Homily for "Saint Timon Sunday," the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, & the Fifth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Romans 10:1-10; Matthew 8:28-9:1

Today is “Saint Timon Sunday” in our Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America, when we make an offering in support of our brothers and sisters in the Archdiocese of Bosra-Hauran in Syria. That Archdiocese does all that it can to show the love of Christ to those who suffer from years of violent conflict and social disruption. Millions of people remain displaced or in severe need in Syria, where 90% of the population now lives below the poverty line.  The support provided by our Diocese over the years has helped to fund a medical clinic, a pharmacy, and other desperately needed forms of humanitarian aid. 

            We commemorate St. Timon today as one of the seventy apostles sent out by the Lord and one of the original deacons mentioned in Acts (Acts 6:5).  He was the first bishop of what is now the city of Bosra, and he died as a martyr for Christ.  He played a key role in evangelizing a region where our Lord Himself often ministered (Matt.4:25) and where St. Paul took refuge after he escaped from Damascus following his conversion. (Gal. 1:15-18)   Especially as Antiochian Orthodox Christians, we must give thanks for how St. Timon’s ministry enabled the Church to flourish in ways from which we benefit to this very day.  We read in Acts that it was in Antioch that “the disciples were first called Christians” and where the first Gentile church was established. (Acts 11: 20-26) Across the centuries, the Church of Antioch has embodied St. Paul’s teaching that “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” (Col. 3:11) Antioch is not a nation or ethnic group, but a Church which manifests the unity in Christ of people of many different cultures and languages. Antioch’s witness in doing so is all the more powerful due to its many centuries of suffering, beginning with the persecution of the pagan Roman Empire.  Since the rise of Islam in the 7^th century, Christians in the region have carried a heavy cross as a “tolerated” minority community typically enduring persistent discrimination mixed with periods of brutal oppression. Throughout history and in our own time, many Middle Eastern martyrs and confessors have refused to deny Christ, regardless of the cost.   

The ministries of the Archdiocese of Bosra-Hauran extend benevolence to anyone in need, as is typical of philanthropic efforts of the Orthodox Church, such as International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC).  True Christians are not tribalistic and concerned only with the needs of people like them, either religiously or in other ways.   Even as God’s love extends to all, those who are truly in Christ share His love with everyone, especially those they are inclined for whatever reason to view as enemies and strangers.  That is one of the major reasons that our Lord’s ministry was so shocking, as today’s gospel reading describes.  The two demon-possessed men were Gentiles who had no ancestral claim on the ministry of the Jewish Messiah.   They had lived a miserable life in the tombs and no one, not even their pagan relatives and neighbors, would come near them out of fear.  Nonetheless, the Savior had mercy on the men, casting out their demons and restoring them to a recognizably human existence.  By the conventional standards of that time and place, they were strangers and enemies of the sort to be destroyed by the expected nationalistic Jewish Messiah.

Christ, of course, was a very different kind of Savior Who delivered even demon-possessed Gentiles from their sufferings as a sign of His love for all who bear the divine image and likeness.  His doing so was so shocking that the people of the area actually asked Christ to leave as a result.  Surely that had something to do with the drowning of the herd of pigs into which He cast the demons and the astounding transformation of the two men.  Christ’s crossing of the division between Jew and Gentile must have also been unsettling to them.  They only asked him to leave, however, unlike the people of Nazareth, who tried to throw the Savior off a cliff after He reminded them that God had at times blessed Gentiles through the prophets Elijah and Elisha while disregarding Jews. (Lk. 4:25-30)

Unfortunately, the temptation remains to use religion to make ultimate distinctions between groups of people.  Even as St. Paul criticized his fellow Jews for “seeking to establish their own” righteousness by outward obedience to the Old Testament law, it is possible to imagine that we are uniquely pleasing to God simply because we do this or that or have some standing or characteristic that we take to be a sign that God loves us more than people who are different in that regard.  The more that we build ourselves up in our own eyes for whatever reason, the easier it becomes to condemn our neighbors as being worthy only of contempt.  If we persist in thinking that we stand before God on the basis of the good deeds that we have done, the opinions we hold, or our affiliation with any group or society, we will make ourselves unreceptive to the healing mercy of the Lord Who delivered the demon-possessed Gentiles.  They were well beyond the possibility of establishing their own righteousness by any standard; nonetheless, the Savior delivered them.  We must learn to see ourselves in them.

