The reading is from the gospel according to St. Mark 2:1-12

Today I would like to briefly explore the connection between St. Gregory Palamas and the second Sunday of Great Lent. First we must take a look at the gospel story of the paralyzed man. As Our Lord Christ encounters him He does something that was considered quite blasphemous at the time. He tells the man that his sins are forgiven. After a great degree of resistance from the on-lookers Our Lord asks “which is easier to say to the paralytic, “your sins are forgiven you” or to say “rise take up your bed and walk?”

I would submit that this is the connection to the great saint Gregory Palamas who lived almost 700 yrs ago. Gregory Palamas became archbishop of the great city of Thessaloniki (we know that St. Paul wrote at least two letters to the Christian community in that city some 650 years before Palamas). In fact, you can travel to Greece and visit the cathedral dedicated to him, and venerate his body which is in a side chapel of the church. This Gregory Palamas was called “the cause of all disorders and disturbances in the Church.” Now imagine that he was called “the cause of all disorders and disturbances in the Church” by the Patriarch of Constantinople himself. The year is 1344. This comment was made during a Church council and it caused this man to be thrown into prison for the next 4 years. Yet the Church in her wisdom has set aside this the second Sunday of Great Lent as Palamas Sunday.

Palamas understood through faithful practice that the body and soul must be saved together or they will perish together and he taught this quite publicly as bishop of the city of Thessaloníki. Among the spiritual practices taught by St. Gregory was the practice he learned from other monks called “stillness of the heart”, better known as hesychia or hesychasm. Stillness of the heart is the practice of quieting yourself to such a degree that you can finally come to hear the voice of God clearly in your heart as the psalmist writes “Be still and know that I am God.” 

This teaching was not endorsed by all of the leaders or teachers of the Church. In fact, I might go so far as to say that most Christian denominations still do not believe this teaching or it’s consequences. Many western Christians look at growing in their faith as a matter of intellectual growth, but Palamas, learning from the fathers, saw growth as requiring purification of the body in order to open a relationship with the Holy Spirit. We are walled off from God through our sins and passions, and the ascetical disciplines and the practice of prayerful stillness, renew us to receive gifts and treasures from God. Christ our God forgives us, but somehow we are still left with residue and scars from our sins and the filth of our souls. So these practices help us to be cleansed and to hasten our healing. We are open to synergy with the Holy Spirit.

“Be still and know that I am God.” Think about how difficult it would be to be still?

We are so easily distracted by so many things from smart phones to computers to television to movies to music that we are filled to the brim. All these not only distract but they add layers around our heart by numbing it and holding it captive. So these things distract our attention and focus elsewhere and they also leave us wanting more.

The truth is that many of us are afraid of quiet time. We must have a radio or TV in the background or we must be talking to someone. Are we afraid of what we will find without these distractions in our lives? Maybe, but we also know that unless you get rid of all the external pacifiers you cannot actually be pacified. We are always looking for a painkiller but we rarely remember that the pain is there to point us to the fact that there is a problem that needs a cure not a cover up. Our problem is that we are sinful and we have rejected God and by chasing and loving everything but God we have created the emptiness that we feel. Yet there is a cure. Our cure is to constantly and diligently seek Jesus Christ through prayer at every moment of the day. We follow this diligent search for the Lord by pursuing Him in the life of the Church which is His body.

St. Gregory defended the idea that he learned from others and put into practice in his own life, namely that through solitude (time alone) as well as constant prayer such as the Jesus Prayer, one could fully begin to hear God and to speak to Him in a meaningful way. By focusing all our attention on God one can actually begin to commune with Him and to even see His glorious light with the faculty of the heart. In fact, our theology and the lived experience of the Orthodox saints tells us that through this path, we actually, truly, really, begin to know God in His energies.

Today is a reminder of the struggles that we face as we are paralyzed by our own sins. It is a reminder that when God heals us, He heals all of us and not just a part. Knowing this each of you must continue to really give God your heart, mind, soul and strength. In this way He will see your heart as usable material that He can sculpt into His next masterpiece. Or a place that He can turn into His glorious temple!  I want to leave you with a quote a share nearly every year from St. Gregory Palamas, who writes, “Let not one think, my fellow Christian, that only priests and monks need to pray without ceasing and not laymen. No, no; every Christian without exception ought to dwell always in prayer.” AMEN.

Edited from 2-28-2010

Source: Sermons

Sunday of Orthodoxy The Holy Gospel according to St. John. (1:43-51)

Our reading is given today for the Sunday of Orthodoxy. This, the first Sunday in Great Lent is when we honor and commemorate the restoration of icons in all Christian churches which happened in the year 843 a.d., many hundreds of years before the Protestant reformation. Perhaps by divine providence this is our first Sunday together since we received the news that by your faith and generosity we have fully funded the first round of iconography for the Church. It is a really special gift that we are giving to one another and to the future faithful who will step foot into this church. We want people to be transported to another place when they come to pray. We want them to forget the world and it’s troubles. We want them to be fully immersed in the kingdom and the life of Christ. It is our Orthodox faith and understanding of worship which makes this possible.

