Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Matthew with Commemoration of the Glorious Prophet Elijah in the Orthodox Church

James 5:10-20: Matthew 9: 1-8

Many people think of Christianity as a collection of religious rules that tell us what to do and what not to do.  The problem with a religion of law is that, while it points us in the direction of how we should behave, it does not give us the spiritual strength necessary to follow the rules. A faith that is simply a form of legalism leads inevitably to the frustration of never being able to fulfill its commandments.  A common way of coping with that frustration is to turn the focus away from our own failings by hypocritically condemning others for theirs.  It is no wonder that those who encounter such distorted forms of the faith typically have little interest in it.  It is not surprising that those who distort the faith in this way do not find healing for their spiritual infirmities.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus Christ demonstrated that He did not come simply to give us a new set of laws to obey according to our own moral strength.  He showed that He did not come merely to deliver us from the guilt of falling short of obeying divine commandments.  He forgave the sins of the paralyzed man, thus manifesting His divinity in a way that scandalized religious leaders.   But He also revealed that His salvation is not defined in legalistic terms, as though the whole point of the Christian life were to be declared innocent in a court of law for certain offenses.  If that were the case, there would have been no point in healing the paralyzed man, for he could have been acquitted of his sins while remaining unable to move. 

The man’s paralysis is a vivid icon of the state of humanity cast out of Paradise, corrupted by our refusal to pursue the fulfillment of our calling to become like God in holiness.  By disorienting ourselves from our true vocation and looking for fulfillment through 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, but the Savior’s healing restored his ability to move forward in a life suitable for a person who bears the image and likeness of God.

Whenever we ask for the Lord’s mercy, we are asking for 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 find healing from 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 requires obedience to Christ’s commands, but not a legalistic obedience in the sense of following a code for its own sake.  Instead, this obedience is like following the guidance of a physician or therapist who makes clear to us what we must do in order to regain health and function for our bodies.  Christ embodies true humanity and has made us participants in His restoration and fulfillment of our vocation to become like God in holiness.  His commandments are not arbitrary or superficial but go to the heart and require our healing as whole persons in communion with God.

The Saints are inspirational examples of what it looks like for people to become healed of the paralysis of sin amidst all the temptations and problems presented by this world of corruption.  Today we commemorate the glorious Prophet Elijah who gained the strength to speak so boldly in opposition to the idolatry of Ahab and Jezebel, to cause a drought for three years and six months by his prayers, and to call down fire from heaven in a confrontation with the pagan priests of Baal. Elijah miraculously multiplied the flour and oil of the widow of Zarephath and raised her son from the dead.  When he passed his mantle of prophecy to Elisha, he divided the Jordan river and then was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot.  He appeared with Moses at the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor. 

The Archangel Gabriel said to Zechariah that John the Baptist “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Lk. 1:17) Christ affirmed the close association of Elijah and John the Forerunner, saying “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” (Matt. 17: 11-12)

It may be tempting to think that a great saint like Elijah was a spiritual superhero who never struggled with fear, doubt, or any kind of weakness.  The truth is very different.  He literally ran for his life when told that Jezebel was out to kill him and then prayed that the Lord would take his life, despairing that “I am no better than my fathers!” (3 Kingdoms 19:4) In response to God’s question as to what he was doing hiding in a cave at Mount Horeb, Elijah complained that “I alone am left” as one faithful in Israel and that “they seek to take my life.”  Then there was a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire, but the Lord was not in any of them.  He spoke to Elijah, however, in a “gentle breeze” or a “still small voice,” asking again why he was there.  The Lord responded again to Elijah’s complaint that he was alone, saying “I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal…” (3 Kingdoms 19: 10-18) Even the great prophet Elijah had to be reminded not to fall into despair and self-pity and to keep his spiritual perception finely tuned to hear the Word of the Lord.

As St. James wrote, “Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.”  That is precisely why he and all the Saints are such great examples for us of what it means to gain the spiritual strength to rise, take up our beds, and walk.  They experienced the weaknesses, challenges, and temptations that are our common lot in this world of corruption.  Nonetheless, the Old Testament saints took up the struggle to live in faith and hope for the fulfillment of God’s gracious promises that is ours in Jesus Christ.  As we read in Hebrews 11:39-40, “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.”

