Homily for the Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost & Twelfth Sunday of Matthew on the Leave-taking of the Dormition of the Theotokos in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Matthew 19:16-26

 

            Today is the leave-taking or conclusion of our celebration of the Dormition of the Theotokos, who upon her “falling asleep” followed her Son into the Kingdom of heaven as a whole embodied person.   Her translation to the heavens reminds us that sharing in the life of Christ is not an invisible mystical endeavor but requires offering ourselves to Him in practical, tangible ways.  Her unique vocation as His virgin mother surely required countless sacrifices in every dimension of her life.  It is simply impossible to find the healing of our souls if we pretend that what we do with any dimension of the creation, including our physical blessings, is spiritually irrelevant.

 

Perhaps more than anything else, how we use our money and possessions will reveal whether, like the Theotokos, we are focusing on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God.   That was the case for the rich young ruler in today’s gospel lesson.   When he addressed Christ, he tried to flatter Him with the words “Good Teacher.”  He did not know that the Lord is truly the God-Man and thought of Him as merely another rabbi.  That is why the Savior responded, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God,” for He knew that this man thought of goodness as a merely human quality that he imagined he had already attained. He thought that he had already mastered all that God had required in the Old Testament law and wanted to be assured that he had not overlooked anything.

 

This young man was very rich in a time when almost everyone else was poor.  He must have been part of a wealthy and well-connected family, likely on good terms with the house of Herod and the Roman authorities.  He was surely used to people telling him what they thought he wanted to hear in order to stay in his good graces.  And since people believed then that wealth was a reward for God’s favor, he surely did not expect a rabbi to do anything other than congratulate him on his holiness, much less to say, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”       

 

St. Basil the Great, who gave away his great wealth to found philanthropic ministries for the sick and needy, taught that the Lord’s strict words to this man revealed his lack of love for his neighbors.  Basil wrote that “Those who love their neighbors as themselves possess nothing more than their neighbor; yet surely, you seem to have great possessions!  How else can this be, but that you have preferred your own enjoyment to the consolation of the many…For the more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love.”[1]  The young ruler had obviously laid up treasures for himself on earth and had given his heart to them.  (Matt. 6: 19-21)

 

When Christ spoke to him as someone who loved wealth more than God and neighbor and had therefore violated the greatest of the commandments, the young man confronted the sickness of his soul.  His pride, which was fueled by his passion for wealth and the praise of others, had led to the delusion that he had achieved perfect righteousness by fulfilling God’s law. When told to obey a command that revealed how weak he was before his passions, the man’s illusions of perfection shattered. And since his faith was in his own sense of personal accomplishment, he then fell into despair and walked away from the Lord in sadness.

            We should not be surprised that Christ spoke with the man about his wealth, for He gave great spiritual significance to our relationship with money and possessions throughout His ministry.  For example, the parables of Lazarus and the rich man, the prodigal son, the talents, the debtors, the laborers, the rich fool, the unjust steward, and the pearl of great price all revolve around economic matters.  In response to the gracious initiative of Christ, Zacchaeus repented of his greed and dishonesty by giving financially beyond what justice required to those he had wronged.  The Lord said that the poor widow who put two small coins into the treasury had given more than the wealthy “for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.” (Luke 21:4)

 

            Our wealth and possessions are part of God’s good creation which He gives to us out of love for our flourishing.  We have all tragically followed in the way of our first parents, however, in refusing to offer them back to God for the fulfillment of His gracious purposes.  We instead tend to use them to gratify our self-centered desires to the point that they become our false gods. Our sense of security and identity, as well as our hopes and fears, are often more grounded in what we have or would like to have than in the Lord.  What matters is not how much or how little of the world’s resources we possess but whether we are finding healing from the passions that so easily keep us from becoming living icons of the gracious generosity of Christ to our neighbors, for He offered up Himself without reservation for the salvation of the world. 

 

            The Lord’s command to the rich young ruler forced him to confront his addiction to wealth and power.  While He did not give that same instruction to everyone, He calls us all:  to lay up treasures in heaven, not on earth; to serve God, not mammon; and to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” with humble faith that He will provide everything we need.  (Matt.  6:19-34) He calls us to eucharistic living, which means offering not only bread and wine but every dimension of our lives as we grow in communion with Him.  “Thine Own of Thine Own we offer unto Thee on behalf of all and for all” includes our money, possessions, and everything else.

 

            The Old Testament standard of tithing, or giving ten percent, remains the basic expectation for how we give thanks to God for His blessings.   Malachi 3:10 is the only passage in the Bible that encourages putting God to the test: “’Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
…try Me now in this…If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.’” Tithing is like prayer and fasting, for we find the healing of our souls as we reorient the desires of our hearts to God by taking practical steps.  Investing ourselves in ministries to the needy beyond the tithe enables us to become more like the Lord in lovingkindness.  As St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote about almsgiving, “Mercy and good deeds are works God loves; they divinize those who practice them and impress them into the likeness of goodness; that they may become the image of the Primordial Being.”[2]   

 

            As with any spiritual discipline, we must take the steps that we presently have the strength to take, not out of legalism, but in order to open our hearts in humility to become more receptive to the Lord’s gracious divine energies.  When the struggle to trust in God and not in money reveals the weakness of our souls, we must not become paralyzed by guilt or walk away in sadness.  That is instead the time to confess our weakness as we offer whatever we can, no matter how small, and ask for His healing mercy to help us grow in manifesting the divine generosity.

