Homily for the Sunday after the Elevation of the Holy Cross in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 2:16-20; Mark 8:34-9:1

 

            As we continue to celebrate the Elevation of the Holy Cross, we must remain on guard against the temptation to corrupt the Christian faith into a soothing piety that requires nothing of us because the Lord Himself has already done all the work.   Through His Self-Offering on the Cross, Christ has conquered death and brought salvation to the world, but for us to share personally in His great victory, we must take up our own crosses, deny ourselves, and follow Him each day of our lives.  Refusing to do so amounts to being ashamed of Him and wanting no part of His Kingdom.  No matter what we believe or how we feel about the Lord, refusing to take up our crosses means continuing in the old ways of death and rejecting the call to enter into the joy of eternal life.    

            Today’s gospel reading follows Saint Peter’s attempt to explain to Christ that dying on the Cross had nothing to do with being the Messiah.  That is when the Lord famously said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”  The Savior did not fit Peter’s expectations for the Messiah, whom he expected to be a righteous military leader like King David.  By His sharp response, Christ demonstrated that following Him is not a path to success according to the conventional standards of this world, but a calling to embrace the deep struggle of offering ourselves for growth in holiness, no matter the cost.  

            The calling to take up our crosses also stands in stark contrast to the persistent temptation to use religion to exalt ourselves in our own minds and condemn a segment of our neighbors.   It is blasphemy to corrupt the great sign of our salvation into an instrument for fueling our self-centered desires and illusions.  To the contrary, our Lord’s Cross calls us to do the hard work of refusing to gratify our passions as we unite ourselves to His great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world.     

In our epistle reading from Galatians, Saint Paul opposes fellow Jewish Christians who relied too much on their own ability to obey the Old Testament law and would have required the same of Gentile converts.  Refusing to trust in his own ability to obey religious rules, he writes that, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.”  Paul took up his cross by enduring many struggles and difficulties out of faithfulness to the Lord, ultimately dying for him as a martyr.   He wrote to the Colossians that “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” (Col. 1:24)

There is obviously nothing deficient in our Lord’s great Self-Offering.  All that is lacking is our taking up our own crosses in obedience to the Lord’s calling to deny ourselves and follow Him. Because of our passions and the brokenness of our world of corruption, the struggle for healing inevitably requires suffering, but not as though pain were somehow pleasing to God.   Such suffering results from the inevitable tension we experience in embracing the struggle to offer ourselves fully to Christ. There is so much within each of us that does not want to do that. Truly taking up our crosses means fighting the difficult battle of confronting our own personal brokenness each day as we reject thoughts, desires, and habits that would keep us serving ourselves and the false gods of this world.  

  Christ prayed the night before His crucifixion, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) He ascended the Cross in free obedience, and no one forces us to take up our crosses either.  So many problems and pains come upon us without our asking for them in this life, and it is so easy to refuse to suffer in a spiritually health way. As Job’s wife suggested, we can “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9) in response to deep frustrations and disappointments.  We can refuse to offer our wounds to Christ for healing by finding ways to ignore them or convincing ourselves that we are still better off than the people we like to condemn.  Doing so is simply a dead end that will fuel our passions, blind us with spiritual pride, and demonstrate how ashamed we are of Christ and His Cross.

Since freedom is an intrinsic dimension of being in God’s image, no one can make us take up our crosses. Only we can unite ourselves to Christ in His Great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world. Regardless of the circumstances, we have the freedom to refuse to fall into despair, for any instance of suffering provides an opportunity to purify the desires of our hearts as we learn to entrust ourselves more fully to the Lord.  Difficulties by their nature present challenges to which we may respond in a Christlike way or according to our passions.  He offered up Himself fully upon the Cross and refused to respond in kind to those who hated and rejected Him.  Likewise, we may unite ourselves to Him in every dimension and circumstance of our lives, including those in which we are sorely tempted not to respond as He did. Illness, broken relationships with others, worries about the future, regrets about the past, crushed hopes, and even the worst losses imaginable all present opportunities to grow in “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  Saint Paul wrote that “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”  (Gal. 5:22-24)

Our self-centered and distorted desires usually rear their ugly heads quickly when we face trying circumstances.  If you are like me, you sometimes react like Jonah when the vine that gave him shade was eaten by a worm.  That was a very small thing, but Jonah became so angry that he literally wished he would die. (Jonah 4:5-11)   Other times we face circumstances so grave that we must struggle mightily not to fall into despair about life itself.  Whether in matters small or great, we have the opportunity to take up our crosses daily as we struggle to find healing for our souls.   

