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Holiness is a Choice
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; God is One! Amen
Wherever the Church is, there dwells also the Holy Spirit, and without the Holy Spirit, there is no Church, no hospital for our souls nor a pillar and foundation of Truth. Without the Holy Spirit there are no sacraments, there are no Holy Mysteries,and there is no salvation. All the sacrificial acts of Jesus Christ - the incarnation, his death on the cross, both his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven - were all accomplished to prepare the way for us all to receive the Holy Spirit.
All of His salvific acts were done to prepare the path for our own struggle. He fulfilled the law and all righteousness that we may follow Him on our own journey through this life so that we may become like Him, imitate Him, and follow Him and His commandments that we may one day be deemed worthy to receive the promises of Christ and be received into his Kingdom.
The Orthodox Christian faith is one of struggle. In Russian it is often called Podvig, a word largely untranslatable into English, but understood as an achievement through selfless action, or a result achieved through difficult circumstances. In the case of our Christian context, to become more Christ-like. It is in that self same struggle that we acquire the Holy Spirit. We must struggle within ourselves, against ourselves and against the world to fan the spark of the Holy Spirit within us into a great conflagration of God’s love. It takes great effort and struggle to pray, fast, give alms, repent, love one another, to forgive those who offend us, to maintain purity in our hearts, and to make our lives and our bodies worthy dwelling places for the Holy Spirit.
The more the Holy Spirit grows within us the more sanctified we become. In this we become little Christs. We become true Saints. We become holy. Recently we celebrated the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, wherein the Church was established upon Christ’s honorable blood, so today it is only fitting that we celebrate the natural and logical outcome of that event, which is that through struggle, with God’s help, Christians become sanctified and become holy, or Saints.
Today we remember All the Russian Saints of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Today is in essence the name day of all Russia, where we remember the Saints who through both sorrows and great love, labored to build the Church of Russia we hold fast to this day. Kievan Rus was baptized in 988 after Prince Vladimir sent ambassadors from Kiev in search of true faith, recognizing the failings of their pagan gods. They found the Muslims of the Bulgarian lands to be without joy, and rejected the abolition of alcohol and pork, for what joy can be found in a life without Vodka and bacon? Also, Vladimir found the Jewish faith to be weak, for they had lost Jerusalem, and as a result saw them as having been abandoned by God. They found the services of the Romans to be relentlessly bleak and without beauty. Yet, when the ambassadors came to the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, they indeed found what they had been searching for, and reported back to their lord:
“And we went into the Greek lands, and we were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, on heaven or on earth; and do not know how to tell about this. All we know is that God lives there with people and their service is better than in any other country. We cannot forget that beauty since each person, if he eats something sweet, will not take something bitter afterwards; so we cannot remain any more in paganism.”
So, the Russian people joined Prince Vladimir through baptism into the Orthodox faith. The old pagan gods were rejected, and many churches were built in those places they once held. The Orthodox faith united disparate tribes across the land, giving them new meaning and new life. The Orthodox faith regenerated Russian princes and rulers, so that in time Russia would rise from the shadows of this world to become a beacon of Orthodoxy to all men. From the Russian Church, many luminaries of Truth and virtue arose to lead her into the ages to come. From the Russian Church many Saints, endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, shine brightly into the world wherein their memories echo amongst us.
We remember the likes of Saint Sergius, who founded the largest Orthodox Monastery in all of Russia, today known as the Trinity Lavra of Saint Sergius. It is from him that the cultural ideals of Holy Rus emerged. We remember Vasily the blessed, a fool for Christ who was known all across Moscow in the 15th century, now buried in the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Red Square. We remember the holy hierarch Saint Germogen, who gave strength to the Russian peoples amidst the time of troubles; who in both faith and confession, “spiritually and morally regenerated the Russian nation, [wherein] it again started on the path of seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the righteousness of subordinating the earthly life of the state to spiritual principles.” We remember Saint Seraphim of Sarov, that great light of Orthodox Spirituality, who exhorts us to acquire a spirit of peace, that thousands around us might be saved. We remember the likes of Saint John of Kronstadt; a model for all Orthodox priests; the great pastor of Russia who breathed into the Russian people on the eve of its great peril a lasting reserve of spirituality, a reserve that would allow it to survive and endure the coming years of atheist Soviet Russia. We remember great Saints such as these, and many more like them, who struggled against themselves, against the world and acquired the Holy Spirit, as evidenced by the lasting memory of holiness they left behind.
