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.
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.
gurukulam
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