The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (18:23-35)

It is a wondrous and simultaneously a dreadful thing to hear the word of God. It cuts like a two-edged sword. It opens up new realities to us and convicts us at the same time. It is wondrous to us that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, the incarnate Son of the living God comes to us and teaches us the secrets of the kingdom of God. Step back and contemplate this for a moment. Nothing essential is hidden from us! Nothing that is necessary for this life or the next has been held back. Out of Christ’s extreme love for us, He has shared it with us and invites us to enter into this kingdom and to even taste of this kingdom here and now.

In today’s reading the Lord gives a parable and says “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with His servants.” We often gloss over this but it is truly a special thing that God teaches us about the kingdom of heaven. He teaches us what the kingdom is like. He prepares us for the kingdom, to dwell in the house of His Father. But my brothers and sisters this isn’t simply a wondrous thing. It is also a dreadful matter! “How so?” you might ask. Because to whom much is given, much is required. The Lord gives us and woe to us if we don’t take what He has given to us seriously.

In this particular case, Our Lord Jesus gives us the teaching regarding forgiveness. He tells us that forgiveness is an integral part of the kingdom of heaven, and therefore an integral part of the life of a Christian. Forgiveness is everything for a Christian because our whole life in Christ depends on God’s forgiveness of our many sins and failings.

In today’s parable sin is compared with debts that cannot be repaid. This is in fact true since there is no way to repay God or undo our sins. The sins can only be wiped out through complete forgiveness by the Lord. He makes it as if the sins, and the estrangement from God are gone completely. Like a man who couldn’t pay his debts and yet his master was merciful and forgave the debts that the man owed. This is the way that God deal with each of you. He doesn’t hold the sins that you repent of and confess, against you. He wipes them away. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Now the problem in the parable is that the servant who was forgiven a large amount of debt by the King, goes out and finds one of his own servants. This servant happens to owe him a small amount of money and this same servant who was just forgiven a great deal of debt by the King, decides to be harsh, brutal and unmerciful with his own servant who owed him far, far less. When word of this comes to the King, he is indignant, He is angry. His once kind and merciful countenance had turned against his servant because his servant showed himself to be unmerciful in the depths of his heart.

My friends, this is a story about us. It is a story about how much each of us has been forgiven by God. The answer is VERY MUCH. God has been far more merciful to us than we deserve or can ever imagine. In light of this mercy and forgiveness, how do we treat others who may have wronged us? How do we think about them? Do we love them? Are we merciful to them? Have we really, truly forgiven them or deep in our hearts do we still harbor bad feelings towards them? Do we hold resentment towards them? Do we hate them?

St. Silouan of Mt. Athos writes, “We have such a law: If you forgive, it means that God has forgiven you; but if you do not forgive your brother, it means that your sin remains with you.” -Writings, VII.9

Or perhaps they haven’t wronged us at all but they have done some wrong in their lives, or perhaps they are living wrongly. Perhaps they have had lapses in their judgment or succumbed to temptations. But how do we see them? Do we condemn them? Do we judge them as being unworthy of love?

This is what the parable of Christ seeks to examine within the heart of each believer. Have we embraced forgiveness of others truly? Have we embraced it in the same way that Christ has embraced each of us? Have we even started to reflect on just how much God has forgiven each of us? Have we reflected on how far away we once were and how far down God has descended to lift us out of the hell that we had created for ourselves?

Someone once said that the keys to hell are locked from the inside. It is the one who is in hell who alone can turn the key and open the doorway to the kingdom. God doesn’t have the power to unlock that door. He has already opened wide the door to the kingdom! The other door is kept shut by us. It can only be opened through genuine, radical, complete forgiveness, from the depths of our hearts because it is the door of the heart that needs to be opened. This is the passport that will grant us safe passage to the gates of heaven. It is the passport of unconditional love.

Give up these resentments and these hurts, if not for others, then for yourselves. Give them up because they are like fools gold. They are worthless. Even worse than worthless, they once again bring us back into slavery and debt, after we had already been freed.

St. Tikhon of Zadonsk writes,“Do we refuse to forgive? God, too, will refuse to forgive us. As we treat our neighbours, so also does God treat us. The forgiveness or unforgiveness of your sins, then, and hence also your salvation or destruction, depend on you yourself. For without forgiveness of sins there is no salvation. You can see for yourself how serious it is.”  –Journey to Heaven: Counsels on the Particular Duties of Every Christian

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (17:14-23)

In today’s gospel our Lord Jesus Christ encounters a boy with a terrible form of epilepsy. This disease causes seizures, which are sometimes violent and can occur at any time, unexpectedly. Now in the case of this particular form of epilepsy, there cause of the illness was not simply physical. The issue was deeper. We are told that it was demonic. Modern writers will try to understand these passages through a secular or material worldview that is dictated above all by the rational mind and “scientific” reasoning. So they will dismiss the idea of demonic possession by saying that the gospel writers were unsophisticated men who did not have a proper understanding of medicine and the human body et cetera. But my brothers and sisters this is false. The Lord Jesus Christ had a better understanding of reality than ours. He sees beyond the physical into the spiritual depths. His understanding and comprehension of “what is really going on” is far above anyone else’s either ancient or modern.

The evangelist St. Matthew tells us that Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him. This led to a brief exchange with the disciples. The disciples came in private and asked “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus said to them, “Because you have no faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” The Lord gave a very matter of fact assessment of the situation. The reason why they could not heal the boy was because they lacked the faith necessary to make it a reality. But then the Lord goes on to say something rather curious. He tells the disciples that “ This kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting.” It is a statement that gives us pause, it makes us curious. These two statements are connected, the statement about their lack of faith and the statement about prayer and fasting. They are connected because according to the Lord when we pray and fast our faith increases, or this allows our faith the ability to increase. Is it any wonder then that in the life of the Orthodox Church we fast more than 200 days of the year? The Church is faithful to her Lord and she desires her children to grow in faith through such tools. Many of you have heard me speak about fasting but I thought it might be nice to share some words about the practice of fasting from our rich and holy Orthodox Christian tradition.

