Between Toilet & Temple

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Readings: Malachi 3:1-4; Psalm 23 (24):7-10; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

Picture: By Vadim Artyukhin on Unsplash

My dear friends, why do you think the toilets in a hotel or a mall are often so much cleaner than those in the coffeeshops? Isn’t it tempting to think that the users are the reason? That the patrons of a hotel or a mall are somehow more careful, more hygienic, even more cultured than those of a coffeeshop? I’m ashamed to admit it, but until quite recently, this was my own unspoken assumption. Until I happened to watch an interview given by Mr Jack Sim, the founder of the WTO. Not the World Trade Organisation, but the World Toilet Organisation. According to Mr Sim, the reason why coffeeshop toilets are so much dirtier, is not because their patrons are messier, but because their owners simply refuse to take the steps needed to clean them. To be honest, Mr Sim’s words came as something of a light-bulb moment for me. I found them at once enlightening, humbling and liberating. Enlightening, because they helped me see a fresh and intriguing point of view. Humbling, because they prompt me to entertain the possibility that I’m not that much different from everyone else. That however hygienic or careful or cultured I may think I am, like everybody else, the toilets I use need to be properly and regularly cleaned. To accept this fact is to be liberated from the heavy burdens of hypocrisy and guilt, snobbery and self-righteousness. And even to be freed to focus more on what truly keeps toilets clean…

Strange as it may sound, the feast we are celebrating today offers us a similar revelation. Of course, there is no mention of toilets anywhere in our Mass readings and prayers. Instead, our attention is drawn to a far more sacred place, the Temple in Jerusalem. But, though the Temple and a toilet seem as different as night and day, they do have one thing in common. Like a toilet, the Temple too is a place where cleaning, or purification, is needed. Isn’t this why Jesus, Mary and Joseph present themselves at the Temple in the gospel? They go there to be purified as laid down by the Law of Moses. Except that Jesus doesn’t really need cleansing. Instead, he is the One who cleanses us. In him, the promise made in the first reading finds its fulfilment. Through him, God enters the Temple to take his seat as refiner and purifier. And we may recall that what is carried out ritually for the baby Jesus today, the Lord will perform actually, as an adult, many years later. In chapter 19 of Luke’s gospel, Jesus will drive from the Temple all those who are selling things there (v 45, NRSV).

But not everyone is willing to allow themselves to be cleansed. Not everyone is ready to accept their own need for purification. Isn’t this why Simeon recognises Jesus not only as a light to enlighten the pagans, but also as a sign that is rejected? And who are the ones who will reject the Lord? Isn’t it those who take pride in their own efforts to keep themselves clean? Those who think they are more spiritually hygienic, careful, and cultured than everyone else. Who keep a scrupulous distance from, and even look down upon, those whom they consider unclean.

In contrast to this essentially elitist approach, the second reading reminds us that the Lord takes the opposite route. Instead of distancing himself, he draws closer to those who need cleansing. Even to the extent of sharing equally in our flesh and blood, so that by his death he could take away all the power of the devil. Becoming for us a compassionate and trustworthy high priest, able to help us in all our temptations, because he has himself been through temptation. Just as soap makes its cleansing power felt by coming into close contact with whatever is dirty. So too does Jesus draw close to us to purify us of our sin. Isn’t this the beautiful and consoling mystery we joyfully celebrate at this and every Mass?

All of which may help us reflect on our own approach to the spiritual life. Perhaps even offering us the possibility of a fresh light-bulb moment. One that may enlighten, humble, and liberate us anew. Enlightening us with a helpful reminder of how much we all need to remain close to the Lord, or rather, to allow him to draw close to us. Even and especially when, we may be feeling particularly unworthy of him. Humbling us to accept the truth that, however spiritually advanced we may think we are, however clean our spiritual lives may look, without the Lord, we all quickly go astray. Without him, none of us has the ability to remain clean. And doesn’t this truth serve to liberate us? For the more we realise, accept and live out of it, the better we are able to fixate less on ourselves and our own efforts, and to focus more on the Lord. Generously going wherever he may lead us, and doing whatever he may prompt and empower us to do.