St. Paul knew that “Christ is the end of the law, that everyone who has faith may be justified.”  He teaches that “the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” (Gal. 3:24-25) More fundamental than the law of Moses was the promise to Abraham, who “’believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’…And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” (Gal. 3: 6-9)  These passages show that we will not find the healing of our souls by mere legal observance or morality, and certainly not by any cultural or ethnic identity.  Those who have faith in and confess Christ pursue an eternal journey of union with Him as “partakers of the divine nature” which requires turning away from all forms of self-justification in order to become radiant with His gracious divine energies.

Christ taught that the great test of whether we are uniting ourselves to Him is how we treat the most miserable and inconvenient people who need our care, especially when they are our enemies. He practiced what He preached by delivering the demon-possessed Gentile men who lived in the tombs.  St. Timon and the ongoing witness of the Church of Antioch demonstrate what it means to be faithful to a Lord Whose love for suffering humanity transcends the petty divisions that we use to justify condemning, or at least ignoring, those who are not like us according to some earthly standard or who have wronged us in some way.  We simply cannot pursue the life in Christ if we insist on grounding our identity in our accomplishments or characteristics in comparison with those of others.  Instead, we must embrace the true unity of the Body of Christ, in which all such worldly distinctions are irrelevant, and together convey His love to our suffering neighbors, no matter who they are.  Let us do that, not only by making generous offerings today for our brothers and sisters in Bosra-Hauran, but also by refusing to allow self-justification of any kind to compromise our faith in and faithfulness to Jesus Christ.             

 

 

The Roman Centurion with Humble Faith in the Jewish Messiah: Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Romans 6:18-23; Matthew 8: 5-13

Our Lord’s ministry violated many of the religious and cultural sensibilities of first-century Palestine in shocking ways.  Contrary to all expectations for the Jewish Messiah, He asked for a drink of water from a Samaritan woman with a broken personal history, engaged in an extended spiritual conversation with her, and then spent two days in a Samaritan village.  He invited Himself to the home of Zacchaeus, a corrupt tax-collector for the Roman army of occupation.  And as we read today, He not only healed the servant of a Roman centurion, but said of this man, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  This encounter is truly astounding because the Jews expected a Messiah to defeat the Romans by military force, not to praise the faith of their officers.

The Lord’s statement that the faith of this Roman soldier was superior to that of any of the Jews surely struck just about everyone in that time and place as being not only foolish but also blasphemous.  By doing so, He made clear that God’s blessings are not defined by nationality or cultural heritage, for “many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness…”  Though it was commonly overlooked at the time, God’s promises to Abraham were for the blessing of “all the nations,” not merely one group of people.  These promises have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ such that all with faith in Him are now His beloved sons and daughters.  (Gen. 22:18; Gal. 3:8-9) 

Our Lord’s fulfillment of the ancient promises had nothing at all to do with setting up an earthly kingdom in Palestine or anywhere else.  Remember that before the Savior began His public ministry, “the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’  Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” (Matt. 4:8-10) The crowds welcomed Christ to Jerusalem as a conquering hero on Palm Sunday because they thought He was their military liberator from Roman rule.  When it became clear that He was an entirely different kind of Messiah with no interest in launching an armed rebellion, they yelled, “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!” a few days later (Lk 23:21).   The Savior then told Pontius Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world, which is why His followers would not take up arms to defend Him. (Jn. 18:36)

The kingdom which Christ proclaimed may well appear just as foolish today according to our conventional standards, for it has no geographical boundaries and is not a nation-state; it does not require any particular ethnicity, culture, or language for its citizens.  Even as the promises to the descendants of Abraham have been extended to all with faith in Christ, the ancient hope for an earthly realm in a particular part of the world has been fulfilled in the Body of Christ in which all may participate even now as a foretaste of the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven, regardless of where they live.  As St. Peter wrote to the early Christians, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Pet. 2: 9-10)

