The Journey 228: When the devil comes to the church....
Read: 1 Corinthians 11
Church is a place where we all go for worship. A place where through worship we have fellowship, communion both with the Lord and our fellow believers. It is also a place of comfort and hope as we silently share our joy, our dreams and sorrows with the Lord, seeking his will and guidance in our life. But this is not what happened last week to a lady who went to the church here in Philadelphia to pray. The Philadelphia news agency reports about a tragic incident that happened to a 53-year-old woman who had recently lost her job, and thus out of her sheer desperation and agony she decided to go to the church to pray. But there she became a victim of being robbed inside the church. As she walked to receive the holy communion, sitting in the church, she felt that this was the most secure place and hence she kept her purse on the pews and went to receive the communion. That is when a couple who was another fellow worshipper, saw the purse in the pew, grabbed the purse and ran out of the church. The couple took her money and also used her credit card to buy gas and then later bought chicken nuggets from MacDonald's, but later when the cashier asked them to sign the receipt for the food that they bought, they got scared and ran away. The woman who lost her purse and has been burgled is in a shock and cannot believe that this happened in a church and that too when she went to receive communion. It is common sometimes in the church’s in India where the ladies complained that their costly slippers has been taken away leaving behind useless slippers. The tragedy of the whole issue is that here is a lady who is coming to the church seeking hope and solace, but instead of getting hope, her hope is betrayed and she is now left with the felling that even church is a place where you are not safe. All because one person whose motive to come to church was not to worship and to seek the face of the Lord. This brings raises the question whether we become a stumbling block to others, do we strengthen the faith of other through corporate worship and fellowship when we come to the church.
We are meditating on the theme “ Transformed Living”. Today the portion that we shall use for our meditation is from 1 Corinthians 11. Here is Paul exhorting the Corinthian believers that they should be very careful in their walk with the Lord especially as they participate in the Lord’s table. In the early church it was the fellowship meal that was considered as the Lord’s table and as believers participated in the fellowship meal they would also remember the words of institution that Jesus said, as He celebrated the last supper. But what happened in the fellowship meal was that there were certain believers who were not concerned about the need of the other believers and they would participate in the meal in such a way that they would not leave anything to eat for the rest of believers. Hence you had cases where some believers had to go hungry even when they participated in the fellowship meal. I think it is these instances that later brought about the change in the way the Holy Communion was celebrated and thus the present way of celebration of communion. But the crux of the matter here is that, there are believers in the church who can come to worship and have communion but are not ready to be sensitive to the needs of the fellow believers. When we come as a corporate community of faith let us make a sincere effort that all that we do in the church, the way we talk, the way we act and behave does not become an impediment to another believer in his/her faith journey and also in the corporate worship. It is only then can we say that the church truly becomes a place for transformation of the sinners to the saints rather from saints to sinners.
Rev.Dr.Joe Joseph Kuruvilla
Church is a place where we all go for worship. A place where through worship we have fellowship, communion both with the Lord and our fellow believers. It is also a place of comfort and hope as we silently share our joy, our dreams and sorrows with the Lord, seeking his will and guidance in our life. But this is not what happened last week to a lady who went to the church here in Philadelphia to pray. The Philadelphia news agency reports about a tragic incident that happened to a 53-year-old woman who had recently lost her job, and thus out of her sheer desperation and agony she decided to go to the church to pray. But there she became a victim of being robbed inside the church. As she walked to receive the holy communion, sitting in the church, she felt that this was the most secure place and hence she kept her purse on the pews and went to receive the communion. That is when a couple who was another fellow worshipper, saw the purse in the pew, grabbed the purse and ran out of the church. The couple took her money and also used her credit card to buy gas and then later bought chicken nuggets from MacDonald's, but later when the cashier asked them to sign the receipt for the food that they bought, they got scared and ran away. The woman who lost her purse and has been burgled is in a shock and cannot believe that this happened in a church and that too when she went to receive communion. It is common sometimes in the church’s in India where the ladies complained that their costly slippers has been taken away leaving behind useless slippers. The tragedy of the whole issue is that here is a lady who is coming to the church seeking hope and solace, but instead of getting hope, her hope is betrayed and she is now left with the felling that even church is a place where you are not safe. All because one person whose motive to come to church was not to worship and to seek the face of the Lord. This brings raises the question whether we become a stumbling block to others, do we strengthen the faith of other through corporate worship and fellowship when we come to the church.
We are meditating on the theme “ Transformed Living”. Today the portion that we shall use for our meditation is from 1 Corinthians 11. Here is Paul exhorting the Corinthian believers that they should be very careful in their walk with the Lord especially as they participate in the Lord’s table. In the early church it was the fellowship meal that was considered as the Lord’s table and as believers participated in the fellowship meal they would also remember the words of institution that Jesus said, as He celebrated the last supper. But what happened in the fellowship meal was that there were certain believers who were not concerned about the need of the other believers and they would participate in the meal in such a way that they would not leave anything to eat for the rest of believers. Hence you had cases where some believers had to go hungry even when they participated in the fellowship meal. I think it is these instances that later brought about the change in the way the Holy Communion was celebrated and thus the present way of celebration of communion. But the crux of the matter here is that, there are believers in the church who can come to worship and have communion but are not ready to be sensitive to the needs of the fellow believers. When we come as a corporate community of faith let us make a sincere effort that all that we do in the church, the way we talk, the way we act and behave does not become an impediment to another believer in his/her faith journey and also in the corporate worship. It is only then can we say that the church truly becomes a place for transformation of the sinners to the saints rather from saints to sinners.
Rev.Dr.Joe Joseph Kuruvilla