Homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday After Pentecost & Tenth Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

Ephesians 5:8-19; Luke 13:10-17

 

            It would be impossible to make sense of this time of preparation for Christmas without recognizing the essential role played by a woman, the Theotokos who miraculously contained God in her womb as His virgin mother.  Near the beginning of the Nativity Fast, we celebrated the feast of her Entrance into the Temple, where she prepared to welcome Christ into her life in as His living temple.  Every expectant mother prepares for the birth of her child, but the Theotokos’ preparation was surely unique, for as we sing in these weeks before Christmas: “On this day the Virgin cometh to the cave to give birth to God the Word ineffably, Who was before all the ages. Dance for joy, O earth, on hearing the gladsome tidings; with the Angels and the shepherds now glorify Him Who is willing to be gazed on as a young Child Who before the ages is God.”

            Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote in For the Life of the World that all generations call the Mother of God blessed “Because in her love and obedience, in her faith and humility, she accepted to be what from all eternity all creation was meant and created to be:  the temple of the Holy Spirit, the humanity of God.” (101-102) He teaches that she did so by fulfilling “the womanhood of creation,” for the Church is the Bride of Christ in which “the world…finds its restoration and fulfillment.” (102)  For both men and women, the Theotokos is the ultimate model of humble obedience and receptivity to the Savior’s healing of the human person.  She shows us what it means to embrace our identity as living members of the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ, as a sign of the salvation of the world.

             Today’s gospel reading presents Christ’s interaction with a woman who was bent over and had not been able to straighten up for eighteen years. He saw her in a synagogue on the Sabbath and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” When He laid hands on her, she was healed.  When the woman stood up straight again, she glorified God.  As was often the case when the Savior healed on the Sabbath day, there were religious leaders eager to criticize Him for working on the legally mandated day of rest.  He responded by stating the obvious:   People do what is necessary to take care of their animals on the Sabbath.  “So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”  Then “all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by Him.” By restoring the woman in this way Christ showed that He is truly “Lord of the Sabbath” and that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  (Mark 2:27-28)

            The woman whom the Lord delivered from her infirmity represents us all who are weakened, broken, and paralyzed by our passions and by the corruption that has been our common lot from generation to generation. Like her, we are not in need of more religious rules and practices that lack the power to heal and restore us as the beloved children of God.  Instead, we need to be set free from bondage to all that cripples us from becoming like the Theotokos in freely offering herself to fulfill the vocation of all humanity and of the creation itself to become the living temple of God.  That is precisely why the Savior is born at Christmas as the God-Man, the Theanthropos, in Whom all people may share by grace in the divine life. Nothing else could truly liberate those who bear the divine image and likeness from the pernicious corruption of sin, which leads ultimately to the grave. 

            We all have diseases of soul, of personality, of behavior, and of relationships that cripple us, keeping us from acting, thinking, and speaking with the joyful freedom of the children of God.  We are all bent over and crippled in relation to the Lord, our neighbors, and even ourselves.  We have all fallen short of fulfilling God’s gracious purposes for us, as has every generation since Adam and Eve stripped themselves naked of the divine glory.   Indeed, “the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” (Rom. 8:22) That is why we need these weeks of the Nativity Fast to purify our hearts through prayer, fasting, generosity to the needy, and confession and repentance of our sins.  We must grow in acquiring the spiritual clarity necessary to say with the Theotokos, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

If we want to straighten up like the woman who had been bent over for eighteen years, we must become the Lord’s holy temples as we open our hearts to receive His gracious divine energies for strength and restoration infinitely beyond what we could ever give ourselves.   In baptism, we have put on Christ like a garment, receiving the robe of light that our first parents lost through their disobedience.  In chrismation, we have received the fullness of the Holy Spirit, our personal Pentecost. In the Eucharist, we are nourished with the Body and Blood of our Lord as participants in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.  Nothing constrains us from being healed of our infirmities of soul other than our own stubborn refusal to receive the healing, transformation, and fulfillment of the human person that Christ was born to bring to the world. 

