed Himself to be tempted as we have been tempted. No other gospel story allows us to identify so closely with Him. None of us can perform miracles, or raise the dead, but almost daily we are tempted to compromise our convictions, our morals, and our faith in a hundred different myriad ways. But there is a difference. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, “Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, yet did not sin.” (Heb. 4:15) He proves to us that sin need not be the only conclusion to every temptation. Thus, we are invited today to examine the modus operandi of the Devil but we also need to study the measured responses of the Lord in battling evil.

Let’s begin with the anatomy and dynamics of evil and temptation. We see the malignant perseverance of the Devil who refuses to let up as well as how he subtly window dresses temptations in the guise of affection. Intelligent and reasonable argumentation, woven into every temptation to make it seem like a good idea at that time.  This is what he does. The tempter offers up things that are eminently reasonable and seemingly rational. He comes across as being compassionate, understanding and reasonable. Shakespeare wrote, “The prince of darkness is a gentleman”  Sometimes evil is easily identified. But more often than not, evil presents itself in the guise of an apparent good. The devil is far too clever and subtle to be so obviously evil.

Just consider the temptations of Christ. The suggestions made are so reasonable. You don’t have to starve—just turn the stones to bread. You want the people to believe who you are—throw yourself off the temple, the angels will catch you, and the people will be dazzled. You want to be lord of creation, I will give it all to you. There’s truly nothing inherently wrong with any of these suggestions. On the surface, what’s suggested is not so bad. Which, of course, is the idea. But that’s on the surface. There is, however, something insidiously damning buried there in the fine print. Remember that the devil is in the details. Subtle, crafty, on the surface, quite logical, but the price exacted is the abandonment of God’s mission. The Devil is unable to create. But he has mastered the art of distraction. He has convinced so many of us that the end justifies the means. Achieving your goal by whatever means is ultimately what matters.

What is the common thread running through all three temptations and all other temptations which we face? It is basically this: to treat God as less than God. And ultimately, when men cease to trust God and worship Him, they end up worshipping the devil. We are constantly being tested in our trust that God sustains us, protects us and, in fact, delivers us. We would rather trust in our own strength, devices and resources than to trust in God and His Providence. I can’t turn stones into bread but I can doubt that God will provide what I need and proceed to work out a human solution. You will not see me leaping off the tower of this church building but I have often plunged ahead blindly, not sure if God would see me through a crisis. We don’t bow before idols of petty gods, but we engage in idolatry nevertheless when we behave as if God doesn’t exist. A modern term has been coined to describe this – practical atheism. It is no wonder how extraordinarily difficult it is to worship and serve only God and God alone.

But here is how Jesus responded to the three temptations of the devil: to the temptation to satisfy our wants, Jesus says focus on God and not the world.  Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and mind and soul.  To the temptation of seeking the approval of others, the Lord reminds us that it is far more important to please God than it is to please and impress men. And finally, to the temptation of power, Jesus reminds us that God alone is the source of all abundance and power in our lives.  We derive power not from autonomy but from faithful and humble obedience to God. Ultimately, the ultimate defence and cure to all forms of temptations is this, putting God first above all else.

Yes, no one is immune from being tempted, even the saints and Christ too. It would be hubris whenever we think that we can negotiate and out-manoeuvre the Devil. We can’t, at least not on our own. But, thank God, we have Jesus. Here we finally have someone who encountered temptation and emerged victorious. He did so through the most powerful weapon – obedience to the will of God. This Lent let’s tussle against temptation. If temptation comes our way, we’re probably doing something good that evil wishes to thwart. So let’s fight against temptation, but do so always trusting not in our resources nor in the strength of our own resolve or will power, but in the one who was and is faithful to us and all the world—Jesus the Christ, the One who defeated the Devil at his own game, and will be victorious at the End.

Dirt unites us

Ash Wednesday 2017

A lady once told me this story about her grandson and Ash Wednesday. The precocious child, too young to receive Holy Communion, would often harass his parents and grandmother and badger them with questions pertaining to the reception of communion. What incensed him was that the adults and the bigger kids were privileged to receive communion but he was rudely and cruelly excluded. The responses to his questions were always the same, “You are too young. Later, when you are bigger.”   This was an unsatisfactory answer that could not placate his growing frustration.  However, on one Ash Wednesday, his grandmother decided to include him in the queue leading up to the imposition of ashes, and unlike other occasions where he was denied something which everyone else seemed to be getting, he got a generous dose of ashes on his forehead. One would imagine that the little boy would be ecstatic and pleased. But ‘No’ - the experience got him more upset and angry. On returning to his seat, the boy turned to his grandmother and issued this complain, “Oh, Grandma. It is not fair!  When it’s something to eat, I never get a share.  See.... I only get the dirt!”

