Self-Renewal, The Chinese Way to Repent 自新：中式悔改

Third Ordinary Sunday, Year B
Theme: Self-Renewal, The Chinese Way to Repent 自新：中式悔改

Chinese are a pragmatic people. Their branches of philosophy are also pragmatic. Whether it be Confucianism, Daoism or whatever ideology, they will touch on character formation, ethics, horticulture, medicines, politics and warfare etc. Thus, when we meditate on the theme of repentance in the readings today, it is beneficent to retell a well-known Chinese story of self-renewal.

周處Zhou Chu (236-297 AD) was an army general in 西晉the Western Jin era. In a battle at 六陌Liumo against the 齊萬年之亂Qi Wannian’s Rebellion, Zhou Chu’s army was fourteen times outnumbered and his jealous superiors refused to dispatch reinforcements. He died in a heroic last stand. However, he was more remembered for the famous self-renewal story recorded in the book 【世說新語A New Account of the Tales of the World】written in 430 AD.

In his younger days, Zhou Chu was described to be a violent, tough hooligan with a sense of chivalry among the villagers who were afraid of him along with a tiger in the mountain and a scaly dragon in the river. Zhou was the worst among the three but he was not aware of his public image. One day, a villager successfully persuaded him to neutralize the tiger and the dragon. Zhou acted promptly. He ventured into the mountain and killed the tiger. Then he dived into the river to challenge the dragon. They bundled together and were washed downstream for three days and three nights. The villagers thought that both of them had perished and celebrated. Actually, Zhou managed to kill the scaly dragon as well and survived. He finally realized that he had been the major scourge the villagers feared most! Zhou decided to mend his old ways and later became a valiant army general in Western Jin. In 1990’s, the county government erected a statue in his hometown to immortalize him. In short, Zhou’s repentance benefitted the villagers and he channelled his valour to defend the country. Taking his character into consideration, it was probably inevitable for him to die in the hands of jealous mandarins who denied him reinforcement at Liumo!

Unlike the moralistic pragmatic Chinese stories, many narratives in the Bible, in particular the parable of the Prodigal Son and that of Jonah, have their endings left open-ended. God only invites us to repent and does not impose His good will on us. Jonah was a reluctant prophet. God sent him to Nineveh to preach against their wickedness (Jonah 1:2). Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire which had conquered the northern kingdom Israel and invaded Jerusalem. Jonah would be more than happy to see Nineveh punished by God. However, God sent him to his enemies to tell them to repent in order to spare them in effect! For us Christians, this is in harmony with Christ’s teachings on mercy, “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Moreover, Jesus practised what He preached with His prayer on the Cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Why should Christians, and indeed all humanity, forgive? It is because we have the obligation to give our brethren a second chance to do good because we are our brother’s keeper (Genesis 4:9). Look at the story of Zhou Chu again and we will understand why even a violent, tough hooligan deserves a second chance. Seeing that the Pharisees were the bitterest enemies of Jesus in the gospels, we might understand how difficult it was for the Chosen People in the Old Testament to forgive their enemies, not to mention to love them. However, if we despise the narrowness of the Jewish mind, we are only kettles calling the pots black because even today, in the Age of the Holy Spirit, humanity still enjoy seeing blood spilt rather than seeing enemies reconciled. Our sense of righteousness is totally different from God’s righteousness which is the liberation of human souls from the bondage of addictions, obsessions, prejudices and in short sins. God wants to forgive while most humanity wants to play God and to take revenge instead.

In fact, both Jonah and Zhou Chu were righteous in their own manners. Zhou was heroic to risk his life to battle and remove the tiger and the dragon. Eventually, when he realized that he himself was the major threat to the village, he renewed his life orientation. In his last stand at Liumo, Zhou knew that it was time for him to die as an army general of the state. Had he retreated, the morale of the soldiers would collapse. He refused to retreat and was killed in action. That was Zhou’s righteousness as a heroic army general.
When Jonah escaped God’s commission, God wanted to liberate Jonah from his narrow nationalism. So He chased after Jonah and stirred up a storm at sea. Jonah was righteous enough not to make the innocent sailors perish along with him. He says, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea and then the sea will calm down for you. For I know that this great storm has come upon you because of me” (Jonah 1:12). The sailors still tried to row hard to return to dry land but could not. At last, they hurled Jonah into the sea and the sea stopped raging immediately! All who saw this were “Seized with great fear of the Lord and offered sacrifice to the Lord and made vows” (1:16). See? Jonah’s rebellion even bore fruit. Pagan sailors who had previously worshipped idols were converted. In other words, God is able to turn our rebellion and folly into something good! Once again, we see that God’s power lies in His generosity to forgive!

In today’s passage, we learn that Jonah was not doing his job seriously. He went only one-third of the journey into Nineveh and casually/lazily proclaimed, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (3:4). He did not mention who would destroy them, nor why they would be punished nor what they should do to escape punishment! In short, Jonah was reluctant because his style of righteousness, his narrow nationalism wanted very much to see Nineveh punished. How disappointed Jonah was when God “נִחַם repented of the evil He had threatened to do to them; He did not carry it out” (3:10)! While God felt sorry for threatening the people of Nineveh, Jonah was angry that God did not carry out the punishment! “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways” (Isaiah 55:9). God’s righteousness is truly far higher than human righteousness.

From Jonah’s perspective, he must have been asking unceasingly why God chose him to suffer. Listen to his complaints, “O Lord, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, repenting of punishment. So now, Lord, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:2-3). Jonah was protesting for most people who suffer for no apparent purpose. Had he known that in the gospel, Jesus honours him by mentioning “the sign of Jonah the prophet” (Matthew 12:39) to hint at His Passion and Resurrection. The experience of Jonah would console innocent sufferers who are honoured to share with Jesus His redemptive sufferings and glorious triumph over death. I enquire the merciful Lord whether He has also reserve a place for Zhou Chu in paradise because he has never profess the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Beloved brethren! We need to unload a lot of ignorance resulted from indulgence in worldly comfort. Repentance is definitely uncomfortable but it is indispensable on our way home. Invoke the Holy Spirit to grant us the courage and resilience to battle on! Amen.
God bless!

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2021 Reflection
Picture Credit: zh.wikipedia.org