On Eagle's Wings

Two of my favorite modern Christian songs are sung by th artiste Josh Groban. One of the is titled” On Eagle's Wings” and another is titled” You lift me up”. Both these songs have lifted up my spirits on many a depressing day. The old prophet Isiah's lines promising that "they shall mount up with wings like eagles" (v. 31) are so memorable.... Sorting through my various memories I remembered first a time when I sat on top of a cliff and watched a motionless raven riding an unseen wind, occasionally folding up his wings and dropping breathlessly before extending them again to soar. Then I thought of a time when I took a s short holiday in Goa , watching seabirds get waddling starts before a breeze would lift them gently above my head.

Finally I considered a family of sparrows that once nested outside my window of my 8th floor office in Delhi's Nehru Place, occasionally breaking into the silence of my room with a salutary song. None of these light and dreamy images worked with me, however. Not this week.
As a pacifist, I have struggled a great deal with my own feelings about the violent turns being taken in our country , some more graphic than others. One illustration that I recently read about and that horrified me was the thought of Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh that once returned Jawaharlal Nehru to Parliament , now being represented by a mafia don. . Sometimes I am quite guilty of reading the morning newspaper and taking it to heart, making it personal. As i read all that i do , I also sad realize that I have very little power to counter the ominous movements around me. Some times, I feel tired and angry and sad and confused, I walk on the frightening border of hopelessness at times.

So some airy notions of birds taking flight are sometimes hard to embrace as I feel more the albatross of cynicism growing heavier around my neck, worrying less about my own ability to fly and fretting more honestly that I might instead just sink like a stone. And in a rather uncommon way as I read Josh Groban's songs based on Isaiah , I felt that someone from a very long time ago was saying something to me, pleading desperately that I not lose heart. All I can say is that I want very much to hear those words and to believe in them.

The words that seem to be speaking so deeply are drawn from Isaiah 40, an entire chapter that is made of the dialog between hope and doubt before it ends on a note that asks us each to remain engaged in the struggle. It was written ages ago to a people that had been living in exile and, during that time, found themselves in the tension between their own hopes and doubts, the promises of their faith and the sad social context in which they lived. This is the audience that the author of Isaiah 40 is addressing, and it is to a tired and skeptical people that he offers his word. Some of his chapters intended to comfort a weary people by reminding them of an old vision and singing of a new empowerment. There are some hopeful words here, if not any easy words, and perhaps that is why they can still speak as strongly in the present as they did in that long ago past. So to an exiled people the prophet begins to speak or maybe even to anybody who has ever felt like a wanderer, caught in the troubles of this world and its sorrows, feeling the bitterness between what we dream and what we have got.

It seems to me that the prophet knows the feeling all too well, because his opening lines, which read very much like poetry, acknowledge under their surface that things are not yet as they should be. "A voice cries out," he writes, "In the wilderness prepare the way, make straight in the desert a highway [so] every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain." (v. 3-4) The voice crying out is really the voice of the old writer, who is beginning to offer an image of a time just around some corner when things might be transformed. While the author understands that the current context is oftentimes a painful one, he wants to say and so he does say that the future is open. Using his words to invite us into this beautiful vision, the author paints what is uncertain in the colors of a thousand possibilities.

Unafraid to voice his dreams the prophet writes, "Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together," (v. 5) which is another way of saying that the manifestation of the divine shall be everywhere and the love of God shall be shared by everyone. This is a very beautiful sentiment and, as it imagines what the world might become, it is directed rather pointedly at everyone who has, for one reason or another, stopped imagining their own hopes for the future. The Book of Isaiah has perhaps the highest hopes of all, for its pages tell that lions and lambs could one day find rest together, swords might be refashioned into ploughshares, and hospitality shall be shown to the stranger and the outcast.

And the comfort that the prophet means to offer here can be found in the universality of his statement. Not only will the people wither and fade but so will the nations and the rulers, all who act oppressively on the earth and live in violence towards it, they¹ll go too, for they are no more than "dust on the scales" (v. 15). While this may strike some as the most morbid form of encouragement, the old writer is trying to affirm that there is something more transcendent than the power structures currently in place and the systems that seem to surround us. While surely we are participants in those systems, the prophet wants to remind us that we might also become participants in something much greater, something that he would call a divine purpose. Because what won¹t fade, the old book tells, is the very word from God.

And it is that word that has always issued an invitation for us to make justice and love through our living, in the hope that we are joining in something sacred as we do it. Isaiah 40 goes on to tell of the wonder of the divine, conjuring up majestic images of God, but throughout it is still possible to hear that there is a dispirited audience listening in. It seems to me that the writer never really loses sight of this, since he concludes his magnificent descriptions by saying rather plainly that God "does not faint or grow weary." (v. 28) At the end of it the prophet will say something like, "Every one of you is tired, I know.

But maybe one day we¹ll reach the end of all our waiting, maybe one day we¹ll see that our efforts have made at least a part of this dream into reality. And maybe on a day like that we really might feel light as eagles carried by the wind¹s current. Who knows?" So as Isiah understands and acknowledges the reservations of his hearers, he still speaks strongly against the cynicism of inaction and asks us each to take the risks of responding in faith. Perhaps the aforementioned eagles might serve as an interesting example. In our lives we may not always be able to soar gracefully but we can take the first small steps and leave the nest to trust in what cannot always be seen but can be hoped in and worked for and maybe even lived out if we feel as risky as the young bird who paces and yearns for the sky.

Advocating for Dalit Christians

The term 'Dalit' has come to mean things or persons who are cut, split, broken or torn asunder, scattered or crushed and destroyed. By coincidence, there is in Hebrew a root 'dal' meaning low, weak, poor. In the Bible, different forms of this term have been used to describe people who have been reduced to nothingness or helplessness. However, the present usage of the term Dalit goes back to the nineteenth century, when a Marathi social reformer and revolutionary, Mahatma Jyotirao Phule (1826-1890), used it to describe the outcastes and untouchables as the oppressed and the broken victims of our caste-ridden society. Dalit communities are those who are oppressed by the caste system in India. They account for about 16% of the total population; they are discriminated against for being polluting or untouchable and are relegated to performing occupations such as leather tanning, scavenging, weaving, and fishing, professions that are considered defiling and polluting and are largely understood to have their origins in the Chaturvarna system of Indian social classification sanctioned by the Hindu law giver Manu. However, Dalits are outside the pale of the caste system and its defined social and occupational hierarchy.

Among 30 million Christians, at least twenty millions are considered to be Dalits. Most of them live in extreme poverty and desperation. A survey undertaken by Jesuits in Tamil Nadu revealed that 79.6% of the Dalit Christians are landless, that their illiteracy rate is 65%, and that their average annual income is no more than 25 dollars. The Christian community in India also is too are divided into a number of castes with the previously Brahmin castes at the top and untouchables at the bottom. Though Christianity also does not recognize caste system, there are upper and lower caste among Christians. In Goa, for example, there are upper caste Catholic Brahmins who do not marry Christians belonging to the lower castes. In many churches, the low caste Christians have to sit apart from the high caste Christians. In Andhra Pradesh, there are Christian Dalit, Christian Malas, Christian Reddys, Christian Kammas, etc. In Tamil Nadu, converts to Christianity form Scheduled Castes - Latin Catholics, Christian Shanars, and Christian Gramani are in the list of Scheduled Castes. Such instances are many and vary from region to region.

Logically, the term ‘Dalit Christians’ is self-contradictory. How can a person be a ‘Dalit’ when he is a Christian; for Christianity does not recognize the caste system which is an evil prevalent only in the Hindu society? When a person gets converted, he is no longer a Hindu and thus does not fall into any category of the caste hierarchy. But unfortunately, in India we do have this category of people who got converted to Christianity in the vain hope of leading a respectable life. Conversion to Christianity has only added to the misery of the Dalits. Many Dalit Christian leaders refer to the twice-alienated situation of the Dalit Christians in India, namely, discrimination within the Church and discrimination by the State as they are denied Scheduled Caste status in the Constitution, and the related privileges which come with that status.
This is because the external forms of untouchability and their practice still exist among Christians, within the Church, in the graveyard, in the festivals, in marriage alliances, etc. The most unfortunate thing is that the caste Christians, practicing these inhuman acts are often supported by their own caste-priests and nuns, who even encourage them to attack Dalit Christians. That is the main reason for caste-practice continuing in the Church.

The same rules of Hindu caste system govern them, and they are known by their caste names --- Christian Nayars, Christian Paraya etc. Hardly any lower castes are allowed to be appointed as priest. Untouchables have separate graveyards and churches. So entrenched is the system that if a Christian upper caste cannot find a suitable caste Christian to marry, then a Hindu of the same caste will be selected rather than another Christian of lower caste.

The Dalits who converted to Christianity possibly gained a new sense of self-respect, but the gains were wiped out by the fact that upper caste Christians from whose ranks their religious superiors come still treated them as untouchables. There have been recorded instances of priests refusing to enter the houses of their Dalit congregation; the mission schools have separate arrangements for Dalits and other castes. In some Protestant churches, there were separate cups for the Dalits at the Eucharistic celebration. In the Catholic churches, there were separate communion rails, nor did their relationship with Hindu castes change in any way. So, many Dalit Christians have either started new churches themselves or reconverted back to Hinduism.

Little did they know that conversion to Christianity would not redeem them from social discrimination and untouchability, because though Jesus never advocated the caste system, Christianity in India was not free from the caste bias. Christian outfits which criticized Hinduism for its caste system, practiced discrimination based on castes in their Churches. In spite of the fact that around 75% of the Christians are ‘Dalits’ who got converted to Christianity to lose their caste or ‘outcaste’ tag, Dalit Christians within the Church were discriminated against and were denied powers within the ecclesiastical structure.

Today, the Dalit movement is a growing movement both within and outside the church, working for the liberation of Dalits from caste oppression — stigma, discrimination — political, economic, social, and religious. Dalit theology is an emerging discipline that is taking shape against much resistance both from both the dominant groups and from some Dalits themselves, who are still conscious of their status as Dalits and the social ramifications of embracing their Dalit identity. The situation Christian Dalits face is even more oppressive, as the general miserable living conditions characterizing the situation of Dalits are compounded by the denial of affirmative action by the state. Those who become Christians today usually cannot hope for material rewards.

One of the reasons for this is the fact that church development co-operation does not distinguish between Christians and non-Christians. Instead Christians must rather expect to be penalized; they lose their entitlement to state support in the form of allowances for school fees, grants, the right to jobs in public service etc. Actually this situation has recently led to quite a few Dalit Christians giving up their Christian faith because of their miserable living conditions, hoping to improve them through state support. On top of this enormous pressure is being exerted on Christians by Hindu groups and massive re-conversion campaigns waged among Dalits and Adivasis, - „indigenous peoples", as Indian tribal people nowadays call themselves. These campaigns often do not differ at all from „forced conversions" and otherwise bear all the hallmarks of what Christian mission is accused of.

The truth behind the debate becomes even more evident if one bears in mind that the conversions of those sections of the population who are discriminated against and marginalized in many respects is not a phenomenon exclusive to Christian mission. Attention must be drawn, above all, to the attitude of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, who - an „Untouchable" himself - rose to the position of a spokesman for the „Untouchables" in the thirties and later as an architect of the Indian Constitution and India’s first Minister of Justice did a lot to promote the Dalits. Unlike Gandhi, who tried to improve the living conditions of the Harijans mainly by appealing to the higher caste Hindus and quite often showed a paternalistic attitude towards the Harijans, Ambedkar held the view that the Dalits must speak for and fight to achieve justice for themselves. For him the issue of „Untouchability" was inextricably linked with Hinduism itself, which he rejected as his religious home as early as 1936. As the caste system and „Untouchability" were connected with Hinduism for him and he saw no possibility of achieving justice within the Hinduistic system, he converted to Buddhism in 1956 in a dramatic act along with hundreds of thousands of his followers. Conversion had thus become a form of social and political protest.

