Homily for All Saints

     It happens fairly often.  Friends or students tell me that they their churches have taught them that God is someone of whom they should be afraid because of the Lord’s wrath and anger toward sinners.   Instead of the receiving the Good News of Christ’s mercy and love, they have heard only the bad news of judgment and condemnation.  So they are usually pleasantly surprised to hear the Orthodox view of salvation as sharing in God’s life, love, and glory, of being united with the Holy Trinity, of theosis.   They are relieved to know that God really does love us so much that He wants to bring us into His eternal life.

           Last Sunday was the feast of Pentecost, when we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Church.  The Spirit has been poured out richly upon all in the Body of Christ, which shows that God wants to dwell in the hearts and souls of human beings, that He wants to make us partakers of the divine nature by grace.

Today is the Sunday of All Saints, when we remember all of those who have been filled with the Holy Spirit, who have accepted and been transformed by our Lord and His love.  The root meaning of the world “saint” is holy, and we are reminded today that most saints haven’t been officially given a title by the church or had their pictures painted on icons.  But they are known by God and glorified in the Kingdom because in ways, perhaps known only to God, they entered into His holiness, they embraced His love and became beacons of light in our world.

But what does that have to do with you and me, who probably can’t imagine ourselves as saints?  Well, the good news of the gospel is that we are all called to become holy, yes, actually to become saints. No matter who we are, what mistakes we have made in our lives, no matter what our circumstances are in terms of health, age, education, money, or anything else, we are all able to find the healing and fulfillment that the saints have known.  We too are able to enter into the holiness of God, to receive and be changed by His love.   He wants nothing more than to make our lives shine with the glory of His Kingdom, right now and throughout all eternity. Of course, it’s a journey, a process for all of us to become holy.  It takes patience, persistence, humility, and a refusal to give up.  Today’s gospel reading gives us some pointers on how to continue on this path to the Kingdom, how to open our hearts and souls as fully as possible to our Lord’s holiness.

 First, Jesus Christ said that He will confess us to His Father in heaven if we confess Him before other people.  But if we don’t, He won’t claim us before the Father.  In some ways, we have it easy in America.  It’s very unlikely that we will be called to confess our faith before a judge or government official who threatens to torture and kill us if we profess faith in Jesus Christ.  But if we want to unite our lives to Christ, we must confess Him every day in word and deed in the small details of our lives. 

Do we treat other people with the love, care, and the dignity that we would show to the Lord Himself?  Do we speak to others in ways that are blessings to them, that help them experience peace and joy?  Don’t think only of your friends or those whom you admire.  What about people who don’t like you, who have wronged you in some way, whom you find it easy to judge and disregard, whom you just don’t like?   The real test is how we treat them.  We confess our faith when we live our faith.   If we don’t act or talk like Christians, we deny Christ.  We give the impression that we want no part of Him, we turn away from Him and judge ourselves.  That’s not the way of the saints, however, and it must not be our way of living if we want to share in His life.

A second pointer that our gospel text gives us sounds really harsh.  Christ tells us that we shouldn’t love family members more than we love Him.  Instead, we have to take up our cross and follow Him.  In order to understand this hard saying, we have to remember that our Lord went to the cross for us;  He bore the consequences of all human sinfulness and corruption to the point of death, burial, and hades  so that He could conquer  them and bring us into eternal life through His resurrection.   That is the ultimate act of love.  If we want to share in the new life that He has brought to the world, we have to keep our blessings in perspective and not make idols of them.   Instead, we must offer them to Father even as the Son offered Himself up on the cross.

We have to bear the cross of sacrificing the idolatry even of our spouses, children, parents, and other loved ones.  For like us, they are simply human beings and not God.  And if we make false gods of them, we will cause them and us many problems by acting as though they are the center of the universe.  We will bend them and ourselves all out of shape, putting more weight on them and us than anyone can bear.  Instead, we must take up the cross of loving others in God, for He is the source and standard of all love worthy of the name.  Out of love, the Father gave the Son for the salvation of the world.  That is sacrifice beyond what we can understand.  And if we share in that love, we must sacrifice the ultimately self-centered illusion that we will find or give other people true fulfillment and happiness apart from Him.   And if we put ourselves or others before faithfulness to the Lord, we end up confessing some false God rather than Jesus Christ.  That’s not the way of the saints, and it must not be our way if we want to open our lives to His glory.

