By Ezekiel Nabieu
Easter has just gone by and one of the highlights in the many services of the season was the washing of the feet of church members after the fashion of Jesus Christ in modeling his servantship while on earth.
John Seldon said in his Table-Talk that “Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy and the clergy for the laity”.
It is hard to be high and humble as it is hard to lower one’s standard of living. What is easy is to be high and to lord it over others. Mathew 23:12 states that “he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.’
It is known that in the 18th century in England the nobles ate at the table with their servants. I cannot say what degree of humility that was. It is rather unthinkable these days when class barriers are so rigidly enforced. And talking about humility vis-à-vis clergy and laity how many clergy bend over backwards to visit and even partake of the food that can be offered by their lowly and needy members? Rather they are more often than not seen at the homes of their well-to-do members or in their company elsewhere.
Like the scribes and Pharisees of old some of our feet-washing priests love the high tables at parties and dare not serve or seek the interests of their down-trodden church members. But proverbs 15:33 states that, “before honor is humility.”
Here is a classic example of humility. It is the presence of the donkey which makes Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem the most peculiar thing of its kind in history. Whoever heard of a conqueror riding in triumph on an ass? If any gentiles had been present when the procession passed by they must have been quietly amused. To give a common donkey a prominent position was enough to take the dignity out of any demonstration. To the view of an outsider it would have seem absurd, banal and ludicrous.
How can we draw an analogy in terms of today’s transportation? Jesus would have opted to hitch a ride in a Honda or Volkswagen beetle instead of a Mercedes Benz, Rolls Royce or BMW. And it should not be forgotten that there were horses in those days which were used by kings and other nobles.
Most of our priests especially of the “Bible believing” churches do not deign to ride with their church members in the podapodas. No. it is infra. dig. to them. They would rather ride in their Benz, Chevrolet or 4X4 jeeps. They wear the most expensive dresses and live in elegant residences spouting prosperity messages that Christians should not be poor.
Jesus washing of his disciples’ feet as an act symbolic of what disciples ought to do for one another. If their superior, the one who was Lord and Master (Teacher) was willing to perform this service for them surely they ought to do it for one another. Humility is not essentially self-abrogation but losing oneself in service to others. This rules out thought of foot-washing as a sacrament. Scripture is silent about the practice save as a loving ministration exercised as a matter of hospitality.
1 Timothy 9-10 states: “Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband; and she must be well-attested for her good deeds, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the feet of the saints, relieved the afflicted and devoted herself to doing good in every way.”
It is self-evident here that it is a package of doing good deeds over and above feet washing that matters.
In our own day and age Pope Francis has become an exemplar in humility and concern for the poor. The social-justice wing of the Catholic Church has been invigorated by Francis’s arrival. He condemned trickle down economic theories. He spoke about “slave labour” when a garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing over a thousand low-paid workers. He has said that the waste of food in their throw away culture is a form of “stealing from the hungry” and called capitalism an idolatry and a tyranny.
To summarize let me state that in many cases washing of church members’ feet has become an exercise in futility with no theological value. The “washee’ sits there feeling elated that his/her priest in humble. Let me reiterate that the exercise is not bad per se but should be accompanied by other deeds of humility. The exercise of humility should not be limited to feet washing.
24 hours of electricity in 2016
A pro-government banner head-line stated recently that Sierra Leoneans will be receiving the gift of electricity come 2016. Well, well, well, we have heard that tale before, we need something new.
It was president Koroma who promised the nation 24 hours electricity during his first one hundred days. Whether one hundred months was meant and rendered days instead of months is not immediately known. What is known about the incumbent government is that they can never ever run out of lame excuses. After all the government has a plenitude of media practitioners at state house, the information minister and the barricade spokesman etc.
What I do know is that real hydroelectricity is supposed to produce endless electricity in contradistinction from non-hydroelectricity that is intermittent. I lived in Addis Ababa for five years and I cannot recall power being put off for an hour. Just what is hydro about our Bumbuna? The stop-gap Income Electrix cost tax payers a fortune willy-nilly. Ministers in charge of the public utility service have been sacked with little or no attempt to address the root cause of premature commission of Bumbuna to gain political mileage.
According to the institute for Governance Reform the country has faced persistent shortages of fuel since the global price hikes in 2008. The institute states at a minimum of 28 days each year gas stations in Freetown run out of fuel. The situation, the institute adds, is even worse in rural communities employing over 70% of the country that go without fuel for at least 45 days a year. On many occasions the economy is brought to a grinding halt for days, resulting in the country losing an estimated $170 million each year as a result of fuel shortages. And yet, the same refrain is heard “De Pa dae try”. How long can we be led up the garden path. We shall take “Let there be light in 2016!” with a pinch of salt.
(C) Politico 24/04/14
