Ephesians 2:14-22; Luke 12:16-21
Joachim and Anna had a long and difficult
period of preparation to become parents, as they had been unable to have
children for decades until God miraculously blessed them in old age to
conceive. They knew that their daughter
was a blessing not simply for the happiness of their family, but for playing
her part in fulfilling God’s purposes for the salvation of the world Their patient faithfulness throughout their
years of barrenness helped them gain the spiritual clarity to offer her to the
Lord. They knew that their marriage and
family life were not simply about fulfilling their desires, but were blessings
to be given back to God for the fulfillment of much higher purposes.
Joachim, Anna, and the Theotokos are the
complete opposites of the rich man in today’s gospel reading. His only concern was to eat, drink, and enjoy
himself because he had become so wealthy.
He was addicted to earthly pleasure, power, and success, and saw the
meaning and purpose of his life only in those terms. When God required his soul, however, the
man’s true poverty was revealed, for the possessions and accomplishments of
this life inevitably pass away and cannot save us. This man’s horizons extended no further than his
dreams of the large barns he planned to build in order to hold his crops. Before the ultimate judgment of God, he was
revealed to be a fool who had wasted his life on what could never truly heal or
fulfill one who bore the divine image and likeness. He had laid up treasure for himself, but was
not rich toward God in any way. The problem was not simply that the man had
possessions, but that he had made them his god, which is another way of saying
that he worshipped only himself and surely was not concerned about the needs of
his neighbors. His barns were a temple of
the greed to which he had offered his entire existence in a vain effort to satisfy
his self-centered desires.
In stark contrast, the Theotokos followed the
righteous example of her parents. She
was prepared by a life of holiness to agree freely to become our Lord’s mother,
even though she was an unmarried virgin who did not understand how such a thing
could happen. When she said, “Behold the
handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” this young
Palestinian Jewish girl bravely made a whole, complete offering of her life to
God. She did not ask what was in it for
her in terms of money, power, or any kind of earthly success. Unlike the rich fool in the parable, she was
not blinded by passion and had the purity of soul to put receptivity to the
Lord before all else.
The world is full of tragic circumstances
today that are caused by people who are so enslaved to their self-centered
desires that they think nothing is more important than doing whatever it takes
to gratify their lust for possessions, power, and pleasure. But even if they succeed in gaining the whole
world, they will lose their souls because they have offered themselves to false
gods which lack the power to heal people from the ravages of sin, let alone to raise
anyone up from the tomb. Those who
serve such idols inevitably lack peace within their souls and act in ways that
make peace with their neighbors, especially those they consider their enemies, impossible.
In today’s epistle reading, St. Paul taught the
Ephesians that “Christ is our peace, Who has made us both one, and has
broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law
of commandments and ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in
place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one
body through the Cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.” That is why Gentile Christians are now also part of the holy temple “built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the
cornerstone…” Though we had been
“strangers” to the blessed heritage of the Hebrews, we are now built into the
living temple of Christ’s Body, the Church, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Too many people today insist on preserving whatever
“dividing wall of hostility” they can use to promote their vain desires for power,
wealth, and other signs of worldly success.
Doing so enables them to justify in
their own minds how they refuse to pursue reconciliation with those who pose
real or imagined threats to their dreams of earthly glory. There are ways to “eat, drink, and be merry”
that have nothing to do with food and beverage, but everything to do with impoverishing
our souls by indulging in self-centeredness to the point that we cannot even
imagine living according to the good news that Christ “has broken down the
dividing wall of hostility” and brought peace to those “who were far
off, and peace to those who were near.”
The Jewish
Messiah Whose ministry extended to Samaritans, Roman centurions, Gentiles, the
poor, the sick, the demon-possessed, and those viewed as hopeless cases of
depravity has brought all with faith in Him into His Body, the Church, the
living temple of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. He worked that reconciliation through His
great Self-offering on the Cross by which
He has released us from bondage to the fear of death through His glorious
resurrection on the third day. If we
want to pursue reconciliation with those we consider our enemies concerning any
matter in this world, we must embrace our true identity as “fellow
citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the
cornerstone.” We must find healing for
our souls as we embrace our identity as a holy temple of the Lord. We must reorient the desires of our hearts
toward His Kingdom and away from any version of worldly glory. In other words, we must become like the
Theotokos who offered herself fully and without reservation to receive the
Savior. We enter into His peace not by gaining
wealth, power, or victory over enemies, but by offering ourselves to Him with
complete receptivity, as she did.
We are now in
the Nativity Fast, the 40-day period during which we prepare to celebrate the
birth of the Savior at Christmas. The weeks of Advent call us to wrestle with the
passions that threaten to make us so much like the rich fool that we become blind
to the healing and peace brought by our Lord.
Far from obsessing about earthly cares and indulging in the richest and
most satisfying foods, this is a season for fasting, confessing and repenting
of our sins, giving generously to the needy, and intensifying our prayers. It is a time for preparing to open our hearts
to receive Christ more fully into our lives at His Nativity.
The Theotokos entered the Temple, living there
for years in preparation to become the Son of God’s Living Temple through whom He
took on flesh. The Nativity Fast provides us blessed opportunities to become
more like that obscure Palestinian Jewish girl who said “Yes!” to God with
every ounce of her being. It calls us to
become more like Joachim and Anna in the patient trust in God that enabled them
to offer their long-awaited daughter to Him.
They show us how to enter the Temple by embracing the difficult struggle
of learning to offer ourselves and all our blessings fully to the Lord. It is
only by following their righteous example that we will gain the spiritual
clarity to provide the world a much-needed sign that the Savior born at
Christmas truly “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” that we know
all to well. Let us use these weeks to find
healing for our passions as we embrace our true identity as “fellow citizens
with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in
Whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the
Lord; in Whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the
Spirit.”
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