Worship and Sermon by Mr. G. Greeto Racharia, BD IV

Mr. G. Greeto Racharia, BD IV, led the evaluation worship and sermon , the last of the June term, on 27^th August 2008. The worship started with a music prelude during which a slide show of slum children and refuges was presented with the caption “open your eyes to the realities around you.” This introduced the theme of his worship and sermon: “The Life giving mission of God Towards children.” The text selected was Genesis 21: 8-20, the story of Abraham casting away Hagar and Ishmael their the plight in the wilderness. The invocation song was the composition of Dr. Parattai (a) Theophilus Appavoo, who always experimented with unconventional tunes and style of folk music in worship. Greeto’s confessional prayer also used an unconventional format. He made his methodology clear at the very beginning: a reflection on the text from a sociological perspective of the suffering children. Greeto Racharia runs a Non Governmental Organization for the benefit of the children in one of the biggest slums in Chennai, Kannagi Nagar. It was his involvement with the slum children that made him to read the Bible from the perspective of the slum children who go without food and proper education. He narrated how a Government run Municipal Corporation School teacher made the request for a map “to show our children how big our land is” or at least a “first aid“ box for the school.

Greeto in his sermon passionately said: ”I want you all to see this text from the perspective of hungry children crying for food, the malnourished children in Sudan and other African countries, the street children in our country, crying for food and shelter from the hot sun and rain, the wandering Hagars and Ishmaels in our city roads. It is a very pathetic scene for any mother anticipating the immediate death of her child. What a pathetic scene is this where a woman who is chased out by her own husband and mistress, after being used for all their needs. The cry of both Hagar and Ishmael wandering in wilderness is the cry of the refugees and their children coming out from the countries like Sri Lanka carrying their children, with fear of death surrounding them, chased way by their own country people. It is the cry of a Dalit woman and her child, who has been used by her upper caste sex-partner and chased away by the mistress of the house.

He said that the first step of our mission today is to first listen to the cries of children, just as God listened to the cry of Ishmael – the meaning of the very name Ishmael being, “God will hear.” He was wondering how God could concede to the demand of Sarah for the ouster of the “slave woman and her son,” the very woman whom Sarah has given her husband as wife. Sarah became angry Ishmael when she saw him playing with Issac, “innocent of social distinctions.” Greeto asked: How many of us will allow our children to play with the poor and Dalit children of the neighborhood? How many of us have taught our children to share things with their friends from the poor and socially lower caste families? Do we not give the left over food to our servant maids to take home for their children after our children are fed to the full? We still want to see the dalits remain as dalits, sex-workers as sex-workers, slum dwellers as slum dwellers. He ended his sermon with an affirmative note: God breaks all evil structures of enslavement to create a structure of equality and justice. God promises that Ishmael will be made “a great nation” and thus reverses the structures that made Isaac unequal to Ishmael. God has given is assurance that God’s support to make equal to Isaac and thus justice was ensured for the oppressed child. God starts to work by giving water to Ishmael. Let us also continue the mission of God by quenching the thirst of crying children around us. Dr. George Zachariah, in his evaluation, has aptly commented that it is an autobiographical sermon as Greeto has been committed to serve the slum children. Greeto Racharia is a member of the CSI Madras Diocese and we wish all God’s blessings upon him to carry out his chosen area of mission of God.

Excerpts from Greeto's worship order

Gurukul Forum for Social and Theological Issues : Struggle for Freedom and Justice as the common platform for Christians and others to come together

