The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (8:34-9:1)

Yesterday we buried a good friend of this mission. Ed Strange was really a joy to know and a man who served tirelessly to help the Church. He spearheaded the replacement of all of the sanctuary lighting as well as all of the new wiring during our remodel just a few months ago. He helped us with his prayers as well. 

The words of the Lord in today’s gospel fit very well with Ed “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

Some of you did not know Ed at all. Many of you did not know that Ed was a pastor for many years before becoming an Orthodox Christian. One of the things that I appreciated about Ed was that he was very direct and to the point when he was communicating with others and especially with those that he loved. I was very blessed to have had the chance to sit with him on Tuesday afternoon. We shared some really good words together. Ed was full of wisdom and holiness.

The Lord gave up His life freely so that He might impart life to those whom He loved, those who were under the curse of sin, which is death. And Death takes on a new meaning and reality when it is undertaken by those who love God. It is transformed and bears unexpected fruit. Yesterday, as we finished the funeral services for Ed, I decided that there were things about his last week with us that he would want me to share with you because he was a pastor all of those years and remained a pastor at heart and he would want you to hear these things.

First, when you are in the hospital, especially when you are really sick, either you or your family should inform a priest as soon as possible. I was notified about Ed’s change in condition on Monday night. He was unconscious and passed away on Wednesday. So don’t take that time for granted. Ed took nothing for granted. 

This brings me to my second point: Confess your sins before you depart from this life.

I once visited a parishioner who had been sick and was clearly near the end of her life. I asked her if she wanted to confess anything. She looked at me and replied “No”. I had known the woman for years and had never heard her confession so this was not the answer I expected. Nevertheless, I let her be.

On Tuesday morning, Ed was visited by Fr. Nicholas and he gave his final confession. He cleared the air between him and His Lord. He didn’t approach life with arrogance and say “What do I need to confess for? I was a pastor and served God all of these years and He knows my heart.” He made sure that his garments were white as snow and ready for the banquet. 

If it is at all possible, you should be clear headed and have time to give a confession sometime during your last days of earthly life. While that is not always possible, we can at least make sure that we’ve confessed regularly throughout the year. The medical staff wants to do a great job with their work and part of that is pain management and keeping the patient comfortable. But the family of the Orthodox Christian should make every effort to find a way to allow their loved one to have time to say their final confession and receive communion and pray before they depart this life, even if that means a small amount of discomfort. Ed was not comfortable on Tuesday, but he was at peace.

Third, spend your days practicing the art of denying yourself and you will be ready to receive all that God has to offer you after this life. 

Sometimes we visit people on their deathbeds who want to talk about anything but their passing. They want to talk about the weather and their favorite pasta recipes and the Chicago cubs etc. Others beg for more time to live. They are so attached to this life that they cannot imagine that it will end. They beg for healing and for more days. Yet others spend their time blaming God for all of their sickness and misfortunes. 

Ed was different. He had spent many years serving God and practicing the art of denying himself, and he was seriously ready to leave this world. His understanding was illumined. He knew that life wasn’t ending, it was just about to get started. 

He had spent all of those year praying and worshiping during the liturgy. He had spent all of those years receiving the body and blood of Christ and now he was not going to let fear or attachment to worldly things steal away the joy that he had worked so hard to obtain. Now he was going to enter into life with Christ more fully. He didn’t wait weeks or days. He was ready and the Lord accepted him in a flash.

We pray for a Christian ending to our life, painless, blameless and peaceful. Let us spend our days denying ourselves and taking up the cross. Directing every thought to Christ the Lord who alone is the master of our whole life, and He will truly become our resurrection and our life. 

To Him alone be the Glory, together with His Father and the life giving Spirit AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (3:13-17)

Today is the first Sunday of the football season. It was often the case that during football games you could see a few fans in the crowd who would hold up signs which read John 3:16. In fact our gospel reading today is quite short and includes that verse. What is so important about that verse that people would choose to display it during football games and in other various places? It is the 16^th verse of the third chapter of St. John and in this verse, the Lord Jesus says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” That is John 3:16. The reading continues with the next verse where the Lord says “For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

These verses are so important because they simply, neatly and directly share the whole message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is this message of God’s love that overturned empires and subdued the hearts of the godless and pagan peoples over the last 2000 years. God created each of us out of His intense desire to share the gift of life with us. He created us with a desire that we should know Him and have actual communion with Him. He created us to not only live, but to desire to live more abundantly and to even share this overflowing life with others.

