INTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE VIS-À-VIS FAITH IN CHRIST
Dr. Ishanand Vempeny
Part 111
II. THE
MEANING OF FAITH IN CHRIST
Pope Benedict XVI has declared 2013 as YEAR
OF FAITH. It is fitting that as a gesture of ‘Thinking with the
Church’, we are dealing with a topic like this. Christ is indeed the centre of
Christian Faith “O Logos Sarx Egeneto”
(= The Word became Flesh). In the past Christian theology was centred on
Christ. There has not been much change in teaching theology as something
Christo-centric.
What do we understand by Faith in Christ?
Is it enough to pick up the Christological articles from the Nicene Creed? In
the Eucharistic celebration of the Latin Rite, after the consecration there is
the declaration by the priest “The Mystery of Faith”. One of the formulas
through which the people respond to this declaration is the following: “Christ
has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again”. To my mind, this formula
does not express many of the Christological dogmas. How then shall we express
within our scope the essential elements of Faith in Christ?
One of the concepts which seems to express
in a summary form, the sum total of Christ’s teachings, indeed the very
personality of Christ, is that of the Kingdom of God.
As we shall soon point out, this concept contains both the words and deeds of
Christ. Besides, as the Fathers of the Church taught by calling Christ “Autobasilea”,
Jesus Christ is the personified expression of the Kingdom ideal. Therefore,
commitment to the Kingdom ideal is commitment to Christ Himself. Another reason
for choosing the Kingdom ideal to express the gist of Christian Faith is that
this ideal can lead to concepts and ideals in Non-Christian Religions homologically
similar to it. Another important
advantage of this central concept of the NT is that it does not teach that Salvation
is a once-for-all, press-button reality. The Kingdom of God ideal is partly
realized here on earth and fully in the beyond. It is in a process of growth
here on earth like a mustard seed.
A. Articulating Faith in Christ through the
Kingdom of God Ideal
No serious theologian or Biblical scholar seems to
doubt the centrality of the KG Ideal in Christ’s preaching. This concept and its
equivalents, occur in the NT more than a hundred times (106 according to George
Soares Prabhu, 122 times says J. Fullenbach, and about 150 times according to a
number of modern scholars). The total will increase if we add the equivalent
Johanine concept “new life” to the list. The following view of one of the
greatest Indian Biblical Scholars, the late George Soares, seems to me beyond
serious controversy:
But
the preaching of Jesus was concerned primarily, one might even say exclusively,
with the “Kingdom
of God”, for everything
he said and did was ultimately related to this overriding and urgent concern.
The Kingdom is the referent of most of his parables (see specially Mt. 13:1-52;
18:21-35; 22:1-14; 25:1:13; Mk. 4:26-29); the subject of many of his aphoristic
sayings (Mt. 7:21; 18:3; 1719:12; Mk.9:1-9:47; 10:23-25; Lk.6:20; 9:62;
13:28-29; 16:16; 17:20-21). It is also the content of the symbolic actions
which form so large a part of his ministry: his table fellowship with tax
collectors and sinners (Mk 2:15-17; Lk.15:12-2), and his healings and
exorcisms. For in his ‘communion’ with the religious and social outcasts of his
people (tax collectors and sinners) Jesus demonstrates in action the presence
of the Kingdom of God, that is of God’s unconditional and wholly forgiving love
for sinful mankind. He explicitly interprets his miracles as ‘signs’ that the
Kingdom of God has come and has put an end to Satan’s oppressive rule (Mk.
3:23-27; Mt 11:2-6; 12:25-28).
I have written rather elaborately on this topic in a
number of my articles and books.. Here
we are interested in a few salient points of this ideal with direct relevance
to our topic. “Abba-Experience” seems
to be the basis of the experience of this ideal.