We stand with saints like these, each of us together, united in one Orthodox faith, one teaching, one mind, and one Love for both God and one another. Love is the common denominator. Love is the unending and enduring fire of God’s grace on earth, burning through the hearts of men, and bringing light to where there is none. It is within the light and light of God’s love that the faithful persevere against the evils of this world. It is this love the Church carries into the world, and it is by this love that the Church has prevailed, prevails today, and will continue to prevail in the ages to come. For, the world is a cold and dark spiritual desert within which we are all tested. It is only by the unquenchable fire of God’s love aflame within us that we can survive and prevail, that we are guided and find our way, and are given the light life when all the world has to offer is the shadow of death. The Saints have shown this to be True. The Russian Orthodox Church has shown this to be true, having endured perhaps the greatest darkness the Church has ever known, and one of the greatest evils the world has ever known. So, as we look forward toward the days to come, let us not be disturbed by tumults and turmoil; let us not be troubled by social unrest, revolts, and upheavals; let us not be perplexed by political unrest and rhetoric; let us not stumble by the fraying of the moral fabric of the very Republic in which we live. Instead, as Father Seraphim Rose exhorts us to do, “let all true Orthodox Christians strengthen themselves for the battle ahead, never forgetting that in Christ the victory is already ours.”
The gift of holiness, the gift of the Holy Spirit, is open to all of us to receive. Yet, if Christ is the great physician, and the Church is the hospital for our souls, it is up to us to follow those prescriptions - by Christ and the Church - to take the gifts of healing freely given to us for the benefit of both soul and body. Faith and holiness is a choice. Let us heed the words of Saint Herman of Alaska: “For our good, for our happiness, at least let us give a vow to ourselves, that from this day, from this hour, from this minute, we shall strive above all else to love God and to do His Holy Will!”
Oh Lord Jesus Christ our God, by the prayers of thy most pure mother, the holy and God bearing fathers, all the saints and the martyrs and the angels have mercy on us and save us. Amen!
HOMILY: Sunday of the Prodigal Son
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. God is One! Amen
So we enter into the second Sunday of the triodion, the second week in our period of preparation for the Lenten fast soon upon us. Last week we heard the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, laying down the cornerstone of our Lenten journey: Humility and Repentance. Then we have today, the Sunday of The Prodigal Son, perhaps the most well known of parables, the image and trope of the prodigal being used widely across literature, movies, novels, and even video games. In this parable we see the image and archetype of God’s forgiveness in the prodigal son, who had abandoned his father for the world and its pleasures, and returned home to his father’s house where he was received with open arms as a son, and not as a servant as the prodigal son had intended.
The Gospel reading for today embodies the entirety of God’s message to the world. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son we are shown the longing of God for the repentance of his children. It is said by the Fathers of the Church that the entirety of the Gospel can be found in The Parable of the Prodigal Son, and if for some reason the scriptures were lost to us, keeping this parable, it would be possible to for us to recreate a concise summation of Christian teachings, and also to emphasize the love of God for all mankind.
Reading through fathers, past and present, there are many themes that can be extracted from this single, simple parable. Today we are going to focus on one of them, that which is most relevant to us in preparing for this Lenten season as we move Godward in the course of our Orthodox Christian lives.
When reading Holy Scriptures, we must always learn to see ourselves in the least of these characters, the lowliest of people, and in this case we see ourselves in the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son is a symbol of all of us, the entirety of fallen man, of every individual sinner. Saint John of Kronstadt shares this notion as regards the Prodigal Son, saying: “We all see ourselves in it as in a mirror. In a few words the Lord, the knower of hearts, has shown in the person of one man how the deceptive sweetness of sin separates us from the truly sweet life according to God.”