I often meet people who find our Christian faith to be threatening. You might meet people who are threatened by the Christian message as well. But I have good news for you, the message that most of these people have rejected is not our Christian faith, not the ancient faith of the early Church and the faith of our fathers in Christ. Often they have rejected a message of fear and intimidation. People were threatened into belief in Christ. Believers would go from place to place and hand out tracts and tell people that if they don’t believe in Christ, bad things would happen to them. That my dear friends, is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. With Christ, everything is love. The modern miracle worker and saint, Porphyrios once said,

“This is the way we should see Christ. He is our friend, our brother; He is whatever is good and beautiful. He is everything. Yet, He is still a friend and He shouts it out, “You’re my friends, don’t you understand that? We’re brothers. I’m not…I don’t hold hell in my hands. I am not threatening you. I love you. I want you to enjoy life together with me.”

So this is the message that the world needs to hear about the Lord that we serve and treasure. We have to actually believe this for ourselves even before we go and try to share this invitation with others. It must be our joy before we try to bring joy to others. It must be our faith before we try to share the faith with others. It is really joyous news that has the ability to change the world. It did so in the past and it can do so again. When we learn that God loves us, we are free to live life as God meant it to be for us and not the shell or shadow of life that is offered by the world around us. The world offers freedom and life apart from God and by this we can be sure that what is actually offered is slavery and death because apart from God there is no life. A life apart from God is a life married to sin and this life becomes a life of servitude and slavery to our passions and emotions and our lower instincts and desires. We are free to live this way, but we were meant for more. This is true because only the one who creates something ever really understands it’s potential.

I want all of you to know that God knows each of you by name. He loves each of you deeply and this love is not dependent on what you have done in the past. His love for each of you is limitless. No matter what sins are in your life, no matter what you did wrong in the past, bring all of this to the feet of Jesus Christ, with complete trust and faith that God knows you and sees your potential and can fully forgive, heal, restore and transform you through His love. I am confident in this because God’s work of transformation and healing was made clear to us when the Lord Jesus Christ hung upon the sacred wood of the cross for us. God didn’t hunt us down, He allowed His own Son to be hunted down and displayed for the whole world to see. He invites the world to look upon His Son, nailed to the cross and says “open your eyes and see how much I truly love you.” This is the ultimate sign of love given to us by the One who is love. Let us joyfully accept Christ’s love in our own lives and begin to invite others to see this reality. We each encounter people every single day, who are in desperate need of this truth “God loves you, you are precious to Him.”

St. Isaac of Syria writing in the 8^th century says this “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for it. Not that he was unable to save us in another way, but in this way it was possible to show us his abundant love abundantly, namely, by bringing us near to him by the death of his Son. If he had anything more dear to him, he would have given it to us, in order that by it our race might be his. And out of his great love he did not even choose to urge our freedom by compulsion, though he was able to do so. But his aim was that we should come near to him by the love of our mind.” So when we actually look to and contemplate the cross, we have no doubt of the depth of God’s love and we find the strength to live the life of the cross and we receive resurrection. Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. (16:13-24)

We have one king and master, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. At the beginning of today’s Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians we hear these words, “Brethren, be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, and be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” These four instructions are given as direct orders from the general, the apostle Paul, who answered directly to the king. Jesus Christ is our King and we are each His servants. Yet we are more than mere servants, we are soldiers for Jesus Christ.

Does this mean that we should take up arms or fight with others, not at all! We are soldiers who are meant to do battle and to struggle and fight in the way that Our Lord Jesus Christ struggled and fought. Of this struggle the Apostle Paul writes “For we struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12). Our struggle is like the struggle of Christ, not against flesh and blood, not against other men and women. Not even against governments and empires and ungodly corporations. Our struggle is against evil and evil is both the absence of God, as well as the presence of the devil and his demons. This spiritual struggle is the whole reason why God became man and dwelt among us and gave up His life for us. We could not stand up courageously and contend against evil. Only Christ succeeded where all others failed.

The general is giving each of us instructions on how to live lives that would please our king and master. One thing that is true of all Kings and all of their generals, They are not pleased when the soldiers are timid or cowardly.

St. Paul tells us to be watchful. What does that mean? It means that we do not approach life like zombies or those who are half asleep. In the Roman empire, the idea of a soldier falling asleep at his post was considered a grave offense. It was often corrected by lighting the sleeping soldier on fire. We must be awake and have our eyes open to reality because we’ve been illumined and awakened by the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That means that we need to have the ability to see what is happening in the world around us, or even under our very noses, and assess these things critically in the light of the gospel of Christ. If our eyes haven’t been opened to reality by the gospel, it is time to sit down and be introduced to the Son of God and His teaching and worldview.

We are also watchful when we take care that we don’t neglect our own spiritual lives and lose our focus. The Lord Jesus says that if we are not ready for His coming, it will be “like a thief in the night.” We can meet our king at any moment. The apostle asks us to be watchful so that the moment does not catch us off guard.

