Homily for the Feast Day of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

Colossians 4:5-11, 14-18; Luke 10:16-21

We must be careful today to look for role models in the right places.  Our culture celebrates many powerful, wealthy, and famous people whose lives provide examples we should definitely not follow. One of the many reasons that we remember the Saints in the Orthodox Church is because they are wonderful examples of what it looks like when human persons truly become like Christ.  They shine brilliantly with holiness and inspire us to become like them as “partakers of the divine nature” by grace. The Saints comprise the great cloud of witnesses that encourages us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us” to the eternal joy of the Kingdom of Heaven.  (Heb. 12:1)    

On this feast day of the Holy, Glorious, All-Laudable Apostle and Evangelist Luke, we have an opportunity to celebrate the great witness to the Lord made by the Patron Saint of our parish.  Our small community is named in his honor and memory.  We see his image on our iconostasis and regularly ask him to pray for us in the Divine Liturgy.  Author of both a gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, as well as an iconographer and a physician, St. Luke died a martyr’s death at the age of 84.

One of the 70 Apostles sent out by the Lord to proclaim the good news, St. Luke was the only Gentile to write a canonized gospel.  Like St. Matthew, he includes the family tree or genealogy of the Savior, but he traces the Lord’s lineage all the way back to Adam, the first human being who lived before the distinction between Jew and Gentile.  By doing so, he showed that Christ came to bring all peoples and nations into the glory of His Kingdom.  As a Gentile, St. Luke’s own heritage did not place him in the house of Israel, and his gospel especially emphasizes the mercy of Christ for those considered cut off from God’s blessings.    

           The Lord rejoiced in today’s gospel reading that the Father hid His truth from the wise and prudent, but revealed Himself to babes, to humble and simple people with little standing in the eyes of the world.   Gentiles, the poor, the sick, and women got little respect in that time and place, but St. Luke presents the ministry of our Lord in a way that makes clear that the lowly and despised are often the ones most ready to receive the good news of Christ and enter into the joy of His Kingdom, precisely due to their humility. 

          For example, St. Luke tells us of the Virgin Mary’s obedient acceptance of the calling to become the Theotokos.  She sings the Magnificat in response, praising God for regarding the low estate of His handmaiden; for henceforth all generations will call her blessed.  A simple, unknown virgin girl miraculously became the living Temple of God; through her, the Savior came into the world.  In humble obedience and with purity of heart, she freely accepted a shocking pregnancy that put her own life and reputation at risk. She sings of a God who has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly, who has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.  

            The physician St. Luke describes the meeting between the pregnant Theotokos and the pregnant St. Elizabeth in which St. John the Forerunner leaped in the womb in the presence of the Savior. This very maternal scene coveys the vital importance of the role of women in the salvation of the world as well as the true humanity of Christ, Who has sanctified the womb.  It is a remarkable scene that few men of that time, or perhaps of any time, would have recognized as being so spiritually profound.

            St. Luke also writes of the astounding humility of Christ’s birth in a cave used as a barn, where the Son of God had the feeding trough of a farm animal for His crib.  Shepherds—poor, dirty, and on the margins of society-- were blessed as the first to hear of this event from the angels.  In the Lord’s first sermon in St. Luke’s gospel, He read a text that showed His love for the weak, the outcasts, and the suffering. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor…to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”  (Lk. 4:18-19) Those present in the synagogue that day liked the beginning of the sermon, but they hated the ending.  For the Lord reminded them that God at times worked through the great Old Testament prophets Elijah and Elisha to bless Gentiles instead of Jews.  When the people heard that, they literally tried to kill Christ by throwing Him off a cliff.  They wanted a Savior to make them first in this world by bringing them power and glory, not One Who came to save even then those they viewed as worthless enemies.

          St. Luke’s portrait of Christ demonstrates that His healing of the human person does not occur according to conventional social standards of who is important, powerful, or worthy.  In contrast to those who equated holiness with popularity and privilege, the Savior taught that the last will often be first in the Kingdom of Heaven and the first will often be last. (Lk. 13:30) To this day, the persistent struggles of weak, humble, and lowly outcasts often prepare them to respond to Christ with great joy.  In contrast, those addicted to their possessions, power, and social standing so easily entrust themselves to the things of this world and risk losing their own souls.  That was an uncomfortable and even dangerous message to proclaim in first-century Palestine, and it remains so in our time and place.   