The Prodigal son asks his father for his portion of goods that falls to him. Perhaps he did not understand the gravity of the request, and the weight of the insult that unwittingly fell behind it, essentially telling his father in not so many words: I do not want to wait for you to die, so please give me my inheritance now. Now, the father had every right to refuse him, and even correct him amidst his request, but rather he allowed his silence and subsequent actions to express his love for his son, leaving him free to do as he wished. He understood the mystery of fatherhood and of sonship, which is to give to the other the possibility of returning home freely. And so the Father lets his son go.
The portion we receive from our Father in heaven is our gifts, our talents with which we must work and multiply. Also, according to Bishop Ignatius Branchininov, our gifts consist of "…the mind and heart, and especially the grace of the Holy Spirit, given to each Christian. The demand made of the father for the portion of goods falling to the son in order to use it arbitrarily is the striving of man to throw off from himself submissiveness to God and to follow his own thoughts and desires. In the father's consent to hand over the property there is depicted the absolute authority with which God has honored man in the use of God's gifts." So, we spit in the face of God, turning away from Him in choosing the pleasures of this world. Like the Prodigal Son we are impatient, telling God by our actions that we choose earthly riches and goods over those treasures in heaven to which we have been promised. We choose earthly pleasures over that of eternal peace. We choose this world over the kingdom to which we have been made heirs as sons and daughters of the living God.
So the Prodigal Son departs from his father and goes to a far away land, much as we do in the pursuit of worldly living, to borrow the words from the Prophet Isaiah, “dwelling in a region of the shadow of death.” But the world cannot sustain us. The world is fickle and shifts with time like the vagaries of the sand. The Prodigal Son was in want of food, a famine of the body, but ours is a famine of the soul. As Saint Ambrose explains: “It was not a famine of fasts but of good works and virtues. What hunger is more wretched? Certainly whoever departs from the Word of God hungers, because “man lives not by bread alone but by every word of God.” Whoever leaves treasure lacks. Whoever departs from wisdom is stupefied. Whoever departs from virtue is destroyed.”
From physical hunger to destitution, and in our case, from a departure of virtue into depravity. At first the Prodigal Son was not aware of the depths of despair into which he had fallen, and neither are we aware of how depraved we have allowed ourselves to become in our fallen sinfulness. Yet, eventually the Prodigal Son finally came to himself, as we ourselves often do. He remembered whose son he was, and despite all his failings never ceased being the son of his father. Yes, he was still a sinner. Yes, he had sinned to such an extent that he had squandered the entire inheritance he had been given. He knew who his Father was, and by our same calling we know we have not lost our sonship, nor the grace of the Holy Spirit, for it is by the authority of the Holy Spirit alone that we are permitted to call God our Father.
Remembering his father, he arose and turned away from the world he once embraced with his riotous living. The beginning of his repentance, metanoia (μετάνοια) in Greek, meaning to change one's mind, or in another sense understood as “a turning away from the world.” What courage it took for the prodigal son to set aside his shame in the knowledge of his familial disgrace, understanding the gravity of his offense against his father, and the weight of his transgressions and misdeeds in the face of a loving father.
Oh, what spiritual calamity it is for us to not see ourselves as we really are, blinded by the veil of pride much like the Pharisee was in the Parable Of the Publican and the Pharisee that we heard last week; to not see ourselves as the sinners we really are. Yet, as John Climacus exhorts us in the 28th step of the Ladder of Divine Ascent, “Let your prayer be completely simple. For both the publican and the prodigal son were reconciled to God by a single phrase.” Likewise, we begin to come to the knowledge of ourselves in the utterance of this simplest of prayers: “My Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner!” In this knowledge, we can find the strength, much like the prodigal son did, to turn away from the world and begin our repentance as we return to the father seeking his forgiveness and our reconciliation with God.