Yes, not everyone is able to receive Holy Communion today, but everyone can proceed to the front to get the dirt. Today, our bodies, our foreheads in particular, become a blank canvas in which the Church wishes to paint the Truth of our identity, about who we are and who we wish to be, about creating something beautiful and unique with this soiled, dirty and messy paint of ashes and dirt. Today we are anointed, not with oil (the biblical symbol of gladness and celebration), but with dirt. It is a strange anointing.  It is this cross that comes to mark us, as Lent begins. Ashes, dust, dirt: the stuff that we walk upon, that we sweep away, that we work to get rid of, now comes to remind us who we are, where we are from and where we are bound.

The liturgy for the imposition of ashes contains three commands found in two different options – Remember! Repent! Believe! – each of which, together with that sign in dirt, says something important about human life and identity, and helps us understand our relationship with God, our destination in life and what needs to be done to get there.

Memory plays a key part in the Christian faith. Believers are called to remember who they are and whose they are. The words, ‘Remember that you are dust’, direct us back to the very beginning, when God formed Adam, literally ‘the earthy one,’ from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Far from suggesting that we are sinful rubbish, the liturgy is reminding us, in the first instance, that we are creatures who depend on God for our very existence. We are not and cannot be completely self-defined. However much we might protest against the idea, we are creatures, and we are dependent on the God who made us.

At the same time, this ‘dust-that-we-are’ has been created in the image of its Maker. How terrible and yet how marvellous, that God should feel so tender towards the dust as to create us from it, and return us to it, breathing through us all this while. The Ash Wednesday liturgy, thus, is a call to remember the wonder of creation, the miracle of existence and the gift of life, expressing humanity’s exuberance, joy, gratitude and praise, and recognising that we are not gods but creatures, subjected like everything else to the limitations of earthly existence. The truth about every living creature is that one day we will die.

Accompanying this dirt and ashes, comes the invitation, the call, the command to ‘Repent.’ In the Old Testament, people often used ashes as a sign of repentance. They would sit in ashes, roll around in them, sprinkle them upon their heads, or even mingle them with their food and drink. They did this as an outward sign of their inward posture of repentance. Ash Wednesday begins Lent, a time when we stop and assess how we're doing in our walk with God. Lent helps us identify spiritual areas in which we can grow and sinful areas that we need to avoid. To repent, put simply, means to turn away from sin and turn toward God.

But we acknowledge that repentance, or any change for that matter is never easy. The dirt on our foreheads would remind us that it is always a messy business. Change is difficult and it can be complicated, but it is worth all the trouble and the hassle once the change is complete. In other words as someone once said, “change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.”  If it was that easy to change the way we think or act, the world would be perfect. Consider change like a home renovation project. At first you to identify the areas that need to be improved. Once the process starts, things can get quite messy as old walls are torn down and new ones built, but the end result is something completely different and much better than what you started with. If you can stay motivated and overlook the messiness while changes are being implemented, then you will surely come out on the other side gorgeous and new, a better person for having gone through it all, as long as the changes that you make are positive.

During this Lent, something challenging and transformative can take place, if you are willing to embrace the dirt of who you are and the grace of God that would make you beautiful. As the priest or the lay minister pronounces those words and marks your foreheads, there is a moment of confrontation, of combat and assault, in which a battle is waged for your identity and your soul. You are told the painful truth about yourself, and the sinful reality of our world. And you are called to Repent! Turn around! A new way of life is offered that challenges the dominant cultural pattern of your life. 

Having turned around, what would we discover? Believe! Ash Wednesday points to Jesus Christ as the true source of meaning and identity. It bears witness to beauty and wonder, even amidst the pain and struggles of life, the ashes of history, and it calls us to live with faith, hope and love, believing that Christ can change and renew us, just as He promises to do for all of creation. Believe entails hope. Ash Wednesday and Lent encourages us to hope. Sin and death does not have the final word. Beyond that is our redemption and the resurrection. Wherever we look in the modern world, hope seems to be in short supply. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of a momentous period that culminates not in a death on Good Friday, but with a resurrection on Easter Sunday. It is utterly aware of the realities of the human condition – aware of our fallen-ness, but it doesn’t leave us there. That cross of ashes with which the priest marks the believer, is not a morbid indication of death and corruption, but a lively sign of faith and hope.

So today, everyone gets to receive the dirt on your foreheads. You don’t have to be saint to earn it. That’s because though not all of us have arrived at the pinnacle of sanctity, not all of us have attained perfection in our moral and spiritual cultivation, we find comfort in knowing that all of us do share something in common – our mortality, our sinfulness, and our need for forgiveness and redemption. “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Consider that, what we share in common as part of the human family, what unites us is our sinfulness. But there is more, because we are all sinners – the Lord has come to redeem us. That’s the good news. So, don’t be afraid to queue up and get all dirty. Wonderful dirt, marvelous dirt, redeeming ashes.