St. Theophan the recluse writes, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” [Matthew 17:14-23] If this kind goes out by the prayer and fasting of another person, then it is even less able to enter one who fasts and prays. What protection! Although there are a slew of demons and all the air is packed with them, they cannot do anything to one who is protected by prayer and fasting. Fasting is universal temperance, prayer is universal communication with God; the former defends from the outside, whereas the latter from within directs a fiery weapon against the enemies. The demons can sense a faster and man of prayer from a distance, and they run far away from him so as avoid a painful blow.”

+ St. Theophan the Recluse

And St. Gregory Palamas who was bishop in the 14th century taught about fasting in relation to Adam as well as to the new adam, who is Jesus Christ when he wrote,

“… Adam chose the treason of the serpent, the originator of evil, in preference to God’s commandment and counsel, and broke the decreed fast. Instead of eternal life he received death and instead of the place of unsullied joy he received this sinful place full of passions and misfortunes, or rather, he was sentenced to Hades and nether darkness. Our nature would have stayed in the infernal regions below the lurking places of the serpent who initially beguiled it, had not Christ come. He started off by fasting (cf. Mk. 1:13) and in the end abolished the serpent’s tyranny, set us free and brought us back to life.” — St. Gregory Palamas, The Homilies Vol. II

St. Gregory goes so far as to say that the salvation of the human race was linked with Our Lord Jesus Christ’s fasting in the wilderness before His earthly ministry. We get the sense from this that fasting was considered a very serious aspect of spiritual life and not something to be discarded or cast aside lightly.

One of the great defenders of the faith, St. Athanasius of Alexandria writing in the 4th century said, “Devils take great delight in fullness, and drunkenness and bodily comfort. Fasting possesses great power and it works glorious things. To fast is to banquet with angels.”+ St. Athanasius the Great

But in all of this we are also frequently given reminders from the Fathers that fasting alone, is not enough. It is a tool to be wielded with a humble and good heart. St. Maximos the confessor writes,

“Many human activities, good in themselves, are not good because of the motive for which they are done. For example, fasting and vigils, prayer and psalmody, acts of charity and hospitality are by nature good, but when performed for the sake of self-esteem they are not good.” -Four Hundred Texts on Love 2.35, The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Vol. 2)

I share these words with you as an encouragement for those of you who wonder why we undertake such practices in Holy Orthodoxy. Prayerful fasting is one aspect of the grace filled and life giving practices or we might say, therapies of the Church. These all work together by the grace of God to offer us healing and renewal in Christ. May the Lord heal and renew each of us as the lover of mankind. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (14:22-34)
Our Lord Jesus Christ was praying late one night while up on a mountain. He had just finished with the overwhelming crowds. He was with them all day, teaching, preaching, healing, feeding. He was definitely exhausted since we know that He shares in our human nature, and yet our Lord tells us something about Himself and about prayer through this passage. He did not run to find a place to sleep and rest. Our Lord Jesus took His rest with God His Father. It required Him to climb the mountain of prayer, to make an effort. To choose between extra sleep and extra time with the Father. To speak to God His Father was worth the effort, worth the sacrifices, and worth the climb up the mountain.

When we see this image of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are reminded that in order to pray one has to go with some effort towards God. It will often feel like an uphill battle, like a climb. Prayer is not just words into the air, but real communication with the living God. One goes uphill not only in their efforts but spiritually. Prayer is an ascent towards the heavenly. When we are in prayer, really in prayer, we are high above the rest of the world. We have laid aside all earthly cares in order to focus out hearts and minds on God. This is so precious and special that real work is required of us. Sometimes prayer comes very easily and other times, most times, it takes a real effort. St. Barsanuphius of Optina said “In the struggle of prayer, it is absolutely necessary to force oneself and compel oneself to pray.” It is difficult, but it is worth the effort and it is very much the goal of a Christian to learn to climb towards Christ in our prayers and in our lives.

In the midst of the Lord’s prayers on the mountain, we are told that the disciples traveled by boat and where caught in rough waves and strong winds. The Lord waited for this moment and came to the disciples, in the middle of the night, walking upon the surface of the sea. This sight terrified the disciples. No one could imagine such an event. Even though the disciples had seen many miracles, still they did not comprehend what their eyes were seeing in that very moment. The Lord cried out to them, “take heart, it is I, have no fear.” I find this to be a beautiful and comforting image. How often we have storms in our life and we feel the waters of life surging and the winds swirling around us? Yet the Lord is with us just as the Lord was with them. He cries out to us also, “Take heart, it is I, have no fear.”

It turns out that one of the disciples, who was known in the gospels to be rather impulsive in some of his actions, responds impulsively but with great faith in the Lord. “Lord if it is you, bid me to come to you on the water?” The Lord did not even hesitate for a moment. He replied “Come.” Peter responded to this right away and he climbed out of the boat and walked upon the sea. He walked to the Lord on the water! As long as his eyes were fixed on the Lord, he was able to do a great things. He was doing what the Lord Himself did, with His help. But like all of us mere humans, he allowed his eyes to drift away from the Lord. He began to think rationally once more. He heard the swirling winds and remembered that he was walking on the water, which defies all understanding. Immediately, the one called “the rock”, began to sink like a stone.

