‘Through the Narrow Gate’ is the story of Karen Armstrong who entered an English order of nuns at the age of seventeen and then left the order after four years. One day during the early period of training, when she was a postulant, she went for her weekly private counselling with Mother Superior, Mother Albert. Mother’s spontaneous comment at the first glance of Karen Armstrong was ‘you look untidy! Why is that you always look like a rag-bag?’ There were drying candle wax on her skirt and her cape was fraying at the edges. She also noted a tear on her skirt. She questioned her on how she managed to get a tear on her skirt and so forth. Then she summed up her exasperation by asking her, ‘Have you always been untidy Sister?’

‘Oh, no, mother, I never tore or spilt things the way I do now,’ answered Karen and she carried on: ‘Now I am a bit untidy because it doesn’t matter anymore. You know, Mother, in the outside world it does matter terribly what you look like. And I minded that but here none of that matters any more; there are many other important things to worry about.’

To this Mother Albert gave a sigh of exasperation and then said very forcibly, ‘But it does matter, Sister, it is terribly important. It matters that you are always tidy; it matters that your sewing is perfect; it matters that you sweep the refectory perfectly.’ Mother Albert struck her desk with authority to give emphasis to the point and said, ‘Perfectly, Sister, not as well as you can, but perfectly.’

Last Sunday Revd Jose Varughese at St. Johns parish in London was reflecting on the importance of Lent and the transformation it could bring through fasting and praying. This reminded me of the above story about Karen Armstrong; her experience touched me in a way to make a comment on our current attitudes to preparation for Lent and attending services at our churches on Sunday mornings. There is an ‘it does not matter’ attitude when and how we turn up at our churches on a Sunday morning. We do not go to churches anymore, we turn up there somehow. Now we turn up at our churches wearing all kinds of things; it can either be a fashion parade or a street bazaar. Each mode of dressing is a statement about our personality and our respect or lack of it to for other worshippers and to the God that we worship. There is an old English expression, ‘Sunday best’, indicating that the very best dress is kept solely for worshipping in the Church. It emerged from the ‘old, hard days of life’ in mining communities; most of them only had one set of clothes for important occasions.

Modern affluence has changed all such experiences for most people, but has it really changed? In summer months in England, our Queen invites few thousand people to have tea with her majesty at Buckingham palace gardens. Together with this prestigious invitation from the Queen, one gets a list of dos and don’ts, protocols and dress codes. People spend thousands of pounds to get the right dress for the afternoon tea. But we forget such discipline when we attend Lord’s Table on a Sunday morning or prepare ourselves for the family prayer; do not forget we are in the presence of our Lord who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Syrian Christians also used to keep a set of dress only for wearing in the church. Then they used to fast, pray and prepare for going to church. Now we have thrown all those discipline out, in the process we have thrown the baby with the bathwater as well. A disciplined mind is very helpful in feeling the presence of the Lord. On Sunday morning as clergy appears from behind the altar curtain to call the congregations to worship many parishes do not care to stand up to welcome the priest, to express respect for the priest and listen to the invitation for worship, but it is an amazing experience to be in congregations, which have such respectful and laudable traditions. It is important to build such traditions to get a feel of reverence, holiness and respect for the presence of the Lord. Yes, these things do matter.

An attitude to perfection is at the heart of Christian lifestyle. We read about this in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus asking his followers to be perfect. Jesus says: “Therefore you shall be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5: 48). This is the basis of long periods of training in monastic life to keep on perfecting the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. This discipline is also relevant for those of who live outside the strict monastic disciplines and orders. To be perfect is to what we are meant to become; to be perfect is move beyond initial stages of poverty and emptiness into the fullness of a new life, which God himself makes accessible to us freely through His amazing grace.

It does matter to follow the prescriptions laid out in the Sermon on the Mount to attain perfection to become a new creation. Jesus describes the content of this new life in the Beatitudes where divine happiness is bestowed. He teaches us through the metaphors of salt and light where it is brought into the experience of everyday life. Jesus describes practical issues that we face during the journey to perfection. The problems associated with murder and anger, adultery and divorce, false vows, retaliation and the problem of how to respond to our enemies are significant contexts in which we may be challenged everyday. Dealing with the above and other challenges in life do matter in our spiritual journey to this perfection. Perfection points towards maturity. Jesus warns us that we will never become mature if our actions are performed primarily for the notice of others. We often see presumed perfection of maturity by way of wearing faith on our sleeves or walking around with a well used Bible.

I remember a very young preacher tossing around his bible like a well worn out telephone directory, the pages of his bible were all turned inside just like dog’s ears, and he was using it as the mark of his maturity and Christian commitment, a symbol to impress others and to demand respect. It does matter to me the way I handle a book; I have a built in respect for books. In my childhood, I used to put an extra cover with newspapers to protect my text books and note books; books of all kinds were sacred to me; I considered trampling on any book a terrible thing to do and avoided trampling on any printed matters or if ever dropped a book on to a floor or trampled on it accidentally I automatically touched the book with a sign of the cross to show respect. Such little things did matter to me at one stage in my life, which helped me to deal with bigger issues later in life with the grace of God. It is through disciplines in life that we move along the ladder to reach out for higher values. Jesus tells us that we must have an attitude of maturity for giving, praying and fasting as well. It is all a question of moving along a scale of perfection through the help of the Lord. There is always a danger of trying to do it alone.

As we progress through the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount we come across the warning in the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthews: “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them.” We may think that there is a paradox here because earlier in chapter five Jesus asks us to be the light of the world; this seems to suggest that we should wear our faith on our sleeves so that others should see our good deeds. But we should look for a subtle distinction between being seen and being noticed. The distinction is simply whether the deeds are to direct attention solely to us and our importance or our deeds are a neutral signpost to a route that leads to God, these attitudes do matter. Our good deeds should become a mark of perfection of indwelling God in us, we are just His temples.

The question again is one of ‘centred self or self-centred.’ Our good deeds must not be an act or a strategy designed to win approval, acclaim and popularity. We should destroy ego barriers that we build to create our identity from our cradle to our grave. Our baptisms are turning into prestigious, extravagant, feasting and social events as our weddings and funerals; these are all for building our self-centred castles with ego- boundary walls and trenches. Only when we intend to live within the life of another we will be able to love that person. It is only when we breakdown our ego barriers we will be able to fall in ‘love with another.’ This is what happens to real love affairs when someone falls in love, at first sight, with another, two individuals merging their identities and becoming one by destroying boundaries, which separated them. Scott Peck developed this idea in his best seller, ‘The Road Less Well Travelled.’ Breaking down the Berlin wall of selfishness is a step towards divine perfection.

One underlying message of the Sermon on the Mount is drawing the distinction between the centre and the periphery of human existence. Jesus took Galilee and the Galileans to Jerusalem on that memorable Palm Sunday. Bringing the centre to the periphery and taking the periphery to the centre are the whole essence of Jesus’ life and mission. When an act of charity is performed in secret without publicity, and if it originates from the centre of our being, God will be pleased with it as our contribution towards building His kingdom on earth. When God becomes the centre of our being, His kingdom and kingdom values will become our values to give us discipline for attaining perfection. His identity becomes our identity, as an imitator of Christ, for the world to see and experience His existence within our lives; His kingdom will be within us and without. Therefore, it does matter how we do these things.