Faith

A burden that is well fitting – Thursday, 15th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 11:28-30

Matthew chapters eleven and twelve focuses on the rejection of Jesus. The rejection that Our Lord faces will find him nailed to the cross. Sadly, his rejection is not just hate filled but also indifference to all the miracles he worked and the enlightenment he shared. It is with regret, that he decries the unrepentant cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum with a woe and ironically none of these villages are inhabited till today.

In his rejection, Our Lord turns not to some distraction but to his Father; the star attraction in his life. Jesus is thankful to the Father for revealing who he is to the simple and the unlettered. Those who claimed to know the scriptures were unable to recognise in Jesus the presence of the one that they waited for generations. They could not see the Messiah standing in their midst.

Faith must open our eyes, yet often it is men and women of faith who become the greatest hurdles to seeing what the simple and unlettered see so easily. To them Jesus says, “come to me.” Jesus is calling his faithful to him. That call is specifically made to those who are overburdened and weary. As preachers, we have a bonded duty to direct our faithful to Jesus alone. It is he who has the power to give the overburdened rest. A preacher who draws people to himself is a false teacher. We are but instruments of the Master.

Yet to the overburdened the Lord does not make a false promise to take away the burned. The Lord is clear when he says, “I will give you rest.” He never said I will take away every trouble if you become my disciples and if you keep my word. His promise is rest!

What he says next is even more intriguing. Our Lord says, “shoulder my yoke.” I like this translation to the words, “take my yoke.” Take my yoke almost sounds like Jesus is about to add to our burdens and walk away. That is not his intention; his intention is for us to go to him with the challenges of life and together, Jesus and you, shoulder this burden together. Our Lord shares in your burden, he does not leave you alone.

And while he shoulders the burden with you, he makes another proposition, “learn from me,” he says. It is as if our Lord is saying, while we carry this burden together, let’s make the best of the time we have together; you and I. Let me talk to you, let me tell you how a Christian disciple should handle his stress and burdens.

One might still feel a bit cheated even though the Lord makes all this sound so nice. After all, did he not say shoulder my yoke and did he not say his burden, which he wants us to shoulder in addition to our burdens, is easy? Easier than what? Yes, the Lord does want us to should his burden so that he can teach us his ways while we are at it, but his burden is not just easy it is ‘well fitting’. You see, the translation of the word “easy” in Greek is ‘chrestos’ and ‘chrestos’ does not accurately translate as ‘easy’ as much as it translates as ‘well fitting.’

As I said earlier, the Lord did not promise to take away our burden, he promised to give us rest and while he did invite us to shoulder his burden the purpose was to grab an opportunity to learn from him. But even more, Jesus reveals a secret about the burden he asks us to share with him. He tells us that he has ‘measured us’ and found the burden well fitting for us. He has not overburdened us with his burden, he has just helped us to understand that what we carry has been measured for us. He won’t give us a burden we cannot handle.

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Faith

For what I have failed to do – Tuesday, 15th week in ordinary time – Matthew 11:20-24

Having completed the mission discourse, Jesus sets out to do what he came to do; “to teach and proclaim his message in their cities” (11:1). The lectionary omits verses 2-19 concerning John the Baptist. These texts will find their way in the liturgy of the Church several times in Advent and around the feast concerning John the Baptist.

Principally, chapters eleven and twelve will cover the rejection of Our Lord and are referred to as the rejection passages. Verses 16-19, which precede this text, gives us a clear understanding of the rejection that Jesus faced. Nothing He does seems to make the people happy. They won’t dance when the flute is played, they won’t mourn when the dirge is sung. For that matter, the life of John the Baptist was too austere for them and the life of Jesus was too debaucherous. It seemed like they wanted an omelet but did not want to break the eggs.

Jesus responds to this indifference towards him and to his mission and having confronted their behaviour (verse 16-19) he now decides to shake a fist at them. Clearly, the Gospel tells us that these three cities were not places where he worked some random miracle or gave some small time village religious teaching. Our Lord had put his heart and soul into bringing them the words of salvation and the acts of divine grace. We are told, “most of his deeds of power had been done here.” It is for this reason that he reproaches them

But what had Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum done? It’s not so much what they have done but rather what they failed to do. To them had the Gospel been preached vigorously. Capernaum was the Lord’s de facto headquarters in the region of Galilee. More than two thirds of the miracle of Jesus had been worked around the lake of Galilee where these cities were situated. They should have become cities of holiness and faith; light to the Gentiles who had outnumbered them in this region. Yet the ministry of Jesus had no effect on them personally.

