A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Certain Pharisees came up to Jesus. Go on your way, they said. Leave this place. Herod's trying to kill you.
Jesus replied, go tell that fox. Today and tomorrow, I cast out devils and perform cures. And on the third day, my purpose is accomplished. For all that, I must proceed on course today, tomorrow, and the day after since no prophet can be allowed to die anywhere except in Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, you slay the prophets and stone those who are sent to you. How often have I wanted to gather your children together as a mother bird collects her young under her wings and you refused me? Your temple will be abandoned. I say to you, you shall not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord. And this is the gospel of the lord.
The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Here is another text. There aren't many of them but here is another instance of our lord's dealing with the pharisees which gives us, an unusual view of the Pharisees. Now, the word Pharisee has become in English like the word Jesuit, you know.
The word Pharisee in English has a very pejoric meaning. But you see it our our conception of the Pharisee as an inveterate deadly hating enemy of Christ. That is not a very adequate concept of the Pharisee at all. Saint Paul was a Pharisee remember. And, there are several other and not many, but there are at least two other instances of pharisees who were very friendly with Jesus Christ.
Now here today in this reading from Saint Luke, we have an illustration, an instance of where the pharisees come to Jesus to try to save him from Herod. At the same time, we're so often, you know, we are we read where they tried to trip him up in his speech, where they tried to get a hold of him, where they even tried to to murder him. And yet today, here's here's some of them coming along and and warning Jesus to get out, to leave this country, that Herod is seeking his life. Now that's not the action of an enemy. And then, of course, follows these very poignant lines, these touching lines of our blessed lord over Jerusalem.
Now notice his his prophecy there about Jerusalem and the temple. And remember, in about '64, I think it is, Titus came and there were and destroyed the whole city including the temple. And there has been no temple, no sacrifice, no priesthood from that day to this. Now you may have read very recently of a huge celebration in Jerusalem for the feast of candles. Was it international thousands and thousands of people came?
You see, but there's nothing there of worship of sacrifice of the worship of God in his holy place, the temple. It's not there. Didn't happen. And there's no mention of this. This is what I I find awfully difficult.
But anyway, this is the way it is. Since our lord's passing, just about the 30 after his crucifixion, Jerusalem's destroyed, the temple's destroyed, it's the end of a practicing priesthood. It's the end of a sacrifice. It's the end of of the formal worship of the Jews, roughly thirty five years after Christ's death. Now, today I think we can take just a tiny little lesson out of this.
We are so prone to putting people in categories. Of course, anything that tends to simplification has an attraction. When we can say something is nothing but something, well of course it makes everything so much easier. It clears the path. It clear takes out all obstructions.
It removes all objections. It becomes we're focused on one little tiny bull's eye. And when you're only trying to hit one bull's eye, it's much easier to hit I mean your chances of hitting it are certainly better than if you're trying to hit two or three. And yet in many instances, the Catholic Christian is trying to hit two or three. As I pointed out, we have this matter of of faith and good works.
You can't a Catholic Christian cannot say an either or. He has to say both and. Yesterday, this matter of worship, personal worship versus social worship, it's so easy to say I'll do nothing but that or I'll do nothing but that. But the Catholic says, I'm going to do both. I'm obligated to do both.
I'm trying to hit two bull's eyes. Well, anyone who shot a gun or an arrow knows that's a quite a stunt. And yet in some ways, some ways, we're asked to do that. Now, when we come to this business of the Pharisees, see this is one of the criticisms of modern Jewish scholars that the pejoric concept of the Pharisee unfair to the Pharisees, and I agree with it completely. Because there were some Pharisees who were devils and there were some Pharisees far as we can say, see, we're nearly saints.
If not saints, so how can you put them all into the same pot? Well, we shouldn't do that, should we? Even if they're not here to answer for themselves. That doesn't free us from the obligation of being fair and just and right and truthful. And so here today, I noticed it it isn't just one pharisee that came to Christ.
Luke says certain pharisee. Notice he doesn't say a bunch of them. He says some. That's that that's that word certain I'm sure of. So it was probably just a few, but notice it's not just one.
They came to Jesus and said, get out of here. Your life's in danger. Herod's after you. Now speaking then on this very same subject of this matter of tensions, you see, there's been so much of this business called ecumenism in the air these days for the last fifteen or twenty years that we have lost sight of a few things. I've just finished reading a what I think is a masterful analysis of this idea of ecumenism by Christopher Derrick in his little book called Pive Staple Lewis and the Roman Catholic Church.
He faces this question, why did not Lewis become a Catholic? Well, has a whole chapter in there on ecumenism and it's the best analyses I've seen of it. You see we toss this word around. Here again, we use words, we put them into categories. So we talk about ecumenism as if it was something as real as this microphone that I can get a hold of and point to and say, there is ecumenism.
Ask yourself, what do you mean by it? Well, one of the things that it has meant is that we have eliminated the words heresy and heretic because they're supposed to be divisive. And we mustn't be divisive. We must tend towards unification. And I guess that's one way of looking at ecumenism, you to unify.
Well, now isn't that just that? That's just dandy, isn't it? Where do you find that in Jesus Christ's life? What does he reply to Herod when he when his so well, when the Pharisees come and said, look, get out of here. Your life's in danger.
Herod is trying to kill you. What does Jesus say? You go tell that fox. That's being divisive, isn't it? And then please remember anyone who talks about Jesus Christ and his peace, just remember what he said himself about the peace he wanted to bring into this world.
When he said explicitly, I have come not to bring peace but the sword to set son against father, father against son, daughter against mother, mother against daughter, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law. Christ said it and notice how he keeps hammering that home. Why didn't he leave it going? He says, I've come not to so peace but the sword. Why didn't he stop there?
He didn't. He hammered it home in concrete dramatic poetic picturesque language that his doctrine would enter into the very the most sacred, the most holy, the most valuable, the richest center of a of human life into the core and heart of the family. And he would be a principle of division and of hate in that family. That's what Jesus said. That doesn't sound like a humanism, does it?
Now remember, there's a good meaning to a humanism. But but you see, we we take this word like we take the word Pharisee or a lot of these things and we and we toss them around and we make them into almost absolutes as if it should be be the overriding principle of our religious life. On what basis do we do this? You ought to be able to we have to answer that question I'm a serious reasonable person. But of course, what Newman said, it's almost a definition of man to say that is an irrational animal.
So see that's where it puts us. So it's all a very amusing situation in a way. We're a bunch of clowns. When I can stand up and with the ancient Latin poet and say, see the good and approve it and do the opposite. What do you make of that kind of nonsense?
And yet it's true. It's absolutely true. Saint Paul comes along and said, the good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. Aren't we clowns? Are we crazy, or what are we?
And yet there is where we are. So let's not appeal too much to our reason. It's much safer to appeal to Jesus Christ and to listen to his voice. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.