Rev Kuruvilla Chandy: Reflections

GOD’S RICH

2010-03-20T00:57:00.002+05:30

“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”

That is a line from David (Psalm 16). To understand that, we need to study that line in its context:
• David started by placing himself under God’s protection (v.1)
• Acknowledged God as the only source of all the good things in his life (v.2)
• Godly company delighted him (v.3)
• God Himself was David’s portion (vv.5-6)
• God was His guide (v.7)
• God‘s presence brought steadiness, joy and security (vv.8-9)
• God was David’s sole and entire hope (vv.10-11).

Essentially, David was saying, “God is my God. And I’m God’s heir.”

Here’s the question for us today: “Would we think of ourselves as rich because we have God as our God?”

When in the fellowship of believers, we would probably answer affirmatively and assert that we are rich because we have God. But how do we feel when compared with Mukesh Ambani—India’s richest person? Forget Ambani. After all, we don’t have anything to do with him. How do you feel when you compare yourself with your neighbour who has a bigger house, and more vehicles and gadgets than you? How about when it is a brother or sister in the Lord who has far, far more than you? Would you still feel rich?

Whenever I’m confronted with the filthy rich and their latest acquisitions, I do wish that their wealth was spread around a bit more, so that I too could have a few more conveniences and comforts in my life. If you are like me, you must feel the same way when you focus on their wealth.

I find that the only way I can get my mind off the riches that other people have is to compare my situation with that of the Lord Jesus when He lived as a poor daily-wage earning carpenter in a dusty little village in primitive times. Compared to Jesus, I’m rich—filthy rich.

You see, “rich” and “poor” are relative terms. We need to have a correct perspective on life’s circumstances. See things in the light of

The history of Jesus having lived life on earth, and
The fact that in the end death strips us completely and sends us into an eternity where we cannot take any of our possessions.

Ultimately, it is a question of our attitude to life.

What is Life About?
One man wanted Jesus to use His influence to get his brother to give him a fair share of the inheritance from his father (Luke 12:13). Jesus replied that He had not been given the job of being an arbitrator between people feuding over property and money. But He didn’t stop there. Jesus turned the occasion into an opportunity to warn people against being greedy (vv.14-15). That seems unfair. The man was not asking for all the family wealth. All he wanted was just a fair share⎯his share. That’s not wrong, is it?

Jesus then went on to tell the story about a man who made hoarding his wealth the only goal of his life. The point that Jesus was making was that life is not about what you possess. All the things you own do not add up to who you are:

Life is not measured by how much one owns (v.15, New Century Version).

Hey, but I want my share of things. I like the thought of having conveniences, comforts and luxuries. I would like to not have to be envious of other people. Of course, I ignore the aspect of other people being envious of me. I don’t want to think about that.

I never buy any Onida products. Nor do I even consider them when surveying the market for the best buy. That’s because the company uses the Devil as their icon. Ah, but the company slogan, “Owner’s pride, neighbour’s envy” strips away all of my pretense, and I see that my desire to have a good life, is in reality a yearning for an enviable life. That desire has the Devil himself as its source; nay, it’s the “devilishness” inside me that wants to have things that cause envy in others. Thank you, Onida, for holding a mirror up for me to see what’s inside me that needs to be exorcised.

In the story that Jesus told on that occasion, a farmer was doing so well that he had to build bigger barns to contain all of the harvest of his labours. Nothing wrong with that. But the man had no thought except that of leading a life of consumption:

He thought to himself, 'What will I do? I have no place to keep all my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and other goods. Then I can say to myself, "I have enough good things stored to last for many years. Rest, eat, drink, and enjoy life!" (vv.17-19, NCV).

According to Christ’s story, God told the man that he had a life that would go beyond his time on earth, and the question he needed to consider was that he could not take his material goods with him (v.20). Who doesn’t know that? Yes, but the way people live their lives it doesn’t seem that we, the people, think that at all. The way we amass what we own, it would appear that we think that this is the only life we have to be concerned with.

Jesus ended by saying that the rich man’s fate would be ours too:

This is how it will be for those who store up things for themselves and are not rich toward God (v.21).

From the very beginning, that is, from the time of the Early Church, most Christians have been impressed with wealth (Jas. 2:1-7). In the end, what impresses us is what draws us on. It sets the agenda for our lives. We need to remember that when the Scriptures talked about “the love of money” it was a reference to a condition within the fellowship of believers:

They think that serving God is a way to get rich. Serving God does make us very rich, if we are satisfied with what we have. We brought nothing into the world, so we can take nothing out. But, if we have food and clothes, we will be satisfied with that. Those who want to become rich bring temptation to themselves and are caught in a trap. They want many foolish and harmful things that ruin and destroy people. The love of money causes all kinds of evil. Some people have left the faith, because they wanted to get more money, but they have caused themselves much sorrow…Command those who are rich with things of this world not to be proud. Tell them to hope in God, not in their uncertain riches. God richly gives us everything to enjoy. Tell the rich people to do good, to be rich in doing good deeds, to be generous and ready to share. By doing that, they will be saving a treasure for themselves as a strong foundation for the future. Then they will be able to have the life that is true life (1 Tim.6:5-10, 17-19, NCV).

What Good are Your Possessions?
The Jewish priestly class looked down on Jesus for being just a poor, itinerant teacher. They thought that He was a bit of a fool for not taking advantage of His popularity and making a lot of money:

[Jesus said] “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” The Pharisees, who dearly loved their money, naturally scoffed at all this. Then he said to them, "You like to look good in public, but God knows your evil hearts. What this world honors is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16: 13-15, New Living Translation)

On that occasion, Jesus told a story about a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus. Though the beggar lay at the gate of the rich man’s mansion, he didn’t even get the scraps from the rich man’s table. Both the men died. The rich man went into an after-life of torment, while Lazarus was transported to the place where Father Abraham was (Luke 16:19-31).

Jesus did not say that the rich man was a wicked man. The point of the story is that the rich man had more than enough for himself and Lazarus, but he just didn’t care. The context implied that the man didn’t serve God with the riches he had been given. He lived to serve his own purpose in life. No, he was not wicked. But he was guilty of indifference toward God and the neighbour at his gate, the beggar who was in dire need. His riches were no good—neither to God nor his fellow-humans.

The Bible teaches that everything we have is from God. It is given to us as a trust. We are not owners of anything, but only stewards of everything that has been put in our charge. Being rich is not an issue. What matters is how we behave when having the custody of riches.

A devout life does bring wealth, but it's the rich simplicity of being yourself before God. Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that's enough. But if it's only money these leaders are after, they'll self-destruct in no time. Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble. Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after. But you, …of God: Run for your life from all this. Pursue a righteous life—a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy. Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life (1 Tim. 6:6-11, 17-19, The Message).

How Hard!
Apart from these stories that Jesus told about the rich, Luke also recorded two real-life encounters of rich men who met with Jesus. Both were seekers. Jesus didn’t seek them out, they came looking for Jesus. One rich man was good (18:18-24), while the other, Zacchaeus, was a wicked man (19:1-10).

What is surprising is that it is the wicked tax collector who was ready and willing to give up his riches, while the good man turned his back on Jesus because he would not give up his wealth.

The good man had come to Jesus with a sense of deep dissatisfaction about his life. When Jesus asked him to follow God’s laws, the man said that he had done that all his life, but confessed to Jesus that he sensed that there was something lacking. Prescribing the cure for his soul, Jesus told him to give away his riches to the poor and needy, and follow Jesus. Even though the young man was so terribly dissatisfied, he was not willing to give away his possessions. The man had cultivated goodness in his life and that had filled him with a deep longing for the complete goodness he sensed still wasn’t there in his life. But he still clung to his riches and walked away from Jesus. Seeing the good man’s reaction to the invitation to join Jesus in His work for God’s rule, Jesus said,

Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who have it all to enter God's kingdom? I'd say it's easier to thread a camel through a needle's eye than get a rich person into God's kingdom. (18:24-25, NLT)

The tax collector, on the other hand, had no longing for what is good, having never cultivated it or developed a hunger for it. All he was trying to do was satisfy his curiosity about Jesus. That was when Jesus had confronted him. Bad man that he was, the Lord never told Zacchaeus to change his life. The Lord wasn’t even critical of him. Amazing!

The Lord isn’t like us at all, when He confronts sinners, is He? All that Jesus did was to merely gave Zacchaeus respect that he never had from others. That just stunned Zacchaeus. And, Zacchaeus, the man who had made it the aim of his life to make money anyhow, by hook or by crook, immediately decided that he had been lifted to such a higher plane that he didn’t want to come down from there, and was willing to pay any cost to stay on that level that Jesus had invited him to. To hold on to Jesus, he gave up what had filled his life till then. He did it for Jesus’ sake. Jesus was worth giving up his riches for (19: 1-10).

Another man met Jesus without seeing Him during the Incarnation, and he said,

I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ (Philippians 3: 7-8, NLT)

Which one of these men are you like? Hard question, huh?

How Much for the Lord?
When Zacchaeus met Jesus, he felt like a king, willing to give away half of what he had, and also repay four times what he had cheated others of. (And we make such a fuss about giving 10%).

But the gift that grabbed the Lord’s attention was one given by a poor widow.

[Jesus said] The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings that they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford—she gave her all! (21:3-4, The Message).

In terms of actual value it was very little—just two mites. Today, there are rich people who give a little bit, and then claim that what they’re giving is their “widow’s mite.” When they do that they contradict the Lord. The Lord was commending her lavishness in giving, but their remark equates her giving to their stinginess. Disciples shouldn’t contradict the Lord’s teaching, but have a desire to do what the Lord taught.

The widow gave all the money she had, leaving herself absolutely nothing to fall back on. The Lord saw her generosity, but didn’t perform a miracle that instantaneously gave her ten times what she had given to God. Think about it. She went to bed hungry that night, and the Lord allowed her to experience hunger and need. She wasn’t giving to get something back, and the Lord didn’t take away from her that sense of being rich toward God.

How much would you give to God? That depends on whether you think of yourself to be blessed by God. That depends on whether you compare your material status with that of the poor daily wage-earning poor Carpenter of Nazareth and know that you have so much more than He had. That depends on whether you think Jesus means more than all you have or want to have. That depends on whether you listen when the Lord commends the poor widow’s giving.

HAVE YOU PUT GOD ON HOLD?

2010-02-03T21:53:00.001+05:30

A few days ago I had to conduct a funeral. One man asked me to announce that cell phones are to be switched off. He said that it was annoying to have cell phones go off during solemn moments. I announced, "To honour God and as a mark of respect for our departed brother....please switch off all cell phones." All around the grave, for once people pulled out their cell phones and switched them off.

But think about it. Why don't people switch off their cell phones before coming to such events as church services?

If you had an appointment with the president of the country, would you go in with your cell phone on? If it rings, while you're with the president, would you take the call? Even if you forgot to observe the protocol of meeting the president without your cell phone switched off, you would not dare to take the call and put the president "on hold". But we dare to put God on hold while we take calls.

Cell phones are the most invasive of all our human inventions. There is nothing else that has invaded our lives like them. This is the worst virus of all, and we don't even know that we have a viral fever that is incurable. This fever keeps us so distracted. Have you noticed that some people will pull out their cell phones while talking to you and quickly look at messages that have come in? Mind you, they know that most messages are of absolutely no consequence. Most cell phone messages are of the "hey there" variety.

If you are trying to have a deep conversation with another, after you see him/her look at the cell phone messages, you know that you've lost their attention and give up trying to carry on a conversation with someone who isn't in spirit with you.

People ask to be excused for their inability to be present for an event and end their plea with the assurance that they will be "in spirit" with us. Maybe it is just a nice phrase that many people use. On the other hand, it could be a way of saying that they are in essential agreement about the forthcoming event. But did you notice that in the last paragraph, in my last sentence, I referred to people who are bodily present before your eyes but distracted by their cell phones that they are "not in spirit with you"?

That is the problem with the cell phone. It has captured the spirit. No technology has been able to capture the spirit in this way. The compulsion to take the phone call or check the message is so enslaving that we are shackled to our cell phones and because the chains are invisible we are not even aware that we have lost our liberty.

Cecil Northcote Parkinson (famous for his book Parkinson's Law--that elaborates on his adage that "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion") in his book In-Laws and Outlaws and Parkinson's Third Law , if my memory is correct, has a chapter entitled "Phones, Paper People..." or at least deals with those subjects. Parkinson describes a businessman's visit with another in the latter's office. When the visitor arrived, he was shown into the office, but the other chap didn't even acknowledge his arrival. The man kept on studying some papers that he held in his hands. Suddenly the phone on his desk rang and he reached for the phone and answered it. After the call which lasted about ten minutes the guy went back to his papers. The phone rang again, and again the man took the call and went back to his papers when the call ended. This happened a third time. The visitor didn't know whether he was being put down, but he got up and left the office without saying a word. The businessman he had been visiting didn't look up from his papers. The visitor went to a phone booth and placed a call to the man he had been visiting. He was answered and he got his work done.

When Parkinson wrote that (1962), there were no cell phones. Wonder what he would say now? Parkinson insisted that he was really a satirist rather than a humorist. "A humorist," Parkinson explained, "… writes about wildly improbable things; but the whole point about me is that whatever I write is true. Nothing is dreamt up. It's how the world is actually organized." Ouch!

Phones, paper, people... "We are like that only," to borrow our standard excuse for misbehaviour.

In 1997, when I left my previous position, for almost a year, I had no phone. An out of town friend, told me that I should get a pager (do you remember those contraptions) and then I would be able to phone people who were trying to get in touch with me. I told him then, that I didn't want to be so much "on call". If someone really needed me, they would come after me and track me down.

Till the end of last year, I resisted owning a cell phone. But I've given in to pressure from Roshini that she gets worried about my whereabouts when I'm late getting home and so I need to have one. I did get one (and have just her number on it) but my mental block is so strong that most of the time I don't even think of carrying it. But, I suppose one of these days, Roshini's pressure will blast that mental block too to smithereens.

Whatever did we do before cell phones came along? Life did get along, didn't it? Our lives weren't unsatisfactory then, because calls and messages were not pouring in all the time.

I'll grant you a cell phone is a convenience (though why the troublesome contraption has such minuscule keys with multiple functions that have to be done with such delicate touches is beyond me and my fat fingers). But let it remain a convenience. Don't let it take over your life by claiming your attention any time all the time. Show your cell phone who's the boss: switch it off for periods of time. Put it in silent mode and check on calls and messages after you have attended to what's important--like being in touch with God, reflecting on life's meaning. Discover the life beyond the small screen on the cell phone. Set your spirit free.

GOD’S KIDS

2009-11-02T23:11:00.001+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, October 4, 2009

In our world today there is a lot of discussion about children at risk. Actually, they’ve always been at risk. For instance, in Old Testament times some people worshipped Molech, described as a “detestable god” (1 Ki.11:5, 7: 2 Ki. 23:13). The sacrifices offered to this god were a person’s own son or daughter. Down through the ages children have been sacrificed with a view to gaining the favour of gods or for the appeasement of demons. In modern times, Tantric rituals have claimed children as sacrifices, and perverts have abused children sacrificing them to lust, and have got away with little or no punishment.

The Bible reveals God to be One Who proclaims the worth of children. They have an ordained place in God’s plan for the created world. God did ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, but that was only to test him, to see whether he would God before his son, and whether he would trust God to keep His promise that Isaac would indeed be his heir. Having seen Abraham’s heart, God didn’t let him go through with the test. He stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son to gain God’s favour, and in a way when God stopped him from sacrificing his son it was in the end an object lesson for all God’s people that God didn’t approve of human sacrifices to gain His blessing.

The Bible reveals God to be the God who proclaimed the worth of children. For God children are not consumables or expendables. Children don’t have to wait until they grow up to be adults before they are included in God’s plans and programmes. Children are included by God because God is Who He is.

The God Family

The biblical revelation of God was in three stages. First, God revealed His transcendence─ that He is God above all, that God is Creator, Sustainer, and Protector. In the second stage of the divine revelation, God’s presence was experienced by people among whom God was incarnate in the person of Jesus. God was God with us, taking part in all our experiences and feeling for us. God cares enough to be our Saviour. In the final stage, God revealed His immanence. He came into human lives as the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, who indwells those who received Jesus as Lord. The Creator, the Saviour and the Sanctifier are three distinct persons, but are completely one, each living in the others (see Jn.10: 31, 38).

The Bible reveals that God is one being in three persons. God is triune. The notion of Trinity is one that is totally incomprehensible to the human mind. Humans are able to comprehend the concepts of singularity or multiplicity and therefore human speculation can come up with doctrines of God being just one person or of the multiplicity of gods. That God is triune is pure revelation. If God hadn’t revealed this truth, we would have just remained with our speculations.

But God has shown us these things through the Spirit.

The Spirit searches out all things, even the deep secrets of God. Who knows the thoughts that another person has? Only a person’s spirit that lives within him knows his thoughts. It is the same with God. No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor.2:10-11, New Century Version).

The best known definition of God is that “God is love” (1 Jn.4:8). Most people don’t know that it is from the Bible. Many reverse the order of the words and think that when they say “love is God” it has the same meaning as the original statement. It doesn’t. Love can be false or true, selfish or unselfish and selfless, possessive or committed but liberating, manipulative or redemptive. The love of God is so true and so redemptive that God is definable as being love in essence. The definition that God is love fits in with the revelation that God is triune.

Love is a word about relationships. If God Who is one, was singular in His oneness, and all alone before He created anything, how could He be love? Such a majestically lonely God could not be love—no more than a hermit living in total isolation and refusing any human interaction could declare that he was in love. For God to be love there has to be someone to love and have a relationship with. That is why it is possible to believe that God is a trinity even though we cannot understand how three persons can be one God or how one God could be three persons. The notion is incomprehensible to the human mind. But it is believable because God is love.

God is the surname of the family, and there are three persons in the God family: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Because God is a family, God calls families into His fellowship. When the world was being destroyed in the Flood, Noah’s family was saved. When humankind continued to alienate itself from God, He chose Abraham and his family. In the Exodus from the slavery in Egypt God liberated all the families of the people of Israel. (The Passover was not inaugurated as a national observance, but it was observed in homes according to their families). Prior to their settlement in the Promised Land, God gave Israel laws that recognized and safeguarded people by their families.

In a family, children are important. In a sense, families are about children. Procreation, nurture of children, and aiming for the settling of children is the agenda of any/every family. When a baby is born, the whole family is centred on that baby.

God recognized the importance of little children and ordained that when Israel observed its most important festival, in every family the littlest one would have a significant role to play in the continuing education of people (Ex.13:26).

God is Father

Before Jesus people knew only about the Creator. They knew Him to be all powerful. Though there were songsters and prophets who talked of God’s loving kindness, people regarded God only as the Almighty Lord. Certainly no one had ever taught that God is Father.

Jesus was the first to tell people that God is Abba (Father). The word “father” is too formal. The word abba is more like “papa”. The idea was totally revolutionary. It still is. Today Muslims in India use the word abba when addressing their fathers, but they would never think of referring to God as Abba.

Paul was so wonder struck and impressed with this usage of the word, that he felt the need to preserve the original Aramaic word Abba within the Greek text of what he wrote (Rom.8:15; Gal.4:6) to stress the significance of Jesus Christ’s teaching that God is Father.

The Jews were expecting that when the Messiah would come, he would restore Davidic kingship and establish an earthly kingdom. But Jesus talked of God’s kingdom as a kingdom not of this world. He said that one did not fight for God’s kingdom in the way that people fought for an earthly one (Jn.18:36). To gain entry into God’s kingdom one must be born again/born from above (3:3, 5). Jesus said that we have to become children to enter God’s kingdom (Matt.18:3). When God is Father, it makes sense that we have to become children in His kingdom.

Churches today don’t regard children as full members. Kids are treated as those in preparation for membership, just like they say that children are the future citizens of a nation. But in God’s kingdom they are the owners of the kingdom. Adults have to become children to enter the kingdom. As children they’re already in. The kingdom belongs to them. They belong to the kingdom. According to Jesus, they have their angels looking at God face to face (18:10). That’s a mysterious statement. But Jesus said it.

Obviously Jesus wanted children to be encouraged and affirmed.

Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me (v.5, NCV).
Whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward (10:42, NASU)

They are not to be treated as outsiders. That’s what the disciples did to children who were brought to Jesus for His blessing (19:13). The disciples thought that children were not important enough for the Master to bother with. They never tried to stop any adult from meeting Jesus—even if they were social outcasts like leprosy sufferers or known prostitutes. But Jesus went against that typical attitude and said that God’s kingdom belongs to children (19:14). Imagine that! But we don’t and that is why we still try to keep kids out saying that they are not ready to be regarded as followers of Jesus.

Children may not be rational about why they accept Jesus when brought up in the circle of faith. They’re just simple followers. They imitate. That is how they learn. If you lead, they will follow. Lead them to Jesus.

God is Faithful

The Bible reveals God to be one who initiates covenants with people. He makes covenants and keeps them.

Covenants are the formalisation of relationships. A relationship is given official or public recognition. One goes on record that the relationship exists. For instance, a wedding proclaims that a man and a woman have entered into a covenant to be faithful to each other, and that no one is permitted to come between them or do anything to undermine their relationship.

Tokens or symbols accompany covenant-making. Tokens give a covenant a real world presence. They are proof that it happened and is not something that we imagined in a dream state.

When God instituted His covenant with Abraham, God made circumcision the sign that all Abraham‘s descendants were to bear. Circumcision was done when a baby was just eight days old (Gen.17:12; 21:4; Phil. 3:5). The ritual clearly declared that God’s plan included children from their very infancy.

Whole households were baptized in the Early Church (Acts 16:15, 33; 1 Cor.1:16). In that ancient world, a household was not a nuclear family, nor just an extended (joint) family of brothers and their families. A household included even the slaves and their families. There were bound to be some kids in such large groups.

Paul wrote that even if only one partner in a marriage is a believer, the children of that marriage are “holy” (1 Cor. 7:14). Scripture says some strange things, doesn’t it? Who would have thought that kids born in a home where one is from another faith are holy?

The end of the matter is, God loves children. Jesus loved kids and drew them into His circle and proclaimed them owners of God’s kingdom. Adult believers, if they are indeed believers, must believe what Jesus said and not try to dispossess the children of the King.

CONDITIONS APPLY

2009-10-06T18:26:00.001+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, September 13, 2009

Old guarantee cards for electrical appliances always had small print. People didn’t usually bother to read the stuff in small print because the print was so tiny. They would read the portion that said that the item was guaranteed for one year and were quite satisfied. When the gadget stopped working, armed with the guarantee card, they would return to the shopkeeper and expect an immediate replacement of the defective piece, only to discover that according to something or the other in the small print they could not expect anything.

These days guarantee cards don’t have small print, but say that “conditions apply.” Yes, the product is guaranteed, but the buyer has to abide by certain conditions. Even today customers discover that the guarantees are not as good as they thought.

Companies announce free offers or the chance to win something or the other in a lucky draw. But “conditions apply.” It isn’t quite so free as the announcement made it appear. When such announcements started to appear, I was in college, and I would say to myself, “I’ll walk into the shop and say, ‘I don’t want to buy anything, but I’ll take the free item’.” Of course, I never did that because I didn’t want to be regarded as someone crazy. The point is there is nothing free. There is always a price to be paid, a condition to meet.

Christian preachers talk about the unconditional love of God. Of course it is:

God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life (Jn.3:16, NCV).

But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Rom.5:8, NCV).

It is true that God’s love is unconditional, but we do have to place ourselves in the path of the love flowing from God. Like a river that floods only the villages and habitations in its way, God’s love floods only into the lives that stand in the path of the flow. That is a condition.

Allow Jesus to Fit Us

When humankind fell, it distanced itself from God. Adam and Eve who fellowshipped with God, no longer felt close to God and avoided His fellowship (Gen.3:8). And that is the way it has been ever since. Our hearts are not inclined toward seeking God. Humans were out of sync or out of tune with God. Someone had to come and do the syncing. Someone had to retune us.

That is what Jesus came to do.

But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God (Jn.1:12-13, NLT).

Being fit for God’s company and kingdom doesn’t come with self-efforts. We need to be reborn. Starting a new page won’t do. Only changing the book and starting afresh would bring us back into fellowship with God (Jn.3:3,5).

Human life comes from human parents, but spiritual life comes from the Spirit (Jn.3:6, NCV).

For this complete changeover to happen all that we need to do is believe that Jesus can and will do it for us (see Jn.1:12-13 again).

For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him. But anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants (3:16-21, NLT)

It is only when we believe that Jesus is able to save us that we will turn to Him. It is only when we believe that Jesus is the only one who can save us that we will turn to Him. Until then, we will try to fit ourselves for the kingdom, but all our own efforts will be unacceptable to God, because like Adam and Eve we declare our independence from God. We declare that we can fit ourselves and become like gods. That’s revolt. That is why it won’t work at making us fit for heaven.

Allow Jesus to Do His Work

The Bible tells us that on the night before His crucifixion, Jesus went around washing His disciples feet. All of the disciples were in shock. They sat there like dumb machines that can be grabbed and manipulated by a living person. The disciples didn’t know how to respond to this act of Christ’s and mechanically extended their feet as Jesus came to each of them. That’s what happened until Jesus came to Peter. The big, blustering fisherman roused himself from his stupor and protested that he wasn’t going to allow His Master to wash his feet. To this Jesus said, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me” (13:8, NLT).

Many people don’t allow Jesus to do His work in their lives. They think that by being a decent sort, they can make the grade. But Jesus is very clear. Unless He is the one washing us clean, it won’t suffice. We just won’t belong to Him. We won’t be fit company for His Father and the Holy Spirit. If we don’t allow Jesus to wash us clean, we declare to Him, “We can become gods without any help from you.” If we don’t allow Jesus to do His work, then we’re still in revolt against God’s rule in our lives.

Some people after coming to Christ, take over handling the rest of their transformation. Peter thought that he would be different from all the others. He was not going to be like others in allowing the Master to touch his feet. He didn’t realize that he was claiming that he could be different from all the others without the Master’s help. Jesus says that it can’t be done. He is the one who can transform us. Without Him, it won’t happen.

Allow Jesus’ Power to Flow

Hard stone in the middle of a river, though awash with water, will still not be able to grow anything. Only soil that is soft enough to allow the water to flow into it is any good for growing any plants. So, it is not enough to stand in the flow of God’s love. There is a need to open our lives to let the love of God enter our lives. Jesus said,

Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples (15:4-8, TM).

Oh yes, the love of God is unconditional. But only the person who will let that love flow into his or her life will experience the unconditional love of God. Nothing can stop the love of God reaching us and entering our lives.

Can anything separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can troubles or problems or sufferings or hunger or nakedness or danger or violent death?…But in all these things we are completely victorious through God who showed his love for us.Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom.8:31-19, NCV)

No one else can prevent us from experiencing the love of God. It is absolutely unconditional. The only one who can stop me from experiencing God’s love is my self. The only condition that applies to experiencing God’s love is that I must let it flow into my life.

CONDITIONS TO FULFILL

Message preached on Sunday, September 20, 2009

In any agreement there are two sides. An agreement is a two-way street. It is a relationship. There is a contractual element to an agreement. There are conditions that apply to both parties.

The condition applicable to being a Christian is that we need to let Jesus do His work in our lives (Jn.13:8). What then are the conditions that we need to fulfill on our part? What does Jesus want me to do?

After Jesus had washed the feet of all His disciples He said,

Do you understand what I was doing? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am.And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet.I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message.Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them (vv.14-17, NLT)

“Do what I did,” is all that Jesus says to us who wish to follow Him. He said that the reason to do this is because we are disciples. That is implied in calling Him “Master”.

Be a Disciple

Many folks think that the word “disciple” is a term that is exclusive to the religious world. That word just means “student” or “learner.” There is nothing religious about the word.

What does a student have to do? Today parents tell their children, and student counselors tell youth, “Concentrate on your studies.” What they mean is that their wards should get book-knowledge or head-knowledge. They should learn the theory. They are being advised to learn with their heads.

Learning was very different earlier on. First of all there was a relationship between teacher and student. That is no longer the case. That is why they have parent-teacher associations in schools today. But it isn’t such a good idea. Parents today don’t want their kids to learn wisdom. Parents want them to learn for a career. They want them to learn, not for learning’s sake, but for something ulterior. With that agenda, parents are the ones to derail any attempts to reform education.

Nehem’s parents admitted him to a school that advertised they would only teach toddlers to learn by playing with toys and with one another. To their dismay, after the first PTA meeting, Nehem started to come home with homework. He had to do reading and writing. His father said, “There should be no PTA meetings.”

In the school of Christ, the teacher-student relationship is important. It is only because of that relationship that anything is required of the student.

Learn by Following

The second thing about education in the ancient past was that the teaching method was what we describe as “show and tell.” There was greater emphasis on learning with hands. Students learnt to do. They gained hands-on-knowledge. Jesus the Teacher told His students, “Just do what I did” (v.15).

