21st December 1997

The human liberation of Christmas

By Rev. Fr. Tissa Balasuriya OMI

The basic message of Christmas is that God took human form in Jesus Christ. Jesus teaches us "God is love" and loves each person with a salvific and fulfilling love; we are called to love one another as God loves us. Whatever we do to the least of humans is done to God in Jesus. Jesus identifies with the whole of humanity. Jesus took human form not only as one man but also as one with all humankind. The Christmas message of "peace on earth to all people of goodwill" is to be realized by our recognizing this inherent dignity and rights of the human person and ordering our personal, family and social lives accordingly.

Christmas has been celebrated year after year, century after century. But through long periods most Christians have not heeded the basic message of Jesus. If they had done so the world would not be in the chaotic situation in which it is today, and has been over several centuries. Christians have de facto been among the most exploitative of peoples during the greater part of the second millennium that we are about to end. Christian countries have been the principal colonizers and imperialists of the last 500 years since 1492 and 1498, when Columbus and Vasco da Gama opened up the sea routes to the Americas and to Africa and Asia. Even in modern times many of the worst dictators of the North and the South, the East and the West have called themselves Christians.

The Churches themselves have not been immune to this race for power, wealth and privilege. Pope John Paul II has invited all Catholics to prepare for the Great Jubilee of 2000 in commemoration of the birth of Jesus. On this occasion, on 10th November 1994, he wrote an Apostolic Letter "Tertio Millennio Adveniente" on "The Drawing Near of the Third Millennium" on Preparation for the Jubilee Year 2000. He invites Catholics to repent of our past faults in relationships within the Church and with others:

"Another painful chapter of history to which the sons and daughters of the Church must return with a spirit of repentance is that of the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of truth.

"It is true that an accurate historical judgment cannot presciend from careful study of the cultural conditioning of the times, as a result of which many people may have held in good faith that an authentic witness to the truth could include suppressing the opinions of others or at least paying no attention to them. Many factors frequently converged to create assumptions which justified intolerance and fostered an emotional climate which only great spirits, truly free and filled with God, were in some way able to break free. Yet the consideration of mitigating factors does not exonerate the Church from the obligation to express profound regret for the weakness of so many of her sons and daughters who sullied her face, preventing her from fully mirroring the image of the crucified Lord, the supreme witness of patient love and of humble meekness. From these painful moments of the past a lesson can be drawn for the future, leading all Christians to adhere fully to the sublime principle stated by the Council "The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it wins over the mind with both gentleness and power." (Vatican II Declaration of religious Freedom 1).

This is one of the rare statements of a Pope that tries to deal with the problem of the mistakes of the Church over a long historical period and in many lands. Hence it deserves careful analysis and reflection in our preparation for the great millennium Christmas Jubilee 2000, and for the development of our spirituality, theology and Church life. It is couched in a carefully worded language that is not exhaustive, but only suggests general causes of the evil of violently suppressing others in the service of truth. It even refers to the good faith in "the acquiescence given" by Christians to what was in effect the perpetration of the worst genocides in human history. The Pope calls for repentance for these shortcomings.

It would not have been possible for whole generations of Christians to neglect the core message of Jesus and be in alliance with the principal exploiters of the world or at least acquiesce in their activities without seriously diluting that message. How could slavery, and slave trade, capitalist exploitation and imperial domination go hand in hand with the spread of Christianity? How was it possible that the basic liberating message of Christmas was thus bypassed by most Christians and even the Churches during these centuries? The teaching of the Old Testment, especially of the prophets, and of the New Testament calls for a radical love and justice among humans. For such injustice to be overlooked or bypassed, if not legitimized, there has to be an interpretation of the Bible teaching including the message of Jesus in such a way as to turn the minds of the believers away from the demands of the gospel. This had to be done, or had to happen at several levels.

One level was the manner of the celebration of the feasts of the Christian calendar. The feasts had to be given or to acquire a meaning that would not trouble the conscience of believers concerning the social evils. How could this take place in relation to Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Jesus?

There are several ways in which the radical demands of the incarnation - of God becoming human, so that humans may be divined - can be diluted, neglected, bypassed or even subverted. I can only suggest a few approaches that may help Christians in the type of reflection that the Holy Father himself would seem to invite. The trivialization of the celebrations of Christmas is one such way. This is made a time for enjoyment, merry-making , rejoicing, fun and games, not to mention eating and drinking.

Christmas is a feast of children, and happily so. But there is little attention to the grave inequalities from which the children of the slums and shanties, the plantations, the poor villages and refugee camps suffer. Child labour and child abuse which are common in our countries continue from year to year, despite the feast of the children and the devotion to the Infant Jesus. Christmas is often a family feast; but the children of the disadvantaged families do not share in the joy of those who are more advantaged. All the same we must be grateful for even the little attention given to the needy at Christmas.

Another approach is for Christmas to be a time for individual charity. The sick, and the poor are helped by charitable donations. This is good and helpful. But this may be done by those who may even be causing or benefiting from the unjust social system that brings about the discrimination that causes the poverty or even the sickness. Thus in Colombo the affluent may visit the urban poor who live in slums and shanties that have lasted for several decades. The affluent may not campaign for the abolition of such inhuman conditions. Then mere charity at Christmas can be a conscience salver, that is repeated year after year without a change in the inhuman system of discriminative treatment by society. It is difficult to think of Jesus being content with such a celebration of his birth. The commercialization of Christmas is of course quite contrary to the biblical message and spirit of justice and sharing.

Since the feast of Christmas was popularized, in our countries by the foreign rulers, one would not expect them to popularize Christmas reflections and celebrations that would make believers and others take seriously the theme of Jesus as the sun of Justice, princes of peace. Thus the Christmas carols may be analyzed to ask what is their message. Of course there are many themes in the carols. One would however find it difficult to find ones which clearly emphasize justice and effective sharing. Thus carols on human rights would not easily find their way to the carols sessions by business groups or the police.

As an intra-Church event Christmas is celebration in the ritual form of a Mass preceded by individual sacramental penance. The public celebration is mainly of a socializing nature with family or group get-togethers. There is little common reflection on what is happening to our people or country at large, or even in the locality on a longer term basis. The Pope's call can encourage a collective penance for what Christians have made of the world in the past decades and centuries. We can also reflect on our own country in which the values and message of Christmas are being very much negated.

Jesus was not born a member of a Church. The incarnation is the humanization of God for the divinization of the humans, without any limits of social classes, castes, races or religions. Yet historically the Christian faith and churches have for many centuries been intolerant of other religions. They have been associated with the extermination of whole peoples as in the "new world" "discovered" by the Europeans after 1492. The Pope regrets this and invites all Christians to prepare themselves for the third millennium by a self purification and repentance for our past intolernance and violence against others. This theme is likely to be much stressed as the end of this millennium approaches, and specially during 1998 when the Vasco da Gama anniversary is commemorated.

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