The Christlike Foolishness of Fellowship with Sinners: Homily for the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist in the Orthodox Church

            

1 Corinthians 4:9-16

St. Matthew 9:9-13

            Most of us do not want to play the fool, to appear to others as though we have lost of our minds and should not be taken seriously.  As we begin the period of the Nativity Fast, however, it is important to remember that Jesus Christ brought salvation to the world in what appeared to most people at the time as an unbelievably foolish way. When the eternal Son of God became a human being, He was born in the humble setting of a barn to a virgin mother.  We have heard the story so many times that it no longer shocks us, but imagine how it looked to the leaders of the Jewish people at the time who wanted a powerful, respectable political and military leader as the solution to their problem of being occupied by 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 judgment upon Gentiles and sinners.    

            No, Jesus Christ 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 Zacheus, tax collectors were Jews who worked for the Romans, collecting more than was required from their own people and living off the difference.  Righteous Jews viewed them as a traitors and thieves and would have nothing to do with them.  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 foolish enough, He also ate with tax collectors and sinners, which in that time and place was away of 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 foolishness demonstrated a much deeper wisdom than that of His self-righteous 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.  Think about it for a moment.  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 (Hosea 6:6) in reminding 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 help and heal them, to help and heal us.  As so many of the Old Testament prophets proclaimed, religious ceremonies are worthless for those who refuse to show God’s mercy to the human beings they encounter every day.  That is precisely what Jesus Christ did in associating with tax collectors and sinners in a way that made Him look like a fool in the eyes of many.

            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 and in places today such as the Middle East, 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, convert to the religion of a conquering foe, or join the Communist Party?  Why throw your life away for the sake of this foolishness about Jesus Christ?

            It is easy for those of us who face no real persecution for our faith to romanticize the plight of the confessors and martyrs who suffer and die for the Lord.  It is more difficult, however, for us to recognize that Christ calls us to be fools for His sake in our lives and our culture 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 risked His own reputation in order to lead them to repentance and healing.  He showed them the mercy of God by calling them to a new life.  Likewise, it may seem foolish to some when we show hospitality, kindness, and friendship to the tax collectors and sinners of our day, to those whose behaviors and styles of life are quite different from the paths to holiness that we seek to pursue as Orthodox Christians.  Judging and condemning particular people for any reason is never our place; when we do so, we judge and condemn only ourselves for our pride and self-righteousness, for being like the Pharisees who criticized Christ for keeping company with disreputable people.  

            Let’s be clear.  The point is not to abandon the teachings and practices of our faith or to say that all ways of living are equally good and holy.  The Lord called His disciples to be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees, and He expects the same of us.  Part of that righteousness, however, is not to abandon human beings, our loved ones, friends, and acquaintances, when they lose their way and even when they make terrible decisions about how to order their lives.  Christ calls us to treat others as He treats us.  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 order to maintain relationships that serve as 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 where will they experience it?  If they know Christians as those who want nothing to do with them, they will likely never be drawn to the healing and life of the Kingdom.  Why would they?  What good news do we offer by abandoning them?

Of course, we must be careful not to get in situations that we cannot handle.  Sometimes relationships end or become so unhealthy that we have to abandon them for the good of all concerned.  Those are extreme circumstances and we need to be careful in them.  But when it is possible to overcome the stereotypical distinctions between the righteous and sinners of our day in order to show Christ’s compassion even to the most unlikely people, we should not refuse to do so for fear of looking foolish. The Lord certainly had an unlikely circle of acquaintances and we should not be afraid to follow His example.  

            In order to have the spiritual strength and clarity to discern how to become a healing presence in relation to other people, we all need the spiritual disciplines of the Nativity Fast, such as prayer, fasting, repentance,  generosity to the needy, and reconciliation with enemies.   Yes, these also appear foolish to our culture, especially in a time of year so focused on self-indulgence and material possessions.  And here is the great irony, for this season is fundamentally one of preparation to receive Christ Who, both at His birth and throughout His ministry, looked like a fool according to the conventional religious stands 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 may 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 how seriously they have lost their way.

             

Homily on St. Nektarius the Wonderworker of Pentapolis: The Importance of Commemorating and Asking for the Prayers of the Saints of the Orthodox Church

             

 Ephesians 5:8-19  

Luke 8:41-56 

              It is hard to learn how to do anything without a good example of how to do it. Teachers, coaches, managers, and others who give us assignments often have to model how to do what they ask of us.  Without clear examples, most of us will not succeed in getting the job done. That is why it is so important for us to study the lives of the saints, the great examples of what it means for Christians to live holy lives.

