The  Journey 151

Thursday, May 31

Read: 2 Kings 5:1-27

People always love to look at the Church. Some people look up to certain church’s because of its worship styles while some for their preaching diet. While some people look up to church, some people look down on the church. This happens when the church and its  ministry is not transparent and it consciously or unconsciously deviates from its God  given mission. New York Times recently reported about a large gospel network which is now in the thick of a raging controversy over its way of managing its finances.  The ministry that is now in the centre of controversy is the TBN network, who for the last 39 years, have urged its viewers  to give generously and reap the Lord’s bounty in return. It was Paul and Janice Crouch, who built together TBN network, which was a single station, into the world’s largest Christian television network, The focus of these ministry was prosperity theology or in other words how in the name of our Lord, millions of dollars are collected by way of funding or by the healing ministry that they tend to  do. With money pouring in the life style of the leaders also became opulent.  Now one of the granddaughter, Brittany Koper, who was in charge of TBN’s finances, has gone public about  financial improprieties  and mismanagement in the TBN network. This was after both Koper and her husband were fired by the network for allegedly stealing about 1.3 million dollars.  According to TBN sources both Koper and her husband wants to divert attention from their own crimes to something else.  It is very common here in the United States for the televangelist to live opulently preaching the  gospel of prosperity preaching about God who blesses everyone with material prosperity if they are willing to give to the Lord. This type of preaching is prevalent in most of the televangelist including in India whose main focus of preaching is about healing and deliverance from all negative sources.  It is this focus that make people to flock to them so that they can also move up in the financial ladder.  Today prosperity theology is criticized by the evangelical Christians too  as they feel, that the focus of all these ministries is physical healing and also raising huge amount of money in the name of mission work only to be spent in managing their opulent lifestyle.  In other words, ministry that are done using the name of our Lord, but using the pain and suffering of others,  as an instrument to fleece innocent believers and to make riches through the suffering of others.

This week we are  meditating on the theme “ Transformation in the life of the sick and suffering” based on 2 Kings 5:1-27. Here we find the healing of Naman and if we observe closely we find that King of Aram sending Naman to the King of Samaria, requesting for help. But as he goes out to  meet the king, the King of Aram, the Naman took ten talents of silver and about six thousand shekels of gold and ten changes of clothes to be given to the King. The king is very upset and tears his cloak in anger. But what was the perspective of King of Aram and Naman. Here are two individuals who think that it is through the gift of silver and gold that they can receive the gift of healing. This attitude is also prevalent today as  many of the believers give away huge money, because their focus is to get deliverance from the disease as early as possible. Today lot of people are hooked on to different types of Christian broadcasting, where sometimes the message of the meaning of Christ suffering and ascension is not taken at all presented while only the message of prosperity is presented with the sole focus of amassing enormous wealth through God’s ministry. Therefore let us think whether we focus today more on the material blessing that we want to receive from the Lord or are we ready to be transparent and work for the Lord without thinking about the material and financial gain in doing certain types of ministry.

