Do it Daddy's Way

Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A

A good friend of mine, who is a senior lawyer, often gets into a legal wrangle with his young son, a natural-born-lawyer by all accounts.  As such, it is no surprise that when it comes to negotiating with his son, my friend is a mere novice. When insisting on his way, the little boy would plead with his father in the most pitiable fashion, teary-eyed and all, “Daddy, can you please do it my way just this once?” To which the father replies on cue, “I always do it your way!” No second guesses who gets to win every round. Though certainly not a model for good parenting, this story reminds me of what love entails. When you truly love someone, you eventually end up letting them have their way. I hope and pray that one day his son would come to love him as much as he is unconditionally loved by his father and to do it “Daddy’s way”.

Today’s gospel begins and ends with an appeal to love the Lord and to manifest that love in obedience to His commands. Usually, we find the Lord exhorting His disciples in other places to believe in Him. But here in the fourth gospel, faith and obedience to the Lord’s commandments have been deepened and raised to the level of love. This may seem to be a strange idea since most modern people would not equate love with law. In fact, many would claim that there is an irresoluble dichotomy between the two. You may have often heard it in this manner, “God is a God of Love. He is not a God of Laws;” or, “People who are just concerned with laws, are not very loving, and those who are truly loving, are never bothered with laws or small-minded rules.” If you have ever heard any of these statements being made or may have even propounded them, then the gospel today goes a long way to address this false dichotomy that many have been set up between love and the law. Straight from the horse’s mouth, we hear our Lord speaking, “If you love me, you would keep my commandments.” In one radical twist, Jesus now makes one clear connexion between love and obedience.

The problem lies in the fact that love has been reduced to the level of subjective self-definition, rather than as an objective reality. God is Love – that’s objective!  There’s nothing subjective about it – who God is doesn’t depend on how we feel or what we think. But today, for many Catholics and Christians in general, our faith is becoming really ethereal, touchy-feely and abstract. For too many professing Christians, it seems that their relationship with God is dictated by how they feel towards God at the time or how they think God feels about them at the time. Closeness to God, according to this way of thinking and believing, is both, subjective rather than objective, and an experience rather than a reality.  Expressions and outbursts like, “I just feel so close to God today,” and “Can’t you just sense the Holy Spirit’s presence in the room?” or “I didn’t feel God was present at mass today” become definers of one’s spiritual status. Likewise, empty protestations of loving God is matched by little to absolutely non-existent prayer or moral life.

On the other hand, simply saying we love Jesus is not proof of our love. We won’t win any points through compliment and flattery. We must discover love in a free and willing observance of all the commandments of God. This is the only proper evidence and confirmation of our love for Jesus. The love for Him which leads one to do all of His will, to love one another, to love as He did, to forgive and even love one’s enemies.  To observe all the commandments and to go beyond that, to go the extra mile that is to make the ultimate sacrifice of love, to deny oneself, to take up his cross, and to follow Him completely through the bitter and the sweet;  that is love.

According to the Scripture, a tree is known by its fruit, not by what the tree thinks about itself or its relation to its Maker. The fruit and thus the test for genuine love, is the keeping of His commandments. Obedience is how we prove our love for the Lord, and this is a very concrete, objective measure of the state of our relationship with God. And there is nothing abstract or ambiguous about this.

This intimate and dependent connexion between love and obedience to God is something that needs to be stressed in this day and age, where love has come to be understood as being apathetic, non-judgmental, and based upon non-discerned emotions and feelings. Yet, how can it be authentic love if it is not connected to obedience to the word and commands of Christ Jesus?  Whatever is not connected to the Truth, and Jesus is "the Way, the Truth and the Life,” is connected to the Father of Lies, Satan. Whatever is disconnected from love of God (Jesus, Love Incarnate), is connected to the hate of God (Satan). All sin is an exercise in disobedience to God’s word and commands. The reason why the love of the world is gravely disconnected from obedience to God is simply because it has rejected the authority of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, whom the Father has sent to teach us everything and to remind us of His Word.

Perhaps, there is an innate suspicion of obedience and laws in our modern day society. Obedience carries negative connotations. It implies and assumes an unthinking submission that reduces one to a level of a child or a slave. And so we associate obedience with compulsion; the lack of freedom or love. We view obedience as blind submission, a forced, unwilling decision to do something we don’t want to do because we’re afraid of punishment. But that’s not the kind of obedience that’s found in scripture. Today, Jesus reminds us – love involves obedience – “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” It always starts with love.

