The Scandal of Hell (26th Sunday Ordinary B)

Some theologians speak of the "scandal of hell." They ask, if God is a loving God and His love is unconditional, why is there such a thing as hell? How can a faith, which "tells the world of His love," profess, at the same time, a possible state of eternal damnation?

In one of my spiritual talk among the youth, I had this conversation: "All the more that I find myself giving in to sin!" This is the remark of a young lad after listening to my talk about God’s unconditional love. "The more that you priests convince me of the love of God despite my sinfulness, the more that I tend to be lax with my moral life," he explained. "Well, in that case then we have to talk about hell!" I quipped hoping to jolt him out of his complacency.

Truly, God’s unconditional love and mercy is the good news. It’s the central message of the gospel. But hell is bad news for those who consistently refuse to respond to God’s grace and loving invitation.

God invites. Even entices. God always initiates the loving relationship. He never coerces. Coercion is love’s contradiction. Love waits and rejoices at reciprocation. Or suffers from rejection. On our part, we have the capacity to respond to God’s love freely and nurture such a joyful loving relationship. But we are capable too of rejecting his love and live in isolation from Him. When this latter option orients all of our life, we can then admit of the possibility of hell as our own making. Hell symbolizes the pain of total isolation, because of our own choosing, from the love of God.

Jesus resorts to the symbolism of hell in today’s gospel to drive home the point of the seriousness of sin and its consequences. Using Semitic hyperbole, he exaggerates the measures to be taken to avoid sin and its consequences: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire” (Mk. 9:43). The same formulation is used for the foot and the eye. This is a hyperbole, a literary device, which should not be interpreted literally as prescribing self-mutilation. An exaggeration is employed to obtain a jolting effect on the listeners. An exaggeration is an effective warning device. Jesus then may be trying to shake us out of our complacency and giving us the necessary warning lest we end up as victims of our lack of foresight, not seeing the grim consequence of our sins, the damning outcome of our deliberate rejection of his love.

Hell is much less mentioned in theological discourses of today than in those of yesteryears. In fact, some Christians deny its existence as it is a contradiction of our faith in God who wills that all may be saved. Contemporary theological discussions on hell, however, maintains it at least as a possibility—a logical consequence of a sinful life. It is a consummation of a life lived in sin—egoism, hatred, lust for power, pride, tyranny, etc. It is forged through a gradual day-to-day hardening of sins in one’s heart and finally cemented by the person’s definitive rejection of God as there can be no more room for love in such a heart that has totally succumbed to sin.

To preach about hell is to send warning against complacency—pretty much like the point of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” We ought to change our sinful ways. We need to examine and reorient our wasteful and irresponsible lifestyles. We need to evaluate and change our exploitative ways of relating with one another and with nature… Lest we precipitate the course to which we are already heading—global destruction! We all could use an ultimatum. The language and symbolism of hell may just do the trick of awakening us.

Having said this, I would like to stress once more that Christianity’s central message is God’s love and not wrath. Christian spirituality has to be a positive response to God’s invitation to a loving relationship with Him and with all of creation. As such, it is a joyful way of life. It is not out of guilt that we serve and try to be kind. It is not out of fear of hell that we tremble to worship God. We love because we are invited to be part of a loving communion. We love because we are powerfully attracted to Him who loves us unconditionally. We love because God is love and love cannot thrive in cold isolation.

The prayer of St. Francis Xavier, especially the Filipino rendition, never fails to move me. My deepest desire is to make the prayer my own. It’s my wish too for all of you, my dear friends. May we come to love Him not for the reward of heaven nor out of fear of hell. We love Him because He loved us first.

Hindi sa langit Mong pangako sa akin
Ako naaakit na kita’y mahalin.
At hindi sa apoy, kahit anong lagim,
Ako mapipilit nginig kang sambahin.
Naaakit ako ng Ika’y mamalas,
Nakapako sa krus, hinahamak-hamak.
Naaakit ng ‘Yong katawang may sugat,
At ng tinanggap Mong kamataya’t libak.
Naaakit ako ng ‘Yong pag-ibig,
Kaya’t mahal kita, kahit walang langit
Kahit walang apoy, sa ‘Yoy manginginig.
Hwag nang mag-abala upang ibigin ka.
Pagkat kung pag-asa’y bula lamang pala,
Walang magbabago, mahal pa rin kita.

