Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop
Mohandas K. Gandhi once remarked, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.” Why would the great Mahatma, a man of morality and humanity, level such a sharp rebuke?
Saint Paul seems to address this very question today. Even in the first century CE, such a statement could be made by those with similar sensitivities. Paul tells his foundling community of Jesus believers in Philippi that sometimes we who claim Christ miss the mark with “minds set on earthly things,” as if earth was our true home. As if our values and ways of being are the same as the world’s. They are not.
Even today, some who claim the name of Christ promote the Ten Commandments but act as if the Eight Beatitudes are lovely sentiments rather than blueprints for the Kingdom of God. (How is it that the Ten Commandments [Moses] find their way onto courthouse walls but the Eight Beatitudes [Jesus] do not?)
An American tourist went to Cairo to visit famous Polish Rabbi Hafiz Ayim. The traveler was surprised to see that the renowned sage lived in a simple room with a few books, a table, and a bench. “Sir, where is your furniture?” the young man asked. “Son, where is yours?” the rabbi responded. “I’m just passing through,” said the young man. “So am I,” answered the rabbi.
Paul tells his dear Philippians, and us, that our “citizenship is in heaven.” As such, we live in a foreign land where self-glory and self-satisfaction are prized. Astutely, Gandhi saw these as prominent in the domineering Christians he knew in India.
Perhaps being reminded that we are “just passing through” will help. We’re commissioned, as we say in the Lord’s Prayer, to bring the healing and hope of heaven to our broken world. Not to overpower other persons and cultures for financial or political gain as Gandhi and millions in the third world have suffered from those who claim the name of Christ. (Gandhi also said, “If you Christians were like your Christ the whole world would be Christian.”)
Regarding our Bread of Life Family of Parishes, would Gandhi like us or only our Christ? Would he likewise comment, “If your Bread of Life Family of Parishes were like Christ, the whole southeast side of Dayton would be Christian?”
—Timothy J. Cronin