The pain of repentance.

Homily 591 – 5 GL
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
April 21, 2024
Epistle:  (321-ctr) – Hebrews 9:11-14 and (208b) – Galatians 3:23-29
Gospel:  (47) – Mark 10:32-45 and (33) – Luke 7:36-50

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

The Gospel reading, on it’s face, troubles me a bit.  Maybe that’s the point.  We are in Great Lent with 5 days left, then Palm Sunday and Holy Week.  So perhaps we need to be troubled.

What troubles me is this:  Even the apostles closest to Jesus let their ego get the better of them.  St. James and St. John, ask Jesus for the positions of authority and honor in the Kingdom.  The way it is presented to us in the readings, this comes immediately on the heels of Christ describing to them the way he would be tortured and ultimately killed by the Romans.

It makes me want to scream out to James and John, “Weren’t you listening?  Did you not hear what our Lord, your Lord, just said?”  But yelling this would make me a hypocrite, too.  I too want to be favored by Jesus.  I too want to dwell in His Kingdom, basking in His Glory – and hoping that a bit of that Glory reflects on me.  And that people notice.  I want to be able to hear the voice of my Heavenly Father saying, well done, good and faithful servant.

Christ deals with this in a very interesting way.  Christ reminds James and John of what He, their Lord and Master, will go through, and are they prepared to do that as well.  To which they respond, “We are able!”  Then, Jesus lets them know that indeed they will endure the same fate as He does.  But they won’t necessarily be given anything – those places of honor are not Christ’s to give.

What Christ tells James, John and all the disciples and apostles, was that the Kingdom doesn’t operate the way the world does.  To put it another way, everything we think we know about how the world operates – what is right, what is fair, what is worthy – is not applicable to the Kingdom of God.

In the world, who do we see as our leaders?  The ones with success, with money, with power, with prestige, with honor (perhaps) and with intellect.  What we used to see, but I fear we have lost as a society, is what Jesus tells the disciples:  The important traits of the Kingdom are service.  Humility.  Love.  Sacrifice of ourselves on behalf of others.

And then, we also encounter the reading from St. Luke, the reading for St. Mary of Egypt, about the woman sinner at Christ’s feet.  The scriptures use the term sinner euphemistically.  The term is being kind to the woman.  She was like St. Mary of Egypt, perhaps like St. Mary Magdalene before she was delivered from the demons.

This past Thursday, had we served the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, we would have read the life of St. Mary.  As your priest and pastor, I chose not to read it last night at Vespers as we have in the past, out of sensitivity to the presence of the youngest and most innocent among us.

If St. Mary of Egypt is the model, then her behavior was sufficient to make the most vile and corrupt and perverted among us blush.  She makes prostitutes look positively angelic.  If you haven’t read her story, you should make a point of doing so today.  Then in addition to their own edification, parents can determine when their children can hear the story, and how that story needs to be relayed. 

It is truly a scandalous story, but one that results in the only thing we seek in this life – repentance.  St. Mary of Egypt, and this woman in the Gospel reading, both were great sinners.  And needed great repentance.  The thing about sin is this:  It literally means to miss the mark.  And repentance, literally, means to change course.  It might best be called a course correction.  For those who miss the mark greatly, require the greatest course correction.

In our day and age, we miss the mark more than perhaps ever in history.  We are selfish, and self-absorbed.  We no longer believe we can accept what God tells us as truth.  Rather, society – we – reject God’s message and guidance and say that we will determine who and what we are.

It began in the Garden of Eden.  And it ended in the Garden of Gethsemane.  If we would only let it end! 

But in our time, society accelerated our movement away from the right course in the post-World War II era, when free love and rejection of all authority became the norm.  We didn’t have a protestant reformation against the Church, we had a societal reformation against everything.

Some of the abuses that were ended were appropriate.  We began to recognize that the roles we play in society should have little to no influence on our value as human beings.  Our race and our gender are unimportant as icons of our creator.  The roles gender played in our society was just wrong.

Yet, society also threw out the valuable things.  The value of marriage.  The love in the nuclear family.  The nurture and growth of children.  Even the idea of God Himself got thrown out.  “God is dead” the magazines wrongly proclaimed.

In a time when our heading is the opposite of God, and pointed squarely toward ourselves, repentance will be more painful that the ones who just deviate a bit from Christ as their target and goal.  St. Mary of Egypt spent the remainder of her life in the desert – 47 years – without contact with another human being.  Tortured by her memories of the pleasures of the world.

