Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 6:13-20; Mark 9:17-31

             If we have embraced the spiritual practices of Lent with any level of integrity for the last few weeks, the weakness of our faith has surely become apparent to us.  Our minds wander when we pray and so much else seems more important than being fully present before the Lord, both in the services of the Church and in our daily prayers at home.   We often make excuses not to fast to the best of our ability and, regardless of what we eat and drink, routinely indulge our self-centered desires for pleasure.  We justify being stingy in sharing our resources and attention with our neighbors, especially when we fear that doing so will compromise our illusions of self-sufficiency and comfort.  By this point in Lent, we have all gained insight into how we have failed to entrust ourselves fully to Christ for healing to the point that we can say with the brokenhearted father in today’s gospel reading, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

In kneeling before the Lord and struggling to believe that Christ could deliver his son from a life-threatening condition, the father revealed the true condition of his soul.  He was bitterly disappointed that the disciples had not been able to help and did not fully trust that the Savior could do anything more.   Nonetheless, he could muster enough faith to offer the young man to Christ for healing, even as he pleaded for Him to “help my unbelief!”  That humble, heartfelt plea was sufficient for his son to receive the Lord’s merciful healing. Despite his doubts, that blessed man still had enough faith to receive healing for his son.  He entrusted himself and his beloved child to Christ as best he could, despite his imperfect faith.

The word given by God to St. Silouan the Athonite applies to him as much as it does to us: “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair.”   On the one hand, we must not fool ourselves with an illusory, superficial spirituality that distracts us from experiencing the true state of our souls before God.  Instead, we must know from our hearts how far we are from fully embracing our Lord’s gracious healing and entrusting ourselves and all our earthly cares to Him.  On the other hand, even as we confront the grave tension between the infinite holiness of God and our corruption, we must refuse to despair by accepting the lie that there is no hope for us, our loved ones, and our world in the mercy of the Lord.  Far better is the way of the father in today’s gospel lesson, for he confessed the weakness of his faith even as he paradoxically showed great faith in asking for Christ to save his son.  

He provides us a much better example of honest faith than did the disciples, for they lacked the spiritual strength to deliver the young man from the demon.  The Savior told them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.”  He said that because they were spiritual weaklings who had neglected the most basic spiritual practices for opening themselves to receive Christ’s healing strength. Not one of them got the point when the Lord said, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and after He is killed, He will rise on the third day.”  At this point, they had a superficial faith focused on acquiring earthly power for themselves, not on commending themselves to the God-Man Whose Kingdom remains not of this world.  It was only after the horror of the Cross, the complete shock of the empty tomb, and the appearance and teaching of the Risen Lord that they acquired the faith necessary for them truly to believe.

The deliverance of the young man certainly did not come easily, for the demon convulsed him and most of the bystanders thought that he was dead.  That is an interesting detail, for we often naively assume that Christ’s healing comes with only sweetness and light when, in reality, embracing His healing can seem impossibly difficult.  That is especially the case for finding the strength to resist the temptation to gratify passions that have taken deep root in our souls.  Wrestling seriously with our besetting sins is a battle that causes us to die to so many illusions about ourselves. 

 As we continue the Lenten journey this year, let us persist in the inner struggle necessary to intensify our prayers, to deny ourselves, and to give generously to our neighbors as we take the small steps that we presently have the strength to take in reorienting our lives to toward the Lord.   When the battle even to take those small steps reveals our weaknesses and seems like a lost cause, that is not the time to give up, but instead to obey the command: “Keep your mind in hell and do not despair.”  It is only by doing so that we may gain the spiritual clarity necessary to cry out from the depths of our hearts, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”  Indeed, it is really the only time in which we can begin to see the state of our souls clearly, which is necessary in order for us to follow our Lord to His Cross and empty tomb through humble confession and repentance of our sins. In the remaining weeks of the Fast, let us refuse to be distracted by anything that would keep us from entering as fully as possible into the holy mystery of our salvation, for “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and after He is killed, He will rise on the third day.” 

