Love

The world doesn’t have much use for love. It cannot be traded on the stock market. It cannot satisfy any lust for power or any lust for anything. Love will not make us skinny, will not increase our 401K fund. It will not make money for corporations. It will not be a useful weapon in the many wars that we think we must attent to. It will not make us comfortable. It will not buy us the latest toys. It cannot be used as a wedge to gain political advantage. Love will not support the hate that is used by many to manipulate poeople to do their bidding. Love will not keep the immigrant out. Love will not sacrifice the very young and the very old to the god of convenience. As our world counts it, love is mostly useless. Yet it is the highst of Jesus’ comandments. Love is a direct challenge to the chaos of our world

Can We Serve Two Masters?

Sermon 4th Sunday after Pentecost

Rom 6:18–23, Matt 8:5–13, 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST !!

   Jesus  reminded us last week: No man can serve two masters. This week St. Paul reminds us the same thing thing. We must choose what we will serve. We can be estranged from righteousness and subject to our passions, or we can bring ourselves to God and work with Him to free us from our passions and live a righteous life. And when we say “righteous life” we don’t mean that we don’t do this sin or that sin, Paul means that we are in a covenant relationship with God. 

   As both Jesus and Paul tell us, we must choose our slavery . . . We can be enslaved to sin, passions. . . or we can choose to be a slave to righteousness, doing things God’s way. . . One way leads to death.. .the other to life.  God can free us from our slavery to the passions if we will work with Him in our relationship with Him, and with others. The result, the wages of sin is death. Notice that Life eternal is not a result of working, but is a free gift of God. God wants us to stop working for death. 

   And how can we labour to heal both ourselves and the others we meet? . . . with Love. It is God’s Love that heals us. And we are commanded to give Love of God both directly to Him, and through those we meet who are created in His Image, and love for ourselves who are also created in God’s Image. Most of us love parts of ourselves, and we loathe other parts of ourselves, just as we find certain people easy to love, and others difficult. 

   The Centurion comes to Jesus in humility. His house servant is very sick — too sick for him to bring to Jesus. This Centurion loves his servant, using terms of endearment for him. He also loves the Jewish faith; even though he is a gentile — we read in St. Luke’s account of this that he had contributed to the building of a Synagogue. 

   Jesus does something that He did not do for the others He met who were paralyzed; He volunteers to come to the Centurion’s house (a gentile) to heal his servant. Jews, especially rabbis did not generally go into the dwellings of gentiles. The Centurion, in humility, objects . . .I am not worthy that you should enter the roof of my house. . . say the word and my servant will be healed. 

   This is alluded to in St. John Chrysostom’s pre-communion prayer. “I am not worthy, Master and Lord that Thou shouldst enter under the roof of my soul; yet in-as-much as Thou desirest to live in me as the Lover of mankind, I approach with boldness. Thou hast commanded: Let the doors be opened which Thou alone hast made and Thou shalt enter with Thy love for mankind just as Thou art. . . .  

   The Centurion shows true humility — and in his humility shows faith greater than any in Israel. By his confession he recognizes that Jesus’ authority comes from the Father. It is likely that he did not appreciate the full implications of his request and certainty that Jesus could heal by His Word since He had such authority. And as a man who is both under authority and wields authority, the centurion understands obedience. 

   Humility is key. . . . The way is wide that leads to destruction. Enter the narrow way.

   In our country today we are working hard for death. We have many “other masters” screaming for our attention. We want to be comfortable — we want the latest toys. We want to be secure — we don’t like it when the order gets challenged. And sometimes the Order needs to be challenged, for the Order has a way of participating in the “principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual corruption” that St. Paul warns us against — for even if it is not killing us, it is killing others. On top of this, Abominations are happening daily: Abominations of abortion, abominations of forcibly removing children from their parents, of putting women, men, and children in dangerous conditions, ignoring our stewardship for the Planet God has given us; our cities are being damaged by those who love chaos; racism is actually popular among some, and those who justify racism are screaming their obscenities; desecration of holy places are being done by more than one flavour of extremists. All of these are abominations. One group seeks to justify the one sort of abominations; another group seeks to justify still another sort of  the abominations. All of them are abominations. Our nation is filled with hatred: hatred for the other, whether the other is someone from the other political camp, another race, or our own poor and hungry and homeless, or the stranger who comes to us. We are instructed to love all of these with a love that heals both them and ourselves. 

   Loving requires us to get to know the stranger; loving ourselves requires us to get to know ourselves. Both of these require us to look past our fears. To look past our fear means we must confront them in ourselves. We must move past our fears in order to love. We must move past our egos and conceits in order to love. The Centurion modeled humility, obedience, and love. 

Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas, of blessed memory, summarized it this way:

   The Christ preached by the Apostles was the Christ who gave Himself out of love for mankind. He is the One who receives all who come to Him in faith and humility, those who love Him. He is not moved to respond to our petitions because of some supposed worthiness on our part. Our accomplishments, position, wealth, and fame do not commend us to Him. Neither does our belonging to a particular race or nation, and neither does membership in His Church, if we make no effort to live in accordance with His will, have no faith or humility, think of ourselves as deserving His salvation, or think only of ourselves and never earnestly desire the well-being of others. 

   Christ is not impressed by our egos. He is impressed by humility, and faith, and love. And He bids us to labour to love our world as He loved it.

   Love is not always easy; but St. Paul said: it is a more excellent way. 

   To Him Who loved us, and gave Himself for us and our salvation be all glory honour and worship, together with His Father Who is without beginning, and His All-holy glorious and Life-Creating Spirit: now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. 

Exile from Paradise

Expulsion from Paradise. 

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST !

   In the past I have given sermons on forgiveness for this Sunday, since this is Forgiveness Sunday. This year I want to focus on the Expulsion from Paradise. Adam and Eve are exiled from Paradise. It’s in the hymns for last night. Let’s look at this story, because, in a very real way, it is OUR story. 

   God has created us in His Image and placed us in a place of brightness, a place of refreshment, a place of repose — where there is no sickness nor sorrow. God loves us — He did not create us as pets. He wants us to respond to Him freely. Thus He gave us the right to disobey Him, to say “NO”. He set up a tree, a tree of experiencing good and evil, and told us not to eat of it. 

   We lived in paradise in communion with God. It was a direct relationship. It was a full relationship. We did not have God, or any of our reality in boxes, in categories, in partialness. It was simple, and yet full. We lived in relationship with God and with all our world. We were present to God and to the world. The scripture says that we were naked and not ashamed. We were OK with that vulnerability to God and to the world. 

   When we disobeyed God, what happened. We hid ourselves from the presence of God. We no longer had that direct relationship. God was walking in the Garden in the early evening, but something was different. “Where are you, Adam?”. . . it was not as if God did not know Adam’s physical location. But something had changed. Adam was not present to the world anymore. 

   “I was afraid, and naked and I hid myself.” He was afraid to show his face to God. The word “shame” carries with it this connotation of being afraid to show one’s face. Shame is something that one is clothed with — something that one wears. 

