What's at Stake in How We Treat our Neighbors: Homily for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost and the 5th Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

Ephesians 2:4-10; Luke 16:19-31

           A few days ago, seven Coptic Christians were killed in Egypt as they were going on a pilgrimage to a monastery.  A week ago, eleven Jews were killed as they worshiped in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.  Houses of worship of whatever kind are increasingly targets for violence and vandalism.  Many of the perpetrators of such terrible deeds are motivated by distorted religious beliefs that lead them to think that God wants them to hate, kill, and assault people of other faiths or ethnic identities.  Nothing, of course, could be more contrary to the way of Christ, for how we treat other people is how we treat Him.  Whether we are finding the healing of our souls through sharing in His life is shown by how we treat others, regardless of who they are or what they believe.   Each person we encounter bears His image.

Today’s gospel reading describes a man who found the meaning and purpose of life in rich food and expensive clothes.  He was so absorbed in gratifying his self-centered desires that he had become blind to the humanity of poor Lazarus, a miserable beggar who wanted only crumbs and whose only comfort was when dogs licked his open sores.  There could be no greater contrast than the difference in life circumstances between these two men.

After their deaths, their situations were reversed.  The rich man had spent his life rejecting the teachings of Moses and the prophets about the necessity of showing mercy to the poor.   As such, he had done his best to turn away from God and weaken himself spiritually.  In life, he had made himself unable to recognize even the basic humanity of Lazarus as one who bore God’s image.  Consequently, after his death he was blind to the glory of God and perceived the divine majesty as only a burning flame that tormented him. When the rich man asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them of the consequences of living such a life, the great patriarch responded, “‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

It would be hard to overstate the importance of that response.  We all have the ability to make ourselves blind to the most obvious teachings about how we are to treat our neighbors.  Since every neighbor is an icon of God, how we treat them reveals our relationship to the Lord.  Christ taught that what we do “to the least of these,” to the most wretched people, we do to Him.  If we spend our lives hating and disregarding the people around us, we will become those who hate and disregard our Lord.  That way of life is so corrupt that it will make us blind to the good news of our salvation, to our Lord’s victory over the power of sin and death in His glorious resurrection on the third day.  It is a way of shutting ourselves out of the joy of the Kingdom.

If we want examples of where that path leads, just look at those who have become so spiritually blind that they think it is good to despise and kill others in the name of God.  They are not that different from the rich man in the parable, who stepped over starving, bleeding Lazarus every day as he served only his desires for pleasure and self-indulgence.  He had lost the ability to see Lazarus as a neighbor and lived accordingly.

Terrorists and murderers may seem very different from self-centered people who ignore the needs of others, but the roots of their spiritual problems are the same.  They lie in the passions, in our slavery to the distorted desire to find meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in anything other than God.  It is impossible for us to have spiritually healthy relationships with anything in creation if we make idols out of them.   Since we are all made in the divine image and likeness, we will never find peace or satisfaction when our lives revolve around pleasure, possessions, power, revenge, or anything else but the Lord.  The more we give our lives to them, the more we will be their slaves and the more we will justify doing anything to gratify them.  The resulting spiritual blindness leads only to more blindness, more corruption, and more depravity.  When we lose the ability to see any human person as an icon of God and a neighbor in whom we are called to serve Jesus Christ, we become just like the rich man in the parable.

St. Paul taught the Ephesians that the very ground of their life was “God, Who is rich in mercy…[and] even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…”  They did not somehow earn God’s favor by doing enough good deeds by their own power, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of your own doing, it is the gift of God.”  The apostle also teaches that those who have received His grace are “created in Christ Jesus for good works…that we should walk in them.”

A life that displays the love of Christ in relation to our neighbors is not something that we achieve simply by trying to follow a rule.  Instead, it is a sign of being healed from slavery to our passions by the grace of God.  Healing comes to our corrupt souls through our Lord’s mercy, which we cannot earn and do not deserve.  The point of the Christian life is not simply to follow laws or develop virtues based on our own ability.  It is instead to be transformed personally by the gracious divine energies to the point that the boundless love of our Lord becomes characteristic of who we are as we live and breathe in this world.

If we know that we are being saved through the undeserved grace of God, despite our sins, we must manifest that same grace in relation to our neighbors, especially those we are inclined to hate, condemn, or disregard.  Jesus Christ modeled such a gracious life by ministering to the despised Samaritans and Gentiles, and even praising the faith of a Roman centurion as being superior to that of anyone in Israel.  (e.g., Lk 7:9)  When some of the disciples wanted to pray that fire would destroy a Samaritan village that had rejected them, the Lord refused and corrected them for having the wrong spirit. (Lk. 9:54-55)  He died for the salvation of those who crucified Him, and even prayed for their forgiveness from the cross.  Throughout His ministry, the Savior rejected the temptation to become the expected nationalistic ruler who would serve passions for revenge and domination against enemies and foreigners.  He refused to become a conventional worldly leader by hating and destroying people for being of a different faith and ethnicity.  He had nothing to do with the dark paths that continue to lead people to such spiritual blindness to this very day.

