In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. Jeremiah is not famous for instilling a great deal of joy into our lives. We have a word in English called Jeremiah, And that generally means something very sad, miserable, taking the worst possible view of things, something like that. However, Jeremiah had a few things to say about the religious life.
And one of them today is, don't trust the flesh, trust the Lord. And then he says that the human heart is a torturous thing. And in today's reading, he also tells us that we shouldn't put our confidence in other human beings. Of course, we should. We should put it in God.
Now, today, this is not the doctrine we hear. We hear today overwhelmingly an emphasis upon fellowship, on getting together, upon association with our fellow men. Notice I saw thinking over this, the first prayer we say there, we ask God to be reconciled to one another and to God. Notice God comes to the second place in that prayer. I could be reconciled to the whole world, and it may not put me one inch closer to salvation.
And it's my understanding that salvation is the beginning and the end of life. I mean, that's my understanding of the situation. Now, if that isn't true, then let's forget the whole business. Let's not kid ourselves. Let's not play games unless we want to make religion a substitute for a drink of scotch, a good meal, or something other like that.
As some people do following our dear friends Jung and Freud and Company. I never will forget an argument four years ago with a young Yale boy. Was a very sincere fellow and a very religious young man. We traveled a bit in Europe. And our last night together was the first time we started to talk about religion.
And I made the statement that if all religions were equally true, then they were all equally false, and I didn't want any parts of any of them. And he sat up in bed and he said, you can't say that. I said, why can't I say that? He said, because religion's important. I said, what's it important for?
Now, I'm this boy was a very serious Christian. He said, it keeps us civilized. Well, that's good. I was glad to hear that. I don't know whether it's working with me or not, but it's a good idea.
I could care less if religion is only to keep me civilized. Maybe I don't want to be civilized. You see, as Flannery O'Connor, in a collection of her stories, I hope you know her, she had a lot to say about religion, indirectly of course. She said, there's one thing you can say about the Catholic religion, It's not a Masonic lodge. Do you get the point there?
And yet, this is what some people would like to turn religion into, a country club thing, or some kind of a social uplift thing, or some kind of an association which makes us feel better. An association which in which we can realize our potentialities and have human companionship. Now, are all good things. I am not arguing in the slightest against it. I love them all.
I like to have them all. I've had a lot of them. But don't let's kid ourselves and call it religion. I can be reconciled to my neighbor from day until night and not have the least conception of God. I've been reading a lot in the last several months about Karl Marx and Lamine and that crowd.
You had a lot of the utmost serious men involved who really were dedicated to their fellow men. Well, of course, they were atheists. Now, I'm not at all debating whether atheism is good or bad or whether there's a I'm not That's not the question. I'm only saying that that is not religion. Religion involves God.
And if there's no God, there's no religion. Unless you want to use the word loosely. So, let's come back to the first commandment is to love God. And this is not easily done. Not easily done at all.
I recently encountered a situation where a person in reviewing their life There was no great crimes against their fellow man. None at all. It was a good life. The only thing was there was God wasn't in it at all. And this person said that, you know, looking bad at it, that they hadn't done too badly with their lives.
I said, that's very true in a sense. But I said, where is God in your life? And the first commandment is about God, not about me and a man or my fellow man. Where did that come into your life? Where were you worshiping God?
See, this is it's so easy for us to get away, all of us. I don't care if you're a Saint Teresa of Avila, you've got this problem. And you'll have until you until you have breathed your last, whenever that is, in this world or in the next. I don't know when we stop breathing. So, let's Jeremiah, see, he may be a sad old problem, but he had some truth with it.
And it's very difficult. Not only to know the truth, sometimes it's even more difficult to accept it and to try to live it. These are not easy things. And when Jeremiah today tells us that that the human heart is torturous, whatever be the original Hebrew, that's a very good English word torturous. The human heart.
Well, I don't What do we mean by human heart? Well, we mean all the totality of our emotional, our affective, our voluntary, our loves, our hates, our sentiments, our emotions, all of this. This is what we mean by heart. And it's all to be distrusted. Every bit of it is to be distrusted.
The very first sentence of Jeremiah this morning is don't trust the flesh. Don't trust the flesh. Trust God. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.