|
|
by E.S. John, Australia
Why do we want to bring in a group therapy approach in denigrating and separating people on the basis of a so-called generation gap dynamics? One can't speak for youngsters because there are genetic elites and spiritual stalwarts in all age group levels. This sort of mobocracy tonic is an outcome of humanism, a product of Marxist ideology which derived a liberation theology and liberal theology, that is a cultural imperialism of modernity.
Most of us have become a stooge of this escapism theology knowingly or unknowingly because we have bishops who propagate such theology which is against the Orthodox teaching of Christian endurance that is an outcome by wading through the tides of fire and and water. They teach that God is love, therefore just pray to God and love the humanity by obliterating the passions that the Lord went through for giving salvation to mankind.
This superficial love and prayer therapy that impelled the political and social uprising was met with fierce force by totalitarian regimes and atrocious democratic governments, the causes for using weapons of mass destruction, bloodshed, genocides, homicides, etc. The counter reaction of these sort of inhuman high-tech war technique is counterbalanced by terrorism of many kinds, the most pernicious one is the human bomb medication.
As God is love, we also will have to love God in reciprocation by following the footprints of the Savior, otherwise a slow-to anger God provides a chance to Satan to overpower us. This pray and love armchair cynicism is also a derivative of 'Heaven is within you and two or three people gathering in my name' biblical misinterpretations. Every age has a spirit that will ultimately dynamite the passions of the Lord which preached for repentance and forgiveness, the recipe for the coming of the Lord.
I never surmise the magnetic power and effect of the prayer that is our perpetual food for each moment of our routine life. But only the prayer of the righteous, Jn.9: 31, is responded instantaneously because the prayer has to be transmitted to the Father through the media of the incense prayers of the saints, Rev.5: 8, and relayed through our only Mediator, Jesus Christ. When it reaches to the Father, the Holy Spirit who indwells the church gets the instruction to respond from the Father, Lk.11: 13. Therefore, one who prays should please all these channels through which our prayers are telecast. If we pray for a person who doesn't want to be changed for ever, usually our prayers will have to come back to us, Lk.9: 5.
The great High-priest who instituted the Holy sacrament of Qurbana made a perpetual and historic and potential prayer at the last minute, Jn. 14-17, particularly for His chosen apostles as the stewards of His House till His coming again. Judas and St. Peter took part in that sacrament, but they didn't change themselves. Jesus warned St. Peter that he would deny the Body Provider and to Judas that he would betray the Son of Man. They participated in the intercessory prayers and the first Holy Eucharist. Was there any effect for the Lord's prayer for them? As St. Peter believed in Jesus, Lk.22: 32, he was reinstated at the bank of the Tiberius after the resurrection.
Didn't Jesus' prayer for the betrayer go futile? If the prayer has to get its fruits, there must be a medium in the heart of the recipient to accept it. I sometimes think that if the son of perdition survived till the universal prayer of Jesus on the cross for the whole world, "For they do not know what they do", Lk.23: 34, he would have been possibly redeemed. The moment a sort of remorse or recompense sprouted in Judas, Satan overwhelmed in him and forced him to commit suicide because he already became the wealth (tool) of Satan by selling Jesus for 30 silver coins and accepting the Holy Body without the Holy Confession.
True faith, repentance and a feeling of the greatness of God will have enough stimulation in rekindling and make sparks in a person while others pray for him. The paralytic was not healed by his own faith in Jesus. But his willingness (submission) to others to be carried over to Jesus for the healing (and, of course, the faith of those who were carrying him to Jesus) might have been the cause for his healing.
Our simple Pharisee prayers may not give forth any fruit. Pray and forgive for who repent and reconcile with, otherwise the hard-hearted Pharaoh and his legion won't realize until they engulf with the violent waves of the Red Sea. Notwithstanding, it is our duty to pray for others and for the whole world, realizing that our prayers may not move the mountain due to the fact that we also belong to the Pharisee- Sadducee clan.
The liberal theology and the theology of convenience has exposed that God is love and therefore will accept the prayers of anybody from wherever they stand. It is true in the case of a prodigal son, but not for the one who has been called for. Look at St. Peter's deplorable condition during the night of the betrayal, so also Judas'. Abraham, the owner of the promised land, who drove out Haggar and Ismael was tested by the test of offering Isaac for the sacrifice.
Love the enemy and pray for him like Jesus, yet Judas didn't get absolution from the Guru. Love and pray, and, at the same time, rebuke and chastise others by explicitly unearthing their flaws and crimes that in the style of what John the Baptist had done.
The trend of leaders of religion and politics and family of today is to entice the youngsters and inject the venom into their mind and twist them around for one's own earthly popularity. When the young Napoleons who never dream or think of death wade through the shadows of death and realize the nothingness of life in the evening of one's life only, second childhood, they lisp into a land of weariness and dreadfulness, the reason for the old one wish to quit from this stage which is 'full of sound and fury signifying nothing' of life, all of a sudden. Then only we understand that an omniscient God has inbuilt a seven-tier (7 generation) computer in our mortal frame that explicitly expose the merits and weakness of life during its sojourn stages. Don't take it personally. "Angels fear to go where the devil tread."
We have to be intelligent like the snake that run away after biting its victim. A snake never bites a man, unless its existence is threatened. If it bites, it flees away from there within a moment because of the fear of the instinct of death. Pleading for the wicked may not have much use; praying for the enemy who knows that he is doing wrong may not bring forth much benefit, the reason for Jesus to say that 'Don't throw your pearls before the swine.' St. Peter and Judas are the monumental examples for my conclusion.
General Sermons Home | Lectionary Sermons Home | Articles Home | Library - Home | Baselios Church Home
-------
Malankara World
A service of St. Basil's Syriac Orthodox
Church, Ohio
Copyright © 2009-2020 - ICBS Group. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer
Website designed, built, and hosted by
International Cyber Business Services, Inc., Hudson, Ohio