If we really love others in God, we will offer our relationships with them to the Lord as best we can; and by His mercy, they will become holy.  That’s what’s best for them and for us; it works both ways.  For example, parents shouldn’t live through their children or use them to meet their own goals, but instead guide them to become their true selves to the glory of God.  Neither should we indulge our kids as though they are little gods, but we must do everything possible to help them grow into the full stature of Christ, to be those who love God with every ounce of their being and their neighbors as themselves.  We offer our children to the Lord by how we rear them, how we treat them, how we speak to them, all toward the end that we and they will put God first in our lives.    

The same is true of marriage.  If we have an unrealistic romantic or financial or social ideal about marriage--and think that a spouse will meet all our needs and bring us complete fulfillment in life, we will miss the true calling of husband and wife to make their life together an icon, a living image of the Kingdom of God.  Mutual forgiveness, patience, self-sacrifice, self-control, and steadfast commitment are the signs of a holy marriage.  Faithful spouses pray for and with one another.  Faithful parents do the same with their children.  When families pray and worship and serve God together in His church, they make of their life together an offering to the Lord.  They confess Jesus Christ to one another and the world.  They open their lives to the holiness of God and follow in the way of the saints.

Yes, this kind of family life is a cross to bear; it’s not easy and we very often fall short of it.  Unfortunately, there is not much in our culture today that supports this view of marriage and the family.  We face the same struggles in fulfilling our calling to confess Jesus as Lord with integrity each day in all that we say and do.  But these are the crosses that will make us holy, which little by little will purify our souls and open our lives to the healing grace of God.

 Fortunately, we don’t become holy simply by our own power; if that were the case, we would have no hope for we know how weak we are.  Instead, we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit with the strength given us by the boundless love of Christ, Who conquered sin and death through His cross and empty tomb.  Together with all the saints, we will know His holiness and joy if we take up our cross, offer our lives and loved ones to Him, and confess Him in what we say and do each day.

No, this isn’t dramatic or flamboyant and we will sometimes wonder if we are making any progress at all; but it’s the way that ordinary people like you and me become saints.  We fall down and we get up.  We fall down and we get up.  But whatever you do, don’t give up.  Don’t despair.  Through prayer, fasting, and repentance, continue to open your life to the healing power of the Holy Spirit and grow step by step in the holiness and love of God.  That’s the only way to participate in the holiness and salvation of our Lord.   

     

Homily for Pentecost

                

        Here's my homily for Pentecost, which was a week ago on the Orthodox calendar for 2012: 

        Today is the Sunday of Pentecost, when we commemorate the Holy Spirit coming upon the followers of the Risen Jesus, which is the birthday of the Church.  The Lord had already ascended into heaven and had promised to send the Holy Spirit upon His followers.  He would not leave them alone, cut off from the new life that He had brought to the world.  The Spirit is, of course, the third Person of the Holy Trinity and fully God and eternal as are the Father and the Son.  By the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ followers share together in the unity, power, and blessing of the Kingdom. 

          Now the disciples no longer think of themselves as followers and students of a rabbi or prophet.  They no longer struggle to accept the good news of His resurrection.  Instead, they experience the new life of the Kingdom as “rivers of living water” flowing from their hearts.  By the Spirit, they participate by grace in the life of the Holy Trinity.  God is not remote, distant, or removed from them; but present in their souls. 

          The story of Pentecost makes clear that the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles as a group who were gathered together in obedience to the Lord’s command.  The same divine breath which first gave life to humanity now comes upon them as a mighty wind.  The divine glory beheld by Moses in the burning bush now rests upon each of them as flames a fire.   The divided speech of the tower of Babel is now overcome by the miracle of speaking in different languages so that everyone can hear the praise of the Lord.  For Pentecost is not about the spiritual experiences of a select few, but about the fulfillment of God’s promises to the entire world.

          We are all created in the image of God with the calling to grow in His likeness, to become like Him.  But we have not done our best not become like Him; and even if we had, it is no small thing to become like God, holy and righteous and immortal.  We simply cannot conquer death and sin by our own power.  Only God is God, and our only hope is to share by grace in His eternal life.  And this participation in the divine life is made possible to us at Pentecost.  It does not matter what language we speak, the nation to which we belong, the color of our skin, our gender, our abilities and skills, our occupation, education, or resources.  What matters is that God’s Spirit has been poured out on the whole world and on every generation.

          At Pentecost, we are raised to the dignity of members of Christ’s Body.  With the Holy Spirit in our hearts, linking us together organically as one, our fallen, divided humanity is restored.  Just as Father, Son, and Spirit share a common life of love, unity, and holiness, we share a common life in Christ’s Body, the Church.   As particular people, we have the responsibility to believe, repent, and obey the Lord as we participate in the ministries of the Church.   As members of Christ’s Body, we are nurtured by worship, the sacraments, and spiritual instruction in our common life.   The holy Tradition of the Church is the presence of the Holy Spirit, guiding the Body into ever greater knowledge of and participation in the life of the Holy Trinity.