As St. John of Kronstadt says, “The Church, through the temple and Divine service, acts upon the entire man, educates him wholly; acts upon his sight, hearing, smelling, feeling, taste, imagination, mind, and will, by the splendor of the icons and of the whole temple, by the ringing of bells, by the singing of the choir, by the fragrance of the incense, the kissing of the Gospel, of the cross and the holy icons, by the prosphoras, the singing, and sweet sound of the readings of the Scriptures.”

But the Sunday of Orthodoxy is actually much more than just the icons. It honors the whole Orthodox Church and her teachings and her life. In the Synodikon or proclamation of faith that is read today after our procession we will hear these words, “This is the Faith of the Apostles; this is the Faith of the Fathers; this is the Faith of the Orthodox; this is the Faith which has established the universe!”

Can you imagine such a gift? We have the faith which has not only been passed down unbroken from generation to generation. We have the faith that has established the Universe! The reason that we can say this with confidence is because we believe that Jesus Christ created the whole universe and we believe that His crucifixion and resurrection have saved the whole world from the full effects of sin. Do I truly believe that in my heart? Do we truly understand the honor and the responsibility that belongs to each of us because we are Christians in the unbroken Church?

We are part of a very special people. The Church that is truly holy and truly hears the words of the Lord Jesus and His apostles and obeys them. We are a part of the same Church as the great saints and fathers of the faith. The same Church that saw martyrs die for her teachings. And that brings us to today, March 9^th in Fuquay-Varina, NC. We have spoken of honor but what about our responsibility to the Church that has given us so much, to the Church that we have baptized our children in and where we ourselves where baptized, where we are married and where we will hopefully be buried.

As St. Tikhon put it “all the important events of our life are related to it, and it is ever ready to give us its help and blessing in all our needs and good undertakings, however unimportant they may seem. It supplies us with strength, good cheer and consolation, it heals, purifies and saves us.”

Now what are our responsibilities to this Church in return? We are to actively love her in all her ways. We spend time with her, in her services. We are to respect and cherish her teachings and never treat our own opinions as equal to hers. This has often been the case regarding teachings which seem politically or religiously inconvenient, but while our opinions can often bring harm, the teachings of the Church may offend some, but they bring life to any and everyone who accepts them with joy. Please remember that Church teaching is not subject to our approval. We subject ourselves to it and not vice versa. The teaching doesn’t answer to us, just as the Lord Jesus Christ does not answer to us, rather we submit ourselves to the doctrines of truth and life.

Finally, another great responsibility is to remember that we are the light of the world. It is not enough to be part of a special group of people. It means nothing if we hide this treasure for ourselves. Instead we should be like Philip in today’s reading when he told Nathaniel to “Come and see”. Invite others to come see your most precious treasure. Invite them to see your most prized possession. You can do this by being a great example of a Christian, by going out of your way to help others, by forgiving others, by carefully using words instead of carelessly speaking or talking inappropriately and finally we can invite others by telling them about the Church that we cherish and love. We are to become icons of the living God as Christ is the icon of the invisible God.

Yes our responsibility is more than just coming to church and hoarding the blessings for ourselves. Our responsibility is to be like Christ, to love everyone and to try to be a source of healing and peace which we will become by God’s grace. And if you are saying to yourself, “I don’t know where to begin…I’m not sure what I would tell someone about the Church” then I invite you to come and see with fresh eyes. Because the life of the Church must first be the joy of our lives before we can share this joy with others.

May all things be possible in and through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN!

First preached February 21, 2010

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (6:14-21) 

We have come to the edge of the cliff and soon we will take the plunge into the dark radiance and bright sadness of Great and Holy Lent.  Our mother, the Holy Orthodox Church, sets this final Sunday before the start of Lent as a final reminder and a chance for a tune up of our hearts and minds as we begin this great spiritual struggle again.  

This Sunday is called cheesefare and it is also called forgiveness Sunday.  The most prominent feature of this day is actually found in the Great Vespers service that we will pray together this evening.  It is a vespers service much like those served throughout the week.  A service of evening prayers but there is a distinct feature that happens just once a year.  Each of us, whether child or adult, whether old or young, forms a line together and we bow to one another and exchange these heartfelt words “Please forgive me, a sinner”  and the other replies with “God forgives.”  This exchange between each and every person who is present helps us to put our desires into reality.  We force our words and our actions to reflect the type of virtue and demeanor that we desire.  That virtue that we desire is forgiveness.  

So we each reach out and embrace one another with love and with this desire for forgiveness.  We want to forgive others and we also want others to forgive us.  It is a painful thing to feel that you have hurt your brother or sister in Christ.  I know that as the father, it is easy for me to fail you in one way or another.  It might be my failure to pray for you as I should.  It might be my failure to be more attentive to what your saying to me.  It might be that I’ve failed to live up to your ideals for a priest.  For whatever it is, I ask your forgiveness and prayers not only now but tonight as I am the first to bow to each of you.

St. Seraphim of Sarov tells us that the goal of our whole life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.  The reading today reflects this well.  Our Lord tells us that when we fast we should not fast like the hypocrites.  Our fasting is not meant for others to see or to compare to others.  Fasting isn’t the goal.  Almsgiving isn’t the goal.  Praying in the Church isn’t the goal.  Praying itself isn’t even the goal.  All of these are the tools not the goal.  The goal is to acquire and retain the grace of the Holy Spirit.  The goal is to partake in the divine nature of Jesus Christ.  The goal is to have fellowship and communion with the Holy Trinity and also with one another as members of the body of Christ.  