The Journey 150
Wednesday, May 30
Read: 2 Kings 5: 1-27
              Heart Attack and Cancer are considered as the most fatal health condition that takes the lives of the maximum number of people. But I believe there is another silent killer which most of us fail to diagnose or in other words can also lead to this fatal health condition. This silent killer is known as “Depression”. The culture prevalent in the US can be termed as “depressive”. This is because according to the pharmacist and medical fraternity, the sales of depression medicines over the years have gone up by 400 percent.  According to Pastor Perry Noble of New Spring Church, United States is the most richest and the  most depressed county in the world. What is very disheartening about this whole issue of depression is that we as Christians do not address this  issue, as we are not comfortable dealing with such sensitive issue. I feel this may be because the culture that is prevalent in our church sometimes, does  not help to create an intimacy nor a sense of confidentiality among the families or individual, so that they feel free to share their anxiety or depression. Moreover everyone wants to feel good in the church and do not want to  tell others that they go through problems like depression or sickness. As a result there are many members in the church who are battling different issues all by themselves and thus going through depression in life.  Last week while leading the worship service at the Philadelphia  Marthoma Church, the whole worshipping community came together to pray for a family who attended worship along with their two year old girl. This little girl is going to undergo chemotherapy later this week. It is was heartwarming to see how the whole worshipping community prayed for the family. But what about those people who are not able to share their pain with others and where you don't have anyone to pray for?.
                  This week we are meditating on the theme “ Transformation in the life of the sick and suffering”. The portion that we are using for our meditation is from 2 Kings 5:1-27. This portion describes a pitiable condition of a Naman, the Syrian commander who I believe was also going through what I term as depression and pain because of his physical condition. As we know through the understanding of the Old Testament times, his was one of the disease that  makes a person socially ostracized.  It is in this context that the slave girl becomes sensitive to the need to the Naman. What is wonderful about the girl is that nobody tells her about Naman’s condition but she is quick to discern the suffering that her master goes through. It is this genuiness, the love for her master and the Lord, the sensitivity of heart to understand what the other person is going through, that forces her to tell Naman’s wife, where they can find help. A young girl who moves out of her so called little world to go out of her way to understand the need of her master, and help him. I think as we deal with the issues faced by the people who suffer due to sickness and other health issues what is required from us is to be sensitive to their need, a helping hand, a caring heart and a shoulder to lean on. It is this support that becomes a source of healing for the suffering people and also a strength to face depressive tendency that  may arise because of ones physical condition. Let us take a commitment that we will be like that slave girl who came out of her world to be source of hope for the depressed.

 

The Journey 149
Tuesday, May 29
Read: 2 Kings 5: 1-27
               Two days back as I was driving, I heard the a strange news reported by the Christian FM Music station K Love about a man who made funny self portraits of himself, so that his wife could laugh looking at the portraits. But why was he doing this. This  made me do some research and this research led me to a news about a man, a husband who is doing innovative ways, to help his wife fight cancer and also empower other woman to do the same. The name of this person is Bob Carey and his wife is Linda. They had moved to New York early this decade. A few years later Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. Linda overcame cancer but it recurred back again later.  This encounter with the cancer changed both the perspectives of Bob and Linda. As Linda underwent chemo therapy, both Bob and Linda, realized that life was hard, and sometimes dealing with life could also be hard and hence the best thing to do in order to face crisis and sickness is to deal with it in the most innovative way. According to Bob, the most innovative way to is laugh at ourselves and share a laugh with others.  This made Bob to do self portraits of himself, in tutu images. What is a tutu images? It is photographing oneself with a pink tutu, which is normally a costume wore by young girls. Bob would wear that pink tutu without a shirt and photograph himself gallivanting around public places like parks, beaches, amusement parks, subway station, thus photographing himself to create laughter around especially to his ailing wife through silliness and an element of wonder and sometimes some people may term as little off board. But there was an overwhelming response to these photographs of Bob in his pink tutu. This  made Bob to create the TUTU project. He has now  moved a step further and has made a book titled “ Ballerina” with all his tutu images so that he can raise about $75,000, to help a breast cancer organization. Here is man who takes the most innovative ways,  or may be as some says the craziest thing to do– but the goal was so noble– laugh and make others laugh so that pain and suffering could be faced with smiles. Bob is helping his wife to face crisis of cancer through laughter and tutu images,  but as Christian I believe the Word of God gives us  more powerful source of strength and hope to face the crisis in life more than the laughter medicine. This week we are meditating on the theme “ Transformation in the life of sick and suffering”. The portion that we are going to meditate is from 2 Kings 5: 1-27. Here is a passage which describes the suffering of Naman who has leprosy and how a young slave girl becomes a channel for his healing.  When the slave girl realized that her master had leprosy, she tells Naman’s wife that he would be healed of leprosy only if he goes and meets the prophet who is in Samaria [ 2 Kings 5: 3]. It is this small but significant news that makes Naman to  prepare himself to go to Samaria to meet the prophet Elisha.  Here is a slave girl who is a captive in the house of the commander Naman, yet she paves way and becomes a channel of hope to Naman. What she does is to help Naman connect with the prophet Elisha and in that way connect himself to the Almighty God who is the source of healing. What the world needs from us is becoming pointers for our Lord or making ourselves a channel so that people who are going through crisis and suffering can encounter our risen Lord in their life and through that encounter receive strength and grace to face the challenges of life. Bob did tutu images so that his wife could receive strength to face the crisis in life. That was Bob’s way of helping his wife. But the question is what is your way of helping others so that you can become a channel of hope and healing in the life of others.

