Latest Christmas Song - Born to Rise - Raj Patta

If not an inn, then a manger… Reflection for Christmas 2021

I was recently listening to the radio where the host was asking the listeners what was their favourite role in the nativity play that they have enacted at their school. Overwhelmingly many people who responded shared that their role as donkeys or oxen at the manger were their favourite roles. Last year there was a survey in the UK on how your kid’s nativity play role shows what they will earn in the future, and interestingly those who played the role of the oxen are likely to have earned more than the rest of the roles. I am sure each of you will remember the role that you have played at your school’s nativity. The story of Christmas is centred around the manger, and specially at the baby Jesus in the manger.

 

Allow me to reflect on Luke 2: 7 for Christmas this year.  It is recorded as “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

 

Because there was no place in the inn, the first ever Christmas, the birth of baby Jesus did not stop. Mother Mary found an alternative and laid the baby in the manger. If not an inn, a manger is the place for the child to be laid, and that is the Christmas message for this year. The last two years 2020-2021, have been pandemic years, perhaps the toughest years in the recent past, where life came to a standstill. Airports were closed, schools were closed, businesses were closed, places of worship were closed, and despite all the closures, the hope in the Christian faith is that God in Jesus has been working with the communities and the creation in overcoming this phase of the pandemic. If there was no place in the inn, God in Jesus did not stop failing to come into this world. God through Mary found a place in the manger to lay the baby Jesus. Christmas is a story of hope, for God in Jesus is unstoppable in God’s reaching out to the world, for God has always been with us, both in season and off season. In the context of the pandemic, vaccines and vaccinations came as signs of hope, only to recognise that God in Jesus has been with us, helping us to overcome situations of hopelessness and despair. 

 

The child laying in a manger, then served as a sign of hope for the angels to share about the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. The mention of a manger, at least three times in Luke in the story of Jesus’ birth affirms to be a site of wonder, a site where God pitches God’s tent to be a site of solidarity with the people on the margins, and a site of creativity informing the world that God is present even in such unknown, unthinkable and unexpected sites.

 

The story of the birth of Jesus is a celebration of God choosing to find alternatives in offering hope. If not an inn, then a manger, if not in a closed building, then on the street, if not in the sacred, then in the secular, if not in a religious place, then in a public sphere, if not in the faith communities, then in the neighbours on our street, if not in the rituals, then in the serving the needy, if not in the tradition, then in the reimagination, if not in the known, then in the unknown, if not in the expected, then in the unexpected and if not in the usual, then in the unusual, in all of this God in Jesus is offering hope, peace and love to our entire creation.

 

The calling for us is to envision Christmas as a living event, inviting us to recognise the birth of a baby Jesus in our localities and in our times, for Jesus is being born in the margins of our societies, and we are called with Jesus to pitch our tents with the margins, and strive towards transforming our societies offering peace, love and hope to this our world today. For me, Christmas is not the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ, which we as Christians commemorate year after year, but Christmas is an opportunity to recognise that Jesus Christ is being born every day into our contexts offering hope, peace, joy and love to us, making the birth of Jesus relevant for our times. Christmas is not just a past thing, but is an event in the present where God in Jesus is taking birth in situations of poverty, exploitation and marginalisation of our times today. The story of Christmas is very radical that it unsettles the very idea of God who reigns from the realms of transcendence, but who came down to pitch God’s tent among the creation, being born as a baby, born as a poor baby, born in a manger as there is no place in the inn.

 

No matter which role we played at the nativity, be it a donkey, an ox, an angel, the shepherds, the magi, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, we are all loved equally by God, and we are called to share that love with others. May the hope, love, peace and joy of Jesus be with us all during this pandemic Christmas, inviting us to commit towards a free vaccination of all people in all places of the world.

 

Allow me to conclude with a drawing of my 11-year-old son Jaiho Patta, which he has drawn last year during the thick of a lockdown on the story of Christmas. In this drawing Jaiho reflects the nativity scene, ‘Jesus born in lockdown,’ bringing in the relevance of Christmas today.

