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

Joy of the feast my brothers and sisters in Christ. As many of you know today we celebrate the first of the great feasts of the church calendar, the feast of the nativity of the Mother of God. Most of you know about the great feasts but lately we have many new faces among us and so I thought it would make sense to share a little bit about the great feasts with you and especially this feast that we are celebrating today.

According to Jewish custom, some days were considered more special and holy than other days. These are days that were designated as feast days. Days when we should particularly celebrate the saving activity of God among His people. Likewise, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church there are days that we should celebrate, especially the 12 feasts which are considered to be great feasts. You might think that it is conveniently one per month, but that is not the case. Some months have no great feasts, and other months can have multiple. Each of the great feasts centers around an event from the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, or His mother, the ever virgin Mary. There is one exception to this which is the next feast we will celebrate on Saturday Sept 14. That is the elevation of the cross. This feast alone does not celebrate or commemorate an event from the life of Christ but it focuses on a critical piece of the story of His crucifixion, and that is the wooden cross itself.

The twelve feasts in order beginning with our feast today are as follows: Nativity of the Mother of God, Elevation of the cross, Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, The Nativity of Christ, Holy Theophany (Epiphany), The presentation of the Lord in the Temple, The annunciation, the entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), Ascension of our Lord, Pentecost, Transfiguration and the dormition of the Mother of God. That’s all of them.

Those of you who are paying close attention will realize that a couple of really important events are not listed among the 12. The first of those events is the crucifixion of our Lord. This is the most solemn day on the church’s calendar. But it is not called a feast day. Lastly we have not mentioned the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Church calls Pascha. This is not numbered among the great feasts because it is seen as surpassing all of the feasts. The Church calls Pascha the feast of feasts! It is the resurrection that is the common theme and celebration of all of our Sunday liturgies.

Now each of these feasts is celebrated in a similar fashion beginning with the divine liturgy. Why? As one hieromonk noted “The Liturgy is found at the very center of life, experience and understanding of the Orthodox Catholic Church of God and consequently at the center of Orthodox Theology. For the being and life itself of the Orthodox Church consists of the Liturgy, because the very being of the Church of Christ is liturgical and Her very life eucharistic.” Hieromonk Athanasije Jevtic

If you are really listening to these words, they will inform and change your life or your understanding of life. Our life is liturgical. So when we celebrate a feast of the Church it has to begin with Liturgy. For instance, let us imagine that Christmas (the nativity of Christ) happens to fall on a Monday. This would mean that we would typically celebrate a festal liturgy that morning or the night before. But some might say, “well, we just celebrated a liturgy on Sunday morning, so there is no need to go back to the church again, we can just stay home and celebrate.” No, my brothers and sisters. That means our life is out of balance. We can’t celebrate the feasts without the liturgy because as we just said, our life is liturgical and eucharistic. The feast is meant to celebrate our life in Christ, so you can’t stay home and party when you haven’t first come to worship the God whom you are claiming to celebrate. That is the very foundation of our joy together.

Today we celebrate the birth of the Mother of God, the holy virgin Mary. Fr. Thomas Hopko tells us that “The record of the birth of Mary is not found in the Bible. The traditional account of the event is taken from the apocryphal writings which are not part of the New Testament scriptures. The traditional teaching which is celebrated in the hymns and verses of the festal liturgy is that Joachim and Anna were a pious Jewish couple who were among the small and faithful remnant—“the poor and the needy”—who were awaiting the promised messiah. The couple was old and childless. They prayed earnestly to the Lord for a child, since among the Jews barrenness was a sign of God’s disfavor. In answer to their prayers, and as the reward of their unwavering fidelity to God, the elderly couple was blessed with the child who was destined, because of her own personal goodness and holiness, to become the Mother of the Messiah-Christ.”

He continues saying, “There had to be one born of human flesh and blood who would be spiritually capable of being the Mother of Christ, and she herself had to be born into the world of persons who were spiritually capable of being her parents. The feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, therefore, is a glorification of Mary’s birth, of Mary herself and of her righteous parents. It is a celebration as well of the very first preparation of the salvation of the world. For the “Vessel of Light,” the “Book of the Word of Life,” the “Door to the Orient,” the “Throne of Wisdom” is being prepared on earth by God Himself in the birth of the holy girl-child Mary.” (The Orthodox Faith Vol. II)

This is the cause of our celebration today. And I want to tell you that one of the secrets to growing in the Orthodox Christian faith is hidden right in front of you whenever you are in the Church and especially on days like today. That is, the shortcut to growing in Christ is to cultivate a relationship with His Mother. We don’t always do that. We think that perhaps it is unnecessary, but the life of the Church teaches us that it is necessary, right and good because we are entering into the family of God, a community. You aren’t becoming an island all by yourself. You have to know your roots, both physical and spiritual. You can’t love Jesus and despise His Mother. Because we have put on Christ, she becomes mother to us. She worries and prays for her children as all good mothers do. Let us draw near to her heart in supplication. When you ask her to pray for you, she will gladly do it. When you invite her into your life, she will become a part of your life and she will speak to her beloved Son on your behalf in the way that only a mother can do. Through the prayers of the holy Mother of God, may the Lord bless you all. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (4:16-22)

In the time of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s earthy ministry, people worshipped God communally in one of two places. At certain times and seasons they would go up to the temple in Jerusalem. This temple was destroyed in 70 ad by the Romans. Now most of the year they would focus on worship at their local synagogue. This was particularly important on Saturday, the day of the Sabbath rest. We note that in our day, living as people of the new covenant when we come to the church we in fact are participating in worship that is a hybrid of both temple and synagogue worship.