The Journey 146
Saturday, May 26
Read: Luke 7:36-50
              This week as we meditated on the theme “Transformation in my Parish” we were able to come across  different local church’s who were very distinct. They had an identity of their own, and they also tried to witness to the message of the gospel in their own unique ways. Yesterday  I came across another local church through the news report, who devised a unique ministry of helping cancer patients. The church is The Church of Nativity in Kansas City. This news item was reported by the Kansas City Star. What is unique about the church is the programmes that they organized a few Sunday’s back. The outreach ministry was called “Wig– Out”. What the members of the parish especially youngsters did was cutting their hair and giving the lockhead to the people who are suffering from cancer. For this unique project they not only enlisted the support of the members of the church, but also the members of the local community. As a result of this unique ministry programme, four hair stylist in the area also volunteered to snip hair as a part of their commitment to this cause of helping the cancer patients. People who willingly gave up lockhead of hair, which were precious to them included young girls, mothers, grandmothers. More unique was certain men who also came to donate their hair. What they did on purpose, was to grow their hair, when they knew about this project, and came last Sunday to donate their hair. What is unique about this “Wig– Out” project of the church of nativity was that the members tried to do something meaningful for the people who were suffering from cancer. As everyone knows, when radiation and chemo therapy is undertaken by the cancer patients especially woman, they loose their hair on the head, and often this become distressing for them.  Thus providing hair to make wigs was very heartening thing to do, so that in the process you bring healing and peace to untold people who are going through misery because of cancer. This model of the church of nativity is a fantastic model for mission because the members of the church seemed to do something that is painful and also costly to bring about healing and change in the suffering community around.  As written earlier this week we were meditating on the theme “ Transformation in my Parish” based on Luke 7: 36-50. This is an incident which shows two contrasting attitude of people. One group of people represented by Pharisees who only sees certain outward signs or do certain rituals without any sincerity or meaning, but only to show that they are holy and religious people, while there are certain people like the woman in this passage, who shows certain outwardly signs and action but the difference is that the action shown outwardly is preceded by a change of heart and a confession of one’s sin. When the woman wets the feet of Jesus with her tears and perfumes his feet, this was an outward sign that was very costly for her and it showed the inward change that she experienced and the remorse that she had about her wrongdoing in life. What Jesus saw was the change that she experienced or the pain that she went through to do thing right for the Lord. For many of us we do ministry, by doing only certain thing that are very easy to do. These activities that some of the local church and its members do are routine. What is important here is that when we involve ourselves in the needs of the community or do God’s ministry, let us be made aware, that we need to do this as a mark of the transformation that God has brought about in our life and also do in such a way that it is painful and costly for us. Anything that we do for the Lord, which is not “costly” will not be meaningful to the community. The church of nativity did just that. We are also called to do the same.

