The Formative Environment of Mission imperative, Gospel for All.... Rev. Dr. Sunni E. Mathew

Luke 4: 16-22.

         The Formative Environment of Mission imperative, Gospel for All

Luke chapter 4 begins with the temptation of Christ.  Temptation is in the context of Christ’s movement towards ministry in public.  Jesus’ baptism at the hands of John the Baptist highlights his identity as the Messiah who came in as the king and the suffering servant.  It speaks who Jesus is.  It also speaks, how he would engage in his mission.  Jesus builds his public ministry on the fundamental platform of this identity consciousness.  His initiation into the public ministry commenced with an intense spiritual preparation.  Retreat into the wilderness and the prayerful fasting express this thorough preparedness.  At the zenith of this wilful preparation, Satan proposes various alternatives.  The first pressing alternative was a proposal to transform the mission of the Son of God to a self-oriented productivity.  The setting of this proposal is quite interesting.  It is in the background of intense spiritual preparation.  It also highlights Jesus’ self-realization as the one sent by God; identity as Son of God.  Remaining faithful to the self-realization, Jesus makes a counter affirmation.  Human existence and the mission of the Kingdom of God is rooted in the Word of God. 

This affirmation involves a mission paradigm.  Temptation is an attempt to divert Jesus from this messianic servant-hood mission paradigm.  Luke 4: 16-22 presents the self-affirmation of Jesus as the Messiah.  It also re-iterates countering of Jesus to the satanic proposals.  It re-affirms that mission is rooted in the Word of God.  Therefore, this text has to be seen in continuity with the baptism narrative and temptation accounts.  When we try to understand the text in this continuity, we could realize Jesus’ emphasis on the paradigmatic submission to the will of God.  He re-iterates that humble submission to the will of God is the real strength in carrying out the entrusted Mission of the Kingdom of God.  It is more authentic and acceptable than the proposed call for acceptance and authority through crooked ways.  Therefore, absolute submission to the will of God is the only right method in carrying out the mission of the Kingdom.  Putting it negatively, no mission methodology without absolute submission to the will of God is real mission methodology.  This is a self-realization. 

How is this self-realization appropriated in life?  It begins in the baptismal font.  Every baptismal setting apart is the authentication of one’s identity within the framework of God’s will and purpose. That is why in our faith-culture, each one is subscribed with his/her name in the name of the Trinity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. How and where is this identity consciousness nurtured and re-affirmed?  The self-consciousness subscribed though baptism is realized and continually conscientized through worship and in the worship community.  This is because, worship is the space and time that reveal the Glory of God and communicate the will of God in a tangible manner.   Worship helps the individual faithful as well as the community of faithful to realize their identity and places them as mission medium within the framework of God’s will. It has a continuity structure, for it is the re-kindling of the heritage of the mission methodology inaugurated in Christ and shared through the disciples and taken over by generations of faithful people.  Hence, worship is the formative environment that re-kindles our identity consciousness.

Temple of God is the space where this self-realization is re-kindled and appropriated.  The temple-culture constructs the self-realization of the belongingness to God’s mission imperative in personal terms and as a community.  Every worship and every meditations on the word of God place a person and community within the elect, and commissioned vision of God.  The last blessing in the Holy Qurbana is an expression of this understanding.  Therefore, Christian life and its missionary commitment are always in continuum.  Worship is the space that links and transforms past commissioning into present realizations and present commitment with futuristic vision. 

 This linking and transformation happens through defining, re-defining faith identity through continuous participation in worship and interpretation of the Word of God.  Why is the study of the Word integral to the Worship and vice versa?  Is not the study or the exposition of the word of God an intellectual exercise?  According to the early teachers of faith, biblical interpretations should always be done from the platform of faith.  The reason is that, an interpretation as a mere intellectual exercise is not powerful enough to make the will of God experiential.  On the other hand, in the worship, faith of the community enhances the biblical and theological hermeneutical principles.  In reciprocation, the interpretation of the Scripture and the theological affirmations validates the faith of the community.  Therefore, both act as complementing experiences.  In that complementary state, worship space is not just limited to the four walls of a temple, but encompasses all the spaces that initiates and motivates understanding of the Word of God in a deeper manner and meaningful to the mission of the Kingdom of God.  Here, Library, class room, refractory, playground, garden, agricultural field all becomes an extension to the worship space.  This passage also certifies the faith and vision appropriating role of Worship space.  Historically, synagogue is a space that helps one to realize divine commissions.  It is the space that interprets and explains God’s purpose and makes one to creatively respond to that.  Jesus affirms his identity here. He appropriated the vision of Isiah 61:1-2 in him.  In that passage the trito Isiah proclaims a universal vision.  That is rooted in the perception of the liberating Messiah.  That is the expectation on which generations were formed. It was in the framework of this visionary expectation all faithful individuals were formed.  Jesus places himself within this vision.  He affirmed himself as the fulfilling presence of that expectation.  It became a witness of his identity.  When Jesus selected this space to creatively respond to the mission purpose of God, he was authenticating this historical role of the worship place.   Worship is the space for the public witnessing of the called out person’s and community’s witness.

