A Paradigm Shift on Holiness and Hopefulness

I came upon this heater resembling an electric fan. I just found it awkward to see an electric fan doing the opposite function of what I'm used to in the Philippines. To me, the heater fan impressed me as strange, but surely this appliance must be common to the people in China who experience winter.

When Jesus came to earth to save mankind, it must have been strange for the Jews that their expected Savior turned out to be a carpenter's son.  For generations, their paradigm has been a savior king with all his might and glory. Instead, someone from Nazareth claims to be the Son of God, their Savior.  Although Jesus showed all the signs and wonders as being the One, many still could not accept it. John confirms Jesus as the Messiah for what is written in the Old testament is being fulfilled.


The disciples of John told him about all these things. John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” When the men came to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’” At that time he cured many of their diseases, sufferings, and evil spirits; he also granted sight to many who were blind.And he said to them in reply, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. (Luke 7:18-22)

We now come to reflect on our own paradigms.  What paradigms do we have that need to shift? Just because we feel strange about something, it doesn't mean it is not the truth. I now propose two paradigms due for shifting.

1. The paradigm that we can never be holy.  This is different from being "holier than thou." I also do not claim that I have reached holiness. I am proposing that holiness should be something we should never dismiss. Otherwise we will be using this always as an excuse to sin.  We are to strive in growing in holiness in everyday of our lives. "but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct,for it is written, “Be holy because I [am] holy.""(1 Peter 1: 15-16). It may be strange or even impossible for us to think of achieving holiness, but we look upon the saints who like us are humans, also vulnerable to sin, but lived out a life pleasing to the Lord.

2. The paradigm that there is no hope for change.  When we look at our society, like in the Philippines, the poverty we see in the streets and structural sins of corruption can easily lead us to resign from hoping for change.  Even when we look at many 1st world countries who have fully integrated the culture of death through legalizing contraceptives, abortion, and even prostitution, it will be convenient for us to give up hope and just go with the flow of immoral societal behavior. But Paul encourages us, "Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9)." Whether reaping the harvest will happen in our lifetime or beyond it, what is important is that we contribute to the process of change towards a Christ-centered society.  After all, what is required of us is faithfulness. Success is the Lord's.

The journey towards holiness is the path to hope. For how can we change the world, if we ourselves do not?  The day to day struggle to be holy and overcoming our personal sins, in effect is our way to bring about change in society.

Let us not shrug the possibility of being a holy person. For if we do, we also have given up on change.  The paradigm shift, the strange feeling, of accepting God's will for us to grow in holiness is the mindset we now have to embrace.

Preparing the Heart, Home, and Society

I'm now in Bangkok and people are anticipating flood. They transferred most of their things to the 2nd floor of their house. Some homes are putting up sand bags and some even put up a 2ft high cement wall for the purpose of blocking the water.  Having witnessed the flood that affected the northern part of the county and the advisory by the government, people are preparing the best they can.

How prepared are we for things to come?  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. (2 Peter 3:10). The parable of the ten virgins also reflect on being prepared. The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps. Since the bridegroom was long delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ (Matthew 25:3-6)


A priest asked the parishioners in his homily, "Who among you here wants to go to heaven?" (Everybody raised their hands). He asked again, "Who among you here wants to die and go to heaven NOW?" (Very few raised their hands).  This reflects our preparedness.  We are afraid to die. But surely, everybody knows that death is inevitable.

Mark Twain suggests, "The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."

The song Prepare the Way by Darrel Evans may help us on our reflection on preparedness:

Make ready your heart.  Are our hearts clean? When was the last time we went for confession? Have we forgiven?
Make ready your home.  How is our relationship with our family? Are we leading our family closer to God?
Make ready the people of God. Are we taking part in bringing others to God?

The heart, home, and the people of God talk about our individual, family, and societal preparedness.  It is not enough that we ourselves are prepared for the Lord.  We have a responsibility to do our best to renew our families and our society.  John the Baptist is the best example of preparedness.  He went out of his way and prepared others to receive the Lord. "He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie (John 1:27)."  John the Baptist was regarded very highly that when the Lord asked His disciples of 'Who do you say I am?' they said, 'Some say you are John the Baptist, some say you are Elijah..." Despite John's greatness, he did not lose focus on directing others to the Lord.

Let us prepare by directing ourselves and others to the Lord.  Let us make our hearts, homes, and our society ready for the Lord.