          Even with so many being drawn to the Church today, ours remains a small, obscure parish in a region with very few Orthodox Christians.  St. Luke is an especially appropriate Patron Saint for us since, like the common people he described, our community has no special prominence or standing at all. There is no common ethnicity or other human characteristic holding us together. To put it bluntly, there is no earthly reason for our parish even to exist.   Our life together is a sign of nothing but God’s abundant grace and mercy for a very unlikely collection of people.            

St. Luke described the original Christian community in similar ways in the Acts of the Apostles.  By the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, people who spoke different languages were united together as the Body of Christ.  Both Jews and Romans persecuted them.  There were tensions in the Church between different ethnic and cultural groups.  Arguments raged over whether Gentiles had to be circumcised and obey the Jewish law before becoming Christians.  The Church as described by St. Luke was not wealthy, well-known, or powerful.   To follow Jesus Christ under those conditions was a difficult struggle.  In their weakness, however, the first Christians found God’s strength.  In their humility, they were lifted up by His power.  In their obedience, they became victors over their enemies by sharing in Christ’s triumph over sin and death in their own lives.

Let us celebrate our patronal feast by persisting in obedience to the Lord for Whom St. Luke gave his life, both throughout his long and varied ministry and as a martyr.  That means taking up the cross of being strangers to the proud ways of the world so that we may acquire the humble purity of heart necessary to experience the blessedness of the Kingdom.  To do so, we must offer our time, talents, and resources for the flourishing of our parish as a sign that the world’s healing does not come through the acclaim of the high and mighty, but through the faithfulness of meek and obscure people who together are being transformed by the Lord’s mercy into living icons of a reign that stands in sharp tension with the conventional ways of the world.  St. Luke is our role model in pursuing such a life together, not according to what is popular, easy, or widely celebrated, but as a sign that in Jesus Christ the ancient promises to Abraham are fulfilled and extended to all who bear the divine image and likeness.   Let us ask for the prayers of our Patron Saint even as we follow his example in continuing to run “with endurance the race that is set before us…” (Heb. 12:1) We could not ask for a better role model.

 

Homily for the Sunday of Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council & Fourth Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

Titus 3:8-15; Luke 8:5-15

 

Our culture tempts us to be constantly in a hurry and distracted.  We expect answers for the deep struggles of our lives with the speed of looking something up on the internet.  So many today have lost respect for the many years of preparation that it takes to develop skill and expertise.  The same is true of our disregard for the pursuit of wisdom, which typically comes through the long experience of a life well lived.  We must be on guard against becoming so accustomed to accepting quick, easy, and superficial answers that we lack the patience and focus necessary to mature to the point that we are able to bear good fruit for the Kingdom of God.

  

That is why we commemorate today 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 or honor that is appropriate for images of Christ, the Theotokos, and the Saints.  The council’s teaching highlighted the importance of the Lord’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 in every dimension of our existence.

 

The 7th Ecumenical Council addressed matters that strike at the very heart of how we embrace the vocation to become like God in holiness in a world that so desperately needs the peace of Christ.  Too often, however, we think that iconography simply has to do with art history and is unrelated to the question of whether we are becoming more like Christ and gaining the strength to seek first His Kingdom in the midst of our world of corruption.  The icons are not merely beautiful visual objects for they proclaim the Gospel, reminding us that to become a truly human person is to become like Jesus Christ.  He has restored the beauty of the living icons of God who had become disfigured by slavery to despair, death, and decay. 

 

Today’s gospel reading expresses what it means for us to become His beautiful living icons with different imagery.  In an agricultural society, He 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.” 

 

We do not have to be experienced farmers or gardeners to see that this parable calls us to fulfill our potential as those who bear the image of God.  Our vocation is to become more beautiful living icons of the Savior, and 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. For us to mature to the point that we bear good fruit for the Kingdom, we must attend to the health of our souls with the patience and focus of a careful farmer or gardener.  If, to the contrary, we become distracted and careless for whatever reason, we put ourselves at grave risk of being “choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life.”   

