The Valentine challenge: Will churches support inter caste marriages?

As we come across Valentine’s Day messages, loved up snaps of couples in courtship and already married, it will bid well to go back to the story of St. Valentine. Whether mythical or not, we are reminded of the story of the young priest who gives support to young couples who wanted to get married. The decree of Emperor Claudius that young men should not get married as he wanted a strong army is then challenged and opposed. Valentine is thrown into jail and later tortured and killed for this.

Churches and other religious institutions oppose Valentine’s Day because of the way it has been commercialized and has become a means of selling merchandise including red flowers, cards and other gifts. Special candle light dinners, vacations and offers are also added to the list of temptations. Young couples feel forced to spend money on each other to prove their love. The commercialization of this day can indeed be opposed even though I reject arguments that Valentine’s Day itself is against Indian culture.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’ observation that inter caste weddings are the real remedy for breaking caste can be read and interpreted for Valentine’s Day. But what is really happening in India? Marriage murders and honor killings are the rule of the day even in 2024. Either men from a Dalit background are killed for marrying a girl from an upper caste or a girl who belongs to an upper caste is killed for marrying someone from a lower caste or another community. These killings are not limited to certain parts of India only as was seen in 2018 in the case of the torture and murder of Kevin Joseph in Kerala or as late as 2023 when a 14 year old girl in Kerala was tortured by her own father and given pesticide due to which she later died. All because she was in a relationship with a boy from another community. In all cases, the justification of the parents is that they killed because they loved their child!

1 Corinthians 13:6 says that love does not rejoice in wrong doing but rejoices in the truth. Since when has the church started being against love? Or is the church and are other religions thinking of caste over and ahead of God and love? Valentine’s Day is a time to go beyond celebrations and to light a candle for all the couples who deeply loved each other and yet could not live together because of the narrow mindedness of their family, religion and even church. The passion shown by churches to talk about and preach about their community and not about our Lord Jesus means that caste and community matter more to us and this should be called out and rejected at any cost.  

Today is a day of taking a stand, of supporting, of being strong so that those in love can be together. A priest should be a custodian of love, a custodian of couples who are in love and a custodian of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need more Valentine priests in our midst. Priests who can reflect the zeal of St. Valentine, who gave his life for the happiness of young couples. The church has to also come clear on this and stop preaching importance of community and caste and give protection, legal help and spiritual guidance to young couples from different castes and communities who want to get married. The church has to become a safe space for love, the preaching of love, the enacting of love and for people in love.

Onam: The festival of hope (A sermon using John 20:11-20)

The tradition of Onam revolves around a story of the king Mahabali who was seen as a just king who ruled over Kerala. He was seen as a king who ensured a period when all people were seen as the same. For us this indeed will come as a surprise as to how it is possible to live in a period when people are seen as the same. India still cannot figure out a way where all women and men will be seen as equal. With our own problems of caste and gender, the story of Mahabali will definitely seem unlikely and therefore has the problem of being limited to a celebration where people of a state get together, arrange flowers, sing songs and eat a meal with close to twenty side dishes. But is it just a festival or is it much more than that?

The story of Mahabali when continued sees that the Gods became jealous of his popularity and the simple fact that he brought about the imminence of everyone being the same into the lives of people. This was supposed to be an after life reality. The Gods were indeed fuming because Mahabali was doing their job and doing a better job of it. It had to stop because this was upsetting the way they had intended society to be.

Of course one should also be aware that the said Gods were also the constructs of high caste religious priests. The story continues and the Gods send their representative Vamana to Mahabali. Vamana asks for three feet or foot of land. Mahabali perhaps undone by the small demeanour of Vamana or offering his usual hospitality readily agrees although there may have been an element of doubt in his mind about the intentions of Vamana. Vamana then assumes his real size with which he covers up all the space available with two of his foot steps. He then asks Mahabali where he will put his third step. Mahabali then offers his own head and he is pushed down into the earth by Vamana. Before being pushed down Mahabali asks for the opportunity to visit his people every year and he is granted this wish.

Onam is then the time that people in Kerala believe that Mahabali visits them and they want it to be a special time when there is a lot of sharing and coming together of families and communities. People belonging to all religions celebrate this as Mahabali is seen as a leader of all people. Food which is predominantly vegetarian has undergone certain changes and has got its own additions depending on the different communities celebrating Onam.

Mahabali can be seen on similar lines with Jesus because of the way Jesus positioned himself and how he was done away with by high priests because he started doing things which they thought were meant for God and were anyway disturbing their well established system. Mahabali and Jesus are similar because
1. Both Mahabali and Jesus were leaders who were passionate about equal rights and justice.
2. Both of them sacrificed their lives for the sake of their subjects.
3. Their commitment goes beyond the earthly life. Those who believed in their ideology, especially the poor and the oppressed were not left to fend for themselves. Their commitment to ensure justice leads them to extend their involvement beyond life as we see it here.
4. Both of them are done in by a conspiracy and although they agree to being sacrificed are actually murdered in cold blood.
5. Both Mahabali and Jesus offer hope as can be seen in the past, present and future.

