- P. A. Chacko S. J.
‘Mene, Tekel, Uparsin’ is an Aramaic phrase from the Old Testament depicting the writing on the wall by a mysterious hand (Book of Daniel 5:25). It is famously known as “the writing on the wall.” Mene: “Numbered”, Tekel: “Weighed”, & “Uparsin” (also seen as “Parsin” or “Peres”): “Divided.” The phrase has since been used to warn of impending doom or to signify a dramatic, unavoidable end. Today this phrase needs to be invoked on Kerala Church in view of certain impending calamities.
Beware, you Kerala Church! You are letting yourself to slide into a bottomless pit. Remember Prophet Jeremiah who wept in anguish over the destruction of Jerusalem. And he did witness its destruction in the eventual capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. And for the warning of the calamity, he was punished by having been thrown into a well. The Second Temple and Jerusalem were once again destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans under Emperor Titus, following the First Jewish-Roman War. The city was left in ruins.
Jerusalem was rebuilt. Life flourished. But as Jesus approaches Jerusalem city, he is overcome with emotion like Jeremiah. He begins to weep, lamenting the city’s future and its refusal to recognize him as the Messiah.
If the same Jesus Christ were to walk into the Kerala Church, what would he see, what would be his emotion and reaction? Sky-embracing steeples, ornamented worshipping sanctuaries costing crores of rupees! A grumbling community whose pockets were pinched to extract money for such sanctuaries. A divided clergy and community beating one another within the sanctuary, squabbling over rites and rituals. Having the rituals celebrated under police protection. It is not their intention to ask whether they face their God as a community. Here devotion matters little. But their bone of contention is whether the devotees have the right to participate in the ritual face to face as in the celebration of Jesus, or whether they have to be content with seeing the back of the ritual performer. Yes, God’s house is divided. Dramatic actions follow, leaving the people of other religious communities dumbfounded and laughing at us!
Jesus demonstrates his authority and zeal for God’s house which had become a source of corruption and exploitation. The money changers and merchants were taking advantage of the pilgrims, especially the poor and foreigners, by charging exorbitant exchange rates and prices for the sacrificial animals. This commercial activity had turned the sacred space of the Temple, intended as “a house of prayer for all nations,” into a bustling marketplace and, as Jesus put it, “a den of robbers” (Matt 21:13).
If the same Jesus Christ were to walk into the Kerala Church, what would he see, what would be his emotion and reaction? Sky-embracing steeples, ornamented worshipping sanctuaries costing crores of rupees! A grumbling community whose pockets were pinched to extract money for such sanctuaries. A divided clergy and community beating one another within the sanctuary, squabbling over rites and rituals. Having the rituals celebrated under police protection. It is not their intention to ask whether they face their God as a community. Here devotion matters little. But their bone of contention is whether the devotees have the right to participate in the ritual face to face as in the celebration of Jesus, or whether they have to be content with seeing the back of the ritual performer. Yes, God’s house is divided. Dramatic actions follow, leaving the people of other religious communities dumbfounded and laughing at us!
Then, over the controversy of the so-called love jihad. Cursing the Muslims and the Muslim community as a whole for ‘waylaying’ Christian girls into love marriages. In the context of the shrinking of Kerala’s female population and young men remaining dry and unmarried, Church authorities whip up anti-love jihad emotions. No question is asked why they let their girls stray into alien fold away from their social fold and how they have brought them up! No question is asked why Christian girls were given in marriage to Hindu grooms. Such topsy-turvy contradictions are buried under the carpet and anti-Muslim emotions are whipped up to destroy the amicable social set up. No doubt, this is an agenda- based propaganda. It is grist to the mill taken advantage of by the Hindutva forces waiting on the side-lines and looking for a political foothold in the Christian community.
