A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus said to the crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the West, you say at once that rain is coming, and so it does. When the wind blows from the south, you say it is going to be hot, and so it proves. You hypocrites, if you can interpret the portents of earth and of sky? Why can you not interpret the present time?
Tell me, why do you not judge for yourselves what is just? When are you going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate? Try to settle with him on the way, lest he turn you over to the judge, and the judge deliver you up to the jailer, and the jailer throw you into prison. I warn you, you will not be released from there until you have paid the last penny. And this is the gospel of the lord.
Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Now here, once again, we have our blessed lord who is so often representative, is so benevolent and loving and kind and forgiving and gentle, you know, all of those things. We have him here in a very different role. Here he is presented in a way that is not often presented.
He's a he's severe. How often you hear people today say, oh, don't don't get so excited about the, certain questions of morality which happen to be, pertinent at the moment. After all, whatever you decide, God will understand. Well, why don't these people read the New Testament? They profess to be Christians.
And if there's anything comes out of the New Testament, just as well as out of the old. Remember, some people don't like the Old Testament because they say that God is presented as such a judge. Well, let them read the new testament a bit. And if there's anything among some of the clearest promises of our blessed lord is that if if you follow him and you do his word and you keep his word, you will be saved and you will have an eternity of happiness, some kind of reward. And he also says, if you don't, you'll be damned in no uncertain language.
And he uses the figure time and again, in instances where we think it was almost unjust. Take the instance of the the the man who comes to the wedding and doesn't have the proper garment on. Our Lord can be our Lord's judgment is harsh. Christ could be harsh. He could be severe.
He died on a cross. That was no feather bed. I think as Lewis says, that too many Christians expect Christianity to be a feather bed. Now, what our blessed lord is saying here is extremely important. Notice he's talking here about ideas.
Notice, this is what you might call a philosophical discussion. And our blessed lord is saying, because you are hypocrites, you're going to pay the penalty, in in absolute clear language. Now one of the commonest, and you hear it right among our good Catholic people, and I mean they're good. They they're in practice. People who wouldn't miss mass on Sunday for the world, they'll tell you, after all, God will understand.
Things aren't black or white. They're gray. After all, God told us to call him our father. And after all, if he if he wants to be called our father, he's not going to be a severe judge. Where do they get that?
That's coming from them. They certainly don't get that from the New Testament. You see, when you take this attitude, well, after all, everything's great. Who knows what is truth? They go pilot, and he didn't wait for an answer.
What is truth? What is goodness? Well, you know, in our poor way, how are we to know that? Who are we to judge? I'm not talking about judging persons now.
I'm talking about judging conduct. Now, is a very important distinction that people don't keep. You give a talk on abortion, and people immediately turn your words to the woman or the doctor who performed the abortion, or who had it. When you're talking about an action, people find this difficult to make this distinction. But our blessed Lord is very clear about this, that there is a responsibility of pursuing the truth, Of not closing your mind.
It's so easy to take that hammock view. After all, God will understand it. What is truth? Who knows? Who knows?
What is true today, you know, will be false tomorrow. Just look at the Washington Post. You know, I I'm not exaggerating this at all. And I'm not talking about skeptics. I can deal with an honest to God skeptic, just like I can deal with an honest to God atheist.
But how do you deal with an agnostic? I don't know. They are the ones that our blessed Lord said, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth because you blew neither hot nor cold. See, our blessed Lord had some pretty severe expressions and condemnations. Our Lord condemned.
You'll say, how does this how does this what you're saying now, how does that agree with the picture of the benevolent Christ who went after the lost sheep? Without a bit of difficulty, with with no problem at all. Because if you say God is good, you've got to say God is just, and God is true, and God is good. Absolutely good and true. And he can no more been be benevolent than he can be unjust.
And remember, there is such a thing as justice in the world, in the universe. You don't hear much about this at all as regard, let us say, our criminality. That there has to be a balance between an act of injustice and the virtue of justice. Our blessed lord accuses the crowd here. He's notice the crowd.
He's not talking just to the pharisees. He's talking to us. You hypocrites. Now you you'll say, I'm no hypocrite. Well, we don't wanna be hypocrites.
Hypocrites. But don't we don't we act that way sometimes? Are we honest to God Christians? Oh, really. Really, men and women.
Are we in Christians in the sense that Karl Marx was a Marxist? Or in the sense of Snyder who wants to get a couple million dollars for a house downtown for the homeless. Are we Christians in that sense? And that's what our blessed Lord expects us to be. He expects us to be militant Christians.
The word militant comes from the word milas, which means soldier. It means you're on the battle. It means you're out there fighting. It means you're getting wounded. It means you are on an aggressive side of Jesus Christ.
You'll say this sounds bellicose. You bet it sounds bellicose. Our blessed lords, notice these words at the end. He says, I warn you, you will not be you will you will not be released from there, that is from condemnation, until you have paid the last penny. And and what's the topic here?
Hypocrisy. And by hypocrisy, mean that that that our our actions do not or our actions do belie our words. And so we have to face up to this. To be a Christian is no small thing. As I've said many times, but you know, if if you think about it, it it does really scare you.
Because what all the Christ asks is everything. Think about that. Everything. Everything. That all our thoughts, actions of the day have his seal, have his name on it, the sign of the fish.
In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.