 

No matter how great the struggle may be or how inadequate we may feel, we must remember what the Savior said about the salvation of even people like the rich young ruler: “with God all things are possible.”  The Archangel Gabriel said something very similar in response to the Theotokos’ question about how she, as a virgin, could become the mother of the Savior: “For with God nothing will be impossible.” (Luke 1:37) Then she gave her free consent to become the living Temple of God.  Let us follow her path into the life of the Kingdom of Heaven by offering every dimension of who we are and all that we possess to her Son in free obedience.  That is what it means to be in communion with Him as whole embodied persons.

 

           

 

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Basil the Great, “To the Rich,” as quoted in Andrew Geleris, Money and Salvation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2022), 54.

[2] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Love of the Poor, as quoted in Andrew Geleris, Money and Salvation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2022), 31.

 

Homily for the Eleventh Sunday of Matthew and After-feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos in the Orthodox Church

 

Matthew 18:23-35

Today we continue to celebrate the Dormition of the Theotokos, the “falling asleep” of our Lord’s virgin mother, who was the first to receive Christ into her life and the first to follow Him into the Kingdom of heaven as a whole, embodied person.  The Savior was born into our world as the God-Man through her receptivity and obedience.  She was born into the fullness of eternal life through her Son, the Victor over death.  Her glorious example inspires us to embrace our calling to become like God in holiness in every dimension of our personhood. 

The Theotokos is as fully human according to nature as the rest of us, and she has become the epitome of holiness by uniting herself without reservation to the Lord.  She became the living Temple of God, the Ark of the New Covenant, when she freely accepted her unique vocation as His virgin mother who contained the eternal Son of God in her womb.  She points us to her Son by her blessed example and her constant prayers that the water of our lives may be transformed into the wine of the Messianic Banquet.   

Even as we celebrate the Theotokos’ translation to the heavens, we confront a difficult truth in today’s gospel reading about what it means to become fully receptive to her Son.  The first servant begged for more time to pay an unbelievably large debt and his master responded with shocking mercy, forgiving the debt completely. But instead of sharing the mercy that he had received with a fellow servant who owed him much less, the man refused to show any compassion.  He had the second servant put into prison until he could pay the full amount.  When the master heard what had happened, he had the first servant put in jail until he could repay the massive amount he owed.  Christ concludes the parable with these chilling words: “So also My heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

This parable presents an uncomfortable truth: How we treat those who are in our debt or who have wronged us reveals the true state of our souls.  If we have embraced the Lord’s mercy, then His gracious divine energies must permeate our lives.  He said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”  To become radiant with mercy to the point we do not limit our love only to people who treat us well is necessary to obey Christ’s commandment: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5: 44-48)

If we dare to call upon God’s forgiveness for our sins, we will condemn ourselves as hypocrites if we refuse to forgive others.  He is infinitely holy and we are each the chief of sinners against the Father Who sent His Son for the salvation of the world. (Jn. 3:17)   As those who ask for mercy beyond what we could possibly deserve, how could we ever be justified in refusing to forgive someone else?   The God-Man enables us to become like Him in holiness, and He forgave even those who rejected, betrayed, and killed Him.  Since Christ has identified Himself with even the lowliest people, how we treat those who have offended us is how we treat our Lord.  Everyone is a living icon of God. As St. John wrote, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”   (1 Jn 4:20) When we refuse to forgive others, we show not only a lack of love for them, but also for the Savior.

Despite our best intentions, forgiveness of those who have wronged us deeply rarely comes quickly or easily.  Forgiveness is not simply a matter of what we say or how we act, but roots in our hearts, even as murder roots in anger and adultery roots in lust.  Christ calls us to share in His life so fully that we acquire the purity of heart that comes from the healing of the corruption that darkens our spiritual vision.    A necessary step in embracing that healing is to mindfully turn away from obsessing about the wrongs of others. We gain the strength to do so by opening our hearts to the healing power of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul wrote, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23) As St. Silouan the Athonite taught, “One can only love one’s enemies through the grace of the Holy Spirit.” And “He who does not love his enemies, does not have God’s grace.”

How we respond to those who have wronged us reveals the true state of our souls in a way that goes beyond the simplistic distortions of the Christian faith that are so popular in our culture.  Regardless of our opinions about anything, how moral our outward behavior may be, or what warm feelings we may have about Christ, if we are so enslaved to the passions of pride and anger that we hate, condemn, and refuse to forgive anyone, then we reject our Lord because we refuse to embrace His gracious healing to the point that we conform our character to His.  We so easily become blind to the image of God in those we resent due to our own passions.  Doing so is nothing less than repeating Cain’s murder of Abel in our hearts.   Apart from the healing power of the Holy Spirit, there is simply no escape from slavery to an endless cycle of retribution that leads only to the grave.  We do not have to look very closely at our world today to see the tragic results of living that way. 

