Lent Day 42: A God who weeps

Our biggest friends and biggest family are those who stand by us in difficult situations. We think that we have to provide solutions at every juncture and moment, but sometimes just standing with someone is enough. In a funeral home, our presence and touch are more valuable than anything we say. God need not always be the solution giver but can also be the one who stands by us in our most difficult moment.

Leaders are usually not expected to cry. Boys and men are also not expected to cry in our culture. This reflects mental toughness and strength. But what is the need of this façade and show? When we feel for someone or something, it is but natural to cry. There is also the fake crying by leaders whereby crying is for some gain, marketing and advantage. This is rehearsed crying and is not from the heart but from the head. It also makes people emotional but one can eventually see through it.

Weeping and crying is a disruption and sometimes even a disturbance for others. But for those who are sincere, it is a faithful expression of the heart and the mind. Even praying for those who are sick and undergoing problems, can bring tears to our eyes. There are others who have wept so much that their tears have dried up. These can also be those who then decide that they don’t want to cry anymore because others have hurt them and made them cry.

Jesus wept and he wept with the family that he was close with. Lazarus is dead and he reaches only to see a weeping Martha and Mary. Both say that the death could have been avoided if Jesus was there. Jesus goes near the tomb and weeps. The Messiah, the son of God, the liberator, weeps in front of everyone. St. John 11: 35 says, “Jesus wept.” It is another thing that Jesus tells Martha in verse 23 that her brother will rise again and in verse 43 he cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” But the most significant thing in this narrative is that Jesus wept along with the family he loved. Our tears are as powerful as our prayers and actions. This passion week, may we join hands with our Lord and weep as he wept for the poor and suffering. Amen.

Lent Day 1: Learning to walk backwards

As we embark on another Great Lent, the call to return to God and be one with God is loud and clear. God’s love towards human beings reflected in the incarnation of God’s son Jesus Christ is then commemorated with seven weeks of the life, ministry, healing, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. As much as we see the Great Lent as something we have to do, it is also a response to God’s call to reconcile with God. This reconciliation is also then supposed to be with other human beings and all of creation as Jesus has asked us to love one another as he has loved us and as he loves his Father.

But how can we hear, see and experience God? This calls for a retreat and a walking back. People earlier have tried to walk backwards for a novelty, to break a record or for a cause. But this is not something done usually. Now research suggests that walking backwards as an exercise is good because it makes our knees and ankles strong, makes us sharper and heals our body in some significant ways.

I would like to suggest walking backwards and retreating as a way to enter into the experience of lent because it helps us see God, see one another and see ourself as well. The retreating and walking back creates a space to think, to look, to realize and to change. It is an opportunity to realize that we have erred somewhere, that we need to change, that we can do something differently and we can simply give space to someone.

The wedding at Cana in St. John 2: 1-11 is a very common bible passage, known even to non-Christians. St. Mary informs Jesus that the wine has run out. But Jesus is not very interested and says his time has not come. What St. Mary does now is a lesson in retreating and walking backwards. She steps back and tells the servers to do whatever he tells them. The element of faith of St. Mary is the faith in God’s son, the faith in Jesus her son and her faith in goodness. Yet, she realizes that she has done something wrong or inappropriate. So she steps back and yet does not lose her hope.

The stepping back or the walking backwards helps. Jesus tells the servers to fill the stone jars with water which then is transformed into wine. It is a wonderful model for the start of lent and for our life in general. Have faith in God and in one another. How much ever we love someone, be prepared to retreat and walk back. Be ready to give space and prevent them from being suffocated by our love. Husbands do likewise to your wife, wives to your husband, parents to their children and children to their parents, friends to one another and colleagues likewise. Nothing is to be taken for granted and yet hope has to remain. Everyone needs their space to act, to perform and to do.

Lent is a time to allow God to perform miracles. But the credit of the miracle is for God and we need to create that space. Priests have to create a space for the people to see God and witness to God. The closeness to God should turn to a retreat and walking backwards because otherwise others won’t get to see God. St. Mary’s walking back turns a private miracle into a public proclamation of faith. Do what we have to do and then stand back for God to work. Amen.

Gatecrashing Christmas

The Christmas season offers a variety of traditions for different churches like carols, songs, dinners, sending cards, lent, house visits, church services and fellowships. All traditions have a yearly plan for us and we know exactly what to do. So much so that Christ born is a definite event with no surprise and nothing new. People from other religions also join in to celebrate and it is a welcome sign that everyone is looking forward to Christmas every year.

