SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed that almost everything Jesus teaches, the world looks at it as if it's backwards, countercultural.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the world says, hold on tight.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, let it go.
SPEAKER_00: You can't take it with you.
SPEAKER_00: The world says, protect yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Look out for number one.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, give yourself away.
SPEAKER_00: The world says, if you want to live, avoid the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the most important spiritual laws in all of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Life comes through self-giving.
SPEAKER_00: Fruitfulness comes through sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Joy comes through generosity.
SPEAKER_00: If we spend our lives trying to preserve ourselves, we slowly shrink.
SPEAKER_00: We live paranoid.
SPEAKER_00: But if we spend our lives giving ourselves away, we become more fully alive than we've ever imagined.
SPEAKER_00: No saint illustrates this better than the one we celebrate today.
SPEAKER_00: Today the church celebrates the feast of Saint Lawrence, one of the seven deacons of Rome in the third century.
SPEAKER_00: As a deacon, his ministry was not centered on the altar alone, it was centered on charity.
SPEAKER_00: He cared for the church's resources, but even more importantly, he cared for the poor.
SPEAKER_00: Then persecution broke out.
SPEAKER_00: Pope Sixtus II was arrested and sentenced to death.
SPEAKER_00: Tradition tells us that Lawrence followed him, weeping, asking, Father, where are you going without your deacon?
SPEAKER_00: The Pope looked at him and said something remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: My son, do not weep.
SPEAKER_00: In three days you will follow me.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine hearing those words.
SPEAKER_00: You have three days to live.
SPEAKER_00: How would you spend those seventy two hours?
SPEAKER_00: Most of us would probably call family, put our affairs in order.
SPEAKER_00: Think about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Lawrence did something very different.
SPEAKER_00: He spent those three days giving away everything he could.
SPEAKER_00: The Roman authorities demanded that he surrender the treasures of the church.
SPEAKER_00: They imagined rooms filled with gold and silver.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, Lawrence gathered the poor, the sick, the widows, the elderly, the orphaned, and stood them all before the officials, and he said, These, these are the treasures of the church.
SPEAKER_00: What a magnificent answer.
SPEAKER_00: But the Romans measured wealth by what they could possess.
SPEAKER_00: Lawrence measured wealth by the people he could love.
SPEAKER_00: He understood something that Saint Paul teaches us today.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
SPEAKER_00: But notice Paul's image.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't speak about storing seed, he speaks about sowing it.
SPEAKER_00: A farmer who refuses to let go of his seed will never have a harvest.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a farmer standing in the field saying, This seed is too valuable.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to keep it safe.
SPEAKER_00: He would leave the field with exactly what he came with.
SPEAKER_00: The seed would remain a seed forever.
SPEAKER_00: It is only when the seed disappears into the darkness of the earth that life begins.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying the same thing about us.
SPEAKER_00: Unless the grain of wheat falls from the ground and dies, it remains only a grain of wheat.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not glorifying suffering.
SPEAKER_00: He's teaching us that love always costs something.
SPEAKER_00: Every vocation proves this.
SPEAKER_00: A mother gives up sleep for her children.
SPEAKER_00: A father sacrifices countless hours to provide for his family.
SPEAKER_00: A husband and wife surrender pride every time they forgive each other.
SPEAKER_00: A priest gives away evenings, weekends, holidays, comfort, and sometimes even his own plans so that Christ can serve his people through him.
SPEAKER_00: None of those sacrifices diminish us.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they enlarge us.
SPEAKER_00: They make us fruitful.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, the happiest people I've ever met are rarely the ones who spend their lives asking, what can I get?
SPEAKER_00: No, they are the ones who wake up asking, whom can I love today?
SPEAKER_00: Whom can I serve today?
SPEAKER_00: Whom can I carry the cross for?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that was St.
SPEAKER_00: Lawrence.
SPEAKER_00: By the time he was placed on the burning grid, the hardest part was already over.
SPEAKER_00: He already died to himself years earlier.
SPEAKER_00: His martyrdom was simply the last chapter of life that had been completely given to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That is why 17 centuries later we still remember his name.
SPEAKER_00: Not because he died courageously, but because he lived generously.
SPEAKER_00: Today Jesus asks us one of uh asks all of us a very simple question.
SPEAKER_00: What are you still holding on to?
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's resentment that needs forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's fear that keeps you from trusting God.
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps it's time that you refuse to give, or money that you refuse to share, or even maybe pride that you refuse to surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Well, whatever it is, whatever you're clinging to, will just remain only a seed.
SPEAKER_00: It will never grow from that.
SPEAKER_00: But whatever we place into the hands of Christ becomes a harvest.
SPEAKER_00: The world will always tell us to protect our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells us to give it away.
SPEAKER_00: History has forgotten almost every Roman official who condemned Saint Lawrence.
SPEAKER_00: But the church celebrates his life.
SPEAKER_00: Celebrates Lawrence.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because in God's kingdom it is not those who cling to life who are remembered, it is those who spend their lives in love.
SPEAKER_00: And in the end, they never lose anything.
SPEAKER_00: They gain everything.
SPEAKER_00: They gain Jesus Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.