Next, the apostle Paul tells us to “Stand firm in your faith.” Today this is very difficult for us as Christians. Everywhere we turn we find new obstacles to being a Christian. Obstacles that we’ve allowed into our homes, like the rubbish that we view on Netflix and Hbo and the internet. As well as the obstacles that are external. We find many false teachers and false doctrines. One of the doctrines of our world is the idea that there is no right or wrong, that the only thing that matters is the way that someone feels. Another idea is that there is no real truth, you are allowed to have your truth and I have mine and there is no way that we can make a distinction between them and say that one truth is better than another.

My brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is our only truth. The Lord says “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.” We are asked to stand firm in our faith in the Son of God and that is not merely a proclamation with the lips but with the groaning of our hearts and the movement of our bodies. Standing firm in the faith means to never ever deny Christ or stand by quietly while others deny Christ. The apostle tells us to “be courageous and be strong.” St. Paul tells his people this, in an atmosphere that was much less friendly to Christians than our own. Being courageous and strong meant possibly sacrificing your life for your faith in Jesus Christ. So we need to have a similar spirit of bravery. Don’t be timid in the face of others, be bold and yet humble.

Finally, St. Paul says “Let all that you do be done in love.” Watchfulness without love is a form of blindness. Firmness without love is legalism similar to that of the pharisees and the Lord reminds us that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the pharisees, we will by no means be saved. Courage without love is foolishness. And strength without love is the ultimate weakness. What really separates the people of God from the rest of the world, what allows us to stand out and to shine is our love. Love of God, and love of neighbor, and first and foremost this applies to our neighbors here in the Church. The Lord Jesus says “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Our love is not simply a sign that we follow Christ, it is the very sign of Christ’s dwelling within us! Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (19:16-26)

Every time that we come here to the Church we have an opportunity to encounter God.  We encounter God in multiple ways, but the most important of those ways is through the words of the holy gospel that are read every Sunday and also through the Word who is mystically made flesh for us in the bread and the wine.  We are the most blessed of all the people in the world.  We are among the most blessed who have ever lived upon the earth.  When you come here to the Church of the living God, put aside all of the earthly cares and focus and internalize the tremendous blessing that God has bestowed on you by allowing you to know Him and to hear Him and to partake of Him.

If you come into the Liturgy and spend your time thinking about what is for lunch or what is on your agenda today or what you need to buy from the store, you are not thinking on the things of the kingdom.  Most of us will spend many weeks, months and years here praying together.  Let’s not waste that time to satisfy some requirement and check off some weekly list of things we need to get done.  Attending the Divine Liturgy is not something that you check off your list.  It is something that when done correctly, ensures that you are not checked off God’s list.  It’s a serious business.  We come here to encounter God who is a consuming fire.  I say this to you as a cautionary word, because it is easy to get comfortable in the day to day.  Complacency has no place in the Christian’s vocabulary.

Comfort and complacency play a large role in what we see happening in today’s gospel.  A man came up to the Lord Jesus and said to Him “Good teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”  Let’s pause here and look at the reply of the Lord which is very interesting He says “Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.”  That verse, when taken on face value, is often misunderstood and used by opponents of the Christian faith to try to prove that the Lord Jesus is not in fact the Son of God, who is equal to the Father and the Spirit.  They see it as a correction of the man’s statement that Jesus is good.  But that is not the case. What the Lord is correcting here is not the man’s statement.  As St. John Chrysostom says “The Lord never says “Why do you call me good, I’m not good.”  He instead says God alone is good.  It is meant to direct the man to a more profound understanding of the real identity of Jesus.  The Lord wants to make sure that the man understands that He is no mere teacher or rabbi.  He leads him in the right direction without fully revealing Himself before the time.

Now one of the things that we should never do as Christians is get complacent.  Another thing that we should never do is to test God.  The rich man tests God by asking a serious, weighty question without a full realization of the gravity of the question and who it is that will answer.  The man wants to justify himself as a perfect man who keeps the commandments and will go to heaven. When we test God, we find that we are the ones who are thoroughly tested.  Our Lord Jesus Christ turns this man’s world upside down by giving him one more command “If you would be perfect, go and sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.”

We hear this statement and we might feel bad for the man.  How could the Lord ask so much of this man who just wants to go to heaven?  It seems like Jesus is picking on him.  But that is not the case at all. Jesus is the world’s greatest heart surgeon.  He asked much of Him because He loved Him much, and much was required to save him.  He went straight to the tumor and pointed it out and told the man what was necessary to be saved.  It is painful to have our faults pointed out but part of being a Christian is having your faults pointed out by God.  What is not recognized as sickness, cannot be healed properly.  Our Lord pointed out that what was keeping this man from knowing God had nothing to do with physically keeping the commandments.  Yes it was good that he “kept” them, but he missed the essence of the matter.  The commandments cannot save you, it is God alone who can save you.  What’s worse, was that the man showed that he loved the riches more than he loved God.  He was more serious about the riches than about heaven.  He was more in love with his comfortable life than he was with following Life Himself, and all of this means that the man was breaking the first and greatest commandment.  He did not in fact love God with his whole heart, mind, soul and strength. So we should indeed feel bad for the man but we should feel bad because he is attached to his material possessions and because he is delusional regarding his standing with God.  He missed out on the opportunity and invitation to be a follower and disciple of Christ.  He missed out on a relationship with the Son of God that would have led him to his stated goal…eternal life.