If we recognize the love and mercy that the Savior has extended to us, despite our past and present sins, we will understand that our lives must become icons of His love and mercy to our neighbors.  If we are not being transformed by the Lord’s grace in a fashion that leads us to serve Him in the Lazaruses of our lives, including our enemies, then we risk becoming ultimately like the rich man in the parable.  If we blind ourselves to His presence in the suffering and difficult people around us every day, then we will prefer slavery to the passions over the great victory that our Lord has achieved through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  How we treat others manifests whether we are finding the healing of our souls.   Since we have received grace, let us show grace to our neighbors, no matter who they are or what they believe.  Otherwise, we will reject the gracious Lord Who has made even “strangers and foreigners” like you and me into “fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s household.”  (Eph. 2:19)

Faith Beyond Words: Homily for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost and 7th Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 6:11-18; Luke 8:41-56

What does it mean to have faith?  What do we want from religion?  What can we hope for from God?  These are the kinds of questions that we tend to overlook because they threaten to take us out of our comfort zones.  Many people do not want to think about “the big questions” too much because they can easily make us uncomfortable and require us to change what we believe and how we live. They call us into question.

            In today’s gospel reading, the faith of Jairus and his wife was put to the ultimate test when Jesus Christ said of their daughter, “Do not fear; only believe, and she shall be well…[and]  Do not weep; for she is not dead but sleeping.”  We do not know exactly what Jairus had believed about the Lord other than that he knelt before Him and asked Him to come to his house, where his daughter was dying.  It was one thing to believe that this rabbi had the spiritual power to heal the sick, but probably something quite different to trust that He could raise the dead. 

            The gospel passage does not quote any of Jairus’ words.  It does not tell us explicitly how he and his wife responded to the Lord’s challenge to believe that she would be returned to life and health.  These events probably rocked them to the depths of their souls.  Perhaps they could not find the words to respond to what was going on in that moment.  But they had enough faith to go into their house with the One Who had promised to save their daughter if they believed and did not fear.  Even though the mourning and weeping had already begun, they offered Him the faith of which they were capable at that moment.  Their trust enabled them to receive a miracle well beyond all reasonable expectations.

            The same is true of the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years.  She had spent all her money paying physicians who could not help her. Her malady was medically incurable at that time, and also made her ritually and socially unclean.  The passage does not tell us just what she believed about Christ, but only that she reached out and touched the hem of His garment in a crowd so large that she hoped she could do so without drawing attention to herself.  She must have had some level of faith that even that small gesture would open her to receive healing through Him.  That is what happened, but when the Lord announced that someone had touched Him, she knew that her secret was out.  That is when she “came trembling, and falling down before Him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed.”  When she openly confessed what Christ had done for her, He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”      

            Both the bleeding woman and Jairus faced circumstances so dark that they could not reasonably expect to be delivered from them.  In the usual course of events, incurable chronic disease and death cannot be overcome.  That these challenges were so profound is reflected by the fact that these characters speak so little in this passage. They did not use words to state clearly what they believed about Christ.  The woman did not say anything until after she had been healed, which came through the only gesture of faith that she had the strength to make:  secretly touching the hem of the Savior’s garment.  And once she was healed, she spoke only after she had been found out.  Though Jairus had asked Christ to come to his house where his daughter was dying, our gospel passage does not record him asking for her to be raised after her death.  He and his wife probably struggled in stunned silence to believe that the Lord could fulfill such an astounding promise.

            It is often difficult, if not impossible, to put into words our deepest fears, hopes, and loves.  There are so many dimensions of life that are too profound for precise definitions.  All the more is that the case for God, the infinitely holy “I AM” Who is beyond our knowledge and control.  Orthodox theology teaches that we are completely ignorant of God’s essence, but know God as He has revealed Himself to us in His divine energies.  While we may use words to make true statements about God, genuine spiritual knowledge requires participation in His life.  That participation requires faith in the sense of opening and offering ourselves to Him from the depths of our souls. That kind of participation transforms us into “partakers of the divine nature” by grace as we become more like God in holiness. 

            In our epistle reading, Saint Paul described this fulfillment of the human person as becoming “a new creation.”  He opposed the Judaizers who wanted Gentile converts to be circumcised in obedience to the Old Testament law before becoming Christians.  As a former Pharisee and expert in Judaism, he knew that such practices do not conquer death or release people from bondage to sin.  But through His Cross, the Savior has done precisely that and made it possible for us to participate personally in His eternal life.  Not a matter of legal observance or having certain ideas or feelings about God, the healing of our souls comes through faith.  That is how we pursue the journey to become more fully human in God’s image and likeness.

            We may be tempted to think that faith is something we have already mastered, for hopefully we believe the words we say in the Nicene Creed and in the prayers and worship of the Church.   At some level, we have entrusted ourselves to Christ.    But the goal of becoming “a new creation” is not one that we may ever say we have accomplished or completed.  To become like God in holiness is an eternal, infinite journey.  It requires, as St. Paul writes, to embrace a crucifixion of oneself in relation to the world.  That means dying to the corrupting effects of sin in order to enter more fully into the new life of the risen Lord.  Not much spiritual insight is required to see that we all have a long way to go on that journey.   

