Are we taking ourselves too seriously? Are we taking our qualification too seriously? The word “transformation” is impressive and given the widespread abject scenario, we are challenged to change the world. Everyone is supposed to be a part of the transformation process. When we hear slogans calling for change, it inspires just as you are surely taken up by taglines like Malaysia Madani or 1Malaysia or Keluarga Malaysia.
Well, we do take ourselves seriously. Recently at Davos, where tech titans, corporate big-wigs, government leaders gathered, globalists spoke of the transformative changes that can be wrought or forged. Actually these so-called leaders do that annually at the Davos Summit. All they needed is more power. Hence governments and corporations with more power can forge ahead for the good of the world, to transform and change the world according to what God desires for us.
We have the power at hand to make the vision of Isaiah a reality. And yet despite all our sloganeering and our transformative initiatives, the question is, “Why is the world still that terrible”? If that statement were not true, meaning that the world is not as bad as it is painted out to be, then why are millions still trying to escape their fate by crossing the borders into the US and UK?
Perhaps we are taking ourselves too seriously. All the great ideas to change the world are like “koyok” (plaster or band-aid strips). They merely cover the wounds. There are underlying problems which we need to address first. What are they?
In the 2nd Reading, we hear St Paul exhorting the Corinthians. The background to this exhortation is to be found in Acts 17. He was with the Athenians at the Areopagus speaking with them. He impressed them with the speech about the Unknown God. He was philosophical and used many of the logical arguments to try to convince his audience about Christianity. But he was not successful. Thus at Corinth he turned his attention to the crucified Christ. Here he only had eyes for Jesus and did not rely on any human reasoning but rested in the power of God.
The Gospel talks about salt losing the taste. It brings us right into the middle of the equation. Transforming the world is amazing. Take for example, technology. In TED talks, we are always skirting around the cutting edge of technology. Everything about us is just a matter of time when technology will improve an application or so. Yet our information super-highway or rather “stupor-highway” is littered with the debris of discarded apps. Think of our Malaysian Border apps. They have been changing one after another. Sadly, the people who write the app, the ones who think of new methods to do things are still the same. So many are not converted even though they think that just by having a system, people will change.
The Gospel disabuses us of this delusion. Change does not come from a change in the system. It comeswhen hearts are converted. Our country is a perfect example. We ourselves have heard this so-called “prejudice” muttered about a country that has first-world infrastructure but run it with a third-world mentality. Without inner conversion, nothing will change, nothing will make sense.
Two illustrations to consider. Firstly, renewable energy. Secondly, plastics. We are addicted to both carbon and rubber. In terms of success, we barely scratch the surface of net carbon emission or full recyclability. Instead we are focused on trying to manage our usage or reduce our wastage without really facing the truth of who we are. Consumerist.
We consume and there has not been any meaningful conversion of heart. Take you another example right at the heart of Chinese cuisine. Shark-fin soup. We are lectured into submission with regard to the killing of sharks for the purpose conservation etc. When the consumption ceases, the killing stops, we are admonished. Right now, shark-fin soup is making a comeback. Supposedly, the gelatinous shark-fin is manufactured artificially. So there has been no conversion but rather, the progress is how we can consume fake shark-fin without guilt. In other words, we are still consumers through other means. The same can be said about Air Asia’s advertising slogan which says, “now everyone can fly”. It is nothing more than another consumerist ploy to mask or to sustain our carbon addiction.
Those who are taking medication, do you think that there is no long-term effect from the medications ingested? In the long run, our kidneys and liver will give way. Likewise, we consume and unless there is conversion to a moderate consumption, something has to give way. You know that gluttony and greed are the consumer’s creed.
Salt, to be useful needs to retain its saltiness. Light to be useful must illuminate. The only way we do not destroy the world (which in itself is transformational) is to work at it but not from the perspective of temporality. Meaning? We should stop working with the idea that the world will pass away, not that it will not. Rather we need to work from the perspective that we are just passing through. We are no more than guests in this world really. We live on borrowed time. Time here on earth is not our entitlement. If anything, we are to flavour the world through our saltiness and shine virtuously even as we temporally pass through. It is easier to think that we can change the world than it is to be the salt or light of the world. When we are salt or light, we have a lot more to look at, especially at ourselves because we have to change before we start to change the world. That takes an entire lifetime of conversion.
Given that we are a civilisation powered by technology, it is tempting to believe think that just by changing the world it changes people. Now the Bishops in some of our dioceses have reached their retirement age. You can sense the jostling amongst some priests who believe that with power and authority, they can change or shape the diocese. All they need is a fool-proof system. Anybody who can read the room, so-called, will realise that power andauthority cannot do much. You may be a Bishop or even government, you can coerce or even enforce.What you will get is outward obedience when there is no conversion. Worse is if you get passive aggression. Systems cannot change the world instead it is the other way around. The world changes because we are converted. For conversion to take place, we need God. Christ called us to be light and salt. Not that we can in any way shine or salt on our own. Instead, we are like the moon that reflects Christ’s brightness onto the world. That calls for so much more humility and dependence on God’s grace to be light of the world or salt of the earth. Ourgreatest power comes not because we have it but because we pour our life in the service of others.