But her repentance, as difficult and painful as it was, provided her with what Jesus gave to the sinner woman anointing his feet at the Pharisee’s table.  In the end, Jesus told her, “Your faith has saved you.  Go in peace.”

As we enter into this home stretch of Great Lent, and enter with Christ into Jerusalem, and experience with Christ our own betrayal, crucifixion, and our own death and resurrection, remember the sinners who have gone before us.  Let them show us that way of repentance, of self-denial, and of endurance, that willingness to sacrifice everything in this world.

So that we also may obtain the Kingdom of God.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

The ladder for the rest of us.

Homily 590 – 4 GL
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
April 14, 2024
Epistle:  (314) Hebrews 6:13-20 and (229) Ephesians 5:9-19
Gospel:  (40) Mark 9:17-31 and (10) Matthew 4:25-5:12

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

This Sunday we recall St. John of the Ladder – Climacus.  This Sunday is one that I honestly have mixed emotions about.  I suppose I shouldn’t admit that.  But it does.

This is not about St. John.  It is about his writing, the Ladder of Divine Ascent.  Many, many people ask about this work every year about this time.  In the monasteries, the Ladder is read during Great Lent, typically at mealtime, which for monks is generally once a day, in the late afternoon.

When we first start to engage with the text of the Ladder, the thing that we have to realize is that we are undertaking a monastic struggle.  That is what gives me pause in recognizing the Ladder as useful for those of us outside the monastery.

Now, in looking at the text, let’s examine a bit of why the Ladder is what it is.  First, St. John Climacus himself.  St. John was the abbot, the spiritual leader, of the Monastery of St. Catherine’s in Sinai, at the base of Mount Sinai.  He lived in the sixth and seventh centuries, and departed this life in 649 AD at the age of 70.

To give a bit of perspective, Muhammad the prophet of Islam was born in 570 AD and died in 632 AD.  It is very likely that it was St. John himself that received the Covenant of Muhammad, called the Ashtiname (Ash-tee-nah-may), which guaranteed respect and protection for followers of Jesus by those who follow Islam.

So, St. John was a renowned monastic father and leader.  He wrote the text at the request of another monastic abbot and leader, John, the Abbot of the Raithu monastery, also on the Sinai Peninsula, on the shore of the Red Sea.  John was the disciple of St. John, and the Ladder was intended as the organizing principles for the spiritual life of the monastery at Raithu.

With that background, St. John gives us 30 rungs on this Ladder to heaven.  One for each year of the Lord’s life, as our Lord prepared for public ministry.  Now, in general, these rungs of the ladder, these steps to heaven, are designed to be ascended in order.  St. John starts with the very basics, and then continues upward, with each step building on the one before it.

So, the first step – the very first step – is leaving the world.

Let that sink in for a moment.  That’s the first step of the ladder.  And if we aren’t willing to leave the world, or unable to leave the world, then the rest of the text is somewhat irrelevant for us.

The first four steps, in fact, are those of leaving the world, then detaching from the world, being exiled, and being in obedience.  Meaning that not only do we leave the world, but we cease to consider it even exists.  There are no exceptions to this – not for family, not for anything.  As for the world, we no longer exist, and the world no longer exists for us.  Then, we place ourselves in obedience to an abbot or elder.  Completely.

No arguing, or debating, or discussing.  That is the monastic beginning.  Not the end, the beginning.  For only when we have detached completely from the world and given ourselves over to a spiritual master to rule over us, can the monk begin to work on their interior life.  The thoughts and desires and emotions that rule us.

And the first rungs of the ladder are the easy ones.  But St. John warns us they come with untold suffering.  Think of detaching from something that is intimately connected to us.  We heard the story of St. Alexis about a month ago.  St. Alexis had a wonderful, pious life.

But he tore himself from that family and the brand new bride he had married, and left them, and when he returned, he lived with them and they didn’t know it was him until after his death.  He heard his wife sobbing over his absence.

That is the suffering that St. John is warning about.  It is suffering worse than the death of a spouse or a child or a parent.

And again – that is the beginning.

So, what can we do, who remain in the world?  What can we learn from the monastic pursuit of perfection that the Church wants us to know during this time?

We can, and must, replicate some aspects of what St. John describes.  The overall objective is the voluntary crucifixion of the ego.  That is what the monk seeks.  That is what we need to seek.  It is actually easier for us than for the monk who lives largely outside the world.

What we do is this:  We remember that we are sinners, the first of sinners as the prayers say, and we remember that we are in no position to judge anyone.  We obey the fasts of the Church, and detach from our material wealth, practicing radical generosity, even if we have nothing.  We share what we have with everyone, regardless of if we determine them worthy of help or not.

