Focus July 2018

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FOCUS July 2018 Vol. 6 No: 3

More Than Flesh and Blood, David Brand, London – Page 11

Cover Photo: Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Sermon on the Mount, Circa 1861 (Source Internet)

A Publication of Diaspora FOCUS

Tolstoy’s Tryst with the Sermon on the Mount, Revd. Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum – Page 14

Editorial, Encountering the Sermon on the Mount, Rev. Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum - Page 3

Prescriptions Varghese, London – Page 18

for

Perfection,

Dr.

Zac

The Concept of Power in Matt 5:38-42 A Postcolonial Reading, Rev. Dr. Mothy Varkey – Page 5

The Zonal Inauguration of the Mar Thoma Church in the UK and Europe – Page 27 The Sermon on the Mount: The New Social Order Envisaged, Rev. Dr. Abraham Philip, Kottayam – Page 7

The Poor and Poverty in the Sermon on the Plain, Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam – Page 9

Mar Athanasius Suffragan Metropolitan – End of a Legacy Photo Courtesy - Rev. Suneeth Mathew, Chicago - Page 29

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EDITORIAL

grudgingly recognizes this to be a revolution at least in thinking on education.

ENCOUNTERING THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

In retrospect, I feel that my tenure as the principal of St. Stephen’s was an echo of the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount in the corridor of education. What sustained me through my tumultuous tenure was the assurance of Jesus, “Blessed are you when men revile you, persecute you and say all manner of evil falsely against you for my sake…” Hand on heart, I can vouchsafe for the reality and power of this “blessedness”.

Let us begin by reckoning an anomaly. “Sermon” is, these days, almost a bad word, nearly a word of abuse. When someone feels that he has had enough of you, you are sure to be told, “Please don’t preach at me!” I have, in my capacity as the principal of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, over nine years, interviewed thousands of young Christian aspirants for admission –male and female. Whenever I brought ‘the sermon preached in the previous Sunday service’ into discussion, the commonest answer was, “Sir, I don’t remember a word of it. I switch off the moment the preacher gets into the pulpit”.

Yet, the Sermon on the Mount remains un-bedimmed by the verdigris of time. It shines brilliantly even in the overcast sky of Post-Christian, Post-Modern indifference to the Bible. It continues to challenge human understanding. All the same, it has come to be, for all practical purposes, a celestial orb of spiritual light, impressive at a distance, but intimidating in proximity. I have conducted, for example, innumerable orientation programmes for Christian heads of institutions, drawing my insights and inspiration largely from the Sermon.

The staple response of our otherwise pietistic administrators has been, “Well, well. It sounds great in theory; but it won’t work on the ground.” And I would ask them, “Have you given it a try?” They would say, “No, there is no need to. We KNOW they would be disastrous, if brought into administration. May be, centuries ago it would have been safer and even practical. But today, it is unthinkable to even attempt.” ‘This went on for quite some time: from 1984 to 2007, to be precise. During this while, I had no experience of administering educational institutions.

In 2007, an opportunity presented itself. I was invited, while I was serving as a Member of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, (Govt. of India), to assume charge of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi as principal. I decide to launch into a Good News experiment.

Admittedly it is not in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus says, “I have come to preach the good news to the poor…” But this, with which the Nazareth Manifesto (Lk.4:18) begins, is the shaping essence of the Sermon. So, I asked myself, “Is it feasible to preach the good news to the poor in the domain of higher education?”

If you know St. Stephen’s, and how it had been taken over, for decades, by the economic and social elite, shooing the Christian community out of it almost completely and know, further, how each seat out of the 400 is graspingly coveted and furiously contested, you would have some idea of the explosive implications of such an experiment. Predictably, I got into huge trouble. And became the object of intense hate from all quarters that mattered. But, God worked his miracle. The institution experienced an intellectual revival as never before. It began to top the list of 42000 colleges in the national survey. The myth that the infusion of economically poor candidates from lower middle class down would destroy the merit of the college was debunked convincingly. It is now well recognized in informed educational circles that the presumed incompatibility between excellence in higher education and social justice is a mere prejudice. God caused his truth to prevail. And India now

I cite this instance only to bear witness that every word in the Sermon on the Mount, including those that sound too idealistic, is practical, provided we are willing to place ourselves under the yoke of Christ and are ready to suffer, if need be, for the sake of incarnating these teachings.

That brings us to what, it seems to me, is the most crucial issue in our faith life. For far too long we have been taught and trained perhaps from Sunday school onwards- to think of ‘accepting the Lord Jesus Christ’ as an unfailing insurance not only against all inconveniences but also for an easy and comfortable passage through life. Jesus has asked me to put all my burdens on him; so, I can have a pleasure trip through life. So much so, I begin to feel uneasy about anything that gets me into the slightest difficulty. This attitude is quite widespread in our community.

Here, again, my experiences! When I began to get into trouble, and I was being daily degraded by the all-powerful Indian media through malicious false propaganda, my fellow Christians began to feel very uneasy about associating with me. I noticed this especially among priests; including those who had known me for years. A gulf of alienation opened up. The logic is simple.

Can there be smoke without fire? So, if this “child of controversy” –as I was nicknamed by the media in those daysis in perennial trouble, there must be something wrong with him.

Even though the comparison is blasphemous, I’d still make bold to suggest that this was, perhaps, what happened to Jesus Christ and why he was shunned by most people when he got into trouble with the Judaic establishment. He, who came to abide in us that we may abide in him, was all, all alone in the last agonizing hours of his life. That, in itself, highlights, a serious issue in our idea and practice of religion.

Let me say only this for the time being, within the narrow ambit of an editorial: the Sermon on the Mount is not for the chickenhearted. Nor is it, at the same time, for the reckless. It is certainly not for the lazy and those who are extra-smart to seek only what is good for themselves. The undying spiritual insights anthologized in the Sermon are for those who dare to be of elect. It is meant for those who are open to the prospect of walking the Way; and not for those who want to juggle with its words or sniffle academically over its scope.

I am sure that the enlightened readers of the FOCUS are aware of the incredible influence that the Sermon has had on thinkers, creative geniuses and statesmen, apart from billions of ordinary men and women who walk their pilgrim path sheltered from public glare. It suffices, for our present purpose, perhaps, to cite just one example. Jesus’ teaching that we should cut off the hand that causes to stumble, rather than compromise with temptations, is at the root of Tolstoy’s griping story, Father Sergius. Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), the Hindu reformer,

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used to print and distribute the Sermon on the Mount to his followers, recognizing it as the foremost ethical text of all times.

Gandhi used to have the Beatitudes read at his multi-religious prayer meetings, especially in Sabarmati Ashram. I wonder if the world would have had a Victor Hugo or a Shakespeare, a Dostoevsky or a Lincoln, without the Sermon.

But let me take note of this one very important thing. Exactly a third of the Sermon is about religious practices –alms-giving, praying, fasting. Especially, about the danger of distorting and misusing religion! Read the sixth chapter of the Gospel According to St. Matthew. It is all the way to the end about hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, by the way, is a word of Greek origin. It means play-acting. A hypocrite is an actor. Costumes are so very important for actors, isn’t it? What is a character without his or her costume? If you have to act the role of, say, Narendra Modi clad in a million rupee suit, and you are clad like John the Baptist, you will be sent to a lunatic asylum!

All acting is meant for popular consumption. Truth is irrelevant to its purpose. Whatever is done, or presented to the public view, must please, satisfy and entertain; that’s all. The stage is a sphere of spectacles; not of bearing witness to truth. Victor Hugo takes this up and creates a master-piece tilted, The Man Who Laughs. I’d commend this gripping political satire to all FOCUS readers. Gwynplaine, a Peer, gets ridiculed and rejected for telling the truth, concerning the life of the people, in the House of Lords. It was simply not a place for raw truth, the unvarnished tale, to be told. Hugo makes it amply clear that ceremony –all-important in sustaining illusions and walling out lived realities- alone matters. No truth that jars on ceremonial propriety and authorised presumptions shall be tolerated.

Time and again Hugo draws, and sustains, a parallel between this political theatre and the religious domain. What is common to both is the excessive, indeed exclusive, reliance of ceremonies and rituals. Its consequence is the exclusion of reality and the legitimization of derisive intolerance towards truth.

If only we stop a moment and think! Are not all our denominational hiccups and conflicts on account of the deification of ceremonies and rituals and the corresponding disobedience to the Lord? We call them “sacraments”; but what is a sacrament and what are sacraments appointed for? To fragment the Body of Christ, or to help transcend sectarian pettiness and to grow towards life in all its fullness?

It is my absolute conviction that if and when we heed the teachings of Jesus in the 6 chapter of Matthew’s Gospel and truly reform ourselves accordingly, it would heal Christendom of its fissures and fragmentations. We would begin to look like the Body of Jesus Christ! Is that too scary a prospect? For whom?

And why? When shall we dare to begin to take our faltering steps in that direction? th

In the end, the purpose of an adventure like this –that of spotlighting the Sermon on the Mount- is not to say the last word on it. It is only to remind the faith community globally that there is such a thing after all! This is not to be cynical. A major problem in faith life is forgetfulness. Jesus knew this only too well. Why else, do you think, would he institute the Sacrament of Remembrance: “Do this in remembrance of me”. That is as good as saying, do this in order to remember me, besides

saying, “in all that you do, remember me”. Memory is the bedrock of life. It cannot be selective. Remembering Jesus on Sundays alone is an insult. It is the dead that we remember, in most instances, on anniversary days alone. Either we remember Jesus in the warp and woof of life; or not at all. On Sundays we don’t, truth to tell, ‘remember’ Jesus; we are formally reminded.

We need to be so reminded only because we won’t, otherwise, remember.

The reason why we are diffident about the impracticality of the spiritual exhortations in the Sermon is that we do not try to put them into practice. The more we consign the ideals and insights in the Sermon to the realm of hypothetical piety and build a wall of exclusion against them in our lived life, the deeper grows our cynicism about the Sermon. This has the quaint effect of wanting to hear more and more “inspiring” and energetic sermons on the Sermon. We even invoke the Spirit to set our hearts afire! (Thee kathikka, yennil thee kathikka, swargeeya aathmave thee kathikka…) But the only fire, spiritually valid, is zealous ‘obedience’, which is the note on which the Sermon ends. He who hears these words of mine, Jesus says, and does them….

The Sermon is no ordinary sermon because it is preached by the Word become flesh (Jn. 1:14). That being the case, it can be understood only according to this irreducible spiritual principle.

The Sermon must become flesh and blood through us. That happens only when we die through the Sermon and are born again as the New Creation. Sadly, these are godly words, which have, in our mouths, become mere jargons employed often in a mechanical sort of way.

The familiar illustration of this spiritual malady is Nicodemus. He could come only at night! The comfort of ‘night’ is that it excludes ‘doing’. Night curtains inaction. It sets us free, if you like, from the need to act. We can rest over, and regurgitate, the words we have heard. But the very sweetness of the words regurgitated makes us, somehow, more and more fearful of what the morning might demand.

That was why Jesus called the Pharisees, “You hypocrites!”

Rev. Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum Member, FOCUS Editorial Board

http://www.issuu.com/diasporafocus http://www.scribd.com/diasporafocus Disclaimer: Diaspora FOCUS is a non-profit organization registered in United States, originally formed in late Nineties in London for the Diaspora Marthomites. Now it is an independent lay-movement of the Diaspora laity of the Syrian Christians; and as such Focus is not an official publication of any denominations. It is an ecumenical journal to focus attention more sharply on issues to help churches and other faith communities to examine their own commitment to loving their neighbors and God, justice, and peace. Opinions expressed in any article or statements are of the individuals and are not to be deemed as an endorsement of the view expressed therein by Diaspora FOCUS. Thanks.

Web Site: www.facebook.com/groups/mtfocus E-Mail: mtfocusgroup@gmail.com

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The Concept of Power in Matt 5:38-42 A Postcolonial Reading Rev. Dr. Mothy Varkey Introduction: Salman Rushdie, in his novel, Shalimar the Clown, realistically captures the reality of our world: “Our lives, our stories flowed into one another’s, were no longer our own”. As a colonial text, Bible, has been used to legitimize the continuous subjugation and silencing of the ‘visited’. It essentialized the life-affirming stories/discourses of the colonized as ‘irrational’ and ‘superstitious’, and colonized even the psyche of the natives.

But the Bible is also a text of resistance when it is read from the vantage point of postcolonial concerns. Postcolonial theory, therefore, is an attempt to interrogate the knowledge/power system of the colonizer and to expose the counter discourses and practices of the colonized/marginal communities for counter existence, self-representation and new subjectivity. This study, consequently, is an attempt to understand the counter imagination of power (unusual invitation to engage the colonizers) as reflected in Matt 5:38-42.

consciousness. The physical movements or the counter discursive practices in Matthew 5:39-42 are the language of the revitalized physicality. These practices can reconstruct the ‘lost body’ of the colonized from the displaced/disembodied subject inflicted by the colonizer’s pornographic gaze. For the reason that, discursive practices form the objects; they do not exist outside of these practices.

