Creating opportunities: 25th Monday of the year

“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lamp stand so that those who enter may see the light.” (Lk 8:16).

Conformism is a disease. Many of us take the easy approach to life. If I don’t do the wrong thing, I am OK. At times we get adventurous and, when the opportunity is there, we go out of our comfort zone and manage to do something good. But what if the opportunity were not there?

“To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.” (Lk 8:17) If we lay back and wait for opportunities to come our way, we are not doing enough. We are considering that the kingdom is not our kingdom, is not our business, just our boss’ business. If we care for the kingdom, we will strive to create opportunities.

Hiding or ignoring, our talents, our gifts and our charisms is not humility. It is personal stinginess and, in the end, it’s our loss: “even what he seems to have will be taken away.”

God’s Meritocracy: 25th Sunday

Today’s gospel (Mt 20:1016) makes us feel that the landowner was unfair, we are the right audience because this gospel is meant to provoke.

We may feel like the first workers. When they saw the landowner being generous, they assumed that he would be generous with them as well. Instead, he was only just. We find hard to accept uneven generosity. Yet, we cannot deny that Jesus’ question hits the nail on the head: “am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?” (Mt 20:16)

Was the landowner unfair? How do we measure fairness? How do we allocate reward? According to effort? To results? To needs? We have to make up our minds before we can answer consistently the question of fairness.

The gospel does not mention of any difference between the late and early workers. One denarii was the fair wage of a day’s work and most likely the money needed to feed a family daily. Did the late workers not have families too? Did these families not deserve to eat?

The late workers were not lazy. They were just unfortunate. They have been willing to work from early morning, but no one hired them. They simply did not have the opportunities the earlier workers had. Does that make them less unworthy?

The landowner was a merciful man. He knew the plight of the late workers and he wanted to do something about it. He rewarded them according to their need; not according to their opportunity. He acted as a father to them. Parents do not reward according to equality, but according to need. Babies need a kind of attention grown-ups do not, sick children need more care than healthy ones.

But this fatherly landowner was more than just merciful. He was also concerned about the early workers. He wanted to give them what they needed. If his purpose was simply to be merciful, he would have paid late comers first. The early workers would have never known of the unusual payment to the late comers and they would have left happily with their denarius. They did not need more money, but the landowner thought they needed to be provoked. So, he expressly wanted the first comers to witness generosity, not from the receivers end, but from the other side of the fence.

What they received was a provoking lesson on true justice. A lesson that could not leave them indifferent. The right reaction is one of happiness. If the early worker had a son who had happened to be the late worker, he would have been happy for this kind of treatment. Love links us in a way that we learn to appreciate the true good of the other person. Only love for the unfortunate late comers would make them happy that their families would too have enough to eat for that day. Not rejoicing in the good of the other, places us on the side of the oppressors.

We may think that making a world where justice is based on need more than achievements or opportunities is an utopia. But it is not. It is very real. Families commonly apply that principle. Thousands of religious communities live by that principle. They all give back to the community according to their capacity and receive from the community according to their needs. You don’t need to be an angel to live by it. It is happening to normal, weak, limited, sinful people.

Nonetheless, we should be realistic about it. Only when there is a link between all the members of the community is this possible. This is why this is happening at the level of small communities but not at the national level with the communist ideology having tried something similar.

Only love rejoices in the good of the other. Indifference resents generosity. We certainly need a fairer world. We certainly could invent more efficient ways of satisfying the needy. But just as much as more equal distribution is needed, we  also need a change of mentality and a change of heart. And this is possible only at the level of small communities.

Ecologist often say, “Think globally, act locally.” That also works for justice. Think about the neediest in the world; behave accordingly with your neighbour.

Attracted to the Cross to bear our crosses: The exaltation of the Cross

There is a danger of echoing today the message of Good Friday. Good Friday is about redemption. Today we celebrate the consequences of this redemption.

Today we exalt the Cross, or better, the Crucified even if the cross was a cause of shame. The exaltation of the Cross can only happen after we have looked at the Cross with faith, namely, after we have understood that Jesus had redeemed us through the cross.

So this is our question today: What do we see when we look at the Cross? Jesus gives us a pointer when he refers to His exaltation as something similar to the exaltation of the Serpent in the dessert (Jn 3:13 and Nm 21:4).