Because the state policy of affirmative action has been unable to overcome discrimination against Dalits to the present day, the living conditions of many of them are now worse than they used to be, and above all because their stigmatization as „Untouchables" persists, the ideas of Ambedkar have received renewed attention over the past two decades and have become the ideological ferment of a broad social movement for the emancipation of Dalits and the cultural self-assertion of the Adivasis, the Indian indigenous people. The fact that the Church today - not least of all due to Dalit theology which is aimed at liberating the Dalits - is part of this social movement is what is really behind the controversies over conversions. It challenges the Indian social system, which insists on privileges based on caste hierarchies, and champions another model of society. Even as agitations go on against the prevailing attitude of the government towards the Dalit Christians it is important to note that it is not as though the problems of Dalit Christians have not received attention from the government. Several commissions appointed by the government have referred to the disabilities Dalits suffered in Christian society.

Kaka Kalelkar, chairman of the Backward Classes Commission of 1955, said, “We discovered with deep pain and sorrow that untouchability did obtain in the extreme south among Indian Christians, and Indian Christians were prepared in many places to assert that they were still guided by caste, not only in the matter of untouchability, but in social hierarchy of high and low. While the Harijans among the Hindus, classified as scheduled castes, stand a fair chance of bettering their condition under the Indian government’s reservation policy, their Christian counterparts stand twice discriminated.”

Two more reports that came a decade later found that the status of Dalits in the Christian society remained the same as it was in 1955 when the Kalelkar Commission was appointed. First, the Chidambaram Committee report of 1975 said, “Casteism is practiced widely among the members of the Christian fold as judged by the characteristic of the caste system and going by the economic status of the Harijan Christians. It is evident that they are poverty-stricken lot.” The infamous Mandal Commission report conceded the reality of caste among Indian Christians as in any other community. The commission cited the example of the Christian community in Kerala, which, according to its report, is not only divided into various denominations on the basis of beliefs and rituals but also into various ethnic groups on the basis of their caste background.

The emerging Dalit and liberation theologies are today propelling significant sections within the Indian Church towards the path of radical social activism by challenging structures of oppression—religious, cultural, economic and political. Contemporary Dalit and liberation theologians see Jesus himself as a revolutionary, a central concern of whose mission was to oppose the hegemony of the ruling establishment and to crusade for a radically new social order. This new commitment to a socially engaged, radical Christianity is today inspiring many Christian priests, more so Catholics than Protestants, to engage themselves in the struggles of the poor, particularly the Dalits and the tribals.

Even as we lobby for reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for our Dalit brethren, there is a lot of house cleaning that needs to be done in the church itself.
A good question to ponder is how well represented are the Dalits in the leadership of the churches and other Christian institutions. Even as we vociferously argue for reservations, there is a need to evaluate the institutionalized caste system amidst our own establishments. There is also the fact that apart from overt instances of separate pews, graveyards and such external manifestations, often there exists a much more subtle, overt separation – in terms of insulting and patronizing attitudes. We should be asking that as even as we point fingers at the state, are we within the church also stained with the same blood of violating the fundamental rights of the Dalit Christians, not just as citizens of secular India but also as citizens of the Kingdom of God, where there is no Jew and no Greek, no free and no slave. The apostle Paul said “a good while ago, God chose among us many who heard the gospel and believed. God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the Dalits who came to the Christian fold?

The test of adequacy of service or of a servant leader is this: Do those who are served grow as persons, become wiser, just, and more likely themselves to become servants? Jesus’ disciples became better people in every conceivable way after they met him and committed themselves as servants for the transformation of the world. The effectiveness of churches’ programmes of liberation and justice should be assessed on the basis of resultant transformation among the Dalits. The humiliation and crucifixion of Jesus was a degrading and cruel event. Those who were crucified were labeled as God-forsaken or cursed by God. But God "exalted" Jesus, gave him the name above all names, Lord, and made every knee to bend, in acknowledgment of his lordship and acceptance of the new norms of the new community. Hope was given the oppressed that victory would follow humiliation and God’s glory would ultimately prevail and transform the world

The lure and oppressive bid for power, which ultimately oppression is all about leads us to deal with sin in our lives. We have sinned against God by making our human distinctions. It’s time for us to repent and to confess our sin to the one, true and living God who revealed Himself in creation to all and in a very special way through His Word, the Bible and His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. Every human being is important as God gave His Son, out of love, for man. The Bible says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).

Because Jesus emptied himself, God has exalted him (Phil. 2:9), made him sit at the right hand of God the Father. The ascended Lord is not resting but is involved in a struggle to put down all his enemies under his foot. The exalted Lord inspires us in our struggle. Christians are not to compromise with evils that alienate and exclude others, such as casteism, racism, sexism, etc. It will be a poor state of affairs if our witness through our lives and relationships is in no way better than the witnesses given by those who practice and perpetrate these demonic structures and cultures.

So to stress again, Christianity does not preach inequality in any form and caste distinctions are anathema to the Bible and its teachings. “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to call upon Him (Romans 10: 12).” If you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as law breakers (Jas 2:9). Paul clearly taught that differential treatment against those of a different economic or social background should be avoided at all costs in our churches. Instead, he tells us in Romans 12:3,” Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” Every one of us has been bought with grace through the shed blood of Christ. Partiality in the church indicates the loss of saving grace. God does not want us to base our judgment on the criteria of the world.

How can we forget that the word of God urges us to love others by accepting them as they are and seeing them as individuals for whom Christ gave His life? We are not to judge others or look down on them. Preferring the rich to the poor, or the higher caste to the lower caste, is a terrible sin, for Christ became poor that we might be rich in Him. When a former low caste person comes into the Christian congregation, he is to be received in love and shown just as much grace as a former high caste person. The man of the world may look on outward appearance and the circumstances of our birth, but God sees the heart and we should do the same. By refusing to receive those who in our imagination are beneath us because of their ancestry, we are dishonoring the Lord and the ones who He loves.

A Christian’s identity is in Christ – not in his past. All of us are complete in Christ. Consequently , caste can have no place in the church of god. The name of our loving , creator God and Lord is blasphemed when we continue with our caste prejudices within the church. How He must grieve when he sees set aside His commandment to love and think of us more highly than we ought to, and follow the rest of society in dehumanizing those whom He has created.
We live in a time when the world has recognized the Biblical principle that all human beings are created equal and must be treated with respect. This principle has even been incorporated into our laws and is consequently a right capable of being protected by the force of law. When we break the law, as we do when we practice discrimination against former Dalits, we invite legal action and incur God’s wrath. Our churches should learn from history and the trends of society and stop perpetuating a shameful legacy.

It is unfortunate that casteisn has crept into Indian Christianity and thrived. This belies the gospel. It should have no place in churches. The “Dalit” meaning broken, people of our country have been subjected to cruelty and disrespect for centuries. Our task as the church should be to rub salve and not salt , into the many lives, wounded by the cruelties of caste that have come to Christ. We must help them forget their past as “Dalits”. We need to remember and help each other to remember who we all, without exception are in Christ. Even as we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Dalit brothers and sisters in their fight for their legal rights, our ultimate aim should be to take the phrase ”Dalit Christians”, out of the nation’s political vocabulary. In god’s kingdom, we are all his children. We should endeavor to make this equality a mark of the church as well. May we be known for our love, as Jesus desired and not for upholding time worn prejudices.

Thus far we have not taken seriously the words and example of our Lord Jesus Christ who, when he came to earth and walked the villages, the Bible says: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36). Where is our compassion? Let us follow the model and the mandate of Jesus who described his Spirit-anointing for mission with the words:” “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19). Are the Dalits not the poor, the prisoners and the oppressed of our day? The very term: “Dalits, means oppressed.” Why have we waited so long? Now is the time, now is the opportunity. Let us come together as one to ask the God of the universe to free the oppressed. Is this not what Jesus, our Master, would do? Christian mission -- however it is understood and whatever form it may take -- must not adopt the ideology of the colonialists, as the Hindu nationalists have done. It will be most true to its Lord by proclaiming the gospel confidently, but in a way that respects the human right to be religiously different

The cross at the core of our faith

Many of us come to church from time to time wondering really if God really exists -- and if God does exist, does he, she, it really care about us and about this world of ours. When we learn of some utterly senseless human event through our newspapers or the television, do we wonder if God is really good, if love in this creation does bear the last word? Or do we live in the shadow of some relationship, broken, grieved, a wound we just cannot seem to shake? Indeed, when we come to church, do we ask the question deep down, does anybody -- anyone -- really give damn? For me? For this world? And if they really knew me, could they possibly love me?
Those kinds of questions plagued the members of that church of the Hebrews week after week, year after year as they gathered for worship and service. The promises of God seemed down the drain. As time went on, and as they looked out on and experienced an unfriendly and largely uncharitable world, increasing numbers of them concluded: God is dead; Divine love is a hoax; hope is no more than wishful thinking. And their church began to disband.

"Hold it!" pleads our author to the Hebrews. "Wait a second! There is something you have to remember in this troubled world. Before you give up, before you let cynicism rule the roost, before you go away spiritually fatigued, religiously abandoned - listen to this!" And in those verses we read a moment ago, our preacher tells us the cross of Jesus Christ provides the decisive clue to resolving the doubts dogging us. Here, at the cross of Christ, writes our preacher, "through the offering of the body of church once and for all" we see joined and aimed at us like a laser beam the core of our faith, the shape of our love, the power of our hope.

The cross? The core of our faith, you say? How so? And just what is the core of our faith? O friends, listen: in face of wars and rumors of war; in face of a troubled, often heartless, merciless, dog-eat-dog world, in face of cancer, AIDS, the senseless slaughter of children by children; in face of our living precariously with the misunderstandings and self-deception, malice and conflict souring our lives together; in face of a world where our best intentions get turned inside-out, upside-down and used against us, where our boldest and most generous dreams can collapse and inflict injury; in face of cold, unheeding forces so often swirling about us, we confess our faith in a God who, through all life can dish out, loves us, hangs on to us and will never let us go.

Now that is our faith. And faith -- faith! -- It is. In many ways the observable, the objective facts of our lives deny a God who loves, refute a God who is good, and dismiss a God who gives a single whit for us. Indeed, the bare fact of the cross of Jesus itself denies a loving God. If ever we see a place where mercy fails, where human and divine abandonment evidence themselves; if ever there exists an occasion where goodness loses, where innocence gets trampled, where the worst human beings can do to one another happens, it happens at the cross. For anyone to say, in face of the hard, cold facts of the cross, that we are loved by the creator of the universe is an act of faith -- a decision for trusting love at the heart of the universe when the facts belie it.

So why, then, why is this our faith? What do we see here at the cross of Christ enabling us to trust in a loving and gracious God when much in the world says "no" to this conviction? Listen carefully: at the cross of Christ we confess the lengths to which Love will go to restore wholeness to those for whom Love feels most tenderly. We confess here the risk Love takes when it seeks its wandering, lost, cantankerous, yea rebellious children -- when it seeks us. In the cross of Christ we encounter, and are ourselves embraced by, Divine grace itself risking death to restore a broken relationship, to heal a gaping wound, to weave together again a harmony so that our scrapping, tangling fighting human race might become, in truth, a family of God.