In this moment he did what any of us would have done. He cried out with his whole heart “Lord save me!” This is one of our common phrases in Orthodox prayer life. “Lord help me! Lord save me!” In that very moment Peter was calling upon the name of the Lord with a singular focus, like his very life depended on it (and it did). My brothers and sisters, this is the type of focus and energy we should bring to our prayers. One of our people sent me a wonderful quote by St. Joseph the Hesychast this week. In it he says “You must keep crying out like a lunatic, “Save me, my dear Jesus!” These are the words of a man who lived and breathed the struggle for prayer for much of his life. As our Lord quickly reached out His hand to save Peter, we are assured that the Lord will also reach out to us to help us. Of course we should also do our part not to fall into sins carelessly or willingly. It is counterproductive to both fly towards the net of sin and then cry out to be freed from the net. We are required to make an effort with our whole being, rather than to be “lukewarm” as our Lord has said. Perhaps it will not be a perfect effort and yet the Lord can and will bless our imperfect efforts and He will, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, magnify the work we have undertaken. He wants this work to be successful in Him. He wants us to really grow to know Him intimately.

Sometimes in our life we feel like we are drowning. Drowning in trials, drowning in sins, drowning in temptations, drowning in negative emotions, drowning in our perceived failures. When in our life we feel that we are drowning like Peter and the waters have risen all around us and begun to overtake us and to cover us completely, why do we become overwhelmed by fear? Do we not call God “our Father”? We are assured that God is there with us, in the very midst of our storms. In the worst possible place and situation that we can think of, God has not left us. He is the Lord over all of creation. He is the lover of mankind. He is indeed the One who saves and that there is no other. We often feel like God is absent and that is also a sign that we have been negligent in our prayers. Negligent to grow in faith. We aren’t going to God daily or diligently or with heartfelt prayers, but perhaps we are approaching God ritualistically and with coldness. So as we begin to pray in a more concerted and heartfelt way, we also feel God’s presence in a different way.

St. Theophan the recluse writes that we should bring God into our mind often during the day. He says “Why is it, you ask, that one can pray for so many years with a prayer book, and still not have prayer in his heart? I think the reason is that people only spend a little time lifting themselves up to God when they complete their prayer rule, and in other times, they do not remember God.” “…during the course of the day, cry out to God more often, even if only with a few words, according to need and the work of the day. Beginning anything, for example, say ‘Bless, O Lord!’ When you finish something, say, ‘Glory to Thee, O Lord’ … If passions arise, say, ‘Save me, O Lord, I am perishing.’ If the darkness of disturbing thoughts comes up, cry out: ‘Lead my soul out of prison.’… Do this in every circumstance, or simply say often, ‘Lord, have mercy’, ‘Most Holy Theotokos save us”…. Say such prayers as often as possible, always making the effort for them come from your heart, as if squeezed out of it. When we do this, we will frequently ascend to God in our hearts, making frequent petitions and prayers. Such increased frequency will bring about the habit of mental conversation with God.” — St. Theophan the Recluse, On prayer, Homily 2

The Lord does not desire that we drown in the trials of this world or of ourselves. May we climb this mountain of prayer together with the help of God. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (14:14-22)

In today’s reading we hear that a great crowd of people was waiting for Jesus as He came ashore from the boat in which He had been traveling. It can be hard for us to imagine the life of Our Lord and the many ways in which He was stretched thin and suffered during His earthly ministry. He rarely knew a moments rest. Someone was always following Him, questioning Him, wanting something from Him. He rarely turned people away, instead we are told that “He had compassion on them..”

In this passage we are told that due to the Lord’s overwhelming compassion, He spent the whole day healing their sick, until it was evening. As the sun was setting the disciples came to Jesus with a reasonable idea. They said “This is a lonely (desolate) place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” It’s a reasonable request, right? Perhaps not as reasonable as it might seem at first glance. It was reasonable or rational from our earthly, and human perspective. But this request did not account for all of the data properly. Within this request is an underlying lack of faith and understanding into the true nature of Jesus Christ, the man whom they had been following all over. They knew Him to be a great teacher and a great wonder worker and a great man. They might have seen him as a great prophet or even as the Messiah, the Christ. But they had not fully understood the situation even at this point.

What they had failed to see and to understand was the most important aspect of all. They failed to see that Jesus Christ was more than prophet and more than just the awaited Messiah and anointed one. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Son of God. One of the attributes of God is the ability to create from nothing. Our Lord could have fed the multitudes from nothing. It is nothing for God to do that. It is so very simple. Yet He chooses not to go that route. He chooses something better. He chooses to involve us in the process. He wants us to be coworkers with Him in the ministry. He also desires to see our faith. He desires to work in synergy with His people and in doing so, He prepares them to become the foundation of His Church. This theme is seen clearly as the Lord has the disciples break and organize the large group of people into more manageable groups so that they can properly receive ministry from the disciples who in turn receive blessings from the Lord.

When the disciples ask to send the crowds away the Lord replies “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” This is more than a statement regarding this particular situation on this particular day. It is a statement about the role of the Church in the lives of it’s people. The Lord is preparing His disciples hearts and minds for the role He has planned for them since before they were born. This is the deeper meaning: He wants His disciples, the pillars of His Church, to serve and feed and provide for His people. He wants them to know that there is no where for His people to go, to be fed and to be satisfied apart from the Church, apart from His presence. But they don’t yet understand. They call the place where the Son of God is present and in their midst, a desolate or lonely place! Imagine!

Some of us aren’t too different from the disciples in this passage. We come to the house of God, to the place where God Himself if present yet we still complain. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk writes, “In going to church, think that thou art going to the house of the King of Heaven, where with fear and joy one ought to stand as in heaven before the King of Heaven.”

The problem wasn’t that the place where the disciples had been was desolate. The problem was that they did not have a proper understanding and faith in Christ who stood before them. They were present physically but the eyes of their hearts were still not purified, not open to fully see and understand reality in light of their Master Jesus Christ.