There is good news in this story. God loves us much.  If we approach God and want to grow closer to Him, we know that He is going to help us and attempt to perfect us just as He tried with this rich man.  When you approach God in prayer and you ask God to make you a better person, or make you more patient or more loving or more holy, you have to understand with faith that God wants these things for you more than you want them for yourselves!  He alone knows our potential.  So when you ask God to help you, expect that God will answer by giving you what is necessary for your growth as a person and not what is comfortable or convenient; When you ask God to help you, He will honor your request and allow you to experience challenges, tribulations, and great difficulties and on top of it all, He will ask you to make tremendous personal sacrifices.  This is the way that God gives us the blessing of following His Son and putting on Christ daily, and Christ alone is our eternal life. Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

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

Today’s gospel lesson is fairly simple and straightforward and yet these days such simple and straightforward teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ are completely neglected.   All statistics point to a significant change happening in the fabric of our society.  Today there are more atheists in the United States than at any time in history, that is a statistical fact.  Why does this matter?  Because as people lose their Christian faith, they are losing the ability to process and deal with life in the correct ways.  We have so many struggles and temptations and battles in life.  The Christian faith has for two thousand years been a place of refuge for those who struggle.  If someone lost everything, they could still be full of joy because they held Christ near and dear to their hearts and kept His teachings as the compass of their lives.  Christ should be our only treasure and our only hope.

As people lose their faith they also become very easy to manipulate.  In the absence of God, or in the absence of a thriving Christian faith, people will find other flags around which to rally.  Some will rally around isms, sexism, nationalism, feminism, marxism, socialism, racism etc.  They will assume that tackling the injustice of the day will solve all of their problems, and they will be bitterly disappointed when that is not the case.  Why?  Because we have lost the ability to process and deal with life in the correct ways.

According to the Christian teaching, the issues that really trouble us have little to do with injustice and much to do with what is going on in our hearts.  Sin proceeds from the heart.  Sin is a rebellion against God which leads to a man being divorced from God and divorced from his neighbor.  The divorce from God and from his fellow man is never amicable or friendly.  It is full of anger, hatred and malice.  Sin separates us from others and encourages us to see everyone as different from us.  It encourages us to put people into classes and categories.  It encourages hatred and violence against anyone or anything that stands against our cause or gets in our way.  Anger and the remembrance of wrongs is like a mountain of debt that can never be repaid  but simply multiplies out of control.  

Is there any hope for us?  There is always hope. The teachings of Christ are truly revolutionary and counter-cultural today.   We may not be able to bring people directly to Jesus Christ, but perhaps we can introduce them to Christ through the teachings of the gospel.  One of the fundamental activities of a Christian is that he or she forgives others.  What should we forgive?  Anything and everything, whether actual or perceived, whether real or imaginary.  We put every pain, every injustice at the feet of Our Lord with assurance that He sees and knows our struggles.  We also trust Him because He has not only taught us to forgive with words, He is the very image of forgiveness!  

When the Lord hung on the cross on Holy Friday, the evangelists tell us that the Lord looked up to the heavens and cried “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  This has been the model and prototype for generations of Christians who have fought to be Christ-like.  Thousands upon thousands of martyrs have used these exact words and asked God to forgive their persecutors.  Forgiveness is the path to healing.  Whether we are talking about national healing or a marriage that is on the rocks, there is no path to unity without a generous dose of forgiveness.  Forgiveness doesn’t only bring healing and unity, it brings salvation and communion with God!  The Lord tells us that if we do not forgive others genuinely, from the heart, we will not be forgiven by our Heavenly Father.  We all recite this fact in the Lord’s prayer each and every day “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us.”  We are called to take this seriously.  If you are going to say it and pray it, you’d better mean it.

We each have been hurt by others.  We each carry wounds and memories of wrongdoings.  We each have people that we currently do not love because they have sinned against us.  How long should we hold those things in our hearts?  How long should we bring them up and remember them and stir up our passions over them?  As the people of God, let us be the example for our society by quickly forgiving everyone for everything.  Let us show people what it is to have an open heart that is capable of love for others.  Will it be easy, maybe not.  Will it be painful, probably.  But if we have love we can endure any and everything, and we can do it with joy for the sake of our Master Jesus Christ who offers Himself eternally as our only justice, our only peace, and our only hope… to Him alone belongs glory, now and ever and unto the ages of ages AMEN.  