In our epistle reading, St. Paul instructed the Christians of Ephesus to resist the spiritual and moral corruption of pagan culture.  In contrast to the darkness of worshiping false gods, engaging in sexual immorality, and making pride and power their highest goods, he called them to “walk as children of light…and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.”  He told them to “take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”  Like the Ephesians, we live in a time in which we must be vigilant against corrupting the way of Christ with practices and beliefs that are completely contradictory to our vocation to become His holy temples.  From all points of the cultural compass today, we face temptations to remain stooped over by our passions.  That is why we must obey St. Paul’s teaching as we prepare to receive Christ at His Nativity: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” 

Evil is the corruption of good, and we must not simply condemn the creation or pretend that we can completely isolate ourselves from the world.  Our calling, instead, is to call the world to find its fulfillment as the Church, as God’s holy temple, the Body and Bride of Christ.  In order to do so with integrity, we must personally bear witness to the Lord’s healing mercy in our own lives as we mindfully turn away from all that tempts us to remain enslaved to our passions.  That is why the Apostle tells us “not [to] get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.”

 It is so easy today to fill our eyes, ears, and minds with messages and images that are full of darkness and lead us to become living temples to our own self-centered desires and the corruption that is all around us.  Doing so is the complete opposite of the way of the Theotokos.  More than anyone else, she shows us how to be liberated from our infirmities so that we may welcome the Savior into our lives at Christmas in humble obedience and purity of heart.   In the remaining weeks of the Nativity Fast, let us follow her example in becoming living temples of the Lord who embody this joyful proclamation: “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.”

Homily for the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called in the Orthodox Church

 

John 1:35-51

Today we celebrate the Feast of Saint Andrew, who is known as “the First-Called” because he was the very first Jesus Christ called to follow Him as a disciple.  He is the first link in the chain of people across the centuries who have responded to the Lord’s commands “Come and see” and “Follow Me.”  Like his brother Simon who came to be Saint Peter, St. Andrew was a fisherman, a simple, hardworking man who left behind the life that he had known to follow the Lord in the ministry of the Kingdom for which he ultimately gave his life as a martyr. Andrew had been a follower of St. John the Baptist who had clearly identified Christ by saying “Behold, the Lamb of God.”  We do not know how much Andrew understood about the Lord at that moment, but he obeyed the command to “Come and see” and then told his brother Simon “We have found the Messiah.”

Our Lord’s disciples were Jews who underwent a radical spiritual transformation that did not occur in an instant.  Even though they were with Him on a daily basis to receive His teaching and witness His miracles, they did not understand what it meant for Him to be the Lamb of God who offered Himself on the Cross until after His resurrection when “He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” (Lk. 24:45) That is when the command to “Come and see” was fulfilled, for we know the Risen Lord by true personal encounter, not by mere ideas.   Sight is a prominent theme in the gospel according to St. John, which later gives us the account of the restoration of sight to the man who had been blind from birth.  The ultimate point is not physical sight, of course, but spiritual vision.   To know Christ as the Lamb of God is not simply to accept abstract truths about Him, but to have the spiritually clarity to behold His glory and to participate personally in His life by grace.

There is a remarkable level of interest in the Orthodox Church today with far more visitors, inquirers, and catechumens coming to our parishes than ever before.  No matter how experienced we are in Orthodoxy, this wonderful development should remind us that we all remain in the process of conversion, for the calling to “Come and see” is truly an eternal vocation that none of us may claim to have fulfilled.  Whether we are just being exposed to Orthodox Christianity for the first time or have been in the Church our entire lives, there is often a temptation to set our sights too low in the Christian life.  Nathaniel was so impressed that Christ saw him sitting under a fig tree that he exclaimed “You are the Son of God.  You are the king of Israel!”  But the Lord responded, “You shall see greater things than these…you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”  Our calling is nothing less than to become those of whom the Lord said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  (Matt. 5:8) Regardless of what initially sparked our interest in the Church or how we have experienced it so far, we must focus on coming to “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13)   The God-Man shares His restoration and healing of the human person with us by grace so that we may “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48) Let us never think that the fullness of our vocation as Orthodox Christians is anything less than that infinite goal.  