We rightly pray for God’s blessings upon our nation and all the nations and peoples of the world.  And like Christians of all times and places, we must resist the temptation to view the positive dimensions of our collective life as ends in themselves to be worshiped as false gods that distract us from faithfulness to Jesus Christ.  Remember that the chief priests told Pilate “We have no king but Caesar!” as they called for the Messiah’s crucifixion (Jn. 19:15).  The pagan Romans later killed Christians because they would not worship the gods believed to preserve their empire.  Our Lord and His martyrs looked like fools, or worse, to those obsessed with their own political interests.  We are certainly not immune today from the temptation to reject our Lord and His Cross by giving our primary allegiance to our desires for power, domination, and vengeance toward our enemies and rivals.  This temptation, which is rooted in the fear of death, is made all the more worse when we convince ourselves that we are actually serving Christ as we pursue the nationalistic path that He so clearly rejected.     

Obviously, our Lord did not view the Roman centurion according to conventional earthly terms, even though He was well aware of the man’s role in serving the empire under the authority of which He would be crucified.  By all outward appearances, they would have been sworn enemies, but Christ did not see him that way or require him to quit the Roman army or become a Jew.  He simply marveled at the centurion’s faith, granted his request, and noted that “many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”  

Our hope is to be among those “from east and west” who are gathered into the kingdom of heaven by our Lord’s gracious mercy, which we receive through faith in Him, regardless of our national, ethnic, or political identity.   Even as not all the descendants of Abraham fulfilled their calling to receive the Messiah in faith, we cannot blithely assume that being Orthodox Christians somehow guarantees us the blessedness of the kingdom or makes us justified in condemning anyone.  The greatest obstacle to the healing of our souls is pride, which often manifests itself in the belief that we are somehow better and more deserving of God’s favor than others for whatever reason.  Such pride is the deadly enemy of true faith, but the centurion somehow managed to avoid that trap, despite the high standing given to him by his rank in the armed forces of the mighty Roman Empire.  He humbled himself before the Lord, saying, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”  Even as Christ did not see him as a Roman enemy, he did not see Christ as either a threat to the empire or someone inferior by worldly standards.  Quite the contrary, the centurion had somehow acquired the spiritual clarity to know where he stood before the Lord Who would heal his servant in such a miraculous fashion. Even as the centurion, tax-collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, demon-possessed Gentiles, and other outcasts received Christ in faith, we must never presume to declare that anyone is beyond His love or cannot find healing through faith in Him.    

Like that blessed man, let us entrust ourselves to Christ with such humility that our passions do not keep us from knowing that we stand before Him in need of constant mercy, as do all people.   Instead of fueling the pride, domination, and vengeance that so easily blind us spiritually and lead us to idolatry, let us unite ourselves so fully to Christ that His character becomes evident in us.  When that happens, we will manifest in our own lives His mercy and forgiveness in ways unconstrained by devotion to any of the false gods of this world to the point that we will love even our enemies as God loves us.  No, that is not the easy, popular, and conventional way of living in our time or in any other, but it is the way of the Savior Who conquered death itself through His Cross and glorious resurrection on the third day.  It is only by uniting ourselves to Him in faith and faithfulness that we may hope, along with the centurion, to be among those who “come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven.”  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

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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[1] See Give Me a Word:  The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers (SVS Press, 2014), 152.

Homily on the Great-Martyr Kyriaki of Nicomedia & Second Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 3:23-4:5; Matthew 4:18-23

            After our Lord’s victory over death at Pascha, He ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit upon His disciples and apostles at Pentecost.  Last week on the Sunday of All Saints, we commemorated all those who have participated personally in the holiness of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost and All Saints remind us that doing so is not a calling for a select few, but the common vocation of all who bear the divine image and likeness as unique, irreplaceable icons of Christ.  He calls us all to obey His commandment to the first apostles: “Follow Me.”

            We might find it hard to see how the Lord’s calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John has much to do with us.  We certainly do not somehow have to repeat their unique roles, but definitely must learn from their examples how to become fully receptive to the healing mercy of the Lord as we discern and obey His calling in our lives. Doing so is completely different from trying to use God to meet our personal needs or desires for anything in this world.  It has nothing to do with impressing other people or making us feel better about ourselves.  The Savior’s Cross demonstrates that following Him is in no way a path to conventional earthly power or glory. 

