A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Now, this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they had lived together, Mary was found with child through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, an upright man, unwilling to expose Mary to the law, decided to divorce her quietly and secretly. Such was his intention when suddenly the angel of the lord appeared in a dream and said to him, Joseph, son of David, have no fear about taking Mary as your wife.
It is by the holy spirit that she has conceived this child. She is to have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this happened to fulfill what the lord had said to his prophet, the virgin shall be with child and give birth to a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, a name which means god is with us. When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the lord had directed him and took Mary into his home as his wife. He had no relations with her at any time before she bore a son whom he named Jesus.
And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. First, just a tiny little point here that may be very familiar to you, but maybe it isn't. And that's this business about espousal and wife and so forth. In the Jewish culture of of our lord's time, when you call it an engagement, which preceded the actual marriage ceremony and the man and the woman living together as husband and wife.
Now, this was a very formal and very legal situation that that preceded the actual marriage. So that what we're what we're reading about here is a situation where Joseph and Mary were in this prenuptial state, and yet which was a very serious state, a very legal, very solemn, and very binding relationship. But it was not the relationship that would be climaxed with the wedding ceremony, then the man and the woman would live together. Now, to the law so that when Mary was found pregnant, she was in direct violation of the law. And it and for all practical purposes, it was equivalent to adultery.
And the law decreed death death by stoning for an adulterous wife. Now whether that was apparently at our Lord's time, this was not being take practiced, but at least there were severe penalties for it, whatever they were. And Joseph, notice, he makes a very a very important decision, a very solemn, a very conscious racking decision. Because we're told that the only description we have of Joseph is that he was a just man, just. And that means law abiding.
And for him to to cover up Mary's what looked to be a flagrant violation of the law was against the law. How you can you be called just if you're a violator of the law? And so that's the situation. And Joseph, whatever happens in this dream, something happened. It happened enough to absolutely convince him to persuade him to go ahead without understanding what the situation was completely, to take Mary as his lawful wife.
So that explains that. Now the point I want to really lay before you this morning is this matter of a phrase we had in the mass, which in some ways is unfortunate. Talks about our slavery to sin. Slavery to sin. I I'm it gets defensible, but it's unfortunate.
Because it suggests that we're in a state that we didn't put ourselves into, that we were born into it, that we're sinful by nature, which is a very good protestant view, thanks to Luther and Calvin, but was never a catholic view. Never. Now that if we if we are slaves to sin, we put ourselves there. You cannot be guilty of sin unless you're responsible for it. And consequently, if we are slay in a slavery of sin, then we have only one person to blame for it, little old me.
I wasn't sold in the slavery of sin. I wasn't born into the slavery of actual sin. I wasn't compelled by any kind of power or force or persuasion or circumstances or environment or parenthood or no parenthood or school or no school or good parents or no good parents. I wasn't forced into sin because if I'm forced into sin, I'm not responsible, and therefore, whatever be the sin, I'm not guilty. And therefore, I'm no slave.
Now, this is a very important concept. The point is we can easily become enslaved to sin, especially sins which have to do with what we call the passions. Well, believe me, most sins have to do with it. How often do any does anyone ever think of sins against God, direct sins? And one of them, of course, is breaking an oath.
When we had that pilot strike a few year I mean, controller air controller strike some time ago, here were men and women, I suppose, were some involved violating an oath. Did anybody talk about blasphemy? I bet there were Catholics among them. Did they go to confession and say, I'm guilty of blasphemy? Remember that the most heinous kind of a sin is not the sins of the passions.
Saint Thomas Aquinas said that. He said they're the most shameful, but they're not they're not the most heinous. Thomas Aquinas, my my great little thirteenth century friend, sometimes ago he died, a very happy death. So let's get our thinking straight in this matter. Sin is too important and a disastrous concept that we should be in error about it.
