Alfred Vanderbilt was an American billionaire. Once while traveling on a business trip aboard the RMS Lusitania, the ship was attacked by the Germans and began to sink. As a First-Class passenger on the ship, he was offered a chance to escape in a lifeboat. But, he was busy helping others into the lifeboats. When the ship was on the brink of sinking, he was again urged to escape using a life jacket, but he offered his life jacket to a young mother with a baby. Ultimately, he sank with the ship – an instance of heroic self-sacrifice! As an young billionaire, aged 37, he may have had many dreams and of course, many means to fulfill them. Yet, he sacrificed his life – not for friends but for strangers! Such instances of self-sacrifice occur all over the world, though not often. But, in several cases they are not known by everyone.
If giving up one’s own life for others is the ultimate act of love and a one-time event, many share their life and fortune on an everyday basis. The Biblical character of Tobit is an outstanding example. His life was dotted with almsgiving. His acts of mercy included feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and burying the dead. If feeding and clothing the poor were harmless acts of mercy, the acts of burying the dead had political nuances. This is because, he buried Jews who were executed by the Assyrian king. In this perspective, giving a decent burial to the “enemies” of the king was an act of defiance against the king, and as such punishable by the death penalty. Thus, Tobit practiced the acts of mercy while putting his life at great risk.
One will be motivated to do such heroic acts of piety, if supported and empowered by divine protection and blessings. However, in the case of Tobit, he was struck with blindness, almost in the act of burying the dead, so to speak. One might wonder, how could God allow such a misfortune to occur in the life of his ardent devotee. This drives home one of the basic teachings of the Bible: although sin and suffering are sometimes connected to each other, not all sufferings are punishment of sin. Surprisingly, this teaching is almost always neglected by the believers and even those who suffer, and they take it for granted that sufferings are due punishment for one’s personal sins. The case of Tobit contradicts this connection.
The reverse is also worth pondering. Some people think that suffering is a sign of God’s special favour. This way of thinking prevents them from avoiding the unnecessary suffering. Even a pious devotee of Yahweh like Tobit approached physicians for his healing. Jesus also healed those who were sick. The human skill to alleviate pain and suffering, and effect healing, is to be understood and made use of as a gift from God. The suffering of the innocent is a favourite theme of the Bible. In several cases, suffering is a test of one’s faithfulness to God. Living a righteous life even amidst enormous suffering is the glorious testimony of one’s genuine faith in God.
Sometimes, being kind to others and doing them favours is one thing, and keeping the same spirit in one’s own family is another thing. In the church circles especially, when we fail to practice what we preach, we become a laughingstock amidst the insiders and outsiders alike. One finds a similar problem in the life of Tobit as well. When Tobit was blind, and no longer able to work, his wife proved herself a faithful helpmate by going outside for work. But when she came back with an extra wage of a lamb, Tobit was angry, thinking she had stolen it. His anger might be a demonstration of his strong intent that even his depravity should not force him or his wife to do anything unethical. At the same time, it is a warning that when we are frustrated and perplexed, we are prone to be ruder to our dearest ones. It is to the merit of Tobit that even when his wife questioned God’s providence and his own righteousness (“Then she replied to me “Where are your acts of charity?”” (Tobit 2,14)), he did not swerve from the path of righteousness.
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