“THERE WAS A CERTAIN RICH MAN, WHICH WAS CLOTHED IN PURPLE AND FINE LINEN, AND FARED SUMPTUOUSLY EVERYDAY.” – Lk. 16:19.
Sri Lankans living in its metropolis live the good life bursting at the seams! It is indeed the best of times for Colombo’s rich and well to do. Every time I drive into Colombo from my rural outpost in Batticaloa, I suffer a cultural shock! Colombo is awash with mushrooming luxury apartments, shopping malls, super markets overflowing with imported goods, well paved streets and sleek automobiles. In the middle of this concrete jungle, I’ve seen quite a few of our overfed urban fat cats on their morning strolls or walks in a vain attempt to contain their ever-widening waist lines! “The battle of the bulge” is on!!
While the majority of the poor are engaged in their daily struggles to make ends meet – commuting to work in over-crowded buses and trains, the idle rich have been pampered and spoilt, provided with vast open spaces adorned with pools and poolside bars with water fountains so that they can while away their time in aimless gossip. What a stark contrast to the realities of our country! A country that is still painstakingly limping back to normalcy from a war that ravaged it for thirty long years. The disparity between the life-styles of the urban rich and the rural poor is alarming!! And to this out of sync and incongruous local scene, step in our ex-countrymen, expats who on their annual pilgrimages, and on visits to their motherland, flaunt their wealth, and waddle around like ducks, and quite a few of them look like beached-whales as they lounge around in these city parks. To them the three decade long war is now a fading memory. They have consigned the sufferings of the poor and the struggles of war-affected masses of this land to their dim and distant past. Some even post pictures of their feasts and banquets on facebook. Pictures of their sumptuous meals; these only remind us of the rich man of the Bible, who clothed in purple and fine linen, indulged in feasting to his heart’s content. Oh! How comfort dulls the senses!
All the while, away in the rural hinterland of our country, a poverty stricken peasantry, thirsty animals and withering crops pray for water. We are experiencing one of the worst droughts in living memory. Every Sunday after service I drive out into the country, to a village that was once under the control of the LTTE, to drop off some of those who come to worship with us as buses don’t ply on those roads on Sundays. All their wells have run dry. The grass has withered and their cattle are starving. There’s only one waterhole for the entire village and they have to walk miles to reach it. And the water they collect in pots and pans is a murky pool of water that you wouldn’t let your dog drink from it. Failing crops have driven them to the brink of starvation. They would be happy if they could get just a piece of bread to eat, and a cup of water to drink!
We need to get our mixed up priorities and misguided values all straightened out. Our children are watching us, and they will do exactly the way we do, and live exactly like how we live. At least for our children’s sake let us GET IT RIGHT! All the super highways and airports, all the fancy goods and electronic gadgets, and all our sumptuous feasts and lavish meals will not satisfy our inner-hunger or our inner-thirsts. ONLY JESUS CAN satisfy the inner-most needs and longings of each and every one of us. LIVING FOR JESUS alone can give us the satisfaction we so longingly seek in things that do not satisfy, but leave us empty, wasted and disappointed. Its never too late to GET THINGS RIGHT!
God bless you.
– Pastor Dayalan Sanders.