B. The ‘Abba-Experience’
There seems to be a general agreement to
the view that the KG Ideal is based on the Abba-experience
of Jesus and the consequent Abba-experience
of Christ’s followers. Abba is an
Aramaic word, with which little children addressed their fathers, and it is
somewhat equivalent to the English word ‘daddy’. This is a revolutionary way of
addressing God in the Jewish situation. Knowing fully well the sacredness and
delicacy of this way of addressing God, St. Mark and the later translators
retained the Aramaic word, ‘Abba’, in
Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane: “Abba
Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I
will but what thou wilt” (Mk 14:36).
In the baptismal theophany the Father
declares Jesus as His Son: “This is My Son, the Beloved my favour rests on him”
(Mt. 3:17). In the first recorded words of Jesus we read, “Why were you looking
for me? Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?” (Lk.
3:49). He expresses His intimacy-relationship with the Father: “Everything has
been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father,
just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son
chooses to reveal Him” (Mt. 11: 26-27). Later on He will express His
relationship of intimacy with the Father in terms of identification, “The
Father and I are one” (Jn. 10:30).
As branches to the vine (Jn. 15) as grafted
branch to the trunk of a new tree (Rom. 6:5) and as members of the Body of
Christ (Rom. 12 and 1 Cor.12), Christians believe that they share His life and they too can call God in His Spirit Abba Father.
“When we cry, Abba Father it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our
spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God
and fellow heirs with Christ.” (Rom. 8:15-17; Cf.Gal.4:5 ff.) John, in his
Gospel (Jn 1:12) and in his epistles (e.g.1 Jn.3:1-2) keeps on insisting that
we are truly God’s children. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pointed out that
we should consider God at least as loving and caring as a decent human father
(Mt 7:7-11). In other words, the disciples of Christ too can have the Abba-experience similar to that of
Christ.
In this Abba-experience I usually
distinguish a father-element and a mother-element. The Power and Truth aspect
of the Abba, I attribute to the
father-element and the unconditional love of the Abba to the mother-element, albeit with the awareness that the
former elements can be very strong in the mothers and the latter aspect can be
very strong in fathers. As in other human traits here too we cannot categorize
them in watertight compartments. All the same this distinction is valuable as
far as it goes. After all, in India God is addressed very much as father and
mother (tvameva mata pita ca tvameva)
as for example, in the daily prayer of the Hindus.
C. The Kingdom Ideal as a World Family Ideal
For us of the democratic age, Kings and
Kingdoms do not have much appeal. To express the rootedness of this ideal in
the Old Testament (OT) Kingdom of God tradition, this concept is important. But
when we analyze its characteristics we realize that it is a universal ideal of
the World Family (WF). From an Indian point of view such an interpretation is
of great importance as we shall soon see. The surprising thing is that this is
not a forced or contrived interpretation of the NT.
There are, however, a few misconceptions
among the Non-Hindu Scholars, especially among the Western ones, about this
concept. The misconceptions are based more on the context rather than on the
content of the original Sanskrit text. First we shall cite this verse from Hitopadesa and then state some
contextual questions.
Ayam nijah
parovetti ganana laghuchetasam
Udara
charitanam tu vasudhaiva kutumbakam
According to the above verse only small
minds (laghu-chetasam) think of
things as mine (ayam) and yours (nija), but generous or magnanimous
persons (udara charitanam) think in
terms of vasudhaiva kutumbakam [vasudha
= world + iva (= as though) + kutumbakam (=family like].
In this part of Hitopadesa which deals with “mitra-labhah”,
one of the five diplomatic policies (Panchatranta)
taught by a Guru for instructing some princes who are of poor intelligence. The
Guru teaches them through stories. The characters of the stories are usually
animals and birds. In the Hitopadesa,
verses from the original Panchatantra are
quoted by these characters. Under the title mitra-labhah
(gaining friends) in Part-I, there are eight stories (kathas). Our verse is taken from the 3rd story. These diplomatic
principles are taught by various animals and birds among whom some are crocked
and some are honest. The most crocked ‘Preacher’ in the first part, story no.3 is
a cat. After cheating the birds about his evil intentions through pious,
principles and stories, he began to eat up the young ones of the birds. Another
crocked preacher of part-I is a fox who wanted to get a deer killed for getting
a share of its dead body. He too tells pious stories and declares wise
principles to realize his evil intention. Our verse was articulated by the fox (part-I,
story-3, verse-71) to hide his evil intention of getting the deer killed.
