17 May 2025 – 5th Sunday of Easter (Year C) (Sunset Mass)

by Fr Fabian Dicom

Let me ask you something honest, dangerously honest.

If Jesus walked into our church in Malaysia today, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, would He recognise us?

I am not talking about the building, not the candles or even the hymns. I don’t think He will know any of it. Sometimes I myself don’t know. Would He, seriously, would He recognise us as His disciples? Would He said ‘Yes, they have loved one another just as I have loved them‘? Or would He look at the way we protect our cliques and force the rules, fear change, ignore the poor and say with sadness ‘This is not the church I gave my life for.‘?

Because, my brothers and sisters, I fear this. We have made ‘love’ which is the main theme of today’s Gospel ‘Love One Another‘, we have made ‘love’ the most boring word in the church. We have turned a revolutionary commandment into a greeting card.

Jesus said ‘Love One Another‘ not politely tolerate one another, not protect our own, not say nice things and go home and say ‘Don’t know‘ and ‘Don’t care‘ but love one another. Love boldly. Love inconveniently. Love sacrificially. Love courageously just as I have loved you.

And yet, look around. We have built churches with walls so thick that the cries of the poor don’t get in. We have created systems that reward obedience and submission more than compassion. We have made it easier to follow rubrics and rituals and rules than to follow Jesus.

We are obsess with appearances – was the Mass conducted correctly, were the candles lit properly, did they kneel or sit at the right time. Meanwhile, and you have heard this countless of times from me, meanwhile there are migrant workers exploited in our plantations, orang asli communities still without water, land or dignity, children born in this country stateless and invisible, people suffering silently in our pews while we recite our prayers even louder.

If love is not burning at the center of what we do, we are not the church. We are a religious club. Every Sunday or Saturday we meet. That is it.

In the Acts of the Apostles, the First Reading, Paul and Barnabas were not founding parishes with LED screens and carparks. They were starting communities of defiance, communities of revolution, defying fear, defying the empire, defying inequality. When I say the empire, it refers to both to the historical power of Rome, political/social oppression, economic exploitation which Paul and Barnabas defied by proclaiming Jesus and not Caesar.

And it also refers to a symbolic forces that resist God’s reign of justice and love here. And the empire today includes corrupt systems, corrupt governments that exploit the poor, including systems in our country. Corrupt systems in Malaysia. Consumerism that values profit over people. Religious institutions including ours more concerned about image than integrity. And the silent complicity of the church with comfort and power. It also lives within us. This empire – it is our fear, our ego and our need to control.

So to follow Jesus is to resist empire in all its forms.

And Paul and Barnabas and all the early disciples and apostles knew this. They knew the path would cost them. They said, as we heard in the Reading, ‘We all have to experience many hardships,‘ they said ‘before we enter the kingdom of God.‘

So my dear brothers and sisters, when did we start believing that the church should be comfortable? When did we do this? What happened?

We come the Second Reading, Book of Revelations.

‘Behold, I am making all things new.‘ we heard ‘All creation will be new’. Not some things. Not later. ALL THINGS NOW.

But here is the hard truth. For things to be made new, some things must die – Our illusions, our prejudices, our fear of change, our obsession with appearances and power.

Too often in Malaysia, we have grown comfortable in the middle class. That is where we are. We are too polite in the face of racism. Too quiet about environmental destruction. Too slow to welcome the divorce, the migrant, the queer, the LGBT community, the indigenous. Too concerned about who kneels when instead of who is suffering now.

Jesus never said ‘They will know you as my disciples by your theology degrees or how many times you have clocked in for Mass.‘

He said very clearly and that is the theme of today’s Mass ‘By Your Love.‘

And this love is not soft. It is fierce. It interrupts cruelty with compassion. It names injustice without apology. It welcomes those the world calls unworthy. It will cost you comfort, maybe our reputation.

And this is urgent. People are leaving the church. The young people are leaving the church. You don’t see it because we see the same people here every Sunday or Saturday. There are many in our parish who are not here. 

The people are leaving not because they have lost faith in God but because they can no longer find God in a church more obsessed with rules than with mercy.

They are not asking for perfect liturgy. They are asking for a community that bleeds with compassion, burns with justice and walks humbly with the wounded.

So what does this mean for us here in Malaysia?

~ It means seeing our undocumented neighbours not as threats but as neighbours.
~ Caring not only whether the Mass is valid but whether our lives are.
~ Refusing to remain neutral when injustice screams from our lands, from our forests, from our cities.
~ Daring to say we will no longer protect our comfort at the expanse of someone else’s dignity.

Do you want to know what holiness looks like? I want to say this. For me this is holiness.

~ It is the B40 mother feeding 5 children on minimum wage. That is holiness.
~ It is the volunteer visiting migrants in detention centers.
~ It is the kampong youth who refuses to be swallowed by racism and builds bridges instead. 
~ It is the orang asli elder defending the forest with dignity and prayer.
~ It is the nurse who prayers silently as she cleans the wounds of a stranger.
~ It is the parishioner who speaks up when the voiceless are ignored.
~ It is the young person who chooses honesty over popularity.
~ It is the person who shows up again and again and again and again and again even when no one notices.

That is holiness. That is the church. That is what Jesus died for. And that is what the Spirit is trying to birth in us.

So stop waiting. So stop waiting not for Rome, not for our Bishops, not even for us your priests and not for leaders in the parish.

You are the church. Start now. 

If I can humbly offer some suggestions:-

~ Gather a small group this week, not for a meeting but to pray in solidarity with the world and feel the world’s wounds together. So much going on.

~ Reach out to one person this week who is marginalised or forgotten. Listen to their story and do something for them.

~ Visit someone you have been avoiding. Go with humility.

~ Interrupt gossip with a word of kindness, truth and justice.

~ Welcome someone who sees the world differently from you.

~ And do one small thing this week that only makes sense if love is real.

Because one day Jesus will return. He will. And He will not ask:-
‘How many candles did you light?’
‘How long was your rosary?’
‘Did you do your praise and worship?’
‘Did you kneel at the right time?’

And He will ask and it is based on scripture itself, Matthew 25:
Did you love?
Did you make people feel seen?
Did you lift burdens or increase them?
Did you protect the earth I entrusted to you?
Did you stand up for those no one else would touch?

So church, I call you church, I call us church. It is time, time to stop playing safe. Time to stop confusing faith with fear. It is time to stop performing religion.

Yes, let us stop performing! Enough of performance!

We delude ourselves by saying we are worshipping but half the time we are performing. Time to stop performing religion and start living the Gospel. Time, my dear brothers and sisters, to fall in love again – dangerously, beautifully, truly – with Jesus and His dream for the world.

It is Jesus all the way. Because love is not a doctrine, it is a revolution. Let the revolution begin.

Let it begin here. Let it begin now. And let it begin with you and me.

Amen.

Click below to listen to homily and watch video

Click to live-stream Mass on 17 May 2025