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.

Homily for the Venerable Athanasius of Athos & Fifth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 5:22-6:2; Matthew 8:28-9:1

 

            Today’s Scripture readings describe very different spiritual conditions.   Our gospel reading presents two demon-possessed men who lived in a cemetery and were so scary that no one came near them.  As Christ passed by, these wretched men met Him but could speak only in the voice of their demons: “What have we to do to You, O Son of God?  Are You come here to torment us before the time?”  The demons then asked to be cast out into a nearby herd of pigs, which then ran over a steep bank into the sea, where they drowned.  When news of the miracle reached the people of the region, they asked the Lord to leave.  He then got into a boat and did so.  The formerly demon-possessed men had been delivered, but their neighbors apparently were not happy about that.  They were similar to the demons in wanting nothing to do with the One Who had set them free.  Like the demons, they perceived Christ’s presence as simply a torment that threatened the disruption of their lives. 

 

            Our epistle reading presents something entirely different, the profound teaching of St. Paul that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.”  He acknowledges that to embrace the Savior’s healing does require a kind of death but only a death to all that would keep us enslaved in misery, for “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” To share in Christ’s salvation by the power of the Holy Spirit requires us to grow in holiness to the point that we “have no self-conceit, no provocation of one another, no envy of one another.”  That could certainly not be said of the people who asked Christ to leave their neighborhood after His miraculous deliverance of the demon-possessed men.  Instead of giving thanks for how He had set two of their neighbors free from misery, they thought only of themselves, being caught up in fear about what might happen to them.

 

            Today we commemorate Saint Athanasius of Athos, founder of the Great Lavra, the oldest and most prominent organized monastery on Mount Athos.  An orphan who was raised by a nun, he was then taken to the court of the Byzantine emperor and studied rhetoric under a famous teacher.  Longing for the monastic life, he became a monk and devoted himself to strict asceticism and intense prayer as he endured great temptations.  With funds from the emperor, he built churches in honor of St. John the Baptist and of the Theotokos. Nearby monastic cells, a hospice for the sick, a dining hall, and other buildings comprised the magnificent structure.

 

St. Athanasius was blessed on many occasions to behold the Theotokos, including once when his monks were so hungry that they had all left.  An account of his life reports that:  

 

The saint remained all alone and, in a moment of weakness, he also considered leaving. Suddenly he beheld a Woman beneath an ethereal veil, coming to meet him. “Who are you and where are you going?” She asked quietly. Saint Athanasius from an innate deference halted. “I am a monk from here,” Saint Athanasius replied, and spoke about himself and his worries.

 

“Would you forsake the monastery which was intended for glory from generation unto generation, just for a morsel of dry bread? Where is your faith? Turn around, and I shall help you.” “Who are you?” asked Athanasius. “I am the Mother of the Lord,” She answered, and bid Athanasius to strike his staff upon a stone. From the fissure there gushed forth a spring of water, which exists even now, in remembrance of this miraculous visitation.[1]

 

After departing this life along with six other monks when a wall they were inspecting fell and buried them, he appeared several times to his brethren to console or rebuke them. 

 

            Saint Athanasius is an example to us all of what it means to acquire the fruits of the Holy Spirit. His path was not easy and required constant vigilance.  Though, like everyone else, he had times of weakness, he did not run away in fear from the great challenges that he faced in fulfilling his calling. Instead, he “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” and learned to “walk by the Spirit.”  It is not easy for anyone to grow to the point that they have “no self-conceit, no provocation of one another, no envy of one another,” but people like Saint Athanasius show that it is entirely possible for each and every one of us if we persistently turn away from living according to our self-centered desires and instead humbly reorient our hearts to their true fulfillment in God.