Gurukul forum for Social and Theological Issues initiated a discussion on “Christian Participation in a Pluralistic Context” in the Ziegenbalg auditorium on 22nd August 2008. The session was moderated by Rev. S. Doraiswamy (MTh.II – Old Testament). Forum Convener Mr. Daniel T. Philip welcomed the gathering. Rev. N. Solomon James Sudhir, Staff Adviser, led the opening prayer. The philharmonic group rendered a special song. Mr. A. Dalvin Kristi Dass, BD II, member of the committee, proposed vote of thanks. Dr. Sam P. Mathew, Acting Principal, closed the meeting with a word of prayer. A panel of four people looked at the topic from different perspectives: Ms. Belinda, BD IV, who went to Fiji Islands on the Face to Face Programme, presented a Fijian perspective, Mr. Pa Hmo, BD IV, approached the issue from Mara Perspective, Ms. Vekutulu Lohe, a Ph. D. candidate in the department of Communication, viewed topic from the Northeastern perspective and Mr. Sam Thomas, (MTh. II – Theology) approached the topic with a North-western perspective. There was enthusiastic participation in the general discussion that followed the main presentations. The theme pluralism as well as the differing perspectives on it was theologically very challenging. Several significant questions were raised from the floor. What is the nature of mission in a pluralistic context? What makes a Christian, Christian? How do the theologies and ecclesiologies we inherited from the west relevant to our multireligious cultural context? How do we meet the contextual challenges in relation to the gospel of Christ?
Ms. Belinda, from her experience in Fiji, pointed out how Fijian Christians are trying to interpret the meaning of Christ in their culture. She said that in Fiji most sacred and important animal is pig and there are Christological attempts which view Christ as the Pig of God. In cultures where Jesus Christ is interpreted as lamb of God, pig is not an accepted symbol; in some societies lamb is quite unknown and they do not have any meaning with the image of Christ as the lamb. M. M. Thomas in his introduction to the Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance has narrated how missionaries took with them a stuffed lamb to an island where lamb was an unfamiliar animal. Clearly Christians many times failed to understand the meaning of the message of the gospel just as the Jews in Jesus times failed to understand the meaning of the law. They were trying to be true to their faith not knowing that faith needs creative understanding and interpretation to remain as faith and to prevent it from becoming dead ideology which cannot account for “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Ideology without faith is blind. It cannot see beyond, rather looks back for inspiration. One of the challenges of pluralism is to understand theological doctrines in quite different terms from what is familiar to us, to be challenged by people and ideas from others who think and act differently from us. To the European missionaries who came from homogeneous cultures it was difficult to accept what they saw unfamiliar in other cultures and suppressed the cultural values of people. It may seem offensive to certain people some cultural symbols familiar and accepted in some other cultures which are not present in one’s own culture. We should not make our cultural values as the criterion to evaluate other persons, or for understanding their ethics. The discussion on cultural questions was very humbling for many of us and a challenge to shed our cherished doctrines as the absolute theology. Theology can be theology only when it is contextually meaningful. Most participants in the discussion held that the churches need to get out of the western framework of doing theology and participate in the struggles of people for food, freedom and justice. Christians need to participate with other religious communities to ensure these rights of the people. Rev. Duraiswamy said that etymologically Christian means an anointed one, for the Greek Christos is the translation of the Hebrew word, Messiah which means the anointed one. Christians are anointed people, entrusted with a special task, to do the will of God, in serving the people in need, in our living context.

Fr. Kuriakose T Abraham Gurukul Alumnus Chosen as Metropolitan designate

Rev. Fr. Kuriakose Abraham Thukalan was chosen as Metropolitan designate in the Malankara Syrian Church for the diocese of Idukki, in Kerala. He was elevated to the order of Ramban (Rabban- Monk) by His Beatitude the Catholicos Mor Baselios Thomas I at a solemn function held at the St. Athanasius Cathedral, Puthencuriz on August 11, 2008. Rev. Fr. Kuriakose Thukalan will henceforth be known as 'Sthepahnos.' Ramban Sthepahnos will be consecrated on Sunday 24th August, 2008 by the supreme head of the Church His Holiness the Patriarch of Antioch & all the East at the St. Peter & St. Paul Cathedral, Mor Aphrem Seminary, Damascus along with Rev. Fr. Paul (Ullas) Varkey Vettikkunnel (Ramban Shemavun).