 

 

 

 

The Adoration of the Holy Cross: Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 4:14-5:6; Mark 8:34-9:1

            We do not have to look very closely at dominant trends in our culture today for signs that many people are offering their lives for the service of false gods, regardless of how they identify themselves religiously.  The evidence of their idolatry is not primarily in where they congregate to worship, but in how they seek first the things of this world, such as possessions, power, and pleasure, and in how they hate and condemn those whom they perceive to stand in the way of their acquiring them.  That was the mindsight of the corrupt religious leaders who called for the Lord’s crucifixion because they perceived Him as a threat to their self-centered agendas.  It was also the perspective of the Romans who believed that worshiping their many gods protected their empire.  By having “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin on the Cross, Pontius Pilate did not miss the opportunity to let everyone know what happened to those suspected of challenging Roman rule.  (Jn. 19:20) 

         On this Sunday of the Adoration of the Holy Cross, right in the middle of Lent, we do the complete opposite of making success in this world, however defined, our highest goal.  Today we venerate the Cross on which Jesus Christ offered Himself for the salvation of the world.  Through His crucifixion, the New Adam entered fully into the misery and wretchedness of the first Adam to the point of death in order to liberate us from slavery to its corrupting power and make us participants in eternal life through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  The Cross is truly the Tree of Life through which we return to the blessedness of Paradise.

             As our epistle reading states, our crucified and risen Lord is the “great High Priest” Who ministers in the heavenly temple, where He intercedes for us eternally.   In order to enter into His salvation, we must take up our own crosses as we refuse to make any earthly goal our highest good.  Denying ourselves means putting faithfulness to Him before anything else, including indulging personal inclinations and desires that hold us back from fulfilling our high calling.    Even as common bread and wine are fulfilled as our Lord’s Body and Blood when offered in the Divine Liturgy, we too are transformed when we unite ourselves to the High Priestly offering of the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.   If we refuse to do so, we will shut ourselves out of the blessedness of His Kingdom, both as a present reality and as a future hope.

             We must not adore the Cross only in religious services, but daily as we take up our crosses in order to love God with every ounce of our being and our neighbors as ourselves.  The disciplines of Lent help us gain the strength to do precisely that as we take intentional steps to die to that which keeps us comfortably enslaved to the self-centered ways of the first Adam.  By devoting ourselves to prayer, we open our hearts to the Savior and learn experientially that our life is in Him.  By refusing to gratify our desires for the richest and most sustaining foods, we open ourselves in humility to receive His strength for resisting deeply ingrained habits of self-indulgence.    When we share our time, energy, and resources with others, we become more like Christ in offering ourselves for the good of our neighbors.  These are the most basic disciplines of the Christian life, and we all need to practice them in order to gain the spiritual health necessary to take up our crosses, especially in relation to the great challenges of our lives.  

 If we refuse to deny ourselves even in small ways this Lent, then we will become even more accustomed to serving ourselves instead of God and neighbor.  Doing so will reveal that we are ashamed of our Lord and His Cross, and prefer to offer our lives to other gods, especially ourselves.  Even if we continue down that path to the point that we somehow gain the whole world, we will risk losing our souls by committing idolatry every bit as much as those who condemned Christ because He stood in the way of fulfilling their passionate desires for power. Indeed, we will be even more guilty because we know that His Cross is not a sign of ultimate defeat to be repudiated, but “a weapon of peace and a trophy invincible” to be honored.     

 There is perhaps nothing worse than distorting our calling as Christians to the point that the Cross becomes merely an empty symbol that we use to achieve our desire for any earthly goal, no matter how appealing or noble.  If we do not actually take up our crosses and deny ourselves out of love for God and neighbor, then we will condemn only ourselves when we use the Cross idolatrously to justify getting whatever we want personally for ourselves or the factions, nations, or other groups to which we have given our hearts.  Whenever we recognize that we are coming anywhere close to using the way of Christ to seek the things of this world as ends in themselves, we must call for the Lord’s mercy from the depths of our souls as we struggle to embody St. Paul’s teaching that “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24)

 We adore the Holy Cross today because it is ultimately a sign of the blessed eternal life that the Savior has brought to the world through His victory over the corrupting power of sin and death.  As we continue our Lenten journey, let us offer every dimension of our lives to Him for healing as we take up our own crosses.  Whether in Lent or any other time, that is the only way to enter into Paradise through our great High Priest, Who offered Himself fully upon the Cross for our salvation.

