A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Jesus said to his disciples, as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the son of man. They ate and they drank. They took husbands and they took wives, right up to the very day that Noah went into the ark. And when the flood came, it destroyed them all.
It was much the same in the days of Lot. They ate and drank, they bought and they sold, they built and they planted. But on the day that Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be like that on the day the son of man is revealed. On that day, if a man is on the rooftop and his belongings are in the house, he should not go down to get them.
Neither should the man in the field return home. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever tries to spare his life will lose it. Whoever seems to forfeit it will keep his life. I tell you, on that night, there will be two men in one bed.
One will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together. One will be taken, one will be left. They asked Jesus, where, lord? And he answered, wherever the carcass is, there will the vultures gather.
And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Don't ask me what this text means. This has to do with the end of things.
There's a fancy Greek word for it, but that's all it means. The end of things. The end of this world. And all kinds of theories, and fears, and expectations, and even preparations have been created based on this text and some others. So I leave that to those who who wish to work and try to figure out what it all means.
There are certain things come out very clearly. You see, the ambiguous part is all this business about the end of the world. But there are certain things come out extremely clearly. And that is the relative worth of things. What are we all heading for?
Now I just finished reading this long, long document. It's just the just the first draft of the bishop's letter having to do with the economy of The United States. Now the one thing I miss in that document is any clear cut expression of what life's all about. You'd think that the beginning and the end of all living was simply to have a good economy in which there was no poor, and which there would probably be no rich, because everything would be distributed sort of equally. There's not any strong, vigorous presentation of what the goal of life is.
What is the goal of life? We all have to keep We can't just wait once in a while when we go to a funeral or something and ask ourselves, what in the world is life all about? Is it really a three ring circus or a 12 ring circus or a no ring circus? What is it all about? We find ourselves caught up in so many things that we call our duties and our obligations, or some say the heck with it all, and just leave it.
They they don't even care even about locking their door. They just walk away from it. And so they say sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Let us eat and drink and be happy. Okay.
But the day comes when you say, Well, is this is this all there is to it? And then you either wake up, or you you just simply put yourself more to sleep. And you see, I I'm talking to myself. Myself. I'm I'm not not just just talking talking to to you to you.
We have to keep in mind, what is life all about? And not in some great metaphysical, ontological, theoretical way, but what matters most to me in this day that I have to live today, with the people who I will meet today, who will rub me the wrong way and maybe the right way. Not the not the Eskimo up in the North or down in the Antarctica or over in Timbuktu. What will life mean in today's situation where I find myself? And there's where you work out your salvation.
Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not over there in that other pasture, where you are. As the voice spoke to Moses from the burning bush, the ground on which you stand is holy ground. What do you mean by holy ground? Ground isn't holy. Well, it's a meta it's a figure of speech.
But what we mean is that the ground on which you stand can make you holy. The ground on which is present tense. And the you see, the irony of it is, in many instances, it's the ground on which we wouldn't want to stand if we had a choice. In men not always, of course, but in many instances, and off and on. We would say, if only I could get out of this situation, if only this happened, if only that happened, if only that didn't happen, if only something was different from what it is, then I would be so much better off.
That is dreaming. That's that's the stuff on which nonsense is made. Nothing's ever been accomplished for that kind of thinking. Nothing at all. It's like a person who says, Yes, I'll write that letter when I have a chance.
Oh, I I know I can write that book, and all I need is leisure. I can't do that with all these jobs I have to do. Of course, the book's never written, and the letter never gets off, of course. Let's come back. Our Lord said he could try to sit right in today's reading.
If you try to save your life, you're going to lose it. What does he mean by that? It means very simply, you've got to have his perspective of life. And that is what gives you value to things in this life, if you have his perspective. And I mean his perspective.
Our blessed lords, and that isn't so mysterious. Not at all. This isn't the only time he said that that if you wanna save your life, you have to lose it for his sake. And if you lose it for his sake, you will gain it. He said that more than once.
Today is one occasion. This is crazy, isn't it? It's it's the the craziness of Jesus Christ who said my kingdom is not of this world. Is not of this world. And he said, you can't serve two masters.
You cannot serve the city of man man and a city of God together. You cannot do it. Our Lord said it. Now our our problem is daily to follow his word because it's a daily struggle, not to be captivated, not to be enslaved by the very things we have to use to attain our salvation. Salvation.
This is the this is the irony. This is the problem. We have to use god's creation for our salvation. And in the very use of these things, we can become their slaves. And we will almost inevitably at times become their slaves unless we fight against it, unless we keep our perspective clear what this life is all about.
I have heard so much criticism of the little old Baltimore Catechism, but that second the first question was, Who made you? That was the very first question. And the answer was, God made me. Just think of what that answer means. Think of the dignity that is inherent in the human being if God made me.
Then the second question was, why did he do that? And the answer was, to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, to be happy with him in the next. The greatest philosophers who have ever lived have never said it more simply. More simply, more adequately, more with divine truth. And that's the truth we want to live by.
In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.