20160114 THE BORDERLINE BETWEEN FAITH AND SUPERSTITION
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Green.
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First reading
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1 Samuel 4:1-11 ©
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It happened at that
time that the Philistines mustered to fight Israel and Israel went out to meet
them in battle, encamping near Ebenezer while the Philistines were encamped at
Aphek. The Philistines drew up their battle line against Israel, the battle was
hotly engaged, and Israel was defeated by the Philistines and about four
thousand of their army were killed on the field. The troops returned to the
camp and the elders of Israel said, ‘Why has the Lord allowed us to be defeated
today by the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of our God from Shiloh so that
it may come among us and rescue us from the power of our enemies.’’ So the
troops sent to Shiloh and brought away the ark of the Lord of Hosts, he who is
seated on the cherubs; the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, came with the
ark. When the ark of the Lord arrived in the camp, all Israel gave a great
shout so that the earth resounded. When the Philistines heard the noise of the
shouting, they said, ‘What can this great shouting in the Hebrew camp mean?’
And they realised that the ark of the Lord had come into the camp. At this the
Philistines were afraid; and they said, ‘God has come to the camp.’ ‘Alas!’
they cried ‘This has never happened before. Alas! Who will save us from the
power of this mighty God? It was he who struck down Egypt with every kind of
plague! But take courage and be men, Philistines, or you will become slaves to
the Hebrews as they have been slaves to you. Be men and fight.’ So the
Philistines joined battle and Israel was defeated, each man fleeing to his
tent. The slaughter was great indeed, and there fell of the Israelites thirty
thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured too, and the two sons of
Eli died, Hophni and Phinehas.
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Psalm
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Psalm
43:10-11,14-15,24-25 ©
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Redeem us, O Lord,
because of your love.
Yet now you have
rejected us, disgraced us;
you no
longer go forth with our armies.
You make us retreat
from the foe
and our
enemies plunder us at will.
Redeem us, O Lord,
because of your love.
You make us the taunt
of our neighbours,
the
laughing-stock of all who are near.
Among the nations,
you make us a byword,
among the
peoples a thing of derision.
Redeem us, O Lord,
because of your love.
Awake, O Lord, why do
you sleep?
Arise, do
not reject us for ever!
Why do you hide your
face
and
forget our oppression and misery?
Redeem us, O Lord,
because of your love.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Ps118:88
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Because of your love
give me life,
and I will do your
will.
Alleluia!
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Or
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cf.Mt4:23
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Jesus proclaimed the
Good News of the kingdom
and cured all kinds
of sickness among the people.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 1:40-45 ©
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A
leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: ‘If you want to’ he said ‘you can
cure me.’ Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.
‘Of course I want to!’ he said. ‘Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once
and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him,
‘Mind you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and
make the offering for your healing prescribed by Moses as evidence of your
recovery.’ The man went away, but then started talking about it freely and
telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any
town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people
from all around would come to him.
THE
BORDERLINE BETWEEN FAITH AND SUPERSTITION
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: 1 Samuel 4:1-11;
Mk 1:40-45
Many people treat
religion as a utility to get things from God or to make God do their will. Religion is an attempt to control the
ominous power of God and to manipulate Him for our benefits. So in many
religions, great emphasis is placed on rituals, symbols and correct practices.
Whilst many people in the world are suffering, religionists are squabbling over
the right rituals and the signs to be used for worship. Indeed, there is a thin
line between faith and superstition in the way religion is practiced by most
adherents of their faith. What is the difference between faith and magic?
Faith is fundamentally a
relationship with God. This
is what the gospel wants to teach us. The leper is a symbol of someone who is
alienated from God and his fellowmen. Leprosy was such a deadly, frightening
and horrible disease of the skin and in many situations, they gradually rot
till they were unrecognizable. Because it was highly infectious, they had to be
banished from the community. They dwelled alone in uninhabited area. But there
was also a religious meaning attached to this sickness. It was a symbol of sin
and punishment from God. For these reasons, the leper had to shout “unclean,
unclean” when there are people nearby so that they would not be contaminated
ritually or be infected medically.
It is within this
context that Jesus did something that was not only miraculous but unimaginable. When the leper “came to Jesus and
pleaded on his knees” and said, “If you want to, you can cure me”, Jesus
responded kindly and with compassion. “Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched
out his hand and touched him. ‘Of course I want to!’ he said. ‘Be cured!’ And
the leprosy left him at once and he was cured.” It was unthinkable for Jesus to
touch him because He would have been contaminated and might even be infected
with the sickness. Yet Jesus took reached out to touch the leper because the
real healing that he needed was not only physical healing but the need to be
touched, loved, accepted and be embraced once again by God and his fellowmen.
The act of Jesus touching and healing him was very much a symbolic act of Jesus
forgiving his sins and reconciling him back to the community. In order to
authenticate and bring to full effect his cure, Jesus therefore commanded him
to see the priest for verification of his health so that he could be readmitted
to the community.