Body as a Site of Power/Resistance

Counter Imaginations of Power The colonizers and the Pharisees used ‘master-narratives’ (Matthew 5:38, 43: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” and “love your neighbor and hate your enemy”) to control the consciousness of the people, to (mis) represent the natives and to legitimize their oppressive systems. Those who engage such narratives for (mis) representing the ‘other’ will have the power over the objects of its construction. The notion of power which these discourses assume is ‘fixed’/ ‘located’ Jesus initiated groundbreaking ‘counter epistemology’ (Matthew 5:39; 44: “But I say to you”) to resist the inherent and repressive binarisms. This alternative discourse is a kind of ‘textual cleansing’ of the ‘manipulative myths’ in the ‘archives’ of Pharisaism and their promulgated ‘fixations’ like ‘enemy’, ‘neighbour’, ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘just’, and ‘unjust’ because ‘truth’ is a construction which comes to being within the dominant discourses on the knowledge about the ‘other’. Hence, the new imaginations interrogate ‘meaning(s)’ which have been ‘locked’ in the contest over the ‘ownership of the meaning’.

The laws of reciprocity (Matthew 5:38; 43) are replaced by a lifeaffirming, ‘abnormal’, counter discourse (Matthew 5:39-47) which is committed to retrieve voices of the ‘variations’/ ‘marginals’ and interrogate the ‘facts’ of the dominant discourses. Discourses construct the objects of its knowledge and ‘produces reality’. Discourse(s) is the medium which constitutes power and through which it is exercised. The counter discourses, therefore, provide a new subjectivity, devoid of the ‘scars’/imprints of colonialism.

Search for the ‘Lost Body’ as Redefining Power The colonizers and the Pharisees ‘locked’ the Matthean community/ the colonized into their bodies. So the body became the locus of all violations. But the Matthean community, having new imaginations of the body, acquired selfconsciousness and attained to the dialectic of subject and object. The body, therefore, has become the object of

Discourses can define, classify, categorize and form human beings. So the human body is the ‘inscribed surface of events’ and the locus of ‘dissociated self’. Freedom lies in the power to identify the ‘genealogy’ of the discursive formation. Foucault’s discourse on body omitted the ‘performative fact’: the body also moves. Postcolonial theory becomes liberative at this juncture.

It pays attention to the process of construction of the body of the colonized as an inscribed object of knowledge. The colonial regimes target body, because it has the ability to affect an unpredictable threat to a system for it is capable of being ‘selfmarked’ and ‘self-represented’. Hence, the body is in no way an inactive/silent object upon which the colonial powers are played out. The body is thus the site of resistance/power.

The body’s ability to move, reveal itself and even ‘fracture’ oppressive modes and social relations provide the site for ‘counter-strategic re-inscription’. It contests its essentialization and (mis) representation by the colonial discourses. This involves not just verbal/textual counter discourses but a performative/‘theatrical’ reviewing of the body and its ‘signifying practices’. Matthew 5: 38-42 offers counter social practices to recover the colonized/ ‘lost’ body and subjectivity.

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1) ‘Dancing Body’ as New Body Language of Power The colonizer’s abuse and physical harm (Matthew 5:39b: “if any one strikes you on the right cheek”) and the demand to carry the luggage (Matthew 5:41: “if any one forces you to go one mile”) express the experiences of oppression. ‘Turning the other’ cheek and ‘going two miles’ are the non-verbal/nonviolent forms of self-representation and positioning. It unveils the ability of the body to counter the predatory inscriptions on the body. By surprising the oppressor, the oppressed cross the zones of ‘fixity’ and ‘perpiherality’. Both these ‘provocative invitations’ resist ‘thingification’/objectification. They define and dictate the terms of relationship. This ‘political activity’ of the ‘lost’ body shows that the power is not ‘located’/ ‘fixed’ in the colonized, rather it is ‘diffused’. Therefore, the ‘dancing’/moving body, hitherto ‘locked’, is a new body language of power.

2)‘Reframing Body’ as Liberative Praxis of Power The ways in which the body is framed by and within the gaze determine how and what it can mean. The gaze establishes the loci of authority. The civilizing intent of clothing is a colonial representation. Colonial logic of ‘clothing’ is a marker to differentiate the ‘civilized’ and the ‘savage’. Standing ‘naked’ in front of the oppressor (v.40) can invest the Matthean community/colonized with more varied and liberative viewing frames. This practice exposes the inherent cruelty of the system, which the colonizer represents. So ‘nakedness’ affirms the worth of the ‘derogated body’ and escapes the ‘gaze’ of the colonizer, which keeps the colonized in subservience and surveillance. It is a forceful invitation for the colonizer to get ashamed. The ‘looking relations’ therefore becomes the site of resistance. It challenges the ‘pornographic gaze’ of the colonizer and subverts the subjectivity that colonialism has assigned to the colonized subject.

3)‘Metamorphic Body’, Split Subjectivity and Power The counter practices in Matthew 5:39-42 reflect the potential of the body for transformation/metamorphosis. There is no binarism between the oppressor and the oppressed. So the colonized self is not a completed self or essential self.

Consequently, the colonized self ‘slides’ ambivalently between ‘affiliation’ and ‘disruption’. It will result in the creation of ambivalent/split subjects. It locates a ‘slippage’/ ‘fracture’ in the ‘prediction’/certainty of the colonial discourse regarding the behavior of the colonized objects. Split subjectivity removes both the colonizer and the colonized from their assigned positions. Instead of being ‘fixed’, both subject positions are dislocated. Foregrounding this moving and metamorphic capacity of the body is an active strategy for parading resistance.

New Subjectivity/ ‘Children of God’ and Power Colonial discourses represent the colonized as a ‘fixed’ social reality that can be known. This negativity is a discursive feature that has been employed in the textualisation of the colonized.

The whole purpose of colonial discourses is to interpret the colonized as ‘anonymous collectivity’ and to produce subdued subjectivity. It is probable since the subject is the effect of discourses. There is no stereotyped ousia or esse, only constructions or ‘discursive formations’. So framing a new subjectivity, through counter social practices and discourse, is not impossible.

Human beings are not eternally and essentially constructed. So no one is ontologically ‘evil’ or ‘good’. In other words, identity is

not essence; rather it is a construction. Matthew, therefore, omits the definite article for ‘good’ and ‘evil’ (v.45). It is only a representation by the ‘good’. It strategically essentializes the ‘other’/ ‘variant’ as enemy. It legitimizes the colonial logic of ‘cause and effect’. These ‘fixed zones’ or binary opposites, ‘center’ and ‘margin’; ‘inside’ and ‘outside’; ‘good’ and ‘bad’; ‘neighbour’ and ‘enemy’; ‘just’ and ‘unjust’(v.43) etc., eliminate the differences. Such ‘morphological’ classifications will validate ‘genetical inferiority’ and ‘marginality’. These ‘regimes of truth’ prevail through social practices and institutions like race and gender. Attitude towards the gentiles by the Pharisees and the Matthean community must be analyzed in this context.

The politics of representation is being interrogated in vv.43-45.

The biologically constituted notions, ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘enemy’ and ‘neighbour’, are questioned by counter imaginations and discourses pertaining to the love of God. The laws of reciprocity are being repudiated in v.43. The bottom line is that using the colonial notion of power for countering the colonizers is suicidal because the Matthean community is only a marginal community. It is not going to (re)frame their subjectivity either.

For the Pharisees and the Romans, ‘neighbour’ means those who subscribe to their discourses and logic. All the ‘others’ were essentialized as ‘enemies’/ ‘heretics’. The Gentiles were stigmatized as ‘evil’ by the so-called ‘good’. But the sun rises on ‘good’ and ‘evil’/’heretic’ and God showers rain on the ‘just’ and the ‘unjust’. ‘Love’ and ‘pray’ denote the counter social practices. Those who practice these counter discourses become the ‘children of God’ (v.40). Here the processes of ‘becoming’ challenge ‘fixity’ and ‘essentialism’. So for postcolonialists, the subjectivity is not given/static, rather it is an emerging/forming/framing subjectivity.

The community of the ‘children of God’, having divine subjectivity, participates in the all-inclusive love of God. The knowledge about the inclusive love of God is the key instruments of power in this sphere. They (re)locate and (re)imagine their position in the world. They (re)position themselves in subject position. Their practices are different from the hegemonic practices of colonialism (vv.46-47). The counter practices/imaginations of power of the ‘children of God’ subvert gender and race. So the institution called discipleship operates on the community/counter logic called ‘Greater Righteousness’.

For them, the new body languages/gestures are a political activity, which would (re)frame a new social body. This liberative act of subjectivity formation is the challenge of the community of disciples.

Conclusions: The Matthean community had identified the liberative potential of the body for nonviolent resistance. Body is the most ‘malleable and resonant’ vehicles for subverting and interrogating/ problematizing the representation/positioning and surveillance/‘anatomizing gaze’ that the ‘civilized’/male/’superior’ has inflicted on the ‘savage’/female/ ‘inferior’. This will distinguish the bodies of the ‘marginals’ like women and Dalits not only as the colonies of aggression and representation, but also as sites of new discourses of resistance/power and self-worth. This is the ‘politics of difference’ envisaging a ‘differentiated subjectivity’ through counter discourses and discursive social practices.

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The Sermon on the Mount: The New Social Order Envisaged Rev. Dr. Abraham Philip, Vaideeka Seminary, Kottayam The Sermon on the Mount is found in chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. In the light of the first Gospel and especially the Sermon on the Mount many people regard Jesus Christ as the new Moses. In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Moses proposes a Social Order in the light of the Law or the Ten Commandments. Moses had proposed a system based on justice and righteousness. The summary of the Law is often given as to love God and love one’s neighbours.

order as envisaged in the kingdom of God? Jesus had authority not only because he was the Son of God or the Messiah/Christ, but because Jesus could do or practice what he was teaching through the sermon. Hence we cannot separate the new social order from the life of Jesus. He lived to establish the new social order. A lot of people ask: Will it be possible for humans to live up to the teachings given by Jesus through the Sermon on the Mount? As many thinkers have noted: it is impossible for us to live according to the Sermon on the Mount. It is just a frame-up to ensure the failure of all of us and all of us will throw prostrate at the mercy seat of God for mercy, if we sincerely and seriously start to practice the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon envisages a perfect state or a perfect social order on earth. As the Book of Revelation pictures, a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1-8). It is a state of blessedness that lies in possessing the kingdom of heaven. It is in knowing God through Jesus Christ as our Father and God. Here below let me draw our attention to five aspects of the new social order that Jesus envisaged as revealed in the Sermon on the Mount.

It could be said that through the Sermon on the Mount Jesus Christ envisages a new social order. Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said” and speaks of the teachings of Moses as given in the Hebrew Bible and then Jesus interprets the same by saying, “and I say it you”. Jesus emphasizes the love that Moses had taught and makes it broad as well as deep. Jesus emphasizes that the spirit of the Law should be observed rather than the letter of the Law. The main thing that Jesus preached was the kingdom of God, and his ministry was for the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. The kingdom of God envisages a new social order where there will be the reign of God as the King. The way of looking at the kingdom of God has varied from century to century and it has also been conditioned by the cultural environment in which the interpreter belonged. It means one thing to a capitalist society and it means something else to a poor member of any country. Jesus unfolds the will of God and the believer will have to determine his/her way life and the social order for the world.

When Jesus taught this sermon the Jewish people were astonished for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes (Matthew 7:28-29). People were astonished seeing the authority of Jesus! Where did Jesus get his authority in teaching about a new social

First of all, the new order envisages not only loving one’s neighbours, but one’s enemies as well (5:43-48).

Mahatma Gandhi was very much influenced by this teaching. Love everyone in need. Pray for even those who persecute you. Your righteousness will have to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees in order for you to enter the kingdom of heaven (5:20). Moses has given the commandment not to murder (5:21). But Jesus says that you should not even keep anger against your neighbor.

Instead you have to be reconciled with all including enemy (5:24-26).

Secondly, the Sermon on the Mount exhorts that life has to be lived not like the hypocrites. They are outwardly neat and tidy. Jesus compared them with white washed sepulchers. How dirty and filthy were their inner self! Not only do the external actions, but the inner motif behind every action counts. Why are almsgiving, prayer or fasting performed (6:1-18)? Unless there is right intention, nothing will be received from your Father in heaven.

Thirdly, in the new social order envisaged in the Sermon on the Mount, amassing wealth or money shall not be the aim of life. One cannot serve two masters (6:19-21). The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, according to Paul (Romans 14:17). In Matthew 6:33, it is written: “But strive for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”.

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Fourthly, the new social order envisaged in the Sermon on the Mount does not want us to judge others (7:1).

Look inside yourself as see the blemishes in you rather than looking at others and judging them, and asking them to correct. Jesus says, “In everything do unto others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12: this verse is titled the Golden Rule by the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible and by several other versions).

Finally, the Sermon on the Mount wants a new social order where the needy are helped (7:7-12; 5:39-44, 48).

Let all that you do be done in love and even go an extra mile (5:39-42). Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Jesus Christ had authority because he practiced all what he taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Even on the cross, he could pray for the ones (his enemies) who crucified him. On the cross, his words became flesh and he could give away his self completely, or in other words he could empty his self (kenosis as referred by Paul in Philippians 2:5ff) revealing the self-sacrificing love at its climax.