What our Lord is saying to us with these stark words is that unless you learn to forgive others, you cannot be forgiven by God because you can’t have communion with God.  You can’t have communion with God unless you can forgive everyone for everything, completely and totally.  St. Silouan the Athonite takes this a step further when he writes, “Whoever will not love his enemies cannot know the Lord and the sweetness of the Holy Spirit.”  So we can’t achieve the goal and purpose of our life if we don’t love our enemies and we certainly can’t love enemies, those who hurt us or offend us, if we don’t first forgive them.  

This means that forgiveness is once again tied to the greatest commandment of all, the commandment to love.  And Our Lord is loving us by offering us a warning and a path into His presence.  If you have anything against anyone forgive them completely.  Don’t hold onto it.  Don’t harbor it.  Don’t even let yourself dwell on it.  For by holding onto this you keep the door to hell locked while you are on the inside.  This need for radical forgiveness is applicable to all people.  Husbands and wives need this on a daily basis.  How many marriages would thrive and get through tough times with forgiveness as the basis?  Parents need this for their children and children for their parents.  Friends need forgiveness between them at times.  

Certainly as brothers and sisters in Christ we need to forgive one another.  We spend a lot of time together over the days and months and years.  We become a family and like any family we hurt one another even when we don’t intend to do so.

On this note let me say that sometimes we need to be more careful with our words when we are together.  Sometimes our words are a bit extreme and not salted with discretion and care and these words can cause others to be easily offended or even turned away from the church.  Sometimes this even happens when you have no idea that others are within earshot and are offended.  I’ll give you a brief example of someone who had visited with a friend.  As they sat one day during coffee hour they overheard two members speaking about how bad and terrible and stupid the protestants are.  That visitor later said to their friend, “these people are the same as the last church I attended, judgmental.”  

So my brothers and sisters not only should we forgive one another daily but we should also take extra care to avoid offending and being a stumbling block to others in the first place. You are not called to be the judge and the critic of the world or of your brothers and sisters.  You are called to be salt and light.  So let us observe these things as a sign of the love of Christ dwelling in our hearts.  For it is His love alone that opens the doors of the kingdom. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (25:31-46) 

Today’s gospel reading is a warning. There is just no way for me to sugarcoat this.  Each of the pre-lenten gospel readings is meant to bring to light one aspect of the our lenten struggle.  We read over the last few weeks about praying with humility, about repentance and God’s unconditional love.  Now we are reading about another aspect of the spiritual struggle which is embodied in Lent, that is, almsgiving and acts of mercy and charity towards those in need.  

Our Lord Jesus Christ reminds us that at the last day we will all stand to be judged.  We are raised to judgment.  As we stand before the just and merciful Judge, we are judged by certain criteria.  These criteria are not what we might want to focus on.  We aren’t judged by the external matter such as how well we fasted or how many prostrations we did or how many theology youtube videos we watched.  No! The criterion by which God will judge each and every person is this alone: Did we love?  Love is not a feeling.  Love is an action.  Love is dynamic.  Love is when you go out of your way to help those who cannot help themselves. Love is making sacrifices to serve others. In short, love looks a lot like the life that Our Lord Jesus lived on a daily basis. In fact, Christ is love incarnate. Love become flesh and blood. Love become man for the salvation of the whole universe.

So the criteria by which we are judged is our acts of love, or our lack of these acts of love.  Through these acts of charity such as feeding the poor, visiting the prisoners and the sick and more, we prove our identities.  We prove to be who we claim to be, children of the Most high God.  We prove that we are His by our similarity to Him. When we think about it we find that each of these things, feedings the poor, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked and visiting the prisoners; each of these groups is a group with which Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself identifies! He was hungry when He fasted for 40 days. He was a prisoner as He waited for His crucifixion. He was thirsty and naked when He hung upon the tree of the cross.

So Our Lord asks us to see His face in each of these suffering people within our society and our lives. The Lord gives us a great blessing by attaching His identity to these least of the brethren because in attaching His identity to them, He is granting us great and bountiful blessings if we choose to serve Him by serving them.

In this reading we are also reminded that at the last judgment it won’t be enough to claim to know Christ.  You have to do the works of Christ, the works of mercy, the works of love, because these alone will make us recognizable to Our Lord Jesus at the judgment. So in doing these works, we see Christ clearly in those we serve and Christ in return, sees our true identity!

St. Nektarios has some powerful words about this passage when he writes,

“After the end of the General Judgment, the Righteous Judge (God) will declare the decision both to the righteous and to the sinners. To the righteous He will say: ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;’ while to the sinners He will say: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” And these will go away to eternal hades, while the righteous will go to eternal life. This retribution after the General Judgment will be complete, final, and definitive. It will be complete, because it is not the soul alone, as the Partial Judgment of man after death, but the soul together with the body, that will receive what is deserved. It will be final, because it will be enduring and not temporary like the Partial Judgment. And it will be definitive, because both for the righteous and for the sinners it will be unalterable and eternal.” -St. Nektarios

With all of this in mind let us make sure that during the lenten season, we make a concerted effort not only to eat the right foods and to attend more services together, but also to serve Our Lord Jesus Christ through our love for those who are struggling around us. Because if not for the grace of God, we would all be in a similar position, but out of His compassion He has spared us in order that we might be His hands and His healing presence among all people. Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (15:11-32)

This Sunday as we continue our preparation for Great and Holy Lent we are privileged to hear one of the most beautiful parables of all time, the parable of the prodigal son. We are told of two sons in this parable. One of whom is called “prodigal” which means “Rashly or wastefully extravagant.”

