A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. When his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, but before they came to live together, she was found with child through the power of the holy spirit. Joseph, her husband, an upright man, unwilling to expose Mary to the law, which meant stoning to death, decided to divorce her quietly. 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 sin. Now all of this happened to fulfill what the lord had said through his prophets in the Old Testament. A virgin shall be with child and give birth to a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means god 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.
And this is the gospel, the good news indeed of the lord. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. These are the words of Saint Paul speaking to the Romans. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. As I said, on the first Sunday of Advent, I am not speaking to you or to myself as if we were the greatest sinners on god's earth. For the most part, in a very real and literal sense, we have put off the deeds, the actions, the conduct of darkness. For the most part, we are living or trying to live decent lives according to Jesus Christ. You wouldn't be here this morning if that wasn't true.
It's that simple. You know? I wouldn't be up here this morning if that if I didn't think that. But what I did say then, and I say now on this fourth Sunday, wake up. Wake up.
And I I dared to quote a very unattractive statement of our blessed lord on the first Sunday. Our blessed lord said, because you are neither hot nor cold, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth. And the Greek word is vomit, not some pussyfooting word like spit. See, the we're afraid to use the good, solid vulgar English once in a while when that's what's demanded. Read Shakespeare.
So the point is and I from the very first Sunday, I put before you that picture of Holman Hunt, the pre Raphaelite who died turn of the century. It's a pay he called it the light of the world, and it's the it's that painting which hangs in Keeble College now, which was named after Keeble, a great friend of Newman, showing this very luminous, most attractive figure of Jesus Christ as the light of the world. It's magnificent. Although some artists don't like it, but that goes that's par for the chorus. But, anyway, it's considered a very, very attractive, and everybody agrees to that.
It's what we would like to think Jesus is. But as I said and have been saying Sunday after Sunday ad nauseam, it's not the Jesus you are going to find. It's not the Jesus you're going to experience. There's the Jesus you're going to experience on that cross. And how do I know it?
He said so. It's that simple. He told us that. He didn't say you're going to love me because I'm attractive and desirable, and it'll be it'll you'll be comfortable with me. He said, I have come not to bring peace but the sword.
Have any of you seen that statement on your Christmas cards? He came to bring truth. And if there's anything you can say about truth is that it's very disturbing. It's very uncomfortable. Sometimes you pay for it with your blood, and it's be it's happening right now over in Romania.
When people stand up and are willing to die for what they think or believe and hope for. We've gotten a long way from that. Not long ago in a and with a group of young high school boys, I quoted Cicero in regard to going to war because one of them said, the first sign of war, I'm hiking off to Canada. I said, how about that a that old Latin Cicero said, it is it is a good and sweet thing. I I I can't do any better.
It's Dulce, Latin. It is a good and sweet thing to die for your country. Do you know what those boys did? They laughed. They laughed.
Now that's a fact. Make of it what you want, but they left. My point is we have a very false picture of Christ because in many instances, we make Christ to be what we want him to be. And so he we that picture, which I the text is taken from the book of revelations, I stand at the door and knock. So there's a picture Christ on one side, and it's not that luminous picture of home and hunt.
It's the Christ that's born into poverty in a in a cave, and it's the Christ that wound up his lot days on this earth on the cross, and it's the Christ who said, and the only thing he said that we need to do to be his followers is to take up his cross. And he said, if you don't do it, you're not my disciple. Now so the Christian life isn't one of comfort. It's not one of this world life of joy as the world wants it to be. It's not a life of comfort and of satisfaction as the world terms those as or interprets those words.
It certainly isn't any of those things. It's it's what Christ said, and that's very different from the world. Now the point I wanna make this morning, and there's been unity, coherence, and emphasis. There's been a lot of emphasis in my well chosen remarks for these four Sundays of Advent. Because we're either Christians and we take our Christianity seriously or we don't take it seriously.
We call ourselves Christians. And if that's true, let's go bowling or go ice skating or go do something worth that's, you know, worthwhile, accomplishing something. These are metaphors. When god speaks in the book of revelations, I stand at the door and knock. That's a metaphor.