The Father never ceases looking for his son, and neither does God cease seeking his lost sheep, but it must be our choice that we return to Him. It must be by that same free will we chose to abandon our father, that we must choose to be reconciled with him. Seeing his son from afar off the Father “had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” The son, seeking reconciliation with his father, confesses before him: “I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and I am no more worthy to be called your son.” His father did not reproach him. He did not demand repayment for what was lost. He did not scold him, but with the same silence that he watched him leave, he received him once again with love. As Saint Ambrose tells us, “The power of love overlooked the transgressions. The father redeemed the sins of his son by his kiss, and covered them by his embrace.”
The Prodigal Son returned to his father in great humility, that he might only be allowed back into his father’s household once more, if only as a servant. But the father gave him a robe, just as our heavenly father restores our baptismal garment unto us by confession; a ring is placed upon his finger, just as our father in heaven does as much to as by the restoration of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and that particular seal of sonship; and the Prodigal Son’s feet are girded with sandals, as much as our Father has given us sure footing upon the foundation of Truth, the Church to which we have been restored, and no longer slaves to sin. The Father of the Prodigal Son slaughtered the fatted calf, of which nearly all the fathers have agreed is a symbol of the Eucharist, in which we receive the body and blood of Christ, the spotless lamb sacrificed for the sake of the whole world. The music and dancing is the joyous celebration of the saints, martyrs, and the angels in heaven over the one that repented.
We as sinners, endure and repeat this cycle of falling into the depths of sin, the rise of shame from self knowledge of our sin, humility born in our recognition of our unworthiness before God, confession and reconciliation with our Father in heaven, and the restoration of our sonship and status as a part of the body of Christ. As the Monks on Athos have confessed about their daily lives, we all fall, and we rise. We fall, and we rise. So it is likewise with all of us in the Church. The Gospel reading for today teaches us of one who has returned from the greatest depths of sin and depravity, which should give us all great hope, that no matter the weight of our failures, the grace of God is greater, the love of God is brighter, and the forgiveness of God runs deeper the greatest depths of sin to which we could ever fall. Let us always remember that we have a loving father waiting for us to return to him into his open arms.
Oh Lord Jesus Christ our God, by the prayers of thy most Pure Mother, the holy and God bearing fathers, all the Saints and the Martyrs and the Angels, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
The 22nd Sunday After Penecost
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, God is one. Amen
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus is confronted by two groups of Jews; two groups that were ideologically opposed to one another; two groups that for all intents and purposes were enemies, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that is the logic under which they aligned themselves with one another to confront Jesus in the temple. For Jesus has been teaching in the temple, and through his teaching, challenged the religious establishment therein, undermining the authority and credibility of the religious leaders there. Now, the religious leaders would try to find a way to discredit Jesus, and ultimately remove him, or at least they would try. But who were the Herodians, and what did they have to do with the Pharisees?
So you have two sides of the same coin, in a sense, working hand in hand to try and usurp the authority of Jesus in the temple. Secular Jewish leaders working with religious Jewish leaders towards a common goal, a common enemy
The Herodians could also be referred to as hellenic Jews, for they saw the very future of Judaism and the Jewish people within the Greek cultural hegemony of the Roman empire. They were named after the ruler placed over them by the Romans, Herod the Great. Hence, the name, Herodians. These Jews simply put on a facade of religious practice in order to publicly justify their life in private living as wannabe Romans. The Pharisees on the other hand worked with the Romans, but only because they had to, and in their eyes for the good of the Jewish people.
The Pharisees worked with the Romans out of absolute necessity. They were believers in religious purity and adherence to the Law, so much so that they created an entire code of Jewish life in order to protect the faithful Jew from ever falling into error of the Laws. Those rabbis who followed them often ran the various ghettos found across many Roman cities. In short, the Pharisees had little love for the Romans, for they saw contact with the Romans, and the overall increase of cultural contact with the Romans as polluting the purity of the Jewish people.
So, here we are with these two groups working with one another, intending to trap Jesus with the deception of the question that would follow. After an opening salvo of some cynical flattery, they ask him this question: ““Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” Jesus then asks them for a denarius, for you see, to all parties involved the whole crux of the matter came down to that small coil.