My friends, if God is with us, why are we worried about hunger and thirst and loneliness? Does God not provide for all of our needs? Does God not desire to feed and to clothe us? Does God not love us? In fact, when we step back we see God’s hand and His presence in everything in our lives. He is constantly our provider and the giver of good things.

We see that God uses His Church to provide for our most important needs. The Church which was founded by Our Lord and established by the Apostles gives us spiritual nourishment. The Church gives us spiritual fellowship with one another, and with God and His saints. We gain a new identity and sense of belonging as part of the family and household of God. We receive great grace and yes, we also receive love and mercy and forgiveness in abundance.

The way that God works in this passage is the way that we see God work through the Church and in our own lives as well. Our Lord asks the disciples to bring whatever they have, their small sacrifices to Him and He takes these small offerings and makes them truly special. He multiplies them and sanctifies them and they become infinitely more precious and life-giving. Let’s not forget that the disciples took up 12 baskets full of the leftovers! They ended up with more than they had when they began the distribution of food. Everyone who was present was fed and filled to the brim. In the Church we each bring our small offerings and God blesses them and multiplies them to be a great blessing to all of us and to many others who have not even stepped foot in this church yet.

Our Lord Jesus Christ will do the same in each of our lives if only we will bring our little offerings and leave them at His feet. But are we willing to do this? It requires a certain amount of trust and faith in God. It requires that we give up our desire for complete control of our situations and our lives. As the saying goes, it requires “letting go and letting God.” First and foremost we are asked to sacrifice our own wills in order to live according to the will of God for our lives. I think that if we are honest, many of us are failing to live with that as our goal and ultimate consideration.

We often start our conversations with “I think” or “I believe” or “I feel” or “I want”. It is not to say that you are not important. You are very important. What you desire and want and feel and believe are important. But is God’s desire for your life not infinitely more important? You might desire things that are destructive or sinful, yet God loves you so much that He desires only good things for you. Brothers and sisters, this is God’s desire. To provide for us, to nurture us, to feed us, to grant us true fulfillment. He is able, if we are willing. He wants to give us life. He wants to redeem our lives from corruption and falsehood. He wants us to know and live within the truth of His teaching. He wants us to inherit His life, to be where He is and where the saints are. So let us be with Christ, in the Church, in our prayers, in love for our neighbors. This is our small offering, may God receive it and multiply it!

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Epistle of St. James. (5:10-20)

Today’s epistle was written by St. James the brother of the Lord and the first bishop of Jerusalem. As with all of the daily readings, it is given to us today by the Church with the purpose of bringing something to light. In this case it is to focus on the prophet Elijah (who is known in Greek and Arabic as Elias) since today is the day when he is commemorated on the Church calendar.

St. James writes, “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. Elias was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.” He tells us that Elias was like us. A mere man. Yet his great faith made him extraordinary, rather it made his prayers extraordinary. His deep faith opened up a powerful line of communication between himself and the Lord. This faith is possible for any one of us sitting here together. In fact, God desires this for us. To know us, to speak with us, to commune with us. But our lack of faith and purity of heart and our love of the world and for sin, all stand as obstacles to this deep and true relationship. The life in Christ, the life of the Church is an antidote, a remedy and a therapeutic path towards healing and towards a right relationship with God. Some of these aspects of healing are the focus of this same epistle passage we heard today. Namely the sacraments of anointing of the sick as well as confession. In fact these two have a close connection to one another.

St. James writes, “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”

Some of you know that we pray the service of anointing or Holy Unction on Great and Holy Wednesday evening. We also pray this service and anoint those who are really sick whenever it is necessary. As you hear in the words of St. James, the elders of the church come and pray over the one who is sick and anoint him with the oil in the name of the Lord. In Greek the word elder that is mentioned here is “presbyteros” or presbyter, which is another term for the english word priest. So it was definitely not the case that St. James is referring to elders as merely old members of the church but rather the priests who are the “stewards of the mysteries of God.”

This rite as it is in the service books calls for 7 priests to come together to read 7 prayers with 7 epistle and 7 gospel readings. Red wine is mixed with olive oil and we pray over this oil asking the Lord the Holy Spirit to bless it for healing. This mixture of oil and wine brings our minds to the story of the good samaritan who put wine and oil on the wounds of the man who was injured. In the context of these prayers is the request that God would heal not only our bodies but heal our souls. There is a close connection between the forgiveness of sins and the physical healing for which we pray. We remember that Our Lord Jesus in the gospels would heal someone and might say “Go your way, your sins are forgiven you.”

This healing connected to the forgiveness of sins is also reflected here in the passage when St. James writes, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” Interestingly this was exactly the early practice in the life of the Church according to our best sources. The sacrament of confession was not used so much for minor sins but was typically used in the case of serious sins, what some would call “mortal sins” although that is not really the language that is used in the Orthodox Church. These are sins that would immediately cut you off from the life of Christ and His Church. Those sins would include murder, adultery, fornication including homosexual activity, idol worship, and denial of Christ among others. When someone had fallen into such a way of life it was prescribed that they come to the church assembly and make a public confession of their sins before they would receive absolution from the Lord through the prayers of His priests. In this way they showed their true humility and repentance of heart and they acknowledged that their sins, although done in private, have an effect on the whole Christian community as this is the true nature of sin.

But something changed around the 4^th century regarding this practice of public confession. As you know Our Lord Jesus Christ gave the apostles the keys to the Church and He told them that whatever they bound and loosed on earth would be bound in heaven. Meaning that they and those who followed them, were given the authority to order and structure the life of the Church. So it should not disturb us that we see some minor developments in the practical or liturgical life of the Church because the Church is not static but dynamic, filled with the Holy Spirit.

