A reading of the holy gospel according to John. The testimony John gave when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask, who are you? Was the absolute statement, I am not the Messiah. They questioned John. This is John the baptizer.
They questioned him further. Who then? Elijah? I am not Elijah, John answered. Are you the prophet?
No, he replied. Finally, they said to him, tell us then who you are so that we can give some answer answer to those who sent us. What do you have to say of yourself? John replied, quoting the prophet Isaiah, I am a voice in the desert desert crying out, make straight the way of the Lord. Those whom the Pharisees had sent proceeded to question John further.
If you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet, why do you baptize? John answered them, I baptize with water. There is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is to come after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to unfasten. All of this happened in Bethany across the Jordan where John was, in fact, baptizing. And this is the gospel of the Lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Yesterday, I ran across this statement or motto or axiom, name it what you will, and this is the way it goes. It's a day for making plans. Notice yesterday was January 1, first day of the new year. So this has something to do with it, presume.
So let me begin it again. It's a day for making plans and dreaming. A day for thinking of your tomorrow. Now where did I find that? That is an inscription from the library of a nearby jail.
And without a doubt, it has, I presume, special meaning for a prisoner. He's being invited to plan a new life for himself outside the jail. However, there is one thing I would like to emphasize about that statement. But first let me say that nothing that I will say denies the need and the value of planning. Nothing much of value, of long term worth, is accomplished without planning.
It's a foolish person, actually, who ordinarily and normally starts building without some kind of a plan. It has been done, of course. Lives have been done that way too. And you know what often enough they wind up with. Now what this should add is what are you doing about your plans for tomorrow today?
You see, the difference between a plan and dreaming and resolving is extremely important. The man who goes out and puts some seed in the ground in April, April, he is planning for a harvest later on in the summer, but he did put the seed in the ground. The day he resolved that he wanted a harvest in late summer, that day or as soon as he could, he planted the seed. The man who plans on building a house, who really resolves to build the house, immediately he will start working it out, getting it on getting the outline on paper, putting down his specifications. That's in the present tense.
Our blessed Lord never said anything against planning, but he certainly did say that sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. He certainly did say in the Lord's prayer that we should pray for daily bread. He certainly did tell us on more than one occasion and in very language, graphic and dramatic language, how we should thrust how we should thrust ourselves entirely to our heavenly father, that we are certainly worth more than a sparrow that falls from the sky or a hair from someone's head that drops to the ground, they are the figures Christ used. In other words, this idea of making plans and dreaming and thinking of tomorrow without doing something about it today is fatuous. It's fatuous.
Nothing ever happens. There have been more magnificent paintings painted, books written, houses built, boats constructed, lives reformed tomorrow than you can imagine. Of course, nothing ever actually was produced. How many beautiful letters we have written tomorrow. Of course, nobody ever got them because I never wrote them.
We can feel so good about resolving to do something in the future that you think we'd done something. So what I want to hammer home is the very solid truth of seizing upon the day. As dear old Horace put it, carpe diem. Seize the day, grasp it. And the rest of that, which I can't give you in Latin, he says, trust as little as to them tomorrow.
Do what you can today and trust as little as you can to tomorrow. That's what old man Horace said. An Alcoholics Anonymous, which has had great success with helping people to change their lives, to transform their lives and their living, one of their most basic tenets is that you live the day, that you don't worry too much about the tomorrow, that you seize upon the present tense and handle it. Because most of us can handle the present tense if we remember a few things like the promise of God that his grace is sufficient for you. Notice the present tense there.
He didn't say to Paul, my grace will be sufficient. Notice that. That's significant. Because if we would get rid of our fears remember, fear has to do with the future, not with the present tense. Fear is something I entertain in my imagination.
In that sense, it's unreal. So when God promises us his grace, it isn't for tomorrow, it's for the present tense, today, what I have to meet with today. And so while I freely encourage everyone to dream great dreams of tomorrow and the next month and the next year, a great remember, there have been wonderful productions of people who did have dreams, but they were not from people who left them stay in dreams. They got out their pencil and paper and started to do something, and it couldn't be done in the future. It has to be done in the present tense.
Carpe diem. Seize this day. It's all you have. The future is not here and the past is gone. So if you have good resolutions, if you have plans for the future, if you have dreams that are magnificent, do something about it in the present tense.
And secondly, don't miss the present because of the future or the past. And this, I think, is the most significant thing I like to to leave with you. We can miss the present because we are dreaming of either the future or redreaming the past. And the only reality, the present is slipping through our fingers. It may not be what we would particularly want.
Our condition may not be what we would choose. We may be in difficulties. On the other hand, things may be going smoothly and happily. Whatever it be, whatever it be, it's all we have. And secondly, we have God's promise that whatever it be, if we face it with him, his grace is sufficient for us.
That is a mighty consoling thought. In the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. Amen.