The God we believe in

The parable of the fig tree with no fruit on it makes us enquire today about the relevance of the good news of the Gospel in our world. A world where so many people are still living the same miserable life as the people of God in Egypt at the time of Moses.

It is worth asking today: but who is the God we believe in? What are we to tell those who ask why we believe? What are our credentials as Christians and believers in a God who is alive and still communicating His love to us and the world?

This goes hand in hand with the first part of the Gospel, where reference is made to what were considered two major tragedies and about which Jesus was being interrogated. A horrific punishment must imply a horrific sin. But this argument, which still features in contemporary rationalisation, was rejected by Jesus. Accidents and mishaps are not, as some might still think, God's punishment.

The exodus event of the people from the slavery of Egypt has for us today a double meaning: one real, the other spiritual. Lent is meant to be a time of grace, a kairos, the opportune moment to identify what in our real life situations is still keeping us enslaved in Egypt; at the same time it is an invitation to leave behind what may be for us the old wineskins of a mentality that puts God in a straight jacket and hinders God from being truly God.

Conversion is not just about confessing one's sins; it is also a change of mentality, a change of perspective on life. We are the Easter people to the extent that we acknowledge what enslaves us and move on to experience God in real life. Being a believer is not just being a theist, believing that God exists.

Many a time we as Christians seem to emphasise more our uphill struggle to show God we love Him. Perhaps the one and major thing necessary for the believer should rather be to focus on God's infinite love for us. In the first reading today it was not Moses who was searching for God, but God who intervenes to speak in defence of His chosen people.

The slavery in Egypt and the exodus event are constitutive moments in the faith of the Old Testament people of God. But that is not just a distant memory. So many people and peoples are still struggling on those same lines even in our Western world. There is still more that we can take on our political agendas today. Still so many slave-drivers as in Egypt at the time of Moses: drug pushers come to mind, or those who deal inhumanly with illegal immigrants; the Abu Ghraib prison photos, and similar recent incidents that demonstrate what our civilised world can still perpetuate.

Still so many people around us are wounded and need healing from past burdens. Not to mention the attitude, on the level of political life broadly understood, that the anonymous immigrant or prisoner or drug addict does not merit our sympathy.

To be really in tune this Lent, we need to identify the new empires that are perpetuating slavery. Rolling away the stone of these empires is what the Word of God in us should lead to now. There is still so much that is perpetuated in our societies that is dehumanising and denying legitimate freedom to so many.

At the end of the day, Christianity is about liberation and I firmly believe that if faith is not liberating, then it is no faith at all. The Easter liberation is not in the first place politics. It starts in God's compassion. "I've seen the miserable state of my people". Christianity is not a message to be proclaimed; but an experience of faith that becomes a message.