But what if we had the opportunity to gatecrash Christmas this year? But why, one would ask? Let us take a look at two events which are associated with the advent and Christmas. The first one is in St. Luke 1:39-56 when Mary visits Elizabeth when she knows that Elizabeth is expecting a child. It is true that the baby inside Elizabeth leaps with joy but it is not said that Elizabeth was expecting Mary’s visit. Yet the two are so happy with each other’s presence and they express themselves fully in the happiness of the moment.

The second instance is in St. Luke 2:8-20 where we see the shepherds who are told by the angel that the Messiah is born. They have no idea who they are meeting other than what is said to them by the angel. They go and are in the presence of Mary and the baby. They then realise what they have witnessed and glorify God. In this case Mary had no idea who the shepherds were. The shepherds also had no idea who Mary and the baby Jesus were. Yet, they see each other and it goes off well. The gatecrashing moment led to great joy for Elizabeth and Mary and the shepherds and Mary and Jesus. It was not planned by all of them but they went along with it and it led to great and happy things.

Both the stories mentioned lead us to the concept of gatecrashing. Gatecrashing is when we go to a place uninvited. We usually won’t do it as we don’t know what the repercussions will be. And yet anyone who does it will feel so thrilled to do it. It can even sometimes be called unlawful depending on the type of programme. But nevertheless it will give us an emotion of great happiness and thrill, sometimes even better than other programmes that we attend on invitation.

This brings us to some things which we can look at during Christmas. Christmas is not an ‘upon invitation’ event which is open to a select few but it is what is open to anyone and if churches keep it as an “on invitation” event it is likely to be gatecrashed by the needy. This also teaches us that Christmas doesn’t belong only to Christians but to everyone because the salvation of Christ belongs to everyone. So there is no ‘one’ way or ‘the’ way to celebrate Christmas but several ways to celebrate it.  Christmas is open because Christ willed it so. The angel informing Mary and then informing the shepherds show a non-traditional way of messaging through which the angel chooses two sets of people who are insignificant to the traditional forms of celebrations in the society of their time. Christmas can be truly celebrated when we gatecrash, inspired by the Holy Spirit and led by angels into visiting houses where the elderly live, where we go places where forget cakes but even a meal is rare, where we go to where children are staring into the sky wondering why Christmas Father does not visit them when other apartment complexes and houses have loud music and celebration. 

Such gatecrashing also gives us the courage to do things we would otherwise not do. We simply would not pull ourselves up to do it. But gatecrashing Christmas means opening up the invitation for Christmas for everyone we know and being a part of the lives of others without them knowing before hand. This will make this season one heck of a gatecrash Christmas. We can definitely make it turn out as a time for us to gatecrash a house, a family, a church, or an individual just like Mary did to Elizabeth and just like the shepherds did to Mary and baby Jesus. May the bliss and grace of Christmas be upon us all. Amen. 

Picture credit: www.irishtimes.com

The birth of Jesus: How Fr. Shibu and Kairunnissa are outing the inn (in)

St. Luke 2:6-7

The birth of Jesus is important not for cakes, decorations and celebrations but to be assured that humans are created in the image of God and will therefore live life loving and helping all that God has created. This is God saying that God has created human beings to reflect God’s self on earth. The birth of Jesus is indeed a happy event because it reminds and inspires us to do good even when everyone and everything around us does not. It is not to follow the world but to follow the voice and will of God.

The birth in unusual circumstances shows that the people of God cannot be limited to buildings and walls but should extend everywhere and anywhere because that is the real birth of Christ. The interpretation of no place being there in the inn is a reflection that God lives with the most ordinary of ordinary. Most of the things we have built on earth are an aberration of God's creation. It takes us away from the real birth of Christ. The church by moving into comfortable environs to celebrate the birth of Christ suggests our moving in to comfortable inns while the baby is denied a place inside the inn! The image of God is absent in such acts of celebration of the birth of Jesus. We do not have an affluent baby Jesus because a baby cannot be affluent by herself/himself.

The church has become too affluent for Jesus but all is not lost for the church and the people of the church. One can get rid of the affluence and try and make the birth of Jesus meaningful for everyone. Fr. Shibu K.Y., a Jacobite Christian priest donated one kidney to a Muslim woman Kairunnissa yesterday. By doing that he has challenged the affluent church to shed its affluence. Many were disturbed and uncomfortable with his decision and even suggested it was wrong to give away what God has given us to live a comfortable life. The argument that we need two kidneys because that is what God has given does not go along though with the fact that God was meant to be in heaven but chooses earth, was meant to be in the inn but ended up outside it and did not have to be crucified but was anyway. God gave up so that humans and the world would have and that is the birth of Jesus.