The Savior endured the full consequences of such depravity in His crucifixion and death to lead us from the grave to the glory of the heavenly kingdom through His resurrection on the third day.  He abides in our hearts through the Holy Spirit through Whom we are able to cry out to God “Abba, Father,” for we are not slaves, but beloved children of God, heirs to all the promises to Abraham through faith in Christ. (Gal. 4:6) In order to receive His healing strength, we must open ourselves as fully as possible to the power of the Holy Spirit.   He is “everywhere present and fills all things” and we have received Him personally in the holy mystery of Chrismation.  In order to acquire the fruits of the Spirit, we must actively cooperate with God’s grace by struggling to grow in humility, which means learning to see ourselves as we truly are.  That is what the first servant in today’s parable obviously lacked.  When we know in our hearts that we are the chief of sinners and recognize that our very existence and all our blessings are dependent upon the undeserved mercy of the Lord, then we will no longer be driven to condemn anyone else.

The path to the healing of our souls does not run through self-righteous legalism or attempts to use God to raise ourselves up over anyone else for any reason.  The Theotokos, who humbly said “Yes!” to God with every ounce of her being, shows us a completely different path.  She condemned no one, not even those who crucified her Son, for she was so united with Him in love that there was no place in her soul for hatred.   We will acquire the spiritual health to forgive from our hearts those who have wronged us when, like her, we become so receptive and obedient to the Lord that we recognize the folly of focusing on anything other than the one thing needful of hearing and obeying the Word of God.  More than anyone else, the Theotokos shows us how to gain the strength necessary to live as those who are “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  Let us follow her glorious example, for she embodies the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost, the Tenth Sunday of Matthew, and the After-feast of the Transfiguration of Christ in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 4:9-16; Matthew 17:14-23

 

            We are presently in an especially rich period of the life of the Church, as we continue to celebrate our Lord’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor and prepare for the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos.  The spiritual eyes of Peter, James, and John were opened to behold the brilliant divine glory of the Lord as they saw Him speaking with Moses and Elijah.  Then from a bright cloud the voice of the Father proclaimed, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matt. 17:5). This miraculous vision occurred to enable the disciples, at Christ’s crucifixion, to remember that His “suffering was voluntary” so that they “could declare to all the world that Thou art truly the effulgent Splendor of the Father.”

 

            In His Transfiguration, it is revealed that the Savior is the God-Man, fully divine even as He is fully human.  He enables us to become transfigured in holiness by sharing personally in His gracious divine energies.  That is possible because of His incarnation, which required the free response of the woman called to become His virgin mother.  During the Dormition Fast, we humble ourselves as we celebrate how Mary was transfigured in holiness as the Theotokos, the Living Temple of the Lord, who at her “falling asleep” became the first to follow Him as a whole, embodied person into the Kingdom of Heaven.  She points us to her Son as the greatest example of receptivity and devotion to the Savior.

 

            Even as the Transfiguration was to prepare the disciples for the Lord’s crucifixion, the life of the Theotokos has a deep connection to the Cross.   As St. Symeon said to her at the presentation of the 40-day old Christ in the Temple, “a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (Lk. 2:35) We cannot begin to imagine the pain that she experienced as she saw her Son and God rejected and crucified before her own eyes.  Nonetheless, she never abandoned Him and surely no one rejoiced at His resurrection as did His virgin mother. 

 

            The hard truth is that being transfigured in holiness requires taking up our crosses and enduring the struggle and pain that are necessary for the healing of our souls.  Since we are not isolated individuals but members together of Christ’s Body, the Church, it is not surprising that our spiritual health requires offering ourselves for the wellbeing of our neighbors.   That is especially the case for parents who have both a uniquely deep bond with their children and a unique responsibility to put their interests before their own.    

 

The father of the epileptic boy in today’s gospel reading stands out as a shining example of what it means to lift up our broken hearts for our loved ones in humility. The poor man sorrowed over the sufferings of his son, whose seizures put his life at risk by causing him to fall into both fire and water.  This encounter is reported by St. Matthew immediately after Peter, James, and John had beheld the divine glory of the Lord at His Transfiguration.  The man had asked the disciples to heal him, but they lacked the strength to do so.  The Lord spoke sternly about the spiritual weakness of those who followed Him most closely: “O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.”  Then He healed the young man.  The disciples, being unaware of why they were unable to help in this situation, asked the Lord about it.  His response must have been hard to hear: “Because you have no faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. This kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting.”

 

            As hard as it is for us to understand, the attachment the disciples—including those who had beheld His Transfiguration-- had to Christ at this point was not true faith in Him.  Since the Savior said that “This kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting,” they must have lacked even the most basic spiritual disciplines.  The passage ends with Christ foretelling His Passion: “The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and He will rise on the third day.”  All the gospels indicate that the disciples did not expect the Messiah to die and rise from the grave. They shared the dominant hope for a military champion to defeat the Roman forces of occupation and set up an earthly kingdom, in which they expected to have places of prominence.  Remember that the Lord said, “Get behind me, Satan!” to Peter, the head disciple, when he rejected the prediction of His cross and empty tomb. (Mk. 8:33) The hearts of the disciples would have to be broken through their denial and abandonment of the Savior Who went to the Cross for them finally to become receptive to a Messiah very different from what they had expected.