This rash young man proves himself to be prodigal when he goes to his father and asks for his share of the inheritance. He goes further by taking this inheritance and using it in ways that are not helpful to others but only for selfish desires, for things that are passing away. He lives in a continual love of the world, it’s desires, and the things of the world that feed his passions. He is completely consumed by self and has no room in his heart for the other.

But there are so many lessons for us as we prepare for the lenten journey together. The first is that hunger is your friend. The prodigal son wasted all that he had been given in “loose living.” He partied. He ate, drank and enjoyed life to the excess. But the party always has to end, and in this case it ended once he ran out of his father’s wealth. He ended up needing to go out and get a job like normal people do, and during this process of failure and the subsequent hard work, he found himself literally filled with hunger. Little did he know that the bodily hunger awakened in him a desire for a real change. What kind of change? Most importantly, a change of heart and this change of heart led to a change in his actions, in his living situation, his environment. This led to a change in his whole life.

Our Holy Orthodox Church teaches us that the appetites can easily be swayed and turn us away from God because we have appetites for so many things due to our fallen nature and the passions or sinful inclinations that we carry within us. Adam and Eve fell due to their appetite. They were not thankful and content with what God had provided them although He had provided them with everything good. The Church also teaches us that hunger is a tool that helps us to regain our senses. That is why we fast as a community. The fast is meant to slowly help us regain our senses and our proper way in life when it is coupled with prayer. Lent helps us to reorient our lives back to God, if we humbly participate in the process of prayer and fasting.

Fasting awakens us to deeper realities, to our alienation from God. When we are hungry, physically and spiritually, we begin to look at our life and assess the situation. We begin to look at our life with God and we might choose to turn back to Him with our whole heart. But that rarely happens when we are full and happy, when we are content.

This is what happened to the young man. He was hungry and he came to his senses. Maybe God allows our lives to be a bit difficult in order that we might also come to our senses. Pain is an efficient teacher. God doesn’t allow these things because He is merciless, but rather out of His mercy towards us. When an infant first starts to walk, it is a painful and difficult experience for her. But if her mother sees this difficulty and chooses to carry her in order to keep her from struggling, she will never develop the muscles and the nerve fibers and the properly firing neurons that are needed to carry her own bodyweight. If God bails us out every time things begin to feel heavy, we won’t grow our spiritual muscles, we won’t repent, we won’t seek His face in prayer. Our souls will not be changed and this is a tragedy because the soul is going to live on forever.

Now the young man comes to his sense from hunger, and he returns and we see this beautiful biblical imagery. While this prodigal son is still a long ways away, we see the image of His father who is standing out front looking for him. When he catches a glimpse of his son, he runs out to meet him. It is such a lovely image of our life in Christ. I have an icon of this parable in my office and it is just glorious because the iconographer has rightly pictured the father in the parable as Jesus Christ, the one who loves us unconditionally. We squander everything that is given to us, in baptism, in spiritual gifts, in our many blessings and yet He continues to welcome and embrace each of us. Only there is one thing He cannot and will not do. He will not run out to meet us while we are turned away from Him. Because in His perfect love, He doesn’t force Himself upon us. He needs us to need Him. He needs us to turn back and fix our eyes on Him.

As the Father returns with His son a great banquet begins to transpire. There is a cause for celebration, a great cause for joy. One man has returned from being lost. He has returned from the brink of death. Now his father and his father’s household are full of overwhelming joy. This is how we should remember our own return to Christ and His Church. It is a great celebration. Our Lord Jesus Christ says, “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Luke 15:7

We should also feel this joy when we are solid and steadfast members of the household of God and when we see other men and women come to Christ and to His Church. Even when someone who was previously a member of the Church returns and comes back after a long absence. But we know that this is not always the case and it is symbolized in the animosity of the other son who never left his father and was never thrown a party.

But his father reminds him, he was always privileged to be in his father’s presence and under his father’s roof with his father’s many blessings. He lacked nothing at all. Likewise, when we are here in the Church we lack nothing of the gifts of God and the inheritance of the saints. We receive the sacraments, we are clothed with the fruit of Holy Spirit. We live the divine life. We should rejoice when others also find this place and come back to life. We rejoice because that which is most precious to God has been redeemed and brought back to life.

So as we draw near to lent let us embrace some hunger and discomfort, let us turn our eyes back to Christ and let us not focus on others but rejoice that they are also struggling to put Christ first in their lives. Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (18:10-14)

What is the heart of prayer? What is it’s purpose? What is it’s goal? Do we pray in order to “look religious or spiritual?” Do we pray because that’s just what we are supposed to do? Do we pray because we feel that somehow it is our duty or obligation to do so? Or perhaps we have even less noble intentions. We see two different sides of prayer in today’s gospel reading. This parable of the publican and the Pharisee, told by Our Lord Jesus Christ, effectively puts everyone who prays into one of two camps, on one of two sides. Those who pray rightly and those whose prayer is all wrong.

