SAVE BY SAVING

Truth, Love and Solidarity

September 6, 2020: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary time 

Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13: 8-10; Matthew 18: 15-20

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” -These words of Elie Wiesel are very powerful, especially these days when everything that happens is so vividly unjust and everything just is so awfully silent. Being a Christian cannot go well with a choice of being silent or neutral. We are peacemakers but peace understood not as silent suffering of injustice but as the Divine grace of wholeness, integral wellbeing of the entire humanity, shalom - the ultimate blessedness of all. If we have to achieve this, we have to take sides and the side that we take will determine whether we are truly Christ-ian or not.

Christ came to save us, he has saved us all. But we need to claim that salvation that Christ brought for us all - but how do we do that? By surrendering ourselves to the way of life that Christ has taught us, by surrendering ourselves to the mercy God our Father and Mother, and by allowing the action of the Holy Spirit to take charge over our lives. We either do that here and now, or fail in doing it, by our daily choices. One thing as Christians we need to keep in mind is, we cannot be saved all alone or we cannot work on our salvation all alone. We are called to be a community of persons and we are going to be saved thus too. That is why today the Word today reminds us that, the way to save ourselves is by saving others.

Truth of a Servant of God: Truth lives. When moments of choice come, we need to abide by Truth. It is a sign that we serve that One Lord and God. Truth is one and we need to stand by it. At times when we have to choose between values, between issues, among a few things which seem all good, we need to look for that truth that will most reflect the Lord. That is where we become the servants of God. A famous question - 'what is Truth', is not really a denial of truth but a pointer to the million ways in which people distort truth. But whatever happens, truth always remains, because Truth is what is.

The truth of dignity of a person and the consequent order of justice, should stand aloft in our choices and we need to speak that out. The first reading from Ezekiel reminds us through the voice of the Lord - you speak or you will not be saved! Express that you stand by the Truth; the Word itself says it does not matter if the others heed to you, what matters is that you have declared your stand. 

Love of a Child of God: Love is a mutual debt, Paul declares. I cannot ask a question, why should I love, if I am truly a Christian. It has to be ingrained in me to love. Loving is not just saying it by words. Loving is standing by, feeling for, reaching out and doing everything possible for the wellbeing of the other. At times when we stand by love, we may feel that we are fighting a losing batter, but I need to stick on. Because, it is only by that love that I become a true child of God. For those who love are born of God and those who do not love, do not know God, says John in his epistle. An equally impertinent question is, whom to love! 

Love has to be our very nature, it is not merely something we do in specific occasions or in particular contexts. Loving is an unconditional acceptance of all - beyond any calculation of expectations and fulfillment, against preferences and partialities. Forgiveness becomes  love, pointing out to the person concerned and correcting the person's mistakes becomes love, caring for the community and as a community caring for individuals becomes love and over and beyond everything surrendering to the will of God, comes across as the most definite description of love. 

Solidarity of the People of God: Solidarity is the first principle of Christian living. That is in fact what makes you and me 'people of God'. The moment we are not in solidarity with each other, the moment we lack care and concern for each other, the moment we are unaffected by the sufferings of the other, the moment we are blind to the injustice that is perpetrated in the society, the moment we join the oppressors or those moments when our silence strengthens the oppressors - we are failing to be truly people of God. 

When your brother goes wrong, speak to him, take a few with you and speak to him, call the entire community and speak to him and only then we are allowed to go in peace. Not until then! That is, we should have exhausted all possibilities, only then we can remain silent. Solidarity is that form of love which works on each one's sensitivity to the other, empathy with the suffering, and readiness to set oneself aside for the sake of the common good, common good read as 'the Reign of God', in other words, the salvation of the entire human kind! Until this, that is the salvation of humanity, happens, can I consider myself 'saved'?  

Today, there is so much going on in the local societies, national scenarios and international stand offs. Be it the pandemic we are facing as a humanity, or the related socioeconomic crises that are set off, or the escalating tensions in societies - like the riots in the US, the Indo-China border stand off, or the undercurrents of hatred between countries, the fundamentalism that is being unleashed heartlessly in spite of the common crisis that is weighing down on people, or the cases of politically powerless being exploited to the core - what is my response? Do I want to save my skin or do I look for a true salvation, the holistic salvation of the entire humanity? 

If I am looking for true salvation, I can save myself only by doing something to save the others, the oppressed, the entire world! The Reign of God is all about striving to save oneself by saving others, saving the entire humanity.