When the disciples asked about rank in the kingdom of God, the Lord drew their attention to a child. He told them to be like a child in humility (Matt. 18:1-4). A child may pretend to be a king or a soldier and strut around, but has no airs. He is only playing. Little children do all their learning by imitation. They are humble enough to imitate those that they admire. That is all Jesus is asking us to do. Imitate Him whom we admire. Only then would it be true admiration.

Of course, learning does involve getting head-knowledge. Jesus said that His disciples were to do what He did (v.15), but He also talked of them knowing or learning things and following up the learning with doing it (v.17). Do, learn, and do: that’s what Jesus said.

We think that we must first become a follower of Christ’s and then serve Him. But the Lord turns that notion on its head. He said, “If anyone serves me, let that person follow me” (Jn.12:26). When John Wesley didn’t understand about salvation through faith, the German Moravian Peter Böhler said to him, “Preach faith until you have it, then, because you have it, you will preach faith.” Böhler seems to have said, “Imitate faith and learn.”

What exactly was Jesus Christ’s act of washing the disciples’ feet about? The Apostle John recounted that episode with the following introduction:

Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love (13:1, NIV).

Mark of the Disciple

Jesus demonstrated to His disciples that He was not offended by their self-centredness, selfishness and disrespectfulness. In their quest to race to the top in the kingdom, thinking it was like all earthly power structures, they didn’t even wash the Lord’s feet. No one wanted to wash the Master’s feet lest he found all the other disciples queuing up to have their feet washed right after Christ’s, and he would be manoeuvred out of the race. Each one thought of himself, not of the Master. As the Teacher, He could have ordered anyone into subservience and servility. Instead out of love, He Himself picked up the basin and served them.

What is love? For a Christian it is keeping the Jesus rules—doing what Jesus would do.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (13:34, NIV)

If you love me, you will obey my commands… Those who know my commands and obey them are the ones who love me, and my Father will love those who love me. I will love them and will show myself to them …If people love me, they will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.Those who do not love me do not obey my teaching (14: 15, 21, 23-24, NCV).

I loved you as the Father loved me. Now remain in my love.I have obeyed my Father’s commands, and I remain in His love. In the same way, if you obey my commands, you will remain in my love…This is my command: Love each other as I have loved you (15:9-10, 12, NCV)

When we love others the way Jesus does, we become one with Jesus and His Father. We will be demonstrate by our imitation of Christ Jesus that we are children who belong to God’s family.

When aristocratic families grieve they manifest a quiet dignity unlike the uneducated. While the unschooled give complete expression to their grief with loud wails, and tearing at their hair, or rolling on the ground, the aristocratic will show a calm exterior, even though they feel sorrow just as much as others. But they are conscious of their identity and it makes them conduct themselves in public in a manner that befits their status. In a similar way, we, who are royalty (1 Pet.2:9; Rev.5:10), the children of the King of Heaven, show by our conduct that we are God’s children. Our conduct sets us apart. It distinguishes us.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (13:35, NIV).

For children imitating father or mother is not drudgery, but a joy. Jesus said that we would indeed find joy in obedience.

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love. I have told you these things so that you can have the same joy I have and so that your joy will be the fullest possible joy (15:10-11, NCV).

As we obey, we will find ourselves drawn into friendship. We don’t obey because we are slavish about the laws of God, but because of love being our motivation. We are not slaves. Jesus says we become His friends as we follow Him.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I heard from my Father (15:14-15, NCV).

As a disciples of Christ there are just two basic things we need to learn and do. We need to let Jesus do His work in our lives, and we need to just follow what Jesus did.

PLAYING THE FOOL

2009-08-30T01:08:00.001+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, August 23, 2009

Have you ever played the fool? In a sense, playing the fool is biblical conduct. At least, the idea of playing the fool comes from the words of a biblical character. In the King James Version of the Bible, King Saul described himself as having “played the fool” when he looked back on how he had behaved with his loyal subject David (1 Sam.26:21). Saul had to come to that conclusion because he had manifested a total lack of discernment about two matters:

The sincerity of the godly, and
The sovereignty of God

Saul’s History

Saul had not dreamt of being a king. He seemed to have an inferiority complex. When the prophet Samuel indicated that Saul had been chosen by God to be the king of Israel, Saul’s response was that he was a nobody (9:21). Seems a bit silly and futile to say that to God’s prophet who was announcing what God had planned.

As Saul travelled homeward, along the way, everything that Samuel had predicted had happened, even the fantastic experience of coming under the power of God’s Spirit and exercising the gift of prophecy (10:9-11). Still, when Samuel turned up at his home to go public on God having chosen Saul, the man went and hid himself in a storeroom (v.22). That was how reluctant he was to shoulder the responsibility of leading a nation. His bearing and behaviour made some troublemakers raise the question whether such a man could save the nation and they wouldn’t accept his kingship (v.27). Anyway, after the public investiture by anointing had taken place, incredibly Saul went back to farming (11:5).

Finally, Saul rose to the task when confronted by an enemy nation threatening destruction of an Israelite city (vv.6-11). Riding a triumphant wave, his supporters wanted to punish the troublemakers who had questioned his authority as king, but Saul was magnanimous in victory and said that no one would be punished because the Lord had given the nation its salvation (vv.12-13).

Exceeding the Limits

Up to that point in his life, Saul had shown proper humility. But it would appear that being king did go to his head thereafter. He lost his “sense of proportion” and began to exceed the limits of his kingship.

It so happened that Saul had to go into battle with an enemy nation. When Samuel didn’t come in time to bless them for their campaign, Saul took things into his own hands by not continuing to wait for God’s prophet and assumed the role of God’s prophet (13:7-10).

When Saul took over a task that was not his to perform, Saul forgot that he had been anointed king of the people, but in God’s court he was not king; he too was just one of the people.

Gentile nations believed that their kings were demigods to be worshipped. Not so with Israel. Their king had no authority in the tent of worship. (Israel had no temple until the time of Solomon, and instead the focal point of religious activity was a movable tent containing the ark of the covenant, and other equipment necessary to their style of non-idolatrous worship). In the tent of worship, only the man of God dedicated to worshipful activity had authority to function as the intermediary between God and His people. Saul exceeded his authority and brought his kingship into play in the presence of God.

Saul’s excuse was that his army was beginning to disband (vv.11-12). Gone was the Saul who had attributed the earlier victory to God. He now demonstrated that he believed that Israel’s salvation depended on him. Gone was the dependence on God and instead his behaviour seemed to shout, “Yes, I can.”

When Saul didn’t wait for Samuel, the prophet of God, he indicated that he wasn’t willing to wait for God to choose the moment to act. He would take things into his own hands and proceed. He was going ahead and God’s prophet could follow whenever he wanted to.

Defying the Lord’s Order

If exceeding the limits was a matter of attitude, Saul next flouted a clear order. God had ordered that nothing was to be saved from the next battle. Everything would be dedicated and untouchable and consigned to the flames like a great big sacrifice to God (1 Sam.15:3). Instead of doing what God wanted him to do, Saul led his soldiers in saving the best along with being partial to the enemy king. They burnt up only what no one wanted (v.9). When confronted with this blatant disobedience to God’s command, Saul pretended devotion as the reason for saving the best of the enemy’s possessions: he said that they had saved them to sacrifice to God (v.15). This claim was patently false, because the total destruction that God had commanded was itself to reflect total devotion to God.

The prophet Samuel said then,

What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams (v.22, NLT).

Samuel was not alone in challenging God’s people about pretended religiosity.

What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?” says the Lord.

“I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams

and the fat of fattened cattle.

I get no pleasure from the blood

of bulls and lambs and goats.

When you come to worship me,

who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony?

Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts;

the incense of your offerings disgusts me!

As for your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath

and your special days for fasting—

they are all sinful and false.

I want no more of your pious meetings.

I hate your new moon celebrations and your annual festivals.

They are a burden to me. I cannot stand them!

When you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look.

Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen,

for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.

Wash yourselves and be clean!

Get your sins out of my sight.

Give up your evil ways (Isa.1:11-16,NLT; cf. Jer.6:20; 7:21).

Losing It

His disobedience left Saul disturbed internally. The Lord’s Spirit left him, and he was tormented by a demonic spirit (1 Sam.16: 14-15).

When people give up their faith in God, they become tormented souls. In early science lessons, I learnt that nature doesn’t allow a vacuum to exist. Similarly, in the spiritual realm, there cannot be a vacuum. The space emptied by God, gets taken over by demons. When people leave God, they become open to occupancy by evil spirits. That is what happened to Saul.

Our Lord told a story about an evil spirit being cast out and rendered homeless. It kept searching for a place to stay, until its wanderings brought it back to the space it had been thrown out of. The evil spirit discovered that the space was still vacant. The soul that had been liberated from being possessed by the evil spirit had not bothered to fill up the emptiness. The evil spirit quickly repossessed the space along with a bunch of its friends. The Lord said that the last state of that soul was worse than its first state of being possessed by one spirit (Matt.12:43-45).

In Saul’s disturbed state, he was not able to recognize his own friend. Even though, David had joined Saul’s service earlier to be a personal attendant who would soothe and heal his disturbed state with gentle music (1 Sam.16:21-23), he is unable to recognize David when David showed that he was a very brave soul (17:55-57). Blinded by his envy of David (18:6-9), Saul tried to kill David at the very time when David was doing him good with his music (vv.10-11). Saul then plotted David’s murder by assigning David a task that required bravery knowing that David would rise to the task (vv.17-29) and kept on trying again and again to murder David. Even after David had spared his life (24:1-22), Saul was unable to discern loyalty when he saw it in David. In the end, he lost the services of his most loyal servant (27:1-2).

Another Loses Sanity

One aspect of Saul’s lack of discernment was that of his not discerning the sovereignty of God. From time to time, he did manifest an awareness of it (18:28-29; 24:20-21), but he didn’t go beyond the awareness to submit to the Lord’s sovereignty. Instead he kept bucking God’s authority again and again. Having had a taste of power, he was not ready to give it up even at the Lord’s command.

Beware power. It not only corrupts the soul in its relationships and dealings, but it stands defiant before the Lord God Himself, because power sees itself as power. Within its own circle power is absolute and defies the sovereignty of God. That is what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.

God gave Nebuchadnezzar a vision of the future of generations to come. He sensed that this dream of his was different from all the meaningless ones he had shared with his wise men allowing their silly interpretations to amuse him. So unlike other times, he refused to tell the wise men his dream. He figured that if they really could discover the meaning of a dream, then they ought to be able to discover the dream itself. His wise men assured him that they could come up with an interpretation for his dream, if they were told the dream. But Nebuchadnezzar was determined to safeguard against fraud.

When the order to kill wise men unable to tell him the dream and its interpretation went out, Daniel and his friends prayed for God’s revelation. The dream was revealed to Daniel and he told the king that the dream was about four empires, starting with himself (Daniel chapter 2). Even though Daniel’s interpretation made it clear that ultimately Nebuchadnezzar and all other earthly powers would be displaced by the last King, Nebuchadnezzar decided to honour himself by erecting a huge statue of himself to be worshipped. He forgot that the displacement order was already given from heaven.

When Daniel’s friends refused to give in to the command to worship the king’s image, Nebuchadnezzar should have remembered that he was not the main point of the dream, that he was not the aim of it all. He should have backed off from demanding to be worshipped. After seeing God’s intervention rescue Daniel’s friends from the fiery death that he had planned, Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged the Lord God’s greatness and power (chapter 3), but otherwise continued to ignore all that God’s servant had taught him.

God tried to reach Nebuchadnezzar a second time with a dream. It was a disturbing dream with weird images: a tree trunk, that has the mind of a man, and that mind becoming like an animal’s. This time the wise men don’t try to interpret the dream, knowing that the king would know when they were winging it. Daniel gave warning that doom was coming, but the king, while honouring Daniel as the man who could interpret dreams, continued to enjoy his power as though God didn’t matter. The dream happened. Nebuchadnezzar became insane for seven years as predicted. Healing and the return to sanity came only with Nebuchadnezzar acknowledging God to be God (chapter 4).

Coming to Oneself

In the story of the prodigal son, we see the younger son insanely asking for his share while the father was alive. No one inherits while the original owner is still around. He mistook the father’s kindness and generosity for his own craftiness.

The man went as far away as he could to get away from all the influences of his home. As long as he had the means to ply people with food and drinks and have a good time, he was surrounded by fair-weather friends. When the means were gone, the friends were gone. No one would give him a helping hand when he needed it, and he ended up looking after pigs. He was so desperate that he tried to live on pig’s food. That is when he “came to himself” (Lk.15:17, KJV).

The young man had thought that he could find happiness far from his father, his home, and all the godly influences in his life. He let himself go. He thought he was enjoying himself. In the end, it was the memory of his father and his home that helped him retrace the steps in his life till he found himself once again in his father’s home. Thank God for the godly influences in your life. Their memory may one day save you when you wander off and they will serve in bringing you back to your spiritual home.

The prodigal youth did not have the discernment to see that bad friends cannot be good friends. They don’t know how to be friends. They’re not in it for your good. Sometimes we too fool ourselves with such “friends”, imagining that they are our friends. They are not friends, who only want a good time all the time

The rule of thumb that the prodigal discovered is that any friendships that require us to do a one-sided spending of all of our worldly goods are not friendships. Any relationship based on possessions is not a relationship.

The prodigal son came to himself: that is when he came to his senses. He knew he had to go back to his father whom he had hurt with his demand of his share as though he wished the father was already dead. He knew he had hurt his father by going away and he knew it was time to end the exile and return home even with a sense of unworthiness. It was foolish to have gone away. It would be foolish to stay away after coming to one’s senses. It would be foolish to not recognize that it is time to go home.

Two Fools

While the prodigal came to himself, our Lord taught about two who were fools to the end. One thought it foolish to waste time on foundations. He believed in quick results and proud displays of how quick he was in achieving his aims, while another was plodding along with slowly and painstakingly laying a foundation in rock. The foolish build on shifting sands. The wise build on rock. Both superstructures look the same, until the storms come. Then it is that the structure built on rock shows its solidity (Matt.7:24-27).

The second fool thought that planning his life was all important. His plans were great, and he had bigger and better plans. He thought that all he planned was all that mattered. Sounds like one of us, doesn’t it? The man made all the plans for this life, and none for the next. God looked down from heaven, shook His head and whispered, “You fool. Tonight when your soul is required to appear before me, who will all that belong to?” (Lk.12:16-21).

We do not have all the time in the world. We have so very little time. If we had all eternity to make up our minds and take decisions, then we could delay the moment when we must stop playing the fool. But we don’t have all eternity for that. The time to stop playing the fool is now.

EXALT YOUR COUNTRY

2009-08-20T09:24:00.002+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, August 16, 2009:

Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots? (Jer.13:23, NRSV)

The rest of that verse reads, “Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.”

When travelling internationally, I am ashamed to be an Indian. Here are my reasons. While waiting for our flight to be announced, an earlier flight is announcing its “last boarding call” asking Ms Rukmani Das, Mrs Rani Chatterjee, Mr Raj Chatterjee and Mr Deepak Rajsekar to get to the gate immediately as the flight is ready to leave. The “last boarding call” is made several times. After about ten minutes of this four persons are seen rushing to the gate, loaded with shopping bags of stuff they’ve bought at the duty free shops. And this is typical. If it is a flight to Delhi or any Indian airport there will definitely be such last calls, and 9 times out of 10, the missing people are Indians.

After our flight has been boarded, and we’ve settled in our seats, there are announcements about switching off mobile phones, laptops and similar electronic devices that would interfere with the aircraft’s systems. Close by is a smart young Indian guy with a fancy mobile phone who ignores the announcement and continues to talk to his contact. The flight attendant approaches him and asks him to please switch off the phone. He nods and indicates that he is doing it, but when the attendant moves on, continues to talk. The attendant returns to repeat her request. This time he raises his palm and indicates that he will do it in a minute. The airhostess hasn’t moved on, and repeats her request. This time there is an edge to her voice. Finally, 7 minutes after the announcement was made the man switches off his phone. This too is typical. In the movie Love Aaj Kal, Deepika Padukone is shown talking on her mobile phone and the flight attendant having to repeatedly request her to switch off her phone. The producer of the movie probably wasn’t showing that to correct any behaviour but to suggest the intensity of her relationship with Saif Al i Khan whom she is talking to. Still the producer did capture an Indian trait. On any flight headed toward India, there are always some Indians who will behave in this manner.

The head attendant makes the announcement that our flight is approaching Delhi. She also adds that everyone is to remain seated until the seat belt sign is switched off. But the moment the announcement is over, two or three men have sprung up from their seats to open the overhead storage bins and retrieve their hand baggage. The attendant makes a strident announcement that everyone is to not open the storage bins and to immediately return to their seats. In one case, a flight attendant had to go up to the person and insist on immediate compliance.

Some may sheepishly grin and make light of it: “We are like that only.” But I cannot take this lightly. I say that at the least, this kind of behaviour is inconsiderate, and at the worst it is dangerous—for others.

Why?

In my view, the reason Indians behave this way is that we are a nation in “civil disobedience mode”. India won its independence through Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement against the British. It was passive resistance. He called it satyagraha. The term literally means “truth force.”

The principles of satyagraha are:

Sat—openness, honesty, fairness: Truth. Ahimsa —refusal to inflict injury on others. Tapasya —willingness for self-sacrifice.

Gandhi’s ideas on civil disobedience were not original, though his attempts gained him more prominence than the original propagator. In 1849 Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay to explain his reasons for refusing to pay a poll tax that the American government had imposed on citizens in to order to finance a war against Mexico and to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law.

Martin Luther King picked up Gandhi’s example when he led the revolt against laws that kept blacks oppressed and suppressed in the US of A. Later on blacks in South Africa along with whites who had a sense of justice resorted to civil disobedience methods to overthrow apartheid. American students stopped the Vietnam War with their non-cooperative sit-ins.

What we need to understand is that civil disobedience involves a conscientious objection to a law. Civil disobedience announces its intention to disobey, and accepts that, as long as the law remains unchanged, such disobedience merits punishment.

As “descendants” of freedom fighters our people are in civil disobedience mode. But it’s just a mode. They are just being modish, that is, fashionable.

Our notions of freedom are that we are free from rules. Most Indians have the attitude that rules are not for them, but they believe that it is for everyone else.

The Bible Says

The Christian’s Bible has another take on the law. The Bible says that the law in summary is aiming at everyone loving their fellow humans. What the law does is to prevent any one person exceeding the limits of liberty and intruding in someone else’s space. It prevents us from treading on another’s toes.

This notion comes from the Lord Jesus who described Himself as having come, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matt.5:17). Jesus said that all God’s law could be “hung” on just two: love God and love neighbour (Matt.22:40).

Paul followed with an elaboration of this idea, when he wrote that the entire law is summed up in one commandment—to love one’s neighbour as oneself (Rom.13:1-7).

The Bible is clear:

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people (Pro.14:34).

How shameful it is when, year after year, we read that according to Transparency International, the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption, India is way at the bottom of the list. We are ranked among the most corrupt of the world. Come let’s break the mould. Let’s not be “like that only.” Let us show that there is another kind of Indian—the kind that is a pleasure to live with and work with, because we are followers of Jesus, who said,

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s (Matt.22:21).

We have a call to be the most law-abiding people in the country. Peter wrote:

For the Lord’s sake, respect all human authority…It is God’s will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you. For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil. Respect everyone, and love your Christian brothers and sisters. Fear God, and respect the king (1 Pet.2:13-17. NLT).

To get the thrust of what Peter said understand that we are to

Do good.
Live free.
Live as God’s servants

Peter spelt out that living as God’s servants involved

Showing proper respect for authority
Loving God’s faithful ones
Fearing God
Honouring those in authority

Between AD 125-200, an unknown Christian wrote to a government official named Diognetus, wrote as follows to explain the distinctiveness of Christians:

Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life. This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human teaching, as some people do. Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man's lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed. It is true that they are "in the flesh," but they do not live "according to the flesh."They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require. They love all men, and by all men are persecuted. They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet they are brought to life. They are poor, and yet they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance. They are dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are vindicated. They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they still pay due respect. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; undergoing punishment, they rejoice because they are brought to life. They are treated by the Jews as foreigners and enemies, and are hunted down by the Greeks; and all the time those who hate them find it impossible to justify their enmity. To put it simply: What the soul is in the body, that Christians are in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but does not belong to the body, and Christians dwell in the world, but do not belong to the world. The soul, which is invisible, is kept under guard in the visible body; in the same way, Christians are recognised when they are in the world...The flesh hates the soul and treats it as an enemy, even though it has suffered no wrong, because it is prevented from enjoying its pleasures; so too the world hates Christians, even though it suffers no wrong at their hands, because they range themselves against its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and its members; in the same way, Christians love those who hate them. The soul is shut up in the body, and yet itself holds the body together; while Christians are restrained in the world as in a prison, and yet themselves hold the world together. The soul, which is immortal, is housed in a mortal dwelling; while Christians are settled among corruptible things, to wait for the incorruptibility that will be theirs in heaven. The soul, when faring badly as to food and drink, grows better; so too Christians, when punished, day by day increase more and more. It is to no less a post than this that God has ordered them, and they must not try to evade it.

While we may not agree entirely with the theology regarding the relationship between the soul and the body, we can understand from the context that the author wrote to show that Christians were the breath of fresh air that comes to revive a nation. Our Lord said they serve as salt that preserves and flavours our food (Matt.5:12), and light that shows the way to those on the inside, but are not hidden from those on the outside, for they are the city set on a hill—the hill of Calvary (5:13-16). No doubt, Calvary is a very small hill, but from the point of view of human history, there is no higher peak than Calvary. That is why everyone expects more from Christians, and when Christians disappoint them, it is the light in our lives that is dimmed.

EXITING THE WORLD

2009-08-05T01:09:00.001+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, August 2, 2009, after the cremation of a pastor aroused questions and controversy.

Different societies of people have various funeral practices. Did you know that the Zoroastrians or the Parsis of India place the dead bodies of their people in towers of silence? A tower of silence is a place where Parsis leave dead bodies to be devoured by vultures and other scavenger birds. Seems a heartless and gruesome way to dispose of their dead.

The reason they do it this way is that like most religions there is a notion that the body is evil and impure, and disposing of it in one of the elements (the sky, soil, water, air, fire) would defile them. When I was in school, there was no subject like “environmental studies.” Now that they do, I wonder if anyone would say that this method is the most environmental-friendly way to dispose of the dead. Not only is there no contamination of soil or water, but birds in the wild are fed. (What if they are a nuisance to aeroplanes—which are anyway machines that pollute?)

There is another method of disposing a dead body that seems rather uncaring toward family sentiments. I refer to donating the body for research or to harvest as many of the organs as needed. I carry a card in my purse, so that in case I die on the road, attending docs and nurses may go ahead with harvesting all available organs. Some people think that donations will affect their resurrection, because they think that somehow they will be complete in heaven only if they hold on to all their organs. (This argument will be confronted when we look at the arguments against cremation).

Sacred History

Most Christians choose burial to dispose their dead. They think that this is the right way to do it because it is the biblical way. They think that cremation goes against the teaching of the Bible. Most people think that the Bible doesn’t have any record of instances of cremation.

Saul and his sons were killed by Philistines. Later in order to shame Israel, the Philistines identified their bodies, cut off their heads and displayed their stripped bodies ignominiously on the walls of the city Beth Shan. Hearing of the ignominy people of Jabesh Gilead mounted a rescue operation to recover the dead bodies and on succeeding, quickly burnt the bodies (1 Sam.31:to prevent the Philistines getting hold of the bodies and shaming them again). Even if we discount Saul because of his apostasy, Jonathan, a good man was among those slain. The Bible records the story of his cremation without any disapproval of it.

The second argument against cremation is that Jesus was buried, not cremated, and Christians are to follow in Christ’s steps. Sounds very devout, except that Jesus was not buried. His body was laid in a tomb carved out of rock and a stone cover was rolled into place closing the mouth of the tomb. The Jews didn’t practise burial in the same way that we do today. When Sarah died Abraham bought a cave for her burial (Gen.23:19-20). He needed a cave to prevent animals from desecrating the dead body of his loved one. We don’t bury that way. Our way is to dig a hole in the ground, put the body into the hole and then cover it up with soil. There is no record of anything similar to that description being done in the case of any of the burials described in the Bible.

In 1963, the Roman Catholic Church allowed cremation as one of the ways in which to dispose of dead bodies. Usually the Roman Catholic Church is the conservative bit of the Church, and the last to give up any tradition or practice. When they give up a practice, it is most often because they have come to the conclusion that they have run out of reasons and excuses for clinging to custom.

Practical Reason

If we were Christians living in Japan, there would be no question about what to do. It is illegal to bury in Japan and so we would be opting for cremation without questions or qualms.

If the RSS had its way in India, it would soon impose laws that make all minorities conform to whatever the group wished. And we would all fall in line. We are known to accommodate to prevailing law and custom. Christians in the UAE have changed their day of worship to Friday because the weekly day off there is Friday. Christians are not clinging to Sunday as though there is a sacred compulsion to worship corporately on Sundays only.

While we would have no difficulty to changing our customs to suit the RSS, and in this case there is nothing wrong with the change, such readiness to do what we are told should be what is questioned. Do you recall that the excuse of Nazi criminals was that they were merely following orders?

Theological Arguments

The most often asked question that Christians have in the matter of donations or cremations is that of how our resurrected body could be raised if we burn it all up or raised complete if we donate its parts.

If God couldn’t raise people who were totally reduced to ashes by cremation, then what hope would there be for the martyrs burnt at the stake? What hope is there for those eaten by the lions, for those lost at sea, for those who die in disasters such as wild fires or are struck by lightning and incinerated?

Those who ask this, have a very small god, who is totally lacking in sovereign power. If we believe in the absolute sovereignty of God, we would be echoing the line of John the Baptist. He told the Jews that they were not to pride themselves on their lineage and heritage, because if pure bloodline was all that God required, God could produce that out of stones (Lk.3:8). After all, God is the one who created everything out of nothing.

Early Christians did insist on burial (similar to what was done to the body of Jesus, not similar to our practice of putting the body into a hole in the ground and then covering it up with the soil). Their insistence was in contrast to the Roman practice of cremation. Why didn’t they adapt to Roman custom (in line with the notion, when in Rome, do as the Romans)?

For Early Christians, their insistence on burial was a statement of their faith. They believed that their dead were “sleeping” (see Stephen’s death—Acts 7:60) waiting to be awakened by the resurrection call of the Returning Lord. You must remember that their expectation that Jesus would return was an expectation that this blessed event would happen in their generation. They never thought that Jesus would wait for generations before returning. It is because of this belief that their departed were sleeping that they needed cemeteries. The word “cemetery” is derived from the Greek word koimētērion which means “dormitory” or “sleeping chamber”.

Not Soul Sleep

One of the best pictures we have of the present state of departed souls is in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man’s soul is not asleep but acutely aware of his own surroundings and also perceptive of how envious was Lazarus’ situation (Lk.16:19-31).

Paul described life here as living in tents. They are good for camping, but no one thinks of them as permanent dwellings (2 Cor.5:1-5). As a song writer put it,

This world is not my home,

I’m just a passing through...

Paul expressed a longing to be with the Lord, and said that the moment we are absent from the body, that moment we are present with the Lord (vv.8-9). In his words, “mortality is swallowed up by life.” The paraphrase that is echoing in my mind is the line, “Death is swallowed up by life.” We think that death snatches our loved ones from us. The perspective that God gives us is that life eternal has snatched our loved ones from dying and death. From the time we begin life, we are dying. God snatches us from the dying. That’s a totally different picture from what we see when our eyes are filled with tears.

One of the best pictures we have of life in heaven is given us in Revelation 7:14-17:

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Therefore they are before the throne of God,

and serve him day and night in his temple;

and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;

the sun shall not strike them,

nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes (ESV).

At a recent funeral, when I thanked the Lord that He had called the departed one to “serve” Him more fully, one who heard me protested. She said, “I don’t want to be working. I’m tired of working.” Somehow, we imagine that in heaven we will sit around on clouds and have golden harps in our hands and we will be lazily singing. But the Word of God uses the word “serve” and one meaning of the word is no doubt “worship”, but it is more than a rite of worship or why use the loaded word “serve”, suggesting that we will be working for the Lord, except that we will not be tired by drudgery, but enabled for the task. The passage also says that the Lord will shepherd and guide us. And you thought that when you arrive in heaven, you would have arrived. But the passage suggests that we will be going on a journey. This time it won’t be one of trial and error like when we try to find places here in our cities. The Lord will be our guide and He is taking us on a journey of discovery. And the best part is that the hand that wipes our tears away, will wipe them away forever. Here on earth when loved ones comfort us and wipe our tears away, the tears will come again and again. But when the hand of the Lord wipes our tears away, it will be for the last time. There will be no more tears.

Indulge me. I’m not being crude. There was a time when I used to be worried about wearing underwear with any tiny holes because I thought that if I should die suddenly, whoever discovers my body would find me improperly clothed. A while back, I realised that it was ridiculous to worry about how I would appear in death. I would be gone. I wouldn’t be there at all. What did it matter what the shell (the tent) looked like.