It is said that before the end of the world the temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt and someone will enter that temple to receive worship. This will no doubt be an anti-Christ or The AntiChrist. But as Christians we are reminded that we have no need of a temple since we as Christians become the temple of the Holy Spirit. God dwells within our human fleshly temples because He is the God who created all of the material world and who Himself took flesh and lived as perfect God and perfect man.

Nevertheless it is important to note that the Lord was submissive to the religious customs of the day. He was a good and observant Jew. He wasn’t arrogant or aloof from the synagogue or it’s leaders. He is truly the only person who knew every sermon before it was preached. He was in fact the greatest preacher who ever lived. Yet, He did what was expected of Him because He wanted to properly observe the Sabbath and He did not want to be opened up to accusations of being faithless or rebellious. But most of all, He went to the synagogue weekly because He loved God His Father, and this was one of the ways that He drew near to God.

Now on this particular day, it seems that it was the Lord’s turn to stand up and read from the holy Scriptures. And the book that was handed to Our Lord was the prophet Isaiah. Something very special was about to happen and this thing set in motion or rather, it indicated to us that events were in motion that would forever change our understanding of the world, of God and of life itself. The Lord Jesus found a particular text in Isaiah and He began to read these words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor and to heal the broken hearted. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Do you know what this passage is about? It is a proclamation of the gospel. Our Lord is sharing the beginning of the good news with us. He is telling us that He sees our broken hearts. He recognizes the captives. He notices the blind. He takes note of those who are oppressed. He sees them all. He sees all of us. At some point in our lives, each and every one of us falls into one or more of these categories. Above and beyond the normal ways that we each struggle, our Lord is dialing in on the true source of our misery and difficulties in life. He is focused on our enslavement to sin, to evil and to death, the greatest of all the enemies of mankind. And He tells us that all of these troubles are coming to an end.

How so? How do we enter into this victory? We enter into it by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Christ was victorious and conquered sin and death through His life, His crucifixion and His resurrection from the dead. And the One who sees us welcomes us in to participate in His victory. The Lord says to us, “Come my brother and my sister, because I am victorious, you shall also be victorious with me!” Yet, some of you might still be thinking “how do we participate in this victory?” So let me share a few words that might help you.

As we’ve been studying St. Sophrony’s work “His Life is Mine” during our weekly gatherings, we came across these beautiful words recently. He wrote, “All of us are today in vital need of a firm faith in Christ’s eternal victory, that we, too, may become spiritually invincible. A very great deal depends on ourselves—to remember, for instance, that at the baptismal font we received new birth from on High, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Those who are baptized ‘with the Holy Ghost and with fire’ (Luke 3.16) perceive in their prayer that every given moment of our life is enveloped in Divine eternity. At all times and in all places we are held in the invisible Hand of our Heavenly Father.”

He continues on a little while later with these words… “from the moment we turn to God, resolved to follow His commandments, a process of basic healing begins.” Finally he ends by saying “If any of my readers is suffering from some psychological wound occasioned by failure in life, he can attain to a regal freedom of spirit and radically change his whole life if he turns to God every day with a personal prayer…”

So St. Sophrony, one of our great modern teachers tells us that first we need to remind ourselves of who we are in Christ. We need to be reminded of our royal lineage and the victory of our King. Next he mentions that we begin to embrace this faith through embracing the commandments of God. Clinging to these commandments and teaching of the Lord with our whole being. He tells us that this begins the path of healing. Finally he mentions that deep healing, even on the psychological level, will occur when we make profound personal contact with God in authentic heartfelt prayer.

Most of this probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to you. You have heard these things before. There is a reason for that. We repeat these thing because they are true and they don’t change from day to day or week to week. So even though we know these things we need to have them repeated to us and we try to find new ways to motivate ourselves into meaningful action.

It seems to me that this reading is given to us today, on the first day of the ecclesiastical new year, in order to remind us of these things. We are encouraged to bring everything to Christ every single day of our lives and especially on this first day when we ask Christ’s blessings on us and on the rest of the year. We do this with confidence that Christ has already achieved this victory and that He offers the faithful and pious a share in this glorious inheritance. Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. (3:9-17)

Whenever we receive someone into the Church that is done typically in one of two possible ways.  The first way is to bring someone into the Church of Christ through baptism.  And not just any baptism, it is to be a baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and this baptism must be done in water.  So you can’t be baptized in the name of Mother Earth or in the name of Buddha.  And you can’t be baptized in rose petals or mud or anything other than water.  This baptism has to be done correctly because it is much more than a symbol. It is a new life in Christ, made possible through Our Lord’s own baptism, death and resurrection.  And it is the Lord Himself who taught Nicodemus and who teaches us that “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5)

Oftentimes we have people who come to the Orthodox Church from other Christian denominations.  Denominations where they were already baptized properly.  When this happens then there are two approaches or strategies for bringing them into the Orthodox Church.  In some corners of the Orthodox world a very strict approach is taken and everyone is rebaptized.   In most of the Orthodox Churches in North America, the bishops of the various jurisdictions have been in general agreement that the proper theological, historical and canonical method for receiving someone who is already properly baptized into the Church, is through the sacrament of Chrismation.  This is in order to respect the theological teaching of the apostles as found in St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians ch. 4 where St. Paul writes “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”  So it means that there should not be two baptisms, just one is enough.