As those who have become heirs to the fullness of the promise to Abraham by faith in Christ, we have no more business lying flat on our backs in spiritual paralysis than did Elijah hiding out in a cave and bemoaning how he alone had been faithful.  Like Elijah, we must cultivate the spiritual sensitivity to hear the “gentle breeze” or “still small voice” of the Lord and not to be distracted by the winds, the earthquakes, and the fires of our life and world.  We do not worship pagan deities like Baal, but it is so easy to corrupt our pursuit of the Christian life in ways that simply serve our passions and keep us paralyzed before them.  Our true calling is very different and requires the spiritual clarity gained by mindful prayer, fasting, and generosity to our neighbors.  As St. James wrote, we must confess our sins and “pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.”  He also taught that “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (Jas. 1:27) None of this is new, trendy, or easy, but it is how we must persistently struggle to live if we are to gain the spiritual strength to obey the command of the Lord to each and every one of us:  Rise, take up your bed, and go home. That is what Elijah the Prophet did and it is what we must all do for the salvation of our souls.

 

Homily for the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost & Fourth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

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

Too many Christians are apparently blind to how radically Christ challenged the conventional social assumptions of first-century Palestine and of life as we know it today.   Contrary to all expectations for the Jewish Messiah, He asked for a drink of water from a Samaritan woman with a scandalous personal history, engaged in His longest recorded conversation with her, and then spent two days in a Samaritan village.  In doing so, He identified Himself with people viewed as heretical enemies and treated a woman who was a complete outcast as a beloved child of God.  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.”  The centurion was an officer of the pagan Roman Empire that controlled the Holy Land. The Jews expected the Messiah to destroy people like him, not to praise their faith.   

The Lord’s statement that the faith of this Roman soldier was superior to that of any of the Jews surely seemed foolish, treasonous, and blasphemous according to conventional standards.  With those words, He made clear that nationality and ethnicity are not spiritually determining factors, 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 heirs to their fulfillment as His beloved sons and daughters.  (Gen. 22:18; Gal. 3:8-9) 

Our Lord’s ministry had nothing at all to do with setting up an earthly kingdom in Palestine or anywhere else for any group of people.  Pursuing such worldly power was a temptation that He rejected.  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 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.  It is not focused on the interests of any faction or group.  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 or their cultural or ethnic heritage.  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) As Orthodox Christians, we know that we share in the life of our Lord by His grace, not by the power of any earthly realm or leader in any part of the world, including our own.

We pray for God’s blessings upon our nation and all the nations and peoples of the world.  We give thanks for all the blessings that are ours, especially our rights and freedoms, and we must be good stewards of them, not as ends in themselves, but as opportunities to offer all the good things of this life for purification and fulfillment in 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, including Caesar.   Our Lord and His martyrs looked like fools, or worse, to those obsessed with serving the rulers of this world. We are certainly not immune today from the temptation to reject our Lord and His Cross by giving our primary allegiance to those who seem to serve our desires for power, domination, and vengeance.  This temptation, which is rooted in the fear of death, is all the more dangerous when we convince ourselves that we are actually serving Christ as we pursue the nationalistic and political paths 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.  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, 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 an 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 humble faith, we must never presume to declare that anyone is beyond His love or cannot find healing in Him.   We must gain the spiritual health necessary to treat every person we encounter as a living icon of Christ, regardless of national identity, political affiliation, or any other human characteristic.  Any Christianity that does not call people to do so is unworthy of its name.

Like the Roman centurion, 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, no less than everyone else.  Instead of fueling the pride that so easily blinds us spiritually and leads us to idolatry, let us unite ourselves so fully to Christ that His character becomes evident in us.  Then we will manifest His mercy and compassion in ways unconstrained by devotion to any of the false gods of this world as we learn to love even strangers and enemies as God loves us.  That is not and never has been the easy, popular, and conventional way of living, but it is clearly 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 that blessed 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.”  

 

Sunday of All Saints of Antioch & Second Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

 Acts 11:19-30; Matthew 4:18-23

           We celebrate today for the first time in our Archdiocese the Sunday of All Saints of Antioch together with our Patriarchate. It is through their faithful witness that we have been welcomed into the fullness of the Body of Christ in which divisions according to nationality, ethnicity, and culture have no legitimate place or spiritual significance.  The miracle of speaking in diverse languages at Pentecost shows that the transforming power of the Holy Spirit enables all people to fulfill their basic human vocation to become like God in holiness.  The first Gentile church was in Antioch, where “the disciples were first called Christians.”   As His Eminence, Metropolitan SABA recently wrote, the Antiochian Church has always been a multicultural and multilingual church.  Its “freedom from ethnocentrism made it the first Orthodox church in North America to open its doors…to converts to Orthodoxy.”[1]  We are obviously deeply indebted to those through whom we have heard the Lord’s call, “Follow Me.” The ministry of Antioch proclaims this calling not to a select few but as the vocation of all who bear the divine image as unique, irreplaceable icons of God.

