WHAT WILL CARRY THE DAY

Sirach 3:2-14; Ps 128 Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways; Colossians 3:12-21; Mt 2:13-23

In the end what will carry the day?

What will ultimately lead to success or victory in life?

What will carry the day for us as human persons as a whole and as individuals?

I had a family come down recently to Cuero and we spent the evening looking at the Christmas lights here in town followed by a quick stop at Pizza hut.

This Christmas visits to the lights of cuero has become a main stay over the past few years and a joy for me as well.

This is a family of six, mom, dad, and three girls and a boy.  I look forward to their visit.

This year the son and I got on this little game "what would you do for hundred dollars."

I would ask him random things to see what he would or wouldn't do for money.  Being that he is a staunch Texas fan i asked him if he would get and Texas A &M Tattoo on his forehead and wear to for a week for a hundred dollars.  He of course said yes immediately.

The game went on and on back and forth: I was trying to find his stopping point.  At what point would money not be enough.

At one point I asked him if he would drink water from a toilet bowl for a hundred dollars and he hesitated.

Remember the movie Indecent Proposal where a man offered a couple a million dollars to have sex with his wife?  This is our mind set and it is what we gravitate toward.

What is our price tag?  Where do we draw the line?

Money is a big deal for many of us. We find ourselves stressing over it, anxious about it, concerned and worried for more of it.  How much of our family life revolves around money?

We talk about it often.  We gamble it away.  We try to grow it on the market or in the savings. We put some aside for a rainy day.

Money, Money, Money.

And if we aren't talking about money then we are talking about pleasure or prestige or power or possessions.  Our lives are consumed with these realities.

But when is the last time we talked about, thought about Honor.
When i s the last time we spoke a conversation about respect, regard, holding someone in honor?

When have we spoke to our children about honor and respect and imitated that reality with our lives in the way we treat our spouse, our neighbor, our children, our very selves, even God.

But in the end what will carry the day?

It won't be money, or prestige, or power, or possessions, or pleasure.

In the end what will carry the day will be honor: how we honor one another and how we honor God.

This is the tipping point we must rediscover if we will truly be holy families.

The family is a domestic church, this is what the teaching of the church points us to understand.

If it is a domestic church than honor and reverence is essential for without it then it simply becomes a mad house of chaos.  Honor revolves around prayer, silence, sacrifice, worship, respect to authority, all of which are necessary tools to holiness.