Equality with God

I thought to myself that I couldn’t leave the month of September without sharing with you my favorite bible passage from this month. And guess what, it’s a passage many of us are very familiar with but yet most times we miss the vital message from this passage. This favorite passage of mine is Philippians 2:1-11. So if you could read along with me… PS This will be long…

Here St. Paul starts out by admonishing the people of Philippi to imbibe some certain virtues in communion with one another, and for me, this forms the basis or background for what he is going to be telling us in the next 10 verses. What was St. Paul saying? That if there was any encouragement in Christ to be found amongst them, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection or sympathy, the faithful of Philippi should complete his Joy by being of the same mind, having the same love and being in full accord with one another. He advises them to shun selfishness or conceit, but that rather in humility they should ’count others as more important than yourselves’, looking out for other people’s interests and not their individual interests alone. (cf. Philippians 2:1-4). These may sound like mere virtues which are extrinsic or external and which the faithful of Philippi should acquire to, in a way, garnish their Christianity and make them look nice before other people, but St. Paul disagrees with this notion. For him, this mind which he want us to have is not extrinsic to our Christian heritage but indeed flows from it, because this mind was also in Christ Jesus. (cf. Philippians 2:5).

How was this mind in Christ Jesus? St. Paul tells us, ‘who though he was in the form (Gr. morphe) of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Gr. harpagmos) but emptied himself (Gr. Kenosis) taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.’  The Greek for ‘grasped’ here could also mean ‘exploited’ or ‘used to his own advantage’, as Pauline scholarship agrees, and so there we have it. It is clear therefore that the central theme of Paul’s message can be said to be ‘humility=divinity’. Most times we tend to think that God exercises his divinity by ‘superiority’ or by ‘Lording’ himself over us. We have the conception that He is God because He is creator. This is indeed a false conception. God is indeed eternal but He is not an ‘Eternal Creator’, Creation is by no means an intrinsic attribute of God, God was never compelled to create, either by something within himself or outside himself. There is however one thing God is eternally, and that is an ‘Eternal Father’. When we read 1 John 4:8 and learn that God IS Love, we realize that Love is indeed an intrinsic attribute of his being. His being goes concurrently and is indeed synonymous with his love. And so being an eternal Father, what he does eternally is to make his very being a gift of love, his very being an outpouring or an emptying (kenosis) of his life in love to another.

Please don’t Judge Me!!!

 

So I am still recovering from the wonderful experience I had at Delta State at the National Convention of the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students (FECAMDS). Truly, it was a nice experience as I met many lovely people with sweet and beautiful hearts. In a way I experienced anew, the concept of family and the concept of communal work in the various activities organized for our benefit.

 

Last time I shared with you our experience on the way to Delta, and the things I learnt from our bible sharing that day on ‘Light on Our Minds’, today I’d like to share with you what I learnt on Friday at the thanksgiving mass. The Gospel passage that day was from Luke 6:35-42 and the Priest’s homily was centered on verses 37, 41-42 where our Lord categorically said, ‘don’t be a judge of others and you will not be judged, do not condemn and you will not be condemned…So why do you pay attention to the speck in your brother’s eye, while you have a log in your eye, and are not conscious of it? How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take this speck out of your eye’, when you can’t remove the log in your own? You hypocrite! First, remove the log from your own eye, then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your neighbor’s eye’.

 

You see, this passage is one we have heard a lot of times, but sadly we do not practice, we rather take it to horrendous extremes and eventually leave the message unattended. The truth is, a lot of us are guilty of this very fundamental message, even in the Christian community. There are many reasons why what our Lord says is important for us. Despite the fact that he is God and all he says is not just true but has direct implications to our own individual life experiences, judging others or condemning them is flawed on many counts. First is, no matter how nice we think we are, no matter how good we think we are, WE ARE NOT PERFECT!!! And that’s the simple truth, the goodness in a Christian is first and foremost a gift, something that he didn’t merit on his own accord and so something he should never see as a right or as something which by his possessing it has made him better or more special or to be preferred by God to other human beings. The truth is we all have weaknesses and our weaknesses may be other people’s strengths and vice versa, but the issue in our day is that certain weaknesses the world or society considers horrible seem to be loudest on our lips and we forget that even the tiniest of iniquities is horrendous to God. (Habakkuk 1:13). At this point the story of the Pharisee and tax collector in prayer comes to mind, despite the fact that we read the scriptures so much and join Jesus in accusing the Pharisees, most of the time we tend towards the Pharisees whom we have joined Jesus in accusing.