Source: Sermons

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

Today we hear the story of the man who brings his son (an epileptic) to the Lord Jesus Christ for healing. The man, a devout and caring father, comes and falls on his knees before the Lord and he cries out with a familiar cry “Lord, have mercy!” This is the proper way to worry about our children and loved ones, not with fruitless anxieties, but with heartfelt prayer to God with the cry “Lord have mercy!” Often people who come to the Orthodox Church for the first time are quite amazed at the number of times they will hear us pray “Lord have mercy” at every service and especially at the Divine Liturgy. This is no accident but a purposeful habit that the Church, our mother, is trying to form within us.

This prayer is not simply to be said with our mouths, but with our hearts. It is not to be said only on Sundays during the Divine Liturgy, but every day and if possible, every waking moment of the day. This prayer found in passages such as this one, is foundational for our understanding of the Jesus prayer. This prayer is often spoken of by the early fathers of the Church as simply “the prayer.” The full Jesus prayer is said as follows “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.” Often this will be shortened to “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me.” An even shorter form is simply what we are already saying here every day “Lord have mercy.”

This prayer needs to be foundational in our lives. We build a life of prayer upon these words which are short, sweet and go directly to the point. The repetition of the Jesus prayer allows us to fulfill the teaching of St. Paul who tells us to “pray without ceasing.” So it is possible to pray in such a way, and this practice gives us a prayerful disposition, and connects us to Christ. This prayerful disposition makes it easier for us to pray at other times and to keep a warm connection with God as we go through our day.

Many of the fathers of the Church tell us that the ultimate power of the prayer comes from the repetition of the name of Jesus Christ. It is for us the holiest of all words. It is the very name of the word of God made flesh. It is the name above all names, and it is extremely powerful. This is why it is a very great and grievous sin to use the name of Jesus Christ in vain.

Speaking about the Jesus prayer, the holy elder Father Sophrony said that the monks he met while living on Mt. Athos, pray while “Their attention is concentrated on harmonizing their life with the commandments of Christ.” He continues saying, “According to ancient tradition, mind unites with heart through Divine action when the monk continues in the ascetic feat of obedience and abstinence (please note that the abstinence spoken of here is specifically for monks and those who are not united in holy matrimony. At times abstinence is also permitted within a marriage, as is spoken of by St. Paul in 1 Cor 7:5 when he writes “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.) But continuing on, Father Sophrony writes “According to ancient tradition, mind unites with heart through Divine action (the grace of the Holy Spirit) when the monk continues in the ascetic feat of obedience and abstinence; when the mind, the heart and the very body of the ‘old man’ to a sufficient degree are freed from the dominion over them of sin; when the body becomes worthy to be ‘the temple of the Holy Spirit’.” Of course we know that one never actually becomes worthy of this, but the Holy Spirit comes as a gift.

Through the prayer we acknowledge that Jesus Christ is our master and the lord of our life. We acknowledge His true identity as the divine Son of God. Finally, we also recognize our fallenness, our sinfulness. It is both a prayer of acknowledging the Lord for who He really is, and for acknowledging who we really are.

We notice that the Lord is quick to respond to the cry of this desperate father. The Lord responds as one who takes a genuine interest in the problem and especially in the people involved. Glory to God for His compassion and love of mankind. He offers this same compassion and this genuine interest in each of us and our situations, no matter how difficult, no matter how complicated, no matter what we are dealing with. His powerful love is not only for those who lived 2000 years ago, who are remembered in the gospel accounts. Christ is an unending fountain of love to those who fall on their knees and cry “Lord have mercy.” One does not even have to fall on his knees, so much as he has to bring his demeanor and his attitude low. This humble cry to the Lord cannot be ignored. No matter how often you’ve tried and failed, no matter how often you’ve sinned and fallen short, God can forgive and wipe away the stain of sin from your life.

The Lover of mankind goes beyond our limitations, and beyond our needs to supply more of His grace than we ever thought possible. But again let me remind you that this requires what we’ve already mentioned above, real humility and obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ, and this is all necessary to have genuine faith. Without these, there can be very little genuine progress in our prayer life and in our general spiritual life. Without increasing our prayers, our repentance and fasting, we will be like the disciples in today’s passage, whom the Lord said were faithless. Perhaps we can each resolve to make a new start today and daily to call upon the name of Jesus Christ with this prayer and to couple this with repentance and a firm desire to obey all of the teachings of the Lord. These are just a few of the important steps that a Christian must take to be found as people of great and dynamic faith. And Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (17:1-9)

Blessed Feastday! On Tuesday evening we sung the Paraklesis (Canon of supplication) and afterwards as I was saying a few words about Our Lady the Mother of God, I told those who were present that today I would prove that the saints are really truly alive. I will go even further today and prove to you that it is indeed biblical to not only believe in the saints but even to speak with the saints!

