TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

MORE THAN JUST AN OPINION
Luke 14:25-33

It is not easy nowadays to know what goes on within the religious conscience of individuals. Although we live in the same society and interact on a daily basis at home, at work and in social events, the fact remains that we rarely know what other people think about God, about faith and the last things. Each one has his own questions, doubts or searches that few people know about.

Still, most of us would agree on one common impression. Without knowing exactly how to put it, we all seem to have arrived at a new way of thinking, acting and living in ways that are not influenced by old Christian faith.

We might say that, little by little, we have grown accustomed to a culture that is ever less dependent on God. Christians, too, are getting used to this brand of indifference. It is no longer easy, in the present times, to live our Christian faith personally and responsibly.

Experts in these matters say that one of the most profound changes that is taking place in our times is the shifting from a society of beliefs to a society of opinions. Some decades ago, most individuals were moved by their faith that guided much of their life style, decisions and customs: faith influenced their lives profoundly. Nowadays, we tend to live guided by various opinions and choices: each individual has a religious opinion, which does not necessarily determine our life style, our moral obligations, much less become the principal basis for our behaviour.

The true Christian cannot live his faith just as an opinion: “that’s your opinion, but I think otherwise.” Believing in Jesus Christ is much more than having an opinion which is quite different from what others may think. Faith is of no use if it does not inspire us to a global sense in our lives, as well as to move and motivate the person.

Believing in Jesus Christ is not simply having an opinion about Him; it means that we are ready to follow Him. Following Him must be unconditional by trying to live as Jesus did. If we cannot do that, we can’t be called his disciples.

The Window

The Window
(Author unknown)

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man
was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour a day to drain the fluids
from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other
man had to spend all his time flat on his back.The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and
families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military
service, where they had been on vacation. And every afternoon when the
man in the bed next to the window could sit up, he would pass the
time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside
the window.
The man in the other bed would live for those one-hour periods where
his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and
color of the outside world. The window overlooked a park with a lovely
lake, the man had said. Ducks and swans played on the water while
children sailed their model boats. Lovers walked arm in arm amid
flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the
landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the
distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite
detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and
imagine the picturesque scene.
One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing
by. Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see it
in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with
descriptive words. Unexpectedly, an alien thought entered his head:
Why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never
get to see anything? It didn't seem fair. As the thought fermented,
the man felt ashamed at first. But as the days passed and he missed
seeing more sights, his envy eroded into resentment and soon turned
him sour. He began to brood and found himself unable to sleep. He
should be by that window - and that thought now controlled his life.
Late one night, as he lay staring at the ceiling, the man by the
window began to cough. He was choking on the fluid in his lungs. The
other man watched in the dimly lit room as the struggling man by the
window groped for the button to call for help. Listening from across
the room, he never moved, never pushed his own button which would have
brought the nurse running. In less than five minutes, the coughing and
choking stopped, along with the sound of breathing. Now, there was
only silence--deathly silence.
The following morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their
baths. When she found the lifeless body of the man by the window, she
was saddened and called the hospital attendant to take it away--no
words, no fuss. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the man asked if he
could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the
switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his
first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself.
He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It
faced a blank wall.

Subject: The Cross in Our Bodies

The Cross in Our Bodies

This is a pretty neat story and an interesting thing that few of us know. It's brief, so please read. (FROM A DOCTOR)

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio... And I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned.

He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is... How He spoke the universe into being... Etc. Etc. Then He went on to speak of how this universe-creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) . And I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking..'How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???'

The God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.

And then I lost my breath. And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!!

It was because he started talking about laminin. I knew about laminin.. Here is how Wikipedia describes them: 'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue' You see.... Laminins are what hold us together... LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what they LOOKED LIKE..

But now I do. And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)....Here is what the structure of laminin looks like... AND THIS IS NOT a 'Christian portrayal' of it.... If you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see....

Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!! Amazing. The glue that holds us together.... ALL of us..... Is in the shape of the cross. Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.

He is before all things, and in him All things HOLD TOGETHER.'
Colossians 1:17 . Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint,we are held together... One cell to another.... By the cross.

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin 'glue' would look like!!

So…………………………God is with us at ALL times and that is what holds us together when the going gets tough. Have you ever looked back at a situation and wondered how you made it through…………….now you know!!

Test of Faith

By Martin Chung
2010.01.04

“Do you still believe in God?”

More than two years since my then pregnant wife was hit by a truck, we are still asked that question from time to time.

Our answer: Yes, we do. More than ever.