 

Homily for the Second Sunday of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 1:10-2:3; Mark 2:1-12

                       We will misunderstand these blessed weeks of Lent if we assume that they are about helping us to have clearer ideas or deeper feelings about our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection.  We will be even more confused if we think that our intensified prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and repentance somehow earn God’s forgiveness or make us better than other people.  Quite the contrary, Lenten disciples are simply opportunities to open our souls to the gracious healing of our Lord so that we may share more fully in His life.  That is another way of saying that the point of Lent is to grow in our knowledge of God through true spiritual experience and encounter.   

On this second Sunday of the Great Fast, we commemorate St. Gregory Palamas, who defended the experience of monks who, in the stillness of prayer from their hearts, saw the Uncreated Light of God.  The eyes of their souls were cleansed and illumined such that they beheld the divine glory as the Apostles did at the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.  St. Gregory taught that to know God is to participate in His gracious divine energies as we are transformed in holiness in every aspect of our existence.  He proclaimed that our calling is to know and experience God through true spiritual union with Him that sanctifies every dimension of the human person.  To do so is to encounter the great “I AM” of the Burning Bush from the depths of our souls in a way that illumines us entirely. (Ex. 3:14) It is to shine brilliantly in holiness like an iron left in the fire of the divine glory.

In today’s gospel reading, Christ healed a paralyzed man, enabling him to stand up, carry his bed, and walk home as a sign of the Savior’s divine authority to forgive sins. In doing so, He restored not only a body to health but a whole person who faced all the practical challenges of daily life in the world as we know it.  Though Palamas focused primarily on the hesychasm of monks, he also taught that “those who live in the world…must force themselves to use the things of this world in conformity with the commandments of God.”[1]  When we mindfully embrace the struggle to purify our hearts so that we may live according to love of God and neighbor, which are the greatest of the commandments, and not according to our self-centered desires, we come to know and experience Christ from the depths of our souls more fully.  We pray, fast, give, forgive, and confess and repent of our sins during Lent so that we may open our hearts, and every aspect of our lives, as fully as possible to the purifying healing of our Lord’s gracious divine energies.      

His healing is open to all, regardless of age, sex, marital status, social standing, or any other characteristic.  Christ sent the formerly paralyzed man home to resume a conventional life. Since the Savior is both fully divine and fully human, literally every aspect of our human existence may become radiant with the divine glory, if we will only offer ourselves to Him for healing and hold nothing back.  Doing so requires a great struggle and constant vigilance against the blindness and weakness that our passions so easily bring upon us.  The disciplines of Lent help us to embrace the struggle to open the eyes of our souls to behold the glory of the Lord, to know Him from the depths of our hearts.     

While no particular use of the Jesus Prayer is required of us, we must all call mindfully for the Lord’s healing mercy each day in order to receive His liberation from slavery to the paralysis of sin.  Prayer is not about pondering ideas, cultivating emotions, or mouthing words, but about being fully present to God from the depths of our souls.  Doing so is absolutely necessary to know Christ and become more like Him in holiness.  It is the essential foundation for accepting Christ’s healing and gaining the strength to make whatever challenges we face points of entrance into the life of the Kingdom of the Heaven. In order to know the Lord, we simply must ground our lives in prayer.   

Lent does not call us merely to think or have feelings about our Lord’s Cross and resurrection.  This season invites us to grow in our personal knowledge and experience of the Savior Who offered Himself on the Cross and rose in glory on the third day for our salvation.   Its disciplines strengthen us for the life of holiness possible only for those who share in Christ’s restoration and fulfillment of the human person in the divine image and likeness.  Whenever we pray, fast, serve others with humility, and confess and repent of our sins, we open ourselves to receive the light of the Lord and become more like Him.  These are not practices only for those who live in what we imagine to be ideal circumstances, but are necessary for all who remain weak before their passions with spiritual vision darkened by sin.  No circumstance of our lives excuses us in any way from answering the calling to become radiant with the divine energies of our Lord as we rise up from our beds of weakness and move forward in a life of holiness.  That is the calling of the God-Man to us all. 