 

            Even as finding the healing of our souls requires struggle, we must not view it as the product of our own willpower.  We are always dependent upon the mercy of the Lord, as were the two men He delivered from demons in our gospel reading.  The fruits of the Spirit are always gifts, not qualities that we have earned merely by our own efforts.  We must, nonetheless, mindfully cooperate with our gracious Lord through obedience and humble repentance. As Saint Porphyrios taught,

 

Deal with everything with love, kindness, meekness, patience and humility.  Be rocks.  Let all the waives break over you and turn back leaving you untroubled.  You’ll say, “That sounds fine, but is it possible?” The answer is, “Yes, always—with the grace of God.” If we look at things in human terms, of course, it is impossible.  But instead of affecting you adversely, all these things can be of benefit to you, increasing your patience and your faith.  Because all the difficulties that surround us represent a kind of gymnastics for us.  We exercise ourselves in patience and endurance.[2]

 

As members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we lack nothing that is necessary to manifest the fruits of the Spirit every day of our lives other than our own reception of His healing.  We must embrace personally, to the depths of our hearts, the full meaning of St. Paul’s teaching that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”  Doing so is an ongoing process of personal transformation in the likeness of God, not a matter of legalism or religious self-reliance.  Were it all up to us, we would know only failure and frustration, perhaps to the point of becoming like the neighbors of the men who had been delivered from demons in their rejection of Christ.  Thanks be to God, the same Lord Who restored those men to a recognizably human life shares His eternal life with us even now.  He comes to restore us as His beautiful living icons.  We accept His restoration in humility when we pray, fast, care for our neighbors, and repent of our sins as we take even small and imperfect steps to reorient our lives to the blessedness of His Kingdom.  That is how we may all come to embody the fruits of the Spirit to the point that we truly “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

 

           

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[1] “Venerable Athanasius, founder of the Great Lavra and Coenobitic Monasticism on Mount Athos, and his six disciples,” https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/1999/07/05/101908-venerable-athanasius-founder-of-the-great-lavra-and-coenobitic-m

[2] Saint Porphyrios, Wounded by Love, pg. 145.

Homily on the Holy, Glorious Apostles Peter and Paul in the Orthodox Church

 

2 Corinthians 11:21-12:9; Matthew 16:13-19

All of us have our quirks of personality, habits of speaking and acting, and strengths and weaknesses of character.  By living and working in close contact with others, we learn that we are not self-sufficient, which is a good thing.  From the struggles of sharing a common life we learn how much we need the companionship and gifts of neighbors for our own personal growth and the flourishing of our families and other communities, including the Church.  And contrary to what we often think, our weaknesses do not exclude us from sharing more fully in the life of Christ; instead, they provide opportunities for us to embrace more fully His gracious strength.

Today we celebrate two of the most glorious Saints of the Christian faith.  They are both pillars of the Church, apostles, and martyrs whose unique personalities and experiences have made decisive and permanent contributions to the Body of Christ.  Saint Peter was the head disciple whose confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” is the rock on which Christ, our true foundation, has built His Church.    The gospels describe Peter’s presence at so many crucial moments in the ministry of the Lord, including at His arrest when Peter, who had earlier said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and had vowed never to abandon Him, denied Him three times.  Then the risen Lord restored Peter by asking him three times if he loved Him and giving him the command to feed His sheep as a shepherd of the flock of Christians.  In the Acts of the Apostles, we see Peter boldly proclaiming the good news, performing miracles, and playing a key role in welcoming Gentiles into the Church.   After serving as the first bishop of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, then he went to serve in Rome.  Peter was crucified there upside down for his faith in Jesus Christ, for he considered himself unworthy to die in the same way as His Savior.

        That St. Paul plays a glorious role in the formation of the faith is obvious to anyone who knows the New Testament, for he wrote so much of it.   He traveled for decades founding and supporting churches, especially among Gentiles.  Paul had been a strict Pharisee who had persecuted Christians.  But on the road to Damascus, the risen Lord appeared to Him in a blinding light and called him to repentance and the shocking ministry of bringing Gentiles into the Body of Christ through faith and baptism, not circumcision and obedience to the Old Testament law.  Perhaps more than anyone else, Paul made clear that the Church is not a sect of Judaism for people of a particular ethnic and religious heritage, for Christ’s gospel is  good news for all people, regardless of their ancestry. 

        As today’s epistle passage reminds us, St. Paul’s ministry was not easy by any stretch of the imagination.  He was beaten, imprisoned, humiliated, and ultimately martyred in Rome for his faith in Jesus Christ.  He knew both the heights of spiritual ecstasy and the chronic challenge of a “thorn in the flesh” that God did not remove, despite his three-fold request.  Whatever that thorn may have been, Paul learned through his sufferings the sufficiency of God’s strength for him.  God’s “strength is made perfect in (Paul’s) weakness.“  As the apostle said of himself, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

        When we study the lives of these two great Saints, we see people with particular personalities who were not rich, famous, or at peace by worldly standards.  These were real human beings who famously fell short, repented, grew over time in their understanding, and faced such opposition that both suffered capital punishment at the hands of the pagan Romans.  They gained no worldly advantages by their faithful ministry, but their selfless service strengthened the Church in ways too numerous to count.  We are here today as Orthodox Christians because of what God did through them and countless other lesser-known apostles, martyrs, and evangelists across the ages.