This public witnessing is an initiation into practical dimensions of the mission of the Kingdom of God.  The identity consciousness that prompted the witness formulates the mission model.  Isaiah 61:1-2 high lights the approach.  When Jesus affirmed that the paradigm is fulfilled in him, he authenticates it as the methodology of mission of the Kingdom.  The area where involvement is required points our attention to the margins.  Those at the margins are always left out.  They are either neglected or silenced.  No prominent person or community gives them value or fellowship.  Therefore, the only meaningful presence for them is God.  God alone is their refuge.  God alone is the strength to deliver from these margins.  Therefore, the needed mission methodology is to be with those who have only God as their refuge.  Give them fellowship, so that we become a witness for the presence of God with them.  It is faith in action.  It involves a preferential option for the neglected and the exploited.  Universal dimension of mission is not just to be equated with geographical universalism.  It involves preferential option for the socially, politically, economically, gender wise and other criterion wise marginalized areas.  When God is with them, they are brought to the center, because where God is, there is the center of the Kingdom of God.  Here the center is not a static reality, but a dynamic reality.  Mission is to make God experiential to those who are at the margins, so that distinction between center and margins wither away and the center becomes a dynamic reality. 

Rev. Dr. Sunni E. Mathew

Theological Education for equipping the people of God

Matthew 21: 12-17

The theme given for next Sunday is on theological education. The given text is on the Matthean account of Jesus’ encounter in the Jerusalem temple (Mt. 21:12-17). In the Synoptic gospels, it was associated with Jesus’ passion narratives. It happened immediately after his triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem. The Church commemorates it as Hosanna. Whereas, in John, it happened at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

(1)  Theological Education: Making New Grammaring in our Social Formations

·         That is, making new grammaring in our Engagement with the Texts and Textures of our Symbolic World.

·               We know that there is no language without grammar. Alphabets as such make no language.   Rather, grammar shapes language.

·         Let us come back to our text. Jesus was entering into the city of Jerusalem. Then, Jesus entered the temple of Jerusalem. Both were considered as symbolic acts of Jesus.

·         For the Jewish community, the city of Jerusalem was the centre in their faith. It was seen essentially as a meaningful symbolic universe within their historic, cultural and socio-religious system. It was the city of David. Likewise, the temple at Jerusalem also was a meaningful symbolic world. It was the temple of God.

·         Both the city and the temple should manifest a range of social relationships. Both of them must reveal a range of meaningful social practices. These are supposed to be the spaces that regulate and guide their social order and social life. They are meant to the spaces that give meaning to their value system; also the spaces that define and reconstitute their identity.

·         Jerusalem city and the temple – two spatialities – have symbolic significance.

·         Davidic kings, the rulers of the city, were originally intended to be Yahweh’s anointed ones ruling on behalf of Yahweh.

·         Jerusalem city is the space where God’s reign is to be realized.

·         Those spaces were turned to be structures of hierarchies creating borders and borderings and strangers.

·         It was here we locate Jesus’ entry as a symbolic act.

·         Through his entry into the city of Jerusalem, Jesus is reclaiming the city as the City of David. And he was symbolically presenting himself as the Son of David.

·         Here, we see the realization of the Bartimaean cry and the cry of the children, women and the common folks….

·         Moreover, through his entry into the Jerusalem temple, Jesus was reclaiming the temple as the temple of God. Jesus was symbolically presenting him as the Son of God. The realization of the discourses in their sacred texts.

·         So theological educations must help us to enter into meaningful and critical engagement with our symbolic universes and practices.

(2)  Interlacing Multiple Texturing in our Social Formation

If the first one is on grammaring, the second, I think, would be on texturing.

(A) Texturing Through the Textures of Liturgical Activities.

·         See, it’s very important to look where John places this narrative. John locates this act of Jesus’ engagement with the temple at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

·         Likewise, theological education closely links with the temple and worship or the liturgical practices.