We know that love does not calculate the cost when it goes after someone. You know love is a spendthrift in pursuit of those it will not give up. We know the pain, the anger, the humiliation involved when someone betrays us, slander us, misread our motives, walk out on you, and turn your heaven into hell. What can restore the relationship? What can straighten things out? What can make for healing? Revenge? Are you kidding? Revenge brings satisfaction, sometimes a smug narcissistic glee, but healing? Never. Is it requital? Will that bind a broken relationship? It surely makes for a quid pro quo and maybe something that passes for justice -- but healing? No way! What brings healing we can only describe as grace, as forgiveness: The risk love takes, though it may be battered and bruised, the risk for reconciliation claiming everything we have -- a reaching out that can be difficult and very painful.

Some of us, perhaps, know a mother, a father, a spouse who walked with us through some wounding, grievous, shameful episode. We know they passed through it as if they owned it. We sensed they cried "No," grasped for our shirttails, dug in their heels, yet, knowing the worst, trudged almost step by step with us to the very gates of the hell we prepared for ourselves and virtually camped outside, broken-hearted and grieving until we came out. They put themselves in our place; they stood in our shoes, they accepted they shared; they bore the shame we engendered. They forgave us -- but tears wore furrows in their cheeks and inside hearts bled wildly in our behalf. This is forgiveness. It always includes self offering; it evokes identification with the other. Those who give forgiveness give themselves. Love is ready to pay whatever personal cost to bridge the gulf, to heal the wound.

So here at the cross we trust God's love. But more: like that early Hebrew congregation we need desperately to be claimed by hope; to know, as our preacher puts it, the one we trust "sits at the right hand of God," and over time, "his enemies will be made a footstool for his feet." And just as this cross invites our faith, and bears God's love, so here at the foot of the cross, in this most hopeless situation, Hope is most powerfully at work.

How could this be? How does the cross provide hope in this world where hope seems so precarious -- hope in this bloodiest of centuries -- a label haunting us even as we meet here this morning? How does the cross proclaim hope in a world where we see children murdered in their own school yards, enlisted for genocidal Rwandan assaults, wasting away in inner city tenements taking their own lives; indeed, hope, where tragedy riddles much of our existence and death terminates it? Is there any hope? Is there truly a new future for us?

As we look at the cross of Christ, we see in the cross our hope. This vast cross hanging before us is empty. As powerful a reminder as the crucifix may be of our faith in the costly love of God, this empty cross, hanging here in the heart of our nave, confronts us with power taking the worst we can do to one another -- indeed, power taking death itself and forging through it a new creation. I cannot explain it to you, I can only testify to this enthralling paradox: but an empty cross means that the power -- the power of God -- lies not in preventing hopeless situations; it means the power of God lies not in preventing the likes of crucifixion, not in intervening to stop the Darfur tragedies, the unending tragedies, senseless perversities and utter stupidities in this world. Our hope lies not in some cheap cinematic miracle. Hardly.

The ground of our hope can be seen in the empty cross as it points to the power of God in taking the body of the crucified Christ and transforming it into new being. There we see power alive and at work amid the most desperate situation, bearing with us, submitting to the worst; yet while participating with us in what may appear hopeless, working to bring triumph out of tragedy, promise out of peril, life out of death. Our hope can be seen in the empty cross because there, uniquely in our history, amid what appears to be the door slammed on the future -- there we witness the future most radically opened up. A radical choice confronts us. Again, God, that they can be nailed to wooden beams and still win! -- wiped out and they will come back! -- buried, only to break death itself wide open." In a bloody cross: Hope? By God, yes! And so we ask again: Are you looking for God? In a troubled and frequently sorrowing world, do you wonder if God is really good, if love does indeed bear the last word, if anyone finally cares about you -- us?

Is it Foolish to be Wealthy ?

The word "fool" appears two times in the four gospels. Once in Matthew, where Jesus tells people not to call other people "a fool." And then in the text that I am about to read to you. Why does Jesus call the rich farmer in this parable a fool? Not because money is inherently bad, but because becoming pre-occupied with it can block us from the quality of life that comes by focusing our attention on God.

As we read Luke Chapter 12, verses 13-21.it is important to understand what the audience's understanding of wealth and the use of wealth would have been like in the 1st century. Here we are talking about an agrarian society. In the mind of the people who first heard the beginning of this story, their attitude toward wealth was that it should be shared. Riches posed a problem and a rich man has a difficult, but not impossible task. The purpose of wealth is acts of charity and alms giving. In fact, in the Book of Acts we see that very clearly when people would from time to time sell lands and houses and give to the church and the church would in turn distribute it to the needy. So, in a limited good society, hoarding was frowned upon.

It was condemned because the public need was great. The man's land was richly abundant and he thought to himself, "What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops." Now that's a strange question. Why doesn't he have any place to store his crops? He's rich. He must have huge granaries and barns. An alert listener hearing that text would say, "Now exactly how big was this bumper crop?" How much did it produce for him to say that? One commentator on the parables said that often running through the parables are muted miracles, things we don't pick up very quickly, or right away at first reading. Here's a muted miracle.

An incredible blessing of God. (Another theme of the parable is kind of an all or nothing attitude like the pearl of great price; we sell everything to buy the pearl.) Now this man, instead of adding to his barns, says, "I will tear them down to build larger granaries. And there I will store all my grains and my goods." So the parable really could be renamed from the parable of the rich fool to the parable of the man who mismanaged a miracle. He mismanaged a miraculous blessing of God.

Now Jesus' listeners at this point, before we go any further in the parable, are probably thinking of two Old Testament images.. What story is equated with granaries in the Old Testament? In the end of Genesis, Joseph, builds huge granaries. In Exodus, what's the common story or the primary story of God's feeding God's people? How did God provide food? By the Manna. And in both accounts, there was a time of plenty and a time of want. Because with the manna they said on the Sabbath day, there won't be any so collect double so that you will have enough for two days. The miraculous harvest leads Jesus' hearers to anticipate something. This miracle places demands upon the rich man so that by the end of verse 18, they're expected response is, "Oh, this man's intention is to be like Joseph. He's going to tear down his barns and build bigger ones and be socially responsible and bless the community, for the less fortunate and the needy."

But always in Jesus' parables there is a hook. An unexpected thing. And that comes in verse 19. I am sure to the shock of those who first heard this story. "And I will say to myself," notice how the language shifts. This man takes center stage. It doesn't say that he said to himself, it says "I'll say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy. Eat, drink and be merry." He almost echoes this famous statement from Epicures, a Greek philosopher, "Eat, drink and be merry for..." "for tomorrow we die." He knew it too, but he didn't say it.

Death's inevitability should prompt a very different response. And so verse 19 goes on to paint a picture of a rich man hoarding a miracle of a fantastic blessing from God for his own pleasure. And he refuses to share it. He mismanages a miracle. Is his chief sin greed? No, verse 20 tells us what his chief sin is: It's spiritual stupidity. It's spiritual thickness, because God says to him, "You fool!" Did you know that this is the only parable that Jesus taught where God intervenes? And the reason for that is it that the man has taken center stage, thinking that the spotlight is on him, and the harvest, and his attitude, and the needs of the community, all create an impression that God is standing outside in the wings. And God is going to take center stage and correct what's being done here, and intervene and restore the balance. He says, "You fool, this very night your life will be demanded from you, then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" Jesus' listeners knew the answer.

The people, for whom they should be prepared, the community in need. This mans chief sin is not greed, it is idolatry. He worshiped the blessings of God, the gifts of God, more than God. He thought he had many years, he had one night. He believed he had many things stored, but he was going to lose the one thing that really mattered. He thought he could ward off the threat of death by his own management, he is dead wrong. In fact, he will die in his sleep. And so Jesus teaches something in a very sober manner to those who would dwell in God's kingdom. That we are to be people who manage God's gifts for the benefit of others, and not just for ourselves. One of the first things to think about when God has blessed us and pours out his blessings upon us is to think "How can I share this blessing with others?" The parable is less about greed and more about the correct use of wealth. The bottom line is "How are you managing God's miracles?"
Even for those of us who would say, "Well I'm not wealthy," we know that when we compare ourselves to the rest of the world, that that's not so. But it's my contention that many times we don't give, not because we are greedy but because we are fearful that if we distribute more than we think we can that we won't have enough. And it's not that we worship the dollar, it's just that we don't worship God enough. And we withhold not because we are greedy, but because we are insecure.

Paul says in an incredibly beautiful passage in 1 Timothy, Chapter 6, (and actually there are a couple of other verses and there is the passage from which the famous verse comes, "for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.") We can see from those verses that it's not wrong to be rich. It isn't sinful to provide to provide for the future. In fact, the scriptures are very clear. Parents ought to lay up for their children. Proverbs says, "A good man leaves an inheritance." What would have happened to Israel if Joseph hadn't had the forethought to store grain in the barns? So, God wants us to enjoy life and its blessings. And it says that God gives us all things richly to enjoy, just as we want our children to enjoy the things that we provide for them. But God does not want us to depend on those things, but upon Him. So again it is worry and insecurity that sometimes freeze our fingers and often causes us to pursue the wrong goals.

One more verse from Luke, Chapter 12 and it's important to read this parable in it's context because Jesus goes on to talk about how we should not worry and to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. In verse 32 of Luke 12 he says, "Do not be afraid, little flock. For your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom." A Middle Eastern sheik could be a shepherd, a father, and a king all at one time. And so, as a believer in Jesus, we are sheep of God's flock, we are children in God's family, and we are citizens of God's kingdom. If this is so, what do we need to fear? When God blesses you and me with good things, with wealth, with other miracles, and with money, make them our servant, not our master. We can keep in mind what St. John Chrysotom, church father of the 4th century in preaching on this text said. He said that "the stomachs of the poor are the safe barns of our wealth

The Christian Doctor in India Today.

Introduction :

Christian doctors go back a long way. One of the very first followers of Jesus was Luke, a first century Greek physician. He used his excellent history taking skills to collect eyewitness accounts for his summary of Jesus’ life, recorded for posterity in the Gospel according to Luke. Since then the influence of Christians in medicine has been substantial. Christians started many of the early hospitals and hospices and many have not only survived until today but have made significant contribution in treating and welcoming those who are, poor, marginalized and the alien whom mainstream society often turns away from it gate.

Ethics and Worldview

A Christian doctor’s understanding of health, healing and health care comes from the scriptures. Necessary to the development of Scripture's view of medicine is a proper understanding of the way the world works. God created the world and actively sustains it. That is a tenet of Christian belief.. God tells us that he upholds, directs, disposes, and governs all creatures, actions and things. Psalm 104:10 makes it clear that God causes the springs to flow into the valley. Psalm 104:15 declares that grass grows and seeds sprout not because of certain temperature and moisture conditions, but rather because God causes the grass to grow, and ordinarily under certain conditions. Nothing happens automatically. Everything happens as a result of God's active hand. God's sovereignty is not reactive, merely the power to fix what happens. Disease, then, is not just disease. The fact of an illness cannot stand in isolation. It is always seen in terms of more basic principles.