Sisters and brothers, no matter whether we may be feeling as clean as a hotel toilet, or as filthy as the one in a coffeeshop, how might we better help one another to allow the Lord to draw ever closer to us today and everyday?

Still Or Sparkling?

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 95 (96):1-3, 7-10; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11

Picture: By Shayna Douglas on Unsplash

Still or sparkling? My dear friends, if the waiter in a restaurant asks you this question, how would you respond? How do you prefer your water? Still or sparkling? Sparkling water, as we know, is just a fancy name for water with bubbles in it. Sparkling water is fizzy. Still water is flat… And it’s not just water that can be fizzy or flat. Isn’t life the same as well? Aren’t there moments or periods when life seems to bubble with meaning and purpose, making it feel truly worth living? And aren’t there also times when life feels tediously empty, when we may even struggle to find a reason to stay alive?

Like water, life can feel fizzy or flat. But with one important difference. Although sparkling water can be fun to drink, we don’t really need the fizz to survive. Even flat water can keep us alive. But isn’t it a terrible thing to have to live without meaning and purpose? Isn’t this one of the reasons why we celebrate special occasions, like birthdays, weddings and anniversaries? More than just a chance to take a break from our routine, to let our hair down, and to have some fun, don’t such celebrations help us recall how meaningful life truly is? Perhaps this is why we often mark such occasions by drinking not just fizzy sodas, but also intoxicating wines. And on really special occasions, we may even have some champagne, which is both fizzy and intoxicating.

All of which may help us ponder the deeper significance of what we find in our scriptures today. The first reading is addressed to a broken and exiled people. A people whose land has been conquered, and whose Temple destroyed. The same land that the Lord their God had given their ancestors as a pledge of fidelity. The same Temple in which the Lord their God had promised to live among them forever. These key symbols of their identity as a people, these precious things that had given their life its meaning and purpose, have both been painfully stripped away. To this shattered and scattered people, God addresses a word of deep consolation. Promising a new beginning. A time when their glory will again shine out. When God will gather them back, like a bridegroom joyously embracing his radiant new bride.

We Christians believe that this promise finds its fulfilment in Jesus. Through his Dying and Rising, all of creation is gathered into the warmth of God’s loving embrace. This is what gives our life its deepest meaning. That whatever our current circumstances––however glorious our successes or agonising our failures, whether we are still young and energetic or already considered past our prime––we all continue to be nourished and sustained by the love of God. For with the outstretched arms of Jesus on the Cross, God embraces us as members of the Church, Christ’s beloved Body and Bride. Isn’t this what we celebrate at every Mass?

And isn’t this why it’s fitting that the first sign Jesus performs, to let his glory be seen, takes place at a wedding? By turning water into wine, Jesus doesn’t just save face for his hosts, and preserve the festive joy of their celebration. More than that, the miracle also points to how the Lord’s glorious Sacrifice on the Cross brings meaning and purpose to the lives of all who believe in him. All who choose to enter his loving and merciful embrace. Isn’t this the deeper connection between the transformation of water into wine, and the hour of the Lord’s glorious Sacrifice on the Cross?

Yet when the Lord reveals his glory at Cana, not many actually see and recognise it. Although the steward, and presumably the guests, get to enjoy the quality of the wine, they have no idea as to its true origin. Only the Lord’s Blessed Mother, the servants, and his disciples know… By nudging Jesus to perform his first sign, his Mother, in effect, hastens his Death, giving birth to him not just biologically, but also in faith. Then, by carefully obeying his instructions, the servants help facilitate the revelation of his glory. And, by believing in him, his disciples allow themselves to enter ever more deeply into the warmth of God’s embrace. Belief, obedience and birth. Three key steps by which true meaning and purpose is found in Christ. Steps that the Spirit of God empowers us to take. The same Spirit who, the second reading tells us, distributes different gifts to different people. 

Belief, obedience and birth. Isn’t it especially important for us to recall and to retrace these steps today? When many often seem to endure lives that feel terribly flat and boring? Either because we’re too busy or exhausted to ponder deeper things, or because we’ve lost whatever it was that gave our life its meaning. Such as an occupation or a relationship, a cherished ability or a prized possession…

So still or sparkling? Sisters and brothers, if the Lord were to ask us this question, how would we respond today?