 

To gain the spiritual strength to respond to this calling, we must grow in humility and find healing for our souls.  From ancient times, Christians have observed a fast after celebrating the great feast of Pentecost.  After the festive seasons of Pascha, Ascension, and Pentecost, we now focus on the struggle to become fully receptive to the healing power of the Holy Spirit.   The Apostles Fast concludes with the celebration of the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, who are shining examples of what it means to become radiant with the divine glory.  The stories of their personal transformations should inspire us, for both had sinned greatly, with Peter denying the Lord three times and Paul having fiercely persecuted Christians.  Nonetheless, they became foundational pillars of the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit.  They truly were healed.

 

            We might refuse to see how they are examples for us due to a misplaced sense of humility.  It may seem presumptuous to put ourselves anywhere near the place of those who first heard the Savior’s call: “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”   The point is not that we are somehow to repeat the unique roles of any of the apostles, but that we must learn from their examples how to become fully receptive to the healing mercy of the Lord.  The difficult journeys of all the apostles had nothing to do with glorifying themselves.   Instead, they became living icons of Christ by their humility, for their sins were made clear for all to see.  Sts. Peter and Paul both made the ultimate witness as martyrs, becoming last in this world to the point of shedding their blood for Christ. Contrary to the temptations common to religious people and leaders to this very day, the apostles pursued paths that had nothing to do with exalting themselves above others. As St. Paul wrote, “God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men… To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.” (1 Cor: 4: 9-13)

 

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 same 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 confess 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 each day in humility is the only way to grow in holiness and follow the apostles to the heavenly kingdom.  To identify ourselves as Orthodox Christians without pursuing this demanding path is sheer hypocrisy by which we condemn ourselves.  We will become the opposite of “fishers of men” if we entangle ourselves in the nets of our passions, such as spiritual pride and the false gods of worldly political and ethnic divisions. Instead of attracting others to Christ like a beacon in the darkness, we will repel them by our refusal to follow in the way of the apostles and saints. 

 

The world so obviously lacks peace today, especially in situations where earthly powers blasphemously view themselves as the highest good and become blind to the humanity of those who threaten their desires and illusions.  As His Eminence has written, the refusal of the Antiochian Church to identify itself with a nation arises from the experience of “living under non-Christian rule since the seventh century [which] exposed the Church to various persecutions. Yet, wherever possible, it engaged with its surroundings, rulers, and citizens of different sects, remaining a witness to its faith and spirituality...” To be faithful stewards of the spiritual inheritance that we have received from our Antiochian forebears, we must follow in their way of freedom “from ethnic and nationalistic entanglements” and maintain “a theology untainted by a fusion of religion and nationalism.”[2]  

 

St. Seraphim of Sarov taught, “Acquire the Spirit of peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.”  The Spirit of peace is, of course, the Holy Spirit, through whom we have become children and heirs of God through Christ, regardless of our ethnic, cultural, or national identity. (Gal. 4:6-7) St. Seraphim also taught that “the true aim of our Christian life consists of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.”  Our vocation is not to serve the false gods of our passions or of the divisions of the world. It is, instead, to become like God in holiness through the healing, transformative presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

 

The light yoke of the Apostles Fast gives us an opportunity to do precisely that, as we humble ourselves before the Savior in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  That is how we acquire the spiritual strength necessary to overcome the weakness of slavery to our self-centered desires as we answer the calling to become the uniquely beautiful living icons that our Lord created us to be.  Remember that when the disciples first heard Christ say, “Follow Me,” they were doing their daily work as fishermen.  His calling is not esoteric or removed from the mundane realities of life.  We have no lack of opportunities to answer His call today in our families, workplaces, friendships, and neighborhoods, as well as in our parish.  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. The present circumstances of our lives present limitless opportunities to become fully receptive to the healing 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.  The disciplines of the Apostles Fast will help us gain the spiritual clarity to hear and respond faithfully to that calling, as have all the saints across the centuries.  Let us use these weeks to abandon the nets that would hold us back from doing so.

 

 

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[1] “Antiochian Distinctions,” https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2465.

