Homily for the Ecclesiastical New Year in the Orthodox Church

 

1Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 4:16-22

 Think for a moment about how we mark the passage of time in our lives.  We all know how old we are.  Students know what grade they are in.  Workers know how long they have been employed.  Married people count their anniversaries.  Some of us remember America’s bicentennial.  Perhaps we pay attention to such markers to try to make sense of the meaning of our lives as those caught up in the inevitable cycle of birth and death, of one generation passing away as another arises.  As we read in Ecclesiastes, “That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Eccles. 1:9)

 Today we celebrate the ecclesiastical New Year with a gospel reading that is anything but business as usual in a world enslaved to the fear of death.  In Jesus Christ’s first sermon in His hometown of Nazareth, He identified Himself publicly as the Messiah by saying that He fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah as One anointed “to preach good news to the poor and to heal the broken hearted…to proclaim release 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.”    Everyone present liked what He had to say, for what could be better than to have a neighbor as the next King David, a righteous political and military ruler who would liberate Israel from Roman control and usher in a time of national blessedness?

 The verses following today’s reading show, however, that the Lord is a radically different kind of Messiah from what the people had expected.  For He went on to remind them that God had blessed Gentiles through the great prophets Elijah and Elisha, while there were Jews who continued to suffer. In doing so, Christ challenged their assumption that God’s blessings were only for people like them to the exclusion of the hated Gentiles.  They were so outraged that they tried to throw Him off a cliff.  Think about that for a moment.  The Lord’s neighbors went from being very happy about His words to trying to kill Him because He made clear that God’s blessings were not only for people of their religious and ethnic heritage, but for the entire world.  Their rejection of the true Messiah revealed how they were enslaved to hatred of those they saw as foreigners and enemies.  They had corrupted their faith to the point that they were so consumed with lust for power and vengeance that they tried to kill the Savior.  

 It is certainly understandable that people living under the occupation of a foreign power would want to be liberated.  That was all the more true for the Jews in light of God’s promises to Abraham to bless his descendants in their own land.   Prophets had foretold their return from exile in Babylon and envisioned them flourishing in a way that would draw all nations and peoples to God.  Unfortunately, many misinterpreted these great promises to the point that they identified God’s Kingdom with an earthly realm for only their own community.  That is why those who heard the Lord’s sermon in Nazareth tried to kill Him when He reminded them that God’s concern extends even to the hated Gentiles.  It was also why the same crowds who cheered His entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday called for His crucifixion a few days later, once it became clear that He was not a conventional worldly ruler about to deliver them from Roman occupation.

 Many still struggle today to accept that Christ’s Kingdom is not merely an extension of life as we know it in this world with a few changes that favor certain groups or agendas over against others.  We so easily forget that, when our Lord conquered Hades and the grave in His glorious resurrection on the third day, He ushered in the eighth day of the everlasting joy of the heavenly reign.  Those who share in His blessed life are no longer enslaved to the fear of death that drives people to take up sides against one another in a futile effort to preserve their individual existence this side of the grave.   Our risen Lord has destroyed the basis of such enmity and division.  He calls us to a radically new way of life not characterized by the old familiar obsession with self-preservation, but in which we conform our character to His to the point that we acquire the spiritual health to “preach good news to the poor and…heal the broken hearted…[and] proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind… set at liberty those who are oppressed…[and] proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” in thought, word, and deed.

 Those who know from the depths of their hearts that even the grave is now an entryway to  eternal life will have the freedom to serve and pray for all who suffer from the debilitating effects of sin as beloved neighbors, regardless of whether they are friends or foes according to the standards of the conventional wisdom. The same Lord Who had mercy on Samaritans, Roman centurions, demon-possessed Gentiles, and Jews who had become notorious sinners has made us members of His own Body, the Church, in which the typical human distinctions are simply irrelevant.  In His Kingdom, there are no grounds to view anyone as essentially a stranger, a foreigner, or an alien instead of as a fellow child of God.   

 Saint Paul, the former Pharisee, became the unlikely apostle to the Gentiles, for he knew that the Lord wants “all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  For Christ is the “one Mediator…Who gave Himself a ransom for all.” All who bear God’s image and likeness had become subject to death through sin, and all needed a liberation they could not give themselves. As he wrote to the Church in Rome, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 3:22-24) Because the Lord has healed the great division of Jew and Gentile, it is clear that earthly distinctions between groups of people have no significance at all in His Kingdom.  Through faith in Him, all may become heirs to the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham.