            Jairus and the bleeding woman remind us by their examples that we need a faith much deeper than words, ideas, or feelings.  To become “a new creation” in Christ, we must reach out to Him as best we can for the healing of our chronic and seemingly incurable diseases of soul and body.  Even when all seems lost for us or our loved ones, we must struggle to obey the command:  “Do not fear; only believe.”

We will probably lack the works to describe how the Lord is present and what He is doing in our darkest moments.  Faith does not require complete rational comprehension; if it did, we would not call it faith.  At the end of the day, faith is about uniting ourselves to Christ in His great Self-Offering on the cross.  He did not conquer sin and death with ideas or words, but by offering up Himself purely out of love.  If we are becoming “a new creation” in Him, then our lives must be characterized by sacrificial, trusting obedience from the depths of our souls, especially when despair seems to make much more sense than hope in the world as we know it.  The clearer our spiritual vision becomes, the more we will see that faith requires something much deeper than knowing the right words or following the rules.  It requires the humble trust of those who desperately want health instead of sickness, who want life instead of death.  The Lord accepted the secret touch of the bleeding woman and the stunned obedience of Jairus.  And He will accept our faith also, if we simply do what we can to entrust our lives to Him from the depths of our souls and leave the rest in His hands.        

Mindfulness in the Garden of our Souls: Sunday of Holy Fathers of Seventh Ecumenical Council & Fourth Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

Titus 3:8-15; Luke 8:5-15

           If the Lord’s disciples had trouble grasping the meaning of the parable of the sower, we should not be surprised if we do also.  Unlike them, we do not live in an agricultural society in which people were familiar with planting seeds and growing crops.  In that time and place, there was no doubt that life itself depended on the success of raising plants to maturity.  That is still the case today, of course, but most of us are far removed from the actual production of our food. We probably have more experience with trying to keep grass alive and green during our hot and dry summers than with growing crops to eat.    As frustrating as lawn care can be, just imagine how the common people of first-century Palestine felt when they cast their seed on the dry, rocky ground.  They knew that their lives depended on at least some of those seeds taking root and growing to fruitful maturity.

Though we usually do our best to ignore it, the same matters are at stake for us in the Christian life.  Jesus Christ is the Word of God become flesh for our salvation.  As the God-Man, He has restored and fulfilled the unique glory of the human person in God’s image and likeness.  He has shared His life with us such that we may become radiant with the divine glory through personal union with Him.  The Savior was born into the same world we inhabit with all its corruptions, distractions, and sorrows.  His ministry drew large crowds at times, yet all but a handful of His closest followers had abandoned Him by the time of the crucifixion.  Christ’s preaching and healing had touched so many, but only a few remained faithful to the end, especially the women who stood at the foot of the Cross and then went to anoint His dead body on Sunday morning.  That was when they saw the stone rolled away from the tomb and heard the unbelievably good news of His resurrection. In their steadfast faithfulness, they were in a unique position to bear good fruit for the Kingdom of God.

Our challenge is to respond to Christ like those myrrh-bearing women whose obedience made it possible for them to become the first recipients of the news that the Lord had conquered death.  This is a high calling, for left to our own devices, we would remain like dry, rocky soil that grows only weeds.  Had the Savior come simply with a set of religious instructions, we would surely have misinterpreted and disobeyed them.  Even if we followed them, we would still be enslaved to death.  But since He has vanquished the grave and made us participants in His life by grace, the Lord has enabled us to flourish in His image and likeness as we become our true selves by sharing in the divine life.

Today we commemorate the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which met in Nicaea in 787.  The Council defended the practice of venerating icons, distinguishing between the worship given only to God and the honor given to images of our Lord, His Mother, and the Saints.  The honor given to the image ultimately goes to the one represented in the icon.  The Council’s decrees concern not only the use of religious imagery, but also the deepest truths of our salvation.  Apart from the mystery of the Word made flesh, there would be no icons.  For the Son of God had to become a human person with a body like ours in order to be seen and touched, in order to inhabit our world.  He had to have a real human body in order to be born, die, and leave an empty tomb after His resurrection.  His icon reminds us not only of the truth of the incarnation, but of how He has made it possible for us to fulfill our basic human calling to become like Him in holiness.

Farmers do not harvest a bumper crop by accident, for they must remain vigilant against threats of all kinds as they prepare the soil, plant the seeds, provide them water and fertilizer, and protect them from weeds, pests, and bad weather.  The same will be true for us as we seek to grow to fruitful maturity in the Christian life.  The healing of our souls will not happen by accident, but requires a daily struggle against temptation in all its forms, especially those associated with “the cares and riches and pleasures of life.”  It is so easy to direct our desire for fulfillment to anything except God.  The results of doing so for the health of our souls, however, will be as disastrous as those for a crop when farmers decide they have something better to do than to stay on guard.  Even if we initially made a good beginning, we can easily fall away, wither, and die.