The Journey 145
Friday, May 25
Read: Luke 7:36-50
   Another church is now creating storms and getting nation wide attention in this country. This is because of a sermon delivered by its Pastor on Sunday May 13. The church- Providence Road Baptist Church at Maiden, North Carolina and the Pastor whose sermon is in the centre of controversy is Pastor Charles Worley. In his sermon, Pastor Worley told his congregation that people who have the same sex relationship orientation should be put in an electric fence in such a way that they cant get out and separating each of them on the basis of their gender. He proposed in his sermon that they should be provided food by dropping from above, and that since they don't have the ability of procreation, the population will eventually die. This radical stand of the Pastor has forced Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State to file a letter with the Internal Revenue Service with a request to examine tax exempt status given to the Providence Road Baptist Church, since they believe that sermon like these violates the federal tax law. But look at another church. This church is the National Community Church in Washington DC.  This church organizes a weekly event called as Ebenezer Coffee House, which is drawing about 200 people each week. What the church does is through such fellowship, is gather individuals together, discuss and plan as to how the church can give better care to the people who have the same sex orientations both inside and outside the church. This was reported by a Christian organization called Exodus, whose objective is to provide support to individuals with same sex orientation, to transform their life through the power of Christ and to live out a biblical sexual ethics. The stand taken by the two church seems to be so paradoxical. One condemns while other tries to redeem. It is in such paradoxical context that the parish or the local church is called to share the transforming power of our Lord.
This week we are meditating on the theme “ Transformation in my parish”. The biblical portion that we are meditating is from Luke 7: 36-50. As we discussed yesterday, Jesus has come to the house of a Pharisee to dine and as he dines the woman comes to the presence of Jesus. There is no interaction between the woman and Jesus. She wipes the feet of Jesus with her tears and she pours the perfume on his feet. The Pharisees seeing the woman starts condemning both the woman and also Jesus, stating that if Jesus was a prophet he would have known the character of this woman and he would not in any way associate with the woman. Contrary to the beliefs of the Pharisees, what Jesus does is very noble. He tell a parable to Simon, whom I presume invited him to his house, about redemption and forgiveness. Later Jesus tells the woman that her sins are forgiven and tells her that her faith has saved her and she is asked to go in peace. The Pharisees take a stand of condemnation without addressing the issue of how to redeem the woman, on the contrary Jesus addresses the issue of how to redeem the woman whom the Pharisees claim to be a sinner without condemnation. Jesus through this parable and the way he encountered the woman gives us a model to follow both for the believers and the church. What the parish or the local church needs to do today is to make its witness both credible to the world and faithful to the Lord. To engage in such a ministry we have to see how we could redeem people from their sins, rather than condemning them without understanding their context or their world view.
Parish become transformed when the members focus more on redemption rather than condemnation.  

 The Journey 144
Thursday, May 24
Read: Luke 7:36-50
                     A Church for Bikers. I was fascinated by this concept and the group, which was reported by the CBS Philly news yesterday.  A group of believers who loved Jesus and also their bikes or motorcycles. They are a very unique group. They are synonymous with leather jackets, tattoos on their bodies, well built physique and riding bikes that makes loud noises. But it is this unique group who have also a passion for the Lord and thus the BIKERS CHURCH. The way BIKERS CHURCH was formed is very unique. The Biker Church was formed by members of the Birmingham Chapter of Bikers for Christ. These believers who had a passion for their bikes and driving on bikes used to frequent a restaurant called Courtyard 25, in Vandiver, Alabama. One day the owners of the restaurant  approached the biking community  about using a vacant building to hold church service. In fact the most wonderful aspect of this incident is that, the day they were asked whether they needed the vacant space for worship, was the same day when the bikers also planned to talk to the owners themselves about this possibility. It started as just a 4 member congregation; and last Sunday on May 20th about 30 bikers were in attendance for the Sunday service. It is Pastor Alan Rusmisel who leads this group. As a fellow members of Bikers for Christ, Alan Rusmisel and a few friends wanted to create a place for bikers to worship. According to Alan, the stereotypes of the bikers wont fit in the main stream church and he feels that is very unfortunate. According to the Bikers, when they come to the mainline church’s they tend to looked down upon and condemned. Hence we decided to do our own way of worship. What the bikers do every Sunday is that , the bikers looking to take a nice ride and hear the word of God put on their Sunday leather vest and meet up at bikers church. Here is a church that is entirely different from the way we all perceive and conceive the church, its worship and also the worshipping community. What is distinct about the Christian community of bikers is that they also have a passion for the Lord and for spreading the gospel message in their own unique ways to a community of people who are unreached by the main line church’s.                            This week we are meditating on the theme “ Transformation in our parish. The portion that we will use for our meditation is from Luke 7: 36-50. This is one of the most poignant incident related to a woman who comes to meet Jesus when he is dining at a Pharisees' house. There is no conversation between the woman and Jesus. All that we know is that she had a very bitter past because of the sinful lifestyle that she lived. She comes to the presence of Jesus Christ and wets his feet with her tears and pours the perfume on his feet. This scene is repulsive for the Pharisees because of the woman’s past and because of the pre conditions of Pharisees to the concept of “Holiness”. They condemn both Jesus and the woman. But it is here that Jesus looks not at the perfume nor at the past of the woman, but the tears that she expressed. It is the expression of her tears that showed her love for the Lord, and the change of heart that she had, the true repentance that she showed in her life. Yes the stereotype of the woman was not accepted in the main line community of the Pharisees and hence the condemnation. I think when Jesus accepts the woman and forgives her, he also conveys through His actions, that the church or the so called believers is also called to accept and acknowledge people whose way of life and living may be totally different from us. It is in acceptance without condemnation that helps the worshipping community to make the gospel  message relevant to a group who may not fit into the way we understand the church or the worshipping community.  Let us also make an honest effort in our parish to see to it that we live a life that encompasses every one without any judgment or condemnation