As living members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we have received the fullness of truth by the power of the Holy Spirit, poured out richly at Pentecost.  We are filled with the Spirit personally in Chrismation and nourished by the Savior’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist. He has called and empowered us to live each day of our lives as those who participate by grace in the life of the Holy Trinity.  To confront these truths is to know immediately how unworthy we are of such blessings and how far short we fall of living accordingly.  When we recall the Lord’s teaching that “to whom much is given, much will be required,” we should fall on our faces in repentance because of the great responsibility that is ours. (Lk 12:48) The Savior said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21) He also said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (Jn. 14:15) As the Lord told His disciples, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5: 20) Struggling to obey the Lord through daily prayer, regular fasting, generosity to those in need, and constant mindfulness are necessary for us to gain the spiritual clarity to discern and follow our path of obedience to the heavenly kingdom.  To identify ourselves as Orthodox Christians without embracing this difficult and humbling journey is nothing but self-righteous religious hypocrisy by which we will condemn only ourselves.  We will do the opposite of obeying the Lord’s command “Follow Me” if we entangle ourselves in the nets of spiritual pride, self-righteous judgment of our neighbors, and the idolatry of seeking first any kingdom other than that of our Lord.  Instead of attracting others to Christ like a beacon in the darkness, we will turn them away by our bad example and reveal how we have shut the doors of our hearts to the healing presence of the Holy Spirit. 

A shining example of someone who heard and obeyed Christ’s command is the Holy Great Martyr Kyriaki, who gave the ultimate witness by refusing to worship pagan gods and giving up her life after suffering brutal persecution by the pagan rulers of the Roman Empire.  A beautiful young virgin, Kyriaki came from a wealthy family, but she refused the offer of marriage to the son of a magistrate who wanted their money.  The magistrate then denounced the family as Christians to the Emperor Diocletian.  Even when offered great riches and marriage to one of the emperor’s relatives if she would worship the pagan gods, Kyriaki refused and miraculously survived horrible tortures from four different rulers.  The Lord appeared to her and healed her wounds.  The next day her prayers destroyed a pagan temple, and the wild beasts to which she was later thrown would not attack her. Kyriaki gave up her soul right before she was to be beheaded.

As we discern what it means to respond faithfully to the Lord’s calling in our lives, the example of St. Kyriaki should remind us that our hope for the healing of our souls does not lie in the pursuit of earthly possessions or success.   She had wealth from her family, great beauty, and a way to become powerful, prominent, and even wealthier by worshiping false gods.  The eye of her soul was so pure, however, that she knew Christ not as a mere religious figure from the past to be manipulated however she found useful, but instead truly as God.  Because she was filled with the Holy Spirit and radiant with the divine light, she saw clearly that the blessings of this life must not become idols that would turn her away from the Lord.  Because they are His gifts to us, she knew that we must offer them and ourselves faithfully to Christ, recognizing that there is nothing more important than seeking “first His Kingdom and His righteousness,” even to the point of enduring torture and death, as did her Lord. 

St. Kyriaki faced a clear choice between obeying the Lord’s calling to “Follow Me” and seeking first the power and glory of this world.  Where we tend to fall into trouble is when our choices are less clear, when the contrast between faithfulness and idolatry is not as stark.  It may seem unlikely that someone will promise us great wealth and power if we will deny Christ and worship another god.  Something very similar happens, however, when we confuse obedience to Christ with the service of conventional political or national agendas, as though His Kingdom would come when one faction imposed its will on another through whatever means necessary to save a nation or even the world.  Such false presentations of Christian mission are especially dangerous because they identify the way of our Lord and His Cross with the powerful temptation that He faced and clearly rejected:  to become a conventional political Messiah who would rule over an earthly kingdom by overthrowing the Romans with military might. He called the first apostles and Kyriaki to become martyrs who bore witness to His salvation by loving and forgiving their enemies as they remained faithful to their Lord, even to the point of death.  Their hope was not in some rearrangement of the powers that be, but in a Kingdom not of this world.   