In today’s gospel we are told that Our Lord Jesus took Peter, James and John and led them high up a mountain, away from the other disciples. We note here that while there were twelve disciples, the Lord had a special relationship with these three and according to His will and His purposes, He chooses only these three to reveal His glory and His majesty in a particular and significant way. As they were all together, high atop the mountain, we are told that the Lord “was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as light.” From this we see that the Lord is not simply reflecting light from somewhere else. He is revealing Himself as the light of the world.

One of the most prominent descriptions throughout the Scriptures regarding God and the Divine is the image of light and fire. On this day the Lord displays this glory of His divinity for His disciples. He is not simply the long-awaited Messiah of the Jews. He is the one who appears as fire within the burning bush. He is the one who appears as a pillar of flame before the Jews in the wilderness. He is one with His Father and the Holy Spirit.

After the Lord was transfigured this is what the gospel tells us “And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Him.” My brothers and sister, I promised to prove to you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that saints exist and that they are truly alive. I also promised to prove to you that it is right and proper to speak with the saints. Rather, it is the Lord Jesus who demonstrates the truth of this matter. Moses and Elijah appeared and they spoke with Jesus! Moses had died and was buried thousands of years earlier, and Elijah had been translated to heaven many years before the time of Jesus. Yet they both appear fully alive, fully present at this miraculous event. The passage could not be any clearer. Far from being some vision that only the Lord could see, Peter and the other disciples also saw these men and they were amazed. We should also be amazed. The kingdom of God is rarely as we imagine it. It is infinitely more grand, beautiful and alive than we can possibly conceive.  Not only are the saints alive.  Not only should we speak to them…we should also become saints ourselves!

The saints, those who love God and obey His teachings, are also much more alive than we can imagine. They radiate the light of God through the Holy Spirit. As we have mentioned in the past, they are like candles that are lit off of the great flame of the divinity of God. In fact, as I was studying this week, I happened to read the passage in Exodus where Moses goes up on the mountain for 40 days, neither eating nor drinking, and he speaks with God and waits for the tablets of the law to be made once again. Do you know what happens to Moses after 40 days of fasting and speaking with God? His face glows! When he leaves the mountain, the people can barely look at him from the brightness of his appearance and in fact he wears a veil. Such is the power of the presence of God in the life of one who loves Him.

The great feast of transfiguration was a special moment in the life of the disciples. It didn’t make sense to them yet but later, after the Lord’s resurrection and ascension, it became perfectly clear. Jesus is the king of glory who demonstrated a small taste of that glory to His inner circle. But there is more! Because we worship the God who is love, we know that He is not content to hoard His glory and keep it only for Himself. Our Orthodox Christian concept of salvation is to share, experience and fully partake in the glory of God. In order for us to fully experience this we will also need to be brave enough to go through the trials, temptations, tribulations and sufferings that come our way. There is for us, no glory without the life of the cross as our prerequisite. There is no Christian life without carrying the cross, because it is by the cross that we are saved.

God is glorified in His saints and the saints are glorified through their struggles to live the life of self-emptying, which is the life of Christ. The Lord did not need to take flesh and become a man. The Lord did not need to suffer temptation, hunger and thirst. The Lord did not need to suffer betrayal, injustice, spitting, and the cruelty of the cross. He chose them through His humble condescension to be like His people, the people whom He loved. Yet through all of this, the transfiguration tells us that there is much more than meets the eye. Jesus Christ is full of majesty, glory and power. This is the power that is poured out on all of the saints who love Him and bring their life into alignment with the teachings and example of the Lord.  May we boldly accept the daily life of crucifixion that we might be transformed through the grace of the Holy Spirit and receive the light of the glory of God. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

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

In today’s gospel text we hear these words “when Jesus went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick.” We are or we should be constantly amazed by the love of God that is demonstrated through His Son, Our Lord, and Savior Jesus Christ. Who are we that we should be treated with the care and mercy that the Lord shows to the great multitude of people. His care for them is not superficial. He isn’t worried only about their appearance. He is worried about their health. He is worried about what is going on in their bodies and in their souls.

We often try to separate the things of God from the things of this world. We assume that God has no interest in whether we are sick or unhealthy in the body or that God is not interested in our food and clothing and shelter. Nothing could be further from the truth. God cares deeply for our souls, but He does this without neglecting the material needs of His people.

There is a sense in which every church, every parish is a miracle. This is perhaps even more true with a mission. Many of you have been here from the start of this humble mission and you know that the mission exists as a place of daily miracles. There are daily signs here that Our Lord is alive and working within our midst as we seek to live out our daily lives in prayer and worship of the Lord Jesus and in love and service of one another.