The Denarius was typically what one received for a day’s wages. In that time the denarius bore the image of the emperor, and the following phrase was inscribed upon it: “Tiberius Caesar, Augustus, son of the divine Augustus, high priest.” So, the coin contained the engraved image of a man that was not only regarded as a deity by the Roman people, but was also considered the high priest of the entire Pantheon of Roman deities. So, obviously the Pharisees objected to the use of this coin for currency as they saw it not only as a borderline violation of the first commandment: “I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me,” they also saw payment with this coin as tribute to the emperor and his gods. So to preserve the purity of the Jewish people, money changers were established to exchange this “dirty” money for a local currency minted in Hebrew. The Herodians, on the other hand, saw no reservations about the use of Roman currency.
So, Jesus had a choice. If he agreed with the Pharisees, the Herodians could charge him with revolution against the Romans. If he agreed with the Herodians, the Pharisees could charge him with idolatry. It was a question asked within the framework of conflicting priorities, and when the world is pitted against itself, no answer is the right answer. So, Christ being King of Kings and Lord of Lords reframes their question upon that very coin by asking who’s image it bears. Upon the answering of His question, Jesus then answers theirs by saying “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” The false dichotomy of Herodian realpolitik and Pharisaical idealism was dissolved and replaced with choosing between God, and the world.
We live in the world, but not of it. Let us recall the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” And Christ himself told Pilate: “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.”
Certainly we can live fully for God with no participation in the world, and those are called monastics. Then, the other end of the spectrum are the hedonists and nihilists who live only for themselves. We are neither of these, but we walk the middle path. We give ourselves fully to God while actively participating in the dominant culture for the common good. In a way, and to some, this participation becomes an act of Christian charity and evangelization. But, that participation can only take place as long as the laws of man do not overrule or supersede the laws of God. In such cases as these, Holy disobedience is in order. In the time of the Romans? It became necessary. In Atheist communist Russia? It became necessary. In some countries such as North Korea or China? It does become necessary. Though, lucky for us, we do not live in such a place or time that requires us to resort to Holy disobedience. Yet, oftentimes the American obsession with personal freedom can often preclude any struggle for the common good.
Our participation begins with our personal responsibilities to the Church, to our families, our jobs that support them both. Also, as we are able, we extend our participation beyond our personal boundaries and into the public realm for the good of others. As a result, those in need, those who struggle, those who are in want, and society in general grows from the light of hope emanating from a citizenry engaged with itself. Yet, we never forget the personal struggle against the passions, and in so doing, through our participation in society we become living examples of Truth that others can hopefully see and follow into the Church, the fullness of Truth.
I think sometimes some people forget that our struggle is first and primarily a spiritual struggle, and the outer struggles of which we see and hear are nothing more than the loudest visible signs of an invisible conflict waging around us. But we, as Orthodox Christians, are on the front lines of that spiritual conflict. Whenever we do see wars fought abroad, and the struggles here at home, our first choice should always be God. This is one reason why the Church beseeches us to pray for peace in the face of all conflict, for war is sin. Rarely is either side innocent. When we are left to choose within a false dichotomy that the world has given us, our first choice should always be God. For in choosing the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil. In those cases we must trust God to give victory to whom he chooses.
We must remember that God desires our salvation, and we must believe that he has placed each of us in our situations precisely for our own salvation. He will use even the evil deeds of men to save all of those who love him. The problem is when we are in pain we can never see the present moment for what it is. But when we are not in pain, we often never stay in the present moment, the only moment in our lives in which we can encounter God. We spend our days dreaming of a future that may or may not ever come, or looking back in regret at our decisions and mistakes, dwelling on what if, sometimes forgetting that Christ has forgiven the repentant sinner, and that includes ourselves.
We cannot escape the present moment. When God said the work is finished, he is already standing at the finish line looking back at us, seeing all the work that has been done and will be done. We can only see this moment, and as long as we do not forget God in that moment, and all the moments to come, we will one day hear those words “well done, my good and faithful servant.” For, as Christ has said: “In your patience possess ye your souls” and “He that endures to the end shall be saved.”
