That we are required to be in respect of the given is readily understood in theory, if not always upheld in practice. The need to be faithful with regard to the possibilities hidden in time is far less real to most people. The latter is, however, an innate aspect of faithfulness; for faith is the evidence of things 'not seen'! That has to be so if, as Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is a 'hidden treasure'. The Kingdom is hidden not only in space but also in time.

Faithfulness of the first kind faithfulness to the given in its present dimension-comprises the duty to keep. It is accountability for what is received, exercised in a protective sense. This implies a limited outlook because it overlooks the fact that what is given includes, in addition to what is materially visible today, also talents, skills, foresight, freedom of choice, a spirit of enterprise and health all of which comprise the bridge between present possession and future possibilities. The given is the stepping-stone to what can be. Life is a domain of growth, not of stagnation. That is why Jesus prescribes 'seeking' as a core spiritual duty. Seeking involves two things: (a) recognizing the possibilities hidden in time. Striving towards what is possible, not less than protecting whatever is, is basic to true faithfulness.

This is not, however, what we do in practice. Most of the time, we tend to focus on the first to the neglect of the second. This danger increases even as 'ownership' mentality gains ascendancy on us. Protectionism is inherent in ownership. Wealth is incomplete without walls. The outcome is at once unfortunate and destructive in respect of religion, as is evident in the case of Pharisees. They drove a wedge between the two models of faithfulness. They were obsessed with the first and blind to the second. Of course, they were very earnest in pursuing their religious agenda, which they mistook for faithfulness. One of the basic lessons we need to learn from the example of Pharisees is that mere zeal does not amount to faithfulness. Faithfulness, as Jesus points out with profound clarity, is related to 'fulfillment'. The goal of true faithfulness vis-à-vis religion is not 'protection' but 'fulfillment'. "Think not," says Jesus, "that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have come to fulfill them." (Matthew 5:17) Here we have a crucially fundamental distinction. Virtually the sole religious agenda of the Pharisees was to protect and preserve the Law and the Prophets. This very outlook prevented their fulfillment. Religious faithfulness of the Pharisaical variety turns out to be spiritual unfaithfulness. Their zealous faithfulness to religion amounts to hostile unfaithfulness to God. Whenever the scope of faithfulness is reduced to fanatical and exclusive obsession with the status quo, it becomes an anti-value: a sort of unfaithfulness to the logic of life and the unfolding purposes of God.

Using the words of Jesus in the Parable of the Talents we may say that true faithfulness involves being 'good and faithful' (Matthew 25:21). Here Jesus points to a duty to ensure that our faithfulness is indeed 'good'. This implies that there could be 'bad' faithfulness. Bad faithfulness is not better than unfaithfulness. Hence the oft-encountered pathos in the domain of religion. We become unfaithful to God because of our faithfulness to religion, if only for the reason that we do not endeavor to be 'good and faithful' servants.

The one-talent servant proved himself to be 'wicked' rather than 'good', even though he was careful enough to preserve whatever was entrusted to him. For a long time I used to feel uneasy about the excessive harshness meted out to this servant. He was, after all, 'faithful' enough, like you and me, to preserve what ever was entrusted to him! He did not squander it and ask the master to forget and forgive. No, he represents our idea of faithfulness. Perhaps he has done a shade better than us. How many of us will be able to say confidently to the Master on the day of reckoning. "Look, here is what you entrusted to me; take it.” The all-important point that the parable makes is that this is not faithfulness in spiritual sense. Or, this is, at best, 'cloakroom faithfulness'. A cloakroom also delivers up whatever has been deposited there. Human faithfulness should amount to more than this. From the perspective of our 'faithfulness' we cannot really fault the one-talent servant. He was not culpable in terms of the cloakroom model of faithfulness. But he deserved condemnation in respect of the second. In contrast, the first two servants saw the talents received as the medium for seeking further and fuller possibilities. They saw the future in the present, which makes dynamism possible. This made them 'good and faithful' servants.

In the interest of clarity we could contrast the 'cloakroom' model of faithfulness with 'upper room' counter part. In the upper room, Jesus breaks His body and gives it away to be multiplied over the centuries. The sacrament indeed all sacraments- embody true faithfulness. A sacrament is meant to bring out the possibilities hidden in every human being, both now and for all times to come. Without this proactive and redemptive implication, the Last Supper can only be a morbid ritual. Jesus envisioned the Fellowship Meal as a sacrament of true faithfulness: to God and to human beings. It is a hand of benediction stretched over future possibilities: an invitation to fullness of life.

How are we to understand what it means to be 'good' in respect of faithfulness? Perhaps the best we can do is to link it to Jesus' exhortation to 'seek' (Matthew 7:7). To be good and faithful is to seek the fullness of the given. Only whatever is 'full' or complete is good in the spiritual sense. It is for this reason that, as Jesus says, God alone is good. God embodies the fullness of everything: all states and possibilities. It is because God embodies fullness that human beings are to seek it. Ultimately, it is only God that we are to seek. But it is God who has revealed Himself that we seek. So the purpose of this seeking cannot be to 'find God'. It is, instead, to find, or attain, fullness.