Kerala Church is not much concerned about the persecutions of their fellow Christians in central India. Except for a few Christian channels or a random editorial in the news media, by and large, the Christian community in Kerala looks the other way. It appears to be ignorant of the goings on. Not that it has not heard of the gruesome killings in Manipur or the destroying of churches in Manipur or in different parts of central, northern and western India.
And the way this foothold is facilitated by the Christian clergy is mind-boggling. Look at a priest of Palai diocese attending an RSS youth meeting on the recent Independence Day and praising their youth activities. The way the pulpit is used to make political propaganda against Muslim community and the communist regime makes thinking people sit up. Making subtle innuendos or even open calls from pulpits to support the BJP agenda is an ungodly act.
Even some diocesan WhatsApp groups are used by the right-wing leaning clergy to propagate the saffron trend. A dissenting priest told me that he objected to such doings and opted out of the group.
The hype and drama around the arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh are points for reflection or cogitation. It is no secret that the radical groups of the saffron family are taking law into their hands in central India to attack churches, kill Christians and wipe out tribal villages. But when two Malayalee nuns from Kerala, working in Chhattisgarh, were falsely implicated for anti-conversion activity and jailed, the Kerala Church woke up to get the nuns freed. It was necessary that they had to be freed for justice’s sake. The demonstration of solidarity was appropriate. But, who fished in the troubled waters? The saffron Parivar, like the jackal lapping up the blood after having cunningly made two rams fight to the finish.
The extreme radical terrorist group, the Bajrang Dal initiated the street drama, forced the police to register non-bailable cases against the nuns and harassed in public the nuns and the tribal girls with them. They acted with impunity and with the blessings of the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister who supported the Bajrang Dal terrorism.
As angry outbursts erupted in Christian dominated Kerala, the BJP in Kerala jumped into the fray to harvest the benefits. It sent Kerala BJP leader Chandrashekar to mollify Church authorities and assure them that the nuns would be released with the intervention of Home Minister Amit Shah. Befooled and overjoyed by the court’s release order, the Kerala Church was quick to pay homage to the saffron community. The released nuns and their family members were made to meet with the BJP fraternity to pay thanksgiving oblation. Well done BJP guys, for playacting the saviour figure!
In the midst of such madness, our Church leaders were happy to sup with Prime Minister Modi at Christmas celebration and hear him speak of the message of Jesus as peace, fellowship and harmony. But, not a statement was made by the princes of the Church before the head of the government to put a stop to the saffron Parivar’s atrocity on the Christians.
But the contradictory fact remains that the Kerala Church is not much concerned about the persecutions of their fellow Christians in central India. Except for a few Christian channels or a random editorial in the news media, by and large, the Christian community in Kerala looks the other way. It appears to be ignorant of the goings on. Not that it has not heard of the gruesome killings in Manipur or the destroying of churches in Manipur or in different parts of central, northern and western India. The gruesome burning to death of Leprosy doctor Graham Staines and his two children, or letting the 84 year old priest Stan Swami rot in jail and die, or similar such atrocities made national and international headlines.
In the midst of such madness, our Church leaders were happy to sup with Prime Minister Modi at Christmas celebration and hear him speak of the message of Jesus as peace, fellowship and harmony. But, not a statement was made by the princes of the Church before the head of the government to put a stop to the saffron Parivar’s atrocity on the Christians.
It is worth listening to Rajdeep Sardesai, eminent political analyst and media man on the emerging new ‘Kerala Story’. In a recent interview, Sardesai states: “Kerala is a state with a large Christian population and, importantly, the state which goes to the polls next year. The BJP is keen to woo the Christian community in Kerala and create a broader Hindu-Christian compact in a state where it is desperate to get a foothold.”
As the BJP is edging its way into the heart of the Kerala Christian community, days may not be far off before we see saffronised churches, saffronised clergy and the cross replaced with the Trishul.
‘Mene, Tekel, Uparsin!’
Take care, Kerala Church, unless you choose to be ‘numbered’, ‘weighed’, ‘divided’ and quartered! Your salvation is in your own hands!
