S1-Day 7: “God in Dirty Places: Casteism, The Dirt”

It is a beautiful place, clean and tidy. I was baptized there and was also confirmed there, yes you guessed right! It is the Church. As I witnessed, the sanctity maintained and silence observed in this place, I believed, ‘God dwells here indeed!' It was the priest in the Church who grabbed my attention the most. The Attire was amazing, 'holy-white', I thought.

As I was exclaiming the beauty of the Church and priest, I saw a young chap sitting in the pews, weeping and crying hard. I resisted but could not stop myself, but inquired why he was crying. His response gave me a shock of my life! He Cried, “Anna, I desired to do pastoral ministry through church and when I approached my presbyter, he too encouraged me. He took me to the committee one day, and you know what they told the presbyter? "Why do you encourage such kind of people, Ayyah?" Anna, at that time, I did not know what they meant, but later I came to know that they spoke about my caste. My caste had become a hindrance for me to do God’s Ministry”

I ran out of words to console my young friend, it is no more a beautiful place, I said to myself. As I started learning more and more about caste and its impact on the Church, I felt like the filth has filled the “Holy” place. The Body of Christ was being butchered in the name of the body of Brahma. This is no more a “Holy” place. How can God dwell in such a dirty place where ‘caste-graded-inequality’ was practiced? But Hey! Wait a minute; is this not the same Church which I was praising minutes ago? Was there no practice of caste then? Was God not present in the Church then? Were the intersessions unanswered, because there was no God to listen to it? No, surely not! 

I believe, God was there and is still there in this place which is made dirty with the practice of casteism. But those who accepted Christ did not forsake Caste; they did not realize that ‘If anyone is in Christ, he/she is a New Creation’. The filth in the heart forced them to have separate chapels, separate worships, separate cemeteries, separate seating arrangements, separate queues for communion, separate procession on Palm Sunday and the list goes on.

The place has become dirtier and it is worsening day by day. There is not even an iota of space, in my mind to think of God in such a place. I started confronting people who were arrogant about the dirt, conscientized people who were ignorant about the dirt and consoled people who were tormented by the dirt. As I was grappling with these concerns and also struggling with people, I saw a woman entering the church rushing towards the altar with tears rolling down her cheek. Her little son followed her, crying. She was pouring her heart-out at the altar for a long time. Then, when she was done, she rose up, grabbed her child and walked out of the Church. I saw her face, she was not crying anymore, but her face reflected the peace and comfort that she received from God. Dirty place it is, but God is there, I affirmed to myself!

However, a serious question rose in my mind. If the woman who came to this dirty place was comforted, why did the youth’s situation not changed? Then I found out that, this dirt which has entered the Church, since its inception, has predominantly affected not the devotion but the institutional aspects of the Church and consequently tarnished the God-factor in it. 

“Think of a hospital,” Kierkegaard writes, “The patients are dying like flies. Every method is tried to make things better. It is no use. Where does the sickness come from? It comes from the building; the whole building is full of poison. So, it is with the religious sphere.” This dirt, through the centuries has spread faster than Corona and is now affecting all the aspects of the Church and thereby trying to completely tarnish the God factor. Many, like my friend have suffered. It is time for some cleaning activity. Therefore, let us not just stand and watch silently, or listen to these cries aimlessly. Let us all take the broom and sweep off this dirt before it pulls the Church into the abyss. Let us all, join hands to confront, conscientize and console. 

Prayer

God of the tormented, we pray that you grant us your courage not only to comfort the disturbed, but also to rebel against injustices and confront the arrogant. May your church become caste-less and live as an inclusive community of your creation. Amen. 

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Author: Rev. Simon Samuel 

About the Author: Simon belongs to the CSI- Diocese of Madras. He completed his Bachelor of Divinity from United Theological College, Bangalore. He is an ordained minister of the Church of South India – Diocese of Madras. His interests are music, reading and creative writing.