 

            St. Paul dealt with similar misunderstandings in the church at Corinth where some had built themselves up in their own minds in stark contrast to the humble obedience characteristic of true apostles.  Paul wrote that true apostles are fools for Christ, weak, held in disrepute, hungry, thirsty, homeless, and persecuted.  They were obviously not out for praise, glory, or self-satisfaction, but manifested in their sufferings the true way of the Lord as they blessed and forgave their tormentors.  That is why Paul could say with integrity, “be imitators of me.”  By enduring the pain and struggle of a heart broken for love of Christ and His Body, the Church, he had been transfigured in holiness.

 

The heart of the father in today’s gospel lesson had already been broken by his recognition that he could not heal or protect his son from seizures that could cause his death.  Years of caring for the boy had revealed his own weaknesses and limitations.  The common hopes of parents to see their family lines thrive in future generations rang hollow for him now.  He struggled to think that he could keep his son from dying an untimely death and he was disappointed yet again when the disciples could not heal him.  In St. Mark’s account of this encounter, we learn that the “father cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’ in response to the Savior’s words ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’ (Mk. 9:23-24) In the midst of this man’s brokenness and pain, he knew that his faith was far from perfect.  He had acquired the humility to see his weakness clearly. His heart would never be healed by pretending he was something he was not.  He cried honestly to the Lord from the depths of his soul and the Lord heard his plea and healed his son.

 

            As King David wrote in Psalm 50, “a contrite and humble heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.” Our hearts will become contrite and humble when we confront how we have marred the beauty of our souls and refused to fulfill our calling to become like God in holiness.  St. Mark the Ascetic wrote that “Remembrance of God is pain of the heart endured in the spirit of devotion.”  We will experience pain in our hearts when we struggle to open our deepest struggles and the darkest crevices of our souls to the healing light of Christ. We will then know the infinite distance between the brilliant holiness to which we are called and the dark corruption that festers within us. Doing so requires mindfully dying daily to the slavery of our passions and reorienting the desires of our hearts for true fulfillment in God.  Especially in this season, we must pray, fast, serve our neighbors sacrificially, and otherwise do all that we have the strength to do in taking up our crosses if we are to become transfigured in holiness like the Theotokos and follow her into the eternal joy of the Kingdom of Heaven. She did not shy away from taking up her uniquely heavy cross.  Let us follow her blessed example in gaining the strength to become totally receptive and obedient to the Lord, despite the cost, for that is how we may all come to shine resplendently with the divine glory.  That is how we may share even now in the eternal life of the God-Man Whose “face shone like the sun” and Whose “clothes became as white as the light” on Mount Tabor as the voice of the Father proclaimed, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”

 

             

 

How Not to Sink Like a Stone in the Raging Seas of our Passions: Homily for the Ninth Sunday After Pentecost & Ninth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 3:9-17: Matthew 14:22-34

 

It is easy for us today to become so focused on our worries, fears, and problems that we start to sink into a deep sea of despair.  We endure almost constant bombardment with images and messages that call us to judge ourselves and others according to cultural standards of success, such as wealth, beauty, and popularity.  No matter how successful we may be in pursuing such goals, those who bear the image and likeness of God will never find true satisfaction in them.   To make them the foundation of our wellbeing is a recipe for disaster, for they cannot heal the soul and can all disappear in an instant.  If our horizons extend no further than that, we will never become transfigured in holiness by the gracious energies of the New Adam.  Instead, we will sink like stones in a sea of despair.

 

 St. Peter began to do precisely that when he turned his focus away from the Lord to fixate on the wind and the waves.  By his own nature, there was simply no way that Peter could have avoided drowning, but he called out “Lord, save me!”  That is precisely what the Savior did by reaching out to Peter and rescuing him as He said, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”  The stress of the storm revealed the weakness of Peter’s faith, which is not surprising because he had gotten himself into this situation by foolishly putting Christ to the test, saying “Lord, if it is You, bid me come to You on the water.”   By his impulsiveness and lack of humble trust, Peter literally got himself in well over his head. He had to learn the hard way that he had no foundation, no basis for life itself, other than Jesus Christ.  If left to his own devices, he would have sunk like a stone into a watery grave.   

 

That is a destination completely different from the one to which our Lord calls us. The God-Man came to do nothing less than to transfigure us in holiness with His gracious divine energies as the uniquely blessed persons He created us to become.  The Savior called His disciples to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48) He cited the Psalms: “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” (Psalm 82:6; Jn. 10:34) While we remain human beings by nature, Christ enables us to become like Him by our personal participation in His grace. That is why theosis is an eternal process, for God’s holiness is truly infinite.  Contrary to the self-centered individualism celebrated by our culture, Christ calls us to become persons united in humble love with Him, our fellow members of His Body, the Church, and our neighbors.   We become more beautiful living icons of God not in self-centered isolation or by defining ourselves as enemies over against anyone else but by growing in communion with Him and all who bear His image and likeness. 

 

The contrast between seeking fulfillment according to our passions and our Lord’s salvation is starker than the difference between night and day.  It is truly the difference been death and life, between sinking to the bottom of a dark sea and becoming resplendent with the radiant glory of God. Our Lord has conquered death, Hades, and the tomb in His glorious resurrection on the third day.  His divine glory has flooded even the darkest abyss, even the most tragic and painful pits of despair into which we can fall.  He has liberated us from slavery to the fear of death as the God-Man Who shares His eternal life with weak, fearful, anxious, and confused people like us.  When we call out to Him with faith from the depths of our hearts, as Peter did when he began to sink, His healing light will illumine our darkened souls.   

