A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. After Jesus had entered the temple precincts and while he was teaching, the chief priests and elders of the people came up to him and said, on what authority are you doing these things? Who has given you this power? Jesus answered, I too will ask you a question. If you answer it for me, then I will tell you on what authority I do the things that I do.
Now what was the origin of John's baptism? Was it divine, or was it merely human? The chief priests and the elders, those who had asked him the questions, thought to themselves, if we say divine, he will then ask us, then why did you not put faith in it? On the other hand, if we say, merely human, we shall have reason to fear the people who all regard John as a prophet. So their answer to Jesus was, we don't know.
And so Jesus said to them in turn, then neither will I tell you on what authority I do the things that I do. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise be to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. There was a phrase in the reading this morning about in the opening prayer.
We are praying to god to free us from the darkness of sin. Of course, you don't hear much about sin. I mean, the word sin anymore. There's plenty of it around, But we have glossed it over with a mighty, mighty fine veneer of respectability, of respectability. We are now speaking as publicly as we can about things and and using words that even ten years ago were unthinkable.
Unthinkable. They are not only being used today, but the use of the articles are the use is being recommended. We don't want pregnancies, so we must prevent conception. Nothing wrong about what goes ahead of conception. Pregnancy, that's the thing you mustn't have.
And of course, before God, there is not a single thing wrong or immoral about a pregnancy. If you wanna see the way morality can be turned on its head, here is an example. There is nothing wrong with a baby. There is nothing wrong with a girl or a woman having a baby. It's the one of the most mysterious and the most glorious and magnificent things that happens.
And yet today, it's the pre it's the teenage pregnancies that we must do everything to stop or, of course, to prevent AIDS. Because when you've lost your health, you've lost everything. We all know that. That's been drummed into us from the cradle and will be drummed into us to the grave because there's money in it. The point I wanna make is that we pray god to be freed from the darkness of sin.
Darkness. We pray for god's light in that prayer. We pray for his light, for his guidance, and we pray to be freed from darkness of sin. Sin has all kinds of repercussions. But the basis of sin is, first of all, it presupposes a relationship between me as an individual and God as my lord and master.
That's point number one. You can't use the word sin without implying implicitly, which means for all intents and purposes it's explicit, that I have a relationship between God and myself, that it's an obligatory relationship in justice, that I owe him worship. These are all self evident facts if you admit there is a god and I'm his creature. That's point number one. And when you bring in the word sin, you're not talking about merely antisocial conduct or conduct which brings me into an early grave by age or some other disease.
We're gonna hit the grave anyway. The the point is that sin brings in god almighty and my relationship with him, and that's the essence of sin, not what it does to me in the sense of giving me a disease or or keeping me healthy or whatever or being antisocial. Of course, these are consequences of sin. Of sin. But we prayed in this mass to be free to the darkness of sin.
In other words, sin brings some kind of darkness upon the intellect. Saint Thomas Aquinas, that's my old friend, he has a lot to say on this matter. A lot. And it's a matter of human experience. I don't know whether you can confirm it in your own lives or not.
I can confirm it in mine. The more you get involved, I'm not merely saying in sin, but when sin comes in and so much of sin is of a sensual nature, it's so attractive. Keep always this in mind. The ugliness of sin is only when you look at it from god's point of view. When you look at it from your point of view, it is mighty attractive.
Otherwise, why do we do it? It's that simple. So let's not talk about the ugliness of sin from our point of view. That's the way we see what we call temptation. The very fact that something's a temptation means that it's attractive and desirable.
Now it's a matter, as I say, of human experience that in some way or other, the more sensual a person is, the less they can see with the light of their intellect, of their mind. We have the word sensualist, and that word means exactly what it says. It means a human being who is very much controlled by his senses. Now there's nothing wrong with the senses. Let's not be Manichaeans.
There's nothing wrong with the senses anymore than there's anything wrong with sterling silver or 18 karat gold, but you can kill people with that, you know. The destruction of the best is the worst. Greek philosopher said that, Plato. But remember that the destruction of the best is the worst, and the best in the human being is his intellect, the light of the mind. And when that goes, then we have lost a lot.
And when it goes because of the obstruction, the dulling that sin brings into a human life, then we are at our worst because it sin is the destruction of the best of the best. If you get AIDS and you get a disease, it's just a disease. Plenty of it's around. Plenty of diseases around. So what's new?
You say, yes, but it'll kill you. So what? How many people who live out there this morning, including myself? Or how long are we going to be around? Are we here forever?
Of course, we live that way. We think that way. But the psalmist says your life is written in water. You're a breath in the air. Psalmist says that.
You're breath in the air. That's what we are. So let's let's the point I wanna leave with you is a fact of experience, that sin dulls the mind, dulls the intellect. It keeps us from seeing the truth of god. How this works, that's something else.
But the fact is clear that you people will talk about the innocence of children. Well, whether there's an innocent or not, ask their parents and teachers. But the thing is there we when I say that, you know what I mean. There is an innocence, and they have a way. They have an insight.
We are told that they see their angels. They see their angels. And the closer we come to god, two things will become as consequences. Two things. We will have a greater appreciation and clarity of view of holiness, and at the same time, we will have a clearer view of the dullness of the intellect, which is one of the consequences of sin.
The closer to god, the brighter the intellect, the the the clearer perception we have of truth. And so we pray to god almighty to to give us the light of your truth. At the same time, we say, take away this darkness of sin of sin. It's not poverty that takes you away from god. It's not disease that takes you away from God.
It's not unemployment that takes you away from God. It's not the tragedies of life that take you away from God. Every single one of the things that I have mentioned can bring you closer to God. This is a fact of life. Somebody said whether whether life polishes you up like a diamond or crushes you like coal, in may in many ways is in the palm of your hand.
The one thing that cannot turn me to god is sin because sin turns me by my own choice away from god. And we have it on pretty good authority that I am the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus Christ said that. In the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. Amen.