And then Adam goes from shame to shamelessness — he blames GOD for “the woman THOU gavest me”. 

How different it would have been if we had just said “I disobeyed; I was wrong.”

   And what did we lose?. . . . communion with God. . . . communion with the world. . . . and what replaced that? . . . Noise, Logismoi — we now have this plethora of thoughts that plague us. To give ourselves have an illusion of safety and control, we put things in categories according to superficial criteria. We no longer see each other as persons; we see the blonde, brunette, redhead, gray haired people — white, black, brown, red, yellow people — people of a specific language and culture — specific generations . .  And we do this to God too. . .  God is no longer our intimate companion; He becomes “the Big Guy”, “the Man upstairs”, someone we must either manipulate or be manipulated by — no longer the “One with Whom we have to do”.

   What did we lose?. . . .connection. . . . connection with ourselves, with God, with our fellow humans, with the world.  Instead, we impose our own ideas of order on each other and the world, in ways that are quite foreign to it. We set forth our own understanding of how the world should be. But the world cannot sustain our vision, and so we begin to destroy our world. 

   We embrace this noise because we are unwilling to confront our shame. St. John Chrysostom observes that we have no shame in sinning, but we have shame in repenting. Exactly the opposite of what it should be. We hear the prophets sing how the shame of the nation has come upon them — that they have turned from their relationship with God. We have become exiles from God. 

   When we look at our hymnody for Holy Week, there is not a lot of emphasis placed on Christ’s pain and torture, as often we see in western Christianity. Instead we see emphasis on the Shame of the Cross. Christ bears our shame. We see Christ mocked and spat upon. He gives His back to the smiters. . . and hides not His face from shame and spitting. He lays aside His Glory and empties Himself and becomes a servant and obedient unto death, even death on the Cross. He takes upon Himself our shame. 

   And by taking on our shame in the Cross, Christ makes space for our restoration — He makes a way for us to paradise. 

   In the meantime, we are exiled . . . NOT as a punishment, but because, in our current state, it would be a danger to us to stay in the garden. 

   And so we begin the season of Great Lent . . .  our journey back to paradise. We’ve got to get back to the Garden. Humility restores to us that vulnerability without shame. We journey from exile to the very Kingdom of God. 

   So we are given tools: fasting, alms, and prayer. . . . we are given the great beauty of the hymns and services. . . . their purpose is to let us sing humility, . . to humble our bodies and thus humble our minds and our spirits. . . .  to journey to Jerusalem, to the Passion WITH Christ. . . to be co-crucified with Christ. . . and so let us say with St. Thomas the disciple “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”

Light and the Man Born Blind

Sunday of the Man Born Blind

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

CHRIST IS RISEN !!

   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. The light shines in darkness; and the darkness has not comprehended it.

   So begins the Gospel according to St John the Theologian. We read this at Pascha. It is one of my favourite passages. There is a depth in this that is salted all the way through all the Johannine scripture. For this sake he is called “The Theologian”. St. John was familiar with the other three Gospels (called the Synoptics) and did not desire to repeat their material. He sought rather to supply the things missing. Jesus spoke differently in Jerusalem than He spoke in Galilee. The synoptics mostly cover what happened in Galilee, except for the Holy Week events. John was interested in showing some of the private conversations that Jesus had. And John focused on Jesus ministry in Jerusalem. John would move seamlessly from Jesus teaching to comments on what Jesus said without pointing out the difference. This was no problem for 1700 years of the Church. It is one of those things that drives modern scholars batty. But no one cared till they brought it up. It is through John that we know that Jesus’ ministry was 3 + years. John tells us the liturgical cycle, whereas the synoptics are only interested in the Feast of Booths, because the Transfiguration happened at that time. If we only had the synoptics, we would assume that Jesus ministry was for only 1.5 years. St. John was the only one of the 12 Apostles who died a natural death. 

CHRIST IS RISEN !!!

   This is the last Sunday that we will greet each other this way. Wednesday is the leave-taking of the feast; Ascension is Thursday. Yet even though we change our greetings, we must remember that every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection.

   And God said unto Isaiah. Go to the people and say: Hear, and in hearing do not understand; See, and in seeing do not perceive. . . . then I said: How long, O Lord? “Until cities are deserted without inhabitant, and houses without men, and the land is utterly desolate, … ”

   The Light Who enlightens mankind is come to the world. This is important to the Gospel of John. It is also important to the blind man, for the Light visited him personally. 

   And seeing one born blind, the disciples start playing armchair theologian: Who sinned? This is a question that people have been asking for a long time, from Job (some of the oldest texts in the Old Testament), to Jeremiah, to our present day tabloids.  We live in a calvinist society where we think (even though if we consciously thought about it we’d deny it), never-the-less we live and make policy as if those who were prosperous were blessed, and those who were not had somehow sinned, were bad, or were not worthy, or were not deserving. We want to blame because it makes us feel safer; because, if somewhere in our mind, people are to blame for their misfortune, then somehow we are exempt; we think we are off the hook, that it will not happen to us. We hear of judges who excuse the crimes of the wealthy and dole out to the poor the harshest of sentences. Even though it is not our conscious thought, it is never-the-less written into our culture in ways we often do not notice. This sort of thought was not unknown in the ancient world — but there were passages from the writings and the prophets that rebutted it. Nor is it, as some have suggested, that the Blind man was predestined to be Blind so Jesus could do this miracle. Yet in this miracle, God is glorified. 

   Job does not sin, yet his wealth and children, and health are gone. His wife is no consolation, telling him, essentially, die. His friends are sure that Job did something to cause this. Job did nothing to cause it — and he is vindicated in the end.

   Jeremiah: In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. Jer 31:29-30. No, Shakespeare did not come up with that phrase, Jeremiah did. Ezekiel says similar things. 

   Yet this understanding still infected the disciples. And they had heard from the healing of the Paralytic Jesus say: Go and sin no more. It would have been easy for them to hear this in conjunction with their previous beliefs and connect dots that should not be connected. 

   Yet, this man, Celidonius, did not go blind; he was born blind; he did not have the opportunity to sin. This got the disciples to thinking. . . . to them, suffering was somehow evil. . . Jesus points out that it is not so, that his suffering is not the result of evil. And through his suffering God is to be glorified.   . . .  That the works of God might be manifest in him. Indeed, it is through suffering that  Christ will reconcile humanity to Himself. This is something we need to confront in ourselves. Many of us have had sufferings.  our suffering may not be the result of evil that we have done (though it may). As with Job, God is not the author of our sufferings. Yet as we allow God to transform us, God can take our sufferings and bring out of us a beauty we did not know was there . . . if we will only let Him. 

   Jesus, in the previous chapter of the Gospel told the pharisees that He was the Light of the world. Now, away from the pharisees for the moment He says “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world. Part of the reason this Gospel finds its place before Ascension is that we know what will happen this coming Thursday. The Light of the world will return to His Father and will take to His Father an offering of our humanity that has been sanctified. And as Jesus had told His detractors, “The children of the bridal chamber cannot mourn So long as the Bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.”