Will the teachings of Sermon on the Mount be ever practiced by any Christian? If Christians at least try or make an attempt to practice it, the new social order envisaged in the kingdom of God will become a reality.

Let it become the mandate for Christian discipleship, a design for Christian life and a way of life. It will provide the new order of love and human freedom and dignity.

Let it be the challenge.

Editors Note: Rev. Dr. Abraham Philip is Professor of New Testament at the Mar Thoma Theological Seminary, Kottayam and an author of several books.

(Obituary Tributes)

Very Revd A. C. Kurien Rev. Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam The Very Revd A. C. Kurien, who has been with us in the early period of FOCUS launching, passed away on 22nd May 2018 and the funeral took place on 28th May 2018 at Varicad Mar Thoma Church, Near Paipad, and Tiruvalla.

He was 80 years of age, and survived by his wife Mrs. Susamma Kurien, three children. Achen hails from Arappurayil family, Pattamala, Kottarakara.

Kurien Achen entered the ministry of the Ma Thoma Church on May 8, 1964 and became Vicar General on 30th November 1998. He retired from the active service of the Church on 31st March 2003. He was the vicar of over 30 parishes including: Andamans, Kuwait, Kozhencherry, Thiruvalla and Kizhakenmuthoor. He held several offices in the Church such as Sabha Secretary, Senior Vicar

General, Associate Director of J. M. Study Centre, Trivandrum, member Episcopal nomination board, member C.S.I - C.N.I-Mar Thoma Joint Council, member ECC Council (Bangalore) and several other administrative bodies of the Mar Thoma Church. He was indeed a clergyman who had contributed much to the overall growth and ministry of the Mar Thoma Church and its ecumenical mission.

After his retirement, Achen was deeply involved as a volunteer in the Pain and Palliative Care ministry of the Pushpagiri hospital, Tiruvalla. His ministry has been widely appreciated by people across denominational and religious barriers. Kurien Achen has left his footprints on the sands of time in his own way. He is to be remembered as a parish priest of the Church who had maintained personal friendship and relationship with hundreds of people around the Mar Thoma globe. I am sure, he would quote with Fr. Murray Rogers with a slight variation, “If friends are my assets, I am the richest man in the Mar Thoma Church.” He used to greet his fellow priests on their birthdays whenever possible. Achen has demonstrated leadership qualities during the period of his ministry in the Church. It is to be recalled that he was indeed proud of his own Church and has shown visible signs of his allegiance with administrative acumen.

The members of the Mar Thoma Community in the UK and Europe may fondly remember Achen’s visit there number of times. “Life levels all men; death reveals the eminent” (Bernard Shaw). Yes, “the remembrance of the righteous is a blessing”. Vicar General A. C. Kurien Achen has “passed over us”. “Blessed are the dead . . . they

will rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them” (Rev.14:13)

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THE POOR AND POVERTY IN THE SERMON ON THE PLAIN Rev. Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam Luke’s understanding of the poor: After “investigating everything carefully" about the truth concerning the things about the ministry of Jesus on earth (Lk. l: I), it pleased Luke, the physician cum historian, to reflect on matters relating to spiritual values and their sociological relevance. For Luke, what matters is to build a community of hope rooted in the teaching of Jesus on the Kingdom of God. This is meant to produce a "community of communities" with a human face in which human dignity is recognized, basic human needs are satisfied and the diversity of cultural identities are duly recognized. Overcoming violence against all forms of oppression whether social, economic or cultural is a biblical mandate. Luke makes it clear that poverty is a scandal and has no place in God's plan. The Baby Jesus was placed in a manger (Lk.2: 7), which is an expression of divine solidarity with human brokenness. As the saviour of the world, the birth of Jesus expresses God's complete solidarity with the down trodden and the marginalized.

This could be termed as "oikoumene of solidarity" which is clearly stated in Luke’s Gospel.

The visit of the shepherds to the child in the manger as reported in Luke 2:16 gives a fitting introduction to the Luke's understanding of the poor and the poverty. In their encounter with the "Babe lying in the manger", their experience becomes a guiding factor in recognizing the meaning of the ordinary. What does it mean "being poor"? It means to die of hunger, to be illiterate, to be exploited, to get dehumanized, to live as a member of the crowd (Ochlos) to deny the fullness of life and to live on the margins. The purpose of incarnation, as St. Paul puts it, is to make humanity rich (2Cor. 8: 9) by the kenosis of the Word incarnate.

There is a paradoxical relationship between poverty and wealth in Luke’s gospel. To deny life for any one is violence. Poverty has got a religious, ethical and economic dimension. The message of the Kingdom speaks of the ground realities of the least, the last and the lost in a significant manner (Lk.7: 22-the mission charge).

To talk about the poor, poverty and wealth is a way of liberating the rich as well. This is quite evident in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain.

“Remember the poor”: There are quite a few texts/passages referring to the poor and poverty in Luke. The message is quite clear as Luke also wants to bring out a spiritual dimension of wealth. For Luke, economics is a matter of faith. It carries the weight of a moral code. Lucan vision is found in the social philosophy of Jayprakash Narayanan, when he said, "The India of my dreams is a community in which

every individual and every resource is dedicated to serving the weak- a community dedicated to the wellbeing of the least and the weakest. In the Lucian Magnificat (1: 47-55), we have a glimpse of God's gift of the New Humanity in Christ. The philosophy of being spoken in terms of a moral, economic and social revolution is to be understood in the light of Lk. 6: 20 where the poor are called "blessed". There is no attempt to spiritualize poverty here. The poor is blessed because the Kingdom being the good news of liberation has come in our midst. Luke's Sermon on the Plain makes it clear that "blessings and woes"(Lk.6:20-26) addressed to the poor and the rich make a difference in the life of the people for the glory of God. In the global community of today with the Market paradigms, there arose a new value system, which simply asks the question, "How much do you have?” The ebb of violence is also associated with the “philosophy of having". In the parable of the Rich farmer as told by Jesus in Luke 12:13-21, the issue is not about the possession of wealth, but of its use. The wealth as such does not make us fools. Wealth is only a servant, and we are called to remain in the service of God, not Mammon. "Becoming rich toward God" is indeed a call to search for the proper placement of wealth in God's order of relationships. The Market dynamics through the Media has virtually invaded us. "Remember the poor" is the mission mandate in Gal. 2:10 where as "forget the poor" is the Market slogan! The poor is deprived of the privilege to make use of usable knowledge, which has the potential to generate wealth. In the service of God, there is always an attitude of care for the less- privileged. Concern for the weak and the defenseless is a sign of the maturity of the heart. "A great city is that which handles its art and garbage equally well". The introduction of a monoculture and homogenization of taste have become the basic philosophy of Mammon. This has contributed to the marginalization of millions in the world as the Market knows no brotherhood or sisterhood. Lucan perspective of the reversal motif in the Magnificat and elsewhere has an abiding message for the world today. The prophetic eschatology of Jesus is found in the Magnificat (Lk. 1:4656) and in the Nazareth Manifesto of Jesus (Luke 4:1819).

The Magnificat: The Magnificat, Divine grace Magnified, has three main divisions:m46-50; 51-53; and 54-55.The overriding theme in the passage is the extension of God's grace to all living beings. Mary's song upholds the divine maxim that ‘charity without justice is an insult to humanity and to God- self’. What has gone wrong must be set right. The Magnificat is a commentary of Ps. 103: 6 where we read, "The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed." God's faithfulness in dealing with the marginalized and the poor and the socially outcaste is

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also stated in Ps.146:7-8: “. . . Who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry? The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous." (cf. Ps.145:14-16). In the Magnificat, Luke speaks of God's remembrance of the poor, in terms of his solidarity and protest.

The saviour's arrival brings about great changes in the life of the people. The changes are meant to draw people to the love and glory of God. The great redemptive power of God is recalled in the song. He has "shown strength", he has "scattered", he has "put down", he has "exalted", he has "filled", he has "sent away" and he has "helped"(vs.

5:1-54). Lucian God is a God who acts in history.

Scholars are divided on the implications of a string of gnomic verbs used to describe God's decisive act of Grace. One thing is quite clear that they refer to past events with future consequences-"future events as if they were past”. God’s care is manifested in redeeming, reconciling and consoling the world (vs.46-50). This ministry of reconciliation is entrusted to us (2Cor. 5:1821). In God's style of executing justice, there is a constant grasping of his own nature. God's preferential option is found in "exalting those of low degree"(V. 52), in the process, a certain degree of displacement is inevitable.

Not only does the Lord redeem, but he also judges. "The rich he has sent empty away"(v. 53). The judgment of God for the sake of the weak and defenseless in the new order of creation is an expression of God's impartiality and his intense desire to set right what has happened in human conduct."

The Nazareth Manifesto of Jesus: The Nazareth Manifesto of Jesus (Lk.4:16-30) could be summarized under the caption "Good news to the poor" which is indeed a realization of the Magnificat and of the prophetic vision of Is.61.1-2 and 58.6.In the Lucan version of the text we notice that Jesus left out one of the lines "to heal the broken hearted" and a line from Is. 58. 6 were added, "To send away the oppressed". The Lucan record of the Nazareth Sermon of Jesus is indeed socially

oriented and it recalls the Jubilee vision in Lev. 25: 8-17, 25-28.The exposition of the texts, in terms of Luke's universalism, referring to a widow (a woman) and a leper (man) who come under the "poor of Luke", implies that the author wants to avoid any spiritualizing of the popular Matthean text. "Blessed are the poor in spirit"(5.3).For Luke, poor (anawim) are all those who are reduced to a condition of diminished worth or capacity. They need not be economically poor, but socially out caste too. They belong to the Ochios of Mark. and under the broader class of "tax collectors and sinners"(Lk. 151-2); "the little ones of Matthew"(l 8.10); "the mentally ill of Mark"(5. 120); "the physically handicapped of Mark"( 1.32-34; and "the crippled woman of Luke" (13.10ff).The concern of Jesus according to Luke was to liberate the oppressed from the age old traditions and concepts so as to give them an identity of their own and to make them the subject of their own history.

Wealth: Luke does not stop with the poor and his liberation. He is equally concerned with the spiritual dimension of wealth.

In Luke there is a theological and ethical affirmation of wealth as found in James 2: 11-6 and 5: 1-6. For Luke, wealth creates social relationship. In the parable of the Rich Farmer, Jesus makes a warning in an affirmative way. "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one' life does not consist in the abundance of possessions"(12: 15).The Greek word, Pleonexia has several shades of meaning such as covetousness, greed, defraud and the accursed love of possessions. The rich man becomes a fool by his attitude to wealth and subsequently to life. The philosophy of Narcissism makes the life of the rich poor and sterile. "Being rich toward (eis) God” is the goal of human life. Those who belong to the Kingdom should have the courage to wage a struggle against people and forces that deny and dehumanize their dignity. Spirituality of wealth means that life is involvement and even confrontation for the sake of freedom, justice and peace. It also accentuates the ecumenical dictum, which says, "Poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere". The Sermon on the Plain or the Sermon on the Mount is complimentary vision of a New Social order, which is the hallmark of New Humanity in Christ.

Editor’s Notre: Rev. Dr. M. J. Joseph, M.Th., D. Th, is the former Director of the Ecumenical Christian Centre, Bangalore.

He has also served as Professor and Principal, Mar Thoma Theological Seminary, Kottayam, India. As a former member, Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, he is widely known for his ecumenical and ecological contributions. He has served as Secretary Board of Theological Education, Senate of Serampore College (University). He currently serves as Convener, Ecological Commission, of the Mar Thoma Church. Dr. Joseph has also authored several articles, poems and books available both in English and Malayalam languages. E-Mail: drmjjoseph_65@yahoo.co.in

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MORE THAN FLESH AND BLOOD David Brand, London Spirituality is a difficult subject to explain, because unless experienced it is the equivalent of granting degrees to undergraduates without them attending the lectures and then expecting them to be fully conversant with their subject. However If this presentation prompts you to consider that we are far more than simply human beings, then hopefully this will help you tackle the following four questions: What am I? Where have I come from?

Why am I here? Where do I go from here?

There is only one who could answer all those questions and that was Jesus Christ who was born divine, glorified at birth and was fully aware of what was expected of him. This was made evident by the Holy Spirit after being baptised by John the Baptist. However, we have another individual in the Apostle John, one of the sons of Zebedee, who fully understood the divinity of Jesus and along with Peter and James was part of the inner circle that was closest to Jesus. If you were to be confined to a desert island with only one Gospel it has to be the fourth, that of Saint John the Apostle. It has been described as “A book of magnificent beauty and artistry. The richness of its expression and imagery has made it one of the most celebrated works in Christian history and was once known as the SPIRITUAL GOSPEL in the ancient Church”, that is not surprising as it makes the other Gospels look like a timeline of events occurring in Jesus Christs’ ministry as John raises the bar and introduces us to the divine family of God as Father, Son and Spirit.

