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What Does it Mean to be the Gospel of Christ? Dr. Zac Varghese, London, Page 22
from FOCUS April 2021
Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam
The April issue of the FOCUS is on the theme, “Be the Gospel of Christ”. This is indeed the call of the Spirit in each age for the sake of the Kingdom of God in our midst. The vertical and the horizontal dimension of Christian faith is summed up in this value statement. The Sermon on the Mount which Jesus preached is an enactment of the Kingdom of God as we read in St. Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” In 2Cor. 2:15-16, St. Paul speaks of the vertical and horizontal dimensions of faith in a figurative way: “For we are the aroma (fragrance) of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing…” In Christian understanding of faith, theology and ethics are two sides of the same coin.
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The Post– COVID-19 Pandemic Landscape of Faith (the New Normal) creates a thrust on us to live with more of the ethical dimensions of faith for the glory of God in the given situation. Walk the talk should be a reality in concrete human situations. The call to transform the living rooms into sanctuaries is one of the signs of the times. The creation of Zoom platforms is a new technological gift of God for authentic communication across the globe. This has brought to our mind that humans are not like the sands of the sea shore, but like branches on a tree. Yes, the physical /social distance does not keep the hearts away from the other person. Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. The search for the other irrespective of caste and creed is taking place around us as an expression of secular spirituality for which the gospel stands for. This is what we read in St. John 15:8: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.” The disciplining of the nations should happen as a mission mandate (cf. St. Matt. 28:19). The Pauline affirmation in Eph.2:10 adds luster to the theme under investigation: The verse 10: “For we are the workmanship (Poiema) created in Christ Jesus for good works…” has been rendered into various English translations. The Greek word, poiema, could be translated as “handiwork”, “work of art” “or even “poems” etc., which simply means that “to live as the gospel of Christ” is a divine imperative laid upon us and that it is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Jesus Christ”. A discipleship of transformation is the resultant state in the mission mandate including the whole of creation. In the eco- book, The Green God of the Bible, Dr. Mathew Koshy gives us several tapestry of ecological values for a sustainable living on this planet earth.
In Rom.12: 1-2: we read “I appeal to you, therefore, … to present your bodies as a living sacrifice… Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” as the ethical note to the theological affirmation of St. Paul in Romans 1-8. The Greek proposition, oun (therefore) is significant in the overall theological affirmation of God’s act of grace in Jesus Christ. Living in conformity with God’s will is to be realized on earth as a faith response and doing God’s will on earth makes one different. In Is.1:17, the Word of God is quite affirmative. “… Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” and thereby manifest the meaning of courage as a Christina virtue. Dare to be like a Daniel is a phrase that would sum up the meaning of Christian witness. Let The oft-quoted words of Thomas A Kempis are worth recalling: “We are transformed by love and transformed in proposition to the purity of our love for God and for other people.”
1. Living in conformity to the world
i) Uncritical acceptance of the immediate
In 1 Thess. 5:21-22 St. Paul asks us to test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil”. In the Market culture, having is placed over being and humans are very often judged by their appearance whereas “the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam.16:7). We forget to do the will of another rather than of our own. We choose very often to have more rather than less.
How do we hold the flag of diversity and simplicity in life? There are 7 deadly sins in the Bible. They are pride (being pleased and satisfied with oneself), anger (the feeling that makes people to quarrel or fight), envy (feeling of resentment at another’s better fortune), impurity (state of being impure), gluttony (habit of eating too much), slothfulness (laziness- Sloth-a American mammal which lives in the branches of trees and moves very slowly) and avarice (greed for money and possessions). In recent times, environmental sins such as air pollution, water pollution, sound pollution, light pollution etc. have been added to the list as they have social resonance. Someone has listed the deadly sins of today such as false formality, fibbing, procrastination, plagiarizing, keeping with the Joneses, double standards, giving secretly and broadcasting publically!
Christian maturity should be understood as the connectivity in God’s one world through a vision rooted in the law of love. The task before us is to entertain a vision beyond the barriers of caste, creed and religion in a borderless world of today. We should also list the following values which bind people as members of God’s larger family on earth. They are: i) A deep caring for all forms of life. ii) A responsible attitude to the planet earth. iii) Adherence to values such as non-violence,