   And then, to show that He is the Word by Whom all things were created, He spits in the dust and makes mud or clay and re-fashions eyes; He anoints; He Christofies the eyes of the man born with defective eyes; according to the exapositilarion from last night he had neither sight nor eyes, and they had to be made, not just healed. Unlike the Paralytic, He does not ask the man if he wants to be healed, nor does He promise healing. He simply sends him to the pool to wash as an act of obedience. And here again, water figures into the story. And the fathers understand the pool of Siloam to be a figure of baptism. 

   The man comes back seeing. He is illumined, not just physically but also spiritually. Having washed, he encounters Grace.

   Now, just as last week with the Samaritan Woman, the Blind man becomes an evangelist. For Jesus not only opened his physical eyes, but also his spiritual eyes. He was a simple beggar (for that is all society would let him do, just like the Paralytic two weeks ago); He was looked down upon and discounted. But now he confounds the pharisees (the doctors of the law) with his statements and questions — the same pharisees that were confounded by Jesus a week and a half ago in the middle of the feast. . . He could see. The pharisees, for all their physical sight, could not see. They were blind. 

Jesus healed on the Sabbath. The pharisees could not see past this. 

   The pharisees began to use all the rhetorical tricks they knew to somehow invalidate the miracle that had been performed by Jesus. (Some of those rhetorical tricks are still used today.) They wanted verification of his birth; they called his parents. “Is this YOUR SON whom YOU SAY was born blind?” It was as if they were accusing the parents of blinding their son after he was born. 

   Then when the parents verify their son and his blindness they try again: “GIVE GLORY TO GOD! We know that this man is a sinner!” They say ‘Give glory to God.’ but they are really asking the man to blaspheme God. 

   The man born blind responds with humility, saying only what he knows while not agreeing with their conclusions. Then they badger the witness, asking him what they’ve already asked. This simple beggar refused to be badgered. He then turns it back on the Pharisees: “Why do you ask again? do you want to be His disciples too?” 

   The pharisees are still trying to “prove” Jesus to be a sinner. The man born blind puts forth that a sinner could not do what He just did. Not even Moses healed a man born blind. 

   And with that, this simple beggar shows himself to be wiser than the pharisees. And . . . they . . . can’t stand it. . ..  “You were utterly born in sin, and you dare to teach us?” 

They tried to shame him and called him an S.O.B and threw him out. The Pharisees embody the warnings of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount of condemning the splinter in the eyes of another while totally missing the log in their own. 

   Jesus then finds the man and completes his illumination. As He revealed Himself to the Samaritan woman last week, so now He reveals Himself to the man born blind. This is the first time that the man actually sees Jesus, though he recognizes His voice. Celidonius would later go with Lazarus (yes, the Lazarus that Jesus raised), and Massilia, helping two Saints who became bishops in Cyprus and in Gaul.

   Jesus makes a reference to the prophesy of Isaiah that I quoted at the beginning: See and in seeing perceive not; hear and in hearing understand not. . . . “. . .and those who see may become blind.” . . . The pharisees overhear that and respond with “Oh, so we’re blind?!” Jesus tells them that because they assume they can see that they are responsible for their sin as if they could really see it. Their assumption that they can see prevents them from exploring the many ways they are blind. This miracle had been done before them, and they refused to see. And Christ calls their refusal to see a sin. By their inability to bring to Christ their own blindness, they kept their spiritual blindness. It is NOT the man born blind who has sinned, neither his parents. But to refuse to see, to be blind by choice IS sin. 

   In seeing that the blind man was illumined in spirit: How do our eyes work for seeing the deeper things of God? What can we not see? And Who can we not see? What can we not even perceive that we aren’t seeing? For the most part we prefer darkness to the light, for darkness is more comfortable than light — in the light we can see things we’d rather not see.  The light shines in darkness; and the darkness has not comprehended it.

   We live in a culture that discourages self examination, of looking at ourselves, at what passions are driving us. We live in a society that encourages intentional blindness and fear. Instead, our culture prefers chaos, and would rather sell stuff to our passions than to have us look at what choices the passions are making for us. We live in a culture that would rather make empty accusations than examine what has really happened. We live in a culture that would rather us not see. Yet, to grow spiritually we need to look at those very things. To break the cycle of greed, lust, envy we need to look into ourselves honestly and see the uncomfortable things (both good and bad) about us, . . . and to own those things . . . and bring them to God . . .  and work with Him . . . to let those things be healed.  

   It is not enough that we become well adjusted to our darkness, as the Blind Man had become.. Christ has come to give sight to the blind.

   Sometimes our blindness is to protect ourselves from what would be too overwhelming to see. This blindness God can also heal. . ..  as we learn to trust God, what was overwhelming becomes possible to face. Bit by bit, step by step God helps us to open our eyes. God does not overwhelm us with His Light. Instead He gives sight. God does not show us our passions to condemn us, but to heal and save us, and to bring us eternal life. 

   But, God cannot heal our blindness if we think, like the Pharisees, that we can see; we must be humble and admit to our blindness. Only then, through prayer will God take away our blindness. And then seeing, we must deal with what we see. We must cleanse ourselves of the dust and the cobwebs and dirt that we could not see before. 

   To Him Who IS the Light that illumines mankind and who illumines both us the Blind Man be all glory honour and worship, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen

CHRIST IS RISEN !!!

Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas

St. Gregory Palamas

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST !!!

   In the epistle we’re told to PAY ATTENTION, much like when the deacon says “Let us Attend”. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? What does it mean to PAY ATTENTION? We shall explore this towards the end of the sermon. 

   Christ is our High Priest. He is both the One Who offers, and the One Who is offered. 

   In the Gospel Jesus has left the region of the Gerasenes. In a previous Gospel reading, they had asked Him to leave. They met God and asked Him to leave. And so He went home. Back at home we have one of the three instances where Christ heals a Paralytic. In the healing of this Paralytic, —  Jesus honours the faith of those who brought him there. He heals not entirely because of the Paralytic’s faith, for surely the Paralytic desired healing,  but because of the faith of his friends who brought him to Jesus. . . . And we must also ask why it is that the people did not move aside to allow the friends to bring the Paralytic in. It is important for us to enter into one another’s struggle and not stand in their way,  but to pray for each other and act to get ourselves and them to the Physician, that He may heal us.

   Jesus says a couple of  very interesting things to the paralytic: “Be of good cheer, child, thy sins are forgiven.” Jesus speaks words of relation to this man whose plight was ignored by many others; He calls him “son”; He brings him into the household of God. When we don’t see others, we dehumanize them. In our society the disabled are treated as if they were not there. They are invisible; often if someone is with them, we will speak to the other as if the disabled person is not there. We don’t see the other for who they are. In many ways, such an attitude is just as paralyzing to all. 

   Jesus words do not imply that there was some sin that caused this man to be paralyzed; His words are words of restoration. “Thy sins are forgiven”, means that this one who is paralyzed is restored. He is welcomed as a child of God. And by restoring this paralyzed man, Jesus lets people know Who He is: . . . In Isaiah the prophet says of God: “I AM, I am He that blots out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and thy sins, I will not remember.”

