Maybe a way to wriggle out of this conundrum is to focus on where the question is coming from. The trap they set for Jesus opened up the question on how one should be a citizen of both the City of God and the City of Man.
In effect, the attempted entrapment was to test Christ’s loyalty. But Jesus turned the table on them providing the appropriate answer concerning a person’s loyalty. In effect, we are citizens of both the City of God and the City of Man. We are destined to be citizens of Heaven which means that we must labour in a manner so that we can gain a foothold in heaven. Hence most of our salvation is worked out in this life, that is, in the City of Man.
At the recent concluded Malaysia Pastoral Convention, what was evident was how many of the delegates in the open forum were asking for the Church to provide organisational structures that will facilitate the faithful to be Catholics in Malaysia. One of the Bishops during his final exhortation encouraged the younger delegates present that they should enter politics.
We all know how politics makes strange bedfellows. We get first-hand experience of political prostitution in our country. Parties merging and dividing and merging again. As Lord Palmerston, the UK PM said in the British Parliament, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow”. Politics is the art of the possible and it has to do with self-interest or its preservation.
A sentiment expressed over ang again during the MPC was how the Church should become a source of moral authority. Given that much of politics is self-serving and in a way, open to corruption, the Church is presented with a possibility of being an alternative voice which can be trusted. As the Bishop who encouraged young people to enter into politics said, “Yes, enter into politics but be clean”.
In the matter of our engagement as citizens of God and of Man, ours is not a divided loyalty as a King once thought. Henry VIII’s treatment of St Thomas More gives us food for thought. At the execution of his good friend and Chancellor, Thomas said: “I die the King’s good servant but God’s first”. St Thomas’ final words merely highlight the truth of God’s primacy. Tension arises whenever earthly authorities arrogate upon themselves the sovereignty which belongs solely to God. The instruction of Jesus to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar is part and parcel of our discipleship. There is no divided loyalty as long as we recognise the supremacy of moral commands which come from God. If we accept this, then as good citizens, we should make greater contributions to the various systems and structures which govern and administer our nation. If politics is supposed to be clean and cleaned, then the disciple, conscious of his or her citizenship in heaven, should attempt to make sure that this world, temporal though it may be, bears the characteristics or the marks of heaven.
Thus, the Church, as the Body of Christ, plays an important role in the world. Our impact as citizens, whether we be of this country or any other, is immense. In the past the Catholic Church led in two major aspects of life in which communities were changed and civilisations were forged. She played a foundational role in social welfare and education, in hospitals and schools.Apart from feeding the soul spiritually and sacramentally, the Church also tended physically to the body and ministered intellectually to the mind. But somehow, as civil societies advanced, we basically seemed to have loss most of these humanising and civilising institutions. There is a vacuum and for most parts, we have come to expect the “state” to take up the role of the care of the minds and the bodies of the citizens. In other words, we expect the state to play the nanny.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of what is called World Mission Sunday. We have a mission still. If a diminishment in the number of missionaries like priests and nuns is a reality, perhaps the word mission should be enlarged. We are Church and each one baptised has a role in the mission of the Church. Not just the priest or the nun.
The core mission of the Church is to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, to extend His salvific action by administering the Sacraments and to bring to fruition God’s plan of salvation. In short, each one is missioned to sanctify the world through his or her life and in the end, gain eternal salvation. The theatre is the present and not in any form of future fantasy. We take our daily life, boring as it may be, and allow it to become the locus where encounters take place between heaven and earth. Somehow, the simplest tasks are the hardest to perform. For example, the daily chores of looking after family or even doing routine office work. These are not glamorous and do not attract any kind of clicks on your Instagram. But perform them with diligence and with devotion and we are already part of the movement to sanctify the world.
We live a stone’s throw away from a country where everything seems to function better. We long for an improved country where all citizens can thrive equally under the Malaysian sun. But it feels impossible with the result that many believe that a better Malaysia is found in Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc. Many believe that these are the places where your children will thrive and their talents appreciated. A better Malaysia must start here and now and not in Canada, New Zealand, Australia or even Singapore because you must believe that you are part of the solution to a thriving Malaysia rather than elsewhere.
Finally, waiting for the “Church” to transform society is like passing the chalice. Waiting for others to perform what is basically our duty is an invitation to wait forever. The City of Man needs each baptised person to take personal ownership of his or her role in the mission of the Church. As one Bishop at MPC remarked, “People keep asking the Church to do this or that, the question is ‘Who is the Church?”. “You are”. The ball is actually in your court!!
