A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. On a Sabbath day, we weren't supposed to do any work absolutely on the Sabbath day. Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogue. Notice it wasn't in Jerusalem in the temple. There was a woman there who for eighteen years had been possessed had been possessed by a spirit which drained her strength.
She was badly stooped, quite incapable of standing up straight. When our lord saw the woman, he called her over and said, woman, you are free of your infirmity. Then Jesus laid his hand on her. And immediately, she stood up straight and began thanking god. Notice, she thought of god right off.
The chief of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus should have healed on the Sabbath day, said to the congregation, there are six days for working. Come on those days to be cured, not on the Sabbath. Jesus said in reply, oh, you hypocrites, Which of you does not let his ox or his ass out of the stable on the Sabbath to water it? Should not this daughter of Abraham here, who has been in the bondage of Satan for eighteen years, have been released from her shackles on the Sabbath day. At these words, his opponents were covered with confusion.
Meanwhile, everyone else rejoiced at the marvels that Jesus was accomplishing. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Yesterday, the New York Times had a book review of the latest contribution to Western culture in the English language by an author named Madonna.
There was a book review, and then there was an article on of this contribution, to Western culture. $50 a crack. It's it's bound in metal. I that's to keep it, you know, from burning up. It's so hot.
You get the point. The publisher paid the author $60,000,000 for it. They expect to make $26,000,000. Now, I don't know whether you only know much about this book, but it was pretty well treated in the New York Times yesterday. And of course it was downgraded.
The severest criticism, this has me completely puzzled, I don't know what these words mean. The severest criticism was that it was not even good pornography. It was simply lewd. Now, I don't know what these words mean. Evidently, have some definitions.
I don't know. But it's not in English. It was, you know, there was a co writer. So anyway, it was given a lot of attention. Now when you have it still in your memory, all I know about the book is what I read in those reviews yesterday, then you read St.
Paul's letter to the Ephesians this morning. I call it Maalox. Because if he's right, if what Paul is saying here is serious, God given information, notice, knowledge, information, of how we should treat this very sensitive subject of sex, If he is right, then if Madonna is a barometer of our age, USA, somebody's in serious trouble. I mean serious trouble. Listen, what's of course, you can only appreciate remember, Saint Paul's writing to the Ephesians.
Now Ephesus was down here you have Turkey, and Ephesus is right down in that southernmost part of Turkey, right in there. It's right opposite about Athens across the Aegean. Now it was a most important town in our lord's time and in Saint Paul's time. First of all, it was a seaport, even though it was slight a couple miles from the coast. It was on a river.
Secondly, you had at the meeting of Ephesus two huge gray trade routes, caravans going from the Orient to the Occitan, east to east to west. And here all of this all of this commerce, all of this industry, all of the dregs of humanity that settled in those days and still does into our seaports, here you have it all in Ephesus. It was a thriving industrialized well, that word is not a good word, but commercialized city, and a big one. We there's still a lot of remains there. Some of you may have seen them.
Now Paul is writing to these he's not writing to to to Jewish converts. He's writing to gentiles or Greeks. And he's writing to to that little handful that have become Christians. Now he's writing to them against the background of paganism. Well, when remember, paganism was decent compared to what is today current.
Current and accepted in the best societies. They're talking about this book as a coffee table book. You know, you put in your living room to show how you write up the snuff on the latest literature of the day. It asked Madonna. The title of the book, of course, is she calls it a book, sex.
One of the review reviewers says, it's not a book. It's a project. But anyway, so this is scene. Saint Paul's writing about sex. Let me repeat what was so well read, but it bears repetition against the background of the dear Madonna.
Saint Paul says, I'm quoting, as for lewd conduct remember, this is a translation. And such words as lewd, you wanna watch those words. I don't know what the Greek of this is. I didn't have a chance to look it up. As for lewd conduct or promiscuousness.
Now you I don't you give your meaning to those words. This is a this is a very contemporary translation by good scholars. So Paul says, as for lewd conduct or promiscuousness or lust of any sort, let them not even be mentioned among you. Don't even mention. Your holiness forbids it.
That word I know is from the Greek. Your holiness. Why? Because you're sons and daughters of God. That's his main argument.
If you go out into a school today or into any mark into what we call the marketplace and tell people to stop your adultery, stop your fornication of course, we call it extramarital intercourse now. Or not even that, we call it being intimate. If you give them this argument, they'll sneer at you. I've tried it. They'll sneer at you.
Your holiness forbids it that you even mention it. Now we're talking about condoms from the pulpit. Nor, Paul continues, should there be any be any obscene, silly silly, you know, crazy, or suggestive talk. All that is out of place. Instead, give thanks.
Give thanks. Make no mistake about it. No fornicator, no unclean or lustful person, in effect, no idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with their worthless arguments. Notice, these were Greeks, and they loved to argue.
There are people like that around today even. But notice, they had arguments. See, there's nothing that doesn't have an argument. Let no one deceive you with worthless arguments. These are sins that bring god's wrath down on the disobedient.
In other rationalize it or be democratic about it. Therefore, have nothing to do with them. There was a time when you were in darkness, but now you are in the light of the lord. You have the light of Jesus Christ, the son of god. That's Paul's argument.
And what is it worth today in the marketplace? No. We pass out condoms. You cannot be right now, Howard County, where I spent most of our misspent youth, they have now adopted a a very stringent, severe code against discrimination. And the heart of that code is you must not discriminate against gays in any way in any way in any way.
We are now in a society which is priding itself that we are open minded and broad. And all sex is good because it's all fun, so they say. Therefore, it can't be wrong. Even if you believe in God, God gave it, therefore, it can't be bad. Who said sex was bad?
The Catholic church never said it. All the Catholic church has ever said is that sex is a very precious gift from God, and you must treat it as something extremely valuable, inestimably valuable. That's what the church has said. I know there've been nuts among the even among the so called saints, but they're not the church. They have never been the church.
And so that's the world we're living in. Have you it's worse than the it's it's much worse than the than the world that Paul remember, when Paul got up and said these things and wrote these things to the Ephesians, he was not he was not writing to people who were atheists. He were he was not writing to people, to men and women, no matter what they were doing, who had no belief in in in a god or gods. In other words, that there was something more than the material physical thing we call the world. When I when you or I stand up today in any United States Of America, as a nation, there are plenty of good, God fearing Christians and religious people in The United States, but they don't count.
They're not in in positions which dictate the course of our law, of our culture, of our art, music, or or architecture. Some of the stuff in the paper yet, we're not well, it's just almost disgusting. Remember, ugliness is evil. When you stand and you get up and say, look, you you cannot act what have you to appeal to to these people? We are in a nation which for all practical purposes rejects the concept of God, immortality, the spirituality of the soul.
These things are simply rejected. Rejected. Not even argued about. So as Saint Paul says, give thanks. The truth of God has a precious content.
We have been blessed to have it. It is not a burden we carry. It's the cross of Jesus Christ. In the name of the father, of the son, and of holy spirit. Amen.