Category Archives: Freedom

Restriction or Liberation: What is Faith?

Welive in a multi-cultural, multi-religious world. We have had many of these religions for a long time and some are still emerging. Our understanding of self, individual fulfillment, and interpretation of history has given us even more freedom to make new groups and belief systems and after 38000 Christian denominations and counting, besides all other religious conglomerations and splinter groups.

Many of these groups have emerged as a result of the understanding of Salvation, and the way we get to it. We found our ideaof salvation sometimes limited us from getting into heaven and while someothers made it too easy to get there. Then there are several in between who stay in the gray area about heaven and hell.

Inshort, Christian Doctrine of salvation is a very difficult one for the majorityof the people of the world to understand, and for that reason even for clergythemselves. Why is that?
Look at what is said here today in the Gospel. Here comes a woman seeking help and Jesus is not making it easy saying you don’t belong to the bunch I amsent to serve. It also sounds like Jesus was not very nice to her as many would feel. Compares her to a dog apparently. What was that all about? People have told me they don’t like this scripture passage and what it might say about Jesus.Now for some people in the world this sentence alone is sufficient to be turnedoff of Christianity and Jesus.
Butin this story it looks like the woman’s need was great and her conviction of who she was talking to was even greater. She is not turned off. No insult, and injury of top of that, if that is what it feels like to us, it was not to her obviously, could turn her away and she sticks toher initial request and then recognition of who Jesus was.
Jesus was a man, and one that was fully human who lived in the Middle East. Now if we apply the stereotype we have on the middle eastern men, true or false, sure there was enough reason for that Canaanite woman to be upset. However, she did not hesitate; change her attitude or her impression of Jesus, namely The LORD in spite of how Jesus treated her. 
It is not going to be a new idea from me to say that it was her faith. Great. We are all on the same page now. It was her faith. I believe it was faith, which was the conviction ofthe heart, that went beyond the confines of religions and belief systems. It was surely faith, that did not limit her idea of God to the limitations of the world, and the stereotypes of culture, gender or orientation. 


Her faith was a lifestyle, where one takes nothing for granted, nothing as limiting, andnothing as offensive. It was a way of acknowledging the presence of God even inthe midst of the most insulting moment of life. It was beyond the doctrines anddogmas we are used to now. It was beyond the interpretations of scholars who are trying to interpret something of the past. 
Yes, I did talk about religion as I started. Let us just thing for a minute about howdid religions come about? A religion in its inception was simply a way offinding meaning for things that did not make sense. The sun and the moon, the wind and the fire, all that had more power over man. They had to find a meaning for things that they could not explain and then they all came together at some point or another to make a community of believers. they came together to believe in the same things and solve the same issues together. One group had some answers other did not. Thismade two groups of people namely those who know things different from othersthat did not know the same thing as the first group. The groups multiplied and increased and continue even today. 
We are all in certain danger of believing in things that others don’t. There is a mythin every religion that there are people out there who can be excluded fromthese groups because they don’t know the things we know. 
Inour context it will be something like this. Am I sent only to the enlightenedEpiscopalians to spread the message of love because we know how to love andcare for others? Or is it a myth in my heart that we are the only people whoknow how to love? Was Jesus sent only to the people of Israel and not to thegentiles because the gentiles were not in the group of the enlightened like theIsraelites?
Thepoor woman challenges Jesus, and pushes him to a corner to acknowledge God,grace and religion are greater than the restrictions and convictions of areligious understandings and self proclaimed Buddhas. God’s grace is greaterthan man’s exclusivity that goes true even for the God in Jesus, as well thosegathered around Him. 
Applying this to our context can be read something like this. “Ifwe have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to eachother”. Says Mother Theresa. While she is talking here of the world that isravaged by wars and famine, it is truly and fully applicable to all those whobelieve in a God but can not find their way around the other. It is meant forthose who do not understand what was wisely said by St. John of the Cross, “Inthe evening, we will be judged on love.”
Soin the final analysis what is this woman teaching us? That we all have thegrace in true faith to ‘fire back’ at even God when we are left for granted inthe exclusivity of the world. Faith is not simply the conviction of the heartin things that are unseen, but in the courage to express the truth that to beloved and cared for are fundamental rights of every human being. 
Jesusteaches the world in making disciples of the world, we need to travel to Tyreand Sydon, the land of the outcasts. A devout Jew will not go into these landswithout being defiled and the breaking of traditions. What was he doingthere? There must be more than simply concluding he lost his way and got there.If we look deeper we will find that here “His location, actions andwords all address the traditions, limitations and boundaries that the discipleswill encounter. By pushing at, dismantling and crossing over the boundariesthat the disciples might themselves put on “all nations,” Jesus foreshadows hisintention to declare the boundaries of the great commission to be limitless”.[i]
Faith liberates us fromfear. It is fear that causes us to limit. When limits are removed, we will befreed. Faith will rise up top to those who have the courage to leave fear.