Now the issue is that baptism alone does not impart the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is certainly working in our lives and inspiring us and leading us, but the teaching is that we don’t become temples of the Holy Spirit until we receive a special anointing with a special oil called Chrism.  Please note that this is in line with the New Testament teaching that one did not receive the Holy Spirit through baptism alone.  We see this in Acts 8, where it is written: 

“Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 8:14–17)

Before the Apostles died, the teaching of the Orthodox Church is that they passed on the holy tradition of this sacrament of chrism. Chrism (also known as myron) is a special oil of anointing that was blessed by the Apostles. In modern times, it is blessed only by the patriarchs or heads of the various Orthodox churches at specifically appointed times. It is likely that St. John the Evangelist is alluding to this sacrament in his first general epistle when he writes, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things” (1 John 2:20). A few verses later he also writes: “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him…”

This anointing is spoken of throughout the early centuries of Christianity. The early Christian priest St. Hippolytus of Rome (170–235), writes:  “The neophytes are anointed by the presbyter from the oil consecrated by the bishop. He says, ‘I anoint you with holy oil in the name of Jesus Christ.’” (Apostolic Tradition 21–22)

St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (313–386), writes:  “And to you in like manner, after you had come up from the pool of the sacred streams, there was given an Unction, the anti-type of that wherewith Christ was anointed; and this is the Holy Spirit.” (Catechetical Lecture 21:1)

St. Basil, Bishop of Caeserea (330–379), one of the greatest figures of Christian history said,

“We also bless the water of baptism, the oil of anointing, and even the baptized themselves. By virtue of what writings? Is it not by virtue of the protected, secret, and hidden tradition? Indeed! Even the oil of anointing, what written word has taught about that? The triple immersion, from where does it come? And everything that surrounds baptism: the renunciation of Satan and his angels—from what scripture does that come? Is it not from that teaching held private and secret, which our fathers kept in silence….” (On the Holy Spirit 15, 35)

It is clear then that we become a temple of the Holy Spirit through the sacrament of Chrismation.  We become temples of the Holy Spirit so that Christ may continue His work of redemption and healing in us through the Holy Spirit becoming an intimate part of us.  Through the work of the Holy Spirit we become divine by grace.  We partake of both natures, Christ’s human nature (which was with us from conception) and His divine nature (which is given to us through baptism and Chrismation).

My brothers and sisters, work to safeguard and energize this sacred gift that has been given to you as Orthodox Christians.  Love God and serve Him as if your life depends on it.   Keep the commandments and teachings of Christ as if your life depends on it.   Our Lord doesn’t ask you to sacrifice to God in a temple, rather He has made you the temple and you sacrifice to God through the offering of your whole life, your thoughts, your words, your actions, even your sufferings.  In this we imitate Christ our savior and become well pleasing to our heavenly Father. Glory be to God forever, AMEN.    

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (9:27-35)

This world we live in has trained us to view everything through a scientific lens. What is true and factual is whatever can be observed and repeated in a controlled environment. We are taught that in order to know something we have to see it, to observe it. Our eyes have to grasp it in order to verify it.

Yet the evangelist St. Matthew brings us face to face with a powerful spiritual reality in today’s gospel reading. One doesn’t need to see God with his eyes in order to know Him and to have faith in Him. In fact, the evangelist pushes this further by telling us that one does not even need working eyes at all in order to recognize Jesus as the Lord and savior. You can be blind as these two men were blind.

In their blindness they did not complain and grumble against God. They did not wallow in self-pity about their situation. Instead they used what senses they did have to orient themselves to following after Christ. Sometimes we find ourselves in times of great difficulty. Sometimes these difficulties are self-inflicted, caused by our own life of sin. Like the blind men we might feel that we are in great darkness. We may feel that we don’t have the information or knowledge that is necessary to move one step forward in life. We are afraid that the next step that we take might be treacherous or dangerous. In these moments the lesson of this gospel reading is all the more powerful. Cry out to Jesus Christ. When you have nothing left to give, give it all to the One who alone can give you everything in abundance.

Frequently in the life of the Church, in our worship, you will hear us repeat the words “have mercy on us O God”, or “Lord have mercy”. Why do we do this? Why do we repeat these words over and over and over throughout the days and weeks and months and years? Is it because the Orthodox Church is boring and unoriginal and can’t find new material? No, my brothers and sisters. It is because the original material revealed by the Holy Spirit cannot be improved upon.

The Church is anything but boring because she is the body of Christ, the image of the kingdom of God. We also call the Church our mother and as any good mother does, she trains up her children in the fundamental skills of life. She teaches her children survival skills. She passes on her wisdom to her children and her children become wise. She doesn’t constantly invent new prayers and new music and new worship to fit with the times and seasons. She doesn’t give anything new because there is nothing new under the sun. So what the Church does is teach her children the authentic way to live, the way to drink from the waters of life. This way is found through an open heart and a disposition that learns to cry out to the living God with these words “Have mercy on us!” or “Lord have mercy!”

All of the liturgical prayers of the Church seek to impart this gift to us. The gift is humble faith. But how do we obtain this gift if we don’t first have faith? According to some of the fathers we begin with our words and our hearts will follow naturally. It’s one of the reasons why we should be careful about the type of music we listen to and the lyrics that we repeat mindlessly. They affect us and imprint on us. They change us with enough exposure.

Our prayers also change us. Our words and our actions help to mold our hearts. So the Church takes advantage of our human nature and calls us to become who we are meant to be in Christ. To learn to cry out to God and to address Him as one who is able to grant us mercy. And if you pay close attention you see that in fact the blind men followed this example since they followed Jesus to His house, which is a symbol of the Church, the place where Christ dwells. This is further demonstrated in that Christ shows them mercy and heals them in His house. Where do we find God? Where do we know that He will be waiting for us? In His house.

But it is really important to remember that in order for Christ to help and to heal you, you have to draw near to Him as if you are blind! You have to see yourself as blind and in need of outside help. This is especially true in your prayers. You don’t own or control God. You also don’t see God. Orthodox theology says that we can know God through His energies but never in His essence. So we have to approach God humbly, with our prayers, as the blind men did, and we have to do it with faith that He will hear us and reach out His healing hands to us in the midst of our blindness. After all, it is the Lord’s good pleasure to give you good things, because you are His child.