God is Love and His Law is ultimately an expression of His love. If not, God would be contradicting Himself. If the Lord’s commandments, His Law, express what the Lord wants and loves, and if we love Him, we must necessarily want what He wants and love what He loves. There is no two ways about it! The Law is letting love have its way, it is letting God have His way with us. How do we understand this truth except to look at the common-place example of a parent and a child? How does one know when a child truly loves his parents? It is evident when that child is willing, without hesitation, without contradiction, or without murmuring, to do all that the parents require him to do. He does so not out of fear of reprisal for his non-compliance nor in expectation of a reward. He does so willingly, freely, and whole-heartedly. Loving the Lord therefore is never just something emotional; loving Jesus means reforming our lives, working on our personalities and characters, overcoming sinful habits, stretching ourselves to love as Jesus loved. Loving the Lord means making His way ours too.

The call of today’s Gospel is for us to develop a rigour of obedience to the Word, to the commands of our Lord and to His teachings handed down to us through the Apostles and His Church. What does that mean? In practical terms, what that means is for us to prayerfully work on deepening our relationship with the Holy Spirit. In daily exercise terms, it means to devote ourselves to the reading of Scriptures, to prayer, and to making frequent use of the sacramental channels of grace, especially the Eucharist and Penance. In living a sacrificial life of love, it means putting the needs of others before yourself, forgiving others immediately, and always desiring to draw closer to Christ. It is about doing it Christ’s way, not ours. For only Christ can show us that the greatest joy and freedom is to be found in doing it God’s way.

The scandal of particularity

Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A

I have been called a Catholic Taliban! What did I do to deserve this title, you ask? Well, I didn’t earn it by being a gun-totting, suicide-bomb-threatening nor bible-thumping Catholic. My major unforgivable sin, in the eyes of my critics, would be that I hold on too ‘blindly’ and ‘rigidly’ to what the Church proposes as the perennial Truth and my refusal to bend to changing trends of society.  One of the main teachings of the Church in particular, which often gets me into trouble is that which concerns the saving mission of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Church. I profess and hold to be true, that Jesus Christ is the unique and universal Saviour of the World and that the Catholic Church is the ordinary means of salvation. Many, including Catholics, find this offensive and objectionable, especially in the context of a pluralistic world. However, the fact of the matter is that this is exactly what the Church teaches, no more and no less. And yet, it is a teaching that is hardly emphasised or even preached. I suspect that this is because it offends the ‘doctrine’ of pluralism, which has been elevated by our culture to the status of a new religion.

The word “pluralism” can be used in different senses, some harmless and some less so. In a harmless factual sense it can be applied to any complex and extensive society. For example, here in Malaysia as in other parts of the world, we are no longer experiencing a monolithic homogenous culture that observes only one specific world-view, religion or set of values. Thus, to deny such factual pluralism would mean that you are living in a bubble. But ideological pluralism, as the name suggests, is something quite different.

As a doctrine, ideological pluralism claims that hostility and division can be avoided if due and equal credit is given to all sides. This is what that makes this doctrine so attractive. In today’s world, division is the enemy of all that is good, peaceable and tolerable. We want to be united as a people and we see tolerance as the answer. This clichéd statement is its tagline: “There is no right or wrong answer, it’s how you look at it.” The philosophical equivalent to this would be relativism, “There is no such thing as Absolute Truth. All truths are merely partial and a manifestation of a greater Truth, which no religion can claim to have a monopoly over.” “Agree to disagree,” sounds like a sensible basis for peace in a situation of fundamental disagreement. But, what if someone is actually wrong? What if someone, or an ideology, is actually harmful?

The basic problem is that pluralism can’t possibly be truly pluralistic. It proposes a particular form of society where anything that does not conform to its ideals and principles would have to be altered and modified so as to “fit in”. Since social cohesion and social tolerance are its ultimate goals, ideological pluralism always seeks for the lowest common denominator. Thus, when trying to find the ultimate common denominator among people of different religious or philosophical leanings, one would necessarily have to preclude God, since some religions and individuals choose not to believe in Him. Perhaps another prime example of this danger may be seen in the area of morality, specifically in terms of human sexuality.

At the end of the day, in the name of pluralism, the Catholic Church, cannot be fully and truly Catholic if she wishes to exist and survive in such a society without having first abandon those teachings that may collide with the belief systems of others or risk offending them. When people claim that all religions are principally the same, with merely insignificant and superficial differences, as open-minded as they may sound, it actually betrays a certain ignorance. No one could ever possibly make this claim unless he is abysmally ignorant of what the different religions of the world actually teach. Certainly, there are similarities and parallels, but there are also many differences and even contradictions between truth claims. To ignore or to collapse every single difference and contradiction into a single voluminous salad bowl of beliefs is like thinking the earth is flat.