By the time of St. John Chrysostom, who was patriarch of Constantinople, it seems that public confession was a cause of scandals and other practical difficulties that made it preferable for the confession to become private, one on one, with the priest standing as both the representative of the whole community and the representative of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to hear the confession. Confession also became more regular in practice. Our archbishop, His Eminence Metropolitan SABA has mentioned that we should confess and receive absolution 2-4 times a year at a minimum. This is not a rule but a point of guidance for our benefit.

The benefits of confession are many. St. Isaac the Syrian writes, “The sick one who is acquainted with his sickness is easily to be cured; and he who confesses his pain is near to health.” but he adds, “Many are the pains of the hard heart; and when the sick one resists the physician, his torments will be augmented.” And St. Isaac continues saying, “There is no sin which cannot be pardoned except that one which lacks repentance…” + St. Isaac the Syrian, “Six Treatises on the Behaviour of Excellence”

The gift that we receive from confession is the absolution, the wiping away of the sins that we confess. We receive cleansing and healing of soul and body. We receive an injection of the grace of the Holy Spirit and we are given power to once again struggle to live good and holy lives in purity, to be full of God’s grace, just like the prophet Elijah whom we celebrate today. He had a nature like ours. May we, through faith, be like him and like all of the saints. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (5:14-19)

In today’s gospel reading our Lord Jesus Christ sits as the new Moses giving the new law to His people in the context of the famous “sermon on the mount”. These are the words He gives to them:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father Who is in heaven. Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

He says to all of those who were following him, “you are the light of the world”! If we are men and women who follow the teachings and the example of our Lord Jesus Christ then these words apply to us, my brothers and sisters. You are the light of the world. I am also called to be the light of the world. That is our mutual calling. This calling makes sense because Christ says that He is the light of the world and St. Paul tells us that when we were baptized we put on Christ! The hymn that is sung immediately after baptism is “bestow on me a robe of light, O Thou who was clothed in light as with a garment.” Christ is the light of the world and He grants us to also be light. He is like the Sun and we are like the stars.

Our Lord tells us what we have to do in order to shine our light, in order that our light might burn brightly and be seen by others. He says “that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” You may not realize this but your whole life is a demonstration of who you are. After all, Our Lord says that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit and likewise a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Our life, is like the sum total of our works and our choices and our habits and our fixations. This life shows whether we really love and serve God or whether we love and serve something or someone else, maybe even ourselves. If someone looks at our life, what will they see? What message does our life send to our family members, our children, our siblings, our neighbors, our coworkers and our classmates?

In the book of Genesis, God said let their be light. Light came forth out of nothingness, out of darkness. Likewise, when each of was called to enter into Christian life through baptism, we were called out of nothingness, out of spiritual darkness. But what does our life say about us? Does it demonstrate that we are living in the light of Christ, that we are reflecting Christ’s light, that we are becoming His light on earth? Or does our life reflect something else? If our life doesn’t reflect the teachings and the works of godliness, then we can say that perhaps we are not the light of the world but the darkness. What we offer the world, if it is not rooted in Christian life and the teaching of the Church, might be nothingness. You have been granted the great grace of adoption as children of God and bearers of light, but my dear friends, if we squander that grace, woe to us. If we lead people to darkness instead of to Christ, we should tremble.

How will you know? St. John Chrysostom says,

“The person characterized by humility, gentleness, mercy and righteousness does not build a fence around good deeds. Rather, that one ensures that these good fountains overflow for the benefit of others. One who is pure in heart and a peacemaker, even when persecuted for the sake of truth, orders his way of life for the common good.” The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 15.7. [PG 57:231; NPNF 1 10:97**.]

St. John tells us that the person who is full of light will be overflowing in characteristics such as humility, gentleness, mercy and righteousness.” These remind us of the fruits of the spirit found in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians when he writes first about the works of the flesh, the way of darkness and then juxtaposes it with the way of light and life. He says,

“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do^e such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Gal 5:19-24

These are these two paths. One that is full of light and one that is full of darkness. One that brings us to Christ and one that obscures the image of Christ within us and hides Christ from those around us. This path ends in complete darkness. And my friends, there is a great distance and gulf between those two ways of life.

The ways of the Church and her disciplines, following the example of her Lord Jesus, are given to us as a guard rail and a way to stay on the path of light. The Church heals us through her life of devotion to Christ in asceticism, fasting, vigils, and prayers. Through her sacraments, and sacred worship. Through her sacred art and music. All of these work together for our benefit and for our healing. All of these allow us to be purified in mind and soul and to radiate the Lord’s light as we embrace Christ’s teaching and we strive to do His will daily. This is how saints are made. This is your purpose in life, to become one of the saints! This our path as the people of God, called to become the light of the world.

I leave you with this well known story from the desert fathers,

“Abba Lot went to Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.” — “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers”

May we likewise become flame and light to the glory of God AMEN!

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (8:5-13)

Our Lord Jesus Christ encounters a gentile man in today’s gospel. Gentiles are those who are not Jews. This particular gentile was a Roman centurion, a high ranking soldier. He comes to the Lord and in a sign of extraordinary faith, he starts to make a request saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.” This should make us pause because this man is not a Jew. He doesn’t believe in the Jewish prophets. He doesn’t obey the law of God. He doesn’t adhere to the Mosaic law. Yet here he is demonstrating a measure of faith that Our Lord rarely saw from His own people.

When I hear this story, I am stunned by the Lord’s willingness to drop everything to accept the request of this unbeliever and come to his house to heal his paralyzed servant. It is a window into the heart of Christ. He didn’t see a Roman standing before Him. He didn’t see someone who was other. He saw in this man, the image of God. He likewise saw in his servant, this image of God. And rather than make His love conditional, He is willing to pour out His love in the form of healing prayers. If Our Lord Jesus loved these strangers so much, then how much more must the Lord love His people, His children? We should meditate upon this whenever we are struggling or doubting that the Lord loves us. We will be blown away by His great love.

