INTRODUCTION
What is the core of Christianity? I asked myself this question after being a Christian for almost forty years. Better late than never!
Is the core of Christianity, being good? My mother always told me to be good. “If you behave well, God will love you!” She said. This was a way my mother convinced me – I convinced myself – to follow Christian morality. Is Christian morality, enshrined in the Ten Commandments, the core of Christianity? At a particular stage in life I realized that Christianity is not merely a moral system. Morality is only one aspect of it. And, Christian morality is not based on just obeying rules, but on love. So, is love the core of Christianity? Today I know love is not the core but only the consequence. I cannot love truly if I have not experienced the core of Christianity. Trying otherwise would be putting the cart before the horse.
What then is the core of Christianity? Is it faith? But even non-Christians believe. Moreover Christian faith is not meant to be abstract. Christian faith, on the other hand, is a tangible relationship with a personal God who took human form in a particular time in history.
Finally I arrived at the meaningful answer. The core of Christianity is Christ himself. Yes, it is God in the person of Jesus Christ!
It follows then that the objective of Christianity is to experience God in the person of Jesus Christ. The function of the Church is (any church, understood as the community of believers) to commemorate their own experience of God in Jesus, and to facilitate that experience for others.
The reflections during this Parish Mission are about this experience God in the person of Jesus. Yes, the general theme for our week is: Christian life journey. I summarise this journey in 7 steps.
1. The thirst
2. Pointers (signs)
3. Journey (search)
4. Invitation
5. The Encounter
6. Transformation
7. Proclamation and mission
These reflections are also about my own spiritual journey in experiencing Jesus. The reflections are going to be Biblical, existential and personal. Therefore, I invite us all to journey together.
THE OVERTURE
For our reflection today, I have chosen the encounter between the first disciples, Andrew and his companion, with Jesus, as narrated in the Gospel of John (1:35-42). I see this passage as providing us the template for our reflection during the rest of the week. We can trace 7 steps in this encounter – ‘the experience of God in Jesus!’
1. The Thirst: The two disciples, Andrew and his companion, were already disciples of John the Baptist (Jn 1:35). Why did they do this? Was it because of the inner thirst within them? I believe that this thirst is not negative; it is God-given; and it is at the origin of our human life; and the reason for our Christian life journey. This is the focus of our reflection for today, and we will return to this shortly. For now let us look at the summary of the Christian life journey that emerges from whole passage.
2. Pointer: Look! The same God who put the thirst within us also puts signposts on our way: “Take this path and you will find fulfilment.” John the Baptist becomes the signpost for the two disciples, that shows where they can find the fulfilment of their thirst – “Look, there is the lamb of God” (Jn 1:36). There are also signposts on our way – events and people that indicate where perhaps we can find the solution. But it is so easy not to see these pointers. Some signposts may be faint, others may be misleading, and real ones may be less attractive and often looking just ordinary. We might also need enlightened guides and spiritual exercises to help us put ourselves on the path. The Scriptures, the community of believers, our own personal histories, may act as effective pointers.
3. Search: What do you seek? The two disciples heard what John said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘What do you want?’ (Jn 1:37-38) To me this is a very crucial question: “What do you seek?” – as the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible has it. Jesus said, “Seek and you will find” (Lk 11:9). The essential question is, what do I seek? Why do I wake up in the morning? What are my deepest desires? What can fully satisfy my inner thirst? I think, the inability to answer these questions adequately for oneself could be the source of spiritual dryness, burnout, stress and even mental illhealth.
The question of Jesus is also an invitation to self-discovery: who am I deep within? Self awareness is an important step in the journey towards the experience of God. Since I am created in the image of God, when I get in touch with my deepest self, I also get in touch with God.
The disciples were aware that it was the Messiah who was the deepest desire of their heart. On a deeper level, it was God in Jesus who could satisfy their thirst. And so they answer the question of Jesus with another apt question: “Rabbi, where do you stay” (Jn1:39)? As if to say, “It is you that we seek!”
4. The Invitation: Come and See! To seek God is the human response to fulfil the inner thirst. It is the choice of human free will. But what will follow is the Grace of God. Seeking is human; finding is divine. Our experience of God is just grace. However, I believe, that grace is constantly available to everyone. It is up to the human person to respond to grace.
