Musings

Go and do likewise – Luke 10:37

When I first met Theresa seven years ago I was shocked at the condition in which she lived. Appapada is lost somewhere in what should have been part of the national park( now happily encroached upon). She along with about thirty families live on this hillock which has no running water or electricity.

What touched my deeply this morning were the accompanying photographs from the community animator, Robert Dsouza. Theresa along with three other financially challenged women (Aveline, Chitra and Philomena)got together and cooked a meal for the poor of the area and fed them in her hut. The poor ministered to the poor.

This post is not written to make you feel guilty or to remind you how privileged you are; In a way, I myself am tired of ‘religious guilt’. This post is to empower you to do likewise.

Perhaps you may feel like cooking a meal in your house and feeding people who live around your residence. Or perhaps you could tip your hardworking postman, offer a glass of juice to your courier boy, offer a cup of chai to the one who collects your garbage, give a Lenten bonus to your domestic help, reach out to the office assistant and share your lunch with them; the list is endless.

Just for today become another Theresa to some one (like Mother Teresa did) And if you were deeply touched by the gesture of these women then share this ‘GOOD NEWS’ with others.

#pottypadre #ShareHisWORD #StJudeChurchMaladEast #LentenLunches

Fr Warner Dsouza

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The colour purple- Thursday, second week of Lent- Luke 16:19-31

The question that needs to be answered after reading this text is, will the five remaining brothers and us, who read the text in the modern world, follow the example of the rich man or heed the teachings of Jesus and that of the Old Testament about the care for the needy.

If you read the text carefully you will see that the rich man has no name, though in the tradition of the Church he came to be called ‘Dives’, which means “rich” in Latin. And besides the fact that he was rich the text does not tell us that he committed any moral wrong. It almost seems to appear that his condemnation stemmed from the fact that he was ‘merely rich’, which technically is no fault of his nor is being ‘poor’ a reason to be taken to heaven. Did Jesus simply have a preferential option for ‘Lazarus,’ which by the way is the only name given to anyone in Jesus’ parables (It means El-azar, “God has helped.”)

There is no condemnation in being rich per se; the condemnation is in not being sensitive to the needs of others. The narrative leaves little threads of this charge against Dives. We know the man is rich, it is told to us clearly but what is also told to us is that he dressed in purple and fine linen. Purple was a colour that was reserved for royalty. There is ambition in the man, an ambition that blinds generosity; for while he dressed in purple and linen he did not notice the poor man ‘at the gate’.

 Luke makes clear that the poor are a focus of Jesus’ ministry. In his inaugural sermon, Jesus declares that he has been anointed by the Spirit of the Lord “to bring good news to the poor” (4:18; see also 7:22). Jesus admonishes his followers not just to invite to their parties the friends and neighbors who can repay them, but to extend their invitations to “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (14:13). This is echoed when Jesus describes the kingdom of God as a wedding banquet where the invitation has been extended to “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (14:21). ( crf  Lois Malcolm)

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My boys- Wednesday. 2nd Week of Lent – Matthew 20:17-28

Honestly, what was this woman thinking? Jesus has just finished telling his disciples that he must suffer a horrible death and she pips in, curtsey et al, to ask for a ‘ public declaration’  of  positions and power, for her boys. Cleary she had heard that Jesus had given the keys of the kingdom to Peter and now she must have been wondering, ‘what are my boys going to get?’ Perhaps she may have noticed that Jesus’ inner circle of three consisted of her boys and Peter. It was this trio who were always around the Lord at those special moments, like the transfiguration. Would her boys loose out to the ministerial positions in the kingdom of Jesus? And so she moves in to outflank the rest, in favour of her boys. But has Mrs Zebedee put her foot into her mouth?

St Matthew, writing to a Jewish Christian community about forty years after Jesus’ death, does not want to embarrass James, the ‘hero of the Jewish Christians’ with such an embarrassing narrative. By the year seventy AD, James has become a house hold name among the Jewish Christians and to portray him as power seeking  monger and that too behind the skirt of his mother, would be outright embarrassing.  So Matthew, unlike the Gospel of Mark (written before Matthew) simply does not even mention the name of James and John in this passage. We only know later, in Matthew 27:56 that the sons of Zebedee mentioned here are indeed James and John. 