It’s easy to understand why the question. The logic goes: We’re Christian but our God had apparently failed to protect us. We had been good people but bad things still happened to us. In short, it’s the age-old question mankind has long asked herself, from philosopher-king Plato to grand historian Sima Qian: The good suffer and die, the bad prosper and thrive, where’s God or Kuan Yin or Tao?

For us, our answer is no more difficult to grasp: God didn’t put that truck on the pedestrian’s lane to hit my wife on the head – a reckless driver did. We live side by side in a society, we get careless and somebody gets hurt, as simple as that. Unless we expect to have a totalitarian God – which has been only too often on our wish list and to-do list, unfortunately – it is not a god question but a purely human one: why are we in such a hurry? Why can we not refrain from talking on the phone while driving? Or have an oppressive economic machinery that puts sleep-deprived drivers on the road? I’m not that sure of our innocence.

Hong Kong is one tract of land on earth where about three people are killed every single week in traffic “accidents”. Tragic? Yes, but not of God’s making.

But our God could’ve spared us somehow with his much-hyped almighty… Now that’s some nasty self-righteous thinking we refuse to give into. For it implies that non-believers are more deserving of evil and mishap, which is simply not true. Our prophets in the Old Testament would not have us fallen into that trap of self-pity, in exile as in emergency.

But spare us God did. Somehow, the hit on my wife’s head wasn’t a centimeter higher or lower, more to the left or to the right, or else my entire family might have already been history. Somehow, the baby in her womb survived both the shock and the full anesthesia. Somehow, a pediatrician was on the spot, and took the risk to give us a hand to assess and monitor the state of both mother and child before the ambulance arrived. Somehow, a “civil safety” officer was also nearby, who happened to carry around him a bandage the size of a sandwich and a heart the size of a lion’s, to help save my wife from excessive bleeding. Meanwhile, our third angel, who happened to be driving following the truck when the hit-and-run happened, was putting his life on the line pursuing the culprit, who eventually helped the police nail him down.

Somehow, there were still exceedingly competent, caring and responsible people working in Hong Kong’s public hospitals, which are chronically over-worked and under-salaried. (So much so that there’s a “joke” among the nursing staff: Last life we earned a curse, this life to be a nurse!) Somehow in this city famed for its make-a-quick-buck mentality and worse-than-chicken-farm habitat, complete strangers offered us accommodation in their home (basically their own bedroom), out of nothing but church friends calling church friends’ friends. (Somehow also complete strangers ran to us offering “free” legal assistance, but they obviously belonged to a whole different category.)

Somehow, somehow.

We were hit by a reckless machine, but we were also cushioned by godliness everywhere we fell. And that cushion ultimately triumphs over the steel, for it is enveloping as it is absorbing. The Christian God we believe in is not a bullet-proof vest that guarantees bodily safety, just as he is not a slot machine that promises wealth and health. Instead, what is guaranteed is an invitation to a banquet of suffering: first as co-habitants of human society, then and more as co-bearers of the cross, for to share in godliness is to partake the passion of Christ, not as detached observers but as vulnerable participants. But with us it always comes with a cushion.

More deserving people have found less sympathy and synchronicity. We’ve had plenty. Sure, my wife’s back still hurts. My daughter’s heart condition might have something to do with the accident. And my breathing stops when big vehicles pass us by. But we’re still here. That’s all the reason to be thankful for.

Our Chinese friends would say: it is “great luck in great unluck”. Our British friends might say: “We don’t do God.”

And for us: We don’t believe in luck, computable or not. We believe in a God who still “do” us.

Feast of Christ the King

Pope Pius XI universally instituted The Feast of Christ the King in 1925 in his encyclical Quas Primas. Pope Pius connected the denial of Christ as king to the rise of secularism. At the time of Quas Primas, secularism was on the rise, and many Christians, even Catholics, were doubting Christ's authority, as well as the Church's, and even doubting Christ's existence. Pius XI, and the rest of the Christian world, witnessed the rise of dictatorships in Europe, and saw Catholics being taken in by these earthly leaders. Just as the Feast of Corpus Christi was instituted when devotion to the Eucharist was at a low point, the Feast of Christ the King was instituted during a time when respect for Christ and the Church was waning, when the feast was most needed. In fact, it is still needed today, as these problems have not vanished, but instead have worsened.
The Pope hoped the institution of the feast would have various effects. They were:
    1. That nations would see that the Church has the right to freedom, and immunity from the state (Quas Primas, 32).
    2. That leaders and nations would see that they are bound to give respect to Christ (Quas Primas, 31).
    3. That the faithful would gain strength and courage from the celebration of the feast, as we are reminded that Christ must reign in our hearts, minds, wills, and bodies (Quas Primas, 33).