            Today in the Orthodox Church we commemorate St. Nektarius of Pentapolis the Wonderworker, who exemplifies St. Paul’s advice to the Ephesians to “walk as children of light” and to do “what is pleasing the Lord” with purity in the midst of a corrupt world that is so full of darkness and temptation.  St. Nektarius was a Greek born in the middle of the 19^th century.  He became a monk, a priest, and ultimately a metropolitan.   Despite Nektarius’  childlike innocence and humility, his rapid rise to prominence in the Church roused the jealousy of others who were not so virtuous.  They made false accusations against him, which resulted in his losing his position and being unable to find suitable work.  So he accepted the humble place of a provincial preacher, led a theological school, and gave generously to the needy even as he lived in poverty.  He oversaw the building of a women’s monastery, provided  spiritual direction to many, and devoted himself to intense prayer during which he was sometimes seen elevated above the ground.  His personal holiness was such that his prayers healed the sick, cast out demons, and ended a drought.   The saint’s enemies continued to circulate vicious rumors about him, but Nektarius never defended himself and instead simply forgave them.   His relics were found to be incorrupt after his death, and sicknesses of all kinds—especially cancer-- have been healed through his intercessions.

            We certainly ask righteous people we know today to pray for us because we trust that God will hear their prayers.  That is a good and ancient practice.  In the same way, asking for the prayers of saints such as St. Nektarius is an intrinsic part of the Christian life.  The word saint means “holy” and the saints are those in whose lives the holiness of God is powerfully evident.   They are now part of that great cloud of witnesses that inspires us to run the race in obedience to Jesus Christ. (Heb. 12:-1-2)  As described in the Book of Revelation, they intercede for us around the heavenly throne.

            Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and the saints’ physical remains or relics are often incorrupt or preserved from decay.  Their bodies manifest the holiness evident in their lives, which is why the bones of the prophet Elisha raised a dead man in the Old Testament.  (2 Kings 13:21) Handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched St. Paul healed the sick and cast out demons in Acts. (19:12) Remember that Jesus Christ rose from the dead with a glorified body.  Our hope for life eternal is the resurrection of the whole person—body, soul, and spirit.  So it should not be surprising that the physical bodies of holy people are often conduits of our Lord’s blessing to the rest of us who also have physical bodies.  That has been the experience of the Church since the very beginning of the faith.

            To remember and honor the saints, as well as to ask for their intercessions, is ultimately to give thanks and praise to God, for their great virtues are His gifts.  If we want evidence of the truth of the Gospel , of our hope to participate personally in the holiness and eternal life of our Lord, we should look to the saints, whose lives are truly living icons of His salvation.  They are like our hall of fame, the greatest examples of what it means to be fully open and receptive to God’s presence and power in our lives.  Like the Thetotokos, the greatest of the saints, they always point to Christ, inviting us to give ourselves to Him.  As we say so often in our services, “Calling to remembrance our all holy, immaculate, most blessed and glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and one another and all our life unto Christ our God.”  The saints are certainly not distractions from faithfulness to the Lord.  The very opposite is true, as they inspire us by their examples and prayers to take up our crosses and follow Him, even as they did.

            We need that inspiration because, as St. Paul reminded the Ephesians, it is so easy to be spiritually asleep.  It is so easy to fail to be alert to the temptations all around us and especially that we have allowed to take root in our hearts due to our own laziness.  Even as the person who has drunk too much wine tends to let his guard down and find it hard to control himself, we too easily become drunk with our own passions or self-centered desires.    We too often think, act, and speak foolishly, participating in “the unfruitful works of darkness” because they are popular, appealing, and all too familiar.

 If we define a good life by what is celebrated in popular culture--in movies, television, music, the internet, advertisements, or what most think of as the “conventional wisdom”—we will be lulled into thinking that we are doing just fine spiritually no matter we believe or how we live.  If we pay too much attention to popular versions of religion in our culture, we will hold ourselves to no higher standard than whatever makes us momentarily happy or serves whatever political agenda we may like.  If we fill our minds with graphic images of sex and violence in the name of entertainment, we will no longer consider a life of purity to be desirable or even possible.  The more comfortable we become with gratifying every desire, the more we will excuse ourselves from pursuing holiness in the relationship between man and woman as though that is somehow outdated and irrelevant.

That is precisely why we need to remember the saints, not as distant historical figures, but as fellow members of the Body of Christ, as our friends and personal examples, as holy people for whose prayers we ask every day of our lives.  If we hold ourselves to the standard that they set in faithful service to Jesus Christ, we will be less inclined to let ourselves off the hook by having expectations no higher than those of our darkened and corrupt world.  When they become our spiritual companions, we will be less likely to think of ours as a lonely and impossible path.  Every temptation we face, they faced.  Every virtue we seek to cultivate, they developed in their own lives.  Every pain or difficulty that we encounter, they know.   They are examples of how to live faithfully in a world where there is nothing new under the sun.  

We should commemorate St. Nektarius of Pentapolis the Wonderworker by living as he did in faithfulness to our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us wake up spiritually and “walk as children of light,” refusing to conform ourselves to the darkness and instead keeping our eyes on the prize of finishing the race.  The saints have shown us how to do that and now they cheer us on to victory through their intercessions.  As Orthodox Christians, we must take full advantage of their example, their intercession, and their companionship.   They are shining lights of what it means to be truly human in Jesus Christ and they invite us to join them.  By God’s grace, we can.  The only question is whether we will choose to do so.