         To commemorate the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul with integrity, we must go beyond praising them with our words.  We must become like them in a way appropriate to our callings and circumstances.  For just as God used an impulsive fisherman and a zealous Pharisee to His glory, He intends to do likewise with each of us.  As St. Peter wrote, “you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  (1 Pet. 2:9) As St. Paul wrote, we have become “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone…” (Eph. 2:19-20)

        Each generation is like a new story added to the building or a new branch growing on a tree.  Our life in Christ springs from the living history of what the Holy Spirit has done across the centuries in the life of the Church.  The Spirit empowers us to manifest faithfulness as unique persons called to grow in the divine likeness in our present circumstances.  Just as a fisherman and a Pharisee became radiant with holiness through their repentance and steadfast dedication to Christ, the same may be true of us.

We may think, however, that we are simply too weak and sinful to achieve such spiritual heights.  Remember, however, that Peter denied Christ three times at His arrest and Paul had persecuted Christians to the point of death.  If they can repent, follow Jesus Christ faithfully, and play such exemplary roles in the life of the Church, who are we to excuse ourselves from humbly accepting whatever calling God has for us in our families, our parish, our work, or any area of our lives? 

Today we face obstacles much smaller than those encountered by Saints Peter and Paul.   Nonetheless, our common and subtle temptations reveal our weaknesses because they overcome us so easily.  It does not take much to inflame passions that corrupt us spiritually and tempt our neighbors to stumble. That is why we must refuse to make such brokenness an excuse for despair and instead use it to fuel our humble trust in the One Whose “power is made perfect in weakness.” 

St. Paul found God’s strength precisely in his weakness, in his infirmities that opened his life to the gracious power of God after he had persecuted the Body of Christ and abandoned the self-righteous legalism of the Pharisees. St. Peter surely experienced tremendous weakness when the Lord said to him “Get behind me, Satan” and when he realized what he had done in denying Him three times.   

        When we realize how we have fallen prey to our weaknesses, we are in the perfect place to follow in the way of the fisherman and the Pharisee who in humble repentance found the divine strength that makes up what is lacking, heals infirmities, and even conquers sin and death.   Let us not use a false sense of humility to excuse ourselves from true discipleship as we celebrate the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.  Instead, let us follow their example as the unique people we are, with all our strengths, failings, and peculiarities, for from the very beginning of the faith, that is the only way that anyone has come to shine brightly with holiness. That is the only way that we will learn that we are not self-sufficient individuals but persons called to participate by grace in the eternal life of the Triune God.         

Homily for the Third Sunday After Pentecost & Third Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Romans 5:1-10; Matthew 6:22-33

 

Have you ever noticed that people can look at the same thing and see something entirely different?  Some see beauty while others behold ugliness.  Some recognize virtue and others perceive corruption.  Some are fascinated and others are simply bored.   The difference is not in what they are looking at but in the eye of the beholder.  If that is true in everyday matters, how much more is it true in what it means to know and experience God with the eye of the soul.  

Christ said that “The eye is the lamp of the body.  So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”  Christ is the light of the world, and to know Him means to share in His life so fully that we become radiant with His gracious divine energies from the depths of our souls.  The eyes of our hearts must become fully transparent to Him in order for us to fulfill our calling:  “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matt. 5:14-16)

The eyes of our souls must be clear, focused, and full of the light of Christ for us to see anything in the world truthfully.  For example, all our earthly goods and resources are blessings from God to be offered back to Him for the accomplishment of His gracious purposes, especially to care for “the least of these” with whom Christ identified Himself.  Gaining the spiritual clarity to see them as such is necessary for obeying His teaching that “You cannot serve God and mammon.”  The eyes of our souls must be cleansed for us to avoid the common failing of making money and possessions our false gods.  Those who entrust themselves to them inevitably face temptations toward worry, fear, and resentment.  They can all vanish in an instant, and everyone else is a potential threat to them.  As the Lord taught, “the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” 

