“Stay Connected With Christ The Head!”

“Stay Connected With Christ The Head!”(Col.2:16-19).
While a missionsry to Bali was on leave, a Bali lay preacher mounted the pulpit wearing the traditional outfit “Toghù!” When the missionary returned, gossippers told him what had happened and the lay preacher was punished in plain view of the congregation on Sunday during worship service.
The great Ghanaian music composer, Dr. Ephraim Amu was groomed to become a minister of the word in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. One day Ephraim Amu preached having on the traditional Ghanaian loin. Amu was summoned before the Church council and asked never to do that again. Amu was against the europeanization of Christianity in Ghana and as a result he dicided not to become a pastor any more.
Christianity, especially on the African continent suffers a lot in the hands of those who are hardly able to seperate the content from the container and the messenger of the content.
Half-baked theologians continue to confuse the Christians, and it is dangerous when the Christians idolize those they look up to.
Some of the issues that become conflictual within church circles ought not to arise because they bear no direct influnce on the gospel.
Around the world Christmas is celebrated on three different dates. (We can even say there are more days than these three. For instance, when there’s enough of rice and stew to eat, we say, “Christmas dong fall”; meaning that any opportunity for having enough of a rare kind of foodstuff is Christmas. And by this Christmas means “feasting”, losing the significance of the day).
A few worshippers of a certain religion identified themselves in a certain plantation camp. They agreed to have regular worship in the house of one of them. The man had a cat and his parlour was small. Each time they gathered for worship, he tettered the cat to a foot of the dinning table.
The membership grew and the five men died. As membership increased they moved to a new and spacious place. But they moved with the cat. It became a tradition to always tie a cat to the leg of a table before worship commenced. A lot of religious attachment and interpretation was given to the tieing of a cat to a table before service. But we know why it all started. It was that the cat should not disturb the worshippers, but now a cat and a table had become important aspects of worship.
We often attach a lot of meaning to things that have no importance to our faith. Those who insists on such attachments may be doing so in good faith, but they cause more harm than good. “Such a person has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.”
Jesus Christ is the Head to whom we are connected to grow as God wants us to grow together.
Therefore: “Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival…These are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality however is found in Christ. Do not let anyone…disqualify you for the prize…”
Yes, the reality is found in Christ. God may have said that we keep the Sabbath day holy, but that was a shadow of the things that were to come. If there is something we can do that will save life, we must do it, even if it is the Sabbath day.
We should not play Ezeulu of Achebe’s “Arrow of God” by delaying to eat the last yam by which to declare the harvesting of yams. And while like Ezeulu we portray such false humility, the people die of starvation, with their crops rotting away in the farm.
Let us stay connected to Christ the Head and move away from unnecessary requirements that disconnects us from him!
Sunday prayer: Holy Spirit help me to stay connected to Christ the Head and to steer away from meaningless observances. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.