·         There is no theological education apart from this spatiality and its liturgical activities. Any formative process away from this space will be a disembodied activity.

·         In John 2, we read that, Jesus was not talking about the Jerusalem temple and its architectural structures. Rather he was speaking about his own body as the temple.

·         What is to be happened in the practices inside this temple is nothing but such practices which make possible the resurrection experience.

·         Theological education, as such is not a burden imposed upon us. It is a formative process where we live in the hope of resurrection, where we celebrate the joy of resurrection, where we equip ourselves to make the resurrection possible in our public sphere.

(B) Texturing Through Textures of Reciprocity

What Jesus saw in the temple was not worship and liturgical celebrations. John 2: 16 – “stop making my Father’s house a market place.”

·         Social practices in the market place are based on socio-economic capitals. There we see only relations of exchange and barter. Practices in such place are not based on reciprocity. There is no welcoming of vulnerables. There is no hospitality extended to the strangers.

·         Whereas, in Matthew 21:13, we read – “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.”  

·         It is taken from Jer. 7: 10, 11 which mentions about the existing Zion theology. On the one side, people continue to remain in their sins and evil ways. But, on the other side, they keep on going to the temple and worship there covering their sins and finally making the declaration that “we are delivered.”

·         Theological discourses/formulations are used for pseudo confessions. Confessional hypocrisy – confessional hypocrisy in the sense that providing promises of the guarantee of divine security. It means that their witness and practices in the public sphere has nothing to do with what they have done in their worship and practices in the sacred places.

·         Jesus was challenging their theologizing and dogmatizing exercises that didn’t touch the living and hard realities of the surroundings.

·         It is not texturing the bond of community life but torturing the social life.

·         In short, the proper function of theological training is not dogmatizing or anti-ritualizing or demythologizing that we have been doing in the past. But, it is to engage in the process of interrogation, creation and redemption of our socio-symbolic universe and its discourses.

·         Therefore, “Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.” (v.12).  

·         Jesus critically interrogated and overturned the structures of hierarchies formed inside the temple.  Because the sacred space was compartmentalized by creating different geographies where bodies were categorized as gentile bodies, women bodies, bodies of sick and disabled etc.

·         Breaking such texturing that disembodied the social body of the people of God Jesus was making re-texturing of the sacred space.

(3). Alternate Posturing for Genuine Social Formation

Then we read in v.14: 4 “The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.” Also they “heard the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David.”

Posturing for Churching and Discipling

·          Jesus was making alternate posturing by repositioning the excluded and the vulnerable.

·         The temple as a social space was transformed as a healing space.

·         In the Syriac theology, salvation is generally referred to as healing. So, in the presence of Jesus, the temple became a redemptive space. It was turned to be an inclusive space where the community as a whole experienced the warmth of brotherhood and hospitality.

·         Further, we read, the blind and the lame were cured which means the blind went out of the temple with new vision.  The lame received strength to walk and they joined with Jesus in the path of discipleship. In other words, the real churching and discipling were seen in the alternative posturing.

Posturing for New Affirmations and Practices

·         Finally, we see an encounter between Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees because of children who were singing Hosanna to the Lord.

·         The undomesticated, untrained, undisciplined.

·         Jesus made them get entered into new practices and disciplines.

 Rev. Dr. M.C. Thomas

People of God: Ambassadors of Christ (Mark 6: 7-13)

Mark 6: 7-13

It is particular to note that Jesus commissions the 12 disciples between two significant events. Mark 6:1-6a mentions about Jesus being rejected in Nazareth. Mark 6:14 onwards mentions about the beheading of the John the Baptist. So the message Jesus wants to emphasize is “there is always a possibility of rejection”. Everyone will not accept your work and your message. In such a stage your attitude and vision reveals who you are and what you are. Hence the sending out of 12 disciples is a context which assumes great importance. Parallel narratives are given in the Gospel according to Matthew and Luke. The thought process, the self understanding, the habits, the behavioral pattern, their community life, the value system, the vision of the community is revealed through their writings. The vision of Markan community is given in this sector. In this text we can see the above aspects of Markan community being revealed to us. Let us ponder upon the revelation.

1.      Things to take in a journey

The things that we take take in a journey defines our needs and goals. Jesus asks the disciples to take a staff, to wear sandals. But he strictly warns them not to take bread, no bags, no money, no two sets of clothes. Jesus says this so that they might not rely on their self, rather completely on God.  He says to trust God for basic necessities. Taking a bag could mean to carry food and the essentials required. Secondly the bag signifies seeking or expecting offerings from people. As per William Barclay’s commentary the use of bag in both these ways can lead us astray in our ministry.  It also reflects your attitude towards accumulation of riches while being in the ministry. Therefore, it becomes the expression of your selfish desire, your desire for using mission for hoarding and also shows your perception of personal security that reveals your doubt in the one who has send you.