Fr. Kuriakose received his Bachelors degree in Physics from the Ernakulam Albert College in 1988 after which he joined for the diploma course in the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Theological Seminary, Vettikkal and completed it successfully. In 1996 he was awarded the degree of Bachelor in Divinity from the Sermapore University, Calcutta. Later he successfully completed different courses, in Ecumenical Theology (from ISET, Bangalore), in Communication (from the ‘Gurukul Lutheran Theological College’, Chennai) and in Transactional Analysis (from P.O.C, Kochi). In 2006, he received the doctoral degree in Social Psychology from the open International University for Complementary Medicines.

Read more

Esao Basumatary's worship and sermon

Esao Basumatary, BD IV, conducted his evaluatory worship and sermon on 20th August, 2008. The theme of the sermon was "A call for God's inclusive mission through transformation." The text was Matthew 8:5-13 (Jesus healing the centurion's servant). The sermon was divided in to three sections: (1) Preparing ourselves to be transformed for God's mission - self transformation, (2) Becoming an agent of transformation for God's mission and,( 3) Practicing God's inclusive mission. His major emphasis was that unless one has been transformed one cannot be part of God's mission: To change others we have to change ourselves first. To teach others we have to learn first. Being transformed is the precondition to become an agent for God's mission. God's mission is inclusive. Inclusive mission is participating in God's mission by joining hands with others who work for the upliftment of the marginalized regardless of religion, caste and economic status. Basumatari in a prophetic tone asked: what right do we have to make discrimination of people as superior and inferior if God does not make any discrimination among God' creatures? Everyone and everything that God created has got its dignity and unique identity. Discrimination comes not from God but from the evil one. The mission of inclusiveness is to witness that God's grace is for all, God's love is for everyone; this is a very important aspect of mission particularly relevant to our Indian pluralistic context. Gospel is that the Kingdom of heaven is for the least and those who love the least.

Basumatari started his sermon narrating how the message of this text came clear to him in his personal life when his father got paralyzed after a stroke; immediate and costly treatment became necessary. Many people prayed for his father and some extended a helping hand to meet the medical expenses. In a poignant statement he pointed to the implication of such generous act: "It was not only my faith, but also the love and prayers of others and also their willingness to help that saved our family from a great loss." He has emphasized the point that we are not only helped by God but also by people who are willing to help us in difficulties. The role of the centurion has been such a one. He took the case of his servant to Jesus. He acted as an agent of transformation. For such an act of kindness the centurion needed to be self transformed first. Basumatari explained self-transformation thus: Self-transformation means healing one's own attitude towards a relationship of love. It is a call to change our attitude, character, thoughts and relationships with other fellow beings. Jesus' appraisal of the centurion's faith has been a direct challenge to the oppressive authorities to change their attitudes. Basumatari quoted from Fr. Raj Irudaya, Director of Arul Kadal Jesuit Seminary, the leader of the last Gurukul Retreat, who said, "A humanized person will humanize others." Here is a humanized centurion who has become an agent of transformation, that enabled him to humanize others. Basumatari's Order of Worship was well prepared and went well with the theme of the sermon. Esao Basumatari belongs to the Bodo Lutheran Evangelical Church, Assam. We wish and pray that God may give him opportunities where he can make use of his leadership qualities in the service of the Church.

“Silver Linings” in Indian Freedom Struggle: Moses P. Manohar

“Silver Linings” in Indian Freedom Struggle: Moses P. Manohar

Gurukul Independence day Celebrations

Dr. Moses P. Manohar, Executive Director of Inter Church Service Agency (ICSA, Egmore, Chennai) and a Visiting Faculty at Gurukul was the chief guest for the 61^st Independence Day celebrations in Gurukul on 15^th August 2008. He hoisted the National Flag and gave a very meaningful Independence Day Message. Dr. Moses P. Manohar in his speech recollected the contributions of the freedom fighters and outlined four “silver linings” that made Indian freedom movement unique and remarkable:

First, commitment to non-violence. It is the most fascinating feature which has become an article of faith for the Indian National Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. “Indeed,” Dr. Manohar said, “ history has very rare examples where freedom struggle against an imperial force was conducted on non-violent terms.”