 

As St. Paul taught, “no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”  No one and nothing else can have that place in our lives, for to ground our existence elsewhere is to commit idolatry.  No matter how virtuous or appealing any project or ideal of this world may appear, it cannot keep us from sinking under the weight of our own sins.  The darkness roots so deeply within us all, both personally and collectively, and nothing but the brilliant glory of the Lord can overcome it.  Whether we know it or not, we inevitably sink like stones into the abyss whenever we make the foundation of our lives anything or anyone else than the One Who has conquered death itself.  All good things have their place in God’s creation and we should despise none of them, but they lack the ability to transfigure us in the holiness of the New Adam.     

 

As St. Paul teaches, we are by no means self-made, self-sustaining, or self-defining.   Instead, “we are God’s fellow workers…God’s field, God’s building…God’s temple… God’s Spirit dwells in you.”  As members of His own Body, the Church, we are His living temple by the power of the Holy Spirit.  A temple is a place of sacrifice, and we must offer ourselves to Him, not to our vain imaginings about what can achieve, possess, or become by our willpower, intelligence, or other personal characteristics.   To avoid sinking like stones amidst the raging seas of our passions, we must mindfully ground ourselves on the God-Man.   If instead we surrender to our self-centered temptations, we will become just like Peter in being so focused on the wind and waves of worry and fear that we will turn our focus away from Christ.

 

Let us, then, refuse to entrust the meaning and purpose of our lives to anything or anyone other than the Lord.  There is no way to do that without cultivating the habits of daily prayer and mindful protection of our hearts from embracing thoughts that fuel our passions.  It is not a sin for any thought to pop into our minds, but we must not welcome tempting thoughts into our hearts. We must be spiritually alert to discern which thoughts have no place in God’s temple and will only lead us away from grounding ourselves on our one true foundation.  The next time that we become distracted from doing so and start sinking in the winds and waves of our passions, we must refocus our attention on Him, as Peter did when he cried out, “Lord, save me!”  He alone can raise us up. We must never pretend that we are so strong spiritually that we can put off being mindful until we face a great crisis.  None of us is strong enough for that, and it is usually the case that subtle temptations are the most dangerous because we often do not recognize them.    We must attend to the health of our souls every day of our lives as we persist in the struggle to focus on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God.

 

That is why we should all take a close look at ourselves this Dormition Fast and identify the habits of thought, word, and deed that keep us so distracted, confused, and weak that we easily sink under their weight. We need to build new habits to replace them, such as limiting our exposure to images, messages, and media that lead us to define ourselves, our hopes, and our fears in light of the passing things of this world.  We should begin and end each day firmly grounded in prayer and make frequent use of the Jesus Prayer when tempting thoughts, desires, and circumstances arise. We should take Confession on a regular basis so that we are delivered from bearing the weight of our sins. Instead of obsessing about matters beyond our control and what might happen in the future, we should devote ourselves to Christ in the present, both in our prayers and in serving our neighbors. 

 

            The path to transfiguration in holiness is open to us all and exemplified most fully by the Theotokos, the woman who was the first receive Christ as His virgin mother and then to follow Him as a whole, embodied person into the heavenly kingdom upon her death.  As we fast and ask for her prayers in this season, let us entrust ourselves so fully to her Son that we may join her in saying with every ounce of our being, “Behold the servant of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your word.”  If we remain so grounded on our one true foundation, we will never drown in the sea of despair.   

 

 

Religious Consumerism or Eucharistic Offering?: Homily for the Eighth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 3:23-4:5; Matthew 14:14-22

 

            It is easy for us all to fall into the trap of being religious consumers.  Even as we select the products we want in a local store or online, we tend to approach the spiritual life similarly, looking to satisfy our religious needs and desires as we please.  If we are not careful, we can easily distort the way of Christ into a self-centered endeavor that has little to do with offering ourselves to the Lord and much to do with distorting the Faith according to our own preferences.  No matter how doctrinally correct our beliefs may be or how strictly we practice our spiritual disciplines, we will not embrace Christ’s healing of our souls by serving ourselves.      

 

It is, of course, much easier to focus on getting what we want in any area of life than on accepting the responsibility to offer ourselves in obedience to Christ’s command.  In response to the disciples’ assumption that addressing the hunger of the crowds did not require anything of them, the Lord said “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Since it had been obvious to the disciples that they did not have the provisions to feed all those people, they had asked Christ to “send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”  The disciples had only five loaves of bread and two fish, an absurdly small amount of food for a large crowd.  But they still obeyed when “He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’”  The Savior then “blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.  And they all ate and were satisfied.  And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.  And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

 

            The Lord revealed His identity as the Messiah by miraculously supplying food for hungry Jews in the desert like manna from heaven in the Old Testament.  The five loaves remind us of the five books of law in the Hebrew Bible, while the two fish recall the two tablets of God’s commandments received by Moses.  From these small amounts of food came such an abundance that twelve basketsful were leftover, which reminds us of the twelve tribes of Israel.  Five thousand men and their families were fed, which again recalls the five Old Testament books of law. The Lord miraculously satisfied the hunger of a multitude in a way that showed He is the Messiah Who fulfills the promises to Abraham, which are now extended to all who respond to Him with humble faith.  As St. Paul wrote in our epistle reading, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