 

Before their shining examples, we must bow in humility as we humbly embrace the basic spiritual disciplines that help us hear and discern how to obey His call to “Follow Me” in the particular circumstances of our lives.  We will find our salvation not by giving ourselves to any of the false gods of this world, but by taking up the crosses that are so obviously present in our lives each day.  We must not be distracted by idealistic dreams of any kind that divert our attention from faithfulness in the opportunities for obedience that are right before us.  For example, no one else is married to your spouse, is the father or mother of your children, or is the particular friend, worker, or parishioner that you are.  No one else has the vocation to serve Christ in those around you in the unique way that you do. No one else can resist your temptations or keep a close watch on the thoughts of your heart. The present circumstances of our lives present limitless opportunities to become fully receptive to the presence and peace of Holy Spirit.  None of us lacks anything at all that is necessary to grow in holiness, obey Christ’s calling, and draw others into the life of the Kingdom.  We are all without excuse in obeying our Lord’s command: “Follow Me.”

 

Homily for the Sunday of All Saints and the Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 11:33-12:2; Matthew 9:36-10:8

 

            Today we commemorate our Lord’s Twelve Apostles and all the Saints, looking to them as brilliant examples of faithfulness to the Savior.  We may, however, be tempted to think that such glorious persons have little to do with the humble and broken circumstances of our lives.  After all, the Apostles were our Lord’s closest followers during His earthly ministry. Though they did not fully understand Who He was until after His resurrection, He sent the Holy Spirit to empower them to shepherd the Church as they fulfilled His command to “preach…‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”  They all struggled and suffered greatly in faithfulness to the Lord in their ministries, with St. John the Theologian being the only one not dying as a martyr. 

 

            If we are ever tempted to think that we have achieved something great in the Christian life, we should look to their example of abandoning all the comfort and security of a conventional life to experience the uncertainty of following a Messiah Who Himself was rejected and condemned by respectable religious and political leaders.  The Savior’s message was such a threat to their power that they crucified Him as a public example of what happened to those who got in their way and threatened the interests of the powerful.  As Christ foretold, “the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.” (Jn 16: 2) It is not surprising that the Apostles who continued our Lord’s ministry met deaths like His.  They obeyed literally the Savior’s teaching to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him.

 

The way of Christ was certainly not popular or celebrated during their lifetimes.  To the contrary, it was a path to persecution, imprisonment, torture, and death.  In contrast to false teachers who tried to use their position for self-glorification, true Apostles followed in the way of those in the Old Testament who looked forward in faith to the coming of the Messiah. As we read today from Hebrews: “Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

 

Christ fulfilled their hope not by setting up an earthly kingdom with geographical borders in which they or their descendants would rule, even though that is what the Apostles themselves had originally anticipated.  Instead, He offered Himself freely to the point of death on the Cross for the salvation of all in a Kingdom not of this world.  He then rose in glorious victory over the worst that the most powerful empire of the world could do.  Empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles were completely transformed and manifested the ways of heaven amidst the realities of a broken world.  They healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead.  They did not respond in kind to their enemies, but embodied the merciful love of the Savior.  Even as He prayed for the forgiveness of those who killed Him, St. Paul wrote of the Apostles, “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate.”  The Apostles are members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and chief shepherds of His flock. Their work is not their own, but Christ’s.  That is why St. Paul could say with integrity “I urge you, then, be imitators of me.” (1 Cor. 4:12-16) His life had become an enacted icon of the Savior.  As he wrote elsewhere, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.”  (Gal. 2:20)

 

No matter what our particular calling in  life may be, we all have the same fundamental vocation to become radiant with the holiness of God.  People should be able to look at any one of us and see a vibrant image of the healing of the human person in God’s image and likeness that our Savior has worked for the salvation of the world.  The Apostles are examples for us all in this regard, as are all the Saints.   We do not know the names of all the Saints, but God certainly knows all who have entered into the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom, regardless of whether they have been formally recognized by the Church.  We have the benefit of the teachings, ministries, and prayers of countless people who have manifested the holiness of God, and we must not excuse ourselves from faithfully following their examples.  As today’s epistle reading exhorts us: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfection of our faith.”