John was an Apostle who fully grasped the spiritual implications of Jesus, and here are a few superb examples of the biblical language used by Jesus to imbue a sense of spirituality into his disciples, which John, having understood, was thankfully able to record for us as follows.

Ch4 v23 & 24. “God is spirit and those who worship him MUST worship him in spirit and truth”.

Ch6 v68. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom we shall go? You have the words of eternal life”.

Ch7 v38 & 39. “He who believes in me”, as the scripture has said “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water”. Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Ch8 v12. “I am the light of the world: he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life”.

Ch10 v27. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them from out of my hand”.

Ch12 v36. “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light”.

Ch12 v44,45 & 46. And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he, who sees me, sees him who sent me. I have come in as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness”.

Ch6 v63. “It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail, and the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life”.

Paul also was made aware of the Spirit on the road to Damascus, for example in his Letter to the Galatians Chapter 5 he writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness and self control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” Romans Ch6 v16, “It is the Spirit himself (God’s spirit) bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God”.

Emanuel Swedenborg1 wrote the following in the chapter headed “Each of Us is Inwardly a Spirit” in his book ‘HEAVEN AND HELL’. “Anyone who thinks things through carefully can see that it is not the body that thinks, because the body is material. Rather, it is the soul, because the soul is spiritual. The human soul, whose immortality has been the topic of many authors, is our spirit; it is in fact immortal in all respects and it is also what does the thinking in our bodies. This is because it is spiritual and the spiritual is open to the spiritual and lives spiritually, through thought and intention. So all rational life we can observe in our bodies belongs to the soul and none of it to the body. Actually, the body is material, as just noted, and the matter that is proper to the body is an addendum and almost an attachment to the spirit. Its purpose is to enable our spirit to lead its life and perform its services in a natural world that is material in all respects and essentially lifeless. Since matter is not alive––only spirit––we may conclude that whatever is alive in us is our spirit and that the body only serves it 1

Emmanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell, ISBN 978-087785-476-0, 2008; page 249.

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exactly the way a tool serves a live and activating force.

We may of course say that a tool works or moves or strikes, but it is a mistake to believe that this is a property of the tool and not of the person who is wielding it.

Since everything that is alive in the body––everything that acts and feels because of life––belongs to the spirit alone and none of it belongs to the body, it follows that the spirit is the actual person. In other words, we are essentially spirits and have much the same form as well.

You see, everything that is alive and sensitive within us belongs to our spirit and there is nothing in us, from head to toe, that is not alive and sensitive.”

do. Take a look at yourself in the mirror, no not a glance; really examine the face in front of you. Look deep into the eyes because they are the entrance to your inner secret self, the bit of you that is truly secluded and strictly private and yet they can also be very revealing.

Blink and smile and notice how your face reacts to your every command, you are in total control of the image before you. You are in effect a combination of body and mind, but what is mind? Some will say it is just a function of the brain and being made of flesh it will deteriorate with the body when you die and you will cease to exist in this physical world. Fair enough but there must be something else that reflects and therefore identifies you as an immortal being and that we call your spirit. Take another good look at the body and remind yourself that you have developed from a tiny helpless baby to what you are now. You accept this as a quite normal everyday occurrence, but surely this is a remarkable development in its own right.

Another example, which we take for granted, so why should we not be able to transform into immortal spirits on fulfilling our lifespan in this physical world. After all this is precisely what Jesus Christ demonstrated after his crucifixion for our benefit to prove that our existence does not terminate with the body. We have to move on from this physical world and discard all our physical attributes in order to move into a spiritual world.

The Holy Spirit has been released into the world after Jesus’ resurrection; initially with the disciples and then with all believers and the effect of the Holy Spirit on them is well documented, what is far more important is that it has been made available to you via Baptism but it must be recognised and accepted by you in order to benefit from the gifts it brings. But beware, they come with expectations and responsibility; abuse them at your peril.

Jesus spells it out clearly when he states “knock, seek and ask”, he wants us to seek the truth and that truth he promises will set you free. Repeating mantras is not the way as it blocks any reply. The correct way is to open a channel of love, with gratitude for being allowed to exist at all PLUS, a sense of service and have a conversation, then LISTEN and always pray a prayer of thanks for all you receive, bearing in mind that you may not receive exactly what you asked for, but have the faith to believe it is the most appropriate solution for you at the time.

Keep a notebook and pencil handy to make notes of your conversation with God and remember Our Lord does not keep office hours!!!

We have become so involved with day to day living that we have forgotten to fully grasp what we really are and consequently what we are capable of and expected to

I fully appreciate the point that many believe, we live, we die and we are gone, but I suggest that would mean there would have been no point in existing in the first place and creation would simply be a waste of time, material, space and the experience gathered (usually the hard way).If that were the case we would be fully justified in jumping off the nearest cliff when life gets really challenging, abandoning children and loved ones to their fate. However, we know that Jesus returned to us three days after he died in a body that the disciples did not recognise immediately, but they recognised the character and voice of their master. In other words, the original body was not reproduced but it bore the damage done to the original. But far more importantly this new body contained the essence of Jesus which the disciples instantly recognised when he spoke or moved and that essence is the Holy Spirit.

What I am asking you to accept is that our human spirit and the Holy Spirit can co-exist in our bodies because we are temples of God regardless of gender, or rank, wealth, what we are, how we think, believe, behave and react to events in our lives. Not only that but as Jesus proved by his resurrection it is eternal. When you were born of flesh and blood your spirit joined the body and becomes your essence with the indwelling Holy Spirit and will leave the body on death and return from where it came because it is eternal, Paul makes references to spirit and flesh in his many letters so this is nothing new

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and we are also aware of the effect that a divine revelation can have on a human spirit, for example Paul who was originally moving in a direction contrary to divine will. When in this physical existence, we are often not privy to where we have come from or why we are here as this would make it pointless in being here in the first place. We start here from a clean sheet of paper but I am quite sure that everything will be revealed when the spirit returns from where it has come. There are some who have not had their previous memories fully erased and consequently have tantalising impressions of where they have come from and why and how they came here.

You hear mentioned of coming from somewhere that was mainly parkland where everything seemed to be stable and right, in sharp contrast to here, where we move from one crisis to another in an unstable physical environment that despite our best efforts things seem to go wrong. Try not to let your gender obstruct you, accept you are made in this way in order to procreate as a human being, but fully appreciate you are an immortal spiritual being on an eternal learning curve, simply recall how much you have learned since birth on this earthly stage of your development.

What I am describing is neither reincarnation nor resurrection it, is best described as a “Progressive and Continual state of Spiritual Development” until it becomes so perfect, that like Jesus you become a part of God and absorbed into his heavenly kingdom. The theory that Jesus will create his kingdom on earth is not fully understood, why only on this insignificant little rock, surely this is ego, we now know there are vast numbers of earthlike planets out there and they all have sell by dates depending on the age of their suns.

William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, was nearer the mark with his play ‘As You Like It’. In act 1 scene V11, he boldly states: “All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances. . . .” If nothing else here on earth we have all learnt from history that humanity cannot rule itself and we now live in an increasingly unstable world that is growing in advanced types of destruction that affects all of us, there is no immunity for the innocent or the young.

However you must live this life fully in this environment and develop by learning from the experiences that you

will receive both good and bad. It is only when you become older do you realise how short a reasonable lifetime of three score years and ten really is, fortunately for us it is not about length, it is about quality based on the ground rules set out by Jesus Christ, our perfect human interface with God. The challenge before you is to seek purity of spirit by picking up your cross, and trying your best to reflect God’s love, wisdom, healing, patience, forgiveness, goodness and generosity. Try to be a symbol of positivity to motivate, inspire and prove to your creator that his act of allowing you to exist in the first place was not a wasted talent but a fruitful one. In John 14:10, Jesus says to Philip: “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me?” That is an invitation to you to be in Jesus and allow Jesus to be in you spiritually and as a consequence you also through Jesus will become a part of God after death. Never lose faith or confidence that you matter and are here for very good reasons that will eventually be revealed and will make perfect sense to you when your time comes.

God’s promise to create a Kingdom for us is perfectly true but it will not be an unstable earthly kingdom with a sell by date dependent on the life of our sun or pollution or global warming or self-destruction, but a spiritual one that will last and not be subject to the physical limitations of time and space. You are challenged to prepare for it and to become spiritually aware beings in order to be part of it. God does not want us bowing and scraping, he sent us Jesus Christ with a loud and clear message, “I WANT CONTACT”. He said “Knock, Seek and Ask”, it cannot be any clearer or simply put! As mentioned earlier, contact is made on a spiritual level through Jesus Christ.

Saint Francis of Assisi put it succinctly in his prayer when he wrote. “It is in dying (self) that you are born to eternal life.” Finally, John in 11:25 states that inspiring and unforgettable phrase for all of us, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believeth in me though he was dead yet shall he live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” The finest possible epitaph a Christian could ever have. Discover the spiritual part of yourselves and use it to develop a closer relationship with both Father and Son. Subconsciously you know that, otherwise you would not be a member of your church seeking answers.

Editor’s Note: Mr. David Brand is an elder and a Lay Reader of the All Saints’, Harrow Weald, where the Sinai MTC conducts worship services. He is a retired electronic engineer with a very deep interest in spirituality.

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TOLSTOY’S TRYST WITH THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT Rev. Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum To count Leo Tolstoy, the Sermon on the Mount was the essence of what he called the “doctrine of Christ”. It was the yardstick by which the authenticity of our discipleship to Jesus is to be measured. It is hard to disagree with him.

Tolstoy comes up against the ‘offence’ of the Sermon, right at the outset. Christendom, he says, endorses the Sermon in theory, but deems it impractical in day to day life. He admits that he himself was, for a long time in life, of this persuasion.

The turning point in his spiritual life was the teaching in the Sermon, “Do not resist evil”. Here is it in his own wordsWhen I apprehended clearly the words “Resist not evil,” my conception of the doctrine of Jesus was entirely changed; and I was astounded, not that I had failed to understand it before, but that I had understood it so strangely. (From “My Religion”) He recalls that his entire Christian upbringing, from childhood onwards, had been in direct contradiction to this core teaching in the SermonFrom my childhood I had been taught that Jesus was God, and that his doctrine was divine, but at the same time I was taught to respect as sacred the institutions which protected me from violence and evil. I was taught to resist evil that it was humiliating to submit to evil, and that resistance to it was praiseworthy.

I quote this as a dilemma basic to our predicament: the predicament of all who struggle to walk along the way of the Lord. When it comes to the higher reaches of the faith, we prejudge –without ever having given it a try- that such things won’t work and that we have to live by the way of the world.

A clear case in point is the widespread assumption that God’s work cannot be done without the resources of Mammon, complying also with the latter’s principles and patterns. As George Bernard Shaw says in his play, Major Barbara, Barbara’s humanitarian work, under the auspices of the Salvation Army, can be done only with the blood money of her father, who is an arms dealer, a merchant of death. In our kind of wisdom, acts of love have to draw their sustenance from hate and cruelty. Life has to be served with the resources of death. We find this, says Shaw, reassuringly rational.

Corruption, which is rampant in educational institutions maintained by most denominations in India, especially in Kerala, is justified as follows, “How else are we to run these institutions, and keep the church above waters?” It is

another matter that only a small fraction of the money thus extorted unjustly finds its way into institutions for their upkeep or upgradation. Akin to this is our faith, however unstated, in violence. If at all we refrain from violence it is because we cannot muster enough force. When Gandhiji employed non-violence as the greatest liberating force in history, the whole world sat up and took note. The ideals of Jesus, as a Gandhian wrote, had to be translated into historical reality by a non-Christian, against an Empire that was, presumably, Christian.

By way of reckoning the implications of this most radical teaching in the Sermon, Tolstoy raises the question, “Does this teaching –that we should not resist evil- allow us to have recourse to litigation? Is it not the business of courts to resist evil?”

This issue came to a head in my life, during my tenure as the Principal of St. Stephen’s College. I had to go in writ to the High Court of Delhi against the Chairman of the Governing Body, who was also the bishop of Delhi, Church of North India. The circumstances, in brief, were as followsBarely two weeks after my appointment as Principal, I was summoned to his office by the bishop. He wanted me to commit myself to the percentage of seats in the college to which he could admit students. On my refusal to give in to his demands, he asked me to resign forthwith. I refused. In retaliation, he persuaded the Supreme Council of St. Stephen’s College to put me on probation, in clear violation of the statutes of Delhi University, by which a Principal is deemed to be permanent from the day of appointment. The idea was to keep the sword of probation over my head and to make me fall in line.

I had three options before me: either to give in and survive in professional slavery, or to resist and be shunted out, or to invoke the authority of the court and secure ‘justice’ for myself. I also persuaded myself to believe that it would be, above all, justice to the institution, which was sought to be corrupted.

How do I feel about this event now? One thing is obvious: I resisted evil and, in doing so, fell short of the teaching of Jesus. But, would it have been morally irresponsible and cowardly on my part to have chickened out, as people would have said, and fled for my life? Or, should I have simply endured the ignominy of being shunted out, on the pretext that I was incompetent, with the world knowing nothing about the truth of the matter?

