4th Sunday Easter Leadership vacancies

 

Leadership characters that were presented by Jesus is far different from that of today's political leadership!

Unfortunately, the elements of political leadership has attracted many including the Christian leaders!

Accumulation of power and money is the hallmark of political arena today!

Distribution of power, money, wealth, food, justice is the characters of Christian leadership.

In a village family, for example, the father of the family earns let us say 500 rupees a day, the mother of the family 250 and there are two income-less children and a grandmother.  The total income, the 750 of the day belongs to the entire family.  The father cannot autocratically spend 200 rupees for his evening drink!

Common money cannot be used for private ends!  Then, it is no more a family, no more a congregation, no more a community, no more a church!  I am not here talking about democracy but Christian spirit and charity!

The two children in your family are totally dependent on your income!  But they are your joy and future which is immeasurable!  The grandmother is income-less!  But she had spent her entire past for this present!   The mother comes back from the fields and works again at home unpaid!  A family is centred around love, charity and compassion, not income and money alone!

Many of our religious communities and churches have lost their credentials and respect among the common people is mainly due to its shift from a Charity model to Income oriented model.  The centre of focus has shifted from ministry and service to income generation!

Sr. Jacquline once told me to visit the Christian Fellowship Hospital in Ottanchathiram.  A couple of its doctors had also helped our village medical camps. In their hospital, payment for hospitalization is done after counselling the person.  If they are poor and unable to pay, they don't charge the regular, I was told!

Kamalaathaal an 80-year-old granny sells one rupee idli in Coimbatore, Vadivelanpalyam!   She just feeds the hungry with a determined heart!

Comedian Vivek who died recently had planted a few million trees in this country with a true determination.

Therefore, you don't need a position or a placement or an appointment or an election to become a leader.

There is a huge number of leadership vacancies in several fields!  Why do you compete in the sticky crowded street?

Feed the hungry, Take care of the orphans, work for the liberation of prisoners, help their families, teach youth culture, federate women, federate peasants, get involved with AA groups, organize cultural troupes, motivate children; Yes, you are needed in so many places.  Therefore break the cocoon of thought patterns and fly free!  Otherwise, it would get rotten!  

3rd week of Easter! Resurrect now!

 

The potential peace between India and Pakistan does exist!  Nothing in this world is dead that cannot be revived or resurrected!  Samundar Singh who had killed Blessed Sr. Rani Maria had a change of heart and is now preaching the gospel.

Belief in Resurrection is exactly that; it is not something that of a past speaking about our future!

Don't die voluntarily!  Don't put the end card so quickly and get buried!!  The deeper you are buried, the longer you are buried, the tougher it is to get out!  Get out of it quickly!!

Relationships can be buried!  Hopes can be buried!  Initiatives can be buried!  Friends can be buried!  Your future can be buried!

Keep them alive!  Not just survival but keep them lively!

Once again let me get back to the same example.  There are fantastic resources in India and Pakistan!  But petty politics had sunk them down and keeps both the countries poor and marginalized!  We both are pouring our hard-earned money into the purchase of ruthless and "useless" arms rather than power projects, watershed programmes, resource development and so on!

When I want to win an election, I do not mind fanning the caste sentiments among youngsters and ruin their lives.  The youth from neighbouring villages or streets see each other as enemies and lose their future.

The dominant caste, their kith and kin go to the universities, fly abroad to get superlative degrees and become doctors, lawyers or get into administrative structures.  But they inflame the others in the name of religion and caste, force a weapon in their hands to fight each other.

Let us change this "deadly" situation!

Tell the children around you to say hello to their neighbour!

Tell the youth to hold hands with their neighbour and look at the bright future!

Tell yourself, to wind up bigotry, prejudice and bias to see together with the fantastic synergy that you can generate as a family, as a community, as a church, as a village or as a congregation!

When you consider someone an enemy you are closing down the shutters!  You spell death!  When you revenge someone, you are wasting your energy and you opt for death instead of life!  After a couple defeats you get disappointed and give up trying, you are winding up!  When you don't get the results you expected, you stop initiatives, you are dying!

Death or Resurrection, therefore, is your choice!

On a single day, one can die several times feeling dejected, feeling discouraged, feeling defeated,  but You can also raise up to love, to relate, to hope for, to help, to reach out!

