Embrace Uncertainty
In
an empirical world faith usually becomes an idea of mockery. Our obsession with
certainty has obstructed us to believe in the beauty of randomness. Our pursuit
of attesting logical reasoning to every experience is most often at the expense
of belittling the mysterious dimension of life. Faith is the audacity to
grapple with the uncertainties of life with the implicit hope that it would
eventually lead us to the crossroads of enlightenment. Faith is not a rigidified
code of conduct unlike belief. Belief begets servitude while faith begets
freedom. The invitation of Jesus before us is to enter the realm of
contingencies along with him to experience the radical possibilities of
uncertainty. This could seem a paradox but paradox lies at the heart of Christian
spirituality. Simon Critchley opines;
Faith hopes for grace…faith is
not certainty, but is only gained by going into the desert and undergoing diabolical
temptation and radical doubt. On this view, the enemy of faith is not doubt. On
the contrary, it is certainty. If faith becomes certainty then… we have become
diabolical. There are no guarantees in faith. It is defined by an essential
insecurity, tempered by doubt and defined by a radical experience of freedom.[1]
The
Lection set apart for today by the Church is Matthew 6:25-34 where Jesus
invites his disciples to embrace the vulnerability of uncertainty. Jesus warns
them against anxiety, especially anxiety over earthly things. He teaches them
to prioritize the reign of God over personal needs.
Self-centeredness
is a cosmic sin. Food, clothing and shelter are inevitably the basic needs of a
human and thus it becomes our ethical responsibility to shed our complacency
and see to it that our fellow brothers and sisters have access to the same. St.
Basil the Great remarks;
When someone steals another's
clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who
could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the
hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the
shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money
which you hoard up belongs to the poor.[2]
This
is fundamental to Orthodox Liturgy. Liturgy is derived from the Greek words laos (people) and ergon (work) pointing to the fact that Liturgy is essentially the
‘work of the people.’ The priest cannot exercise monopoly over the Liturgy;
both priest and people are the co-celebrants of the Liturgy. Moreover the Liturgy
cannot be confined to the four walls of an establishment rather it is to be
continued by the ecclesia in all walks of life. Thus the phrase “The liturgy
after the Liturgy” becomes the subsistence and the living expression of the
Orthodox Ecclesiology. Emmanuel Clapsis
states;
Christians must remember that the
Christ who is really, truly and substantially present in the Eucharist is the
same Christ who is also personally present in the poor and downtrodden of this
world. These two presences of Christ must be kept together and understood as
complementing each other. We cannot consistently choose the comfortable real
presence of Christ in the Eucharist and ignore the disturbing personal presence
of Christ in the poor and downtrodden.[3]
Another
thing that fascinated me while reading the pericope was the images Jesus
resorted to use while explaining to the disciples - birds, lilies, grass etc.
All of them are non-anthropocentric images. In Orthodox ecological worldview
the entire cosmos is an icon and hence sacred. They guide us to an unravelled
reality. The Divine manifests not only in human beings but also in the rivers,
sun, moon, mountains, flora and fauna. Each one is a seed with the ability to
sprout divine wonders. Geevarghese Coorilos writes;
The use of various resources from
nature such as water, incense and so on add a ‘natural’ (environmental) flavour
and dimension to worship and liturgy in Orthodoxy. The earth is depicted as a
theological category, the medium of God’s incarnation in Christ. God became
‘earth’ (an earthling) in Jesus Christ. It was matter that Jesus Christ assumed
to become one with humanity and the universe. And the Church is meant to be the
continuation of this incarnation….Icons, windows to the divine, are made of
matter. The elements that are portrayed in iconography such as animals, plants,
rivers and mountains affirm not just the intrinsic worth of creation but also
the important place of creation in the divine scheme of cosmic redemption.[4]
The
same emotion extends to animals. Animals have always been the experimental
apparatus of human progress. We usurp their habitat and take pride in domesticating
them. We are so brutal that we define the protests of the caged birds as their
melodious chirping. We derive pleasure as they heave. If the sacrifice of
Christ put an end to the slaughter of innocent lamb then in a literal sense Christ
is the Saviour of the lamb more than humans. I reminiscence the words of Chad
Bird; “The Gospel, the good news, is also good news to dogs and cows and lions
and fish and birds. It’s good news to trees and mountains, rivers and oceans,
dirt and rocks. Good Friday and Easter are for the animal kingdom, too.”[5]
Lent
is a time to give priority to the concerns of others than our personal
well-being. It’s about growing weary and falling sick for the sake of the wider
creation than staying fit and healthy to add to our personal charm. It’s about
upholding the needs of others at the expense of sacrificing our wants. All the
more it is about unflinchingly believing in the providential care of God
without about being anxious or restless. I conclude with a parable of the Two
Cherry Trees;
One man grew two cherry trees in
front of the house. One had a bad temper, and the other a good one. The bad
cherry tree consistently demanded every time something different. She
insistently asked: “Give me more Water”; “Give me more sun”. The good sweet
cherry tree always repeated the same request: “My Lord, help me bring a good
harvest”. The owner was equally gracious to both. He did everything they
wanted. As time flew the cherry tree with a bad temper grew heavily, the trunk
became thicker, the branches glistened as if oiled, and the abundant foliage
became dark green, spreading like a thick tent. In contrast, the good sweet
cherry did not attract anyone’s attention with its appearance. At harvest, the
bad cherry tree produced ugly small rare fruit, which because of the dense
foliage could not mature, and the good cherry tree brought an abundance of very
tasty berries. The bad cherry tree repented bitterly and promised the owner
that next year she would think only about the harvest, and only ask for it, and
leave everything else to him to take care of her. Amen
Prayers
Dn.
Basil Paul
[1]
Simon Critchley, “Can Religion make you Free? A Sermon on Diabolic Happiness”
in Political Theology 14/4, 2013,
509.
[3] Emmanuel Clapsis, “The Eucharist
as Missionary Event in a Suffering World” in Petros Vassiliadis ed. Orthodox Perspectives on Mission
(Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2013), 65.
[4] Geevarghese Coorilos Nalunnakkal,
The Joy of the Gospel of Life: Contextual
Reflections on Mission and Evangelism (Delhi: ISPCK, 2016), 139.
[5]
Chad Bird, “For God so Loved the Animals” http://www.chadbird.com/blog/2018/9/21/for-god-so-loved-the-animals.
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