But pray as if your life depends on it, because it most certainly does! St. Mark the Ascetic teaches that “Nothing is stronger than prayer in its action, nothing more effective in winning God’s favor.” This is the favor that two blind men found through their heartfelt prayer of just a few words, “Have mercy on us!” AMEN.

Source: Sermons

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

Our Lord Jesus Christ was in a boat, traveling. Once He reached His destination, which we are told was “His own city.” We are then told that people came to him seeking healing for one of their own who was a paralytic. This means that the person who came to the Lord was carried there by others since he himself was paralyzed. This selfless act required great love. It is not easy to carry someone for a long distance even if they are being carried by 4 others. It really requires an act of love and great faith. The people did not necessarily believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God. But they believed that He was a great prophet whom God was using in a powerful way. So we should be quite impressed and humbled by the faith of these people to carry their beloved to Christ. We who are here believe that Jesus is the Son of God but perhaps our actions don’t demonstrate this deep kind of faith that we hear about today.

As soon as the Lord looked upon this paralyzed man and looked upon the faith of those who brought Him, He immediately said to the man “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” Have more beautiful words ever been uttered? The Lord knew everything about this sick man. He knew everything including his worst moments, his failings and his sins. The Lord knew all of the things that this man probably tried to hide from the rest of the world. And here we see a true demonstration of the love and mercy of God towards mankind. Our Lord knew all of these things and He still took compassion upon this man. Its one thing when someone loves you but doesn’t know the worst things about you or your deepest and darkest moments. It is something else, when they know those things and love you all the more. We find that Our Lord Jesus loved the man and He comforts him saying “Take heart”.

If you spend precious quiet time with the Lord, in prayer, you will be surprised that the Lord will often come to you (rather, you will sense His presence) and He speak quietly into our hearts and say “Take heart, my son.” “Take heart, my daughter.” “Have courage, be at peace, I am with you always.” Just as the Lord knew the troubles that this man had faced in his life, He also knows each of us intimately. He knows every aspect of our lives. He understands you even when you think that no one else understands you. He knows you intimately because He created you and He dwells in you through baptism and Holy Communion. And even when you aren’t quiet and don’t listen for the voice of the Lord, you can still be greatly encouraged through the study of the gospels and by reading and praying the psalms. The psalms are the prayer book of the Church. They are filled with words of comfort that increase our faith. In fact it is the psalmist who writes, “Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you.” Ps 55:22 Bring all of your troubles to God in prayer. Pour them out and leave them at the feet of Christ, who alone has the strength to carry them.

After the Lord said “take heart,” he continues saying, “my son”. God looks at us as His sons and daughters, with extreme love for us. Even the one who grew up as an orphan can know and feel like they are part of a glorious family through this intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, who sees in us not merely a follower, but His very child, His son or daughter.

Now we come to the words that are most important of all, “Your sins are forgiven.” We are reminded that God created the universe by the power of His Word. He said “let their be light” and it was so. Christ Himself is the Word of God. By the word of the Word, all things are done and accomplished. So He created the universe by His word and He recreates each of us by His word. He offers us healing and reunites our faculties, our bodies, souls and minds. He takes away the great burdens that weigh us down.  These powerful words help to refashion men and to turn them from broken sinners into sane, whole, and saintly human beings who are truly growing in the likeness of God. Nothing is a greater burden in our lives then our own sins. They often haunt us and we wonder whether or not we can ever be free of them and of the damage that our sins cause. Most importantly we wonder if we can ever have a restored relationship with God and have the peace that comes through communion with Him. But my brothers and sisters, everything is possible in Christ. Because Christ became a man, took flesh and was crucified in order to open the doors of the kingdom to us through the forgiveness of our sins.

By the Cross, the Son of God having become man, accomplished our salvation. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross (Phil. 2:8). Having stretched out His hands upon the Cross, the Savior with them, as it were, embraced the world, and by His blood shed on it, like a king with red ink, He signed the forgiveness of the human race.

Now this very same gift of forgiveness is offered through the Holy Priesthood as it was instituted by Our Lord Himself who said to the disciples “Receive the Holy Spirit, those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, and those whose sins you retain, they are retained.” Jn 20:23 This gift is received through repentance and the sacrament of Confession. It transforms and heal us.

How often should one confess? It depends. In most cases, it will be about 4 times a year. Of course, some people will need to confess more often based on their personal struggles or if they happen to fall into serious sins. Yet others may confess more often because their conscience is troubling them. But in general you should speak with your priest about this. The sacrament is not magic. We shouldn’t take it for granted and misuse it. But we do need heartfelt repentance before we come so that Christ can truly unburden our souls and heal us. He wants this for us because He hates sin and He hates to see us paralyzed or destroyed by sin.

St. Nikolai Velimirovich writes, “The Lord is mighty and willing. No one, except Him, is able to cleanse the soul of man from sin and, by cleansing, to whiten it…..our soul cannot become white, no matter how often we cleanse it by our own effort and labor even with the help of all legal means of the law until we, at last, bring it beneath the feet of God, spread out and opened wide so that the light of God illumines it and whitens it.”

For those who come with courage and with humility they will also hear the comforting and life giving words of Christ “Take heart my child, your sins are forgiven.” AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans. (6:18-23) and the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (8:5-13)

In today’s epistle we hear the Apostle Paul’s words to the Christians at Rome. St. Paul would write these letters to the churches for many reasons. Sometimes he wrote to correct issues that were brewing. Sometimes he wrote to put the church in good order. Sometimes he wrote to teach or to clarify the teaching that these churches had received. Sometimes he wrote in order to check on the churches that he himself had planted. But above all else, he writes from a place of godly love, and concern for the people of these communities.