[i] Boundless discipleship, Karoline Lewis

Be grateful to God for all the blessings in life.

Found from under the table!

Loretta Tyson sent me this small story last day. It is about a little boy who went to Grandma’s house for dinner. Grandma served the dinner and little Johnny started eating. Then his mommy came by and said, Johnny, you got to pray before you eat. He responded saying, no mom. Mom insisted that he has to. And we do always pray at home before meals. Johnny responded, mom, that is at our house. We are at Grandma’s house. And she knows how to cook.

Yes, we are at the grandma’s house now. We are in the house of the Lord who knows how to prepare the best food in the world. On this Rally day all of our goblins, elfs and angels are back from summer rest. I pray our parents are eager to get them to church on time and get them to be found.

I have a question for you all parents. Suppose you lost one of your children in the wilderness and you are left with three others and no one else to care for the three, would you go about looking for the one who is lost out there? Be truthful. Would you? if not why not?

This is the strange paradox of Christian life. Often, it’s more about being lost than found. It’s more about feeling incomplete than whole. It’s more about feeling excluded than included, because many of us live in those places most of the time. (Edward Beck, The Joy of Being Lost and Found)

We feel excluded many times for some reason and not included. That is why God prepares the meal day after day, to convince us over and over, it is alright to come to the table. God knows how to cook a good meal and is fully aware of who we are. When Christ invites us to dine with him, there is no need for security prayers, but trust that Jesus has done it right when he invited all of humanity to dine with him. No one is lost in the crack or wilderness of human making when it comes to the table of God.

According to some God goes into the extreme behavior which is ‘foolhardiness’ they say. It is not something a person with the best sense would do in the human world, they argue. May be That is why we are not Gods. Because God takes risks in love and relationship. Here is ‘foolhardy’ action of God going out of normal scared human behavior to bring home a point that when God invites humanity to share life with God, he will go to the extremes risking the rest. There is nothing foolhardy about acting in deep love for the other. We are taught over and over love has boundaries. We have gotten used to the idea love is with boundaries. We fail to believe love surpasses all boundaries.

This very act of God is what I call The Divine Repentance. In the book of Exodus we read today that God repented. What is this repentance all about? It is not the mourning and groaning over what filthy creatures we are, but rejoicing-ly coming out of our hiding places. It allowing the other to find us in places where we are.

Most of us are lost most of the time. Then there are lot of us who pretend that they not lost at all. They seem to have found God and all of God’s glory and grace. Good for them. But for me, am still muddling through my moments of anxiety, fear, loss, anger and exclusion and needs someone to help me come out into the light and be found.

To those who are listening I like to say, we are all lost one way or another. But we are still within the reach of God as God has no qualms about taking risk when it comes to love. But for ourselves we need to figure out what is the kind of loss we are in. What is the kind of risk are we willing to take.

There are four ways a person can get lost according to the Bible. One is lost like a coin, lost for no choice of its own. It is somewhere under the table waiting to be found. Then there is the sheep that is lost wandering without having the sense to know better. Then there are some of us who have wandered away knowingly, choosing to do things otherwise, experimenting and exploring. It took real life to figure out there is more to life than just being on our own in our own devices. Then there is a brother who chooses self-righteousness and hatred on his path to being lost.

Which is the story you are playing out in your life now? Are you lost for no fault of yours? If yes, then it is time to grow up and seek ways to be found. Are you lost because you don’t know better? Then it is time to learn. Are you lost because you have chosen to? Then only you can choose to return. But if you are lost because of self-righteousness and hatred, then you need lot more grace than we can help you with. God needs to come to your rescue. Try now.

Repentance is our willingness to be found by God. Repentance is not necessarily beating our chest every morning and crying out in fear for the mercy of God. Found by God when we were crawling deeper into the hole.

God allowed mankind to find him. God allowed mankind to change his heart, to see the soft side in God that could be influenced by a weakling mankind. God let man reform divine behavior.

Today’s call is about us allowing someone or something greater than us to reform our behavior. It is keeping the fear out of the way to allow grace to flow. IT allowing God to change our behavior in today’s world. That is repentance.

