22ND FRIDAY HOMILY IN ORDINARY TIME — YEAR B
22ND FRIDAY HOMILY IN ORDINARY TIME — YEAR B
HOMILY THEME: NEW WINE INTO OLD WINESKINS?: THE CHALLENGE OF INCULTURATION, ENCULTURATION AND ACCULTURATION!
BY: Fr. Benedict AGBO
1 Cor 4:1-5; Psalm 36(37):3-6, 27-28, 39-40; Luke 5:33-39
In today’s gospel, Christ establishes himself as a teacher par excellence in the way he handles the issue of conflict between the old and new ideas; old and new religion, culture, worship, etc. Christ uses the familiar imagery of cloth mending and wine bottling to compare the old era of Messiah expectation with the new era of Messiah presence. I will also like us to compare, by extension, the old era of African traditional religious worship with the new era of Christianity. In direct context in today’s gospel is the difficulty of reconciling the type of religion practiced by the Pharisees (hypocritical fasting) with the new religion of grace preached by Christ. For the Pharisees, salvation comes from literal fulfilment of the law but in Christianity it is living under the grace of Christ that counts. Fasting is only relevant as a penitential exercise when grace is at stake. The old traditional religious worship has its various Dogmatic, liturgical and ethical demands completely different from the new Christian religion. How would this new wine be poured into the old wineskin?
ALSO RECOMMENDED: 22ND FRIDAY HOMILY IN ORDINARY TIME
Since the Vatican II gave impetus for Inculturation, the challenge of African theologians have been how to adapt faith to the African worldview. In the area of Liturgy, for instance, Sacrosanctum Concilium presents the challenge in mission lands of ‘adapting worship to their native genius’ (art 119). According to the South African Archbishop Tihagale, ‘Faith is not like a spirit imprisoned in a bottle (or a particular culture)… Faith can be found a home in an African culture.. It will necessarily transform the host culture so that it becomes in that culture and yet not of that culture’. Christianity is not tied to any culture whether Asian, European or African but tries to take flesh in as many cultures as possible. Pope John Paul II (1982) made it clear in a Letter instituting the pontifical council for culture, AAS LXXIV, 683 – 688 that ‘a faith that does not become culture is a faith not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived’. 3 processes are theologically relevant here: (a) Inculturation in our context is a process of adapting Christianity to the traditional African culture. (b) Acculturation is the opposite process that encourages the assimilation of a different culture at the detriment of one’s original culture – dislocation between the new faith and the old one. (c) Enculturation denotes the process by which individuals become inserted into a desired culture (may be traditional or Christian). These three theological activities are all relevant depending on the circumstance.
Take for instance, the breaking of African drums (eg) the Yoruba talking drums under the assumption that their use in Church music was heathen could never have allowed proper Inculturation in that culture. According to the founder of the Deeper Life Bible Church, Pastor William Kumuyi, ‘You don’t bring the world into the Church but you can take the Church into the world’. Today, some secular music like highlife, Afrojuju, blues, reggae, calypso, hip hop, rhythm and blues, etc are still resounding in their ‘baptized’ forms like old worldly tunes with new spiritual texts. How about that? The use of Ikorodo horns, Omabe xylophones, akunechenyi drums, atilogwu flutes to perform Church music. How about that?
We have seen plenty of idolatry among so called Christians. In my former Parish, Iheaka in Enugu State, ‘Attamah Ezenokpo’ is the Chief priest of all weather controllers and Christians lias with him to have their functions during rainy season uninterrupted by the rains. ‘Attamah Onwesa’ is in charge of ‘Akatakpa’ masquerade activities which is in direct contradiction to the Christ the King celebration. Both are yearly activities which many Christians still participate in a kind of religious dualism. Our funeral cow rituals are in direct contradiction to the Christian concept of the resurrection of the dead. African polygamous culture is still at war with the Christian celebration of marriages.
I don’t want to go on with instances but the challenge is that we must get a new nature and a new culture in Christ. Whether this new culture will be a hybridization from the combination of old and new or a careful destruction of the old to enthrone the new depends on serious theological exercise. But strictly speaking, Christ makes it clear in today’s gospel that ‘no one puts new wine into old wine skins’. We need a lot of patience and prudence so that we don’t act like the proverbial young boy observing a butterfly struggling to emerge from a cocoon and using a scissors to cut it open. Our impatience with the cultural transition era is the mistake of some early missionaries and early indigenous priests but our compromise with idolatry is the present day evil in Christianity. We need prudence here.
Jesus is the sacrament of God and he is the blueprint of all creation. Christianity therefore presents us a new culture (new wine / wineskin); a new way of marrying (through exchange of vows), a new way of burying the dead ( linking them to the Saints of God in heaven, not to our ancestors at ‘Amalla’). Worship of God is through praise worship and celebration of the Eucharist in Churches no longer through ‘Omabe or Odo masquerade music at ‘Uloma’ or our village shrines. We don’t need the dirty rags of the AKATAKPA masquerades anymore. They don’t need to be the village police anymore! Let’s be careful not to put the new wine into old wineskins. May God bless you today!
FOR A SIMILAR HOMILY, CLICK HERE >>>>>
Dear friends in Christ, We rely on you to upset our bills. To keep us going, please click any of the “Donation” buttons and support us. Remember we also pray for YOU>>>>>
