Titus 3:8-15; Luke
8:5-15
In the midst of the ongoing tragedy
unfolding in the Holy Land, we must attend to the wisdom of our father in
Christ, His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch, who stated this week that “Peace
does not come from the bodies of children, killed people, innocent people, and
women. Peace comes when the decision-makers in this world realize that our
people have dignity, as all the peoples of the world. We are not advocates of
war, we reject violence and killing, and we are seekers of peace…” He writes
that we pray “for peace in the entire world, for stability, and for the repose
of the souls of those who have passed away. We pray that the wounds of the sick
be soothed and they might recover, for the wounds of every hurting person,
every bereaved mother, every brother, and every sister, for everyone’s wounds.
We ask the Lord to protect us and grant us peace…”[1]
His Beatitude’s words resonate so
strongly with the many petitions for peace in the Divine Liturgy, such as our
prayers “for the peace of whole world…and the union of all.” We pray for “peaceful times,” “the sick and the
suffering, for captives and their salvation,” and also for “deliverance from all
tribulation, wrath, danger, and necessity…” These and so many other petitions show that as
we enter mystically into the blessedness of our Lord’s Kingdom in the Liturgy,
we must not think that God’s peace is reserved entirely for the eschatological
future. We pray for reconciliation and
blessing for all the living icons of God today, in the world as we know it, as
a sign, no matter how dim, of the fulfillment of His gracious purposes for all
who bear the divine image and likeness.
To pray for peace in this way does
not require us to become naïve or idealistic about how deeply the brokenness of
the human person extends within our hearts or how it impacts our relationships
with other people. It does not demand
that we pretend that Cain’s murder of his brother Abel is not repeated
daily. It does, however, require us to
gain the spiritual clarity to see that, regardless of nationality, politics, or
anything else, every human person remains a living icon of God and a neighbor
to be loved. How we treat those we are least inclined to recognize as neighbors
and most inclined to view as our enemies is precisely how we treat our Lord. (Matt.
25: 31-46) Nothing reveals the true state of our souls more than that.
Even as we mourn the horrible suffering
of people in the Holy Land, today we commemorate the 367 Holy Fathers of the 7th
Ecumenical Council, which met in Nicaea in 787.
The council rejected the false teaching that to honor icons is to commit
idolatry, for it distinguished between the worship that is due to God alone and
the veneration that is appropriate for images of Christ, the Theotokos, and the
Saints. The council’s teaching highlighted
the importance of the Savior’s incarnation, for only a truly human Savior with
a physical body could restore us to the dignity and beauty of the living icons
of God.
The 7th Ecumenical Council
addressed matters that strike at the very heart of how we embrace our
fundamental vocation to become like God in holiness in a world of hatred and
violence that so desperately needs the peace of Christ. Too often, however, we think that iconography
simply has to do with wood and paint, and is unrelated to the question of
whether we are becoming more like Christ and gaining the strength to love our
enemies as He loves us. The icons are not merely religious art, but
reminders that to become a truly human person is to become like Jesus Christ, who,
according to St. Paul, “is our peace… and has broken down the middle wall of
separation” so that “He might reconcile…both [Jew and Gentile] to God in one
body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.” (Eph. 2:14-16) The
more that we become like our Lord, Who worked this reconciliation, the less we
will see anyone through the darkened lenses of those who demand “an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Instead,
we will become more like the Savior, Who closely associated love of enemies with
fulfilling the commandment to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father
is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48)
Today’s gospel reading addresses
these same questions with different imagery.
Christ used the parable of the sower to call His disciples to become
like plants that grew from the seed that “fell into good soil and grew, and
yielded a hundredfold.” He wanted them
to become “those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good
heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.”
Not all who hear the Word of God will do so, even as not all seeds will
grow to fruition. Some never even
believe, while others make a good start and then fall away due to temptation or
“are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does
not mature.”
This parable warns us about what happens
when we fail to fulfill our potential as those who bear the image of God. Our vocation is to become more beautiful living
icons of the Savior, but we diminish and distort ourselves when we refuse to become
who God created us to be. Plants must
grow and flourish as the kinds of plants that they are in order to become
healthy and bear fruit. Farmers must
care for them accordingly. The sun,
soil, moisture, and nutrients must be appropriate for that particular type of
plant in order for them to flourish. In
order for us to bear good fruit for the Kingdom, we must attend to the health
of our souls with the conscientiousness of a careful farmer or gardener. We must do so in order to become more fully
who we are as living icons of Christ.
If, to the contrary, we become obsessed with the worldly political
agendas that He repudiated and a desire for vengeance against our enemies, we
will never bear good fruit for the Kingdom.
In today’s epistle lesson, St. Paul
urged St. Titus to tell the people to focus on doing good deeds and helping
others in great need. He wanted them to avoid
foolish arguments and divisions, “for they are unprofitable and vain.” St. Paul did not want the people to waste their
time and energy on matters that would simply inflame their passions and hinder
them from attaining spiritual health and maturity. He called them to care for their spiritual
wellbeing with the conscientiousness of farmers who are single-mindedly
dedicated to bringing in a bumper crop. If
they let down their guard to the point of being so consumed by pointless
controversies that they ignored basic disciplines like loving and serving their
neighbors, they would risk dying spiritually like a neglected plant overtaken
by weeds.
If we are to become “those who,
hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth
fruit with patience,” we must refuse to allow hatred, vengeance, and obsession with
worldly agendas to take root in our hearts and minds. We must do the hard, daily work of denying
ourselves and serving others, especially those whom the world encourages us to
view as our enemies. In order to bear good
fruit for the Kingdom, we must refuse to focus on anything that will distract
us from becoming more beautiful icons of Christ, Who loved and forgave even
those who crucified Him. Unless we
struggle mindfully against this temptation, we can easily become obsessed with
defining ourselves and our neighbors according to the standards of our world of
corruption, which is driven by the fear of death. Because our risen Lord has conquered even the
grave through His glorious resurrection on the third day, we must refuse to become
enslaved by such fears and must never allow anything to distract us from becoming
more beautiful icons of His love, mercy, and reconciliation. The Savior Himself refused to define His
Kingdom in popular nationalistic terms against the Romans, the Gentiles, and
the Samaritans, or in legalistic terms against those considered hopeless sinners
by the religious establishment. He came
to restore everyone to the beauty of the living icons of God. In Him, “there is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free,
but Christ is all and in all.” (Col. 3:11)
He alone is our peace and the peace
of the entire world. If we are truly becoming
participants in His life, then we must refuse to define ourselves or anyone
else according to divisive worldly agendas driven by the fear of death. We must grow in His likeness as we pray for
all who suffer and for an end to violence and oppression in all their forms,
and as we give generously to meet the urgent needs of our neighbors in the
Holy Land and around the world. We must
remember Whose icons we all are and refuse to live as though anything or anyone
other than the God-Man were the true measure of our lives. That is ultimately why we have icons in the
Orthodox Church, for they proclaim who Jesus Christ is and who He enables every
human person to become. It is not by hating and killing people that
the Savior’s peace comes, but by the love, forgiveness, and reconciliation that
He has brought to the world through His Cross and empty tomb. As the Lord said, “He who has ears to hear,
let him hear.”
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