            St. Andrew’s immediate reaction to his encounter with the Lord was to share the good news with his brother, saying “We have found the Messiah.”  From the very origins of our faith, there is a genuine evangelistic impulse to share with others the blessing and joy that we have found in Jesus Christ.  Just think how important it was that Andrew told his brother Peter about the Lord, for Peter went on to become the head disciple and the first bishop of both Antioch and Rome.  Likewise, to this day, we never know what God has in store for anyone in working out His purposes for the salvation of the world.  Simon Peter was surely an unlikely character for such an exalted role.  The Lord had said “Get behind me, Satan!”  to Peter when he refused to accept the Savior’s prophecy of the Cross. (Matt. 16:23) Then he denied Christ three times after His arrest and abandoned Him at His crucifixion.  Nonetheless, the Risen Lord restored Peter and empowered him with the Holy Spirit to preach and minister with boldness as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.   

Whether we are taking the first steps in learning about the Church or have been Orthodox our entire lives, we must not allow our preconceived notions about religion or anything else to keep us from obeying the command to “Come and see.”  Peter found it impossibly hard to accept that the Messiah would not be a righteous military hero like King David who would deliver Israel from Roman occupation.  We may find it impossibly hard to accept that the way of Christ is not identical with our preferred cultural or political agendas.  Like Peter and the rest of the disciples, we may have confused our desires for a particular type of earthly realm with hope for Christ’s Kingdom, which remains “not of this world.” (Jn. 18:36) Truly taking up our crosses is never easy and forces us to confront our weaknesses, turn away from idolatry in all its forms, and pursue ongoing repentance as we struggle to acquire the purity of heart necessary to see God.  When we fall flat on our faces in doing so, as did our Lord’s first disciples with some frequency, we must do the hard work of humbly accepting the truth about our darkened spiritual vision and get back on the path of obeying the command to “Come and see.”   

Today’s gospel passage about the calling of St. Andrew presents profound spiritual truth that speaks directly to us all. Perhaps that is because the same matters are at stake in every generation, in all times and places, when Christ calls broken and confused human beings to follow Him.  We must not despair when our weakness becomes apparent, for the same Holy Spirit Who empowered the apostles on the day of Pentecost dwells in us and continues to bring us into the holiness of God.  Like Peter after his denial, Christ still calls us to follow and serve Him.  He is still the Lamb of God Who opens the eyes of human souls to heavenly glory beyond our expectations.   He calls and enables us to follow Him as He did for the very first disciples.  He calls the entire world to be transfigured by His grace, to be illumined by His holiness, and even to become participants in the heavenly Kingdom.

If, like St. Andrew, we want to play our unique role in the salvation of the world, we must embrace the spiritual disciplines of this season of preparation for Christmas with faith, humility, and repentance.  In order to obey the command to “Come and see” and gain the strength to invite others to receive the healing of Christ, we must become credible living icons of His salvation.  We must be healed and transformed in holiness as the unique people we are in relationship to the particular persons God has placed in our lives.  Andrew told his brother Simon Peter about Jesus Christ and Philip did the same with Nathaniel.   Who knows if anyone else could have done that so effectively?  And who knows today whether anyone else can fulfill the particular vocations that God intends for us in our specific circumstances?  These questions are beyond our ability to answer rationally, but their practical implications are clear.  We must be faithful in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, “work[ing] out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Philipp. 2:12-13)

 Let us use these blessed weeks of the Nativity Fast to pray, fast, give to the needy, and confess and repent of our sins so that we will be prepared for a transformative personal encounter with the Lamb of God, born the Babe of Bethlehem.  He calls us, no less than St. Andrew and the first disciples, to “Come and see” so that we may become participants by grace in His divine glory.  He is born at Christmas so that we “will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”  Let us settle for nothing less in the weeks to come.