 We often fail to embrace the full meaning of this radical claim for how we view ourselves and our world.  The nations, leaders, and governments come and go, as do economic systems, political movements, social groups, and cultures. While such passing affiliations shape important dimensions of our lives in this world, we must never allow them to cloud our spiritual vision to the point that we define ourselves or others fundamentally in light of them. If we do, we will fall into the idolatry of seeking first a kingdom of worldly corruption that remains enslaved to the fear of death.  If we do, we will distract ourselves from facing the truth of our own brokenness by building ourselves up over against others from whom we differ in some superficial way.  It is so easy and appealing to invent excuses to justify indulging our passions for hatred, vengeance, and domination against real or imagined enemies.  Of course, that is completely contrary to the way of Christ, Who said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”  (Matt. 5:43-45) 

 St. Paul suffered imprisonment and death at the hands of the Roman Empire; nonetheless, he instructed St. Timothy to pray for all people, including “for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way.”  His concern was not for some form of earthly power or glory for himself or for the Church.  Instead, He focused on entering into the new day of a Kingdom not of this world, which is why he could pray even for those who would ultimately take his life.  This was a radically different attitude from that shown by those who tried to kill the Savior after His sermon in Nazareth because He refused to bless their fear and hatred of those they saw as foreigners and enemies.

 As we begin a new year in the Church, let us refuse to see ourselves in light of the divisions between people that are driven by the fear of death and serve only to fuel our passions.  Instead, let us live in the eighth day of the joy of the resurrection, which alone makes it possible for us to participate so fully in the life of the Savior that we also “preach good news to the poor and…heal the broken hearted…[and] proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind… set at liberty those who are oppressed…[and] proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Let us stop living according to the familiar standards of corruption as we bear witness in our own lives that Christ has truly brought a radically new Kingdom that is not of this world.  May this year be for all of us a time of entering more fully into the eternal blessedness that He came to share with all for whom He gave Himself as a ransom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Not to Sink Like a Stone in the Waves of our Passions: Homily for the Ninth Sunday After Pentecost & Ninth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 3:9-17: Matthew 14:22-34

 

If you are like me, there are times when you become worried or upset over matters of very little importance.  It often does not take much to punch our buttons because we base our sense of self and wellbeing, as well as our hopes for the future, on illusions that cannot fulfill them.  Due to our darkened spiritual vision, we do not see ourselves, our relationships with other people, or where we stand before the Lord very clearly.  When the inevitable challenges of life cause us to catch even a small glimpse of these uncomfortable truths, we usually do not like it and can easily start to sink into the churning sea of our passions.  

 Today’s gospel lesson provides a vivid example of what happens when we attempt to ground ourselves on the weak foundation of such illusions.  St. Peter began to sink like a stone in a raging sea when he turned his focus from entrusting himself to the Lord to being overcome with fear about where he stood in relation to the wind and the waves.  By his own nature and ability, there was simply no way that Peter could have avoided drowning, but he called out “Lord, save me!”  That is precisely what the Savior did by reaching out to Peter and rescuing him as He said, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”  The stress of the storm revealed the weakness of Peter’s faith, which is not surprising because he had gotten himself into this dangerous situation by foolishly putting Christ to the test, saying “Lord, if it is You, bid me come to You on the water.”   By his lack of humble trust, Peter literally got himself in well over his head. He had to learn the hard way that he had no other foundation, no other basis or hope for his life, than Jesus Christ.  If left to his own devices, he would have sunk like a stone as he descended into the darkness of a watery grave.   

 That is a destination completely different from the one to which our Lord calls us. The God-Man came to transfigure us in holiness with His gracious divine energies as the distinct persons He created us to become.  The Savior called His disciples to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48)  He cited the Psalms: “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” (Psalm 82:6; Jn. 10:34) While we remain human beings by nature, Christ enables us to become like Him by our personal participation in His grace.  That is why theosis is an eternal process, for God’s holiness is truly infinite.  We can never claim to have checked off that box and become ready for some greater vocation.  Our calling does not confirm our proud insistence that we are isolated individuals looking for fulfillment on our own terms, whether in religion or anything else, but instead challenges us to become persons united in love with the Lord and with one another as members of His Body, the Church. We become more fully our true selves not in self-centered isolation, but in relationship with Him and all who bear His image and likeness.