Greatness in "Tsinelas Leadership" (25th Sunday Ordinary B)

I recall how the untimely death of the then DILG Sec. Jesse Robredo, 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Government Service, (May 27, 1958 – August 18, 2012), sent the whole nation to a spontaneous mourning for the loss of a great Filipino leader. But not for long the mourning turned into a celebration of a life well-lived, a life whose greatness edified thousands.

Photo grab from facebook

The greatness of this man was aptly depicted by the eulogies delivered by friends and co-workers.  One in particular described metaphorically his brand of leadership as “Tsinelas Leadership” A Pilipino word for slippers, tsinelas, as descriptive of Robredo’s leadership, captures the memories we all have of him as he served the people without frills and superfluities joining the neighbourhood in cleaning street canals, for instance, after the floods.  The greatness of Robredo’s leadership is not in being at the top of public office and position of authority but in his consistent humble identification, despite his esteemed public status, with the people below and their needs.  He was one of the few who actually lived out Jesus’ formula of greatness—servant-leadership.

In today’s gospel reading (Mk 9:30-37), Jesus instructs his disciples about servant-leadership as the road to the true greatness in the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ message is one of reproach for those who are just too happy to assume power for personal glory. As the gospel reading goes, Jesus, for the second time, predicts his eventual suffering and humiliation on the cross—a reversal of the expected power and glory of the Messiah. But still the whole point seems to escape his disciples’ understanding. Jesus finds them still preoccupied with the debate about who is the greatest among them! So Jesus, in plain and simple language, teaches them saying: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all” (v. 35). Jesus then presents a child for illustration to make the point crystal clear: In God’s reign, the tallest is the one who stoops down to serve the least, the most honorable is one who takes off the well-polished signature shoes and dons a pair of slippers to work with the poor.

Again, we discern very clearly here that Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God is diametrically opposed to the value system of this world. While on the one hand the secular values nudge each one of us to work tooth and nail for upward mobility going up the ladder of social hierarchy for greater power, honor, and wealth, on the other hand, the values of God’s Kingdom invite us to a free decision to take the route of downward mobility finding true greatness in humility and service of the poor.

Two related things that directly emerge from the gospel may help us deepen our discernment: Servant-leadership and preferential option for the poor.

Servant-leadership. For the most part of our life as a people, leadership has been associated with power—The power that has colonized us for centuries, the power to govern with a strong hand, the power to manipulate democratic processes to maintain one’s position “on the top of the world,” the power to control resources and wealth in the hands of the few, the power to conceal the truth. So we have come to believe as a matter of course that leadership means power to lord it over.

The lesson that Jesus teaches is simple and clear: Servant-leadership. But like the early disciples, people choose not to understand. To be great is to embrace the humble stance of a servant. A great leader, in the eyes of God, is not one who maintains at all cost one’s glory and power for one’s own sake but one who harnesses whatever influence is under his disposal for the common good. A great leader is one who serves.

Preferential Option for the Poor. Whom are we serving? We really don’t mind serving people of great stature, do we? We take pride in having served in one way or another someone we deem significant. Or we think we are serving when we attend to someone who would most likely serve us in return or pay us back in whatever form. We don’t mind going out of our way, for instance, to accommodate with great hospitality our VIP guests. But do we have the same heart toward a homeless child in the street? The child that Jesus presents in the gospel may well represent anyone or any sector in society who is helpless, powerless, nameless, dependent, insignificant, incapable of paying back—the poor.

The type of leadership we, Filipinos, have habitually embraced is one that easily indulges the needs, or more to the point, the whims of the influential and the big shots. It’s a leadership that hardly transforms the ills of society as it is slow to listen to the cry of the poor and quick to conform to the design of the powerful. Again, let us heed the wisdom of God in Jesus—if you want to be the greatest, serve the least of all! This will surely make a difference.

Hopefully, the gospel message today spurs us on to a continuing critical discernment about the brand of leaders we truly need today. May we be blest with a thousand and more leaders who subscribe to Jesus’ spirituality of downward mobility or to our pinoy version, “tsinelas leadership.”