Raj Bharat Patta

Advent Calendar 2021 with the Book of Luke

 Join this Advent in reading the 24 chapters of the Book of Luke in 24 days of December to find Jesus on the Christmas Day. #AdventWithLuke

@rajpatta

27th Nov 2021

The Politics of Shame: Reflecting on Psalm 25:1-10

I remember as a child, if you were naked, the first thing the adults commented on our child-bodies was “shame, shame, puppy shame.” On hearing such comments, the child immediately runs to either hide their nakedness from the public or picks some clothes to cover their nakedness. Such comments ingrained a sense of ‘shame’ to the body of a child. Shame continued to govern the lives of human beings in more than many ways. Again, back home in India in our local village, when our Dalit community members cooked beef for dinner, and when our friends asked what did we eat for dinner, we always said, “That.” There was a sense of shame in eating beef, for those eating beef are considered polluting by the dominant castes, and so in order to cover the shame associated with beef, it was always talked about in that code word of “That.” Our Dalit women, whose bodies have been battered and bruised by the systemic practices of patriarchy and caste, carry the heaviest burdens of shame enforced on them, and the growing caste honour killings are a case in point.

In the context of the heinous caste system, for Dalits, people who are born outside of the caste hierarchy, the ex-untouchables, shame is enforced on them because of the untouchability ascribed to them. Priyanka Singh on writing on Dalit trauma explains, “starting with the idea of pollution attached to their identity, Dalit minds were trained to feel a profound sense of shame about who they were and the work they were assigned. This is “learned cultural shame” and it is an intrinsic quality of the contemporary Dalit identity.[1] She continued to comment that even when Dalits enter institutions of higher learning through the state’s Constitutional affirmative actions called ‘Reservations’ they are shamed and discriminated for their Dalit identity. It is such a shame that today shame occupies a prime area in the public sphere, where the women, the Dalits, the indigenous communities, people with disabilities, the LGBTQI+ communities, the migrants, the refugees, are all judged and shamed based on the norms constructed by the dominant and powerful people’s narratives and tools.  

 

It has become so prevalent in the society today, where ‘shame’ and ‘celebrate’ are things that are associated with what we think is wrong and right. As a person of Indian origin now living in the UK, I have noticed how the word ‘shame’ has some specific cultural overtones and differences. In the UK, as I have heard it, if a colleague of yours is unwell and is unable to attend a scheduled meeting, it was said, “it is a shame that she can’t make it to the meeting.” Here shame is understood as sad, rather than wrong. Not to say it doesn’t have a meaning of social reality to the word ‘shame.’ However, speaking from the perspective of my Dalit experience, shame is something, which is indoctrinated socially, politically, culturally and religiously upon people based on the tools of the powerful, bringing in a sense of inadequacy to the very ‘self’ of one’s life. Shame alienates oneself from their own selves, and alienates oneself with the rest of the community. In other words, shame creates a sense of distrust and mistrust with the self, with the community and with the divine.

 

Psalm 25 expresses the reflections of the psalmist who is threatened by the situation of his guilt and shame and who seeks to find trust, hope and confidence in the divine. The psalmist begins his reflection by asking God not to put him to shame (2v) and concludes the psalm by again reiterating his plea of not putting him to shame (20v), which explains the gravity of shame that he has been carrying on his life, explaining the seriousness of his situation. The psychology of the psalmist’s context thrived on the binary and dualism of honour and shame, where ‘honour’ was for the righteous and ‘shame’ was for those burdened by guilt and disgrace. On recognising the politics of shame as that which is enforced/ indoctrinated by the powers and principalities, which the psalmist calls ‘enemies’, the psalmist as a victim of shame acknowledges at least two dimensions of shame. The psalmist firstly prays to God asking God not to put him to shame (2v) and then pleads God to not put to shame those people who wait for God (3v). The psalmist cries out loud, and exposes the tangents of both, the individual shame and also the corporate shame of his community, seeking refuge in the trust of God. By expressing such corporate shame, the psalmist was building a ‘solidarity for people with shame’ in his community, seeking collective ways for systemic changes in overcoming shame. In the context of the discrimination for Dalits, both individual and corporate psyche of Dalits are traumatised with shame, and Dalits continue to live with a ‘wounded psyche,’ seeking corporate annihilation of caste in our contexts.