 The contrast between humanity left to our own devices in this world of corruption and the Savior’s restoration and fulfillment of our humanity is starker than the difference between night and day.  It is truly the difference been death and life, between sinking to the bottom of a dark sea of sin and becoming resplendent with the radiant glory of God. Our Lord has conquered death, Hades, and the tomb in His glorious resurrection on the third day.  His divine glory has flooded even the darkest abyss, even the most tragic and painful pits of despair into which we can fall.  He has liberated us from slavery to the fear of death as the God-Man Who shares His restoration of the human person in the divine image and likeness with weak, fearful, anxious, and confused people like us.  When we reach out to Him with faith from the depths of our hearts, as Peter did when he began to sink, He will rescue us as we open our darkened souls to receive His healing light.   

 Instead of remaining captive to our self-centered desires and proud illusions, we must enter into the blessed life of the Kingdom of the Lord Who reigns from His Cross and empty tomb, even as we live in this world of corruption.   That certainly does not mean that all our problems will disappear or that we will get all that we want in this life on our own terms.  It does not mean that at all, as the difficult struggles of the martyrs, confessors, and other saints so clearly demonstrate. It does mean, however, that even our most difficult and painful circumstances present opportunities to grow in embracing Christ as the very foundation of our life as we learn not to entrust our souls to anything or anyone else.  That is how we will find liberation from slavery to the fear of death, which fuels our anxieties and the other passions that come from grounding ourselves in that which can never satisfy or save us. 

 As St. Paul taught, “no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”  No scheme of political reform, cultural progress, or personal growth can have that  place in our lives, for such agendas inevitably worship at the altars of earthly pride, power, and pleasure in one form or another.  No matter how religious or virtuous they may appear, they cannot keep us from sinking under the weight of our own sins.  The Cross of Christ remains a sign of contradiction to the fallen powers of this world, which are all too happy to shout “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!” whenever they believe it serves their interests.  The darkness roots so deeply within us all, both personally and collectively, and nothing but the brilliant glory of the Lord can overcome it.  Whether we know it or not, we inevitably sink like stones into the abyss whenever we make anything or anyone else, including our own vain imaginations of whatever kind, the foundation of our lives.  All good things have their place in God’s creation and we should despise none of them.  But we will not fully embrace the healing of the New Adam until we ground every dimension of our life on Him, the one true foundation. 

 As St. Paul teaches, we are by no means self-made or self-sustaining.  Our true identity is not a function of any merely human accomplishment, ability, or affiliation.   Instead, “we are God’s fellow workers…God’s field, God’s building…God’s temple… God’s Spirit dwells in you.”  Christ has made us members of His own Body, the Church.  The very foundation of our life, of our identity, and of our hope is in Him, not in our achievements, possessions, personality traits, or any other characteristic.  In order to avoid sinking like stones amidst the raging seas of our lives, we must mindfully turn away from our obsessive illusions about the importance of our own individuality or the uniqueness of any group to which we belong. Otherwise, we will entrust ourselves to that which cannot sustain us and which most definitely cannot lift us up from the ultimate despair of the grave.  We will then become just like Peter as we turn away from humble trust in the Savior and succumb to the wind and waves of worry, fear, and other inflamed passions.

  Let us, then, remain constantly on guard against the temptation to entrust the meaning and purpose of our lives to anything or anyone other than the Lord.  There is no way to do that without cultivating the habits of daily prayer, self-denial for the sake of others, and mindful protection of our hearts from thoughts and desires that fuel our passions.  The next time that you get out of sorts about some small matter, redirect that energy to fuel humble, focused prayer to the Lord as Peter did, saying “Lord, save me!”  He alone can raise us up from drowning in the sea of our passions.

Offering our Few Loaves and Fishes for the Salvation of the World: Homily for the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost & Eighth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 1:10-17; Matthew 14:14-22

            It is easy to fall into despair before our own personal problems, the challenges faced by loved ones, and the brokenness of our society and world.  It is tempting to refuse to accept that we remain responsible for offering ourselves to Christ as best we can for healing and transformation in holiness, regardless of what is going on in our lives, families, or world.   We would usually rather avoid accepting that responsibility like the disciples did when the Lord said concerning the thousands of hungry people who had followed Him into the wilderness, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Since it had been obvious to the disciples that they did not have the provisions to feed all those people, they had asked Christ to “send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”  The disciples had only five loaves of bread and two fish, an absurdly small amount of food for a large crowd.  But they still obeyed when “He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’”  The Savior then “blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.  And they all ate and were satisfied.  And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.  And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