In order to bear good fruit for the Kingdom, we must remain focused on sharing more fully in the life of Christ.  That is how we become better icons of Him, how we embrace the fulfillment of our humanity in God’s likeness that He has brought to the world.  Mindfulness is essential, for unless we keep a close watch on our thoughts, we will easily fall prey to distractions that turn our attention away from “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God. (Lk 10:42)  We do not want to become like those St. Paul mentioned in today’s epistle reading, inclined to fill their minds with “stupid controversies…[that] are unprofitable and futile.”  Instead of wasting their time, energy, and attention, he teaches that they should “apply themselves to good deeds, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not to be unfruitful.”

Mindfulness is simply staying focused so that we see clearly what we are thinking, desiring, saying, and doing.  It is entirely possible to live in the world with all our daily cares, but nonetheless to recognize the truth about our thoughts as we turn our attention away from those that are contrary to sharing more fully in the life of Christ.  We face the same challenge with what we say and do, but our thoughts and desires should be our most fundamental concern for they lead to our words and deeds.  As we cultivate the habit of recognizing that pride or anger, for example, is rearing its ugly head in what we think or want, we should turn our attention and energy to the Lord in a humble prayer for strength in rejecting the temptation.  Instead of being shocked or upset that we have any thought or desire, we should simply refocus on doing what we know we should be doing for the healing of our souls in the service of God and neighbor.

If we do not grow in mindfulness, we risk having unholy thoughts and desires grow like weeds in our hearts.  They can easily choke the spiritual life out of us as they lead to deeds and words that make it impossible for us to become better icons of Christ, unless we later come to our senses and turn away from them.  As with a garden, it is much better, of course, to keep a clear eye on the weeds from the beginning, mindfully doing what it takes to prevent them from becoming a serious threat.  Once they have taken over, the job is much more difficult.

Focused prayer from the heart in silence fuels mindfulness, for it is through being fully present before the Lord that we gain the spiritual vision to know the truth about ourselves.  We must turn off our media and screens, shut our mouths, and stand before Him without distraction on a daily basis. That is the first step in gaining the spiritual clarity to discern the particulars of how to become “those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.”  Mindfulness is essential for cultivating the garden of our souls for the Kingdom as we become more fully ourselves in the image and likeness of God.

Healing our Weakness Through His Strength: Homily for the 19th Sunday After Pentecost and the 3rd Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

2 Corinthians 11:31-12:9; Luke 7:11-16

          People often go to extraordinary lengths to hide their weakness from others and even from themselves.  Out of insecurity and fear, we do our best to appear before our neighbors as self-reliant and strong, even when that is very far from the truth.  Perhaps we think that, if we can fool others, we can even fool ourselves.

One of Saint Paul’s greatest virtues was his honesty about his weakness.  The risen Lord had appeared to him on the road to Damascus and enabled him to become the apostle to the Gentiles.  Paul wrote so much of the New Testament and helped the Church understand the most basic truths of the faith in times of great controversy.  Instead of glorying in his accomplishments, however, he boasted only in his weakness.  He openly acknowledged how he had previously persecuted Christ in His Body, the Church.  Indeed, Paul wrote that the Lord had mercy on him as a sign that He truly came to save sinners, of whom he was the very worst.  (1 Tim. 1: 12-16) After mentioning his mystical experiences in prayer, the apostle told the Corinthians that he was given “a thorn in the flesh” to keep him humble which the Savior would not remove.  “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”  Consequently, Paul concluded that he “will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

The strongest evidence of human weakness is surely death, the consequence of our common estrangement from God due to sin.  The widow of Nain in today’s gospel reading was all too familiar with death, for she had lost both her husband and her only son.  When Christ saw her weeping in the funeral procession, he “had compassion on her,” touched the bier on which the young man’s corpse was being carried, and commanded the dead fellow to get up.  Then the Lord returned him to his mother; she had her son back.  That certainly got the attention of the neighbors, for “Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has arisen among us!’ and ‘God has visited His people!’”

Right after this miracle, we read in Luke that followers of St. John the Baptist came to ask the Lord if He was truly the long-awaited Messiah. He responded, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.” (Luke 7:22)  Notice that the Lord showed that He was the Messiah by how He healed suffering human persons in their weakness.  Purely out of His gracious love, the Lord showed compassion by sharing with them His glorious strength, even to the point of raising people from the dead.  Through the Cross, He Himself entered into death in order to release us all from captivity to the grave through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  By sharing fully in our weakness, He has made it possible for us all to participate in the eternal blessing of His strength.

In order for us to do that, however, we must reject the lie that we are already healthy, strong, and self-sufficient.  Due to our pride, we usually find it much easier to ignore or hide from our weakness than to acknowledge it.  Most of us have many years of experience doing precisely that, even to the point that self-justification for just about everything we say, do, or think has become second nature.  We have become experts in distracting ourselves from attending to the wounds of our own souls by blaming others when we should take responsibility.  We often fill our minds and schedules with just about anything that turns our attention away from our own need for the healing mercy of Christ.