Fr. Shibu K.Y.

Fr. Shibu and Kairunnissa are offering us the opportunity to understand the birth narrative. We have gone far away from the born Jesus. This is an opportunity to come back to the narrative of what the birth of Jesus means. It is God loving and giving us. God need not but God does because that is what God is. The love of God encompasses everything we know. Fr. Shibu by giving and Kairunnissa by suffering and now receiving show us that Christ is born in them. We are getting an invitation to pray with them during Christmas. Of course we are not used to what they have done and so their spiritual invitation will also be difficult to accept and do. Never the less they have woken us up from institutional and individual slumber and we must thank them for that. From my facebook contacts I have also learned that Prof. Sakhi John is doing the same for Shaju Paul and they are following several others who have preceded them. Such individuals are challenging the church and the people in church to live Christmas or the birth of Jesus. The liturgy of their merciful church is not known to us and we haven’t heard the songs they are using. But there is a language of love that they are using and this is something all of us can follow if we take the effort to do so.

Prof. Sakhi John

St. Luke 2: 6-7 tells us that Mary and baby Jesus do not get space in the inn (‘in’). It is also that space in the inn is mostly not available to everyone as the inn has become institutional. It represents all churches which are not welcoming and loving. But Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus do not give up. They make the ‘out’ their home and that then becomes the place which the shepherds and the elders come to and see Jesus. Fr. Shibu and Kairunnissa and Prof. Sakhi and Shaju Paul among many others have not got a place in the inn (‘in’). But they did not give up and made the ‘out’ their inn. We can now join like the shepherds and see the birth that has happened. May the star lead us and the angels rejoice.

This Christmas: Security to vulnerability

 

St. Matthew 1: 1-17

The genealogy of Jesus has two definite goals. One is the traditional need to show the Davidic succession and two is the more non-traditional goal to show the relationship of vulnerability with spirituality. The passage in St. Mathew is read haltingly and is listened to with not the same eagerness as other passages. Perhaps too many names and difficult names at that put off the congregation. But what is in store is quite a bit when we try to identify what kind of a spirituality we can seek during Christmas.

We are always behind secure things. A news editor who wanted change in his office finally became silent during the critical meeting with the owners of the news channel because he was reminded of the EMI’s he had to pay that month. Security which is of this world is difficult because it asks for compromise and compromise leads to silence and stepping back.  Christmas is one of the times when security is paramount in our mind but should it be like that? What is the message of the genealogy of Jesus? Is it security or is it vulnerability? The Davidic line of Jesus which the writer is trying to portray may suggest security but some of the characters in the genealogy do not suggest that.

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah’s wife (Bathsheba) and Mary are the women who are mentioned in the genealogy. They were all suspect of doing something which was different from traditional society. One could say that they did something out of marriage and a traditional family setting. At the end it was seen as good but traditional society would have not allowed it and neither will it do so now. These women did not just think about their security but worked around their vulnerability. Tamar is subject to abuse and humiliation and is forced to prove her worth. Rahab is seen as a sex worker and she sticks her neck out in the secure environs she lived in. Ruth is a widow who has to be with her mother in law because she is vulnerable after the death of her husband. She does what no one else would do. Ruth is also abused and she survives in her environment of abuse. Uriah’s wife Bathsheba is loathed and raped by David who then gets Uriah killed in battle. She has to stand David while mourning the loss of her husband and gives birth to Solomon who succeeds David as king. Finally, Mary conceives out of wedlock and gives birth to Jesus. All the women leave a life of security and struggle with their vulnerable lives. The birth of Jesus this way comes out of vulnerability and not the security of an assured line of kingly succession.

It is important for us to identify our vulnerability this Christmas. Being secure is not being close to God but close to societal norms and wrong traditions. Being vulnerable on the other hand is having faith in God even when everything around is bad. Some of us are already living vulnerable lives and Christmas is a time to imagine that Jesus was born out of such vulnerability. How else would we preach and wish Christmas in a place like Aleppo in Syria where there are unimaginable sufferings to the public. All the ordinary people are vulnerable to abuse, bombings, hunger, capture and torture. In effect Christ is born in places like Aleppo because vulnerability is at its peak there. Our houses can only reflect the security of Christmas whereas shelters and non-existent roads in Aleppo and other places reflect a vulnerable Christmas where Christ is born because the birth of Jesus as we see is associated with vulnerability.

