Signed, Sealed, Delivered (China Pilgrimage)

Me in front of the Daqin Pagoda, probable site of a 7th century 

Church of the East Monastery; 50 miles west of Xi'an.  

Signed, Sealed, Delivered
14 October 2010

Shanghai, China  

Homily for a Group of Pilgrims from St. John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong

God, take away our hearts of stone

 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

This part of China, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, is known as the “Land of fish and rice” and is full of lakes that are the home of a great freshwater fish, crab, clam, and pearl raising industry.  My wife and I visited Suzhou—about an hour and a half drive west of here—just a month ago to help celebrate the opening of the fall “hairy crab” season. 

Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou is famous for its freshwater dazhaxie, crabs with hairy claws.  They are particularly buttery and succulent because they grew and developed in the clean waters of the lake, and are considered by most Chinese people to be the only hairy crabs really worth eating.  Because of this, a great trade in counterfeit hairy crabs has developed over the years, where crabs from commercial ponds or other less pristine waters are labeled and sold as authentic Yangcheng Lake crabs, at the higher prices of the better crabs.  As a result, the Suzhou government has instituted a system of authenticating and labeling crabs from Yangcheng Lake, placing a small plastic band with a unique identification number on each and every crab that truly comes from the lake. 

Our hosts in Suzhou sent us a box of hairy crabs to have at our home in Beijing about two weeks ago.  I was concerned when opened the package.  Though it had been packed with ice and speed-posted, the National Day holiday had delayed delivery a bit and all the package was at room temperature; all the ice had melted.  I was afraid the crabs had died during shipment and we would be unable to eat them.  They were all tied up to keep them still, each with its little I.D. tag.   I placed them in cool water and started to untie them, to see if any were salvageable.  They all started bubbling, and quickly were all very lively.  They had only looked dead.  The meal was delicious.

When I mentioned to one of my Chinese staff members that we had been able to enjoy some Suzhou hairy crabs, she looked skeptical.  “Oh, but they all had the official seal and I.D. tags” I said.  She replied, smiling, “It’s good they started marking the real ones with those tags.  But I heard that those Suzhou farmers are really clever.  There’s a rumor that they have started shipping in crabs from other waters.  They then baptize them (she actually used the Chinese word for the Christian ritual)   in the waters of Yangcheng Lake and then government gives them the I.D. tags.” 

Now I don’t know if such rumors are true, but my friends in Suzhou assure me they are not.  To have the seal, the crabs are supposed to have been raised in Yangcheng Lake.   A mere “baptism” is not enough. 

Why am I telling this story about hairy crabs?  It makes clear two points about our faith that I think we do well to remember. 

One—the idea of what a seal is.  In an environment of conflicting claims about truth, value and worth, the Suzhou government established a system of guaranteeing quality—a system of seals to identify the genuine article.  There is a great passage in  Second Corinthians where Paul talks about conflicting truth claims—he says these are questions of “yes” and “no”—and affirms that our Christian faith resolves such uncertainty:

 “For in [Christ] every one of God's promises is a "Yes." For this reason it is through him that we say the "Amen," to the glory of God.  But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment” (2 Cor 1: 20-22). 

My experience with the hairy crabs reminded me of what the basic image Paul is using—a seal—is about.   A seal is a mark that authenticates and affirms the truth of something in a setting where truth is questionable.  If a seal is on a document, it affirms the true text or the original agreement.  If it is on an article, it affirms the genuine article.    Like those I.D. numbers and tags on the crabs, it says which ones are truly from the pure lake waters.  

Paul says that God’s Spirit in us is a seal of the genuineness of our faith and the reliability of God’s promises.  He uses other images to describe the Spirit here too:  it is an anointing and a first installment.  “Anointing” in its most basic sense simply means being smeared with oil.  A person was made a king or a priest in ancient Israel by a ritual of putting olive oil on the head or body.  The act set the person aside for a special role and work.  “First installment” is an image from finances and loans—it is the first payment of a much greater sum to come later. 

Elsewhere in 2 Corinthians, Paul says that the presence of the Spirit in our lives is a guarantee of greater things to come.  Again reflecting on the uncertainty and confusion of claims that we meet in daily life, he writes, 

“For in this tent [our body] we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling--if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked.   For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.  So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord--for we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor 5:4-7)."

It is easy enough to see whether a tag is on the leg of a crab claimed to be from Yangcheng Lake.  But if God’s spirit is a seal, a sign of genuineness, then how do we know God’s Spirit is with us?   This brings us to the second point I think we can learn from hairy crabs.  

In Galatians, we read this: 

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the you that resists God (lit., “flesh”).   For what your God-resisting self desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to your God-resisting self.  These are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of a self that resists God are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.”  (Gal 5: 16-23) 

So “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” are fruits of the Spirit, and the spirit is a seal of the sureness of God’s promises.  Being baptized isn't enough, though it is a start.  Life in the spirit is the road.   

 Clergy from Saint John's Cathedral in front of the grave of Matteo Ricci, S.J, 

on the grounds of the Beijing Party School.

We have seen in many places during our pilgrimage how unexpected things have happened, and the course of the Church here has turned.  The Church of the East is as active and widespread as Buddhism during parts of the Tang dynasty, and then disappears.  The Jesuits adapt to local cultural with great success, only to have other religious orders and Rome react, to the ultimate detriment of the Church in China.  Protestant and Roman Missionaries flourish in the 1800s only to provoke the nationalist-driven persecution and suspicion.  From the apparent death of the Church during the Cultural Revolution, we see the huge rebirth and resurgence of the Church in China today. 

 Views of interior of Shanghai's restored Holy Trinity Cathedral. 

God’s promises are sure, but often God moves mysteriously in ways we do not perceive at the time.  But the abiding presence of the spirit, with its calming, peace-building, generous and gentle influence, is a sure sign.  Despite  the uncertainties around us, despite the claims of some that Christian baptism is about as significant as dipping a second-rate crab to get Yancheng Lake tag,  the spirit reassures us of the genuineness of God’s promises.  

In the name of Christ,  Amen.  

 Amity Press in Nanjing produces its 80 millionth Bible this month. 

 Sheshan Basilica of Our Lady of China, now restored, 
in Songjiang in Shanghai's western suburbs. 

 Me and Fr. Ignatius, our host at Sheshan, in front of the High Altar of the Basilica. 
Each May, Sheshan is the destination of hundreds of thousands of Chinese Catholic Pilgrims. 
People walk and pray its Via Dolorosa stations of the cross daily .