Faith

Do you have haters in your life? Friday, 4th Week of Lent Wisdom 2:1,12-22/John 7:1-2,10,25-30

The Bible teaches us the way to heaven but also reflects the reality of those living on this earth. Take for example the desire of many to be loved and to win the approval of all around them. This is humanly impossible and unrealistic. This is because people perceive reality differently. After all, our socio-cultural and religious backgrounds are so divergent.

The Holy Father. Pope Francis completed eleven years of his pontificate two days ago. Catholics on the internet were abuzz. Some even denied him to be our Pope suggesting he was the agent of Satan and others who hailed his pontificate as reflecting the very mercy of God. If this could happen to our Holy Father (whom I also don’t seem to always agree with) then why should lesser mortals like you and me not experience similar negativity from people around us?

In chapter seven of the Gospel of John, Our Lord Jesus Christ has come to Jerusalem for the third time. The Festival of Booths or Tabernacle is one of the three major festivals that drew Jews to Jerusalem. Jesus is teaching in the temple. The crowd (indicative of many) think that he ‘has a demon’ in him (7:20). Jesus confronted them because they claim to keep the law of Moses yet that very law said you shall not kill, and they desired to put Jesus to death. (7:19) Yet not even the temple police were able to arrest Jesus.

Scripture now tells us that it was the last day of the festival and Jesus proclaims himself to be the source of living water for all who thirst. At once we are told that there is a division among the people. While some think he is a prophet, others think he is the Messiah then doubt sets in questioning his lineage, and the place he comes from.

I want to make three reflections here.

  1. Christ himself, the Son of God was called the devil. I think Pope Francis needs to take comfort when Catholics who are unchristian in the way they speak their mind attack him. The Church does not belong to you and me the Church belongs to God and his Holy Spirit will guide the Church. No one says we cannot express our thoughts even when we disagree with the Holy Father, but it is how we do it that brings scandal to the Church.
  2. The second reflection is also based on the Gospel. It is clear that Christ had his share of disciples, followers and admirers but he also had his share of haters who as we know managed to crucify him. We will not always have people who love us no matter what we do. Christ did not go into mourning because he was criticized; he went about his father’s business.
  3. A large majority of the people in your life love you but sadly they don’t tell you they love you or appreciate you. Ironically, ten percent don’t like you and some of them positively hate you and they make sure you know they hate you. We tend to focus on the ten per cent who constantly attack us (I am not saying we should not be open to criticism) and we forget the large majority of people who love us but never voice their appreciation. Here is what we learn from Christ, move on and focus on those who love you. The haters have a constant agenda of hate and no matter what you do they won’t change.

Christ was innocent (reflected in our first reading) and yet they attacked the sinless son of God… we are just mortals.

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Faith

When God ‘repented’ – Thursday, 4th week in Lent – Exodus 32:7-14/John5:31-47

When children shine, a mother or father is happy to take the credit for the child’s success.  Yet should that very child fail, the mother will say to the father ‘YOUR daughter’ or the father will say to the mother, ‘YOUR son.’ Everyone, it seems wants to be surrounded by success stories, failure is hard to accept. God, it seems, is no different.

The book of Exodus bears witness to the love of God who with his arm outstretched defeated Pharaoh, a god in his people’s eyes. God led his people through the wilderness, enduring their grumbling and dissent yet never failing to provide for their needs. In Chapter 20 of the book of Exodus God gave them the ten commandments and then till chapter 31 elaborated every detail of how the law was to be kept. God instructed Moses for forty days and these are recorded from chapters 20-31. Eleven chapters is all it took for the people to abandon God and make themselves a golden calf to worship.

The text of today begins with God disowning his people like an angry parent. He tells Moses, “Go down now because YOUR People whom YOU brought out of Egypt have apostatized.” God was furious, mad enough to ask to be ‘left alone’ so that he could plan the destruction of his people. Moses however, was the only one to be spared.

This would have been a great opportunity for Moses to ‘submit his resignation’ and be left in peace. These ungrateful people who even wished to stone Moses (17:4) had shown nothing but ingratitude. Yet the heart of Moses is seen in this text. He knows that the act of infidelity on the part of his people was a line they foolishly crossed. God had given them ten commandments and they could not even keep the first. He could have abandoned these ungrateful and treacherous people who had not even spared God and yet he pleads with God to spare them.

When you deal with God long enough you know his SOP and Moses had been with God long enough to know God’s every heartbeat. He appeals to God with cunning yet with love. He seems to work on the ‘ego of God’ (poetically speaking). ‘If you execute your plan of destruction, you are going to look very silly in the eyes of the Egyptians from whom you rescued your people,’ Moses says to God. Your actions of ‘saving your people’ will look very shifty when your wrath will burn on them in the wilderness. This is Moses, not just at his clever best but exercising his compassionate heart. Should God change his mind, then these ungrateful and fickle-minded people will be his to lead forward on a long journey ahead.