Similarly, funerals and cemeteries are only way stations. They are not the final destination. Let’s not get bogged down fighting wars about them. Let’s remember that what is important is when our final rites proclaim, “Death is swallowed up by life. It isn’t death that has snatched our loved ones. God has snatched them from dying.”

THE BEST BUY

2009-08-02T00:05:00.001+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, July 19, 2009

Food, clothing, shelter, employment—these are the essentials of life, aren’t they? But I want to add one more to this list of essentials: shopping. Without shopping you can’t get your food and clothing. You have to shop around for shelter and employment too.

Shopping wasn’t always the way people went about choosing what they would get to fulfil their needs. At the beginning there was the barter system. Men would sit around at a commonly designated place to exchange what they had produced in excess to get something else they hadn’t produced but needed. Maybe the guy with rice would approach the guy who had eggs and offer him 10 hands full of rice for 4 eggs. But the weaver with a bale of cloth was in trouble. No one was buying what he had because people wanted to get new clothes only for festive occasions. A number of people approached the guy with the goat. One said he wanted just a pound of meat, another said he needed three pounds. All the orders came only to about 6 pounds, but there were 60 on the hoof. The worst off was the guy who had nothing in front of him. When people asked him what he was selling he said that he could play 20 songs for anyone who needed a bit of music to be played for a special occasion. The people laughed at him and told him to go home and come back during the wedding season.

As time went on the barter system became exploitative. Those who had essential goods to barter began to take advantage of those whose goods were not that desperately needed. The man who had rice told the weaver that he would give him 20 hands full of rice for his entire bale of cloth. He told the man who had eggs that he would give him a handful of rice for each egg, and told the man who had the goat that he would let him have half a sack of rice for the live goat. It’s when that sort of thing happened that elders of societies began to develop a currency system. In primitive societies cattle were often used in the way we use currency. Imagine going to the market to buy some rice and oil, and taking a cow or two to give as payment for the items needed. In India and other parts of the world there was a time when cowries (porcelain-like shells) were used before currency was minted.

When the barter system ended, community sharing came to an end. It was replaced by selling. Markets and sales depend on exploiting needs and driving hard bargains. When anyone takes more than a fair price people describe is as “highway robbery.”When the highway robber wants to take your purse, he says, “your money or your life.” The challenge of the robber is one that makes us realize what truly matters when we strip our lives down to the bare essentials.

In your life what are the things you are buying? Or, to put it another way, what are you investing in? Never thought that your shopping would reveal your character, did you?

Our Lord talked about two men and their investments. The circumstances of their lives were the exact opposite. One was a poor man, a labourer, the other was rich, a merchant (Matt.13:44-46). The first man wasn’t searching for anything. He was just going about doing a hard day’s work. The other man was a shrewd man on the lookout for bargains and good buys. One found buried treasure; the other found the pearl of great price. Both men decided that what they had discovered was worth all that they had hoarded until then. When they succeeded in getting possession of what they had concluded was worth it all, their dull life of digging or searching was rendered ecstatic in one moment.

Our Lord Jesus said that we are to store up treasure in heaven. On earth stores can be robbed, or spoilt, or destroyed in some way (Matt.6:19-21). Since money can’t be dispatched to heaven, how did Jesus expect His followers to store up money and riches heaven, but let’s face it that all the storing up we Christians do is done on earth. We preach about storing up in heaven, but our aim and goal is to have valuables stored up for our present life and our retirement on earth.

The Apostle Paul, taking his cue from our Lord, said that we are not to run after what the world values, but instead make plans for increasing our riches in heaven:

…run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you…Teach those who are who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others.By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life 1 Tim.6:11-19, NLT).

Paul appears to have been the one to clarify how storing up in heaven takes place. He said that we are to be generous toward those in need. But that too came from our Lord, who said,

If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously (Matt.5:39-42).

Instead of hateful tit-for-tat, Jesus said that our tit-for-tat should be one of love. John the Baptist who was Christ’s herald told people that if they had more than what they needed, they were to give away the extra stuff:

Whoever has two shirts must give one to the man who has none, and whoever has food must share it (Lk.3:11, GNB).

When the Early Church started up, one of the Spirit-inspired and Spirit-empowered phenomena that manifested the arrival of the Spirit was that there was a whole community of believers practising a life of sharing what they had:

All the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved (Acts 2:44-47, GNB).

Allow me to give you something to easily remember what we must value:

Hang loose where it concerns possessions.

Hang on to what is of value—your faith in Christ.

Hang out with those who love the Lord.

BUYING WITHOUT MONEY

2009-08-01T01:10:00.001+05:30

The message preached on Sunday, July 12, 2009

There have always been sales prior to holi and diwali. But these days throughout the year shops have sales and free offers. When I was in college and for the first time noticed the shop signs announcing free offers, I imagined walking into a shop and saying, “I don’t want the item you are selling, but I’m here to take the free item.” Of course, I never did that because I knew that I couldn’t just get the free item. I knew it really wasn’t free. I had to buy the unwanted item before I could get the item that was being advertised as free. The free items aren’t really free are they?

The prophet Isaiah, speaks for God, and announces,

Hey there! All who are thirsty, come to the water! Are you penniless? Come anyway—buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money—everything’s free! (55:1, TM).

What a ridiculous idea! How can anyone buy without money? Has the prophet lost his wits?

Right to Buy

The invitation to buy is given to everyone who is thirsty. To find your way to the market where food and drink are free, you must know that you are a person in need. If you don’t recognize your need, you are not going to turn toward the market of free goods.

Knowing your need is to know yourself. People adopt different ways of dealing with need. One of them is to deny the need. The person who denies his need, may appear to be handling his trouble well, but in reality is foolishly blocking himself from reaching a solution to his problem. It certainly isn’t wise to live in denial.

The second condition by which one gains admission to the free market is that of the buyer not being able to buy whatever is on sale. The invitation is given only to people without money or the ability to take care of their needs.

Centuries later when Jesus arrived on the scene, He said,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt.5:3).

That is not the rule by which the world runs. One has to be “spirited” to get on in this world. The strong-willed and purpose-driven are the ones who get ahead in our world. J B Phillips depicted that in the world’s version of the beatitudes:

Happy are the “pushers”: for they get on in the world. Happy are the hard-boiled: for they never let life hurt them. Happy are they who complain: for they get their own way in the end. Happy are the blasé: for they never worry over their sins. Happy are the slave-drivers: for they get results. Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world: for they know their way around. Happy are the troublemakers: for they make people take notice of them (When God Was Man, pp. 26-27 Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1955)

But in God’s kingdom, only those who have no money can buy milk and honey; only they will possess the kingdom.

What Options?

The rich are always looking for options. They want options on anything and everything. They live their lives in supermarkets. They love the choice. They just love it all.

But for the poor there are no options. They are poor and they are therefore helpless. They cannot afford choice and are given none. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” you know.

When God’s prophet says to the poor that they can buy without money, Isaiah was saying that they are being given a choice. A buyer has choice. A buyer has the right not to buy. God says to you that even though you don’t have what will pay for what God gives, you can still get it. But it is your choice.

How does one decide what to buy? People buy what they value. They want their money’s worth, and they buy to own what they buy. They want to keep what they buy. People don’t buy things in order to throw them away. As Alvin Tofler pointed out in his book Future Shock, originally the ballpoint pen was invented as something to be used and thrown away. But people were unhappy with the concept, which is why the body was reinvented in such a way that it could be reused with a refill.

Earlier Buys

Isaiah looked around at what people were buying in his day. He considered the history of their purchases. They call it “market research” these days, but he was scrutinising things from a prophetic viewpoint. Isaiah was dismayed when he saw all the stuff people had bought earlier:

Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare (v.2).

They had bought

What wasn’t essential
What didn’t satisfy
What wasn’t good
What wasn’t pleasing

The prophet literally begs people to buy what he has to sell. But when the prophet spoke, he spoke for God. The Lord wants people to have the things that are essential for their life, and God is the only one who can give them what they need.

How?

The big question is, how can one buy without money. The answer to that question is, “If daddy pays.”

Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David. See how I used him to display my power among the peoples. I made him a leader among the nations. You also will command nations you do not know, and peoples unknown to you will come running to obey, because I, the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, have made you glorious (vv.3-5, NLT).

Junior armed with daddy’s credit card can buy things without money. God has given us a promise that allows us to buy. He has set up a covenant account for us. He has given us unfailing love. And the glory of God’s grace is going to dazzle people.

What To Do

To take advantage of any free offer, you have to fulfil requirements. What God has offered is truly free. You don’t need money, and you can’t buy what God has to give. But there are still requirements. The prophet said,

Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life (v.3).

What God wants people to do is to give up their way and try His way (v.8). They tried their own way and managed to buy only misery. God offers something good and satisfactory and delightful.

Every sale and special offer is for a limited period. And so it is with God offers:

Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near (v.6).

You don’t need money or anything else the world considers enough to be a person with options in God’s kingdom, but you do need to remember that the options aren’t open forever. The offer is time-bound.

God says, “At the right time I heard your prayers. On the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you that the “right time” is now, and the “day of salvation” is now (2 Cor. 6:2, NCV).

The Guarantee

When you buy something you want a guarantee. We want it to last. The buyer is never one who is in love with a throwaway society. The seller wants it to be that kind of world because it is to his advantage. But the buyer is looking for the assurance that what he has bought is better stuff than what he didn’t buy. He wants it to be a sure thing and one that is durable. That is exactly what God has guaranteed.

God offers what is better: its worth is sky-high (vv.8-9).
God offers what is sure: His Word is sure; it’s guaranteed (vv.10-11)
God offers what is durable: the joy and peace promised by God will last forever (vv.12-13).

In the world’s markets, sellers have only one interest: their profit. God is not a seller like them. He is the only seller whose interest is yourself. It is your salvation that He is interested in. When God “sells” His salvation, you are the one who profits.

OF CRIMES & SINS

2009-07-25T08:11:00.004+05:30

(On Sunday, July 5, 2009, Pastor Kuru’s message addressed the matter of the Delhi High Court ruling favouring homosexuals. The following article is based on that message with added material regarding Freud, Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson and their views).

"Decriminalization" is the new buzzword in India. Just weeks ago the Delhi High Court decriminalized homosexuality. It ruled that treating consensual gay sex as a crime was a violation of fundamental rights protected by India's constitution. One gay activist said, "We've finally entered the 21st century."

Decriminalization involves declaring that something that was once a crime is no longer a crime. To put it another way, what was once red is no longer red; what was once green is no longer green. Logic tells us that that's just not possible. Either something was red and is still red, or it was never red in the first place. Human sanction or legislation doesn't change reality and truth.

Most of our statutory laws were received from the Brits, and for the most part we have not amended them. The law about homosexual conduct is part of our British legacy. According to British law in the colonial era, homosexual acts were "against the order of nature." What needs to be recognized is that that notion was not based on the national culture of Britain, but on the teaching of the Bible.

Today, most Western nations are best described as godless societies. Most people are irreligious. They are not atheists, but agnostics. They don’t say that there is no God, but that they don’t know if there is one. If there is one, they feel that they do quite well without depending on God. If there is one, God is in deity’s corner, and they are in theirs. God doesn’t bother them and they don’t bother God. Life goes on. Given such a view of life, it is not surprising that values based on what the Bible teaches are being discarded in the Occident.

Freud Slips

First there was Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), an Austrian neurologist. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind. He said that the mind represses unpleasant incidents and memories. That is just a defense mechanism that people use unconsciously to cope with whatever threatens their well-being. He also introduced the concept of psychoanalysis (dialogue between a patient and a psychiatrist) in treating people battling their mental demons of fear, anxiety, animosity, resentment and so on.

Freud is also known for redefining sex as the basic motivational energy of human life. He used free association to analyze the patient and regarded dreams as revealing unconscious desires. Many of his ideas have been given up or modified by neo-Freudians, though some are rediscovering and affirming his concepts.

The Guru of Sexology

The modern Sex Revolution began with Alfred Kinsey, the guru of sexology. He is credited with having begun the revolution in social awareness of human sexuality and all the public attention given to it. In 1948 Kinsey published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and followed it with Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953. Time featured him on the cover in 1953 and the main article concluded on this note:

'Kinsey...has done for sex what Columbus did for geography,' declared a pair of enthusiasts...forgetting that Columbus did not know where he was when he got there.... Kinsey's work contains much that is valuable, but it must not be mistaken for the last word.

However the American population in general didn’t share the excitement of the news media, which has largely tended to hail everything that departs from the normal. There is a reason for their enthusiasm. Good news is not news. Only bad news is: that 98 persons were not murdered in bed is not news, but the 2 that were murdered is news. While most people didn’t buy Kinsey’s research and were not in favour of holding it up as something to be taken note of, the media chose to side with Kinsey to push society into doing stuff that would make news.

Not until 1981 did anyone challenge Kinsey’s research. That year in Jerusalem at the 5th World Congress of Sexology, the gutsy mother of two girls Judith A. Reisman lectured on Dr. Kinsey and his data involving kids. She asked how Kinsey and his staff had gathered the information to produce the data in Tables 30-34 of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, which report observations of orgasms of children ranging from 5 months to 14 years:

How could he say 196 little children—some as young as 2-months of age—enjoyed "fainting," "screaming," "weeping," and "convulsing"—how could he call these children's responses evidence of their sexual pleasure and "climax"? I called it evidence of terror, of pain, as well as criminal. One of us was very, very mixed-up.

It was obvious Kinsey and his team had to be guilty of exposing more than 300 children to molestation by paedophiles in the name of scientific research. The man was not a scientist, but a criminal, and he got away with his crimes against children only because of the tendency of moderns to be in awe of anything that claims to be scientific research (To read Reisman’s report of her findings about Kinsey go to http://www.special-guests.com/reisman4.html).

Kinsey himself led a life of immorality. In his biography of Kinsey (Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life) James H. Jones described him as a bisexual who experimented in bizarre and outlandish sexual practices.

Professors did not engage in that sort of behavior with their graduate students, yet Kinsey seemed totally oblivious to sexual taboos . . . as though he was determined to flaunt them . . . Kinsey had become a sexual rebel . . . manipulative and aggressive, a man who abused his professional authority and betrayed his trust as a teacher. Only a compulsive man would have taken such risks.

By the time Kinsey took up his research, he was an avowed atheist who embraced the science of eugenics, which called for the elimination of "lower level" humans (just like Hitler who wanted to eliminate the weak strains in order to develop his super race).

That he had an "ax to grind" was evident in his life-long refusal to permit Blacks, Jews, and committed Christians on his staff.

Research?

Kinsey’s questionnaire was so sexually explicit that ordinary folks were not willing to answer it. Kinsey was forced to rely on "volunteers"—deviants, convicts, prostitutes and the like, but Kinsey classified 1400 criminals and sex offenders as "normal." His argument was that they were just like everyone else—except that they had been caught.

Renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow was Kinsey’s friend. Maslow had proved his hypothesis that people who volunteered for sex studies were almost always "unconventional"—notorious for unhealthy and prohibited sexual activity. Researching them would drive one to the conclusion that the percentages for non-virginity, masturbation, promiscuity and homosexuality are very high. And that is exactly what happened.

According to Kinsey's manipulated data, 95 percent of the American male population regularly indulged in deviant sexual activity such as extra-marital affairs, homosexuality, incest, paedophilia, bestiality, etc. When Maslow offered to help Kinsey clean up this "volunteer error", Kinsey terminated the friendship because it would compromise the results he wanted to get. (Yes, the operative word was “wanted”).

Not Everyone fooled:

W. Allen Wallis, of the University of Chicago, one-time President of the American Statistical Association, said that there were serious flaws in Kinsey's methodology of interviewing sex offenders.

The Lancet, a British medical journal, concluded that Kinsey "questioned an unrepresentative proportion of prison inmates and sex offenders in a survey of normal sexual behaviour."

Dr. Albert Hobbs, a sociologist and author at the University of Pennsylvania condemned Kinsey for violating three basic principles in scientific research:

1. No preconceived hypothesis should force the results

2. Disclose to scientific peers the basic data on which conclusions rest.

3. Provide the questionnaire which extracted the data.

Harriet R. Mowrer, a marital-adjustment consultant, was one who warned of the danger of accepting Kinsey's findings at face value:

To accept the Kinsey findings without exacting scrutiny...would be to perpetuate the error...with harmful results to society...

Those warnings went unheeded. Kinsey's nonsense was swallowed in toto. Even though the vast majority of people did consider homosexual behaviour to be abnormal and immoral, by calling it an "alternative life style" they were fooled into accepting it. Popular rhetoric about "tolerance" and "inclusiveness," then did the rest to lull people’s consciences. (The facts about Kinsey’s research may be verified at http://www.drjudithreisman.com/articles.html If you want to verify that Reisman is not making all this up, go to BNet, an on-line management magazine and read the review by Terry Teachout at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n19_v49/ai_19866346/pg_2/?tag=content;col1).

The Bottom Line

Here’s the bottom line: What Kinsey did wasn’t science. He had preconceived notions that he dumped on society with the intention of manipulating society to fit in with his views and practices.

…The Kinsey Report continues to influence American thinking on sex, even though its major findings have been disproved or significantly modified by later studies; whenever you encounter the oft-repeated claim that one in ten Americans is homosexual, you are hearing a distant echo of Kinsey’s original research… Statisticians were appalled by his homemade methodology; intellectuals were no less appalled by his crudely reductive view of human nature. But most people merely gulped and took Kinseys word for it…He was, after all, a scientist. Why would he lie about such things? Innumerable scholars of repute were just as naive about Kinsey’s motives, and for the same reason: they assumed that scientists were by definition disinterested seekers of truth, who through their best efforts would help turn America into a clean, well-lighted place…The truth about Kinsey is that he was no impersonal gatherer of scientific data, but…a man who intended to use science to attack Victorian morality and to promote an ethic of tolerance. Moreover, he had a personal stake in seeking to overturn traditional morality, for he was also a bisexual…from the outset of his research, he sought out as many male homosexual interviewees as possible, both because little was then known about homosexuality, and in order to discreetly engage in anonymous sexual relations with men in the large cities to which he traveled in search of data. For this reason and also because he similarly oversampled prison inmates Kinsey vastly overestimated the incidence of homosexual behavior among Americans (possibly by more than three times, according to later surveys based on statistically reliable random samples of large populations…his methodology and sampling technique virtually guaranteed that he would find what he was looking for. Nor can there be any question that his books were written in order to persuade readers that all forms of human sexuality, including his own, were equally acceptable…Kinsey’s own tolerance of "sexual variation, as he called it, was so complete as to include pedophilia…(Terry Teachout, “Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life”, National Review, Oct 13, 1997).

It is based on such warped science as Kinsey’s, that homosexuals and those sympathizing with them have imagined that there is some sort of “gay gene” that justifies the gay campaign to gain legitimacy. But speculation isn’t reality. In this case, it’s obvious that the speculation about the existence of a gene isn’t even logical. If there is a gay gene, how on earth could it be passed on by those whose sexual activity is absolutely and completely un-reproductive?

More Research

After Kinsey there were William Howell Masters (a gynaecologist) Virginia Eshelman Johnson (a psychologist). Masters and Johnson initiated a project that ultimately included direct laboratory observation and measurement of 700 men and women while they were having intercourse or masturbating. Based on the data collected in this study, they co-authored the book Human Sexual Response in 1966. Their research methods proved Maslow’s point that volunteers for sex research are not normal but “unconventional.” Their major contribution was to define sexuality as healthy and advocating that pleasure and intimacy during sex were worthy goals.

All through the 1970s and 1980s, Masters and Johnson continued their research and publication efforts. In their book Homosexuality in Perspective (1979), Masters and Johnson debunked the notion that homosexuality is a mental illness. However, their claim that they could help those homosexuals who wished to change to actually change their sexual preferences produced considerable criticism from the gay community and from other sex researchers.

Start of Decriminalization

Under the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act of England, homosexual acts were classified as criminal offences punishable with imprisonment. But in 1953 Baron Edward Montagu (a 28-year-old socialite and the youngest peer in the House of Lords), Michael Pitt-Rivers (a landowner) and Peter Wildeblood (a journalist) were tried and punished for committing homosexual acts. Their cases aroused sympathy in the right quarters and Parliament debated about changing the law. But note that until three rich boys were caught, changing the law was never considered.

Under the guidance of Derrick Sherwin Bailey (1910–1984), an ad hoc group of Anglican clergy, doctors and lawyers formed to study the subject (no doubt taking into consideration the theories of Kinsey and of Masters and Johnson, and then produced the pamphlet The Problem of Homosexuality. Bailey himself also published Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition which has ever since been regarded as a sort of seminal text by all who promote homosexuality as a lifestyle that is merely different from that of the majority. The initiative of Bailey’s group paved the way for the production of the 1957 “Wolfenden Report” which said,

The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others. It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behaviour.

Ten years later in 1967 the British Parliament changed the law, and opened the way for others to follow in decriminalizing homosexual conduct.

But as far as the biblical message goes, homosexual conduct is to be condemned, restrained and punished. People forget that while human law talks of “crimes”, the Bible talks of “sins.” The distinction is that crimes are offences punishable by law, while sins are immoral acts that violate divine law.

Distinctions

Nowadays, psychologists, doctors, and theologians accommodate homosexuals by saying that there are people who are homosexual by orientation, and that as a condition homosexuality is neither a crime, nor a sin. This was the thin end of the wedge. It has been just a short step from saying that if the condition exists, to advocating that their condition cannot be denied fulfilment.

Even though researchers Masters and Johnson have shown that homosexuality is not a sickness, subconsciously most people do think of it as an illness, and as such think of homosexuals as those in need of sympathy and TLC.

When a society begins to look at wrongdoing as sickness, there is necessarily talk of treating the perpetrators, rather than punishing them. If a thief is suffering from kleptomania, his mania needs to be treated. A homicidal maniac must also be dealt with more sympathetically, because he’s just sick.

Of course, consensual homosexual acts are not to be categorized with crimes that violate other persons (as when a thief or a murderer does their thing). However if being consensual is the measure of an act being okay, then Kinsey’s argument that paedophilia is okay as long as the child consents will get approval some time.

Society suffers from a jaundiced viewpoint that prevents it from seeing wrongdoing as wrongdoing. It is also suffering from the lunacy of thinking that since the victim has already suffered (loot or rape or murder), we can be gentler and kinder toward the perpetrators of crimes.

The legitimacy that homosexuals want is no longer about letting them live and have the right to food, housing and employment. It is about letting them do whatever they feel like doing, to engage in sex according to their preference. “I am like that only,” is what homosexuals are saying, and people are allowing them to use the thin end of the wedge to prise open the door for them engage in homosexual acts. Next, they will demand the right to raise kids (they have not produced) and corrupt them by the suggestiveness of the environment and the conduct they are exposed to. India Today (July 20, 2009, pp.52-53) quotes a homosexual’s wish to adopt a child. They’re already giving notice!

What the Bible Says

The Old Testament states the prohibitions against homosexual acts clearly (Lev.18:22-30; 20:13). The Lord Jesus never said a word about the sin of homosexuality, but indicated that He Himself had come to fulfil the Law in its entirety, and that anyone who taught contrary to the Old Testament would be demoted in the Kingdom of God (Matt.5:17-19). In fact, Jesus said that to enter His kingdom people must go beyond the Pharisees (v.20).

There is no mistaking the meaning of the plain words of Scripture in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Timothy 1:9-10. No one can rightly say that the New Testament does not teach against homosexuality.

Paul said that the occurrence of homosexual conduct is in itself the judgement of God. When people give up God, then they are leaving the light and the glory of God (Rom.1:21-23), and God in turn gives up on them so that they are enslaved by degraded passions (Rom.1:24-32).

Similarly, Jude reflected on the history of Sodom and Gomorrah having “indulged in gross immorality” and gone “after strange flesh.” Jude said that consequent to such perversion, God’s punishment has already begun:

And remember the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other towns around them. In the same way they were full of sexual sin and people who desired sexual relations that God does not allow. They suffer the punishment of eternal fire, as an example for all to see (v.7, NCV).

The Bible is clear: we reap what we sow, and some of the reaping happens in the present.

Most people do not recall that AIDS was first called GRID (Gay-Related-Immune-Disorder). In 1982 doctors and scientists in the US of A became aware of a strange new disease that was mainly affecting gay men. They were getting a rare kind of skin cancer. They got a rarer kind of pneumonia. Their immune systems were being destroyed completely: these people were sick, and had no way of fighting the illness. According to the evidence collected, being gay was not safe. It killed people.

Pointing to this bit of history is not politically correct. Seems to me that the biggest mistake of our generation is that of political correctness. Today the only intolerance that is permitted is that of being intolerant toward right thinking and right conduct. We are now required by law to show tolerance of evil and wrongdoing.

Walter Wink, professor emeritus of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary, New York City, wrote In his essay “Homosexuality and the Bible” (posted at http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-walter-wink):

Where the Bible mentions homosexual behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The issue is precisely whether that Biblical judgment is correct…

After arguing that the Bible supported slavery and was once the basis for the domination of women, Wink wrote,

The way out, however, is not to deny the sexism in Scripture, but to develop an interpretive theory that judges even Scripture in the light of the revelation in Jesus. What Jesus gives us is a critique of domination in all its forms, a critique that can be turned on the Bible itself. The Bible thus contains the principles of its own correction. We are freed from bibliolatry, the worship of the Bible. It is restored to its proper place as witness to the Word of God. And that word is a Person, not a book. With the interpretive grid provided by a critique of domination, we are able to filter out the sexism, patriarchalism, violence, and homophobia that are very much a part of the Bible, thus liberating it to reveal to us in fresh ways the inbreaking, in our time, of God's domination-free order.

Wink could have come to no other conclusion. He had started by assuming that the way earlier generations viewed slavery and domination of women arose from the Bible itself, then debunked the authority of the Word and finally claimed the right to determine what to accept in the Bible. In the end, it is that old question that the serpent asked Eve, “Has God said?” The homosexual issue is about questioning the authority of God and His Word.

What Wink did was very clever. By showing his way as the “gentler, kinder” way, he presents it as the way of Jesus. Let’s not forget that Jesus wasn’t always gentle. He spoke harshly against the Pharisees, and He wielded a whip in the Temple precincts to drive out everyone for turning God’s house into a marketplace and a den of thieves.

Here are several things to consider:

The biblical viewpoint on homosexual conduct doesn’t stand alone. Hinduism and Islam are also opposed to allowing it. So it’s not really a vestige of British law.
Everyone wanting to allow homosexual acts does so on the basis of Kinsey’s false science. How can research-findings that have been intentionally twisted be accepted as the reason for change?
Kinsey’s opinion that in sexuality anything goes cannot be trusted as reasonable: he favoured paedophilia.

It does look like the law will be changed to favour homosexuals. Indian society is going to change the rules of public conduct. But the church of Christ must hold on to what the Bible teaches. We have no other option, for our Lord says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do what I command you?” (Lk. 6:46).

WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED

2009-06-16T06:42:00.002+05:30

How would you define what essentials are? They are things one cannot do without. Life would not be sustainable without essentials. People have two kinds of essentials that they need met. Some are material essentials and others are emotional essentials.

Last year I had a regular eye check up. The doctor hinted that I had the very beginnings of cataracts in my eyes. To my question about what precautions I could take to slow down their progress, he said that there was nothing to be done. He did say that there was no urgency. It could take a year or ten or twenty for them to mature.

Elishba (my daughter), now a medical student, insisted that I get a second opinion. So I went to a doc who had a much bigger setup. At the second clinic not only was I made to wait for three hours past my appointment, but the doctor pretended I could be a candidate for glaucoma and wanted to do a more expensive test.

The special clinic was far away from my home. While I was trying to arrange for someone to take me there and bring me back, one of the members of the church asked me if I would be willing to wait until she got me an appointment with a doctor she knew. I was only too happy to get out of the clutches of the doctor who wanted to do the glaucoma test.

The doctor my member took me to has a nice place. The clinic is run very professionally and people from different socio-economic levels come to him. There were several examination tables and special instruments.

The preliminary tests started on schedule and within half an hour I was sitting in front of the specialist. There were three instruments in a row. The doc was behind the instruments and he rolled his chair from instrument to instrument as he saw his patients. While I was waiting for my turn, I heard him counselling the woman at the next machine.

The woman had had some surgery earlier, but she said that her scalp felt funny and she had frequent headaches. One good thing about this doctor was that, unlike most doctors I’ve known, he would take time and trouble to explain things to patients using understandable terms.

In the case of the woman, the doctor explained that pain is largely a non-physical feeling. Most of the time it had no real cause but people would worry themselves and think pain into existence. He assured the woman that her surgery was a success and there was nothing wrong with her eyes physically. So, said the doctor, the uneasiness and pain that she was experiencing were merely some negative feelings that were making her think that there was something wrong. He told her that if she insisted he could prescribe some medication for her, but she really didn’t need it.

The doctor then told the woman that she needed just two things in her life: shukhar (gratitude) and sabar (patience). As I sat there listening to the doctor I thought to myself, “This doc should be a pastoral counsellor.” What the doctor had prescribed are the emotional essentials of our lives.