The Challenge of Renewing Society

My three year old son, Sev, proudly gave me his set of Alphabet Flash Cards and urged me to test him. He got most of the alphabets right with the corresponding image. But when it came to the letter "R," he said,"R is for flower." The image on the card was a Rose. I then said, yes Sev, that's a flower but it's a Rose flower. What was important to Sev was his familiarity of the image rather than the relevance of the letter's sound to the object.

We often respond to what is familiar to us. The challenge of building a society to embrace morality is that we are exposed to much negative influences. At first we find it logical that certain behaviors are unacceptable. But later, the more we become familiarized with these immoral exposures, it slowly becomes acceptable to society. Our concept of morality is then distorted, until it becomes misrepresented. Take Playboy magazine as an example. Just three years ago, who would ever expect that they would be in magazine stands of malls and convenience stores? We would have been even scandalized to see it plainly in these public areas. But now, Playboy and the rest of the so called men's magazines are just a shelf apart from Kids' Magazines like Disney or K-zone. What about noon time shows for the family? Since when has it been acceptable to see almost naked women dancing with much sexual suggestiveness, in front of our kids while having lunch? What about corruption? Is it already a norm to bribe in exchange of not being penalized of a street violation? Contraceptives are much advertised on TV already, going even further to be put in the context of being single.

Many of us are aware of the analogy of a frog being put in hot water. When a frog is directly put in high temperature water, it reacts and naturally jumps out of the water. But when you place a frog in normal temperature, and slowly increment the heat level, the frog will not realize that it is being cooked to death already. If this phenomenon of moral degradation will continue, slowly our society will not recognize what is moral or immoral until it results to moral breakdown. People will respond more to what is familiar, to what others are doing anyway, to what is profitable and to what gives them pleasure.

So what are we to do? First, we have to disturb the mindset. Second, we have to be creative in our advocacy as not to repel people. Third, we have to collaborate.

Disturbing the mindset means that we pose questions and perspectives that will challenge the negative social norm. It is not preachy, but thought provoking and interesting. It makes people reflect. Then it makes society realize that it is indeed wrong. We interrupt the normal way of thinking by injecting arguments. The way Jesus disturbed the mindset of the Pharisees was by means of parables and analogies. Instead of bluntly pointing to the main issue, the Lord used stories and symbols that were also familiar to the people of that day. The parable of the Good Samaritan must have struck a strong chord to the ears of the high priests. The story of the poor widow who gave her two coins taught us about true offering.

Be creative in advocating. The usual pitfall of advocacies is that it tends to repel and turn off people, instead of focusing on the goal and getting people to buy in. If immoral social norms were creatively mainstreamed, the way to counter is also to creatively reverse them. We want to make righteousness hip and cool. We aim to attract them to what we have to say. When all the people heard of Jesus' arrival, they flocked to see him... (John 12:9)." We make society more familiar of what is truly moral. I'm not only talking about doing a one time concert but to bombard society with continuous influencing over TV, radio, print, internet, and specially word of mouth. We find ways to mainstream. There are Christian bands that are already mainstreaming. To affect change in governance, Christian leaders through the laity must also mainstream in politics, but in a most credible and creative manner. The author of the Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien, was a known devout Catholic and reflecting his faith in characters and plot of his book. Malcolm gladwell, in his book "Tipping point," talks about how certain behaviors become an epidemic and reach to a tipping point when it becomes mainstreamed. He mentions that there are three types of people that greatly help in spreading an epidemic or an idea. These are the connectors (knows a lot of people), mavens (knows a lot of information) , and the salesmen (knows how to persuade people). To advocate change, we need people like these. We might find ourselves in one of these categories, and greatly help in creatively overcoming immoral societal practices.

Collaborating is the greater challenge. When our convictions arrive at the process of translating it into actions and results, we come to realize that we cannot do it alone. We are humbled by this idea, and we submit ourselves to the goals of our cause. What other groups or organizations have the same cause as ours? What are our "sweet spots" wherein we can work together, even amidst some differences in opinions and backgrounds? How big a force should we organize to achieve our goals? John Maxwell says that, "The size of the team should be as big as the size of the dream." The more we connect and work with groups who have the same vision, the faster we get to our desired change.

We open our eyes to the evil that is eating up our society. There is much poverty, immorality, environmental degradation, and greed. Let us not allow the devil to deceive us by conditioning our minds by familiarization to what is sinful. Instead, let us start to disturb the mindset, be creative in our advocacy, and collaborate to create a movement of change. We call upon the Holy Spirit to empower us as He has empowered Jesus' disciples 2,000 years ago. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8)."