Ministry of the Church

Church is the inn to which the wounded man was taken to be cared for. The parable of the Good Samaritan gives a metaphor for ministries in the Church. Good Samaritan is the most known parable of Jesus. The Kerala government has a scheme to encourage people to take accident victims to the hospital before it is too late. The government has announced that anyone who helps an accident victim to the hospital will receive a compensation of Rs. 5000, and the Marxist government in Kerala called it the Good Samaritan scheme.

The good Samaritan is Jesus himself. Jews used to travel stretching around the Samaritan territory, because of the hatred they had with them. We stretch and make our lives complicated because of hatred. Jesus used to travel freely in those regions.

Good Samaritan takes the wounded man to an inn and entrusts him to that innkeeper to take care of him. Good Samaritan gives what is needed for the time, and tells them he will pay back whatever more is spent on him when he comes back. The inn is the church, we are the innkeepers. It is our ministry to take care of those who are wounded psychologically and physically. Jesus provides for our upkeep, and whatever we have spent from our end will be repaid when he returns. The Ministry of the church is to heal. Fetching dignity is healing. Healing more urgently of psychological ailments.

Though Jesus used to keep his healing secret, on one occasion, he spoke loudly about a woman who was getting healed from bleeding. He wanted the society to know that it is normal. He wanted others to hear about her uncomfortable days. His loud healing of that woman cancels out the one-chapter-long hygiene ritual that we find in the book of Deuteronomy. By her touch power has gone into every woman. In a restaurant that gives free food and books to anyone who comes, run by the Franciscan Capuchin friars, it is written, Annavum, aksharavum, aadharavode (food and books given with respect). Treat everyone who comes to us with respect, that gives it the character of a ministry. We are healed by Jesus with respect. We are to become healed healers.

We learn varied philosophies to understand various segments of people and cultures so that we will best understand them. We must have the knowledge and openness to say, ‘Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’. We are to become advocates for others. Make arguments for the accused one, and think favourably for the accused one. A Buddhist story talks about a man who wandered into the garden lawn of a rich man. The rich man was furious. He got hold of him. Only then did he see that the man who wandered in was blind. We have no idea about the consequences of our actions. Until betraying Jesus Judas knew what he was doing; then he completely lost it, even his life. A small act by us without enough thought can shatter someone’s faith, disturb someone’s focus in life, even a small act has far-reaching compound consequences.

Sublimate your negative experiences. Make our wounds a sacred learning. Our experience of pain should make us cause no pain to others. Someone who has gone through starvation will always enquire whether you have food to eat. Visit Auschwitz’s concentration camp sites, where millions of people were gassed into nothing, we will feel ashamed to be a man. This happened in the 20th century, after the French Revolution and the declaration of Michael Foucault that ‘man is a recent invention’. We must think first for others. The first principle (Primus) of medicine is, ‘do not harm’.

We learn history by not repeating it again. What we/I have experienced, and gone through personally becomes our/my memory. Don’t repeat our painful memory on others. There are three ways to handle a personally painful memory; retaliate, substitute, or sublimate. The one who suffered most in the Old Testament is Joseph. Joseph was ditched by his own brothers, he had a painful personal memory. He sublimated it, he knew the limitations of his brothers. He had overcome it, but he was afraid that when he had a son, he would hear of it from others and go for retaliation. So when he had a son he named him, Manasseh, meaning, you must forget. That was the only lesson Joseph taught his son.

We must choose to forget selectively. Forget what is not useful any more. Maintain emotional and memorial hygiene. Do not carry emotional rubbish with us. Every pain that you take leaves an imprint on the body. Did Jesus suffer physically was a question people asked, some said he only suffered internally (Manichaeism). St. Paul establishes that Jesus suffered physically, he says, ‘Jesus suffered in his body’. It is interesting to note that first people thought that there was only the body, then they concluded that there is a body and a mind, today the understanding is that body is the mind. The body communicates, the body senses, and the body experiences.

Healing is His business. A little bit of psychology and philosophy that we know would help to understand people and bring them to healing, but healing is God’s business. A poster in a clinic says, “Here we treat, healing is His business.” Jacob held on to the feet of the Angel, “Don’t ever leave until you heal me.” Healing of oneself and others is not an option but obligatory. Our illness as far as possible must not affect others. Me attending to my health, physical and psychological, me getting healed is my responsibility.

Healing ministry needs a messiah, a redeemer, a saviour; being sick is like being fallen into a well, at times no personal effort would help, except if someone from out pulls you out; one could call it grace. The word messiah may sound aggressive, but acknowledging our helplessness is important in the healing process. The middle verse in the Bible is Psalm 118: 8, “My help is not from human beings.”

Notes taken during my annual retreat, preached by Bobby Jose Kattikad, Capuchin.

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