Culture War

Overturning cultures with prayer, the cross, love and mercy

11/15/2018

Philemon 7-20 Beloved: I have experienced much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the holy ones have been refreshed by you, brother. Therefore, although I have the full right in Christ to order you to do what is proper, I rather urge you out of love, being as I am, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus. I urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment, who was once useless to you but is now useful to both you and me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I should have liked to retain him for myself, so that he might serve me on your behalf in my imprisonment for the Gospel, but I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.

Christianity is counter-cultural and revolutionary. It seeks to upend and overturn our typical, common assumptions about what is prim and proper, what is right and wrong. Now, it does not achieve that end by force of arms, like America did in the Revolutionary War, or the French did by storming the Bastille on July 14, 1789 and evicting the monarchy. Rather, we rely on the power of prayer, the cross of Christ, and the weapons of love and mercy. Christianity works subtly and imperceptibly like a little leaven raises a batch of dough or like a rising tide lifts all boats.

Let me give you two quick, personal examples of how Christianity upends cultures. India is still ruled in many respects by the ancient caste system. You have the untouchables, the lower caste, the higher caste, and the Brahmins or the priests. My family is obviously Catholic but we are also very poor. It would be unthinkable for the son of a poor man (in the lower caste) to leapfrog the higher, richer caste, to become a Brahmin/priest. But what is impossible in India because of the culture of the caste system is very possible in Christianity because of the culture of prayer, the cross, love and mercy.

Or take the cultural phenomenon of dating and marriage. In India typically parents pick your future spouse, or what’s commonly called “arranged marriages.” It is said Mahatma Gandhi did not see his bride until the day of his wedding. That reminds me of the Alan Jackson song about getting drunk and married. He sang: “The next thing I remember I was hearing wedding bells / Standing by a woman in a long white lacy veil / I raised the veil she smiled at me without her left front tooth / I said where the heck am I and just who the heck are you? / She said I was your waitress and our last name’s now the same / ‘Cause I’m married to you baby and I don’t even know your name.” So, maybe there is something to be said for parents picking your spouse.

But Christianity teaches marriage is not only for love, but for preparation for marriage to Christ. Human love leads to divine love; earthly marriage leads to heavenly marriage. That is why priests and nuns are celibate and completely committed to Christ: they remind us where every marriage is destined. And Christianity confronts and changes every culture it encounters not with weapons of mass destruction, but with only the arms of prayer, the cross, love and mercy.

Today, we hear the very brief but beautiful letter of St. Paul to Philemon. It is so short that most people forget it is even in the Bible, but we see all the counter-cultural forces of Christianity coming to bear on the phenomenon of slavery in the first century. St. Paul writes to Philemon about a run-away slave named Onesimus. Notices how Paul takes great pains to convince Philemon of the truth of Christianity and the evil of slavery. He writes: “I rather urge you out of love, being as I am, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus.” Paul appealed to love, mercy, prayer and the cross of Christ as the reasons why Philemon should treat Onesimus as a brother and not as a slave. Just like Christianity wins converts in India (like my family) not by political or military revolutions, but by the revolution of love, so Philemon should treat Onesimus not by first century Roman practice of slavery but by the Christian culture of love.

Where does the culture of Christianity still need to invade your life and plant its flag of prayer, the cross, love and mercy? Do you treat money by Christian standards or by worldly standards? Martin Luther said we undergo three conversions: the conversion of the head, the conversion of the heart, and the conversion of the pocketbook. The last is the hardest to give over to Christ. Pope Francis is trying mightily to tear down the power structures intrenched in the Church bureaucracy so that power is seen solely as service and not as superiority. That’s the Christian sense of power, not the worldly sense. And there is so much cultural confusion about sex, its meaning, its purpose, its use and abuse; sex is treated as a commodity in our culture. We can turn to our culture to teach us the truth about sex or we can turn to Christ and his Church.

Since its inception, Christianity has been waging culture wars, not with guns and swords, but with prayer, the cross, love and mercy. Do you know who will win that war in the end? I think I do. Everyone else will have to wait and see.

Praised be Jesus Christ!