There are some differences between the two and they are important enough that Our Lord Jesus Christ found it necessary to teach us, His children, so that we would be like one of these two men and not like the other. Our Lord taught all of this in the most loaded and controversial way possible, so that everyone would get the message and no one was left unaffected or in the dark.

He says, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” Thank God! It is a good thing that these men went to the temple to pray. It is a good thing when a man or woman comes to the church to pray. Yet, this isn’t enough. The Lord gives us insight into the prayers of each man. He dissects the human heart in a way that is not seen anywhere at any time in any other religious tradition. He tells us that the Pharisee, a religious man who is publicly seen as pious and holy and good prayed in this way, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other men, extortionists, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

And then Our Lord tells us of the prayer of the publican. We are reminded that the publicans or tax collectors were viewed with suspicion and generally they were very disliked. They were considered evil and unjust men because they cooperated with the Romans in taxing their own people, the Jews. Many of them also took far more than their fair share because they had the power to do so. If an IRS agent wants to come and take everything you own, you will be nearly powerless to fight back, because they have the power and the resources of the empire at their disposal, and you have nothing. So this was how the publican was seen. But listen to his prayer my friends, “the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’” Wow!

When I read this verse, I have to step back and ask if I have ever prayed like this for a single moment in my whole life. Each of us should probably be asking that question. Have we ever felt truly broken in our prayers? Have we ever scraped the depths of our heart and found ourselves so fallen, and so powerless that we didn’t even have any substantial words to give to the Lord, we didn’t even have the power to lift our eyes to the heavens. As if we felt the weight of our sins and felt like we were standing completely naked and exposed before God. That is a feeling of true vulnerability, and true weakness. And it turns out that this is exactly the mindset and the condition of the heart that will provoke a response from our God. “A broken and humble heart, God will not despise.”

The publican’s prayer is like medicine for us. It should humble us and serve as a powerful example of what our prayers can be. Prayer is good when it looks and sounds like this. However the Pharisee’s prayer was outward focused. He was concerned with his outward acts of piety and he was even focused on the failing of others and compared himself to others and made himself feel really good by comparing himself to others. But he was in delusion. He focused on the outward appearance of others and couldn’t see their heart. So his prayer was not counted in his favor. It was the opposite of true prayer, it was counted against him because he turned it into a weapon against others and as an opportunity to boast of all of his good qualities. He came to the house of the Lord, a place where we meet God in a powerful way, but he wasted this chance and turned what should have been something really good, into something really evil. He squandered the gift of prayer and the gift of the temple.

On the other side of this equation we see a man who did nothing short of unlock the kingdom of heaven! He captured God’s heart! He stole God’s attention. He made himself like a beggar and God rewarded him richly. This example of the publican reminds us of what it really takes not only to become holy but to bring healing to the world around us. Because he unlocked the kingdom, he was healed. When we learn to truly pray, everything is restored in life.

Our Orthodox Christian understanding is not so much that we need to go out and take part in protests and parades to effect change, no! Likewise, posting self righteous posts online and even too much political talk within the parish, none of these things will really glorify God or change the world. The change that will affect the whole world is right here (in the heart). We don’t transform the world through the waving of banners, but through the changing of the banner of our hearts. For this reason St. Seraphim of Sarov said “acquire a spirit of peace and thousands around you will be saved.”

What a gift that Our Lord Jesus has given to each of us in this parable. Let us embrace this parable and the prayer found in it. For this is the roadmap to the heart of Christ, and only within the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ is our hope and salvation to be found. Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (2:22-40)

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.  It is the day when the Mother of God and Joseph the betrothed brought Our Lord Jesus Christ into the temple in order to fulfill the days of purification and to dedicate the child to God.  Today we follow this model for each woman who gives birth and returns to the church after 40 days.  This is called the churching and it contains prayers of purification for the woman to restore her back into communion since she has been away from the church and from the liturgy for an extended period of time.

This liturgical act reminds us that it is not normal to be away from the Sunday gathering, the liturgical worship, for an extended period of time. In fact, in the early church the canon law says that when a Christian missed three Sundays in a row without serious sickness or injury, that person was to be excommunicated from the Church. Likewise, if a bishop, priest or deacon was missing from the assembly for three Sundays in a row without being very ill, that clergyman was to be defrocked and restored to the ranks of the laity. All of this demonstrates how serious it is to commit your life to becoming an Orthodox Christian who has received the fullness of the faith and who comes to receive the holy body and precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is for a Christian who understands reality, a matter of spiritual life or death.

In the west, this feast of the presentation or meeting of the Lord is also called Candlemas.  This name is given because of the blessing of candles that takes place on that day in the western tradition. In fact, this practice was at times also done in the eastern tradition as you will see in a moment.  Finally, this great feast also closes the celebration of the season of the Nativity.  And as we mentioned last week, we begin to draw ever closer to the season of Pre-Lent and Lent. I wanted to conclude with a brief but lovely sermon on this feast from St. Sophronios, bishop of Jerusalem, who lived between 560-638 ad.