Light on our Minds

So I am at the annual convention of the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students, taking place from the 10^th till the 13^th of this very month of September 2015 in Warri, Delta State, and so far it has been worth the while. The journey down here was smooth, and interesting too, so far medical and dental students from about 20 University Colleges of Medicine are here and it’s really fun seeing that number of people turn up to pray together, reflect together and discuss issues together, especially issues that particularly affect their faith and their chosen career path.

 

Speaking about the journey here, immediately it began, those marvelous beads called the rosary quickly rolled down the fingers of my brothers and sisters in the bus as we set out to commune with the saints and hand over the entire journey and program to God, guess the first part has paid off. However, sometime during the journey we set out to have a little discussion on the theme of the convention, ‘Living the Light’, as we reflected on some bible passages to that effect and shared, it was indeed enlightening.

To the God of my Days

(IN THANKSGIVING TO GOD FOR THE LIVES OF MY GRANDPARENTS)

ABEL AND CECILIA OGAMBA

 

as morning comes,

and a new world forms,

i line this melodious verse,

to the God of my days,

Empire State of Sex

 

By: Chibuzor F. Ogamba

 

Many of us, including me, met the world in a ‘state of sex’, where the ultimate pleasure of human relations is in sex, the ultimate purpose of friendship is sex, the very end of a meeting between two people is sex, the way to hang out and have fun is sex, the best thing to sing about is sex, the very distinction between a man and a woman is with regard to sexual experience. You probably clicked to view this particular post because of the word ‘sex’. The time is upon the world when the totality of the human person is viewed and is defined by what he or she can do in sex. You are either ‘straight’ or ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ or ‘Bisexual’ or ‘Transgender’ or ‘Bestial’. The whole world has been so fixed on the sexual experience, that it has applied all its many other errors to this particular experience.

 

Why then do we get surprised when we start hearing about sex between men or between women when sex between a man and a woman has become so old-fashioned because it has been used up and all its peculiarities have been explored to the ‘fullest’? Why do we get agitated when some of us decide to choose who to enjoy the experience with? Why do we seem disgusted when we hear that a man or a woman does not prefer a sexual experience with the opposite sex, is not interested in being involved with the same sex either, but is more interested in lower animals, I mean, that has not been largely tried. Or should you think it out of trend that others having run out of trying the above options from a one-sided perspective are jumping at the idea and embracing the opportunity to try it from another? Even as we speak, I am sure many frustrated citizens of our world have put on their thinking caps for newer sexual experiences.

Love Again

My fault, my fault, my grievous fault,

Here again bitten by the bug,

Feelings first met at the great gates,

to the complex world of adults,

Take me back

Here I am my love,

On my knees in tears,

Incline your ears and hear,

The saddened words from my heart,

Good Friday

I write for my love,

who happens to be my lord,

whose love for me,

has gone beyond reason,

Love Hurts

I hear people sometimes saying that they are not open to love or not ready for it because they do not want to trust anyone, they have probably experienced the pain that comes from betrayal and the pain that also comes from not being loved back, at least not in the same way they have loved. The funny thing is that these people are in relationships, many want to go into relationships with the caveat, ‘no love allowed’, some, even our peers in this age, view ‘true love’ as something weak and naïve, something cuddled up in romance novels and religious books, something idealistic and not in any way representative of the real and current situation of things in the world. The reason most of the time is betrayal and unreciprocated love.

An Ode for your Love

The first day I saw you; the very first day I set my scouting, evaluative and superior eyes on you, what I saw was different from what I see now; the simply dressed, unassuming, seemingly malnourished figure about whom nothing was probably spectacular was who I saw. On that occasion what I felt was different, my head leaped but my heart was as cold as though nothing had happened. I can remember the exact item that sparked up these reactions- that old brown-colored wrist-band which had imprints of the longings of my head, no wonder it leaped. It was as though the usual task had come for the mind, a task so simple but yet so difficult. I felt I was on familiar ground, little did I know that the waters in which I confidently went fishing were uncharted.