The Western scholars are usually aware of
the devil quoting the Bible to tempt Jesus asking him to jump from the pinnacle
of the temple (Mt. 4:6). He does it quoting Psalms 91: 10-11 making minor
modifications to suit his interest.
He has given his angels orders about you,
and they will
carry you in their arms
in case you
trip over a stone.
Is it right to say that since this verse
was used by the devil, it has lost its meaning? No Biblical scholar would
accept such an interpretation. If this is so why should we consider that the
above verse from Hitopadesa is not
very meaningful to us today? I do not see any reason to consider the verse
teaching the World Family Ideal is a polluted one because it was quoted by a
fox with evil intention.
This same ideal could be found in the
South Indian vernaculars like Tamil: Yatum
urai yavarum kelir, and Malayalam: Lokame
Taravad. The deep-rootedness of this ideal in the Indian Ethos could be
seen through the peculiar custom that exists all over India, in the North and
in the South, namely the custom of addressing people with whom one has no
blood-relationship or relations of affinity, as though they are one’s blood
relations. What pass in English as Mr.,
Mrs., Master, Miss etc., in the Indian languages become brother, sister, uncle,
aunt, etc. The following common nouns from the Northern and Southern languages can
be taken as examples: Bhai (=brother
in Hindi, Gujarati, etc.), Annan, Thambi,
Akka (elder brother, younger brother, elder sister in Tamil), Chettan, Chechi, (=elder brother, elder
sister in Malayalam), Kaka (paternal
uncle in Gujarati), Chacha (paternal
uncle in Hindi), Masi (maternal aunty
in Gujarati), Buvaji (paternal aunty
in Hindi). The family, joint family, extended family in terms of teachers,
guests, doctors and people of the same caste, village etc. appear to belong to
one family through such appellations, though the living of this ideal in
practice may be quite another thing as in the case of any other ideal in any
religion.
D. Brief
Comparison between the KG Ideals and Family Ideals
The
dialogue imperatives by the Church show how she opens herself to other
religions but also how she reaches out to them. This is especially so when the
Church teaches her children that dialogue has been an expression of genuine
Christian love which is rooted in a God who is Love itself. On the other hand,
Christian faith as understood in terms of the KG ideal and as interpreted as
the WF ideal is equally open and inviting. Besides when we see the WF ideal
directly or indirectly is embedded in the Non-Christian Scriptures like the Bhagawad Gita, Holy Quran and Guru Granth Saheb, we realize that
these religions too are open to inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.
Indeed, during the past few decades I have been taking part in dialogue
activities organized by the non-Christians themselves. What we have stated just
above by way of introduction to this ideal, with regard to its presence in
Hinduism in particular and in the Hindu Ethos and in the Indic Religions in
general, are sufficient enough for our purpose. I have done more elaborate
studies on this topic elsewhere.
Some
people wonder how valuable it is to compare the ideals of the KG with the WF.
They point out that due to reasons like that of globalization,
urbanization, the growth of nuclear families etc. there is almost a break-down
of family values. But the truth seems to be is that when various forces are
attacking the family values, in most of the families, especially of Afro-Asian
countries, many of these values are kept up and cherished. Even in the families
where these values are eroded, the family members begin to realize with concern
that their family is not even a good one, much less an ideal one. One might
even agree with the view that the percentage of good and model families is
steadily and speedily decreasing. In spite of this, people by and large, know
which is a good family and which is not a good one, and which is an ideal
family and which is not.
Another
important value of this WF ideal is that practically all human beings long for
such an ideal. One of the main reasons for this is that naturally all human
beings, notwithstanding some exceptions here and there, desire affiliation to a
group, affection from others, recognition by others as somebody important, and conducive
atmosphere for personal growth and achievements. Affiliation to genuine and
ideal families helps one to achieve all these personal goals for personality
fulfillment. In this section we shall compare some of the features or
characteristic of the KG ideal with WF ideal.
