Our
moral contact is a profound way of manifesting the will of God. The grace of
God gives us power to proclaim the Good News to the entire world. The will of
God is in us by nature. You and I have decided to manifest this will by serving
one another through the virtue of love. The words of St. Paul move my emotions,
“a missionary is at the service of all” (Galatians 2: 1 ff). I have seen
it being very fundamental to share with you brothers and sisters this beautiful
writing. We are a family of God because the Son of Man shared his love to each
one of us on the cross. St. Paul continues encouraging us when he says that the
way parts of the body coordinate for the benefit of each other, in the same
way; each one of us has an important role to play in the church. Pastoral work
is a large part of this influential work in inspiring many people.
When
we consider ourselves ministers of Christ, there is need to adhere to His
values and life style. Let us remind one another some of moral conduct for our
pastoral ministry. It is not that I know more than you but just to remind each
other for the greater glory of God. We are united together, physically and
emotionally, as children of God through His spirit. This concept reminds me as
the ideas of a prominent African philosopher John Mbiti, who said, “I am
because you are, since you are therefore I am”. This implies that we need to
take care of one another. One of the early missionaries said that if the
minister has saved his or her soul, he or she has also saved the souls of many.
Failure to do so is contrary to the will of God. It precisely means that one
cannot give what one does not have. We need to behave well in order to inspire
others to adhere to what we proclaim. We should not 'preach water and then
drink wine'. We are one in the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
St.
Augustine said, “Lord you have created us for you and our souls are restless
until they rest in you”. This implies that, all that we do should reflect God’s
will. You cannot tell me that our conducts do not matter. Actually, they matter
a lot. Good Christian, to save souls, good humanity, and to do the will of God
depends on our moral conduct. Actually, morality can be divided into two
parts: subjective and objective. These types can lead to positive or negative
growth of spirituality, but it depends on the way we apply them to our real
life.
Subjective
moral conduct is within us. It is what we refer to as our sub-consciousness,
what tells us to behave well. I strongly, remind you, how many times we have
been seen misusing this kind of morality. My dear brothers and sisters, it is
our duty and role to great peace and harmony in a society, by showing universal
love. This will be accomplished if we have peace and harmony within our hearts
first. Most of us we have created unfinished war within ourselves. If it is not
handled well, it is projected to those who are near us, thus causing a lot of
problems in the ministry. That is why the Church has been condemned many times
with the issue of sexual abuse and misuse of church funds. We need to solve
problems which are within us in order to behave well.
The
unwanted behaviors we project to the physical world can be recognized by
others. It is what I called objective morality. To be ministers means to be
social or outgoing and to have sense of humor. Most of us we have gone contrary
to this. We cannot listen to one another anymore; we see others like objects instead
of subjects. We have taken Christians as our source of income where we gain
profits for our personal interest. If we claim to be followers of Jesus Christ,
we need to follow His footsteps. We have gone against the natural moral law
which states that “do good and avoid bad.” Whereas we are acting badly and
avoiding to do good. Even the Gospel reminds us about the Golden rule, “do to
others what you would like them to do to you”. Let us go back to our first
motivations that made us to choose this kind of vocation. I think our ultimate
vocation is to be human and serve humanity.
By
breaking these beautiful words, maybe they have been unsympathetic and annoying
but it is the first step of changing and turning back to God’s will. It is my
greater hope that these words will later be our turning point as the way Saul
turned to God’s call on his way to Damascus. He said, “Now, it is not I, Paul
living, but Christ living in me” and it is what I can call in layman's language
Christification. For you who have read this writing, be the first one to
be a positive turn, to be the light of the world and your name will be
remembered as the way we are remembering the saints of the church. Know that
hope is one thing and change is another thing but working for the same goal.
Collins
Imbusi