 

By His command, Christ taught the disciples to take responsibility for offering themselves to meet the needs of their neighbors.  He showed us all that sharing in His life requires an offering of ourselves and our resources to become instruments of His salvation of the world, regardless of how tiny and inadequate we may think our offering is.  Adam and Eve did the opposite by becoming merely consumers of the creation as they disobeyed the Lord’s command and indulged themselves. They refused to fulfill their vocation to become beautiful living icons of God by pursuing a path that leads only to weakness, despair, and death.  The New Adam offered Himself on the Cross in order to liberate us from such a depraved state through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  We unite ourselves to His offering when we lift up our hearts and offer bread and wine for the celebration of the Eucharist in the Divine Liturgy.  He has restored and fulfilled the original purpose of food and drink to bring us into the eternal communion of love shared by the Persons of the Holy Trinity. His life becomes ours as He nourishes us with His Body and Blood as participants in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. 

 

When “He looked up to Heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds,” the Savior provided an image of the Eucharist.  The disciples did not know that when they handed over their bread and fish to the Lord on that particular day.  But had they not offered what little food they had collected to Christ, the miraculous multiplication would not have occurred, and the crowd would have gone hungry.  Likewise, if no one offers bread and wine for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, no one will receive Communion. 

 

By miraculously satisfying so many with so little, Christ revealed what it means for us to live eucharistically as we offer ourselves and our resources for the fulfillment of His gracious purposes for the world.  We must not offer only bread and wine or think that communion with Christ concerns only what we do on Sunday morning.  Far from it, we must live every day as those who share in His life, offering every aspect of our existence in the world for His blessing and fulfillment.  No matter how tiny or inadequate we may think our offerings are, He multiplies them to accomplish His gracious purposes for us, our neighbors, and our world.

 

Contrary to the religious consumerism so popular in our culture, Orthodox Christians have a vocation to become persons in communion who transcend the individualism that so easily prevents us from offering the loaves and fishes of our lives.  Regardless of whether we have grown up Orthodox or are now encountering the Faith for the first time, we are probably in Church today because some dimension of the life of the Church appeals to us.  It is good for us all to be here, but the more that we have united ourselves to Christ in holiness the less that we will focus on what we like and the more that we will lift up our hearts to offer ourselves in union with His great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world.  “Thine Own of Thine Own, we offer unto Thee on behalf of all and for all” includes not only bread and wine but our every thought, word, and deed.  It includes our stewardship of all our abilities and resources, as well as our attention, time, and energy. 

 

We may think that anything we could offer would be too small or unworthy to be of any use to the Lord.  If we feel as inadequate as someone with five loaves of bread and two fish for feeding a crowd of thousands of people, then we are in the ideal place to begin with humility.  Our Lord is gracious and accepts the offerings we presently have the strength to make, such as a few minutes of focused daily prayer, our feeble efforts at fasting, small gestures of generosity and kindness to the needy, and our faltering steps of repentance.  He will bless and multiply the small offerings of time and energy that we make to sustain the life of our parish, such as teaching Sunday School, helping with chanting, supporting Coffee Hour, or serving as an usher.  It does not really matter if we are eager or inclined to make such offerings, for the Savior says to us all: “You give them something to eat.”   We need to abandon the mindset of self-centered religious consumers and learn to embrace our true identity as those who “have put on Christ in baptism” and are members together of the Body of Christ.

 

As St. Paul taught, we are “Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” and “all one in Christ Jesus,” regardless of any human characteristic.  The more that we offer ourselves to Him in our daily spiritual disciplines and in sacrificial service of the Church and our neighbors, the more that we will live eucharistically as those in communion with the Savior Who offered Himself without reservation for the life of the World.  The less that we obsess about getting what we want from the Lord and the more that we focus on lifting up our hearts, the better prepared we will be to offer ourselves to Him for the fulfillment of His gracious purposes for all who bear the divine image and likeness.   He calls us all to do precisely that.

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in the Orthodox Church

 

Titus 3:8-15; Matthew 5:14-19

              People in our society are being drawn to the Orthodox Church today in unprecedented numbers.  This is surely the work of the Holy Spirit and a great blessing for which we give thanks.   It is also a reminder to us all to be on guard against the temptation to distort the Faith according to our passions.  This is an equal opportunity temptation, regardless of whether we have grown up in the Church or have only recently discovered it.  But especially in a time when many first encounter Orthodox teaching online and in debates with other traditions, we must be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that the healing of our souls will come through watching videos or winning arguments. We will not become “the light of the world” by viewing Orthodoxy as a collection of ideas that we can use to demonstrate our superiority to other people.

            Today we commemorate the 630 holy and God-bearing fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon who taught that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human:  one Person with two natures.  They did not meet to exalt themselves but in response to the heresy of Monophysitism, which taught that the Savior’s humanity was dissolved in His divinity, like a drop of wine in an ocean.  In keeping with their vocation as bishops, they deliberated due to a pressing crisis in the Church which gravely challenged the integrity of the Gospel, for Christ must be both fully God and fully human in order to make us “partakers of the divine nature” who shine with His holy light.  He must truly be one of us to restore and fulfill us in the image and likeness of God. The fathers of Chalcedon clarified how to express the deep truth that Christ has brought salvation to the world as the God-Man.