The episode of the poisonous Serpent (Nm21:4ff) is in itself a paradox. The image of the very reptile that killed the Israelites, could save them. The Israelites asked Moses to take away the serpents. We are very familiar with that kind of prayer. What better solution than that which gets rid of our problems? But God had different plans. God did not remove the serpents but made them face and look at a serpent. Gazing at the very reptile that could kill them, cured them.

This paradox is how our immune system works, or at least how we make it work when we use vaccines. A vaccine stimulates the immune system by introducing a debilitated enemy into the system, so that the system learns to deal with this weak version and hopefully be ready to fight the real stronger version. Paradoxical but effective. Invite the enemy in, to win over your enemy.

Looking and believing are close ideas in the gospel of John. Believing is seeing deeper. Looking at the Cross, the believer sees beyond what it appears to be, to see what it really is. It appears to be failure, misunderstanding, torture, punishment, defeat. The believer sees something deeper.

As vaccines attract the antibodies of the immune system, Jesus attracted upon himself all the evil that dominates humans. St. Paul tells the Philippians that God had emptied Himself to the point of being ready to die. God became vulnerable. So the vulnerable Christ ended up on the cross. Precisely, vulnerability makes the vaccine effective. Vaccines should be vulnerable enough to be killed, strong enough to alarm the immune system. Christ became sin to vaccinate us from sin.

When we know that this attraction is just luring sin into its defeat, we like it, we admire it and we are attracted to it. The attraction of sin becomes attractive and this is way we exalt the Cross. Not only are we able to understand God’s plan, but also to celebrate it and even be happy for the Cross: Oh happy fault!

A volunteer who ministers to prisoners in death row once asked me why the presence of God is especially powerful in those infamous moments? “It is beautiful”, she said. I don’t know. God does like to be more present where His presence is most needed: among the poor, the outcast, the discriminated, etc. Of course that presence cannot justify poverty, oppression, discrimination, or even death penalty. But that paradoxical beauty this volunteer sees in the gallows, has something to do with the beauty of the Cross whose attraction we celebrate today.

At times we do not understand God’s plan. Like the Israelites, we feel like telling God how to liberate us. We give him instructions and when His plans do not match ours, we murmur and complain. Perhaps God’s plan is more intricate. It is difficult to understand how a fiery serpent could save you from serpents, how a condemned man could save humanity or how deadly bacteria could become medicinal vaccines, etc. All these paradoxes are more effective and more beautiful.

Next time we feel like telling God what to do, we should glance at the cross. St. Thomas Aquinas used to say that he learned more from looking at the crucifix than reading books, and he did read quite a few! Glancing at the cross we should be tempted to see something beautiful that illumines the paradoxes of our lives. The one exalted on the Cross becomes a lighthouse to guide us in the trials of life.

So… when we look at the Crucified, what do we see?

Wednesday of the 23th week: Welcoming Migrants

I have come to know that people of Serangoon Gardens are getting uncomfortable with the idea of having a dormitory for migrants built in their vicinity.

It seems that people love to enjoy nice developed Singapore at the expenses of low salary foreign workers but find it hard to have them living next to them. It is sheer hypocrisy to want foreign workers to work here but not want them to live here.

It seems that the main “damages” that foreign workers do are to dirty the place and date foreign maids. I suppose that the same laws apply for Singaporeans and foreigners when it comes to hygiene. As to dating foreign maids, who says maids must take a vow of virginity when they come to Singapore? It is funny how people are interested in getting their children to marry, but wished their maids could not even have social life.

We seem to forget that to help families in Singapore, we might be destroying or incapacitating families in other countries. Young maids with few or no free days have nearly zero chance of having a social life, let alone having a serious relationship and thinking about marriage. Some maids are already married in their countries and have to abandon spouses and children to earn a more decent living in affluent Singapore. In brief, maids are expected to help Singaporean families by renouncing to their own families or the possibility of having one.

But of course there is a simple solution to all this. Do you want to have a developed country without the underdeveloped countries’ problems? Then apply developed countries solutions.

In affluent countries, a migrant receives a basic salary exactly the same as nationals would get and enjoy the same rights as nationals do. They are also part of the Social Security system and enjoy free medical care. Soon they start saving and can buy a car to move around and rent an apartment to live in. In some months they can even bring their families and their children will be able to study in regular schools side by side with the rest of the children of that country.