1. The boss
of the Kingdom
The
chief executive (boss) of the Kingdom is not a King or an Emperor. He is an ‘Abba’ which means Father or better
‘Daddy Dear’. Abba is the name with
which little children addressed their Fathers at the time of Jesus. The Semitic
culture is Patriarchal and male-dominated. But we have briefly pointed out that
this Father has also the motherly qualities of unconditional love,
ever-forgiving attitude and concern for the ‘least fortunate’ of his children.
In
Hinduism God is addressed in the daily prayer tvameva mata pita ca tvameva, tvameva bandhu sakha ca tvameva which
means they addressed God as Father, Mother, Brother, Friend. In these addresses
God is conceived as the source of love and power. In the Islamic addresses of
God Bismillahi r-rahmani r-rahim
(Allah the most merciful and most kind) and Allah
ho Akbar (Allah the Greatest), these attributes are implied and these are
based on the Holy Quran.
Apart
from these three religions, with the danger of over-generalization, one might
say that in all the religions the Absolute Being is considered to be the source
of power and love. When Rudolf Otto explained the meaning of noumenon
(the Ultimate Reality) through the words tremendum et fascinans (terrifying
and fascinating), the underlying idea is that the Absolute Being is the source
of power and love.
2. The
Kingdom and the Familial Socio-Economic Values
The economic relationship of the Kingdom,
if viewed from the standpoint of today’s interpretation of justice, is
thoroughly unjust. One man works for one hour, another for five hours and
another eleven hours; but all are paid equally! (Mt 20:1-16). Such a situation
occurs in a harmonious family where the unemployed grandmother, the dependent
little children, the bedridden adult and so on are often given even better
treatment than the earning members of the family. “From each man according to
his capacity and to each man according to his need” is more a family ideal than
a political one. No political society which upholds commutative justice can
blame the so called ‘Rich Fool’ of Lk. 12 and the ‘Heartless Rich Man’ of Lk.16.
If the money earned by the father, if the gifts received by the mother, and if
the income generated by the elder brother are not shared, it will cease to be
an ideal family. The judgment passed by the Eternal Judge on the people who
were at His left side is quite unintelligible in a political society (Mt.25:41
ff.). In which country is there the law that it is the duty of each citizen to
feed his hungry and to house his homeless fellow-citizens?
The social relations upheld in the Kingdom
Project too belong to the family ideals. The best expression of it is found in
Christ’s reaction when He was told that His mother and brothers were waiting to
see Him. Stretching out his hand towards His disciples He said: “Here are my
mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in Heaven, he is
my brother and sister and my mother” (Mt.12:50). ‘Doing the will of His Father’
can be interpreted as belonging to God’s Kingdom. If the members of the Kingdom
are called mothers, brothers, sisters, then the KG Ideal is very similar to the
WF Ideal. Well, Jesus Himself expressed it in these many words when He said:
“You, however must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only
one Master, and you are all brothers. You must call no one on earth your
father, since you have only one Father, and He is in heaven” (Mt. 23: 8-9).
This world family ideal is present in what St. Paul says: “This then is what I pray,
kneeling before the Father, from whom every family, whether spiritual or
natural takes its name” (Eph. 3:14). Elsewhere in the same epistle, Paul
upholds this ideal saying: “So you are no longer aliens or foreign visitors:
you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household” (2:19). Because of this family ideal, in the
Kingdom, the economically poor and the socially marginalized have a privileged
place with special caring and sharing, as in an ideal family.
It is in this context we have to interpret
Christ’s teaching about forgiveness and about loving our enemies. If the family
members do not forgive each other such a family would cease to be a family.
Forgiveness is part and parcel of the Kingdom ideal.
3. “Freedom of the Children of God” and the Familial Freedom
Here, our interest is to speak of freedom
as something flowing from the Abba-experience, and we shall overlook other
aspects of freedom. In the light of the following Pauline text, let us at least
have a glimpse of this ‘freedom of the children of God’:
Now
before we came of age we were as good as slaves to the elemental principles of
this world, but when the appointed time came, God sent His Son… to redeem the
subjects of the Law and to enable us to be adopted as sons. The proof that you
are sons is that God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts: the Spirit
that cries, ‘Abba’ Father’, and it is this makes you a son, you are not a slave
any more: and if God has made you son, then He has made you heir (Gal.4:3-7).