The Blessing of Disruption

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (C)

Readings: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; Psalm 103 (104):1-4, 24-25, 27-3; Titus 2:11-14, 3:4-7; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

Picture: By Isaac Quesada on Unsplash

My dear friends, what happens when a baby is born? We know that, for the baby, there is a radical change of environment: from the cosy warmth of the womb to the chilly wideness of the world. But doesn’t the baby’s arrival change its surroundings too? We may think, for example, of how a newborn infant disrupts the lives of its parents. Provided, of course, they allow themselves to be disrupted. Provided they make space in their lives for the baby, and receive the familial and societal support they need to do so. Actually, might we not say that, the warmer the welcome it receives, the more the baby transforms and blesses those around it?

And if this is true of any ordinary human birth, how much more true when the newborn is Jesus. As we've been pondering over the Christmas season, the Lord’s birth causes great disruption to those who receive him. Certainly to his parents, who have to endure considerable hardship, both to bring him into the world and to protect and care for him after he’s born. Disruption also to the magi, who have to travel a great distance to pay him homage. As well as to the many innocent babies, whom Herod slaughters to protect his own position. But even more radical than all this is the disruption that the Lord himself endures. For unlike any ordinary human baby, the scriptures tell us that Jesus traces his origin back to the infinite immensity of God. And yet, he humbly submits to the constraints of human flesh, of life in our beautiful yet troubled world. Such that the prophecy in the first reading is fulfilled: That the glory of the Lord might be revealed to us. That we might receive the blessing of being transformed. Provided we welcome him. As the gospel reading for Christmas Day reminds us: to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God.

Which may help us appreciate why it’s fitting to celebrate the Baptism of the Lord as a Christmas feast. Even if it feels jarring, doesn’t it, that just a week after contemplating a tiny baby lying in a manger, receiving the magi’s gifts, we are now faced with a fully-grown man, praying quietly after rising from the waters of the Jordan? For Jesus chooses to undergo the ritual of baptism to mark the beginning of his public life and ministry. His professional birth as a travelling proclaimer of the good news. And, as with his biological birth, the scriptures carefully remind us who Jesus really is. After his baptism, heaven opens, the Holy Spirit descends on him, and a voice from heaven exclaims: You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you. Jesus is the Son of the same God whose praises are sung by the psalmist, the One whose breath sustains the whole of creation: Lord God, how great you are…. You stretch out the heavens like a tent… you walk on the wings of the wind…. The earth is full of your riches…

As a result, whereas in ordinary baptisms, water is believed to purify the one baptised, in the case of Jesus, it is the Lord who cleanses the water. And more than just the water. For the Lord’s immersion in the Jordan points to his embrace of our fragile flesh, and of our fallen world. A world that, by his Dying and Rising, Jesus transforms into the kingdom of God. Empowering our flesh to bear the glorious weight of divine adoption. In him we become God’s children. Isn’t this the wondrous consolation that the prophet Isaiah speaks about in the first reading? The new revelation of God’s glory? Isn’t this how, by sending forth the spirit, God ultimately renews the face of the earth? The same Spirit by whom Jesus is conceived, and who then falls upon him when he is baptised.

Yet, as with the birth of a baby, we can enjoy the benefits of this great blessing only to the extent that we truly welcome it into our lives. Accepting whatever disruptions it may bring. Isn’t this what the second reading is referring to, when it tells us to give up everything that does not lead to God, and all our worldly ambitions, and to be self-restrained and live good and religious lives here in this present world? In other words, to strive to remain faithful to the vows professed at our baptism, and which we solemnly renew every Easter. Relying not on our own strength––for we are weak––but on the grace and mercy of God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

All of which might help us appreciate why it’s also fitting for us to celebrate the Baptism of the Lord not just as a Christmas feast, but also as a doorway to Ordinary Time. For the work of welcoming and receiving the Lord doesn’t end with Christmas. It’s an ongoing, lifelong process, in which we need to continually immerse ourselves. Just as the Lord generously immersed himself in the waters of the Jordan.