And we find that Our Lord Himself was blown away by the faith of this man and it stands as a sharp contrast to the lack of faith of the Jews, especially the scribes and Pharisees that typically heard and ignored the Lord although they should have understood and followed Him faithfully. The centurion had demonstrated his faith by asking Jesus to help his servant, but what he said next really showed his faith to be great. The Lord offers to come and heal the man who is sick and the centurion says something that shows us a window into his heart. “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof…” He speaks from a place of great humility. What is humility? It is the recognition of who we really are. He doesn’t feel that he is owed anything. He doesn’t feel that he should receive special privileges even though he is a high ranking soldier and many people follow his orders. He says, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.” I want to note that this is similar language to one of the pre-communion prayers of St. John Chrysostom who wrote, “O Lord my God, I know that I am not worthy nor sufficiently pleasing that Thou should come under the roof of the house of my soul for it is entirely desolate and fallen in ruin…”

This shows us that St. John understood that each time we come to receive the holy body and the precious blood of Jesus Christ at the eucharist, then we are in fact receiving Christ Himself to dwell in our souls and bodies. This is not to be taken casually. We do this with a certain amount of fear and trembling and with a generous amount of humility. Who is worthy to receive the body and blood of Christ? No one who has ever lived. Yet, He accepts us when we are struggling to live in communion with Him through daily repentance and faith. Such a life will be marked by obedience to Christ through His teachings and those of the Church, since it is His body on earth.

Yet the centurion goes even further in astounding the Lord Jesus. He says that he is not worthy to receive Christ into His home and then he says “But only say a word and my servant will be healed.” In the course of just a few words, he has shown himself to understand more about the life of faith and about the Lord then most of the so-called experts and religious people around Christ. He nearly left everyone speechless. Listen to the response of Our Lord: “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer

darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”

As Christians, the people of God, we rejoice that the Lord accepted the outsider’s faith with openness and enthusiasm, after all, we were those outsiders once upon a time. We were adopted through our baptism into Christ. We were made members of the household of God. But as the people of God, with all of the benefits and rights of the children of God, we should also tremble. We have been given much and Our Lord tells us that to those who are given much, much will be required. On this point St. John of Kronstadt writes,

“What answer shall we give to our immortal King, Christ our God, Who shall come again in the glory of His Father to judge both the quick and the dead, to declare the secret thoughts of all hearts, and receive from us our answer for every word and deed. O, woe, woe, woe to us who bear the name of Christ, but have none of the spirit of Christ in us; who bear the name of Christ, but do not follow the teaching of the Gospel! Woe to us who ‘neglect so great salvation’! Woe to us who love the present fleeting, deceptive life, and neglect the inheritance of the life that follows after the death of our corruptible body beyond this carnal veil!” + St. John of Kronstadt

So what does God require? He requires that we love. That we first love Him. And as we often remind one another, this love is demonstrated through our obedience to Christ, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” This is a prerequisite to having a relationship with God!

Next, we are required to love others. So we love God and we love our neighbors. This love for our neighbors is one of the proofs that the love of God has transformed us and filled us with love. That we are related to Christ not only in name, but in reality, to the very depths of our being. In short, what is required of us is to have faith that exceeds the faith of the centurion. It is truly a tall order for us, but all things are possible with the help of God…The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (16:13-19)

Today’s epistle and gospel readings are given to us specifically for the wonderful feast we are celebrating, that is the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the foremost chiefs of the apostles. These men loved Our Lord Jesus Christ to the very depths of their hearts and souls. They loved Our Lord so much that they willingly died, they gave up their lives as martyrs for the sake of their Lord and Master.

Last Sunday as soon as I arrived at Camp St. Thekla I received news of a terrible incident that took place in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria when a follower of Islam, entered the church of St. Elias during the divine Liturgy while the people were praying and detonated a bomb in their midst. In that most terrible of moments, in this grave tragedy, new martyrs, new saints were created. You might be surprised that I mentioned this today with young and old present among us. But my brothers and sisters, let us not hide from the realities of the life of a Christian. After all, we worship a crucified Lord. We don’t hide the fact of the cross, we embrace it. We are a Church full of martyrs and these martyrs will be among the saints who will adorn the walls of this church if the Lord wills.

The ancient church writer Tertullian once said “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” What did he mean by that saying? He meant that every time someone was martyred for the sake of Christ, their sacrifice, their shed blood, would become new potential for life in the Church. Sometimes we hear stories of the martyrs and we learn that the way they composed themselves, the way they showed courage and stood up to their torturers would amaze many of the onlookers and even many of the soldiers who watched over them. Sometimes their holy presence, their righteousness and bravery would bring people, sometimes thousands of people at once, to Christ, at the moments leading up to their deaths and many many more as their stories were spread over time.

Now we might think to ourselves, “that could happen to us.” And there is some truth to that thought. In fact we are always vulnerable in life and we are very vulnerable as Christians who try to come together as a community to love our Lord and love one another. But there is nothing to fear because God is present in this place and wherever God is present, life reigns. Because Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, He turned the worldly understanding of suffering and death upside down. The world understood death as only a tragedy and an end. The Christians understood death as a doorway to the kingdom and life, because Our Lord trampled down death by death! And this is why in the early Church those who gave their lives due to persecution and violence for the sake of Christ were called martyrs. The word means witness.