To Love...To Suffer With...(24th Sunday Ordinary B)

The only explanation that holds water to the problem of our experience of suffering vis-à-vis the Christian conviction that God is love is this:  That God suffers with us. This is a significant theological insight that dawned on the German Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann as he was grappling with the rhyme and reason of the atrocities and horror of the World War II. In the face of the unspeakable forms of suffering he witnessed and experienced as a prisoner, he saw the cross of Christ as the answer: “God suffers with us—God suffers from us—God suffers for us.” The suffering on the cross is the highest manifestation of God’s love for us.

Jesus speaks of his suffering in today’s gospel (Mk 8:27-35). This he does right after Peter rightly confesses his belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus’ ensuing forecast of his suffering exposes the inadequacy of Peter’s understanding about the meaning of his being the messiah. He rebukes Peter: “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do” (v. 33).

Peter’s initial understanding is from a human perspective. As such, it tends to be self-preserving, if not self-centered. He understands Jesus’ messiahship as other Jews who have long waited for the messiah do--in terms of power of lording it over… the power to subjugate the enemies by force. Hence, from this human perspective, suffering is unthinkable. It’s foolishness. It means weakness. It means defeat! Suffering cannot possibly be the destiny of the messiah!

But God’s ways are beyond human’s. Jesus sees his role as messiah from the mind of God. From the perspective of God, the messiah is understood in terms of a different kind of power—the power of love. And this power is at its highest expression in the total self-emptying of God in Christ. The complete self-giving of Christ on the cross, his extreme suffering and humiliation, is the utmost manifestation of the unsurpassable greatness of God’s love for us and his creation. Seen in this way, suffering is not foolishness but God’s wisdom; not a weakness but God’s very strength; not a defeat but God’s triumph.

Like Peter, we all need to be converted—from human’s ways to God’s ways. Conversion as a total change of mind and heart means putting on the perspective of God. It is in this level of consciousness that we can appreciate Jesus’ demand for discipleship. At the end of today’s gospel reading we hear Jesus summoning his disciples and us today: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (v. 34).

How else can we make sense of this demand if not through the way Jesus understands his role as a suffering messiah. Like Jesus, we are called to express our Christian love through the acid test of suffering. It’s easy to be charitable if it means giving donations to the needy. But it takes a lot of self-denial and even self-emptying (kenosis) to suffer with and for those who are suffering around us.

Right now I’m asking myself, “Can I love to the point of suffering?” “Have I suffered with and for someone?” There are millions of them who are suffering from innumerable forms of pain, misery, and affliction in the world today. The whole of creation itself is already groaning! “Have I suffered for God’s creation?” Or am I too concerned about self-preservation to see the pain of humanity and the groaning of creation around me?

We need to pray for our conversion ardently. It seems that the Christianity we are becoming in this secular and materialistic society is one that gradually forgets the cross of Christ. We pray for the grace of courage and strength--that like Jesus, we, Christians of today, may embrace the cross of suffering once more as a sublime expression of our love.

I find Fr. Manoling Francisco’s composition “Your Heart Today” both instructive and inspirational in relation to our calling to suffer with and for those who are suffering:

Where there is fear I can allay, where there is pain I can heal,
Where there are wounds I can bind, and hunger I can fill.
Lord, grant me courage, Lord, grant me strength,
Grant me compassion that I may be Your heart today.

Where there is hate I can confront, where there are yokes I can release,
Where there are captives I can free, and anger I can appease.
Lord, grant me courage, Lord, grant me strength,
Grant me compassion that I may be Your heart today.

When comes the day I dread to see our broken world,
Compel me from my cell grown cold that Your people I may behold.

(Repeat 1st Stanza)

And when I’ve done all that I could,
Yet there are hearts I cannot move,
Lord, give me hope… that I may be Your heart today.

Listen & Proclaim! (23rd Sunday Ordinary B)

The Asian Bishops (9th FABC) who gathered in Manila in August of 2009 ended the conference with a challenge to the clergy to make the Eucharist a “transformative event” for Catholics. The source of this power to transform, as the bishops intimated, is the Word of God being listened to devoutly by the faithful and proclaimed relevantly by preachers in the Eucharistic celebrations. Simply put, the call is for priests and catholic families to listen to the Word of God and to proclaim it in a relevant and nourishing way. These two complimentary acts of listening to and proclaiming the word of God can “bear the fruits of renewal.”

