The Journey 101

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Read: Luke 7:1-10
LinkedIn– Everyone is getting hooked up on LinkedIn. There is not a single day when I don't get a request from my friends or may be from the LinkedIn programme that there is a friend waiting for me to connect through LinkedIn. I have consciously tried  not to get into another chat programme basically because of two reasons. Firstly I think I have many other chat programmes that comes with Goggle, Facebook and also Skype that helps me to chat with my friends if I want and hence I did not feel the need to have another chat programme. Moreover I think I don't have that much of a time whereby I need to be glued to a computer and then chat in single sentences or sometimes multiple with my friends. But the most important reason is that all these types of chat are impersonal, and does not go a long way to build relationship except for some momentary joyous experience of having talked with a friend.  For me as a person, I believe I need to take my relationship seriously so that we both are empowered by the relationships. But today the sad part that we see in our society is that many of our relationships tend to be looked upon only in the context of a “ Chat relationship” or LinkedIn Relationship. If transformation in our community has to take place all of us need to move beyond web of chat relationship to a relationship of mutuality,  trust and empowerment.
                  This week we are meditating on the theme “ Transformation in my community”. The portion from the scripture is from the Luke 7: 1-10. It is in this portion that we find Jesus lauding the faith of the centurion.  Here is a person who in authority and who wields a lot of power brings a totally new dimension to the concept of relationship. One of the uniqueness of the demand of the centurion was that he wanted Jesus Christ to heal his servant. We need to understand that this was a time, when slaves, servant and even woman were denied their rights and they were often ill-treated, oppressed and were also forced to live beyond the levels of human dignity. It is in such a context that centurion come to the public glare and then request Jesus to help him. Here is a  man who has taken the relationship even with his servant very seriously and hence when his servant goes through suffering, master himself takes up the responsibility of trying to find out some means to alleviate his sufferings. I think it is this model and attitude of the centurion that needs to be followed today. We need to do some introspection as to whether we are able to take our relationship seriously so that we are a help and support not only to our friends, but also to all those people whom we may feel are below our dignity and don't feel worthwhile to relate with them.
Let us consciously take a decision to enrich and develop God given relationship to a level that goes beyond the level of LinkedIn, Facebook and Google chats, to level of healing, transformation and mutual enrichment.
Is your relationship only LinkedIn or beyond?

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