Sermon on the Presentation of the Lord by St. Sophronios of Jerusalem

“Our lighted candles are a sign of the divine splendor of the one who comes to expel the dark shadows of evil and to make the whole universe radiant with the brilliance of his eternal light. Our candles also show how bright our souls should be when we go to meet Christ. The Mother of God, the most pure Virgin, carried the true light in her arms and brought him to those who lay in darkness. We too should carry a light for all to see and reflect the radiance of the true light as we hasten to meet him.

The light has come and has shone upon a world enveloped in shadows; the Dayspring from on high has visited us and given light to those who lived in darkness. This, then, is our feast, and we join in procession with lighted candles to reveal the light that has shone upon us and the glory that is yet to come to us through him. So let us hasten all together to meet our God. The true light has come, the light that enlightens every man who is born into this world. Let all of us, my brethren, be enlightened and made radiant by this light. Let all of us share in its splendor, and be so filled with it that no one remains in the darkness. Let us be shining ourselves as we go together to meet and to receive with the aged Simeon the light whose brilliance is eternal.

Rejoicing with Simeon, let us sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God, the Father of the light, who sent the true light to dispel the darkness and to give us all a share in his splendor. Through Simeon’s eyes we too have seen the salvation of God which he prepared for all the nations and revealed as the glory of the new Israel, which is ourselves. As Simeon was released from the bonds of this life when he had seen Christ, so we too were at once freed from our old state of sinfulness.

By faith we too embraced Christ, the salvation of God the Father, as he came to us from Bethlehem. Gentiles before, we have now become the people of God. Our eyes have seen God incarnate, and because we have seen him present among us and have mentally received him into our arms, we are called the new Israel. Never shall we forget this presence; every year we keep this feast in his honor.” Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (19:1-10)

Our Lord Jesus Christ was traveling and ended up going through the ancient city of Jericho. Those who have read the Old Testament will remember that Joshua and the Israelites conquered the city of Jericho by following the guidance of God. Through their faithfulness, a great miracle took place as the walls of that city came down. Yet today we are witnesses to an even greater miracle as the walls of one man’s hardened heart came crashing down.

We do put walls around our heart. This happens both intentionally as well as unintentionally. We put up walls intentionally through choosing a life of rebellion, a life of sin, a life apart from God. We might not think of it this way but in fact sin is a wall that separates us from God. When we choose to live in sin, we are in fact building a fortress around our hearts and setting a guard to keep something or someone out. That someone is none other than the Lord Himself. But when we build this wall due to our life of sin, we keep out God and we keep out our loved ones, friends, everyone. We keep everyone at a distance.

The fathers of the Church often speak of sin as not simply a choice, it is also an illness, a condition into which humanity has fallen. So when we see that someone has fallen into sin, it is not good to judge or condemn the person. We can judge the actions or behaviors as wrong, but we must see the person as truly sick with the sickness that afflicts everyone, everywhere, at all times. It only afflicts them to differing degrees and with differing severity. This is why the Lord teaches us not to judge others, because we are immediately judged by that same judgement.

Zacchaeus the tax collector was also a man who had fallen into sin. We do not know exactly what his sins were but we can gather from the reading that since he was a tax collector, he had been greedy and perhaps he took more taxes than he should have since he held a position of great power within the Roman Empire. It was normal at that time for the tax collectors to collect extra from their subjects than was necessary. They did so because they had the power to do it and because it helped them become wealthy men. If they were going to be hated for being tax collectors, they might as well get wealthy doing so.

Zacchaeus’ heart was hardened, but the entrance of the Lord Jesus began to change everything in his life. The presence of Christ and the commotion of the crowd caused Zacchaeus to become curious. The founder of the company Apple, Steve Jobs once said “Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” For human beings curiosity can be directed to either what is good, true and beautiful, otherwise it may be directed to what is ugly, evil, false and destructive.

On this particular day in the great city of Jericho, Zacchaeus curiosity led him to explore the person of Jesus Christ for himself. And he did so with such a great and childlike effort that he was rewarded with something quite priceless. His house become the temple of God. His heart become a place of rest for the Lord Jesus Christ. His curiosity had opened up the slightest crack in his hardened defenses but this was enough for the grace of God to enter and begin the work of changing him completely. He had noticed the crowd, but he needed to see the Lord for himself. And he saw Him, and more importantly, was seen by Him.

Likewise, the Lord honors our intentions and desires. He blesses our good intentions and desires and multiplies them for us. He waits to see a little effort, and He overwhelms us with spiritual riches that we can’t comprehend. We make a bit of effort to pray, and the Lord begins to help us pray. We make a bit of effort to study and learn about Jesus Christ and He himself grants us true wisdom. We make an effort to obey the commandments and the teaching of the Lord, and we find grace assisting us to do so more perfectly and completely.