Second, commitment to democracy. The sixty-two years of struggle for independence was a training period in democracy for the nation. “Democracy stands on the Rule of Law. In a civilized society the law replaces the gun. In a democracy voting right is more lethal than the military. Elections in a democracy can be described as controlled revolutions,” he said.

Third, commitment to inclusiveness. A good number of Europeans were part of the freedom movement, like Annie Besant who clamored for “Home Rule,” C. F. Andrews, who in his book featured “Independence - The Immediate Need.” People with little academic background like K. Kamaraj could rise to national prominence. Dalit leaders like Ambedkar could even guide the discussions of national governance and chalk out a constitution that guaranteed constitutional protection for the untouchables and other marginalized sections of the society. Indian Christians like Dr. John Cornelius Kumarrappa from Tamil Nadu who was recognized by Mahatma Gandhi for his brilliance in economics, were part of the freedom movements. There were many women who played leadership role in the freedom struggle like Sarojini Naidu. She became “the President of the Indian National Congress, in 1925, that was 50 years earlier than Margaret Thatcher, the first woman leader in a British political party.

Fourth, the spirituality: “Political struggle became an expression and inseparable extension of one’s inner struggle in search of Truth, the God. The freedom fighter was a satyagrahi, the searcher of truth. Prayer with multi-faith resources was very much part of Indian National Congress under the leadership of Gandhiji. “He even wanted to dedicate the first Independence Day as a day of Prayer,” Dr. Manohar said. He concluded his speech by raising the question, whether the Indian Church can give an institutional hope to the state in the areas of non-violence, democracy, inclusiveness and open-spirituality.

Sports Committee and the Fine Arts Committee jointly organized the Independence Day programmes. Mr. Pa Hmo Convenor of the Sports Committee welcomed the guests. Mr. Vunnammatla Prabhakar, member of the Sports Committee read the Bible Text (Matt. 5: 13-16). Gurukul BD II trio, Ms. G. Vasthi Charisma, Ms. P. Joice Esther, and Ms. Chrisida Nithya Kalyani presented a charming traditional dance item. Mr. V. Samuel Jabaraj (BD III), rendered a beautiful solo. Dr. P. Manoharn, Director of Gurukul offered the Independence Day Greetings. Ms. Sonia John, Student General Secretary (MTh II), proposed the vote of thanks. Rev. Dr. Suneel Bhanu, Dean, Post Graduate Studies, offered the closing prayer and benediction. Ms. Belinda Gracelyn Praisy compered the morning programme. Games, Volleyball match and Cultural Night were other programmes for the Independence Day.

Evaluation Sermon by Ms. Rosalind Elaiyarani

Rosalind Elaiyarani, BD IV, conducted her evaluation worship and sermon on Wednesday 13 August 2008. The text was Micah 4:1-5. The sermon was titled, "Towards a New Community in Obedience to God." She had three points in her sermon: 1) Towards a community of Unity. 2) Towards community of Peace. 3) Towards a community of Economic Sustainability. She started her sermon referring to the recent bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, by some terrorist groups, that killed several innocent people. Through such incidents the terrorists might have hoped to disturb the communal harmony and thereby destroy peace as well as the economic stability of the nation. Micah, she said, was also preaching in a similar context in Palestine and offering the post exilic people a message of hope as well as vision of an ideal community where all instruments of war are transformed into agricultural implements. The prophet also envisions a time when people will enjoy peace and stability sitting under their own fig trees and vines. Such a vision of future is very necessary in the context of economic exportation and terrorism today. The worship was simple but the prayers were carefully selected and rich in theological content. The invocation song was written and led by Jinu John, BD IV. It was a Malayalam composition. The Lord's Prayer was set to a fast moving Tamil folk tune by Dr. Theophilus Appavoo, a well known activist , musicologist and theologian.