 

Christ said to the Apostles, “You received without paying, give without pay.”  All the more does His admonition apply to us, who have benefited from the witness of countless generations of holy people in the Church, not as a reward for good behavior, but due to the mercy of our Lord Who was and is at work through them by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We must resist the strong temptation to make the pursuit of the Christian life all about ourselves, or about people who are superficially like us, as though God’s salvation were our personal possession to be used for our own comfort and satisfaction.  The Apostles and the Saints have rejected the temptation to distort the way of Christ into an exercise in serving themselves or seeking earthly glory. Had their religion been something they had invented, they could have done with it as they pleased.  Our Lord’s salvation, however, is not a product of this world or a commodity to be divided up or bought and sold according to conventional human designs.  He has conquered death, the wages of sin, by His own death and resurrection.  We share in His life by grace, which means that we are always in the position of those who have “received without paying.”  Consequently, we must “give without pay” as we offer our resources, time, and attention in support of the ministries of our parish and to bless the suffering, outcast, and needy neighbors with whom our Lord identified Himself.  If we are truly in Christ, then His life will become our own; our character will conform to His.  He is the vine and we are the branches.  (Jn. 15:5) Since He offered up Himself freely for our sake, we must offer ourselves to become channels of His blessing and healing for the world, as all His faithful servants have done. 

 

Across the centuries and to this very day in some parts of the world, countless Christians have followed the Apostles in literally dying as martyrs.  Such martyrdom is a particular calling that requires a God-given strength to make the ultimate witness for Christ.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord calls and enables us all to bear witness to Him as we take up the crosses we bear in our particular circumstances. In order to gain the spiritual strength to bear faithful witness to Him, we must make the most basic spiritual disciplines part of our daily lives as we pray, fast, share our resources, read the Scriptures, forgive our enemies, and keep a close watch on the thoughts and desires that we welcome into our hearts.  These practices are essential for gaining the spiritual clarity to discern how the Lord is calling us to serve Him in the Church and in the world.  Embracing them is an essential step in following in the way of all the Saints.   

 

By the power of the Holy Spirit, an unlikely group of Palestinian Jews became our Lord’s Apostles.  To this very day, people who face all the problems of life in our fallen world become radiant with the holiness of God as His Saints.  Let us take the small, faltering steps that we are capable of taking today as we follow in their path to the Kingdom.  We have no lack of opportunities to do so in our parish, our families, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods.  By responding to those opportunities as best we presently can, we will learn to take up our crosses and take our place among those who bear faithful witness to the saving mercy of our Lord.  We have received from Him without paying.  Let us give ourselves to Him and our neighbors in the same way. That is how, by His grace, we may all become Saints.

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Great Feast of Pentecost in the Orthodox Church

 

Acts 2:1-11; John 7:37-52; 8:12 

On today’s great Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the fulfillment of the deepest desires of those who bear the divine image and likeness to participate personally in the eternal life of God.  At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes upon on the Apostles as they are gathered together in obedience to the command of the risen Lord.  The same divine breath which first gave us life from the dust of the earth now comes as a mighty, rushing wind.  The divine glory beheld by Moses in the burning bush now rests upon each one personally as flames of fire.   The divided speech of the tower of Babel is now overcome by the miracle of speaking in different languages as a sign that everyone is invited to share in the life of the Lord.  This great feast manifests the fulfillment of God’s gracious promises for the entire world and every human person in the Body of Christ, the Church born at Pentecost.  Today we celebrate the restoration of our true unity in God through the unifying power of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter sent by the risen and ascended Savior Who is seated at the right hand of the Father in heavenly glory. 

The sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit empowers the Church as a living icon of the common life of humanity in which our petty divisions are healed.  He enables us to become persons in communion united organically as members of the one Body of Christ instead of isolated individuals obsessively choosing sides over against one another due to the fear of death.  The Persons of the Holy Trinity share a common life of love, unity, and holiness; by the power of the Holy Spirit manifested at Pentecost, we participate by grace in Their eternal communion.  Our journey to theosis calls us to nothing less than being united in and with God such that we become radiant with the divine energies in every dimension of our being, like an iron left in the fire of holy glory.

As those who bear the divine image and likeness, we become both more truly human and more like God as we find healing from the passions that divide and separate us, and instead embrace our life together. That is why St. Paul wrote, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23) That is why St. Silouan the Athonite taught, “One can only love one’s enemies through the grace of the Holy Spirit.” And “He who does not love his enemies, does not have God’s grace.”[1]

The Lord said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’”  He uses the image of living water to describe what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, even as He did with St. Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well.  Our risen and ascended Lord did not send mere theological ideas, moral instructions, or spiritual practices to His followers.  He did not limit His salvation to any particular group of people.  After His Ascension, the Savior sent the Holy Spirit to quench the deep thirst, the primal longing, of all the broken, confused, and alienated people of the world for sharing personally in the eternal life of God, for nothing else can truly satisfy us as those who bear the divine image and likeness.