               

The Poor Man Has a Name: Homily on Lazarus and the Rich Man in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 2:16-20

Luke 16:19-31

            During our mission trip to Guatemala in July, we met children from very poor and broken families that could not care for them.  The kids who live at the Orthodox orphanage are surely among the most fortunate needy children in that part of the world, for they have food, clothing, shelter, education, and the love provided by the nuns and staff.  Too often children in such circumstances are simply abandoned and left to face whatever cruel fate awaits them due to disease, starvation, or abuse.  They are truly “the least of these.” Their names are not known and their lives and deaths are not thought to be very important in the eyes of the world.   

            How completely shocking it is, then, that our gospel text gives us the name of the desperately poor and miserable Lazarus, but leaves out the name of the rich man.  This detail shows us that God’s kingdom is not like worldly kingdoms, not like human society as we know it.  For the kind of wealth that makes people famous in this life counts for nothing in the next.  And the kind of humility, the kind of complete trust in God that the poorest of the poor are in the best position to have, counts for little in today’s world; yet, it is only by that kind of humble trust that anyone will enter the kingdom of God.

            No, the point is not that all the rich will be damned and all the poor will be saved.  Instead, it is that there are strong and deep temptations associated with focusing on wealth, possessions, and success in this world. For if we love ourselves, our riches, and our status more than God and neighbor, no matter how much or little we have, we will shut ourselves out of the kingdom.  The name Lazarus means “One who has been helped,” and those whose miserable life circumstances do not encourage them to trust in money, power, or success are in a good position to learn that their help is in the Lord, in His mercy and love.

            The rich man never learned that lesson, however.  He wore only outrageously expensive clothes and had a great feast every day.  He must have known about the poor beggar Lazarus.  He probably stepped over or around him every time he went in or out of his house.   Here was a dying man, lying on the ground, whose only comfort was the stray dogs who would lick his open sores.  All that Lazarus wanted were the crumbs that fell from the man’s table, you might say his garbage. But the rich man was so greedy and thoughtless that he apparently denied him even that.   Our Lord is quite clear about the consequences of such a life.  This man showed no mercy; he demonstrated no love for his wretched neighbor. Consequently, he cut himself off from the mercy and love of God.

            His eternal suffering shows the reality of what it means to refuse to respond to our calling to live as those created in God’s image and likeness.  This man would not be like Christ in any way.  He showed what he thought of the Lord by treating his neighbor, surely one of “the least of these” who also bore the divine image and likeness, literally like trash.  And when he called for mercy from Father Abraham, he made no confession and did no repentance.  He cared only for himself and his brothers, and obviously had no concern for obeying Moses and prophets who had made clear the obligation of the Jews to care for the poor.

            As we say in the prayers of the Church, we will all need mercy before the judgment seat of Christ.  We err, however, if we think of the Lord’s mercy as being available only in some arbitrary way at some point in eternity.  For we encounter Him every day in our neighbors, especially the poor, wretched, and inconvenient:  the widow, the orphan, and the stranger.  We participate in His mercy by showing mercy to them.  The rich man in the parable shaped himself decisively in unholy ways by his behavior; in contrast, we may shape ourselves decisively in holy ways by our behavior.  We never earn God’s mercy, but we will ultimately make offerings of our lives to God or to something else.  We will either worship and serve Him or ourselves.  Perhaps the Lord’s eternal judgment will be more a confirmation of who we have become than a shocking decree from out of the blue.

            God knows our hearts and we can hide nothing from Him, either today or at any point in the future.  Our faith as Orthodox Christians goes to the heart, to the depths of who we are, but also reminds us that we are always in relationship with other people who are also the children of God.  We encounter Him in them.  Who we are in relation to Jesus Christ is shown each day of our lives in how we treat others, especially those who need our help, attention, and friendship, as well as our enemies.  A Christianity that ignores “the least of these” is not worthy of the name.  Every human being is created in the image and likeness of God.  We bring judgment upon ourselves whenever we treat our neighbors, no matter who they are or how they have offended us, in ways that do not manifest the divine love and compassion.

            Contrary to popular opinion, the Christian life is not about feeling, emotion, or sentiment.  No, it is a commitment, a sacrifice, an offering of ourselves to God. As St. Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  Surely, those who live that way will bear witness to the mercy of Christ by showing that same mercy to other people. 

            The Nativity or Advent fast starts on November 15 as we prepare to welcome Christ at His Nativity on December 25.  During those forty days, we should plan on giving the money that we save by eating a humble diet to those who do not have the basic necessities of life, as we have done as a parish for Syrian refugees and needy people in our own community. Think also of the crumbs from our tables, the small bits of time and energy, that we are all able to give:   to the sick and lonely who need visitors or at least a note or a phone call; to children who need tutors and mentors; to pregnant women in difficult situations who need our support to help them welcome their babies; and to the countless other people in our own neighborhoods who need God’s blessing in their lives in tangible, practical ways.

            The hard truth is that, if we are not sharing our lives and blessings with others in some way, we will become just like the rich man who was too caught up with his own pleasure to worry about poor Lazarus.  We know where that path leads.  The good news is that Christ has shown us a better way which is open to us in every generation, in every walk of life, no matter how rich or poor we are.  For the money and power of the world will fade away; they do not last.  Only one thing lasts, and that is the selfless love of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ Who has conquered sin and death.  And we all have gifts and abilities that may become channels of His blessing and mercy to a world of people like Lazarus, whether their wounds are physical or spiritual or emotional. 

