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.
