Fathers' Day Surprise

I stared at that bouquet of flowers handed over to me feeling little uneasy. It was Fathers’ Day and I was reminded of it early in the morning by my two children who had wished me already before I went to church. In my church I have made it a policy that we will pray for fathers on Fathers’ Day and mothers on Mothers’ day in the church but will not have any celebration of such days on Sundays. My reason is simple. Nowadays, almost every day is ‘some day’ and it distracts our attention from the real business that we are supposed to do on Sunday: the Lord’s Day. I don’t encourage celebration of such days to make sure these celebrations do not eclipse the day that is of paramount importance: the Lord’s Day.

However, one of the youth took the initiative to buy a bouquet of flowers and when I had said the benediction at the end of the service, shot in front of the pulpit with the flowers saying, ‘today is Fathers’ Day. And we would like to honor our pastor who is our spiritual father with these flowers.’ She also announced that an elderly lady in the church will pray for all fathers in the church. It was gross disobedience and violation of rules! However, I accepted it on behalf of all the fathers in the church.

I was busy after the service: Had to meet a lot of people, especially the new-comers. After all the meetings, I left the church in a hurry leaving the flowers in the church. In an hour’s time, some youth in the church turned up at my door with the flowers that I left behind in the church. One of them with a grouchy face said, ‘Uncle, you left the flowers in the church!’ And she trespassed into my house and placed it on the coffee table at the center of my living room. And others looked at me as if they have revenged me for a crime. I apologized and thanked them for bring it to me. Now, there it is on my table.

I stare at it at least three or four times a day since it has been there. When I look at these flowers, I see the younger faces of my congregation and God speaks to me powerfully. I see faces of young people who have come to the city to get an education or job leaving their parents. Most of them came immediately after leaving high school and get to see their parents only once in a year. We try our maximum to get most of them to our home on Sundays for a meal and fellowship. Some of them have lost their fathers when they were young: some were just 12 when their fathers passed away. Some have fathers but they are absentee fathers. Not really interested in their children. They drink, spent all their time at workplaces, or in socializing with their friends and hardly have any time for their children. Some belong to single mothers, their fathers have left them or are no more!

These flowers bother me a lot. They tell me there is quite a big-sized crowd who have installed me at the place that their biological fathers have vacated! I need to fill in that place! Pastor as father is a discomforting responsibility.

A few days before this, I was reading a blogpost where the writer talks about a young lady who was sobbing when her pastor announced that he is moving to another church soon! Why should any young lady sob when the pastor is moving out? Lots of reasons: She is a new believer. He is her first pastor. But most important one is that she had no father. Ever since she came to this church and became a Christ-follower, she has found her lost father in the pastor. For her, it is not a pastor moving out, but it is dad leaving. Does the pastor realize that he will be orphaning many such young ones when he moves out?

The blog and the flowers still torment me in a gentle way. A torment that I am beginning to enjoy and would to live with. The new realization that I have children besides my own biological ones who love me and look up to me as their dad is exhilarating. It also reminds me that there is an awesome responsibility upon me to model a father. That modeling is important because these young lives will learn how to be fathers and even mothers from the way I parent. The flowers are still fresh though they are almost one old week now--thanks to the damp monsoon weather. They may wither one day however, but their message will stay on to challenge and motivate all those who like me are looked upon by others as fathers, in the church, school, workplace... wherever someone need to imagine a father in us.

Treading Dreaded Paths

We all love to tread paths that are well-trod. However, Jesus was different. He trod paths people dread to tread.

In most cases Jesus healed people by his word, without touching their body or the affected area. However, there were some exceptions. in the case of the deaf and the dumb man he touched his ears and his lips (Mark 7:33). In another case be touched the eyes of a blind man to heal him (John 9:7). These except in most of the cases the people touched him and were healed or he commanded the sickness or demons to go or pronounced healing.

However, he deviated from this in some cases. In the case of lepers he touched them to heal them (Mark 1:41). In the case of the dead he touched the bier or the dead body and raised them. In the case of the son of the widow who was dead and was being taken to the graveyard. He stopped them, touched the bier and the young man sprang up to life (Luke 7:14). In the case of the daughter of Jairus he held the hand of the dead body to raise her back to life (Mark 5:40 and Luke 8:54).