Some of the earliest martyrs were those who had witnessed the event of the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that included these two pillars of the Holy Church, Sts. Peter and Paul. So this became their living witness and they carried their witness all the way to their deaths. No matter what you throw at them. No matter how much you torture them. No matter how much pain you inflict on them. No matter how you threaten them. They will still boldly proclaim that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who rose from the dead. I need each of you to understand what I am saying. This life that we share together is life in Christ. Everything else in our lives will fade away. This life, in Christ, is all that we really have. Everything else is like a vapor that will slip through our grasp no matter how much we desire to keep it.

So love of the truth compels us to teach that only those who love God and are obedient to His teachings will obtain the virtues and the fruits of the Spirit and only those who have gained these possessions will have something that remains with them after their departure from this life. In fact St. Maximos the confessor teaches something very beautiful when he writes,

“Let yourself die while striving, rather than living in laziness. For those who die while trying to keep the commandments are just as much martyrs as those who died for Christ’s sake.”

— St. Maximos the Confessor

These men and women who died while they were praising, blessing and glorifying God gave their lives and in return they will receive their lives back more fully, more radiant, because they suffered and were persecuted in their innocence. They took on the likeness of Our Lord Jesus Christ by their own sacrifices. And as the Lord’s sacrifice redeemed the whole universe, the sacrifices of their lives, this thing that we in the world call a tragedy, this event didn’t kill them, not in the sense that the world understands death. It brought them into the arms of the One who is life. It made their prayers more powerful than they had ever been before. Through their martyrdoms they have sanctified their corner of the world and claimed it for Our Lord Jesus Christ.

My brothers and sisters, may we look to their courage and have the courage to live like martyrs in the world. Witnessing to a life of obedience to the Lord and love for the Church which He founded and which was established by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and which was watered and continues to be watered with the lives of countless faithful lovers of Christ our true God. And Glory be to God, Forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Acts of the Apostles. (2:1-11) and from the Gospel according to St. John. (7:37-52; 8:12)

Today we are celebrating the great feast of Pentecost. The great pascal season has come to an end and culminated in this day. It was prefigured even by the Jews who celebrated Shavuot, the feast of weeks, which falls 50 days, seven weeks after the passover. On this day, tradition tells us that God gave the law to Moses. This is quite amazing since the gospel reading we heard 50 days ago on Easter, Holy Pascha ended with these words “For the law came through Moses but Grace and Truth through Jesus Christ.” Now, we are brought full circle in fulfillment of the feast.

During the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ and in His teachings He speaks about the fulfillment of this feast when He speaks on this 50 day feast of Shavuot. In today’s gospel we hear these words, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now this He said about the Spirit, which those who believed in Him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Our Lord is speaking of this celebration that we participate in today. A celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles who were gathered together in Jerusalem. But whenever we celebrate a feast in the life of the Church we are not simply remembering a past event. We are not re-enacting it in the same way that we might do a civil war re-enactment. We are in fact bringing this event back to the front of our lives.

We are reminded by the Holy Church that any event that happens within the Church is an ongoing event for those who are participating in the life of the Holy Trinity. In other words, for all of the faithful. The crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ happened at one historical moment in time and space and yet we are told that it transcends time and space to offer salvation to all of mankind, both before and after the event. This is possible, this is available to us because any act that involves God, must transcend time and limitations. God is timeless and infinite. Yet we participate in Him.

Our life in the Church is the fullness of the presence of the Holy Spirit. We go even further to say that according to the Holy Fathers of the Church there is not a single place on earth where one can go to somehow participate more in the grace of the Holy Spirit. Not Jerusalem, not disneyland, not the concert venue, not the football game. The Holy Spirit pours out His rich mercies within the life of the Church because the very foundations of the Church are built of the Spirit of God.

We are also reminded that there is not a thing that happens within the Church that is not somehow directed by and through and in the Holy Spirit. Our worship is spiritual in nature. The hymns were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The holy icons are written and guided by the Holy Spirit. The bread and the wine are transformed by the descent of the Spirit and each one of us is likewise transformed by this descent of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit inspires us to repent and turn back to God. And likewise when we see our sins and justify them rather than changing our way of life, that is a sign that we are rejecting the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. A very dangerous way to live, because we do not know when and if we will have the time necessary to properly repent in the future.

The Holy Spirit is according to the Church not a function, but one of the persons of the Trinity in the same way that God the Father has personhood and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ also has personhood. The Holy Spirit is equal in the substance of His godliness and divinity to the Father and the Son, yet He is unique as person.

Our Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples that He had to leave them in order to send them the Holy Spirit. Ten days after His ascension to the heavens, The Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, we are told “like tongues of fire.” All of the sudden, they were clothed with the Holy Spirit. They each became individually, temples of the Holy Spirit and they became more. I’m going to tell you something that might sound strange or controversial. They became Christs. Don’t misunderstand me. They didn’t become the second person of the Trinity. They did not become the Son of God, but they became sons of God by grace. They became Christs, anointed ones. They received the anointing of the Holy Spirit so that they could be sent out into the world as the presence of God among His people. Each one of you who has received the sacrament of Chrismation has become a little Christ. A temple of the Holy Spirit. This spirit was not given to you so that you can live “your best life.” He was granted to you by grace, so that you might live a true life in Him. He was given to you so that you could have life that never dies. A life that participates in the Holy Trinity and in the kingdom.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes, “‘And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 2:3-4). They partook of fire, not of burning but of saving fire; of fire which consumes the thorns of sins, but gives luster to the soul. This is now coming upon you also, and that to strip away and consume your sins which are like thorns, and to brighten yet more that precious possession of your souls, and to give you grace; for He gave it then to the Apostles…” 

St. Cyril says that his listeners are now to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. They are to participate in Pentecost through their baptisms and chrismations.