St. Paul in this 6^th chapter of Romans uses the language of freedom and slavery. He uses it very naturally because the people lived in a time when such realities were quite natural. Slavery was common. Yet, as many of the great saints demonstrate to us, the Apostle Paul takes an earthly reality and he uses it to bring to light an even greater spiritual reality. He uses this language of freedom and slavery with a completely different purpose. In particular he speaks of being “set free from sin.”

In our world everyone seems to be fighting for a cause. People fight for freedom universally. Political freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of speech etc. Yet every earthly freedom is according to a Christian, a bit of a mirage. It masks a deeper and higher reality. The reality of our freedom is found in Christ. You don’t receive freedom in Christ until you are baptized. But once you are baptized it is as if someone paid off your debt. You weren’t freed to do whatever you please (although you may choose that path). You were bought at a price by Christ in order to be freed to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with your whole soul, mind, heart and strength.

St. Paul tells us that we are never actually free (not in the sense that we understand). We are always slaves but for the lack of a better word we “choose” our form of slavery. Sometimes people will want to come and talk about things they are dealing with, temptations they are having. They are sometimes irritated that the thing they are fascinated by or the activity they desire is not supported by the teaching of Christ and the Church. We have to realize that neither Christ nor the Church can stop you from choosing to go down a different path. God is love and because this is true, He gives us the freedom to choose a path. Even if we choose the path of destruction, Christ will allow us to go down that path. He will certainly try to find ways to correct us along the way and help us to repent and amend our way of live but ultimately, if we are firm in our desire for rebellion and if we choose a path that destroys our souls, the Lord will let us do so because He loves us completely. He cannot force us to love Him or to choose a particular path of life. Sometimes people so desperately desire this illusion of freedom that they chase it to their own peril. They run full speed ahead towards the edge of the cliff.

St. Paul writes, “When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.” Meaning, they felt that they were free to do as they pleased with no consequences. They did not feel obligated to a moral way of life. Yet he continues, “But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.”

The members of the Roman church had once lived as pagans. They knew the life of prodigality and “freedom.” Yet at the end of that path they found that they were not only miserable but ashamed of what they had done and what they had become. In their love for personal freedom they found themselves completely enslaved and lacking the power to free themselves from their distorted way of life. They were stuck in lives that were fruitless and shallow and the only possible return from such a life was death, especially the death of the soul. Why? Because they lived a life apart from the love of God. To sin is to be distanced from God. To continue down a path of sin without repentance is to run away from life Himself.

Many are under the mistaken assumption that God punishes us, that He caused Adam and Eve to die. No my brothers and sisters. God warned them and He warns us of the consequences of choosing a path apart from Him. He warns us of choosing a life without Him. It won’t end well. It can’t end well. He knows this because He is the author of life and the author of us.

But St. Paul reminds the Christians that while they were slaves, they are now truly free with the freedom that only God can buy for you. He writes, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This is true freedom, to love God and serve Him with joy. But this freedom while it was free for each of us, was received as grace from God. It was not free for the Lord. He paid a very high price for us. He loved us so much that He died upon the cross for us, an innocent man condemned as a criminal. That was the price of our freedom. The Lord paid this with joy because He is the lover of mankind. He went along this path with joy out of His overwhelming love for you. Embrace this love as God has embraced you in His heart.

I will end with a quote from St. John of San Francisco who writes,

“…the Son of God came to earth and became man that He might lead man into heaven and make him once again a citizen of Paradise, returning to him his original state of sinlessness and wholeness and uniting him unto Himself.

This is accomplished by the action of Divine grace grated through the Church, but man’s effort is also required. God saves His fallen creature by His own love for him, but man’s love for his Creator is also necessary; without it he cannot by saved. Striving towards God and cleaving unto the Lord by its humble love, the human soul obtains power to cleanse itself from sin and to strengthen itself for the struggle to complete victory over sin.” + St. John the Wonderworker

May your freedom become an opportunity for complete victory to the glory of God. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (4:18-23)

Our Lord Jesus Christ was walking upon the shore near the Sea of Galilee and as He walked He spotted two brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, who were busy fishing that day as they did nearly every day since they were fishermen by trade. Little did these men know that they would be undergoing an interview for a new line of work that day. They were about to experience the world’s shortest job interview. They weren’t asked any questions. “What does your five year plan look like?” “What is your strongest attribute?” No. There were no questions at all. But that does not mean it wasn’t an interview. That doesn’t mean that Our Lord Jesus Christ wasn’t testing these men. He was and He did. His test was simple and straightforward. He gave them a directive and a promise and they would either respond with obedience in faith or they would reject His invitation.

“Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Ten words. These ten words completely turned the lives of these men upside down and in so doing, turned the world as we knew it upside down. If I say “Peter and Andrew” everyone knows who I am referring to. If I say “James and John” once again everyone will be fully aware. These men were nobodies but through their obedience to the invitation of Christ, they became glorified in Christ. Each of us is like these men going about our daily lives busy with whatever we are doing. Yet, the moment that the Lord Jesus Christ enters into our lives, something has got to give. Something has got to change. Jesus Christ has entered into your life and invited you to enter into His life. With God, it is always an invitation and never something forced. God is love and this love cannot compel using force. God desires the human heart to desire and seek and pursue after her love. This is how we enter into a relationship with the living God.

The disciples in today’s reading made a decision that day but then they followed it up by renewing that decision every single day of their lives from that point forward. The first day isn’t enough. What matters is actually today and what decision we have made for or against Christ. In this reading Christ says “follow me.” It is a simple statement to hear but not quite so simple in the unpacking. What does it mean to “follow Christ?” This is easy to see from the perspective of these 4 men in today’s gospel. For them to follow, meant to literally drop everything else they were doing and pursue after the man Jesus of Nazareth. But what about the rest of us? How do we follow Christ now?