 

It is also interesting to note that the psalmist prays in verse 3, “let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous,” where he wants those that are unfaithful and betraying the vulnerable, to experience shame that he has been experiencing, for only then they might understand what it means to be inadequate in one’s self, and what it means to lose trust in oneself. It is in a way a strategy of using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house who have been enforcing shame on the vulnerable and powerless.

 

The psalmist earnestly prays, petitioning God not to put him to shame, for it affects the inner self of his very being. The root word ‘bos’ for shame in Hebrew has meanings that range from humiliation to public disgrace. So therefore, when the psalmist begins his prayer in verse 1, “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul,” for in prayer the psalmist brings the ‘shamed self,’ ‘humiliated self,’ ‘broken self,’ which resonates with the lives our Dalit communities who live with such ‘self’(s), unashamedly into the presence of God. The divine becomes the space where ‘shamed selves’ finds trust, home and solace, for the ‘shamed selves’ are ‘un-homed’ in the public sphere for the normalizations of oppressive status quo rules and prevails there. In verse 7, the psalmist pleads the divine not to remember the sins of his youth or his transgressions, for those sins have added a sense of ‘shame’ on him, for his public sphere always remembers them and haunts him of his doings. The psalmist has no place to hide except to come on to the presence of the divine, where he finds trust (2v) and comfort. When our Dalit ancestors chose to become Christians, they found that trust, hope and home for their ‘shamed selves’ in the space of Christian faith, for the faith in Christ offered courage, which brought them to ‘come open’ as Dalit Christians in the public sphere to lead a life with self-dignity and self-respect.

 

So, we learn from this Psalm that in situations of shame, when people are burdened with sins and transgressions that push them to shame, when the public sphere reminds and remembers all those shame-full acts, which are acts done against the norms of the powerful, the presence of the divine offers hope, trust, and welcome. In that trust in the divine, one can unashamedly open up their positions and postures, for God receives people as they are and as they wish to come. God doesn’t blame and shame any names, rather God calms those who come unto him with heavy labour of shame. As followers of such a divine, the task is on us to offer home and hope, to (re)build trust for people whose psyches are broken due to shame, to be unjudgmental on people’s shame and to love them unconditionally.  

 

In the context of shame, when the self is experiencing inadequacy, the psalmist rather than explaining the reasons of his shame, or narrating the story of his shame, which might be traumatising to retell or giving a detail about the ‘enemies’ who are enforcing shame on him, the psalmist waits on God, on God’s paths and on the characteristics of God for help and refuge. Look out the characteristics of God that the psalmist mentions here, which includes God’s trust (2v), God’s mercy (6v), God’s salvation (5v), God’s steadfast love (6,7v), God’s goodness (7v), and God’s faithfulness (10v). These characteristics of God are the characteristics that the psalmist who is living in shame is longing for and waiting for, which the psalmist speaks out loud in his prayer. With the overpowering of shame in his life, the adequacy of life is vacuumed with distrust, mercilessness, oppression, hatred, unfairness and unfaithfulness, and therefore he expresses a longing in God, who has abundance of life in Godself. The words in prayers are words that the person praying is longing for in their lives. They are not mere words, but visions for their longing and belonging. 

 

On this first Sunday in Advent, when faith communities are waiting for the arrival of the divine in Jesus Christ, we are called to recognise that there are many people in our contexts who are living in shame, and whose longing has been to overcome the inadequacy in life and build back trust with themselves, with the people in the community and with the divine. Advent is a season for such longing, where justice, peace and equality are the visions for faith communities in longing and belonging. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to turn those visions into actions by offering compassion and love to the entire creation, and make Advent a real possibility and a reality for all.

 

Trust is the starting theological response to shame that the psalmist is longing, looking and loving for. “O my God in you I trust, do not let me be put to shame…” (2v), for in the God of steadfast love and mercy, the psalmist seeks trust, defying the gods of patriarchy, colonialism, and violence. The God of Psalm 25 is a God of ultimate trust, who not only accepts people in their shame, but also is a God who comes down to rebuild the trust with oneself, with the community and with the divine self. Shame and public-ness are antithetical, for those living in shame, their person(alities) feel inadequate with a loss of trust and are pushed into the situations of exclusion and marginalisation. So, the theological relevance of Psalm 25:1-10 for our context is to know that ‘in God is our trust’ who brings us out into the public unashamedly and live out life in safety and courage. In believing such a God, the call for the listeners is to offer love and loving-kindness for people living in shame, to build confidence and trust by affirming them as equal cohabitants of our collective public sphere. To ‘come out’ as our natural selves into the public is itself liberative and therapeutic, and faith spaces should welcome and facilitate such expressions.