The Journey 143
Wednesday, May 23
Read: Luke 10:25-37
“Worship Service Suspended”. This was the news item that caught my attention yesterday. Worship service in a local church was suspended last Sunday, May 20. This local church which is about 60  miles from Philadelphia,  is known as  Hope Presbyterian Church, located  at 1189 Hope Road, Tinton Falls, New Jersey. Last Sunday was an entirely a different Sunday for the members of the church. The local Church decided to suspend worship service so that instead of worship, the members will participate in an event called  “ Be the Church”. This is an outreach ministry designed to help the neighbours and the community. The total strength of this church is about 93 members, which resembles one of the prayer groups in a Marthoma Parish. What the members did last Sunday, instead of worship was something different. The members were divided into different groups. One group of members spent their time with home bound people in the community, while others went to the homes in the neighborhood to paint houses, repair the porches, while another group of members went  to Liberty Royal Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, and sang hymns along with residents there. The objective behind this whole outreach programme was because the Church has set apart month of April as “ Faith in Action” month.  The idea was to go out into the community and spread God’s love and be there for the neighbors. The members of the Hope Presbyterian Church also felt that they needed to show to the world that they are different from the rest of the people in the world.  According to one of the members of the church who spoke she said that , “Sometimes you get very involved in your own little world and you don’t see the needs of your neighbors and friends,” Later the church members gathered Sunday afternoon to share their experiences and all the members realized that the outreach ministry was probably more fulfilling experience for them than for the people whom they served. I personally felt enriched by reading this news about the church and its outreach ministry. What was striking is two things—One– The inclination of not to be just a worshiping community without focusing on the needs of the neighborhood and second the witness and the commitment in Christian life to be different from the rest of the world. I think this is one important aspect that we need to learn and transmit into our local Marthoma church’s too.
                  This week we are meditating on the theme “ Transformation in our parish. The portion that we will use for our meditation is from the well known parable that Jesus told       “The Good Samaritan” from Luke 10: 25-37. Here is a parable that Jesus quotes to teach an expert of the law, who wanted to inherit eternal life. Here is a parable where Samaritan breaks certain norms, conventions to help a person in need. When the wounded  man was seen first by the Priest and then by the Levite, both of them by passed the wounded man, because for both the Priest and the Levite, they were not ready to break the existing norms, rules or conventions to help the wounded man because that would be too costly for them and they were not ready to take that risk. Priest felt that the celebration of the worship was more important while for the Levite, the outward cleansing was his witness. But for the Samaritan, he had no issue in breaking the norms [ though Jews and Samaritans were sworn enemies] for helping the people in need. Sometimes I feel,  we as the members of the church tend to be very legalistic and would always want to go by the norms, standards and conventions, rather than focusing on our mission and witness. I think the witness of the members of the Hope Presbyterian church teaches us that sometimes we need to break certain norms and rules so that our faith is conveyed more through our action than fellowship in the sanctuary.
Ready to break the convention to be a witness for the Lord?