According to the Law of Moses, those who have leprosy should live outside the camp so that they don’t pollute others. Touching a leper made a person unclean. Anyone who touches the dead body should also become unclean and should live outside the camp. People feared the dead and the lepers and avoided both. However, Jesus did not.

In the story of Jesus healing a leper (Mark 1:40), the Gospel writer says that the leper came to Jesus. However, it is impossible for the leper to come to Jesus unless Jesus had ventured in to the territory where the leper lived with others from the rest of the people who considered themselves clean. In the healing of the ten lepers in Luke (Luke 17), Jesus was passing through the colony of lepers. This area designated for lepers between the two provinces (Galilee and Samaria) is a place that everyone who wished to be clean avoided. However, Jesus ventured through this land. Those who touched or carried the dead bodies were unclean. However, Jesus won’t hesitate to touch them. Jesus loved to do things that others dreaded to do. He trod paths that others dread to tread.

In recording in detail the healing of the leper and the raising the dead bodies by deliberately touching them, the Gospel writers are passing on an important message to those who want to emulate Jesus. Don’t shy away from the dreaded paths. Don’t follow the crowds along the well-trodden paths. The church has to deviate at times and sometimes stagger through paths the world hate to walk.

The disciples of Jesus had always followed his example of by treading the unfamiliar, untrodden, dreaded paths. Philip the evangelist had to move from the crowded streets of Jerusalem to the path in the wilderness where he met the Finance Minister of Ethiopia. He had to travel the wilderness road to meet the Ethiopian to introduce Jesus to him. Peter was hesitant to take the gospel to Cornelius who was a pagan. He had never visited a pagan in his house. However, God forced him to make that trip to Caesarea to take the gospel to a Roman centurion. Paul had to stray on to the Mars Hill in Athens so that he could tell the Athenians about the God whom they didn’t know. The history of the Christian Church all these two thousand years has been a history of treading the dreaded paths. It is a story of taking the gospel to lost, neglected, venturing in to unknown lands and it goes on. A church that remains in its comfort zones dies but the one that follows her master to the unknown and the unfamiliar thrives.

The Demon in the Synagogue: The Power of the Word of God

The synagogue is the place where the Jews worshiped their God. But do you know that the first exorcism that Jesus performed was in a synagogue? It sounds paradoxical: casting out demons in the house of God!
In the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark it says that ‘ there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit’ (Mark 1:23). How can a demon-possessed survive in a religious place as a synagogue? Why nobody dealt with this evil-spirit in the synagogue until Jesus walked in? Probably he appeared perfectly normal so that nobody knew he was a demoniac? Or did they just let him be there since they were not able to do anything about it?

This story tells us three things about the nature of demon-possessed people.
1. First, they may look and behave like normal people.
2. Don’t expect to find them only in weird places like grave yards, dark gullies of down town areas, or mental asylums.
3. They can look very normal, could be hanging around religious places like churches and Christian fellowships

There is yet another important aspect in this whole story. It is the evil-spirit that reveals itself. This clearly means that nobody knew that this man has evil-spirit. Or nobody told Jesus that this man has evil-spirit. Evidently, nobody asked Jesus to get involved. The evil-spirit created the scenario on its own.
When Jesus was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum, the man with the evil-spirit couldn't stand the truth of God that Jesus preached anymore and it spoke out revealing itself. It cried out saying: 'What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.'

The people in the synagogue were amazed by the authority of Jesus, they exclaimed that he has authority that is so different from the authority that their scribes had. However, though that was the response of the normal people, the evil-spirit had become so fearful at the authority of Jesus displayed in his teaching. When the man with the evil-spirit heard the powerful teaching of Jesus, it cries out of fear! The evil-spirit immediately realized that their end has come. The evil-spirit knew that the end of the evil has come when it cried out, 'Have you come to destroy us?' They knew the answer to that question is certainly, 'yes!'