   Jesus challenges the pharisee’s understanding by forgiving the paralytic’s sin; for they lacked compassion for this paralytic and his condition. They were more interested in proving themselves right. It is not the paralytic who says: “I came for healing and you forgave my sins?” This thought does not occur to the paralytic. But it is in the hearts of the pharisees. Another thing that annoyed the pharisees is that prophesy was fulfilled in their presence. 

   The second thing Jesus says to the Paralytic is: “Arise take up thy pallet and go home.” Not “take up thy pallet and walk” as He instructed another paralytic, but rather “go home.” And when we think of “home”, for many of us, this too is a place of wounding. But Jesus Himself has opened our path to our home, not an earthly city but a home in the city to come, in the Kingdom of God. Jesus has healed not just the body, but also the soul of the paralytic. 

   Who are we in this story? What has us paralyzed? . . . What attitudes and relationships do we have where we are paralyzed? . . . What fears do we have that paralyze us? . . . Do we treat ourselves like the crowd who will not move out of the way so that Jesus can heal us? . . . Will we allow four friends to help us?: Fasting, Prayer, Alms, Humility? . . . Are we willing to remove whatever roof is keeping us from Jesus? . . . Or How are we helping our friends who are paralyzed find healing? . . . Are we the ones who don’t think others are worthy of being healed? . . . Do we take offense at how Jesus heals? . . . When Jesus tells us to go home, what home do we go to? Is it a good healthy home?

   In the second Gospel we have Jesus teaching about the Good Shepherd. 

   The Hireling is not concerned with the sheep but with himself, with his own position and pay. 

   Jesus gives up His life for His sheep. 

   The wolf tests the shepherd to see if he be hireling or true shepherd. . . . When the wolf comes the hireling abandons the sheep. Christ is the good shepherd, not because He has good sheep, but that He gives His life for them. . . for their health and salvation. And Jesus ordained that some be shepherds — but only He is the door. 

   And many of us have experienced good shepherds,. . .  and we have experienced hirelings. . . . And as we look out at how various priests and bishops are handling the current crisis, we see very good shepherds, who are doing their best to take care of their flock in impossible circumstances. . . and we see hirelings. And we marvel at the care of the good shepherds. . . . and we feel the emptiness of the hirelings. . . Even if they be hirelings, we must love them and pray for them. This is hard. It is hard to pray the prayer of St. Ephraim “not to judge my brother” when we feel the sting of their judgement . . . and of their poor judgement, . . . and our own judgement on them. 

   Those good shepherds we have been under should be treasured — those that held themselves accountable to God for the sheep He had put them over. And we must glorify God Who brought us to such shepherds. . . . In that we have experienced hirelings, we must heal — or more accurately, we must allow God to heal us. And we must acknowledge that the wounds that the hireling inflicts on us: abuse, abandonment, . . . these are deep wounds that will take time to heal. 

   And whether our shepherds be good or bad, we have a High Priest who knows what we are going through and Who offers Himself for us and for our salvation. For He guides us by walking ahead. He heals us: . . . even our death He heals by trampling down death by His own death. He leads us beside calm waters, in green pastures. He nurtures us in ways only He knows. He provides for us our needs that are hidden from us. 

   And finally, today is the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas. St. Gregory was archbishop of Thessalonica. He spent some time on Mt Athos. We remember him for this Sunday is a second triumph of Orthodoxy. Last week we celebrated the Victory of the Icon, of God becoming Man, whom He Himself created in His own Image. This week we celebrate our call to complete this — to become like God. This all started when a monk from Calabria named Barlaam, who brought his scholasticism to the east. He thought that God should be understandable and that we should be able to figure Him out logically. He thought that the monks of Mt. Athos were wasting their time. He thought they should be using his scholastic method to approach God using reasoning and rationalism. St. Gregory debated him and pointed out that though we may attain purity of heart and see God, just as Jesus promised, that we saw God’s glory, His energie. (Just as Moses and Elijah saw) Yet we cannot know God in essence as He knows Himself. But we can see His uncreated light, as the three disciples saw at Mt. Tabor at the transfiguration. Barlaam’s approach to God is common in our western culture. We even sadly see some Orthodox who have adopted it. . . . But that is not what we are up to. . . . We are to have a relationship with God — not analyze God. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware once said: “It is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder.” 

But God is both beyond in His essence, and deeply involved with the world through His grace as manifested in His energie. 

   St. Gregory defended Hesychasm (or quietness). Hesychasts recognize that we must watch over our rational faculties; we must make them serve us rather than enslave us. We must collect our minds that have been darkened and distracted by our senses. One of the ways that we collect our minds and make it serve us is to put our mind in our hearts and in the presence of Jesus. This is usually done with the aid of the Jesus prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner. 

   This prayer has been commended to us by the fathers of the Church as a way of focusing on Jesus and gathering our distracted minds, and so to obtain sobriety. The idea is to fulfill the commandment of St. Paul to pray without ceasing. It is commended with some caveats: We can expect things to come up for us that we need to deal with. If we are to make extensive constant use of this prayer we need regular access to a father confessor. 

   But we can still make use of it, when we feel attacked from within by our minds, or distracted from without by the noise of the world. 

   Hesychasm (the practice of quietness) asks a question of us: What is it in our life that distracts us? that causes us to lose focus? . . . What can we do to turn down the noise? . . . What things, that should be our servants, have we allowed to enslave us?

   Great Lent bids us to turn down the noise, and to flee from the slavery of our own reasonings and desires. And to move toward Christ:  to Whom belong glory, dominion, honor, and worship, with His Father Who IS without beginning and the most holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen

Sunday of Orthodoxy

Sermon Sunday of Orthodoxy

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit:

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST !!! 

   We have made it through the first week of Great Lent. This has been a hard week. But we made it. And the Church has given us these weekends as a time to fast, but not quite as rigourously. We have a couple of days each weekend, and then . . .  the rigours of the week day return. Tonight we have Washingto Orthodox Clergy Association vespers of Sunday evening to help us transition back into the rigours of the weekday. Two years ago we were at the beginning of the Pandemic; this was the last WOCA vespers that we did.  This year we start again. The weekend is an important time to catch our breath and then once again face the journey to Pascha, preparing to face another week. 

   I would be remiss as your priest if I did not acknowledge the conflict in the world; a conflict that has brought Orthodox brother against Orthodox brethren. The history of the Church has always been messy. We can see this in St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians. St. Kyril of Alexandria had some problems with St. John Chrysostom. Indeed, the very thing we celebrate today started in AD 726 with an emperor who attempted to abolish icons. This action of the political leader had some support in earlier times by some of the Monophysite and Nestorian bishops. It was also fueled by fear of Islam and their proscription of images. For 117 years icons were removed from parishes and cathedrals. Illuminated manuscripts were destroyed. Some people (created in God’s Image, were killed, and monks were forcibly married to women; churches and monasteries were burned. Some bishops even got together to fashion a robber council to prohibit icons. This went back and forth for many years. At one point the emperor deposed the patriarch and forbade priests from preaching. Eventually the Orthodox way prevailed; and we call the victory of Orthodoxy over the iconoclasts: The Triumph of Orthodoxy.