As today’s gospel reading demonstrates, the Lord does not call us merely to affirm even the most lucid statements of theological truth but to share personally in His deified humanity to the point that we become “the light of the world.”  He warns against misinterpreting His ministry as though He came to “to abolish the law and the prophets.”  That would have meant that He did not care how His followers lived and did not call them to a way of life that required constant repentance.  The Savior made it very clear by saying: “I have come not to abolish them [i. e, the law and the prophets], but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

He calls us to focus on gaining the spiritual strength to obey the commandments, which He intensified by going literally to the heart of the matter.  No longer is it enough to refrain from murdering someone with our hands; now our hearts must be purified of the anger that leads to insult and deadly violence.  No longer is it enough to stop short of having intercourse with someone other than one’s own spouse; now our hearts must be healed of desire for intimacy outside the uniquely blessed union of husband and wife. No longer does it suffice to limit our desire for revenge to “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”; now we must turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, and love even our enemies as God loves us. 

Christ, the God-Man, has fulfilled the prophecy spoken by Jeremiah: “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Jer. 31:3) By the power of the Holy Spirit, so abundantly poured out at Pentecost, the Savior heals and strengthens us so that we may become radiant with the light of the gracious divine energies shining from our hearts like a city on a hill or a lamp on a stand such that people “may see your good works and give glory to your Father Who is in heaven.”  That is simply not possible apart from our personal participation in the Lord’s restoration and fulfillment of the human person as a living icon of God.  Since gaining such spiritual health is a demanding vocation, we must focus humbly and mindfully on offering ourselves to Him for the healing of our passions every day.  Our souls are sick with pride, anger, lust, and other disordered desires which can easily destroy our ability to bear witness to the light of Christ in our darkened world.  If we dare to appoint ourselves as apologists or spiritual teachers, especially when we are not finding healing for our passions, we risk great harm both to our own souls and to those we seek to instruct. That is true no matter how accurate our rational understanding of Orthodox teaching may be.  We must be careful not to accept the delusion that arguing about ideas or opinions will ever calm our passions.  Usually, the opposite is the case.    St. Paul’s warning to “avoid foolish disputes, and genealogies, and contentions, and controversies about the Law; for they are unprofitable and vain” applies to us all whenever we are tempted to speak about the Faith in way that is corrupted by our distorted desires and spiritual weakness. 

It is far better to follow the Apostles’s advice to “learn how to preside in honorable occupations, so as to help in cases of urgent need…[and] not be unfruitful.”  In other words, we should devote ourselves to the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life as we turn away from anything that would distract us from our fundamental vocation to share personally in the healing and restoration brought to the world by the God-Man Jesus Christ.  By His grace, we may become the light of the world, a beacon drawing others into the brilliant new day of the Kingdom of God.  In order to do so, we must embrace the daily struggle:  to pray to God from our hearts and read the Scriptures; to fast in a way appropriate to our spiritual and physical health and life circumstances; to give generously to the needy and in support of the Church’s ministries; to forgive and pray for those who wrong us; and to confess and repent of our sins on a regular basis, as we mindfully pursue healing from our persistent passions. 

Instead of focusing on correcting the errors of others, we must use our zeal for Orthodoxy to fuel our receptivity to the light of Christ, both personally and in the life of our parish.  Doing so requires the practical work of taking up our crosses and living faithfully each day.  It requires stepping up to do what needs to be done for the flourishing of our parish, such as teaching Sunday School, chanting, ushering, bringing food for and attending coffee hour, and establishing new forms of ministry.  As the Lord taught, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father Who is in heaven.”  The more radiant we become with the light of Christ, the more people will be drawn to His Body, the Church.  Our parish already shines as “the light of the world” in many ways, which is surely why our numbers are growing.  There is no limit to how brightly we may shine with the light of Christ other than what we impose on ourselves when we refuse to focus mindfully each day on the practices that bring healing to our souls and edify His Body, the Church.  

The God-Man confessed by the fathers of Chalcedon did not give His followers an elaborate system of ideas as the path to eternal life.  That was, however, the approach of Gnostics who denied that the Savior had a physical body and thought that salvation came through the transmission of secret ideas to a select few.  We must never distort the Orthodox Faith into a collection of esoteric concepts, for the One Who is fully divine and fully human came to bring all of us who wander in darkness into the brilliant light of His Kingdom as whole persons.  Let us use what we have learned and are learning about the Church’s beliefs and practices to fuel our devotion to opening our hearts and lives as fully as possible to receive the light of Christ so that we may shine in holiness “like a city set on a hill [that] cannot be hid” and a “lamp…on a stand… [that] gives light to all in the house.”  

 

 

Homily for the Sixth Sunday After Pentecost & Sixth Sunday of Matthew with Commemoration of the Venerable Paisios the New of Mount Athos in the Orthodox Church

 

Romans 12:6-14; Matthew 9: 1-8

One of the most distinctive characteristics of the Orthodox Christian Faith is a therapeutic view of salvation.  Christ is the Great Physician Who restored people to physical and spiritual health in His earthly ministry.  He set people free from demons, enabled the blind to see and the lame to walk, and even raised the dead.  He continues to restore strength to us who are weakened and paralyzed by our passions.  We find healing as we become “partakers of the divine nature” by grace, sharing in the eternal life of the God-Man even as we remain flesh and blood in the world as we know it. 