Our faith is our first priority, but it is often a conflicting priority with the other things of this world. It's not that we choose or should choose the world at any point over God, but that we often pit our worldly choices against other worldly choices, and this ultimately turns us away from Him. We then are no longer walking the middle path between God and this world, living in this world as citizens of the Kingdom of God, but are slowly walking astray between two paths of conflict framed around things of this world that have nothing to do with God or our salvation. Choose God first, and the rest will sort itself out later.
Oh Lord Jesus Christ our God, by the prayers of thy most pure Mother, the Holy and God bearing fathers; all the saints, and the martyrs, and the angels, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
United in Love
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. One God! Amen.
The world would have you believe that truth is relative. That there is no absolute truth. The world would have you believe that truth is an individual thing: his truth, her truth, their truth. Lacking absolute truth they seek for those things outside themselves with which they mostly identify, things outside themselves which have little to do with their personhood as found in their humanity created in the image and likeness of their creator: their gender identity, their sexual identity, their social status, their wealth, and everything that lies between. Each broken person is a patchwork quilt of disparate and unrelated ideologies under which they try to find comfort. It is in this individuality with which they have fashioned for themselves their own image away from the image and likeness of their Creator, and it is in this false image of humanity with which they try to find or create community. They are all individual pieces of an unknown puzzle. The picture is a stranger to everyone, even those holding the pieces. They throw themselves together within the same puzzle box, thinking that coexistence somehow replaces that of communion and community. They somehow believe that proximity results in relationships and yet they have nothing of themselves to share with one another other than those things external to themselves instead of anything that's actually of themselves or even theirs to give. They are “bonded” by the shifting vagaries of the world which will change at the next oncoming social tide. This is a sad and broken existence. The world is insane; for, they continue to do the same things over and over again while expecting a different result; yet, they continue to be broken, continue to be lost, continue in a hopeless misery of life because they lack the absolute truth revealed in the fullness of God. They keep seeking for more because the world has nothing more to give. Their houses are built on foundations of sand, and this is why with time, they nearly always collapse. However, Truth is eternal. Truth is unchanging. Truth is the firm foundation on which we all stand.
We are unconfused about our humanity and who we are. We are certain of ourselves because we are certain of God. We know ourselves because we know Christ. Our purpose is absolute because Truth is absolute. While we recognize the brokenness of man, we understand the frailty and futility of our human condition amidst the vagaries of an often harsh and unforgiving world. We may be broken, but our Hospital, the Church, is here to heal us. We may be bruised, shaken down and trampled underfoot, but we are certainly not divided, and will never be destroyed. We are one just as God is one, and we are united in the love of God. If we are each living stones of the body of Christ, then we are bound together by God’s love as a spiritual mortar, for this love is no common love, as Saint John Chrysostom says, but that which cements us together, and makes us cleave inseparably to one another, and effects as great and as perfect a union as though it were between limb and limb. For this is that love which produces great and glorious fruits.
This is the kind of love we hear about in our Gospel reading for today: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” We give ourselves to God, but we also give ourselves to one another. We give to God ourselves, our whole thoughts, our whole understanding, and our whole life, leaving no part of ourselves no part of our lives that may be justly unfilled by Him. This type of love is absent of self and pride, for we love God first, and then all others, before we even come into our own picture. What’s more, Christ himself has said that “those who love me will keep and obey my commandments.” So, you see, love is not about how we feel, love is not about our emotions, love is not a statement, but it is an action. We love God, we love others, and manifest that love by that which we do in obedience to Him who gave us all things. That being said, what do we do that requires the most time and attention? Is it God? Is it our neighbor? Or is it some paltry thing, or something external to us? Keep this in mind: We become what we love, and who or what we love shapes what we become. If we love God, we become more like God. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, then we become nothing.