Gratitude
When you are not grateful, then you feel that you are a person who “is deserving”—who deserves better. You are guilty of having the attitude that God owes you. Instead of appreciating all of the grace that crowds your life, your attitude leads people to think that God hasn’t done enough for you according to all that you deserve. Truth is, we deserve nothing. The only thing we deserve is punishment for being rebellious toward God by our repeated acts of disobedience. To then claim that we deserve better from God is not just ingratitude, but despising His grace.

The second aspect of the ungrateful is that they suffer from a sense of destitution. They face their situation of need and/or problems with a sense of being all alone. They feel that God isn’t there for them. They are not atheists, but they might as well be. They don’t say that there is no God, but they say that God is not there in their own lives. They are practical atheists.

Someone who is ungrateful is a desecrated person. The ungrateful look at their lives and feel that they are not consecrated and blessed. Indeed they are, but they just don’t feel blessed. Instead of feeling that they are consecrated under God’s will and blessing, they feel that their lives are unblessed. This is the surest way to lose God’s blessing.

Ten men with leprosy were healed by Jesus. Nine never came back to acknowledge that they had been blessed. Jesus remarked that the one who came back was the least likely one—a despised, ostracised outcast of a man:

One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet, so grateful. He couldn’t thank him enough—and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus said, “Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?” Then he said to him, “Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you” (Lk.17:15-19, TM).

Someone pointed it out that Christian theology is all about grace and Christian ethics is all about gratitude. We have been given grace on grace (Jn.1:16, NRSV), and there is nothing we can do in return for God’s grace, except to express gratitude. To not be grateful is to trample on grace.

Patience
When you are not patient, you distrust God. You feel that you cannot depend on Him and you must go ahead and take care of things for yourselves. There are many who feel they have to fix their own problems instead of counting on God.

On the other hand, God wants people to wait for the right time—His time.

For moderns waiting is the hardest thing to do. While we wait, we feel our time is running out. What if God doesn’t act? Meanwhile the time we could have used to do something to solve the problem is gone.

When the Israelites reached the Red Sea they despaired because they were caught between the devil of a Pharaoh and the deep blue Red Sea. God commanded Moses to hold his staff above the water and have Israel step forward on the promise that the water would part and they would walk on dry ground (Ex.14:15-16). Similarly, when they reached the flooded River Jordan, the Lord told Joshua that Israel’s priests were to march into the river bearing the Ark of the Covenant on their shoulders and when the priests stepped into the water, at that very moment the flow was stopped and the people of Israel walked across without getting their feet wet (Jos.3:15-17).

Can God do that? Will He do something like that now in our day? Will He do it for me? What if He doesn’t? Maybe God wants me to take care of my problems myself. Believe me, patience is all about being patient with God and trusting God.

On the other hand, it could also show a hidden dislike for God’s methods and solutions. There are people who feel that if you left it to God, He is just going to do something unpleasant. When you are in the mood to hit back at someone, you fear that God is going to work on you and have you do something kind. Or, He may tell you that you need to endure the problem for more time. Maybe He is planning that you live with the problem. That’s the reason we want to get things in our control quickly. Waiting for God could spell trouble. Instead of God doing what we want, we would end up doing what God wants. What a dangerous position to be in.

The second thing about impatience is that there is disappointment with God. When I don’t want to wait for God, I’m also saying that God hasn’t done according to my expectations. My situation provided an opening for Him to do something. He didn’t, and I can’t wait for God anymore.

Gratitude and patience are essential in our lives if we are going to be people who are blessed and feel blessed, because in the final analysis both gratitude and patience have to do with our relationship with God. Gratitude is toward God for what He has done and keeps on doing, and patience is being patient with God waiting for Him. Without gratitude and patience, we will feel disconnected, and it is a disconnection with God. Those who are blessed don’t need to say anything to let people know they are blessed. Their lives will be marked with two deeply sublime qualities. They will show that they are deeply grateful and they have great patience.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the UN 1953-1961 was the 1961 posthumous winner of the Nobel Prize in Peace. Hammarskjöld was a godly man and he didn’t hesitate to indicate that his life had been influenced by the gospels or that he considered himself to be under God. After his death in 1963, his journal was published with the title Markings. His journal included a profound line that he is most remembered for:

For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.

Gratitude for all that has been and patience for all that will be. Say, “Yes.” Say, ”Amen, Lord.”

SO SEND I YOU

2009-06-13T16:07:00.002+05:30

Lots of people think that the term “disciple” is a religious term with a very special meaning. The word simply means “follower” or “student.” However Jesus redefined what is involved in being a disciple. He said they would represent Him, and therefore be at the receiving end of whatever people would do to Him.

If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as it loves its own. But I have chosen you out of the world, so you don’t belong to it. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: A servant is not greater than his master. If people did wrong to me, they will do wrong to you, too. And if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours, too. They will do all this to you on account of me, because they do not know the One who sent me (Jn.15:18-21, NCV)

When Jesus chose men to follow Him, according to Mark in the King James Version, the gospel says that He “ordained” them. The concept of “ordination” signifies “placing in order” and that is why people who become clergy are described as having joined “holy orders.”

Who Gives us Our Orders?
When you use the word “order(s)”, the question that needs to be asked first of all is: who is the one who gives the orders? It is especially important to know the answer in the case of Christian ministry.

Jesus said... “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you” (20:21, GNB)

On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus had prayed for His disciples.

I sent them into the world, just as you sent me into the world. And for their sake I dedicate myself to you, in order that they, too, may be truly dedicated to you. (17:18-19, GNB).

Ministry is not something we arrogate ourselves. It is something that places us under orders. We do not decide the terms and conditions. We do not determine the direction and the agenda. We are under orders.

Too often those in ministry forget that the source of our orders is not some human power structure. It is unfortunate that so many think that the holy orders are about submission to human authorities and powers. Sadly the Church has allowed hierarchy to take the Lord’s place in the lives of those in the Church’s service, nay, the Lord’s service.

It is such running interference that has prevented us from hearing the Lord and some people thinking that they can do whatever they want and proclaim whatever they want. Not so. The Lord has already spelt out the agenda.

From what Jesus said about sending His disciples out we need to also understand that He did not think of His disciples as merely representing Him. He indicated that they had the role of replacing Him. They take His place when they take up His ministry. We have been chosen to stand in for Christ. That is a holy responsibility. We cannot go into the ministry lightly. We must tread carefully with a deep sense of awe.

What is the Basis of Our Orders?
During His incarnation, our Lord was under orders. Jesus told His disciples that that was the basis of the orders He gave them: “as the Father sent me, so send I you.”

For the Church there is no other mission than the mission of Jesus, our Lord. It never stopped being His mission. It is not the Church’s mission. We only stand in line with Him to carry on what He started and what still belongs to Him. We take the place He has vacated.

Jesus has set the pattern of our mission. He Himself is the pattern for doing mission. His is the example to be followed. The world’s ideas and methods of doing business are not for us.

We do not have a mission to be relevant. There is, of course, a need to be relevant. The times have changed. The world has gone through many revolutions since the industrial revolution changed it. When the printing press was invented the world moved from a time when learning was done without books, to learning with the aid of books that people could possess individually. Since then, from rote learning we moved to comprehension and thinking outside the box. From doing research and analysis laboriously, today we have moved into the world of quick and easy retrieval of information with the help of computers and the internet. From the world of slow transportation we have moved into the world of rapid transportation. From the world of extremely slow communication, we have moved into the world of instant communication. Indeed, Christian ministers have to be modern and relevant.

But we need to be careful in this matter of being relevant because it does have to do with the world and the age. As Jesus said, we who are His disciples are “in the world” but are “not of the world.”

I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world. Holy Father! Keep them safe by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one just as you and I are one. While I was with them, I kept them safe by the power of your name, the name you gave me…And now I am coming to you, and I say these things in the world so that they might have my joy in their hearts in all its fullness. I gave them your message, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but I do ask you to keep them safe from the Evil One. Just as I do not belong to the world, they do not belong to the world (Jn.17:11-16, NRSV)

Our notions of being modern and relevant have nothing to do with determining the direction of the work we do and the content of the message we preach. Being relevant has all to do with methodology. But the character, the content and the aim of ministry are not open to amendment by humans and their power structures. The Lord’s orders cannot be changed.

What Are Our Orders?
It is first of all to announce forgiveness—that God in heaven is forgiving. After commissioning them to go, the very first charge that our Lord gave to His disciples was to announce forgiveness (20:22). When people are hurt or attacked they want revenge. When someone has done wrong, people want them punished. People are not forgiving. In an unforgiving world, the gospel is that the Supreme Judge of the highest court of the whole universe, is one who has already handed down both justice and forgiveness for every crime against His glory.

This gospel of forgiveness is one that replaces their image of God. People imagine that God is an angry god. This angry god frightens people. Jesus told people that God is not like that at all. He said that God is “our Father in heaven” (Matt.6:9). Some people have bad experiences with bad fathers. The fact that they didn’t model their fatherhood in God’s likeness doesn’t in any way reduce God’s fatherhood. The existence of counterfeit currency doesn’t devalue genuine currency. In the same way, bad fathers don’t diminish God’s loving fatherhood.

Jesus wanted people to know God personally. He said that He had shared God’s Name with His disciples:

I have made Your Name known to those whom you gave me from the world... I made Your Name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which You have loved me may be in them, and I in them (Jn.17:6,26, NRSV)

Dropping names is something people have been doing for a long time. When people drop names they enter the claim that they are close to someone who is powerful and influential. Knowing God’s name is not to be taken lightly. He has prohibited that by command (Ex.20:7). Anyway, it wouldn’t work to drop names with an angel, because the angel knows God, and it wouldn’t work with the Devil because he is against God. Knowing God’s Name is all about knowing God, to have a relationship with God. That is what Jesus came to do, to put us in close relationship with God.

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (Jn14:6, NRSV).

What is the Aim of Our Orders?
We have been commanded to bring people to God, to the Lord Jesus Christ. The aim of this charge is not increasing the numbers of our group, nor capturing power in the political arena.

The Lord said that His disciples are to initiate people in a relationship with God and give them instruction so that they will be able to follow Jesus closely.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matt 28:19-20, NRSV)

The followers of Christ have only one aim: to bring Jesus to people and to bring people to Jesus. That’s it: no more, no less.

THE STATION BEYOND THE CROSS

2009-06-08T23:16:00.005+05:30

When our Lord was incarnate, He stripped down for His time on earth (Phil.2:6-8). The first station of that journey was in heaven and the last ended on the hill of Calvary. The journey was over. But the destination was not Calvary itself. It was a round-trip. All the stations on earth were just stopovers. There was one more station to reach. The journey would end only when He would get back to the starting point. In board games such as Monopoly, every time a player goes through start, he or she collects a fresh supply of stuff to keep him/her in the game. Like the transmigration of the soul the player gets a fresh lease of life. But the Incarnation was a one-time event as all history is. When Jesus would get back to start His all-powerful, eternally significant effort would be over.

Just as Jesus stripped down to descend to earth, He had to dress up to return to heaven. That is the significance of His resurrection from the dead:

As to His divine holiness, He was shown with great power to be the Son of God by being raised from death (Rom.1:4, GNB).

The Lord Jesus came back to life and walked around among old acquaintances before going back to heaven. The biblical description of Christ’s resurrection is clearly not saying that Jesus “lives on” in some unreal, mystical sort of way in the way “Gandhi amar hai” (Gandhi is undying). Everyone knows that isn’t true. While the movie Lage Raho Munna Bhai popularized Gandhigiri (acting like Gandhi), it was not only an admission that Gandhi’s ideals have been forgotten, but there is a casual admission that Gandhi no longer lives. Whereas the gangster Munna Bhai imagined that Gandhi visited him and told him what to do, a psychiatrist explained it as hallucinations that he suffered after he had already read something about Gandhi.

Nor is the Resurrection a mythical story that has some spiritual meaning. Those who regard science as a sacred cow imagine that all proof has to be scientific. The methodology of science involves experimentation based on the notion that if someone gets a certain result from an experiment, if true, other scientists should be able to repeat the experiment and get the same results. History does not lend itself to experiments. Historical events happen at a certain time and they are not and cannot be repeated. Thus it is that we do not have any scientific proof that India won its independence on August 15th 1947. We cannot prove that it was won without a bloody war to defeat and throw out foreign rulers but was won through Satyagraha and ahimsa. That cannot be proved by experiment.

As a historical event, the Resurrection can be proved by examining the historical documents pertaining to it:

• Literary evidence: the four gospels read like four news reports. It is obvious there was no “Passover Plot” (as one writer suggested). The gospel writers didn’t doctor their reports to make the story fit. They told it the way they saw it or remembered it.
• Psychological evidence: no one depicts himself/herself in an entirely negative way in a personal anecdote. Yet the gospel writers tell their story in such a way that they themselves are seen as selfish and cowardly. It was their preoccupation with the big story that made them realize that the truth itself mattered more than their own reputations.
• Sociological evidence: the gospel writers were the children of their age. Generally people observe prevalent cultural norms. According to the values of their time, women were second to men, never regarded as equal to men, nor treated favourably. But in the story of the Resurrection, women come through with flying colours. They are shown to have been brave enough to linger at the cross while the men were the deserters, and it was because of their devotion to their dead leader that women were the first to see the Risen Jesus. If it was a made-up story, the men would have had stellar roles.
• Historical evidence: If a government wants to stop a movement, it simply isolates or kills the leader. With the Crucifixion, Christ’s disciples were a defeated lot. They were timid and fearful, people who met behind closed doors after dark. Men, who had deserted their Master when He needed them the most, suddenly became brave enough to publicly confess their allegiance to Jesus. Whence the courage, unless they derived it from having seen Jesus alive, and experiencing the dynamic of the Spirit of the Risen Jesus, imparting the power to go on with the Lord’s mission?

Discipling Again
During their vacations people have to live out of suitcases, but tire of it soon and just want to get back to their own home and be able to expand their space for living. Having worked hard for three years and completed His mission, why didn’t Jesus rush back home to His Father? He stayed on to rebuild the faith of His discouraged disciples.

During the forty days after his crucifixion, He appeared to the apostles from time to time, and He proved to them in many ways that He was actually alive. And He talked to them about the Kingdom of God. Once when He was eating with them, He commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift He promised, as I told you before” (Acts 1:3-4, NLT).

While the women had remained loyal and devoted throughout the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, they were without faith. They didn’t think that Jesus would come back to life. They were fearful. All they had left was a devotion to a beloved, dead leader. They needed to be encouraged and strengthened so that they would serve as witnesses to Jesus being alive.

All of the disciples had deserted Jesus when He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus had to restore the deserters to discipleship and ministry if His mission was to go on.

The first time Jesus appeared among the disciples, Thomas was not present. When the others told him that they had seen Jesus, he refused to believe their story. He expressed doubt and laid down conditions for him to come to belief. While lots of people claim to have honest doubts that prevent belief, they don’t do what Thomas did. He waited for Jesus to make a second appearance. He kept on waiting for eight days (Jn.20:24-29). It would appear that in the midst of doubt, he nurtured a longing and willingness to believe. That’s what an honest doubter is like. He is neither a skeptic, nor a rebel. He honestly has doubts, and because he is honest, he wants to find answers to his doubts.

Of all the disciples, Peter probably felt the most agony and shame. He had been the most bombastic about being loyal to Jesus. He had sworn boastfully and vehemently that he would remain faithful even if all the others ran away (Mk.14:27-31). The Lord not only prayed for his endurance (Lk.22:31-32), but warned him and the others of their need to get their strength for the battle through prayer (Mk.13:33-37; Lk.22:40). Peter could have turned his back on Jesus permanently, like Judas. After all, it was about denying Him that Jesus said, “Whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven” (Matt.10:33, NRSV). When the Lord turned and looked into his eyes, he cried bitterly. Even though the Greek text says that Peter recalled what the Lord had said, the King James Version draws attention to the fact by repeating the idea that Peter reflected on what he had done and that was what made him cry:

And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept (Mk.14:72).

Peter could have easily descended into hopeless despair. But the Lord made it a point to specify that Peter was to be personally informed that He had risen (Mk. 16:7). Peter hung around with the other disciples. The Lord met with him privately (1 Cor.15:5) and in the end, Jesus gave him an opportunity to reverse his three denials with three public affirmations of love for Jesus, and the Lord in turn charged him thrice with the care of His flock (Jn.21:15-21).

The people the Lord restored to faith were just like us: the devoted, the deserters, the doubter, and the denier. The Lord is the Lord of the Second Chance (and the third, and the fourth...). He promised that He wouldn’t cast out anyone who comes to Him (Jn. 6:37), because He won’t break the bruised reed or snuff out the smouldering wick (Matt. 12:20). Those are very precious promises that I cling to. They assure me again and again of grace abundant and hope eternal though I am such a lousy follower of Christ.

Delegating the Ongoing Mission
After the Resurrection, Jesus began handing over His mission to His disciples. He had inaugurated and financed it by paying the cost of saving people. His part was over. But the mission would be incomplete if those He had already transformed would not be able to function like Him in communicating the message of salvation till the whole world would be reached with the good news.

With this in view, the Paraclete was imparted to empower forgiveness:

Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (Jn.20:19-23)

Many Christians think that the Holy Spirit came into the world only on the day of Pentecost. That’s not true. The Holy Spirit has been active in the world from the beginning. Genesis 1:2 says that God’s Spirit was brooding over the earth [like a mother bird]. In Noah’s days God came to the decision that His Spirit would not struggle with humankind (6:2). Every prophet and psalmist had been inspired by God’s Spirit. Jesus Himself had earlier talked of the Holy Spirit being already with the disciples, though not in them (Jn.14:17).

God had breathed into Adam and Eve, and they became spiritual beings with the likeness of God (Gen.2:7). When Jesus breathed on His disciples, He was duplicating what God had done at creation. Jesus was inaugurating His new creation. If the Spirit was not received on that occasion, then we imply that Jesus merely pretended to give them the Holy Spirit, and a hypocrite Jesus was not.
Being born anew or becoming a Christian begins with being reconciled to God. Receiving God’s forgiveness is integral to reconciliation with God. But according to Jesus receiving God’s forgiveness is tied to our being people who forgive (Matt.6:12,14-15; 18:22-35).

By nature we are vengeful. We want to hit back. That is instinctive. But to forgive we need help. The Pharisees who were critical of Jesus were right: only God can forgive (Mk.2:7). Jesus imparted that power straightaway after His Resurrection. He wanted His disciples to be a forgiving people even before they became preachers who proclaimed the forgiveness of God. He wanted them to demonstrate by their lives that the gospel had the power to do what it proclaimed. And so Jesus breathed on them, gave them the Holy Spirit and told them that they had the authority to forgive from then on. When they forgave people, it would be recorded in heaven. If their forgiveness was not received, that too would stand recorded in heaven.

The second task Jesus handed over to His disciple was that of preserving the flock. That is what Peter was commissioned to do when he was restored. Each time Peter said that he loved the Lord, he was told to feed the Lord’s sheep. But the task was not exclusive to Peter. He was representative of all the other disciples. (See this aspect in the case of the Lord saying that sins forgiven by disciples would stand forgiven in heaven: Matt.16:19 with Jn.20:23).

There had to be a community of faith not only exemplifying the gospel’s power and effect, but also to enfold the newcomer in the love and care of the community so that they grow strong enough to accept the baton as it was passed on from disciple to disciple.

A community needs leadership (shepherding) and nurture (feeding and care). The stronger brothers and sisters (elders of the community, “not a recent convert”—1 Ti.3:6) are to provide such pastoral care.

The third task was to proclaim the gospel to all fellow-humans. That charge was given by Jesus prior to His ascension though they could start the work only after the Holy Spirit would come to empower them to be witnesses of Christ (Acts 1:5-8).
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt 28:18-20, NRSV).

Jesus delegated the responsibility of making disciples for Him to people who were disciples. Disciple-making was Christ’s mission and at the end He handed that over to His followers. People were to be drawn to Jesus to make them His followers through initiation and instruction.

When John the Baptist started his ministry, he announced that the Kingdom of God was near (3:2). When Jesus started His work, He too announced the Kingdom (v.17). Later when He sent His disciples on a mission trip, He told them also to preach the same message about the Kingdom (10:7). In common usage the word “kingdom” refers to the area that a king reigns over. But in the gospels it is used in the sense of a king’s rule or sovereignty.

People in rebellion are to be brought under God’s rule. That is what Jesus came to do, and that is what Jesus wanted His disciples to carry on doing until God’s rule is accepted by all people. And that is the final station: being under God.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS: 10th – Hill of Calvary

2009-06-05T14:34:00.002+05:30

Jesus was approaching the end of His stripped down time on earth. The Jewish officials along with the rabble had succeeded with their pressure tactics and forced Governor Pilate to order death by crucifixion for Jesus.

Nailed to the cross, the Lord expressed His feelings in seven utterances. What He said was not coined in the safe confines of a temple or a library or a schoolroom. They were said in the midst of life, no, while He was being tortured to death. Saying them didn’t come easily. It cost Him His life to affirm what He had advocated during His teaching ministry.

No Vengeance
Jesus had taught that people should not return evil for evil. Instead they should turn the other cheek, go the second mile and do good to those who ill-treat them (Matt.5:38-48).

Vengeance is never an option for anyone who follows Jesus. The Lord affirmed what God had said earlier: “Vengeance is mine. I will repay” (Dt.32:35). Those who believe in the sovereignty of God do leave things to Him. That’s what Jesus had preached when He was popular with the masses. But what would He do when the time for theory was over?

Greek mythology had stories of gods coming in disguise. They would often appear in the guise of beggars or similarly powerless persons. When they were taunted and tortured they would endure it for a while, but suddenly they would throw off their disguise and display all their majesty and power, and in one blast of power would destroy their erstwhile tormenters or in some way punish them for their indiscretions. Similarly in Hindu mythology the avatars came to destroy evil. Krishna said:

Arjuna, whenever there is decline of dharma (righteous duty), and unrighteousness is dominant, then I am reborn. For the protection of the virtuous, the destruction of evil-doers, and to re-establish righteousness, I am reborn from age to age (Bhagavad-Gita 4:7-8).

Christ Jesus was different from all other incarnations and avatars:
• Jesus didn’t put on a disguise and make-believe that He was human, while remaining insulated by His divinity.
• Jesus didn’t need to be incarnate again and again to clean up the world. Because He was God He needed to be incarnate just once.
• While other incarnations destroyed the wicked to rid the world of evil, Jesus came to rescue people. He was physically abused and humiliated. But while the nails were driven into His hands and feet, He prayed for those who crucified Him,

Forgive them, Father! They don’t know what they are doing (Lk.23:34, GNB)

Can’t Save Self
As Jesus hung on the cross helplessly, stripped of all power and dignity, people who found pleasure in watching others suffer added insult to injury. They taunted him mercilessly. They mocked His powerlessness. They defied Him to come down from the cross and persuade them to belief (Mk.15:29-32).

Jesus is God, but He didn’t help Himself. Though taunted, He felt no urge to show them what He could do. He didn’t feel that He had to prove anything to them.

What they said in taunt happened to be theologically correct. Jesus chose not to save Himself, because the salvation of all humanity depended on Jesus sacrificing Himself. Without Jesus giving up His life, the ransom price for our salvation would not have been paid, and without it being paid there would be no salvation for us. The Jewish teachers did get it right in part: Jesus saved others, but couldn’t save Himself. What they didn’t get right was the fact that He could save Himself, but chose not to. His death was not forced. It was a voluntary act of sacrifice to reconcile us to God.

At first, both of the criminals crucified with Jesus joined in the mockery (Mk.15:32). Later realising that the man in the middle was very different he told the other robber, that they deserved their punishment, but Jesus was innocent. Then, astonishingly he calling Jesus on a cross “Lord” he pleaded that he would be remembered favourably. Even though he had been mocked, Jesus doesn’t take offence but reassures the repentant robber that he would be with Jesus in the after-life (Lk.23:39-43). Even in that hour, Jesus demonstrated that He was willing to pay any price for the redemption of humankind. Even one who had despised Him so brazenly while in the throes of death, would never be rejected (Jn.6:37), for He never breaks off the bruised reed nor snuffs out the smoking wick (Matt.12:20).

Providing for Family
As the eldest son of a widowed mother, Jesus was concerned about how His mother would fare after He was gone. Seeing her weeping at the foot of His cross tore His heart. He saw that none of her other children were there. He saw that His disciple John was standing with His mother. With a sense of peace, Jesus told Mary that she could count on John as a son, and told John that from then on caring for His mother was John’s responsibility (Jn.19:26-27).

Jesus shared our human feelings and worries about how our death will affect the loved ones we leave behind. With death approaching, some wish for more time to fix things. If we do not prepare beforehand for the exit moment of our lives, we will never be ready when the time is up.

In 2001 when I was travelling every week from January to April, and then from September to November, to teach inductive Bible study at SIM’s Pastors’ Book Set Programme conferences and to speak about issues facing Indian Christians, I felt the need to draw up a will and execute a power of attorney delegating Roshini as the executor, so that in the event of anything fatal happening to me, she would have immediate access to anything that happened to be registered in my name.

On the other hand, I’ve known a few cases when a wife or a husband has not ensured joint operation of bank accounts or fixed deposits, and the surviving partner has had a hard time trying to access them.

Above all, there is a need to make sure that your family is not left in the lurch because of debts incurred. Don’t add to the burden of their lives with debts that you leave unsettled.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another (Rom.13:8, NASU)

God-Forsaken
There are times when we feel that God doesn’t care for us. God seems far away from us. Our prayers don’t bring us the assurance that God has even heard us, let alone the knowledge that God will answer. Incredibly, Jesus shared this human experience too. He was in anguish as He shouted at heaven:

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? (Mk. 15:34, TM)

It will remain a mystery this side of eternity—maybe even in eternity it will remain incomprehensible. How could God forsake God? If the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are together the One Eternal, Triune God, how could Jesus experience such a separation? Martin Luther exclaimed in frustration, “God forsaken by God! Who can understand that?”

This was the ultimate pit in the descent of the Saviour. Jesus had stripped down to enter the world. From birth to death we see Him stripping down. In the final moments of His life on earth, Jesus goes down to the lowest and the worst possible human situation.

If nothing else moves us, this scene should bring us to our knees in awe and gratitude. Amazing love that goes so far to save someone like me! There’s no way I can pay for such grace and mercy. The only thing I can do is say so inadequately, “Thank You, Lord Jesus. I don’t deserve your love, but I am ever so grateful that you did. I can never repay you. Thank You, Lord.”

Hopelessly Helpless
Even when something is difficult little kids want to try and do it by themselves, like wanting to tie shoe laces when three years old. It is only when they realize that they can’t that they ask to be helped. But within a week, they may try again.

Being able to do basic stuff for yourself is essential to having a sense of dignity. That is why when we lie in a hospital bed needing a nurse’s help or become incontinent and have to wear adult diapers we feel hopelessness descending on us. Was there a moment in the life of our Lord when He shared such an experience and the feelings that arise from it?

As the Lord hung on the cross, after hours of torture, He felt fatigue, and above all a desperate thirst. With His hands and feet nailed to the cross He was a totally disabled person. He couldn’t do simple things for Himself. He had created the world and gave all creatures the ability to move around, and find food to eat. But that day, while on the cross, God couldn’t go and get Himself a drink. He had to rely on someone else coming to his aid. He groaned aloud (like a patient emerging from a state of unconsciousness does) to let people around Him know that He needed to quench His and they hear Him say: “I thirst” (Jn.19:18).

Joni was a teenager who enjoyed horse riding and swimming. In the summer of 1967, when she dived into shallow water, she broke her neck, paralyzing her body from the neck down. She was depressed, discouraged and in suicidal despair.

I was sick and tired of pious platitudes that well meaning friends often gave me...trivializing my plight... tired of advice and didn’t want any more counsel. I was numb emotionally, desperately alone, and so very, very frightened. Most of the questions I asked, in the early days of my paralysis, were questions voiced out of a clenched fist, an emotional release, an outburst of anger. I don’t know how sincere my questions really were. I was just angry. But after many months those clench fists questions became questions of a searching heart. I sincerely and honestly wanted to find answers...If God is supposed to be all loving and all powerful, then how, what has happened to me, be a demonstration of His love and power...if He’s all powerful, then surely He should have been powerful enough to stop my accident from happening? If He’s all loving then how in the world can permanent and lifelong paralysis be a part of His loving plan for my life?...I don’t see how this all loving and all powerful God is worthy of my trust and confidence.

Later on in her autobiography Joni she reminisced about her discovery of Christ sharing her experience and feelings:

I discovered that the Lord Jesus Christ could indeed empathize with my situation. On the cross for those agonizing horrible hours, waiting for death, he was immobilized, helpless, paralyzed. Jesus did know what it was like not be able to move, not to be able to scratch your nose, shift your weight, wipe your eyes. He was paralyzed on the cross. Christ knew exactly how I felt (p.81).

Life’s End
Everyone dies. We cannot go on living. Life has to end. However, many old people make desperate attempts to postpone death. Or, their families make herculean efforts to keep them lingering. There comes a time to say, “Enough! Let’s have some dignity and peace.”

To be ready to quit this life, one has to have a sense of having accomplished one’s mission. The Apostle John wrote that it was when Jesus knew that He had finished everything He had come to do that He turned His attention to His own personal need (Jn.19:28).

