Lemwang Chuhwanglim, Ph.D
A young man, who drinks alcohol, says on social media that a humble and simple preacher with the Holy Bible in his hand visits a small house where wine is sold for livelihood. He said to them when they were drinking, “I came here to pray for you but not to judge who and what is right and wrong”. In his message, a young man says to the bloggers that illegal or legal bar owners and consumers, they expect such church leaders and teachers to come out of the church building, preach to an outside gathering place of drunker and others who are indulged in intoxication. Pray for them and share the good news without judging who are sinner and saint, wrong and right and good and bad, than a constant shout from pulpit to condemn the sinners and preach the sermon of judgment of who is right and wrong.
Christians in the Naga society believe that the Church building is the place only for the righteous or saints, which promotes a traditional belief that those who do not attend church on Sunday service are sinners. With such traditional belief, anyone who does not go to church on Sunday is judged as sinner who does wrong things in life and those who are on the way to Church are the saints and righteous. Whereas in the Gospel of Luke chapter 5 verse 32, Jesus says “I came not to call the righteous but the sinners to repentance”. If Naga Christians and Church leaders believe Jesus as the personal savior, they should go to the sinners than to the righteous or the cunning saints, to share the word of God. If Church represents the body of Christ, they church leader should declare the church as a place for the sinners.
Like Mircea Eliade states that sacred is the opposite meaning of profane (Eliade. 1957), for the Naga church leaders, church goers are saints who are opposites of non-church goers the sinners. On the other hand, non-church goers do legitimize that saints are not only the church goers or being a good Christian is not a constant church goers. In this argument both are weak in justifying their act without knowing that only God sees the difference between the righteous and the sinners. Keeping aside this argument, many Naga church leaders have paid less attention or pay no attention to those who are local bar attendees for they are codified as sinners or eternal sinners. They are left behind when anticipating the constant church goers to listen to the well prepared sermon. One can question that what benefits is to deliver a good sermon to those who are saints but ignore those sinners somewhere sitting in a corner, captivated by intoxication and other illegal activities? Will Jesus be not happier to go out of the church and preach the good news to the sinners than to wait in the church to preach to the righteous?
The Naga church leaders need a transformed strategy to propagate the Gospel to sinners in every corner of the state like gamblers, alcohol consumers, dealers, underprivileged in hearing the Good news, drug addicts, robbers and others who are away from the church than preparing sermon every week to preach to the constant church goers. One may postulate that these people are unreachable for there are no good roads for luxurious vehicles of the church leaders to go or the road way to their destinations are profane or unholy. There are few preachers who have reached to these people regardless of the condition of where these people shelter or the condition of roads that leads to them. A true Church leader has no selective sight for he/she see equality, justice and liberty to reach the good news to any human being under the Sun than the sight of judgment. The well chaired, coated, luxurious vehicles, houses and facilities church leaders may learn the meaning of the servant of God or true Shepherd, from such simple and humble true church leader who sees no boundary of good and bad to feed the word of God to anyone at any place. Therefore, the church leaders need to introspect that it is their cross to go out of the church to bring the sinners to the church than to enjoy the church with the cunning saints. Church should be given a priority to the sinners, not for the righteous and wannabe saints. Do not call the sinners to come to Church just because it says “God is calling”, but go and bring them to the church for you are no one to compare to God but to serve God by going out to the sinners and bring them than calling from a distance.