Our Christmas symbolism is filled with definite things. The Christmas tree, stars, decorations, carol rounds, Christmas services, cakes, sweets and cards all show a secure and happy Christmas. The birth of Jesus was in a time of fear and insecurity and yet people said yes to a fallible security offered by the ruling dispensation. Those who went to see Jesus tried to associate with the vulnerability of his birth and those associated with it. The interpretation of vulnerability does not seek to discount and do away with the spirit of celebration during Christmas. It rather looks at the hope that the birth of Jesus offers in the midst of our vulnerable lives. There is no secure life, secure password, secure spirituality or secure Christmas. We are vulnerable always and we do not need to forget that during Christmas. Rather like the five women in the genealogy of Jesus, we must pull on and move forward finding ways to live and survive. The birth of Jesus signifies life in the midst of death and suffering. The women in St. Mathew show us just that.  

Joseph: A shadow of blessing

The birth narrative involves the angel visiting and talking to Mary and Joseph among others. Even though Joseph is let in on the secret of how Mary has conceived, he does two things in secret. Our culture and many other cultures see black, dark and even shadows as something bad and despicable. Joseph who in most part is a silent partner in the narrative has something to offer us in the form of secrets and shadows.

It is interesting to note that we do or we are forced to do bad things in the dark or in secret. Perhaps the usage “his/her/my darkest hour” places “dark” in bad light. Joseph wanted to secretly send away Mary when he learned that she was carrying a baby. He was going to do something bad and yet he was trying to be a nice person by doing that. This is when an intervention by the angel sets things right. But Joseph again secretly supports Mary without others knowing how she has conceived. It is challenging to see that we do bad and worse things in secret and once it is dark the real us comes out. Joseph does something different in being more considerate towards Mary both in secret and in the dark. He must have swallowed a large male ego to do so and in doing that he challenges the very notion of darkness and sin. He shows us that we can after all do good things in the dark and in secret. This is a good lesson when we think of and meditate upon the birth narrative.

Even though Joseph plays second fiddle to Mary he does not wait in secret to seek his revenge but rather does so to behave well with her. The birth narrative this way definitely has Mary in the forefront as a young girl who bears Jesus but it also shows through Joseph the supporting role which should be played by men in a society which is clearly anti-women. This supporting role may not always be played out in the public but in more private spaces. Families have problems which are seen in private and may never come to light. The man in the family who is good outside in the light will be someone else in secret.

The birth narrative offers men especially an opportunity to travel to our deepest darkness inside and choose to do good instead of surrendering to the notion that men can and should only do evil things in private. Joseph is silent but is trying to do something in his silence as well. He is present when the shepherds and elders come to meet baby Jesus but it is not a pronounced presence like Mary. It is almost like a shadow. The shadow is also seen as something which can be done away with because it also has darkness as a part of it. But Joseph invites us to witness a shadow of blessing which he turns out to be. He does not limit himself to the darkest and most evil of thoughts but rather becomes a shadow of blessing to the child and Mary.

The birth narrative should make us think different about how darkness and shadows have been seen as something bad and avoidable just like the birth of a child out of wed lock. Mary is inspired by the Holy Spirit but she could have been dragged into the darkness of male egoism and a patriarchal society and yet Joseph decides to do otherwise. Can we also during the birth of Christ become a shadow of blessing to someone? There are many in society who are outcasts because of their choice or the community they belong to. Wouldn’t it be nice to use the shadow and secret initiatives to offer justice to people who have suffered under shadows and secret decisions?

Joseph defies the thought process of his time and he denies tradition. He feels that Mary needs his presence and he should offer whatever he can even though he may not be able to comprehend what he is doing. Our shadow is something we do not control largely. It is also something we do not notice always. And yet imagine it becoming a blessing to others? Our shadow can be our inner most thoughts and desires. It is there and yet we forget it is there. Joseph realizes his shadow and the strength of his shadow without actually planning his response to the predicament he found himself under. 

We must realize that we are not in the manger or the rock opening where the baby is wrapped in bands of cloth. Yet our shadow could be there either when we face it or when we have our backs to it. This shadow of blessing is a realization that the birth of Christ is indeed not just an event but also a controversy. It is a controversy of a woman who has conceived of the Holy Spirit. We can deny it and secretly dismiss Mary or we can go into the most innermost darkness of our thoughts and become a shadow of blessing.