Nominal Christians and anonymous Christians.
August 25 2019: Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time - C
A Kikuyu proverb says, “There is no name which cannot
distinguish a child.”
To be a Christian is a continual quest. It is not only about
possessing and professing a strong faith or strong belonging to Christ or being
baptized. It goes beyond a belonging to ask for a conversion or change of one’s
life. Faith together with action is what makes one’s a Christian and can assure
him salvation.
We ended our meditation of the nineteenth Sunday quoting the
Apostle James, “Indeed someone may say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’
Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to
you from my works.” (James 2:18) And James could add talking of the faith of
Abraham, “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was
completed by the works.” That was an invitation to cultivate a triple dimension’s
faith: a faith which impacts on the head, the heart and the hand. It is
actually what the Lord expects of all his followers. A faith as an inner
disposition or belief and a faith as openness to others’ need.
We are not called to be nominal Christians, rather, active ones.
We talk of active, not only as members of all the church groups and associations,
but mostly active through real participation in the life and mission of the Church.
To be active through visible and tangible actions towards the needy.
We hear in today’s Gospel Jesus confessing that he does not
know those who are his followers only by name. Instead, he knows and welcome
into his kingdom and has in great esteem those who, though not professing his
name as their Lord, live in accordance to his words and the Father’s will.
We read from today’s first reading about the universality of
salvation. The Prophet Isaiah tells us that the Lord God knows the works and
thoughts of all human beings. Therefore, he opens his salvation to all. The
religion he wants is not that of mere belonging and name, but that religiosity
which combines inner beliefs and actions. Here is a call for faith and
conversion of life. We also read that the true religion and righteousness of
life can actually be found even in people who visibly are not part of a nominal
religious group. Salvation therefore, is not matter of belonging to a Church,
but a discipline of life.
Talking of discipline, the second reading stretches the more
on that word. The author of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that our
salvation will result from our openness to accept that God disciplines us. We read
that which follows, “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose
heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he
scourges every son he acknowledges.”
The Lord wants us not to be people who only know him by name.
Rather, people whose whole life professes and confesses him. That means our
readiness to undergo all trials, hardships and sufferings for his name sake. Unless
we accept that fact, we are only nominal followers of Christ, Christians only
by name. Jesus in the Gospel affirms not knowing that category of Christians.
God’s salvation is universal, opened to all. Nevertheless,
will receive it and be part of it, only those whose faith is accompanied by
action and conversion of life. It does not ask for one to be Christ follower,
president of your parish pastoral council in order to put good action.
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?” That was the main
question of a certain “someone” introducing us to today’s Gospel teaching. Is
it that, it is only those who bear and profess the name of Jesus who will be
saved? To that question, the great theologian Karl Rahner had a beautiful
answer. He talks of ‘anonymous Christians’. Karl Rahner says, “’Anonymous
Christianity’ means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains
salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity. A Protestant
Christian is, of course, ‘no anonymous Christian’; that is perfectly clear.
But, let us say, a Buddhist monk (or anyone else I might suppose) who, because
he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of
him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to
presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that
goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do
that. And so if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and
if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly
recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to
take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity.”
He also adds, “The ‘anonymous Christian’ in our sense of the
term is the pagan after the beginning of the Christian mission, who lives in
the state of Christ’s grace through faith, hope, and love, yet who has no
explicit knowledge of the fact that his life is orientated in grace-given
salvation to Jesus Christ.” Being a Christian is not a prerequisite to
receiving God’s grace. According to Rahner, God’s grace is open to all men. There
are people who have never entered the gate of a church, who have not been
baptized, and maybe know actually nothing of Jesus. But their life and actions
are worth and speak loudly of God’s love than many who do sleep in churches, baptized,
confirmed, married or ordained ministers. This category of people, though not baptized
and anonymous in our registers of the parishes, have rightly understood the
message of Christ and therefore will be saved.
These words of today’s liturgy are therefore a strong warning
to us, members of the Church who think that because we are coming to the
church, we have the visa to heaven. The mere belonging to the Church does not
save or entitle you to heaven. If we do not add action and daily conversion to
our faith, we will hear the Lord telling us at the end, “I do not know where
you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” Though we may be showing our
certificates of baptism and cards of membership, “We ate and drank in your
company and you taught in our streets.” The answer will still the same, “I do
not know where you are from.”
You might well be a priest, bishop, catechist, lay minister,
Parish Pastoral Council President, member of all the groups, great benefactor
of your parish priest, or a simple parishioner, if you add no action to your
faith by opening your heart, your head and your hands to the needy, you are but
a nominal Christian, unknown to the Lord.
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