Onam is a festival and also has characteristics of a festival. A festival brings forth happiness, celebration and above all, hope. Without hope, there is no life. In the read passage in John 20 Mary is filled with this hope and she waits with expectation to see the fulfilment of this hope. Hope is a right of the poor and the downtrodden. In this sense celebrations which do not include the poor are mainline, dominant and market based celebrations. But true festivals are people’s festivals which are a celebration of protest, dissent and non-conformity. The Onam festival goes beyond region and community. In Kerala it has become the festival of all people. But it is not just a festival of conformity to certain high caste traditions. The spirit of the King Bali also moves beyond the borders of Kerala. M.E. Sharp in his book “Reinventing revolution: New Social Movements and the Socialist Tradition in India says that Bali has been taken as the major symbol of the oppressed shudra-dalit peasantry in Phule’s interpretation of the Aryan-Brahman conquest. The hope filled slogan in Marathi is “Ida pida javo, Bali-ca rajya yeva” (let troubles and sorrows go and the kingdom of Bali come). This has great similarity to the expectation of the arrival of the kingdom of God. A slogan is very much important to provide hope for the people and the slogan of the getting back of power is indeed very powerful. Mahabali the Asura King or the king from a lower caste, who ruled justly and provided equal opportunities for his people, is unceremoniously done away with. His re-installation means the bringing back of a glorious era where the practise of untouchability, inequality and other social evils did not exist. It also gives power to the people. Just as protest is a right of the poor, hope is also the right of the poor.

Mary exercises this very hope which is her right as a woman. Her visit to the tomb before anyone else reflects the hope that she and not any other disciple had. There is a sense of dissonance in the passage. It is not the apostles who go first but Mary who goes first. Mary is then seen as going to tell Peter about what she sees. Here there is a legitimization of established orders within the church. But Mary offers the essential piece of information first. The story becomes more exciting because Mary then goes and expresses her hope in full by standing and crying outside the tomb. This is a cry of protest which she hopes will bring back the one who will let all sorrows to go.

India is now going through a period of uncertainty where FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) has been allowed in the aviation and retail sectors. More sectors will be added in the near future. There is huge protest against this. Some of it is political but mostly it is the public expression of the aspirations of people who want to decide their own futures. The protest against the Koodankulam nuclear project also reflects the same aspirations of the local populace. When state and central governments have closed their eyes to nuclear waste and the risks involved so that they can have electricity, the only choice for people of the land is to protest. Protest needs a figure to inspire. Mahabali is one such figure and the inspiration of Onam is to live in harmony with one’s brothers and sisters. Mary seeks this inspiration from Jesus.

Perhaps festivals like Onam should inspire us to seek freedom for the masses and to effectually improve the lives of people. Festivals should also become a more common and repetitive part of our lives. Without this we make the festival and its commemoration and meaning making a once a year event which has no more significance than eating variety of food, meeting people and buying consumer goods. The festival of Onam has to transcend this in theological colleges and society at large. It can be a time when we vow and strive for equal opportunities for all and reservation for those who have been thrust behind. It can also be a time when we try to do away with all the corruptions that have crept into society. This could be a time for cleansing. Festivals in churches are no different. Two major festivals in the church I belong to are the festival of St. George and the festival of St. Mary. Both are very special for the people of the church. But consumerism and the evils of structure and power have crept in and limited it to an event. In the midst of this, ordinary people still find meaning out of these festivals. Mary Magdalene tries to question while initiating the quest to finding Jesus. Here is a festival procession which tries to go beyond certain fixed constructs. Her short pilgrimage to find Jesus inspires Peter to conduct the same journey.

Onam as the festival of hope has huge potential and offers valuable lessons for all. In situations of conflict and lack of harmony, festivals like Onam remind us of a time when humans lived together as one and that this is the opportunity we should use to try and reconcile. Nothing is beyond reconciliation and one should put out one’s hand in a reconciliatory mood of accepting and respecting the other. Even in the hardest and most difficult of times hope stands as the reason to live on. Mahabali offers this hope through his presence with us in this worship today. Jesus lives inside us as an ever present hope that there is nothing which cannot be redeemed.

The festival of Onam then is a once a year festival of forgetting all differences and coming together. It is an opportunity to re-learn our commitment to stand for justice, peace and reconciliation. This is not just one community’s celebration attended by others. It is the celebration and commitment of all that we hope for a better today and tomorrow. Justice has no boundaries and regions. Festivals cannot be limited to one caste or region. Let us all come together to remember a time when all people were treated with respect. Let us all be inspired by a man who did not belong to a high caste but shook the entire establishment by following the simple and yet hard formulae of not favouring anyone. Let us learn from the woman who hoped and stood strong in her hope even when others were not sure. Let us be steadfast in our faith and love for Jesus, the son of the carpenter, who took a stand and stood for the poor, the outcasts and the different people in society. I wish you peace, justice and reconciliation. Onam greetings. Amen.

(Preached this in UTC for the Onam worship on October 3, 2012)

What is the programme Anna?

The national capital is brimming with large crowds and police personel. Lots of people from several parts of the country are congregating to Delhi to be part of the anti-corruption movement. A Jan Lokpal bill is still being sought even though the government has promised that this will be discussed in parliament. The crowd post April is still there but there are also voices of cynicism about what is happening.

What on earth is attracting people, even if it is only a cross section of people in India? Is it only the anti-corruption drive and the call asking for people to spill on to the streets that is bringing out people or is it that this has become an event and a programme which needs to be attended for several reasons? Why do people attend television talk shows and debates? Some will genuinely be interested to talk on the issues on offer, others will be there for the media exposure (part of the 15 minutes of fame) and a big number will be there for the event or the programme! Is the anti-corruption protest also something like this with thousands of people actually there to be a part of the programme?

Those who are there for the programme need not know the entire sequence of events and what are the deep rooted things which surround it. They are there for the atmosphere, the feeling and the identification with people who have something in common with them. The middle class and upper middle class will definitely be comfortable to be together and corruption is such a common affecting factor that it will in all regards bring in the numbers. This could be the reason why India has seen several protests over the years but they never had the numbers. Every state has had tribal protests, dalit protests, and women’s group’s protests which would hardly even get a passing glance from passers by. Does this mean that their concerns were not concerns and did not warrant even a glance? It rather means that the people did not identify with their problems because they did not see it as a problem. In many cases these passers by would have been the perpetrators of the problem. But corruption is different. The same people who did not bother to look when genuine protests were held have suddenly become very active protestors.

This is a programme which has the likelihood to succeed not because it is a ‘just’ protest but because it is a well staged protest. In countries like India it is strange that true protests are never taken seriously, whereas well directed, managed and staged protests will mostly succeed. In this way, this is not a protest but this is a celebration of how people can be mobilized using the media, social networking sites and other traditional media forms.

A well directed programme is like a well produced movie. One has to follow the crowd. No one will have the courage to say that the movie is not well made when those others we are in contact with will say it is excellent. The anti-corruption movement I fear is also such. We can either say that it is a super duper hit or we can risk being made out into un-patriotic, submissive, stupid and slavish people. Now who would want that? I always like off beat movies and in this case too I feel this is too mainline Bollywood style and therefore likely to be lapped up by the affordable masses.

Is my church a public monument?

Where does one learn the unforgettable lesson of sharing one’s resources with others? In one’s house…no. My first lessons of sharing what I have with others were learnt from my church. The countless sermons from esteemed and learned priests, the worship, the bits and pieces of advice I got from elderly people. Having been exposed to what good the church can offer, I realised that this is only one part of the church. As I grew up I realised that the church is as exclusive as it is inclusive. Small wonder that every church has its own people from a preferred setting coming together every week. Anyone outside this setting is not usually welcome wholeheartedly, although we say that everyone is welcome.

Different denominations follow different norms of profiling society and setting into a pattern wherein rich, poor, dalit, syrian, nadar, women and men comprise of the body check that people are forced to undergo before entering the holy sphere of the church. More than the number of people inside the church, I would say the church should actually be concerned about the number of people outside the church!

In Kerala the trend is to showcase our money and power by building huge churches which cost crores of rupees and are built over centuries of unclaimed history and life of the poor of the land. On the one hand, I cannot possibly out rightly condemn this because the church is the collective expression of a group of people. But on the other hand, many of these huge churches are not used to their optimum level and therefore only become the collective expression of a few rather than all. My own denomination has also gone through the experience of having churches closed down because of the rift between two groups within the Orthodox line of thought in India. Both groups lay claim to the churches and therefore the court finally has no other option but to close down the churches completely.

The concept of sharing that I have developed in my mind takes a beating time and again because I see and experience the reverse of that happening in front of my eyes. Is it totally irrelevant to discuss the idea of sharing church spaces among all denominations? This gives significant importance to the church as a place of all and brings people together instead of separating them. Kerala faces a similar pattern with regard to houses. Everyone wants to build a separate house surrounded by a boundary wall to protect it. We build our own private spaces and this has an adverse impact on the environment as well, as waterways and low lying areas are filled with the mud from mountainous regions and sand is smuggled from rivers to contribute to the ever increasing scale of construction in the state.

In effect the church also contributes to the destruction of our state and after constructing beaming towers we will all get together to discuss the degradation of the environment and our state. I don’t know if I can inspire my congregation to understand what real sharing and openness is? It is a practice to take young groups of students to public monuments where all kind of people get together. There we don’t ask people about their religion, caste or other preferences. We have a sense of pride that the monument belongs to all and that all of us have to take care of it. Can’t churches become public monuments? A place for all to congregate, relax and reflect?