Resurrection is not a past event!

If your dogmatic faith is all about Jesus raising you one last day after the final judgement or whatever, then logically you should not worry about  His job!  Let us not waste our precious time on hair splitting discussions on what type of body Jesus had when he rose from the dead and so on!

You can beautifully experience Resurrection when you lift up a poor, when you shake hand and re-establish peace with a person when you can bring smile in a disappointed person, why not?

Why choose death when you can resurrect yourself and others?

Why wait for the "Final day" to get resurrected?

 

2nd Sunday of Easter Peace comes from forgiveness

 

The early church is constructing a defensive theology, which is portrayed as historical events in the last chapters of the gospel of John!  Obviously, the church is offering answers to the doubts raised by the early Christians or their opponents; not necessarily with exact chronological events but propositions soaked in faith!  For example, the empty tomb and the apparitions of Jesus don't directly prove anything about the resurrection.  Empty tomb says that it is the same body of Jesus! Jesus appearing in different places including a closed room indicates that it is not the "same" body!  Is He body or spirit?  Their answer is, "It is both"!  He is a spiritual body now, they try to prove!

I have a very keen interest in the historical events around and about Jesus!  I am ever open to thinking beyond the faith narrations of the gospels.  Because we don't get the exact historical events from a love letter!

Thomas the apostle figures in the gospel today.  He seemed to have got out of "their room" and was moving around for some reason!  Probably looking for "Jesus" dead or alive!  Because there was news that the tomb is empty and there is a message leaking that Jesus is alive!  He finally reached Mylapore in Chennai where he was killed by a fanatic! 

Pilot or any ruler for that matter don't easily succumb to people's pressure as narrated in the gospels!  The execution of Jesus was handed over to Roman soldiers and that too for the forenoon of Friday.  Potius Pilot knows that the entire place will be empty and deserted for nearly 36 hours due to the Sabbath observation.  It makes it easy for "their plans".  Jesus had followers and well-wishers even among the Romans and Jewish hierarchy.  I leave it to your imagination, logic, and research.

That was a time when there was a huge infiltration of Brahminism in Southern India, which was refuted by Tamil intellectuals called Siddhars including Thiruvalluvar!  Though the articulation methodology of the gospels and Thirukkural are different the theme is much similar and Thriukural is crystal and cryptic whereas the parables of the gospels were elaborate and cryptic.  Both are eastern ways of communication.

I stop it here; for though it is highly interesting, that is not the purpose of my writing.  I am more attracted by the spirituality of Jesus than the religiosity of any religion!

There will be peace when you forgive is the only theme of Jesus that I pick up in the gospel today.  The disciples of Jesus were terribly upset and angry with what happened to Jesus in the last few days.  Blaming each other, blaming the government, blaming the temple authorities, and even maybe blaming Jesus himself.  Inner agitation, outbursts, tears, emotions for revenge, feeling of helplessness fills the room!  Dejection, sadness, and hopelessness prevail in the atmosphere.  Because he was not just one among them but their leader!

He comes in, offering peace! 

Thousands of people including little children massacred in Srilanka in 2009, the merciless ways in which the Gujarat Muslims were slaughtered in 2002, the killing of Jews under the Nazi regime, the carpet bombing in Vietnam, the atom bombs that killed several thousand in Japan and so many such ruthless crimes against humanity passes through my mind.  Should we forgive the perpetrators of such violence and bloodshed?

My nerves get agitated when I think of such crime perpetrators or those who destroy peace in the community for selfish ends.  They make use of caste feelings, ethnic emotions, nationalist sentiments, historical events; to motivate, support, instigate and justify violence and injustice!

The sister of Sr. Rani Maria, Sr. Salomi, and their mother forgave her assassin! Steward Stein's wife forgives the killers of her husband and two children!  Mrs. Sindhuthai Sapkal forgave her husband who almost killed her and thrown into a cowshed to be stamped by the animals, On the cross, Jesus forgave his killers.

Forgiveness comes from a courageous heart but appears to be weak!  On the other hand, Revenge appears to come from a bold personality but actually, it comes from a very weak mind!

Un-forgiveness creates scars and harms; first in you and then it spreads!

Forgiveness unfolds Peace within and around!