Service to our neighbors as Christianity 101: Healing our Hypocrisy
Acts 6:1-7; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12
Doctors, nurses and caregivers are dying, because of Covid-19! What a pity, but it is true: those trained to protect others, are also casualties and victims! Videos have gone viral showing doctors, nurses and caregivers absconding from their jobs for lack of protection from Covid-19. But community after community line up, either in honking cars or at a safe distance, to thank and show gratitude to doctors, nurses and caregivers for their courage, sacrifice and love of humanity terrorized by Covid-19. Our collective appreciation of music as therapeutic is underscored by the different compositions and renditions of songs to ease our depressing times. Despite Covid-19, human solidarity is alive and active; something good has always remained in human beings, it comes to life every now and then. God bless our heroes! But should it take Covid-19 for us to learn the basics of life—“Service to our neighbors as Christianity 101”?
It was not always so! Before Covid-19, Christianity taught us that human beings have a common provenance and destiny—the rich and the poor, male and female, black and white, yellow and brown—the same God created us and sustains us. We are so ignorant today that we don’t even know the origin of “thank you”—God as the basis of life! We learned to say “thanks” to our parents for our daily bread. Our first words to our parents, every morning, is a prayer for them: “good morning”—that is—may God grant them a nice working day to earn the daily bread for their family’s survival. As children, we offer a second prayer for our parents, at the end of the day: “good night,” that they may see another day, despite the challenges the ebbing day reserved for them. This is parenthood 101, this is basic child education—to say “thank you”. The same respect is extended to all parents, those not related to us by blood, and to our teachers at school. Every human being deserves a good day and a good night, because we are a human family.
Today, where are our parents, who spent sleepless nights to show us love from cradle to 18 years-of-age, the magical independence age? How many remember Mothers’ and Fathers’ day to say “thank you”? Our teachers, working in very poor and challenging conditions, sometimes in very poor neighborhoods, villages and hamlets: how often do we remember to say “thank you” to them? Our servicemen—be they the military, police and firefighters—do they make it to our “thank you” list? Is there such a thing as an adequate remuneration for parents, teachers and servicemen, who surrender and risk their lives to keep us happy and safe? We turned our backs on God, and we lost our common sense, our common humanity!
What a humanity we have become: individualistic, ingrates and possessive! When Covid-19 attempts to snuff of our lives, we complain, we fight, and some survivors remember to thank doctors, nurses and caregivers. With Covid-19, we suddenly realize that economic prosperity and military might are useless to keep us alive. Unpalatable as it might appear, some lost their battle against Covid-19; their human parents, who brought them into the world, couldn’t prevent their exit from the world. Pathetically, abortion clinics remain open, as essential service, during Covid-19: while Covid-19 rakes in its victims, we add to the number of the casualties by abortion. Should the the person seeking abortion be infected from Covid-19, she complains that it is unfair, she is not ready to die, why death?
Yet, life is taken for granted; it is a gift from our parents, protected by our governments and the practice and defense of democratic freedoms. How come those parents who know how to make children cannot defend them from death or prevent themselves from death, because parents too are dying of Covid-19? Since our science and technology have the genus of protecting lives, how come they cannot bring back the lives of those who are unwilling to die or give them new life? Have we learnt anything about Covid-19 yet?
Where is God in the scheme of things? True, parents bring children into the world, yet many couples are unsuccessful in having children—what does that say about life and its origin? When your car or machine breaks down or is old, you recycle it, you get a new one: why not recycle your child or recreate life, when it comes to an end? Our doctors save lives, but what happens to those lives that are lost under their watch—why not sue the doctors, nurses and caregivers? We don’t because we know that life is from God not from parents, presidents, doctors, nurses and caregivers!
Indeed, we are hypocrites! If we do not create life, why not recognize the creator of life and give him thanks? We refuse to ask the question of the origin of life, yet we say we are intelligent and technologically advanced: is this not hypocrisy? At the point of death and when our science and technology cannot save us, we do not hold any human being responsible, except to cowardly accept the verdict of the owner of life—God. God was there at the beginning of life and at the end of it; between life and death, we deny his existence: is this not madness, worse than foolishness?
Once upon a time, our education was preserved and nurtured in monasteries; our sciences championed by men and women of the cloth; our upbringing anchored in God—the Creator and Sustainer of every life. Our philosophers, doctors and politicians all went to church. Churchmen and Churchwomen crusaders of education as missionaries in distant lands and climes: humanity still owes them a simple “thank you” that “Covidian” heroes are getting, but none for them! We think God irrelevant and his emissaries relics of the past. We call our divorce from God “enlightenment,” our hypocrisy is branded “freedom,” and our doom, we named “progress”. With Covid-19, we now know better—the denial of God is the bane of science!
Look at the pride of our science and technology and tell me which of those are not God based? Our greatest discoveries have been made by past generations, who acknowledged the place of God in their civilization. Even in contemporary Western societies, basilicas, cathedrals and church structures remain a relic of our theistic past, whether we like it or not. All our efforts to deny God only come back to haunt us. Suddenly, as if awakened from a nightmare, we remember to help our brothers and sisters, because Covid-19 is no respecter of gender, race, status and nationality. Where is our Christianity?
The meaning of Christianity is misunderstood. The surest guide to the meaning of Christianity is to return to the origins and originator of Christianity. This simply means that the meaning of Christianity is indissociably tied to its past in such a way that the past must be made present by every generation. Put differently, there is no past, if there must be Christianity. In this connection, to have a past is to dislocate the present from the past. Christianity is not a theory but actions and deeds that are reminiscent of Christ’s—service to our neighbors! Christianity is the provision of food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, support for the sick and the dying, all because of God.
