IT'S TIME TO BURRY OUR DIFFERENCES

Sometimes when I’m walking down a path in an urban compound or a rural village, I have to watch myself so that I don’t step into a big pile of garbage.  Some people just throw out their garbage – food, paper, scraps – anyhow, scattering the ground with heaps of dirty things!  I wonder – why don’t they bury their garbage and make the area around their homes clean and beautiful, with an environment that is more healthy?

Well, just like the material garbage that hurts our environment, there is also spiritual garbage that harms our relationships with each other in our communities and in our nation.  You know what I mean.  Throughout this past year, we have seen and heard our political leaders throw rubbish at each other. They have called each other names – liars, cheats, sick, greedy, and what not!  We also have heard or seen couples divorce, breaking up the family just because one spouse says very mean things and then refuses to apologise or to admit the damage caused in the family by these actions.

Even in our small Christian communities and Parishes, we often stubbornly prevent each other to share one’s opinions or desires or needs.  We sometimes hurl insults or toss about rumours.   As a result of such negative habits, we are allowing the gaps, the mountains and the valleys of hurt and hatred to grow and grow.

Advent is a conducive time for us to bury the differences that may have developed over the past year.  The Scripture readings for this second Sunday of Advent really help us to understand that challenge and to respond to it with wisdom and strength.

In the first reading, the Prophet Baruch is asking us to put off the garment of sorrow and distress and to put on the cloak of integrity and honour. It’s time to stop blaming or pointing fingers at each other. It’s time to seek the peace that is built on justice, in our families, our churches, our country.  We must begin by reconciling ourselves with God so that we can experience true peace and joy by burying our differences.

The Prophet Baruch calls this action filling up the valleys and leveling the ground. It’s a beautiful image for reconciliation and a powerful call for us Christians during this season of Advent.

Visiting families or individuals, it is common to hear phrases that painfully express the hurt some people are experiencing.   Muli cintu m’mtima cimene cinibaba.  This means that there is something that is hurting me, in my inner self.   Or another way of saying the same thing: kuli ncintu cindicisa m’moyo wangu. How can these people be helped? Reconciliation among ourselves is the best tool for burying our differences.

In today’s Gospel, the Prophet John the Baptist repeats the same message of calling us to repent and to reconcile. Each year at this time, we read in the Gospels about the message of John the Baptist.  He truly is the patron saint of Advent!  He reminds us that this is a moment of grace.  It’s the time to time to give up sin in order to gain true peace and joy. It’s the time to die to our pride in order to gain real forgiveness.  It’s the time to bury our differences so that every hill will be brought low, every valley filled up, every road made straight.

In the second reading, St. Paul prays that our love for each other will increase more and more very day.  In this way we will really be prepared to meet Jesus Christ at any time.

Unfortunately, very often we are not ready and willing to listen to prophetic challenges like those that come from Baruch and John the Baptist.  And maybe especially we don’t want to hear the prophetic challenges that come from members of our own family or from friends who are close to us.  We don’t like people who are challenging and instead we call them names.   Wakachawa (meaning pleasers) and Abama setting (meaning those who like poking their noses in others people’s business!) and Abamulomo (meaning gossipers).

But we surely know that it does not benefit us to remain stubborn and proud. We only hurt ourselves when we refuse to pay attention to good advice coming from those who want the best for us.  As the proverb says: Anione anione afinye dapoka --  meaning, the frog that was too proud, died from bursting!   This proverb exhorts me to be humble enough to ask myself what is crooked in my life and what things enslave me.

The Gospel also challenges us all to look honestly at ourselves. We need to see the mountains of rubbish that we throw at each other and we must bury our differences. In this process of reconciliation and liberation, we will feel personally reconciled and freed. And then we are called upon to be God’s instruments of reconciliation in our society. Zambia is so blessed to be at peace, surrounded as we are by countries in war and conflict.  This Advent, let us bury our differences and work for the peace that God wants to give us! 

SKETCH

We have three families who are represented by the three women in this sketch. The first woman in the sketch is Tipilile and she has the tendency of throwing the rubbish from her house at the gate of her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Banda. This behaviour becomes the source of many quarrels. But another neighbour and member of the same small Christian community, Mrs. Haampongo, calls the two women.  She challenges them to dig a pit and to bury the rubbish. The two are helped to reconcile with each other.  They not only bury the rubbish and create a clean and healthy environment, but they also bury their differences and create a loving relationship with each other.

Community Prayer

1.      Creator God, make us instruments of reconciliation so that we build communities of love in our families, our neighbourhoods, our churches and our nation.  Let us pray to the Lord, Lord hear us

2.      Loving Lord, we ask forgiveness for the times we have stubbornly refused to forgive those who have sinned against us and we pray that we may be reconciled. Let us pray to the Lord, Lord hear us.

3.      God our Creator, send your Holy Spirit to teach our politicians to reconcile, bury differences, and build our nation Zambia.  Let us pray to the Lord, Lord hear us!

[Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, P.O. Box 37774, 10101 Lusaka, Zambia]