Ephesians
5:8-19
Luke
18: 18-27
Every once in a while, it is good
for something or someone to shake us up, to challenge us to see ourselves as we
really are. Just like our eyes adjust to
the darkness, we tend to adjust to whatever we are used to, to whatever has
become comfortable or routine. That is
why we need the lights to come on so that we will wake up and see reality. Though it is not always pleasant, it is
necessary if we want to improve in anything or to move forward with our lives.
The fellow in today’s gospel passage
was certainly not looking for someone to shake him up, for he thought that he
had fulfilled all God’s commandments since childhood. So Jesus Christ challenged him to go well
beyond what he was accustomed to. He
told the rich young man to sell all his possessions, give the proceeds to the
poor, and follow Him. That made the man
very sad because he loved his money. It
had probably never entered the man’s mind that he had a problem with loving his
wealth too much. He had likely never
thought that his riches posed any spiritual problems for him at all. He was not aware that he was addicted to
them. But because of this hard teaching
from the Lord, his eyes were opened to the state of his soul and he did not
like what he saw.
St. Paul told the Ephesians that
they too had to open their eyes to uncomfortable truths. In contrast to the shameful ways of living
commonly accepted in their pagan culture, these Christians were to walk as children
of light. They were not to be as sleepy as someone who has had too much wine
and rich food, but wide awake and alert so that they could respond faithfully
to the many challenges that they would encounter. That is how they would be able to respond
prudently to the opportunities that they had to shine with the light of Christ
in stark contrast to the darkness of the world’s corruption.
If we want to follow St. Paul’s
guidance today, then we have to hear and respond to a calling from our Lord
that is as stark, demanding, and shocking as the one He gave to the rich
man. For we too easily fall into a
comfortable routine that keeps us from recognizing the truth about how we stand
before Him. For example, we can all come
up with a list of religious activities in which we participate with some level
of regularity. Some we know so well that
we could almost do them in our sleep. We
may at times say the words of our daily prayers, read the Scriptures, or attend
services while our minds are elsewhere. We
may fast, give to the Church and the needy, or prepare for Communion and
Confession by simply going through the motions that have become so familiar to
us over the years. To make matters
worse, we may pat ourselves on the back for our religious observances and take
pride in presumably being more faithful than other people we know. If we have dozed off spiritually, it is all
too easy to fall into a fantasy about ourselves that is really nothing but an
illusion in which we are nowhere near seeing the truth about ourselves in
relation to God. If that is true of us,
then we will lack the power to shine with the light of Christ in contrast to our
darkened world.
The Nativity Fast provides us all with a much-needed wake-up call. For if we are to become fitting temples to
receive our Savior at His birth, we cannot simply hide in the darkness and
remain as we have been. Instead, we must
enter into the light. We must shine with
the heavenly glory like the star of Bethlehem that attracted the Magi. They were Gentiles who were drawn to the
Messiah of Israel by a shining light. We
must become that light for a world that thinks of Christmas as something
between an outdated cultural celebration and an opportunity to improve the
economy. We must become that light for a
world that wanders in darkness, looking for every distraction possible from
truly encountering the One born for its salvation. And if we have fallen into such a routine
practice of our spiritual disciplines that our lives are no different from what
is normal in our culture, then we will fail to make a credible witness to the
world that the birth of the Savior really matters.
Christ showed the rich young ruler that he was spiritually asleep by
telling him to give up his riches. He
showed us all how spiritually dull we are by how He interpreted some of the Ten
Commandments, which He mentioned in today’s gospel reading. The Lord said that “You shall not commit
adultery” prohibits not only physical unfaithfulness to one’s spouse, but also
the lust that so easily leads to it. (Matt.
5: 27ff.) He taught that “Do not kill”
prohibits not only murder, but also the anger and insults that motivate people
to kill one another. (Matt. 5:21 ff.)
In a culture which is ignorant of the dangers of lust, we must not been
blind to trends that would form us as people enslaved to our desires for physical
pleasure. Scandalous images that not so long
ago would have been illegal, or at least highly regulated, are readily
available to everyone now through the Internet.
Popular music, films, and television portray depravity of various forms
in a positive light and often present chastity, abstinence, and fidelity as
unrealistic or oppressive. Many have
replaced any serious discussion of morality with an uncritical endorsement of
anything related to romantic feelings or desires of whatever kind. Our society’s rates of divorce, abortion, children
born outside of marriage, and sexually transmitted diseases are sad indications
of where these trends have led. It is
not hard to predict that these indicators, as well as their impact on future
generations, will become even worse in years to come.
Orthodox Christians must be wide
awake to the dangers posed for a life of holiness by our culture’s blindness to
the moral and spiritual significance of sex.
We certainly must not allow that blindness to take root in our hearts
and lives. Instead, we must “walk as
children of light” by identifying and rejecting all that would corrupt us in
the relationship between man and woman. It
will not suffice simply to remind ourselves that unmarried people should abstain
from intimate relations and that married people should be faithful to their
spouses. For if we are formed by our
society’s celebration of self-indulgence, we will lack the strength to resist sexual
temptation. Instead, we must keep a
close watch on our hearts and minds, refusing to welcome into them anything
that fuels the passion of lust. At the
same time, we must fast, for the settled habit of gratifying the desires of our
stomachs weakens our ability to control other desires for bodily pleasure. We must respond prudently to the challenges
posed by our culture, which means doing all we can to grow in mindfulness and appropriate
forms of self-denial. These practices
are necessary to wake us up to the dangers of the uncritical celebration of pleasure
that our society promotes.
The same mindset, of course,
encourages the anger and hatred at the root of murder, for they grow from the
refusal to let anyone stand in the way of getting what we want in any area of
life. Most fundamentally, we must refuse
to be formed by ways of thinking and living that lead us to worship ourselves
and our desires as the highest goods.
That was the basic problem of the rich young ruler, which was why He
needed Christ’s hard teaching to open his eyes to how weak he had become
spiritually, especially in relation to his possessions.
In the remaining weeks before Christmas, we need to take up the
disciplines of the Nativity Fast with deep personal commitment and focus if we
are to gain the strength necessary to enter into the salvation that our Savior brings
to the world at His birth. Advent is the
time to be wide awake and devoted to prayerful preparation to receive the Lord
into our lives in new and holy ways. Now is the time to wake up and shine with
light in a world all too comfortable with darkness. At the end of the day, that is what it means
to get ready for the birth of our Messiah.
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