          For we receive the Holy Spirit not as isolated individuals, but as persons in communion, in loving relationship with God and with one another in the Church.  So let us celebrate Pentecost by opening our lives as fully as possible to the healing, transforming power of the Spirit both in the privacy of our thoughts and deeds and in our shared life in the Body.  No, the world does not revolve around us as isolated individuals:  such isolation and division are nothing but symptoms of sin.  But the life of the world has come at Pentecost and we are called to take our place in the new reality born on this day, the Church, the Body of Christ, in which all the divisions and corruptions of humanity since Adam and Eve are healed.  As particular people who are members of one another in Christ, let us open ourselves as completely as possible to the Holy Spirit, for it is through Him—and one another-- that we share in eternal life.             

Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage, and Sex

http://www.light-n-life.com/shopping/order_product.asp?ProductNum=TOWA100

This book from 2004 places Orthodox teaching on marriage, family, and sex in light of the centrality of the Eucharist to our faith.  It includes a discussion of same-sex marriage and speaks to other contemporary debates as well. 

The Orthodox Church celebrates the great feast of Pentecost today.  This link to the website of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America is a good source of information about the feast, which is profoundly important in the theology and spiritual life of the Christian East:  http://www.antiochian.org/pentecost.

Orthodoxy and Presidential Politics

              “Our President, civil authorities, and armed forces, the Lord God remember in His Kingdom, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.”  No matter who is president , what party controls what offices, or how American troops are being deployed at the moment, we pray this petition in the Great Entrance.  We praying for their salvation and for the Lord’s will to be accomplished for and through them.  My Romanian friends remind me that they prayed the same petitions for decades for the Communist head of state.  Even during the early Roman persecutions, the Christians prayed for the emperor.   The Scriptures instruct us to do so.

                As we settle in for another presidential election, it’s important to remember that there is not a one-to-one correspondence between any political ideology and the Kingdom of God.  The history of Orthodoxy includes many different arrangements of politics and religion, and the Church has somehow survived them all.  Political regimes have come and gone, but the Body of Christ lives on.  Some Byzantine emperors became saints and others became heretics.  Some Orthodox rulers, such as Czar Nicholas II, manifested their holiness through the consequences of political failure—at least in worldly terms-- to the point of martyrdom.  Periods of persecution and of peace for the Church have both produced saints.

Orthodoxy is relatively new both to the American scene and to the challenges posed by western democracy.  Our Church is not a partisan political party, and I doubt that American politicians spend much time worrying about how the Orthodox bloc will vote due to our small numbers in most parts of the US.  Nonetheless, it is a good thing for our members to vote according to their consciences for the candidates whose positions best reflect an Orthodox vision of society.  What an Orthodox vision of society is in a western democracy has not been clearly defined, however.  People with identical moral and spiritual values may well at times choose different candidates because of prudential judgments about what policies will be most effective in achieving certain goals.  Politics remains the art of the possible, and it’s apparently impossible to avoid at least some shades of grey.

It’s important to keep that note of realism in mind because human beings often fall prey to the temptation to absolutize the relative, to worship false gods,  to claim more for our feeble schemes than we really should.  Just listen to any impassioned political speech and you’ll hear virtually apocalyptic language about how the world will end if the opposing side wins.  Likewise, the happy narrative of America will flourish if one’s own side wins.  The old heresy of Manichaeism lurks behind such rhetoric about a dualistic struggle between Good and Evil, capital G and capital E, in the choice between two invariably flawed and ambiguous political parties. 

The danger is that we will waste our energy on false messiahs, looking for our salvation in passing schemes for transforming our corrupt world into a realm of perfection.   The odd thing is that many people speak of American politics in such terms, regardless of their party affiliation or political ideology.  They do actually seem to think that the salvation of the world rests on the question of who is in power at any given moment.

 Yes, the United States is the one remaining super power of the world with the strongest military in human history.  The policies that guide our government will certainly impact the world well beyond our borders.  It is perfectly legitimate for citizens to debate which vision of American foreign policy best serves our national interests and reflects the values of our faith.   The same is true for a variety of domestic issues, ranging from the economy to the environment , health care, the family and marriage, religious liberty, capital punishment, and abortion.