If we are enslaved to sin, we're there because of little old me. The devil didn't make me do it. I I'm not at all denying the devil's part. I'm saying that there is no power under heaven that can make me sin. Because if there is a power that can make me sin, it is not something attributable to me as the cause, and therefore, I'm not guilty.
It's that simple. But what the sins, so called sins that we that we are really have trouble with for the most part, are sins which have to do with our emotions, with our senses, with our appetites, with our with our yearnings for things, the wanting of things. And remember, every single thing which is a thing is a good thing. There's no such thing as an evil thing. No such thing.
All this talk about us having a tendency towards evil is a lot of malony. We have no inclination to evil. Our inclination is to the good. Now we make we may make some bum choices. Because in in actual fact, when we call when we are say we're attracted to evil, that isn't the true statement of the situation.
What it is, I'm attracted to two goods, and I can't have both of them, and I make an immoral sinful choice of the good things. They're still good, but they're not good for me. Now, this is a frightfully important concept because if there's anything that I'm impressed with, the older I get is the sense of guilt that people have. And I'm talking present tense. 12/18/1985 '4.
They feel responsible for other people, and they have a a very severe, depressing and when Christmas comes, it gets worse, sense of guilt. If where have I failed? What did I fail to do that I didn't do? What did I do that I shouldn't have done? Remember, you can't be guilty unless you're responsible.
You can't be responsible unless you are the cause, the agent. And if you've done what you could do with the light that you had, then that that's the best you could do. Maybe you did make some bum decisions, but they were yours. Sin is something I am the responsible cause of. And don't think it's because I'm attracted to sin is something which is horrible and repulsive.
Sin isn't repulsive. It's ridiculous to call sin repulsive. Of course, if you say that sin is is an inclination of evil, which is nonsense, of course, it's repulsive. But that's isn't isn't the way it is. I'm attracted to the good.
I'm attracted to this good, and I'm attracted to that good, and I can't have both. Here are two women, and I love both of them, but I can't have both without being guilty of adultery. It's that simple. I'm working for a bank and I'd like to take home a few samples. There's nothing wrong with money.
There's nothing wrong with the what money can buy. It's just that though that money belongs to somebody else. It doesn't happen to belong to me. I have no, as we say, right to it. I'm attracted to it.
I'm attracted to what it it will do for me. Is there anything wrong with that? Nothing. So where does the evil of sin come? In the in the repulsiveness of money, in the repulsiveness of what money can buy?
That's ridiculous. It's absurd. You only have to think a little bit to see how silly it is. I'm attracted to these things because they are good. God made them.
God made them. The sin comes when I make a immoral choice. I choose something that for some reason or other, it's wrong for me to choose under these circumstances. And therefore, that's the essence of the sin. I'm not doing what I ought to do.
It's a privation, you see. And so let's not get take any consolation of the fact that we, unfortunately, are slaves to sin. If I'm a slave to sin, it's because I'm putting myself there. Remember, these so called sins of the passions of the emotions of the appetites, remember, one leads to another. It's a it's a fact of life.
William James has this very well analyzed in his famous book on psychology, psychology. That's the name of it. You start in and the first time it's terrible. You feel bad about it, but then a couple more times you don't feel And the next thing you know, you're rationalized and say, well, this is what I ought to be doing. That's the way we work.
So if we're if we are slaves, and we can become slaves, but let's realize who put me there. I did. I put myself there. And so as we edge in to remember, the whole thing about sin is we have a savior. We have a savior.
And the this is the important consideration. Not simply a savior that releases me from the guilt of sin, but also from the the wounds of sin, The aftermath of sin, which can they can be very real and tragic and terribly depressing, enough to drive you to suicide as indeed it happens. So are we have a savior whose anniversary of whose birth we're edging into now? We have a savior that not only takes sin away from us, that not only restores us to grace, to his life, to his love, we have a savior that healed the wounds of sin, that restores us to hope and love and joy in him. We are resurrection Christians.
The name of the father, son, and holy spirit. Amen.