A Short Sunday Sermon

 

Christ calls Matthew from the "receipt of custom," his tax collecting office, and Matthew follows. Of course the Pharisees aren't pleased, and who can blame them? Tax collectors were especially bad then, even more than now, with private corporations bidding the Roman State to tax a province. The highest bidder won the contract, obviously, paid the State an upfront value assessment and went on to collect the profit, as in anything above the base value they'd paid Rome.

Lucrative business, and it grew ever larger as Rome's conquests waxed large. The Publicani, tax farmers, grew so rapacious that several provinces rose up in revolt. By the time of Christ some of the worst excess may have been curbed, but still, these were bad people as were their enforcers on the ground, people like Zacheus and Matthew. No wonder the Pharisees weren't too keen that Jesus should hang out with these bad actors, and they were bad.

So they ask the disciples, "Why does your Master eat with tax collectors and sinner?" Guilt through association, eh? Not unlike, if you can imagine, a church council after the War of Northern Aggression taking a dim view of their Pastor having lunch with carpet baggers. Shudder the thought.

OK, we get that, but Christ wasn't condoning Matthew's sin or anyone else's, he was extending the hand of divine mercy, love and compassion to the utterly wicked in the hope that he might save them for life. A beautiful thing and the the Pharisees should have been in the same business, but they weren't, they were too full of self-regarding conceit and judgemental moralism. In old Brit Club vocab they'd have been classed as insufferable snobs. But that's as maybe.

Christ see's into their whitewashed, sepulchral hearts and cuts to the chase, quoting Hosea, "Learn what this means. I desire mercy not sacrifice." They must have gnashed their teeth, "How dare a 'Holy Man' who eats with total sinners tell us what to do." A fateful choice which threw them out of the orbit of God's mercy.

Message? Don't be like the Pharisee. Look, it even rhymes, so we can remember it. That said, take heart, if Christ can call an evil man like Matthew he can and does call us too. Follow.

Ad Maiorum,

LSP

A Sign

Ma LSP's asking if it's alright to put this sign up in her Dallas neighborhood. I said yes but the question's rhetorical, sign's up. The libs in her gayborhood, Winnetka Heights, let the reader understand, will snarl, gnash their teeth and curse.

If needs be, I'll drive in from the country, sit on the porch with a .45 and a 12 and guard the sign from the enemy. But note to the signers.

Science isn't God? No, not fake science, but the real deal, taken to perfection; knowledge personified and necessary. Different story, surely.

And I nearly forgot, follow @LoneStarParson on twitter. Same story, different platform.

Crush the NWO Underheel,

LSP

Right And Wrong

Part of the problem with objective standards of right and wrong, with ethics, is that they're oppressive, they apparently stand in the way of personal freedom. "You can't do this!" thunders the beastly Truth, "Or you'll destroy..." fill in the blank. 

So boom, out goes Truth. At last I'm free to be what I wanna be. But in the absence of truth, of an ethical standard outside of yourself, what fills the vacuum?

At least two things, principally Force and Lies. You don't agree with me? I'll make you do it because I've got  bully power behind me. And failing that, I'll just lie. Remember, there's no objective standard here, it's just you and what you happen to think or want. So go out and get it, there's no "rule."

We've seen this play out time and again over the last 100 or so years, and it's a philosophy that's resulted in mountains of bones; in the massacred millions of thought criminals who dared stand against the dead-handed scourge of the Left. Or didn't, who simply got in the way, like Cambodians who happened to own books. 

To return to the question, what fills the vacuum? Self or pride, and we know the angelic author of this vice. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he rages because he knows his time is near. 

In the meanwhile, we're faced with #BubbaSmollett. Not content with racism, Bubba had to make some up, to lie so he could force his point. Now Bubba's exposed as a mountebank race war goon. Zir's non-hierarchical, millionaire rainbow rulers also.

The truth will out,

LSP