Relevant Faith

Why am I preoccupied with “faith”? For I have felt intensely and explored intentionally this “faith” for over four decades now!

Faiths, not just Christian but also other faiths, point to a presence of the transcendence, the unseen and invisible person, power, or energy, that most people call God, and persuade from humans an increased sense of accountability. It is this that is the concern of Christians around the world as they regularly join public worship and enter into private personal praying.

Faith, then, is that which emerges from my awareness of that which is bigger, greater, and worthier than my puny self. Faith, then, should make me to see my self with another perspective – not that is self-centred.

Extending kindness and compassion to the other, particularly the frail ones – children, the senior, those of lesser affluence, and those with special needs – caring for the world that is in some sense is so fragile, and sharing of the resources of much are non-renewable, are some of the outcome when “faith” is the preoccupation.

As such, concern for “faith” is likely to improve both our individual and communal life. But preoccupation with “faith” has led to the opposite as well. Then we call that “distorted faith”, “irrelevant faith” that needs to be discarded.

Saved to Serve

My “goodness” and “greatness”, I am now convinced, are purely related to, and dependent only on the “services I render” in my neighbourhood. If so, the economic abundance – the type of car I drive, the size and location of the house I live, the stuff I pile up in my abode – or a superior social status, or even higher educational qualifications that I am inclined to do not determine, or add up to my authentic stature, or to my real greatness. They do not in any way increase my goodness. Hence, I do not need to be crazily craving for all these. All what I have to be concerned in my day-to-day living is “my little acts of good works”. This is the ‘basics’ of faith. It is the only purpose of spirituality. All the fundamentals of religion are contained in that “little acts of good works”. All the rest are lee and scum of religious faiths and secular philosophies!

Those trained in a little Christian theology, I know, may object to my saying these words! Are we not saved only by “Grace and through Faith alone”? Are you preaching a Gospel of “Good Works”, they may query? God’s Grace alone saves us, they may warn me!

To them, I would say, “Sure”! But what I want to affirm here is that “we are saved, and we are being saved, only to serve”. God saves us that we may work his good and great works to those around us!

The Book of Proverbs 31:10-31, twenty-two verses, is an acrostic poem on “good works” of a woman, through which she earns the title of “a good and a model wife”. I know it is unfortunate that we do not have a similar poem on “a good and a model husband” to complement this! Without getting into an argument about the “andro-centrism” of the Hebrew Scriptures, I note, the heroine in that passage becomes good and great only by her diligent caring for her family. She becomes the ideal only by her eager sharing of her energies for the welfare of her husband and children – her immediate neighbourhood!

Conscientious care for those in my neighbourhood, and eagerly sharing – lovingly sharing – what I have and enthusiastically giving my self is that call I receive from that ever silent, odourless, invisible “More” – that some call God, others call Nirvana, some others call Allah, Yahweh, Brahman, etc. – that is always present!

That was the essence of the message Jesus of Nazareth taught! He even dramatized the same message of diligent care and eager sharing to his disciples, who, like me, were inclined to becoming great and good in the worldly sense of addition and accumulation! To them Jesus said you become first and great by becoming last and through serving – the word Jesus offered them is servant, serving as a servant! (Cf. Mark 9:35)

Jesus once took a little child, in Mark 9:30-37, and said: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” (Mark 9:37). The point here is my diligent care for and an eager sharing with one of the least in my neighborhood. This, then, is that which will drive me towards “goodness and greatness”!

James, the writer of the little book in the Greek Scriptures, (which some may consider as one of the actual brothers of Jesus), like his friends who did not understand this at the beginning, appreciated the importance of diligent care for and keen sharing with those around him as the Wisdom. He therefore wrote in his letter, “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness” – your works with gentleness because you are doing to the least among you – “willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (James 3:13b and 17).

Hence, I – giving it a title “Work the Faith” – say to myself:
You have been set free

To set others free

Faith is not

A spectator sport

Learn a simple truth

Share it

Discover your gift

And release it

Hook up

On a project

Not as the boss

But as a partner

Give your ear

Not your tongue

To talk her story

Look for opportunities

And meet the needs

Others passed

By the other side

Let Go the Colt!

Mark narrates (Mark 11:1-11) the story of Jesus’ “bold entry” into Jerusalem with poetic brevity. The phrase “as it was already late”, part of the last verse, is likely to create a sense of urgency – no space for lethargy, no time for procrastinating! And Jesus moves forward. The disciples are with him in that journey. There were others, willing to “let go”, or “offer” what belonged to them for the sake of Jesus’ mission culminating in “sacrificing of the self”, a final overcoming of the ego!