            We do not have to save the world; Christ has already done that.  We just have to be faithful:  to trust, believe, and follow our Savior in how we treat others.  He turned no one away empty-handed and neither should we.  If we claim His mercy and love for ourselves, we must do likewise for all who bear His image and likeness.  We must be Christians not merely in name, but also in how we live, even when it is inconvenient.  Then we will become living icons of the salvation that Jesus Christ has brought to a world of sin and death, and the Lazaruses of the world will know that they too are the children of God.  And together with them, we will all share in the mercy of a Lord Who raises the dead, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, and makes even the most miserable people guests at His heavenly banquet.    

Pigs, Passions, and Pleasure: What We All Have in Common with the Gadarene Demoniac

   

St. Luke 8:26-39

           Sometimes we have heard the same story so many times that we take it for granted, especially if it is set in a land far away and a time long ago.  Perhaps that is our reaction when we hear today’s familiar gospel reading about Jesus Christ casting demons out of the miserable man who lived in a cemetery and was out of his mind.  The Savior sent the demons into a herd of pigs who then jumped into the water and drowned.  Then the man was himself again and his neighbors were so amazed and terrified by what happened that they asked the Lord to leave their town. I do not know about you, but I have never seen anything quite like that with my own eyes.  So we may be tempted to think that this account has nothing to do with us, for we are not possessed by demons, living among the tombs, or watching pigs jump to their deaths in a lake.   What on earth could this gospel reading have to do with us?

            In order to figure that out, we should remember that the gospels do not simply give us news reports about the activities of Jesus Christ during the first century.  No, they are narrative portraits of the good news of His salvation.  The word “gospel” means “good news,” and the Church has recognized the four gospels in the New Testament canon as true proclamations of who our Savior is and what His healing of our humanity means and looks like.  When we read or hear the gospels, the point is not to satisfying our curiosity about what happened two thousand years ago.  It is, instead, to invite us to participate personally in the life of the One whose story is told in them.  In fact, the gospels call us to become participants in the ongoing story of the Lord’s saving work in the world.  His Kingdom is the fulfillment, healing, and blessing of all people and all reality, regardless of historical period. Just as much as He brought deliverance from evil to that poor demon-possessed man, He brings salvation to us also.

            Even though we are not as obviously controlled by evil as he was, we all have too much in common with that unfortunate person.  If we are honest with ourselves, we will all acknowledge that temptation gets the better of us with some regularity and leads us to think, act, and speak in ways that fall short of being in the likeness of God to which we are called.  If it is hard for us to understand that, think about the pigs in the story.  We have probably all at least seen pictures of pigs gorging themselves on their food.  When our family visited friends in Minnesota summer before last, they took me into the one of their pig barns that held over a thousand of them.  I was warned to be careful not to fall down because the pigs will try to eat anything.  I remember seeing one pig without a tail and was told that another pig had probably chewed it off.  So I was very careful not to fall down that day and emerged unscathed.

             Too often, however, we get right in there with the pigs.  We allow ourselves to be overcome with passions and self-centered desires to the point that we have as little control over ourselves as a bunch of hungry hogs eating slop from their trough.  Whether it is anger, pride, lust, envy, greed, dwelling on the wrongs of others, or another sin, we routinely diminish ourselves by giving into temptation to the point that we do not act like the beloved sons and daughters of God we are created to be.

I know that some will say that there is nothing more important than being true to yourself, which they understand to mean that we should always say and do whatever feels right at the moment.  The problem, however, is that our sickened spiritual state is not the true human state of being.  It is, instead, the way of Adam and Eve who brought sin and death into the world by their disobedience to God.  Ever since, there has been a war within the soul of every human being, as well as a strong temptation to accept our corrupt condition as good and normal.  So we have all made pleasure and contentment in whatever form we pursue them our highest good, whether that is the perverse satisfaction of controlling, condemning, or harming someone or as subtle as simply putting our own preferences before the needs of others or what we know God wants us to do.     

            The problem is that to be true to ourselves in that way is really to be false to ourselves. It is really to live out the lie that we are nothing but pleasure and satisfaction-seeking individuals whose horizons extend no further than those of hungry pigs waiting for their next feeding.  Like the demon-possessed man, we lose our identity when we do that.  He said that his name was “Legion” because he was filled with so many evil spirits.  Too often, we could say the same thing because of the many disordered desires that dominate our lives and distort our true identity.

            We have a way out of that kind of existence, however, because Christ is the Second Adam who as the God-Man makes us participants in His divinized humanity.  He heals, blesses, and restores us as unique persons in His image and likeness to the point that we become participants in His divine nature by grace.  So to be truly human in Him is not to be controlled and distorted by sin to the point that we are no longer truly ourselves.  It is, instead, to have control over our desires such that we direct them all to God and find fulfillment in ways that draw us more fully into the life of the Kingdom even as we live and breathe in this world.