Jesus clearly shows that for an authentic mission experience, the above attitude is an obstacle and we need to avoid it. We need to have the courage to say no to every kind of accumulation. Our security arises out of fear of the uncertainty of the future. Here Jesus calls for unconditional trust and uncompromising obedience to God.  Thus the call is for a simple life. This is not to be a pretention.

2.      The source of authority

It is Jesus who gives you the authority in your ministry. When the apostles are commissioned; from where does the authority come from? (vs.7, gave them authority over all spirits). This authority comes to the disciple from the unconditional loyalty and commitment to Jesus. Another important aspect is the fact that two persons are send together. As per Israelite laws in Deuteronomy, Leviticus, 2 or 3 witnesses are required to confirm a particular matter of justice. Hence we see 2 persons send together. It also reveals an aspect of teamwork and brotherhood. Christ never sends you alone. This section also implies the propagation of gospel. The authority of Jesus is given to the community of faith which should be the body of Christ. We see that when the 12 apostles came back they were happy this is because they could give flesh to the body of Christ by the authority of Christ. Hence the authority of Christ should be used by the community to give flesh to Christ is the society.

3.      Be contented in God

Jesus asks them to stay at the house that receives them until they leave the place (v 10). This means no to accept gifts from the people around and go to their house and make your base at the best possible house. The apostles are exhorted not to shop around for things or facilities to satisfy them. Instead they are asked to be contented with what they have been provided with. This satisfaction comes from being humble before God and having satisfaction in God.  Let us be contented with the hospitality and the facilities that we get from the place we are and give out the best to that place. This is made implicit to the disciples by the exhortation to stay in the house that accepts them and serve the village from that house. s

Rejection is a signal to move to next

In vs. 11, Jesus asks the disciples to take off the dust of their feet if they reject you. It is actually a symbol of curse and it symbolizes our attitude towards the village. For a pious Jew, all other places, i.e. foreign lands are impure and only the land in which he lives is Holy. So when he comes from foreign land to his village he would dust off his feet to remove foreign impurities.

 In 21^st century context, it implies that, if at a place your message is not accepted, move out of that place. We have been given the gospel of salvation and repentance, to introduce Christ to others, if possible don’t accept it we are required to move out, no need to waste our time in such a place and do not take or accept anything from there.

4.      Have a sacred consciousness where ever we go

Your message is directly proportioned to the values, behavior and attitude of our life. We need to consider the place we go as sacred. Barclay presents that it is same as a Jew goes to the Temple, we need to accept our mission as entering a sacred place. All our deeds reveals our identity. Christ calls us not to profane places but to accept places as Holy.

Rev. Dr. V. S. Varughese (15th July 2014)

What Makes Copenhagen so Special ..?

What makes Copenhagen so special…!

A long 9 hours journey by flight from India with atleast one stop over only makes your trip more splendid.  The first thing you view before your plane lands in Copenhagen International Airport are the windmills right in the middle of the North Sea.

Then as your flight reaches the peripheral of the airport, the next crystal clear and catchy sight is the beautiful arranged homes in this happiest country in the world declared by Dalai Lama.

As you flight settles down onto the roads the quietly running cars who never honk is a matter of discussion, which makes it the least noise polluted country. Here in this country you are respected more when you are travelling on foot than in car. How do they respect you? If you are to cross a road, any vehicles it may be whether Car or bicycle they stop for you to cross over to the other side of the road and only then they continue their move.

Moreover if you have time to go around the city you can hire a tourist bicycle which you would find locked in all corners of the city. You can use them by just inserting 10 - 20 Kroner (which is the currency coin) into the slit near the handle which automatically unlocks the bicycle. And these bicycles are for tourist purpose only and not for your personal use.

From world - renowned art museums, history museums, castles and palaces to parks, statues and adventures for kids. Copenhagen has attractions and sights to suit every taste and interest – and most of them are within walking distance. The three most famous attractions in the city are most likely the more than 100-year old amusement park Tivoli Gardens, the statue of The Little Mermaid, and the free town of Christiania. Copenhagen is recognized as one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world.Copenhagen is recognized as one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world.

