My rich soul

One of the biggest questions a person may have is, “Who does God bless, give to or help? The poor or the rich, the weak or the strong? Ideally we expect God to be on the side of the poor and the oppressed. But what does the gospel say and why?

St. Mark 4:25 says, “For the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” A simple interpretation would be to say that God blesses the rich, over and against the poor. But this does not make complete sense and such a God will confuse us.

Verse 24 gives more clarity. It says, “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.” This is a call to do good and to not worry about tomorrow. God will take care of each day, as the Lord’s Prayer reminds us. We keep things, thinking that, we ourselves will need them. But when we do that, our blessings will be limited. Our wealth is supplanted by God’s blessings when our wealth is used for the good of the world.

Chuck Feeney gave away his entire fortune of a billion dollars. By the time Yu Pengnian died in 2015, he had given away his entire fortune. There are so many billionaires in this world. The resources of the earth are in the hands of a wealthy few. And yet there are also those who give away everything, who empty themselves, so that their soul becomes rich.

This lent, we should also heed to the call to become rich. To become rich in our soul. Amen.

My enemy has my ticket to heaven!

Forgiving another person is difficult. We have to give up something, go against our ideals, let down others while forgiving one, and learn to handle the feeling of being defeated. Forgiving is also learning to handle our ego without feeling humiliated.

Now adding one’s enemy into the picture complicates things because without forgiving our enemy, we can’t think of loving them. Jesus is challenging us to find the real meaning of love. Love is unconditional and sacrificial. But for us, practising this with one’s enemy is next to impossible.

We live in a world where we will readily accept a disaster if the same has come upon a neighbour or enemy. It is also a fact that sun and rain come upon everyone and cannot be regulated for a few. Jesus is not only challenging us but being very matter of fact when in St. Luke 6:27-28, he says, “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Loving our enemy does not mean that our enemy, those who hate us, curse us, and abuse us, have become good or that we must see them as good. Rather, we are trying to love them despite knowing that they are intrinsically bad.

Lent is a time to challenge ourselves to do something which even challenges our very core. When we hate someone so much, we forget that they could be our neighbour in paradise. Imagine God telling us that we have been awarded a place in heaven. The only catch is that the ticket is with our enemy! Amen.

How I wish!

Jesus’ ministry included reaching out to the unreached and those at the margins. Take the case of the leper in St. Luke 5:12-16. Lepers in those times did not have free movement and close interaction with others. Yet, the person is in close quarters with Jesus. This means that it is not that the person went to Jesus but Jesus perhaps went for ministry in places far from the popular and big towns and villages. This could have been due to the massive crowds too. The leper who would have otherwise been at the margins, gets into close interaction with Jesus because of Jesus’ proximity to the leper’s living space or because no one cared anymore about who was a leper and who was not because of the huge crowds that followed Jesus.

In verse 12 the leper says, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” Stigma i
s one of the biggest curses of society. The stigma of something or the other puts people down and prevents them from coming out in the open. In this case it was the stigma faced due to leprosy. Whether it was leprosy in total or a serous skin ailment is another thing all together. But the person had definitely experienced stigma. Why or how then does he manage to get close to Jesus and ask what he did?

Did the faith in Jesus give strength to the person to overcome stigma or didn’t he care anymore? He either succeeded or he just had to continue living the life he had. There was nothing to lose. He chooses to engage in a conversation with Jesus. The conversation becomes a request. Interestingly, the request is not cure me or help me but “if you choose”. Is this the sign which tells us that the person was talking about the stigma he faced, the exclusion he experienced and the pain he underwent. So he tells Jesus, “…if you choose”. His existence thus far was not just because he had leprosy but because people and society chose to keep him away. Jesus is asked whether he would like to do something else.

During lent, one thing becomes clear. Society is not going to change and neither are people. No one is necessarily going to choose good over evil or justice over injustice. It is our fight. Jesus is willing to say yes and touch and accept us. But we have to break through the hurdles and lunge forward to Jesus. We have to ask him to support us and stand for us. Lent is not going to change stigma and exclusion in society. But lent can get us the support of the one who matters, Christ Jesus himself. Let us garner the courage to ask him and to lobby him into saying “Yes I choose/wish..” Amen.