But there is a difference between that kind of dialogue and overblown rhetoric about the political decisions of a fallen world amounting to a choice between God and Satan.  The Lord Himself rejected the option of a worldly messianic reign.  We do not live in Byzantium, the Czar’s Russia, or even in a nation with a large number of Orthodox:  no political arrangement has yet ushered in the eschaton.   So I’m certainly not looking for a politician or party to save us in November:   Jesus Christ is in charge of that. But I will pray for “Our President, civil authorities, and armed forces, that the Lord God will remember them in His Kingdom, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.”   No matter who is in power, they need our prayers and our Lord’s mercy and salvation.  Any political ideology that obscures that truth is definitely not Orthodox.  For our salvation is not in earthly princes and their apologists, but in the Lord who reigns from a cross and an empty tomb and Whose Kingdom is not of this world.        

Male and Female in God's Image

            It’s unfortunate when we become so focused on the symptoms of a problem that we ignore its underlying causes.  Some Christian rhetoric on same-sex marriage has done precisely that and has failed as a result to transcend the dynamics of conventional partisan politics.   Instead of illuminating the unique glory of the life-giving union of husband and wife as an icon of the Holy Trinity and of the  salvation of the world, the defenders of traditional marriage often merely skim the surface of public morality.  The fundamental problem isn’t that increasing numbers of Americans approve of same-sex marriage; it’s that many Christians and others have forgotten the holiness and unique vocation of the man-woman relationship.  Once we lose that key link, the possibility of thinking coherently—and faithfully-- about human sexuality is gone. 

In order to speak with integrity on marriage and family issues, we need first to take a sober look at the failure of the churches to equip our members to embody chastity and sexual purity, and thus to be a witness of holiness in stark contrast to the moral corruption so pervasive in our culture and world.   Especially since the dawn of the sexual revolution, Christians have too often turned a blind eye to promiscuity, pre-marital sex, serial divorce and remarriage, and a hedonistic culture that excuses all things in the name of an individual’s pleasure and self-defined happiness.   No wonder so many Americans seem to dismiss opposition to same-sex marriage as self-righteous hypocrisy and arbitrary discrimination.  Those who tolerate—and at times even seem to condone—sex and cohabitation for unmarried men and women have little standing to criticize the prospect of legal sanction for gay unions.  If there is no visible difference between how Christians and others handle these crucial life-shaping matters, why should anyone take seriously what we have to say?  If we do not call heterosexuals to holiness, why all the bother about the much smaller population of homosexuals?

                Likewise, we misdirect our energies when we speak of civil marriage in contemporary America as though it were identical to Christian marriage.   Something accomplished before a justice of the peace and recorded at the court house impacts taxes, inheritance, and other legal matters, but cannot turn water into wine as a sign of the Kingdom of God.  Holy matrimony does not simply grant civil sanction to the broken union of Adam and Eve, but heals and blesses their common life as a sign of the relationship between Christ and the Church.  It is a calling, not a right, for anyone. Man and woman wear the crowns of the Kingdom as their love for one another finds its true fulfillment in the Lord.  God created us male and female in the divine image and likeness, giving opposite-sex couples the unique ability to bring forth new life from their own bodies out of love for one another.   Through this blessed union, parents and children become an image of the Holy Trinity, sharing a union of love that binds them together and enables them to learn to love Christ in one another.  By the restoration of the primal unity of male and female in God, Christian marriage becomes a sign of the salvation not merely of two individuals, but of all humanity and of the creation itself.  Perhaps that is why our Savior so often used the image of a wedding feast for the Kingdom of God.    

                Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes that man and woman are not interchangeable bundles of individual rights; instead, the two sexes play complementary roles in our common salvation.  Jesus Christ and the Theotokos, the apostles and the myrrh bearing women, St. Macrina with her brothers Sts. Basil and Gregory, and so many other examples from Scripture, hymnody, icons, and the saints demonstrate the abiding mystery of the male-female distinction and relationship in our pursuit of theosis.  The same God who creates us as male and female saves us in relationship to one another.  Instead of abandoning biological distinctions as though our bodies were irrelevant and the two sexes identical, we look to the Lord, His Mother, and ongoing generations of holy men and women to teach us how to live faithfully in relation to one another as male and female.  We deal here with a great mystery, as the Logos who spoke the world into existence also made us man and woman in the divine image.  The male Son rose from the dead and ascended into heaven; and the female Mother who bore Him followed into the Kingdom at her Dormition.   Even in the world to come, the distinction of man and woman will remain.     