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers records that God revealed to Saint Antony the Great of Egypt that “there was one who was his equal in the city. He was a doctor by profession and whatever he had beyond his needs he gave to the poor, and every day he sang the Sanctus with the angels.”  The example of that righteous man shows that the only limits to our participation in the life of Christ are those that we choose to impose on ourselves.  As we continue our Lenten journey, let us make the circumstances of our lives, whatever they may be, points of entrance into the blessed life of our Lord.  Let us know Him as God from the depths of our hearts as we come to   shine brightly with the divine glory by grace.  That is not a matter of rational speculation, historical remembrance, or cultivation of emotions about the Savior’s Cross and empty tomb, but of lifting up our hearts and entering into the joy of the One Who destroyed the power of sin and death by His glorious resurrection on the third day.

 

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[1] The Triads, II.ii.5.

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent (The Sunday of Orthodoxy) in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 11:24-26, 32-40; John 1:43-51

 On this first Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the restoration of icons centuries ago in the Byzantine Empire.  They were banned due to a misguided fear of idolatry, but restored as a proclamation of how Christ calls us to participate in His salvation in every dimension of our existence.  The icons convey the incarnation of the God-Man, Who had to be fully human with a real human body in order to be born, live in this world, die, rise from the grave, and ascend into heaven.  Were any aspect of His humanity an illusion, we could not become “partakers of the divine nature” through Him.  Icons of the Theotokos and the Saints display our calling to become radiant with holiness by uniting ourselves to Christ as whole persons, which includes how we use food, drink, money, sex, natural resources, and every other dimension of the creation.

Today’s commemoration reminds us that our Lenten journey is not an escapist distraction from life in our bodies or in our world.  Quite the opposite, the icons call us to embrace our struggle to find healing for every dimension of our personal and collective brokenness in the brilliant light of the Lord. The God-Man shares His salvation of the human person with us so that even our deepest struggles may become points of entrance into the blessedness of His Kingdom.  During this season of Lent, we must pray, fast, give, forgive, and confess and repent of the ways in which we have refused to embrace our calling to become ever more beautiful living icons of Christ, which is necessary for us to gain the spirituality clarity to see that every human person bears the divine image as much as we do.  If we are approaching this season with integrity, the ways in which we have fallen short of our high calling will quickly become apparent to us.  The more we struggle against our slavery to self-centered desires, the more apparent their hold upon us will become.  If you have been surprised during the first week of the Great Fast how your passions have reared their ugly heads, you are certainly not alone.  Indeed, that is likely a sign that your Lenten journey is off to a good start.    

We must not despair when we catch a glimpse of our brokenness, however, because our goal is not mere psychological adjustment, moral progress, or any type of success according to conventional standards.  It is, instead, as the Savior said to Nathanael, to “see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”  As those who bear the divine image and likeness, our calling as human persons is nothing less than sharing fully in the eternal life of the God-Man.  Though doing so is truly an eternal goal, we participate already in a foretaste of such blessedness when we open our hearts to His healing through repentance.     

Even as the icons proclaim the truth of our Lord’s incarnation using materials like paint and wood, they call us to manifest His holiness in our own bodies.  They remind us to make our daily physical actions tangible signs of Christ’s salvation.  In fasting, we limit our self-indulgence in food in order to gain strength to purify and redirect our desires toward God and away from gratifying bodily pleasures.  In almsgiving, we limit our trust in possessions in order to grow in love for our neighbors, in whom we encounter the Lord.  In prayer, we limit our obsession with our thoughts and usual distractions to become more fully present to God as we open our hearts to Him.  As experience teaches, even our smallest efforts to practice disciplines that open our hearts to receive Christ’s healing mercy reveal that there is much within us that would rather remain in the darkness of corruption.

Nonetheless, we must remember that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and called to become radiant with the glory of our Lord’s resurrection.  Literally no aspect of our humanity is excluded from the vocation to shine with God’s gracious divine energies.   No matter how difficult the struggle with our passions may be, we must not become practical iconoclasts by refusing the calling to become more beautiful living icons of Christ in any aspect of our existence.  Instead, we must open even the dark, ugly, and distorted dimensions of our lives to the healing light of Christ as we call out for His mercy from the depths of our hearts.

The Savior entered fully into death through His Cross in order to overcome the corruption of the first Adam.  He rose and ascended in glory in order to make us radiant with His holiness.  As we celebrate the historical restoration of icons today, let us continue the Lenten journey in ways that will enable us to become more beautiful living icons of God, for that is what it means to become truly human.  The disciplines of this season are simply opportunities to do precisely that as we become by His grace those who will “see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”