If every patient is a multi-dimensional entity, then illness is the fragmentation of that multidimensional whole. Illness, whether a stubbed toe, cancer, or debilitating chronic health problem fractures the wholeness of the being, the physical, mental, social, and spiritual. What I as a doctor see before me in my patients are not just a lumps or infections, but fractured people who, because of their illness or problem, are disintegrated. My task then is to heal or put the fragmentation of their life back together again. The Greek word for healing or health is "soteria." It means, "To make whole." The word "salvation" comes from the same Greek word. We as healers are to make it possible for fractured human beings to be brought into wholeness. In other words, a physician's outcome should be an "integer" and not a bunch of fractions

Care:

The Christian ministry to the sick has a Biblical foundation. Christian medicine is caring medicine. It should be concerned with the poor, the orphan and the widow. Scripture teaches our duty to the sick. In Mt. 25:31-46, Christ teaches that at the final judgment, He will judge us by whether we clothed the naked, fed the hungry and thirsty, sheltered the stranger, and visited or comforted the sick. We will not necessarily be judged on how many were cured or how long we prolonged life, but whether we comforted the sick... Food ,water and treatment are priorities, but not super high-tech medical care. Comfort, yes. Caring, yes. The allure of the technology of medicine is powerful indeed. There is a romance with cure that is irresistible to most young doctors. But we need just as much to have a romance with care. It is at first sight less dramatic and less thrilling. Yet it brings us close to our patients in that most privileged of settings, where a fellow human being, stripped naked in pain, fear, distress, appeals to us for help.

Patients will not acquiesce to the ultimate alienation of being reduced to standardized objects. No one will accept for long being merely identified by their illness, or seen as nothing but an assemblage of broken down biologic parts. Patients crave a partnership with physicians who are as sensitive to their aching souls as to their malfunctioning anatomy. They yearn not for a tautly drafted business contract, but for a covenant of trust between equals earned by the doctor while exercising the art of caring. When cure rather than comfort becomes the focus, failure must result. Medical training forces the focus on cure. Morbidity and mortality conferences are only part of a system designed to reinforce that death or lack of cure means failure.

In medicine, we can expect machines to give us a lot of answers. But the questions our patients ask us, the biggest ones, call for a response, not from machines but from ourselves as fellow human beings. What are our greatest fears? What of our mortality? How much of life remains? Why are we being afflicted? Are we being, or will be, punished? Can we find comfort in the embrace of a greater, divine reality? Koenig shows in this small book that far from avoiding such questions, the doctor can readily engage with his/her patients with sensitivity and openness, and that whatever the clinical outcome, those in need will have had the solace and encouragement of being recognized and valued in their personhood. Doctors, too, will find that they are by no means excluded from the spiritual replenishment that such soul-to-soul contact invariably brings.

Involvement:

What does it mean to be a Christian doctor in India today ? The challenges are many and they stare at us in the face. There are hard facts available . One of the developments of the past decade or so is that the Government, traditionally the largest healthcare provider, is under pressure to meet the evolving and rising demand for healthcare services across the country. This demand-supply interaction has created conditions for increasing private/voluntary sector participation in the delivery of healthcare services, opening opportunities for both preventive and curative care. On the one hand corporate hospitals with state-of-the art facilities cater to the elite and attract foreign patients, creating medical tourism as a new economic entity that gets undue policy attention in the National Health Policy 2002. On the other hand the majority is left to market forces, and medical expenditure is the second highest cause of rural indebtedness. On the ethical front the practice of fee-splitting, the limited sense of accountability on the part of health-care providers, flaws in the informed consent process in medical settings, and the conduct of inappropriate procedures are becoming common place.

A striking feature of the medical care system in India is the apparent lack of planning. In the recent past, the government has planned by default. In other words, by failure of regulation, it has permitted private interests in medical education to offer those courses which are considered to be 'in demand'. The courses that are in demand, as dictated by the market, are those which are most lucrative in the private sector. Thus we find that at present, radiology, orthopedic surgery, cardiology and cardiac surgery are most sought after. Most doctors, having completed their basic medical education, try to acquire a specialist qualification. Having acquired this qualification, they must choose one of two options. If they choose the public sector, there is a great likelihood that they may not be able to utilize their skills due to lack of infrastructure or deliberate hurdles by the medical bureaucracy. If they choose the private sector, they will have to compete for the limited number of patients who can pay for private care. In today's world, it is a fact that as the skills required increase, so too do the technology and cost.

In a developing country such as India, the major disease burden is of infectious diseases. Even with the changing disease pattern the world over, infective and environmental diseases are likely to form 50% of the disease burden. These diseases require primarily non-pharmaceutical solutions such as clean drinking water, a pollution-free environment and adequate nutrition. No amount of vitamins is likely to help the patient. As for the remaining 50%, lifestyle diseases will cost the economy dearly, unless preventive strategies are put in place, but these preventive strategies are primarily non-pharmaceutical. For example, the increasing incidence of diabetes and hypertension

Cannot be controlled by increasing the production and marketing of insulin. While insulin production is necessary, it must be accompanied by improving health care education and making people aware of proper nutrition. However, we find increasing aggressive marketing of anti-diabetic drugs with little emphasis on preventive strategies.

What is a Christian doctor to do in these circumstances ? Obviously , there is no pat answer , though there are principles. A Christian doctor strives first to be a Christian, striving to please God in every area of life through his calling and vocation. A good Christian doctor has good training, keeps current in what he does, is reasonably caring, is as thorough as professionally needed, and is helpful to the patient. He exhibits common sense, wisdom, and decisiveness, though being willing to admit to it when defeated; and he is willing to direct the patient to second or other opinions or specialists. In short, he/she does as he/she would have it do unto himself/herself (the Christian "golden rule").

A Christian doctor serves God in serving his fellowman by listening to his complaints and ailments, by comforting his patient, teaching him about his illness, diagnosis and prognosis, and treatments; but most importantly, serve by reminding him that there is no comfort outside of Christ. A Christian doctor advises and counsels and rebukes on occasion. He sometimes uses drugs or other remedies, if they may benefit; but he use s nothing without thankfulness to God, asking for his blessing in its use. He seeks daily to see God's hand in his world. He recognizes that to ignore God's hand is to deny Him. A Christian doctor treats the patient as fallen, a sinner in need of redemption far more than he needs our medicine. He does not remember that the patient has responsibility for himself before God, that we cannot force others to pay for his care, nor can he. He remembers that resources are limited, and therefore diagnoses and prescribes judiciously.

Finally a Christian doctor will always believe that all humans are created in God's image, which means that they deserve respect, no matter what their abilities or situation in. Such a concern to see and reflect God’s image in peoples’ lives and in the institutions that churches run may be done in many ways. It can be reflected in care for unborn children or people with dementia, in genuine compassion for suffering patients, and in a commitment to do your best for them. Seeing all fellow humans as being made in the image of God can have a great effect on the way doctors relate to them. A Christian doctor sees people affected by disease or deformity as God's "flawed masterpieces"—marvels of creation, even though marred and perhaps only for a while..

Including the Excluded

In the gospel of Mark, we read the story of a woman and her daughter and the story of a deaf man who has a speech impediment. Each story has its own distinctive plot and dialogue. Mark’s gospel says that the Syrophoenician woman left her ailing child at home and ventured out on her own to find Jesus. For a woman to be traveling alone, and for a Gentile woman to be initiating a conversation with a Jewish man, took a lot of nerve. Yet her love for her suffering daughter was profound. She was both hopeful and desperate for help and in her hope and desperation, she risked taking action. She packed up and went out looking for Jesus.

Evidently Jesus’ long range evangelism plan is to go first to the Jews and then later to the Gentiles. I understand that Jesus does not want to dilute his mission. But does he have to use the harsh language and call the woman a dog? But this woman with a clear sense of her child’s need and her desire to see that need met were not fazed by Jesus’ sharp remarks. This woman is determined and desperate. She will not be turned aside. She does not back down. She takes Jesus’ demeaning words and tosses them back on behalf of her daughter. She says: “Yes, Children get fed before the dogs, but the dogs get to eat the children’s crumbs, even the pets get the scraps that fall from their master’s table”. She simply and straightforwardly got down on her knees before him and said, “Lord, help me.”

The second healing story couldn’t be more different. A man is brought to Jesus. The crowd begs Jesus to lay his hands on the man and heal him. If you read the text carefully one of the things that stands out most is found in the 32nd verse: “They brought to Jesus a deaf man and they begged Jesus to lay his hand on him.” The nameless members of the crowd “they” play a prominent role in this healing story. They bring the deaf man to Jesus in the first place and after the healing they refuse to observe the command to keep silent. They cannot keep silent about the marvelous good news of God’s pure grace. In this second story the crowd becomes the model for the church as those who fervently spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Did you notice that? It wasn’t the man’s faith that led Jesus to act; rather it was the faith of the nameless “they” had labored so hard to bring him before Jesus. And he was healed. The healing comes to the deaf man as a completely free gift of grace. He is healed not because he deserves healing but because Christ had compassion for him and the crowd brought the deaf man to Jesus. By bringing the man to Jesus the crowd acted in faith and he was healed. If they had not acted, if they had kept silent, then this poor man would have never met Jesus. But he was healed and even Jesus himself couldn’t keep the crowd from proclaiming Christ.

The story makes us to think of who we are. And the gospel makes it quite clear. You and I may be deaf and thus unable to sound who we are to those we live with or meet. We may be so plugged up with self-importance or self-interest that the sound of who we really are cannot get through. Like a stopped-up flute we cannot sound a true tone. We need to be opened up. We need to be healed. Isaiah announces that we need not be afraid. Our God is here and will do it. God’s word can be placed in our ears, and blockage melts away at his touch.

We are the deaf ones and the voiceless ones who prefer not to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters, and who prefer not to speak up for those who have no voice. But when this Word touches us, he indeed does all things well. We hear and we speak and we do, and the Word is no longer bound up tight in our locked-up lives.“Ephphatha!’(It’s a great Aramaic word, isn’t it? It rolls right off the tongue. With this word and this touch, this miracle story opens us up to move into meaning that is beyond the event itself. As we move deeper into Jesus’ story in the coming weeks, we shall encounter disciples and religious leaders and crowds struggling with spiritual hearing and sight.“Ephphtha”! Be opened. Open to God, to one another, to strangers, and neighbors. Open to the orphan and the widow, to the Syrophoenicians and people of the Decapolis in our midst—the “those people” we have excluded for so long. Someone is waiting for the good news today. Someone is waiting for us. Go then, and bring the good news to your homes, to your friends, and to your neighbors. Ephphtha! Be opened. Where the Spirit of Jesus and where the word of ‘ephphtha’, there is healing and new life.

Dog is OK, Beware of the Master

Recently I saw this amusing quote” Dog is OK , Beware of Master” outside a house. an interesting twist on the familiar quote “ Beware of Dog”. Then I came home to see CNN-IBN airing the story of pastors taking money from people and selling fake baptism certificates to people so that they could then apply for admission to Christian schools, presumably under the minority quota. I am waiting to see whet the reaction from the Christian community is. We Christians have a familiar bogey that we resort to when some one digs some dirt out of our closet. We hide behind our minority status and umbrella and shout ourselves hoarse that we are being persecuted.

Why am I relating this to the quote of the dog and the master ? Because the Christian pastor has a particular role to play in the affairs of his community. Priests of all religions are entrusted the duty of conducting the rituals that are associated with the rites of social passage be it the Hindu Pandit or a Muslim Maulavi. But a Christian pastor does all this and much more. The word pastor is itself derived from the Latin word for shepherd and has connotations of caring and leading and guiding the sheep who are supposed to be dumb and easily misled in the way of ethical and moral living and conduct.