It's a figure of speech. When Holman Hunt painted that very famous painting, it's it's a it's a metaphor in in in oil. Now the question is, what does it mean to meet 12/24/1989? What do we mean by the door? What do we mean that Christ stands at the door?
Now in actual fact, what do what do we mean by that? What is standing on the other side of the door? What's the truth of this metaphor? I mean, the literal real truth, not the figurative thing. Do we expect Christ to come to us as he did to Saint Paul?
Now let me tell you, some people do. I have met them. Do we expect Christ as we are journeying on the road to Damascus? Are we waiting for something some some great illumination, something that will knock us to the ground? In other words, hit us by with a two before right where it counts most?
Are we are we looking forward to Christ giving us some kind of experiential, sensible, tangible indication of his presence, and then we hear a voice speaking? Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me? Saul became Paul. Is that what we're waiting for? Is that what we're expecting when we say Christ stands at the door and knocks?
Are we waiting for him to knock us down and to raise us up, blinded, and then cures us? In other words, are we waiting for some kind of illumination, some kind of a declaration, some kind of a theodicy? Is that what we expect? If we say we do, I'd like to know on what grounds. Certainly, our pleasant lord never remotely said anything like it, not even remotely.
Nothing you can interpret that way. I'll tell you what he did say. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And as I said, that latest translator leaves out the the definite articles. He says, I am the way.
I am truth. I am life. That's the first thing Jesus said. Without a doubt, without any ambiguity, beyond all controversy. What does that mean?
It means that you go that if you want salvation, you go through Christ, and it is the only way. That if you want salvation, you go through his truth, not your truth or what you think is true. You go through his truth, and it's not the light of the world shed upon us by the New York Times or the Washington Post or or a a poll taken of what in a democracy, we say we come to the right opinion. No. It's the light of Jesus Christ.
And sometimes we would like to shut it out. We don't want it. Who wants the cross? Freud said, if you want it, you're a sadist or a masochist. Our blessed lord said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
He said to Peter, and these these texts are beyond dispute. I don't care what bible or what translation you take. Thou art Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. And the gates of hell will never prevail against it. Christ said that.
And then he also said this to his disciples, the bish first bishops. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. And behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world. And he also said, he who hears you, hears me, and who despises you, despises me and him who sent me. Now these are vital, profound truths which we either believe and accept or we don't.
But let's not be lukewarm about it. They're either true and we accept them and then we live them, or they're not true and then it's crazy to live them. As I told you, I have a lot of respect for a good, honest to god atheist. I can argue with an atheist. It's the agnostic, the lukewarm, the yes, but man or woman.
What do you do with them? The best thing is go out and have a drink, go bowling, see a baseball game, do something worthwhile, don't waste your time. Now the question still remains. I wanna find Christ. I wanna find those disciples.
I wanna find the way, the truth, and the life. In my day, in December '89, where do I find it? Because it's either available, and if it and I can find it, and that'll give me a chance to choose about opening the door. But if it's not available, if god has not made it available, then what what what are we doing here this morning? I ask you.
But if he has made it available, then it's up to me to open the door. Now cardinal Newman, when he was still not a full fledged Catholic, it was very difficult to talk about the conversion of cardinal Newman. He was always a Catholic. Just a question of where where where he belonged. He before he became a Catholic, he he wrote what I think is one of his most psychological psychologically solid and revealing sermons, and he called it the self wise inquirer.
The self wise inquirer. In other words, it it I'll tell you, it's pretty double reading today. But the thing is he goes into all kinds of the psychological analysis about a person trying to find the truth of god to their liking, to what they think it ought to be as I want it to be, as I will feel comfortable with, that I will enjoy, that I can accept, that will bring me fulfillment. Now he doesn't use these words at all. But this is the gist of the thing, the self wise inquirer.
Because the whole idea of opening the door is not to be self wise, but to be Christ wise, to have the truth of Jesus Christ, the son of god, born of a virgin Mary. That's the point. That's the whole point. And it's not easy. I'm no historian, but I just thought over a few things.