The English translation of the Bible tells us that God changed his mind, but the Hebrew translation reveals much more. Moses had laid the emotion thick and his emotional blackmail worked. But read the text in its Hebrew and you will also realise that God did not just ‘change his mind’ (as the English text reads in verse 14) but that God REPENTED.

You might think I made a mistake and should have typed, RELENTED instead of repented. No, he did not just relent, the Hebrew translation reads as ‘repented.’ Elsewhere in the Bible, naham translates as ‘to be sorry’ or’ repent’ especially when its subject is a human. God was beside himself that he almost came close to breaking a promise he made in Genesis 8:11 to never again destroy the earth.

Ironically, God feels sorry for his anger even though he did not execute it. He is the blameless one who took on the sins of the world. The reflection on our part is obvious. He is the sinless one who repents of his thoughts to destroy us. We are the sinful ones and yet we do not repent of our actions that destroy the holiness of God.

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Unmatched love nailed by unmatched hate – Wednesday, 4th week in Lent – Isaiah 49:8-15/ John 5:17-30

A life of sin, when confronted, can make one contrite or arrogant. The first attitude may lead you to the gates of heaven (you may not get in, but you at least get there) the second delivers you to the fires of hell. Well, you might see this as judgmental but then again you would do the same had you bent forwards and backwards multiple times to accommodate an errant child; and in this case, the child was an entire nation.

The people of Israel were marched into Babylon because of their bad choices. Yet they blame God for their mistakes. Did God not send them messenger after messenger, and did they not disregard his word? So, when the people of the Southern Kingdom comprising two of Israel’s twelve tribes, were marched into Babylon in 587 BC, they had it coming.

Yet you could be the arrogant thief who died unrepentant besides Jesus or the one who in humility asked but to be ‘remembered.’ Judah had learnt nothing in captivity except to blame God. Verse 15 of the text today tells us that Judah accused God of abandoning them while they were in captivity, “the Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has abandoned me.” In reality, they had abandoned his love time and time again.

But read the text of today and you are left perplexed. In the face of their resentment and unapologetic behaviour, Yahweh is making promise after promise to his people. “At the favourable time I will answer you, on the day of salvation I will help you.” (verse 8). “Can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget yet I will not forget you.” (49:15)

Compare the constant disobedience of Judah in the Old Testament to the loving obedience of Jesus to his Father. It is the love of the Father revealed in and through the Son that shines forth in the ministry of Jesus. Yet the sin of disobedience and arrogance runs through the blood of the Jews. He has healed a man who was ill for 38 years and all that the Jews could see was a law broken and not the lawmaker (verse 24) the life-giver (verse 21), who stood before them.

If anything, the readings of today reveal our stubborn refusal to respond to the love of God in Christ Jesus. This is not just a loving God but a passionate lover, a devoted mother, a dedicated father, and a doting brother. Like the Jews, we want proof and signs of this love on demand and when it does not come the way we want it we have murderous thoughts. Remember that the line preceding our text of today tells us that the Jews did not just persecute Jesus (verse 16) but were seeking to kill him (verse 18)

Unmatched love was nailed to a cross driven by unmatched hate.

PS: A big thank you to Jerry who detected a malware on this site and brought it to my attention. It is now fixed. Thank you to all of you who leave your comments, thoughts and encouragement. It may take you ten minutes to read this but takes me much more to write it. Your kindness is much appreciated.

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See that nothing worse happens to you – Tuesday, 4th Week in Lent – Ezekiel 47:1-9,12/John 5:1-3,5-16.

Post the fourth Sunday in Lent and the readings don’t seem to entirely have the ‘doom and gloom’ of the first three weeks. I am not diminishing or making light of the scripture texts of the first three weeks in Lent, they are essential for the spiritual moulding that shapes us for Easter, but clearly, the readings from now on have messages of hope written all over them.

Take the first reading of today from the prophet Ezekiel. At first glance it is confusing, and I won’t blame you if you skipped it entirely. But like the season of Lent, the prophecy of Ezekiel, a captive in the Babylonian exile himself for 25 years, can be divided into ‘doom and gloom’ (chapters 8-11) and hope and revival (chapters 40-48). The text of today offers us that hope even in the face of our exile. There is a river that will flow through our lives and even though Jerusalem never had a physical river as a source of water, THE source of living water, Jesus, came to the city as promised by God in the prophet Ezekiel.