Fortunately, the Church calls every one of us to spiritual disciplines which promise to open our eyes, at least a bit, to the truth about the health of our souls.  When we offer our hearts to God in prayer daily, we acknowledge that we need the Lord’s presence and strength at all times.  We remind ourselves that each day is a blessing from God to be lived thankfully in accordance with His gracious purposes.  Our minds typically wander in prayer, which should make clear our spiritual weakness and need for greater vigilance in uniting ourselves with the Lord.    By regularly focusing our minds on the words of the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,” as we open our hearts to Him, we confess our brokenness and need for healing that we cannot give ourselves. By embracing the challenges of the daily struggle to pray, we will grow in humility.  It is simply impossible for us to recognize our spiritual weakness and receive the strength of our Lord without a settled habit of prayer.

The same is true of the practice of humbly confessing our sins.  St. Paul did not shy away from calling himself the chief of sinners, and he publicly recounted how he had earlier persecuted the Church and was unworthy to be an apostle. (1 Cor. 15:9)   In addition to acknowledging and repenting of our sins each day in prayer, we must all take advantage of the great blessing of sacramental Confession on a regular basis if we want to find healing for the weakness of souls.  At least during each of the four penitential seasons of the Church year, we should name our sins to the Lord as we stand before His icon, and then kneel as we are assured of His forgiveness through the prayers of an unworthy priest who himself also goes to Confession.  Taking Confession regularly and conscientiously fuels our humility by keeping our spiritual vision focused on our constant need for the Lord’s mercy.  As we name our sins aloud and receive assurance of forgiveness if we are truly repentant, we embrace more fully the Savior’s victory over the corrupting power of sin in our lives.  All of us spiritual weaklings need this sacrament for the healing of our souls. The less we think we need it, the more we actually do.

Even when we are not in a penitential season, the Church calls us to fast from the richest and most satisfying foods on almost all Wednesdays and Fridays.  From the first century, Christians have kept these days of fasting in commemoration, respectively, of the Lord’s betrayal and crucifixion.  Just a bit of self-denial for out taste buds and stomachs will hit most of us pretty hard and right where we live.  Our difficulty in fasting will quickly reveal our weakness in controlling our self-centered desires, including our resistance to denying ourselves even in very small ways.  Fasting is a teacher of humility which will help us see our true spiritual state more clearly.  It will also remind us that we find our true strength, life, and fulfillment in Christ, not in satisfying our bodily appetites however we please.  And by eating a simple, inexpensive diet on fast days, we will have more resources available to share with the poor and needy in whom we encounter our Lord.

The same Savior Who raised the son of the widow of Nain and who made a great saint out of “the chief of sinners” also wants to make us shine brilliantly with His grace.  The more that we offer ourselves to Him honestly in our weakness, the more that His healing strength will become effective in our lives.  Let us pray, confess, and fast as we unite ourselves to Christ for the healing of our weak souls.  That is the only way to enter in the joy of His resurrection.

Blessings Demand Self-Denial: Homily for the Conception of the Forerunner and Baptist John and the 1st Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 4:22-27; Luke 5:1-11

           It is a heavy burden for married couples not to be able to conceive and bear children.  That is true today in our society, and it was certainly the case for Jewish couples in the first century.  Zechariah and Elizabeth had waited a very long time for God to bless them with children, and they had likely given up hope at their advanced age.  When the Archangel Gabriel told the priest Zechariah, as he was serving in the Temple, that God had heard his prayer and they would have a son named John who would be a great prophet, Zechariah responded with skepticism.  He asked “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.” (Lk 1:18) Instead of remembering how God had done something quite similar for Abraham and Sarah in their conception of Isaac, Zechariah doubted.  As a result, he could not speak until the birth of his son.

When months later the pregnant Theotokos visited the pregnant Elizabeth, the older woman recognized the Savior and His Mother, exclaiming “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”  John even leaped in her “womb for joy” when they arrived.  (Lk 1: 42) After Elizabeth gave birth, “her neighbors and relatives…rejoiced with her” in response to God’s great mercy and blessing to the woman who had been barren. (Lk 1:58) When it was time to circumcise the baby on the eighth day, Zechariah wrote that the child’s name was to be John.  That was when his speech was restored and he proclaimed “You, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Lk 1:76-79)  Things had turned out very differently for Zechariah and Elizabeth than they, or anyone else, had expected.

In today’s gospel reading, Peter, James, and John had worked hard all night trying to catch fish, but they had landed none at all.  They were not even in their boats, but were instead washing their nets as they put things in order to call it quits.  And that is precisely when Jesus Christ, who had been in the boat as he taught the people who were on the shore, told Peter to do what must have seemed completely pointless: “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”  Despite his understandable doubt, Peter obeyed and caught so many fish that their nets were breaking and their boats started to sink.  That must have been quite a sight, and it was so extraordinary that Peter kneeled before Christ and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” The Savior responded, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.”  At that point, Peter, James, and John “left everything and followed Him.”