Take this matter and think where the church and the truth of Jesus Christ has been and the world. Take the idea of slavery and the supreme court decision under supreme court judge Taney. When, of course, the the black person was the scared declared at by the supreme court a non person. Take for example when Leo the thirteenth's encyclical came out on the on labor. Now I I'm I was young enough when that thing was still being very much controverted when very wonderful, fine Catholic layman.
I know one of them was willing to give the Catholic University of America a million dollars if it would get rid of a moral theologian who sided with Leo the thirteenth. I think of ages past when you had the donatus, the Maniches, when you had the church fighting and divided on the matters of who is Christ, what is the trinity, and then the first Vatican Council to jump over a number of centuries. Is is the pope infallible or not? These were the big questions. And in every one of them, the world was on the side of the issues as I have said, rejecting Leo the thirteenth encyclical on the right of the laboring man to adjust wage.
Today, that door is something different. Today, we are not arguing, and and the controversies are not about such things as infallibility or the nature of Christ or the donatist or the Maniches. No. We're talking about about everything below the navel. It has to do mostly with chastity, with marriage.
And on the one side of the on the door, you have what? Divorce and remarriage, chastity. The word isn't used anymore. I mean it even from the pulpits. Did you notice in that translation I read that instead of using word virgin for the blessed mother, they used the word maiden, which only means a female human being.
We have gotten away from that. And it's when you try to talk to people and bring up listen. You can't do that because that's against the virtue of chastity. They laugh at you, and I am absolutely speaking the literal truth. And you know why?
Because they'll say, that is absolutely unrealistic. That will not change anybody's view. So we have all kinds of of pleasure I mean, sex for pleasure business, and it's considered absolutely normal. The only thing is you must be sensible and rational and don't get anybody pregnant. We have the idea that that the church ought to change her rules about divorce.
We have also the most controversial thing now, these matters of abortion and contraception. And none of these things are acceptable to the world, not a one of them. It's the Christ on the cross who's knocking and his repulsive. Who wants to be chased? Who wants to be in a marriage which isn't fulfilling me?
Who wants to have a child when I say I already have enough? And so on and so on. Where do we stand in fact? I wanted no. No.
No. No. I'm not talking about a bunch of hypocrites. I'm talking about good, honest people. I know there's plenty of arguments for everything I've said.
I know those arguments, and I respect the arguments. But I don't how I have no respect for the conclusions. None at all. I hate them. Of course, I hate them.
Because if you love one thing, you've got to hate the contrary, and it's contradictory. That's just a little bit of Aristotelian logic. But, course, he's thrown out too. Not true. Because he one thing he did think in or believe in was truth, even old man Aristotle.
So we stand at the he our lord stands at the door and knocks, and we're on the other side, and there's no latch on his side. He doesn't come in with a ramrod. He knocks. And we have every we have every reason to say and to be fearful. What's going to happen if I open that door?
You can say that again. What is going to happen? Maybe nothing because we can easily close our ears. After all, you know, when Pilate asked Christ what is truth, he simply washed his hands and and left. He didn't wait for an answer.
You know? In many instances, you know, we don't want truth. I've heard people say, don't tell me that because then I'll know and then I'll have to do so and so. So don't tell me. Of course, they already know.
The truth isn't always welcome. It isn't always attractive. We can quote Aristotle or whoever you want and say, man was made for truth. Oh, yeah. That's very true, but that's good for the books.
It's not good for daily living folks, as Newman was the first one and way be before Freud to point out. But we stand individually be individually, notice, not as a community. Individually, stand at the door. It's your hand that's going to open it. It's your will that's going to make the decision of being loyal and faithful to Jesus Christ, coming to you with a cross, telling you that if you can only be his followers you have accepted, and it's your choice to follow him or not to follow.
It's your salvation or your perdition, and you have the choice. You can be a self wise inquirer, or you can be a humble person who knows your limitations, who wants the truth, and with the grace of god, you're not afraid of it. In the name of the father, and of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.