Berikut saya bagikan homili dari romo Sarwi yang bertugas di Sengkang, Singapura.
My dear friends, today’s Gospel has three themes which we can reflect on: first, it is about LIGHT and DARKNESS. Second, it is about JOHN knows who he was not. And third, it is about our role as Christians.
Light and darkness is one of the most common themes of out time. It is also one of the easiest way to compare and contrast. Even a child can see how different light is from darkness. It stands for good and bad, salvation and sin, freedom and slavery. But, sadly, as we grow older, we lose this sense of appreciating the truth in this metaphor.
Why? Because the world has a way of mixing light and darkness, giving birth to something they call “grey area”. It is actually convenient way of losing our sense of guilt.
Grey area is a way of justifying why sin is no more a sin. And the excuses, is that many people are doing it, so it must be acceptable as a new way of life. Example of grey area: PORNOGRAPHY that is accepted as adult or artistic material; Euthanasia accepted as mercy killing, lying accepted as generalizing; cheating accepted as creative accounting; selfish accepted as survival instincts… and the list goes on.
In reality, grey area means that darkness has SLOWLY covered the light. The key word is slowly.
Slowly, over a period of time, the world has conditioned us to believe that sin is an ancient word, not relevant in modern day, it is only for our grandfathers. We can be more wrong. It is a classic work Satan, the master of deception. He tempts us with one small grey area act. And then another, and then another…till we feel no more guilt. The act assumes a life of its own within us, without realizing it. The result? SELF DESTRUCTION and often the casualties are our loved ones.
Allow me to give you one example, we think is okay to “surf” some exy websites, just to see what is the world so excited about. We try to justify that we have to keep up to date, otherwise we cannot keep up a conversation with our colleagues. And so we check it out. Once inside, if we have do not have the grace of God, we will certainly fall.
Because, my dear friends on our own strength, it is difficult to overcome the evil one, and so, the moment we take the first bite at the forbidden fruit, we will be in for a slow but slippery downhill slide-without knowing it.
We will keep going back to such websites, at first, it is out of lame justification. And then again when we are bored, and then again and again till it becomes a habit. It does not end there, from getting excitement in the net, we now want to satisfy our desires in the “flesh”. From this point, Satan offers us A BUFFET OF SINS of the flesh to choose from.
And so, this goes on and on, as I said, besides self destruction, there will be casualties, and the casualties will be the people who love us most. I have seen so many cases of relationships, good relationships being broken in this way, it is very sad. And all this because, one partner took a step into … a grey area.
My dear friends, what are the grey areas in your life? Do not allow the world to cast a shadow on our values. We will never really experience true happiness and peace for as long as we are living a lie.
ADVENT is a time to review at our lives and allow the true light, Jesus to come in, the truth will set us free.
The second theme is about John the Baptist knowing who he is not…and being happy to declare it. In Recognizing that he is not the Christ, John helps me to realize that sometimes we think we are God. We think we have all the answers. We think we know hat’s best for us. Although we may say our prayers and acknowledge God with our lips, we trust ourselves more.
We want to be in the driver’s seat, with our hands on steering wheel, and then we complain that God does not answer our prayers, my dear friends, for as long as our hands are on the steering wheel, God cannot steer our lives, He does not for his way.
Let go and let God be God, he made us out of love, and out of love he will steer us along the best way to happiness, even the road is bumpy.
The third, life is so strange, after we have watched a good show on tv, we will not waste any time to tell another how good it was. Or if we know of a good bargain or good restaurant, we will be the first to tell our friends.
Have you ever wondered why we do this? There are two factors, first, it is because we experienced something good. Second, it is because we want those we love to experience it too. But, my dear friends, isn’t God something good? And if he is, why are we not sharing him with those we care?
I think the answer lies in our own experience of God, we only “KNOW” that God is good, but have not experienced his goodness. It is in our knowledge, our head. Then it is like knowing that the “noodle” stall at Compass point sells good food, but we have yet to try it for ourselves. And as such, we will not be inspired to tell others about it. Even if we want to, we can’t, we have no experience to do that.
It is the same with our faith, unless and until we have a personal encounter with God, we will not be inspired to share the good news. My personal sharing with you will be 47 years ago, I was in kinder garden, still w/ my old religion, in the night I recited some arab words in surau, small mosque, and one day the a nun who taught us invited me to lead the prayer in the class, simple prayer our Father and Hail Mary, and you know the result, I now lead all of you here to praise the Lord, glorifying him as God of mercy, God of love ……
Advent is good time to reflect on our relationship with God, is Jesus only a historical figure to us? Is Christmas only a historical event?
My dear friends, God has so much to give us, just as He did 2000 years ago, Jesus and the Bible and the Sacraments of the church are alive and real. To have a real experience of this, we just need to take these three steps. First, be right with God… go for the confession and be set free.
Next, pray sincerely and invite Jesus to touch you in a special way.
Third, open our hearts. You must want it.
Take these three steps, and I promise you that you will have your best Christmas ever, as I said. God has so much to give us, real peace, real joy, real healing and once you experience this, my dear friends you will surely want to share Jesus with others.
We will the be true witnesses of our faith, like John the Baptist, whether it is River Jordan or Rivervale (*), the light will shine.
East Way – Sengkang – December 14, 2008.
(*) name of an area in St. Anne’s church.
=====================================================
Bacaan dari Injil Yohanes (1:6-8.19-28)
6 Datanglah seorang yang diutus Allah, namanya Yohanes; 7 ia datang
sebagai saksi untuk memberi kesaksian tentang terang itu, supaya oleh
dia semua orang menjadi percaya. 8 Ia bukan terang itu, tetapi ia
harus memberi kesaksian tentang terang itu. 19 Dan inilah kesaksian
Yohanes ketika orang Yahudi dari Yerusalem mengutus beberapa imam dan
orang-orang Lewi kepadanya untuk menanyakan dia: “Siapakah engkau?”
20 Ia mengaku dan tidak berdusta, katanya: “Aku bukan Mesias.” 21
Lalu mereka bertanya kepadanya: “Kalau begitu, siapakah engkau?
Elia?” Dan ia menjawab: “Bukan!” “Engkaukah nabi yang akan datang?”
Dan ia menjawab: “Bukan!” 22 Maka kata mereka kepadanya: “Siapakah
engkau? Sebab kami harus memberi jawab kepada mereka yang mengutus
kami. Apakah katamu tentang dirimu sendiri?” 23 Jawabnya: “Akulah
suara orang yang berseru-seru di padang gurun: Luruskanlah jalan
Tuhan! seperti yang telah dikatakan nabi Yesaya.” 24 Dan di antara
orang-orang yang diutus itu ada beberapa orang Farisi. 25 Mereka
bertanya kepadanya, katanya: “Mengapakah engkau membaptis, jikalau
engkau bukan Mesias, bukan Elia, dan bukan nabi yang akan datang?” 26
Yohanes menjawab mereka, katanya: “Aku membaptis dengan air; tetapi
di tengah-tengah kamu berdiri Dia yang tidak kamu kenal, 27 yaitu
Dia, yang datang kemudian dari padaku. Membuka tali kasut-Nyapun aku
tidak layak.” 28 Hal itu terjadi di Betania yang di seberang sungai
Yordan, di mana Yohanes membaptis.