And why does God want you to participate in the Holy Spirit? Because He loves you and desires to commune with you. He wants you to be purified, so that you can see Him who is pure. He desires to share Himself with you. He desires that you should dwell with Him as the Father dwells with the Son and the Spirit in the communion of love. For how long? Forever and ever, unto ages of ages. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (17:1-13)

This reading from the gospel according to John is given to us as a bit of a preamble, a preparation for the Great Feast of Pentecost that we will celebrate next Sunday. In this passage we hear the words of the Lord praying his final prayers to God the Father before his life giving death. There are so many powerful words in this passage. For instance, John 17:5 “And now, O Father, glorify me in thy presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.”

This is a bold statement of the relationship of Jesus Christ to His Father and the cosmic, powerful reality of the Son of God, who speaks of his glory that He had before the world had even come into existence.

But now I would like to focus on Jn 17:11 “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are one.”

We know that this passage was a prayer for the strengthening of the disciples, who were about to endure a terrible psychological tribulation as they would have to deal with the fallout of having left their normal lives to follow a man that had been executed as a criminal and enemy of the state. But as we are so often reminded, these words of prayer from the mouth of Our Lord are words meant for each of His disciples including each of us.

I would like to take a few minutes to offer some practical advice on how we can live out the prayer of Our Lord Jesus Christ to be one. After all, Christ died so that we would be one as a community of Christians and one with God.

The first thing that we must do as Christians to be one, to be united, is to love Jesus Christ. We think we love Him, most of us admire some aspects of His teachings. Most of us believe in Him in some way, but what is required of us is something greater and that is absolute love. Absolute love is love of the teachings of Jesus Christ, as well as the person of Jesus Christ Himself. This love manifests itself especially in living life according to His teachings above all else and in prayer with Him. It is a fact that no relationship can survive long without true communication….Whenever there is a breakdown in communication, that is the first sign that things in a relationship will sour over time. How can we expect anything less in our relationship with God? It must be cultivated in prayer.

The next thing that we must do to be united as Christians is to follow the example of the Holy Fathers of the Church as seen in all of the ecumenical councils. Our Church is the Church of the councils. The First Ecumenical Council (whose memory we celebrate today) brought together the ranking bishops of the whole Christian world and this meeting was called by the Emperor Constantine the Great in order to bring about unity to the empire. We can also say that God used the emperor to safeguard the Church in oneness of mind. These men defended the Faith of the Church, they guarded the treasure that was passed down to them first by the Apostles. As we know it is not just important that you believe in Jesus, but that you believe in Him correctly. Anyone who says otherwise simply does not understand the nature and implications of truth. You believe in Jesus, good. Which Jesus do you believe in? If it is not the Jesus that is found in the New Testament and prophesied in the Old Testament and spoken of in the Church’s theology, then it is not the authentic Jesus of Nazareth, the messiah, the only begotten Son of God. It is some kind of imposter, a fraud, an idol. But it ain’t the Jesus handed down by the apostles and preached by His Church.

The next practical step to being one as a community gathered around Christ is to share of the sacraments of the Church together. The Church exists to bring the healing of Christ to His people and this happens through the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church. Having communion once a year is not enough, having confession once in your life is not enough. These sacraments are not meant to be exercises in religious piety, or routine habits. They are the required medicine for our souls and the maintenance and growth for our spiritual lives. They are not always easy, especially confession. Surgery is never easy, yet at times we find it necessary and quite beneficial. We bring all of our inner filth to confession before the priest. We leave nothing hidden due to shame. St. Nikolai of Zicha once said, “..In Confession, the Church wants one to show the wounds to his soul that he is hiding behind the appearance of health….In Confession, the Church wants one to reveal the festering sore on his soul…In Confession, the Church wants one who is playing the role of the splendid knight to show himself for what he is, the ruinous person he actually is when he is alone. No one goes to a physician to boast about his health. He goes in order to reveal to him the place on his health that is rotten.”

His Eminence Metropolitan Saba tells us that we should plan to confess at least 2-4 times a year. This is for our healing and great benefit.

Likewise we should receive Holy Communion on a regular basis but we also prepare for it so that we may receive the body and blood of Christ in a worthy manner. Because the bread and the wine are transformed into divine fire and light and we approach with boldness to partake and receive this within ourselves. How do we prepare? First we avoid partying and drunkenness on the evening before the liturgy. We should be sober minded as Christians and this is even more true when we are preparing to enter into the liturgy of the kingdom and to meet Christ face to face in the holy gifts. A typical Orthodox approach is to fast from midnight before the liturgy as well as to say a couple of the formal prayers before receiving communion. These are found in most of the Orthodox prayer books. Some say these prayers in the evening before bed and some say them on the morning of the liturgy.

We also make it our goal to show up on time for the liturgy, so that we can pray in an unhurried and attentive manner and give the Lord our focus for this brief period every week. I want to tell you with all love and firmness that it is completely inappropriate to come after the reading of the gospel and then receive Holy Communion. This is not a sign of faithfulness but an act of negligence on our part. There may be a couple of exceptions to this rule but in general there is very little stopping you from coming to the church on time and participating in prayers with your brothers and sisters. To come late is certainly better than staying home, but in such cases we should pray without receiving the gifts.

Finally another important step to being one as the body of Christ is to resolve differences with the folks around us as they arise. The Church is a community and a family, so harboring ill will or a grudge never solves a problem, it exasperates it. Most issues are miscommunications and misunderstandings but we should always be ready to talk and to forgive quickly so that we might heal whatever rift is there and we keep it from developing further. And of course this point is true not only in the Church but in the rest of our lives.

So please keep these steps in mind as we attempt to reach our ultimate goal of Christlike love. Love of our neighbors and love of God, and growth together, in the image and likeness of the Son of God, who loved us and gave His life for us. That we may be of one heart and one mind just as the Holy Trinity is One, Father, Son and Holy Spirit AMEN.

Source: Sermons