Doing so usually does not require anything dramatic or extraordinary. It is normally a matter of focusing on the basic disciplines of the Christian life, such as refusing to accept sinful thoughts into our hearts, forgiving those who have wronged us, and trusting that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:39) The more that we open our souls to the Lord’s healing strength through prayer, fasting, serving our neighbors, and otherwise responding faithfully to the daily circumstances of our lives, the less time and energy we will have for stirring up the impassioned thoughts that lead to sinful actions.  The less that we cultivate worry, fear, and resentment, the more we will be able to pray to God from our hearts to grant what is best in even the most broken circumstances. We must follow the Apostle’s teaching, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)

To share in Christ’s victory over death, we must embrace the struggle of dying to all that would keep us from uniting ourselves to Him in holiness.  Our hope is neither in our own willpower nor in being superior to anyone else, but in the gracious mercy of the One Who offered up Himself for our salvation purely out of love.  Through the Cross, He has brought life in the midst of death, light in the midst of darkness, and joy in the midst of despair.  We will receive His healing in even the most difficult dimensions of our lives as we persistently offer ourselves to Him in humble faith, no matter what challenges, pains, or disappointments life may bring us.  That is how we may die to the corrupting power of sin and enter even now into the blessedness of His Kingdom.  It is how we may learn to say truthfully with St. Paul, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” It is how we show that we are not ashamed of Him and His Cross, which remains a weapon of peace, a trophy invincible, and the great sign of our salvation.

 

 

 

Homily for the Sunday Before the Elevation of the Holy Cross in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17

We may be tempted at times to think that we will find healing for our souls simply by   doing this or that.  We may assume that fulfilling our calling as Orthodox Christians means attending divine services, receiving the holy mysteries, and devoting ourselves to prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and other acts of piety. These are certainly indispensable practices for us to share more fully in the life of Christ, but they are not merely rituals or ends in themselves.  Our Savior calls and enables us to become not merely religiously observant but truly “a new creation” through His Cross and glorious resurrection on the third day. 

Today’s gospel reading is taken from Christ’s conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, who could not understand what it meant to be born again.  The Lord spoke to him neither of physical rebirth nor of the type of hypocritical religious legalism associated with the Pharisees.  Instead, He foretold the centrality of the Cross, saying that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  He refers here to an event described in Numbers 21:8-9, when the Hebrews were saved from deadly snake bites when they looked at the bronze snake held up by Moses in the desert.  

In today’s epistle reading St. Paul argued against those who trusted more in their ability to obey religious laws than in the Lord’s great Self-Offering.  He wrote, “far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”  The Apostle opposed fellow Christians of Jewish heritage who thought that Gentile converts had to be circumcised in obedience to the Old Testament law.  He rejected that practice, “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”  As St. Paul taught, “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3: 26-29) By conquering death through His Cross and resurrection, the Savior has opened the gates of Paradise to all who respond to Him with faith and faithfulness, regardless of who they are.   As He said to Nicodemus in today’s gospel reading, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

Our Lord was lifted up upon the Cross because, contrary to the expectations of the Pharisees, even the strictest obedience to the Old Testament law could never make anyone “a new creation.” If legalistic outward observance had the power to heal our souls, then there would have been no need for “the Son of man [to] be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  Likewise, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and all the other spiritual disciplines of the Orthodox Christian life are not matters of legal observance whereby we satisfy, impress, or earn anything from the Lord.  They are, however, ways in which we open ourselves in humility to become more receptive to His grace as His “new creation.”