 

            The Lord revealed His identity as the Messiah by miraculously supplying food for hungry Jews in the desert like manna from heaven in the Old Testament.  The five loaves remind us of the five books of law in the Hebrew Bible, while the two fish recall the two tablets of God’s commandments received by Moses.  From these small amounts of food came such an abundance that twelve basketsful were leftover, which reminds us of the twelve tribes of Israel.  Five thousand men and their families were fed, which again recalls the five Old Testament books of law. The Lord miraculously satisfied the hunger of a multitude in a way that showed He is the Messiah Who fulfills the promises to Abraham, which are now extended to all who respond to Him with humble faith. 

 

Christ taught the disciples and us that we must offer ourselves and our resources to become instruments of His salvation in this world, regardless of our weaknesses and inadequacies.  Adam and Eve did the opposite by disobeying the Lord’s command and indulging their self-centered desires. They thus refused to fulfill their vocations as living icons of God and pursued a path leading only to despair and death.  The Savior offered Himself on the Cross in order to liberate us from such a depraved state through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  We unite ourselves to His offering when we lift up our hearts and offer bread and wine for the celebration of the Eucharist in the Divine Liturgy.  He has restored and fulfilled the original purpose of food and drink in order to bring us into the eternal communion of love shared by the Persons of the Holy Trinity. He nourishes us with His Body and Blood such that His life becomes ours as participants in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. 

 

When “He looked up to Heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds,” the Savior provided an image of the Eucharist.  The disciples did not know that when they handed over their bread and fish to the Lord on that particular day.  But had they not offered what little food they had collected to Christ, the crowd would have gone hungry.  If no one offers the bread and wine for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, no one is nourished by the Eucharist.  By miraculously satisfying so many with so little, Christ revealed what it means for us to live eucharistically as we offer ourselves and our resources for the fulfillment of His gracious purposes for the world.  We must not offer only bread and wine or think that communion with Christ concerns only what we do on Sunday morning.  Far from it, we must live every day as those who share in His life, offering every aspect of our existence in the world for His blessing and fulfillment.  No matter how tiny or inadequate we may think our offerings are, He multiplies them to accomplish His gracious purposes for us, our neighbors, and our world.

 

As we continue to celebrate the Dormition (or “falling asleep”) of the Theotokos, let us marvel at how an obscure Palestinian Jewish girl freely offered herself to become Christ’s virgin mother when she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your word.”  By offering herself fully in that moment, she became the Theotokos, the first to receive Christ into her life and, upon her death, the first to follow Him—body, soul, and spirit-- into the heavenly kingdom.  No one forced her, even as her Son did not force the disciples and does not force us.  It is tragically possible to continue instead in the way of our first parents, enslaved to sin and the fear of death.  They did not offer themselves in obedience, but became consumers of the creation, using God’s blessings only to satisfy their own desires.   Their self-centered obsession is at the root of our corruption and we must constantly be on guard against returning to the popular path that leads to the despair of the grave.  

 

As the Theotokos’ example shows, we must never despair of the importance or the possibility of offering ourselves to Christ, regardless of the apparent insignificance of our actions or how we have weakened ourselves by our sins.  Her obedience was not limited to a one-time event but continued throughout the course of her life, even as she saw her Son rejected and condemned and stood by the foot of the Cross as He died.  Likewise, the disciples’ offering was not limited to the small amount of food they handed over on one day, for they had already obeyed His command to leave behind their occupations and families in order to follow Christ.  Had they refused to abandon their fishing nets in order to do so, Peter, James, and John would not have been on Mt. Tabor where they beheld the divine glory of the Lord at the Transfiguration.  The only way to participate in Christ’s transfiguration of the human person in holiness and to follow the Theotokos into the eternal life of the Kingdom is to persist in offering ourselves to Him in obedience each day as best we can, no matter how insignificant or difficult the particular offering may seem.  We never know how God will multiply our small offerings to bless the world. We must simply obey and leave the rest in His hands.     

 

            We will gain the spiritual strength to do so only if we are obedient in embracing the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life, including keeping a rule of daily prayer, mindfully keeping a close watch on the thoughts of our hearts, and fasting in a way appropriate to our health and life circumstances. We must forgive those who have wronged us, ask forgiveness from those we have wronged, and give generously to help the needy and support the ministries of the Church.  We must repent of our sins as we embrace Christ’s forgiveness in Confession, which we should all do regularly.  And we should receive our Lord’s Body and Blood as often as we can with proper spiritual preparation.