To the question of the disciples, “Where do you stay?” the answer of Jesus is not a set of information: “I stay in a house around the corner, at the street near the synagogue inNazareth, not far from the baker’s house!” But his answer is an invitation. It is an invitation to experience him. In the book of Chronicles, David exhorts Solomon, “If you seek him, he will let you find him” (1Ch 28:9b).
My Christian faith from my childhood through my youth was largely based on knowing – intellectually – about my Christian faith. A lot of information! I was proud of it. But I was also mistaken. Perhaps it was needed then. However, it was also possible that I would have just got stuck there. Christian life is not about memorizing a certain set of information but it is about experience. This personal experience could often be mediated by a community!
5. The encounter: Christ Experience: They went, saw, and stayed. This is the climax of the Christian life journey – to stay with him (Jn 1:39). John points out a small detail about the time, that it was four in the evening. This means that they stayed with him through the night. The evangelist Mark summarizes the meaning of discipleship: “He appointed twelve; they were to be his companions and to be sent out to proclaim the message” (Mk 3:14). To be Jesus’ companions is discipleship. To-be-with-him is the core of being the disciples of Jesus.
There is not much description about what actually happened when the disciples stayed with Jesus. The experience of God in the person of Jesus is simply ineffable. It defies all human language. In the Gospel narratives often the actual encounter itself is not described in detail. There is only a before and after. And the fruits of the experience of God in Jesus are clearly seen.
6. Transformation: Most encounters with Jesus describe the conversion in terms of self-transformation and renunciation. A typical example is the conversion of Saul (Acts 9). But it can also be recognised in the call of the apostles (Lk 5:1-11 – Peter telling the Lord: “Depart from me Lord, I am a sinful man.”). The theme of transformation features in the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman (Jn 4); between Jesus and Zacchaeus (Lk 19). These are passages that we will look at in the coming days.
7. Mission: Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. What follows the experience of Jesus is a conversion, and an expression of that conversion is sharing in the mission of Christ (Jn 1:41). In any case, there is the aspect of a mission, which is often expressed in proclamation. Good news becomes positively contagious. The encounter with Jesus is so overwhelming that human words are not adequate enough to explain the experience itself, yet the one who has experienced Jesus invites others to come to the source of that water that can quench all thirst. Analogically, evangelization is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread!
THE THIRST
The two disciples, Andrew and his companion, were already disciples of John the Baptist (Jn 1:35). They somehow thought that there is more to life than just fishing in theSea of Galilee. They left behind a flourishing fishing industry in Galileeto follow something more profound. They were perhaps responding to their inner thirst.
The Samaritan woman came to the well (Jn 4), because she was thirsty. The well becomes for her the locus of the experience of God in Jesus. Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was (Lk 19). This desire is the thirst that I am talking about. It is not mere curiosity. He climbs the tree. The tree becomes the locus of encounter. The Magi (Mt 2) come from the East. They follow a star because there is a longing in them.
There is an inner thirst in every one of us that makes us challenge ourselves to transcend the contingencies of daily life. Whether we are aware of it or not, we long for a relationship with the Greater Power beyond ourselves. In Christianity we call this Greater Power, ‘God’! The origin of this thirst, I believe, is the religious truth that human beings are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27). Being in the nature of God, we want to discover our true nature. We want to pour ourselves into the source of our own flow. This is the beginning of the Christian life journey.
Psalmists express this sentiment of longing & thirsting repeatedly and very powerfully: “Oh God, my God, for you I long. For you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you” (Ps 63:1). “As a deer yearns for running streams, so I yearn for you, my God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God; when shall I go to see the face of God?” (PS 42:1-2). “It is your face, Oh Lord, that I seek. Hide not your face from me. (Ps 27:8). It is also expressed in the longing to be in Holy of Holies of the temple: “One day within your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere” (Ps 84: 10).
We can easily mistake this thirst – that emptiness within; that restlessness. We try to fill it with wealth, pleasure, fame, comfort… what is it that you are filling it with? But have you found the satisfaction. St Augustine of Hippo after having searched for satisfaction in the pleasures of the world, comes up with that deep awareness and acknowledge: “Our hearts are made for you Lord, and they are restless, until they rest in you”.
This inner thirst is not necessarily negative in itself. It could be like the ‘Black Hole’. It could also be like the Nebula – the birthplace of stars.
This week of the Parish Mission is a time to look at our inner thirst. And see how meaningfully we can deal with it.