Sisters and brothers, if it’s indeed true that the warmer the welcome it receives, the more a baby transforms and blesses those around it, then how might we help each other to better allow the Lord to disrupt and bless us in the days ahead?

Turning Things Upside Down

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 71 (72):1-2, 7-8, 10-13; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

Picture: By Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

My dear friends, what is it like to look at things upside-down? This may be the question I was trying to answer, in an old highly unflattering photograph of me taken when I was a little toddler. In the photo I’m bent over, with my head between my legs. A posture I’ll find very difficult to replicate today. I like to think that, back when that photo was taken, I was exploring a fresh perspective on the world. As any child filled with wonder might be expected to do. But I must confess that, as I grow older, it seems more challenging to do this. Not just to adopt the physical posture, but to seek out and to welcome fresh perspectives. To resist the temptation to become like my phone, which refuses to let me look at the pictures on it in any position other than right-side-up. Yet, don’t we sometimes have to turn our homes and our lives upside-down, to search for some valuable thing we’ve lost? Such as a wedding ring, a passport, or even our own identity?

It’s helpful to keep this in mind today. For if there’s one thing the Epiphany of the Lord invites us to ponder, it’s how the Light of Christ turns things upside-down. In our scriptures today, at least three things are turned upside-down. The most obvious being the division between Jew and Gentile, between citizen and foreigner, insider and outsider. As we know, it was believed that gentiles, or pagans––non-Jews like us––were excluded from the promises made by God to Abraham and his descendants. Gentiles were also considered ritually unclean. Yet who are the heroes in our gospel today, if not a group of gentiles? Those wise men… from the east, who let their lives be turned upside-down, in order to go in search of the newborn king of the Jews. Not only are the magi the heroes of the story, we are invited to see their arrival as the fulfilment of a promise made long ago, in the first reading. Which speaks of foreigners streaming to Jerusalem, bringing gold and incense and singing the praise of the Lord.

The second reading goes even further. It reminds us that, like the magi, we who used to be outsiders now share the same inheritance, that (we) are parts of the same body, and that the same promise has been made to (us), in Jesus Christ, through the gospel. This is the mystery that has now been revealed through the Spirit. The same mystery we celebrate at every Mass. Contrary to the emphasis our world places on race and class, as well as nationality and place of birth, the Light of Christ shows us something far more important: The willingness to allow one’s life to be turned upside down, so as to find and remain in the Lord. Just as the Eternal Word of God let himself be turned upside-down, to come in search of us. This is how outsiders like the magi become heroes. Which is, for us, at once a consolation and a challenge. A consolation to realise how blessed we are to be given a place in Christ. As well as a challenge to keep doing our best, both to remain in Christ, and to reach out to other outsiders. Bearing in mind that one doesn’t have to be a foreigner to be an outsider. Locals can often be made to feel like outsiders too.

Also, in addition to our usual bias toward insiders, there are at least two other things that are turned upside-down: The value we give to physical proximity, and to information. Why is it that properties located close to popular schools cost more? Isn’t it because we value proximity? And yet, what use is it to live near a school, if I have no heart to study? Similarly, in the gospel, even though Jerusalem is only about ten kilometres away from Bethlehem, Herod and company are initially oblivious to the birth of Jesus. It’s only when he is questioned by the magi, that Herod becomes perturbed. The Epiphany shows us that, far more important than physical proximity, is the heart or determination to search.

We all know, of course, how highly our world values information. Living as we do in an information age. But what good is information, without the humility to learn from it? In the gospel, although Herod has access to the information needed to locate Jesus, it doesn’t help him draw any closer to the Lord. On the contrary, he seeks more data for the same selfish reason that a scammer does: To benefit himself at the expense of others. He wants to know the exact date on which the star had appeared, only so that he can figure out how many babies he has to kill, if the magi don’t come back! The Epiphany shows us that, far more important than information, is the humility both to recognise the limits of what we know, and to learn from those who may know better.

The heroism, heart, and humility of the magi, in contrast to our world’s bias toward insiders, proximity and information respectively. Three ways in which the Epiphany of the Lord turns our world upside-down. Sisters and brothers, even if we may not be able to place our head between our legs, how else might the Light of Christ be revealing to us fresh perspectives on our lives and on our world this Christmas?