Life on earth is not going to go on endlessly. We need to be prepared to go anytime. Most of us while we are young and energetic think that we have plenty of time to get ready to meet our Maker. Meanwhile we pursue goals that are not compatible to a life of dedication to God. In fact, they take us further from Him. When the moment of our departure arrives we are still preoccupied with our agenda to reach our targets of position, power, possessions and privilege.

There once was a man who was doing so well in his profession that he knew he was on a wave that would take him even higher. He believed in living a planned life and so he began to make more and better plans. When he had finished drawing up his plan of action and knew that he was going to succeed, he spent a few moments revelling in his good fortune. In his euphoria he didn’t hear the whisper in his heart: “You fool! Your time is up. What good are your plans now, when your breath leaves your body?” (Lk.12:16-21).

In school we make plans about what branch of studies we will pursue in college. In college we plan our careers and homemaking. In our job situations we make plans for the settlement of our children and our retirement. What plans do we make for the moment that is far more important than all the big events of our lives?

The death of Jesus shows us that we can feel satisfied about our lives only when we can be sure that we have fulfilled all that we needed to do. Jesus shouted triumphantly, “Finished!” Sadly, English versions dilute the force of His shout by translating that shout into a weak announcement, “It is finished!” That sounds like someone saying, “Aw shucks. The light’s gone out.”

The moment of death need not be one of defeat. It can be the moment of the triumphant hero going home after the accomplishment of mission.

Going Home
That’s what Jesus taught about death. He said He was going home to His Father. If we are to believe Jesus, we’re not going on an unpleasant journey that will bring us to a destination of sorrow.

Just before leaving the examination room, a sick man said, “Doctor, I am afraid to die. Tell me what lies on the other side.” When the doctor said, “I don't know,” the patient got upset that though the doc was a Christian man, he didn't know what's on the other side? The doctor was holding the handle of the door. From the other side came a sound of scratching and whining, and as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room, and leaped on him with an eager show of gladness. Turning to the patient, the doctor said, “Did you notice my dog? He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here and when the door opened, he sprang in without fear. I know little of what is on the other side of death, but I do know one thing...I know my Master is there and that is enough.”

Pray with Jesus, “Father into Your hands, I commend my spirit” (Lk.23:46). Every day, be prepared.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS: 9th – From Court to Court

2009-05-25T03:48:00.001+05:30

Jesus, who will one day judge the world, was treated unjustly in the courts of men. On the night before His crucifixion, He was passed on from judge to judge, a victim of injustice at the hands of people who were to safeguard the due processes of justice.

Very often misdeeds of injustice are done under the cover of darkness. Non-conformists, revolutionaries and dissenters have often been arrested around midnight and hauled away to unknown locations and held incommunicado and without legal aid. When police have a deadline to solve a case, it is in the dead of the night that they have barged into the homes of slum-dwellers, or picked up the homeless from pavements. And so it was that they came late at night to arrest Jesus. The Jewish officials didn’t want the public to know that they had arrested Jesus, the popular teacher who was challenging their authority, and risking the nation’s limited freedoms (Jn.11:48).

The High Priest and his party wanted Jesus dead. But they had no power to award anyone the death penalty. They had to find cause. They set up false witnesses, but it was discovered that they would not be able to stand up to any examination in a Roman court of law (Mk.14:55-59).

There were procedural rules about how the Jewish Sanhedrin was to conduct a trial. Though there was nothing in writing, that there were rules is evident the Mishnah (circa AD 170) which was merely a record of the oral tradition. In the fourth order Neziḳin (injuries) there are ten treatises, one of which is about the Sanhedrin and deals chiefly with judicial procedure and criminal law. According to the Mishnah the high priest could not participate in the questioning, the verdict was not to be given on the same day as the trial, the charge of blasphemy required God's name be explicitly pronounced, and someone is required to defend the accused.

When due process is not observed, injustice is always done. Clearly the establishment is railroading the person whom it has ganged up to finish off. When no cause to recommend the death penalty was found, the High Priest extracted a confession under the most solemn oath requiring the prisoner to answer (14:60-64).

Like those denied justice today, Jesus was shunted from one court to another, without getting justice at any of them. The High Priest sent the case to the Roman Governor Pilate. The charge was treason. The Messiah was caricatured as a political threat to the Caesar (Jn.19:12), opposing payment of taxes to Caesar and implying that Jesus Himself was collecting the due taxes (Lk.23:2). The governor was cornered by explicitly telling him that he was no friend of Caesar’s if he set the rebel free (Jn.19:12).

Pilate, though he was the highest authority in the land as Rome’s representative, looked for a way to not have to do something that was so obviously illegal and unjust. The moment he heard that Jesus was a domicile of Galilee, Pilate passed the responsibility of judgment in the matter to Herod, the king of Galilee (Lk.23:6-7).

Herod was delighted. He was one who needed entertainment all the time and hoped to have Jesus perform what he supposed were magic tricks. When Jesus wouldn’t oblige, Herod decided to get his entertainment anyhow: the prisoner was subjected to abuse (vv.8-12).

When Herod passed the prisoner’s case back, Pilate tried again to get out of passing judgment on an innocent man. But he was not able to withstand the pressure that was brought on him. He felt a need to distance himself from the lonely prisoner, lest Caesar hear of his having sided with a rebel. He washed his hands of the case (Matt.27:24), abdicating from the responsibility to safeguard justice.

The mob, instigated by the Jewish officials, demanded that the prisoner be crucified. They wanted to see a public execution. They didn’t care that there was no clear and solid evidence of misconduct. They bayed for his death. Given the fact that there were no grounds for an execution, the death of Jesus was nothing less than a lynching.

An unlawful arrest, false accusations and false witnesses, official interference with the process of justice, prisoner abuse for pleasure, abdication of responsibility and mob justice—Jesus suffered it all as He was passed from court to court.

There was nothing attractive about Him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at Him and people turned away.
We looked down on Him, thought He was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains He carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought He brought it on Himself,
that God was punishing Him for His own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to Him,
that ripped and tore and crushed Him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through His bruises we get healed...
He was beaten, He was tortured, but He didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared, He took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and He was led off...
Even though He'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.
Still, it's what GOD had in mind all along,
to crush Him with pain.
The plan was that He give Himself as an offering
for sin so that He'd see life come from it...
Because He looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because He embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on His own shoulders the sin of the many,
He took up the cause of all the black sheep (Isa.53:2-5, 7-10, 12, TM).

If you feel harassed and victimised by people in power, know that Jesus understands your feelings. He has had your kind of experiences.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS: 8th - The Garden of Gethsemane

2009-05-18T05:25:00.002+05:30

This is a modified version of the second point in the message preached on Maundy Thursday, April 9, 2009

On the night before His Crucifixion, after observing the Passover, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane (Mk.14:32, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. John’s doesn’t mention Gethsemane by name, but says that Judas knew about the place since Jesus went went there often with His disciples (18:1-2).

The man who had let Jesus have the use of the upper room in his house to facilitate Jesus and His disciples gathering to observe the Passover stood in danger. Jesus would not want to be arrested while in the man’s house, as the authorities would take cognizance of it and charge him with harbouring an enemy of the state.

There was also the matter of the mood having turned heavy and sorrowful in the room. Jesus was deeply disturbed as He talked of the impending betrayal, desertion and denial that He would suffer at the hands of His disciples (Jn.13:21). That disturbed state of mind caught on as the disciples worried themselves trying to find out who would want to betray their beloved teacher (Matt. 26:22).

As an itinerant teacher, Jesus was used to open spaces. As He finished the Passover meal and giving last-hour instructions about how they were go on after He was gone, Jesus felt that He needed to get out of the close confines of the room and breathe the free air of the familiar garden.

Human Need for Fellowship
Jesus went to the garden for the specific purpose of praying. Then why did He drag His disciples along?

Before the Passover night, previous episodes of Jesus at prayer show Him alone (14:22-23). Whenever the disciples found Him praying, it that was not because He intended to show them that He was praying. After having taught that prayer in the secrecy of aloneness is valued by God for its sincerity (6:5-8), He Himself was unlikely to take them along to “show” them that He was praying.

That night Jesus had a reason for wanting His disciples with Him. Though He needed to do His praying by Himself, He just wanted them there near Him (Mk.14:32). Jesus needed companionship and fellowship like everyone else. He wanted their moral support. He needed to know that they were with Him.

Peter, James and John were Christ’s special aides. They accompanied Him everywhere, from the room where Jairus’ daughter lay dead (Mk. 5: 37), to the Mount of Christ’s Transfiguration (9:2). That night Jesus asked them to go further with Him and to support Him in prayer by keeping vigil with Him (Matt.26:36). But they slept through His crisis.

All of us need to know that we do not struggle alone, but that there are others to share our experiences and empathize with us. When people feel that they alone bear the burden of the war against evil, they are tempted to give up the fight. And some do, because all around them they see those who compromise or have embraced evil and prospered.

Paul wrote about Christian fellowship to the church at Philippi. The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia. This word or a form of it is used in four places in that letter.

Koinonia in the gospel (1:5)
Koinonia of grace (1:7)
Koinonia with the Spirit (2:1)
Koinonia of sharing in His sufferings (3:10)
Koinonia of sharing—with a believer in Christ (4: 14-15)

The first, second and third aspects of Christian fellowship that Paul referred to, strikes a responsive chord in our hearts, while there is a somewhat reluctant admission that the fifth is an aspect of fellowship. But the notion that fellowship that is Christian also participates in suffering is not often mentioned in most churches or Christian groups, especially in these days when every tele-evangelist promotes the health and wealth or the prosperity gospel.

Peter wrote that Christians get the strength to resist the Devil from knowing that we are not alone in paying the cost of the war.

Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings ( I Peter 5:9).

The writer of Hebrews wrote that keeping fellowship is not something Christians can neglect. It is the things that are not considered important that we tend to neglect. Fellowship must not be clubbed with what is not important. It is an essential for the Christian life. The writer commands that fellowship be maintained:

Let us think about each other and help each other to show love and do good deeds. You should not stay away from the church meetings, as some are doing, but you should meet together and encourage each other. Do this even more as you see the day coming (Heb.10:24-25, NCV).

It is for the flimsiest of reasons that so many neglect attending fellowship regularly. We would never use those kind of excuses to get out of anything else. But when it comes to gathering with others for worship and fellowship, washing clothes, cleaning the house, unexpected visitors dropping in on Sundays, tiredness, are all considered valid cause for absenting oneself. The writer of Hebrews challenges us to examine the consequences of our absence. Has someone been disappointed and discouraged by your negligence? Or, has someone been influenced by your example to embrace complacency in spiritual matters?

Jesus longed for the fellowship of His disciples. And today, when we fail brothers and sisters who long for our fellowship, we are back in the garden of Gethsemane, for the Lord said that whatever we do to brothers and sisters, we do to Him. When we neglect them or hurt them, we do it to the Lord (Matt. 25: 31-46).

Hurt by Betrayal
Jesus came back to His disciples after a time of prayer and He found His disciples were all sleeping. He did this three times. When anyone decides to pray for long, he or she doesn’t take breaks from prayer. The whole purpose of praying for long would be defeated.

Why then did Jesus come back between His periods of prayer? I am sure that it was not to play the policeman in the disciples’ lives. He was not that kind of rabbi. Rather, Jesus came back to feel their presence and support.

Jesus was hurt that His disciples did not keep vigil with Him. Each time He came back to feel supported and cared for, He found Himself totally abandoned. Jesus said,

Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire (Matt. 26:41, TM)

If you want to be there for someone who is hurting, it takes sacrificial effort that will tax you. When a friend is seriously ill, we keep vigil at the hospital. When someone is terribly distressed, we stay to comfort the person. But staying watchful in prayer suspends what we ourselves could do in our human strength. That’s why the disciples slept. It wasn’t that they didn’t care for Jesus. It was because prayer suspended their activity. But sometimes all our prattling and all our frantic activity cannot help. Only turning to God can. Are we there for our friends then—to pray long with them?

After the time of prayer got over, Judas arrive to betray the Lord with a kiss. Jesus was hurt that His friend Judas was using the sign of friendship to betray Him. Jesus challenged Judas to think about what He was doing:

Judas, is it with a kiss that you betray the Son of Man? (Lk. 22:48, GNB)

It is always sad when we use signs and symbols of love to cover harmful intentions.

While Judas betrayed Jesus to the authorities, all the other disciples abandoned Him and ran for their lives. Later that night Peter would deny Him, though Peter and all the others had sworn that they would remain by His side.

The fact that Judas betrayed Christ did not mean that he could not be forgiven. After all Jesus did say, “If anyone denies me, him will I deny before my Father in heaven” (Mk. 8:38). Even after Peter denied Jesus thrice, he was not rejected forever by the Lord. He was restored after the Resurrection. Similarly Judas could have been restored. Jesus reached out to him by asking him to consider the atrociousness of his using a kiss to betray one who had never harmed him, but accepted him as he was. But Judas does not respond to Jesus’ overture of love, unlike Peter who was reduced to tears of repentance when Jesus looked into Peter’s eyes (Lk. 22:61).

Jesus does not break the bruised reed or put out the spark in the smouldering wick (Matt.12:20). Whenever anyone comes to Jesus, he or she will never be driven away by Christ Jesus (Jn.6:37). Judas could have returned to Jesus instead of rejecting Jesus when He reached out to Him.

Having No Will
Here is what Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane:

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done (v.42)

The cross was not easy for the Lord. He found it extremely hard to accept it in His life. He wanted to escape it. He prayed hard for God to change His mind. He prayed for God to have a change of plan, not once, but thrice.

It was especially difficult for Jesus to accept this way of saving the world because He was so pure and could not stand the idea of being identified with sin. He, who was obedient to the Father, could not bear to be grouped with the Devil and the world in rebellion against God.

On the other hand, Jesus was and is the Father’s equal. If Jesus was not the Father’s equal, then He would have really had no choice but to give in to a power greater than His. But for someone who is equal, subordination is very hard. How hard it is to practise subordination in a situation of equality! But we need to learn from Jesus if we want to be citizens of the Upside Down Kingdom.

What Jesus prayed that night tells us what the essence of prayer is. Jesus addressed God as Father. The first thing that Jesus taught about prayer is that it is first an acknowledgement that God is our Heavenly Father. If God is not our Father, He would remain unapproachable. We are able to approach God only in the knowledge that He is our Father. He loves us. He will not harm us.

Jesus showed us that in the final analysis prayer is always submission to God. We go to God because we want Him to take over. If we are not ready to let Him take over, then we’re not praying. If you are not ready to say what Jesus said, you’re not praying. All prayer says to God,

It is because I want what You will give me, that I give up what I have wanted until now. I give up my plan, for Yours. It is not my will that I want done, but Yours. Not my way, but Yours is what I want.

And all God’s people said, Amen.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS: 7th - The Upper Room of Communion

2009-05-14T00:34:00.003+05:30

This is a modified version of the message preached on Maundy Thursday, April 9, 2009

It was the night before Jesus was to be crucified. It was the Saviour’s night of trials. That night on the way to the cross the Lord Jesus passed through three stations.

Jesus and His disciples had gathered to keep the Passover—the commemoration of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. It was compulsory for every Jew to celebrate this event that was foundational to the nation. God told the Israelites that anyone failing to keep the Passover would be cut off from the Jewish community (Num. 9:13).

While Jesus was growing up at home, He developed the habit of going to Jerusalem to keep the Passover. That’s what Mary and Joseph did with their family. When Jesus started His mission, He went to Jerusalem for the Passover, but without having any plan (see Jn. 2: 13). However in His last year on earth, Jesus planned the Passover observance (Lk. 22: 7-12).

Jesus had obviously discussed matters with a personal contact and arranged that a room would be available to enable Him to keep the Passover with His disciples.

Contrary to Leonardo Da Vinci’s depiction of the Last Supper, Jesus and His disciples didn’t all sit on one side of the table as though posing to have their picture taken. Another thing wrong with Da Vinci’s painting is that anachronistically he portrayed all of them sitting with their legs tucked under the table, whereas in Jesus’ time, Jews and others reclined on couches around low tables. That explains the need for feet to be washed before a meal. When people walked on dirt roads with open sandals on their feet (not with socks and closed shoes), their feet would get very dirty, and when they reclined to eat, their feet would be on level with others. It sounds strange, but mothers must have said, “Children don’t forget to wash your feet before you come to the table.”

It is in the gospel according to John that we are given the most details of what Jesus did and said that night at the Passover meal.

Servant (John 13)
Whenever people gathered for a meal, usually the task of washing feet was done by a slave or the youngest person present. But in the Upper Room, all the disciples of Christ were equal. None of them was really higher or lower. However the question about who among them would have the most power and privilege was something they argued a lot about. Jesus had clearly taught them that the quest for power was not to be a pursuit for His followers (Matt. 18:1-4).

This was a hard lesson to learn. Absolutely no one else in the world thought that power and the perks of high position were undesirable. Jesus was the only philosophy and ethics teacher who taught this kind of thing. But boys will be boys, men will be men, and humans will long to have a little more power and privilege than neighbours and friends, and so, James and John, knowing that Jesus was considerate toward women, unlike other rabbis, got their mother to try to extract a promise from Jesus that they would be the ones to sit on either side of Jesus. Once again Jesus had to teach that His Kingdom was an upside down one in which the last would be first, the greatest would be the servant (20:20-28), and then again Jesus had to teach it in a one-line slogan, that there is only one Master and all the rest are brothers (23:8).

Don’t we have to be taught again and again, and do we always learn the lessons of godliness? The disciples were just like us. Though they had been taught this lesson about not serving Jesus with an eye on position, they still desired it. And so it was, that while the room had been readied for the Passover observance, no one was assigned to do the washing of feet.

Even that night they were quarrelling about who would be greatest (Lk. 22:24). Jesus waited. There were no signs that anyone was going to wash others’ feet. They quickly took their places around the Passover meal. They acted as if there was no custom to wash feet. Sadly, because no one wanted to wash the feet of the other disciples, each of them failed to honour even their Teacher. Each thought, “If I pick up the basin, I will be out of the race. All the others will take advantage of me and form a line to have their feet washed after I wash the Lord’s feet. I would like to honour the Lord, but I had better not do it, if I want to be at the top.”

When we refuse to pick up basin and towel in the service of others, we ignore the Lord too. When our aim is to get to the top, somewhere along the way we do step past Jesus.

As the food was brought to the table, Jesus got up, stripped off his outer garment and wore a towel around His waist. Dressed that way He resembled a slave. Jesus picked up the basin and started to wash the disciples’ feet and dried them with the towel around his waist. While Peter protested the enormity of what Jesus was doing, the others were just too stunned, and maybe frightened, to react (Jn.13:1-17).

Jesus drew their attention to the fact that He had been a slave among them (Lk. 22:27). Jesus, as the Teacher of the group, had the power of life and death over them. That is the kind of power teachers had in olden days. In India we have the story of how Eklavya asked Dronacharya to teach him archery. Dronacharya had refused to teach the low caste Eklavya the skills that were to be the exclusive domain of the high caste. Eklavya made a clay image of Dronacharya and bowing before it as to his teacher, Eklavya taught himself archery. One day when it was discovered that Eklavya had excelled Dronacharya’s high caste student Arjun in archery, Dronacharya demanded that Eklavya give him his right thumb as guru dakshina (the teacher’s payment given in abject homage. Eklavya did as ordered and of course lost the ability to shoot. That is the kind of power that teachers had long ago. Jesus had that kind of power that night. But He refused to exercise it. He could have given an order or humiliated anyone of them—from the eldest to the youngest, or the one who felt most important or the one who felt he was closest to Jesus. But Jesus does not do that. Instead
• He stepped down from His position above them.
• He stripped down and dressed up like a slave.
• He knelt like a slave before them.
• He took their dirty feet in His hands.

Jesus said to them that He had set them “an example” (Jn.13:15). Jesus never said that about any of the other things He had taught them by example. For instance, they desired to learn to pray after seeing Him pray, but He never remarked that He was their example in prayer. He is indeed our example in prayer, but Jesus didn’t make it a point to say so. It was only when He washed their feet, that Jesus made it a point to say that He had set an example. The other things He had done and taught had stirred them. But in the matter of learning that His kingdom was an upside down one they never did, even though He had tried to teach them again and again. Sometimes we don’t learn what the Lord wants us to learn until we are shocked. That’s exactly how the disciples learnt their lesson. That night when Jesus resorted to giving them the shock treatment of washing their feet, the disciples finally learnt the lesson.

When we read through the book of Acts, we find that the Apostles do not seek office or cling to power. Peter who took the lead at the beginning (1:15; 2:14), submitted to being questioned by the commonality of the Church (11:2), and remained answerable to them (v.4). Later Peter readily allowed a newcomer to take over the chair at the first all church council meeting (15:13, 19-21).

The Apostle John introduces the account of Jesus His disciples’ feet with these words:

Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love…Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God (vv. 1,3).

John is right. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, John wrote that Jesus had such tremendous confidence in His Father, that Jesus didn’t feel He had to guard His status and pride. And, His love came with no restraints and limitations. He didn’t hold back.

Just as He loved His disciples, Jesus wanted them to love one another. He said that if love was the mark of their lives then people would know that they belong to Him and would follow Him (vv. 34-35). God has poured His love into our lives without any limits. When God gives us anything, we need not fear that what we have been given will be exhausted. It won’t. When God gives us anything, He actually gives us Himself, and we will never exhaust Him or His power.

Saviour (John 14)
Jesus said that it was time for Him to return to His Father. With Jesus having gone ahead, no one need fear when it is time to leave this earth. We will be going to Jesus, who will escort us when it is time to enter the huge mansion of His Father. If you wonder what lies ahead, just remember Jesus will be there, and He has been preparing for our arrival so that once we get there He can spend all the time with us (vv.1-3).

Jesus told His disciples that the only way anyone could reach the Father was through Jesus alone:

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me (14:6, NCV).

Not knowing what the Father looks like, we need someone who knows Him intimately to show Him to us. As John said, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (1:14, NRSV). Without Jesus our fear of God will keep us from getting close to Him.

Jesus emphasised that when people keep His commandments the Holy Spirit comes into lives and takes residence (14:15-16). That’s because our obedience proves that we love Him (v.21). It is in this relationship with Jesus that we discover God’s love for us. (v. 22), and the Father and our Lord will feel at home with us (v.23).

Jesus made it clear that God wants to relate to people. What God is looking for is love for Him. God wants a relationship with us. That’s why there is no other way to experience God. He will remain distant, until we discover Him in and through Jesus.

Sustenance (John 15)
When Jesus had fed the five thousand, He had announced that He Himself was the Bread of life:

I am the bread of life…Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty…I am telling you the truth: he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life…the bread that comes down from heaven is of such a kind that whoever eats it will not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live…I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day. For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them. The living Father sent me, and because of him I live also. In the same way whoever eats me will live because of me. This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate. They later died, but those who eat this bread will live forever (6: 32-39).

What this means is that just as we need food and drink to sustain life, we need Jesus to help us live the life of godliness. We can’t live lives that please God without Jesus feeding our resolve.

On His last Passover night, Jesus once again made it clear to His disciples that their spiritual life depended on them drawing sustenance from Him. He took the bread and said that it would aid their memory of Him, that He gave His life for them (Lk.22:19) and the cup of wine would remind them that He restored the covenant-relationship with God through the forgiveness bought by His blood (Matt.26:2).

Jesus explained that like branches of a tree His followers must remain connected to Him who is the source of life for us (15:1-8). Without Him we cannot live connected to God or draw on God’s life-giving power.

Spirit (John 16)
Jesus assured His disciples that they would not be abandoned like orphans (14:18). He would send another Counsellor (v.16). Jesus’ use of the word “another” is significant. He clearly indicated that the Spirit would be different from Him, but would be like Him. That means that the Spirit would not be less in status and power than Him, but the equal of the Lord Jesus. That is why the Spirit would be His substitute.

What the Spirit would teach would be what Jesus Himself had taught. The Spirit would turn their attention toward Jesus reminding them of things Jesus taught. (v. 26; 15:26; 16: 12-15). In fact Jesus spelt it out that the Spirit would not teach something different and new (16:13).

New Testament writers occasionally referred to the Holy Spirit as “Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7; Phil. 1:19). It is when they consider the Holy Spirit without reference to Jesus erred in their understanding and conduct. While many Pentecostals seem to think of the Spirit as taking them beyond Jesus to new horizons, many in non-Pentecostal churches, in a knee-jerk reaction to the excesses of Pentecostalism think of the Spirit as the rival of the Lord Jesus. There is a desperate need for us to get back to what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. What He said is basic. When we ignore what Jesus taught, we are great danger of losing the way to God.

Supplication (John 17)
Probably the only time the disciples heard the words of Jesus’ prayer was that night. Earlier on they had only seen Him pray. They observed the ease with which He prayed. They noted that He was regular in prayer. They asked Him to teach them how to pray.

That night for the first time they heard Him. They must have been in awe as they heard the emotion in His voice, the intimacy of how He talked to the Father, and the longing that He had for them to reach what He desired for them.

Jesus gloried in the fact that He had been able to introduce the Father to His disciples He rejoiced that they had already started on eternal life, because it is the quality of our life in relationship with God is what eternal life is (v.3).

As He left them behind, He prayed for their protection (vv.11-15), their holiness (vv.16-17) and their unity so that by their oneness they will be effective in their proclamation that Jesus is the only one who has come from God (vv.20-23).

What a night! Jesus was Servant to His own followers. That was the way to be the Saviour, and become our Sustenance, and give us the Spirit to keep us connected to Jesus, and in the end, way back then He supplicated even for us today (v.20). Let all God’s people say, Amen.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS 6

2009-05-07T00:01:00.002+05:30

Message preached on Palm Sunday, April 5, 2009

Here’s a question for you to answer: did Jesus ever ride a donkey before the last week of His life on earth? Most people would say that He had done so as a baby. That’s because all our Christmas cards show Mary riding a donkey with Joseph on foot. So it is assumed that when the family fled to Egypt, Mary must have ridden the donkey and carried Baby Jesus in her arms. But those pictures do not represent any of the information we have in the Bible.

Here’s what we know about the family that could contradict that picture. Joseph was poor. He didn’t require a donkey to go about his work because he was a village carpenter. If it was something that he had to repair for someone at their home, he may have carried his bag of tools on his shoulder and walked to the place.

Would Joseph have been so cruel as to make Mary walk all that way from Nazareth to Bethlehem? Not by choice. But the poor don’t have many choices. If Joseph didn’t already have a donkey, it was unlikely that he would be suddenly able to buy one just because Mary and he were compelled by law to travel to Bethlehem.

When Roshini and I were in Ethiopia doing pastors’ conferences in 2008, we were touched by the fact that the poor who needed to travel to another village or town would set out on foot, and when they heard a vehicle coming up behind them, they would turn and bow a number of times from the waist, holding out open palms and then touching their heads to beg for a lift. The thought came to me that rural Ethiopia must be so much like what it was in those ancient times described in the Bible.

Could Mary have walked the distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem so close to her delivery? When I was in seminary there was an African student’s wife who worked as a nurse in the campus clinic. The day she had her baby, she worked with the missionary doctor all morning, went home took care of her household chores, and then walked to the hospital and had her baby with no trouble at all. When our son Ishaaq was due to be born, Roshini decided that she was going to do some washing sitting on a low stool. In the afternoon the pains started, within about twenty minutes of getting to the hospital, the baby arrived with ease. Hard work never affects pregnancies and births adversely.

The Messiah Rode a Donkey
Rabbi Jesus went around teaching walking everywhere. He was a peripatetic teacher, typical of teachers of philosophy. Other teachers were attached to a school with pupils in attendance. But those who taught new ideas were not accepted as teachers and had to win a hearing and a following. That’s the kind of teacher Jesus was. He was a pilgrim, itinerant teacher.

After three years of walking everywhere, suddenly one morning Jesus announced that He needed a donkey. It was a departure from His customary style. He made a deliberate choice that day. Matthew said that Jesus did that to fulfill the prophecy by Zechariah:

Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt (9:9, LB).

Jesus sent two of His disciples to get the donkey. They were told to simply say to the owner of the animal, “The Master needs it” (Lk.19:31, NCV). The owner sent his donkey with the men. Would you ever readily part with a possession because someone came and told you that the Master needs it? I know I would have difficulty accepting the message. I would question the person’s credentials. Then I would wonder if he did get such an order from the Master. That man was ready. It would appear that he was expecting the Master to make such a request, and that is why he responded positively. I think that is the secret. One has to be ready and willing. Then when the Master’s order is delivered to us we do what we have been preparing to do.

When the donkey arrived, people give their cloaks to put on the animal’s back and to pave the path. A long time before Jesus, their favourite king, David, had stripped off his royal robes to be able to dance freely before the Lord God. He thought nothing of abandoning the pomp of his royal position and just being like everyone else, dancing without any inhibitions. David reminded his wife that he had had no status until God had given it to him. He said that he would never cling to it before the Lord. Rather he would humble himself even more if he could (2 Sam.6: 20-22). When someone encounters the Lord and asserts his or her status before God it is a confrontational act. It is an affront to the almightiness of God.