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I fought and won the case in Delhi High court. But I fought and lost my spiritual brief, going by the doctrine of Jesus Christ. I should have, as I now feel, simply endured. Why do I think so?

legitimized, wouldn’t the world be a safer place for the forces of evil and oppression? What about the old saying, God helps those who help themselves? Can prayer without action complete the spiritual picture?

My decision to stand and fight –or to resist evil; for clearly what the bishop had in mind was evil- was predicated on the assumption that I alone could serve as a fortress of protection for the college against forces of evil. I was playing saviour to the college. In doing so, did I not shut the door against God’s intervention in the matter? After all, the college did not belong to me. I had gone there being convinced that it was in the will of God for me to steward that institution founded for the glory of God, as its motto maintained. If so, wasn’t it rather the duty of God, than my exclusive burden, to intervene in this matter on behalf of justice?

But what is ‘action’ in the spiritual sense of the word? All said and done, I lost a great opportunity to live the cardinal teaching of our Lord, “Do not resist evil”. That was ‘the road not taken’ as the American poet, Robert Frost would say.

Who knows how it would have played out, and my own destiny shaped, had I stood steadfastly by the doctrine of Christ, instead of going by my common sense or my commitment to the college and took the matter to the court of man rather than the court of God? I deal with this instance in some detail, for it illustrates the reigning attitude in Christendom, resulting in a poverty of experience in spiritual matters. Imagine what would have been our plight, had Jesus taken the path we so habitually take, insisting that to be the only valid and viable one? The ‘hopelessness’ –the assured self-destruction- immanent in the path Jesus chose was so very obvious and clear to him.

Common sense would have counseled him –as perhaps it did in the Garden of Gethsemane- to avoid this path. He stuck to the teaching. He resisted no evil. I am now convinced that this mind-boggling logic of the Kingdom of God –resist no evil- is the key to Resurrection. Until we reach the stage of obeying this teaching, we may celebrate Resurrection sentimentally, but never know it experientially.

I must say this thing as well, before we move on. I was greatly influenced by worldly notions about moral heroism. It gave me a sense of special thrill to even think of frustrating the evil intentions the person concerned. This also meant that the option to not resist evil seemed as cowardly and unbecoming of a ‘person like me’. That is where, as I now realize, the doctrine of kenosis, or self-emptying, should have exerted the counter-pull. Had I, at that point in time, emptied myself, I would have, in all likelihood, chosen differently.

The counter argument too needs to be stated. Going by the principle of God-human partnership, could I have abdicated my part and left everything to God? Would it have been fair on my part to have done so? If such an attitude is

But there is this other thought that still refuses to die out of me. What if it was in the will of God that I stand my ground?

In that case, I was not resisting evil, but obeying a divine purpose. After all, doesn’t Jesus himself teach us, “He who endures to the end will be saved?” But no one, certainly not I, should under-estimate the awesome difficulty there is in distinguishing the one from the other. That is precisely where the anguish of living the life of faith dwells. So, now I sense the depth and poignancy of the prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Jesus makes a pointed reference to the offence there necessarily is in adhering to the spiritual path. That ‘offence’

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has two aspects. First, offence to myself. Many of the teachings of Jesus Christ offend my worldly wisdom, and it is rank dishonesty to pretend to the contrary. They seem foolhardy to follow. Or they seem earmarked only for supernatural beings, like the Son of God. The second offence pertains to offending others. As regards following the teaching, “Do not resist evil” the foremost issue is the first kind of offence: offence to myself. It did not make sense to me at that time to refrain from resisting evil. Indeed, it seemed a core spiritual duty. I did what made sense to me, though it meant going against the specific teaching of Jesus Christ.

Not that the second category of offence did not matter to me. I was indeed worried about being condemned, especially by those who knew me –such being the reach of human vanity- as a courageous crusader against corruption, that I fled for cover at the earliest sign of difficulty. I was in love with this self-image. I was scared to be seen as inconsistent.

All things considered, the foremost issue that remains at the centre of my thinking on this event is that I forestalled the intervention of God by acting according to the logic of the world, which was what I had internalized. I know this could confuse or trouble my readers. But I don’t wish to be apologetic about it; for I am now convinced, more than ever before, that when it comes to Christian discipleship, it is all or nothing. Either we adhere to all of Jesus’ teachings or we don’t even begin to be Christians. We cannot cherry-pick the teachings of Jesus, choosing convenient and comforting verses from the Gospels to match our disposition and to maximize our advantages, as we tend to do ever so often.

The other issue that Tolstoy raises in his reflections on the Sermon on the Mount is whether or not the doctrine of Christ applies to “questions of State,” besides to the salvation of the individual. He comes to the conclusion, through a detailed analysis, that it does. What are the implications, then?

Tolstoy finds serving in the army –the business of killing under the pretext of defending life- completely incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Like Karl Marx, he too expresses his reservations –indeed disapproval- of serving as judges and members of the jury, as such work involves ‘condemning’ fellow human beings and returning evil for evil.

He cites the instance of how Jesus refuses to judge or condemn the woman taken in adultery. Tolstoy also disfavours the so-called law enforcing agencies –the police in particular- as instruments of oppression maintained and mandated to protect the rich against the poor. They are agents of oppression, vis-à-vis the poor.

Of course, Paul, in due course, would change this perspective. He assumes it as axiomatic that all authority comes from God and that Christians are duty bound to cooperate with the State and to submit themselves to secular authorities. He does not say much about where the line is to be drawn, though. What if the agenda and mandate of the State run counter to the discipline of the Kingdom, as they often do? Specific to the present Indian context, should Christians idolise the flag and the national anthem, simply because there is an ideological change in the land? Should patriotism be our creed? Or, should Kingdom values –love, justice, truth, compassion- matter to us most?

Is it legitimate to attract the ire of the State, as Christians did in Rome in the first three centuries of the Christian era by refusing to endorse state rituals? If we do, wouldn’t we be ‘resisting evil’, which we are not to do?

The point I want to raise here is that Indian Christian community today is crippled by a total absence of hermeneutic thinking on the teachings of Jesus Christ. If there is something worse than flouting the teachings of Jesus, it is to cease to think about them; even think about them heretically. The Church has virtually nothing to say on prevailing issues and emerging challenges. The discipline of thinking biblically is all but evaporated from our midst. We simply drift along, assuming that all of us are good Christians, badged and ticketed for heaven.

At the root of abdicating this core spiritual duty is absorption –this is what Tolstoy says- in rituals, dogmas and sacraments. Here is the relevant part of the text-Believers profess that Christ as God, the second person of the Trinity, descended upon earth to teach men by his example how to live; they go through the most elaborate ceremonies for the consummation of the sacraments, the building of temples, the sending out of missionaries, the establishment of priesthoods, for parochial administration, for the performance of rituals; but they forget one little detail –the practice of the commandments of Jesus. (My Religion) It is not Tolstoy’s argument that ceremonies and sacraments, rituals and rites are superfluous. His grievance is that the church is not interested in anything beyond them.

That is to say, rituals and rites have ceased to be incarnational. In that sense, the exclusive obsession with them militates against the essence of biblical spirituality. It is an issue that Jesus places at the centre of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The priest and Levite have become irrelevant to the world of lived realities. The circumstances of their spiritual cosmos coincided with the boundaries of the temple. To that extent, the rituals and sacraments themselves lost their vitality for them. The extent to which equipping of the saints takes place, or is neglected, through congregational nurture should be a matter of serious concern today.

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Worship in biblical worldview is a means for sanctification. But sanctification for what? Is it not sanctification for leading life in all its abundance? (Jn. 10:10) And how can that be, unless worship sanctifies all aspects of our life? God is Lord not only of Sundays, but of all days. He dwells not only in places of worship, but at the centre of our life, and all life. His presence fills the world. The most unfortunate effect that places of worship have created is that of dividing the world into sacred and profane spaces. (The word ‘profane’ in its original meaning meant only ‘outside the temple premises’). God is relevant to the sacred domain; the rest is claimed by man as his free-hold.

Such a view is alien to the Bible.

The doctrine of Jesus, in the sense in which Tolstoy uses the concept, rejects the sacred-profane divide. It does so by shifting the emphasis from mechanical and ritualistic observances to ‘doing the will of God’, as in the case of the instruction that Jesus gives to the expert in Jewish law, “God and do likewise” (Lk. 15:37). Spirituality is a domain of action, not of mere observances.

It is not my intention here to attempt a comprehensive analysis of Tolstoy’s stand on the Sermon on the Mount. In view of the limited canvas of an article, I have confined myself to foregrounding a few of the issues that Tolstoy raises in his book My Religion. Readers interested in pursuing this line of study further are advised to also consult his other works- The Kingdom of God is Within You, What Shall We Do? Bethink Yourselves! And A Confession What impresses me most is the enormous moral authority that Tolstoy came to wield in the last phase of his life, when he tried to live strictly by the teachings of Christ. He was recognized the “real Tsar of Russia”. That recognition did not come because of his pre-eminence among the men of letters of his times, but from his moral authority. The secret of that authority was his attempt to bridge the gulf between the teachings of Christ and the way life is lived. Mention needs to be made, though, that he got into serious trouble with the Russian Orthodox Church, which excommunicated him. The Tsar, whom he criticised even more fiercely, left him unharmed.

Regrettably, we have, unlike Tolstoy, a superstitious idea of the power of the biblical faith. This is not an accident. It is a logical and necessary by-product of our reluctance to take to the straight and narrow path. The Way of Jesus Christ seems so very daunting to us that we take refuge in a magical sort of Christianity, which seems to offer an effortless and convenient alternative –the proverbial broad road that Jesus warned us against. It should not surprise us that we are almost totally alienated from the power of the faith. As Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in a different context-

A Christ without a Cross led a people without sin into a heaven without judgement.

We try to fill this vacuum, created by the dearth of radical obedience, with show and splendour, size and scale. That is why we build more and more expensive and impressive churches, even if the faith community is languishing in spiritual anaemia and growing in indifference –and as regards the youth, in allergy- towards formal worship. Alienated from the power of the faith, they seek compensation in the aesthetics of worship, which is a cultural bonus, though it is mistaken for nascent spirituality. Music, to take just once aspect of it, is at its centre not necessarily because there is anything extra spiritual about it, but because it pleases and satisfies one’s aesthetic sense.

The foremost feature of the Sermon on the Mount is the spotlight on the radical difference between the Way of Jesus and the way of the world. The former is, as the theological cliché states, the “upside –down Kingdom”. If it is indeed such, we need to learn to walk on our hands, not on our legs, so to speak. We need to learn, that is to say, a different equilibrium.

The problem is that we try to walk in the Kingdom as per the equilibrium of the world; we falter and fumble and, unnerved, we give up in quick time. We improvise theologies and doctrines to rationalize and legitimize our apostasy. We seek and find refuge from the challenges of radical obedience; and do so in the soothing arms of our mother church! Thank God, there is at least some place we can retreat to! The fact remains, nonetheless, that God alone is our refuge. All other refuges are, therefore, counterfeits.

I conclude by raising a question that I consider crucial. Why is it that Christians, all over the world, are shrinking in spiritual, even personal, stature? Of course we have TV evangelists and miracle-mongers. We have godmen. We have successful men.

We have Mammon on our side. But people think of Zacchaeus, not Jesus, when they meet us. We are becoming living caricatures of what we were meant to be- created in His imagine and likeness.

Consider, now, what happened to a band of insignificant men – most of them fisher folk- after they adopted the Way of Jesus.

How they grew in stature! They came to be seen as “those who turn the world upside down”. Tolstoy was one such. That’s why I thought I’d focus on him, by way of saying what I would not, otherwise, have dared to say especially in my old age, even if I have the authority of the Sermon on my side.

In the end, I am deeply disturbed that the Sermon on the Mount does not disturb us. There are two reasons for this. First, we read it as a duty, mechanically. So, we skip on the verbal surface of the text; whereas its fire dwells in its depth. Second, spirituality has very little to do with the way most of us live. Life is lived by culture, not faith; though we profess to the contrary.

Jesus said - Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (Mt. 10:34). That sword, as St. Paul would say, is the sword of the Spirit that cleaves to the marrow of the bones.

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Prescriptions for Perfection Dr. Zac Varghese, London “Be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt.5: 43) The cardinal theme of the Sermon on the Mount is to be found in the command of Jesus to his followers with the hope that they will become perfect just as their Father in heaven is perfect. This perfection is a continuing process of growing toward Christian maturity. Through the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew’s Gospel (Mt.5-7) and in the Sermon on the Plain in St. Luke’s Gospel (Lk. 6: 17-49) Jesus gives us various prescriptions to achieve this perfection. It is a journey, a pilgrimage, beginning with the initial commitment to the fullness of life ‘in Christ’ under the divine grace. Jesus throughout his ministry announced God’s kingdom, and people understood the kingdom of God/kingdom of heaven in different ways.

The apostles, disciples and the Church through the ages have also presented Jesus’ message in different ways too. However, the words of this sermon are relevant today as they were when Christ delivered them either on the Mount or on the Plain because Jesus concluded: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Mt. 7: 24). The challenge for us is this: will we take these words of Jesus to our heart on our pilgrim journey?

