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 is trying to kill you.
Notice these were pharisees who were trying to do a good turn to Jesus. Our lord 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, you 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.
Praise to you, lord, your spirit. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. This excerpt from Saint Luke reveals an emotional that almost matches that very human scene at the tomb of Lazarus where our lord wept. And of course, we know he wept also over the city of Jerusalem.
That's not stated today. That's in another place. Our lord was attached to this city. It was the it where it was where the temple was. Notice what he says there about the temple.
And he's talking to pharisees. And at this time, you know, Herod restore had restored the temple, and it was probably at the peak of its glory as a physical edifice. It must have been perfectly magnificent. And so our blessed Lord is predicting his forecasting what's going to happen to him. That is not what I want to say this morning.
I want to go back to that epistle of Saint Paul. And just listen, if God is for us, who can be against us? That recalls an incident from the Civil War days when Abraham Lincoln, when things were going very badly for the North, he was walking one evening after dinner around the White House with a friend. And they were discussing the situation which was deteriorating. And the friend said to Lincoln that he prayed to God that God was with him.
And Lincoln turned to him and said, rather let us pray that we're with God. See, there's a big difference, isn't there? Now, this all adds up. Believe me, this sounds terribly mixed up, but those three words we sang, hallelujah. You know what it mean?
It means praise God. We say it three times. Put your heart into it. It means pray there is no pure prayer that you can offer God than to say, hallelujah. Praise God.
Because that's the object of worship. As I said yesterday, I've said many times, it's hard to keep your worship focused on God Almighty. And when it's not focused on God Almighty, no matter how rich it may be in everything that we can contribute as human beings, it's idolatry. Idolatry. Remember, you go into the pagan world, they were not slow, they were not mean, they were not poverty stricken in what they offered the gods and their goddesses.
Just two weeks ago when I was down in the Roman Forum, visited several times, and the guide every time, the guide when he was pointing out all these relics, the the broken monuments, the broken pillars, the broken buildings, all of them dedicated to this god or to that goddess. He of course I had my Roman collar on, and he would he would speak to the people and say, look, look how much more religious the old Romans were to their pagan gods than we are. That must be part of their spiel, I don't know. Because you can't avoid it. That God is the object of religion and nothing else.
Anything else that comes in, it's only it has a a reason for being in our worship if it help us helps us to worship God better, more, or more faithfully, or as more as a human being. Now, this is no argument in behalf of men and women being angelic and going to God with as disembodied spirits. Not at all. We go to God as human beings. But how do we go to God?
Or do we or do we say, I am I'll serve my neighbor and that is serving God. That is extremely true if you keep God in the picture. Now last night, I I was just spinning the dial on the TV and I got just a fragment. But there was some very outstanding move actress from a Scandinavian country, that's all I can say. But apparently she's a she's a real internationally known and a very highly esteemed actress.
And she was saying something like this, that life had to be had to have more meaning than simply discussing with her director how she should walk to open a door in some scene. She's actually then she explained how she's become involved in rescuing children in some of these very difficult countries where where children are in such desperate need of help. And then they put on a clip or something of her giving an address to in an auditorium in a university in California. I only got this thing piecemeal. But she was up on the stage and these were all speech and drama majors.
The place was filled. And she was giving them a strong pitch along this line. Now there, she's speaking to young men and young women, university people who are aiming at a career in drama, one sort. And to say and here's she was explaining or trying to impress upon the men very vigorously that life is much more than merely being a success on the stage and having a fat bank account. Do you know what the reaction was of that auditorium?
A wild burst of applause. This isn't what I expected at all. But that's a fact. That's what was on. If it's on TV, know if it's absolutely true.
We all know that. It's like seeing something in the Washington Post. But you see, now we talk about God speaking to me, and I am listening. What are we expecting of God? That I'm going to hear a voice, well believe me when I start hearing voices, I will cross all my fingers and toes or try to.
But does God speak to me? Of course he does. Have I an obligation to listen? Of course I have. Of course I have.
We open this with saying if God is with me, who can be against me? But I've got to be with God. That's the question. Francis Thompson wrote his Hound of Heaven. There's no question of God being with me.
It's a question of whether I find myself with God. How do I do it? If I cannot reduce this to some kind of a practical operational answer, it's useless. Here's this good lady, a very competent and a very apparently an extremely highly esteemed actress. And she's hearing a she's hearing a voice.
That is not enough to have be a success as an actor or an actress. It's not a it's it's not enough to have a fat bank account. There has to be something else to life. Now, so she says, I am trying to do something for these children who need help so badly. Something like Mother Teresa.
But you see there here is where we come to the heart of the question. Is there another step? Is the answer to this question of what am I here for, what is life, what is the meaning of living, is it merely to give myself to children who need help. Because you see, that two people can do the very same action, and yet it can be tremendously different. One can be mere kindness, generosity, something flowing from the human heart, and that's good.
I'm not at all downgrading that, but that can have absolutely nothing to do with God. Absolutely nothing. You can be an atheist of the first highest level, and be generous and loving to needy children. Do you take the next step? God.
See, he speaks. Because if you start giving your life to needy children, you're going to wind up with the same question that she wound up with, is life nothing but discussing how I walk to a door with my director? You're going to come to the same question. You're going to come to the same issue. Is that all life is?
Or is there something more? And what's the something more? See, now I'm speaking from my own experience in life. It's difficult to keep God in your life. It is.
God isn't something I can go out and get a hold of, and see, and touch, and feel. And yet everything in this life I can see, and touch, and feel, and love, and use, and want, and get sometimes, and not get it other times. But God's he's distant. You bet he's distant. He's transcendent.
That's how distant he is. The word distance has no meaning with God. Transcendence does. And so I come back to the beginning of this reading this morning from Saint Paul. If God is with me, who can be against me?
But the point is, there's no doubt about God being with me. The question is, am I with God? In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.