 

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 being distracted by 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.  Remember St. James’ teaching that “pure and undefiled” religion is “to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (Jas. 1:27)

 

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 remain constantly on guard against allowing distorted desires of whatever kind to grow like weeds in our hearts and minds. We must do the hard, daily work of mindfully refusing to fuel our passions and rejecting the temptations that threaten to weaken our souls. Contrary to the immediate gratification that we have come to expect in so many areas of life, maturing to the point that we bear fruit a hundredfold for the Kingdom is going to take time and effort.  It requires patience not only of time but more importantly of repentance when we fall short of fulfilling our calling as living icons of God.  Instead of giving up when we do not get the results that we want on our own timetable, we must humbly acknowledge our weakness and focus on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God. (Lk 10:42)  Doing so requires grounding our daily lives in prayer, fasting, and tangible acts of generosity toward our neighbors.  It requires shutting our eyes and ears to the ever-present nonsense and noise that so easily inflame our passions and lead us to seek first the fleeting pleasures and projects of this world of corruption.  It requires confessing our sins and struggling to reorient the desires of our hearts toward their true fulfillment in God. 

 

 Following St. Paul’s advice, we should all take a close look at our lives to see if we are wasting our time, energy, and attention on “foolish disputes” that distract us from patiently pursuing the healing of our souls.  We will find salvation not by arguing about whose opinion is correct on some controversial topic but by taking up the struggle to become like Christ in holiness, radiant with the divine energies as His beautiful living icons. Tragically, it is so easy not to recognize that we are being “choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life” to the point that we never mature and bear good fruit.  With the patient attentiveness of a careful farmer, we must care for the garden of our souls each day, refusing to become discouraged by our failures.    Whether we realize it or not, we are all iconographers and gardeners with the responsibility to bring beauty and life into the world as we cooperate with the Lord’s grace through patient, persistent dedication.  In doing so, we do not work with paint or soil but with ourselves.  We do not work merely with our own talents but in cooperation with the mercy of the One Who has brought salvation to the world through His Cross and glorious resurrection on the third day.  In Him, we may all mature to the point that we bear good fruit for the Kingdom and shine brightly with heavenly glory.

 

 

Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost & Second Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

 2 Cor.  9:6-11; Luke 6:31-36

People in our time and place often get carried away with the ideal of love.  Whether we mean falling in love, loving our family and friends, or loving our favorite food or activity, we talk about love a lot.  We have to be careful, however, not to make our fascination with love simply a way of serving ourselves.  It is so easy to make loving ourselves the basis of our attachments to the people and things who bring us pleasure and satisfaction.  There is nothing wrong with pleasure and satisfaction in and of themselves, and we should give thanks to God for all the blessings of this life.   We should certainly love ourselves as those who bear the image of God like everyone else.  The problem is that we are often so attached to our own pleasure and satisfaction that our love becomes simply a form of self-centeredness that extends only to those who give us what we want.  In other words, we are often simply in love with ourselves.  That is why Christ said, “And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners do the same.”  St. Maximos the Confessor taught that such self-love is “the mother of the passions,” which leads to a host of spiritual maladies.[1]  

Our vocation is not to treat other people according to how they serve our sense of self but to acquire purity of heart, for as the Lord said, that is necessary to “see God.” (Matt. 5:8) There is perhaps no greater test of the purity of our hearts than whether we respond with love and forgiveness to those who have wronged us and who do not bring us pleasure or satisfaction in any way. Remember what Christ said of those who crucified Him, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Lk. 23:34)   As Orthodox Christians, our calling is nothing less than to embody the mercy of God from the very depths of our being. That sublime vocation goes well beyond being an outwardly religious or moral person who feels justified in determining who deserves our good will, care, and forgiveness for whatever reason.  If we are truly sharing in the life of God by grace as “partakers of the divine nature,” we will learn to love all our neighbors as He has loved us. 