 

That is how we will gain the strength to live eucharistically.  That is how we will be able to obey His command: “You give them something to eat.”  If we refuse to live in communion with the Savior in the small and unremarkable ways that are available to us each day, what will we ever  have to share with others?  How will we gain the spiritual clarity to know how He calls us to serve Him?  We must offer ourselves to Christ daily through the most basic spiritual disciplines in order to become transfigured in holiness.  That is not a calling for a select few, but the Lord’s command to each and every person who bears the divine image and likeness.  In ways beyond our full understanding, the free obedience of an obscure Jewish girl was necessary for the coming of the Messiah.  In her Dormition and translation to heaven, the Lord has given us a radiant sign of our salvation.  We must each bow before the mystery of how her obedience, and ours, plays a unique role in making the world brilliant with the Lord’s holiness and drawing others into the life of the kingdom.  So let us now lay aside all earthly cares, lift up our hearts, offer bread and wine, and commune as guests at the Messianic Banquet.  And then let us live accordingly each day of our lives, as we make the unique offerings that literally no one else can make. 

 

Homily for the 7th Sunday After Pentecost and the 7th Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Romans 15:1-7; Matthew 9:27-35

Today we continue to celebrate the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mt. Tabor, when the spiritual eyes of Peter, James, and John were opened to behold His divine glory.  They saw Him shining brilliantly and heard the voice of the Father proclaiming “This is my beloved Son with Whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”  We also continue to prepare to celebrate the Dormition (or “falling asleep”) of the Theotokos, when she became the first to follow her Son as a whole embodied person into the eternal life of the heavenly kingdom.  This spiritually rich season calls us to become transfigured in holiness like the virgin mother of the Savior, who received Christ into her life without reservation and lived faithfully as His holy temple all her days.  Regardless of our sex, marital status, or personal history, she remains the model for us all of obedient receptivity to Christ.  Our hope to follow her into heavenly glory is in the healing mercy of her Son, Who shares His victory over death with all who unite themselves to Him in humble faith and obedience.    

That is precisely what the blind men did in today’s gospel lesson.  They sat by the road and begged, for that was all that they could do in that time and place in order to survive.  We do not know the mental state of the man who was possessed by a demon and unable to speak, for others had to bring Him to the Lord for deliverance. The blind beggars were Jews who asked for mercy from the Son of David, a Jewish term for the Messiah.  Even though their faith was far from perfect, as symbolized by their blindness, the Lord had mercy on them and restored their sight.

The man who was unable to speak was a Gentile, which is why the people responded, “’Never was anything like this seen in Israel,’” while “the Pharisees said, ‘He casts out demons by the prince of demons.’”  Due to their idolatry, the mouths of the Gentiles had been shut to the glory of God, and the Jews at that time expected a Messiah who would bless them, not the other peoples of the world.  But Christ’s mercy restored the man’s speech, cast out the demon, and provided a sign of how He came to bring salvation to the entire world.  In today’s epistle reading, St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, both Jews and Gentiles, that “together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  We Gentiles may now know and glorify Him every bit as much as the descendants of Abraham, for the ancient promises extend to all who have faith in the Messiah.  The Holy Spirit has united the divided tongues of the tower of Babel such that people of all cultures, ethnicities, and nationalities may join together in the praise of God as full members of the household of Christ in faith.

It should be no surprise that the Lord restored the abilities of sight and speech to these suffering men.  To see is to know and experience in ways that transcend rational description.  The spiritual eyes of Peter, James, and John were opened to behold the divine glory of the Lord, to the extent that they were able, at His Transfiguration, when they saw Him radiant with brilliant light.  We know God through the eye of the soul, the nous, not as a symbol or idea, but by true participation through His grace or divine energies.  Christ’s restoration of the sight of the blind men provides an icon of what He has done for fallen humanity blinded by sin, wandering in the darkness of those enslaved to the fear of death, and unable to share in the eternal life of God.  In Him, the eyes of our souls are restored, cleansed, and healed so that we may know the Lord not in images and ideas, but as a Person in Whose life we truly participate as His living icons.