Christ certainly “fulfilled the law and the prophets,” but He did not come simply to give us a new set of laws to obey according to our own moral strength.  (Matt. 5:17) As today’s gospel reading shows, He not only forgives our sins but restores us as His beautiful living icons.  The Savior forgave the sins of the paralyzed man, showing His divinity in a way that scandalized religious leaders.   But He also revealed that His salvation is not defined in legalistic terms, as though the whole point of the Christian life were to be declared innocent in a court of law for certain offenses.  If that were the case, there would have been no point in healing the paralyzed man, for he could have been acquitted of his sins while remaining unable to move.  If that had been the case, the only change would have been in how the Lord viewed him, not in the man himself.

This fellow’s paralysis is a vivid icon of humanity cast out of Paradise, corrupted by our collective and personal refusal to pursue the fulfillment of our calling to become like God in holiness.  By disorienting ourselves from our true vocation and entrusting ourselves to our self-centered desires, we have diminished ourselves to the point of becoming as weak as a man unable to get up off the ground.  Christ responded to him with healing mercy, granting strength and restoration beyond what he could ever have given himself, no matter how hard he tried.  In response to the Savior’s gracious therapy, the man obeyed the command to stand up, pick up his bed, and walk home.  Apart from this encounter with the Lord, he would have remained enslaved to debilitating weakness, but the Savior’s healing restored his ability to move forward as a person who bears the image and likeness of God.

Whenever we ask for the Lord’s mercy, we are asking for the same therapy that He extended to the paralyzed man.  We ask Him to heal our wounds, restore our strength, and help us become participants in the eternal joy for which He created us.  We ask Him to deliver us from the wretched, corrupt state of being so weak before our passions that we feel helpless before our familiar temptations, no matter how much we despise them. We ask Him to help us find healing from the ingrained habits of thought, word, and deed that have made us and our neighbors miserable time and time again. 

To rise, take up our beds, and walk home requires obedience to Christ’s commands, but not a legalistic obedience in the sense of following a code for its own sake.  To the contrary, this obedience is like following the guidance of a physician or therapist who tells us what we must do in order to regain health and function for our bodies.  We must do our part to become physically healthy but can hardly take credit for the God-given ability of our bodies to grow in strength.  Like the man in today’s gospel reading, we must obey in order to embrace His healing without falling into the self-righteous delusion that we have somehow healed ourselves.  Christ calls us to nothing short of being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, which is possible only because He shares with us His victory over the power of death in all its forms.  The healthier we are spiritually, the more we will be aware of our dependence upon His mercy and of our ongoing need for further strength.

The healing of the paralyzed man began when people carried him on his bed to the Lord.  “[W]hen Jesus saw their faith He said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.’”  This remarkable detail reminds us that we do not relate to Christ as isolated individuals but as members of His Body, the Church.  We can put no limits on how the Lord may use our faith, prayers, and obedience to manifest His blessing, forgiveness, and healing in the life of anyone.   The focus of our devotion to Christ must not be self-centered but an offering of ourselves for the Lord to use as He sees fit to accomplish His gracious purposes. That is why St. Paul writes in today’s epistle reading, “having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them… Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, and serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”  He knew that we have different gifts and callings “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:12-13)

St. Paul refers to all members of the Body of Christ as saints because we share by grace in the holiness of God. The Church formally recognizes as saints those who shine so brilliantly with holiness that they are examples to all of what healing from the paralysis of sin looks like in a human person.  They are the “great cloud of witnesses” encouraging us to entrust ourselves fully to Christ as we press on in the journey of faithfulness.  (Heb. 12:1-2) We ask for their prayers because they intercede for us as fellow members of the Body of Christ who have entered into heavenly glory.  By their prayers, faith, and example, they bring us all to Christ for healing.  They also call us to follow their example in strengthening one another, for as St. James wrote, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective… if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” (Jas. 5: 16, 19-20).

Today we commemorate Saint Paisios the New of Athos, who in the 20^th century counseled and cured thousands of people from addictions and diseases.  He is a shining example of humble piety through whom God worked many miracles.   He said that “If one becomes humble, he can instantly be immersed in divine Grace, become an angel and find himself in Paradise.  On the contrary, if he becomes prideful, he can turn into a devil in a moment’s time and find himself in Hell…[O]ne can become a lamb if he wants to; he can also become a goat if he wants to…. God has given us humans the ability to change from being a goat to being a lamb---it is enough that we want to do so.  The Grace of God is extended only to the humble and meek person.”[1]

If we are truly humble and meek, we will cooperate with our Lord’s gracious calling to rise, take up our beds, and walk.  We will endure the daily struggle to receive His healing of our souls through prayer, fasting, generosity, and repentance.  We will exercise our spiritual gifts for the strengthening of one another as members together of the Body of Christ.   His salvation is not a matter of law but of therapy.  It is not a matter of self-reliance but of receptivity to grace by faith and faithfulness.  To obey the Savior’s command is not a burden but the greatest blessing of all.

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[1] St. Paisios, Passions and Virtues, 173.