Faith, although
principally a relationship with God and with the community, is however mediated
through symbols, as we have seen. As human beings, we communicate through symbols, concrete and
non-concrete. We use the world of nature to communicate our feelings e.g.
flowers, the stars and the moon or the mountains. We use our body to express
ourselves through a handshake or a hug. So too in the liturgy, we make use of
earthly symbols to convey our love, respect and reverence for God and His
sacred presence. So in religion, just as in any culture, we cannot do without
symbols. Even the country needs a symbol, the national flag and the president
or a king.
But when we fail to
remember that symbols are means for us to encounter God or to express and
facilitate this encounter, we fall into superstition and magic. We read in the first reading how the
sons of Eli sought to reassure their people by using the Ark of the Covenant
for their battle with the strong, aggressive and organized army of the
Philistines. When they lost the battle, they diagnosed it a religious cause
instead of attributing it to the inexperienced Israelites who just settled down
in Palestine, the lack of military equipment and organization. And so the
remedy was to bring the Ark of the Covenant to the battle.
Ironically,
they were right to diagnose it as a religious reason for their failures. But
the reason given for the defeat was wrong. They thought that they lost the
battle because the Ark was not with them. They regarded the Ark of the Lord as
if it were magic and that with this Ark as a charm, they would win the battle
against their enemies.
The real religious cause
of their failure was because their lives were not in order. In chapter two of the book of Samuel,
we read how the sons of Eli were not living a life of integrity and holiness.
“Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord or for
the duties of the priests to the people…. Thus the sin of the young men
was very great in the sight of the Lord; for they treated the offerings of the
Lord with contempt.” (1 Sm 2:12,
17) Instead of putting
their lives in order, they were simply using their office and the rituals to
get things done. They thought mere rituals and office would be able to fulfill
their work as priests for the People of God.
They forgot that faith
is a relationship. The
sons of Eli had no relationship with God. They were living immoral and sinful
lives of injustices. When there was no relationship they depended on the symbol
and the ritual. This is true for many religious and lay leaders in the Church.
They want to serve and lead the Church without holiness and integrity of life.
They think that by just uttering some prayers and rituals, they will get things
done. Some just rely on activities and programs. The truth is that conversion
in the Church will not happen through programs and activities because they are
hollow and they do not come from hearts that are in communion with God. If the
mission of the Church has been ineffective and there is a dearth of priestly
and religious vocations, it is because leaders lack integrity of life, holiness
and most of all, a deep relationship with God. As a consequence, their lives
are no better than the sons of Eli. They could only rely on their office but
not on their personal faith. Such prayers are useless and they will not be
heard by the Lord.
What is needed is to
renew our relationship with the Lord. We do this by first confessing our sins. We are just like the
leper in the gospel. Our sins of selfishness, greed, anger, lust and pride have
caused us to be separated from God and the people we love. So we need to come
to Jesus on our knees in humility and true contrition, asking the Lord for
forgiveness. Jesus who came for the leper also comes for all of us who are
lepers by our sins and our alienation from His Father and the community.
Without holiness of life, there can be no mission. Without a deep intimacy with
the Lord, there cannot be any real ministry. All ministries are merely
activities but they are not serving the mission of our Lord because we cannot
transmit what we do not have.
Thus, what we can learn
from today’s scripture readings is that we cannot, as many do, rely on our
forefathers’ blessings and good relationship with God. It is not enough to keep on going back
to the past when the Lord was with us. He was then with our forefathers because
they kept the faith and walked in the truth and in love. But if we do not
follow their examples, we will not be able to receive the blessings they had.
Our faith must not be our grandfather’s faith but a personal faith in our Lord.
This explains why the Lord specifically and sternly told the leper not to tell
anyone about the healing. Jesus does not want us to know Him through a second
source or be taken up by spectacular things like miracles and healings. What
truly gives us lasting healing is when we are in intimate relationship with
Him. Accordingly, when the man exposed Jesus and “started talking about it
freely and telling the story everywhere,” we read that “Jesus could no longer
go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived.”
By staying away, like the leper originally, He felt the need to be identified
with the poor, the suffering and the marginalized.
We must
remember that Christians do not live from the past but from the future.
The principle of cause and effect is based on nature. There is nothing
exceptional about this truth. What is truly Christian is that the future, that
is, tomorrow, affects the present. In view of the future, Christians live the
present. In other words, grace penetrates and permeates nature. Instead of
living from our own resources, we are called to live from His resources. That
is why He wants us to come out personally to meet Him instead of relying on a
secondary source. Only by coming to Him, do we cease to rely on past blessings.
It is not just the past that will affect the future tomorrow.
Nevertheless, faith in
God does not mean irresponsibility on our part as if we just sit back and do
nothing. Grace
perfects nature and completes nature. Ironically, although the Philistines
feared the God of the Israelites, they did not allow their fear to cripple them
but worked all the harder. Faced with the prospective of fighting against the
mighty God of Israel they cried out, “Alas! Who will save us from the power of
this mighty God? It was he who struck down Egypt with every kind of plague! But
take courage and be men, Philistines, or you will become slaves to the Hebrews
as they have been slaves to you. Be men and fight.’” So faith in God should
make us work harder to justify our faith and not cause us to reduce God’s love
to pure magic and superstition.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore
© All Rights Reserved
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