He doesn’t go to church. He doesn’t see the relevance when the churches are available on television. Or what’s their reason for appearing on the screen, if not for us to watch them in the comfort of our rooms? And while watching them, what time could we have left to attend church service with? The same way he enjoys watching football game on tv, even better than going to the stadium. On tv, he could see the zoomed sweat and facial contortions expressed by players in their efforts at running and attacking and defending the ball.

The television has become the accepted medium of satisfying our curiosity and boredom. Audiovisuals loaded with all kinds of information come to us readily and easily. Sometimes poorly packaged. At other times too, well packaged. They give money to their producers and conveyors and give comfort to their poor lazy consumers. Welcome to our world. Where everything falls on our lap, steamed and simmering with chemical spices that lull us to sleep through our senses.

The desire and the willingness, that was there to urge us to go out there and search for the stuff, that would satisfy the yearning of our real selves to know, and to mature in order to enjoy peace and happiness, have been trivialized and jettisoned in the sea of our indoctrinated mind. And in place of them grown trees of laziness and value for mediocrity. The stuff that always appealed to our physical senses for an immediate and fleeting benefit, almost always preoccupied our conscious minds.

And by that reason, we have lost the sense of what we are, and our sense of connection with each other. Much less God. The sense of worship we have for God is clearly based on our delusional sense of commitment to dogmatic tenets, instead of even religious philosophy, which would have stirred in us the urge to feed the flame to want to know within our little hearts. And since we do not obey the God we worship, how could we command Him to do our bidding? But that’s not what matters. Our concerns lie elsewhere.

They lie at places and in things that are sympathetic to our emotions. This medium of ours is always whipped and employed to access everything around us. We could always deepen our stupor by cheaply giving ourselves intoxicating stories. Messages that appeal to our physical bodies much more than our souls are what we want. We believe that we will ultimately go to heaven with our bodies, that’s why its nourishment from within, and embellishment from without concern us the most. To the extent that we will kill, maim, destroy anything that stands between our body’s enjoyment and our so-called love to be with God.

Now, what kind of sacrifices do we make on the altar for God? Money? By way of tithes, collections, and all that money can buy or do? Is there any other valuable thing we could ever give to God these days? Of course no. Cash is what God needs to add on to his creation. Good luck to us! May we make more money to sacrifice it on the altar of God, to the glory of God. Amen!

Who will blame us when our sense of value has been systematically reduced to focus on the tangible. Most especially money? The acquisition of which is all that matters in all our endeavours. Even in dimensions beyond ours, we have managed to make money relevant there. And since money is the only valuable thing for us, we assume that God must necessarily value it too. And must need money to complete what He began probably before the Big Bang. And so wherever we turned, it is expected of us to give money.

But when I saw football fans spontaneously jubilate, because their team has scored a goal, and juxtapose their expression with those in the church premises during worship, who are there supposedly in the presence of God, it was revealed to me that something was missing in the church. What greater jubilation could be spontaneously erupted from a people than being in Gods presence? Yet that’s rather where we pour out our agonizing lamentations.

After which we will sacrifice our money on the altar and expect God to do miracles in our lives. Just so we would become sober from our stupor, even though we are still imbibing the alcohol of none sense. If we could bring to church, the same jubilant expression we showed when watching our team played and scored, if we could bring to God, an expression that is devoid of our problems and pettiness, because He truly and majestically deserves to have us worship Him in our joyous moments too, if only we could bring to church nothing but the innocence of our souls, instead of our valued papers or atm cards, we are likely to manifest God and feel God in us more than our fleeting trivialities.

Observe the bond of unity with which we hold ourselves in support of our team when they played? Are we able to do the same in church, in the presence of God, with the same expectation? And do we know that football fans don’t have their individual problems? Yet in the presence of the game, they become completely oblivious of their individual problems. They become all merged into one thing: supporters of one team. With one prayer; to win.

Just so they would enjoy the satisfaction of belonging to a winning team. And here we are in the church, shouting to God for our individual selfish desires, usually petty ones indeed. Blaring through our microphones to disturb the public peace. All in the name of God. As if He is far away from our reach. Even when the supporters would have lost a match, they walk out of the stadium hopeful that the next match will be won. In some rare cases, some supporters get their hearts broken. It tells us how committed they are to their team.

How many of us are prepared to get our hearts broken because of our commitment to God? We will rather hurl before God our problems. We will go to church dressed fancifully to please our own eyes and other admirers. We will listen to another sermon, interpreted in a way to arouse fear and favour in us. And feel emotionally charged to pat with our valuable money through dancing by rows, so no one could be left behind. And thereafter we will go back to our various homes looking exhausted and namby-pamby. And so for and after several years of same ole same ole, all few of us could boast of are our pettiness and mediocrity and misery. Still hungry for the so-called valuable things we have had already. Because we can see and measure them, from the platform of some little-refined consciousness.