Today I couldn’t go to church. Like many other Sundays before this one, I have to work for mother Ghana and contribute my quota to the well being of people…I like to think my job is a religion, and by being at work and working conscientiously I am still discharging my religions responsibilities.
However Sundays are always an opportunity to reflect and as I did, one particular sermon by my brother, the Rev. Fr. Benjamin Gawu came to mind. He said this sermon a couple of years ago. As to why it came to mind I do not know, but I feel compelled to share with you. It was on the subject of being discerning. A summary of his arguments are below;
Some years ago there was the whole craze about the effectiveness of urine therapy and how drinking urine could avoid a lot of health problems. I remember visiting a family for holidays where the whole family serves their urine in a big jug in the morning that they drink first thing before breakfast…yuck right?
Then the Moringa craze followed; people believed the moringa plant was such magical plant that could solve all problems. People even stopped doing their medical check ups because “moringa wo krom”. A man was rushed into the hospital, a diabetic with blood sugars in the sky, he had finally collapsed after months of failing to take his medicines because he had found moringa….the family looked on as doctors couldn’t revive the moringa faithful. There was moringa bread, moringa tea bag, moringa fufu, moringa toothpaste, moringa hair cream, moringa Paracetamol…you would have thought with moringa nobody will die again.
Do you remember the aloe Vera craze? the news that it could cure all diseases and people had plantatatons of it? people even chewed that bitter thing raw because of its acclaimed powers…aloe Vera products suddenly dominated the market…we even had aloe Vera sanitary pad!
Do you remember when Vodafone first introduced free night calls? People will not sleep again…girls will call you at 2am on free night call, when you pick they start giggling and ask you if you’re sleeping…no am pushing truck! It was as if it were compulsory not to sleep and make calls at night….now free night calls are still there yet some of us are even embarassed to wait to that time before making a call.
what about the time MTN brought the MTN zone? A friend of mine fell from.a tree and broke his hip because he had 90% zone there….sadly he still walks with a limp to today. People call you and have absolutely nothing to say…except that they have 90% on their phone….tell me, how many of you even check again to see which % your zone is before making a call?
The point my brother sought to make was that we are likely to be foolish, and gullible and wayward if we follow every new craze that comes on their face value and not interrogate issues for ourselves and discover a unique truth for ourselves. Now people change churches like they do their underwear…every other month it’s a new church. I put it to you that behavior is not necessarily a search for the truth but lack of discernment and gullibility as a believer, so whoever sounds more convincing in his dawn broadcast is the next destination for your worship….are you worshiping the church or you’re worshiping God? You’re simply pastor shopping.
I was doing a project in Kpando and discovered there were 89 churches in the Kpando Township alone at the time, a sad case of how money hungry individuals prey on our lack of discernment to establish churches carefully crafted to say exactly what we want to hear.
I hope this reflective piece reminds us all of the fact that there is the need for us to look more closely at things, not follow the crowd but the dictates of our conscience, and most importantly that we search actively for a deeper understanding of the things we stand for and follow such that we are not led blindly by the euphoria of a an evil minded swindler in the name of religion.