To read from the Acts of the Apostles, as we do these days of Easter Season, is to read how the power of faith in Jesus Christ shaped the lifestyle of early believers in Jesus. It is to plunge into the past in order to make the past present today. In out first reading, the question of ethnicity and tribalism come into sharp focus. Deeper still, is the problem of food! The question is: how does a Christian face up to the question of food, ethnic diversity and linguistic pluralism? This question remains vital to our world today, just as it did at the beginning of Christianity. Our times feel that economics or the “markets” is the lord of our civilization, and ethnic and linguistic complexes the cog in the wheels of human progress.
The solution to every pluralism, according to our first reading, is the centrality and unity of salvation—God. This is different from every political theory proffered by human beings, because human theories – conceptions or way of imagining – address symptoms and not the ailment itself—otherwise, they will find God. Today, food distribution, as it is the case in the first reading, is at the origin of all conflicts. Human cravings are basically carnal, and “the politics of the stomach” captures well what human theories worry about—the distribution of wealth or capital, with hardly any regard for the creator of the stomach and what he intends for the stomach.
Jews versus Greeks/Gentile conflict emerges from their respective rights to physical food, with no thoughts reserved for the fact that human beings “do not live to eat but eat to live.” A Christian approach to physical food is secondary to that of spiritual food, which endures to eternity. Early Christians were neither economics—those who worry about food production, nor were they politicians—those who control the distribution of food and hold the power to do so. NO! Early Christians, according to our first reading, are those who dedicated themselves to the proclamation of the Word of God. Certainly, physical food is important, but a new ministry was founded for that—the diaconate (deacons)! Christians have been supporting everyone for 2000 years before Covid-19!
Actual poverty is spiritual poverty, it is to descend to the level of “living to eat,” instead of “eating to live.” The poverty of “living to eat” has created the disease of obesity in some countries, and eradicated the meaning of human dignity in others. How does one explain the hunger in some countries, although richly blessed with material resources, yet the powerful dispossess the poor of food? Fratricidal wars and exterminations of citizens over food and material resources are aptly captured by media outlets every single day. Today, hunger is a weapon of war, and genetically modified foods (GMO) have turned food itself into poison! Today, Christianity survives and will continue to survive to the decree to which attention is refocused on “why do we live or why are we alive,” rather than on “how do we eat.”
The preoccupation with physical food arises from a fundamental sickness—identity loss! The worship of food and material riches is the definition of carnalism or materialism—the god of the stomach. For Christians, there is only One God, and human beings live on his Word. The identity of such people, who live on “every word that comes from the mouth of God,” is Christian. To underscore Christian identity, our second reading says this: “You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises’ of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Christianity is mono-racial—“the chosen ones of God,” monocratic—“priestly people,” mono-ethnic—“heavenly citizens,” and monolatry—the worship of One God.
We may wonder how these different indices define a Christian. The answer is provided in the opening sentence of our second reading: “Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Quintessential here is the imperative statement “Come to him[God].” It is the total surrender to the Word of God, preached from the Bible, that will manifest a Christian’s identity, not the appropriation of human theories. The most palpable evidence of this total surrender is reflected in the common priesthood of all Christians, because they all offer one spiritual sacrifice to God or they all worship one God.
Here is God’s plan and vision for human beings, provided they are willing to cooperate with him: “let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.” One humanity, one household and one God is Christianity. However, here comes the biggest challenge of a Christian, especially in a contemporary culture which absolutizes the physical and the technological—the idea of an invisible God! Where does God live? Where can we see God? What are God’s contacts, especially when we need to reach him? The simplest answer to these questions is this—God is invisible, and without contact address because he wants you and me to be visible and be his presence in the world! Yes, we meet God in one another, by helping one another.
If anything at all may be said about “time” with precision, after the resurrection of Christ, it is this: we live in the Christian Era. The disappearance of Christ is the appearance of the Christian—“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.” Jesus announces, at the end of today’s gospel, that he cedes his place on earth to you and me; that he hands over his powers to you and me; that he confers on us, a new era—the era of the sons and daughters of God. This does not mean that Jesus becomes jobless and inactive —“I am going to prepare a place for you,” he says, at the beginning of today’s gospel. Just as Jesus keeps busy preparing places for his children in heaven, so should Christians keep busy in the service of one another because Jesus is coming back—“I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be,” and that will conclude the Christian Era.
Here and now, to replace or stand for Jesus, as Christians, is to preach racial, ethnic, gender and economic equality, just as Jesus did, and just as the apostles attempted to do in the first reading. This is only possible if we accepted the new identity Jesus confers upon us, according to our second reading—the identity of oneness in faith, worship and citizenship. And, Jesus’ presence will continue to be felt as long as our lives imitate and mirror his. So, we are not jobless, but Jesus disappears so that you and I may appear to continue the era of Christianity he inaugurated. It is by serving the needs of our brothers and sisters that we show that we are Christians, not Covidian combatants. We have been looking out for one another before Covid-19, and we shall continue post-Covid-19, because we Christians! Long live Jesus Christ, long live Christianity, and long live Christian witnessing: service to our neighbors is Christianity 101, healing our hypocrisy—pretending that there is no God!
Assignment of the Week:
Can you list three proofs which show that your life mirrors that of Christ?