A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, mark well the parable of the sower. The seed along the path is the man who hears the message about god's reign without understanding it. The evil one approaches him to steal away what was sown in his mind. The seed that fell on patches of rock is the man who hears the message and at first receives it with joy.
But he has no roots, so he lasts only for a time. When some setback or persecution involving the message occurs, he falters. What was sown among briars is the man who hears the message, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of money choke it off, kills him. Such a one produces no yield. But what was sown on good soil is the man who hears the message and takes it in.
He it is who bears a yield of a 100 or 60 or thirtyfold. This is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. It is a safe statement to make, I think, that today we are overanxious about man and forgetful of God. I mean, as a society, and I'm including the society within the church, not the church, but so many within the church.
The great thrusts that you read about in the press, in the media, most of them have to do with ameliorating, with improving man's condition in this life. You hear a great deal about social justice, the injustices, the bitter injustices of the malaprobe the way things are distributed in this life, the chasms between the haves and the have nots, and this goes on and on and on. And you never hear the word god. This is no exaggeration. When you can have priests proclaiming themselves champions of Christian Marxism, it's a good question of where how you can identify Christ with Marx.
That's a good question in in anybody's mind who has a half of a brain cell working. Now in today's first reading, you have god speaking to Moses. I don't know what happened there. I only know what I read. But here we have god's statement of the 10 commandments written in the hearts of men, we are told.
Now notice the emphasis here. It doesn't begin with man. It doesn't begin with man's obligation to man. It doesn't even begin with my obligations to myself. It begins with god almighty.
And the first commandment tells us, don't erect idols. The second is revere the name of god. The third, respect the day, one out of seven, you give to god. All of them have to do with god. Now everybody knows if you read the Washington Post, and you won't be reading the star much longer.
Unfortunately, that's a great loss. But anyway, if you if you read the media, you will know that we do not worship idols. We do we are not idolaters. It's been a long time since you or I saw anybody bowing down to bow. So, of course, we are not idolaters.
That is hogwash. Of course, don't bow down. We're not even in many years as a nation, we're not even that religious to bow down to any god or gods. You see, you have to ask yourself, what controls your life? Now, of course, that's a fine big statement.
What controls my life? That'll never bother you. What determines your use of money? That's a good question. We're all concerned with that.
We need it. It's absolutely necessary. What controls your use of it? What con to make this a little bit more general, what controls your decision making? Now if you wanna know whether you are I don't when I say you, that's the editorial you.
The thing is when you say when you ask yourself, of course, I don't bow down any gods. Of course, you don't. Most of us don't have any pagan gods hanging around the house. But what ask yourself or anybody. If you wanna know what's whether you have pagan gods or whether I I I apologize for pagan.
If you you will get an answer to that question when you say, what controls my life? Now I mean, in fact, in actuality, not with what I say or what I do on a Sunday or what I do even maybe occasionally do. But what what is the controlling principle of the big decisions I make in life. What controls my attitude towards death? What can I mean, in fact, in in in the nitty gritty day in and day out?
What controls my attitude towards life and living, food, shelter? Now some people say, I don't know what controls it. The point is whether they are aware of it or not, something is controlling it. Something is controlling it. Because if you have $2,000 to spend, you make a choice of what you're going to do with it.
What controls the choice? Here's a young man or young woman deciding to get married. What controls their choice of a partner? Well, of course, in many instances, don't talk about reason under these conditions. But when you talk about holy matrimony, reason ought to come into it, you know.
So what controls this choice? Because what controls that choice is a little god hanging around. So when the first commandment notice the first commandment says, don't erect other gods. And and what that means is that there's got to be one supreme principle, as we today would say, an operational principle in my life. And it's operational in so far as it controls my decisions.
And it's very simply formulated. You say this is so because. How do you fill in that statement of the because? I've mentioned this several times, but I'm not very active, of course, in counseling or anything like that. But few well, not maybe so few, but the instances that I've had in thirteen years in this parish of people coming with marital difficulties, I have yet to have people come and say, what is the will of God?
Not one. Not a single one. I have yet to have anybody facing up to an important decision and, first of all, saying, what is the will of god for me? You hear all kinds of other reasons. Of course, the great one is self fulfillment.
Now you see, so that don't be misled. God is first. Man is second. Our first obligation isn't to myself. It isn't to my neighbor.
It's to god almighty. We don't hear much about this. You know? All kinds of reasons are given for human beings to do this or not to do this or to live this way or not to live this way. How often is it based upon the simple fact what is God's will?
Now as soon as you ask that question, it becomes a silly question unless you have an answer to the second one, namely, how do I know it? Now, you're not going to get an answer to the first unless you have some answer to the first. The second comes after that, but you've got to get answers to both for any practical, actual solution to life's problems. And so I referred yesterday to Christian Lobben's daughter, Secret Unsettle. One of her main reasons remember, she was the daughter of an archaeologist and became a convert.
And her writings, which are supposed to be classics, I've only read Kristin Lavin's daughter, it's a trilogy. But the thing that she what she's trying to do there is to show her her Scandinavian people what they lost when they threw out the church and to try to show them how the church has the answer to life's problems. So God doesn't ask us to live in a vacuum. He doesn't ask us to be wanderers. He doesn't ask us to go out and spend a year or two or three trying to find ourselves.
You can't find yourself unless you first find God. You don't know where you are in the ocean unless you know where the North Pole is or the magnetic North. It's that simple. How can you know who you are unless you know God? How can you fulfill yourself unless you know who you are?
And how do you know who you are unless you know something about your maker, god. It's it's see, it's it's so utterly sensible and reasonable. You know, the first thing that heretics and Luther and Calvin and the rest of them did was to throw out Aristotle, and you still have it. You still have that attitude that Aristotle is hogwash. Why?
Because he's a man who insists upon the the the ability of the mind to know and logical reason. Well, anyway, this these first commandments are important commandments. God thought so. He gives them to us first. You you don't want to erect other gods, respect his name and his day.
This is something old, and it ought to be new. Let's think about it and pray that our lives will not have little gods in Name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.