The Journey 183
Read: Mathew 23
"Don't Limit the Ministry of Jesus Christ to the four walls of the Church" This was the main focus of the sermon delivered by First lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, as she addressed the delegates gathered at the National Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee last week. According to the first lady, what is important as Christians is what do they do in the quieter moments of their lives and which is more important than just showing up and attending a Sunday services once a week. She continued by saying that the faith journey is all about what the Christians do from Monday to Saturday as well, especially in quieter moments of life, when the focus and spotlight is not on us and when we have to make choices in our daily lives as to how to live as Christians. According to the First Lady, Jesus Christ did not limit his ministry to the four walls of the church, on the contrary He was out there in the society fighting for justice and empowering people through His message of truth, grace and redemption. Hence the mission of every Christian is to find and witness Jesus Christ everywhere, and every day, by the way one lives their life. I felt what the First Lady said was a powerful gospel message.
The month from June to September is the activity oriented season in the United States, especially in the parishes of the Diocese of North America. This is because it is in summer you have both the parish retreats and youth retreats organized by each of the individual parishes in the diocese, then you have conferences like Junior– Senior conferences, Family Conference, National Conference for Youth Fellowship, Yuvajana Sakhyam, Sevika Sangham, and Edavaka Mission. Along with this comes the VBS in the local parishes, followed by a picnic or may be an outing to the beach or a cruise. By the end of October the season of conferences ebbs down like a tide. It is here that we need to ask ourselves, as the diocese, the parishes spend huge money, time and resources to organize these conferences, do we really take in anything by attending these conferences and are we able to make our Christian life and living qualitatively different after attending these conferences? The portion that we are using for our meditation today is from Mathew 23: 1-37. and Mathew 6: 5-8. These are the portions where Jesus is vehemently criticizing the Pharisees and their concept of religiosity and spirituality. The main aspect which Jesus Christ criticizes the Pharisees is that they have conveniently divorced their spiritual beliefs from their public life. Their spiritual activity and expression are more of "showing off" rather than the expression of the spirituality meaningfully in their life. Thus faith is more of ritual or a meaningless action, limiting it to something that one expresses only in places like church, or prayer meetings and other significant events. The objective of these action is therefor to create an image for ourselves through these spiritual activities rather than expression of transformed living through Jesus Christ. So let us think to the words that the First Lady expressed whether our spirituality is confined to the four walls of the Church or through the participation of various conferences or spirituality expressed meaningfully on weekdays.
"Don't Limit the Ministry of Jesus Christ to the four walls of the Church" This was the main focus of the sermon delivered by First lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, as she addressed the delegates gathered at the National Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee last week. According to the first lady, what is important as Christians is what do they do in the quieter moments of their lives and which is more important than just showing up and attending a Sunday services once a week. She continued by saying that the faith journey is all about what the Christians do from Monday to Saturday as well, especially in quieter moments of life, when the focus and spotlight is not on us and when we have to make choices in our daily lives as to how to live as Christians. According to the First Lady, Jesus Christ did not limit his ministry to the four walls of the church, on the contrary He was out there in the society fighting for justice and empowering people through His message of truth, grace and redemption. Hence the mission of every Christian is to find and witness Jesus Christ everywhere, and every day, by the way one lives their life. I felt what the First Lady said was a powerful gospel message.
The month from June to September is the activity oriented season in the United States, especially in the parishes of the Diocese of North America. This is because it is in summer you have both the parish retreats and youth retreats organized by each of the individual parishes in the diocese, then you have conferences like Junior– Senior conferences, Family Conference, National Conference for Youth Fellowship, Yuvajana Sakhyam, Sevika Sangham, and Edavaka Mission. Along with this comes the VBS in the local parishes, followed by a picnic or may be an outing to the beach or a cruise. By the end of October the season of conferences ebbs down like a tide. It is here that we need to ask ourselves, as the diocese, the parishes spend huge money, time and resources to organize these conferences, do we really take in anything by attending these conferences and are we able to make our Christian life and living qualitatively different after attending these conferences? The portion that we are using for our meditation today is from Mathew 23: 1-37. and Mathew 6: 5-8. These are the portions where Jesus is vehemently criticizing the Pharisees and their concept of religiosity and spirituality. The main aspect which Jesus Christ criticizes the Pharisees is that they have conveniently divorced their spiritual beliefs from their public life. Their spiritual activity and expression are more of "showing off" rather than the expression of the spirituality meaningfully in their life. Thus faith is more of ritual or a meaningless action, limiting it to something that one expresses only in places like church, or prayer meetings and other significant events. The objective of these action is therefor to create an image for ourselves through these spiritual activities rather than expression of transformed living through Jesus Christ. So let us think to the words that the First Lady expressed whether our spirituality is confined to the four walls of the Church or through the participation of various conferences or spirituality expressed meaningfully on weekdays.