In order to celebrate the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross with integrity, we must follow the instruction of St. Paul not “to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” That means we must not become Orthodox Pharisees who imagine we are more righteous than others because of how we pray, fast, or observe any aspect of our Orthodox faith as though it were some kind of personal accomplishment.  To the contrary, the more receptive we become to the Lord’s grace, the more aware we will become of our sinfulness and our ongoing need for the healing mercy of the crucified and risen Lord, Who was lifted up upon the Cross out of His infinite compassion and love for the salvation of the world.  In Him, we are “a new creation,” not as a reward for any act of piety or religious observance on our part, but because “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”   

 

 

 

Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

2 Corinthians 1:21-2:4; Matthew 22:2-14

 

            We began a new ecclesiastical year on September 1, which also marked the beginning of the new civil year in the Byzantine Empire.  For the ancient Hebrews, September was a time of gathering the harvest and giving thanks to God. It was in this context that Christ read from the Prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth to “proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Lk. 4:19) He said to the astonished people of His hometown: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (4:21) His neighbors quickly moved from praising Him to trying to throw Him off a cliff, however, when the Savior noted that there were times when God had blessed Gentiles through the great prophets Elijah and Elisha and did not come to the aid of Jews.  The Lord had promised to Abraham “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,” but the dominant hope in first-century Palestine had become nationalistic, focused on building an earthly kingdom in which righteous Jews would be blessed and Gentiles and sinners would be put down.  (Gen. 22:18) 

 

            The people of Nazareth tried to kill Christ when He proclaimed that He was a very different type of Messiah than they had expected.  Today’s parable of the wedding banquet follows the parable of the tenants in the vineyard, which was last Sunday’s gospel reading.  The Savior used these parables in the week leading to His Passion to make clear what was at stake in the actions of the corrupt religious leaders who had blinded themselves spiritually to the point that they orchestrated His death.  The parable reveals that they had become so obsessed with their own desires for worldly power that they rejected the Messiah in Whom God’s promises to Abraham are fulfilled and extended to all.

 

            The context of the parable is a wedding feast for the son of a king, which would have been the greatest celebration imaginable in that time and place.  The prophet Hosea had spoken of the relationship between God and Israel as a marriage, and weddings were signs of God’s faithfulness in blessing the Jews from generation to generation.  It is not surprising, then, that Christ often compared the Kingdom of God to a wedding feast.  He is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride.  (Eph. 5:32) The book of Revelation also describes the fulfillment of the heavenly reign as a marriage banquet, the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. (Rev. 19:6-9)

             

            How tragic, then, that the religious leaders who should have been in the best position to enter into the joy of spiritual union with Christ refused to do so.  They were like the guests invited to the wedding in the parable who “made light of it and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized… [the king’s] servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.”  In the parable, the king then sent his servants out into the streets to invite whomever they could to the celebration, “both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

 

When Christ spoke of those who disregarded the invitation in order to go to their farms and businesses, He was criticizing those who were so obsessed with their wealth, possessions, and status that they refused to attend to the healing of their souls.  They were so passionately attached to the things of this world that they chose them over entering into the fullness of God’s blessing.  They were honored religious leaders, but the desires of their hearts were focused elsewhere.  It is not surprising, then, that the others who refused the king’s invitation “seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.”  Even as idolatrous rulers and false prophets killed the righteous servants of God in the Old Testament, those primarily driven by the love of money, possessions, and power stopped at nothing to destroy even the Lord Himself, Whom they perceived as a threat to what they held most dear.

 

In light of their refusal to come to the wedding feast, the king in the parable instructed the servants to invite as many other people as possible, including “the bad and the good.”  The Savior points here to the Church in which the distinction between Jew and Gentile is overcome, for He invites everyone to enter into the great joy of the heavenly banquet.  As St. Paul taught, “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3:29) His fulfillment of the human person in God’s image and likeness is not reserved for those of a particular ancestry or nationality.   It is not reserved for those who have never fallen short of doing what is pleasing to God.  If that were the case, it would have nothing to do with us.  The good news is that, even as the king in the parable wanted the banquet hall to be filled, Christ came to save the entire world and turns no one away who responds to Him with humble faith, love, and repentance.

 

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”  Those words end the parable right after the king ordered that the man without a wedding garment be thrown out of the celebration.  In that time and place, the host provided guests with the proper attire.  This fellow, after being invited to the great banquet, did not respond with gratitude and respect toward his host.  He must have refused to put on the garment, apparently wanting the benefits of being at the party on his own terms.  Thus, he excluded himself from the celebration.