The onlookers were surprised indeed. They were curious to know how Jesus would handle the situation. The evil-spirit that cried out in the middle of the sermon interrupted the teaching.
Exorcisms were not new to Jews of Jesus' day. There were lots of Jewish exorcists in Jesus' time who used various means to drive out the demons. Some would use certain prayers or incantations. Some used certain medicines, or stones with magic powers.
This exorcism is different. Jesus did not use any such but commanded the evil-spirit to come out. And it came out immediately! The words of Jesus alone is sufficient to drive the demon out of that man.

For me, this story is not very much about the evil-spirits and exorcism. It is about the power of the Word of God. As the Word of God is preached with divine authority, the kingdom of Satan begins to shake. No evil can withstand the power of the Word of God.
Usually we tend to identify the evil-spirit only if it is manifest. However, the Word of God has the power to uncover everything that God abhors. It has the power to cleanse every mind of everything that displeases him. The Word of God has the cleansing power and every Christian should be cleansed every day by the eternal Word of God.

Salt of the Earth

When Jesus said, 'You are the salt of the earth' (Matthew 5:13) he was reminding his followers of their inescapable responsibility. They are not called to 'be salt' or 'to become salt' but they 'are' salt. Thus the options are limited to just one: losing the saltiness and becoming salt without taste.

Salt is a universally understood symbol. Salt is used from time immemorial for purification, preservation and to make food palatable. Salt can preserve anything from humble lime to the mummies of great Pharaohs. Egyptians stuffed the bellies of the dead bodies with salt to remove the water and other liquids from the body. Then they applied salt along with other chemicals to preserve the corpses for millennia. Cooks all over the world add salt to food to make it palatable. 'Salt to taste' is that line which is so common in all recipes.

Jesus was defining the presence that his disciples should make in the world. They will be those who purify the world that they live, they will make life more palatable, and preserve what is valuable and noble than pull it down.

'Salt' also meant something more. In the Jewish thinking, to be precise in the writings of the Rabbis, salt is a symbol of wisdom. That is why Paul, one of the greatest Rabbis exhorted the Colossian church, 'Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person' (Col 4:6). The followers of Christ has to be full of wisdom so that their words are gracious and filled with wisdom.The idea of wisdom is explicit in the contrast that Jesus makes. The salt can lose its saltiness and become 'tasteless.' In Greek, the word used for 'tasteless' is same as 'foolish.' The disciples have two options. First, be salt or be wise. Second, be tasteless or be foolish! 

 

Jesus reminds us of the great task that is ahead of us who live in this tasteless world. Life is miserable for many. Poverty, deprivation, injustice, lack of inner peace, conflicts within and without make our world unpleasant. The presence of the followers of Christ in this world that has lost it taste makes it more palatable.

The world is losing the values that preserve the human race. Values like respect for life, the dignity of the human being are being eroded among many other. Great social institutions like marriage and family that have preserved our race so far are under attack. The world is losing its salt. The disciples have to enter the world and salt it again with their presence. The Church thus has the great responsibility to make the world more palatable, or liveable. The world needs wisdom to live. That wisdom is entrusted in the Church of Jesus Christ. 

However, the followers of Jesus can also lose their saltiness. Salt if not used could also react with other active chemicals and become something else even harmful chemicals. Just as salt that has lost its saltiness is thrown away and is trampled upon, the disciples who lose their saltiness will become laughing stocks before the world. That would be terrible.

The non-threatening, approachable King

In the events associated with the birth and infancy of Jesus we hear the unique message that he has for the world then and now. Christmas decorations depicting the Baby Jesus in a manger are integral part of the displays during the season. It is a reminder that God comes to the human race in the most non-threatening way, in the form of an infant. Jesus Christ came to this world in the form of a baby born in a manger outside an inn in Bethlehem. Babies are innocent, they have no enemies, they have no prejudices. All babies are cute and adorable. We love babies not for their eloquence or even for their achievements: they are unable to speak and they haven't achieved anything yet. They don't threaten us in any way! It is the most non-threatening form God can incarnate. His purpose was to make a dwelling in the hearts of people, so he chose to be in the form of a baby.

