A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. The mother and brothers of Jesus came to be with him, but they couldn't reach him because of the crowds that surrounded him. Jesus was informed, your mother and your brothers are standing outside and want to see you. Jesus in reply said, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of god and act upon it. This is the gospel of the lord.
The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Attractive, almost as challenging as this last reading is from the book of Luke. We'll have a chance to do that one morning. I wanna go back to that first reading. How the enemies of the Jews, Darius, supported the Jews in rebuilding their temple, their edifice, their church with a small c.
Now have you ever thought, for example, this is completely on facade, but you know one of the big problems I have is that since the time of Titus, which is just of the beginning of the first century of our lord, there has been no Jewish temple. There has been no Jewish sacrifice. There has been no Jewish acting priesthood, and there's been no serious attempt to ever rebuild the temple. It's a very strange thing, very strange, and we are now almost in the twenty first century. But to come back to this idea of church, this building with a small c.
Let me go back with give a concrete instance of what I want to say. It used to be in the early days of Baltimore City that when you started a parish, it began in a very humble way, often enough in somebody's living room. And so it was. In one instance, I have right in mind, it's a huge big plant as we say now. Notice that uses the word plant, but now it's all in granite, you have a convent, you have the church, you have the rectory, you have a big school, and it's all covered with asphalt.
It's great. That's what you have today. That started in in somebody's living room, and I know it was. And then more people came, and then the the came time came to build a church. That is to have a have a good decent building in which you would worship God in a fitting way.
Now here's the question I wanna put to you. When these good people finally got together and had the gumption to put their money where their mouth was, Did it make them better Christians? Did it make them worship God better when they march one day into this nice church instead of marching into somebody's living room? Did it make them absolutely, fundamentally close did it bring them closer to God? Because, you know, if it doesn't, it's just so much baloney.
Just absolutely worthless. Well, of course, everything being equal, of course it should bring them closer to God. Of course it should be easier to worship God in a special place where we are surrounded with all the psychological helps that we need as human beings in our totality to give God total worship. See, it's one thing to say that worship consists in the elevation of the mind and the heart to God, to acknowledge his dominion, to praise him, to thank him, to ask his petitions, to ask forgiveness of sins. This is great.
But that is not you're not talking about a human being here. You're talking about an artificial disembodied mind and will which don't exist. The only thing that exists is me and you, individual yous, not a collective you. There's no more there's absolutely no reality to a collective view beyond the individual realities of the individual person. Now, Michael, do you automatically, therefore, make people better Christians by putting them in a better church, whatever better means?
Who who can answer it? All I can answer is it should make them better Christians. But when I think about it, right now, I know of a case where there's a handful of people trying to get a church together, and they're gonna pour some of their lifeblood into that building. Literally, literally, they're going to do. They're going to give them themselves, and you can't give anything more than of yourself.
It's a lot more than writing a check. Although I'm not downgrading writing checks either, of course. Let's be fair and square in this matter. But the thing is, they be better Christians when they get the building up than they are now? Who knows?
Maybe yes and maybe no. But it won't be be because simply of a building. That's for sure. That is for sure. And in many instances, I have seen this.
The great interest and the great enthusiasm and the spirit of generosity, the spirit of giving giving yourself to the project of getting a church. Once the church is up and functioning, people lose interest in it. This is commonplace. Commonplace. One of the first things that I ever heard from a pastor was saying always keep a dead on a church.
It keeps people interested. What I'm saying is this, we can fool ourselves. It's like an alcoholic who's saying, oh, yes. I know I'm drinking too much, but all I need is a new wife. All I need is a new husband.
All I need is a new job. All I need is to get rid of these blooming kids that are on my feet under my feet all the time. All I need is to get out of this environment. They're kidding themselves. Do you know why?
Because every place they go, they carry themselves. You can't escape yourself. And so when we come to this matter of the physical accoutrements of worship, let's put them in their in their proper place. They don't constitute worship. They're not essential to worship.
They don't create worship. All they can do is to help me, help you to worship God better. And to the extent that they they influence me in my worship of God, then they are good. And to the extent that they don't do that, boot them out hook, line, and sinker because they are working against God as they can do. They can it can happen.
People come to church to be entertained by a choir, by an organ. That's not worship. Go down to the Kennedy Center. Turn on your turn on your FM outfit. It'll be a lot better than you'll hear in most churches for the very good reason that one is of the world and the other supposedly ain't.
And so when we come back to this matter, don't let us kid ourselves. Don't let us say, if only this were true. Notice, that's a contrary to fact condition. And in Latin, you put that in the subjunctive. If only this were true, then I would do this, but this isn't true.
Therefore, I don't do this. This is how many of us operate. Don't let us kid ourselves. God asked me to worship him as I am. No better and no worse, but just as I am.
In the situation I find myself. Am I a slave as Saint Paul says? Are you a free man? No difference. You're all called to worship God.
Saint Paul never said a word against slavery. All he said was, slaves love your masters and serve God. Serve God. And so it is with us. Let us let us be realistic.
Let us not be the person who's going to write the great book, who's going to write that that nice letter to my sister that I've been owing her for six months. If I would I'm going to wait though till I have a good, you know, a nice period of time to do it. Of course, the book doesn't get written. The letter never gets written. Of course not.
But we feel good when we make those resolutions. William James has pages on this. Now so that let us realize that god calls me in the first commandment to worship, to offer him my heart, my mind, my soul, all that I have, and you can't escape this. That is worship. Now when you bring in all these other things which we use conventionally and everybody uses them because we're human beings, and we ought to use them.
We are obliged to use them, but they are simply means to ends. And they can be used to the good end or they can be used to defeat the end, and we all know it. And so let us resolve not to put down impossible conditions, unrealistic conditions for our going to god on our knees. You can go to god on your knees any place, anywhere, anyhow. You don't have to have perfect conditions.
If you wait for that, you will never pray at all. And some of your best prayers, I wager, are those offered under the worst possible conditions. And so as we take this reading today from the book of Ezra, let us resolve ourselves that all god asks of me is everything. The name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. Amen.