The reaction of the disciples shows that they knew Christ had blessed them for something larger than their own immediate satisfaction.  Notice that they did not simply take all those fish to market in order to make a lot of money.  They did not ask the Savior to become a partner in their business as a fishing guide.   No, they left it all behind in order to offer their lives to the Lord, even to the point of death as martyrs.

The same is true of Zechariah and Elizabeth, for the miraculous conception of their son did not occur so that they would have someone to care for them in their old age or extend their family line.  A couple of years later, Herod’s soldiers murdered Zechariah when they were trying to kill John after the birth of Christ.  Elizabeth died forty days later, and their son grew up in the wilderness as he prepared for his unique ministry of calling Israel to repentance in preparation for the ministry of the Savior.

The examples of Zechariah and Elizabeth, as well as of the fishermen, remind us of the importance of persistent faith and obedience.  All had seemed lost both to an elderly couple without children and to professional fishermen who knew that even their best labors had failed.  It made perfect sense for Zechariah and Elizabeth to despair of ever having children.  It was entirely understandable why Peter, James, and John had gotten out of their boats and begun to wash their nets.  Likewise, it is not at all surprising when we despair of ever finding healing from habitual sins that have held us captive for years, perhaps as long as we can remember.  It may seem only reasonable to think that our broken relationships will never be healed or that we will never have the strength to respond to the persistent challenges of our lives in ways that bless others and bring peace to our own souls.  It may seem entirely rational to give up and accept our spiritual barrenness as simply the way life is.

To do so, however, would be to abandon our Lord, Who against all experience and knowledge of how the world works, rose from the dead after three days.  It would be to step outside the blessed story of how God has brought salvation through an unlikely cast of characters that includes elderly, infertile couples and rough fishermen.  They did not have perfect faith, for Zechariah doubted the message of the Archangel and the disciples misunderstood the Savior until He opened their eyes after His resurrection.  But despite their clouded spiritual vision, they stumbled along with the obedience of which they were capable.  After decades of frustration, the elderly couple offered themselves to receive the blessing of a child. After a long night of empty nets, Peter and his partners let them down one more time into water which they could not imagine contained any fish.  Against all odds and contrary to everything they had learned to expect in the world as they knew it, these people had the surprises of their lives when they opened themselves to receive the Lord’s blessings through persistent obedience.

The conception of John the Baptist and the miraculous catch of fish were not instances of people trying to use God to make them happy on their own terms.  Zechariah and Elizabeth died when their son was quite young, and John the Baptist was killed for fulfilling his prophetic ministry.  Christ used the great catch of fish to call Peter, James, and John to abandon their nets and follow Him as “fishers of men” in drawing others to the salvation of the Kingdom. Their great blessings were also callings that required profound self-denial.

We must learn from their holy examples that the same is true of our lives.  God does not bless us in order to make us happy on our own terms, but in ways that require obedience for the healing of our souls.  We should all count and give thanks for our blessings every day, even as we prayerfully discern how to use them to fulfill the Lord’s purposes for the salvation of the world.  That will require the persistent faith and obedience of those who know that our lives are about something far more profound than satisfying our self-centered desires.  It will require a refusal to give up when all appears to be lost and we can see no sign that anything will come from casting out our nets just one more time.  It will require the humility to see that the story of our lives is not all about us, but about what our Lord is doing through those who lack the ability to save themselves.  There is no other way to open our souls to the blessing of the One Who alone can turn our barrenness into abundance and fill our empty nets to the point of breaking as He draws us into the new life of the Kingdom.

The Struggle to Take Up the Cross: Homily for the Sunday After the Exaltation of the Cross in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 2:16-20; Mark 8:34-9:1

          In some ways, people today are too familiar with the image of the cross.  Some wear it as just another a piece of jewelry or otherwise use it to symbolize values or organizations that have nothing to do with the cross through which our Lord conquered death.  Unfortunately, those who confess its true spiritual significance can easily rest content with beliefs about the cross without actually obeying the clear instructions of our Lord that we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him. Celebrating the Exaltation of the Cross with integrity requires that we confess truthfully with St. Paul:  “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.”

The Lord’s Self-Offering on the Cross for the salvation of the world is unique and all encompassing.  As we chant when we especially celebrate the cross, “Before Thy Cross, we bow down and worship…”  We must not respond passively to the cross, however, as though all the work has already been done in a way that requires nothing of us.  For the only way to share in the Savior’s life is to enter personally into the deep mystery of His sacrifice.  He offered Himself fully and in free obedience to the point of death, burial, and descent into Hades in order to conquer the corruption to which we had enslaved ourselves.   In order to embrace the liberation and healing of our Crucified and Risen Lord, we must die to all that holds us back from embodying the fullness of His great victory.  That means offering ourselves without reservation for union with Christ in holiness as we become “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.