As everyone who pays attention to the weather knows, wind, fire, and water are powerful realities that escape our control. At Pentecost they convey the profound mystery of what it means to participate in the divine life in ways that transcend even the best rational definitions:  As living members of the Body of Christ, we may truly know and experience God from the depths of our hearts and in our common life as did the Apostles.

 In order to celebrate this great feast with integrity, we must mindfully open ourselves as fully as possible to the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit.   In order to do that, we must live faithfully each day through the spiritual strength that we gain from participating in the sacramental and ascetical life of the Church.  The Holy Spirit came upon Christ’s followers as they were gathered together in obedience to the Lord’s command, and we must never fool ourselves into thinking that the spiritual life is an individualistic endeavor that caters to our preferences, prejudices, or feelings, no matter what they may be.  Pentecost calls us to get over the pride that divided the tongues of humanity in the first place and to gain the humility to find our true personhood as members together of the Body of Christ, where the distinctive beauty of our souls will shine evermore brightly as we partake of the same living water as did the Apostles.  

Indeed, Pentecost is a time for becoming so receptive to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that we overflow with His living water, becoming channels of blessing that enable our neighbors and world to flourish with the peace, joy, and holiness of God’s Kingdom.  For that to happen, we must turn away from all that separates us from full participation in the life of our Lord in His Body, the Church.  For that to happen, we must kneel in prayer before God and live in humility as we forgive our enemies, share our resources with the poor, and take up the daily struggle to purify our hearts.  That is the only way for us to overflow with the gracious divine energies poured out abundantly for the salvation of the world on this great Feast of Pentecost.   

 

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[1] See Jean-Claude Larchet, “On the Love of Enemies According to Saint Silouan,” https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2020/10/on-love-of-enemies-according-to-saint.html

 

Homily for the Sunday of the After-feast of the Ascension and Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in the Orthodox Church

 

Acts 20:16-18, 28-36; John 17:1-13

            Forty days after His resurrection, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ ascended in glory into heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father.  He did so as One Who is fully divine and fully human, One Person with two natures. He ascended with His glorified, resurrected body, which still bore the wounds of His crucifixion.  Our Lord’s Ascension reveals that we may participate by grace in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity and share in His fulfillment of the human person in God’s image and likeness.  We may experience such blessedness even now by uniting ourselves to Christ even as we live and breathe in this world with our feet on the ground.

We also commemorate today the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea.  They rejected the teaching of Arius that Jesus Christ was not truly divine, but a kind of lesser god created by the Father.  The Council declared, as we confess to this day in the Nicene Creed, that our Savior is “the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all worlds. Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made.”  The Fathers of Nicaea saw clearly that the One Who brings us into the eternal life of God must Himself be eternal and divine.  No mere creature could ever enable us to shine with heavenly glory.    

Had Christ been simply a great religious teacher, He could not have conquered death or enabled us to share in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.  Those who claim to admire the Savior as merely an excellent human being actually reject Him, for they deny the true identity of the God-Man Who unites humanity and divinity in Himself.  Only He could say to the Father, “Glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory which I had with You before the world was made.”  Only He can bring those made of the dust of the Earth into the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.   

            The divine brilliance of Christ’s Ascension is entirely different from the illusion of trying to raise ourselves up according to the standards of a world that has not yet entered into the joy of the heavenly Kingdom.  Since we all know how weak and insignificant we are in the larger scheme of things, we are eager to distract ourselves from facing that truth.  We do that by seeking fulfillment in created things that can never heal our souls.   Doing so only serves to make us even more enslaved to self-serving illusions that alienate us from God, our neighbors, and ourselves.   No wonder that we so often know the misery of captivity to disordered desires that hold us captive to vain pursuits of pride, power, and possessions that will never satisfy us.  That is a path not of ascent but of descent to slavery to fear, anxiety, and despair.  