When we begin this journey, it is so easy to get lost in the thick forests of theological arguments of when, where, how and why of these immortal sayings of Jesus. Did he give this sermon at one sitting on a Mount or spoke mingling with a crowd on a Plain? People have written volumes for finding an analogy to Moses handing down the Ten Commandments and how St. Matthew structured his Gospel in the form of the five books of the Torah to give comfort to his Jewish-Christian Community. We often find satisfaction in reaching the conclusion that the kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of God meant the same entity. Others spend time on tracing the nature of the audience for whom St. Luke wrote and many such peripheral details. In the end, the more accommodating theologians came to the conclusion that there are two versions of summaries of Jesus’ discourses delivered during his three year ministry, it may be very much like two newspaper reporters writing about the memories of an important event in the history of a people which they came across thirty or forty years later. Whatever way we want to look at it, the message has timelessness about it and it is relevant today as it was then.

The most familiar section of the Sermon on the Mount is to be found in what is known as ‘the Beatitudes’ or blessedness/happiness (Mt. 5: 3-12; Lk. 6: 20-26).

Happiness or blessedness was what people urgently needed at that period of Jewish history and people were anxiously waiting for a deliverer, a Messiah. Therefore, it

is significant that Jesus begins his ministry in bringing happiness to a community, whether it was through the miracle at the wedding celebration at Cana, or through healings or through his Sermons or through the ministry of the feeding miracles. It is of interest to trace the traditional backdrop of Jesus’ statements about blessedness. The Jewish community is familiar with the stories of their Patriarchs seeking blessings both of Adonai/ Lord/ Yahweh/God and of their parents. For example, Jacob was willing to cheat his brother Esau to receive blessings from his father, Isaac. He did this because the idea of this blessing has a dimensionless continuity and eternity. For us this means to establish a relationship with God that brings happiness in the midst of all perplexities of life. Therefore, when Jesus begins his public ministry, he begins at the very beginning of Jewish history with a word, ‘blessedness’, which resonates with the blessings given to Abraham and the creation itself; furthermore, we read: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God . . . (Jn. 1: 1-5). This continuity as expressed so beautifully in the prologue of St. John’s Gospel is important because of whom Jesus is. The Sermon on the Mount was not just the message of a charismatic leader or a manifesto of a political revolutionary; it has as a beginning engulfed in mystery and an ever-loving and everlasting influence on every human soul.

The concept of happiness in the Sermon has a deeper meaning with a reference to spiritual happiness that Jesus intends to make accessible to his audience when they become citizens of the kingdom of God. The criteria for becoming the citizen of the kingdom is made very clear to Nicodemus in his night-encounter with Jesus (Jn. 3: 3). Human happiness ordinarily results from human endeavour. But the Divine happiness that Jesus offers us through the prescriptions in ‘the Sermon’ is through a transformation and through a gift that comes directly from God. This transformation has the built in potential for living a life in all its fullness. Jesus suggests that the kind of happiness he brings is an inner happiness that can only be attained by surrendering our self-interests for the common good of others in loving our neighbours. Jesus makes it crystal clear that loving our God is only possible through loving our neighbours. This is one of the important prescriptions for a happy life. Jesus is leading his listeners to a way of life in which one can find spiritual, inner, happiness even in the midst of trials and tribulations. The fulfilment of the Law (Mt. 5: 17-20), judging others (Mt. 7: 1-5) and loving the enemies (Mt. 5: 45-48) are all part of the prescriptions for perfection.

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Last week in a conversation group, in north London, one of the group leaders, Mrs. Wendy Frith, asked us to discuss the question: who is your neighbour? We have Jesus’ answer to this question in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 20: 25-42). One friend, Mr. David Brand, looking at his back garden and seeing the trees, flower border, grass, insects and birds, came up with the notion that the whole world is our neighbour and we as custodians are obliged to look after it. Others contributed and the discussion proceeded along the following way.

Fr. James Mercer introduced the idea of intentionality in loving the neighbour. Our neighbour is anyone within and without, transcending closed-circles of human relationships. When we remove the identity that defines the ‘otherness of the other’, we find ourselves in the other and then s/he is our neighbour. Our neighbour includes the so-called enemies also. Our neighbour is anyone of any race, creed, gender, social background or IQ who is in need. Therefore, when we remove the otherness of the other we will find our neighbour; when we move from selfcenteredness to other-centeredness we find our neighbour. Neighbourliness is not about spatial proximity, it is a dimensionless reality. The word ‘I’ really should mean here I am and here I stand with others in solidarity, answering for everything and for everyone; it is in this reality we recognise the neighbour. There is an Indian saying: “Never have the feeling of ‘I’ centeredness, but if you happened to have one then let it becomes a universal ‘I’.”

find inclusion. ‘In Christ or en Christo’ is one of the favourite expressions of St. Paul in his letters. In Christ everything is possible. Welcoming the stranger is what it means to be a human. Jonathan Sacks2, a former chief rabbi, said: “If we were to listen closely to the voice of the other, we would find beneath the skin that we are brothers and sisters, members of the human family under the parenthood of God.” George Brown, a previous Labour Cabinet Minister in the UK in the 60s said, “If we scratch our skin, we find an immigrant underneath.” The distance and the difference between the ‘other’ and ‘I’ should be very thin, transparent and touchable; it is in this thinness that we find our neighbour to develop an ‘I-Thou’ relationship; it may be an opportunity to meet Christ in our neighbour. It is in this relationship we find the fruit of the Spirit and prescriptions for perfection (Gal. 5: 22-23).

The whole focus of the Sermon on the Mount is to call our attention away from ourselves to God and from whom the divine happiness can be received. It is all about finding a mediatory role for ourselves between the invisible (God) and the visible (humanity and the created-world) and leading others to God. Swedenborg3 wrote: “Everyone in the heaven knows, believes, and even perceives that nothing good is intended and done by the self.

Everything comes from the Divine.” He goes on to say, “The Divine nature that emanates from the Lord is the good intrinsic to love and the truth intrinsic to faith.”

Therefore, the source of light, truth, and all goodness emanates from the Lord. The flow of grace is from God to human beings who are ‘poor in Spirit’. The real significance of the first Beatitude in Matthew’s Gospel comes to light in St. Luke’s description of the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Lk. 18: 10-14). In his prayer the tax collector says, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” In these seven words, the tax collector expresses his spiritual poverty. In expressing it so sincerely and in utter humility he returns home forgiven and justified like the ‘Prodigal Son’. The quality of the father’s love determines the quality of the ‘Prodigal Son’s’ life. It is indeed a homecoming experience for him, and happiness returns to his life. The tax collector now enters the kingdom of God because of the acknowledgement of his spiritual poverty, which was the first step to his entry to the kingdom of God and blessedness. Zacchaeus expressed his spiritual poverty by climbing down the sycamore tree (Lk. 19: 1-9), and ‘salvation has come to his house’ at that moment of repentance and transformation.

In the Scripture we come across five words which often confuse us in our inability to understand how they are

The Old Testaments narratives imply favouritism and therefore, entail exclusion of the other in the concept of ‘election’. But this ‘election’ was specifically for becoming a blessing to others (Gen.12: 2-3). A chosen people have responsibilities for caring for the powerless. ‘In Christ’ we

2

Johnathan Sacks, ‘Not in God’s Name’, Hodder and Stoughton, 2015.

3 Emmanuel Swedenborg, ‘Heaven and Hell’, ISBN 978-087785-476-0, 2016.

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interconnected; these are body, mind, soul, human spirit and the Holy Spirit. In some texts soul and spirit are interchangeable in others they have different meaning (Heb. 4: 12). The soul, as with the human spirit, is at the heart of our spiritual and emotional experiences. The word soul may represent the whole person, whether in life or in the afterlife. The human spirit is the non-physical part of the human being that connects with the Holy Spirit, God. This relationship and interaction is a prescription for perfection. However, the problem is that the human spirit often seeks to reach ‘the mountain top experience of transformation’ out of its own resources, making access to Divine happiness a distinctively personal achievement. This is similar to the failedadventure and ego trip in the story behind the ‘Tower of Babel’, trying to reach heaven by human endeavour.

The composite of the above five words in the right order and relationship makes a perfect life, and for this we need to follow the grammar of life. In the Sermon on the Mount we find this grammar, which gives us a longing for justice, truth, relationship, love and beauty. The minutiae of insignificant part and personality of the individual is not the whole reality; to understand the whole, the part or parts should interact with other parts to create a musical symphony of life. ‘The whole is greater than sum of its parts.’ We need to listen and train with the universal conductor of the orchestra for creating the eternal harmonious symphony. We find the musical score for this symphony of life in the Sermon of the Mount.

Krishnamurti4 said, “We should not use the word individual at all, or the word mine and yours as they have no meaning, fundamentally. I am the result of my father and my mother and the environmental influence of the country and the society.’ This interdependence is important in our everyday living and understanding the ‘other’ is part of our Christian identity in Christ, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5: 17).

Paul said to the Greeks: “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 28). We should learn to move from self-centeredness to other centeredness. It is in this process that we will be understood in our understanding of the other. What the Indian mystic, Sri Aurobindo5, said is relevant in this context: “A solitary salvation leaving the world to its fate is almost distasteful.”

of? You cannot run faster than the lion.’ The second replies, ‘I don’t need to run faster than the lion, I need to run faster than you.’ In this story the first man thinks of saving both him and his friend. The second one is thinking of saving himself at the expense of his friends. It is a question of survival at the cost of the life of one’s friend. Jesus did the opposite; he gave his life to save the whole created world. Therefore, Sri Aurobindo is right in thinking that ‘nothing can be saved unless everything is saved.’ A human being left to himself in his vanity is spiritually bankrupt, but the moment one admits one’s spiritual poverty, he can become a citizen of the kingdom of God. It is only when we tackle our spiritual poverty, under the grace of God, we can continue with our spiritual journey, a pilgrim’s progress, which brings fullness and perfection out of our emptiness. It is a continuing, step-by-step, process of reaching perfection and growing into maturity.

It is this maturity for which Jesus tells us to ask, seek, and knock. Jesus tells us when we do so continuously, we find satisfaction for our deepest desire for abiding with him. Fake spiritual exercises or following religious formulations created for exercising power over others are not the right way; the right way is a ‘narrow way’, even an impossible way. The prescriptions are there for us to continue the journey with Christ and to listen to his words: "Be perfect, as my Father in heaven is perfect.”

These prescriptions are not like the Mosaic laws; it is entirely based on love. In ‘Honest to God’6, John Robinson wrote: “It is love which is the constitutive principle––and law, at most, is only the regulative one, if it is even that.”

It is good to remember that even the best human efforts are not perfect and the worst are not devoid of merits. In this process we have the possibility of materialising the dream of Swedenborg7 because he said, “Human being is the divine design and therefore heaven in miniature.” It is also good to remember St. Augustine’s words: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

Editor’s Note: Dr. Zac Varghese, London, U.K., was the director of Renal and Transplantation Immunology Research of Royal Free Hospital and Medical School in London. He is also a prolific writer on religious and ecumenical issues; he continues to work relentlessly for common good of the worldwide Mar Thoma Diaspora communities.

To illustrate this point let me quote a story from Johnathan Sacks’ book, ‘Not in the Name of God’, from which I quoted earlier. Two friends were walking in the jungle when they hear the roar of a lion. The first starts thinking of a place they could hide. The second puts on his running shoes. The first says, ‘what are you thinking 4

6

5

7

J. Krishanmurti, Ojai Talks, 1947.

Sri Aurobindo, Satperm, The Mother’s Institute of research , Delhi, and Mira Aditi, Mysore, 2003.

John A. T. Robinson, ‘Honest to God’, SCM Press,1963.

Emmanuel Swedenborg, ‘Heaven and Hell’, ISBN 978-087785-476-0, 2016.

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‘Hostility to Hospitality’ is the Very the Essence of Spirituality Part-2* (Dr. Zac Varghese, London) [Part 1 of this article appeared in the July (2017) issue of the FOCUS (Vol 5: 3)] Most of the hostility toward other religions is essentially due to lack of understanding of our own faith and more seriously an absolute ignorance of about other peoples’ religions, faith and worship patterns. For this reason, for no other, there is an urgent need for a greater and deeper theological understanding of hospitality and solidarity in all churches today and also across all religious enclosures. Most of the theological basis for the formation new branches of churches (40,000 or more denominations) has arisen from a response to events and insight of a particular period. Such historically oriented theology is occasional theology. Such occasional theology is formulated for a need of the day and satisfying that need in the context of best possible theological insight of the time. This is also true for the Mar Thoma Church and its reformation in the nineteenth century.

laity. But they are very important in maintaining the structures of the Church. This lay contribution is not democracy’s answer to an institutionalised church. They pretend that they are the standard bearers of tradition.

The second group is evangelically minded born again group of laity who is also important in the life and mission of the Church and they are flag bearers of word of God in the scripture. They sometimes practise a tyranny of emotional experience. We also have a third much larger group of silent lay people whose insight and experience is drawn from daily chores at the working environment of their daily living. This sort of lay presence draws their strength form their daily involvement in that continuing process of God’s continuing revelation and creation. Our liberal understanding is that creation is a continuing process within which there is the further revelation and purpose, which we come to call redemption.