In the world as we know it, doing so requires a perpetual struggle of the soul.  The fight is not against other people and certainly not against God.  Instead, it is a battle with ourselves because we have all accepted the lie that true fulfillment comes from our own will being done.  In one way or another, we have all come to identify with our self-centered desires such that we think we could not exist without gratifying them.  Consequently, to put the demands of loving God and neighbor first in life requires us to deny ourselves and to abandon our well-settled habit of living in the service of our passions. We must all be “crucified with Christ” in the sense of dying to the corruptions that keep us from sharing in the Savior’s restoration and healing of the human person in the divine image and likeness.

The Lord’s command to take up our crosses, deny ourselves, and lose our lives has nothing to do with appeasing an angry Father by our suffering.  It is not concerned with the pointless task of trying to earn forgiveness by paying a debt or meeting a legal obligation.  Instead, it is about doing what is necessary to find healing.  In order to regain physical health, we may have to do some painful and difficult things at times, like having surgery, going to physical therapy, or changing our diet.  Those are not punishments, but simply what is necessary for us to regain our health in light of our particular physical condition.  If we want to get better, we will put aside our preferences and accept the inconvenience.

The same thing is true for us spiritually.  Offering ourselves to the Lord for the healing of our souls in whatever circumstances we face is how we take up our crosses.  From the origins of the Church to this very day, that has meant literal martyrdom for those who refuse to deny Christ when the powerful of this world kill them as a result.  For all who unite themselves to Christ, there must be some form of martyrdom as we die to self-centeredness by putting faithfulness to the Lord and service to our neighbors before satisfying our own desires.  If we do not take up our crosses in the challenges that we face daily, whatever they may be, then we show that we are ashamed of Christ and of His Cross.  We show that we want no part of Him and prefer to gratify our own desires instead of offering ourselves for the service of His Kingdom.

Like Peter before He denied the Savior three times, we may well believe that we would never do such a thing.  Like Peter, however, we may have such a poor understanding of the Messiah we serve that we will be unprepared when our eyes are opened to the truth.  Today’s gospel passage comes right after Peter tried to correct the Savior when He predicted His death and resurrection. The Lord said to him in response, “Get behind me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”   Peter had likely envisioned the Messiah as a successful military leader who would defeat the Romans and give the Jews a powerful earthly kingdom.  The idea of following someone like that appealed to his pride, for being the chief disciple of the new King David would bring riches, power, and glory.

When the Savior made clear that the religious leaders of Israel would reject Him, that He would be killed, and that He would rise from the dead, Peter was horrified to the point that he tried to set Christ straight.  That is when the Lord said in no uncertain terms that to reject the cross was the way of the devil, the way of completely rejecting His ministry for the salvation of the world.  Remember that Satan had tempted Christ in the desert by promising Him worldly power if He worshiped him.  Now Peter provided the same temptation.  That is when Christ told the disciples that they would have no part in Him if they did not also take up their crosses. In this light, it is not surprising that Peter later denied He knew the Lord three times after His arrest and abandoned Him at His crucifixion.  At that time, he and the other disciples were ashamed of a Messiah Who died on a cross.

Likewise, we show that we are ashamed of our Lord when we refuse to take up our crosses.  Our lives are filled with opportunities to turn away from prideful self-centeredness as we put the needs of those around us before ourselves.  Instead of indulging in gluttony, greed, hatred, envy, or other passions, we must redirect the energy of our souls to blessing our neighbors.  Remember that the Lord did not go to the cross for His own benefit, but for ours.  We will offer ourselves more fully to Him as we offer ourselves to serve those in whom He is present to us each day. If we do not, we will show that we are ashamed of our Lord.

The same is true whenever we refuse to keep a close watch on our hearts.  The ancient idols of sex, money, and power are worshiped openly in our culture, and we must be ready to embrace the cross of rejecting their powerful temptations.  Today reserving sexual intimacy for the union of husband and wife in marriage is widely considered archaic and oppressive.   Pornography is easily available and generally accepted, even though it is poisonous in so many ways.   Money and what it can buy often become the measure of our lives, regardless of what we say we believe.  Many people today seem to take pride in hating those with whom they disagree about politics and in self-righteously and hypocritically condemning them.  Nothing could be more contrary to denying ourselves and taking up our crosses than to embrace such temptations in our hearts.  Nothing could be more deadly to our souls.

Thankfully, there was hope for Peter and there is hope for us also through our Lord’s great victory over sin and death on His Cross.  Let us celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross by showing that we are not ashamed of His Self-Offering for our salvation.  No matter the circumstances of our lives, let us deny ourselves as we embrace the crosses of our lives.  That is how we may all enter into the joy of the Kingdom.

A New Creation Through the Cross: Homily for the After-Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos and the Sunday Before the Elevation of the Cross in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17

       

Our worst arguments are often with the people closest to us, especially members of our own family.  Perhaps the more we have in common with others, the easier it is to disagree about how things should be done and about what is really most important.  That is true not only in our families and marriages, but also when it comes to religion.