At the request of Jesus, Zacchaeus immediately welcomed the Lord into his home. He said to the Lord, “Lord this is no longer my home but your home and your kingdom.” Christ had conquered his heart completely. He led the man to heartfelt repentance. He led the man to a real change. These are the signs and indicators that a man has had a true experience of Jesus Christ. He is changed over time. He may not be perfect. He may still stumble and struggle, but he will slowly be growing into the man that God had always intended. This is a promise that is also given to each of us. So when the Lord calls on us to open our hearts to Him, let us do what Zacchaeus did and make haste to receive Him joyfully. For there is no greater joy than to have Christ dwelling in your heart and in your life.

On the opposite side of this we see that sometimes God calls us but we barely respond. We might be lazy or negligent. We might think that other things require our attention and our focus. We might think that we don’t need an active life with God. And because God is love, He will often give us the space to do what we desire, because this life is given to us as a gift of God’s love. Yet this makes the actions of Zacchaeus all the more impressive. He used his freedom to climb the tree and seek our Christ.

He used his freedom to welcome Christ into his home and to feed Him at his table. He used his freedom to repent, not a little bit, but fully and completely. He was prepared to give up everything in his life once Christ was with him. Because Christ became his only treasure and everything else became like rubbish to him. This is exactly the sentiment shared by St. Paul when he writes to the Phillipians saying,

“7But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Php 3:7-14

May we also be like St. Paul and Zacchaeus and leave everything else behind and press on with courage and hope in the promises and the riches of fellowship with Jesus Christ our God. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (17:12-19)

Our reading today is a familiar one from the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The evangelist St. John says at the end of his gospel that if all the miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ were written down, that not even the whole world could contain the books that would be written. I mention this because as Christians who hear the word of God, hopefully on a daily basis, we may find ourselves taking for granted the many miracles of Christ. They happen so often within the gospels that we barely notice them.

In today’s gospel reading we see Our Master encountering ten lepers. They stood at a distance because of their leprosy and the way that others had treated them due to their leprosy. After all, having leprosy was a serious disease. It was in fact considered something like a death sentence. When one was found with leprosy he was immediately forced to separate himself or herself from the rest of the healthy community because this disease was contagious. His life changed so dramatically. He was ostracized from the community, from all those he knew and loved, and who also loved him. He was either left to fend for himself or to become part of a new community that would embrace and accept him. But the only ones who would embrace such a one was naturally, a group of lepers.

So this is how we get ten lepers who are all together and standing at a distance from the people. We are told that they lifted up their voices. This makes sense because they tried to keep a healthy distance from others so as not to scare them or infect them. And as they raised their voices they cried out “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” You know there is great power and beauty to these words and to words that are similar to these. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” or “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” What is that great power that is available in these words? It is the power of a broken and humble heart that is crying out to God and is open to receive God’s grace. It is also the power found in the very name of Jesus. These prayers are in fact so powerful that we teach people to say them daily because the practice of repeating them will soften the heart and cause a change within us. If we are not yet broken and humble, the prayer by God’s grace will transform us.

You can say these prayers, like the Jesus prayer, very easily at any time, day or night. The prayers can be said with a prayer rope or without a prayer rope although using a rope is good for keeping track and not drifting away from the focus of prayer. When you have a prayer rope it should be mostly for private use or used quietly while in the church. For instance if you have a prayer rope of beads, that might be better for home use because it makes noise and brings attention to you whereas a prayer rope with wool or cloth knots will be silent. Also, we should note that prayer ropes are not really a form of jewelry or decoration, so we shouldn’t stack many around our wrists. One small prayer rope is enough. It should be very inconspicuous and not easily visible to others. This follows the principle of how the Lord Jesus taught us to fast and do our works in a private and quiet way, and not to be seen by others.

Great power is found in the Jesus prayer as we see from today’s gospel reading. Many volumes of writings of the saints have been dedicated to this one spiritual practice alone. It is easy and accessible to anyone who has the desire to grow in Christ. Let me share a couple of the sayings of the saints regarding this prayer:

St. Nikiphoros also writing in the Philokalia taught saying “(the intellect) should constantly repeat and meditate on the prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’, and should never stop doing this. For this prayer protects the intellect from distraction, renders it impregnable to diabolic attacks, and every day increases its love and desire for God.”

The modern saint Sophrony of Essex was a great teacher of prayer and he gives us some of the following advice:

“We try to stand before God with the whole of our being. Invocation of the Name of God the Savior, uttered in the fear of God, together with a constant effort to live in accordance with the commandments, little by little leads to a blessed fusion of all our powers. We must never seek to hurry in our ascetic striving. It is essential to discard any idea of achieving the maximum in the shortest possible time. God does not force us but neither can we compel Him to anything whatsoever…..In the atmosphere of the world today prayer requires super human courage. The whole ensemble of natural energies is in opposition. To hold on to prayer without distraction signals victory on every level of existence. The way is long and thorny but there comes a moment when a heavenly ray pierces the dark obscurity, to make an opening through which can be glimpsed the source of the eternal Divine Light.”

He continues saying, ““The way of the fathers requires firm faith and long patience”, whereas our contemporaries want to seize every spiritual gift, including even direct contemplation of the Absolute God, by force and speedily, and will often draw a parallel between prayer in the Name of Jesus and yoga or transcendental meditation and the like. I must stress the danger of such errors-the danger of looking upon prayer as one of the simplest and easiest ‘technical’ means leading to immediate unity with God.”