Centuries later, Walter Raleigh is reputed to have laid his expensive cloak over a muddy puddle so that Queen Elizabeth I wouldn’t get her feet dirty. Raleigh did it to gain the Queen’s favour and get ahead in the court. But the people in Judea were honouring the one they thought was the Messiah who would free them from Roman rule, and for those moments they were willing to honour Him by laying down their cloaks for Him to walk on.

The Jews of the period were looking for a Warrior Messiah, who would conquer and destroy their enemies. They failed to note the significance of the fact that Jesus was riding a donkey. Conquerors rode war horses. That is how the Roman victors rode into the cities of the lands they had conquered. The Jews forgot that Zechariah had prophesied the coming of a humble Messiah. Anyway they hailed their Messiah with cries of “Hosanna” which just means “Save!” They cried to God, “Hosanna in the highest [heaven]” (Matt. 21: 9). Their Messiah was not saved that week from death at the hands of His antagonists, but He is in the highest heaven.

The Man Who Cried for Citizens
As Jesus entered the city, He cried over it:

I wish you knew today what would bring you peace. But now it is hidden from you. The time is coming when your enemies will build a wall around you and will hold you in on all sides. They will destroy you and all your people, and not one stone will be left on another. All this will happen because you did not recognize the time when God came to save you (Lk. 19:42-44, NCV).

Earlier Jesus had cried at the tomb of His friend Lazarus (Jn. 11:35). “Jesus wept,” the sacred historian wrote and Robert Estienne (also known as Stephanus) who divided the New Testament into standard numbered verses, in 1555, seems to have been so touched by this fact that he demarcated them as constituting just one verse. Strange isn’t it that even though He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus still cried at his grave. There could be only one reason Jesus did that: it was to show His common cause with humanity, that He shared our feelings, emotions and sorrows. Jesus was not insulated against feeling hurt.

Jesus had come to save His people. Jerusalem, the Temple city, represented the highest aspirations and the deepest longings of the nation. And so Jesus cried. Their hardness of heart and their blindness had prevented Him from saving them in toto. As a result of their rejection of Jesus, Jerusalem, which the Lord God had hallowed by giving His name to it, was going to be destroyed in the future. As the Son of God, Jesus cried that His Father’s beloved city would be ruined. Jesus attributed the cause of their hardness of heart to a lack of discernment about God’s clock having run its course with God’s Son having arrived on the scene.

The New Testament Church was warned that there was a need to discern the time:

So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times! (Eph. 5: 15-16, TM).
Be wise in the way you act with people who are not believers, making the most of every opportunity (Col. 4:5, NCV).

That was then. So much time has gone by since then. How much more we who live today need to be aware that the clock has kept running down. Our Lord told the story of 10 young women getting ready for a wedding. Five prepared beforehand by keeping their lamps filled with oil. Five thought that there was plenty of time before they would need the oil. They must have mocked those who “wasted” time with their preparation, while they themselves were having a blast. Suddenly, it was announced that the bridegroom was nearly there. It was time for the wedding. Those who had filled their time with fulfilling and self-satisfying activities rushed to the market to get oil for their lamps, but the market had closed for the day. There was no place to buy any oil (Matt. 24: 36-51).

It is true that Jesus will not arrive in the very next moment—because Jesus said that some things will have to happen before He returns. It is because we know that it will not happen right now, that we go on with life and forget that time is running out. The day is nearly here. But we are not paying attention to the ticking of the clock. We are people who are eligible for membership in the five foolish women’s club. Those women started with a commitment and desire to be there for the wedding. Their problem was that with so much time to be spent in waiting, they decided to get busy with all the things they wanted to do. They were distracted and diverted from waiting for D-day. If you check on your personal agenda you will find that it seems to have been copied entirely from the schedule kept by that women’s club.

The Master of the Temple
Entering Jerusalem, Jesus found His way to the heart of the city, the Temple of God. Once, at the beginning of His ministry He had gone into the Temple and cleansed it announcing what His ministry was going to be all about (Jn. 2:13-22). Many think that there was just one cleansing of the Temple. When you think about how Jesus had to repeat lessons, why should we think that He didn’t have to do this too more than once?

The Lord walked into the Temple and claimed it was His. He said, “My house”. The right to cleanse the Temple was His because of His ownership. Jesus claimed that His house was reserved for spiritual pursuits not commercial ones. Today, those who follow Jesus do not have brick or stone temples for the purpose of housing God, because He is Spirit, and does not inhabit manmade structures built to keep idols (4: 23-24). But the Apostle Paul made the observation that God inhabits us and we are His temples that must be kept holy because we are bought by the blood Jesus shed on the cross:

Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20, NLT).

When Jesus cleansed the Temple, He turned it into a place of redemption. When all the commercial activity stopped, and space was freed, blind and crippled beggars waiting for alms from the devotees thronged Jesus and He healed them (Matt. 21: 14-15). They had never dared to enter the Temple before that because there was an edict to stop them from doing that (2 Sam. 5:8).

With all the commercial activity going on in the Temple precincts, poor beggars would not have felt welcome. Poor people always feel that the rich have no time and space for them. They had reason to feel that way so long ago in the time of our Lord’s sojourn on earth. The shouting and haggling, the buying and selling, must have all filled poor people visiting the Temple with the feeling that they would be getting in the way of important business. It was only when Jesus stopped it all and threw out the sellers and whatever they were selling that poor people felt that they could approach someone in the Temple who didn’t care a bit about all that business.

Those who suffered financial losses because of Christ’s disruption of their business, hid behind a protest that what was happening was sacrilegious. They said that such unruly behaviour as the crowd shouting was unbecoming conduct within the Temple. They didn’t think that the shouting and haggling, animal and bird noises, the refuse and the stench had not spoilt the sanctity, but the moment the crowd shouted “Hosanna” they protested. Jesus said that if He asked the crowd to shut up, the very stones of the Temple would shout the praises of God (Lk. 19: 39-40). John the Baptist had preceded Jesus with a similar remark, when he told religious leaders not to hide behind claims of Abrahamic parentage, because God could give stones the genes of Abraham (Matt. 3:9). True. God, who created the world out of nothing by merely commanding it into existence, could do it again and again anytime. It’s time we learnt that Jesus is the Lord. It’s time to praise Him with a sense of abandon—like David danced before the Lord, and that long ago Palm Sunday crowd went wild with ecstasy because Jesus had ridden into town.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS — 5

2009-04-03T18:11:00.003+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, March 29, 2009

When I finished seminary I wanted to go back to Hyderabad to serve in the St George’s Church where I had grown up going to Sunday School and church. It didn’t happen because the then bishop knowing that I didn’t know Telugu and was more suited to a city congregation insisted that I would be packed off to a village church. I had felt a need to prove myself back where I had spent most of my life until then.

After 30 years of training for His mission, ordination by the Holy Spirit, and finishing His final exams in the University of the Wilderness, Jesus went back to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. On the Sabbath, He went to the synagogue “as was His custom” (Lk.4:16).

Sometimes Christians think that habits in the practice of faith are bad. They think that since habits are more or less done by rote, they can’t be acceptable to God. He wants heart religion, doesn’t He?

Habit formation is a part of life. Our personal hygiene depends on our having learnt habits and kept them. This is true for our spiritual health too. No doubt some of it will be done by rote, but we still would do it conscientiously—like brushing our teeth. We brush teeth without too much of thought about the process. But we are conscientious about it.

For a Christian, the example of Christ is mandatory. The word “disciple” is usually associated with religion. But it really doesn’t have a religious meaning at all. The word simply means “student” or “follower”. A Christian cannot be one without being a disciple, a follower, one who learns to do as the Teacher. A Christian must have the same “custom” as his or her Master.

If we don’t develop spiritual habits, we will develop habits that are contrary to spirituality. There were people in the Early Church who had formed a habit that was opposite to that of their Lord. They had developed the habit of neglecting Christian fellowship:

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching (Heb.10:25)

Since habit formation is inevitable, if we don’t develop good spiritual habits, bad spiritual habits will be developed.

The writer of Hebrews argues that once we have entered God’s presence through the atoning death of Christ (vv.19-20), we should be drawing nearer (v.21), and clinging to our hope (v.23). If we withdraw from God’s presence (by our absence in the gathering of God’s people) we proclaim a lack of hope in what Christ offers us. When earthy pursuits and goals keep us too busy to fellowship with God and His people, we show a hidden disbelief in the hope of what God has promised us. Our absence is a discouragement to others, whereas we are to seize opportunities to encourage others to love and do good (v.24). If you follow Christ make Christian fellowship a habit.

When Jesus went to Nazareth, on being invited to read the Scripture to the assembly, He read from the prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people (Lk.4:18-19, GNB)

Ministry of Redemption
When He read this passage from Isaiah, and said that that Scripture was fulfilled that day, Jesus was announcing what His agenda for ministry was going to be for the next three years of His life on earth.

Jesus said that His ministry would first of all pay attention to the poor. When people are poor, they are denied what others take as a right. The way I am dressed, conduct myself, and talk, I’m able to gain entry to all sorts of places. But a poor man is kept out of the same places simply because he is poor. In a world where the rights of admission are far too often denied to the poor, Jesus came announcing that the Kingdom of God was one place where the poor would not be denied. The Kingdom was open to them.

Next, Jesus said that His ministry would reach out to the imprisoned. When people are confined, so often they are forgotten. The sorrow of those confined is not that they are confined, but that they are forgotten. Joseph was kind to Pharaoh’s cupbearer, but the man forgot him once he was outside the jail. How many have we confined behind the walls we build around them so that we can forget about them and go about our lives?

Jesus said He would give sight to the blind. The blind represent all of the ill, because their blindness shuts them out. They have no idea about colour. They don’t know anything about physical beauty. Standing at the foot of a mountain they have no idea about its height. When people are shut in by their illness, they can so easily be shut out by the world that has no patience for those who are ill and slow and weak. But Jesus didn’t shut them out. And His disciples didn’t. Around the world they have always ministered to the sick.

Lastly, Jesus said He had come to care for the oppressed. These are the people who are cheated, abused, harassed and victimized. The worst blow they suffer is that when they are down and out, they are deserted by one and all—sometimes even by family and friends. There is a need for us to be careful about not being oppressors ourselves. We are largely a middle class community and have middle class values. While people are excited about the pay revisions that have recently been implemented, somehow they do not think that the poor rickshaw puller needs to benefit from that pay rise. If a kind woman gives him more, an observant neighbour will scold her for “spoiling it for others”. The middle class have a way of forming a cartel. Our unions will fight for us to be paid more, but when it comes to paying the poor, we close our ranks so that there is no leakage of benefits. For that matter, even God is denied the proportion of our pay rises.

Methods of Redemption
When Jesus announced the agenda of His mission, He also spelt out the methods He would be using to accomplish His purpose. The first method was that of preaching. The word “preaching” just means “proclaiming” or “announcing”. Today many people show a disdain for this method of doing God’s work. They make jokes about preachers and preaching. For instance, have you heard that preachers preach, and doctors practise?

Though people put it down, preaching is essential to understanding what God is doing. Without preaching, the significance of an event would be lost on us. We would not be able to recognize it as an act of God.

Romans crucified thousands of people during the time that their empire existed. How could anyone know that when three men were crucified one Friday two thousand years ago, the one on the cross in the centre was the Son of God giving His life for the salvation of humanity? He was a stripped and battered wretch, no different than the others who hung on either side of Him. From Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, to modern preachers, all say that that man on that cross on that day was different from all the thousands crucified before Him and after Him.

It is the preacher who says that there is more to life than what appears. It is the preacher who announces that when someone is healed, it is because God took charge of the doctor, the medicines, the whole treatment. It is the preacher who says that an event is an act of God. That’s all a preacher does. He announces, “See the hand of God, for this is nothing less than an act of God.”

Of course, preaching alone will not do. Words will not make a difference to someone who is hungry and miserable.

Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don’t have enough to eat. What good is there in your saying to them, “God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!”—if you don’t give them the necessities of life? (Jas.2:15-16, GNB).

Our Lord said that healing was part of His ministry. Just like our Lord, there is a need for us to touch people’s lives. We need to comfort them and bring relief to them in their time of need. Sometimes people hide behind slogans like, “I would rather teach a man to fish, than give him a fish.” But we need to recognize that people need to eat while they are still struggling to learn to fish. There is a need to do something immediately to help them in their hour of need.

Healing is not just the healing of illnesses and disabilities. It is about touching people’s lives. While some need healing for their bodies, there are many who need to be healed of emotional traumas and hurts. There are people who need to be healed of fears and hang-ups.

Touch was the way Jesus healed people. Touching has a healing effect. The person suffering from leprosy approached Jesus hesitantly. He wondered if Jesus would heal him. He cringed as Jesus reached out to touch him. Jesus said, “I will.” That was not just about being willing to heal the man, but also about touching one whom human society had cast out as an untouchable (Matt.8:1-3).

Wilf Wilkinson in his book To Me Personally (Fontana, Great Britain, 1972) quoted the following from the autobiography of Werner Pelz, a Jew born in Berlin whose parents died in the Holocaust, became a Christian reading the Bible, and later became a minister of the Church of England:

How much heartbreak, perversity and barren promiscuity we could avoid, if—like children, the favoured candidates for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven—we could learn once more and feel free to peck and cuddle as the fancy takes us…and who knows whether the genitals will not clamour for much less of our attention once we have learned to satisfy the craving of the whole of our skin?...I have often sat next to a man or woman, old or young, sick or lonely or bewildered, and I knew that had it come naturally to us, I could have helped them infinitely more by taking their head into my hands and kissing them, or by hugging them or stroking their hair, than by my wise and penetrating words. After all, this is what I long for in my distress (p.55).

People are starving for a human touch to give reality to the love of God they are to believe in. The invisible God takes flesh and blood in a fresh reincarnation when any one who serves God touches someone today. Our touch can give them the strength to go on living and overcoming their problems, because the love and the power of God flow from our fingers into their hurting bodies and souls.

The third dimension of Christ’s ministry was that of freeing people from their bondages. If healing is like first aid for the short run, then this is about recuperating them for the long run.

We have a tendency to concentrate on the short term ministry because often it brings us the satisfaction of some quick results. We can concentrate on taking scalps that we don’t help people to last the distance. At first people who followed Christ were identified as belonging to “the Way” (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22). Jesus said He was the Way (Jn.14: 6). The Christian life involves a journey, a long run.

It is not enough to bring people to birth in the New Birth in Christ. Life must follow birth. There must be a going on. There must be living. Birth happens in a moment, but a living takes time. But it is not only the living of life that takes time. Equipping people to do the living also takes time. There are no quick fixes for this. People in ministry have to be ready for the long haul.

Men & Women Respond
When Jesus preached, common people listened. They were amazed because He taught with authority, unlike other rabbis who skirted questions and controversies, or would quote someone else’s opinion rather than assert their own view (Matt.5:28-29). And since everyone loves stories and Jesus was a master storyteller they loved listening to Him. It was obvious to them that Jesus loved to talk to them with utter simplicity. The people were glad too when Jesus cleverly turned tables on His baiters and tripped them up (Mk.12:37).

Some of His listeners became disciples. As I said earlier this is what it means to be a Christian. A Christian has to be a “student” or “follower” of Christ. Only those who follow the Teacher and do as He teaches them are Christians. For them His Word is their command.
Among those who listened to Jesus were those who showed that they cared. They dipped into their purses to support an itinerant preaching band that didn’t have the approval of the authorities or belong to any guild of teachers (Lk.8:1-3). Jesus and His followers were doing things that didn’t have any sanction. The women who supported Jesus risked their standing in society.

Not all listened with eagerness. Everyone who listened didn’t respond favourably. Some were against Jesus. They rejected Him. They shut their ears to His teaching. But to all who received Him, to them He gave the power to become sons and daughters of God (Jn.1:12-13). Where do you fit when you hear the Lord speak to you today?

BENDING OVER BACKWARDS?

2009-04-01T17:55:00.005+05:30

Beginning Christmas Day 2007, there was a surge of persecution in Orissa that lasted for months together. Christians were attacked, some killed, and many deprived of homes and possessions. Many church buildings were desecrated and vandalized or gutted by fire.

As if such injury to life and deprivation of goods was not bad enough, some so called Christians have justified the attacks claiming that Christians themselves are to blame for their troubles. Their pretended sophistication and broadmindedness have room for everyone, except Christians, to live and fulfill the purpose of their lives.

Their rule for Christians is that Christians are not to obey their Lord. Of course, they don’t put it quite that way. They plead that Christians need to be tolerant, recognize that other religions are equally true and valid, and just stop all conversion of people of other faiths. But they forget that it is none other than the Lord Jesus whom they would restrict by their sophistication, because He is the one who mandated that His disciples shall proclaim the gospel of His grace and invite people to join His kingdom movement. It is not any spiritual arrogance that makes us proclaim Christ, for where is the pride in saying that we are no more than beggars, that we need grace?

Though suspected of it, neither is there any political agenda to capture votes or power, for we follow the Jesus who said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight."

Recently a sophisticate, advocating inter-religious dialogue to meet "the challenges of rival faiths," attributed religious differences to ancient sages having "formulated different perceptions of the almighty." According to this view, God is merely the figment of human speculation. However if God is God, He is beyond all speculation and perception. God must reveal Himself if He is to be known.

Indian Secularism
Erroneously, the man claimed that while they faced stiff opposition in their "own lands of origin" Christianity and Islam "received hospitality" in India. I wonder if he has ever wondered who killed the apostle Thomas for bringing the gospel to India. The truth is that opposition to the Christian faith has existed in varying forms and strengths from the very first century till date.

Quite wrongly the writer claimed that "India does not sponsor or foster any one religion at the expense of the others." It is true that, constitutionally, the government is not permitted to favour one religion over another and everyone pays lip service to that dictum. The reality however is that Muslims receive subsidies for their haj and the state machinery is mobilized for the teerth yatras and kumbh melas of Hindus. Apart from this kind of official support for some religions, there is the vast sea of public practice that forces the religious practices of the majority on the minority, as when money is extorted for pujas and havans in offices or housing localities. And while little shrines come up on premises of government offices or city sidewalks, in turn the electricity department and water works close their eyes to the illegal usage of public utilities by such shrines.

Conversions
Strangely this person ignored the fact that the Supreme Court did take cognizance of the violence against Christians in Orissa. Investigative reports by the news media as well as the findings of the state’s own police have concluded that the violence against Christians was not justifiable because the Hindu religious leader whose killing supposedly sparked off the attacks was killed, not by Christians, but by Maoists. Instead he went into scolding mode, arguing that all proselytization went against Christ because he censured the practice of scribes and Pharisees. The Lord’s objection was not to conversion but to their making converts unethical like themselves or worse (Matt. 23:15).

Every time there has been persecution of Christians it has become standard practice for Hindus like former premier Atal Bihari Vajapyee or BJP leader Venkiah Naidu to justify it on the grounds that it is simply the backlash of Hindu anger against Christians for converting poor Hindus by inducement or fraud. There have also been various Hindu spiritual and political leaders who have organized ghar vapasi (reconversion)or shuddhi (purification) rituals among adivasis (first dwellers), done through inducement or force.

While it is true that more conversions take place among the tribal peoples of India, than among the upper castes, it needs to be noted that the tribals are not Hindus. They are animists. Until modern day politics found them useful, Hindus were not interested one bit n them. Ask any anthropologist whether they can be classified as Hindus? Indians yes, but not Hindus.

To be a Hindu one has to belong to the varnas (castes) of Hinduism. The tribals were outcaste—meaning, they don't belong.

Similarly Hindus are not interested in the low caste either. But they need the low caste to remain low caste if they are to be exploited. If they are socially uplifted who will carry the shit out of homes in the feudal villages of North India?

In most cases, the downtrodden were uplifted though Christian organizations with their missional viewpoint. (Rama Krishna Mission etc were born as a reaction to the inroads Christianity was making among the untouchables of India). It is the disturbance of the social equations that is causing the so called "backlash" against Christian missionaries.

Meanwhile everyone from Shashi Tharoor (India’s erstwhile candidate for the post of General Secretary of the UN) to Vir Sanghvi (journalist) and various university professors claim that Hinduism is “not really violent like this” at all. I’m not so sure. After all, this kind of violence has gone on and on. When Sikhs and Muslims were attacked, they struck back. But Christians are soft targets. On the whole, they don’t retaliate. They’ve been taught to turn the other cheek and at least they do not take an eye for an eye, or tooth for tooth.

The Foreign Entity
In a second group email, my friend said that “the Church as a structure imported from abroad and financed from overseas, has no future in India…”

The Church is as imported as Hinduism is. Even if Hinduism has been around for a longer period, it undeniably came in with the Aryans. It was not the religion of the first dwellers (adivasis). The adivasis practised pantheism or animism—the fear of spirits that indwelt everything. Which is why the charge that Christian missions have converted Hindus cannot stick. If Hinduism has the right to convert, so do all other religions. Or, is it the argument of so called Christian sophisticates that it is only the Christian faith that is not to exercise the fundamental right (enshrined in the Constitution) to propagate the faith?

Allow me to quickly add that there is no such thing as sterile, unfruitful propagation. Propagation is advertising, and like advertising, seeks new converts to try what is being propagated. Except that, since the Christian gospel is about accepting grace (receiving a handout), the Christian is no more than a beggar inviting others to leave their sense of self-sufficiency and join him/her in the lowly position of being a beggar. He is only one boasting that he has found a place where he can go on being a beggar.

Admittedly the large structures left behind by yesteryear's foreign missions have required sustaining the mission with foreign funds. However structured work is not the only kind of work that the church does, nor foreign funds the only kind of sustenance that the church receives. Moreover, in today's world, from the Government down to the Communist Party, from the Right to the Left, all, not only receive foreign funds, but are somewhat dependant on them. Today all religious groups receive money from foreign sources—either from Indians settled abroad or non-Indian foreign entities. The church is just one of them.

Since churches are largely fragmented or divided, the assessment of the impact of foreign funds used by Christian churches and agencies must also be measured in fragments, Instead of someone saying something like "the church is the largest receiver of foreign donations." It needs to be recognized that "the church" is an abstract concept or a theological truth that has reality only in the heavenly realm. On Indian soil there is no one church that is the one entity that receives the most foreign funds of all groups. Since their efforts are not united, it is pointless to talk of them as one unit or of their menace being the greatest.

No Monopoly on Corruption
My correspondent went on to object to the fact that “Clergy [is] involved in the business of administration” and argued that that was the reason for the corruptions in the church.

I am of course in agreement that preachers should not be involved in the administration of the temporal affairs of the church. In the Early Church there was a class of people called "deacons" (see Acts 6) who looked after administration. But they were just as "full time" as the preachers. Not only were they dedicated/set apart exclusively for that work, but they even had to demonstrate the same spirituality as the apostles/preachers. The depth of their commitment was to be the same. There was merely to be a division of labour, but they did not constitute a second grade or type of Christian worker.

I suppose the Roman Catholic Church comes closest to that division of labour by having sacred and secular orders. Their vow of celibacy has aided in ensuring that the same dedication is manifested by both the sacred and secular brothers/sisters—though lately that dedication has been tattered as there have been cases of some using their office to benefit their kith and kin. Maybe, it isn't all that lately. After all, the church is the body that coined the term "nepotism" to describe the incidence of popes/cardinals/bishops favouring their "nephews" (a euphemism for illegitimate sons).

That is why, merely allowing laypersons with managerial skills to administer the finances and properties and institutions of the church is not the answer. Across the board they have all consistently shown a tendency to believe that they ought to be or deserve to be compensated at par with the management of corporate houses. Christian executive directors draw excessive perks in the name of their so called "sacrificial salaries", instead of the mythical salaries they have given up by not working in the corporate world.

Maybe the spiritual system works only when the church is stripped of earthly possessions as the Early Church was. Church buildings did not exist prior to the latter half of the Third Century. The Church met in homes (Acts 2:42; 5:42; 20;20; Rom.16:5; 1 Cor.16:19; Col.4:15) or in secret in places such as the catacombs. Once possessions entered the picture, human greed entered and the desire for a bigger slice of the cake determined conduct—and that is something that occurs even between blood brothers and sisters.

Can the clock be turned back so that the church once again becomes a body without any possessions, any buildings and facilities? Not likely.

In Feudal England there was the concept that some of the land belonging to the feudal lord constituted “the commons”. While it belonged to him, he had no right to barricade it against use by the common people of the area. In the days when the West was being possessed, there were ruthless men who thought that their hired muscle power gave them the right to barricade watering holes and force smaller settlers out of business. That is the problem. Ultimately, the Church’s problem is that there will always be some individuals, who think they have a right to carve up the church for their own wants. That is a spiritual problem—a malady that can affect the laity as well as the clergy.

And for that we have to get back to Jesus—the one who saves people from their sins.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS - 4

2009-03-28T01:01:00.002+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, March 22
TAKING THE PLUNGE IN THE JORDAN

The River Gomti runs through Lucknow. When summer starts, a swimming camp is set up on one bank for school kids and others to learn swimming. I cannot understand how people would want to learn swimming in this river that gets sewage, factory effluents, and dead bodies dumped in it. That was the kind of feeling the Syrian army general Naaman expressed when he was asked by Elisha to dip seven times in the River Jordan. He felt that if it was a dip in water that he needed, he would prefer the rivers of his own country instead of muddy Jordan (2 Ki. 5:1–27). On the other hand, Almighty God Incarnate had no airs and showed no squeamishness about getting baptized in the Jordan. There was absolutely no hesitation on Jesus’ part when He had to take a dip in the river.

Giving Importance to Another
John the Baptist was Christ’s herald. He said he was not worthy to even untie the Lord’s sandals (Mk.1: 7). So when Jesus presented Himself for baptism, John’s reaction was that it should be the other way (Matt.3:14). Precisely. Have you ever heard of somebody higher going to someone lower and asking for a favour? No one does that. But Jesus did.

Paul wrote to the church at Philippi that people ought to

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves (2: 3, NRSV).

Paul affirmed that was the only appropriate response to the kenosis, the emptying of self that Christ did:

Though He was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied Himself… (2:6, NRSV).

In our world, no one gives importance to another, especially if it means that our own importance is diminished. Instead people put their importance on show—like all the people in government, who need flashing lights, sirens and security men to let people know that they are important. It has always been that way in human society. It was no different in the time when our Lord walked this earth. But He didn’t think He needed to safeguard His divine importance by clinging to it, and when He came down to the earth, Jesus didn’t feel the need to show His self-importance as He stood before John. He knew who He was. He didn’t feel that He had to assert it to be important.

Doing the Right Thing
Baptism administered by John signified repentance on the part of the person undergoing the baptism. Jesus had no need to be baptized, because He had nothing to repent of. But Jesus said to John, that it needed to be done, “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt.3:15). Jesus was saying that He wanted to keep whatever was required of people. He would be no different than ordinary folks. That is so unlike people in power isn’t it? Judges refuse to disclose their assets, as if the security of the nation would be compromised. Governors and ministers are kept outside the purview of the Law. Even petty politicians demand that they be accorded special treatment. No one likes to be treated just like a citizen. When Jesus came to John the Baptist, He said that He wanted to be treated just like one of the people. He wanted to identify with humans completely. If something was required of them, He would not refuse to meet that requirement.

Matthew records the story of how Peter committed the Lord to paying the temple tax without asking Him first (17: 24-27). When Peter came in afterwards, Jesus asked him whether citizens are taxed the way kings and rulers tax aliens and those whom they conquer and subdue. Peter said that they didn’t. Jesus expressed His opinion that the temple tax was an imposition on all God’s children. However, Jesus paid the tax for Himself and Peter. He said that He would do it so as to “not give offence”. He was saying, “Let’s meet the requirement, even though I don’t agree with it. That’s the right thing to do—even though what they are doing is not right.”

Our country would be so much better if all our citizens believed that there is no such thing as a right to do wrong, because someone else does wrong. All over our land people do wrong, and excuse wrongdoing claiming that someone above them did wrong. Even when others do wrong, we still have to do what’s right, because we’re followers of Christ, who made it a point to “fulfill all righteousness.”

Letting God Be Seen
When Jesus gave importance to another, and did the right thing, He opened the way for God to be revealed. I am not reading meaning into the order of how things transpired that day. That was simply the order of events. God revealed Himself as the Trinity when Jesus gave a lesser human importance, and chose righteousness.

The Kenosis prompted the ultimate revelation of God. Never before was God seen in this multifaceted way all at once. God was quick to affirm that this Most Humble One was on earth as His representative Son filled with the Holy Spirit (3:16-17).

The revelation of God to humans has been largely in phases: first, God revealed Himself as Creator and Sustainer and Preserver. In the Incarnation, God revealed Himself as Saviour and Lord. After that God revealed Himself as the Holy Spirit who has come to take possession of lives that opened to the Saviour.

At the moment of baptism as the Son humbled Himself to fulfill all righteousness, the Father and the Holy Spirit stood with Him to affirm that Father, Son and Holy Spirit act together in revelation and redemption. The Son was not alone in mission and purpose.