 

16 days of activism against gender-based violence which begins from 25th Nov to 10th Dec, is an opportunity for faith communities to reflect on gender-based violence today in our contexts, which has become so prevalent particularly during the lockdown, to acknowledge the amount of shame that the victims of violence are enduring and to seek ways through which hope and love is offered publicly. The characteristics of the God we believe are to be reflected by faith communities, to make faith relevant for our public sphere. 29th of November is observed as UN’s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which is again an opportunity for the faith-based communities to show solidarity publicly, to recognise the rights of Palestinians and strive for just peace in Palestine Israel. With the ongoing ‘occupation’ the shame imposed on Palestinian people is beyond measure, and offering public solidarity and striving for their rights and justice is a way to offer hope and love to them.

 

The gospel text for this week on lectionary from Luke 21:25-36 explains that on discerning the signs of our times, with the anticipation of the Son of Man, redemption comes near and the kingdom of God comes near.[2] In other words, when shame is one of the ongoing signs of our times though spoken but mostly unspoken, the arrival of the Son of Man, the nearness of redemption and the kingdom of God is a possibility only when shame and disgrace are overcome by love and grace by being and becoming a home of hope, by rebuilding trust and by embracing people who are feeling inadequate and seek ways to ensure life in all its fullness. For our Dalit communities who are burdened with shame, the gospel of this text is to overpower shame with grace by building solidarity with wider communities on similar paths, for the divine is walking with us in our shame, taking on our shame and striving with us in overcoming shame, for O God in you we trust. By the way, as Dalit communities we continue to share Beef curry whenever we cook for dinners with our friends and now boldly say it is ‘Beef’ and not use it in the code word of “That.”

 

 

Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta

11th November 2021 

 

(Written for Political Theology blog for the Politics of Scripture and be read on: https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-shame-reflecting-on-psalm-251-10/ )

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[1] https://feminisminindia.com/2020/10/21/intergenerational-dalit-trauma-caste-violence/

[2] For further reflection on this text read https://politicaltheology.com/the-coming-near-of-god-luke-2125-36/

A Prayer in the context of 27 people dying in the Channel

God in Jesus, our co-traveller in the boat of life,

We grieve with you for the loss of the 27 people who died in the Channel,

Who on fleeing from death and violence in their contexts,

have been tragically drowned at sea.

Let the river of your justice roll down to both shores of the Channel.

 

Create in us compassionate hearts to welcome and receive people in need,

Keep disturbing us till no person is displaced due to war, hunger and poverty,

Grant our decision-makers ‘hearts of human flesh’ to invest in people-friendly policies,

Embrace each of us with your love and healing,

Empower each of us with your anger for justice,

So that together we can strive to transform our world,

Where the life of all people is valued and respected.

In our weeping with you, challenge us and heal us. Amen.

 

@rajpatta

25th November 2021

Proverbs 1: 20-33

 

Fear the Lord and Pursue Wisdom: Reflecting on Proverbs 1: 20-33

When was the last time you heard a sermon or a reflection from the book of Proverbs? As I put forward this question, I am being reminded of at least five instances in my life about the engagement with the book of Proverbs. Firstly, in my childhood, I remember our parents and Sunday school teachers emphasising to us to read one chapter every day from the book of Proverbs as it contains 31 chapters, for on the one hand one can complete reading this book in a month and on the other hand it teaches some ethical and practical values of life. I remember reading the book of Proverbs with great admiration as it contained so many pro-verbs, in a sense so much profound wisdom is found in this book that is helpful for the actions in life. Secondly, I have engaged with the book of Proverbs by reading without fail, this particular verse from Proverbs 9:10 on the day of every school examination that I have written, for it offered me so much hope and confidence in doing my exams well. I want to read that verse aloud for you, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” for this verse was an assurance for me in facing the tests and examinations with all courage and positivity. The third instance I remember was when my aunt suggested that I read Proverbs chapter 3 for every birthday I celebrate, for it speaks about long life and the length of days in life, so Proverbs 3 serves me to be a birthday text which I read and I suggest for others too to read on their birthdays. The fourth instance I remember about the book of Proverbs is when our local preachers in my town in India were prescribing the text of Proverbs chapter 31 to women, for that chapter speaks about the qualities of the virtuous woman. Fifthly, I did remember preaching a text from Proverbs at one of my churches in India, about Wisdom, where she challenges juris-prudence from people.