The acts of listening and proclaiming are the very acts that a person who is deaf and mute cannot possibly do. A deaf person cannot hear. He can’t listen. A mute person cannot speak. He cannot proclaim. Almost always, a deaf person since birth has problem speaking too. This gives us an insight into the relationship of listening and proclaiming the word of God: We can proclaim only what we have listened to.

Today’s gospel describes how Jesus heals a man who is deaf and mute. Jesus puts his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touches his tongue; Looking up to heaven says aloud, “Ephphatha!” (Be opened!). And the man’s ears are opened, his speech impediment removed (Mk 7:33-35). My intention is not so much to comment on the detail of Jesus’ action as to point out the significance which the evangelist Mark gives to this narrative. For Mark, the miracle is a reminder of Jesus’ ministry to the gentiles and therefore a validation of the ministry of the early church among the gentiles. This is the point of Mark: Like the gentiles, the man is both deaf and dumb towards God. Once the good news is proclaimed to him, however, his ears are opened to the word and his tongue is loosed to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.

We need to reflect too on the import of this narrative to the people of today—to us. In what sense are we like the deaf and mute person of the narrative? In what ways are we unable to listen to God’s word and, hence, not capable of proclaiming it? Or to put it in another way, relating it to the call of the Asian Bishops, what are the challenges we are facing today that hinder us from truly listening to the word of God and proclaiming it effectively and relevantly for the renewal of our communities?

Let me suggest three challenges, three trends without promising to be exhaustive: Today we tend to be 1) activity-driven; 2) electronic technology driven; and 3) consumption driven.

Activity-driven. We always seem to be very busy. We spend all our days moving from one activity to another, accomplishing one project to another. Beating deadlines. We become addicted to achievements. We somehow tend to believe that our worth as a person is in “doing.” No more time for “being.” No more time to be still and to listen to God’s word. Much less, to proclaim it in words and deeds. No wonder, many of what we do end up as self-centered, misguided, conventional achievements that bloat our ego but have no prophetic power to change the ills of our communities. Too much of disoriented activities. Less and less of discernment. Despite the amount of energy we spent, we have not served!

Electronic technology driven. We have too much data to process. Too much information—from text messages, from emails, facebook, twitter, favorite websites, netflix, video scandals, video games, endless sites on pornography and what have you. Information come and go. We are a generation with so many distractions that we can hardly focus on the essentials. We are losing our capacity for depth and our capacity to enjoy relishing something of beauty and of value. We settle for what is fleeting and superficial. Thus, we no longer appreciate the depth and beauty of the word of God ever ancient, ever new. No wonder our lives are shallow. Despite so many data and information, we lack understanding; we lack wisdom.

Consumption driven. This consumerist society of today would have us find the meaning of life in “having”-- to have more and more of things… more shoes, more shirts, more cellphones, more of everything that is advertised. A modern credo captures this trend,  we read this sometimes on a bumper sticker: “I shop, Therefore I am.” In this consumerist trend, our capacity to listen is exercised on the endless TV advertisements. What guide our lives are no longer the truth of the Word of God but the subtle lies of advertisement and the lure of possession that we listen to day after day. Our capacity to discern is reduced to making choices among leading brands of shampoo for instance and among new fashionable gadgets that become obsolete in a year or two. And we simply become deaf to the interior promptings of the Holy Spirit--the gentle invitation of God to choose him rather than created things. Despite so many things that we possess, our life is empty!

We are like the man in today’s gospel—deaf and mute—in many and varied ways. If we Christians continue to be so, Christianity loses its power to lead people to conversion, to renew families and communities and to transform our nation because like everybody else we would just settle with the frivolity of what is conventional, superficial, and fashionable. Like the deaf and mute in today’s gospel, we need an “ephphatha experience.” We need God’s grace to open up our ears and lips for us to listen to his Word most devoutly once again and proclaim it convincingly in words and in deeds.

The message of the Asian Bishops may have been Spirit-inspired—inviting all of us to make our Eucharistic celebrations as transformative events for our lives by giving attention to the Word of God. Let us become contemplative listener of His Word. Only then we can become effective proclaimer of the good news both by our lips and our lives. We can only proclaim what we have heard.

“Lord, open my ears and loosen my tongue to hear you and proclaim your goodness in a complacent society that wants to settle only for what is conventional, superficial, and fashionable.”