Special Report • Christian Mission

Living Waters Breathe Life into Goodness

Christian mission is a commitment to humanity, to human anxieties. The ‘Living Waters’ that Jesus gives will sustain the energy behind every human initiative for social betterment.

BY Emeritus Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil SDB | Guwahati, India

WHEN JESUS said to the Samaritan woman, “The water I give will become a spring of water in the one who receives it” (Jn 4:14), she was stunned. She was totally transformed. She became a missionary unto her own people, who came in large numbers to listen to Jesus. They recognised him as the Saviour of the world (Jn 4:42).

The great mystic, Teresa of Avila, was extremely clear in her understanding of spirituality: “Let everyone understand that real love of God does not consist in tear shedding, nor in that sweetness and tenderness for which we usually long, just because they console us, but in serving God in justice, fortitude of soul and humility”. Teilhard de Chardin too refused to regard spirituality as an evasion of worldly responsibilities; he sought to encounter God in action, through work. According to him, God is present at the tip of the pen, the spade, the brush, the needle, every thought. It is by action, by service, that we become whole and holy.

Reach Out to the Margins

Speaking to young people in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, Pope Francis raised his voice, “I want the Church to get out into the street, I want us to avoid…being closed in upon ourselves.” Francis rejected the idea of an inward-looking Church, and wanted one that continuously looked out for opportunities to reach out to people, most of all to those at the periphery…including geographical, psychological, social, cultural, and religious margins.

During his public ministry, Jesus kept moving from one village to another in Galilee, a Roman province known for its frequent uprisings against the rulers. However, the imperial authorities crushed every insurrection and executed hundreds of dissidents mercilessly upon the cross. Jesus, the helper of the poor and the ‘prophet of peace’, would meet the same fate. But the ‘life-giving waters’ he provided stirred to life creativity in every field of human generosity and commitment.

The Same ‘Living Waters’ Must Flow into Political and Social Fields

The mission of Christian believers today is to infuse the political, economic, social, and cultural world with the Gospel values of love and justice. In an era of criminalized politics and corruption-ridden bureaucracies, the fulfilment of this mission may seem like an impossible dream. Yet a viable path forward can be charted. It is not through self-righteous denunciation and withdrawal to safety that we will transform societies for the better. On the contrary, it is by intelligent and conscientious participation in political and social processes and in exploratory thinking that we shall make ourselves the leaven of the world.

An attitude of apathy and indifference will allow injustice to grow unchecked and political powers to become tyrannical masters of the society they have been chosen to serve. If Christian believers do not join hands with all people of good will and make it their aim to demand diligent and responsible discharge of duties from persons in public life, society slips into decline. In the context of growing ethnic and community violence and general crime, Christians will need to become promoters of peace. In an age of mounting dishonesty and corruption, they will have to insist on accountability and transparency. In the face of growing religious fundamentalism, they need to consider it their duty to become guardians of religious and cultural freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.

Economy Must Be Humanized

Those who are spiritually motivated must join hands to ensure that economy serves society and does not enslave it; that it assists humanity, and does not damage human dignity. The danger is that mighty enterprises like big corporations or government departments hold profit-making as their sole ethical norm, and that they become increasingly less accountable to society. They become masters unto themselves and make the rest of humanity their slaves.

Today’s top managers have the power to set their own remuneration, with no upper limit, according to the economist Thomas Piketty. They amass enormous sums by bringing business and political power together towards that end. They manipulate mass media, impose on society uniform ways of thinking and acting, monopolize knowledge, subject people to consumeristic habits, imprison them in artificial environments and even isolate them from natural settings. They flaunt their wealth humiliating the poor whose poverty shows a steady increase.

Jesus Took the Pain of the World upon Himself

The mission of Jesus had been to teach and heal, to encourage the broken-hearted, motivate people who had lost their sense of direction, and assure communities that a great future awaited them. The crowds that flocked to him were the sick, the excluded, the desperately poor, the debt-ridden, grief-ridden, and guilt-ridden. For everyone he had a word of encouragement. He never suggested rebellion or violent resistance. He planted the seeds of courage and determination in their hearts.

He asked them to grow confidence in their own resourcefulness as they looked ahead. He shared the agony of his people, and all of humanity. Taking the pain of the world upon himself, he sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.

What caused his undoing was the fact that he was critical of injustice, unfairness towards the poor, and distortion of religion. He exposed hypocrisy. He emphasized the deeper dimension of religion: worshipping God “in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:23). He was opposed to excessive legalism, ritualism and superficiality in religion. No wonder he got into trouble with the Establishment, which first sought to marginalize him; then, later, to eliminate him. Thus, he too died on a cross placed between two violent men.

Suffer for Others

Cardinal Kasper, writing about justice, said that God’s identity was ‘Pro-Existence’, existence for others. If this is true, Jesus was its incarnation. His heart went out to people; he says, “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). His message on the Mount, “Happy are the poor, who mourn, the humble, the merciful, those who work for peace, the persecuted” (Mt 5:3-10), touched the heart of Mahatma Gandhi profoundly. It brought consolation to millions of people for centuries and motivated them to keep striving.

Jesus’ suffering was then a ‘co-suffering’ with the human family, ‘pro-suffering’ on humanity’s behalf. He summarized his life-mission: “I have come so that you might have life—life in all its fullness” (Jn 10:10). He gave up his life so that others may have it in abundance.

Economists argue that selfishness makes a man productive, and thus enriches the world. Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo is quick in pointing out that in order to make the self-interest of some purposeful, there is need for moral giants who can make ‘selfless sacrifice’. There is no way of bypassing concern for others. “Building a world in which everyone can flourish requires shared responsibility and courage” (Magnifica Humanitas §13).

Mercy: “Gentle Rain from Heaven” (Shakespeare)

Let us place Jesus’ pain side by side with humanity’s pain in our time. Not a day passes without some group or other dying as victims of violence in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon or Iran. It is heart-rending that horrendous human tragedies are reported daily as though they were merely about power and money, names and numbers. When gruesome tales of violence come up in the media repeatedly, one gets lost in incidentals, one fails to grasp the contextual significance of those hideous events and the human depth of the problem. We fail to hear the sighs, the sobs, the loud wailings of his/her dear ones. An inspiring voice silenced, amazing stamina extinguished, long-cherished hopes crushed… in every single case.

“Building a world in which everyone can flourish requires shared responsibility and courage (MH §13). “

In such contexts, we can only cry for help ‘from on high’. Shakespeare wrote, “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from ‘heaven’ upon the place beneath” (The Tempest). The saving word in the context of this terrible dialogue between violence and counter-violence, revenge and counter-revenge, anger and counter-anger is “mercy.” This calls for forgiveness, and healing of historic memories. Jesus died on the cross crying “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). May the power of Jesus’ love for humanity diminish anger, wipe away hurt memories, and generate goodness in human hearts today.

Never forget, says Pope Leo XIV, “We all have our own areas of action, and it is precisely there—and nowhere else—that we must choose whether to fuel the mentality of force…or to preserve the mindset of peace” (Magnifica Humanitas §212). May Justice and Peace descend on earth through your effort and mine. “Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God” (William Carey, a Baptist Missionary in India).