Worship and Sermon by Mr. Binu Thomas

On 16th July 2008, it was the turn of Mr. Binu Thomas, B.D. IV to conduct Evaluatory Worship and Sermon. The text for the sermon was John 7:53 -8:11. The text refers to the story of Jesus dealing with the Pharisees who caught a woman in adultery. This is a story not found in many manuscripts. This pericope might have been an interpolation into the Johannine text by some editors. The style of writing is quite different from other parts of the Gospel. Binu has interpreted the message of the text as a norm, a mandate, for Christian ministry. He gave contemporary examples of such ministry, including that of a non-Christian. He titled his sermon: "Leading to Fullness of Life as a mandate for Christian Ministry." Binu has taken much effort to make the worship service meaningful. At the entrance of the chapel the Greek words for "Go and sin no more" was scribbled on sand. Did he mean that Jesus has written these words on the sand when the Pharisees were accusing the women of sin? We are not sure what Jesus wrote, must be some words that frightened the accusers. We always look at other's sins and easily excuse ourselves. Binu has argued for introspection in the place of condemnation. Christians are too quick to condemn others. The more pious one thinks of oneself the temptation to condemn other is higher. The Pharisees got the message of Jesus and left one by one. Disciples of Jesus today need to do some hard exercise to look at themselves before they start their crusades against others.

There was a beautiful invocation song in Hindi written and composed by Mr. Sandeep Paramarth, BD IV. There was also a Malayalam Bhajan written and composed by Mr. John G. Varghese, BD III. Call to Worship, Prayer of Confession as well as Benediction were beautiful compilations. Binu Thomas, who belongs to the Mar Thoma Church, is the Student Chaplain for this year. He very well responded to the comments at the evaluation session. He appeared self-confident and clear about what he was preaching.

Evaluation Service: Daniel T. Philip

On July 23, 2008, Mr. Daniel T. Philip conducted his evaluation worship and sermon. Both the worship and sermon reflected his social and spiritual concerns as well as creativity. His friends composed the Invocation song and the Commitment song.Rev. Sam Mathew,K., MTh II, Sam N. Joshua, and Shaiju Kumar did the beautiful Rangoli and art work. Shaiju Kumar whose mother passed away on the morning of July 24, 2008, could not participate in the evaluation session. One significant feature of the service was that there was no actual public scripture reading. Instead, there was a contextual enactment of 1 Kings 21: 1-19 (Naboth Text). Of course, in the beginning of the service while the prelude was being played instuction was given to read and meditate upon the text. The enactment depicted the plight of some villagers whose ancestral land was facing the threat of being taken away by the Government to create a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) so that multinational corporations can establish their factories with the benefits of exemption from taxes and labour laws. This has become a major feature of the Globalization in India, which was opposed by some liberal governments like that of the state of Goa but supported by the Left Governments of the states of West Bengal and Kerala. Mr. Philip gave a contemporary interpretation to the Naboth text with reference to people's resistance movements in Nandigram and Kerala for land rights. Another feature of the contextual scripture enactment was that in place of the prophet Elijah's confrontationist role against King Ahab in the Naboth's story, the villagers themselves, inspired by the preached word of God, assumed the prophetic role and has begun to resist the displacers. The sermon alerted the hearers about their prophetic role in the face of gross human rights violations. He also introduced a contemporary version of faith affirmation and Lord's prayer. It is noteworthy that an increasing number of students find the need to reinterpret the traditional creeds and Lord's prayer to make it more relevant for today. We congratulate Mr. Daniel Philip and pray that his commitment to Jesus will find more creative expressions in his future ministry. Two of his brothers are already ordained ministers of the Mar Thoma Church.

