A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Our lord said to the chief priests and elders of the people, notice that. These this with the elite. These these people were the elite, the cream of the cream, the top level. And listen to what he tells him.
Pretty rough stuff. Our lord said to them, what do you think of this case? There was a man who had two sons. He approached the elder son and said to him, son, go out and work in the vineyard today. The son replied, I'm on my way, but he didn't go.
Then the father turned to his second son and said to him, the same thing. Go out into my vineyard and work today. The son said in reply, no, sir. I won't go. But afterwards, the boy regretted what he had said and went into his father's vineyard.
Then our lord asks, which of the two boys did what their father wanted them to do? The chief priests and the elders answered. The second one. Jesus said to them, now here comes the punch line. Let me make it perfectly clear that tax collectors now remember, they were at the practically the bottom of the barrel when it comes to honest to God sinners.
Because the tax collectors were looked upon not only as irreligious people, as blasphemers, but they were practically guilty of treason in betraying their nation and going over to the Romans to be the henchmen of the Roman Empire, to put the screws on the on God's chosen people. So when our Lord says, let me make it clear that tax collectors he's talking the worst possible kind of sinners. So he says, let it make me make it clear that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came preaching a way of holiness, you put no faith in him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes, they believed in him.
Yet even when you saw that, you did not repent and believe in John. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father, of the son, of the holy spirit. Amen. You you can't you you see, these these aspects of the New Testament, of our lord's own words, are are so soft pedaled today that they're ignored.
And yet you can't read the New Testament and read what our blessed Lord himself said without any ambiguity, that sin happens, that human beings are sinners, and the penalty of sin is hell. You can't escape it. I don't know how many times our lord used the expression they were cast out into into everlasting fire. Now I don't know whether hell is going to be fire or not, but the point is that there's no doubt how our lord emphasized the actuality of sin in our lives. Now here today, remember, here this is a public meeting, and here you have the best men of of this of the society of of the Jewish society of its day.
These were the men who could hold their lives up and say, look, I am good. One of them came into the synagogue and told God how good he was, and he was good. I mean, as far as physical as as far as the phenomenon phenomena of the situation are concerned, he was. He was. This this is the frightening part about it.
So here you have the leaders of the people, the chief priests, the elders, and our lord said, look. The worst kind of sinners are going to be saved, and you are not. You know, this is pretty severe. Pretty severe stuff. Can you understand easily why they hated Jesus?
Of course, they hated him. So would you if you would have been one of them. He scarcely ever had a good word to say for him. Now there remember, I tried there were individual pharisees who were excellent men whom our lord took to himself, and they took him to themselves. Saint Paul was a pharisee.
Keep this back of your head, not to overdo this generalization business. But the fact is that the leaders of the people, the good men, the men who were firm in their allegiance to the law, the men who were firm in their hatred of Rome, the men who were firm in their traditions, the men who were meticulous, meticulous in observing the thousands of requirements of the law, they are the ones, Jesus said, will be lost. Lost. Now, we're living in a world like if we think we're living in a Christian world, you know, it's so blind. We are not living in a Christian world, and you can prove it any way you want to look as soon as you step out of this church.
And remember, you can be in this church and and and be very little of a Christian. Coming into a building doesn't make you a Christian. Baptism makes you a Christian in the sense it makes you ontologically a member of Christ's mystical body. But it but the baptism itself doesn't make it operational. It doesn't guarantee your salvation at all.
We do not like, and we have all the support of the world around us to admit we can sin. That is not enough to holler out, Lord, Lord, because Christ himself said, when we cry out, Lord, Lord, he can easily turn to us and say, I don't know you. And then we say, well, Lord, we we ate with you. We walked with you on the streets. You've got to know us.
The Lord says, I don't know you. You know, this is this is awesome if you take it seriously. Very much so. In a in a real sense, we're walking a tightrope, and let's face it, we are. Salvation is possible.
Possible. It's not a certain certainty at all. Damnation is possible. It's not a certainty at all. We we, in the last analysis, control it.
Not exclusively, not entirely, but we have a decisive element, we are a decisive factor in this. And this is enough to make anyone sit up and take notice, or just forget the whole business, I mean the whole business, and live the white life of a good worlding because you there's no in between. I mean, we we try to. We try to compromise. We try to negotiate.
We try to have one foot in God's kingdom and one foot in the world's kingdom. And if you've ever tried to straddle a fence, you'll know it's very uncomfortable, it's impossible, and it can be tragic. And so let us realize and not Christ came to save us because we're sinners. Why should we hesitate to admit it? It isn't that we ought to glory in being sinners, but we should glory in the fact that we have a savior.
There's there's the point. And that sin is a personal thing. It's not a collective thing. There's no such thing as a collective sin. Society can't sin.
There's no such thing as society or community or collectivity or congregation. The only thing that exists are the individual things we call human beings, god's rational creatures, individual. And each one has to say, I will serve, or each one individually has to say, I will not serve and be damned to hell because that's what Lucifer did. You'll say this is pretty solemn stuff. My friends, it is.
It's so solemn that your eternity hangs in the balance. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen.