We Should Come to Our Senses 當反躬自問

Lætare Sunday, Year C
Theme: We Should Come to Our Senses 當反躬自問

Today, we celebrate Lætare Sunday, a Sunday of Joy in the Lenten Season. Traditionally, halfway through the Lenten season when Christians fast and abstain to prepare for the Paschal mystery of the Lord, the Church would relax a bit to cheer the faithful up so as to gather a greater momentum for the last leg of journey. “Lætare Ierusalem et conventum, facite omnes qui diligitis eam … Rejoice ye with Jerusalem: and be ye glad for her, all ye that delight in her …” is the entrance hymn which gives this Sunday its name.
What joy can we find these days when the whole world suffers in turmoil from a pandemic and news of Russian invasion in Ukraine? Let me be clear. If we don’t repent, we’ll never find joy. If we don’t come to our senses, we’ll never repent. How do we come to our senses? That’s the question!

A famous Chinese author, known by his pen-name Lu Xun魯迅, told the following story in an anthology of his novellas published in 1923 called “SCREAM 吶喊”: A man woke up inside a sealed iron hut in the company of some other sleeping people. They would all suffocate to death if they continued like that. What would the man do? It was the conviction of Lu Xun at that time that “by waking up the others, there would be an opportunity to find together a way to break out of this sealed iron hut”. In 2019, a mainland professor teaching in one of the universities of Hong Kong disagreed. Time and situation had worsened. The professor lamented that in Hong Kong or perhaps elsewhere, the other sleeping people had actually awakened before. But they had chosen to continue “sleeping” and had become part of the iron hut! Woe to all the people inside this iron hut. They would all be doomed to suffocation!

I buy the professor’s opinion because to a certain degree, it agrees with the Christian faith. Lu Xun was a man of his time. He needed to be over optimistic. He needed to gather a congregation of like-minded comrades to revitalize the Chinese culture which had been eroded by conscripting traditional practices for too long. Most progressive thinkers in that age believed in the superiority of Western culture as vividly demonstrated by all the defeats in battles the Qing Dynasty engaged with the Western countries. Modern China after the fall of Qing Dynasty was desperately in need of more aggressive reforms. Paying lip services to Western superiority by the greedy and self-serving Qing mandarins proved to be conducive to their downfall. So Lu Xun and the other younger thinkers concentrated their efforts to improve the root of the Chinese culture, the very language she speaks and writes. They advocated writing in plain Chinese instead of classical Chinese.

Regrettably, not all people think along such a progressive line because it would be extremely painful for them to come to senses! It is easy and comfortable to throw one’s hands up in the air and be complacent while it is hard and nerve racking to stay awake and to find a way out. Lu Xun had greater confidence than the professor in human nature even though what he had witnessed was the very opposite. I don’t know whether the professor is a Christian or not. But it appears that the professor shares similar views with Christians who believe that human nature has been damaged by the Original Sin which makes it impossible for men to deliver themselves without help from above. Perhaps the similarity ends there. The professor might be an atheist and only has faith in the Western powers to help build democracy. We Christians believe in a higher other power: God. In the gospel reading today, the parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates well that unless one undergoes extreme hardship, one shall not come to his senses. And it is NOT superstitious to believe that extreme hardship is orchestrated by God for our sake.

The younger son came to his senses when “he found himself in dire need.” (Luke 15:14b) He was not the poorest person in the world. I’m sure there were many poor people whose situations were worse. What’s so special about his “dire need”? The simple fact is that he used to be rich and was probably surrounded by a lot of people serving and cheering him. Most likely in a very short time, he had spent all his money. Obviously he didn’t know how to manage his inheritance because Luke writes, “he had freely spent everything” (15:14a). It wouldn’t take too long for a fool and his money part! Some external factors (a severe famine) augmented his plights! He would feel being betrayed by the companions who accompanied him while he was rich. Now he had to put down his dignity as a member of God’s Chosen People to tend the swine (15:15) which no Jews would do because the Torah declared it ritually unclean. He was so hungry that he would have fought with the swine for the pods to fill his hunger (15:16).

A famine is a natural disaster beyond human management. “It must have been sent by God”, the younger son reasoned. He would have thrown his hands up in the air and accepted this “punishment from God” which he would feel he deserved because he had sinned against heaven and his father (15:18). Were he to stop at this point, he had not yet come to his senses! What prompted him to choose returning to his father, the hunger, the feeling of betrayal or the dignity? Or perhaps it was the naivety of the younger son in believing that his father would forgive and accept him that prompted his return. On a second thought, wouldn’t it be naïve to think that working as a hired worker was able to repay all the inheritance he had squandered? Obviously, the younger son did not think through this “second thought”. The younger son was really child-like or immature!

Let us meditate on the behaviour of the elder son and we might understand better. We may safely draw the conclusion that the elder son had not come to his senses when he became angry and refused to enter the house (15:28). Obviously the elder son was more capable in managing his share of inheritance to the extent that he had become a utilitarian. He calculated cost and benefit. He compared his service and obedience with the younger brother’s life of dissipation; his friends with his brother’s prostitutes and a young goat with a fattened calf! His anger had clouded his senses such that the father had to come out to reason him out (15:31-32). In contrast to his brother’s naivety, his sophistication would perhaps lead to his downfall had he insisted on not listening to the father’s call to showing mercy to his brother!

Brethren! Time and again, we make simple things complicated and mess things up. God is love. Whatever He does, He does it for our good. It is simple as such. That’s why Jesus tells us not to over-calculate and burden our senses. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”(Matthew 11:29) Our self-righteousness is our blind spot that clouds our judgment and prevents us from listening to other people’s advice, not even the good Lord’s advice! So, let’s enjoy the banquet for a while and move on in returning to the Father. God bless!
2016 Reflection
Picture Credit: phuquocprison.org