That is why the most popular of all objections against the claims of Christianity today comes from this field. The objection is not that Christianity is not true, but, that it is not THE Truth; not that it is a false religion but that it is only A religion, one among many. Thus those who speak of the uniqueness of Christianity or even of Christ are deemed narrow minded and intolerant. This is the scandal of particularity or specificity.

Coming back to our gospel for today; Jesus is the reason that the Christian faith is a problem. “…No one can come to the Father except through Me” is the bone of contention. There is no way of getting around this declaration, unless you choose to ignore it or expunge it from the Bible for being too fundamentally exclusive. He tells us in no uncertain terms: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Not just any way, or one among many truths or merely a path of life among other valid paths. He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

But what seems to be a scandal to the world is one of the most beautiful and surprising things about Christianity - its specificity.  In our culture, we tend to think that the most valuable things are those that are most universal.  We value abstract ideas and broad concepts.  We prefer to think of God as a nameless “force” that infuses everything equally with its love and goodness. We think it is reasonable to assume that there can’t be just one way to God.  Yet Scripture shows us just how un-Democratic God can be.  God did not reveal Himself to all the world!  Instead, He chose one man (Abraham) to become the father of one nation (the Jews). C.S. Lewis adds: “Within this nation there is further selection: some die in the desert, some remain behind in Babylon.  There is further selection still.  The process grows narrower and narrower, sharpens at last into one small bright point like the head of a spear.  It is a Jewish girl at her prayers.  All humanity (so far as concerns its redemption) has narrowed to that.” (C.S. Lewis, Miracles)

Contrary to all our intuitions about what God must be, God was, in the Incarnation, not everywhere, but somewhere.  He was not just any Tom, Dick and Harry, He chose to take flesh and become Jesus of Nazareth. It would not be hubris on our part to proclaim this truth but it would certainly be hubris, to believe that “I know better” than God and that God should have taken a more democratic and pluralistic approach to things by manifesting Himself in different avatars and preaching different equal paths to salvation. This is certainly not Christianity.

That is why the Church continues to proclaim that God intends the salvation of all, and He does so through the mediation of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and the Church, which is His Body. And yet, those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ or His Church, but who follow the dictates of their conscience as prompted by the Spirit, may also be saved. But their salvation too comes from Christ and never apart from Him. If there are elements of truth and goodness found in other religions, they are preparations to hear the gospel.

Though the world may appear to be a free market place of ideas, opinions, theologies and ideologies, where we are constantly tempted to come up with a recipe or salad of ideas, we Christians have already made our choice. There may be many rivers which may ultimately lead to the sea, but there is only one Way, one Truth and one Life that leads to Heaven, it is Christ!  And it is the Church’s duty and mission, which remains the same as it was yesterday, today, and tomorrow: to humbly and charitably evangelise and “proclaim the Cross of Christ as the sign of God’s universal love and the source of all grace.” (Nostra Aetate 4)

The Gate of Life

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday or alternatively known as Vocation Sunday, the day we pray for more vocations to the priesthood. Yet, the gospel reading, though it makes an allusion to a shepherd, uses an entirely different and even strange analogy. The Lord tells us in a most solemn tone, “I am the gate of the sheepfold.” The imagery from His words certainly has many layers of meaning and I believe that this is intentional. The most common explanation put forward is that the Lord is drawing from the pastoral experience of the shepherds, who would coral their sheep within a rocky sheep pen in the open. A second interpretation strikes closer to home. Today’s passage follows immediately after the healing of the man who was born blind in Chapter 9, and which we had heard on the Fourth Sunday of Lent. The context is the Temple precinct.

In the many gated ancient walls of Jerusalem (there were a total of 12 gates), there was a gate on the north of the city, through which animals were brought in from the surrounding areas to be sacrificed. It was called the Sheep Gate. It takes its name from the main category of non-human pedestrians passing underneath its arch – sheep. Once through the gate, the sheep were led into the Temple and offered as sacrifice, a sin offering, on the altar of repentance. One may regard this as a kind of a bloody confession. Note that for the sheep, this was a one-way trip. No sheep that passed through these gates would be led out alive. For that initial audience who had heard Jesus’ teaching about sheep, such knowledge added to the shock of His words: “I am the gate; anyone who enters through me will be safe.” And if that is not enough, the Lord will add, “I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full.” Such irony to hear these words spoken about sheep, in the very place that they were about to be slaughtered.