How do we define Wisdom? Most definitions of wisdom inform us that it is the appropriate application of the knowledge we have learned and experienced from. We all know that wisdom is a good thing. Solomon was its champion. Proverbs sings its praises. Most wisdom literature presents wisdom as a mode of living defined by practical knowledge, ethical integrity, and intergenerational learning. Some of its key traits are moderation, even-headedness, and a concern for justice.

Wisdom in the book of Proverbs is not based on a community’s faith or merit rather is ascribed in human terms given to all people. Ethan Schwartz observes, “On a more abstract level, a crucial feature of wisdom is its universality or cosmopolitanism. Wisdom is accessible to all human beings as human beings, through their own intellectual and moral faculties—not through membership in a particular group that is privy to a particular divine revelation or historical experience. Wisdom literature tends to eschew communal particularities and to speak instead in human generalities. The book of Proverbs, for instance, mentions Israel only in the superscription and doesn’t present God as the covenantal deity of a specific national story. It’s therefore no surprise that wisdom literature from across the ancient world—including the Bible, Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia—often sounds and feels substantially similar. Wisdom was a broad, international discourse.[1]

Now turning to Proverbs 1:20-33, the prescribed lectionary text for this Sunday, it speaks about the woman wisdom, for the writer of this text informs the audience that wisdom is crying out asking people to live out their lives in prudence. The wisdom of God is like the grace of God, offered to all of creation based on God’s graciousness and not on human abilities or merits. God creating human beings in God’s equal image is the principle to understand that the wisdom of God is on all people of God. Unfortunately, in our human frailty, we either neglect or even reject being led by the wisdom of God and seek ways that meet the needs of our own self-interests. The wisdom of God is always life-giving to the entire creation of God and seeks for the renewal of the creation. The call of this text is to invoke the wisdom of God in each of our lives and work towards transforming our society and renewing the creation. In this text, we notice four things which are relevant for our times today.

1. The Publicness of Wisdom:

In verses 20 and 21, we see that wisdom is crying out in the street and in the squares, she raises her voice. This is to say wisdom is out in the public square and is not a matter of private affairs or is limited to any particular religious grouping. Wisdom is crying out in the busiest corners and at the entrance of the city gates, so that wisdom is heard by all people in the public square.

 

2. The Proclamation of Wisdom:

From verse 22-28, we see the woman wisdom’s proclamation of the impending reality, explaining that the public sphere has not taken into account her counsel. Let us read out these verses:

 

22. How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?

How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing

   and fools hate knowledge?

23 Give heed to my reproof;

I will pour out my thoughts to you;

   I will make my words known to you.

24 Because I have called and you refused,

   have stretched out my hand and no one heeded,

25 and because you have ignored all my counsel

   and would have none of my reproof,

26 I also will laugh at your calamity;

   I will mock when panic strikes you,

27 when panic strikes you like a storm,

   and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,

   when distress and anguish come upon you.

28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;

   they will seek me diligently, but will not find me.

 

 

3. The Pathway of Wisdom:

In verse 29, wisdom further proclaims that the people in the public sphere hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. In other words, the pathway for wisdom is the fear of the Lord. We see this in several other verses in the book of Proverbs. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Our fear of the Lord is demonstrated in our prudent judgements in life, which is all about wisdom. Fearing the Lord is to be led by the wisdom of God, and in this process, we confess our human failings for hating knowledge, for not being open to the cries of wisdom in the public sphere. The key to this text is fearing the Lord and to pursue the wisdom of God.