Look at those sitting next to you. Look at those around you. You are bound together in an eternal felicity found only in the knowledge and love of Christ. You are each bonded together by the blood of Christ. You share in your lives and salvation by the body and blood of Christ as an eternal food and remedy. We love each other because we love Christ, and it is in Christ by which we are all united. So we must think of this when we fail, not only Christ, not only ourselves, but all those to whom we share this eternal bond. Love is a choice, but Sin is also a choice, and it only seeks to rend that which God has brought together.
Sin is the antithesis to unity, and we see the results of this within the world around us. So when we face down our passions and the temptations of the flesh, when we get angry or choose to do something that would harm ourselves or another, would we do this to them, to any of these sitting around us? Remember this, because we are so united by the Love of God, anything we do apart from that affects not only us but the Church, and all those to whom we are bound by love. This is why confession is so important, because it not only heals our own wounds, but brings us back together with those we have willfully separated ourselves away from, even if we do not yet know it. Confession heals not only our own wounds, but those wounds we have inflicted upon the Church, those wounds we have inflicted upon one another, to those sitting around us, by way of our own negligence
We are one. We find our unity in our love; not the pseudo facsimile of love that the world can only offer, but the love of God, the love of one another, and a peace which the world cannot give. We are one in Christ: One God, One Truth, one cup, one loaf, one teaching, one faith, and one Church. With the Love of which the Gospel speaks, and which Paul demands of us, there is nothing that can divide us, and nothing that can move us. The Church is still here. We are still here.
Closing with the words of our blessed Father among the saints, Saint John Chrysostom, I leave you with this: “ Indeed, love is a strong wall, impregnable not only to men, but also to the devil. He who is surrounded by a multitude of those who love him cannot fall into danger; he has no reason to be angry, but always feels peace of heart, joy and gladness; there is no reason to be jealous; there are no occasions for vindictiveness. Look how easily he carries out both his spiritual and worldly affairs. Who can compare to him? He is like a city completely shielded by walls; and he [who has no love] is like a city without any protection.”
By the prayers of thy most pure mother, the holy and God bearing fathers, all the saints and the martyrs and the angels, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
We Grateful Lepers
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; God is One! Amen.
In today’s Gospel reading we hear the story of ten lepers, ten men who were ritually unclean, rejected, and excluded from the community and common worship of the Temple. They were not even allowed to come near the habitations of men, for fear that their illness would be spread, and others would come into illness, even unto death. So, who are these lepers to us? If the Church fathers have taught us anything about the reading of scripture, it is to consider the least of these within the corpus of holy writ, and see ourselves within them.
Were we not once spiritual lepers of the faith, standing on the outside of the Church and looking in; standing apart and removed from the Holy mysteries within? Were we not cast down, and therefore cast out, by the magnitude of our own sin? So, like the Lepers, we stood outside, and afar off from Christ, crying for mercy: My Lord, Jesus Christ the Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. It is a prayer that is constant on the lips of Orthodox faithful around the world; on the lips of those seeking Christ; on the lips of those seeking their salvation within the boundaries of Holy Tradition, and all of those participating in their salvation through the sacramental life and rhythm of the Church..
Christ heard the cries of the Lepers, and sent them away to the priests, that they may fulfill the Law to be ritually cleansed, so that they may be brought back into the fellowship of their community once again. Christ heard our calls and brought us into the Church, to His priests that we may be ritually cleansed and healed of our infirmities, received by Him who has already fulfilled the law. Out there, outside the Church is the Law which brings death, but here within the Church resides the Law of the Spirit of Life, the Law that brings Life, and that law is Christ.
Christ heard our calls, yet did we hear His call when he beseeched us to go and do likewise; when he exhorted us to go and sin no more; when he beseeched us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect; or when he commanded us to Do this in remembrance of Him? Do we recognize, and are we grateful, thankful, of the many wounds of which we have been healed, some of us of illnesses from which we have been saved or assuaged, many of us rescued from the only life of death this world could offer; and all of us saved from the wages of sin, which is death? Are we grateful that we have received this gift of healing? Are we thankful that we had the spiritual faculties through which to perceive and receive it?