Besides this , compared to the clergy of other faiths who some times demonstrate obscurantist tendencies , our Christian clergy present themselves as urbane, modern, progressive and comparatively well educated in the “modern, Western” sense. Their education does not happen in madrasas or gurukuls but in well equipped seminaries fitted with modern amenities and gadgets. All this , so that after their studies they be adequately equipped and fitted to take care of the dumb sheep in the shape of the congregation that they supposedly look after. That obviously isn't happening , no matter ho much learning the seminaries might be providing to those whom we deign to call church leaders.

If the congregation, comprised of “ordinary” people falls and sins, that is only to be expected. To quote the famous aphorism of “what is news” , if a dog bites a man , it is no news , for that is whet a dog is expected to do in any case. CNN -IBN wouldn't go around broadcasting on prime time , the story of two ordinary church members swindling some thing for a fast buck. That happens all the time , is to be condemned when it is discovered but is nothing more or less than a mirror to the society large. But when church leaders who mount the pulpit week after week and tell ordinary people , how they should lead their lives and waggle their fingers about persecution, minority rights, injustice and all manner of social inequity , it can only be termed a disgrace.

At another level, it really shouldn't be though. The Bible plainly teaches that the heart of all is wicked and that all have sinned and come short of God's standards – be it any body. In the Catholic tradition , even the Pope goes to confession and confesses his sins. It is really the common man, who by bowing and scraping before any cassock-ed figure or any body calling himself a Bishop or Elder or Pastor or Reverend makes him think that they are above the common ilk. This is a wake up call for the Christian common man and women to rediscover the reformation heritage of the priesthood of all professing believers and hold accountable the people they call”priest”. It is true after all. The dog might be OK, it is the master we might need to be beware of.

Living in the Wilderness

When the Bible first introduces David, he is a shepherd boy-young, unremarkable, unknown. He is called from the fields, as an afterthought it seems, and anointed for kingship. It isn't long before David's name is on the lips of every young woman in Israel and David's deeds are immortalized in song. He is the hero who defeated Goliath. Still a young man, David rises to high rank in the army and marries the King's daughter. Accounts of his exploits in battle against Israel's enemies circulate throughout the nation, each new tale of his bravery and skilfulness in battle exceeding the last. "Then David fled…" That's how chapter 20 begins. "Then David fled…" David's star plummets even faster than it rose. One day every pundit in Israel anticipates David being named King Saul's next chief of staff. The next day David is on the run-heading for the wilderness to escape King Saul's murderous wrath. For David, the next 8 or 10 years are wilderness years. Wilderness, in the Bible, is not about pleasant walks across meadows of wildflowers, with the sunshine pouring down, birds chirping, and bunnies hopping. Wilderness, in the Bible, is about crisis. Wilderness, in the Bible, is about stepping into the unknown, the future unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Wilderness, in the Bible, is about leaving behind the security of home and stepping into danger. Wilderness isn't always exactly the same. Frequently, wilderness is a place of darkness and temptation. Wilderness involves disconnection, disorientation, discomfort, disillusionment, disquiet, disappointment, distress. Wilderness is a place to get to know God deeper than ever before-because in the wilderness, we really need God. Wilderness is where there is a really possibility of despair. Wilderness is where hope is born-because where there is no risk of despair, there is no deep need for hope. Wilderness is where transformation happens. Incremental growth-that can happen when the waters are smooth. But transformation-real transformation that turns our lives upside down and sends us off in a new direction with new faith and new hope and new purpose; transformation that is about dying to self and being raised to new life-that happens when the waters are choppy. Most of us resist being changed; we only let it happen when we have to. Wilderness is where God does some of his best work. Ten chapters of 1 Samuel, at least, are devoted to David's wilderness years. David enters the wilderness a young man on the run. David comes out the other side a man poised to lead the chosen people of God. Wilderness is where you learn that you can't run so fast that God can't find you. Wilderness is where you learn that you can't fall so far that God can't catch you.

Everybody's wilderness experience is different. The way God is at work is different. There is no uniform pattern. Nevertheless, David's story is informative. There are four wilderness growing edges from David's story that we can mention. 1) David learned some important lessons about himself. 2) David learned something about choosing friends. 3) David learned a little something about grace…and about extending grace. 4) David was schooled in the language of lament (or prayer of honest complaint). Wilderness can be a place to learn what we most need to learn about ourselves. For lots of people, that means learning that they are far more resilient and capable than they thought they were. For David, that meant learning that he wasn't quite as perfect as his recent successes might have tempted him to believe. In 1 Samuel 21. David has fled from Saul, and this time there is no going back. He left in a hurry. He had no time to pack, so he has no supplies with him. He doesn't even have a weapon with him. He makes up a story to maintain appearances. "I'm on the King's business," David tells Ahimelech. "I'm on a secret mission, which makes sense since I am so well-thought of by the King. And I'm not alone. My men are waiting just beyond the next hill. Why am I here seeking help? Well, you see, it's just that the secret mission is so urgent that we left without supplies. I even forgot my weapon. But that's just because the mission is so important. It has nothing to do with me being frightened or in trouble or anything.

How many here can identify with David's desire to keep up appearances- -even though his world is falling apart and he needs help? After leaving Ahimelech, David runs straight to the Philistines-the Philistines!!-looking for help. Achish is a Philistine king. David, desperate for someplace to hide from Saul, unwilling to reveal his desperation to his friends, looks for help among those who have sought his destruction. How many here can identify with David here? Why is it that when our world begins to crumble it can be so tempting to go looking for help from those who, in better times, we knew would only lead us to destruction? David, who was so careful to protect his dignity among his friends, resorts to drooling into his beard in front of his enemies. He just manages to convince the Philistine king that he is insane, so that he escapes with his life. David has one place left to go. He flees into the wilderness and hides in a cave. Both of these incidents occur at the beginning of David's wilderness years. There is another incident, later, that has an even more humbling effect on David.

While residing for awhile in the Desert of Moan, David and his men informally provided protection for the employees of a certain wealthy man named Nabal. The keepers of this man's sheep and goats spent a whole season out in the desert without fear of robbers because of David's protection. At the end of the season, David concluded that he and his men were due some compensation for their generous help, but Nabal didn't know David and had no intention of sharing with David. David fell into a rage at this snub. On impulse, he rallied his men and began to march toward Nabal's home. David had every intention of slaughtering the wealthy man and his entire household. Nabal was saved by some quick thinking by his wife, Abigail, who threw together a gift package and met David on the way. Abigail saved Nabal's life. She also saved David. David was saved from acting in the same type of impulsive murderous rage that motivated Saul. David was saved from letting a momentary lust for revenge ruin destroy his reputation for integrity and honour.

David was saved from dragging his anointing to be the next king of Israel through the mud. In the wilderness, David learned a lot about his own weaknesses, and David was humbled. Wilderness can be a place to learn what we most need to learn about ourselves. For lots of people, that means learning that they are far more resilient and capable than they thought they were. For David, that meant learning that he wasn't quite as perfect as his early successes might have tempted him to believe. Common wisdom suggests that wilderness is a good place to learn who your friends really are. Wilderness is also a good place to learn something about choosing friends. Back in the early days, after David left Ahimelech wondering what was really going on, and after David escaped from the Philistines with his life intact (though not his dignity), David fled into the wilderness-leaving behind his friends and his enemies. The new friends that David found in the wilderness weren't all that great to look at. They used rough language. They carried all they owned on their backs. Some were in distress. Some were in debt. Some were discontented. They were not the type of people that a famous warrior from the king's own court would be seen with. But they knew something about wilderness. They met David in the wilderness, and they befriended him there. Wilderness has a way, sometimes, of exposing surface judgments of people for what they are-surface judgments. Wilderness has a way, sometimes, of bringing us into relationship with people we never associated with before.

If we can, by God's grace, navigate the currents that steer us towards people who will lead to destruction, we just might learn something new about the sorts of people who will walk with us through the wilderness and support us along the way. In the wilderness, David learned a little bit about choosing friends. Another time, David and his men and their families live in a town called Ziklag. It is in Philistine territory, but it is the home base of David and his men. A time comes when David and his men march out of Ziklag, intending to go off to battle. Something comes up, however, and they are diverted from the battle they intended to participate in. They head home to Ziklag early. When they get to Ziklag, they find that tragedy and terror have struck while they were away. Raiders came into Ziklag and carried off all the plunder they could carry. Worse than that, they carried off all the women and children-all the families-of David and his men. In the midst of mourning and recrimination, David rallies his men. Within a short time of arriving home, they are back on the march, determined to find the raiders and rescue their families. It turns out that this forced march-on top of their recent long hike out and back-is too much for some of the men.

At a certain point, about a third of the men are left behind with the supplies, and the rest of the men continue the chase. Eventually, David and his men catch up with the raiders. They defeat them. They rescue their wives and children. They retrieve the things that had been stolen from them. And they retrieve a whole lot more. They head back to Ziklag, flushed with victory and overflowing with plunder of their own. On the way back, they meet up again with the men who had stayed behind. Some of the men who had gone the whole way argue that the plunder should not be shared with those who stayed behind. David has another idea. "All will share alike" whether they stayed with the supplies or went all the way. Somewhere in the wilderness, David learned about grace…and extending grace to others. Last, but not least, in the wilderness, David was schooled the language of lament.

Lament is the art of prayerful complaint. Lament is crying out to God with total honesty about the reality of wilderness…about the crisis of wilderness…about the unpredictability and uncontrollability of wilderness…about the danger of wilderness. Lament is the art of prayerful complaint. In the wilderness, David was schooled in the language of lament. In the wilderness, David experienced disconnection, disorientation, discomfort, disillusionment, disquiet, disappointment, distress. In the wilderness, David encountered the real possibility of despair. David brought it all before God. It is generally understood that Psalm 57 is associated with David's flight from Saul.Even a quick scan of the Psalms of David makes clear that David was not hesitant to bring every bit of the crisis of wilderness to God with honest words and honest emotion. One of the reasons, David was so good at writing the language of praise was that he knew the language of lament. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our wilderness experiences, because we know that wilderness trekking produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to us.

God of All People

As a Christian development professional, one of the most notable characteristics of Jesus that always strikes me is the fact that he paid special attention to the outcasts of his society. Most people feared the lepers and insisted that they stay far away from them and announce their presence by shouting, "Unclean! Unclean!" But Jesus welcomed them and even touched them. While most people hated the tax collectors, Jesus invited Matthew to be one of the twelve disciples and stopped a parade under Zacchaeus' tree so that he could go have dinner at his house. While everyone looked down upon the prostitutes, Jesus welcomed them and cared for them. When the woman was taken in the act of adultery and all the religious leaders stood in a circle around her pointing condemning fingers at her, Jesus looked on her with compassion and said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Everywhere we turn in the New Testament, we find Jesus looking for the outcasts of society and welcoming them into his presence. And Jesus is always easier on those who have fallen into sin than he was on those filled with pride and eager to condemn those with sins more visible than theirs.

Our impression of the Old Testament usually is that God was busy selecting the people of Israel as his chosen and special ones, and rejecting everybody else. We almost get the picture of a fraternity-God who blacklists certain people and tribes just because they were not the Chosen Ones. Cain's offering is not accepted, but Abel's is. Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt just because she looked back at Sodom. Noah and his family were exclusively selected to survive the great flood. Israel was chosen but not the other tribes of the world. Isaac was chosen but not Ishmael. But while God may have had a chosen people and his preferred plan, God is also the God of the outcasts.