Likewise, our ability to speak has profound spiritual significance, for the Lord taught that “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”  (Luke 6:45) The Scriptures contain many warnings about the dangers associated with mindlessly running our mouths.  We read in the Psalms, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.” (Ps. 141:3)   Christ taught that we will have to give an account for every idle word that we speak, “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”  (Matt. 12:36) It is not what goes into our mouths, but what comes out of them that defiles us. (Matt. 15:11) As St. James wrote, the tongue is small, powerful, and very difficult to control: “It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” (Jas. 3:6) The uncomfortable truth is that how and what we speak reveals the true state of our souls, for which we must give an account to the Lord at the last day.  Whether we are currently embracing Christ’s healing is not an inscrutable secret, but is plain for all to hear in the words we speak and in the actions we perform every day.  We must remember what the Lord said, “Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Matt. 7:1-2)

Like the men in today’s gospel reading, we all need the gracious healing of the Lord for our eyes, our mouths, and every aspect of who we are.  Though physical and spiritual sight are different, what we fill our eyes with certainly impacts our hearts and how we think, speak, and act.  There is great danger to our souls in pornography, in any type of entertainment that glorifies sex, violence, and the love of money and power, and also in the many images of superficial happiness found on social media. Much of what passes for news or entertainment today is designed to inflame our passions in order to bring power and money to the sponsors, whoever they may be.   We may want only to be entertained or informed, but what we see and hear can easily keep us so wedded to spiritual darkness that we will become blind to the brilliant light of Christ.  The less that we fill our physical eyes and ears with what inflames our passions, keeps us from seeing ourselves and our neighbors as living icons of God, and otherwise weakens us spiritually, the more we will be able to open the eyes of our souls to experience and know the Lord from the depths of our hearts.  Keeping a close watch on our eyes, ears, and mouths is not a calling only for other people, for none of us is so advanced spiritually that we can safely let our own guard down before such powerful temptations. 

Especially in today’s culture, we must be careful not to fall prey to self-centeredness in our words and deeds.  As St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, concern for the wellbeing of our neighbors must take precedence over our own desires: “Brethren, we who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good for his edification.”  We must not speak and act as though our will must always be done or think that we have some personal characteristic that makes it necessary for us to always have the last word.  In the family, the life of the Church, and in any other setting, we must embrace the humility of blind beggars who know that they must cry out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”  Such humble trust is necessary for us to learn to see our neighbors as living icons of Christ whom we must serve with selfless love.  To see and speak about others in the light of our passions is a terrible form of blindness that will make it impossible for us to behold the glory of the Lord.

During the Dormition Fast, we all have the opportunity to reorient the desires of our hearts toward their true fulfillment in the love of God and neighbor.  Our transfiguration in holiness is a matter of following the example of the Theotokos in doing precisely that.  Like her, let us gain the spiritual clarity to lift up our hearts in humble obedience and receptivity to her Son, Who has conquered death and opened the gates of Paradise.  It is only through Him that our spiritual eyes will be opened and our tongues will be loosed to offer praise and glory to God.   

 

 

 

Transfigured in Holiness Like the Theotokos: Homily for the Sixth Sunday After Pentecost & Sixth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Romans 12: 6-14; Matthew 9: 1-8

We are certainly in a spiritually rich time of year in the life of the Church.  Having begun the fast in preparation for the Dormition of the Theotokos, we are now also anticipating the Transfiguration of the Lord, when Peter, James, and John beheld His divine glory on Mount Tabor.  As with all the feasts of the Church, the point is not simply to remember what happened long ago, but instead to participate personally in the eternal truth made manifest in these celebrations.  And that means nothing less than being transfigured ourselves by our Lord’s gracious divine energies as we come to share more fully in His restoration and fulfillment of the human person as a living icon of God.  

In order for that to happen, we must become like the Theotokos in saying, “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your word.”  In other words, we must follow her example of holy receptivity and obedience to Christ, for she said “Yes” to God with every once of her being as the first and model Christian who also became the first to follow Him as a whole embodied person into the Kingdom of Heaven.  Looking to her uniquely blessed example, we pray, fast, and give alms in order to open our souls in humility to receive the divine grace necessary to gain the strength to rise up from our comfortable beds of self-centeredness and move forward into a life of holiness.  She shows us how a human being—living in a fallen world, subject to temptation, and facing the reality of the grave –may become transfigured in holiness through union with her Son.

