New Nazareths and new Bethlehems!

Christmas is yet again around the corner. It is, possibly, the most celebrated of all festivals. It cuts across all social barriers and religious definitions. And it has been so from the beginning, as is indicated by the response of the wise from the east and the shepherds. They represented the response of the non-Jewish world. The catalyst for their response was the star they saw in the sky. They star, as a symbol, rises above all socially erected divisions and exclusions. It is there for all to see, if they wish to.
What makes Christmas enduringly universal? Obviously, it cannot be on account of the externals of Christmas, such as carols, cakes, cards, Santa Claus, Christmas tress and so on. Nor can it be because of the Nativity Narrative itself: cows, manger, angels, Herod and the like. All these fineries draw meaning from the core of the event.
Christmas, like every other festival, stands at the meeting point between religion and culture. It is natural, hence, that celebrations are increasingly overlaid by cultural moorings and trappings. Materialistic cultures express the so called “joy of Christmas” in ways that are primarily worldly and pleasure-seeking. So, more people get drunk and that too unrestrainedly, during this season. Greater gluttony and extravagance are witnessed during Christmas, flouting the message of Christmas. Jesus came to engage the essential realities of life. And our crackers, cakes and carols create a smoke-screen against these realities. There is a great need today to ensure the balance between the flourish of festivity and its core meaning. “For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

Christmas is not the good news of God giving us an expensive gift, but God giving himself in Jesus Christ. This is the refrain that we hear again and again in the carols. Christ continues to take on flesh when people commit themselves to their creator. New Nazareths are made, new Bethlehems happen as we come to faith in Christ. We are the sites of new Nazareths and Bethlehems.

Why I am a Christian?

Why I am a Christian? This has always been a very pertinent existential concern for me. First of all, though we may have differences of opinion on who is called a Christian, I can, nevertheless, feel fundamentally positive about a tradition that is significant for me; a tradition in which I live side by side with so many others, past and present. Because I would not dream of confusing the great Christian tradition with the present structures of the Church or leaving a definition of true Christian values to its present administrators.

Christian faith provides answers for the questions of great whys and wherefores of humanity and the world. It is a basic orientation for my individual and social self. And at the same time, I find in these things a spiritual home on which I do not want to turn my back, any more than I want in politics to turn my back on democracy. God is “super-personal”, yet a genuine partner who is kind and absolutely reliable, a partner to whom we can communicate. God is the foundation of the personal nature of human beings, and hence He cannot be ‘a-personal’ either. He is not ‘sub-personal’ too. God does not merely demand but gives; who does not oppress, but liberates; who does not make people ill, but heals them. He is a God who cares for those who fall-and who does not fall? He is God who forgives instead of condemning, liberates instead of punishing, makes grace rule instead of law; who rejoices more over the repentance of one sinner than over 99 just people. He is, therefore, a God who prefers the prodigal son to the one who stayed at home, the tax collector to the Pharisees, the Samaritan heretics to the Jews, the prostitutes and adulterers to the self-righteous judges. Jesus did not preach excommunication, but an inclusive community called Kingdom of God. I love and believe in this God. What about you?

Strongholds of Defense Mechanism

In our natural state, we learn to cope up with the life or defend ourselves which were not always mentally and emotionally healthy. Psychologists refer to these unhealthy patterns of living as defense mechanisms, and they are certainly not congruent with Christian faith. For instance, many people have learned to lie in order to protect themselves. Other common defense mechanisms include:
(1) Denial: conscious and subconscious refusal to face truth;
(2) Fantasy: escaping the real world;
(3) Emotional insulation: withdrawing to avoid rejection;
(4) Regression: reverting to less threatening times;
(5) Displacement: taking out frustrations on others;
(6) Projection: blaming others; and
(7) Rationalization: making excuses for poor behaviour.
Defense mechanisms are similar to what Paul calls ‘strongholds’ (ochuroma). ‘Stronghold’ means fortress, anything on which one relies, arguments and reasoning by which a disputant endeavors to fortify his opinion and defend it again his opponents etc. Paul writes: “For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).
Strongholds are fleshly thought patterns that were programmed into our minds when we learned to live our lives independently of God. So what was learned has to be unlearned. If we have been trained wrong, can we be retrained? If we believed a lie, can we renounce that lie and choose to believe the truth? Can our minds be reprogrammed? That is what repentance is: a change of mind. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. It is possible because we have the mind of Christ within us through Holy Spirit.