Church historian will never be able to neglect the role of lay participation in formulating this important occasional theology during the reformation or transformation of any faith community. Such a theology is a theology of the whole people of God and not just of professional theologians because theologians usually talk about God, but religious people experience God; this experience of God and having an intimate relationship with God is spirituality. William James divides religion into two main categories: the Institutional – including church, theology, rituals and traditions; and the personal experiential side.

TS Eliot wrote: “I had the meaning, but missed the experience.” We all know what we ought to do, but we often manage not to do it. Spiritual experiences can be triggered in many ways: some people find this during worship, in chanting a liturgy or a mantra, in meditation or in silence. Others may feel an awareness God in nature.

Charles Kingsley felt the awareness God during his nature walks and wrote, “I was aware that I was immersed in the infinite ocean of God.” This is indeed the sensitivity needed to see the presence of God in human activities.

This is the hospitality of including everyone in our spiritual journey to experience God.

God’s revelation is not restricted to Israelites, Christians or any particular religion. We see this in the anointing of the Persian King Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1-6) and his involvement in helping exilic community in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuilding the second Temple through Ezra and Nehemiah during the reign of Darius.

We also read the strange story of Balaam, the Mesopotamian prophet, who is made to prophesy for Israel in the presence of their enemies (Numbers 22-24).

In the story of the Melchizedeck, we have Canaanite priest-king bringing bread and vine to Abraham. In the Christian tradition, this incidence gives to the reflection on the priesthood of Christ himself as being according to ‘the order of Melchizedek’ (Genesis 14: 18; Hebrews 6: 20). The story of Ruth informs us, how a Moabite woman became the ancestress of David and thus of Jesus himself (Ruth 4: 17-22). Boaz’s generosity and hospitality is at the heart of this amazing story. This continuing redemptive process is set within a continuing creative process in which man/woman at some point comes to play his part under the grace of God. It is important to see that we should not allow ourselves to be guided by a tyranny of the institutions or emotional blackmail in appreciating this reality. This understanding is essential for moving away from hostility to hospitality in our interfaith dialogue.

Christian theologian is the cuckoo that lays her eggs in other people’s nest and flies away. It is the laity who is responsible for hatching the theological egg and their contribution is vital for its nurture. Here we see hostility is being transformed to hospitality through lay participation.

A lay-centered church should be the hallmark of the twenty-first century. Mar Thoma Church has the label of a lay-centered church. Generally speaking there are three kinds of laity in the Church: the first group is the one who spends their entire time in councils and committees and who are designated, quite incorrectly, as representing the

Many people are experiencing a vacuum in their religious experiences and expectations. It is a god-shaped hole created by the theological vacuum or rejuvenating fellowship of the mainstream churches, which so many religious cults are filling in through university ministries and church planting. This is a real crisis and it will be met only by a fresh understanding of the importance and place of theology in the life and faith of whole people of

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God. A tripartite theology involving the word of God in scriptures; the word of God in tradition and the teaching of the Church and also the word of God in human experience and reason are out there. It is this third part which is hidden in the very fibre of his creation. The genius of a living theology is to see how these three witnesses, scripture, tradition and reason, can agree for creating God’s Kingdom here and now. This is a sure way of providing hospitality for seekers of spirituality. God is working His purposes out in a variety of ways and that no one model is adequate in describing God’s work. We need absolute humility to appreciate this and offer hospitality to others. This understanding is essential for interfaith dialogue. Malachi speaks of the way in which God is recognised and worshipped among other nations.

In some cases these were more acceptable than the worship of Israel itself (Malachi 1: 11).

Is there such a thing as a unique Mar Thoma Theology?

What is it? Where is it? Are uniqueness and special claims recipes for disaster and hostility? Metropolitan Chrysostom of the Mar Thoma Church seems to have said in a recoded conversation (Mission in the Market place) that “Malpan’s reformation was a movement against the practices of the church; it was not based on any well thought out theological position.” What is it then? Is it an evolving theology based on its history, corrective actions, social exclusions, and evangelical fervour? Perhaps it is based on stories and legends of our forefathers; if it is, then we need to tell these stories very quickly before our memories fade away. There is a need to tease out every layer of that theology hidden in the developing story of the Mar Thoma Church. If you know these stories and the theology behind the stories, would you please come out tell us these for the benefit of future generations, particularly generations growing up in diaspora communities. But there is a problem here because of Metropolitan Chrysostom has this amazing insight based on the apparent lack of an identifiable Christian culture in Kerala at the time of reformation; he wrote: “The reason for this was that our forefathers did not have any deep understanding of Christ. How is a deep understanding of Christ is possible without the study of the Bible?” Now we have the Bible in various formats, theological interpretation of all types, our own theological institutions and research centres, but what is preventing us from studying and writing an authentic theological basis of the reformation? Are we still carrying with us the hostility and resentment associated with the reformation? What is on the agenda for creating Eucharistic hospitality at the Lord’s Table with other churches? Is there a problem in raising such a question?

Death and resurrection is written into the very fibre of human experience. As surely as a grain of wheat falls into earth it must die in order to bring forth new life, this regeneration is the need of our times to remove hostility and to create hospitality.

Programmed cell death,

apoptosis, is a built in safety valve for the homeostasis of cells, tissues, and the physiology of life. Repentance, renewal and regeneration are important processes in our spiritual life and the life of the church as well to build and nurture a faith- based community. This is the way for shifting our emphasis from hostility to hospitality in our everyday living. We need to pray for keeping our arms open to strangers, to those who are different and social outcasts; there is also the possibility that these strangers may be carrying unexpected gifts and blessings with them, which might change our lives. God’s mission demands the church to proclaim the good news not only in words, but also effectively through deeds promoting communal harmony and hospitality among all human beings.

TO REMEMBER IS DIVINE* Rev. Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam For it is right in the sight of God. In the book of Sibylline Oracles chapter 44 We read the words of wisdom to live and to die.

Remembrance of the blessed and the departed is adored.

So also in the book of Proverbs 10:7 and Ps.112:6.

Lord, you have assured me in Is.49:15: “I will not forget you”.

Lord, you have assured me again in Heb.6:10: You are not unjust to forget my work of faith in serving the saints.

I am being re-assured by the words of Abdul Kalam by an analogy: “If an egg is broken from outside force life ends If broken by inside force, life begins.

Great things always begin from inside” Yes, remembering the good deeds of a friend comes only from inside.

Lord, you have set an example to us You remembered your old female friend after your exalted (risen) status In the Garden city of Jerusalem, where Zac had his brief sojourn in 1974, You called your former friend by her name, MARY And you had shown courage to break the barriers of communication What a great gesture of friendship!

In Your mercy, you have enabled Zac to speak and to write what is profitable And to make human bonding across the continents.

FOCUS is his legacy on the sands of time.

Yes, Lord, to remember is divine To forget is natural To forget willingly is devilish!

We would like to thank you, Lord, for what he means to us We know, Lord, that love is a verb for Zac For many it is only a noun.

May God’s name be glorified today and tomorrow.

*A poetic greeting for Dr. Zac Varghese (London) on his 80th birthday on July 21, 2018.

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The End of an Amazing Pilgrimage, but the Beginning of Another Dr. Zac Varghese, London It is indeed a blessing to join others from the Mar Thoma Community in the UK and Europe for thanking God for the life and ministry of the Rt. Revd Geevarghese Mar Athanasius Suffragan Metropolitan. We are all saddened

by Thirumeni’s death on 18th April 2018, but it was a saintly ending of an amazing pilgrimage. Death may seem a remote and improbable event that only happens to other people. Most of the time, aging process is not smooth or gentle; it can be very cruel, rushes up and pushes you over. Thirumeni courageously showed us how to prepare, under the grace of God, by finding solutions to severe health-related problems from January 2007.

Although the struggles were protracted, Thirumeni never gave up and faced them with amazing courage, and never allowed it to affect his ministry in any way.

Thirumeni made us experience the fact God had given him time and space over the last few months to prepare himself for his final pilgrim journey to his eternal home. He respected life, as it is a gift from God, and searched for the meaning of suffering. Our Metropolitan Thirumeni had given us a detailed and very caring account of his final days in the May issue of the Tharaka. Athanasius Thirumeni had the courage and time to say final graceful goodbyes to his brother bishops, and his beloved people within the faith community and the wider-ecumenical world. It is often said that the manner of a person’s death illustrates the character of the individual; this is certainly true in Thirumeni’s death and magnificent funeral service of eternal hope.

Thirumeni lived under the amazing grace of God for 74 years of which he did episcopal ministry for the last twenty-nine years. Over these years he influenced and touched all of us through his right mindfulness, right views, lofty ideals, penetrating thoughts, memorable sermons, and right lifestyle. We have all known him in our own special ways. I had the opportunity to meet him with late Iype Abraham, for the first time on 11th June 1976, when he was returning to Kerala after his higher studies in Toronto. He was then Revd C. I. George, and Achen generously spent a very enjoyable evening with us, and our friendship grew over the following 42 years. He had an endearing smile; simple and sincere people have the habit of expressing their thoughts on their face, this indeed is the mark of their innocence and Thirumeni was an example of this. One memorable habit of Thirumeni, in later years, was his early morning phone calls for very specific and precise needs relating to various mission projects of the Church; he used to be very direct and very sincere about everything. Thirumeni was a tower of strength and inspiration for those who attended the three

FOCUS Seminars at Santhigiri Ashram from 1999 to 2003.

‘Service at any cost, but not fame at any price’ was one of Thirumeni ideals. Thirumeni was first and foremost a Bishop, an Apostle of Jesus Christ. His mission was God’s mission, ‘Missio dei’. For all sorts of reasons, it is possible to sense a difference between the mission of God and the mission of the Church, Thirumeni was mostly interested in the former. St. Paul said, “And God has appointed in the Church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers. . .” (1 Cor. 12: 28). Therefore, Apostles, prophets and teachers are given pride of place in the Church and it is rare that all these three gifts can be found in one man. But in Athanasius Thirumeni there was a true combination of all these ministries. He was an Apostle, sent by Jesus Christ, called to preach and lead the Church. He endeavoured to bring God’s future to the present in knowing the fully well that ‘the kingdom of God is here, but a not-yet reality’. He took great care in preparing his sermons. He used to stay at Santhigiri Ashram during weekdays for preparing number of sermons for the year ahead and carefully practiced them during his early morning walks through the grounds of the Ashram. His sermons were spiced with poetry and quotations from poets, philosophers and writers. He was very fond of quoting from Vivekananda, Tagore, Tolstoy, Kumaran Assan, Azhikode and such. Thirumeni had ‘intelligence beyond thought’. He had a great love and facility for speaking rhetorically and eloquently in Malayalam, and he used it well for driving home the Gospel message.

Each man’s achievement is his own under the most benevolent grace of God and only the person can tell what the cost has been. No one can live the life of another and no one can make his own life out of another’s. However, love and compassion can help everyone, strengthening the weak and encouraging the dispirited; whilst hate, anger and malice can only slowdown everyone’s progress. Thirumeni endeavours to build Mar Thoma communities around the world for the glory of God. Thirumeni taught us the importance of following the essential Christian virtues and kingdom values for the common good of the community. This was because of his Christ-centred self without being selfcentred.

The greatest tribute that we can pay to Thirumeni is to take seriously those things for which he lived his ministry; to hold firmly the traditions and doctrines of the Church, and to be firmly rooted in faith; to know that faith must be taught and lived, and theology studied with intellectual integrity if people are to be spiritually fed and truth

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proclaimed to quench spiritual poverty. This is very important to any teacher, mentor, or charismatic spiritual leader, and Thirumeni had it all.

Is not it strange that hardly anyone has a good word to say about a Bishop in private when he’s alive or bad things to say in public about him when he is dead? That is because we remember the bits we want to remember and forget the bits we would rather forget, but I would suggest to you to remember those things which were the nearest to Thirumeni’s heart for that is the greatest tribute we can pay as sincere friends to a great Bishop.

Human life is a strange and wonderful experience: bright with promise and deep with sadness, joy of abundant health and the burden of illness, marked with love and loneliness, joy and tears. The future is upon us all too soon and the present quickly becomes the past.

Thirumeni taught us that with faith we can entrust all our days, good and bad, to the care of our Lord––the past as well as the future, and the present, since ‘all time belongs to Him all the ages.’ Thirumeni just completed God’s mission in this world very successfully, finished his pilgrimage and embarking on another journey. Athanasius Thirumeni was a faithful servant of God and His Church, and walked closely with Jesus in his life. May his soul rest in peace and resurrect in glory. Let us pray that he will be welcomed by the God he served so faithfully to be with Jesus forever.

Book Review Published by: ISPCK, Delhi March 2018

MUSINGS AND MARKINGS (Poetic Reflections and Essays)

By Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam

“Lakshmir lakshanahinee Kulaheenee Saraswathii Apatree Labhatee harrii Megha Varshantu parvatee” If Lakshmidevi showers all blessings on a person without any quality, it is of no use. So are the blessings of Saraswathy on an undignified human being. An excellent wife given to an undeserving being is also useless. All

these will be like the rain falling on top of a mountain. It is of no use.