Today’s gospel reading provides another example of what such personal transformation looks like.  When the paralyzed man was brought to Christ, He refused to be constrained as a mere faith healer or miracle worker, for He actually forgave the sins of the paralyzed man.  In doing so, He showed His divinity in a way that scandalized the religious leaders, for only God could do that and they did not believe that He was divine. The man’s paralysis is a vivid icon of the state of humanity cast out of Paradise, corrupted and decayed by our refusal to pursue the fulfillment of our calling to become like God in holiness.  By rejecting our true vocation and looking for fulfillment in gratifying our self-centered desires, we have diminished ourselves to the point of becoming as weak as the man unable to get up off the ground.  Christ responded to him with healing mercy, granting the poor man strength and restoration beyond what he could ever have given himself, no matter how hard he tried.  In response to the Savior’s gracious therapy, the man obeyed the command to stand up, pick up his bed, and walk home.  Apart from this personal encounter with the Lord, the man would have remained enslaved to debilitating weakness and despair, but the Savior’s healing restored his ability to move forward in the life of one who bears the image and likeness of God.

When we open our souls to receive the Lord’s mercy through prayer, fasting, and generosity to our neighbors, we receive the same therapy that He extended to the paralyzed man.  We ask Him to heal our wounds, restore our strength, and help us become participants in the eternal joy for which He created us.  We ask Him to deliver us from the wretched, corrupt state of being so weak before our passions that we feel helpless before our familiar temptations, no matter how much we despise them. We ask Him to help us gain the wherewithal to put behind us the ingrained habits of thought, word, and deed that serve only to make us and our neighbors miserable.  We even dare to ask Him to make us “partakers of the divine nature” who share by grace in His victory over death, which is the wages of sin.  

To rise up, take up our beds, and walk home is to freely obey Christ, even as the Theotokos accepted her extraordinary calling to become the virgin mother of the Son of God.  Since one dimension of being in the divine image is to have freedom, God never forces us to fulfill our vocation to become more like Him in holiness.  As we affirm in so many of our prayers, we are responsible for how we use our freedom as those who will stand before the dread judgement seat of Christ.  God wants all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), but we must not blithely assume that our beliefs or membership in the Church somehow guarantee us the blessedness of the Kingdom.  Christ said that to whom much is given, much will be required.  (Lk. 12:48)   As He taught, “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) True transfiguration in Christ is not merely a matter of having certain ideas or emotions about God, for as St. James wrote, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (Jas. 2:17) The standard of eternal judgment in the Lord’s parable in Matthew 25 is how people treated Christ in their most miserable neighbors.  That is not a matter of legalistic self-justification, but of becoming so transfigured in holiness that we spontaneously convey His gracious mercy to those in whom we encounter Him every day.       

Christ alone is the Savior Who has united divinity and humanity in His own Person, conquered death through His glorious resurrection, and ascended in glory to heaven.  He alone will come to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom will have no end. As the God-Man, He is our restoration and fulfillment as living icons of God.  His commandments are not arbitrary or superficial, but go to the heart and require our transformation as whole persons.  St. Paul described the chief characteristics of such a life in today’s epistle reading: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, and serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”

Such a life requires the purity of heart necessary to see God, which we will never acquire by lying comfortably in our beds of self-centered desire.  True transfiguration in holiness has nothing to do with judging ourselves and others according to superficial checklists of piety or morality, for it is entirely possible to congratulate ourselves for going through the motions of religious or legal observance while remaining enslaved to pride, anger, lust, greed, vengeance, and other passions that will keep us spiritually paralyzed.  In the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior taught that Old Testament laws on murder and adultery go to the heart in ways that call us to become holy as God is holy, not merely to refrain from grossly immoral behaviors. True transfiguration in holiness is an infinite goal and we will not progress toward it by viewing the Christian life as an exercise in justifying ourselves in our own minds by our good behavior.  Instead, we must obey the Lord in humility according to the level of spiritual clarity and strength that we currently possess, even as we use our ongoing struggle to do so as a reminder of our constant need for the healing mercy of the Lord for overcoming the paralysis that remains with us.    

In this spiritually rich time of year, let us unite ourselves in faith and faithfulness to the Lord Who was transfigured in glory on Mt. Tabor, for He alone makes it possible for us to be transfigured in holiness as “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  Let us look to the Theotokos as the great example of a merely human person who did precisely that and has now followed her Son into the life of heaven.  She used her freedom to say “Yes” to God with every once of her being.  Let us follow her blessed example, for that is the only way to receive His gracious healing of the ongoing paralysis of sin in our lives. 

 

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.”