Hagar is an Egyptian slave girl who is chosen like a brood mare and given to Abraham so that she can provide barren Sarah with a child by proxy. Today with modern technology, people attempt the same kinds of thing by using artificial insemination and surrogate mothers. Many of today's stories turn out just as complicated as this one does. It's an ugly scene. Neither Sarah nor Abraham come off as the noble characters we like to make them out to be. Instead, they seem a lot like us - impatient with God. At Sarah's suggestion, they decide to take the inheritance matter into their own hand. God had promised descendants, but none were forthcoming. So Sarah sends Hagar, her handmaid, in to lie with Abraham and produce an offspring.

Like most of our mistakes, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. But the consequences erupted out of control. We have to speculate a bit to understand the true complications of the relationships. Abraham might have enjoyed Hagar's presence just a little too much. Sarah becomes an outraged, jealous wife. Hagar lets her fertility go to her head and starts making snide remarks about Sarah's infertility. Every time Abraham dotes on his only son, Ishmael, Sarah fumes with jealousy. Finally, in their old age, God grants a child to Sarah, the one she names Isaac, which means "laughter."

Instead of easing the complicated relationships, they get worse. One day the whole sordid matter came to a fiery head when Sarah observes Ishmael playing with the much younger Isaac. I prefer to interpret this act as innocent playfulness, but some scholars have looked carefully at the Hebrew language and Sarah's extreme reaction and concluded that there was sexual misconduct between the teenaged Ishmael and the preschool-aged Isaac. Whatever happened, Sarah saw Ishmael as Isaac's competitor for the promises of God. And suddenly, she insisted that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert. Sarah's disdain for the slave girl is shown in the fact that she never refers to Ishmael or to Hagar by name. She says, "Banish the son of this slave girl." Sarah refers both to Ishmael and to Hagar only by social status.
Abraham was understandably hesitant.

Like any parent, he loved both his sons, and he probably cared deeply for Hagar as well. But Abraham finally relents when he gets a special word from God that Hagar and Ishmael will be taken care of by God. Hagar and Ishmael are sent forth to wander in the wilderness of Beer-sheba until their meagre provisions are exhausted. Racked with thirst, she casts her child under a bush and sits down a bowshot away so that she will not see him die. And here God shows that he is not only with the Isaac/Israel lineage. God demonstrates his Divine care and mercy for those who are outside the special Covenant relation in two ways.

First, the angel of God informs Hagar that God has heard the child's cry, and that she should arise and take the child's hand, for "I will make him a great nation" (21:18). And secondly, Hagar's eyes are opened so that she sees a well of water nearby from which she and her child may drink. Ishmael grows up under divine protection, becomes an expert bowman, marries an Egyptian woman, has twelve children and becomes the father of a great nation himself just as God promised. Ultimately all of those who follow Islam would trace their heritage back to Abraham through Ishmael.

This is a heart-wrenching story because it's our story. When we read it, we find ourselves holding on to our chairs, trying not to run away. We realize it's not just about our ancestors; it's about the mixed family that so many of us experience now - first wife, second wife, surrogate parenthood, children, and conflict. This story rings with a contemporary flavour with blended families who talk about "your children," "my children," and "our children." Poor Hagar may have been the first to have to make a special name for the man who should have been simply her husband. Like so many today she makes reference to "the father of my children." Here we find what was perhaps the first single mother thrown out to survive on her own. It's the story of a boy who becomes alienated from his father. Yes, it's a painfully modern story.

Sometimes the details of the stories we are discussing from Genesis sound like pulp fiction. In this one we come to the first triangle: Two women share the bed of the same man. The squabbling gets mean. Everybody gets hurt. The stuff of a cheap novel and a fast read. But peel back the layers and the Bible is Tolstoy, Shakespeare, and Faulkner. The themes in this story are deep and painful - a woman's infertility, surrogate motherhood, class differences, and the price human beings pay for God's will to be done. And something else: This triangle does set off fireworks and by the dawn's early light Judaism and Islam goes their separate ways." Because it is our story, there is probably someone here saying, "I don't feel chosen; I feel rejected, lost, bereft; I identify with this poor forsaken woman and her tears and her dying child?"

That's why the text suddenly takes this detour, leaving the history of the chosen ones to follow the lost and the outcasts. The God who chose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is also the God of all the tribes and peoples of the earth. The God who saw the burdens and heard the cries of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, the God who came down to save them with a mighty hand, is the same God who sees the outcast child under the bush in the desert, hears his mother weeping, and tenderly brings them to water and promises that they too are highly regarded by God.

The message is not just about nations and tribes; it's about people, about individuals, about us. When all have forsaken and forgotten us, when life has passed us by and all around us is a desert, and our dreams are over there dying under a bush. That's when we need to remember this old story. We need to know that God sees the tears of an outcast woman and an abandoned child. We need to know that God hears us even when we feel godforsaken.

HIV - The New Age Epidemic

Surya, a tailor from Guntur, is 34 years old and has been living with HIV for a couple of years now. He was tested for HIV without his knowledge or consent and becameaware of his status only after a year when he contracted pneumonia whilevisiting a Catholic hospital in Bangalore. The nuns broke the news whilecounseling him on the treatment regimen he now had to follow. I can only imaginewhat he must have felt at that time when his life irrevocably changed – as ifsuddenly possessed of a sharp fault-line; between the “then” and “now” and deepenough to swallow him into a darkness where even the light of life could nottouch him there.

After his diagnosis, Surya became possessed of only one thought – to pursuethe trail of a medicine that would make him well. After visiting a couple ofhospitals and NGOs, he was told by an NGO about the Positive Network of hisstate where people like him would not only receive emotional succor but alsoaccess to medication that needed to be taken to keep him healthy. These positivenetworks are a community of people living with HIV. Among their key importantfunctions of advocacy, networking and service delivery, they serve as safeemotional spaces for a people whose belief in their own humanity has been shakenand come here to find meaningful ways to rediscover it.

By his own confession, Surya’s sole preoccupation was acquiring his medicationwhen he became a member of the network. Since he hailed from a district outsideBangalore, he was asked to get involved in the different activities of thepositive network in his district, which he did. Carrying his preoccupation withhim, Surya attends a district network meeting on his first day and beyond allexpectations is elected as President of the network! This, for a man who’s onlythought was to lay hands on a few strips of powder; unbeknownst to him thehealing process that would change his life had already begun.Surya begins his work as President in earnest, not only liaising with otherNGOs working in the field of HIV but also attending meetings and counseling hispeers and their families whenever he was needed to do so.

Throughout all thistime, Surya had not disclosed his positive status to his family or relatives.The only folk who did know were his peers in the positive network. But being 34years old and like most Indian families, a search for a suitable bride for himbegan. A choice was made and the girl was Chitra, a 27 year old who worked in agarment shop in the same place where Surya lived. The couple grew to like eachother fairly quickly and spent many hours in each other’s company after work.One the surface of things, everything was going smoothly; a couple were courtingand would soon be married with the consent of both their families.

The hidden reality was another story; they were hanging on to each other by a very finethread. Surya was HIV positive and no oneknew; Chitra was sero-negative (she does not have the virus) but Surya hadfallen deeply in love with her. The thought of his honest disclosure and herleaving him was a risk he did not have the strength to take.Time moved along and their love blossomed and, I would assume, so did theirmarriage plans. But still, he could not bring it upon himself to tell her. Oneday, a lady whose husband was admitted in the hospital with an opportunisticinfection (an allied illness that affects positive people because of a depletedimmune system) asks Surya to visit her husband and counsel him. Thisconversation takes place in front of Chitra and Surya does the unthinkable; hetakes her along to the hospital as well.

During the closing hours of the evening, Surya and Chitra returned from thehospital and while traveling had a conversation that would change the way theylooked at love and life forever. (Though much of what Surya shared was lost intranslation – here is the gist of it…)“So this is the kind of work your network is involved in, counseling andtreatment of people living with HIV?” asks Chitra.“Yes, for the most part.” replies Surya“So does this man have the virus in his blood?”“Yes… yes he does. There is a long pause in their conversation.Then Chitra asks the question (softly) – “Do you have HIV?”Surya exhales deeply and replies – “Yes I too have HIV.”“Were you ever planning to tell me?”“I could not find the words to tell you so I thought I could convey it you byallowing you to observe my work and through what I spoke to the couple thisafternoon at the hospital.”“Why has it taken so long for your family to find a suitable girl formarriage?” asks Chitra.“I kept putting it off and discouraging them as I have HIV and besides I havenot told them about my status yet.”Another pause.“Do you still want to marry me…now that I have told you everything?”

Surya asks Chitra knowing what comes next might sift him like chaff in the swelteringwind and he will lose her forever.“Yes.” She replies softly. “I will marry you because I love you and it hasnothing to do with you having HIV.”At this point, to those of us hearing him tell his story, we were tempted tothink the story had one of those ‘happy-ever-after’ endings. In fact, in thefollowing months prior to and after their marriage, all hell broke loose.The network which Surya was a part of accused him of duplicity and that he wasdeceiving a girl into marriage without disclosing the truth about his status. Helost his candidature as President because of it. Some others even went to theextreme of complaining to the Lawyer’s Collective about him over this issue.

Quite remarkable was the reaction of the local NGO. They went a step further andgave real-life satire another dimension. Two women of that NGO invited Chitrafor tea at a local tea stall and began “counseling” her on the folly of herdecision and their advice kept swinging between conjuring up visions ofimpending doom and begging her to reconsider her position, after all she was agirl who did not have the virus and had her whole life ahead of her but wasinstead wasting it by marrying a man who had already spent his. At one point oneof them lost their composure and blurted out – “He may not live for even threemore years since his diagnosis! I urge you toreconsider!”Chitra’s reply to that hollow exclamation is a telling testimony of the powerof love to heal all wounds – “Even if he were to live for just three minutesafter our wedding ceremony, I will still marry him.”

By this time, Surya’s voice is choked-up and we all had lumps in our throats.You could hear a pin drop as we sat wide-eyed in a circle watching this mannarrating the story of his life. My own heart was in a semi-state of maddeninggrief and ecstatic joy. We all gathered around him after the meeting and thenext day we even got to meet his wife, Chitra. A doe-eyed soft spoken wisp of agirl whose face had an ethereal grace; not of this world! I asked her, quitefoolishly, how she had attained such maturity at such a young age and she saidthat working in the garment shop made her interact with customers from all walksof life and that every face had a story to tell and a life that had anexperience to learn from.

With more than a billion people in India, Surya’s story is obviously just one more story of human suffering in the midst of one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world since the 1980s and a robust Information Technology industry that is projected to earn about US $ 50 billion by 2008, India is a country of striking contrasts. With more than a quarter of the population living below poverty line, making the numbers in absolute terms (2002) living below the poverty line, the country has the highest concentration of poverty anywhere in the world. The country accounts for 40 per cent of the world's poor and its social indicators are still poor by most measures of human development.

India is facing an accelerating threat from HIV, with some states such as Andhra Pradesh already experiencing a cross-over into the general population from high-risk groups and Surya the tailor is just one of them. Current estimates of the number of individuals infected range from four million to eight million, expected to rise to 15 million in the coming decade. HIV/AIDS greatly impacts the social fabric of Indian society.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic's evolution in sub-Saharan Africa may possibly be repeated in India. Numbers and projections in these African countries are being widely used as a guide to the progression of the pandemic in India. As a result of current numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS at the present sere-prevalence rate, India is expected to become the next epicentre of the AIDS crisis, raising concerns about preparedness for a scenario as dire as in sub Saharan Africa.

