In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Well, here you have a good instance of the great improvement we have in translation of what we call the new text. This is the latest translation. Notice they didn't dare touch the Lord's prayer as we know it.
But as I say, everybody can see what a great improvement this translation is. We do not have a PA system this morning, of course, we don't need it anyway. There's nothing like a little bit of dying and death to bring us to our feet. And the word this morning about sister Lillian Theresa's dying, she may be dead now, brings us to our feet. The thought of death is a very sobering thought.
If you're sober to get the thought, it's almost enough to drive you to drink. It does drive some by some people to drink and to suicide to get it over with. But as Plato pointed out in his great book on the republic, nobody is worthy to be a custodian of the city, the state unless he knows how to die and isn't scared. Now, no one's going to run head foremost to die normally speaking. But on the other hand, this is the simple God's truth.
We have to admit that death is a surer thing than birth, that is for sure in 1986. You all know why. One and a half million abortions a year USA. We are all sure to die. We don't like the thought, we like to turn away from it, we like we don't even like to to advert to it at all and we don't like to have our attention brought to it.
This is normal but it's not supernatural. It isn't the way life is supposed to be for a Christian. Remember, every mass we say and I look out the congregation, no one's batting an eye. But we're here we're saying, let us hasten to meet the Lord. That means we're our death here.
In the every every mass we say, we say that. How many of us really mean that that we were rushing to meet Christ by dying? We don't wanna die but that's what's going to happen and unless you know about death and have come to to terms with it, how can you live? I often think with that when I see husbands and wives walking along. One of them is going to die first, then what happens?
Are they prepared for this? How do you handle it? It's a mighty awful thing. I had an example of it Sunday morning right here. But you see, our lord has given us the answer.
He has given us the only answer that really can that holds up and that is we live for him. Why did God make you? There we come back to it. You can't escape that second question of the Baltimore Penny catechism and that's all it did cost when I bought my first one. He made me to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next.
You can't escape it. There is the answer. And if you try anything else, you're going to come up short, frustrated, despaired, everything else. There's the answer. It's a highly theoretical answer.
It is intangible. It doesn't appeal to our imagination unless you're a Mohammedan. But that's the truth that our god made me for himself and I've got to work out my salvation in fear and trembling in this world and they're not my words. You all recognize that of course. I aim at no originality from this pulpit.
All I try to do is transmit the message, the good news. Now, did you notice what we read there this morning about giving the good news of Jesus Christ to the people? Now, did you see that program last night at 07:00? Well, it was about 07:15 on number on channel four, NBC about what's going on out in Seattle with the dissenters among the church and all of that. I don't know how many of you saw it but I can't help but averting to it because a lot of this was on national network, remember.
And here we have the this good sister Toph standing up and saying, we are a free church. How can you say that when you read read here that our lord says and Saint Paul is saying the same thing to preach, to proclaim the the good news, the the gospel. Notice there wasn't any book. There was no book until around a 100 or later later. How can you say that you are totally free if you're supposed to be in some kind of connection with Christ's message or his good news or his gospel?
That's the same I'm using the same words. Just depends on the language you're using. How can you do it? Think of our lord and saint John tells us when he says, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you cannot have life in you. Now, what what followed?
The crowds left him. They were good honest to God Jews and no Jew can be accountable. And here is this Messiah or this teacher from up around the lake someplace, God knows where he came from and here he's telling us that unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood, you cannot have life. What did the good sensible people do? They left him.
They deserted him. Then what did Christ do? Did he go out and take a gallop pole? Did he count the heads and say we have a consensus that I'm wrong? Then, did he turn to his chosen 12 and say, look gentlemen, or whatever he felt like calling them, are you going to leave me too?
He did not in the mid slightest bit modify, soften, condition, change his statement, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you cannot have life in you. And he turned to them and said, are you going to leave me also? In other words, for the sake of his truth, Christ was willing for the multitude to leave him and he was prepared for his chosen 12 to leave him when he would stand alone and still the truth would be the truth however people interpret it. I'm giving you this as an example. How why how far away these people are from any concept of the church of Jesus Christ.
They're having their own why Calvin and Luther would turn purple at this stuff. I'm not exaggerating. And yet here, if you saw it, you'll know how it was all glamorized, we're all gathered around the table and everybody's happy and and all that and then they put on a gentleman who's speaking for the for orthodoxy and he came on very poorly which of course was a pure coincidence. We all know that because news is not slanted. We all know that.
And so, you know, I'm pulling this I'm talking about sister Lillian Teresa's dying right this morning. I'm talking to you about your conception of Christ Church. I'm talking to you about his message, his good news, his gospel. And if you're Christians, what do you want? What you make, what you think, what the pollsters tell you, how people act or should it be your constant endeavor to get back to the truth of Jesus Christ?
Not of a Karl Rahner or Schillebuck or a Hans King or a Charlie Kern. It's that simple. One day, we will meet our lord face to face. Will he recognize us? In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit.
Amen.