Titus 3:8-15; Matthew 5:14-19
People in our society
are being drawn to the Orthodox Church today in unprecedented numbers. This is surely the work of the Holy Spirit
and a great blessing for which we give thanks. It is also a reminder to us all to be on
guard against the temptation to distort the Faith according to our passions. This is an equal opportunity temptation, regardless
of whether we have grown up in the Church or have only recently discovered
it. But especially in a time when many first
encounter Orthodox teaching online and in debates with other traditions, we
must be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that the healing of our
souls will come through watching videos or winning arguments. We will not become “the light of the world” by
viewing Orthodoxy as a collection of ideas that we can use to demonstrate our
superiority to other people.
Today we commemorate the 630 holy
and God-bearing fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon who
taught that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human: one Person with
two natures. They did not meet to exalt themselves but in response to the
heresy of Monophysitism, which taught that the Savior’s humanity was dissolved in
His divinity, like a drop of wine in an ocean.
In keeping with their vocation as bishops, they deliberated due to a
pressing crisis in the Church which gravely challenged the integrity of the
Gospel, for 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 to restore and fulfill us in the image and likeness of God. The
fathers of Chalcedon clarified how to express the deep truth that Christ has
brought salvation to the world as the God-Man.
As today’s gospel
reading demonstrates, the Lord does not call us merely to affirm even the most
lucid statements of theological truth but to share personally in His deified
humanity to the point that we become “the light of the world.” He 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 way of life that required
constant repentance. 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 calls us to focus
on gaining the spiritual strength to obey the commandments, which He intensified
by going literally to the heart of the matter.
No longer is 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 is 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 does 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, the
God-Man, 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. Since gaining
such spiritual health is a demanding vocation, we must focus humbly and
mindfully on offering ourselves to Him for the healing of our passions every
day. Our souls are sick with pride, anger,
lust, and other disordered desires which can easily destroy our ability to bear
witness to the light of Christ in our darkened world. If we dare to appoint ourselves as apologists
or spiritual teachers, especially when we are not finding healing for our
passions, we risk great harm both to our own souls and to those we seek to
instruct. That is true no matter how accurate our rational understanding of
Orthodox teaching may be. We must be careful
not to accept the delusion that arguing about ideas or opinions will ever calm
our passions. Usually, the opposite is
the case. St. Paul’s warning to “avoid foolish
disputes, and genealogies, and contentions, and controversies about the Law;
for they are unprofitable and vain” applies to us all whenever we are tempted
to speak about the Faith in way that is corrupted by our distorted desires and
spiritual weakness.
It is far better
to follow the Apostles’s advice to “learn how to preside in honorable
occupations, so as to help in cases of urgent need…[and] not be unfruitful.” In other words, we should 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 and read the Scriptures; 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; to forgive
and pray for those who wrong us; and to confess and repent of our sins on a
regular basis, as we mindfully pursue healing from our persistent
passions.
Instead of
focusing on correcting the errors of others, we must use our zeal for Orthodoxy
to fuel our receptivity to the light of Christ, both personally and in the life
of our parish. Doing so requires the practical
work of taking up our crosses and living faithfully each day. It requires stepping up to do what needs to
be done for the flourishing of our parish, such as teaching Sunday School, chanting,
ushering, bringing food for and attending coffee hour, and establishing new forms
of ministry. As the Lord taught, “Let
your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give
glory to your Father Who is in heaven.” The
more radiant we become with the light of Christ, the more people will be drawn
to His Body, the Church. Our parish already
shines as “the light of the world” in many ways, which is surely why our
numbers are growing. There is no limit
to how brightly we may shine with the light of Christ other than what we impose
on ourselves when we refuse to focus mindfully each day on the practices that
bring healing to our souls and edify His Body, the Church.
The God-Man
confessed by the fathers of Chalcedon did not give His followers an elaborate
system of ideas as the path to eternal life.
That was, however, the approach of Gnostics who denied that the Savior
had a physical body and thought that salvation came through the transmission of
secret ideas to a select few. We must
never distort the Orthodox Faith into a collection of esoteric concepts, for
the One Who is fully divine and fully human came to bring all of us who wander in
darkness into the brilliant light of His Kingdom as whole persons. Let us use what we have learned and are
learning about the Church’s beliefs and practices to fuel our devotion to opening
our hearts and lives as fully as possible to receive the light of Christ so
that we may shine in holiness “like a city set on a hill [that] cannot be hid”
and a “lamp…on a stand… [that] gives light to all in the house.”
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