Copenhagen is a royal city, and home to the world's oldest monarchy. In and around the city you will find castles, palaces, royal statues and monuments.All Scandinavians have a little Viking blood in their veins. The Vikings were Norse explorers and merchants, warriors and pirates who raided their way through Europe.

Denmark is made up of more than 406 islands and most of the lakes here are artificial lakes.

Copenhagen is truly a green capital.Copenhagen is small enough for you to experience it by foot.

The Little Mermaid is a bronze statue by Edvard Eriksen, depicting a mermaid. The sculpture is displayed on a rock by the waterside in Copenhagen, Denmark. The statue is under copyright until 70 years after the death of the creator, who died in 1959.Based on the fairy taleof the same name by Hans Christian Andersen, the small and unimposing statue is a Copenhagen icon and has been a major tourist attraction since 1913.

The Language spoken here is Danish and Kroner as the currency.Lutheran Christianity is the official religion of Denmark.

In the business world what makes Copenhagen Denmark renowned is the Biggest Shipping Company it gave birth to – “A P Moller Maersk”.

Hope you enjoyed this tour to Copenhagen with me……..

Jibu James – BD I

Theological Education: Equipping the People of God – Matt 7:24-29.

Theological Education: Equipping the People of God – Matt 7:24-29.

 By Amritraj Joshua  Paul MTh II Yr

The CSI and Mar Thoma churches have set apart this coming Sunday to focus on the theme of “Theological Education: Equipping the People of God.” As people who are called and are training for ministry, this theme ought to be taken with utmost seriousness by us. The text given to us for meditation is Matt 7:24-29. From Chapter 5 onwards Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount, and by way of conclusion he tells the people the story of the wise man and the foolish man, where both of them built a house, the difference being that one wisely built the house by laying the foundation on the rock, while the other foolishly laid the foundation on the sand. When the rains, floods, and winds came, the house built by the wise man stood its ground, while that built by the foolish man was washed away. If we reflect on this story in the light of what Christ taught in chapter 5-7, the lesson is not just regarding the laying of the foundation of our faith, but how (the way, the process) are we continuing to build our faith, both individually and as a community of faith. In the parallel passage in Luke 6:48, we are told that the wise man even as he continues building (present active participle masc. sing) is able to do so with confidence because he dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock.

Paul reminds us in 1 Cor. 3:10-11 about the foundation and the ‘how’ of the building process. For he tells us like a σοφὸς ἀρχιτέκτων – a skilled master builder – he laid the foundation, who was none other than Jesus Christ. Regarding the how of building, Paul tells us that we must choose with care – there is an element of caution in this admonition. An admonition to the same effect is also given to us in Jude 20. It was a time when false teachings were slowly propping up. In such a context Jude reminds the community of faith to build themselves up on the most holy faith, prayerfully and in love.

How then shall we go about the task of equipping the people of God – both with a sense of caution and a sense of joy – so that as a community of faith, we may fulfill the purpose for which the Lord has called us? Keeping Matt 7:24-29 as a backdrop let us consider at least four trajectories along which we may reflect upon the relation between the Discipline of Theology and equipping the people of God in our nation.

The Hermeneutic Dimension:

            Hermeneutics is generally understood as interpretation or translation. In simple terms it is all about meaning. If there is any area where meaning is most desperately needed to be understood it is in relation to life. As per Johannine theology in Christ was life and that life was the light of all people (Jn. 1:3-4). John 1:18 tells us that Jesus Christ was the perfect exegete who expounded the Father to us. The Gk. word ἐξηγήσατο is an aorist tense, in the middle voice, whose nuance is not so easy to define.

However we may qualify the aorist tense here as a ‘consummative (culminative, ecbatic, effective) aorist tense.’ The aorist tense is generally understood to denote the cessation of an action. The consummative aorist tense on the other hand lays stress not just on the completion (as against cessation) of an action, but also the ongoing result of the completion of the action. In this context it would imply that Christ not only expounded the Father to us, but continues his work of expounding the Father to us. This understanding has strong theological implications for practical ministry.

As academicians we need to engage with issues that concern human existence and familiarize ourselves with local categories and creatively think through and articulate the meaning of Christ to our contemporaries. How does one go about this? We need to interact with people, listen to them, observe situations, and follow happenings (news – visual and print media). In short, we need to be in touch with socio-cultural-economic-political-academic-religious reality.

The way we approach the different issues of our times need a totally different hermeneutical approach. We need to equip ourselves to look prophetically at our times and address issues that concern our nation at large and the community of faith in particular. What is expected of us is to relate the Word to the world. What is needed is a relevant and dynamic method in the way we conceptualize and practice theology. This concern for dynamism leads us to the second point.

