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Don’t Deceive Yourself, It Is What Is Inside That Matters! by evajoe2: 2:06am On Aug 30, 2015 |
(Homily for SUNDAY of the 22ND Week in Ordinary Time, Year B. 2015). Bible Study: Deuteronomy 4:1-2.6-8. / James 18:21-22.27. / Mark 7:1-8.14-15.21-23. A few years ago, I went to a busy market to purchase a particular electronic device. I did not find it in the first five shops I visited, the more I kept asking for it, the more they seemed to refer me somewhere else. I was almost giving up on ever buying the device until I decided to try one last shop. When I told the shop owner what I was looking for, he initially said, “Sir, it is out of stock,” but seeing the way I turned to walk away downcast, he decided to call me back saying, “Oga, no vex, let me go and check my warehouse.” I decided to wait patiently. After about thirty minutes, the man came back full of smiles with the very device I had asked for. He was so happy because that was the last piece he had. I was happy at first on seeing it but looking at what he was holding, my happiness dampened quickly. Why? The carton was covered with dust all over and pressed. It looked like something he picked up from the dustbin. So I asked him, “Sir, are you sure this is a new one? It doesn’t look like an original item to me oh…” I was still speaking when he quickly cut in and said these words in utter annoyance, and I will never forget what he said to me: “Oga, na wetin dey inside na you dey buy oh, no be the carton.” That was my moment of enlightenment. Of all the electronic devices I have bought, none has been as effective as this particular one. I have never had course to complain about it but each time I look at it, I keep remembering the words of that shop owner who sold it to me. True to his words, “It was what was inside the carton and not the carton itself that mattered.” This was the point Jesus meant to teach us in today’s gospel passage, when he said: “It is not what goes into a man from outside that defiles him; but the things which come from within…” There is a term in business called “Packaging.” Some businessmen would tell you, everything is all about packaging, meaning that, as long as the package is attractive, whatever is inside would sell. Come to think of it, how often have you been tempted to buy a particular item as against another simply because of the colour and other external qualities of the package, only to get home and become disappointed after throwing off the piece of paper that attracted you in the first place? The concept of packaging has now gone beyond the world of buying and selling, virtually every aspect of life these days, from advertising to politics, to cooking, to dressing, just name it, even religion itself has become adversely affected by packaging. People now make very conscious effort to ensure that everything looks good only on the outside while the inside is full of rot and decay. Let me take this line again. People now make very conscious effort to ensure that everything looks good only on the outside while the inside is full of rot and decay. And when asked, they say: “It’s all about packaging.” A young man who has never travelled out of his village before begins to speak with a foreign accent naming all the streets and popular places in Washington D.C. and a lady is carried away thinking he is the son of a multi-millionaire only to discover he is fake after he has successfully duped her. You attend a ceremony and see a well-dressed man with flamboyant traditional attire who even has a driver running around him with a briefcase and he tells you he has just secured a federal government contract and wants your company to partner with him and he even goes as far as giving you his complementary card only for you to realise, after a long interesting conversation that you have just been robbed, of not only your phone, your handbag and even your wristwatch. Chaaiiiii, you say! Isn’t it? And they tell you, “It’s all about packaging.” I can go on to mention many more examples but I can only say what my mouth can carry. For the Ladies, well, you all know how packaging, (I mean, artificial things, from head to toe) has become a billion-dollar industry as far as beauty and shape is concerned. Once upon a time, a man sued his wife to court demanding for the sum of ten million dollars. What happened? This woman won a beauty contest as the most beautiful woman in her country, she was so beautiful that the man being a successful businessman was willing to spend all his money to make her his wife. Their wedding was the talk of the town and after the wedding, they bought a mansion where they were supposed to live happily ever after. Everything went well until the day this woman after carrying a pregnancy for nine months gave birth in the presence of the man to a bouncing black monkey-looking baby! The man could not believe his eyes. How can his wife who was fair as the morning sun, bright as the noon day give birth to such an ugly looking creature? That was when the woman confessed to her use of plastic surgery. It was the end of the marriage. This packaging thing has so much affected our world today that one can hardly find honestly and genuineness anymore even among Christians. It is very sad. We tend to project our best before others but deep down within us, we know what we are made of. In the public, we are angels, but at home and in the secret, we are demons. We also judge people based on their outward “package” which we see rather than the true content of their hearts which in most cases is known to God alone. Like the Pharisees who were the direct recipients of Jesus’ stern words today, we have all been guilty of reducing the worship of God to mere externalities, outward observances of rites and traditions while our hearts are far from him. While we put on clean clothes and observe hygienic practices such as washing our hands before eating, keeping our surroundings clean by scrubbing and mopping, etc., we allow all sorts of dirty things to fill up our minds; we entertain immoral thoughts, pornography, wicked imaginations, plotting of crimes, revengeful feelings etc. We are like people who paint our houses beautifully but bring in deadly snakes and wild tigers into our bedrooms as pets. The greatest temptation we Christians face is a temptation to secrecy. Satan never stops lying to us in this regard. He makes us develop a strong belief that as long as nobody else knows or see what we do, it is alright. Few weeks ago, two people committed suicide in America when news broke out that hackers have raided a website. This website has over 37million subscribers who use the site as an avenue for cheating on their spouses on the basis that the website promises absolute secrecy. For so many years, 37 million married men and women have been patronising this website and having affairs unknown to their partners. As long as it was secret, there didn’t seem to be a problem but now that they realise their evil deeds would be exposed to the light, they are running off to hang themselves. What a tragedy? Let us reason together, wouldn’t it be better not to have a skeleton in your cupboard at all than to wake up one day and find that the skeleton you kept has become a lion waiting to attack you? Why chose to live a double life? Or as St. Paul admonishes us in the second reading, “Why are we deceiving ourselves?” Why have we turned God’s word into a fun thing, a source of entertainment! Why do we listen to the word for the sake of listening only without ever doing what the word says? I once read an auto-biography of a certain man of God who attained a great height in his church. He spoke of how he was a Christian for so many years and a very active person in the church, how he was leading people in worship and making others to know God while he himself was still in darkness. Even though he was baptised, he wasn’t yet converted. He knew the Bible verse by verse and could quote from Genesis to Revelation but he was still a pagan. He wrote of how he was moved to repentance through a tragic event that nearly brought him to his early grave and from that day promised God he would change! From that day, he realised that what God wanted was not eye-service but a pure heart. From that day, he knew that true religion begins from the inside and spreads out and not the other way round. Dear Friends, God’s commandments are not given to us to make us look good before him. Therein contain the hidden wisdom of God for our life as Moses instructed in our first reading today. The worship of God begins from the heart. When it is clean, every other thing will be clean. If you must overcome sin and repent today, it has to begin from the heart. Renew your mind in holiness and your life will change. This world can be a better place but then, change must begin with the man I see each time I look at the mirror. Let us pray: O my good Jesus, I come to you. Change me, wash me, and make me a new person today. I repent of my past life of secrecy and religion of hypocrisy. I resolve from this day to serve you from the depths of my heart and offer you a pure worship uncontaminated by the world. Amen. Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. Happy Sunday. 1 Like
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Re: Don’t Deceive Yourself, It Is What Is Inside That Matters! by Chuksgeo: 9:17am On Aug 30, 2015 |
Amen |
Re: Don’t Deceive Yourself, It Is What Is Inside That Matters! by Nobody: 10:49am On Aug 30, 2015 |
Thank you so much for this reminder |
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