So what if you gain the whole world, but lost your soul?

In a dim sum restaurant in Tsuen Wan, early in the morning on Tuesday at 7:30 am, the clients were mostly the elderly.  A grandma, 87, made a remark to her nephew, 65.  She was glad that the city is calm, now that the “black shirts” of 2019 are no longer making trouble.  She seems to speak for many people, particularly those favourable to the establishment.  Even for many who are more neutral, confrontation makes them uncomfortable, worries them.  They feel that disturbances are not good for business, and for their lives in general.  A calmer city lets them return to their old way of life.  

Those who are in power, in the establishment, rich, of course, are elated.  They retain, even enhance their power.  Those who oppose them, criticise them, are in prison, stripped of power and status, driven out of business, driven away from the city, or otherwise silenced.  They can go about making money, exercise their power, with so much less restraint than before.  What is not to like about the situation now?

Except that the calm is a deadly calm of despondency.  The silence is a result of hated suppression.  The calm is bought with injustice.  The situation reminds of a familiar verse from the Bible. “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” - from the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 16, verse 26. 

Calmness in a society is normally a good thing. Unrest and confrontation is indeed usually bad for business, bad for living a normal life.  But if the calmness is bought with a loss of hope, loss of soul, what good is that?  If some people are getting rich and powerful, by stepping on the backs of those fallen, broken, brutally suppressed, what good is that?

It is doubly ironic that some Christian leaders are preaching submission and even active support for the oppressor, while turning a blind eye to the injustice.  They seem to value superficial calmness and material benefits over justice and compassion.   What in the world is happening?  Aren’t believers of God looking towards the future, to everlasting life beyond this world?  Shouldn’t Christians be willing to suffer temporarily for the sake of lasting righteousness?  Why, then, are we willing to sacrifice justice for the sake of a life of superficial and fleeting calmness, even material wealth?   

 

Hopefully, the desire for justice, for liberty, has not actually died - at leat not completely.  Hopefully, it is only a temporary setback, a time to recuperate, to rethink, to learn, to deepen, to strengthen, to educate.  True faith does not die.  It strengthens in adversity. God bless.