The Aesthetic Dimension:

How do we understand theology in relation to aesthetics? In simple terms aesthetics is concerned with beauty and art. Taking it beyond beauty and art, it may be understood as being fascinated and awed by God. We were recently reminded by Fr. K. M. George that Greek philosophers believed that wonder was the beginning of philosophy. No wonder, with the available categories at hand, they philosophized about almost everything under the sun. Hermeneutics in a sense is more concerned with an interdisciplinary approach to reality.  However we must not stop there. As Christians we also need to engage in intra-disciplinary reflections. It is the interplay between the intra and inter disciplinary dimensions of our faith, that gives us a strong footing to meaningfully engage our contemporaries.

            The point is that when it comes to the aspect of meaning, today many voices are crying out to be heard. If one pays attention to them carefully, I believe that it can be a life-transforming experience, especially in terms of understanding one’s own faith. During my tenure in ministry while working among university students I’ve asked them what is the relationship between our salvation and our studies. Sadly, the common answer was to be able to study well, or to get rank/first-class. It needs to be underlined that we confess our faith in Christ not just to get rank or pass with a first-class. That is a poor conception of our common salvation. Please note that I am not against doing well in academics.

            What we need is to get things right here by a fine-tuning process. We need to develop in the words of one of our faculty ‘the spirit of exploration.’ Academics should inspire a sense of awe and wonder within us. I love the metaphor of the ‘horizon’ as popularized by Anthony C. Thiselton. There is something mysterious about horizons. The more we approach the horizon, the more it recedes. It is there, we can see it; but at the same time, it somehow doesn’t seem to be there; but interestingly we can go beyond what we thought was the initial limit/horizon. God has God’s own ways of teasing our intellect. We study not just to get good grades, but to gain in the words of the Moses ‘a wise heart.’[1]

We were also reminded by Fr. K. M. George that today we have become mere consumers of knowledge. As a community of faith, we need to ask ourselves this question – are we studying for the common good of humanity, or for selfish gains? Again as we were reminded by our faculty, added to the spirit of exploration, we also need the spirit of humility. One word is enough to explain this – The Word (λογος). We all know the story, who can explain it any better? When Christ spoke, people from every section of society thronged to listen to him. Christ, the very wisdom of God humbles himself so that we may gain the mind of Christ. Only a genuinely humble mind is truly able to worship God in spirit and truth. 

The Dogmatic Dimension:

From the hermeneutic to the aesthetic, we now come to the dogmatic dimension. The word ‘dogmatic’ is often understood in a disapproving manner. However it has a more positive meaning. Karl Barth begins his monumental work Church Dogmatics with the assertion that “As a theological discipline dogmatics is the scientific self-examination of the Christian Church with respect to the content of its distinctive talk about God.” Later on in his Dogmatics in Outline, he tells us that dogmatics is a ‘science,’ and not just an ordinary science, but a ‘critical science.’

            In a positive sense Dogmatics means to make careful judgments or criticisms about the good and bad qualities of something. In other words, there can be both a constructive and a deconstructive side to criticism. Critical thinking is more holistic in the sense that it takes into consideration every dimension – the cognitive, affective, cultural, social, political, religious etc. dimensions in making its point.

            In some Christian circles the tendency is to be more apologetic regarding the Christian faith. Before we go on to give a defense about our faith, we need to know what our faith is all about. We mush shun the habit of giving readymade answers to questions raised of our faith, and instead we must encourage and educate our fellow believers to go deeper in the faith. Meaningful Christian apologetics is always governed by an alert dogmatic conscience.

            In the spirit of exploration we need to see how we can give meaning to a particular discipline from the faith perspective and how we can make our faith intelligible from the point of various disciplines and communicate it to our peers sensibly. This is the challenge that we need to present to the lay person. To be heard, we need to write and speak out in a language that people can relate to and understand. For that to happen successfully, we need to know in the first place what is it that we ourselves believe.

The Ecumenical Dimension:

By ‘ecumenical’ it is meant the unity of the household of faith that professes the crucified Jesus as the risen Lord of history and the cosmos. Unity was part of the high priestly prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ – “that they may be one.” The Gospel of reconciliation has to not only be heard, but it must be seen as well. We bear effective witness to the Gospel by powerfully demonstrating the Spirit of Unity. Today the tendency is to take a thin ‘slice’ out of Western or Eastern ecclesiastical history and make that normative for the entire global church? Such an approach does not count for good Christian witness. We preach only one gospel – and the content of that gospel is Christ and Christ alone.