We follow Christ by first studying His words and teachings and way of life. Sadly, I think we often neglect to read the gospels. What an impoverished and poor Christian life we live if we don’t study the gospels! We have the most important and life giving words ever written in all of history, yet we neglect them to focus on psychology, astrology, fiction, self-help, youtube and social media. I mentioned to one of the older and wiser priest-monks that I met on Mt. Athos that our churches were growing rapidly and he was not too impressed but rather curious. He wondered if people were coming for the right reasons or to simply have Orthodoxy as a crutch. I think He was onto something.

He has given his life to following and serving and making a life-long pursuit of Jesus Christ within the Orthodox Church. Are we giving our life to Christ and to His Church? Do we follow the mere words of Christ or do we try to follow the spirit of the Church that Christ established upon earth? For us the life of Christ is an integral whole. It is Christ’s words and deeds. It is the Church which He established. It is the sacraments and worship of that Church. It is the dogmas and teachings of the Church. It is the saints glorified through Christ. It is a way of life handed down to us through the centuries in order to bring us to healing and grace and deification. Each aspect of Orthodox Christian life supports and upholds the rest. They work together in harmony. You become an Orthodox Christian when you are received into the Church either through baptism or Chrismation. But you become an Orthodox Christian in your heart when you embrace her teachings and find a way to bring the mindset and pattern and daily life of the Church into your life.

We can’t become Orthodox Christians without sacrifice. What should we sacrifice? Many things. Just as the fishermen sacrificed many things in order to pursue Christ’s calling. One might say that they sacrificed everything, their comfort, their self-will, their occupations and expertise. They even left the comfort of their homes and their families. Likewise, we are called to sacrifice. We start by sacrificing our earthly mindset and way of thinking and understanding the world. We are called by St. Paul to renew our minds in Christ. He writes to the Ephesians and says,

“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self,which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”Eph 4:17-24

When we follow Christ we put off the old man and his ways and his thinking. The fishermen left their nets. The couldn’t hold the net with one hand and follow Christ with the other. They would be split in half. So they sacrificed everything for their desire to know God.

We are energized and brought back to life and renewed by putting on the new man. This begins in baptism and continues as we struggle in the spiritual battle, reading, praying, repenting, studying, worshipping, receiving sacraments, loving, serving and rinsing and repeating forever. That is our path to peace and joy and depth with Christ. But first we must let go of the net. Innumerable are the promises for those who follow in faith.

“The kingdom of heaven has no price tag on it: It is worth as much as you have. For Zacchaeus it was worth half of what he owned, because the other half that he had unjustly pocketed he promised to restore fourfold. [Luk 19:8.] For Peter and Andrew it was worth the nets and vessel they had left behind; for the widow it was worth two copper coins; [Mrk 12:42.] for another it was worth a cup of cold water. [Mat 10:42.] So, as we said, the kingdom of heaven is worth as much as you have.” -St. Gregory the Great

Bring whatever you have with joy, so that God may joyfully receive you. Amen

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (9:1-38)

This reading given to us on this the sixth Sunday of Pascha is powerful for many reasons. One of the amazing discussions that occurs near the beginning of the sermon is the question asked by the disciples to our Lord Jesus “Master, who sinned? This man or his parents.” Of course Jesus quickly answers them and we discussed the meaning of this many times but the bigger picture of this gospel passage is about the response of the blind man as well as the Jewish leaders to the fact that this man had been healed.

One of the most important aspects of reading the Bible that we learn from the Church Fathers is that how we read the Bible is of utmost importance. There are right and wrong ways of reading the text. One of the ways of reading the text which is considered incorrect is to read everything with a strictly literal meaning. Let’s give an example of this from the Psalms “Happy is the one who takes and dashes Your little ones against the rock!” Ps137:9 Now if we assume that the literal meaning is all there is to this passage then we might be forced to do terrible things. Thankfully we don’t have to resort to this today. In addition to the apparent meaning there is usually a spiritual, and deep allegorical meaning to texts as well. Scripture is a treasure chest that begs us to dig deeper.

The blindness of this man is likewise not merely about his blindness, just as the recovery of his sight is not merely about physical healing…it is about something more. The recovery of his sight, the end of his blindness is also a symbol of his discovery of Jesus Christ. It is the discovery that his physical sight was only restored so that his spiritual sight could be restored. Of course this makes complete and perfect sense if we take Our Lord at his word when he tells his disciples “I am the light of the world.”

It all makes perfect sense. If Jesus Christ is the light of the world it means that if we do not have Him we are in complete darkness. Any one of you who has ever been in a power outage without a flashlight knows that in truth you are almost completely blind…….almost. You may in fact see things like shadowy figures and so forth, but you will not be seeing your world as it really is. Only light reveals the true appearance.

This is the true context of what is happening in today’s gospel reading. It is about physical blindness and much more. It is about the blindness of the Pharisees who are in complete disbelief at this miracle. Even though everything points to the truth, such as the eyewitness accounts of the blind man’s own parents and finally his own testimony, the Pharisees do not, cannot believe because they have decided the outcome before knowing the facts. It is a like a form of cognitive dissonance. They had decided among themselves long before that Jesus of Nazareth was a troublemaker and no prophet. Of course this was also because of the light of Christ, since that light not only revealed God, but it also reveals the sinfulness of all men….and most of us don’t enjoy it when our sins are pointed out. It is rightly painful to us because our sinful desires have made themselves comfortable within us.