[2] https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2465

Homily for the Sunday of All Saints in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 11:33-12:2; Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30

           The word “saint” simply means “holy.”  On this first Sunday after Pentecost, we commemorate all those who are so filled with the Holy Spirit that they shine brightly with holiness.  They bear witness to the meaning of Pentecost, for it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that people fulfill their calling to become like God in holiness as they enter into the eternal communion of love shared by the Persons of the Holy Trinity. When our risen and ascended Lord sent the Holy Spirit upon His followers, He fulfilled the prophecy spoken by Jeremiah: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” (Jer. 31:33-34) The saints show us that everyone may embrace personally the transformation and healing of the Holy Spirit, for the “living water” of the Spirit flows in and through them as a sign of the salvation of the world. (Jn. 7:38) That is how they have become, as St. Paul wrote, “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” (Rom. 8:16)

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.  As members together with them of the same Body of Christ, we ask for their prayers as we strive to follow their example of faithful witness to the Lord.  The root meaning of the word “martyr” is “witness,” and from the stoning of St. Stephen the Protomartyr to the present day those who have refused to deny Christ even to the point of death have provided powerful testimony to the Savior Who has liberated them from the fear of the grave.  Their shining example inspires us to take up our crosses in following our Lord as we seek first the Kingdom of God in the particular circumstances of our lives.  Christ said, “Everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father Who is in heaven; but whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before My Father Who is in heaven.”  As the varied lives of the saints across the ages demonstrate, there are many ways of showing our faithfulness to Him, even as there are many ways of denying Him. 

 Sainthood and martyrdom are not reserved only for those who refuse to renounce Christ under threat of physical death.  They are the common calling of us all to die to our passions as we became “partakers of the divine nature” by our personal receptivity to the healing divine energies of our Lord.  Like all the saints, we must acquire the strength to say truthfully with Saint Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20) Regardless of whether we are called literally to shed our blood for Christ, we must all pursue the living martyrdom of refusing to allow love for anything or anyone to become a false god that we place before loyalty to our Lord.  When we endure the inevitable tension associated with purifying the desires of our hearts for their true fulfillment in God, we will know what it means to take up our crosses.  We will suffer, not because pain has any intrinsic significance, but because of the struggle required to turn away from deeply ingrained habits of self-indulgence that have marred the beauty of our souls.  Instead of romanticizing about some ideal spiritual path that we imagine would be either easier or more exalted, we should simply accept in humility that we must face the challenges that are before us today for our salvation.  Fantasizing about anything else is simply a distraction from making the particular offering of our lives that is necessary for our healing.  The path to salvation is never an escape from reality, for it requires us to do the hard work of learning to see ourselves more truthfully so that we may find healing for the given diseases of soul that we would prefer to ignore. We must refuse to be distracted by anything from pursuing healing for the spiritual maladies that we actually have.

 Holiness is not a reward for people who have never sinned, even as health is not a reward for people who have never been sick.  The common image of the ideal religious person as a self-righteous legalist who condemns others has nothing at all to do with a spiritually healthy understanding of sainthood.  As St. John wrote in his epistle, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn. 1:8-9) True saints are people like King David (who had committed murder and adultery), Peter (the head disciple who had denied His Lord three times), and Mary of Egypt (who had lived a horribly depraved life as a sex addict).  They all found healing through repentance as they pursued the difficult struggle to reorient the desires of their hearts toward God and to live accordingly.  Likewise, Paul, formerly a harsh persecutor of Christians who referred to himself as the chief of sinners, wrote that the Lord showed him mercy “as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.”  (1 Tim. 1:16)  

That such broken people became glorious saints is not an exception to the rule, but the norm.  If we want to find healing for our souls, we will not do so by convincing ourselves that we have somehow already fulfilled the Lord’s command to “be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48) Neither, however, we will we share in the holiness of God by accepting the lie that anything we have said, thought, or done makes it impossible for us to be transformed by the Lord’s healing mercy.  Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well, and Zacchaeus, the corrupt tax-collector, were lost causes according to the conventional religious and moral standards of first-century Palestine, but they received Christ in ways that transformed them into glorious saints.   

 They remind us that everyone who shares in the blessed life of the Savior does so through their participation in His grace, not as a reward for good behavior.  Our reading from Hebrews teaches that the righteous of the Old Testament, “though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”  It is impossible to become like God in holiness apart from sharing in Jesus Christ’s healing and fulfillment of the human person.  He enables both those who may appear to have never done anything wrong and those who may appear never to have done anything right to become His saints, if they will embrace the struggle to entrust themselves so fully to Him that they become living icons of His salvation.   That is the only way that anyone becomes a “partaker of the divine nature” by grace.

 Looking to the example of all those who have entered into the holiness of God, “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.”  Let us take up the crosses that are obviously before us and acknowledge Him each day of our lives as we bear the inevitable tension of seeking first His Kingdom and loving Him with every ounce of our being and our neighbors as ourselves.  If we do so, we will become living martyrs who bear witness to the active presence of the Holy Spirit, sent by the risen and ascended Lord, for the salvation of the world, as do all the saints. Our calling is not to religious legalism in any form, but to receive the healing of our souls so that we may bear witness to the Lord’s healing and fulfillment of the human person in the divine image and likeness.