India is in the stage of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that many African countries were in a decade ago. The spread of HIV within the country is as diverse as the societal patterns between its different regions, states and metropolitan areas. In fact, India's epidemic is made up of a number of epidemics, and in some places they occur within the same state. The epidemics vary from states with mainly heterosexual transmission of HIV, to some states where injecting drug use is the main route of HIV transmission. Both tracking the epidemic and implementing effective programs poses a serious challenge to the authorities and communities in India. It would be easy to underestimate the challenge of HIV/AIDS in India. India has a large population and population density, low literacy levels, consequent low levels of awareness and low status of women. HIV/AIDS is one of the most challenging public health problems ever faced by the country.

In these African countries, alarming setbacks are evident in several key indicators such as life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality rates, and availability of skilled labour, child labour, school dropout rates, sexual exploitation of children and youth, agricultural and industrial production and the number of families in poverty. These adverse developments have resulted in enormous demographic pressures in many developing countries, decreasing prospects for healthy meaningful lives for millions. This is especially worrisome in a country like India where more than half of the population, about 600 million, is below the age of 24.

In India, as elsewhere, AIDS is perceived as a disease of "others" - of people living on the margins of society, whose lifestyles are considered 'perverted' and 'sinful'. Discrimination, stigmatization and denial are the outcomes of such values, affecting life in families, communities, workplaces, schools and health care settings. Because of HIV/AIDS related discrimination, appropriate policies and models of good practice remain underdeveloped. People living with HIV and AIDS continue to be burdened by poor care and inadequate services, whilst those with the power to help do little to make the situation better. In India the social reactions to people with AIDS have been overwhelmingly negative.

The health care sector has generally been the most conspicuous context for HIV/AIDS related discrimination, stigma and denial. Negative attitudes from health care staff have generated anxiety and fear among many people living with HIV and AIDS. As a result, many keep their status secret, fearing still worse treatment from others. It is not surprising that among a majority of HIV positive people, AIDS-related fear and anxiety, and at times denial of their HIV status, can be traced to traumatic experiences in health care settings.

Other examples of discrimination are children of HIV-positive parents, whether positive or negative themselves, being denied the right to go to school or being separated from other children. Whilst women are often blamed by their parents and in-laws for infecting their husbands, or for not controlling their partners' urges to have sex with other women. People in marginalized groups such as female sex workers, hijras (transgender people) and gay men, are often stigmatized on the grounds not only of their HIV status but also because of their deviated lifestyles. Stigma and misconceptions, coupled with complicated social norms and conservative attitudes toward sex, make it difficult for politicians and policymakers to get beyond taboos when responding to the epidemic. For example, prostitution is illegal yet widespread. Contrary to the belief of many Indians, homosexuality, even among married men, is quite common, even though it is also illegal.

More importantly, those involved often do not consider that some common instances of sex between men are homosexual acts. In a society where dating and sexual relations before prearranged marriages are generally not allowed, such acts include teenage males’ sexual experimentation with other boys before marriage and sexual encounters between truckers and their young assistants. Combating social taboos will require political leaders to speak out in public forums.

The low status of women and girls make them vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence, discrimination and HIV infection because their ability to negotiate safe sex or abstinence becomes even more limited during times of insecurity and strife. The low status of women is also accelerating the spread of the disease. Despite an impressive array of female leaders in government and civil society, most ordinary Indian women have very little say in the daily affairs of their households. The proportion of women in the population is one of the lowest in the world: 933 women to every 1,000 men. (United Nations Development Program, “Human Development Indicators 2004”)

In a society in which women feel vulnerable and lack a strong voice even in
matters of their own health, they are less likely to protect themselves from infected husbands who contract the disease from sex workers because insisting on prophylactics often results in accusations of infidelity or in physical abuse. Moreover, fear of retribution by their families and friends prevents many afflicted with the disease from coming forward for testing and treatment. Discussions about sex remain off-limits in most Indian households and even in elite private schools in large cities such as New Delhi. AIDS is often seen as a disease restricted to a marginal, morally suspect population, people who “brought it on themselves,” making it difficult for India to respond effectively through strong public awareness messages because they are deemed too controversial.

The scope and complexity of challenges and threats to the well being of orphaned children are staggering: Social exclusion and extreme economic uncertainty, illiteracy, malnutrition, illness, exploitation of their labor, and physical and sexual abuse. These risks are especially high for children orphaned by AIDS. Their communities often shun them; they are not protected under local laws, and may be denied their property rights and rights to inheritance.

Those orphans who cannot be taken in by relatives or by their communities will become street children. These children have to fight to survive, they are at a greater risk to contract HIV; indeed, orphanhood is a factor in continuing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Young girls who are orphaned often turn to prostitution to survive, putting their lives in more danger. The impacts of the AIDS crisis have not begun to emerge fully in India, and AIDS-related orphans are not yet occurring on a large scale. Yet, India has the largest number of AIDS orphans of any country in the world. This number is expected to more than double in five years, and the proportion of orphaned children will remain exceptionally high until 2020 or 2030. Given the long incubation period between infection and the onset of symptoms, the epidemic's impact will linger for decades even if the rate of new infections is brought under control.

Overt intra-state conflicts are to be seen at present in the four north-eastern states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, and Tripura. The remaining three states of Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh do not at present display overt and active conflict but were historically part of the conflict scenario in the region. For reasons of geography, demography, ethnicity and politics, they share the impact of conflict in the other four states in various ways, including by being transit routes for the militant groups. Poverty, inequality, perceived injustice and so on are among the causes of conflict. Regional disparity, identity and ethnicity issues are also dominant in the region. In mainland India, there are often conflicts based on various factors and causes such as religious, caste, class, linguistic, regional and other differences.

HIV infections among IDUs first appeared in Manipur. Injecting drug use is also a major problem in urban areas such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai. In India drugs are often used in open public places such as the roadside, parks, playgrounds and market complexes. Although India does not appear to have a widespread culture of professional injectors or 'street doctors', as in some Asian countries, there do appear to be shooting galleries where IDUs come to inject. Generally, syringes and needles are purchased from pharmacies without any need for prescriptions, and although they are regarded as inexpensive many drug users tend to focus on buying the drug rather than purchasing new injecting equipment. The sharing of equipment among India's IDUs is widespread. Recent data indicate that most IDUs had at some stage shared their needle and syringe. The majority of drug users in India are male.

However, use of drug treatment data may underestimate the number of female drug users, with women addicts being predominately a hidden population. In the northeast of India, there are increasing numbers of young widows of addicts, many who are HIV-positive as a result of having been infected by their husbands. With the reported increase of HIV infection among wives and children of IDUs, this is highlighting the crucial need to reach the sex partners of IDUs with prevention, education, care and support services. There is no government policy for harm reduction, leading to a lack of coordination in designing and implementing interventions. Some states, such as Manipur, have adopted their own harm reduction policies and consider that: "Harm reduction is the urgent, practicable and feasible HIV prevention method among Injecting Drug Users and their sex partners."

Migration of the economically productive sections of the population is a common phenomenon all over India. According to the 1993 National Sample Survey in India 24.7% had migrated within India, to neighbouring countries or overseas. Applying this percentage to the mid 2003 population, about 264 million Indians are mobile. Migrants include the following-
§ permanent and seasonal labour migrants within the country
§ those entering and leaving India for work-related reasons
§ people dislocated by drought, floods, or other disasters
§ people dislocated by conflict
§ refugees seeking asylum in India
§ transport workers
§ traders/vendors
§ hotel and tourism workers
§ tourists (e.g., temple tourists)
§ prisoners
§ military personnel
§ sex workers
§ trafficked persons
§ MSM

Migration per se is not a risk with regard to HIV/AIDS. It is the situations that are encountered and the sexual behaviour that frequently occurs which increase the vulnerability and risk to HIV/AIDS. Most of the migrants are highly mobile, live in unhygienic conditions in urban slums, have long working hours and are in relative isolation. This may result in fostering casual sexual relations that make them highly vulnerable to STDs and HIV. They have little access to HIV/AIDS information, voluntary counselling and testing services etc. Cultural and language barriers make it even more difficult for them to access services. Returning or visiting migrants, many of whom do not know their status, may infect their wives or other sex partners in the home community.

The association between poverty and HIV/AIDS is a subject much debated by scientists and of deep concern to governments and donor agencies. A common assertion is that poverty has been an important facilitating factor in the spread of the epidemic. Another common assertion is that AIDS morbidity and mortality will be devastating to the economies in those countries most deeply affected by the epidemic.

A related worry is that AIDS morbidity and mortality will (further) impoverish the affected households, and in so doing worsen economic inequality in the society as a whole. The causal linkages between poverty and HIV/AIDS are probably multiple and complex. It is plausible that causation runs in both directions. Poverty may have a direct impact on behaviour underlying the incidence of HIV/AIDS as well as behaviour mediating the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. At the same time, looking at causation in the other direction, the disability, medical expenses, and mortality resulting from the disease may push some households into poverty, depending on their capacity to make adjustments to this shock (which itself may vary with the poverty status of a household). It is also clear that the association has both macro-level and micro-level components. Social scientists and other observers have posited that HIV/AIDS can affect the social and economic well-being of households and individuals through several mechanisms. These include changes in labour market status, changes in productivity in both labour market and non-labour market activities, and changes in the care-giving demands on household members.

Given differences between poor and non-poor households in terms of resources and the consequent capacity to make adjustments and smooth consumption, it is important to know whether an HIV/AIDS shock translates into different outcomes for poor and non-poor households. Household responses of interest would include school enrollment, labour market participation, changes in household living arrangements, and the re-allocation of agricultural and home production responsibilities. Questions such as the following are important to address: Does the employment of other household members adjust in response to disability and death of HIV-infected members? Are children pulled out of school? Is there evidence that households reconfigure themselves in response to an HIV/AIDS shock? Who bears the burden of caring for HIV-infected persons? Who cares for orphans and others dislocated by AIDS mortality? Is there evidence of migration of HIV-infected persons or potential caretakers as a response? What is the impact on consumption and intra-household allocation of resources? Does HIV/AIDS push households into poverty? To what extent do neighbourhood and community factors affect the adjustment process? Is there evidence that the impacts and responses to an HIV/AIDS shock are similar to other shocks, especially other health shocks, or are there unique dimensions to HIV/AIDS shocks?

How does Faith and Religion enter into the global response to HIV and AIDS? Perhaps the most obvious way is through the call issued, from the deep roots of most major faith traditions, for their believers to address the needs of their neighbors who are most vulnerable. The Jewish call to mend the very fabric of our broken world and the Christian call to respond to the needs of the hungry, thirsty, sick, and imprisoned as they would to the needs of Jesus Himself are two excellent examples of the motivational force of religion in the struggle against HIV and AIDS.

Strongly-held values have inspired faith-based organizations to provide some 50% of health care services in many developing countries. Spiritual and social support is a key component of FBOs’ work. The provision of hope, compassion, and acceptance is considered by most as a first level of care that must be offered and underlies all other services.