            The formerly demon-possessed man came to himself again and regained his true identity because of Christ’s salvation.  The same will be true of us when we recognize our self-centered desires, weaknesses, and love for our bad habits as the temptations that they are.  It is no sin to be tempted, but it is sinful to accept these distorted inclinations as the truth of who we are by giving in to them.  Every time that we do so, we damage and distort ourselves at least a bit.  We embrace spiritual sickness instead of health.  Just as that unhappy state of the demon-possessed man had become his “new normal,” we easily get too comfortable with the presence of evil in our lives.  Of course, none of this is as dramatic as a wild man living in a cemetery or the sight of a herd of pigs jumping into a lake.  But the consequences for our spiritual health and the true joy of our lives will be just as real.  Namely, we risk losing ourselves—our souls, our lives-- out of an addiction to getting satisfaction on our own terms.  If that is how we live, we might as well be living in a cemetery, isolated from others, and under the control of demons.  Truth be told, that is precisely who we will be become if we follow that path. 

            Of course, that is not how any of us want to end up.  But just as a recovering alcoholic has to learn not to take even one drink and someone who quits smoking has to learn not to have even one cigarette, each and every one of us has to learn how to reject temptation as soon as it rears its ugly head.  In other words, we have to be on guard, with our eyes wide open to the destructive personal consequences of the addictions, bad habits, and passions that have taken root in our lives. And even though it may seem impossibly difficult, we have to make war against them, refusing to give in to their familiar and comfortable attraction.  I know that we sometimes think it will kill us to refuse to indulge in this or that desire for pleasure or satisfaction of thought, word, or deed, whatever it may be.  But as we all know from the times that we have successfully resisted temptation, it is not really going to kill us to do so.  To give up on the struggle out of fear is also a temptation that we must resist.

When we despair of our ability to refrain from sin and fall short again and again, that is when we are in the perfect position to cultivate the deep humility of the Jesus Prayer.  It is also why we should call on the mercy and aid of the Lord from our hearts as often as we possibly can, every day of our lives.  And if we ever think that His mercy and power are not able to bring us healing and strength in relation to our spiritual maladies, let us remember that poor man possessed by demons, living among the tombs, who had lost his true identity.   Our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ set him free and restored him to his true self as a beloved child of God.  He gave him his life back.  He will do precisely the same for us when, in our weakness and despair, we turn to Him in humility for the healing that only the Second Adam can bring to those created in His image and likeness.          

           

                       

           

            

Boasting in Weakness: St. Luke, St. Paul, and the Widow of Nain

             

            Yesterday was the feast of the patron saint of our parish, the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke.  The Church remembers him as the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.  A Gentile, he accompanied St. Paul on missionary journeys.  He referred to him in Colossians as a “dear and glorious physician.”

            As a Gentile and a healer, St. Luke especially highlighted our Lord’s mercy for people who were considered outsiders or unimportant, who suffered profound difficulties and challenges in their lives. Whether it is the shepherds who received word of Christ’s birth from the angels, the Theotokos who responded with complete obedience to the message of the Archangel Gabriel about the miraculous conception of the Savior, or the poor, hungry, and thirsty who would be blessed in the Kingdom of God,   St. Luke’s gospel gives particular stress to how those considered weak in that time and place found great blessing and strength in Jesus Christ.

            Today’s gospel reading from St. Luke about the Lord’s raising of the son of the widow of Nain proclaims powerfully Christ’s mercy for the lowly and suffering, for He has compassion upon a widow who mourns the death of her only son.  He comforts her, saying “Do not weep,” and then touches the coffin, bringing the young man back from the dead.

            The Lord’s great act of compassion for this woman is a sign of our salvation.  For we weep and mourn not only for loved ones whom we see no more, but also for the broken, disintegrated state of life that the sins of humanity—and our own sins—have brought to us and to our world.  Death, destruction, hatred, fear, and decay in all their forms are the consequences of our refusal to live faithfully as those created in the image of God.  We have worshipped ourselves, our possessions and our pride, and found despair and emptiness as a result, as well as slavery to our own self-centered desires.  So we weep with the widow of Nain for losing loved ones and for losing ourselves.

            In that time and place, a widow who lost her only son was in deep trouble.  She would have no one to provide for her or to protect her.  Poverty, neglect, and abuse would be real threats to her very life.  Who knows what would have become of her as a result?  When the Lord raised her son, He not only demonstrated that He is the conqueror of death, but also of our separation from one another.  In raising her son, Christ restored both his life and hers.      

            The good news of the Gospel, of course, is the compassion of God that extends even to the most miserable and vulnerable human being.  Rather than simply observing human suffering and letting us bear the consequences of our actions, the Father sent the Son to enter into our suffering, into our distorted and disintegrated world, in order to set us right, to stop us from weeping, and even to raise us from the dead into the glory of the heavenly kingdom.  The Saviour touched the coffin of the dead man and he arose.  Christ’s compassion for us is so profound that He also entered a coffin, a tomb, and even descended to Hades, the shadowy place of the dead because—out of love for humankind—He could not simply stand by and allow us to destroy ourselves by bearing the full consequences of our actions. 

             Contrary to what some may teach, Christian faith is not fundamentally about justice or punishment or wrath for sinners.  It is instead about the infinite and holy love of Christ Who will stop at nothing to bring the one lost sheep back into the fold, Who is not embarrassed to welcome home the prodigal son, and Who will even submit to death on a cross in order to destroy death by His glorious resurrection.