Defensiveness is Defenseless

No matter how well we live our lives, somebody won’t like it. How should we respond to those who can’t or won’t understand us? Should we be defensive? There are two reasons we never need to respond defensively to the negative evaluation about us. First, if we are wrong, we don’t have a defense. If the criticism is valid, any defensiveness on our part would be an explanation at best and a lie at worst. Second, if we are right we don’t require a defense (refer: 1 Peter 2:21-23). If we are truthful, the Righteous Judge, who knows who we are and what we have done, will acquit us.
If we can learn not to be defensive when someone attacks us, we may have a prospect to turn the situation around and show them that we are not bogus Christians. It will provide us a chance to unravel the difference between Christianity and ‘churchianity’ (courtesy Sadhu Sundar Sing, the missionary par excellence). Our commitment is to Christ our Lord, not to the World (1 Peter 2:4; John 17:14-16).
One of the main reasons of our craving for defensiveness is overcosnsciousness of our rights at the expense our responsibilities. Satan will persuade and convince us to focus on rights in stead of our responsibilities. For example, a husband may chip at his wife because he thinks he has a right to expect her to be submissive. A wife may nag her husband because she expects him to be a perfect husband. Parents harass their children because they think that it is their right to demand obedience. Members may quarrel in the church when they think their rights have been violated.
No culture can withstand such kind of self-centered orientation. Husbands, having a submissive wife is not your right; but being a loving, caring husband is your responsibility. Similarly, wives, having a spiritual husband is not your right; but being a supportive and understanding wife is your responsibility. Parents, expecting your children to obey you is not your right; but disciplining your children in the fear of the Lord is your responsibility. Being a member of the church, body of Christ, is an incredible privilege, not a right. This privilege leaves with us the amazing responsibility to behave as God’s children. He will reward us for how well we fulfilled our responsibilities.
Let me conclude, anybody can find character faults in another person. But “it takes the grace of God to look beyond an impulsive Peter to see in him the rock of the Jerusalem church. It takes the grace of God to look beyond Paul the persecutor to see in him Paul the apostle”. So as we live day by day with people who are less than saintly in their behaviour--and who see us the same way-- may I unassumingly say, “If it is peace we want, seek to change ourselves, not other people. It is easier to protect our feet with sandals than to carpet the whole of the earth”.

Too much of a good thing

Most of us won’t often be tempted to commit obvious sins such as armed robbery, adultery, murder etc. Satan knows that we will recognize the flagrant wrong in such temptations and refuse to act on them. In stead, his tactic is to entice us to push some thing good beyond the boundary of the will of God until it becomes sin. He treats us like the proverbial frog in the pot of water: gradually turning up the heat of temptation, hoping we don’t notice that we are approaching the boundary of God’s will and jump out before something good becomes a sin.
Paul writes: "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything (1 Corinthians 6:12). Everything is good and lawful for us because we are free from sin and no longer under the condemnation of law. But also knew that if we irresponsibly floorboard our lives in any of these good and lawful directions we will eventually run the red light of God’s will, that is sin.
The following statements reveal the sinful results in a number of areas where we are tempted to take the good things that God created the boundary of God’s will:
 physical rest becomes laziness
 ability to profit becomes avarice and greed
 enjoyment of life becomes intemperance
 physical pleasure becomes sensuality
 interest in the material possessions of others becomes covetousness
 enjoyment of food becomes gluttony
 self-care becomes selfishness
 self-respect becomes conceit
 communication becomes gossip
 carefulness becomes fear
 cautiousness becomes unbelief
 judgment becomes criticism
 self-protection becomes dishonesty

“Beware of Self-deception”