Ultimate Proof of Humanity
Baptism was an initiation rite in the time of Jesus Christ. For our Lord it was His initiation into His mission and ministry. The Holy Spirit came to empower Him. But there was still a fight that He had to fight in order to be fully prepared for the work. He had to be tested and tried. He had to prove Himself.

The temptations of our Lord are in a sense the ultimate proof of His humanity. Many Christians, even those who have all their doctrines right, subconsciously think of Jesus as somehow aloof and removed from our humanity, untouched by our frailties and problems. They think it was easy for Him. They keep forgetting that there was a kenosis—an emptying of Himself that Jesus did when He came to earth.

Let’s get this absolutely clear in our minds: the incarnation was not a disguise. According to mythologies when gods came to earth, they donned a disguise so that they would not be recognized. They were on surprise inspections of the world. In the end they would break out in anger against those who offended them. For them it was just an excursion that they were taking to survey their kingdom. For Jesus, the incarnation was down-to-earth reality. He became human and remained human from start to finish. God came with a view to get a “taste” of what it means to be human. He felt hunger, thirst, and weariness. He experienced pain, sorrow and despair. But it is in His temptations that we get the most vivid picture of His humanity, because He is shown as a human who experiences struggles—just like us:
He had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when He came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins, He would have already experienced it all Himself—all the pain, all the testing—and would be able to help where help was needed (Heb.2:17-18, TM).

Jesus was tempted. Options contrary to God’s ways were presented to Him, and Jesus was tempted. If we say, He wasn’t tempted by anything so earthy as what the Devil dangled before Him, we make Jesus a supernatural being incapable of being touched by our kind of problems.

The Self
The biggest hindrance to any ministry is selfishness. And that is what Jesus had to face. He had to face the human selfishness that was aroused by Satan’s temptations. Jesus was tempted first to use His powers as God-Incarnate to escape the pangs of hunger that He felt as a human (Matt.4: 3). The Devil drew attention to the hunger He was feeling. It was an acute feeling. Physical needs have a way of preoccupying us humans and Jesus felt that way.

The Devil aroused the thought that if Jesus didn’t use His power, how would it be known that He was the Son of God. Put that way, using His power would serve His mission. That is one thing we need to learn about temptations. They are always justifiable. There is always solid reason for doing what we are tempted to do. We make the mistake of thinking that only what is gross constitutes temptation. Most of us have been schooled in politeness and so are not tempted by what is gross. For us, as for Christ Jesus, temptations come in matters that we can justify as serving a purpose—a higher one.

The Devil told Jesus that He had to take care of Himself. That is why He was endued with power. Why should He starve when He had the power to fix the problem? Many of us have developed a theology to support such a view. We have the maxim, “God helps those who help themselves.” Using our own resourcefulness is always a big mistake, because in the end we think that all we need to fix our problems is more power and better connections.

Our resources of power and connections are never enough. We live by divine command (v. 4). It is only because God has commanded that our lives continue, that we continue to live. Bread won’t keep us alive. One can have all the bread and not be able to eat it to live. The outcome can be very different for two persons in the same circumstances. Why does one die, and the other live, when both have the same health issue, and are given the same treatment? There has to be a cause beyond—God’s command. It is God’s Word that gives us a sense of there being a higher purpose to life than to live to eat bread.

The Devil changed his tactic. Instead of using His power corruptly, Jesus was challenged to check up on God. How do you know He is watching over you? How do you know that God is alert to your present situation? For Jesus that would have been a very real question. For thirty years of His life, He had lived without any evidence that He was God’s Son. He had led an ordinary life. He had heard no voice from heaven. He had no angel visitors. There had been nothing to indicate that He was God-Incarnate. Was He suffering from hallucinations? Jesus was tempted to think that God had forgotten about Him—a temptation common to humans when they are sore-pressed in trouble.

Satan quoted Scripture to suggest his experiment in faith. God has promised to take care of you, so go ahead and do something risky (v.6). That is an illegitimate use of Scripture. God’s promise is that if something should transpire, He’ll be there for us:
When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you (Isa.43:2, TLB).

We cannot take such a promise and say to God, “I’m planning on taking a risk, and you have to take care of me.” That would be similar to those who handle snakes in their worship services because the Lord said that when His witnesses pick up serpents they will not be hurt (Mk.16:18).

When I was in college I remember hearing a preacher who said that the Scripture says that we are to “count it all joy when you fall into various trials” (Jas.1:2), but it did not mean that we are to jump into them. If it happens, it happens, and the promise is God will be there for us. But we are not to run toward trouble and gleefully embrace it.

We don’t check up on His alertness or test His performance. We cannot command God. He is not at our beck and call. He doesn’t perform for us. It is we who are to serve Him, and answer His call.

In the final phase, the Devil suggested that there was an easy way to win the world. Hey, who doesn’t like shortcuts? If we can do it the easy way, why do it the hard way? When Jesus considered what lay ahead of Him—the torture, the shame, associating with sin, bearing the burden of guilt, the despair of separation from God—He was tempted to choose another way. The temptation came again in the Garden of Gethsemane when He cried in agony, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me. [Please Father, can’t You intervene and spare me from further degradation than I have already suffered?].”

Satan invited Jesus to strike a deal with Him. One brief moment of compromise, hidden from all eyes, and the world that He had come to save could be His (Matt.4:8-9). If we focus attention on the target of our mission, and lose sight of the fact that in the end it is about drawing near to God and serving Him, meeting the target consumes us. It is the Devil who makes us think about targets instead of thinking about God. If meeting targets is the be-all and end-all of our lives and work, it is really all about looking good ourselves. It is a manifestation of our selfishness. It is not about serving God. But when Jesus took the plunge in the Jordan, He knew that it was all about serving God. He knew God was there and He alone gives meaning to life because He cares. He cared enough to send Jesus to be like us and struggle like us, and to share His triumphs with us.

Stations of the Cross: Station 3

2009-03-18T15:16:00.002+05:30

Message Preached on Sunday, March 15th

LAYOVER IN NAZARETH

When we came to Lucknow in 1974, it wasn’t easy to travel South. Twice a week, a bogey was attached to a train that went from Gorakhpur (Eastern UP) to Gwalior (MP). Sometime after midnight, when the train reached Jhansi, the bogey would get detached and wait for another slow train going from Delhi to Madras. It took a long time for us to reach Madras this way. But Roshini and I preferred to do it this way, instead of getting off at Jhansi, waiting for a few hours on a platform, and then going through the hassles of boarding a fast train going south. We preferred to do our layover sleeping in the compartment instead of doing it on a station platform. Layovers are not very pleasant.

When our Lord came on His mission to Planet Earth, He had a 30 years’ long layover in Nazareth.

Living Obscurely

Sometimes people describe some places as “God-forsaken.” They are not really God-forsaken, but that is an expression people use to indicate that the place is absolutely bad and hopeless. We try very hard to not have to live in such places. Those in the South think that the North is a terrible place to live in. People in UP think Bihar is worse.

The place that Jesus did His layover was like that. It was sort of God-forsaken. That region was called “Galilee of the Gentiles” (Matt.4:15). That’s like saying that it was outside the Covenant of God.

And in Galilee, Nazareth itself was a tiny village of about 35 families living on approximately 2.5 hectares (according to Dr Stephen Pfann of Jerusalem’s Centre for the Study of Early Christianity http://www.uhl.ac/nazareth.html)

If each family had plots of equal size, they would each have had about 7,700 square feet. Our home in Lucknow is on 1800 square feet. Thus the Nazareth plots were approximately four and a quarter times larger than our middle class city homes. The entire village was not more than one block in one of our Indian cities. That is how small and inconsequential the village was where Jesus spent most of His life.

Matthew said in his gospel that when Joseph and Mary returned from Egypt, because son of the Herod who tried to kill Jesus was king after the cruel Herod, the Great, they went to live in Nazareth. But he also added that the behind-the-scene reason for going to Nazareth was to fulfill the prophecy that Jesus would be called a Nazarene. On cross checking it will be discovered that there are no prophecies that say that specifically.

The term “Nazarene” was obviously a derogatory term. Like calling someone “illiterate villager”. Matthew may have been referring to the prophecies that said that the Messiah would be despised:

But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all! (Ps. 22:6, NLT)

He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care (Isa.53:3, NLT)

When Phillip told Nathaniel that he had found the Messiah and that he was Jesus of Nazareth, Nathaniel is famous for his response, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (Jn. 1:45-46).

God on a mission, and yet had layover in Nazareth for 30 years. What happened? Was that according to plan or was that a diversion? But Nazareth was not the sort of place one could have a decent diversion.

One family that I know, decided to buy air tickets on a low cost airline. They got tickets to London at half the usual cost. After they did the journey, they swore that they would never do that again. They had a 20 hours’ layover in Moscow—and that too in the days when the Soviet Union was there with all of its restrictiveness. Everyone who heard of what had happened to them, were sorry for them.

The layover in Nazareth was worse—at least by our assessment. What a dreary place to be stuck in! And in a period when modern facilities and amusements were not there. At least if the layover was in a place and time when fantastic things happened!

Learning Obedience

The thing that happened during Christ’s layover of 30 years was that He learnt obedience. The first twelve years after His birth are summarized in just two verses:

When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him (Lk.2:39-40)

There’s no record of the first word said, the first step taken, or the first tooth that fell out. No record of His Bar Mitzvah. Though Jesus was the one and only Son of God, there are no records of His life having been out of the ordinary. It was an ordinary life.

Three things marked His early life: he grew strong, he was filled with wisdom and God’s grace was evident in His life. These were not special blessings. After His birth there were no miraculous signs surrounding His life. He was just an ordinary boy living a life of ordinariness. By the way, parents, these are the things you should ask God for your children: a strong physical constitution, a sharp mind and evidence of God’s grace in your child’s life. Not wealth or position. They do not define your child’s personality or character. But if they have health, wisdom and grace through life, they can go through life with peace in their hearts.

An Escapade at Twelve

At the age of twelve, Jesus had a minor escapade (Lk.2:41-52). For eleven years, Mary and Joseph had been taking their family up to Jerusalem for the Passover. All those years, Jesus had gone with them and come back with them. But when He reached the age of 12, He stayed on in Jerusalem without telling His parents. On their part, Mary and Joseph assumed that Jesus, knowing the routine, was with the Nazareth group when they started back. Probably when travelling together in a band, kids played with friends along the way and it was only when nightfall came that they returned to their own family’s sleeping arrangements. Mary and Joseph discovered that Jesus missing only at the end of the day. They had to wait till daybreak to retrace their steps because it wasn’t safe to travel after sundown. Scripture tells us that they found Jesus after three days. They didn’t imagine that Jesus would be in the Temple. They just assumed that He was lost having wandered off to take in the sights at Jerusalem during the Passover season. The Temple was the last place they looked in and there He was among the teachers. What was astonishing was that the boy was holding His own among those old scholars:

They found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers (vv.46-47, NASU)

He was listening to them intently, asking intelligent, challenging questions, explaining His own point of view and answering the questions raised about His viewpoint. In a word, Jesus was insightful about God’s Word.

Mary reacted on the spot. She scolded Jesus. She asked Him,

My son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been terribly worried trying to find you (v.48, GNB).

Though He was God Almighty, this public reprimand didn’t annoy Him. He answered gently that they should have known where He would be:

Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house? (v.49)

Christ’s answer was puzzling to Mary and Joseph. For 12 years there had been no signs of divinity in His life. Possibly, they had dismissed their angel visits as fantasies of their imagination. Or, maybe they thought that God had changed His mind about Jesus. They just couldn’t understand what Jesus meant when He said that He had to be in His Father’s house. They didn’t argue with Him, they just took Him home.

Subject!

As with His life from birth to the age of 12, about His life from 12 to 30 years is described in just two verses:

He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (vv. 51-52, NASU).

The King James Version describes what Jesus did more actively: He was “subject” to them. All the other modern translations use the word “obedient.” But the word “subject” has a stronger connotation. It suggests that one is “under” another. It says that one is “ruled” by another. It is a word that implies subordination. You must remember that this is the Creator God who is being subject to creatures made by Him. How awesome and incredible!

Luke said that while Jesus manifested physical strength, wisdom and the grace of God during the years before He was 12 years old, after this episode of the boy Jesus asserting His independence, there was another aspect of growth that was added to His life. He began to grow in the area of relating to people. Until 12 Jesus was just a boy. He was not expected to get along with grownups. He just had to be a boy and spend His time like all children learning things and playing games.

When Jesus returned with His parents, that phase of His earthly life was over. He was the eldest son. He had to be taught a trade to be able to earn a living. And so Jesus started to learn carpentry from His father Joseph. He came to be known “the carpenter’s son” (Matt.13:55).

At some point of time, Joseph died and Jesus Himself came to be known as the carpenter (Mk.6:3). Mary learnt to depend on Him, like she had depended on Joseph while he was alive. That is why, when the wine ran out at her friend’s wedding in Cana, Mary expected Jesus to fix the problem (Jn.2:3).

Imagine that! The Creator of the worlds, spent 18 years in His earthly father’s shop learning to make poor people’s furniture and farm tools. Nobody from palaces of kings and governors or the large houses of nobility came to their shop to place orders for drawing room furniture. If we were living then, we wouldn’t buy furniture made in the shop that Joseph and Jesus ran. If God was on a mission, surely making crude furniture was a waste of time, we would think.

All of us have a bit of a “do you know who I am attitude”. What Christ’s layover in Nazareth teaches us is the importance of learning subordination from Him. We need to learn humility from the Lord Jesus. Subordination is very hard. Two thousand years after Jesus subordinated Himself to His parents and later on also washed His disciples’ feet, we still have trouble following Him down this path. Almost all of the troubles among Christians can be traced to an inability to subordinate oneself.

Layovers are tiresome and annoying. But our Lord was willing to take a layover and spent that time learning. It will do good to our ego. We will learn subordination while we wait for God to say, “Your time to work for me starts now.”

Stations of the Cross 2

2009-03-13T12:08:00.004+05:30

Message preached on Sunday, March 8th
ARRIVAL ON EARTH

Via Dolorosa (Latin for “Way of Sorrows”) is the name given to the road that is supposedly the one that our Lord walked from the court of Pilate to the hill of Calvary. Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and others from denominations similarly heavy on liturgical practices even today walk up that road carrying a wooden cross. But we want to go with the idea that the road began in heaven. The place of departure was the first station.
The Leaving
It is good to remind ourselves of what Jesus left behind to come to our earth. It wasn’t just the glory that He left behind. He left His Father to come down to earth. Leaving His loving Father to be with people who would largely not accept Him, leave alone love Him, must have been heart-wrenching for Jesus. It had to hurt.

Whenever people go on a journey they scale down what they will have on hand. They reduce the things that they will access. Our Lord stripped down for His journey. The Bible has a graphic phrase to describe what He did: He “emptied Himself.” Charles Wesley used the phrase in his hymn “And can it be”:

He left His Father's throne above
So free, so infinite His grace;Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race;
'Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me.

The phrase was coined by Paul when he wrote to the church at Philippi that Jesus Christ:

Who though He was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
He humbled Himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross (2:6-8, NRSV).

Some theologians say that in the Incarnation there was a “Kenosis” (derived from the Greek word that is translated “emptied”), that Jesus was divested of His divinity entirely. That is not true. Jesus knew He was God and said so, and every time He did that, the Jews got ready to stone Him to death for blasphemy. What He did was to limit Himself in terms of His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, and veil His glory with human flesh. The New Bible Dictionary (InterVarsity Press, 1962, p.689) explains the emptying thus:

The words ‘he emptied himself’ in the Pauline context say nothing about the abandonment of the divine attributes, and to that extent the kenotic theory is an entire misunderstanding of the scriptural words. Linguistically the self-emptying is to be interpreted in the light of the words which immediately follow. It refers to the ‘pre-incarnate renunciation coincident with the act of ‘taking the form of a servant’’ (V. Taylor, The Person of Christ in New Testament Teaching, 1958, p. 77). His taking of the servant’s form involved the necessary limitation of the glory which he laid aside that he might be born ‘in the likeness of men’. That glory of his pre-existent oneness with the Father (see Jn. 17:5, 24) was his because from all eternity he existed ‘in the form of God’ (Phil. 2:6). It was concealed in the ‘form of a servant’ which he took when he assumed our nature and appeared in our likeness; and with the acceptance of our humanity he took also his destiny as the Servant of the Lord who humbled himself to the sacrifice of himself at Calvary. The ‘kenosis’ then began in his Father’s presence with his pre-incarnate choice to assume our nature; it led inevitably to the final obedience of the cross when he did, to the fullest extent, pour out his soul unto death (see Rom. 8:3; 2 Cor. 8:9; Gal. 4:4-5; Heb. 2:14-16; 10:5-ff.)

Instead of “emptied Himself” the King James Version uses “made Himself of no reputation”, while modern translations use:

made himself nothing (NIV, NCV, ESV),
gave up his divine privileges (NLT),
of his own free will he gave up all he had (GNB)
set aside the privileges of deity (TM)

In the end, all the different versions affirm that Jesus gave up His rights, powers, and glory to be one of us. How great His sacrifice! How great His love to do that for us!
The Journey
After the leaving of heaven there was the journey to earth. What was it like for Jesus? What was His travel experience? In a word, He underwent humiliation. That is what He had to feel when you consider what He had to subject Himself to.

The humiliation started with God in a womb. Jesus, all-powerful God, was confined to a woman’s womb for nine months. In that womb He was restricted. He was utterly dependent on a woman for His sustenance.

What followed was worse: God, who didn’t want to see any excrement in the living area of His people (Deut.23:13-14), had to come into the world through the birth canal of a woman. Nothing very pleasant about that. According to God’s own law, contact with bodily discharges rendered a person unclean (Lev.15:1-33). God made Himself unclean entering the world.

People don’t knowingly choose unpleasant journeys. While in seminary, when my first summer vacation came up, I travelled after reserving a berth on the train going south. The next year, some of my friends made fun of me for being a sissy and so I travelled in the unreserved compartment. That was in 1972. It was better then, than it is now, but even then it was bad. I swore that if I could help it, I would never again travel without a reservation. But Jesus took His journey to the earth, knowing what was involved in the travel: confinement in a womb, and down the birth canal. Knowing that He would be humiliated, He chose the humiliation.
The Arrival
After all that, Jesus was delivered into a cattle shed. We choose a nice clean hospital for our babies to be born in. If we know that there is some place that is really great, we would go there if we could. Jesus could have chosen to be born when modern hospitals would be in place. But He chose that time and that place to be born.

After arrival, Jesus didn’t swell up with power. He remained a baby. He needed to have everything done for Him. He needed to be fed. He needed to be cleaned up when He dirtied Himself. He couldn’t do a thing for Himself. Of course, that is what happens with all babies. But we are observing what happened when God “emptied Himself” and chose infancy with all its powerlessness and all its messiness.

One aspect of being a baby must have been particularly galling for Jesus: He had to be carried around. What makes this different from all the other things that babies are subjected to, is the fact that according to the Old Testament’s prophets, being carried around was characteristic of idols:

Their idols are borne by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary… They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Though one cries out to it, it does not answer; it cannot save him from his troubles (Isa.46:1,7).
Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good (Jer.10:5).

How awful it must have been for God to be carried around like an idol and be as unresponsive as an idol when He saw the troubles of His family and the people around Him!
The Reception
The arrival of a baby is almost always an occasion for a party. While we do have Christmas parties (in the name of Christ’s birth), there was no party when Jesus was born. His parents were too poor to afford a nice little cradle or pretty baby clothes. Cows, sheep, goats and donkeys were the ones that gave Him a reception. They were indifferent, though our pictures of the Christmas story show the animals standing around adoring the Christ Child. They continued to feed and, excuse me, to shit near the place where the baby Jesus was laid.

After a while shepherds turned up. They were not the kind of people whose presence at an event would get coverage (on page 3). They were unclean because of the kind of work they did and were generally regarded as untrustworthy. Their testimony would not count in a court of law. Yet, God chose them as witnesses who went around telling people that they had seen angels, and had seen the baby King of God’s people (Lk.2:17-18).

The next lot that turned up when Jesus was born were magi from pagan lands to the east of Judea. They were foreigners. Even today people are suspicious of foreigners’ motives for travelling to our land. The magi were not just foreigners, but they were idol worshippers, and to top it all, they were practitioners of astrology, an art that was associated with occultism according to Old Testament law (Deut.18:10-12).

As for others, King Herod felt threatened by His birth and wanted to eliminate Him, and the priests and those who studied the Scriptures knew that Christ would be born in Bethlehem, but could not be bothered. They wouldn’t leave the court of King Herod. They preferred his favours.

In the end, Mary and Joseph had to save Jesus by fleeing to Egypt. Will humiliations never end? Egypt was the land of Israel’s ancient slavery. God had liberated them from that bondage. Moses told God that if He didn’t get His people to the Promised Land, the Egyptians would say that because He couldn’t make good, He had destroyed the very people He had liberated (Ex.32:10-12). Later on when faced with the Babylonian exile, people thought they would seek refuge in Egypt. But God told them that He was against their going back to Egypt (Jer. 42:13ff). And there was God—a refugee in the very land from which God had set His people free with a display of power that was legendary. If He Himself had to take refuge, how could those old stories of His power and might be really true? There must be some mistake. God was so weak, that He was a refugee in that land of their slavery, shame and misery.

When Jesus was born He was not welcome at all:

He came to His own and His own did not receive Him (Jn. 1:12).

But there were two kinds of people who welcomed Him: the unclean (shepherds) and the excluded (pagans/astrologers). Truly, as Jesus said, those who know they are sick, are the ones who feel the need for the physician (Mk.2:17). If you feel unclean or excluded, Jesus came for you. And to those who received Him, Jesus gave the power to become children of God.

MISSION INDIA (PART III): Biblical Experiments

2009-03-09T16:31:00.003+05:30

We talk a lot about believing that the Bible is God’s Word. We affirm that the Bible tells us everything about God’s engagements with chosen people—first with the community of Jews and then with the community of Christians. But if we believe that it is God’s Word, then it is His Word about everything related to our faith and its practice. But somehow we have bought the notion that we have to be more relevant to the age we live in, than to stay connected to the One Who has disclosed to us truth that is not just temporarily true, but eternally so. Why do we think that methods that have worked in the context of other races will work for us instead of going back to the Bible and seeing how we may apply God’s revealed methodology for reaching people?

Incidental Evangelism
The Primitive Church never lacked an audience. They did not shout from roof tops hoping that someone out there would be listening. They proclaimed the gospel because they had an audience of un-evangelized people. Unlike us they did not just skirmish among the un-evangelized as though raiding in enemy territory. Evangelism was not forced or unnatural. Their methodology developed out of the situations that they found themselves in. Their evangelism was “incidental” to their situations:

Peter and the other apostles did not begin to preach as soon as the Holy Spirit came on him on the day of Pentecost, but they preached because the crowd that gathered asked for an explanation for the peculiar behaviour of Christians (Acts 2:7-13).
Peter and John began to preach at the Gate Beautiful because the people were curious about how the man who was born lame was able to walk suddenly (3:9-11).
It would not be improbable to assume that preaching was initiated again by people wanting to know how Peter and John were freed from prison while the Sanhedrin was still deliberating about how they were to be dealt with (5:25).
Philip was heard because of the miraculous happenings in Samaria (8:6).

The Gospel was thus the answer to questions that were actually being asked, quite unlike the Church today having answers to questions that no one asks. We are guilty of scratching where there is no itch.

It is therefore no wonder that their audiences were responsive. In fact they ask to be counselled about the next step to listening.

On the day of Pentecost, even before Peter could give an “altar call” his listeners asked to be told what they had to do (2:37).
The Philippian jailer asked to know what he needed to do to be saved (16:30)

One wonders if the altar call is also forced just like our evangelistic efforts. The fact that “decisions” are successfully gathered by this method does not in itself indicate that it has biblical warrant. By and large, the decisions are made by those from a nominal Christian background so that the method’s effectiveness is restricted to those whose feet are set on the way and are not “not far from the kingdom” (Mk.12:34).

Every instance of preaching recorded in the New Testament reveals itself to be a natural eventuality. When something happened that aroused people’s curiosity, they were provoked to ask questions. People wanted to know what made Christians tick. The proclamation of the gospel was thus just the explanations given to people seeking answers to their questions.

This thesis that evangelism happened incidentally/casually, should not be viewed as mere inference. There is an actual statement of this principle in Scripture: “In your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet.3:15, ESV).

Evangelism was not an activity that the Early Church engaged in compulsively or with a sense of guilt. There was no feeling of being duty-bound to evangelise. Rather, it was incidental to their being Christian. They simply stirred things up by their presence forcing people to ask what possessed them. The world recognised them as wonderful and asked to know the secret. Their answer was simply that that they were “witnesses of Christ”—that they were the exemplification of the meaning of the gospel and the power of the Risen Christ. His resurrection was all that they offered by way of explanation for all the remarkable happenings that accompanied them wherever they went.

Materialism and Loss of Power
Today no one asks to know what possesses the followers of Christ. There is nothing remarkably different. We do not seem to be possessed by anything supernatural. We tell people that we are different. We tell them that we have experienced the power of Christ, but people have not noticed any difference to make them ask to know our secret.

Many Protestants tell the story of the pilgrim in St Peter’s at Rome. The guide pointed to the splendid wealth of the cathedral and said, “The church no longer needs to say like St Peter, ‘Silver and gold have I none’.” To this the pilgrim replied, “True, but neither can the church say as St Peter did, ‘In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk’.” That story is as much applicable to any institutionalised church as the Roman Catholic Church. It applies to Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and even Pentecostals. Money power has replaced spiritual power, bringing a sense of self-sufficiency and removing the sense of dependence on God (at least up to the extent of what money can buy).

The Primitive Church was characterised by lowliness and poverty (1 Cor.1:20, 26-29). The Roman statesman Celsus could disparage the fact that the propagators of the Christian faith were smiths, wool dyers, cobblers, and the like. But that was the day of power for the Church. It was precisely because of their own weaknesses that they had recourse to the power of God (cf. 2 Cor. 12:5, 9-10).

In his novel The Shoes of the Fisherman, Morris West has one of the characters say that the Church is losing its grip for reasons of its prosperity and respectability:
We’re not persecuted anymore. We pay our way. We can wear the faith like a Rotary badge— and with as little social consequence.

As Nietzsche said, "Christians will have to look more redeemed if people are to believe in their Redeemer." The Early Church gave evidence of His “risen-ness” and so they were heard and believed (Acts 3:15-16; Heb.2:4).

In every local community of faith, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit must become manifest. The gifts of the Spirit would be manifest in community even if no one has a specific/special gift (Jas.5: 14-15). Each local church as the Body of Christ in that place would exercise the gifts of the Spirit. Paul juxtaposed his teaching on the Spirit’s gifts with the idea that the Church is like a body (1 Cor.12). That means that each local community of believers should manifest all the gifts as a matter of wholeness of the body. There cannot be just one part of a body or some parts in a body. If there is only one part of a body it is a dismembered part. If there are only some parts in a body it is a crippled and disabled one (vv.17-20). When all the gifts are present in a local church, it will not all mouth and no healing hands.

New believers among poor and uneducated people exercise a vibrant faith that takes the Word of God literally and miracles do happen among them in a way that it does not happen in the experience of believers who have sophistication. The wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing through the Church. There is a need to place ourselves in the path of that wind, and let the Spirit blow away our hidebound traditions and rituals making way for the freshness of God’s redemptive and creative power.

The Prepared People
Another aspect of the incidental manner in which the Early Church engaged in evangelism is that of their going “the synagogue route.” The evangelists of the New Testament period went with their message to the gatherings of the Jews (Acts 13: 5, 14). Even after declaring himself to be the apostle to the Gentiles, this continued to be Paul’s modus operandi (14:1; 17:1-2). The Jews were a prepared people: they had the earlier revelation of God. The gospel was preached in that context of preparedness.

The same principle of proclaiming the good news in a prepared situation is seen in the case of Paul preaching at Athens. His preaching fitted the context. It was drawn from the local cultural setting, though he did not reduce the distinctiveness of Christianity to accommodate and assimilate Gentile beliefs for the sake of facilitating easy (but compromised) conversions (vv.22-32).

The parable of the different kinds of soils in which seed is sown points to the need for preparing people to receive the seed of the gospel (Matt.13:19-22). This calls for pre-evangelism, the cultivation of friends and an infectious Christian presence. No one catches an infection in a sterile (or unfriendly) environment. Neither can the Christian faith be infectious if the unevangelised are thrust into situations that have not been infected with the Christian presence.

Sandwiched between two chapters of Paul’s writings on the Holy Spirit is what he described as “the most excellent way” (1 Cor.12:31). Elsewhere he said, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Gal. 5:6). Nothing else matters in being a Christian as much as practising love. It is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22), and it is essential that the gifts of the Spirit are not divorced from love (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

The watching world said of the Early Church, “See how they love one another.” That was winsome Christianity that filled others with a desire to become members of such a community. To outsiders, the Church must have looked like heaven on earth.

