by Bishop Riah Abo El Assal
Let me begin by greeting you with what is most needed and desired, peace, with salaam, ever praying that the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
I bet all of us would agree with St. Paul that the whole creation is groaning!! The world is on fire. TRUTH is hidden; JUSTICE is missing; PEACE is not to be found. Rather than turning to God, we turn to religion. Much harm has been, and is being done in the name of religion. Rather than religion uniting, it divides.
Wonder why people are sick of religion?
As I reflect on our topic, the words of John Newman’s song come to mind;
“Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on; the night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on. Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene; ONE STEP ENOUGH FOR ME”.
That one step is what we need to take if we are serious about being bound in unity to worship and exult God.
A story is told of a little boy playing hide and seek with his friends. For some unknown reason they stopped playing while he was still hiding. He started to cry. His grandfather, who rushed to find out what happened, said to him: All life is like a hide and seek game between God and us. Only it is God who is weeping, for we are not playing the game fairly!!?? God is waiting to be found. When all present here, and all whom we represent search for God and find Him, and Him alone, then we will have no other to worship and exult.
We need to shift from a perception of me, mine, my mind set, and focus on we and us. Without the component of mercy, the search may lead us to all sorts of places and idols, but not to God who is most merciful and great in His love. Nowhere is the essence of mercy unveiled for us any more clearly than in our Lord’s parable of the GOOD SAMARITAN. (The Gospel of St. Luke 10: 25-37)
In the parable Jesus presents three groups of people:
- The robbers who stripped, beat and left the person half dead on the side road. (Those whose doctrine is ‘WHAT IS YOURS IS MINE’)
- The priest who passed by on the other side. (Such a person whose doctrine is ‘WHAT IS MINE IS MINE’)
- The Samaritan who had compassion and took care of him, the one who showed (The party whose doctrine is ‘WHAT IS MINE IS YOURS’.)
God’s call to us is simply to show mercy, to have compassion, to forgive and forget, to include rather than exclude, to appreciate and recognize the otherness that is in the other, and above all these, to love as God loves us.
Would all who endeavor to lead a TLIG say A M E N.
Bishop Riah Abo El Assal
Cairo, Egypt September 22- 28 : TRUE LIFE IN GOD Conference .