Brit Nicole has a beautiful song

Hello my friend
I remember when you were
So alive with your wide eyes
Then the light that you had in your heart was stolen
Now you say that it ain’t worth stayin’
You wanna run but you’re hesitatin’
I’m talkin’ to me

Don’t let your lights go down
Don’t let your fire burn out
’cause somewhere, somebody needs a reason to believe
Why don’t you rise up now?
Don’t be afraid to stand out
That’s how the lost get found
The lost get found

So when you get the chance
Are you gonna take it?
There’s a really big world at your fingertips
And you know you have the chance to change it
There’s a girl on the streets, she’s cryin’
There’s a man whose faith is dyin’
Love is calling you

When love calls, it is time to return. For Love has risked everything to get you back into the house of plenty. The table is set. You are already found. Why not and enjoy the table set before you?

Be grateful to God for all the blessings in life.

Co-dependency to Freedom

In a vision given to St. Francis of Assisi God asked him to build His church. I think we are all given the same call today, to build God’s church. What are churches for? I believe it is a place for people to come and take rest. These are not my words. This is what the Lord says. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”.

Has this been your experience after a Sunday Morning worship? If yes Thank God. You have found the right place. Continue to nourish your soul. If not, Why? May be because we come with some a few chips on our shoulders. The biggest chip that creates tension than relaxation I found is the fear of being judged by the other. What would the pastor think of the dress I am wearing? Would he find out that I am not as clean inside as I look outside? What would Sally think of my hair if it is well kept? What would Joe think about the tie I am wearing? The color of the dress, the leather of the shoe, the smell of the deodorant and the list goes on. It hasn’t turned out to be a relaxing place after all. Because you got to really make sure that everything is well coordinated before you can step foot into the door of God’s house. If you can then dodge the bullets from the pastor’s sermon; whew… you made it through another Sunday!

Fear of being judged is a terrible feeling. Only those who have been judged know how it feels like and that is you and me. This can only be overcome by a community of loving people who knows and remembers what it feels like being judged and does something about it. However we all suffer from dementia when it comes to judging others. We easily forget that we have been judged before. We have forgotten that it is the property of God to judge and we freely have taken our place on the judgment thrown of God without being invited to share it.

To ease this tension, let me assure you, God has made us obnoxiously unique. I am sure someone is going to frown his or her brow reading this saying, “how dare he says we are obnoxiously unique”. Take delight in this that God is still happy with you though. It is because I can assure you that there is every reason for someone else in the world to judge you for what you are on the best day of your life. If anybody thinks otherwise, I would suggest get a new mirror of grace to see what you actually look like inside when no one else sees you but God. Our best judgment is worse than the worst judgment God can ever make, if God does! So, it will be better for us to let our obnoxious righteousness be put to rest so that God’s grace can actually hunt for us and carry us on His shoulders.

This can only happen when the spirit of Babel disappears from within us. What was the spirit of Babel? The spirit of the people of Babel was the fear of the other, their languages, their appearances, their pride, their righteousness and even the fear of being judged. We believe we speak one language. We don’t. We speak multiple languages everyday. When we are afraid we speak a language of fear. When we are angry we speak a different set of alphabets put together. It is not even a language many times. When we are jealous then there is a new set of phrases and languages that come up. I am very certain that none of us truly understand the other exactly even when they say the words we seem to know the meaning for. If we did, there will be no more divorces, fights, or tensions in our families. Only the Spirit Of Pentecost can help us remove our fears of the other.

Here is a way out of this situation. Speak a language all of us will understand. Speak the language of love that is patient and kind; that is not jealous or pompous or inflated or rude. Let it not be quick tempered or afraid of the other. (1 Corinthians 13) Speak a language of love for it has no alphabets or phrases.

This is what churches are meant to be. A church as a whole is called to be a place where all the chips we bring in as we walk in are to be deposited for safe keeping at least until the church is over. I can guarantee you that all of us will grab them back as soon as we come out. Do not worry. I am sure eventually we will leave our chips back for God to do whatever is best with them. That is when a church becomes truly a church. Until the chips are left in the basket of God, churches are still buildings with four walls, and a roof and we are a co-dependent people and pastor.

I hope you will find meaning for your life beyond co-dependent relationships in our churches to the freedom of the Children of God. Build your church on the grounds of freedom from fear mixed with the fountain of compassionate love. There is nothing more freeing than being freed of the need to judge and the fear of being judged.