Besides this non-threatening presence of God in our midst, Christmas also reminds us of the approachability of God. The night he was born, a host of angels appeared in the skies and sang praises to God. Their singing woke up the shepherds who were watching their sheep in the open field. The angels told them the exact place where the newborn Jesus could be found. The shepherds followed the angelic instruction and worshipped him in the manger. The shepherds were people of the lowest rung in the society. For their sake and the sake of all those of their rank in society, God chose a manger to be born in. A cosy bedroom in a large house is an ideal place for Jesus to be born. However, that would make him unreachable for the poor for whom he came. So, he chose to be born in a manger of a stable which is outside an inn that was approachable to the poor. We don't have to worship God from a distance, he meets us in places where we can find him. God, though transcendent breaks the barricades the society has erected and comes to the aam admi.

However, Jesus more than a mere baby. What drew people to him as a baby was not the fact that he was adorable but the fact that he was worthy of their worship. Another story associated with Christmas is that of the kings of the 'East' visiting the baby and paying him tribute. These kings were probably astrologers who gazed the stars and saw 'his star' in the sky and followed it to the place where Jesus was born. According to scholars, they might have travelled either from present day Iran or India two places where astrology flourished. It might have taken many months of travel for them. Jesus was not in the manger anyway for such a long period. It seems appropriate to think that he was in a place where the royalty could walk in. The kings visited him and worshipped him. They presented him with gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh, valuable gifts from the East. This symbolic act of paying tribute was to accept his authority over them. He is not just a mere adorable child but a king over other kings.

Jesus came to rule the hearts of men and women of the world. To give them a new standard to live by. To challenge the evil social systems and decadent moral values that corrupted the society. Christmas thus reminds us that God has come to human beings in the most non-threatening, approachable way to claim his place in our hearts. To rule it in such a way that a just, righteous societies are built up.

The 'God-deficiency' of our days

'God is closer to me than I am to myself,' said Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), the German mystic and theologian of the bygone days. He went on to say that God is close to the wood but the wood doesn't realize that. That's true. God is closer to us but we don't realize the fact of God's nearness to us.
This insensitivity to God's nearness is caused by those things that have exiled God from our consciousness. It could also be that that many of our worldly concerns, cares and the like has created a wedge between us and our God and we let that gap grow as time went by, thus distancing us from our God.
We have many things that can take the place of God in our life. There are many rivals to God and we have consciously or unconsciously give these rivals to God the place of God in our lives. These are things that engage each moment of our lives. Our busy life, life's priorities, the things that demand our attention, those things that we adore have engaged our minds so much that we don't have time to realise the presence of God around us. These make us so insensitive like wood to the presence of God.
We then become like chidren who left their parents hands and were finally were lost in the crowd. Some search frantically for their parents to be united with them, some don't even realize that they are lost. This is what has happened to most of us. We have deliberately travelled too far from our Father who want to be closer to us.
One reason for wandering away from the Father is our own false self-confidence. We are made to believe that we are independent and we can do things without Him. As children grow and are more and more used to their world, they develop a sense of independence. That make them to dare to venture out themselves. This independence resulting from the false self-confidence is what makes us less and less aware of the presence of God. We are certainly less aware of what we don't make use of at all.
Jośe A. Pagola a Spanish bible commentator thinks that the problem of the modern world is not atheism but a 'God-deficiency' that we experience. We may not deny the existence of God but we don't acknowledge or experience God as much as we ought to. God is there, but we feel a deficiency of him in our lives.
This God-deficiency in our lives is the reason for all the ills of the modern day. Our world has turned more violent than before, because we in short supply of the God of love. We are merciless to women, children, the unborn, the poor etc, because we are deficient of the God of mercy.
God created the world centered around him, beautiful. The Bible encourages us to live our lives centred around him. God in the Old Testament had his presence in the midst of his people in the Tabernacle. He led his people through the wilderness. Jesus invited us to abide in him and promised his presence in our midst. He is ready to dine with anyone who opens the door of his heart for him. However, our insensitiveness, our God-deficiency and the lack of the God-centredness of our lives has thrown us off balance. There is a great need to return to God.
The devotional masters always tried to 'centre' themselves before they prayed, studied their scripture or even before they wrote. Everything has to be activities centred on God and proceed from the great awareness of him around and in us. This is why learning to centre our lives on God, whenever we feel that we are away from him is important.
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The Jericho Luncheon

Jesus once told the parable of the treasure hidden in a field (Matthew 13:44). A man who knew there was treasure hidden in a field sold all that he has and bought that field. He paid a price that is much higher than the actual price of the field. For the owner of the field and others this man appeared to be a fool. Though the owner of the field was selling the field, this man was in fact buying the treasure. The owner could see only the field but the buyer sees a treasure in it.