   Today we celebrate a great feast of the Incarnation of Christ. The Prophets proclaimed and prophesied the coming of our Lord in the flesh. And because of that it is both proper and necessary to depict that flesh in images. Hitherto no one had seen God in any form and it was not proper to depict Him. 

   Today we celebrate the return of icons to the worship of Christ our God on earth. Today we commemorate the restoration in AD 843 of Icons. They went in procession to the Church of Theotokos ton Blakhernós, and restored the icons. 

   The scriptures we read were catechistic. They are pointing those who will be baptised at the end of Great Lent to what the beginning of the journey was for the disciples, and reminding them of the prophets of old that looked forward to the Kingdom and the coming of the Messiah but never saw it themselves. We celebrate the Incarnation of the Word of God Who took flesh for our sake. The indescribable deigned to become describable. As we will hear in the Gospel on Bright Monday: “No man has ever seen God; the only begotten Son Who Is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”

   He Who is the very radiance of the glory of God, the very Icon of His Person has shown Himself. As we sing in Matins: “God is the Lord and has revealed Himself unto us!” For He Who is the very Icon of God has taken that flesh that He Himself created in His Image, and joined the two together without confusion. 

   We venerate icons by kissing them as we would kiss a revered friend. We venerate them by bowing, again as to a revered friend. We also venerate them by censing them with incense. When we cense icons we are recognizing that the person depicted was created in God’s Image and reflected His likeness. 

   But we also cense us — we humans. We are created in God’s Image; by censing ourselves we honour that Image of God in ourselves. 

   So as we honour the Image of God in ourselves by censing we must ask ourselves: “Do we honour God’s Image in us?” Is how we live a reflection of that Image of God in us? Do we seek God’s will in our lives? Do we honour His image in ourselves? our family members? Our co-workers? The people we meet everyday? Do we see God’s image in the Barista who makes our coffee drink? Do we see the Image of God in the homeless person whose path we cross? Do we see the Image of God in the person whose politics we despise? In the eyes of the refugee who asks for a safe place? Do we see God’s Image in the face of those people we don’t like? 

   For all of us, that likeness with God is broken and distorted. Are we working with God to restore that likeness? How are we treating His Image in others . . .  remembering that He said that how we treat the least of these is how we treat Him? By how we treat ourselves and others we often are guilty of being iconoclasts. 

   These are questions that this Sunday requires us to look at. While we are celebrating the Triumph this evening we must pause and take stock at where we are. Celebrating the restoration of Icons means we must work on restoring God’s Likeness in us. 

   The older themes of this Sunday can help us. Before the restoration of Icons, this Sunday was dedicated to the prophets. If you read or sing the hymns of this Sunday you will notice that it bounces between Icons and the Prophets. If we were to do Complines tonight we would hear the older canon of the Prophets. The prophets called Israel and Judah to repentance. They called the people to treat the poor, the orphan, the widow, the foreigner with respect. They called the people to treat their children as precious gifts from God, and not as a thing that can be disposed of to appease a Ba-al, or to appease our gods of material gain and convenience. They called the people back from, and criticized the false images of their material greed, their love of power over love of people. And the people did not repent and had to pay the cost in exile. We are encouraged during Lent to read the prophet Isaiah. No matter what age we live in, the book of Isaiah has some sobering criticism of our society. 

   He sandwiches his prophecies of destruction with consolation, with the message: “It doesn’t have to be that way; you can repent.”; in someway he is saying to us today: “It doesn’t have to be this way; we can repent.” By Chapter 40 it becomes clear that the people won’t repent, and he prepares them for exile and return. Great Lent is a period of exile and return from exile. 

   This is what the Church asks us to chew on as we journey towards Pascha. God calls us in this period to work with Him to restore His likeness in us. The prayers are all a part of that. The Presanctified Liturgy and other services are all a part of that. Fasting is all a part of that. Alms are all a part of that. The Triodion is part of that. The prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian is part of that. These are the tools we have been given. These tools must be applied with love, or they will be useless to us. These tools help us see clearly. Very often we have a distorted view of ourselves, either overlooking or excusing *our own sin with pride, or aggrandizing our sin (making it bigger and unsurmountable in our eyes) . . .  and falling into despair. But we can repent. . . it doesn’t have to be this way. 

   All of this takes place, today on a canvass of war — of war in which one Orthodox country has invaded another Orthodox country. A grave sin is being set forth. War is always a grave sin. And we hear this war both decried and justified. And some of the noise of war is being spoken by Orthodox bishops and clerics — a noise that we sometimes hear from our own mouths. 

   Brothers and sisters, the war is out there. It is real; it is serious. It, like the iconoclast controversy of 1400 years ago threatens the unity of the Church. In addition to actual icons and churches being bombed, people created in God’s Image are dying. This is a wound that, if we take the Incarnation seriously, runs very deep. And, at the same time that we must grieve that wound, please, do not let the war come into our heads. Let us not fight with our brothers and sisters and so perpetuate the grievous sin that comes with war. But most importantly, do not let the war into our own heads; do not fight it out in ourselves. As I said last week, this will be one of the hardest of Great Lents for us. The needs of our brothers and sisters in the war-torn country of Ukraine are real; and, if you wish to help, there are ways to make sure assistance gets to Ukraine through Metropolitan Onuphry. Be careful; choose the news outlets that you use carefully; some of them gain following and revenue by stoking the flames of fear and anger; . . . and they are working over-time. Or better yet fast from too much news — for this distracts us from our work of coming to God in repentance. We are being given the temptation of replacing God with our own fear and need to feel in control. We are being invited to a new iconoclasm within ourselves. For when we are in control, we push God out of our lives. 

   God calls us today to restore His Likeness in us, just as the icons were restored to the Churches. … to Him be glory and honour, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. 

Forgiveness Sunday

Sermon Forgiveness Sunday

[Rom. 13:11-14:4 (§112)] ; [Matt. 6:14-21 (§17)]

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: 

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST !!!

   It is time: The time is now. It is time for the Lord to act. 

   WAKE UP!! The night is far spent. St. Paul tells us to put aside all excesses both of our bodies and of our passions. But rather to put on our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of our passions are of the body: rebelling — drunkenness, sexual excess; . . . some passions are of our mind: arguing, strife, jealousy, judgement. We are beginning the strictest time of fasting in our Church Year. We each will fast: fasting not just from food but also from these passions. Or we will distain the fast, and will lose the opportunity to war against those things that come between us and God. The Church gives us this opportunity to journey with Christ to Jerusalem. 

   Today is Forgiveness Sunday. At Vespers after Trapeza, we will have the service of mutual forgiveness. The Gospel we are reminds us of the importance of forgiveness — that we must forgive in order to be forgiven. We are also instructed to keep our fasting a secret. Those of us who are new to fasting, it is good to have one person that we hold ourselves accountable to. Those of us who are old hat at fasting should tell no one how well or how badly we do it. Our fasting is supposed to reflect the simplicity of Paradise; the peace of Paradise.