We often prejudge like these Pharisees when we misjudge the character of others, but it is truly dangerous when we misjudge the character of God. When we say that something in our lives is impossible we might be misjudging God and saying that He is powerless over our lives! We shut out the possibility of healing, of restoration, of light entering our lives just like the Pharisees did. Instead of rejoicing at the power and love of God, we lament at our misfortunes. We might become suspicious and look at the work of God through our own uninformed darkness……we don’t actually see God. We see luck or chance or fate or something else. That is darkness, like a spiritual power outage, we see some shadowy figures of our life and assume we understand life. Even more than this we sometimes see good and godly things and call them evil. The Pharisees did that. They didn’t even trust their own senses but rationalized an alternative, evil answer. See how easily we can become confused and disoriented by Satan?!

The way to a proper understanding of God is not a mental exercise. It is not blind faith either. The fathers of the Church tell us that we come to a proper understanding of God through an active practice of faith, through the very act of faithfulness itself. So our faith may start as a small seed but when we take that seed seriously and plant it deep in our hearts and pursue the cultivation of that seed diligently, daily, in small ways, through the life of the Church, then that small seed of faith will grow and flourish and bear beautiful life giving fruit. With care and by the grace of God, it will become an overwhelming garden that gives us more than we can even imagine. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

St. John of Kronstadt once wrote,

“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.”

We partake of the life of faith, of the things of God and through partaking we are confirmed and renewed in our understanding. A small bit of faith becomes a great deal of faith in the one who chases after God. A small bit of faith vanishes and disappears in the one who ignores or denies God.

Acknowledging God as the Light of the world and pursuing that light, through His body, which is the Church, is the way to begin seeing the world through fresh new eyes. Because if you are seeing the world without God, you are also seeing it without light and without light we all become blind. We walk in this world from place to place aimlessly. But God doesn’t desire that for His creation. He desires that we should know Him and love Him and that we should continue to grow in this dynamic of love forever. But in order for these things to happen we have to also address our own blindness. Each of us is blinded by sin.

Metropolitan Philaret of New York once wrote, “The Church, telling us today about this miracle of the Savior, at the same time chants in the person of each of us: “Blind with my spiritual eyes, I come to you, O Christ, like one born blind.” Not long ago we prayed to our Lord intensively: “Grant that I may see my own sins.” If we ask to see, to be able to see our sins it means we cannot see them as well as is needed. This is because our “spiritual eyes” are blind.” He continues saying “Our Lord Jesus Christ came to heal us of this brokenness, because no other force in the world can heal us of this frightful corruption by sin.”

May Our Lord pour out the full might of His love in order to grant each of us this healing so that we might see Him not merely with our eyes but truly with the eyes of the heart. AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (4:5-42)

Today we are most blessed to hear the familiar story of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s encounter with the Samaritan woman.  I must admit that each and every year I struggle deciding what to focus on from this reading.  It is so rich and overflowing with truth and grace.  But we have to begin somewhere.  We notice that Jesus stopped at the well because we are told that He was “wearied by His journey.”  We sometimes think of Jesus as superhuman.  Perhaps we envision Him as someone who never got tired, never got thirsty, never was hungry.  Yet the evangelists go out of their way to tell us that Jesus is fully human.  Not only did He experience all of these conditions, but we are comforted by the fact that He sympathizes with our condition.

Today He sympathizes with the thirst that plagued the Samaritan woman.  In the process of revealing the truth to her He tells her that “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst forever.”  She has come looking for water, h2o, agua, but Our merciful Lord looks past the obvious to the real thirst that haunted the woman.  It becomes obvious in the course of their interaction that her thirst was for affection and belonging and love.  These are not unreasonable desires.  We might say that if one doesn’t have these desires there might be something wrong with them.  That wasn’t the problem.  The problem was where she went to try to fulfill her deep desire for affection and love.  This is true for each of us.  As part of our fallen human condition, our passions disorient us, or rather, they are disoriented.  So we take our human desires and feelings but we direct them and focus them on what cannot give more than a temporary satisfaction.  In the case of the Samaritan woman, it was the love and affection of men that she was after.  But we learn that this didn’t work.  One way or another she failed epically at the goal of connecting and obtaining the love she desired.  In fact, that is true for everyone.  No one on earth can make you feel perfectly and completely loved and desired.  It is an impossibility.  True it is a goal for a married husband and wife, yet it is also an impossibility.  Why?  Because no one is perfect, no not one.  If we are not perfect, we can’t give unconditional and perfect love, we fall short.  We love one another, but we don’t love perfectly and completely.  Only God can do that, because God is love.

Our desire for love is a good desire.  Our desire for belonging is a good desire.  Our desire for fulfillment is also good.  Whether these are actually fulfilled in a good way, depends on where we focus that desire.  “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst forever.”  What is this water that the Lord speaks of?  It is the grace of the Holy Spirit.  It is the fruit of a life that is aimed toward Christ.  It is the gift that is poured out on those who love Jesus Christ with their whole body, mind and soul.  As Orthodox Christians however we should say that this gift of the Holy Spirit is not just a feeling or a sentimental thought.  It is a true gift that is passed down in the life of the Church and first through the sacrament of Chrismation.  If baptism is one side of the coin, Chrismation is the other side of the coin.  In the early life of the Church, baptism and Chrismation were virtually inseperable.  In fact, there was a time when Chrismation didn’t even exist.  After the apostles baptized new Christians they would lay their hands on them and give them the Holy Spirit as we see multiple times in the Acts of the Apostles.

But this practice changed and adapted to fit the needs of the Christian Church at the time.  The apostles couldn’t be everywhere at once.  And many of them were persecuted and imprisoned or martyred.  The Lord had made them the stewards of the Church and stewards of the mysteries of God, as St. Paul says.  So at some point very early on in the life of the Church, the practice of praying upon this special oil and asking the grace of the Holy Spirit to dwell in this oil was initiated.  Now in the absence of one of the Apostles laying their hands on the newly baptized, they could be anointed with this oil by the priests who were appointed by the Apostles and the bishops who were their successors.  