This parable applies to all who have sacrificed all that they have for the sake of the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to establish. The best illustration of this parable is what happened in Jericho during the visit of Jesus when he met Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10).

The Bible says Zacchaeus was a chief-tax collector. A chief tax-collector is someone who was in charge of many tax-collectors or had the right to collect tax from one or more tax-districts which he might have delegated to others. What this means is that he was doubly hated. He was hated by the tax-collectors who worked for him for demanding too much and also by the ordinary people who were struggling under the burden of Roman taxation who hated all tax-collectors!

He was the symbol of exploitation, collaborator with the Romans who economically and politically oppressed the people whom they ruled. Nobody liked Zacchaeus and his class. However, tax-collectors had a life of their own, they partied together and there was plenty of money to spend on lavish parties.

Zacchaeus was very curious but was short in stature. His curiosity was so much that he resorted to climb a tree to get a good view of Jesus. Certainly he might have heard a lot about Jesus, otherwise he would not have longed to see him. It seems that he also had some knowledge of what Jesus was preaching. Otherwise, he would not have told Jesus what he is going to do with his ill-gotten wealth (Luke 19:8).

Jesus carried with him a large crowd wherever he went. Besides the disciples and others who followed him wherever he went, there was also people from the places that he was visiting. In this large crowd that Jesus drew around himself critics were not rare. The critics who surrounded him would question his words and actions. At times they tried to harm him also.

Now, for these critics, meeting Zacchaeus was probably okay. But Jesus inviting himself to the house of Lazarus for a meal raised many the eyebrows. Their criticism was valid! A meal is more than having food. We need to be careful not only what we eat but with whom we are eating. Inviting someone for a meal, or having a meal with someone means that we share their values. We are in the same party! Seldom does enemies get together for a party unless to celebrate the end of their hostilities. If we don’t like a person we don’t like his parties also.

Having a meal with Zacchaeus means Jesus is his kind: A collaborator with the tax-collectors who support the Roman occupation of Judea to exploit his own people. A meal with Zacchaeus, that too with the knowledge of the public (Jesus invited himself to Zachaeus place in the hearing of the crowd) simply means Jesus endorses what Zacchaeus does. Jesus' is risking his reputation and making a public statement about where he stands: that he is with the oppressors and not with the oppressed. Having a meal with Zacchaeus, for the critics means that Jesus is with the imperial government and its collaborators.

Jesus and Zacchaeus have something to sort out. Do they belong to two parties or the same. If same who is on whose side? The solution was simple. One of them has to join the other. Who should do that? Should Jesus say that he belongs to the class of Zacchaeus or should Zacchaeus declare that he belongs to Jesus?

Zacchaeus knew he cannot have a meal with Jesus unless he joined Jesus party! So he "stood" (Luke 19:8). This word is powerful. Though this word means standing literally, it is used also in the sense of standing up to, resisting, etc. In Ephesians 6:11, the same Greek word is used to ‘standing against the schemes of the enemy.’ Here Zacchaeus thwarted the criticism of the crowd, and stripped them of their ammunition before they can fire the first bullet by changing sides. He is no more a tax-collector who exacts money but a new person. He will give away four-fold of what he has unjustly collected and give half of his wealth to the poor! His decision shut the mouth of the critics: Jesus is doing nothing wrong in having a meal with him, because they share the same values.

So, that meal was not Jesus endorsing Zacchaeus but Zacchaeus endorsing Jesus!

The cost was high! Much higher than the cost of meal they shared. The cost was so high that Zacchaeus probably may not be able to host another luncheon like that again. This decision might make him bankrupt, but for Zacchaeus what was important was to share the same values as that of Jesus, the Kingdom values, by bidding farewell to oppression and exploitation. That is worth more than what he was parting with--his ill-gotten wealth. He was parting with all that he had because he was simply trading it for a much precious treasure: the Kingdom of God. He bought a field selling all that he had, because he eyed a treasure in it.