A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, I assure you, only with difficulty will a rich man enter into the kingdom of god. I repeat what I have said. It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god. Well, when the disciples heard this, they were completely overwhelmed and cried out, then who can be saved?
Jesus looked at them and said, for man, it is impossible. But for god, all things are possible. Then it was Peter's turn to say to Jesus, look here. We have put everything aside to follow you. What can we expect from it?
Jesus replied, I give you my solemn word. In the new age, when the son of man takes his seat upon a throne befitting his glory, You who have followed me shall likewise take your places on 12 thrones to judge the 12 tribes of Israel. Moreover, everyone who has given up brothers or sisters, father, or mother, wife or children, or property for my sake, will receive many times as much and inherit everlasting life. Many who are first shall come last, and the last shall come first. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. If you are confused with this with this statement of our blessed lord, there's several statements here. You can count me right on your side. I'm confused too. Parts of it are far from clear, and commentators have done their best to try to clarify, but it still remains a little bit confused.
However, good and sincere and honest God hearing people who have read this down the centuries have come up with very different, interpretations. And at several periods of our of the Christian history, they have taken rather radical stands, so radical that they wound up in great error and had to be condemned officially and formally. Because, you see, it's so easy. Supposing you supposing you are an absolute, a totally committed person to Jesus Christ, and you read this. Now remember, we're reading a translation.
Not many people go back and read the original Greek. So you're reading what some interpreter thinks the Greek says. And all you have to do is to pick pick pick up two or three translations today, and you will see how they differ. But in in most instances, they don't differ in substance. For example, you're not going to get out of this by just saying this is a translator's interpretation or his opinion.
No. It's not that easy at all. The difficulties are just are are almost as bad in the Greek. So but this is what we have to remember. Now here's a person who's who's actually toe totally committed to Christ, and they say, give up mother and father, give up wife, give up family.
So here's a father or a mother with a family and with children, puts on their hat and walks out of the door into some desert place. What and you say, what are you doing? He said, well, I'm following what Christ told me to do. And you say, this is absolutely far fetched. Oh, no.
It isn't. The whole Nile Valley was filled with people like this in the fifth century, the time of Jerome and Saint Augustine. Because some of this text plus a few more, the text about giving, if you wanna be perfect, come follow me, was taken absolutely literally, and people did exactly that. They they went from Rome. They went from Italy.
They went from Greece. They went from Israel. They went from Northern Africa. They and and settled down as hermits in the thousands in the Nile Valley. And, this has gone on every century practically has seen something like this.
Now what do we make of this? The first thing we have to do I know you're going to get nauseated with my repetition of something, but there are certain things you cannot repeat too often. One of the things, and especially in this age of what we call the media, is to get context, get the totality of a text. Not to lift a sentence out of a paragraph, or a paragraph out of a page, or a page out of a book. What does the book say?
What is the thrust of this author? Is my interpretation in harmony with what he wrote last year? Is this in harmony with what he said at a lecture the other night? Is this in harmony with what he was that the New York Times quoted him as saying three months ago? Or has he changed, or was he misinterpreted?
These are the real problems. But a mature, sensible person doesn't jump, unless he's a pedagogue or a demagogue. That's what and that's their stock in trade, to to to lift one sentence and to inflate it to a balloon size, to the zeppelin. So when you talk about when Christ said this or this is the will of Christ or this is the teaching of Christ, you just can't take one sentence out of the New Testament. You can't take one paragraph out of Saint Matthew.
Where is the truth of Jesus Christ? Where? You're not going to find it in a book alone. Just keep this your repeat, you are not going to find it in a book alone, even if it's the word of God that we call the bible. And the first reason is you're not reading the word of God when you read a translation.
You'll say that's that's contrary to what I'm hearing. You get it. They say, take the gospels and read the gospels with the word of God. It is not. It's a translation with mister Hartman father Hartman or or father Murphy or or some of these biblical scholars have to they they read the Greek, and they say, this is what the Greek means to me.
So then they write it in the English that they think is proper. So you're you're not reading the word of god. That wasn't revealed. That's point number one. Point number two, a book doesn't speak for itself.
The bible says there is no god. Certainly, it does. The very next sentence is says the fool in his heart. So when you talk about the the truth of Jesus Christ, you're not talking about something that from a certain point of view is simple, but from another point of view it's very simple. This is this is the contradiction, the paradox of being a Christian.
In many ways, it's extremely simple. Just follow Christ. It's extremely complex because you say, how do I do it? Where do I find Christ? Where do I get his message?
By sitting down, putting a book in front of me, and ruminating? Now mark my words carefully. That is possible. That is possible. There's nothing impossible about god speaking to the individual person having a private revelation.
That's not impossible at all. And I'm the first one to say it is possible. Is it probable? Is it normal? Is it the ordinary way that that god has dealt with his people?
And I answer emphatically, no. No. And when anybody comes to me and says that they've had a private revelation, I I have this and this has happened right here. I say, maybe it is and maybe it isn't. I don't know.
But I don't treat it as a fact until I know it's a fact. So we come back then to this of course, our blessed lord spoke to the young man, said, go sell your everything you have and come follow me. But Christ said first, if you want to be perfect you see how people forget those little words? Luther in his translation, man is saved by faith, but all he did was put in one little word, alone. He knew he he knew that wasn't in the Greek, but he said this is what the Greek demands.
That's his interpretation. It's not in the Greek at all. It's not in the word of God. So when you come to this matter of dealing please take me seriously on this. It may sound like a terrible cliche, but people are so mixed up about this.
And in a certain sense, they are not to blame at all. How do you deal with it? Is it something wrong in having money? Is it something wrong about being wealthy? Is it something wrong about pursuing the good life?
Is there something wrong in wanting good things for your children, security in your old age and all of this? Are these things wrong? They are not only perfectly good, but in many instances they are obligatory, obligatory. You can't be a good Christian without them. And yet, in my own little experience, I have seen people who are supposed to be good Christians neglecting their families, neglecting their jobs, neglecting their responsibilities for what they call following Christ.
How can they do this? Well, they can give me text. Of course, they can. I can give text too. Anybody can do this with a little bit of ingenuity and a couple of concordances in your library.
What does Jesus want of us? You have got to come to terms with these things, and above all, not to be lost in them, because this is the bottom line. Not to let them be your masters. You have to pursue them. You have to work for them.
You have to plan. You have to want them even in order to fulfill your station in life. And yet, the very fact that you have to do that is an invitation for them to become your masters. Where one begins and the other, ends is awfully hard sometimes to see. A person may be so enraptured with trying to give to their children or provide for themselves in a decent, sensible way, that they forget why they're doing it.
And what is the ultimate? What is the ultimate? So you've got to come to grips with this because your life is going to be confused until you get straightened out on these matters. I mean, a good, clear way that you can say, yes. This is what the Lord wants of me.
This is what what I need to do to follow Jesus. Because if you call yourself a Christian, you can do no more, you can do no less than trying to follow In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.