If every single Christian takes time to read this little story and allow it to echo in their heart, will they then sense the urgency to walk with Jesus? Where will this walk take them? Are the Christians today ready, for sake of Jesus, to offer their “colt” that they jealously guard? What is that “colt” in their “heart”, in their “wallet”, that they must now “let go” for the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, the Missio Dei, the Mission of God – very different from the mission of the Christendom, particularly of the western world – to continue in God’s World?

Fundamentals of Faith

Dr S. Radhakrishnan, the late philosopher president of India once said, “Christians are ordinary people making extra-ordinary claims”. He said this when he found the professed claims of Christians were not matching their life style.

Christians, sure, are humans! And they have all the human weaknesses. But yet the world demands “a validation” from those, enthusiastically and very regularly, “professing faith”. For that is the way the world ratifies the truth of a faith.

This expectation is not a mere “worldly” one; it is also a “godly” demand. Hence, Jesus said: “If you love me, you will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23)

One of the first things that we may want to note is that the “Word” and “Commandment” in John’s Gospel are synonymous words. Hence, “keep my word” equals “keep my commandment”.

And if we probe a little more, even the word “love” belongs to the same category. In other words, to keep the word, or his commandment, is same as to “love”. So Christians regularly pray: “Pour into our hearts such love…” And Christians are expected to repeat this until that “love” happens. It is then a useful exercise to keep repeating, day and night, the phrase “pour into our hearts love that we may in turn love”. So as God pours this love into my feeble heart “I keep his word”, or “keep his commandment”.

Or, those who regularly walk to the “Lord’s Table”, to the altar for Holy Communion, may repeat the same prayer with modified words: “May we who receive this sacrament always be strengthened to do your will”.

Second, in the writings of John “faith” is very simple. It is to love. Likewise to do God’s will is to love; to keep the words of the Lord of the Worlds is to love; to obey the commands of God is, again, to love. It is those who love have faith. When there is faith there is love.

When I love - I may not speak of faith. But still I have faith. Love that which lives and dies for the other, for sake of the other is that which marks a life of a Christian. This is precisely what Jesus offered the world at the cross. It is this love that I receive as I gather, with others, around the Lords Table.

John confirms the same elsewhere: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (1 John 4:16b) Or, in the same chapter, John said: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who love is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)

Perhaps, not strangely, the opposite is also true. “Whoever does not love does not know God.” (1 John 4:8) Still further down in the same chapter John has some very hard stuff. He said: “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20)

From this I learn that the only way to love and serve the eternal, unseen God, is to love and serve the mortal brother and sister whom I see in my every day life; now the brother and sister, as we all know, refers to every single human with no discrimination of color, race, or creed!

Earlier, I said, to have “faith” is simple. Because all that means is “to love”. Intellectually, it is a simple truth. But in reality, as we may very well know, it is the most difficult task. And perhaps that is why Christians as frail as they are fail to live up to their faith.

A reason for the failure to “love” is “forgetfulness”. At the beginning of the day, or on Sunday, at the beginning of the week, I say to myself I will worship and serve God by my love for my neighbour. But when I really encounter my neighbour, I see my neighbour not only as a threat to my interest but also as one who pricks my bloated ego. And I forget that love in my heart and replace with hate.

But I am not left alone to struggle without any support from above. The Gospel, the Christian Scriptures, speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to “remind” (John 14:25) me of the need to love! Interesting aspect in this “support” from above is my actual doing love. When I “do love” then I “receive” this “support” from above. Love is given from above to those who love, not to accumulate but to spend. So it is not magical. Neither is it something that I do with my own strength. And therefore I cannot take credit for my loving. I love because I am loved first, and I am given to love.

It is grace and the power of the Holy Spirit that makes me and enables me to love, but that grace and power is experienced and realized only in my effort to love. They are both intricately connected. That is receiving love from above and spending my love are both inter-connected.

The love in the New Testament is not an expression of love from the “left-over” of my self-love. It is, as I said earlier, a love for the sake of the other; a love in which the other takes precedence to my own self. It is a love where the needs of the other is put before ones own need. It is, therefore, a costly love.

“For God so loved the world…” is the beginning of my faith. The “eternal city of love and light”, is the goal of my feeble and fragile faith. And this city has “riches beyond imagination” for those, and for only those, who love, and live this earthly life by loving!