            Embracing such darkness in our souls will make us blind to the glory of our ascended Lord, Who went up to heaven only after dying on the Cross, being buried in a tomb, and enduring the ultimate descent to Hades.  He rose from the dead because He had humbled Himself to the point of accepting rejection, torture, and crucifixion as a blasphemer and a traitor purely out of selfless love and compassion for His broken and suffering children, who were held captive by the inevitable consequences of sin. 

Christ endured all this as the eternal Son of God Who spoke the universe into existence. The unfathomable humility of the Savior destroys popular assumptions about God and about what it means to find fulfillment as a human person.  He does not ascend by taking vengeance upon His enemies, causing those who opposed Him to suffer, or serving Himself, but by suffering the consequences of their sins, of which He was in no way guilty.  The divine glory of His Ascension shines brilliantly in contrast to the illusions of those who assume God must be just like them in their spiritual blindness.   If we dare to identify ourselves with Him, we must open the eyes of our souls to the light of His heavenly glory and refuse to live as those who wander in darkness and alienation.  In order to celebrate the Ascension with integrity, we must rise up with Him into the eternal life of the Holy Trinity even as we remain in a world marred by war, mass murder, disease, and all the sorrowful brokenness known by the children of Adam and Eve.

By rising into heavenly glory as the God-Man, Christ has shown us what it means to become truly human in the divine image and likeness.   In order to unite ourselves to Him, we must reorient our desires away from the false gods we have welcomed into our hearts and toward the One Who overcame the very worst the corrupt world could do in order make us participants in the eternal day of His heavenly reign.  The contrast between the heights of heaven and the mundane realities of our lives is obviously very great. That is not because we are ordinary people with ordinary problems.  It is because we have not united ourselves to Christ to the point that every aspect of our life in this world has become a brilliant icon of His salvation.  There is so much in each of us that has refused to ascend in holiness with our Lord.          

Our calling to rise with Christ into heavenly glory is obviously high and no one may claim to have fulfilled it.  God is infinitely holy and the journey to become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect is truly eternal.  No matter where we are on that path, we must all grapple seriously with what holds us back from embracing the fulfillment of the human person made possible by our Lord’s Ascension.   We must conform our character to Christ’s such that His radiant glory shines through us as we embrace the challenges of finding healing for our souls from the disordered desires which we are so strongly inclined to make the driving force of our lives.     

In order to ascend with Him in holiness, we must abandon the hypocritical spirituality of those who corrupt Christianity into a way of raising ourselves up in this world in any sphere of life.   Nothing will keep us wedded to the spiritual decay of the fallen world more than perverting the way of our ascended Lord into a justification for crucifying our neighbors in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Our Savior calls us to rise up from the corruption of the world, not to fall even deeper into it through the delusions of spiritual pride.    

In order to ascend in holiness with Him, we must reject all the proud fantasies that distract us from true faithfulness in the present circumstances of our lives as we take the small steps toward the Kingdom that we presently have the strength to take. In our families, friendships, and workplaces, and also in our parish, we must humble ourselves by putting the needs of others before our own desires.  We must refuse to allow thoughts that tempt us to self-centeredness to take root in our hearts, for they will make it impossible for to become like Christ in self-emptying love for our neighbors.  The only way to ascend with Christ is to unite ourselves to Him in humility from the depths of our hearts.    

Christ prayed to the Father that His followers “may be one, even as We are one.”  Contrary to popular opinion, it is not possible to pursue the Christian life as an isolated individual on the basis of emotion, ideas, morality, politics, or anything else.  The Church is Christ’s Body and we are members of Him together.  He is the Vine and we are the branches.  The Lord ascended with His Body and, by His grace, we will too as we serve Him together in His Body, the Church, by doing what needs to be done for the flourishing of our small parish and for the good of our neighbors.   We ascend into the heavenly Kingdom whenever we “lay aside all earthly cares” in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy.  Nourished by His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we must join ourselves to the great Self-offering of the Savior in our common life, for it is only in Him—our risen and ascended Lord—that we may enter into the heavenly glory for which He created us in His image and likeness. Let us make His Ascension the lens through which we see every dimension of our life together and every aspect of our lives in this world.   He has already ascended.  Now we must go up together with Him as we find liberation from slavery to our passions and share more fully in the salvation that He has brought to the world. That is His calling to us all even as we remain in this world with our feet on the ground.