Following the Theotokos into the Temple During the Nativity Fast: Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Pentecost & Ninth Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

Ephesians 2:14-22; Luke 12:16-21

 

Having begun the Nativity Fast on November 15 in preparation to welcome the Savior at Christmas, today we continue celebrating the Feast of the Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple. Her elderly parents Joachim and Anna offered Mary to God by taking her to live in the Temple in Jerusalem as a young girl, where she grew up in prayer and purity as she prepared to become the Living Temple of the Lord in a unique and extraordinary way as His Virgin Mother.  This feast directs us to the good news of Christmas, as it is the first step in Mary’s life in becoming the Theotokos who gave birth to the Son of God for our salvation.  She is the epitome of our cooperation or synergy with God, for she freely chose to say “Yes” to the Lord with every ounce of her being.

Joachim and Anna had a long and difficult period of preparation to become parents, as they had been unable to have children for decades until God miraculously blessed them in old age to conceive.  They knew that their daughter was a blessing not simply for the happiness of their family, but for playing her part in fulfilling God’s purposes for the salvation of the world. Their patient faithfulness throughout their years of barrenness helped them gain the spiritual clarity to offer her to the Lord.  They knew that their marriage and family life were blessings to be given back to God for the fulfillment of much higher purposes.  They foreshadowed the proclamation in the Divine Liturgy: “Thine Own of Thine Own, we offer unto Thee on behalf of all and for all.” 

Joachim, Anna, and the Theotokos are the complete opposites of the rich man in today’s gospel lesson who exemplifies the way of life that is so appealing and popular in our world of corruption.  His only concern was to eat, drink, and enjoy himself because he had become so wealthy.  He was addicted to earthly pleasure, power, and success, and saw the meaning and purpose of his life only in those terms.  When God required his soul, however, the man’s true poverty was revealed, for the possessions and accomplishments of this life inevitably pass away and cannot save us.  As we read in the Psalms (48/49), “Do not become afraid when one becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases.  For when he dies, he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him.”

This man’s horizons extended no further than his dreams of the large barns he planned to build in order to hold his crops.  Before the ultimate judgment of God, he was revealed to be a fool who had wasted his life on what could never truly heal or fulfill one who bore the divine image and likeness.  He had laid up treasure for himself, but was not rich toward God in any way. The problem was not simply that the man had possessions, but that he had made them his god, which is another way of saying that he worshipped only himself and surely was not concerned about the needs of his neighbors.  His barns were a temple of the greed to which he had offered his entire existence in a vain effort to satisfy his self-centered desires.   

In stark contrast, the Theotokos followed the righteous example of her parents.  She was prepared by a life of holiness to agree freely to become our Lord’s mother, even though she was an unmarried virgin who did not understand how such a thing could happen.  When she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” this young Palestinian Jewish girl bravely made a whole, complete offering of her life to God.  She did not ask what was in it for her in terms of money, power, or any kind of earthly success.  She was not enslaved in any way to the worship of any of the false gods of this world. Unlike the rich fool in the parable, she was not blinded by passion and had the purity of soul to put receptivity and obedience to the Lord before all else. That is how she became the Living Temple of the Lord and the greatest example of what it means to unite ourselves to Christ in holiness.

The world is full of tragic circumstances today that are caused by people who are so blinded by their self-centered desires that they think nothing is more important than doing whatever it takes to gratify their lust for possessions, power, and pleasure.   But even if they succeed in gaining dominion over the whole world, they will lose their souls because they have offered themselves to idols which lack the power to heal people from the ravages of sin, let alone to raise anyone up from the tomb.   Doing so will inevitably impoverish us spiritually, for it is the complete opposite of following in the way of the Theotokos as God’s holy temple.  There will be no true peace in our souls or in our relationships with other people if we wander in such spiritual blindness. To indulge in self-centeredness will make us isolated individuals who view others either as enemies to be feared and conquered or as pawns to be manipulated.  Nothing could be further from the way of true personal union with the Lord exemplified by the Theotokos and in the ongoing life of the Body of Christ.  