We are all going through an ‘interesting’ and unprecedented experience as well!!! It may be because we miss each other so badly or because we do not understand the logic of uncertainty. Uncertainty adds splendor to the mystical equations of life. I do believe that uncertainty carries God’s grace in an indefinable fashion.
If I tempted you, you would know it. If I accused you, you would know it. But if I deceived you, you would not know it. If you knew you were being deceived, then you would not no longer be deceived. Eve was deceived because she believed a lie. Self-deception is one of the primary avenues through which Satan will attempt to dissuade us from God’s truth and deceives us into believing his lies. There are more than a few ways in which we can betray ourselves:
1. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves (1John 1:8)
N.T.Anderson opines: “We are not sinless saints, we are saints who sin” We are not sin, but sin is possible for us and resides in our mortal bodies (Rom 6:12). In 1 John 1:8 we read: “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”. It challenges us to be aware of a discrepancy between our identity in Christ and our behaviour. Any attempt to take this potential incongruity for granted is self-deception itself.
2. If our lives don’t reflect love/truth/justice/hope, we deceive ourselves (James 1:22)
Often we preach and teach against the very sins we are committing ourselves. The content and crux of our faith is the unconditional and unreserved love of God in Christ. In our social life and Church life, we are bound to walk by our faith. That is to live out by the quintessence of our faith. It is nothing but radiating and disseminating the fragrance of God’s love. Let people around know that we are genuinely engaged in the process of growing unto the stature of Christ. To profess a faith as if it were true in our lives when it is not is to live a lie, and we will be deceiving ourselves (James 1:22: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves)..
3. If we do not control our tongues, we deceive ourselves (James 1:26)
There is nothing that grieves God more than when we slander/ defame/ abuse people more willingly than building them up. We are to edify one another in what we say and thereby give grace to those hear us (Eph 4:29-30). If our language/tongue/speech is out of our control, we are fooling ourselves to believe that we have our spiritual life together (James 1:26: If any one thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man's religion is vain).


4. If we think we are something we are not, we deceive ourselves (Gal 6:3)
Galatians 6:3 (“For if any one thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself) obviously instructs us not to think of ourselves more highly (inflated self understanding) than we ought to think. It does not mean that we should not have a positive self-understanding. The lives we live, the talents we possess, and the gifts we have received are the expressions of God’s grace. Never take credit for what God has generously provided; rather rejoice in doing the will of God.

5. If we think we will not reap what we sow, we deceive ourselves (Gal 6:7)
In Galatians 6:7 we read: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap”. As ‘churchians’ (courtesy to the Sadhu Sundar Sing’s coinage, “Churchianity”) we sometimes think that we are exempted from this eternal law, but we are not. We will have to live with the consequences of our words and deeds.

Undetected and unacknowledged sin is like a cancer cell. If self-deception is identified at an early stage, the prognosis is good. Let us always remember self-deception is dangerous!!

Shepherd one another!

Church as the body of Christ shares and participates in the Holiness of God (1Peter 2:9). It is a distinctive possibility to grow unto the stature of Christ. So it demands growing. Priesthood is understood in two ways: ‘representative priesthood’ and ‘mediatory priesthood”. The former means priest as the representative of the people of God. In this understanding, neither priestly function nor priesthood is exclusively confined to an ordained person. Priestly responsibilities are distributed among members of the ‘body of Christ’ (1Peter 2:9. Cf. I cor. 12). Priest represents the pattern of shepherding and giving leadership to the priestly function of the Church. Hence, the hierarchical distinction between clergy and laity is functional rather than theological.
But the latter considers priest as the mediator between God and people. It is to be understood that all members of the church are called to exercise the priestly function in diverse spheres of life. It would certainly make the body of Christ more dynamic. In other words, it means that we are called to shepherd each other. Unless we show ‘love and grace of a shepherd’ (John 10:10-15) in our relationships, we cease to become an authentic community of genuine shepherds.
Apostle Peter writes extensively in one of his letters to counterfeits who operate within the Church: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction”(2 Peter 2:1). In fact the fake shepherds camouflage themselves as agents of righteousness. They may entice us into their deceptive slogans: “And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled” (1Peter 2:2). We “follow their sensuality”, when we promote performance and appearance over against integrity, transparency and simplicity. The biblical criteria for validating the life of a shepherd are truth and righteousness. The counterfeits malign both.
Peter goes on to reveal two ways by which we can make out intruders (cf. Galatians 1:7) and false/pseudo shepherds who operate within the Church. First, they will sooner or later reveal their decadence, indulging “the flesh in its corrupt desires” (1Peter 2:10).Their immorality may not be easy to spot, but it will ultimately surface in their lives (2Corinthians 11:13-15). Second, they “despise authority” and are “daring, self-willed” (1Peter 2:10). They won’t submit themselves to the ecclesiastical authority. Instead, they will pick up their people who will simply rubber-stamp anything they want to do.
There are three Old Testament leadership roles which have functional equivalents in the Church: Prophets (preaching and teaching), Priests (shepherding) and Kings (administration). But functional counterparts in the Church cannot be clinically separated. Only in Jesus we find the perfection of occupying three roles in chorus. I strongly believe that all of us have got the responsibility of engaging these three roles. We are a community of shepherds. Display the mind and spirit of a shepherd. Shepherd one another!