Witnessing Communities
There will be no end to the proliferation of plans and methods of evangelism. But it is not another sophisticated method, a steady supply of funds or highly trained professionals that we need. We need people who will live in love and give credibility to the way of Jesus and demonstrate in their lives that He is still alive in all His power. In the final analysis, it is not newer methods and more money that we need as much as people. The task of evangelism remains largely untouched, due to the lack of witnessing communities placed strategically.

Whenever I have travelled by train, I am troubled by the absence of crosses punctuating the skyline when the train passes through rural India. On the other hand, one can see roofs of temples and/or mosques when passing even the most remote village. Sadly there is no witnessing community of faith in most villages. There is no Christian presence.

The one desperate need of the moment is the establishment of Christian communities in the remote villages of India. There needs to be a demonstration of the way of Christ and a model of the Kingdom of Christ. Only a community of faith will serve that purpose.

In the context of development, Ron Sider, the author of Rich Christians in An Age of Hunger, said,

I want to suggest that the Church’s unique contribution to development is the
people of God…a visible model now of what the coming kingdom will be like.

Sider then went on to reflect on the Pauline instruction that the abundance enjoyed by one segment of Christians should be shared with other Christians in need, up to the point of there being a levelling of resources, “that there may be equality” (2 Cor.8:13-14):

If the worldwide Body of Christ would have the courage to implement that Pauline
principle today, we would so startle the world, dangerously divided as it is between rich and poor, that we would probably precipitate the largest movement of conversion in the history of Christianity. At the very least we would be able to incarnate a new model of economic sharing so desperately needed in our global village. We need new visible models of development and sharing in every corner of the world…Christian development agencies should work more consciously and explicitly than in the past with and through local Christian communities in developing countries…The goal of Christian development agencies then should be the nurturing and empowering of Christian communities where all relationships, including economic ones, are so transformed that they present a new model of sharing and development which would be a witness to those around them…A new model of development could be lived out before the eyes of the communities neighbours (“God and Poor” in The Ministry of Development in Evangelical Perspective, ed.: Robert Lincoln Hancock, William Carey Library, Pasadena, CA, 1979, pp. 55-56)

House Churches
In the case of the cities where there are Christians, their neighbours experience, not their presence, but their withdrawal. Almost every locality in an Indian city would have neighbourhood temple and a mosque, but church buildings are not found in every locality, not even where there are a number of families in the area. Every Sunday all over India, Christians leave their residential localities to gather for worship in a building in another locality. As a result, they don’t have lines of communication between them and their neighbours. Their neighbourhoods are left without a witness and in the place where they gather for worship they have no meaningful relationships to be able to effectively witness for Christ.

A return to house churches, as in the New Testament period, would restore contact with our neighbours. When our Lord talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, He said that a time was coming when true worshippers would not be so concerned with holy places, but with worship that is spiritual (Jn.4:21-24). That time came when the Early Church did not build temples or cathedrals, but worshipped in their homes (Acts 2:46-47). The phenomenal growth of the Church in that period must in part be attributed to the community life of Christians being a visible demonstration of the gospel.

One of the most important methods of spreading the Gospel in antiquity was by the use of homes. It had positive advantages: comparatively small numbers involved made real interchange of views and informal discussion among the participants possible…the sheer informality and relaxed atmosphere of the home, not to mention the hospitality which must have often gone with it, all helped to make this form of evangelism particularly successful (Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, Hodder & Stoughton, UK, 1970, p.208).

Green also cited Richard Baxter, the author of The Reformed Pastor, who after years of “faithful preaching” turning to house meetings observed,

…I find more outward signs of success with most that do come than from all my
public preaching to them (p.218f)

When the Methodist awakening swept through England, it was observed that the majority of the conversions occurred in the class meetings rather than the preaching services.

Gavin Reid, now a bishop of the Church of England, was for twenty years on the staff of the Church Pastoral Aid Society, during which time he wrote the book The Gagging of God: The Failure of the Church to Communicate in the Television Age (Hodder & Stoughton, 1969). He didn’t write about house churches but he argued that the era of “church activities” was coming to an end:

The meeting in the church hall drawing people who are not Christian is on the wane at an ever-accelerating rate. As fishers of [people] the churches can no longer await the arrival of shoals into their carefully built reservoirs…the best chances of any real communication taking place are where there are still meaningful communities. This in turn boils down to contacts within the family, the immediate neighbourhood, the place of work and the leisure in-groups…[it is] disastrous therefore for a church to tie up its members in church activities. They are often so busy talking about the gospel among themselves and rejoicing in it, that they have little time or opportunity left to go out and proclaim it to others (p.25).

John Tanburn analysed the Early Church’s practice and chronicled the efforts of his own group to return to the house church model. He felt that there was an urgent need to evaluate local church structures:

The corporate life of the church was an integral part of its proclamation. God’s
ability to reconcile sinners to Himself was to be shown by His power to
reconcile sinners to each other. The internal nature and quality of the church’s
life and fellowship, the way its members took responsibility for each other, was
what made the gospel compelling (Open House, Falcon Books, London,
1970, p.28).

Tanburn quoted Julian Charley who wrote the article “The Church in Industrial Areas”. Charley said that the evangelical stress on mission can easily cause compassionate care to become a mere appendage to the programme of a church. Caring for mentally retarded or for the progressively senile was often regarded as wasted time because it offered no platform for direct evangelism. Charley asked whether this could be the reason that evangelicals were better at youth work than in ministry to the elderly. [Almost four decades later, we need to admit that we are still where these men said that evangelicals were].

From this Tanburn argued that the reason for this callous attitude is that we are most interested in forms of evangelism that offer a prospect of new members for our churches and groups, whereas true evangelism, arising from a genuine concern to carry the gospel to people for their own sake, will arise naturally in a church that is taught the true significance of the gospel and about its internal dynamics. Tanburn then quoted the report of a study:

We contend that if there were less evangelism and more concern that the corporate life of the local church should be of New Testament standard, evangelism would take care of itself. (Op cit, pp.43-44).

That precisely was how it happened in Andhra Pradesh:

Through house churches we demonstrate Christianity in the midst of the non-Christian community. Each new house exposes a new set of intimates and relatives. In Andhra, when any religious programme goes on in the neighbourhood, crowds are certain to attend it…these crowds will be composed of all kinds of persons (B V Subamma, New Patterns for Discipling Hindus, p.3).

The phenomenal growth of the Church in China is without doubt due to the spontaneous generation of house churches. When the Korean War began in 1950, the Chinese government expelled about 7,000 foreign missionaries, and tried to control Christianity through registered Three-Self churches. (Their name is derived from the three principles of self-governance, self-support —i.e., financial independence from foreigners—and self-propagation—i.e., indigenous missionary work). Even these churches didn’t escape repression during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Suddenly, in the 1970s, an underground house church movement cropped up. Officially the number of Christians increased from 1 million in 1950 to 15 million a few years ago. But that is just the figure for those attending churches recognised by the state. It does not account for the many millions who meet secretly in houses. David Aikman, former Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine, suggested in his book Jesus in Beijing that Christians may number as many as 80 million. And, incidentally, though China is officially an atheistic state it is on the verge of becoming the world’s largest producer of Bibles!

While preachers talk of going “back to the Bible” they confine it to the content of their preaching. My seminary professor, who taught principles of preaching, told us that if we would preach biblical, expository messages our churches would grow. Around the world we’ve bought into the philosophy that churches should be large. The megachurches of the US of A and South Korea are our ideal. Whereas our ideal ought to be the Word of the Lord who said that true worshippers

Would not worship at holy sites
But worship in spirit

Preachers interpret that word with emphasis on the second part about worshipping in spirit and in truth, forgetting that Christ’s negative definition of worshippers is just as important to understand what He taught about worship. The Early Church understood that and characteristically met in homes, from “house to house”, set in the midst of the hustle and bustle of life. When there was that Word and that pattern of what true worship is like, the church built cathedrals and chapels, and emulated the pomp of hierarchy in the Roman Empire. Today when preachers say “back to the Bible” they don’t apply it to this Word from the Lord. Their ideal is the megachurch.

God says:

A king’s greatness depends on how many people he rules;
without them he is nothing (Pro. 14:28, GNB)

That could apply to the pastor of a megachurch. They love the huge numbers that attend their churches. They are able to live like kings because of the support they receive from the great number who attend their churches. They live in the lap of luxury while the vast majority of their members live frugally. They certainly don’t look like the Servant from Nazareth, who worked with His hands till the age of thirty, and knelt before His disciples to wash their filthy feet. How all of us need to look more like Jesus if we are to draw people to Him, for it is when Christ is lifted up that all are drawn to Him (Jn. 12:32).

The Incarnated Christ
The witness of a house church depends on its people. It is not a case of witnessing by professionals and paid workers. That was how it was in the Early Church. Everyone was a disciple and a witness. All were not public speakers, but all were called to share their faith with others. Peter could preach on the day of Pentecost only because there were a hundred and twenty people who caused a rumpus that required an explanation. When seven men were chosen for menial service, they not only performed the task assigned to them, but did not neglect witnessing, even though they were not set apart as preachers (Acts 6:2-3 with 6:8, 10; 8:5-6). While the Apostles laid low when persecution broke out, the rank and file among Christians who were dispersed by the persecution were the ones who spread the gospel during that period (8:1, 4).

Early Christians definitely believed that all of them were to be equally engaged in doing Christ’s work. Paul’s concern was not only that his children in the faith should know Christ better (Eph.1:17), nor simply that Christ may live in their hearts (3:17), but that they should be prepared for works of service that build the body of Christ (4:12). He charged Timothy to teach others to teach yet others (2 Tim. 2:2). As noted earlier, Celsus said with disdain that the Church’s representatives were all simple, working class people.

Today we have the notion that there are “full time workers” and “part-time workers”. The moment we accept those categories, we admit the possibility that such a creature as a “no-time Christian” could exist. When stated that way, we reject the idea, but in practice our institutional churches allow the existence of Christians who have no time for witnessing to their faith in Christ.

Until we stop projecting big names as the promoters of the faith, and let Christ be seen in all the ordinariness of Christians, we shall not draw all men. It is Christ who must draw them, not His big time agents, who without exception, intentionally or unintentionally, draw attention to themselves and their glamour.

Elaborate and costly programmes and professionals doing a job are going to win this country for Christ. In the final analysis, evangelism is not a programme, but a way of life the community of believers embraces in order to become a counter-culture.

Commenting on the current fascination with mass media communications, James Engel said:

Some leaders of the missionary and evangelistic movements of our time seem to imply that we can produce significant church growth and the evangelisation of the world in our generation simply by a faithful use of such methods.

Engel was of the opinion that by these methods no significant impact has been made on the un-evangelized world. He said,

…evangelistic successes and church growth must be the outcomes, not goals…building of a church that will function as salt and light in the world must be the key to world evangelization…The message of the gospel is not an abstraction. Christ becomes known in the best sense as He is incarnated in His Church and people. The ammunition is the incarnated Christ (“Great Commission or Great Commotion”, Christianity Today, April 20, 1984, p.52).

From rural to urban situations the basic need is for the people of God to embody the gospel of Christ, and be the Kingdom now.

Even considering the failure of our service institutions to lead people to Christ, it becomes clear that our basic lack is a vital Christian presence. Many mission hospitals in rural India are not staffed because Christian doctors are unavailable to work in them even though so many sought and received sponsorship to Christian medical colleges claiming a desire to serve God, the church and the poor. In Christian schools and colleges the overwhelming majority of staff and students belong to other communities. It is precisely because we are a minority in our own institutions that so many have had to be apologetic about being Christians and some have suppressed that identity. For a Christian institution, it is the community of faith gives it its Christian character.

All over the world the Spirit is moving. There are tremendous movements of people coming to Christ. But the Church in India does not impact India. That is not because we lack highly trained professionals. We copy methods that have succeeded elsewhere. We certainly do not lack money: at least a great deal is being spent on the disproportionately high salaries and excessive perks of the church’s hierarchy and mission executives, on property maintenance and legal expenses of a community that is torn by selfishness, corruption, jealousies and in-fighting.

Look at it from any angle. The real problem is a deformed or deficient community of believers that is failing to provide a Christian presence. When evangelism is incidental, normal and as continuous as the way of life of a community, the people of India will be able to see the incidence of Christ in the Christian presence. The infectiousness of Christianity depends on it.

Bibliography
“God and Poor” in The Ministry of Development in Evangelical Perspective, ed.: Robert Lincoln Hancock, William Carey Library, Pasadena, CA, 1979
Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, Hodder & Stoughton, UK, 1970
Gavin Reid, The Gagging of God: The Failure of the Church to Communicate in the Television Age Hodder & Stoughton, 1969
John Tanburn, Open House, Falcon Books, London, 1970
B V Subamma, New Patterns for Discipling Hindus
“Great Commission or Great Commotion”, Christianity Today, April 20, 1984

MISSION INDIA (PART II): EFFICIENCY

2009-03-09T16:15:00.003+05:30

The existence of laws has never prevented people from breaking them. While there are laws to protect Christians engaging in mission and evangelism, there are no guarantees that those in authority will assert the law for our protection. In remote areas, away from the scrutiny of the press, the guardians of the law have often stood by to allow assaults and killings. In the big cities and state capitals persecution would be rare. However, in rural areas persecution of Christians has become endemic.

Indeed sometimes the attacks are prompted by evangelistic insensitivity. There was a time when itinerant evangelists thought that the only way to evangelise people was to ridicule and attack their religions, especially the idolatry. Such an approach would no longer go unopposed.

Thoughtlessness in ministry is mainly due to the fact that many, if not most, of those in Christian ministry are ill-qualified and ill-equipped for their work. A majority of those in ministry (whether with the church or parachurch organisations) have joined because they are not good at anything else.

One pastoral superintendent enthusiastically told the district workers that Mr X had said that since he was not able to pick up a job, he wondered whether God was calling him to church work.
After failing a professional exam four times, a young man told me that he felt he needed to join Christian ministry. I reminded him that he used to mock those who had stepped out for Christian work because they were not good for anything else. I told him to get a job first, then resign, and step out. Of course, once he got the job, his sense of call was gone.
I know for a fact that many young unemployed troublemakers were recruited for the task of screening the Jesus Film. (Other ministries also select the unemployed because they are available). On the job they learnt the jargon and sublimated their conduct to fit the role of evangelists. That did not counteract the fact that they were not suited for ministry in the first place. For them it was a job, a meal ticket. Those with that sort of attitude, sooner or later, let their masks slip, by exploiting the work for their own benefit.

Assuming commitment on the part of the volunteering or recruited worker, there is still the problem of our training methods being irrelevant to our situation. Most seminaries and Bible colleges are merely copies of seminaries in the Occident. While there is a place for such academic knowledge, the content is not the tailored to suit our situation.

Inefficient Training
Soon after I joined the ministry of the church, I came to the conclusion that I was “qualified unfit.” I had the required qualification, but the qualification was unfit for actual ministry. No doubt, I had acquired a lot of knowledge, but much of it had no value or relevance. For example, two of the most boring subjects we were taught are called “Introduction to the Old Testament” and “Introduction to the New Testament.” We were required to learn all about who wrote a book and when it was written and so on.

The Liberal view dominates the discussions about authorship and dates of the books, because as sceptics Liberal “scholars” are the ones who question the authenticity of the books of the Bible. They are in awe of the sacred cow of science and therefore come to the study of the Bible sceptically. They deny every miraculous aspect or element of the Bible. However this view of the Bible is dominant only in the halls of theology. Even the Liberal, when he/she stands in an Indian pulpit preaches that God is God; that the historical Jesus was God-incarnate, born of a virgin, died to atone for all, rose from the dead and will one day come back to earth as Lord and Judge; that the Holy Spirit indwells Christians and the Church. Liberals cannot preach any other gospel because the people in the pews—even when deemed to be nominal Christians—will not accept any other gospel. The only difference is that the Liberal preacher does not believe there is any need to urge people of other faiths to leave their gods and follow Christ.

Since liberal seminaries prescribe the syllabus, theological students learn about such obscurantist questions as the date and authorship of the books of the Bible, because, it is argued, there will be people who ask such questions. But no one has ever asked me these questions. Not the old. Not the young. Not then, when I started my ministry. Not now, thirty-four years afterwards. I had answers to questions no one was asking. People in the pews have no trouble regarding the Bible as the Word of God. Their questions are rather, “What does God have to say about my particular situation?” “What does God want me to do with my life?’ “How do I safeguard my integrity amidst the pressures of a corrupt world?”

As a result of the time spent in studying irrelevant subjects, most seminaries divert their students from studying the Bible itself. Instead of getting to know the text of the Bible itself, they get to know information about the Bible. In no other discipline would people study a subject this way. In English literature it is William Shakespeare’s plays that are studied rather than raising questions about the authorship, whereas in theological colleges students are taught the art of being critical of the Bible. Instead of accepting the biblical message as the Word of God, people in most theological colleges are busy challenging its veracity and validity. As James said, “When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it” (4:11).

Once the Word of God is denied, morality is debunked. Liberal theology it was that spawned “situation ethics.” According to this ethical theory, there are no moral absolutes. Ethics is a relative matter. Sometimes it is right to lie and cheat, according to the situational ethicist. That is now the ethic of the organised church. So, for instance, despite the Word of God prohibiting Christians taking each other to court, situation ethics allows the church to go to court against an erring member (1 Cor.6:1-8).

Knowledge of biblical criticism, liberal theology and situation ethics were, of course, not all that I got from my time in seminary. I did gain useful knowledge. For instance, I got an overview of Church History and learnt that a lot of apparently modern beliefs, heresies and practices have precedents in the history of the Church.

Most seminarians are not going to end up as teachers in theological colleges. They are going to be involved in non-academic ministries and so this academic kind of knowledge serves no purpose. On the other hand, even the ones who will become lecturers and professors in seminaries do not need to come to grips with dead issues. They may need only to be informed about them. The concerns of a generation that suffered an identity crisis when evolutionary theory and rationalism attacked conservative views are not the issues that moderns grapple with. To touch our generation, we need to be relevant. There is no other group that talks as much about relevance as theologians and yet, judging by the content of theological studies, we must conclude that no other group is as irrelevant as them.

Indigenising Theological Education
It is with a view to being relevant that theologians in the non-western world have been talking of the need to indigenise theology and worship. Thus far the attempts in India have, however, been departures from orthodoxy. Hindu philosophy, rather than the Bible, has been the starting point and the continuing direction of Indian Christian theology, and the ritualism of Hinduism has made inroads into Christian worship. (For a fuller treatment of this subject go to http://pastorkuru.blogspot.com/2007/01/no-patchwork-faith.html ). What is pertinent here is the fact that no one has talked of an indigenisation of theological education. Theological colleges are the most un-indigenous entities one can find in our country. Their curriculum and methods are all foreign. Why is the syllabus of theological studies in India an exact copy of western theological studies, except for the addition of Indian Christian Theology as a subject? Why is the classroom method used instead of the guru-shishya (teacher-disciple) model, which incidentally is the method that the Rabbi Jesus used to teach His disciples? Role-modelling and on-the-job training are what are really needed to prepare one for ministry. Of course, one cannot get a degree doing that. But is a degree essential to ministry?

If anything, degrees have been a hindrance to ministry, because degrees and stratification go together. Degrees are linked to pay-rises and promotions. By present day standards even Jesus would not qualify. But then, He was a willing servant to His own disciples. Degrees distance us from the poor Carpenter-turned-Rabbi. Maybe that is why we fail to be ministers or servants, and we go climbing the corporate ladder of the church, or parachurch organisations, or Christian institutions.

Most urban pastors with higher theological degrees do not remain pastors for long. No doubt they do so to seek greener pastures. But subconsciously often it is because they have run out of something to say. After all, how many topics can a person come up with, Sunday after Sunday, year after year? Sooner or later, he quits the pastoral ministry to be involved in a ministry where he need preach only occasionally and since the audience will be different on each occasion, he can give repeat performances of his sermons.

The drying up of the wellsprings of ministry would therefore indicate the lack of durability of present day theological education. Theological colleges all over the world were founded for training people for the ministry of the church. No one thought then of administrative and executive positions. The shift from ministry to management is the fault of theological education today. It has failed. It has failed the Master. It has failed the people. Worse, it has dispossessed the people and turned the Church into a corporation, whereas originally the people were the Church

We also fail to be indigenous when we imagine that an academic degree brings spirituality. An academic degree is never the basis on which spiritual leaders are chosen in Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, etc. Charisma and spirituality do have significance, even though the charismatic (of any religious sect) tend toward rivalry, power struggles and factionalism.

Maybe, it is because of the academic training of preachers that Christianity has become such a cerebral faith and we reproduce those who give mental assent to the faith, but are not emotionally charged in their dedication to Christ.

All this is, of course, not to say that there is no place for the academic training of Christian ministers. I do believe there is a need. After all, Moses was trained in the court of Pharaoh, and Paul at the feet of Gamaliel, and then they played significant roles in the foundation of the nation of Israel and the Early Church respectively because undoubtedly their training was used of God. But their training alone was not sufficient. Both had to personally encounter God, and be transformed by Him, before God could use them.

Today we live in a world that sets great store by academic training and degrees, and so the would-be minister may not be able to get his or her foot in the door without some academic credentials. Of course, his effectiveness thereafter will depend on whether or not he keeps up with reading and personal studies, and brings freshness to the proclamation of God’s Word.

All I’m saying is that training for the ministry

Must not be a study of dead issues, but have contemporary concerns
Must return to role-modelling spirituality and on-the-job training.

Spirituality, after all, is not a purely academic matter. It is both the state and the pursuit of the heart, and the one who would be spiritual must let the heart rule the mind in that much.

Our Lord’s Mandate
We believe Jesus is the Saviour of the world, the only Way to the Father. This belief is not a matter of arrogance. There is no arrogance in claiming that the grace of God it is that saved us. It is not arrogance for a beggar to tell another where he received free grace. (D T Nile’s defined evangelism as one beggar telling another where to find bread). We proclaim Christ because His lordship and His love compel us:

As Lord, He has commanded us to bring others to Him, to tell them where to find grace.
It is His love poured into our lives that compels our compassion/sharing what we have received.

The question is whether our communication of the gospel is clear, whether those who hear us comprehend our message. This is the measure of whether or not the proclamation of the gospel has really taken place.

During my college days I began to question the efficiency of evangelistic methods while continuing to subscribe to the doctrine that people need salvation, and must be reached with the good news that Jesus will redeem them from sin and its consequences.

Fishing in the Aquarium
My first observation was that we were only pretending to reach the un-churched, but in fact drew only those who are already churched. Evangelistic crusades and rallies were being attended mainly by Christians. Many were no doubt nominal Christians and were indeed won for Christ when they responded to altar calls at crusades. In that much, evangelism did take place. On the other hand, the very fact that they were at an evangelistic meeting could indicate that they were already on the way and the meeting nudged them into the kingdom.

However, the bulk of those at crusades are Bible-toting Christians. They are revived and renewed in faith. No doubt there is value in such a revival of faith and zeal, but the fact still remains that we are not reaching the unreached. We hold “outreach” meetings that are essentially a type of church service—a special service with special music and a special speaker. It isn’t outreach, but more a case of attempting to “in-drag”. Instead of going out as the Lord commanded, we take the stance that if they come to our meetings they will find Jesus.

Another form of this business of evangelising the already evangelised is that of churches that have an evangelical identity poaching on mainline churches and sheep-stealing from them. Some who did not know Christ earlier do find Him when they are drawn into evangelical churches. But some who find new life while still in their old churches are drawn away by persuading them that they need Bible teaching or fellowship with believers even when there is evangelical preaching in the old church. If all those who find life desert their so-called dead churches, how will life ever come to those who remain in those churches?

These efforts to get people into the church (actually, into ”our” church), are like fishing in a rather small glass tank, and that too with a scoop net. Of course, we will succeed in transferring them into another small fish tank and we can console ourselves by pretending that we have done some terrific fishing.

Our Disconnection
The second observation of inefficiency in evangelism occurred when I went with a team from my church to engage in “street preaching” among the pavement dwellers at the historic Moore Market (which was destroyed by fire some years ago). When I was asked to preach, I spoke in English and was translated into Tamil. This and the fact that I spoke to people who lived in abject poverty and dire straits made me feel terribly out of place. There had been earlier occasions when some shoppers who stopped to listen did find the Lord by this method, but never had any pavement dwellers experience salvation by this method. To me it seemed like an excursion and I didn’t go again until I went off to seminary. While on a vacation from seminary, I went once more, thinking that my feelings would have changed. When I discovered that I still felt the same way about street preaching, I never went again.

In seminary, students used to go for outreach to nearby villages. I joined one such team once. Most of the students didn’t know the local language and could only clap during the singing. One person preached in much the same way as he would in a church situation and then they returned to the campus. Once again, I felt that this sort of effort was only an excursion. As for the preaching, I concluded that no effort was given to communicating efficiently because of all the theological jargon used. To me it seemed that Christians engage in this sort of effort merely to do a ritual fulfilment of the mandate to preach the gospel to others.

We tend to think that we need to increase the tempo of what we already do or ape every innovative method that has succeeded elsewhere—especially what has been invented in America, the land of commercially successful Christianity. But we never seem to have any question about the effectiveness of our methods. We fail to recognise that not only do we not touch the un-evangelized, but we do not even have an audience of them. No one is listening

Before our evangelistic efforts can become effective, there must first be an admission that our traditional methods are not working. Some do come to Christ by these methods, but if the efficiency of our efforts is not increased, the population growth will only outstrip the evangelisation of the nation.

Divided Efforts
As Christians we must give up the numbers game. We are not marketing a brand of toothpaste. If we were, we could afford to engage in cut-throat competition. We are to present Christ alone. It is the growth of His kingdom we are to seek, not the growth of our own little empires. If we give up the numbers game, we could cooperate in our mission. When the mission of Christ gains importance, Christian unity will gain importance. The ecumenical movement came into being, not for the sake of ecumenicity, but because of a desire to remove the barriers to evangelisation.

It was from the mission field that the demand for Christian unity came. It was among the missionaries that the denominational barriers were first overleaped, and it was the great World Missionary Conference of 1910 that created the modern movement for Christian unity. (Leslie Newbigin, Is Christ Divided? Eerdmans, USA, 1961, p.22).

I have always been embarrassed when non-Christians ask me about access to a mission school or hospital and have had to say to them that it is in the control of another group of Christians and I can’t help them. At the World Missionary Conference of 1910, Bishop Azariah of Dornakal said,

By our divisions we not only waste our resources, but also diminish our effectiveness for righteousness and purity in non-Christian lands (Quoted by J Robert Nelson in One Lord, One Church, Lutterworth Press, UK, 1958, p.61).

International conferences have the advantage of quick and easy transmission of ideas globally. However there is the problem that at most international gatherings it is the western model and methodologies inappropriate to non-literate societies that get propagated. The presumption is that what succeeded elsewhere will succeed everywhere irrespective of cultural differences.

At least the conferences of that generation did rectify some things and take steps in a new direction. That cannot be said about evangelical conferences in our day.

In 1968 the World Congress on Evangelism was held in West Berlin. It was followed by an Asian Congress in Singapore, and an Indian Congress in Deolali. Indians who were at Berlin, attended at Singapore and Deolali and then it was all over. In 1974, the cycle was repeated after the World Conference on Evangelisation, except that this one started in Lausanne. There has been a continuing committee that has worked hard at disseminating a lot of ideas through its literature. Otherwise, many of those who attended the Berlin-Singapore-Deolali congresses, did nothing more than attend the Lausanne-Singapore-Deolali conferences. When the roll of those who attended the World Conference of Itinerant Evangelists held in Amsterdam in 1983 is scrutinised, it will be discovered that many of those who went to Berlin and Lausanne, went again to Amsterdam, even though they were not in itinerant but settled ministries. I know that this is true, because a number of those who went from Lucknow, were people who went to Berlin and Lausanne. Those who didn’t get selected for the first conference in 1983 made it to the second one in 1986. The “conference syndrome” is a disease that afflicts the church-world.

Ironically, World Evangelization published by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in the issue January-February 1988 (p.36) carried the parable of the fishermen who formed a club, did research, held conferences, read papers on fishing, started a training centre, and awarded doctorates in “fishiology.” But the one thing they did not do was fish.

This is the age of the conference and study group—people talking about what they
know they should be doing. In a subtle way talking about something becomes an
excuse for not doing it…We have a welter or reports, commissions, surveys,
liaison bodies and so on. They have the appearance of progressive thinking and
the readiness to face change, combined with the function of being delaying
devices. They are the sacraments of current Christianity and its dilemma (Gavin
Reid, The Gagging of God, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1969, p.91)

When the history of our generation is written up, we will be remembered for our conferences where we passed many emphatic resolutions. We have resolved many things by mere resolution. But who listens to the resolutions of international conferences? Does any nation listen to the UN, unless it is nationally convenient and advantageous? People who do not attend conferences remain untouched by them. They are not listening.

Bibliography
“No Patchwork Faith”, Kuruvilla Chandy, Light of Life, August 2004
Leslie Newbigin, Is Christ Divided? Eerdmans, USA, 1961
J Robert Nelson in One Lord, One Church, Lutterworth Press, UK, 1958
Gavin Reid, The Gagging of God, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1969