Ancestor Worship: Reaction From A Good Friend

“You’re over the limit.”

That was YT’s comment after I had told her my renouncing of ancestor worship, thus eating of offerings.

I was not really surprised at her reaction. As I had mentioned earlier, I also used to consider ancestor worship a ritual performed purely out of respect. I used to talk to my God while holding joss sticks before the plank or the gravestone with ancestors’ names on it. I used to think that I could just swallow offerings without believing that my ancestors had just tasted their favorite food.

But what was acceptable to me may not be so to God, for He told us through 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 “…Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that there is no other God but one… However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. But food does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse. But beware lest somewhere this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?…”

If we love God, “the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live”, we just accept His words with faith.

YT and I have been friends for more than twenty years. She was transferred to my primary school and our friendship flourished very fast since then. Some day in Standard Five I accepted her invitation to a picnic at a swimming pool organized by her church members who later encouraged me to attend the Saturday children school. That was my first contact with Jesus. During the secondary school time, we both became very irregular church goers.

As I had decided to go back to Jesus who had been loving me much more than I had loved Him, I often thought of YT who had stopped going to church for years. Though her material life was abundant, she often felt a sense of emptiness and she sometimes wondered whether her life was working blindly nonstop for her shop, the family business her father had started since they had settled down in Batu Pahat in the 1980s. I had been sharing testimonies with her, who had not been nourished with God’s words. I could understand why she did not agree with my giving up of following my family to burn joss sticks and offer food to defunct ancestors, though herself and her family had no practice of idol worship.

A few months ago, I offered her the New Testament in Chinese-English as a belated birthday gift. She might be keeping it somewhere in her room due to her busy working schedule. Never mind, Jesus is patient. I am sure one day she will realize that only His guidance can fill her spiritual emptiness.