There is a problem here. We can seek only what already is, and what we have not attained. The foremost proof that we are 'Children of God' is our eagerness to seek fullness. Fullness, understood in the light of 'seeking' is an 'upper-room - concept' and not a 'cloakroom -concept'. If it is a cloakroom concept, seeking comes to an end all too soon. It amounts to seeking only of the protective kind. In that event, there is a real danger that we misunderstand 'fullness'. In contrast, seeking fullness could be a challenging thing. How do we know that something has indeed attained fullness at a particular stage? The fullness to be sought has, by definition, not come into being. How can we know, what has not come into being? It is because 'fullness' is not an attained state that we have to seek it. But how can we seek that which we do not know? So, there is always a risk that, in seeking fullness, we may seek something less than fullness. There is the danger that we may mistake what is less than complete as full, as in the case of denominationalism. The guarantee against such misunderstanding is the spirituality of 'seeking', which is at once the dynamic for growth and the bulwark against misconceptions. Such seeking, however, stands in danger of being misunderstood as heretical from the perspective of religious orthodoxy. The problem worsens even as orthodoxy gets divorced from orthopraxis. To seek is to find; and what we find includes, among other things, the truth about whether or not we have attained fullness in respect of a given situation or person. Seeking 'fullness' implies a state of spiritual responsiveness, described by Jesus with the words, "watch and pray".

The journey of the Magi affords additional insights into the question of true faithfulness. Exercising true faithfulness may involve rising above stereotypical assumptions. The wise men from the east saw star, symbolizing the birth of an extraordinary person. They concluded that the star denoted the birth of 'the king of Jews'. It was their presumption that royal births were, by nature extraordinary events. Second, they presumed that such a king would be born in a place and not in a manger. Both of these are plausible assumptions, but they are not ultimate assumptions. They overlook the fact that seeking the kings that come and go on the stage of history and seeking the King of Eternity and entirely different enterprises. The wise men's faithfulness to prevailing notions or assumptions proved to be unfaithfulness to the emerging possibilities. It resulted in an unthinkable atrocity: the massacre of two thousand innocent children, thanks to the wisdom of the wise men. A more startling warning than this about the dangers hidden in mistaking faithfulness we should not need.

Significantly, the Magi, after meeting with the babe in the manger, are directed to go home by another way! As long as we insist on sticking to the beaten path, we shall miss the bus to true faithfulness. Truth to tell, unthinking and fanatical adherence to orthodoxy has resulted in far greater unfaithfulness than even atheism. It is possible for us to know where our faith stands in respect of atheism. But in respect of the irreligion masquerading itself as orthodoxy it is impossible to do so. Given the conditioning we have received over the decades to respond unthinkingly to whatever is packaged as religion, the danger of mistaking unfaithfulness as true faithfulness is indeed very real and grave. The message that God gave to the Magi that there is another way - can sound heresy; but this is quintessential divine guidance.

Thanks to my extensive exposure to Christian institutions and encounters with heads of institutions, the anxiety is growing within me that there is something seriously wrong with what is assumed to be faithfulness. Today there is a real chance that those who stand for values and ideals and strive to be true to their conscience, stand in danger of being stigmatized as 'unfaithful' to their respective institutions. The fact that what is often required of the employees is not faithfulness to the institutions concerned, but the community, rarely understands slavish personal loyalty to those who are in power. It is in respect of other institutions that we stand in maximum danger of becoming Pharisaical Christians. The more prestigious they are, the more acute becomes the problem. Our only goal is to protect them! And protecting institutions is then equated solely with defending the seat of the man in power. As a result, an unspiritual culture of flattery, sycophancy and parasitism thrives in several of our institutions. The tragedy is that this is the flavor most non-Christians derive of Christian faith. They cannot be blamed; for it is through our educational institutions that people of other faiths come into contact with the Christian faith. And it is doubtful if what they find there is "true faithfulness".

To be able to measure up to the demands of 'true faithfulness' it is necessary that we rise above the seductions of the present. "Woe unto you who laugh now," said Jesus, "for you will cry". Jesus is not prescribing happiness but pointing to the logic of true happiness. Happiness is not indulgence. The present laughter of indulgence, if it shuts your eyes to the fullness of possibilities to be unfolded over time, could well be the precursor to the sorrows of the morrow. Life is a ceaseless flow. The past became the present. The seeds sown yesterday became the harvest of today. But the present is nothing but the seed of the future. That being the case, how there be a discontinuity between faithfulness and the future? True faithfulness implies a harmony of the past, present and future with seeking as the guiding light.