One day an old man in tattered clothes approached a fiery
preacher and said, ‘I am mesmerized by the power of your preaching. You have
the gift of efficacy and memory beyond compare. The way you apply quotations
shows that you are very well versed with the Bible and the sayings of the
saints. You are a man of words. The type of words you use shakes the very soul
of the people that they get emotionally imprison even before you could reach
half of your sermon.’ Hearing the term ‘emotional imprisonment,’ the preacher
could not control his tears rolling down the cheek. In a jiffy he felt
excruciating pain growing deep within his heart and as if in a flash he saw the
review of his life. Right to the words of the old man, the review portrayed him
as the fiery preacher who through his preaching had imprisoned thousands of
souls instead of liberating them. He had made the poor souls to swallow the
solid doctrines and dogmas but never showed them the ways to digest it. He was
feeding people only with his powerful words that never effected in action and
this is perhaps because he himself was a man of words and not of action. Just
like him people lived in words but utterly failed in action. Alas he says, ‘it’s cool to be a fool till you stumble’
for when you fall you realize what it means to fall on the dust. However, for
resurrection rising up is necessary and it causes change, yes a radical change.
Often we make a fool of ourselves by making a
mistake of considering a word to be a thing. We don’t realize that a word is
not a thing and a thing is not a word. No doubt a word is very fundamental in
expressing what a thing is, yet it is not the most important thing for one
could easily express and smoothly convey a message without even uttering a
single word. A thing precedes and is primary to a word. For instance, the word love is not a real thing and the real
love is not a word. A word is only a concept and the concept is not a reality.
Love can be expressed in so many different ways without even articulating a
single word. Moreover, tangible expressions of love are much more precious than
the empty word called love. Saying I love you makes no sense if it does not
find its expression in action. Where there is true love, words become
unnecessary because it manifests itself in action. It is love in action that
matters the most and causes people to change. A thing done in action can never
be substituted for words. Words are dead if not given life through action. A
simple gesture of love in action can move a heart much more effectively than
voluminous words. However, a word has its significant place but not in the
presence of a loving thing. For example, a mother to express love for her child
she would hardly pronounce a word called love
but she will do everything out of love in action.
Today we are called to be a Message and not merely a messenger. For the early missionaries the
terms message and messenger were synonymous. They were messengers of God and at
the same time they were the message because they lived the message. People
viewing their way of life could very easily detect the message they intended to
convey. However, today there seems to be made a distinction between a message
and a messenger. The missionaries today focus more on conveying the message
through words than life. Today we are called to be a man of action just as
Jesus was. We are called to convey the message through our life in action and
apply words only when necessary. Moreover, we are called to liberate people by giving
faith education and not merely asking them to consume it. For this we need to
awaken the intelligence of people so that they would see for themselves the
Truth and come to believe in the love of God. We giving God to people have very
less value. Hence, we need to act as sign posts to help people find God by
their own because a thing found by self gives energy to withstand even the
hardest storm. For Jesus himself would say, ‘if
you know the truth, the truth will set you free.’ Let us make Jesus alive
first of all in our own life and inspire others by our way of life. Inspiring
through life is the most contagious thing in the world.
Romanius
Barwa
