Titus 3:8-15; Matthew 5:14-19
We live in a time
when many people water down and distort the Christian faith however it pleases
them. Some do so in support of their
favorite political or cultural agendas, while others simply want a little
spirituality to help them find greater peace of mind or success in their daily
lives, which do not differ at all from those of people who do not identify themselves
as Christians. Regardless of their
church membership, or lack thereof, those who do so neither understand nor
respond to the true calling of the Savior, Who came to make us nothing less than
“partakers of the divine nature.” Were Jesus Christ merely a human teacher of a
moral code or an example of a virtuous life, then perhaps it would make sense
to take from Him only that which helps us get whatever want in this world and to
disregard the rest. Because He is the God-Man, however, the point is not for us
to make Him in our own image but instead to become more like Him as His living
icons, radiant with grace as “the light of the world.”
The Savior is fully God and fully
human: one Person with two natures, as the 630 holy and God-bearing
fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon declared in the year
451. The point is not simply a lesson in Church history, but the proclamation
of the Gospel, for Jesus 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 in order to restore and fulfill us in
the image and likeness of God such that we may become “the light of the world.”
If we surrender to the popular distortions
of Christian faith in our culture, we will set our sights so low to the point that
we fit right in with the darkness that is all around us. We will then think that we are faithful Christians
even as we hate our enemies, place our ultimate allegiance to the false gods of
this world, and otherwise devote ourselves to the service of pride, power, and
pleasure. Our Christian witness will then not be worthy of the name, and we will
do more harm than good both to our neighbors and to our own souls. In
today’s gospel reading, the Lord 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 particular way of life that
required constant repentance.
Actually, 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 did not diminish or reduce the
commandments, but intensified them by going literally to the heart of the
matter. No longer was 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 was 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 did 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 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. But instead
of humbly and mindfully offering ourselves to Him for the healing of our
passions every day, we too often want a religion that we can mold to serve whatever
we find most appealing. That path leads not to brilliant light, but only to the
spiritual darkness of worshipping ourselves and our vain imaginations as we become
ever more complacent with our corruption.
Instead of struggling to take up our crosses, we will then become so
spiritually degraded that we will congratulate ourselves for our presumed virtues
and think that we are somehow justified in condemning anyone who questions or
resists our will. The darker our spiritual vision becomes, the less
able we will become to see our neighbors as living icons of Christ and to treat
them accordingly.
In today’s
culture, there are many secular and religious versions of this temptation. It is an equal opportunity temptation for
people of every political stripe, ethnic identity, social class, or other affiliation. No
matter what form it takes, it cannot heal the soul and make us radiant with the
light of Christ. We must be very careful
not to allow it to corrupt our pursuit of the Christian life, for we cannot
manipulate the God-Man, as proclaimed by the Holy Fathers of Chalcedon, Who
alone can make us brilliant with heavenly glory. If we attempt to do so, we will never become transparent
to the uncreated light, but instead will become, as St. Paul wrote, “self-condemned”
by our devotion to “foolish disputes…and contentions, and controversies … [that]
are unprofitable and vain.”
Instead, let us
follow the Apostle’s advice to “learn how to preside in honorable occupations,
so as to help in cases of urgent need…[and] not be unfruitful.” That is simply a way of saying that we must
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; 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 without drawing attention to
ourselves; to forgive and pray for those who wrong us; to refuse to praise
ourselves or to condemn anyone else; and to confess and repent of our sins on a
regular basis. Whenever we start to
think that following this path has become easy or that we have somehow mastered
it, we must intensify our efforts in order not to become content with watering
down the demands of obedience to our Lord, Who calls us to nothing less than
acquiring the purity of heart necessary to see God. That high calling should roust us out of our spiritual
delusions pretty quickly, for who can claim to have mastered it?
The next time that
we catch ourselves watering down what it means to share in the life of the
God-Man in any way, we should remember this story from the Desert Fathers:
Abba Lot went to
see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba as far as I can I say my little office,
I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I
purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and
stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire
and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”[1]
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