This is the way to avoid, foreign workers transported like cattle in trucks, having them living in crowded dormitories and avoid having them looking for love in the wrong places.

This is also the understanding of the church: Migrants should enjoy the same rights as the natives of the country where they are migrating and they should be able to bring their families to live with them.

But, of course, that is costly. It is much more profitable to keep first world standard by paying foreign workers third world salaries. That is not only totally unjust, but simply an unfair way of developing. It is like cheating in a race for development at the expenses of foreign workers.

To top it all, some people are not only ignoring and avoiding the thorny issue of just development, they want the impossible: workers working for them, but not living near them. This is not only unfair and inhumane; it is simply unreasonable.

The Banishment: A must watch for Christians

Some films have tried to capture the essence of the Christian message. “The Passion of the Christ” did it openly, “The Chronicles of Narnia” did it clearly and “The Lord of the Rings” did it subtly. None of them can be compared to “The Banishment.”

Used to the trepidation of Hollywood standards, “The Banishment” is an extremely slow and long Russian film. It neither mentions God or religion, but it is subtly about the Christian concept of redemption. Perhaps the hardest topic to capture in film.

The first part of the movie deals with matters as they appear to be on the surface. A rather taciturn husband who worked hard to earn a living for his wife and two children while trying to keep in touch with his estranged brother. Unexpectedly, he learned about his wife’s  pregnancy but she confessed it was not his child.

His internal struggle is translated into an even deeper silence that only breaks into a talk with his brother. The conversation with his brother inside the car spoke of the struggle of conscience to come up with the right decision. These two brothers represented the human condition. The practical side, the estranged brother, saw nothing ethically wrong as long as a solution was achieved. He told him where a gun is hidden in the house and put his puzzled brother straight in front of his freedom: “If you choose to kill, you can kill; if you choose to forgive, you can forgive.”

Ultimately, the husband chose to forgive under one condition: that his wife aborted the child. The wife submitted. A diptych shows both sides of the reality of the abortion. In the house, the mother was under the knife of two clandestine doctors in the precarious setting of her bedroom. The other side of the diptych shows, her two children, far away in a friend’s house, trying to assemble a puzzle of the Annunciation of Leonardo da Vinci. Before going to bed, the children then hear their friends read 1 Cor 13: “Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; … love is never rude or selfish… delights in the truth.”

A series of tragedies unleashed in what superficially seemed to be an unfortunate chain of events. It all seems to be the result of the wife’s weakness and the struggle of a husband to forgive. The truth is much deeper. The second part of the film deals with the underlying hidden plan: the one who seemed to be the victim turned out to be the victimizer; the one who seemed to be the sinner turned out to be the innocent lamb of sacrifice and he who thought he was doing justice found himself being judged when faced with the truth. I won’t tell you how that happens. You go and watch.

“The Passion of the Christ” was patently Catholic, had a predictable script and, to the secular audience, it was not more than a gory, graphic tale of a torture with an unbelievable ending. “The Chronicles of Narnia” was a fairy tale too similar to the real story to appeal to the secular audience. As Tolkien would reproach: too fantastic to resemble the real thing. “The Lord of the Rings” was perhaps so subtle that it failed to bring the audience beyond its fantasy world to the facts of our faith.

“The Banishment” does what the rest failed to do. It is subtle enough to appeal to the secular. Realistic enough to relate to all. And faithful enough to the mystery to unfold it in a manner that is both inspiring and revealing. If you even wonder what redemption is all about and how one’s condemnation can bring about redemption, this is a film you must watch.

Provoking the fulfilment of the Scriptures

Yes, Jesus claimed that the scriptures were being fulfilled in Him. He was the fulfilment of the Scriptures. But He did something else. He provoked the fulfilment of the Scripture.

When people listened to Jesus in the synagogue, they liked Him. When He told them He was not going to perform miracles, they were outraged, making it true that “no prophet is welcome in his own land”.

Jesus not only fulfilled the Scriptures for who He was. He provoked people in a way that they fulfilled the Scriptures too. This is our challenge. NOt to wait until things happen but to make things happen- to provoke and let ourselves be provoked into fulfilling God’s will.