Conclusion:

            As we pursue theological training at this historic institution, may God give us the grace to reflect along the hermeneutic, the aesthetic, the dogmatic and the ecumenical lines. May God in God’s mercy strengthen us to equip the community of faith in this nation. Amen.

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[1] Psalms 90: 12. NRSV.  

Priests: Called for the Divine Ministry

Bible Passage:  Deut 6:4-5                                   

Rev. Dr. Prakash K George

                   The book of Deuteronomy is the book that reveals and reminds the Israelite community that they are a covenant community. The Covenant is an expression of God’s love and concern for them. The Book of Deuteronomy tries to define and explain this covenantal relationship of the people of Israel with God.  The Decalogue is part of it (Deut. 5:6-21) but through shema the Deuteronomistic writer gives expression to this relationship in a different dimension that is in the level of love.

             Shema is the essence or embodiment of the covenantal relation between Yahweh and Israel, following the Decalogue). It is self-evident that Jewish communities throughout history continually reflected on the Shema. Later Jewish and Christian traditions combined shema (Dt. 6:4-5) with the command love your neighbor as yourself (Lev 19:18) and presented it as the summary of law and prophets (Matthew 22; Mark 12, Luke 10). The Shema begins with the imperative Hear O Israel.  It is an address to the whole community reminding them about their identity as a called out community. Shema points to two distinctive marks of this community

Firstly The mark of the covenant community is the ability to continuously hear the voice of God – it means constantly being drawn by the word of God and being formed and re-formed by the voice of God. 

'Hear, O Israel.'" Hearing— listening—is the primary sense and skill that must be sharpened if we have to remain as true people of God. One of the major themes of Deuteronomistic writings is ‘listening’. These books make the recurring invocation to listen both to the people of Israel and to her leaders. Israelite rulers are closely tied to “listening to the words of Yahweh.” People of Israel are called to listen to the prophetic voice as the voice of God. The Book of Samuel begins with story of the call of Samuel in which he responds to God’s voice by praying “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening”. In contrast the problem with King Saul was that he could hear the voice of God but failed to listen to what God was telling him to do. So Samuel tells him “surely to obey is better than sacrifice; and to heed than the fat of the rams” I Sam 15:22. Many of Jesus parables ends with the statement “Let anyone with ears to hear listen.” In the book of revelation the messages to the seven churches each ends with the declaration “let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the churches.” 

              Shema demands cautious attentiveness; it is also the prime word of prophetic language demanding serious attentiveness. For proper listening two things are essential- discernment  and trust. When there is no confidence and trust in the other we won’t listen to the other. In John 10 we hear Jesus saying that his sheep follow him because they know his voice (John 10:4).  It is a strong expression of trust and confidence in the relationship between sheep and the shepherd.  Listening also means that you are giving space to the other. As we listen to God we are allowing God to have space in our lives. That is why in the Gospel portion for this Sunday Matthew 7:24-29 a person who listens, discerns and does the will of Christ is called as a wise person. The challenge of the faith community and the disciple is to listen and to obey the words of Christ in the right spirit. The sagacious hearer listens attentively to the words of Jesus and then attempts to act responsibly as he "puts them into practice"; he is compared to the "wise man" (Mat. 7:24). Praxis is the word we see in theology and politics. Praxis points to how theory and practice fit together.

 The failure of many men and women who are called to the divine ministry is their insensitiveness to the voice of God. Discipleship means having the ability to continuously discern and listen to the voice of God. The challenge before us is to listen to God’s voice in the midst of dissonant dominant voices.   Many leaders in the Bible failed to listen to God because they obeyed the dominant voice of the people demanding them to act against the voice of God. The word vocation, as is so often pointed out, is related to voice. Thus, vocation involves God’s voice speaking to us. Our training must help us to hear the faint desperate cries of the impoverished, the vulnerable and the oppressed, for God often speaks to us through them.

We are living in a world where dominant voices try to mould and manipulate realities into commodities.

Our critical studies, devotional life, practical training and life in this community must help us to discern God’s voice. For a minister God’s call to listen is not only a call to listen to God but also to hear self, others and creation—to be a listening person. In a consumerist world we are often tempted to focus first and foremost on ourselves. The challenge before us is to cultivate the habit of listening so that we may be drawn by the voice of God, formed and reformed by the word of God.