What is it that Jesus wanted from them as a sign of acceptance of his ministry? He wanted them to repent. He says to them that if his words and deeds were preached in the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented. We know that these cities were known for their immorality and lust. If immoral cities could respond in repentance, then why were the cities that our Lord preached to, so indifferent to putting on a new heart and mind?

I guess the answer to that question lies in the actions of each of us. Have I repented or do I take the love of the Lord for granted?

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Faith

Promote and Support – Monday, 15th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 10:34-11:1

We come to the end of the second of five discourses found in the Gospel of Matthew. The mission discourse ends with no apology. It is not a diplomatic speech that has carefully tip toed safely past a minefield of difficult issues. Rather, the mission discourse has been more like a bull taken on by its horns; the elephant in the room addressed.

The mission discourse makes it abundantly clear that the Christian will always be to the world, a point of derision, an object of scorn. This is not merely from those who sit outside our green pastures but also include some ‘goats’ who mock the sheep within.

Making a choice for Christ clearly sets you on a collision course with the rest of the world and the world does not have to be on the other side of the globe but can be on the other side of your home. Those in the early Church who followed Christ, leaving their pagan faiths, were the ones who did not just feel some heat under the collar; many felt the heat literally as they were burnt for Nero’s pleasure.

Jesus is emphatic; luke-warm Christians who have been bathing in their watered down understanding of the Catholic faith are “not worthy of him.” While we may propagate and promote our happy-clappy, kumbaya version of Christ, that version, good as it may be, must also be confronted with verse 38 where we are told that if Christ is not first in everything, then we stand nowhere in his court; we are not worthy of him.

Christ does not ask us to actively seek persecutors so that we may be martyred but he actively asks us to die to ourselves in order that we may find him. He says “those who find THEIR life will lose it.” What Christ is saying is that those who make a life for themselves in which HE is not part of, that life is a life created for themselves, a life devoid of him. That life, as happy as it may seem to the world, is a life lost.

The mission discourse winds down with some respite for the ones sent out. So far, most of the discourse seems to border on not just the straight and narrow but the harrowing and challenging. So, Christ encourages us to promote and support the work of the evangelist. By welcoming the missionary and in doing that, you welcome Christ. That welcome may be just a cup of cold water that you can afford but each of us can afford to fund the mission and life of the Church.

The Gospel of today ends with the doctrine we all advocate but fail short of; to practice what we preach. Jesus did exactly that! Having “instructed the twelve he went on from there to teach and proclaim his message in their cities” till he walked to Jerusalem, walked up the steps of the Praetorium and then with a cross on his back, walked all the way up to Golgotha.

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A call, its consequence and the courage – Saturday, 14th week in ordinary time – Mathew 10:24-33

We strive to be better than the best. But what happens when you already have the best to emulate? In that case you just follow the leader! Jesus is the Master and he is the teacher in the text of today. As disciples and slaves (doulos is the word in Greek) we can’t get better than the standards he has set. So, we should not be surprised that walking in Jesus’ footsteps will only take us where his journey ended; the cross.

We are in the second of the five discourses found in the Gospel of Matthew. The mission discourse sees Jesus appoint the twelve and then he sends them out in mission. But Good News and especially THE Good News is followed by bad news. The bad news is that a Christian will face the storms of persecution for actively making the choice to follow the Lord.

Jesus’ opening lines in today’s Gospel is to be read tongue in cheek. If they crucified the master, why would you expect them to glorify you? Jesus has laid down the call to mission, he has laid down the consequences of mission but he also gives us the courage to face that mission. His promise was that he would never leave or forsake us.

Already, he has told the disciples that they need not be afraid of what they should say when dragged before governors and kings. The power of the Holy Spirit will give them the words by which they will witness to their lives and perhaps even witness by their death. Knowing how daunting that would sound, Jesus reiterates his words of comfort, not once but thrice; “have no fear.”

Jesus’ call to have no fear comes from the assurance that he is in charge of everything and of every moment of our life. If his eye is on the sparrow then his eye is definitely watching over each of us. St Paul, in the letter to the Romans, chapter 8:35 says, “who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword?” St Paul was suggesting the obvious; with Christ with us, why should we be afraid….so bring it on!

The choice we make for Jesus is always going to be divisive; not because Christ is divisive but that the choices made by a Christian go against the values of the world. When we hold a mirror up to sin then sin does not want to be exposed; it fights back with more falsehood. Christ came to be the prince of peace yet that peace is not the absence of strife; it is the presence of God in our strife, it is the assurance of God in our persecution. Peace does not come easy, ironically it has to be ‘fought for’!