 

We enter into the Body of Christ through baptism, in which we put Him on like a garment.  “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” wrote Saint Paul. (Gal. 3:27) Our baptism is the beginning of the Christian life, and we must attend mindfully to living each day as those who are entering into the Kingdom of God by grace.  If we do not, then the entire life of the Church will leave us cold, and we will find even the most basic spiritual disciplines to be burdens we would rather do without.   If we define what is truly important in life as fulfilling our usual set of daily obligations, satisfying our self-centered desires, and finding ways to distract ourselves from confronting the true state of our souls, then  we will always think that we have better things to do than to unite ourselves to Christ.  We will then become like that man who wanted the benefits of being a wedding guest without accepting even the most basic expectations of the invitation.  He was so focused on himself that he shut himself out of the great celebration every bit as much as those who had refused to come in the first place.

 

Living according to the “acceptable year of the Lord” is completely different from becoming like those who disregarded the invitation to the wedding feast or like the fellow who was thrown out.  We must not give our hearts to the things of this world but to the eternal blessedness of a Kingdom that we do not deserve.  Instead of making religion a tool for getting what we want on our own terms or pretending that this or that is somehow more important than sharing in the life of God by grace, we must cultivate the gratitude of those who are shocked to become guests at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.  That is not simply a future hope but also a present reality, for we enter mystically into the Heavenly Reign whenever we lift up our hearts and offer bread and wine in the Divine Liturgy.  Our calling is to live each day as those who wear a wedding garment, the garment of light restored to us in baptism.  Recognizing that “Many are called, but few are chosen,” let us begin this new year in the Church with a steadfast commitment to make doing so the highest priority of our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday of Matthew and the Leave-taking of the Commemoration of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist in the Orthodox Church

 

Matthew 21:33-42

 

In hearing Christ’s criticisms of the chief priests and Pharisees in today’s gospel lesson, we need to be careful about how we interpret His parable.  It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the point of the passage is that we should condemn those corrupt religious leaders as bad and praise ourselves as good, for as members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we are presumably the “other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”   To do so, however, is to refuse to hear the prophetic message of the parable, for as those who have received the fullness of God’s promises to Abraham, we have an even greater responsibility to resist the persistent temptation to keep all the fruit for ourselves.  The allure of doing so has remained with every generation since Adam and Eve, and we are no exception.

            Today’s reading from St. Matthew’s gospel follows the Savior’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  The crowds had welcomed Him as the conquering Messiah Who would cast out the Romans and establish an earthly kingdom, but they would soon reject Him when it became clear that His Kingdom is not of this world.  He told the chief priests and Pharisees that tax collectors and prostitutes would enter the Kingdom of God before them, for they had disregarded the preaching of St. John the Forerunner, even after notorious sinners had repented in response to his teaching.  They were like sons who had promised to work in their father’s vineyard, but did not keep their word.

 

Because of the great heritage of the Hebrew people, the religious leaders of the day had a deep obligation to serve God faithfully.  They had, however, become so corrupt that they were like the many false prophets and wicked rulers described in the Old Testament who had worshiped foreign gods, exploited the poor and weak, and killed those who dared to oppose them. In the days leading up to His crucifixion, the Savior compared them to those of previous generations who had thought nothing of murdering righteous people who truly spoke the word of the Lord.  In today’s parable, He foretold His own death at the hands of those who would not respect even the Son of God. 

 

            Because they rejected Him, the Lord said in the verse immediately following this reading, “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.” (v. 44) Here He points to the coming of the Church in which there is neither Jew nor Gentile, for those with no ancestral connection to Israel are now “grafted in” as branches of the olive tree whose roots extend back to the covenant with Abraham.  (Rom. 11: 17) St. Paul warned Gentile Christians not to take pride in their status in relation to Jews who had rejected the Messiah, for “They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.” (11: 20-21)

 

            By faith in Christ, we have become the new tenants of the vineyard with an obligation to “give him the fruits in their seasons.”  That, of course, is precisely what the original tenants refused to do.  Instead of tending the vineyard and offering its fruit to their rightful owner, they wanted everything for themselves and even killed the son of the owner in order to take his inheritance.  We must read this passage as a reminder that, in order to be good tenants of the Lord’s vineyard, we must offer ourselves in union with His great Self-offering on the Cross for the salvation of the world.  Our calling is the complete opposite of using our blessings according to our passions in order to help us get what we want in this world.  That is a temptation fueled by the self-centered pride of wanting to keep all the fruit for ourselves, even as the chief priests and Pharisees distorted the spiritual heritage of Israel to give themselves earthly power.  