I usually explain the slavish, servile and
filial interpretations of law by a parable. A land lord decided to make a
foreign trip. Before his departure he called his slaves and gave the following
instruction: “See that you water every day our groves and orchards so that the
trees may bear abundant fruits.” Then he called his servants and asked them to
irrigate the paddy fields regularly for a fixed rate as wages. Finally he
called his son and told him to water the flower beds in the courtyard of his
mansion. When he returned after a month he asked the slaves and the servants
whether they had obeyed his orders. The slaves in fear said that they had
fulfilled his instruction, and the servants requested the master for the wages
for doing the job as they were told. Then he called his son and said: “Vatsal,
these flower-beds look so beautiful. I am sure that you must have been watering
these plants everyday.” Vatsal fearlessly said: “No daddy, I did not water the
plants even for a day. From the day you left till three or four days ago it has
rained almost everyday. I made these furrows to let the excess water
out.”
In this example, who obeyed
the land lord truly and meaningfully? Only his son did. He obeyed by
‘disobeying’ using the freedom of a son knowing the mind and spirit of his
father because of his deep love for him. His father’s interests are bound up
with his own as he is heir to him.
4. Compassionate Judgement in the Familial and the Kingdom Structures
Once I was watching a teenager being
accused for some mischief before his mother by their two neighbours. The mother
chided the boy and gave him a slap which caused him hardly any pain. The boy
was told to get out of her presence. Then the mother began to give many reasons
justifying the mischievous behaviour of her son after asking pardon for the
damage caused by him. The truth of the matter is that the judgement of a mother
on her son is with a lot of love and understanding. When we see faults of
others, if we follow the values of the Kingdom of God, we will judge him as our
son, brother, nephew and so on.
Jesus unambiguously says, “Do not judge and
you will not be judged” (Mt 7:1 ff). The parents, teachers, superiors, elders
and so on, have the duty of correcting and guiding their wards. How is it
possible without making a judgment on the actions of their wards? Here again
the insistence is on compassion and love in judging and correcting. In the
Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Lk 18:9-14), the Pharisee points an
accusing finger at the Publican because he has not experienced God’s unmerited
grace or His forgiving love. One of the most attractive scenes in the NT
is the one where Jesus forgives an adulteress woman when no sinless person
remained on the scene to stone her (Jn. 8::3 ff.).
In the Mahabharata, there is a story: Lord Krishna meets Yudhishtira, the
leader of the righteous group, the Pandavas,
and Duryodhana, the leader of the unrighteous group, the Kauravas. He told Duryodhana, the ‘anti-hero’, to take the census
of the good people; and Yudhishtira, the good character; to take the census of
the evil persons of the capital, Hastinapur. After a month Duryodhana came to
Lord Krishna and reported that there was not a single good person in the city.
He pointed out so much evil in the so-called good people like the hermits,
social workers and other do-gooders. According to Yudhistira’s report, all were
good including murderers, prostitutes and robbers. The moral of the story is
that an evil person sees only evil even in good people and a good person sees
good even in evil persons. This will explain Christ’s love for the ‘unlovable’.
The ‘Sons of the Kingdom’ are supposed to have such a compassionate and loving
heart open to the ‘unlovable’. ‘Celebrating the faults and failures of others’
is far from the Kingdom Ideals.
5. Kingdom Leadership vis-à-vis Familial Leadership
In any
human community there is the need of leadership. But in the Kingdom community,
unlike the secular communities, the leader will be serving. “The Kings of the
Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and those in authority are called
benefactors. But not so with you; let the greatest among you become as the
smallest, and the leader as the one who serves” (Lk 22: 26-27). While
establishing the Kingdom community in a sacramental way in the cenacle, the
Master and the Lord washed the feet of His disciples like a slave, and asked
them to do the same (Jn. 13: 1 ff).