 

4. The Promise of Wisdom:

In verse 33, the woman wisdom offers a promise that those who listen to her will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster. The woman wisdom begins by crying in the public sphere and ends in promising that those who listen to her will be saved and secured. This promise is about listening to the wisdom of God, working with God and community and striving for the new heaven and new earth here in our midst.  

 

Today in the 21st century, the wisdom that is being spoken in our public sphere is about being prudent in the context of the growing climate crisis. As the world leaders will gather at the UN Climate Change Conference CoP26 at Glasgow in November 2021, it will be an opportunity for us a follower of Jesus Christ to listen to the cries of the woman wisdom who is crying out loud in our streets about the impending climate crisis and is challenging each of us to step up, to join in striving for a green world, for wisdom which is the fear of the Lord is inviting us to care for our planet as our faith commitment.

 

Secondly, in the context of refugees and migrants, fearing the Lord and pursuing the wisdom of God is to offer welcome and hospitality without any conditions. The wisdom of God compels us to think that the issue of refugees is about the lives of people, and saving life and protecting life is all that the wisdom of God leads to.

 

Thirdly, in the context of vaccines where several wealthy nations are busy discussing giving booster doses to their citizens, there are several poorer nations who are struggling to get the first jab, fearing God and pursuing wisdom to share the vaccines with people who are not able to afford it.

 

Fourthly, when discrimination of people in name of caste, gender, class, race, religion, sexuality is on the rise, to fear God and to pursue wisdom is to love people of all identities and resist all forms of xenophobia. It is fools who hate the cries of wisdom, and so love is the ultimate public expression of the wisdom of God.

Fifthly, as the World Week of Prayer for Peace in Palestine and Israel begins from 18-25 September, fearing God and to pursue wisdom is striving for peace and justice in this land, so that people can live in freedom from occupations. Our call is to advocate towards peace in this land from our own localities and churches. We are called as churches to witness that we are for peace and justice in this land, and join the solidarity movements towards that goal.

 

The given text from Proverbs is challenging us to respond to the fear of the Lord, listen to the wisdom, strive for the renewal of our creation or reject the fear of the Lord and pursue wealth and self-interests. It is time that we turn to the fear of the Lord, so that the seeds of wisdom will sprout in our lives and we can act on Christ’s ways, who is the power and wisdom of God in and for our world today.

 

Raj Bharat Patta,

11th September 2021

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[1] https://politicaltheology.com/wise-religion/

Church to Re-form as an “Ephphatha community”: Reflecting on Mark 7:31-37

In the gospel according to St. Mark 7:31-37, we find Jesus healing a person who is differently- abled, suffering from hearing and speaking impediments. The interesting part of this healing for me is the role of a community or a group of people who played a very important part in the healing of this person. If we carefully read through this healing, we see that the healing is taken place in an unknown place (no clear place is mentioned), the healing happens to an unknown person (no name or identity of the person is mentioned), the people who bring the sick person to Jesus was an unknown community (it is only mentioned as ‘they, no other clue of who they are), and Jesus uses an unusual way of healing (taking aside the person to a private place, putting his fingers in his ears, touching his tongue with his saliva, looking up to heaven, sighing and saying ‘Ephphatha’), and transforms the person to a known one as his own one.

 The emphasis I make in this episode is on the role of the unknown community, which played a vital role in the whole healing process. Here is where I strongly feel the relevance of this community for the church today. This unknown community, I would like to call them the “Ephphatha Community” and this community was primarily instrumental in making the unknown place to be a known one, for it would remain as a historic place for healing. This community transformed the person, his life and his future. I wonder whether Jesus would have been marvelled by the faith of this community of people and healed the person. By the way, ‘Ephaphatha’ means ‘be open’ and one can decipher the openness of this community to the needs of their neighbour, for they held the needs of their neighbour as top priority to be addressed.  The community’s faith would have been the news headlines in their days, and if the writer of Hebrews would have known about this community, there will be no surprise to see if he/she would have added this community in the heroes and the sheroes of faith mentioned in the 11th Chapter in the book of Hebrews. This community was a group of unsung heroes and sheroes, who did not crave for their name or banner, but rather concentrated on their neighbour and his healing. Kudos ‘Ephphatha Community’, you really are an exemplary one for all generations!