   Keep our eyes on our own plates. It is none of our business how others are keeping the fast. For those of us who are traveling, or visiting, or in situations where someone else is putting food in front of us: eat what is placed in front of you. If someone puts a plate of steak in front of you, it is THE FAST to eat it, to accept their hospitality without hinting that you are observing a fast. 

   As we increase our fasting, prayers, and alms — expect resistance: resistance from our society, from our friends and family, . . . resistance from the evil one and from the demons; . . . but most of all let us expect resistance in ourselves, If you fall in your observance of the Fast, do not use that as an excuse to invalidate yourselves, the Church’s appointed fast, or others. Get back up and begin again. 

   Let us fast as a way of drawing close to God, to let our hunger remind us of God. Let us not fast for its own sake, for remember that the Pharisee fasted, and his fasting was worthless, for he was proud of his fasting.

   I invite you to fast from the glut of information that we feast on daily, especially what we have experienced for the last 10 days. I realize many of us need to be on-line for work. Still it is good to turn down the volume on all the news and stories and issues and noise that assails us daily. Even if we must be on-line, if we can spend as little time the first week of lent and during Holy Week we will do well. 

There are lots of people out there who have a vested interest in us being angry, upset. They want to manipulate our passions for their cause whether it be political, for profit, for power. I invite you to fast from political arguments. The noise that is getting louder keeps us from seeing our own contribution to that very noise, so that we can’t see ourselves and repent. 

And what of repentance? Metánoia (the Greek word that is translated) means to change our nous, our spiritual mind. It is also used to describe a profound bow to the ground. It is the posture of humility. If we force our bodies to be humble, our spirits and minds will follow. 

I invite you to listen to the Quiet. In the Quiet it is easier to see the meaninglessness of it all — the boredom and the fear. And I invite you to treasure the Kingdom of God above all. As Elijah met God’s glory in the quiet still voice, so let us meet God through stillness. 

   Forgiveness — entering the fast with forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that what was done was OK — just that you are not going to let it rent space in your head. 

   Most people, when they say to others “forgive”, they mean stop processing the pain, because your pain makes them uncomfortable. The only way of healing is through the pain — and it is only through the pain that true forgiveness can happen. 

   Forgiveness is a process. . . it lives after the processing of grieving and of facing abandonment. 

   True forgiveness is a process that takes us deep into ourselves and our own pain. It is not the same as excusing the abuser. It cannot be forced; it cannot be accomplished by saying mere words. It cannot be rushed, for if it is rushed it is false. 

   Forgiveness is a journey. . . . a journey into a wound that someone has made in us. . . . only to discover that the wound is deeper than this person who wounded us, and that there are a lot of other people in this wound, and one of those includes myself.

   Until we forgive the darkness in ourselves, we do not know what forgiveness is.

   We begin this time of fasting in a time of conflict and war. We feel helpless, as if there is little we can do in a drama that is being directed by three powers who have not consulted us. What can we do?

   As St. Silouan said: We can stand before the Lord in prayer, praying for the world that is shedding blood.

   Metropolitan Anthony Bloom adds that we pray, “Not in that easy prayer that we offer out of our comfort, but in a prayer that rushes to heaven from sleepless nights; in a prayer that does not give rest; in a prayer that is born from the horror of compassion; in a prayer that no longer allows us to continue living our insignificant and empty life. That prayer requires us to finally understand that life is deep and that we are spending it racing about something unworthy and also became unworthy of ourselves, unworthy of God, unworthy of sorrow and joy, the torment on the Cross and the Glory of Resurrection, which constantly alternate and intertwine on our earth.”

“In the face of what is going on in front of the Cross, death, and spiritual agony of people, let us renounce the pettiness and insignificance of our life—and then we will be able to do something: by our prayer, by way of our life, and perhaps even by something braver and more creative.”

   It is a very difficult time, . . . and there will be much to distract us from focusing on prayer and our own repentence. We have to be more vigilant to our own spiritual needs. . . And the parts of us that deal with fear, want us to focus on that instead. . .  This is going to be one of the most difficult Great Lents that any of us do. Be sober: watch and pray  that we enter not into temptation. 

   To Him Who comes to His Passion for our sakes, be all glory honour and worship; now and ever and unto the ages of ages. 

Peace, and the Rich Fool

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST !!!

For He is our peace, Who has made us both one.

   Jesus Himself took on our flesh, and in His circumcision he became a Jew; and in His death on the Cross he took upon Himself the curse of our mortality and became as One outside the law, as One Whom the law condemned, that He might unite all mankind in Himself, both Jew and Greek. And He didn’t just change us so that we might be new and improved Jews; He created us a new man, breaking the fragmentation that divides us from God, and from each other — not just bringing the enmity to and end, but KILLING IT.

   And He proclaimed Peace to those who were far off and Peace to those who were near. We see this even in His Nativity, where it is announced by the angels to the shepherds — those near, and by a star to those who came from a distant land. 

   And we are made fellow citizens with the saints. We are being built into a holy temple in the Lord; a tabernacle, a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. We are given citizenship in the Kingdom of God. We proclaim it in this Divine Service; we participate with it in communion; we live it in our day-to-day lives. 

   He is our peace, having made us one: Male — Female, Jew — Greek, English — Russian, White — Black … HE has made us one; reconciling us to God, making us Fellow-citizens of the Household of God. It spite of our differences, God has called us together to stand as members of His house as we worship Him together. He has called us to be His body through communion. We may get on each others’ nerves from time to time; but God is building us into a community of His Body, here in Silverdale, here in Central Kitsap County. not as another organization, but as an organism, a living, breathing microcosm of Christ’s Body; to incarnate His Body in our lives, and His ministry in our encounter with others. 

   And we do not figure all this out on our own by reading about it — our foundation of faith is in the Apostles and Prophets. The foundation is in both the Old and the New Covenant. We must be obedient to the teachings of Christ, the Apostles, and the Prophets. Those teachings are not easy to do; those teachings constantly challenge us to live a life of repentance. 

   Christ Himself is the cornerstone, and we are His temple being built together. Sometimes we irritate each other; sometimes we rub each other the wrong way. Yet we are being built into His dwelling. In our worship we humans stand with the angels, offering up the noetic worship which is offered by the angels at all time, and we this morning come together to offer it with the angels.  And we live our lives from this offering — offering ourselves as a living sacrifice — our reasoned worship.

   We together are the Temple of God. We can’t do that alone. We need each other, to pray for each other, to love each other, and yes, sometimes to annoy each other and learn to overcome our differences so that we realize His unity in us. 

   We must do this together. It is for this purpose that God has called us here. 

  Therefore we must bear one another’s burdens. For just as we are in need of healing, so all of us are. In bearing our own burdens and the burdens of each other, we fulfill the law of the Kingdom of God. 

   And Christ heals us; He restores us to the likeness of His Image in Whom we are created, if we will let Him; if we will cooperate with Him. 