 

In the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, we offer bread and wine for their and our fulfillment by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We then receive them as the Body and Blood of Christ for our healing and participation in the eternal life of the Kingdom.  Receiving the Eucharist serves no earthly goal and must not become merely a routine religious exercise.   It is truly our nourishment for the life of Heaven, our participation in the Messianic Banquet. The Savior’s Body and Blood empower us to become like Him in holiness as we manifest His restoration of the human person in the image and likeness of God. To be in communion with Christ requires offering ourselves to Him each day and refusing to think that there are any dimensions of our lives that we should keep strictly for ourselves.  He offered Himself fully on the Cross, to the point of death, burial, and descent into Hades, in order to rise up in glory for the salvation of the entire world.  If we refuse to offer the fruit of our own lives to Him, then we will eat and drink our own condemnation and reject Him even more tragically than did those who handed the Savior over to crucifixion because He did not serve their agenda for glorifying themselves.   

 

Today we conclude our commemoration of the Beheading of St. John the Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist.  John was the last of the Old Testament prophets who prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah by boldly calling for repentance. In the terms of today’s parable, he was a servant killed by the tenants of the vineyard who wanted the fruit for themselves.  He denounced King Herod for marrying his own brother’s wife, Herodias, who resented the criticism to the point that she wanted him dead.  When her daughter performed a lewd dance at a party, Herod promised to give her whatever she wanted.  Following her mother’s depraved advice, the young woman asked for the head of John on a platter.  Herod did not want to have John killed but was afraid that he would lose face if he did not fulfill his promise.  So apparently while the party was still going on, John’s head was cut off and brought in on a plate for everyone to see.

 

In this horrific scene we see clearly the difference between the eucharistic life of offering ourselves to God and the corruption of slavery to self-centered desire.  From his miraculous conception by the aged and barren couple Zacharias and Elizabeth to his martyrdom, John focused single-mindedly on preparing the way for Christ as the fulfillment of the ancient promises to Abraham. The complete opposite of Herod and Herodias in their addiction to earthly power and pleasure, he was a strict ascetic who lived in the desert, wore camel’s hair, and ate locusts and wild honey.  He spared no one from a piercing call to repentance, mocking the Pharisees and Sadducees as a “brood of vipers” and telling the wealthy to share with the poor, the tax-collectors to repent of their dishonesty, and the soldiers to stop abusing their authority.   

 

As the new tenants of the vineyard called to give God “the fruits in their seasons,” we must heed the Forerunner’s instruction to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” if we are to gain the spiritual health necessary to make our lives in this world offerings to the Lord. (Matt. 3:8) It is so easy to become like the corrupt religious leaders who were so enslaved to their passions that they distorted their tremendous spiritual heritage into a way of serving themselves to the point of rejecting and condemning the Lord Himself.  If we do not want to fall into a new version of their sins, we must learn from the example of John the Baptist.  He fasted with incredible strictness, and we must deny our appetites for the richest and most satisfying foods through forms of fasting appropriate to our spiritual and physical health.  He lived in extreme poverty, and we must give our tithes and offerings to the Lord, sharing generously with those in need.  The Forerunner fearlessly called the powerful to repentance, and we must never make the mistake of thinking that allegiance to any earthly ruler, nation, or faction may take precedence over our fidelity to Christ and His Kingdom.  Through our habits, we will form ourselves either to become more faithful servants of our Lord or people like those who rejected and killed both Him and His Forerunner.    

 

Let us commemorate the beheading of St. John by cultivating a renewed awareness of the stark difference between living according to self-centered desire and making our lives offerings to the Lord.  Even as we offer bread and wine in the Divine Liturgy, let us offer ourselves without reservation, as did the Forerunner.  That is what it means to be the new tenants of the vineyard who will give “the fruits in their seasons” to the Master.   

 

 

 

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!”