Finally the saintly man tells us, “There is no ascetic feat more difficult, more painful, than the effort to draw close to God, who is Love (cf. i John 4.8, 16).

This is our task in emulation of the ten lepers. This is the work of our lives, to cry out to God with our whole hearts, with faith that Jesus Christ will heal the leprosy of our souls just as He did heal the physical afflictions of those who cried out to Him. But let us also take a word of caution from the Holy Gospel. When we begin to receive healing let us remember to turn back regularly and give gratitude to the Lord who alone has made such healing possible by His grace. Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (4:12-17)

Long ago, many hundreds of years before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet Isaiah gave the people these words: “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

We might say to ourselves, “why were the people in darkness? What can this saying mean?” In fact the meaning of it is clear from the previous verse: “The land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, toward the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles..” The Holy Spirit, speaking through the prophet regarded the gentiles as people who sat in darkness. It means that they were people who spiritually speaking had no light. In our own day we have a tsunami of pluralism within the culture. We are afraid to offend anyone and we are afraid to take a strong stance that might make us look different than others. But in fact that is part of what it is to be of the Church, of those who are called out and set apart by God. We aren’t meant to blend in at all times. We must say that not all religions or beliefs are considered true. This is the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. And not all practices are good or moral. To say otherwise is to trivialize our faith and to diminish and make void the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. Not that it can ever be made void, but that we somehow void it’s power in our lives by rejecting it.

What set the Jews of the day apart from the gentiles was that the Jews possessed the books of Moses, they had the law of God and the teachings of the prophets. They had received spiritual light and were not in complete darkness. They had received some illumination from God. Yet for all that they had, they still did not have the fullness of the light, the fullness of the truth because they had not yet seen the Anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ. Yet all of that changed when Our Lord heard that His cousin John had been arrested and He withdrew into this gentile region. The prophet tells us that something changed that day that Christ entered this region. Like a powerful light in a pitch black room, His presence completely disbursed the overwhelming darkness.

Christ changed this place and made it a place of light. And there is another place which was full of darkness and which Christ overcame by His presence…our hearts. On the day in which we were baptized and received into the Church, Christ took possession of our hearts. He made us the abode of the Holy Spirit. He allowed us to be vessels of light, vessels of His light. He took lives that were full of darkness and He brought them into His glorious light.

In the reading we hear not only these words “the people who sat in darkness” but also “those who sat in the region and shadow of death…” In fact, we understand that the whole world, the whole of creation, all of mankind was under the bondage and slavery of this shadow of death. It lingered and hovered over everything. Because darkness and death go together just as light and life go together. They point to one another. Darkness and death go together with a life of sin. Light and life are always together in lives of godliness and sanctity. Our Lord Jesus Christ says “I am the true light. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness.”

So it is the presence of Jesus Christ and our faithful pursuit of His commandments that becomes a light for our lives. Indeed, when we fully embrace this way, our lives radiate this light and grace to others. This is the witness of the saints and holy ones who have been well pleasing to the Lord throughout every generation.

Yet we are reminded that before someone can make friends of the light, he must first do something else. He must cast off the darkness. He must repent. We’ve mentioned before that in the gospels the very first word of preaching from John the baptist is this word “repent.” We’ve mentioned also that this same word is the very first word preached by Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the foundation and basis of a proper spiritual life. All of the men and women who were received into the Church last week first came and repented formally with confession. Each and every one of us is encouraged to do likewise. When do we repent? Once in our lifetime? No! Rather we repent every single day of our lives. Read the lives of the saints and you will see that their repentance is an ongoing, living, dynamic repentance. St. Symeon the new theologian writes, “Through repentance the filth of our foul actions is washed away. After this, we participate in the Holy Spirit, not automatically, but according to the faith, humility and inner disposition of the repentance in which our soul is engaged. For this reason it is good to repent each day as the act of repentance is unending.”

The saints show us that the more one grows in holiness, the more he or she will realize their own fallenness and the more one will strive in their spiritual struggles. Why? Because the grace of God is like a light that shows our own faults and imperfections. St. Isaac the Syrian writes, “think of the heavy sins of those who fell and repented; and of the praise and honour they received afterwards, so that thou mayest acquire courage during repentance.” He is telling us that courage is required. It is not easy work. But nothing worthwhile is easy.

As the light increases, we see more of the dirt and grime around our souls. This is not a bug, but a feature of life in Christ. The more we turn to Christ, the more He brings our darkness into the light and burns it away by His presence. Another interesting thing happens as we strive to repent and know Christ. We begin to minimize and ignore the sins of others because we are so focused on our own. St. Ignatius Brianchaninov writes, “It is worth noticing that, after acquiring spiritual understanding, the defects and faults of one’s neighbor begin to seem very slight and insignificant, as redeemed by the Savior and easily cured by repentance—those very faults and defects which seemed to the carnal understanding so big and serious….The carnal mind sees in others sins that are not there at all.”

This is the path laid out for us as children of God, as Christians. Daily repentance, daily prayer, daily obedience to the teachings of Christ, daily love for God and for one another. In this way we continue to push back the darkness of sin and we overcome death through the One who opened for us the gates of His kingdom. Let us joyfully walk through those gates together with God’s help. AMEN.

Source: Sermons