A Valuable Lesson Learned

Walking down the streets of South Asia, taking in the bustling crowd, with people left and right of me wanting me to buy their products, I gazed up and saw a familiar symbol on a building. As I looked closer, a cross came into view and beneath it a beautiful cathedral. I hadn’t seen one up close here yet, so I made my way through the vendors to get to it.

As I approached, I wasn’t prepared for what was going on. Statues of Mary and other saints were set up throughout the complex. People had flowers and candles that they placed by the statues. They bowed down to the marble and prayed to it. In the courtyard of the cathedral, people were selling these flowers and other items to give as an offering to “God.”

What I wasn’t prepared for was blatant idol worship in a Christian church. If there hadn’t been a cross on top of the building and some Christian writings, I would have thought it was a Hindu temple. I imagine that they just bring their different backgrounds into Christianity. This is how they know to worship. The vendors inside the gates reminded me of when Jesus came into the temple courts and was so angry with all of the selling and cheating going on there, how he just came in and overturned the tables. What would he do if he saw people bowing down to a statue of his mother Mary and him? I imagine Him saying, “Those things were made by human hands. I came to earth for you to have a personal relationship with me, not with an idol.”

It got me thinking. Even though they outwardly worship idols, what is the difference between that and what I do? Every day I give into my own selfish wants and desires. I covet what other people have. I become overly consumed with things. I myself worship all sorts of idols, just in secret. How can I judge and condemn something that I do in myself?

It’s amazing what you can learn here. The Bible becomes real. The things that happened to the New Testament churches are occurring here. I can choose to learn from it, or I can pretend that it doesn’t apply to my own life. Although I wasn’t prepared for what I saw that day, I also wasn’t prepared for God to reveal that we all are guilty of this sin.

Written by Nicola Broden*, a Hands-On student serving in South Asia for the 2009 spring semester