Cold or Hot

We feel the cold setting in; the days have grown short.

We rustle our way down the streets through heaps of dead leaves.

Next Sunday is the last Sunday of the Church Year.

The earth and the calendar draw our thoughts to the end times.

We’ve lived another year.

It's time for another annual inventory.

Like John's assessment of the Churches in our reading from Revelation.

It's time for us to take a hard, honest look at ourselves.

I wish you were either cold or hot.
Because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold,
I will spit you out of my mouth.

Harsh, graphic—and surprising—words.

When it comes to spiritual temperature,

It would seem better to be warm, even just lukewarm, than to be cold.

But, not so—according to what John heard the Lord say.

Are we like those folks at the Church at Sardis?

Living with an overblown, self-contented estimation of our own goodness?

Suffering from the same delusion as those lukewarm members of the Church at Laodicea?

When the Lord says he wishes we were either hot or cold.

He clearly doesn’t mean that one is as good as the other.

Ultimately, he wants us to be hot—hearts aflame with spiritual fervor.

So, why would he prefer the cold to the warm?

Maybe because the cold know they’re cold; have to admit they’re cold.

But the lukewarm can tell themselves that they’re okay.

I’m not cold; I’m hot enough.

If we weren’t comfortably warm with self-satisfaction, we’d have a better chance of improving.

If we knew we were cold we’d have no doubt.

We’d know that we hadn’t given the Lord full access to us.

We’d know that he’s still out there knocking at our door.

If we weren't contentedly warm, it would be easier to get fired up like Zacchaeus.

Ready to do anything to get closer to Jesus.

Eager to invite him in—spend time with him.

So what's our spiritual temperature?

The fact that we’re here listening to the Scripture today shows we’re not cold.

But that very scripture warns us—

The Lord doesn’t want us to be stalled-out in the middle.

And, if we’re only warm, it’s going to take some extra effort to heat things up.

There’s some accidental wisdom in that old country-western song by Jerry Reed:

When you’re hot you’re hot.

When you’re not—you’re not.

Tuesday, 33rd Week of  Ordinary Time

Rev 3:1-6, 14-12     Lk 19:1-10      Read this Scripture @usccb.org