All the lepers were healed, but only one of them returned to give thanks. The Gospel tells us that this man was a Samaritan, one who existed outside of the Hebrew community, and had no rights within the people of Israel. He was not just a stranger, but a reject of the Hebrew people. The Samaritan knew this; knew that he had no right to the love which he received from God, this act of Christ, and yet he knew that he had been healed, cleansed of his consuming illness. He was made whole once again, and knowing the undeservedness of the gift he had just received, he returned and gave thanks to Christ who told him:”Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.” Yet, knowing this about himself, why did he return to Christ? Gratitude is a powerful thing and springs up in each of us more powerfully when what we have received is undeserved of us to be received, but how much more so when that which is received is a miracle of divine and human love?
What of the other nine lepers? Perhaps they felt as though they deserved that which they received, and in their unspoken pride felt as though they had no reason to be grateful. For, when we think we deserve something and receive it, we feel we have received that as our due. This is a problem, not only within the world, but within the walls of the Church as well. So many feel entitled, feel they have the right: a right to human concern, to human love, to everything within which the human condition can give us, to our relationships, to our property, and ultimately, to even God’s love for us all. So when many receive that gift of grace there is a superficial gratefulness, a vestigial thank you, but none of it transforms our relationships to either God or to one another by returning that same mercy others have shown unto us. It is instead received as their due, and we are grateful to those who delivered to us that which we already had the right to receive.
Do any of us really have an entitlement to the life we live, the air we breath, and the relationships we uphold through either love or selfishness? Humanity itself exists as an act of love, created out of nothing and brought into being by the hands of a loving God. Many of us, though not all of us, came into this world through an act of love, when two bodies became one flesh, and out of that union a new life was born. We live because someone loved us enough to ensure our survival through a world intent on killing us in body, mind, or spirit. We deserve nothing, yet it is through love and love alone that we have received everything.
He gave us his life, his teaching, his death, and his forgiveness, but what have we given him in return: a passive acknowledgement of his love and presence within our own lives; a sometimes cursory understanding of his teaching, or even a downright rejection if it disagrees with our own personal agendas, opinions, and personal sensibilities; our continual submission to sin and the passions of the flesh; or our lack of mercy given to our fellow man as both patience and forgiveness fails us time and time again? He gave us our lives, so it is the least we can do but to give our lives back to him, consecrated within the sacramental life and rhythm of the Church, ever grateful for the mercy of God and those gifts which we have received, and continue to receive.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God…” These are the words of Christ in His first beatitude. We must acknowledge that we are poor in spirit, for this is the fundamental condition for the spiritual growth and progress of all men. The poor in spirit are those who know that they possess nothing which is not a gift, and are deserving of nothing which they have received. To be poor in spirit is to be empty of all pride and the surrender of one’s self to the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit. It is to find freedom from ones own ideas, opinions and desires that would lead one away from God. To be poor in spirit is to be liberated from the vain imaginations of one’s own heart. Ultimately, spiritual poverty is the condition of total emptiness, openness and honesty before God. Once we have peeled away all that we have, and all that we are in the eyes of this world, standing spiritually naked before the eyes of a triune God, then we can truly be grateful, returning to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to fall upon our collective faces and giving thanks unto Him for all things.
Closing with the words of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of blessed memory:
“Let us reflect on this; let us learn to live out of gratitude, out of the joy of being loved, out of our communion with God, but knowing that it is an act of gratuitous generosity, that we have no rights - and yet we possess all things. Saint Paul said that: I have nothing, and I possess all things. Each of us could be such a rich person in our utter poverty, rich with all the love and power and richness of God.
Let us reflect, and let us give God, in an act of gratitude not only spoken, not only dimly felt, but lived in every action of our life: let us give Him joy, and the certainty that He has not created us in vain, not lived and died for us in vain, that we are truly disciples who have understood and who want to live His Gospel.”
By the prayer of thy most pure Mother, the holy and God bearing fathers, all the saints, the martyrs and the angels, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
