The Peace and Danger of Being Blind
Both the first reading and the Gospel reading are about Choosing to Follow - to follow Yahweh or Jesus. I tried asking the question on Google, as to why many choose not to follow Jesus, not to call themselves Christian, and I got a whole set of links, all of which offered negative explanations - i.e. explanations that blame such people either for their blindness, or their unwillingness, or some other negative quality. Here is one quote that exemplifies this approach: “People choose not to follow Jesus because they don’t want to give up their sin. It really is that simple.”
Is it that simple? It seems to me that it is so difficult for many of us who are steeped in the Christian tradition to see that there could be ‘good’ reasons why some one may choose not to follow Jesus. It is probably this innate difficulty that gave rise to the well known concept of the ‘anonymous Christian’ i.e. that anyone who lives a good life, even if they don’t identify themselves as Christian, are implicitly Christian. Gandhi, who was very appreciative of Christ, consciously chose not to become Christian, and I guess he would strongly object to being called an anonymous Christian.
Such an inability to see the possibility of ‘truth’ outside of one’s own strongly held beliefs is found outside Christianity too, both in other religions and in other a-religious ideologies. In India we have a form of Hinduism, that is known as Hindutva (extremely conservative Hinduism) that sees all truth as coming from Hinduism and India’s Hindu past, and not from any other source, and so will not listen to any challenge to the historicity of the Gods found in ancient Hindu epics (e.g. Ram and Krishna). In the USA there is the blind belief of so many in the evil of communism or even socialism, that calling a former presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders a socialist is seen as an indictment by many. And even when applying for a US visa one has to confirm that one has never had any membership or affiliation to any communist organisation. Even in the world of science, which is supposed to be open to all truth, we see this blindness. So, even though at least half the scientists in the world, both past and present, (like Einstein) still believe in at least the possibility of an ultimate reality that goes beyond science, we have those like Stephen Hawking who quite clearly refuse to even entertain this possibility.
So there is something about us as human beings that pushes us to hold on blindly to one or other belief. For all these firmly held convictions are beliefs - after all, no one can prove that there is or isn’t any Ultimate Reality, nor can anyone prove that Christianity of Hinduism or Islam is the truest religion, nor prove that Jesus’ flesh is truly found in the Eucharistic bread, nor prove that communism/ socialism or capitalism are inherently evil, and so on and so forth.
Human beings seem to need beliefs. Beliefs are helps to processing huge amounts of data that we are constantly bombarded with. We cannot rationally evaluate everything that comes to us, and so beliefs offer us a shortcut to select ‘relevant’ data. In fact over the approximately one and a half years since I started this blog, I have had a few telling me that I should stop sending them this blog because it was upsetting their faith/beliefs and they are happy holding on to what they have. Long held beliefs, right or wrong, give us comfort. And this applies to those on the left and the right of any ideological spectrum. It applies to those who have a different theology from mine, and to me too.
Then how do we ensure that because of our belief systems we do not become blind to any other truth that comes knocking? Here are some guidelines that may help.
First of all we need to admit to ourselves that all of us necessarily see things from a perspective. In my own case, I realised the all-encompassing power of perspective/bias, when I chose to leave the Jesuit order as a scholastic/seminarian, and chose to study theology in a Cluster of theological schools in Chicago, where each school was run by a different group, only 3 of which were Catholic. The clerical bias (male, celibate, and holding power in the Catholic Church), the bias of the ‘left’ and of the ‘right’ on the theological spectrum, the bias of those who believe in heterosexuality as the only ‘normal’ way, and those who believe that all forms of sexuality are OK, those who believe that defending one’s country through war and doing whatever that demands in order to win is Christian as opposed to those who believe that Christians must only use peaceful means at all costs, those who favour capitalism and others who favour socialism and/or communism, and so on and so forth - all these are different examples of these perspectives/biases. And therefore, we need to be constantly asking ourselves in brutal honesty: What is my own perspective or bias ? - for as Stephen Covey once remarked powerfully: "None of us see the world as it is; rather, we see it as we are."
And even as we constantly remind ourselves of our own biases/perspectives, and precisely because we cannot fully get outside of these, the next guideline is that we must actively search for inter-subjectivity in our journey towards discovering truth. This has significantly improved in the Catholic Church since Vatican 2, which taught that “(Christians) must be familiar with their national and religious traditions, with joy and reverence they must discover the seeds of the Word hidden in these traditions…” (Decree ad Gentes # 11). As a result collaboration between Christian scholars from different Churches was actively encouraged - so that the study of Scripture and its interpretation became a joint effort, rather than an attempt to prove my side, or my Church, right. This was taken a step further when the Catholic Church in different parts of the world started bringing in the insights of other religions and cultures (Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, African, Amazon cultures etc) into the mix of Scriptural interpretation, This opened up newer insights that those brought up purely in the Judeo-Christian tradition often found extremely difficult to fathom, - as I experienced myself in my interactions with my professors in Chicago when, for instance, I brought out the similarities between Jesus’ powerful “Before Abraham was, I am”, and the AHAM BRAHMASMI (translated as “I AM the Ultimate BRAHMAN”) of Hindu mystics.
But perhaps the most important guideline, is perhaps related to a root attitude we must bring to our search for truth, the attitude of humility, as we search for truth. For me, my family has been the most constant goad to remind myself that I do not know enough. And I can accept their challenges to my truth because I believe they love me. I know, of course, that even that is limited, for they have grown up in an environment that is close to mine, but it helps, - because they themselves push me to expose myself to other influences beyond themselves. In any case, I do not know what will work for others, but perhaps each of us, in our own lives, need some elements like these to constantly remind us not to be stuck in our beliefs, to keep us humble and open. So that when we choose to follow Jesus or whoever we choose to follow, (or even with any other strong belief we have), we do not do it blindly or make such a choice once and for all in our lives, - but we are always ready to review our choice, review our understanding of our strong beliefs in any person or any ideology, so that we are always growing and grasping for truth. But that often leads to a shattering of our comfortableness, our complacency, that we have already found the fullness of truth.
As a poem I wrote a long time ago when I left the Jesuit order, a 'place' where I was very much at home, expressed:
No darkling stars,
Streetlights at every fifteen yards.
Fools,
Don’t they know,
Only shattered glass sparkles
Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in its midst, and afterward I brought you out. When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your ancestors with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. When they cried out to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea come upon them and cover them, and your eyes saw what I did to Egypt. Afterward you lived in the wilderness a long time. Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan; they fought with you, and I handed them over to you, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you. Then King Balak son of Zippor of Moab set out to fight against Israel. He sent and invited Balaam son of Beor to curse you, but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you, so I rescued you out of his hand. When you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, the citizens of Jericho fought against you, as well as the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I handed them over to you. I sent swarms of hornets ahead of you that drove out before you the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow. I gave you a land on which you had not labored and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant.
“Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went and among all the peoples through whom we passed, and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
Second Reading: Ephesians 5: 2a, 21-32
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I am speaking about Christ and the church.
Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Comments
Post a Comment