There is also something else significant about the Sheep Gate. Located just outside the Gate were several pools of water. These pools were used to cleanse the animals before they were taken into the Temple to be sacrificed. Many of the sick, the crippled, the dying, the beggars, and the scum of society would congregate here. People around these pools were excluded and just like the sheep that passed through the Gate, they had already been written off. Since, these categories of persons seem to be a ready audience for the Lord, He would have taken this opportunity to minister in this area. Perhaps, many of you can remember the story of how the Lord healed the paralytic man beside one of these pools located by the Sheep Gate. Since the healing took place on a Sabbath, this created another controversy that would drive an additional nail into the coffin of the Lord. There were always tensions at the Sheep Gate when the Lord was around - He couldn't help challenging the people who controlled the way things worked.

The nuances of these facts should not be lost on us as we consider how the Lord identifies Himself with the Sheep Gate. The original Sheep Gate was the place where the creatures to be sacrificed were herded in. The place of no return for the sacrificial lambs and sheep. This was also the place where those people who society didn’t want, were abandoned. They put the incurable, the paralysed and the lame at the pool near the Sheep Gate - right on the edge of the city, out of sight of the respectable citizens at the heart of the city going about their daily business unhindered. The Sheep Gate was the place of no return for the abandoned people of Jerusalem. But here comes the Lord, turning things around in His revolution of boundless love and telling the people of Jerusalem: 'I am the gate for the sheepfold… Anyone who enters through Me will be safe: he will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture… I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full.”

 
So the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem came to represent the victimisation of people and animals in a society which functioned with sacrifice at its centre. And so, by modelling Himself as the gate for the sheep, Jesus came to challenge and overturn the need for sacrifice - and in its place to offer salvation, and the freedom for victims to come and go “and find pasture”, and live abundant lives. The only thing that needed to be sacrificed was Himself. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and the gospel which He brings would sound like this, “I tell you most solemnly, it is not the sheep that must die but the Shepherd!”  So, for the sheep of Jesus’ parable, the Sheep Gate was no longer a one-way passage to slaughter, nor a place of no return. Jesus, the open gate, the generous gate, the loving gate; and gushing out of this very gate would be the source of life, abundant life, life to the fullest.

Perhaps, many of us find ourselves at the old Sheep Gate. We may experience life as nothing more than the time spent between birth and death: the drudgery of existence, the boring monotony of routine, or the hopelessness of believing that there is nothing more than this life. It’s not as if people don’t try to find a way out of this predicament. Many of us, just like that crippled man who waited by the miraculous Pool of the Sheep Gate, are expecting a break in life or we find ourselves crawling to something or someone who promises the ultimate solution.

But, as much as people try to make more out of their miserable lives, they are always confronted with counterfeits. You will not find life, in pleasure. Many people have tried taking back-to-back cruises or tried to retire in luxury or even live out one of their fantasies and yet they still remain empty. Try as they may in the pursuit of pleasure, eventually the law of diminishing returns takes hold. It takes a bigger thrill, or an even bigger event to bring on another high. But it never lasts!  You won’t find the life too, in performance. Eventually workaholics learn that the satisfaction of one job completed is short lived. A Wimbledon tennis champion made this poignant point, “The thrill of victory lasts about fifteen minutes.” The truth is that life is not found in pleasure, performance, possessions, positions or pursuits. It can only be found in one place, or rather, one person, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Only He can truly say, “I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full.” Life is entered by no other than Christ Himself. When the Lord said He is the door of the sheepfold, He meant that the fold has only one entrance; life has one source; heaven can be entered through one entrance; and the single means of access to all that is life, is Jesus.

Life is full of choices and doors. Choosing the right doors in life is important. Unlike the game shows, we don’t have to guess and hope we picked the right door. We don’t have to wonder which way to go, or what to do. Jesus says, “listen for My voice”, “look for My leading”. To the weak, to the timid, to the fearful, to the guilty, to those who are worn out and tired, He calls us all... “Come to Me you who are weary and I will give you rest," and to all of us sinners He says, "My grace is sufficient for you.” To those who have been abused or abandoned, He says you are wanted and safe with me. “I will never leave you or forsake you.” If you have been confused or have lost your way, if you have wandered and knocked on doors with empty promises, “come, come to Me and I will give you abundant life”. To the faithful who have persevered, to all who will come, from the side streets, from the highways, down the mountainsides, across the rivers and through the meadows, “come to Me, for I Am the Gate!” And all who enter through Me will find peace that only I can give, the joy of true acceptance, the comfort of assurance and the salvation for your soul!