St. Paul learned something about Christ’s compassion through his many sufferings.  He barely escaped Damascus with his life, endured beatings, imprisonment and other calamities, and had a “thorn in the flesh” of some kind that the Lord would not remove from him.  Instead, He gave him the word:   “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” St. Paul accepted that, saying “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

            Many of us do not have to look very hard to find our own “thorns in the flesh” or how our lives bear some similarity to the difficult plight of the widow of Nain.  When that is the situation with us, we must take St. Paul as our example.  Instead of abandoning his ministry and holding his problems against God or thinking that he could handle everything by himself, he used his weakness to grow in his awareness of Christ’s power, comfort, and compassion.

            As St. Luke emphasized so clearly, our Lord’s salvation is not a reward for having a life with no difficulties.  Indeed, it was often those who had suffered disease, loss, poverty, and rejection who were most open to the good news of Christ during His earthly ministry.  Surely, it was their humility that opened their hearts and souls to Him.  Those who think that they have it all in life can easily convince themselves that all is well. If they want a religion, it is often one that congratulates them for their accomplishments and never gets beyond worldly ways of thinking.  But those who are aware of their weaknesses, of their failings and their inability to fix all their problems, know that they need help from One Whose compassion is deeper than merely helping those who help themselves.  They need a Savior Who conquers even death itself, Who turns the ultimate weakness of the grave into the triumph of an empty tomb, and Who is not ashamed to remember even the most wretched repentant sinner in His Kingdom.

            When our spiritual eyes are opened to see that that is how we all stand before Christ, we will give up trying to impress Him with how religious we are or judging others for not measuring up.  In fact, we will no longer focus on ourselves at all, but instead we will be transformed such that we extend His compassion to others.  Think for a moment about the widow of Nain and her son.  Surely, they were so profoundly grateful for the Lord’s mercy that they lived the rest of their days showing that same mercy to others.  It would be impossible for someone to go through an experience like that and think that they had achieved it all by their own ability.  No, their life was entirely God’s gift.  In their weakness, they received Christ’s strength, which is precisely the strength of God’s eternal compassion.  If we receive it, if we receive Him, then we must live accordingly, showing the same mercy to our suffering neighbors that we have received ourselves.

            The ministry of Jesus Christ continues to this day through His Body, the Church. In our personal and collective weaknesses, we all have the opportunity to open ourselves to the compassionate strength of our Lord.  In keeping with how our patron St. Luke told the good news of Christ’s ministry, this parish embodies compassion toward people who know that life in our corrupt world is not easy.  Many of us can identify with the shepherds, the poor, the sick, and the bereaved who so powerfully received the mercy of the Lord.  Like them, let us take up our place in extending that same blessing to others.  For Christ’s Body continues to do Christ’s work, His ministry of binding up the wounds of His sick children, conquering death, and inviting them to the life of a Kingdom where the last really shall be first. 

Stay Focused and Bear Fruit: Homily for the Holy Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council and the 4th Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

               

 Titus 3:8-15

Luke 8:5-15

              I am sure that we all waste our time and energy now and then.  Of course, sometimes we need a diversion from our usual cares and there is nothing wrong with taking a rest from time to time.  The problem, however, is when we find excuses not to do what needs to be done.  We do not want to look back on our day, our lives, or our relationships and be saddened because we failed to give attention to what is truly important.

            St. Paul warned in his letter to St. Titus against letting foolish disputes, pointless arguments, or anything else distract us from what needs to be done:  namely, good works, meeting the urgent needs of others, and bearing fruit in the Christian life.  St. Paul reminds us to turn away from all the nonsense that tempts us from faithfulness to Christ, that threatens to distract us from the Lord and the service of His Church.

            That is a necessary reminder whenever we find ourselves distracted from what is truly important.  Perhaps part of the problem is that we forget what is really significant and how richly God has blessed us with His truth and life.  It is fairly easy to ignore things that we take for granted or consider not worth mentioning.  Unfortunately, it is very easy to make our life in Christ one of those assumed things that we end up neglecting.

            The Lord Himself reminded the Apostles not to take what He had taught them for granted.  He challenged them to see its  importance:  “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.” Yes, to that group of fishermen and other rough characters who had no particular importance or standing in that time and place, the Son of God had taught the greatest mysteries of the universe.  Imagine that.  The same is true for us, of course, as members of Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.  He calls us not to be distracted from the glorious truth that we have received, either by taking it for granted or giving more attention to something else.    Instead, we must respond to Him in a way appropriate to His great gift, which means doing what is necessary for us to grow in faith and bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.

             Our Savior spoke of the word of God like seed cast upon the ground.  But, of course, some of those seeds never even begin to grow because they fall along the wayside and are eaten by birds.  And some who hear the good news of Christ do likewise, for they never even believe.  Some seeds just begin to grow, but the sprouts die as soon as they spring up because they landed on rocks and could not put down roots and receive nourishment.  And some who believe at first fall away quickly, for they never really opened themselves to the strength received through regular prayer, worship, fasting, repentance, communion, and all the other means of support for the Christian life that we experience through the Church.  