Today’s gospel passage about the 5 loaves and the 2 fish is a great reminder that God doesn’t need much in order to accomplish His will. But there is one thing that He requires…that we entrust everything to Him. As the Lord seeks to feed the hungry and tired people, the disciples look at the meager supply of food, the loaves and the fish and they say to Him “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” How does our Lord respond? “Bring them here to Me.”

We started about 18 months ago with very little. We had a few families and a desire and yet the Lord has multiplied this work beyond our expectations. We are thankful to the Lord for working powerfully in the life of this holy community. We are thankful to our father St. Raphael who prays for us night and day. He doesn’t simply pray for the building, he is praying for each of our families.

People often wonder how a mission can function from day to day. Ultimately the answer is that we bring our small offerings to the feet of Jesus Christ and we trust Him to multiply them. The worst thing in the world is to be distracted or to set your gaze on anything else. Instead we are called to bring our focus and everything else to God. Bring everything to God, ourselves, our senses, our minds, our service, our worship, our lives, that is the meaning and purpose of the Christian life. What was true for the disciples and what is true for this mission is also true for each of us as we seek to do God’s will.

He doesn’t need us to be saints before He can use us. He doesn’t wait for us to have a multitude of gifts and talents before we become useful.Whoever you are, no matter your age or size or strength, no matter your strengths or weaknesses, God can use you in ways that you could never imagine. God can take your meager offerings (your talents, your gifts, your resources) and if you lay them down humbly at His feet and at His service, He can multiply them in a miraculous way. He did exactly that with the disciples, didn’t He?

There is not much good that can come from pondering our limitations. The Lord doesn’t need you to be perfect. It is the Lord Himself who will perfect you. Bring your sins and weaknesses so that God can heal them. Bring them in prayer, with intense supplication. Bring your gifts and your verylivesas well. Whatever God touches, He leaves changed by His grace. God does not need our abundance. In fact, He only worked the miracle when they realized that they were lacking. God does not need our abundance, He knows that we are poor and He wants to be our abundance!

The God we serve is faithful and generous, merciful and long suffering. May the Lord see our sicknesses and hungers and may He have compassion on us as He did on the multitude and fill us with good things, both material and spiritual because He alone can satisfy us and to Him is due all glory, honor and worship. Amen.

Source: Sermons

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

Nothing attracts others to God like people who are genuinely faithful to God and to His commandments. In fact, it is sometimes said that people have no problem with Jesus but that they have a problem with the followers of Jesus whom they’ve encountered. In today’s gospel passage the Lord Jesus, the light of the universe is reminding His disciples that they are called to be the light of the world. He tells them not to hide their light and keep it away from men.

How do we as disciples and followers of Jesus, fulfill this calling to be the light of the world? It starts by our obedience to the teachings and commandments of Jesus Christ. The Lord says to us “If you love me, obey my commandments.” And in the process of trusting God and obeying His commandments, we demonstrate our love for Him. This genuine love isn’t simply with the lips but with the heart. Without obedience to the commandments of God and the teachings of the Son of God, there can be very little progress in our spiritual life. It is a prerequisite of the faith.

When we obey the Lord, we are surprised to find that we are drawn closer and closer to the divine nature of the Lord Himself. It makes sense that as we follow God, we become more and more God-like. We draw near to the Light and we take light from the Light that is never overtaken by night. Each and every Christian is like a candle that does not fulfill it’s purpose unless it is on fire for God. If the candle is far away from the source, the flame, it is practically useless. When the candle comes near to the heat, it comes to life, it not only benefits itself by finding meaning and purpose for it’s existence, it greatly benefits others as well. In the sayings of the desert fathers we find this story…

Abba (Father) Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can say, I do my little office, I read my psalms, I fast a little bit, I pray and I meditate, I live in peace with others as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. Tell me, Father, what else, what more can I do?” Then the old man, Father Joseph, stood up, stretched out his hands toward heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

My brothers and sisters, we are the candles! Each one of us was excited when the Holy Fire came to our church and we passed it carefully to one another. But the Lord asks all of His disciples to pass the fire and the light of the Christian teaching and way of life to those around us. We don’t have to do this by being preachy. People don’t like preachy, but people swarm to genuine warmth, and love. This genuine love comes by the grace of God, through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, when we engage in the struggle and choose to live holy lives.

When we struggle to obey Christ and to become holy, the Holy Spirit visits us and transforms each one of us so that we become light-bearers. When this happens people are affected and transformed by us since we are vessels of the Holy Spirit. This not only saves us, but it makes us useful to others and their salvation. It allows others to know God through us. It allows God to become incarnate and made a tangible reality for those who struggle to know God otherwise. When the people hear about a living saint, they flock to that individual from all over the world. Why? Because in the presence of the saint, they will come tangibly closer to the grace of God.