This
Kingdom value proposed by Christ is one of its most revolutionary aspects. The
power and privileges of the leader is to empower those under his/her, and to
make the individuals in particular and the group as a whole to grow and to be
fruitful to their fullest potential. But such a leadership happens even today
in relatively good families. The leadership of the father and mother are
intended by them are for the good of the other family members, though a father
can be too authoritarian or a mother can be too pampering.
6. Kingdom Equality and Familial Equality
In the democracies there is confusion as
regards this concept. In what sense human beings are equal? Is there equality
in a family where there are grand parents, younger ones and elders? Among other
things if we look in terms of opportunities of meaningful growth and human
dignity, we find real equality in both of these ideals. This aspect of the
Kingdom value is very similar to what we said about leadership. Jesus
emphatically taught this message of equality by word (Mt 23:8-11) and by
example, especially by His table-fellowship (Cf. Mt. 9:9-13). For the Jews,
table fellowship meant equality in a very special sense. Indeed, the Samaritan
woman was surprised when Jesus asked her for drinking water (Jn. 4). According
to Paul, in Jesus Christ, who is autobasilea (kingdom personified),
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is
neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).
7. Concern
for the Last and the Lowest in the Kingdom and in the Families
The concept Anawim
in Hebrew means not only the economically poor but also the socially
marginalized with no human dignity. In the Indian context this term could be
used for the untouchables. Apart from St. Mark’s brief, pointed, declaration of
the arrival of the Kingdom (Mk 1:15) we have a sort of three ‘inaugural’
speeches of Jesus about His Project Kingdom at the beginning of His Public
Life: The Sermon on the Mount in Mt. 5-7, Sermon on the plain as a counterpart
of the former in Lk. 6, and Jesus’ inaugural speech in the synagogue at
Nazareth (Lk. 4). In the Beatitudes, at the beginning of these sermons, Luke
just says “How happy are you poor: yours is the Kingdom of God” (6:20). Whereas
Mathew adds “poor in spirit” (5:3), which is a translation of the Aramaic inwanayya or anawim which means people of diminished human worth, of diminished
human dignity due to socio-economic reasons, and due to diseases like leprosy
and blindness. In Luke’s inaugural speech, reading Isaiah 61:1-2, Jesus affirms
His stand for the economically poor and the socially oppressed and
marginalized. “He has sent me to bring the good News to the poor, to proclaim
liberty to captives, and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free”
(4:18).
Why are the poor happy? Is it because they will have
their pie up in heaven, as interpreted in the past? What Christ meant was that
in the new socioeconomic order of the Kingdom, the economic relations would be
such that the rich would share their riches with the poor. If Jesus said that
it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter the Kingdom (Mt 19:24), he also declared in the house of a rich man
called Zacchaeus, “Today, salvation has come to this house” (Lk 19:9). Why? Because
the rich man was willing to share what he had with others (Lk 19:8). This is an
example of familial economy and justice.
8. Kingdom Justice and
Familial Justice
Jesus said: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness
(Gk. Dikaiosyne, Justice, Sanskrit, dharma) exceeds that of the scribes and
pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom
of Heaven” (Mt. 5:20). At
the wake of Liberation Theology there is much talk on fighting for justice.
Usually justice is understood as giving each person according to his/her due.
If it is so, in terms of commutative justice, the ‘boss’ of KG, either as the
Father of the Prodigal Son (Lk. 15) or as the Benevolent Employer (Mt. 20) is
patently unjust. The justice of the KG goes far beyond this concept of justice.
I prefer to call it the Kingdom Justice
or Familial Justice rather than Social Justice. I would not like to
substitute it by ‘love’ since it can imply that the beneficiary is benevolently
treated not because he/she has a right for it but only because of the
generosity of the giver. True there is a strong emphasis on justice in the
Kingdom ideal. However, it is over shadowed by the teachings of economic
sharing, fellowship, loving the last and the least including ones own enemies.
In short the justice of the Kingdom is fit for a united and loving family.