Because the issues of judgement, sin and punishment have often clouded the thinking and response of the church in dealing with HIV and AIDS , it is instructive and educative to go back to the words of Jesus. The move of Jesus is instructive. If Jesus responded to the message of repentance, we are certainly not above our master (Jn 13.13-14). We need to reflect seriously as Christian leaders, as people of faith, as the church. Do we regard ourselves high up there, as holy? Or do we acknowledge we need a message of repentance? Do we hold that we know it all and people have to learn from us that they must get baptized by us? Or do we believe there are moments when we must come down from the thrones of our power and learn from people who are lower than us? How does our self-understanding play itself out in the age of HIV/Aids? How does it inform our response and our impact?

I suspect that we, the Christian church, and our leaders in this HIV/AIDS era are hindered from hearing the message of salvation. More often than not, we claim that those who are infected and afflicted by HIV/AIDS are being punished by God for their sins. Instead of fighting the epidemic, we begin to fight the victims. Instead of doing away with the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, we add to it. Many of us are not ready to say that we all need to repent, Christians and non-Christians alike, for both are failing to abstain, to be faithful. If Christians are not failing, then how else do we explain the fact that "churches are themselves living with HIV/AIDS," that our church "members fall ill, become incapacitated, die and are buried"?

To say, "Those who are dying of HIV/AIDS are being punished by God; they are paying for their immoral lives," reflects that our understanding that needs to change, for it does not explain the children who are born with HIV/AIDS infection. It does not confront the problem of married women who are married to unfaithful partners. It cannot address the situation of those women and girls who are raped in their homes, on the roads, in their offices and in their churches. It does not account for sex workers, who have to choose between dying of hunger and selling sex. Neither does it address the question of loving mothers, old women in rural areas, or nurses who get infected in the process of caring for the sick. Is God punishing these groups of people? Have they sinned?

That Jesus went around healing the sick signifies that health is God's will for all people. If Jesus did not care to ask his patients, "how did you get your illness?", but restored them to full health, this shows the need to shift our focus and concentrate on the healing of God's people without judgement. We need to operate from a standpoint that holds that health is a God-given right of all people and that HIV/AIDS is an epidemic that violates God's creation and kingdom and therefore cannot be sent by God.

One of the debates that seems to consume energies in the church and its leadership, and, in my opinion, indicates an urgent need to shift our theological focus, is the condom debate. Many argue that condoms promote promiscuity. Other church leaders point out that condoms are not one hundred per cent safe - as if to abstain and to be faithful have proved to be 100 per cent safe in the church or outside. If there are voices in the church leadership that advocate the use of condoms as one of the viable preventative intervention strategies, they are way too few and most of the time they remain silent, perhaps, to facilitate unity amongst the churches.
The sensibilities surrounding the condom debate in the church are connected to what we regard as Christian sexual values of holiness. We are afraid to talk about the condom for, if we do, we might be heard to be promoting sex outside marriage. We are also afraid to advocate condom use among married couples because, if we do, we may be too close to tolerating unfaithfulness among married couples, we may be admitting that unfaithfulness happens amongst married couples. We thus insist on preaching abstinence for the unmarried and faithfulness for the married. Our fears, though, are ungrounded for they seem to imply that unfaithfulness did not happen prior to the condom and HIV/AIDS. Our fears blind us to the fact that unfaithfulness and lack of abstinence does happen today with the deadly HIV/AIDS epidemic. We have forgotten that Jesus said, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Mt 9.13). Our fears and our insistence on abstinence be faithful or die with HIV/Aids, seem dangerously to equate the gospel Christ and Christian salvation with sexual purity. We forget that we are Christians because we are forgiven, not because we are perfect; that we are saved by faith, not by our works. Our debates are, more often than not, naive, for they turn a blind eye to the structures that make abstaining, being faithful and condomizing, not as easy as ABC! When our relationships are based on gender, race and class inequalities, fighting HIV/AIDS is more than just abstaining, being faithful and condomizing.

Like the biblical world, our churches and our societies are still patriarchal. Our societies in still marginalize women from access to property and decision making. Consequently, many women still need to dress like Tamar and to work as sex workers for life to go on. Many who are married or in relationships fear to insist on safe sex lest their providing husbands/partners desert them and leave them without food or shelter. Further, male violence has escalated in the HIV/AIDS era so much that many girls, women and elderly women are raped both in the home and in public. In such a setup, the formula of "be faithful" does not work for many married and unmarried women. The formula of abstinence is defeated by our underlying social ways of distributing power unequally.

Indeed, our churches are, more often than not, the guardians of patriarchal power and other unequal relationships. HIV/AIDS studies, however, show that a major factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS is the powerlessness of women: their incapacity to make decisions about their lives due to the lack of material ownership and decision making powers. (UNAIDS 2000, pp.45-54) That is, as long as men and women are defined as unequal, the control of HIV/AIDS will prove to be a challenge. As long as we are living in families, churches and denominations that promote the inequality of men and women, then we are a significant part of the problem in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS. This is a factor that calls the church and its leadership to repent from baptizing patriarchal relationship and to struggle with propounding a theology that affirms both men and women as made in God's image and equal before God (Gen 1.27). Jesus set precedence for us when he disregarded patriarchal power and called into being a church that recognizes the equality of men and women (Mk 5.24-43; Mt 15.21-28; Lk 7.36-50; 10.38-42; 18.1-8; Jn 4; 8.1-12; 12.1-8, 19-20; Acts 2.14-21). Wherever gender discrimination leaves women under-educated, under-skilled and unable to gain title to property or other vital resources, it also makes them more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection". Do we really want to uproot HIV/AIDS? If our answer is yes, then we must uproot patriarchy from amongst us. We must develop and implement a theology of gender justice.

Another problem that confronts us in the struggle against HIV/AIDS is that we have failed in our prophetic role. Our response remains bound to the traditions, to the boundaries of our ancient practices. The HIV/AIDS epidemic, unfortunately, requires more from us. It requires that we deliver a new and prophetic message to our churches and society. It requires prophets, who are willing to act, hear and see outside the comfort of tradition. The prophets of the Old Testament were individuals who were socially connected and well informed. A prophet was an individual who was a social analyzer, one who delivered criticism on the prevailing oppressive social structures and called for a new social order. In our efforts to become active prophets in the struggle against HIV/AIDS, we need constantly to scrutinize our theological frames of reference, to be fully informed about the latest best practices on HIV/Aids, and to revisit our policies and the structures of our councils and churches. Do we have an HIV/Aids policy for our employees and for all our programmes? Have we trained our officers and project officers on mainstreaming HIV/Aids in all their development projects? Have we trained our members on gender awareness, gender planning and gender mainstreaming in all the projects and programmes of our councils. If we have answered "No" to the above questions, then we need to start by holding workshops for our own education, for we cannot afford at this point to become blind guides.
Another image that I think of is that of Jesus preaching to the crowds and to the disciples in Matthew 23. He acknowledges that what the Pharisees teach is correct and instructs the disciples to keep their teaching. But he faults the scribes and Pharisees for their practice. Jesus' harsh castigation of the scribes and Pharisees indicates the serious responsibility attached to being spiritual leaders, to being preachers, interpreters, theologians or ordained clergy. The crux of Jesus' unhappiness with their leadership is in verse 23. Here Jesus says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith."

In this age of HIV/Aids, are we sitting responsibly in our seats of power? Can both our teaching and practice be trusted or are we hypocrites? The message I see in this image of Jesus is that all of us who are entrusted with the task of interpreting should responsibly hold to our positions without, as Jesus tells us, neglecting the weightier matters of the law; namely, justice, compassion and faith. These, I believe, should be an integral part of our theology in the fight against HIV/Aids.

I do not know what your answers to these questions are, but I say to you, Let those who have ears hear. I say to you, Let the church know that they cannot afford not to repent, for the kingdom of God is violated in your families, in your congregations, in your denominations and in your societies. I say to you, Let the church know and understand that they must repent from judging the sick, by saying those who contract HIV/AIDS are punished by God for their sins, hence fuelling the stigma of those living or dying of HIV/AIDS. I say to you, Let the church know, understand and repent of the patriarchal structures embedded in your families, in your churches and in your societies which are sentencing millions of women and girls to death by HIV/AIDS. Yes, let the church know and understand that every human breath is sacred to God; every human being is made in God's image - and that we, as church, are in the business of respecting all creation. I repeat, Let the church repent, for we have neglected the weightier matters of justice, compassion and faith (Mt 23.23). Yes, let the church bear fruit worthy of repentance (Mt 3.8) in the struggle against HIV/AIDS

The Christian community in India is a minority group, forming 2-3% of the population. The church in India is at the same time, both vital and growing and both nominal and in decline. Much of organized Christianity is based on people movements over the past 400 years. Disputes over personalities, power and property have led to many divisions, court cases and a widespread disillusionment. The church in India has, however, responded decisively and positively to HIV/AIDS through both individuals and institutions in prevention, treatment, care and support. Following the pattern of caring for leprosy-affected people, a number of Christian hospitals have been treating HIV/AIDS infected patients without any discrimination and this has been acknowledged by national as well as international agencies.

There are innumerable small Christian organizations, in addition to those mentioned above, working through the church at grassroots level. The programs they carry out include awareness programs in slums, youth groups, women’s’ fellowships, schools and among groups that practice risk behaviour (CSWs, MSMs, IDUs, truckers and others). Many of them have introduced value based sexual health education programs into schools, colleges, Sunday Schools etc. Many of these curricula have been developed locally and are relevant to the Indian context. A third area has been in the area of care and support where many of the organizations have opened day care centres, orphanages, women’s’ homes, hospices for PLHA and women and children infected by HIV/AIDS.

A strong component of care in these interventions is home-based care. Tied up to this is the provision of nutritional support, educational support and free medical care. Providing livelihood opportunities has been another area of focus in all or most Christian organizations. These include vocational training in a variety of skills and income generation programs including of provision of interest-free loans. In all these activities, spiritual nurturing has been an important component of all these activity of these organizations and take the form of unconditional love, care, compassion, Bible studies and prayer. Almost all of them have been involved in capacity building and have nurtured volunteers from the church, the staff of other NGOs, CBOs and FBOs. Some organizations, on their own initiative have set up local networks of similar organizations – e.g. Red Ribbon Network in Delhi and the Corinth network in Mumbai. These small organizations have mentioned that they need strengthening in administration and monitoring skills.

There is a final aspect of the role of faith in the global response to HIV and AIDS – that of defending and promoting respect for the human rights of all who are affected by the pandemic. I have no intention of defending the small but vocal minority of religious leaders who have furthered the stigmatization of people living with HIV by claiming that the disease is God’s punishment on those whose lifestyles do not conform to religious teaching and values. I believe that these people of so-called faith are seriously mistaken in their understanding of God and of God’s inter-action with the human family

The Church does not cease to proclaim and defend fundamental human rights, unfortunately still violated in different parts of the world, and works so that the rights of every human person will be recognized [- rights] to life, food, a roof, work, health care, protection of the family, the promotion of social development, and respect of the dignity of man and woman, created in the image of God.

Spirituality and religion can and should exert much positive influence and action on the overall situation of social health in the world. In the case of HIV and AIDS, faith-based principles and values have motivated effective services, have assisted those affected to discover the God-given meaning and values of their lives despite the trauma and suffering wrought by the disease, and have insisted on respect for the human rights of such persons. Our response to the needs of persons with AIDS will be judged to be truly effective when we discover God in them and when they, through their encounter with us, are able to say, “In my pain, fear, and alienation, I have felt by your presence, a God of strength, love, and solidarity.