Therefore, today I pray that our church will be inspired to be like the ‘Ephphatha Community’, concerned deeply for their neighbours and be an exemplary one in its journey of mission and witness. To summarise the characters of the ‘Ephphatha Community’ are, which in a way explain their openness.

 

• It was an unknown community – for no identity is mentioned.

• It was a voicing community – for it voiced for this voiceless person.

• It was a faith community – but for their faith, the person was healed.

• It was an open community – no barriers for it, even the sick & weak were members

• It was a proclaiming community – zealously proclaimed the healer & the healing

• It was a loving community – its concern for the neighbour

 

I cannot but find a greater one than this ‘Ephphatha Community’ to be a role model for our church today. How are we as a church becoming the ‘Ephphatha Community’ of our times, addressing the needs of our neighbours? The potential in our congregations needs to be harnessed and used creatively, missionally and contextually to make our church vibrant. ‘Openness’ is one of the key ecclesial characters that define the being and becoming of our churches today. How open are we to the needs of our neighbours? How open are we to the perspectives of our neighbours? Or to put it the other way, if we are closed to the needs, perspectives and ideas of our neighbours, perhaps this text, this unknown community whom I want to celebrate as ‘Ephaphatha’ community challenges us as churches to be open to people’s needs around us. If there is at least one thing this text calls us as people of faith, it is, that we are called to be with open arms receiving all people of God, respecting them, caring for them and attending to their needs and striving towards the healing of our neighbours. Our openness to God, to our neighbour and to our creation determines our faith in Jesus Christ today. I am reminded of the words from the song, “Jesu, Jesu,” where the writer explains this love for the neighbour so well, “Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love, show us how to serve the neighbours we have from you,” for we learn how to serve our neighbours from the life and witness of our saviour Jesus Christ.

 

As we begin the ‘Time for Creation’ during this month of September, as on the 5th of September it is observed as ‘Climate Sunday’ in the UK, and as the international community gears up towards the CoP26 Climate change summit in Glasgow, it is time that we as churches express our solidarity with our creation and strive for climate justice today. For me, creation is our immediate neighbour, who is badly wounded and is on the grave margins, and to her needs we are called to attend to. It is time that we reflect climate justice as a faith issue. With the climate crisis so real today, we are called to address climate justice as a matter of urgency, striving like the ‘Ephphatha community’ for the renewal of our neighbour, the creation.

 

‘Ephphatha community’ had to make immense sacrifices when they brought their neighbour to Jesus Christ, they did not bring their own needs to Jesus rather cared for their neighbour and voiced their need to Jesus. In the context of climate change, we are called to sacrifice our pleasures and are called to care for the resources around us carefully and faithfully. Solidarity with Jesus, solidarity with creation, solidarity with the victims of climate crisis, solidarity with climate activists is the need of the hour today. To respond to the call of solidarity is to affirm life and to learn to live in true solidarity. Daisy L. Machado says, “Solidarity allows us to see the imago dei in the faces of those not like us, and it gives us the strength to reach out to those we consider foreign, to “the other” and to attempt to build community. And it is solidarity that condemns the radical individualism that pervades the lifestyle we find today throughout those nations that enjoy wealth and power, where the value of a person is measured in how much she or he can buy.``[1] Therefore the grace of God calls us to praxis and is calling us to be in solidarity with all those striving for liberation and justice today. If a transformed world in God’s grace is to be possible, firstly transformation needs to take place within us. If a transformed ME is possible, then a transformed world in God’s grace is possible. If a transformed world is to be possible, a transformed and re-formed church has to happen. It is time that we green our minds, green our faith, green our churches, green our pulpits, green our hermeneutics, green our theologies and green our actions so that we as a church can participate in making a difference to our world today. May we as churches dedicate ourselves to re-form as the 21st century ‘Ephaphatha’ community, open and relevant for our times today.

 

Our mother earth bleeds because of our greed,

Justice is when we protect her seeds and care for her needs,

She is our neighbour to whom we proceed,

‘To love is to save’ we live it through our deeds

 

 

Raj Bharat Patta,

2rd September 2021

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[1] Daisy L. Machado, “James 1-5” in By Grace You Have Been Saved (WCC: Geneva, 2005) Pp. 83-84.