In today’s gospel reading, the Lord spoke words that have always been hard to hear: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”  In this passage from the gospel according to St. Luke, Christ does not rest content with calling His followers to limit their vengeance to “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” even though that Old Testament principle had placed needed restraint on vengeance. (Matt. 5:38) He did not affirm the common attitude of the time, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” an attitude that unfortunately remains with us today in so many ways concerning religion, politics, ethnicity, and other factors.  (Matt. 5:43) Instead, the Savior calls His followers to be in communion with Him from the depths of our hearts to the point that we embody the divine mercy, loving our enemies like God, Who cares even for “the ungrateful and selfish.”  Yes, He cares even for people like me and you.

To become a person so radiant with the love of Christ that we convey His mercy even to people we do not like and who do not like us obviously requires much more than cultivating warm religious feelings or a sentimental attitude toward humanity in general.  To love our enemies as He loves us requires our deep spiritual transformation and healing as living icons of God.  We must not, then, rest content with confessing the Orthodox Faith, attending divine services, devoting ourselves to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and avoiding the most obvious forms of sin in our outward behavior.  These practices are all essential and we must not neglect or diminish them in any way.  We must remember, however, that they provide the basic foundation and structure of our life in Christ.  It is through them that we open our hearts to receive the strength to take up the difficult struggle each day to reject the habits of thought, word, and deed that so easily lead us to treat our neighbors according to our passions and not according to the mercy of the Lord.  If we persist in refusing to take up the cross of learning to love our enemies as the Lord has loved us, it will become impossible for us to love God, for “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” (1Jn. 4:20)   

St. Silouan the Athonite provides good advice on how to grow in love for those who offend us:  

I beseech you, put this to the test.  When a man affronts you or brings dishonor on your head, or takes what is yours, or persecutes the Church, pray to the Lord, saying: “O Lord, we are all Thy creatures.  Have pity on Thy servants, and turn their hearts to repentance,” and you will be aware of grace in your soul.  To begin with constrain your heart to love enemies, and the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things, and experience itself will show you the way.  But the man who thinks with malice of his enemies has not God’s love within him, and does not know God.[2]

 

St. Paul wrote that “he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”  The more fully we offer ourselves to the Lord, the more receptive we become to His grace. That is certainly the case for how we respond to those who wrong, insult, or disappoint us. We must refuse to welcome vengeful or judgmental thoughts about them into our hearts.  We must refuse to speak about them or treat them according to our passions.  Instead of focusing our attention on their errors or fantasizing about how to get even with them, we must mindfully pray for God to grant what is best for them according to His lovingkindness.  To pray for them with integrity, we must take up the struggle each day of relating to them as we would like them to relate to us.

The Apostle wrote that “Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”  Our calling is not to meet some minimal standard of forgiveness but to become so radiant with the gracious divine energies that it becomes part of our character joyfully to love our enemies as He loves us.  As the Lord taught, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”  The healing of our souls is an infinite journey of theosis, of becoming like God in holiness in every dimension of our personhood. It is no surprise, then, that such forgiveness is such a struggle and that we so often fall short of being reconciled with others.  We must use our weakness in this regard for our humility as we call to the Lord from the depths of our hearts for the strength to grow in loving our neighbors as He loves us.  We must use our weakness as a reminder to keep a close watch on our thoughts, words, and deeds as we redouble our efforts to sow bountifully the seeds of Christlike mercy in our souls.  Then, as St. Paul taught, “You will be enriched in every way for great generosity, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.”

The Eucharist is the Church’s great act of thanksgiving for the infinite love of God for sinful humanity and the fallen creation.  We lift up our hearts and offer bread and wine, which by the power of the Holy Spirit become the Body and Blood of the Lord, Who offered Himself without reservation for the salvation of those who rejected Him.  Since we become “one flesh” with Him in the Eucharist, how can we refuse to extend to our neighbors the same mercy and forgiveness that we have received from our Lord?  Remember what He said: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

 

 

 

 

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[1] Larchet, Therapy of Spiritual Illnesses, Vol. 1: 145.

[2] Archimandrite Sophrony, Saint Silouan the Athonite, 377.