This act of Chrismating someone who is baptized and comes into the Church isn’t symbolic or simply a ritual act.  In this act we believe that the Holy Spirit dwells within the one who is Chrismated and that they become the temple of the Holy Spirit.  St. John writes of this in 1 John 2:20 when he says “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”  He continues saying “But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.” 1Jn 2:27

I have taken a moment to focus on this to demonstrate that we as Orthodox Christians have received this living water that Our Lord Jesus Christ speaks of.  We have received what was promised to the Samaritan woman that day.  This gift, this treasure of the gift of the Holy Spirit is yours by God’s grace.  Without the Holy Spirit nothing is right.  Everything seems empty.  Yet with the Holy Spirit, is anything lacking in our lives?  We have everything that Christ has promised us.  But where are we focused?  We have a thirst but is our thirst aimed in the right direction?  What are we putting ahead of the love of God?  What in our lives is an obstacle to true intimacy and closeness with God?  I can’t answer that for you.  God speaks into each of our hearts.  Let us spend some quiet time with the Lord every day and listen to what He is telling us.  Let us open our hearts to Him that they might be filled with this life giving water and carry us away to the kingdom that knows no end! AMEN.

Source: Sermons

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. (15:43-16:8)

Today in the life of the Church we commemorate Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus as well as the myrrh bearing women.

We are told that Joseph of Arimathaea was a man who was looking for the Kingdom of God. We typically gloss over these words quickly without reflecting on what this means. What does it mean when the gospel says that he was looking for the Kingdom of God? It means that he was pious and reverent. He loved God and sought to do His will in all things, as much as it was possible to do so. His thoughts, words and actions were directed towards serving the living God in the hopes of experiencing the Kingdom promised by the prophets that had come before. Of course, he did not really understand what that entailed, but he didn’t have to. He had faith that God would keep His promises, even if the righteous Joseph didn’t fully understand what was happening or what would happen.

I often tell you that we get used to hearing these stories and a possible downside of that is that they lose their ability to surprise us if we don’t engage them and go a bit deeper. We think it is just a basic detail that Joseph took the body of Jesus down from the cross, but it wasn’t. It was a very powerful act of faith. Think of it: Jesus was crucified as a criminal and potentially an enemy of Rome, as well as an enemy of the Jews. Joseph was himself a Jew and a member of the Jewish council called the Sanhedrin. This council was the highest Jewish authority in the land at that time. They were responsible for the legislative and judicial questions. They functioned like a cross between the senate and the supreme court. We believe that this council contained 71 members. Each of the men of this council were not just average Joes but the whose who of the Jewish world in that region at that time. These men were not anonymous but well known.

I am telling you all of this to paint a picture for the personality and faith and the utter courage that Joseph of Arimathaea demonstrated in going to Pontius Pilate and asking for the body of Jesus. He had very little to gain from an earthly perspective and so much to lose. Here was Jesus the crucified one who was hated by many of the Jews and perhaps the Romans and Joseph asks for permission to take down the body and wrap it respectfully and then goes above and beyond once again by offering up his own empty tomb that was going to be saved for his eventual death, and he gives up his future final resting place to honor the body of Jesus, whom he believed to be the messiah who was supposed to usher in the Kingdom of God. But what Joseph did wasn’t hidden. Everyone would have found out about it. Everyone would have known. If there had been any questions about what Joseph believed before, they would all be gone after that. Everyone would know that he loved Jesus. And he didn’t just love Jesus, he loved Him above anything else. St. John Chrysostom says,

“This was Joseph, who had been concealing his discipleship. Now he became very bold, after the death of Christ. For neither was he an obscure person nor unnoticed. He was one of the council, and highly distinguished, and as we see, courageous. For he exposed himself to death, taking upon himself the enmity of all by his affection to Jesus. He begged for the body and did not desist until he obtained it. Not only that, but by laying it in his own new tomb, he actively demonstrated his love and courage.” The Gospel of St. Matthew, Homily 88.

I wonder if our actions in life are courageous and show that we love Jesus? Are we ashamed to appear as Christians? Do we just try to blend in all the time? Do we hide what it means to be a Christian? Do we hide the teachings of Christ and His Church in order to blend in to the crowd and not cause waves? Are we more concerned with being liked than with honoring Christ? I ask these questions because it seems clear that in every persons life, there are times when you will be forced to do one or the other. We are pretty good about surfing the waves of change and walking the tightrope between our faith and our public appearance, but we shouldn’t expect that this will always work. There may be a day when we will be forced to choose between honoring God or honoring the world. Nearly every week we read stories of the martyrs who were forced or compelled to offer sacrifices to idols. Yet they did not because their faith in Christ gave them courage. Today there are people who want you to bow down to new idols and false ideologies, whether they be colored flags, or political ideologies or artificial intelligence.

One day you’ll have a difficult decision to make about whether to honor God or honor something else. I suspect that on that day, most of us will do whatever is consistent with the preparation of our hearts. Joseph sought to do God’s will, to be well-pleasing to God, to be faithful every day of his life. So on that day when he had to decide, he chose the path of integrity and faithfulness. His heart was prepared for this moment, no matter what it might cost him.

He was at risk of losing friends, influence, power and prestige. As Chrysostom says, he was even at risk of losing his life. But to Joseph, this was the right way to honor God and to show love to Jesus Christ. If this love is demonstrated by one who knew nothing of Christ’s resurrection, how much more love and faith should each of us demonstrate in light of Christ’s resurrection from the dead?

And Glory be to God forever AMEN.

Source: Sermons