   Let us use this time of the Nativity fast to cleanse ourselves of bitterness, anger, falsehood, impurity, uncleanliness, and covetousness. Most especially in this time of year, when commercial interests want us to be greedy and consume more, we must guard ourselves in moderation, for our soul is in this battle between virtue and vice — and there are many who want to make money on our vices. We are to give thanks in all things and be grateful. Which brings us to our Gospel. 

   The Gospel reminds us of this as well. The parable tells us the man had more than enough. The Rich Fool is only concerned with himself, and how things effect him; he does not look at how his behavior affects others. He only considers himself, and what life can give him. He is like Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life”; he only looks out for himself and his own petty concerns. 

   Instead of building bigger tables to share his wealth, he decided on bigger barns – barns where his harvest would accumulate, and spoil. 

   He seems to think that he is the owner of his soul and that he is in charge . . . of everything! 

   Jesus then continues the parable, deliberately using the line “Eat; Drink and be merry.” He knew that those listening to Him would recall how that line from Isaiah continued: “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.”

   St. Basil the Great says of this very Gospel: “if you fill these larger ones, what do you intend to do next? Will you tear them down yet again only to build them up once more? What could be more ridiculous than this incessant toil, labouring to build and then labouring to tear down again? If you want storehouses, you have them in the stomachs of the poor.” 

   The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you put in the bank belongs to the poor.”

   On this same passage, St. Leo the Great points out that this passage should read: “Fool; in this night they demand your soul from you.” These things that you own, now own you. Many of the fathers remind us that the only thing we get to take with us to the grave is whatever virtue we may have acquired in this life. 

   And so the Rich Fool dies without learning mercy and generosity. And the wealth of his harvest is left to rot. 

   We must guard our relationship to the many things our world tells us we MUST HAVE, especially this time of year. We have only to look at the average relationship with the smart phone to see how easy it is to be owned by our things. 

   As we are now in the Nativity Fast, let us guard against the noise of acquiring. And when we find ourselves having a surplus, let us find a way to build a table that invites others to partake of our good fortune. 

   So, let us guard our souls in sobriety, and turn down the volume of the noise from the world through prayer, fasting, and alms. And, let us not get so involved in whether our particular political side won today that we ignore the friends and family that we have. Let us spend less time on the internet, and more time loving the people whom God has given us. Let us not fall for the desires to have things that are very loud right now (Black Friday seems to have lasted two weeks this year). Let us rather BE . . . together . . . with those people God has given us and put in our lives. And with the current pandemic, we must find more creative ways to do this. As St Paul reminds us, we must bear one another’s burdens. 

To Him Who gives us all good things in due season, be all Glory honour and worship. Always now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen

Forgiveness

Most people, when they say “forgive” they mean stop processing the pain, because your pain makes me uncomfortable. The only way of healing is through the pain —  and it is only through the pain that true forgiveness can happen.

True forgiveness is a process that takes us deep into ourselves and our own pain. It is not the same as excusing the abuser. It cannot be forced; it cannot be accomplished by saying mere words. It cannot be rushed, for if it is rushed it is false. 

 Forgiveness is a process, . . .a journey. . . . a journey into a wound that someone has made in us. . . . only to discover that the wound is deeper than this person who wounded us, and that there are a lot of other people in this wound, and one of those includes myself. 

Last Judgement

Last Judgement

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit:

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST!! 

   Amen, I say to you, in as much as ye did not to the least of these, neither did ye to Me. 

   Today we hear about fasting in the epistle. If we read the hymns from Vespers and Matins for this coming cheese week we will also hear words of instruction about fasting. 

If thou dost fast from food, O my soul, yet dost not cleanse thyself from passions, thou dost rejoice in vain over thy abstinence. For if thy purpose is not turned towards amendment of life, as a liar thou art hateful in God’s sight, and thou doest resemble the evil demons who never eat at all. Do not by sinning make the fast worthless, but firmly resist all wicked impulses. Picture to thyself that thou art standing beside the crucified Saviour, or rather, that thou art thyself crucified with Him Who was crucified for thee; and cry out to Him: “Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom. (Wednesday Matins)

   The hymns of the Katavasia of the Canon for last night’s Vigil are already the hymns of the irmosoi of the Great Canon of St. Andrew.  

   This Wednesday at Vespers, and Friday at the Moleben, we will already say the Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. 

   This week we already begin fasting from meat. If you have access to the daily sections of the Triodion, they start this week. I commend them to you. 

In today’s Gospel Jesus gives us a different sort of teaching. Instead of speaking of Himself and the Kingdom obliquely or through Parables, He confronts us with a vision of the Last Judgement. This Glorious vision is of Him, the Son of Man, as King of all nations, for ALL nations will be judged, those we like, and those we do not like. All nations before the Throne of Glory are judged based on how they recognized the Image of God in the least of them. 

The Lord sent the Law, and the Prophets, and we have disregarded them. And finally He spoke to us through His Son, and we disregarded Him too. Our Physician has taken careful measures for our healing, even conquering death by His death, and dulling its sting. And as in the days of Noah, Christ has flooded the world with His Righteousness, Grace, and Mercy. 

The King comes with both Justice and Mercy. And we recall all of Jesus’ teachings and parables reminding us that, to the merciful, God will show mercy; — to the merciless, God will show no mercy, but only judgement.  Some will see the King as joy and bliss; others will see the King as judgement and condemnation. And the dividing line is: . . .  “How did we treat others.” When we get to Holy Week we will see this theme repeated: for the Foolish Virgins did not have enough oil. . . .  Oil is a pun for mercy. 

And He divides the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the wicked. The Sheep are sheep because their likeness is as to the Lamb of God. One thing to note is that neither the righteous nor the wicked are aware of who is which. The righteous question being considered righteous; the wicked question being considered wicked. The righteous are unaware that by ministering to the least of these, they ministered to the King. 

He was: hungry, and they fed; thirsty and they gave drink; a foreigner, and they welcomed Him; naked, and they clothed Him; sick and imprisoned and they visited Him. The righteous ministered to Him by ministering to the least of these. They didn’t know that by ministering to the Image of God in the least of these, that they ministered to God, the King. For God does not need food, drink, asylum, clothing, a physician, or liberty — but the least of those created in His Image do. When you sum it all up, what they did for their fellows who are created in God’s Image and likeness — they loved. . . . Come ye blessed, inherit the Kingdom that was prepared for you from the foundation. The Kingdom of God is what we were all created for. . . And the righteous do not react as if they have been vindicated; instead they react with humility.

To the goats, the wicked He says: Depart you cursed ones. He does not curse them. They have cursed themselves. Depart to a place that was NOT prepared for you, but for the devil and his demons. The fire of punishment was not designed for you, but you have brought it upon yourself; you have chosen it.  They choose it by refusing to do all the things the righteous did. And the impious react with self justification: “Lord when did we see Thee…” In this is a warning to us, not to seek to justify ourselves. DEPART! . . . for you preferred wealth and power and things over your brothers. . . and that is hatred for your brothers. 