But before we run this poor woman to the ground for her ambitious dreams of glory for her sons, we must see in her, all mothers, who would like the same for their boys. It seems like the scriptures simply leave Mrs Zebedee in the poorest of light; not true. In Matthew 27:56 she is mentioned again, this time after Jesus’ death, as one of the three women who had ‘followed him from Galilee providing for His needs’. She does this respectfully from afar. This same woman filled with aspiration for position and power is now a humbler servant of Jesus. She has become a servant disciple, yet a courageous woman of faith who stands close to the cross of Jesus. What an amazing transformation and so unlike the disciples who struggled to understand the master till the bitter end.

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 Catching the bull by it’s tail- Tuesday, 2nd Week of Lent – Matthew 23: 1-12

The Lenten battle is mostly fought in our hearts and while the area may seem no larger than my fist, the enemy through cunning deceit, fights on, so as to not loose an inch. It is a world of deception that he weaves, where even those who work in the evangelizing fields, may end up ruining a bumper harvest. If we get lost by the razzle and dazzle of who we are, rather than what we are called to do, then we end up like the Pharisees of old.  So the words of Jesus are words of caution; not only for preachers, but all who bear the name ‘Christian’, for all are called to be evangelizers. 

By the time of Jesus, the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ lifestyle of the Scribes and Pharisees was out in the open. So their acts of repentance had become merely a ritual. We are told that even the prophets condemned these outwardly demonstration of piety, especially that of rending their garments; and from the description of their phylacteries and tassels, they seemed to have quite a bit of it to do!  That was not all. The gospel of today tells us so much more about their behaviour. They preach but don’t practice; they tie burdens, but will not lift a finger to move them. Their words and actions are merely to win men’s admiration. They love being greeted in public places with their honorific titles.  

For Jesus, His mission was all about getting us to the basics of life; a heart that is pure and a love that is right. So His confrontation with the Pharisees was not with their vocation but how they lived it. He saw their living as divorced from man and God; all chatter, no substance. So as bullish as I may be about this topic, don’t get this text by its tail. A number of Christians see in this text, a condemnation of their local ‘non practicing, table thumping preacher’ and erroneously reiterate  a  forgone conclusion: namely, ‘let’s not go to Church’ or even worse, ‘look at these hypocrites,  it is better not to believe in religion; rather lets embrace the spiritual.’

Hold your horses! Hypocrisy is not unique to a vocation. So let’s not start looking for the splinter in our preacher’s eye without looking at the plank in our own. Jesus never said stop believing or stop going to Church. He simply said that if you don’t like what you see then don’t do as they do, but do what they say’. In short, the message is always true; the messenger may sometimes be flawed. 

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Six pack coming soon- 2nd Week of Lent- Monday-Luke 6: 36-38

Have you ever fallen for one of those TV commercials that advertise a six pack body without having to go to the gym? Yup your right, if you did, then you’re a sucker! Nothing comes that easy; it’s hard work all the way. So why expect anything different in our spiritual lives?

Consider these three tiny verses of today’s gospel. When you read through, the tendency is to let your eyes glide over the challenges in verses 36 and 37 and then settle comfortably on the promises of verse 38; promises of God’s blessings, pressed down, shaken together and running over.  But to expect the blessing of verse 38 without the application of the previous verses; to be merciful, non-judgmental and forgiving, is like expecting those famous six pack, without stepping into a gym.

Jesus was no fool when he linked those words side by side, give and forgive. He knew that forgiving must begin with giving. I can’t forgive unless I ‘give up’ my right to get even. Jesus does not ask us to forgive for our neighbour’s sake; he asks us to forgive so that we may be at peace with our selves. It is the poison within us that needs to leave our system, for healing to take place.

The heart of forgiveness lies in verse 36; “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”.  Many years ago the Emperor Napoleon had issued a decree that any deserter from his army would be shot on being arrested. The next day a tearful mother turned up to plead with the Emperor, begging for mercy for her son, who fled the battlefield in fear of the terrifying bloodshed. Napoleon boomed, “He does not deserve mercy.” “You are right”, the mother said, “Mercy is never deserved!”

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