A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus said to the crowds, no one lights a lamp and puts the lamp under a bushel basket or under the bed. That's a curious idea. He he puts the lamp on a lampstand so that whoever comes in can see it. There is nothing hidden that will not be exposed, and nothing concealed that will not be known and brought to light.
Take heed, therefore, how you hear. To the man who has, more will be given, and he who has not will lose even the little that he thinks he has. 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. There is much mystery or at least questions and problems and confusion in my mind in much of this text. What do you make of it? The thought that strikes me as I read it over several times is this. I mean, this is just one idea.
This business of those who have will get more, and that those who have not, even what the little that they think they have, notice that, Even the little that they think they have is gonna be taken from them. This isn't the only place our lord says something to that effect. He has several parables along that line. What in the world does this mean? There's another sentence here which says, be careful how you hear.
Now let's take a jump way back to Saint Augustine. That is way back as far as we're concerned. He died in the fifth century, March to 04/30 Saint Augustine of Hippo. Now Saint Augustine of Hippo had a a pretty clearly defined idea that everybody is in some manner called to a knowledge of god. The very first sentence in his confessions, which as you know is a belongs to the world's literature, and You can't say that about many books.
In the very first sentence of his confessions, he says, thou hast made us for thyself, o god, and our hearts will not be at rest till they rest in you. That same thought as I see it, but somewhat changed. Lewis expresses in his definition of joy, which is the his autobiography, where he defines joy. These are his exact words, if I can get them out. That joy is an unfulfilled desire, an unsatisfied desire, which in itself is more desirable than any other satisfaction.
And whatever led Lewis from his well considered and cultivated atheism to become a believer in God and then a devout Christian, it was something along this line. There was some kind of an inherent I don't know what word to use, and I hesitate to use any word for it. But there's something, according to Augustine, same thing about Lewis, that stimulates us towards omnipotence, towards god. Now what do we do with that? What do we do with it?
Do we just say, if oh, yes. I want this, and I get it. I want a nice house. I want a new car. I want a new boat.
I want a better school for the kids. Oh, I want a better job. I want a bigger income. I want I want I want I want. And you get what you want.
And lo and behold, you have what you want and you're still not satisfied. This is absolutely commonplace experience. We all know how absolutely true this is. Absolutely true. What do we make of this pursuit?
Some people don't make anything of it, nothing at all. They just said, Well, I just need more money. I just need a bigger boat. I just need a bigger house. I just need a more expensive school, and on and on and on.
And it goes on and on and on until the grave closes over them. So and let me tell you, the little bit I studied of anthropology, the more I came to realize that these so called primitive peoples were not nearly as primitive as we think they are. You don't find atheism among primitive peoples. You have to go to the Russians for that. Just remember, in the whole history of the world, this is the only so called culture or civilization that we know of, and I'm quoting Toynbee, that that is ex professor atheistic.
Think of that. So it seems to me what our lord is telling us here is you better do the best you can with what you have. He doesn't ask the impossible of us. It was Voltaire who said, don't let the best be the enemy of the good. Don't let the best be the enemy of the good.
Don't let the promise to yourself of writing that nice long letter to cousin Mary deprive her of a letter because you know that letter is never going to be written. We all know that. So what is our lord telling us? I think it's simply this. You better get off your duff and do the best you can with what you have, and you all have enough.
You have enough. This is my point. We have enough. In the mass Saturday for Barbara Wright, I said that it was one of her ideas that she wasn't going around blaming god for catastrophes which were very clearly of our own making. Blame yourselves.
And this is so true. Because, you see, we don't do the best we can with what we have. No. Very few of us do. And we're so afraid of making mistakes.
And if we don't succeed, we get frustrated, and we say that heck with it all. It's so easy to do that. It's so easy to walk out on it. So easy to turn our backs on life. That's not the Christian way at all.
Christ said, come follow me. And so whatever this text means this morning, this is the one this is the thought that occurs to me. This business of even those the little they think they have, even they're going to lose that. And you and it is true. I have seen it.
Opportunities of pursuing truth, of of of enriching one's life with with a a better concept of god, a more devout way of life, people get the calling and turn their back on it. They don't want to listen. It's embarrassing. It's inconvenient. It's going to cause them trouble.
It's going to derange their lives as they think. Well, their lives are already deranged. And so let us take this to heart. God doesn't ask the impossible of us. What he certainly does ask is that we do the best we can with what we have, and he'll do the rest.
In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.