Today, the same distrust of authority exists, although the problem has gotten worse. Individualism has been embraced to such an extreme, that for many, the only authority is the individual self. The idea of Christ as ruler is rejected in such a strongly individualistic system. Also, many balk at the idea of kings and queens, believing them to be oppressive. Some even reject the titles of "lord" and "king" for Christ because they believe that such titles are borrowed from oppressive systems of government. However true these statements might be (some kings have been oppressive), these individuals miss the point: Christ's kingship is one of humility and service. Jesus said:

    You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to become great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:42-45, NAB). and

    Pilate said to Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?"... Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here." So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world,to testify to the truth (John 18:33b, 36-37).

Thus, Jesus knew the oppressive nature of secular kings, and in contrast to them, he connected his role as king to humble service, and commanded his followers to be servants as well. In other passages of Scripture, his kingdom is tied to his suffering and death. While Christ is coming to judge the nations, his teachings spell out a kingdom of justice and judgment balanced with radical love, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. When we celebrate Christ as King, we are not celebrating an oppressive ruler, but one willing to die for humanity and whose "loving-kindness endures forever." Christ is the king that gives us true freedom, freedom in Him. Thus we must never forget that Christ radically redefined and transformed the concept of kingship.

A Cry that stopped God!

Lk 18: 35-43
Ah! There is nothing surprising in it... Because, from the beginning, God could not stand the cry of man. When ever man cried, God stopped His business to attend the cry of him. When God confronted Cain after the first assassination in human history, one of his concern was this cry: "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground" (Gen.4:10). That concern of God for human being continued to the New Testament and in fact the very reason for God becoming man was to attend to the "cries" of man. And that is why Lk 18:40 is a very significant one for us: "Jesus Stopped..." The cry of a blind man for mercy forced a "stop" from the Son of Man!

The blind beggar in the Gospel behaves in a strange way perhaps: he does not ask for alms today... rather, he is seeking God's mercy. And he is not bothered about the reaction of the crowd - that is quite normal to the beggars. They just do not bother about what is spoken about them. Lk 18:38 -"Then he cried out" and 39 - "he cried out all the more..." talks about how he encountered the Lord. And this cry prompts Jesus to "stop". God stops at the cry of a "nobody in the society".  What a comforting and consoling assurance it is that we have a God who stops to listen to our supplications and petitions. Our God never leaves us unheeded...

Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom

When I was doing my graduate studies, one day there was an animated discussion in our English literature class. The point of discussion was a verse from the Bible, Sirach 1:14, "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom". Some of the students argued that if we were children of God and if God were the Father, why should one be afraid of God. Bible is perhaps wrong... some said! Some of the faithful Christians in the Class said it had to be understood in the same sense that we all hold our parents with a "respectful fear". But the detractors were not convinced. If that were the case, why finer words like "Love, reverernce, or respect" were not used instead of "fear", because the term "fear" shows God in a negative frame, they argued.

 Then I got a thought in my mind and I said, "the scripture is right when it says, Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and once one is wise, there is no more fear". The beginning is from the fear of the Lord. From this state of fearfulness or respect, a child of God grows into the freedom of the Children of God. It was much later, I realised the deeper meaning of what I have uttered there in the class that day!

When a Child is born it encounters the world with a cry... leave alone the physical reasons for that involuntary act of the new born, "cry" is associated with fear, pain and trauma. The newborn is indeed frightened of the new atmosphere and it cannot but cry. If it does not, it is understood that it is no more alive. From this traumatised cry, the infant gradually grows into the loving protection and freedom of its family. It's a gradual process. It takes days togehter for the infant  to recognise the parents and later on all others in the family and the world around it.

Same is the case with a Child of God too. It definitely begins with the fear of the Lord. And without this foundation of the "Fear of the Lord", one would be nothing more than a "Dead thing" for one's world around. The Judge in the Gospel (Lk 18:1-8) fails to have any concern for the humanity because the scripture says, "He neither feared God..." His act of giving justice to the Widow is not out of his love for humanity, but out of concern for his own peace of mind. What becomes clear for me from the scripture is this: No matter what ones' educational qualifications are (eg. the Judge in the Gospel), one fails to be "wise" until one's foundation is rooted on the "Fear of the Lord".