Evaluation Worship and Sermon: Vakappalli Dora Babu

V. Dora Babu, BD IV, conducted his evaluation worship and sermon on July 30, 2008 in the Gurukul Schwans Memorial Chapel. He preached on the text, Acts 16: 9-15. The sermon was titled "'God's Mission' -- A Journey from Vision to Mission." The worship included songs in Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil; also there was a prayer of confession suiting the message of the sermon. The sermon started with the story of Helen Keller who lost her eyesight and hearing ability at the age of one and half years due to some illness. "What would be worse than being born blind?" she was asked once. "Having sight without vision," was her reply. His sermon also had three more illustrations taken from the Indian context. Pandita Rama Bai, a young widow belonging to the Maharashtrian Brahmin community, who single handedly took upon herself the uphill task of fighting against her conservative community, founded the Sarada Sadan and Mukti Mission, two pioneering institutions to take care of women and widows in the nineteenth century India. The other example was that of Kiran Bedi, the first woman to hold the highest rank in the Indian Police Service and the Ramon Magsaysay award winner, who took courageous and innovative steps to reform the life of the inmates of the Tihar Jail in Delhi, by introducing Yoga and such other spiritual and meditation exercises. "She helped them to live a life of freedom behind bars," Dora Babu said. He also referred to the leadership of Gaura Devi who led the first all-women movement to save the trees of her Uttarkhandi village by asking women to hug the trees to save it from cutting down for industrial purposes, which became later widely known as the Chipko (Hug the tree)Movement, an inspiring example of people's movement to preserve ecology. Since there has been much talk about Green theology in Gurukul the example of Gaura Devi has provided the community with a real challenge to its ecological concerns.

Dora Babu developed a connection between the text in Acts about Paul's vision of a Macedonian asking him to "come over to Macedonia and help us" and his casual meeting of women worshipers on the riverside in Philippi. Paul actually wanted to further expand his ministry by going to Phrygia and Galatia, but the Spirit of Jesus" would not allow him. Instead, the Holy Spirit led him to Philippi where he could not meet enough number of Jewish males for a Synagogue, but was met with some women worshipers, probably Jewish proselytes from Hellenistic background, among whom was Lydia, a successful business woman, who happened to be Paul's first convert in Europe. Now came the bold and perceptive statement that shed light to the whole sermon: God has been not using Paul to identify women to continue his work, rather God was opening the eyes of Paul to understand the power and the spirituality of women as church leaders and leaders of the society; Paul's work has been not to establish churches, rather to form communities of Christ, where justice is practiced, love is preached and equality is maintained.

The sermon evoked some theological discussions on the usage of the term, God's mission, Missio Dei, which was accepted by the Willingen Conference on mission in 1952 in order to correct the earlier idea that mission belonged to the Church. The term, God's mission, is highly problematic today as all the fundamentalist outfits and terrorist groups are organizing themselves around this paradigm. As Suvarna Raju, a BDIII student, has pointed out every one has got some mission or other. People are ready to die or kill for their mission. We need to make a distinction between God's mission as widely acclaimed and the mission in the spirit of Jesus.Then only we can move away from crusades to the Crucified. Paul had a mission even before his conversion. Then the mission he undertook was to persecute the disciples of Christ who preached a different Way in accordance with the Gospel of Jesus. He took upon himself the task of protecting the glory and honour of God whom he worshiped. It is the Damscus vision of the Crucified Christ that altered his concept of the will of God and led him to an altogether different understanding of God's mission. Again, in the vision of the Macedonian he was again challenged by God to change the course of following his own mission and to convert himself to the mission of God in Jesus who empowers the weak. Earlier vision of Paul had led him to take the Gospel message to the the gentiles, a very radical one that challenged the concept of mission advocated by the Jerusalem Church. The new vision has now challenged him to redirect his energy towards empowering women to take up leadership roles in the ministry of the Church. The first church in Europe was started in the house of Lydia. Now the historical church traditions have been finding it hard to accept Paul's mission with vision. Often the Church goes by its own vision and mission, but rarely with a mission governed by vision from the spirit of Jesus, the Crucified One. Dora Babu has certainly got a message not only to Gurukul but also to his Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church and to the Church at large in India.

One should appreciate the bold and confident way Dora Babu delivered his message. We pray that he will be able to make practical his vision of God's mission.