            Then there are seeds that grow into plants that do take root; they seem to be healthy, but are eventually choked by thorns and weeds.  And some who make a good beginning in the Christian life allow themselves to be so distracted by their worries, riches, pleasures, and passions that their faith dies.  A gardener who is too distracted by other activities to look out for weeds or to remember to water the plants will probably not be very successful.  Likewise, a Christian who disregards the dangers posed by anger, greed, pride, lust, spiritual laziness, or other passions will not thrive. But some seeds fall on good ground, grow nicely, and yield a large crop.  And some Christians not only hear the word of the Lord, but keep it in their hearts and lives, and bear fruit with patience.  They do what needs to be done in order for them to flourish in the service of the Kingdom.  

            The thrust of this parable is clear:  We have received the fullness of God’s truth, the mystery of the Kingdom of God.  We have put on Christ in baptism, been sealed by the Holy Spirit in chrismation, and nourished by the Lord’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  Christ Himself forgives us when we repent in Confession.   In Jesus Christ, we receive our salvation, our fulfillment, as partakers in the divine nature.  In His Body, the Church, we are taught the whole, complete faith of the Apostles.  We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, the Saints, who inspire us by their examples and help us by their prayers.   In every Divine Liturgy, we join them and the entire heavenly host in the worship of the Holy Trinity.

            God has given us all that we need for our salvation, our growth in holiness, and the healing of our souls.   The problem is not with Him, but with us, for we often take our faith for granted and decide that there are more important matters than prayer, repentance, and serving others in the name of Christ.  We become content with making our spiritual life a low priority to the point that we become sick and weak because we are too lazy or distracted to fight our passions and accept the healing and strength which the Lord gives us through the ministries of His Church.  Too often, we rest content with bearing no fruit at all for the Kingdom.  The problem is that, when we live like that, we become as weak and vulnerable as a plant in an un-watered and un-weeded garden; and then we have very little hope of thriving.   

            Of course, we all have our excuses.  Out of pride, we would like to believe that our particular circumstances are so special that we are somehow justified in neglecting the way of Christ. The problem is that, regardless of our preferences or situation, we make ourselves spiritually weak and vulnerable whenever we do not take advantage of the opportunities we have each day to open ourselves to the presence and healing of the Lord through prayer, Bible reading, fasting, and service toward those around us.  When we put off taking Confession so long that we never take it, we rob ourselves of the spiritual benefits of humble repentance and the assurance of Christ’s forgiveness.  When we freely choose to give our attention to what inflames our passions and turns us away from holiness, we weaken ourselves spiritually and reject the strength and healing of our Lord.   Just as a lazy or inattentive gardener or farmer cannot expect a good crop, we cannot expect to flourish in the Christian life by allowing ourselves to be distracted on a regular basis from the kind of life to which Jesus Christ calls us.

            But if we follow St. Paul’s advice to become so busy with good works that we have no time or energy for foolish arguments or other pointless distractions, we will then be like the seed that landed on good soil, got proper nutrition, and produced a bumper crop.  And despite the trials and tribulations of our lives, we will know already the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven.

            That is the will of the Lord for each and every one of us, no matter how faithfully or unfaithfully we may have lived to this point in our lives.  Through His Body, the Church, Christ has revealed to us all the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, and we all have the ability to respond to our Lord’s great mercy with repentance, love, and faithfulness each day. 

            So even if we have horribly neglected our spiritual garden, even if our souls are so full of weeds that we cannot see a sprout, much less bear fruit in our present condition, we still have hope because at the heart of the mystery of the Kingdom of God is divine mercy toward sinners like you and me.  The good news is that in Christ Jesus there is always hope, there is always the promise of a new life with the blessing and peace of the Kingdom.  We may all become good seed by turning away from distractions and excuses as we do what needs to be done to serve Him faithfully with repentance, humility, and love.  As Christ said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  

Perfecting Holiness and Loving Our Enemies: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Luke and the 17th Sunday After Pentecost in the Orthodox Church

           

 2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1

    Luke 6:31-36

            If it is hard for us to live faithfully as Christians in our time and place, imagine how difficult it was for the new Gentile converts in the Greek city of Corinth.  They lived in a culture that was notoriously immoral and had themselves worshiped pagan gods before their baptism.  There was so much corruption all around them that they were surely constantly tempted to return to decadent ways of life.  The outrageous problems that St. Paul had to correct in their congregation provide evidence that many of those converts still lived in worldly, as opposed to holy, ways.  (If you ever start to think that our generation has invented new sins, just read his letters to the Corinthians and you will see that there is nothing new under the sun.)   

            He was not speaking here of cleanness according to the externals of the Jewish law, such as following kosher dietary practices.  Instead, St. Paul called the Corinthians to turn away from everything that hindered their full participation in the healing and blessing of humanity that Jesus Christ makes possible for all who share in His life.  Those who live according to their calling as God’s temple and people must abandon both the sins that we associate with the body (such as sexual immorality or gluttony) and those that we associate with the spirit (such as pride or hatred).  That is not due to some kind of legalism, but instead because all sins are incompatible with true holiness. As those created in the image and likeness of God, our calling is to become “partakers of the divine nature,” to be transformed by personal union with the Lord such that His holiness becomes truly characteristic of us.  We are to become living icons of His salvation to the depths of our being and to live out that identity in every thought, word, and deed.   