My long association with Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph has taught me one thing – he is a rare genius who really is blessed by Saraswathy and Lakshmi. All the divine gifts from above have been abundantly used by him in articulating his theological and philosophical interpretations of life. His books celebrate the joy of life and all life supporting phenomena.

“Musings and Markings” is a beautiful collection of poems and essays in four sections. Twenty two chapters in the beginning part deal with a variety of subjects like ECC, Peoples Reporter, Diaspora Focus, Jesus the Radical, The Om of the Universe and so on. “Poetry at the bottom is a Criticism of Life”, says Matthew Arnold. Here we find the real critic in Dr. M. J. We are taken to hitherto unknown dimensions of numerous subjects, which the poet handles with elegance and dexterity.

Section ‘A’ deals with a variety of topics in wider ecumenism, of which the author is a renowned champion.

Section ‘B’ covers Biblical reflections. The last part is about “Friendship with our Neighbours”. Only a person with immense depth of knowledge and understanding can delve deep into such a spectrum of epistemology. Dr. M. J. has a pen perfected by craft and his siddhi blossoms through constant sadhana, as exemplified in these beautiful renderings.

A poet receives impressions from the cosmic intelligence, when his intellectual wavelength equals that of the universal knowledge. Poets become prophets at this juncture. Rev. M. J. Joseph, no doubt, excels in imparting his prophetic insights through the captivating pages of this volume. It provides us an exciting reading experience and it is my pleasure and privilege to recommend it to all beloved readers. Come and feel the difference. In poetic musings, the fountain of inspiration is at large. The book is a welcome addition to Eco-Theology. Preface cum Reflections by Fr. Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel, CMI, Director ECC and Prof. Dr. Zac Varghese (London) add luster to the book.

Total Pages: 217 Price: Rupees 225 (India) US: 9 dollars and UK-11 Pounds.

Order- ISPCK, Delhi: ella@ispeck.org.in Online order: http//ispck.org.in/book.php Contact the author Rev. Dr. M. J. Joseph at his-mail address: drmjjoseph _65 @yahoo.co.in

Review by: Dr. Abraham Karickam, URI Asia Secretary General

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Mission and Liturgy: Contest, Convergence and Congruence with Special Reference to the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church

By Jameson K. Pallikunnil As an ancient Christian community, the Mar Thoma Church with its vibrant life of mission and sacraments, has a pride of place in the Christendom. The evangelization process and constant migration made this church a global Church, which has encountered multi-cultural and multi-ethnic atmosphere and assimilated various cultural practices and faced faith confrontation in its own geographical regions. This confrontation has caused a renewed view of nature, identity and mission of the Church in a positive manner. Mission is, in fact, the lifeblood of the Church. Through its mission-work and revised liturgy, the Mar Thoma Church took a pioneer role in the formation and nurturing of new Christian communities in India and different parts of the world. Hence, this book reflects on the role of liturgy and its influence on the missionary undertakings of the MTC. It elucidates how the revised liturgy functions as a basis for mission and recounts how liturgy and mission are connected. Further, the diverse mission centres of the Church and its cultural specialties, an integration of liturgy and evangelism, importance of liturgicalorientation and training, are also dealt with in detail. Added to this, the various challenges of the Church in its mission fields and diaspora regions are studied in the framework of the liturgy.

The scope of liturgical renewal is looked into where the liturgical adaptation and possibilities of contextual liturgies in the Church are studied. This study concludes with some of the pertinent liturgical proposals for the furtherance to sustain the life and mission of the Church. With a living experience and profound theological understanding, this ancient but reformed Church has something unique to offer to the whole Christendom.

The Eucharistic Liturgy: A Liturgical Foundation for Mission in the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church

By Jameson K. Pallikunnil The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church exists as a “hybrid church” by blending the Eastern liturgical elements of the Oriental Orthodox Church and the evangelical ideas of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. This Church is a “bridging” church, connecting Protestantism and Oriental Orthodoxy. The reformation in the Malankara Church (1836) instigated a new impetus for this church in constructing an ecclesial identity

and pattern of mission. A major missiological imperative employed by CMS missionaries in India was solely centered on the scripture. Against this popular understanding, the Mar Thoma Church, through its reformation process showed that liturgy can also be an imperative for mission. The translation and revision of the Eucharistic liturgy is the basic visible expression of reformation in the Malankara Church. Hence, this book explicitly places how the Eucharistic liturgy of the Mar Thoma Church is observed as the foundation for mission in its course of growth. In order to accomplish this objective, the writer has examined the historical evolution and the developmental process of the Eucharistic liturgy of the church, which is a revised version of the liturgy of St. James. In a nutshell, this study is an appraisal of various missiological themes reflected in the Eucharistic liturgy of the church. This study throws ample light on how the Mar Thoma Church integrated liturgy and evangelism in its course of development. The writer systematically illustrates how the church made a serious effort to bring missional themes employed in the liturgy into the practical realm by its ancillary organizations, convention gatherings, and sociocharitable works. This volume asserts that an emphasis on Eucharist-centred ecclesiology guides and motivates the church to enliven a mission-oriented life, which is crucial for accomplishing a relevant mission.

It is with great honor and privilege for FOCUS to inform that the AuthorHouse publishers, UK has published the second book, Mission and Liturgy: Contest, Convergence and Congruence written by Rev. Dr. Jameson K. Achen’s first book is “The Eucharistic Liturgy: A Liturgical Foundation for Mission in the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church.” By the grace of God, this book got the Maliyekkal M C. George Achen memorial prize of our church last year.

Both of these books are dealing with our Church’s historic liturgy, its rich theological understanding, and its commitment to mission in its emerging cultural contexts. It is available in Barnes & Nobles, AuthorHouse, Amazon, Ebay, and other international online sites. It's a humble attempt to introduce our Church, especially its historic liturgy and mission endeavors to our diaspora and other wider communities. More information about both of the books can be found by clicking the following links: Barnes & Nobles: https://goo.gl/WDGoPy https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-eucharistic-liturgyjameson-k-pallikunnil/1126024106?ean=9781524676537 AuthorHouse, UK https://goo.gl/LJFnFL Amazon: https://goo.gl/1gvxG5 https://www.amazon.com/Mission-Liturgy-ConvergenceCongruencereference/dp/1546293736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=152967382 1&sr=8-1&keywords=mission+and+Liturgy%2C+contest Contact Information for Achen: St. Thomas Mar Thoma Church Keezhvaipur South, Keezhvaipur (PO) Pathanamthitta – 689587 Kerala Tel: 0469-2651359, 8281381867/9847176015, E-Mail: jamesonachen@gmail.com

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The Zonal Inauguration of the Mar Thoma Church in the UK and Europe Held on June 9, 2018 In 1942, William Temple at his enthronement as the Archbishop of Canterbury referred to the existence of a worldwide Anglican Church as ‘the great new fact of our time.’ Within a short span of seventy-six years Mar Thoma Church has become a global church. ‘Scatter my people’ was a prophetic prayer of Metropolitan Abraham Mar Thoma in the nineteen forties. Under the grace of God, the Mar Thoma Diaspora communities have contributed richly in elevating the status of a church confined within the boundaries of Kerala to a world-wide church, which is indeed ‘the great new fact of our time.’

The Mar Thoma Christians as a regular worshipping community in the UK can trace their history so far back into 1957, and as a result we celebrated our Diamond Jubilee in August 2017. Although we have grown individually and can be very proud of our individual achievements, we do not have any real feeling for a united Mar Thoma Community of the UK and Europe. The awareness of other people of us has become limited as well; we really have no public face; we have no corporate identity. This became very clear to us during our conversations with ecumenical organisations such as ‘Churches Together in England.’ This realisation prompted the Rt. Revd Dr. Geevarghese Mar Theodosius, Diocesan Episcopa, to set up a Council of Mar Thoma Parishes in Europe (COMPE) in August 2009.

However, we realised that this is only an intermediary body and a stopgap solution for linking us with the Diocese of North America and Europe. An Amazing expansion of our parishes and congregation happened since our Silver and Golden Jubilees in 1982 and 2007 respectively. As a result, the Episcopal Synod has given an independent Zonal Status for the UK and Europe region from 1st January 2018. Our Metropolitan Thirumeni, Most Revd Dr. Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan, inaugurated the Zone on 9th June 2018 at Cotton Green Church, Tamworth, in the presence of The Rt. Revd Isaac Mar Philoxenos Episcopa and bishops of other churches (The Rt. Revd Michael Ipgrave, The Rt. Revd John Fenwick, The Rt. Revd David Hicks) and other distinguished ecumenical (Mrs. Christine Elliot) and civic guests including Mr. Sunondo Chakraborty, head of the Indian Consulate.

Nearly 1000 people attended the function. We realise that it is only a beginning and we need to work together and pray together for further expansion and development.

Churchill after the battle of El Alamein said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

In 1889, after the Royal Court judgement, our forefathers lost everything and built our worldwide Church with a

total dependence on the forgiveness, mercy, regeneration, revival, commitment, and the grace of God. We are sent here for God’s purposes and we should be mindful to use our God-given resources to develop this region and should not be dissipated and misdirected for other causes or issues. We are needed here and should be conscious of this important fact and nobody else can do the job God has entrusted us to do and we should do it as a united Mar Thoma community in the UK and Europe. Metropolitan Thirumeni and Philoxenos Thirumeni reminded us of our responsibilities in conducting God’s mission in this region.

The Mar Thoma Community in the UK and Europe experienced great joy and excitement in coming together for the Zonal Inauguration of the Mar Thoma Church. It was a most enjoyable once in a life time event. In addition to the inauguration of the Zone, we were able to celebrate the centenary of the formation of the Sevika Sanghom, which has been doing amazing work in empowering our women over the last hundred years. Everyone appreciated the contributions of the Sunday school children and the youths; we congratulate them and thank them. We also celebrated the Diamond jubilee of the priestly ordination of our Metropolitan Thirumeni and the Silver Jubilee of the Episcopal consecration of Philoxenos Thirumeni.

We salute our pioneers (both men and women) who built the Mar Thoma parishes and congregations in this Zone, and we welcome the next generation of young leaders and thank God for their vibrant contributions, dreams and vision. It was these young leaders who were mostly responsible for the most amazing inaugural function of the Zone. There was an amazing fresh enthusiasm and confidence in the air at the inaugural service of the Zone.

It was indeed a day of dedication for building the community for the glory of God. Both the Metropolitan Thirumeni and our Zonal Episcopa reminded us why we are sent here and not just arrived aimlessly; it is indeed an answer to a memorable and prophetic prayer from Abraham Mar Thoma Metropolitan, as indicated earlier, of ‘scatter our people’ for God’s mission. Therefore, every member of the Mar Thoma Church is sent out to this part of the world as a missionary to live and spread the ‘Good News’. This is indeed our mission statement and it is the oath that we took on 9th June, 2018 at the Cotton Green Church to build a united community for the glory of God. It is our responsibility to tell this story to our future generations.

We would like to express our most sincere thanks to everyone for creating such a memorable experience. We thank our Metropolitan Thirumeni, Philoxenos Thirumeni and

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other distinguished guests for blessing us with their august presence. We also thank our Achens, and all the members of the organizing committee and its sub- committees. We thank the excellent choir, the catering team, reception and publicity sub-committees, bouquet and flower arrangements, and others who organized the transport and all other logistical aspects of this amazing community event.

The following people require special mention and they owe our gratitude, they include: Very Revd V. T. John, Revd Shibu Kurien, Revd Stanley Thomas Mr. P. M. Mathew, Mr. Thomas Abraham, Mr. Raji Mathew and Mr. Agy George. We offer our very special thanks to Miss Natasha Abraham and Dr. Sujith Abraham who efficiently and gracefully compered the inaugural function. This was an event, which the next generation and we can gratefully remember and be proud of over the years to come. We also want to thank each and every participant. It was not a triumphant ceremony, but a humble thanksgiving event for God’s amazing and abundant grace.

For our patriarch, Abraham, and for our forefathers in the 19 Century who built the Mar Thoma Church after the Royal Court judgement––faith was not a simple legalistic way of being religious; rather it was a being alive within a community and to be a blessing to everyone. May this event challenge all of us to support wholeheartedly all the proposed developments for the growth of this Zone. There is no one else out there, it is our responsibility. As we have seen on Saturday, our participation and prayers are the most important ingredients for our growth. Let us thank God, for His love endures forever. We hope that the Mar Thoma Community in Europe will help the people in this region to a better life in Christ. We offer thanks to Almighty God for these sixty years in Europe and pray for His blessings on the Mar Thoma communities throughout the world and our fellowship in Jesus Christ, our Lord, redeemer, and protector. th

The Editorial Board FOCUS

Photos of Europe Zone Inauguration Held on June 9, 2018 by His Grace Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan

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Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan’s Visit with Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York, England Photo Courtesy: Archbishop’s office Canterbury & York

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Photos of Geevarghese Mar Athanasius Suffragan Metropolitan’s Funeral Service Held at Thiruvalla. Photo Courtesy – Gloria News, SD Imaging and Anil George

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