Monday of Week 19 in Ordinary Time
St. Dominic, Priest
Ezekiel 1:2-5,24-28 | Psalm 148:1-2,11-14 | Matthew 17:22-27
As we enter the Chinese Hungry Ghost Month, the smell of burning incense paper brings back memories of an unfortunate incident as a teenager at my grandfather’s wake. I was asked to perform a ritual with joss sticks, but I was also nursing an illness at the time, so I nearly collapsed after inhaling the incense fumes. I don’t recall what the other relatives said, but they probably weren’t too complimentary to my dad at the eldest grandson’s inability to pay respects to his elders.
Wakes are just the most obvious situations where our Christian values and practices can clash with others’ rituals and beliefs. By instructing Peter to pay the temple tax “so as not to give offence”, Jesus indicates in today’s Gospel that while we should always hold true to our faith, we should not turn it into a contest of moral “high ground” or superior rectitude. Instead, if an action (or inaction) is not anathema to our faith, we are encouraged to show respect to others and “go with the flow”.
That said, because the symbolism of Christian prayer with joss stick in hand is rather contradictory, I now politely refuse the latter. Fortunately, we live in a multi-religious and multi-cultural society, so I’ve yet to come across anyone who took offence when I said “as a Christian, I would rather not hold joss sticks, if that’s all right with you, but I’ll pray now and in my daily prayers for the repose of your loved one’s soul”. Also, everyone else at the wake is usually deep in conversation or busy eating, so no one is alert enough to declaim at full volume this Chinese guy shaming the bereaved family with “disrespectful” non-Chinese actions.
Now, if we had serious reason to believe, or actual proof, that our colleague was committing fraud or some other serious offence to both secular law and Christian propriety, we are bound by both duty and Spirit-informed conscience to make the appropriate people aware of the situation. Still, there’s no call for berating the fraudster about ethics in public, sending an office-wide “guess who got fired for stealing?” email, and generally doing the equivalent of hanging a flashing neon “THOU SHALT NOT STEAL” sign around his neck.
Most of us have no clue who John Bradford is, but are certainly conversant with a popular idiom attributed to him: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” May we always keep that in mind as we proffer grace in turn to others who may not share our beliefs, but do not deserve to be snubbed or mocked either.
Amen.