            That high calling ought to bring us all to our knees, for we all fall short of it in one way or another.  If that is not clear, all that we have to do is to pay attention to Jesus Christ’s teaching on loving our enemies.  It is fairly easy to do good to those who do good to us.  When we help someone with whom we have a good relationship, we can usually expect something positive in return.  But it is quite hard to do good to those with whom we do not have a good relationship and from whom we can realistically expect nothing positive in return.  

            We may wonder why the Lord gave us such difficult teachings to follow as those as we find in today’s gospel lesson.  Be merciful even as your Father in heaven is merciful.  Love your enemies.  Do good to everyone; lend expecting nothing in return.  Treat others as you wish to be treated.  Christ Himself tells us that this is the difficult path of true holiness.

            No matter whether we live in Corinth, Abilene, or elsewhere, we all struggle against the spiritual diseases that make it so hard to forgive, love, and serve those who have violated our pride by offending us or who will probably not respond in kind.  We have these struggles because we have turned away collectively and individually from the truth that we are made for a common life in the image and likeness of God.  We have forgotten that it is our very nature as persons to be united with one another in love as are the members of the Holy Trinity.  When St. Paul wrote of Christians as the temple and people of God, he was pointing to the fulfillment of our calling as human beings by the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and our collective life.   

            It might be fairly easy to obey a set of religious or moral laws about this or that form of outward behavior, even though personal experience teaches that we often fall short of them. It is an entirely different thing, however, to acquire such purity of heart that we love, give, and forgive as God does to the ungrateful, the selfish, and to our enemies and nuisances.  So instead of patting ourselves on the back that at least we are decent to those who love us, we should instead fall on our knees asking for mercy and strength to love those who hate, disregard, or simply ignore us.  

         Of course, it is much easier to recognize the flamboyant sins of the people of Corinth than it is to recognize how we ourselves fall short of “perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”  It is much easier to point our fingers at individuals and groups today who celebrate beliefs and behaviors contrary to the way of Christ.  Yes, we like to praise ourselves and condemn others because we want to let ourselves off the hook, perhaps by saying that at least we go to church and lead fairly decent lives.     

           Maybe that would be enough if we were part of a religion that called only for superficial decency and did not condemn self-righteous judgment, but that is not the case for Orthodox Christians.  God really does call us to become holy because we are His temple and people by the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and our collective life as Christ’s Body, the Church.  We are to be merciful, perfect, and holy like our Heavenly Father.   What is true of God by nature must become true of us by grace.  That is what it means to become “partakers of the divine nature” as we participate in the eternal life of our Lord.  

 So when we refuse to show mercy and love toward difficult, annoying, and inconvenient people from whom we expect nothing in return, we turn away from our calling to be God’s holy temple as surely as if we bowed down before an idol like the pagans of Corinth.  For when we do so, we simply serve ourselves and disregard the calling that the Lord has given us all:  to be so transformed by the mercy of our Father in heaven that we exude that same mercy to others.  For He is kind to the ungrateful and selfish and loves even those who reject Him, even those who killed His Son and the rest of us who reject Him so often in how we live.  Still, He bestows countless blessings on us all.  And through the Son whom He sent out of love for the world, He has made us His own sons and daughters.

How tragic, then, that we so often choose to make the same mistakes as the Corinthians and to live in ways that are really no different from the unholy and corrupt practices so dominant in our world.  How sad that we so often prefer death to life, pain to joy, and the hollow victory of self-exaltation to the blessedness of growing in communion with one another and with the Lord Himself.  And if we as Christians live this way, what hope is there for a world where helping our friends and cursing our enemies is just business as usual?

Jesus Christ is certainly the hope of both the Church and the world.  He is our hope because He brought a new, blessed, and saving way for human beings to relate to others and to God.  He died and rose again for those who rejected Him, who nailed Him to a cross and thought that He was demon-possessed.  He not only healed His own people the Jews, but showed the same mercy to Gentiles, Samaritans, and even a Roman centurion, a foreign soldier who occupied His homeland.  He was at times very frustrated with the disciples for their lack of faith; they largely abandoned Him at His arrest and crucifixion, but Christ still appeared to them after His resurrection and blessed them as the leaders of the Church.

Our Savior is the embodiment of mercy to everyone, for He came to save and transform the entire world and especially every human being.  Even more amazing is the truth that we are able to participate in Him, to be nourished by His Body and Blood, the medicine of immortality and holiness in Holy Mystery of the Eucharist.  And, yes, we really are able to become merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful.  By being filled and transformed by His grace, we may become living icons of the divine love and light even in our most difficult relationships.

In other words, what we do in this temple today is a crucial dimension of being His temple and people, of receiving the strength and power to turn away from all the sins that frustrate our growth in holiness and personal union with the Lord and one another.  We are enabled to become like the Father by receiving the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  And then let us live as we have received, “cleans[ing] ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and mak[ing] holiness perfect in the fear of God.”