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.

"Love Your Enemies" : Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost & Second Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

2 Cor.  1:21-2:4; Luke 6:31-36

 One of the great challenges that many of us face is learning to see that being an Orthodox Christians may not be reduced to confessing certain beliefs about God, no matter how true those beliefs are.  Our faith may not be reduced to conscientious participation in the worship of the Church or keeping our own rule of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, or other spiritual disciplines.  Our faith may not be reduced to following a code of moral behavior or distinguishing clearly between actions that are good or evil.  These endeavors are all virtuous in and of themselves and we must not neglect or diminish them in any way, but our calling is much higher, for it is nothing less than to embody the mercy of God from the very depths of our being. That sublime vocation goes well beyond the demands of being a conventionally religious or moral person, for it requires nothing less than becoming “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  Remember what the Lord said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  (Matt. 5:8)

 The laws of the Old Testament were necessary to make clear to the Hebrew people how they were to act as those in a covenantal relation with God.  Jesus Christ is not simply an especially insightful rabbi or prophet on such matters, but truly the God-Man in Whom the ancient promises, laws, and prophecies are fulfilled and extended even to Gentiles like us who respond to Him with humble faith.  He is a Person in Whose life we share as living members of His Body, the Church.  The Church is the bride of Christ and we must live as those in a “one flesh” union with Him in every aspect of our existence. In Him, we become truly sons and daughters of the Most High, for His eternal life becomes ours.   

 It is only in this context that we can understand our Lord’s teaching in today’s gospel reading:  “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 restrain 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, including religion, politics, and ethnicity.   (Matt. 5:43) Instead, the Savior called His followers to be in communion with Him from the depths of their hearts to the point that we embody the divine mercy, loving our enemies like God, Who cares even for “the ungrateful and selfish.”  Let us be clear:  That means that God cares even for people like me and you.

             To become a person so radiant with the love of Christ that we convey His love even to people we do not like and who do not like us is obviously not a matter of being conventionally religious or moral.  To love our enemies as He loves us requires our deep spiritual transformation and healing as living icons of God.  It is not enough to be kind to our friends and allies, to those we think will return our good will, or to those with whom we have some characteristic in common. It is not enough simply to restrain ourselves from abusing our enemies verbally or otherwise or even to go through the motions of being decent toward them.  No, the God-Man calls and enables us to become brilliant with the gracious divine energies to the point that we convey His merciful love to everyone from the depths of our souls. 

            If we approach this sublime calling merely as a reminder to obey a religious law, we will either fall into despair or delusion about our ability to fulfill it.  The vocation to become like God in mercy and holiness is something we cannot accomplish by willpower or behavior modification alone, even as we cannot raise ourselves up from the grave.  And if we think that we have already fulfilled this calling, then we show only that we have become blinded by spiritual pride to the point that we do not see ourselves clearly at all.  The fact that we seem inevitably to fall short of loving our neighbors, and especially our enemies, as ourselves indicates that we have a truly eternal vocation that we should never think that we have completed.  The struggle that we all have in treating other people, especially those who have wronged or offended us, as we would like to be treated, reveals that we have not yet embraced fully the Lord’s gracious healing of our souls.  St. Silouan the Athonite saw the love of enemies as a clear sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  He taught that when the soul “grows humble, the Lord gives her His grace, and then she prays for her enemies as for herself, and sheds scalding tears for the whole world.”   These words reveal our need for ongoing repentance as we turn away from fueling the passions that make it so appealing to fixate on the wrongs of others and open our hearts in humility to receive the Lord’s gracious healing.  The more that we are aware of our own dependence upon His mercy as “the chief of sinners,” the less inclination we will have to misdirect our attention and energy to holding grudges and condemning our neighbors.

        In today’s epistle reading, St. Paul writes candidly to the confused Christians of Corinth that he knows he has caused them pain by correcting their many abuses of the faith as mostly Gentile converts who kept falling back into the ways of paganism and fell short of manifesting the unity of the Body of Christ in holiness. He did not pain them out of malice or a desire to dominate them, “For I wrote you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.”  In any sphere of life, it is so easy to fall prey to the temptation of thinking that whoever is disagreeing with us or criticizing us is simply trying make our lives difficult or show that they are in a superior position. So often, we are tempted to respond to them in kind, which usually tempts them to get back at us in a never-ending cycle of resentment. We so easily jump to the conclusion that this or that person is simply an enemy when our judgment is clouded by our own passions.  Paul’s statement should remind us that love for neighbor can certainly require telling people what they do not want to hear.  The healing of broken relationships can require confronting uncomfortable truths about ourselves and others.  It is rarely an easy or comfortable process when imperfect people come face to face with how they have wounded one another. It is only by finding healing for the soul as we unite ourselves evermore fully to Christ that we will gain the spiritual clarity to discern what it means to speak and act mercifully in such situations and not according to our passions.  

If we are truly in Christ, we must struggle to do what we can each day to treat those we are most inclined to disregard and condemn as we would like them to treat us.  We must take every opportunity to convey the mercy we have received from Christ to our neighbors, especially those we consider our enemies.  When we fail to do so, we must use our weakness to fuel our humility before the Lord and our sense of unworthiness to judge anyone else.  We must pray, fast, give to the needy, and mindfully reject the nonsense in our own minds, and in all factions of our culture today, that would encourage us to treat anyone as anything less than a living icon of God.  As hard as it is to accept, whether we are sharing in the life of Christ is most clearly revealed in how we treat those we find it hardest to love.  This is not a matter of being conventionally religious or moral, but of whether we are acquiring the purity of heart necessary to see God, especially as He is present to us each day of our lives in those we are least inclined to see as beloved neighbors.  That is the ultimate test of whether we are becoming radiant with the gracious divine mercy of the Lord as His sons and daughters.