Cultural Influencers

We live in an age of influencers. It seems like everyone has a voice and has platforms through which they can make their voices heard. Some are well-read, coherent and offer quality content to their listeners while others ride the wave of comedy or even nonsensical but albeit engaging content.

The onus then is on us, the audience, the ones who engage, the ones who click that link, to choose what it is that we would like to listen and be influenced by. And the old adage Garbage in; Garbage out is absolutely true in this case.

As I think about the cultural landscape of our world and the role and the presence of the Church in it, I find myself going back to observe the life of Jesus and his call to his disciples. Jesus didn't come to start a new religion, though many today would call him the founder of Christianity, an idea that he would find extremely misrepresenting of the real reason he came. He came to show humanity what being human is all about. Lessons God had been trying to teach humans right from the beginning. What are some of the lessons on being human we can glean from Christ?

• Being human means acknowledging and depending on God for spiritual nourishment - that affects every aspect of one's life.

• Being human means to serve those whom the world would consider insignificant and a nuisance.

• Being human means to learn to love those who hate us - Love being an action word here.

• Learning to Forgive those that use us, persecute and oppress us. Forgiveness here not to be misunderstood as a slavish giving in to whims and fancies of bullies.

• Being human is to lean over the cultural, ethnic, gender and class barriers between people and learn to love and serve all equally. Serving would mean to actively seek the good and upliftment of others.

• Being human is to be there where the world has abandoned and be agents of personal, corporate and national restoration.

Jesus called his disciples the salt of the earth - the one's entrusted with preventing the decay of society and preserving the conscience of a world that is broken. Even with modernity rife with all its technological and intellectual advancements, the human need for rightness, community, truth, beauty, connections and relationships still remains.

Jesus never used the word Church to describe those who would follow him. But he did say By your love, they will know you are my disciples.

He never set out to purchase land and make a throne for himself creating an earthly kingdom. But he did call his followers to actively seek out the rule of God in their own life and actions. To pray "Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven".

He never built a building and put a banner on it dubbing it the church. But the picture that is used most often to describe the Church isn't the word church but the word body - the body of Christ. A body made up of different parts, different roles, all united under one head, to act and behave according to His will and not as autonomous parts but as one body with a singular vision - the live the life of Christ now as he did then. To be the agents through which the world would see God in action - rebuilding, restoring, preserving and nurturing the will of God on earth.

So often, this kind of rebuilding isn't done in the limelight. But is done on the peripherals of society. That's where we find Jesus. Where the masses are rarely seen. Like the teacher who chooses to volunteer their time to teach the under privileged. Or the scientist who devotes their life to find a cure to an incurable disease. Or the people who courageously stand up for what's right even it's not popular. Those who courageously make the right choices that preserve the conscience of the nation.

True unity seems to be an ideal that even groups and factions within the church seem to have forgotten and given up on. This sad reality leads us to see the people who claim to be followers of Jesus act and behave in ways that are so far removed from their professed leader.

Rebuilding happens when members of a community from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and baggage, choose to reconcile, courageously choose to love and forgive every day to bring healing to their society.

This is what we need to see in Manipur today. Let's pray for that state. Great healing needs to take place there for real normalcy to return. Let's be honest. Normalcy isn't just being able to live in your house. The Kingdom of God normal is when the greater serves the weaker. When the powerful choose to use their power to uplift rather than destroy. When enemies are forgiven. When persecutors are prayed for. When communities come together and find healing and start rebuilding together. That's the normal we need to be praying and seeking.

When actions such as these collectively come together, we will see the Church rise to be what she was destined to be - a glimpse of heaven on earth. That's when the world will truly see God in action. And that's when we as His body will rise to be the cultural influencers we are destined to be, witnesses of what God can do through a group of people who are truly surrendered to his will and empowered by his Spirit.