St. Gregory Palamas says, “Observe this last evil: pride is yoked with callous behavior, as humility is with compassion. When the righteous are praised for doing good, they humble themselves the more, without justifying themselves. When these others are accused of being devoid of compassion by Him Who cannot lie, they do not humbly throw themselves to the ground, but answer back and justify themselves.”

   The first commandment is that we love God with all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength, and the second is that we love our neighbor as ourselves. The only way we can prove we love God is by loving our neighbor.

Brothers and sisters, we live in a culture dominated by protestant calvinism: the idea that wealth is virtue. If you read social theory you will find that they have divided the poor into “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor”. And we do our best as a culture to withhold aid to those we deem “undeserving.  But SS John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Ambrose of Milan will have nothing of this:

For most people, when they see someone in hunger, chronic illness, and the extremes of misfortune, do not even allow him a good reputation but judge his life by his troubles, and think that he is surely in such misery because of wickedness.  — St. John Chrysostom 

Lift up and stretch out your hands, not to heaven but to the poor; for if you stretch out your hands to the poor, you have reached the summit of heaven. But if you lift up your hands in prayer without sharing with the poor, it is worth nothing . — St John Chrysostom

Feeding the hungry is a greater work than raising the dead. —  St John Chrysostom

If you see any one in affliction, ask no more questions. His being in affliction involves a just claim on your aid. For if when you see a beast of burden choking you raise him up, and do not curiously inquire whose he is, much more about a human being one ought not to be over-curious in enquiring whose he is. He is God’s, be he heathen or be he Jew; since even if he is an unbeliever, still he needs help… . . . If you see him in affliction, do not say that he is wicked. For when a person is in calamity, and needs help, it is not right to say that he is wicked. For this is cruelty, inhumanity, and arrogance. — St. John Chrysostom

The rich are in possession of the goods of the poor, even if they have acquired them honestly or inherited them legally. — St. John Chrysostom

The rich seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need. —  St. Basil the Great

He who strips the clothed is to be called a thief. How should we name him who is able to dress the naked and doesn’t do it. — St. Basil the Great

You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not just to the rich. —  St Ambrose

Feed him who is dying of hunger; if you have not fed him you have killed him. — St. Ambrose of Milan

I was hungry and you took my food away, and arrested those who were trying to feed me; I was thirsty and you dumped my water in the desert, or you gave my water to someone who paid you; I was a foreigner and you sent me back to the perils of the country I escaped, I was naked and you condemned my morality; I was sick and you made it impossible for me to see the physician; I was in prison and you forgot me. 

Rather than take Jesus’ words to heart, we try to find a way to justify our greed, our hard heartedness, our neglect, our theft of the resources that belong to all mankind.

   During the Lenten season that will soon be upon us, we are instructed to increase prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. When we give alms we should thank the one we give to, because through them we have the blessing to give to God.  

   We are beginning a time when we are asked by the Church to simplify our lives, to soften our hearts, to be generous with alms, to turn down the volume of our noisy world.

Brothers and sisters, listen. Our souls are on the line. Jesus taught us to pray that our debts be forgiven as we forgive our debtors — our debts, those things we should have done but didn’t. Jesus did not accuse the goat people of adultery or murder; He accused them of lack of mercy. 

I would be guilty of not clothing you if I soft-pedalled this. This is what our Lord expects of us. This is the criteria by which we are judged. 

The Kingdom which was prepared for you from the beginning, the joy of all joys — or, … the punishment that was not prepared for you but rather for the devil and his angels. Which will we decide? We must decide whether to let the medicine of these commandments be a healing for us. Or by not applying the medicine, a fate which was never ours to begin with awaits. 

But by our actions or inactions, we decide.

May we attain unto the lot of the sheep through the mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, to Whom be all glory, honour, and worship; always now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen

Herod: A not so stable King.

Sermon Sunday after Nativity

Galatians 1:11-19 (§200) Matthew 2:13-23 (§4) Paul’s conversion: Herod kills the children.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: 

CHRIST IS BORN!!

   Today it is the Sunday after Nativity, so we celebrate the kinsmen of the Lord: Joseph the betrothed, David the King, James the brother of the Lord. Thursday we celebrate the Circumcision of our Lord: He Who gave the Law submits Himself to the law. 

   James was the first bishop of Jerusalem. When the council of Jerusalem is called, it is James who presides over it. It is likely that James was the son of Joseph from an earlier marriage. The words of that time were not so concerned with describing the precise relationship. Cousins, siblings, half siblings were covered under the same word. The icon of the escape to Egypt often will depict James prodding the donkey on while Joseph attends to Mary. 

   The Wisemen from Babylon have just left; and Joseph takes Mary and Jesus into Egypt. This is to indicate the what Christ will accomplish is for all mankind. Christ and the Holy Family leave a dangerous place to trek the desert to go into another country for safety. Just as Abraham did before Him, He leaves the city of His birth. Just as Israel (Jacob) did before Him, He goes to Egypt for safety. He becomes a fugitive. 

   And the reason for their escape into Egypt was that Herod wanted to kill Jesus. 

Herod was not a very stable person; some might call him mad. When he was troubled (which was often) Herod’s court had to find ways of dealing with him. He sees a threat to his position, and he reacts in fear. In his fear he has many young children killed, including two of his own sons. In his fear, he destroys all that he should have loved, including himself. 

   And his actions wound others — . . . . deeply. . . . with the deepest of wounds. . . . mothers watched their little sons being murdered before their eyes. Ramah was the seat of the judge Deborah; Ramah was the home of Samuel the priest, the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. Ramah was the seat of the tribe of Benjamin, whose mother was Rachel. There was a memorial to Rachel near Bethlehem. The Gospel quotes the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping and wailing; Rachel would not cease weeping for her children —  because they are no more.”

   The proto martyrs of proto martyrs. . . . all because of the ego, and fear of a madman who was their ruler. . . . .all because of his fear and obsession. . . . We will celebrate this feast tomorrow. I invite all who have buried their own innocent ones to celebrate this. 

   How can we apply this to ourselves? Herod is such an extreme case that it is easy to think that this cannot possibly apply to us. But let us not think that this is just about someone else. 

   What are some of the things we obsess about? that we have our ego bound up in, that we have let our fears make decisions for us — and don’t see how we are destroying what we love? We have to let God convert us. We heard how St. Paul was converted to Christianity; but St. Paul had rage issues that did not magically go away at his conversion. We have to look at our passions and how they are deciding for us. 

   The Word of God took on our flesh from the Theotokos — took on our wounds, but without wounding Himself as we often do — wounds that astonish the demons who would never think of what we freely do to ourselves. He took on our flesh so that He could heal our wounds and bring us to salvation. 

   The Eternal God became a little child — humbled Himself for our sake, that He might live this human life that we usually mess up, so that He could reclaim it for Himself and offer it to His Father. 

   By His death He conquered our enemy — death, . . . and made a path for us to His Kingdom. 

   By taking on our humanity, He, the Eternal invisible God the Word became visible. . . a little child. 

To that little Child be all glory honour and worship, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen