Foreigners’ prophecy

Today’s readings: 2 Kings 5, 14-17; 2 Timothy 2, 8-13; Luke 17, 11-19.

Issues of boundaries and orthodoxy have characterised Christianity since its beginning. Today we still seek secure boundaries that define exactly who belongs and who does not. Fluidity, a characteristic of our time, sounds threatening and very unorthodox. This is the way the Jews conceived their religious belonging. But this is what Jesus dismantles.

Luke’s Gospel already suggests to the Jews at the time of Jesus a process of unlearning to open up and not to close in on themselves as a fundamentalist form of religion would dictate. Many protagonists in Luke’s Gospel come from outside the gates of Judaism.

For long we spoke in terms of the ‘true’ religion or the ‘true’ Church, with the tacit understanding that there are false religions and false churches. I am not for religious relativism, which claims that all religions are the same. But identifying the search for God or the experience of redemption with one specific religious framework would be tragic.

Today’s readings set the right tone to deal with this subject. In both the first reading and the Gospel, the protagonist is a foreigner and hence, by the measure of the institution, not eligible for salvation. It is Naaman the leper whom Elisha heals, and it is a Samaritan who, cleansed of his leprosy, falls in worship and praise before Jesus.

In his letter to Timothy, St Paul says God’s word cannot be chained, which means God’s call is universal and man’s heart is never bound to institutional conditionings in its potential openness towards the divine. Salvation is something very intimate and personal. It cannot be bound to an ideology or even a theological doctrine.

God’s image and likeness goes beyond the boundaries of culture and religion, even beyond the label of believer or non-believer.

Karl Rahner, one of the 20th century’s greatest theologians, coined the much debated theology of “anonymous Christianity”, acknowledging the potential openness to the transcendent in every individual. He used to also speak of ‘graced creation’, which today’s readings actually confirm in the two ‘foreigners’ who both showed a great sense of gratitude and even worship towards God in spite of their being outsiders.

But Christianity often sold itself to the world as an ideology instead of Good News meant to embrace the human race. Regretfully, this doctrine is being re-evoked in some circles in the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations.

In the name of doctrine we’ve been disrespectful to the movements of the Spirit throughout history. Many with-in the Church still resist the Council’s call for renewal. But the Council is a point of no return for those who deeply discern what the Spirit might be telling us today, even through a culture we define as secularist.

If we go back in time, to the origins of our faith, God chose a people through whom he wanted to bring salvation to everyone. But many times the Jews appropriated God for themselves and considered themselves depositaries of God’s truth. This was what Jesus sought to put right. He was a Jew himself, but placed himself outside the confines of religion to point beyond to the real God and the real Spirit.

Bartolomeo de las Casas and Matteo Ricci are big names in the history of Christian missions who, as early as the 16th century, affirmed that the Good News of Christ cannot be simply identified with Western civilisation. But it is not so easy for us to humbly accept the lessons of history. So we continue to repeat the same old stories. We cannot ignore or deny the deep desire for God that may find many expressions in different religions, cultures and ways of life.

Perhaps it’s time to stop distinguishing between believers and non-believers and start instead to distinguish between those who are authentically human and those who are not. God continues to tell his story through the lives of people wherever they are and whoever they may be, even outside the walls of our religion.