The second distinctive mark of the covenant community is the their love and commitment to God

The Shema has its existential and theological importance within the context of a theology of covenant relations.  Shema calls to express ones unreserved and unqualified commitment to Yahweh. It is expressed through the confession "the LORD is our God, the LORD alone".  All other commitments, all other relations, are to be relative and subservient to this one. Through this confession Israel is invited to express their special relationship with God and their total allegiance to Yahweh. One of the prime functions of the Shema is “the corrective to all forms of allegiance claimed by the world.”    

       In Deut 5-11, the Israelites are repeatedly commanded to love YHWH. Deuteronomy is characterized by repetition, and it is precisely the repetitious phraseology on the micro-structural level that makes the book so memorable and effective. According to the Jewish interpretations "With all your heart" means a loyalty that is undivided . . . "With all your life [or soul]" means commitment to God even to the point of death. And "might" denotes the individual's "substance, wealth, property," all of which must be expendable in the service of God.

In contrast, the early Christian exegesis . . . viewed the three terms as designating complementary attributes of the human personality, together comprising the whole 'inner man'. The three terms do not specify different "modes of expressing love," but are three different ways of saying the same thing. The command of love has both affective (emotional) and cognitive dimensions. With all your heart" is equivalent to saying "in all your thoughts and decision making."

                          The Bible affirms love as God’s gift and as goal of authentic Christian existence. In other words love comes from God and is commanded by God. Love always implies an encounter with the other – whether it may be God or neighbor or God’s creation. Love in all its forms offers us the potential to transcend our lives in the meeting with the other.

In Deuteronomy we see this connection between God’s love and human love and a wide horizon for divine human praxis of love (Deut 10:17-20). Love of God and love of neighbor belongs together. They need to be distinguished but not to be separated.

 In the Bible love is relational praxis. We are formed through facing God and also by facing our neighbor. Only when we face the other it opens before us special revelatory moments. The very word Moses uttered first to God in his theophany experience at Mount Horeb was hinneni (here I am). Later we see Moses ministry as a continuous response to God and human sufferings by saying Here I am. For Emmanuel Levinas the hghest form of encounter is the face to face encounter with God. God addresses Israel face to face (Deut 5:4). Moses had the regular face to face experience with God (Deut 34). Meaning of this encounter must be extended and recognized in the meeting with the human other, with the orphan, the widow and the stranger.  

Karl Barth also highlights the same point of view. Barth argues that in Christian theology, the neighbor is not the abstract other but God in our own image facing us in the other. He further adds to love my neighbor as I love myself means accepting the future that is shaped by the reality of my neighbor. We are in fact given to one another in order to benefit from each other, to find the restoration that is only possible because of each other, and to find our respective identities through each other.  Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 401 fl. 

Jesus stands in this enduring tradition when he recites the Shema in the Gospel of Mark (12:28-33). The Shema has been affirmed, embraced, and developed from Deuteronomy to its later appropriation by Jesus in the form of the double-love commandment (see Matt 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-37), which became a supreme teaching of all commandments for subsequent followers.

Life of Jesus is the model for our ministry. His ministry was rooted in love and his ministry was always other centered, always considering the betterment of the other. It involves respect for the other; no one is looked down or humiliated but everyone finds his space, worth and place. Holding the other in love was the mark of his ministry (13:1-15).

We are living in a context where many ministers are conscious of building up their image rather than taking up a ministry of life giving, risk taking, inspiring and all embracing. Felix Wilfred narrate the story of a bishop traveling from north of Sri Lanka to the south during the period of war and violence there. Bishop was travelling with his secretary and a sister seated in the front of the car. Car of the bishop stopped by the military at several points for routine checkups and everyone had to come out of the car for this security inspection.

At one check points when the vehicle was stopped sister to spare the bishop from inconvenience of getting down and undergoing check, communicated in a telegraphic language to the soldier who knew no English. Trying to make the soldier understand in his own language she said pointing to the Bishop – “church captain”. Hearing this, the soldier let go the car. But as they continued the journey the Bishop was very upset. He asked sister “Sister don’t you know who I am? I am not the captain of the church but the General”. The paradox is that he had that of much of rank consciousness when the country was burning with violence, when thousands of people were suffering and dying. 

            A comment the Gospel writer of John makes about Jesus life and ministry as an introduction to Jesus last discourse with his disciples in that John 13: 1, “He loved them to the end”. NIV and NEB translations translate differently “he now showed them the full extent of his love.” The grammar of this sentence is the grammar of his whole life. This love for the disciples and his knowledge of kairos leads him to service of washing the feet of his fellow disciples, showing the true model of service. Jesus ministry was like a pendulum of a clock that swings continuously to his father and to the people whom he served and loved.