No, God does not call everyone to marriage, not even all heterosexuals.  Yes, He invites everyone to holiness; preserving sexual intimacy for the blessed state of marriage between a man and a woman is part of that calling, as the Church has taught consistently for two thousand years.    Nonetheless, holy people have—and continue to—struggle with temptations of all kinds.  Through fasting and other forms of self-denial, nourishment by the Holy Mysteries of the Church, participation in healthy friendships and communities, and sincere confession and repentance when we stumble, all of us-- regardless of sexual inclinations—find strength and healing to press forward to the high calling that is ours in Christ Jesus.  The nature of one’s particular temptations is irrelevant; the point is to turn away from them and live faithfully. 

Christian witness on these matters faces serious cultural challenges today.  One hears that the growing support for same-sex marriage reflects positive portraits of homosexuals on both the small and the large screen, as well as the experience of knowing friends and family members who are gay.  Straight people are apparently marrying at declining rates, while many gay couples enthusiastically seek legal recognition of their unions.   Some people seem to be more impressed by the commitment of same-sex partners to one another than by that of the married couples they know.   Appeals to the equal rights of individuals to the benefits of marriage, however defined, clinch the argument for many.

 Until very recently, of course, no culture or world religion recognized same-sex relationships as holy, or even legal, matrimony. From the perspective of Orthodox Christianity the revisionist claims distort the truth about what it means to be man and a woman in God’s image and likeness.  They endorse sexual expression apart from the loving, covenanted unity of male-female difference that alone is blessed to bring forth new life.  They respond to the desires of individuals in terms of the categories of the corrupt world, not of the struggle of disciplining oneself in order to respond more fully to the divine eros.  Though Christian and civil marriage are not identical, Orthodoxy will not embrace society’s official redefinition of the fundamental nature of marriage contrary to what God has established from the origins of the human race.  The Church cannot bless same-sex unions as marriages, for that is not what they are.  Sacraments restore persons and their relationships according to God’s original intention for us to be like Him; and He created us male and female in His image toward the end of our salvation.         

Contrary to popular assumptions, this stance on marriage does not entail that we should condemn, judge, or shun people who are in intimate relationships with members of the same sex.  Orthodox priests concern themselves only with the sexual and other sins named in confession or with the very rare scandalous situation that has to be addressed in the parish.   And confession is not about condemnation, but forgiveness, healing, and growth, regardless of the sin confessed.  Like the rest of us, those who struggle with same-sex attraction need guidance and support throughout their lives as they progress in holiness.  Yes, all really are called to enter into the holiness of God, to become saints. A Church that honors King David, Photini, Moses the Black, and Mary of Egypt can ask no less.   Like the Samaritan woman, all who suffer disordered sexual passions are more likely to respond to genuine expressions of compassion and respect that point them toward the living water that satisfies at a level deeper than physical desire.  Yes, the Church must speak the truth about sexuality, but also about pride, self-righteous judgment, hatred, and gossip.  And given the Lord’s definition of adultery in the Sermon on the Mount, none of us is in the position to look down upon others for sexual sin.  After all, who doesn’t have disordered desires?  And the vast majority of sexual sin is surely between people of opposite sex.  We must be very careful with our words.

In our current cultural context, the witness of true Christian marriage simply must become visible, vibrant, and robust, if it is to be taken seriously by mainstream culture.   All the more is our need to be vigilant in our parishes and families, in our friendships and neighborhoods and schools, in our choices of entertainment and attire, to form ourselves in chastity both in our bodily actions and the thoughts of our hearts.  Of course, we never do that alone, but in communion with the Church and with the support of fellow strugglers who want to participate more fully in the divine nature.

The early Christians impressed even the pagan Romans with their care for the dying and their rescue of exposed infants.  It’s time for the current generation of Christians to impress our society with the chaste love of man and woman as a sign of God’s covenantal fidelity in Jesus Christ.   There is no better response to the challenges posed by the ongoing sexual revolution than the living icon of Christian marriage—of Adam and Eve healed and blessed as they wear the crowns of the Kingdom and bring new persons into the world out of their love for one another.  That’s how God intends life to go on in His good creation.   It’s precisely the differences between male and female that make the union of marriage life-giving, complementary, and a path to salvation.   True marriage manifests the healing of our humanity in the image of God as man and woman.  Our challenge is not only to say words about marriage, but to live them out in ways that draw others to Christ and His Church.  That’s the most fundamental political action of the Christian community:  to embody a life that conquers death, that heals our broken, corrupt humanity—body and soul, male and female.   If we do that, we will address not just the symptoms of the moral decay of our society, but also its underlying causes.