We come to God and struggle to know Him, not in order to gain any special gifts from Him or that others might think of us as special. We struggle to know God because we love Him and desire to know Him more fully, just as a man longs to go deeper in his relationship with his wife. In a healthy marriage, the husband doesn’t get bored with the wife, and vice-versa. Each one is courting the other and desires to draw the other one closer. The marriage is profound and magical even when the two are simply in each others presence. This is ultimately what prayer is about, being in the presence of God. Uniting with God through love. But the prerequisite to uniting with God is a life of obedience to the commandments of Jesus Christ. This life allows our life to be changed, it allows us to be transfigured by the Holy Spirit and through this we become like the city set on a hill. As St. Seraphim of Sarov says “Acquire the Holy Spirit and a thousand around you shall be saved.” Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (8:28-9:1)

How can we forget the scope of God’s love and mercy for all mankind? It is the basis and foundation for all of the work of salvation which is found within the holy gospels and the rest of the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus demonstrates His exceeding goodness not only toward the Jewish people, His own people, but towards the demon possessed men who dwelt in the country of the Gergesenes.

St. Matthew recalls this story in part, because he wants to draw the reader’s and hearer’s attention to the fact that the Lord is come to save more than one select group of people. He is come to save the whole of mankind. He is come to make all people, His people. It is likely that the country of the Gergesenes was a land of the gentiles. This is demonstrated by the fact that there are herds of swine nearby. Such herds of swine would be unimaginable among the Jews since pigs were considered unclean and were never consumed or handled by the Jewish people. The Lord Jesus Christ had such love and compassion that He could not stand to see these men imprisoned, enslaved and tormented by the demons. It did not matter that they were not His people, Our Lord Jesus desires to make all men His people. He desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

There are many lessons for us as we hear today’s gospel. We are surprised by the similarity between the demon possessed men and the people of the city who came to meet Jesus. The demons cry out “what have we to do with thee, O Son of God?” And the people of the city do nearly the same thing when they beg the Lord to leave their city. Each group believes that they have something to lose by the presence of Christ. The demons believe that they will be tormented by the mere presence of Christ. They know that they will lose their grip on the souls of the two men whom they had possessed.

Likewise, the people of the city feel that they will lose their livelihood by the mere presence of Christ. After all, the herdsmen had lost quite a bit of wealth by losing their herd of swine, which ran into the sea and perished. We expect the demons to be uncomfortable with the presence of Christ, but we should be surprised that the people reject the presence of the Lord in their midst. During the Divine Liturgy we pray for “the ignorance of the people.” Here in the gospels we have this clear example. They cannot see past their particular situation to the great and powerful miracle that the Holy One of Israel has just performed in their midst. Instead of rejoicing at the restoration of two men who were created in the image and likeness of God, we find that they are gripped by sadness and despair since they lost their swine.

As a Christian it is good to make peace with one simple fact: Jesus Christ is always trying to disrupt our lives. This is a process of holy disruption. What is the character of this holy disruption? It is the process of disrupting the sin in our lives. The Lord Jesus is always trying to expose us with all of our frailties and shortcomings, to the light of His grace. The mere presence of Christ is powerful enough to disrupt our lives. We often sense the Lord trying to come to the city of our hearts. How does our heart react to this visitation? Do we greet the Lord with joy, as we saw at the Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem? Or do we greet the Lord in order to quickly dismiss Him and remove Him from our lives?

When does the Lord visit us? Every time that we have a thought that reminds us of God. Every time that our conscience speaks to us and attempts to correct us. Every time that we think about praying. Every time that we are faced with the pain and suffering of others. Every time that we see the poor. Every time we read or hear the Bible.  Most importantly, every time we come to the divine liturgy. These are opportunities when God visits us.

Let us take the liturgy for example. What is the disposition of our hearts during the liturgy? Do we long to meet and to commune with Jesus Christ or do we find our minds wandering to all of the things that we’ve got planned after the liturgy. Are we more excited about communion or coffee hour? More excited to chat with our beloved friends or to unite with our beloved Savior? Every liturgy and every day and every moment of every day, brings another chance to either accept Christ into the city of our hearts or to quickly show Him the door. It is a chance to make Him either first or last, but He does not accept to be somewhere in the middle. Listen to the words of our Lord Jesus to the church of Laodicea

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Rev 3:15-20

The people of the city thought that they had everything and that all they needed was their pigs. But in their confidence that they had it all, they turned away the One who was worth more than all of the treasures of the universe.  They rejected Him because He disrupted their lives, or had the potential to disrupt their lives.  The Lord waits at the door of our city.  What do we see?  Do we see someone who wants to trouble and disrupt our lives or do we see the One who loves us and wants to not only be part of our lives, but beckons and calls us to be part of His life, which is true life!  Behold, He stands at the door and knocks….how will we answer?                   Glory be to God Forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons