Safi Kaskas
The purpose of worshiping God:
As we approach Ramadan, I keep reminding myself that God doesn't need my fasting or my five times a day prayers. So why I'm totally focused on fasting and praying?
It is because I need to fast and feel with the poor and the hungry and I need to bow down and put my forehead to the ground to tame my selfish ego.
Unless our fasting and praying make us BETTER PEOPLE, then they will be useless acts. What does a better person mean anyway???
It simply means a better neighbor. Someone who loves others and is charitable to them. A more peaceful person, a more forgiving person. One at peace with himself and at peace with others. Let's please remember that the purpose of worshipping God is to become better people on the inside and the outside.
Brad Jersak
As my friend Safi prepares for Ramadan, I find his principles of empathetic fasting and humbling prayer to be an entirely appropriate guide for the final week of (Western) Christian Lent, and for my (Eastern) tradition where we share the practice of full prostrations with our Muslim brothers and sisters.
The NT Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which we typically signify as TURNING from darkness to light and from self-will to surrender. But the word is also associating with BOWING DOWN in humility. In the Orthodox Church, to "do a metanoia" is to do a full forehead-to-floor prostration in prayer.
It sounds odd to say that Jesus "repented" since we see no darkness in him whatsoever. However, has anyone ever lived in such complete humility before God, descended to such depths of servanthood for humanity, to such submission to the divine plan? In that sense, the life of Christ is the ultimate prostration, the prototype for every true metanoia.
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