A reading of the holy gospel according to Luke. This is going to sound familiar to you. It was red Sunday. While the disciples were listening, Jesus went on to tell them a parable because he was near Jerusalem where they thought, notice, where they thought that the reign of god was about to appear. Jesus said, a man of noble birth went to a faraway country to become its king and then to return.
He summoned 10 of his servants and gave them each one sums of 10 units each, saying to them, invest this until I get back. But his fellow citizens despised him, and they immediately sent a deputation after him with instructions to say, we will not have this man rule over us. So he returned, crowned as king. And then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money to learn what profit each one of them had made. The first presented himself saying, Lord, the sum you gave me has earned you another 10.
His lord replied, good man, you showed yourself capable in a small matter. For that, you can now take over 10 villages. The second came and said, Lord, your investment has netted you 5. The Lord's word to him was, take over five villages. Well, then the third one came in and said, here is your money, my lord, which I hid for safekeeping.
You see, I was afraid of you because I know you're a hard man. You withdraw what you never even deposited. You reap what you never sowed. To this man, the king said, you worthless lout. I intend to judge you on your own evidence.
You knew I was a hard man. You say I withdraw what I never even deposited. You say that I reap what I never sowed. Now, why then did you not put my money out on loan so that on my return I could at least get back with interest. He said to those, that is the lord and master said to those standing around, take from that man what he has and give it to the man with the 10.
Yes, they said, but he already has 10. The Lord responded, the moral is whoever has will be given more, but the one who has not will lose even the little that he has. Now about those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king, bring them in and slay them in my presence. This is a parable that our lord told his disciples. Having thus spoken, Jesus went ahead with his journey to Jerusalem.
And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Yesterday, we had the stirring story of Eliazar and how this man advanced in years refused to eat the pork. And even more than that, he wouldn't even go through a gesture which would have saved his life, and would have saved him also from violating the prohibition of all Jews, applying applied to all Jews not to eat pork.
But he refused even to go through that. Because as you will recall, he said this would give scandal to the young men. And so Eliazar laid down his life for what he said was the law of God. Now today, we have the feminine counterpart, which is an even more a more dramatic story. Here we have a mother of seven sons.
We don't know her name. And again, the king brings them in and puts them to the test. Eat this pork. And six of the sons refused to eat the pork and suffer torture and death before their mother. And now this the story picks it up with the last and the youngest son.
And how the king tries to win the boy over promising everything that a young kid could want. Today, they would have offered him a computer. Anyway, the boy says Nick's and he goes over to his mother and then the mother speaks to him in her in their own language, which the king didn't understand and encourages the boy. And that speech which the mother gave, I hope you listen to. It's absolutely marvelous.
Now, the thought that struck me when I had these two stories, you know this is the way it would work today. We would get our internationally known theologians working on this. Now the first thing they would say is this, there is no law of God against your eating pork. Remember that's not one of the 10 commandments. You don't find anything in the 10 commandments about not eating pork.
Well, where did they get this idea that they weren't supposed to eat pork? It came from Moses, of course. It's in the book of Leviticus. Now now the next thing that these learned men would say, now look, God made everything. God made the whole world.
Pork's just as good as beef, beef is just as good as lamb, and lamb is just as good as pork. Now you eat lamb and you eat beef, what's wrong with eating pork? That's the way they would argue. Or they would maybe become a little more sophisticated and say and go back to the yesterday's reading when they would say, well now, you know the law says that you're not supposed to eat pork. That you notice, don't eat it.
Well now, if you can go through the action of appearing to eat pork, but you're not eating pork, then you won't be guilty of eating pork. Therefore, put on the show. Now this is what happened in Augustine's times with the donatists in Northern Africa and the burning of the Bible as I told you. And this is what caused a great deal of difficulty with with Augustine with the donatists, But we can't go into that. But the point I'm making you see, here we have these two stirring stories offered in all seriousness where people are laying down their lives for what they take to be God's law.
And not only doing it but doing it gladly. Not only doing it but not accepting an easy way out which you could almost justify. And then I guess that in a sense you could justify. Remember this problem came up with Saint Paul with the Gentiles and the Jewish communities. Where when the problem was is it right for us to eat meat which has been offered to the idols?
And you'll remember how Saint Paul answered the question. Now, so the great point that we have here is the overwhelming sense of conviction that these martyrs had for the law of God. That they considered it an honor to lay down their life for what today we say well it's just foolishness. There are plenty of Jews who don't who eat meat, who eat pork today. There's one Jewish firm which which is a very big in the pork business.
Just to put it mildly to well, there's news emphasizing it. But you see, they weren't laying down their lives because pork is something evil. Notice that is not said here. That is not mentioned that there was something bad about pork. They laid their lives down for the law of God.
That's what the book says. That's what the story is about. That Eliazar, the law of God prohibits me from eating pork. Therefore, I don't eat it and I don't even make the gift go I don't even give the appearance of eating it because that would be scandalous for an old man like me to go through the motions and deceive my younger man brethren. And here today we have this mother who encourages seven sons.
Notice that seven sons has significance. And when it comes to the last one and it's usually the last son, the last child is often the darling of the parents eye. She's the one who encourages to go ahead and die. And then the speech she gives to justify her action that it was God who gave this boy to her and he wants him to go back to God. Now, today you see it's such a different world.
Today the law is something you evade. Today the law is something that you can can evade if you have the money to get a smart lawyer. We don't talk about justice, we talk about legality. And when it comes to the 10 commandments or the commandments of the church, what reaction do you get? You get absolutely nothing and you can get derision.
You see, for example, to be very practical, you have young people talking or even older people about shacking up together. Notice the terminology or sleeping together. Notice the terminology. And you say look, they'll say what's wrong with it? You say, well, the only thing wrong with it is one is adultery and the other is fornication.
In one instance, had the person say, what's fornication? Seriously. Brought up in a Catholic school. And you say, well, God's the 10 commandments says you shall not commit adultery. Does that impress them?
Not in the slightest. I mean this, I'm not generalizing, I'm telling in some instances they're not impressed at all. They'll say, oh, the 10 commandments, you know. Remember that was given to a primitive people. That was given to God to the Jews when they were wandering around in the desert.
They were nomads. We are cultivated. We understand human love better. We understand fulfillment now. The poor old primitive Israelites, they didn't understand anything like that.
See, we know so much more today. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. We are far advanced. We are so far advanced that we have to look up to good decent God fearing pagans.
Look up at them. We're beneath them in many instances. And so these two stories today, the one about Eliezazar and this one today about the mother of the seven sons, they're tremendous, they're dramatic, they're spectacular. But that's not the reason we we have them here being read from the pulpit. We could read Shakespeare or read the Greek tragedies of Euripides.
This is to tell us something. Is to tell us that there's something absolute in this world, that there is a law of God. And the highest calling I can have is to first of all to try to know what the law is, and secondly to try my best to obey it. Not that I'll fulfill it, not that I'll be perfectly obedient to it, but I can try. And in the last analysis, that's all that our blessed Lord asked us to try.
In the name of the father and the son, holy spirit. Amen.