The choice that we make for Jesus is a tough call. It sets us in opposition to the ways of government, family, friends and even those who chose to deceive the followers of Christ with false or compromised doctrine and personal agendas of power. It does not matter what colour habit or skull cap you wear, it matters what colour you heart is and I pray that our hearts are not black like the betrayer of Christ.

Loving Christ means loving him more than anyone else even if that excludes loving father and mother and everything and everybody we know. Loving Christ is to take up THE cross and not some trivial issues in our life which we magnify as OUR cross.

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You will be hated on my account – Friday, 14th Week in ordinary time – Matthew 10:16-23

St Matthew wrote this Gospel during a period of great hostility between the Jews and the Christians. The Christians had not yet formed a clear identity as a body of people, as we have today. At best, the early Christians were a sect of Judaism that believed that the Messiah was Jesus who had died and had risen. The early Christians still prayed at the synagogues, their prayers were still the prayers that their Jewish brothers and sisters recited, their habits and cultural mannerism were still predominantly Jewish.

But all that changed with the council of Jamnia or Jabneh. After the fall of Jerusalem, (A.D.70) the “Council of Jabneh” was convened. It consisted of a group of Jewish scholars who were granted permission by Rome around the year 90 to meet in Palestine near the Mediterranean Sea in Jabneh (or Jamnia). Here they established a non-authoritative, “reconstituted” Sanhedrin. Among the things they discussed was the status of several questionable writings in the Jewish Bible. They also rejected the Christian writings and made a new translation of the Greek Septuagint.

While scholars’ debate on what happened next, many have accepted that the council of Jabneh decided to expel those who did not adhere to their value system. Such a procedure is described in the Birkat ha-Minim, a ‘Blessing on the heretics’ (actually a curse) and among those cursed were the Jewish apostates whom we would call ‘the early Christians’. This sparked tension between Judaism and Christianity and built up even more in the medieval ages.

When St Matthew was writing the mission discourse, this tension was a lived experience. Today, every Christians would read this text in their own context that they live in. In India, these persecutions are real and fraught with dire threats and bodily harm. It is not uncommon to have right wing groups, attack with impunity, Christian evangelist and Christian institutions; taking the law into their own hands while the law itself looks the other way. So often, those who are charged with enforcing the law, are complicit in harbouring the attackers while filing false charges against Christian evangelists who are just tending to their own flock and institutions.

Social media is abuzz with videos recorded by right wing groups insulting St Teresa, calling for a Hindu nation and blatantly suggesting violence against Christians and other minorities. The very media channels that would scream blue murder at the top of their lungs on prime-time TV are silent to such hate. Yet, should anyone with a surname that sounds remotely from a minority faith dare to even critique the functioning of government, the same media channels would call you anti-national and within hours you would be in some prison on trumped up charges.

Jesus does not hide the danger that we are to face if we are his disciples. He does not sugar coat the path ahead. “Beware”, he says, “of them.” That “them,” has become for us in India, any one from the highest offices in the political class to one who thinks that they are doing a holy task for their faith by attacking a Christian.

The description of the persecution that is found in this text, seems like it is happening in real time, here in India. “You will be dragged before governors and kings before me,” said Jesus. While fear will be natural in such a circumstance, the defence of the righteous is the work of the Holy Spirit. The words of our defence will be given, for God will speak through us. But that does not mean that the doors of the prison will be opened for us like it did for St Peter; our lives could end up like St Stephen, when he was stoned to death.

Perhaps the saddest pain that comes from such persecution is not the physical attacks but the pain that comes from those with whom we once lived and loved; our neighbours, colleagues or students in our institutions. The words of Jesus ring true two thousand years later “brother against brother, father against child, children against parents.” It has not been uncommon for us today in India, to hear and perhaps experience, first hand, our very “brothers and sisters” with whom we took oaths in school, now turn against the very priests and nuns at whose hand they were educated. The shrill voices on social media accusing Christians as having a single agenda of conversion is fanned with impunity. Social Media giants are never asked to take these posts and videos down nor are these pages and sites every banned by government. Tragically, the lies have been told again and again giving rise to fear and falsehood and the victimisation of religious minorities.

Today, we in India are hated as citizens because we hold Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Unfortunately, even now, some members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church refuse to admit to the reality of this persecution that is faced on a daily basis. They ask us to wait patiently till all facts are gathered; this, eighty days into the horrific terrorisation and the deliberate targeting of Christians in Manipur.

The superscription of the text of today’s Gospel in the RSV Bible reads, “the coming persecution.” For us in India, it is not a matter of coming persecution but a matter of ongoing persecution.

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