The spiritual disciplines of the Apostles Fast call us to clarify our spiritual vision and gain the strength to see all the blessings of this life truthfully and not according to our passions.   Our first step is to lift up our hearts to God in prayer each day.   To become receptive to the healing light of our Lord, we must persistently open the darkened eyes of our souls to Him.  The point is not how we feel when we pray, how many prayers we say, or how long we stand before our icons.   We all need to open our hearts to Him as best we can as we focus our minds on the words of the Jesus Prayer, the Trisagion Prayers, the Psalms, or whatever simple order of prayer we are using.  Short prayers with focus and humility are better than long ones with distraction and pride. (Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.) A short rule of prayer followed consistently is far better than an elaborate one rarely used. If we want healing from the blindness and anxiety of entrusting ourselves to the things of this world, we must focus our darkened spiritual eyes on the light of Christ each day of our lives.

Fasting helps to cleanse our spiritual vision because what we do with our bodies impacts our souls.   When we refuse to indulge ourselves with the richest foods, we gain strength for resisting other temptations to gratify ourselves with money, power, possessions, or pleasure.  Fasting is a tool for learning to see our appetites for what they are and to know experientially that serving ourselves is not the path to peace.  The more enslaved we are to our passions, the more worry, fear, and anger we will have when they are not satisfied.  We must embrace the struggle to pray and fast in order to become humbly receptive to the brilliant light of Christ, Who illumines even the darkest dimensions of the human person in the world as we know it.

 Almsgiving is fueled by prayer, for the gracious mercy of the Lord becomes characteristic of those who unite themselves to Him from their hearts.  Fasting heals the self-centered desires that hinder us from seeing and serving Christ in our suffering neighbors.  Those who fast with integrity will spend less money and time on their own meals, thus freeing up resources to bless others.  Giving generously to the needy and in support of the ministries of the Church helps to heal us from the passion of worshiping blindly at the altars of money and possessions.   It teaches us that the material blessings of creation are not ends in themselves but gifts to be offered back to God, like the bread and wine of the Eucharist.  “Thine own of Thine own, we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all and for all.”      

When we seek to open our darkened spiritual eyes to the brilliant light of Christ through prayer, fasting, and merciful generosity, we will have to struggle mightily with the darkness that remains in us, as well as with so much in our culture that encourages us to find the meaning of our lives in possessions, power, and pleasure.  Looking to the examples of the apostles, however, we must not despair.  Saint Paul endured great hardships of many kinds and ultimately died as a martyr. He gained the spiritual clarity to write that, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.”

           Saint Paul knew that the only way to make such struggles points of entrance to the blessedness of the Kingdom was to endure them with faithfulness, no matter the cost.  He did not do so merely by his own willpower, but “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” As St. Paul taught, “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through Him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”  The Savior did not come to help us become better adjusted to the darkness of our hearts or of the fallen world.  He comes to make us radiant with the eternal light of Heaven by grace.  He calls us to become so receptive to the healing presence of the Holy Spirit that we behold His glory and see all the joys and struggles of this life as they truly are before Him.  Christ calls us to share so fully in His life that we seek first His kingdom with the humble trust that overcomes anxiety about literally anything.  Remember that when He said, “Do not be anxious about your life,” He was addressing His disciples as fellow Jews living under Roman occupation who would literally suffer and die for Him. By His glorious resurrection, the Savior has conquered even the dark pit of the grave and liberated us from slavery to the fear of death.                                                                                                                        

Today none of us has perfect spiritual clarity and we often find ourselves anxious about very small things.  That is why we must do what we can today to open the eyes of our souls to Christ through prayer, fasting, and generosity.  That is how we will grow in our ability to resist the temptation to entrust ourselves to any of the false gods of this world.   The daily circumstances of our lives all provide countless opportunities to become more receptive to the brilliant light of the Lord.  If we will use them for our salvation, and humbly repent whenever we have not, then the light of Christ will illumine us as we unite ourselves evermore fully to Him.    That is how we may all learn to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” in a world that remains so full of darkness and presents so many temptations to idolatry and fear.  He is the light that we all need to see ourselves and our world clearly as we come to share more fully by grace in His healing and restoration of the human person in the image and likeness of God.