            In today’s epistle reading, St. Paul argues against fellow Christians of Jewish heritage who thought that Gentile converts had to be circumcised in obedience to the Old Testament law before becoming Christians.  He rejected that practice because those who put on Christ in baptism become “a new creation” through faith in the One Who fulfilled the law through His Cross.  By conquering death, the wages of sin, through His resurrection, the Savior has made it possible for all people to participate in His salvation.  As He said to Nicodemus in today’s gospel reading, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” 

            Even as we look ahead to the Elevation of the Holy Cross this coming week, we continue to celebrate today the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, remembering especially her parents, Sts. Joachim and Anna.  These commemorations remind us that the God-Man Who vanquished Hades for our salvation had a human ancestry, which was necessary for Him to be both a human person and the particular human person in Whom all the promises to Abraham were fulfilled.  His grandparents Joachim and Anna were not like the people Paul opposed in his letter to the Galatians, for their role in the coming of the Messiah was not based on what they had achieved by their own ability to obey a law.  Instead, it was the complete opposite, for they lacked the ability to conceive and bear children, which was understood as a requirement for fulfilling their role in the ongoing life of the Hebrew people.  As a childless couple, they despaired of their place among the righteous of Israel.

            In their weakness and pain, however, God heard their prayer and miraculously blessed them in old age with a daughter, whom they offered to the Lord by taking her to live in the Temple as a three-year old. That is where she grew up in purity and prayer as she prepared to become the Living Temple of the Lord, the Theotokos who would contain the Son of God in her womb as His Virgin Mother.  Joachim and Anna had not relied on their natural ability to conceive children, for they were old and barren.  Instead, they trusted in the Lord’s mercy to bless them as He had blessed Abraham and Sarah. And He not only blessed them in that way, but with a daughter who would give birth to the Messiah in Whom the ancient promises to the Jews would be fulfilled and extended to all with faith in Him.

            Of course, even the strictest obedience to the Old Testament law could not conquer death.  The cycle of birth and the grave had reigned ever since the corruption of our first parents.  The “wages of sin is death,” and the law was powerless to fulfill our calling to become like God in holiness as "partakers of the divine nature." The path out of slavery to corruption was not in the human ability to obey rules and regulations to some extent; instead, it is found in the merciful love of God Who blessed an elderly, righteous Jewish couple to have a daughter named Mary.   She, in turn, would become the recipient of a unique and unbelievably gracious blessing as the Virgin Mother of the God-Man, the Second Adam, Who would set right and fulfill all that the first Adam had gotten wrong.  The Theotokos is the New Eve through whom Life came into the world.  Her birth is already a foreshadowing sign of our salvation.  

            In the Savior’s conversation with Nicodemus, who was at that time a legalistic Pharisee, He did not speak merely of obedience to a law that could make people more religious or moral.  No, He spoke of life, saying “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  The reference here is to an event described in Numbers 21:8-9, when the Hebrews were saved from deadly snake bites when they looked at the bronze snake held up by Moses in the desert.  Christ does not focus in this passage on Moses as the one through whom the Ten Commandments were given.  Instead of portraying him in terms of the law, He describes him as foreshadowing His victory over death through being lifted up on the Cross. Of course, the Savior’s Passion does not save people merely from poisonous snake bites on a certain day, but enables us to share in the eternal life of the Kingdom of God for which He created us in His image and likeness.

            To unite ourselves to Christ by faith also has a connection to the Cross.  St. Paul wrote, “far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”  Truly to believe in Jesus Christ is not merely to have ideas or feelings about Him, but to be united to Him in holiness, to participate personally in the salvation that He has brought to the world.  In order to do so, we must take up our crosses as we die to whatever holds us back from offering ourselves to Him in humble obedience.

Joachim and Anna certainly bore their cross of the pain and embarrassment of childlessness.  When they were miraculously blessed in the conception and birth of Mary, they offered her to grow up in the Temple.  After decades of disappointment, they knew that God’s blessing was not their private possession, but for them to offer back to Him for the accomplishment of something much larger than their own personal happiness. They surely bore a cross in leaving their young daughter in the Temple, and years later she obeyed the strange message of the archangel in agreeing to become the Virgin Mother of the Son of God.  As St. Symeon declared to the Theotokos at her Son’s presentation in the Temple, “a sword will pierce your own soul also.”  (Luke 2:35)  Her cross was to see Him die on His after being rejected by the leaders of His own people.

            As members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we are quite fortunate to be in a position to reap the blessings of the faithful obedience of Joachim and Anna and of their daughter the Theotokos. We have become “a new creation” in the Lord Who releases us from the spiritual barrenness of bondage to sin and death that had enslaved humanity since the corruption of Adam and Eve.  Through His Cross and glorious resurrection, He has brought life to our world of death in a way that obedience to the law could never have accomplished.

It is only by taking up our crosses that we may unite ourselves to His.  It is only by dying to the old ways of death that we may live faithfully as His “new creation.”  “For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”  Let us celebrate the birth of the Theotokos as a foreshadowing sign that His gracious mercy extends to all who, like her and her parents, offer their lives to Him in humble faith.  That is how we may participate personally in His great victory over sin and death for our salvation.