St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians that “Christ is our peace” Who “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” between Jews and Gentiles, making “in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,” reconciling “us both to God in one body through the Cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.”  That is why the Apostle told Gentile Christians that “you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in Whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord…” That is something that the self-centeredness of the rich fool could never accomplish, for making success in the world our highest goal inevitably perpetuates division and resentment.  We will never become persons united in a communion of love with God and with our neighbors if we refuse to embrace the peace and reconciliation brought to the world by Christ, in Whom “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28)    

The Nativity Fast calls us to wrestle with the passions that keep us from becoming “rich toward God.” Even small steps in restraining our appetites and investing ourselves in prayer and generosity help to direct our hearts and lives in the way of the Theotokos as living temples of the Lord.  They help to heal us from the paralysis of self-centeredness so that we may gain the strength to embrace our identity as members together of the Body of Christ, in Whom the petty divisions and resentments of this world may be overcome.

The Theotokos entered the Temple, living there for years in preparation to become the Son of God’s Living Temple through whom He took on flesh. The Nativity Fast provides us blessed opportunities to become more like that obscure Palestinian Jewish girl who said “Yes” to God definitively and without reservation of any kind.  It calls us to become more like Joachim and Anna in the patient trust in God that enabled them to offer their long-awaited daughter to Him.  They show us how to enter the Temple by embracing the difficult struggle of learning to offer ourselves and all our blessings fully to the Lord. Like it or not, our lives are temples to one thing or another, for we will offer our time, energy, attention, and resources to something or someone.  Instead of becoming fools who give our lives to that which cannot satisfy or save us, we must follow in the way of the Theotokos and her holy parents.  Their choices were of crucial importance for their own salvation and for that of the entire world.  As hard as it is to believe, the same thing is true of us.  Now is the time to mindfully reject our self-imposed distractions from focusing on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God, Who is born for our salvation at Christmas.  Now is the time to prepare to follow the Theotokos in becoming His holy temples, for that is the only way to become “rich toward God.”   

 

Homily for the Feast Day of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 4:9-16; Matthew 9:9-13

As we begin the Nativity Fast in preparation to enter into the great joy of the Savior’s birth, we do so with the recognition that salvation has come to the world through what appeared at the time as utter foolishness.  The eternal Son of God became a human being, born in lowly circumstances in a barn. Imagine how His coming looked to the leaders of the Jewish people who had no expectation of the God-Man, a truly divine Messiah with a virgin mother.  They had wanted a powerful political and military leader who would deliver their nation from the occupation of the Roman Empire.  They also expected their deliverer to be a strict teacher of religious law who would bring earthly blessings upon the righteous and condemnation upon Gentiles and sinners.    

            Jesus Christ certainly did not fit their expectations either at His birth or throughout His public ministry.  On this feast day of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, we remember that He called Matthew, a tax collector, to be His disciple.  As we remember from the story of Zaccheus, tax collectors were Jews who worked for the Romans, collecting more than was required from their own people and living off the difference.  Their fellow Jews hated them as traitors and thieves.  No one would have expected the Messiah of Israel to call a tax collector to follow Him as a disciple, but that is precisely what the Lord did.  If that were not shocking enough, He also ate with tax collectors and sinners, which in that time and place was seen as participating in their uncleanness.    In the eyes of the Pharisees, Christ defiled Himself and broke the Old Testament law by doing so.   For the Messiah to act in such ways was worse than foolishness; it was blasphemy and a sign that He was not a righteous Jew, let alone the one anointed to fulfill God’s promises to Abraham.    

            In response, the Lord made clear that His apparent wickedness demonstrated a much higher righteousness than that of His critics.  He said that sick people, not healthy ones, are in need of a doctor’s care.   He said that He came to call not the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.  Who requires healing, the sick or the well?  Who needs to repent, those who are already faithful or those who are not?  Christ quoted the Old Testament to remind His opponents that God desired mercy and not sacrifice.  In other words, He related to others in ways that embodied the divine compassion toward corrupt and broken people.  He came to heal every infirmity and to restore the fallen image of God in us all, which is why He offered Himself fully on the Cross for the salvation of the world and conquered death through His glorious resurrection.   As so many of the Old Testament prophets had proclaimed, religious ceremonies and rules are worthless for those who refuse to manifest God’s mercy to the human beings they encounter every day.  In conveying the divine compassion to those considered God’s enemies, Christ appeared to be a sacrilegious fool in the eyes of those who had so terribly distorted the faith of Israel.  

