Buffoon gods

With the desire to renounce many things during this season of lent, may we also have the courage to leave behind some fancy gods. Let us not be deceived by thinking that spreading some pictures to 1,00,000 and above in Chain money, pyramid scheme models would bring some blessings. Similarly don't be carried away by online packages of deliverance, healing, and debt relief. 

If we observe, they are just a digital form of early ‘Chain Letters’ asking us to reach to the maximum. They may or may not have some content of 'prayer' as such. What is sure is an introduction with a noble purpose, something to trigger powerful human emotions, eg. pity (praying for cancer patients and the poor), fear (the dangerous or evil consequences of neglecting it), personal sentiments (send also to me if you love me/ tell me if you will not so that it may not be broken). 

But, are they not praying anyway? It might seem so, but actually not. We can ask for prayers, and spread a devotion, and even with an intention, but what happens here is that 'the prayer' or 'the message' or 'the act of sharing' itself is given a supernatural overtone and thus reducing the truth of prayer itself. Number of times the prayer to be said, the number of hours spent, continuity and the better effect are the emphasis, and it gets a magical connotation. Prayer is to be trusting God, and god's will. We can expect only 'cheap graces' from a god who is expected to be happy with the number of ‘Likes,’ ‘Shares’ and ‘type Amen’ categories. They are not testimony to our faith, but an attempt to access to grace in cheap and easy ways. That grace is not enough to follow Christ who is on the way of the cross. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said the call to follow Christ is to come and die.