It is not always easy to see and acknowledge the promises of God. In the gospel of John, the focus of the Gospel is the belief in his word over his works. The Gospel tells us that Jesus made his second trip to Jerusalem. We read of his maiden appearance as the Messiah in chapter 2 when he cleansed the temple. His works (not his words) won him a ‘warm welcome’ in Galilee (4:45). His words had ‘many more’ Samaritans believe in him (4:41) and now he is back in Jerusalem for the ‘festival of the Jews.’

Reading this text, you will tell me it is a miracle narrative (in the Gospel of John we call them signs and not miracles) and yet it is not the work that is the focus but his word. The narrative has a dialogue between Jesus and an unnamed man who sat by the pool of Beth-zatha (House of Mercy) beside the seep gate, one of Jerusalem’s’ seven gates. He has been here 38 years waiting for a WORK from the hand of God and yet when God comes to him it is not with a wave of a hand or a physical spectacle that he is healed but with His WORD, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Earlier, to the royal official he said, “Go, your son will live.” (4:50)

Interestingly, Jesus asked the man at Bethzatha, “Do you want to be made well?” What an odd question for a man suffering for 38 years (we don’t know his illness) but what if Jesus was offering him more than physical healing? Yes, he obeyed the word and got up and was healed but it is only later that he re-encounters Jesus, this time to be told by Jesus, “See you have been made well, do not sin anymore so that nothing worse happens to you.” Jesus offered him physical and spiritual healing.

Many of us live in sin and maybe like the man in the narrative we have lived in sin for the last 38 years. Christ asks us if we want to be made well. By God’s grace, many of us are physically well but not spiritually. Jesus offers us salvation but he warns us to sin no more lest we bring something worse on ourselves. Do not read this line for what it is not; it is not a threat but a warning. You warn your children to be careful, you don’t threaten them if they are not. God does not threaten us but warns us. God does not bring evil into our lives but sadly we invite it right back.

Having returned to the Lord this Lent let us not lose our merits and graces on Easter Sunday. Write these words and paste them on your refrigerator as a reminder lest you forget. (that’s where we go more than to the altar). “See, you have been made well again. Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you. “

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Word or works? Monday, 4th week in Lent – Isaiah 65:17-21/ John4:43-54

By way of Introduction

Laetare Sunday which we celebrated yesterday ushered in the hope of the season of Easter to come. It is for this reason that the vestment at mass were rose or violet and not purple (that’s if the sacristan was instructed by the priest). In any case, it ushered in a joy that has clearly spilt into the first reading of today in which God promises a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ and the city of Jerusalem will be know as ‘joy’ while her people will be known as ‘gladness.’

Also, for the next two weeks, till we being the Holy Week, the Gospel that will be proclaimed at mass will be taken from the Gospel of John. We begin with John 4:43 today and over the next two weeks we will cover several texts up to John 11:56

By way of explanation

The Gospel of today is a wonderful reflection of the joy that is ours, if we believe. In the Gospel of John, the word ‘believe’ is found 98 times and is indicative of the faith that we are called to have in Christ’s word over the works of his hand.

Looking around today, we see a rejection of faith in God. Christ faced that disbelief in real time from those who were his own. Belief is not a prize you receive as a virtue of your baptism it is a gift you claim each day as you renew your discipleship in prayer.

Jesus has just left Samaria in the preceding text of today’s Gospel. An entire village of Samaritans believed in him because of the woman’s testimony and mind you she had little social standing among her people (John 4:39) but ‘MANY more believed because of his word’ which he shared with them over just two days (4:41). It is interesting to know that Jesus did not turn water into wine or any of the many spectacular works that he performed in his hometown of Galilee and yet they believed.

 Christ testified that “a prophet has no honour in his own country” (4:44) and though he was ‘welcomed’ in Galilee it was because they had ‘seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival.’(4:45) They were enamoured by his works not his words! Could the same be said of us today?

Contrast his own people to an official from the ‘royal household’ (verse 46) who comes to plead for his son’s life. Christ, we are told, is in Canna and the official has made a fifteen-mile journey to ask for a healing for one who was at the point of death. Jesus uses the occasion to make a point! This generation wants signs and wonders.  (And I am WONDERING if that generation is ours?)

We come to Christ with our prayers that range from simple petitions to those dripping in perspiration. If it is how words we seek and not his works then accept what Christ said to the official of the royal household, “Go, your son will live.” “Go, you situation is taken care of.” Would we go? Would the faith of the royal official resonate in our faith story when written or recounted? Can we claim that we “believed in his word and started on our way?”

If you answer yes, then where is the testimony? Are the details so vivid that you remember your lunch time miracle? Has your household been converted? The scriptures tell us that Christ worked this miracle at one in the afternoon and the official remembered it. We have all had our lunch time miracles, but we rarely memorialize them?

The season of Lent now takes a twist… watch this space….

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