            Saint Paul wrote about the ministry of the apostles that they were fools for Christ’s sake.  Before Christianity was popular, established, or well-known anywhere, they left everything behind for a ministry that led to poverty, persecution, and death.   Like the countless martyrs of Christian history throughout the centuries, the apostles certainly appeared as fools to the vast majority of people in their time and place.  Why risk your life for the memory of an obscure Jewish rabbi?  Why not burn some incense to Caesar, become a Muslim, or join the Communist Party?  Why lose your own life for saving Jews from the Holocaust, as did St. Maria (Skobtsova) of Paris? 

            Those of us who face no real persecution for our faith must recognize that Christ still calls us to be fools for His sake in our lives every day.  He scandalized the self-righteous by calling St. Matthew to follow Him and by associating with people of bad reputation.  Christ did not endorse their sins, but He endured criticism in order to draw them to repentance and healing.  He showed them the mercy of God by building loving relationships with them that made it possible to invite them to recover the beauty of their souls. If we are truly sharing in the life of the Savior, we must not become like those who judged Him for treating tax collectors and sinners with compassion.  We must not demonize and condemn our neighbors whose ways of life are not the paths to holiness that we seek to pursue as Orthodox Christians.  Doing so will not draw anyone to the blessedness of the Kingdom, but it will bring judgment upon us for our pride and self-righteousness.  We will then be just like the Pharisees who criticized the Lord for keeping company with disreputable people. 

            Our calling is to remain faithful to the teachings and practices of Orthodox Christianity as exemplified by the saints across the ages.  It is not to accept the lie that all behaviors and beliefs are somehow equally good and holy. That would not be the way of the Lord, Who told His disciples that “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matt. 5: 20) Such righteousness requires that we are so transformed by His grace that we do not abandon our loved ones, friends, and acquaintances when they lose their way and make disastrous decisions about how to order their lives.  Our calling is to treat others as the Lord treats us, who are each “the chief of sinners.”   Our Savior looked like a fool to many when He kept company with people known to be sinners, and we should not be afraid to follow His example in maintaining relationships that serve as a signs of God’s steadfast love to broken and confused people whose burdens we never know fully.  If they do not experience a measure of the love of Christ through us, then how will they be drawn to the life of the Kingdom?  If they experience Christians as people who want nothing to do with them, why would they ever want to have anything to do with Christ?

We sometimes forget that those who responded best to the Lord were those who were completely shocked to receive His care, for they knew that they appeared to be lost causes.  That was surely the case for both St. Matthew and St. Zachaeus as tax collectors, thieves, and traitors.   The same was true for St. Photini, the Samaritan woman at the well with a very broken person life, who became a great evangelist and martyr.  The Canaanite woman with a demon-possessed daughter understood that God’s blessings were not only for the Jews far more clearly than did the disciples, and the Savior set her child free.  The only one of the ten lepers who returned to Christ to thank Him for his healing was a Samaritan.  The Lord said that the faith of the Roman centurion, whose servant He healed, surpassed that of any of the Jews.  He said of the sinful woman who anointed and kissed His feet in the house of Simon “her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” (Lk. 7:47)   Their examples show that it is not our place to declare anyone as a lost cause before the mercy of the Lord.  

            In order to have the spiritual strength and clarity to discern how to build relationships with neighbors that convey the healing mercy of Christ, we need the spiritual disciplines of the Nativity Fast, such as prayer, fasting, repentance, generosity to the needy, and reconciliation with those from whom we have become estranged.   These practices also appear foolish in our culture, especially this time of year with its focus on self-indulgence and consumerism.  The great irony is that this season is one of preparation to receive Christ Who, both at His birth and throughout His ministry, looked like a fool according to the conventional standards of His day.  But through what appeared to be foolish, He made—and continues to make-- saints out of tax-collectors, prostitutes, adulterers,  murderers, Gentiles, and other unlikely characters.  So in the weeks before Christmas, let us embrace our calling to live in what seem to be foolish ways that will draw others to the celebration of the birth of the Savior not only on December 25, but in their hearts and lives every day of the year—no matter who they are and no matter what they have done. Christ was born because our only hope, like theirs, is in His mercy for sinners.