We save for the times when we don’t have work, just as the farmer stores up grains for the season when grain doesn’t grow.  But when we have enough, we share.  We give of our excess.

We don’t expect nor pursue luxury and comfort.  We pursue peace and harmony with everyone we encounter.  We don’t live our Christianity in isolation, but rather we see everyone we meet as better than us, more of an icon of God than we are.

We get comfortable with the idea that we don’t have any control over the world, or even ourselves, and we place ourselves in the dominion of the Church’s discipline.  By this we learn not only that there is much we can live without, but we also learn the really important aspects of life.

Relationships, peace, love, harmony.  These are to be prized more than silver or gold or possessions.  What we want when we die is not the most stuff, or the most wealth.  We want people who love us, and miss us, and will pray for us.

We must keep our eye on the prize.  The prize which is resurrecting, everlasting life, togetherness, and love in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

The true Cross.

Homily 589 – 3 GL
St. Andrew Orthodox Church, Woodway, Texas
April 7, 2024
Epistle:  (311) Hebrews 4:14-5:6
Gospel:  (37) Mark 8:34-9:1

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Thank you for allowing me to offer some words this morning that will, God willing, be a life-changing blessing for us all.  That is what repentance is – life-changing!

It is a special day for certain when we can look at the cross, and think about the cross, and try to understand what God tells us.  We think of the cross, and we think about the commandment of Our Lord, and for some of us – and by that I mean for me – I have to think about what it means to take up my cross – to bear the burdens of not just ourselves, but of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Some, when they hear of the Cross, and bearing the Cross, imagine the wood that Christ bore.  But that obviously isn’t the cross that we are asked to bear.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve not seen anybody walking around WalMart or H•E•B carrying 4×4 posts nailed to their wrists.

This cross, we think, isn’t literal.  It can’t be literal, right?

Well, maybe the wood of the cross that Jesus carried isn’t the essence of what the Cross really is.  Maybe the literal cross that Jesus carried isn’t the point.

That’s not intended to scandalize us, but it is worth considering.  Have we gotten the Cross all wrong?  Are the Latin Catholics and the protestants right that the Cross was simply an element by which Jesus was tortured instead of us?

See, I don’t think so.  But, I have to admit, if that isn’t what the Cross is about, then what is the Cross about?  Why does Jesus undergo that punishment?  And why do we, as Orthodox, sing about the Cross as being life-giving and blessed?  It seems a little inconsistent, right?

I think, though, that there is a different understanding of the Cross that can provide us with insight into its purpose, and how it may apply to us.  So, if I may ask, set aside the notions and ideas and understanding we may already have, and let’s take a fresh look at the blessed, and life-giving, Cross.

Let’s start at the very beginning – Genesis 3.  We all know the story, right?  The crafty serpent tricked poor Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, and ever-obedient Adam said “Yes dear” and ate also.  For that taste of fruit, we – all of us – are being punished.

But look closer:  “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

When we read that, we think about the end – they ate.  Everything before that was the lead up to the important part, right?  But!  Maybe not.  Maybe it is the lead up itself that is important.

What Adam and Eve did was not complicated.  Through their examination of the situation, their evaluation of the data, and their own ambition, set aside God’s warning.

In essence, they told God that they didn’t need Him any more – that they, Adam and Eve, would decide what was good and what was to be avoided.

Kinda like toddlers – we tell them don’t touch the stove, it’s hot.  And what do they do?  Touch the stove!  Or if we tell them that we’ll take care of something – “No!  I’ll do it!  I’ll do it!”  We even talk about this common trait of humanity – Oh well, we say, they have to figure it out for themselves.

And that is the essence of the problem.  That is the substance of the fall of humanity.  We put ourselves in charge of us.  This God can’t be the boss of us!

To use a bit different language we allow our ego to take over.  We let our ego govern our behavior, our thoughts, our desires – and not God.  You may have heard the word “nous” before – that is the part of us that connects to God.  That used to rule us.  Everything we were – our intellect, our flesh, our ego – was subservient to the nous.

At the fall, we took our ego and placed it squarely between the nous and God.  No longer could we fellowship with God, no longer would we be bothered by God.

OK – so this is the problem of humanity now.  What does this have to do with the Cross?  To understand more, let’s look at Jesus, just prior to the crucifixion itself, before He was betrayed.

The Gospel of St. Mark, chapter 14, verse 32.  Having celebrated the first Eucharist with the Apostles and Disciples, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, and they go to the Garden of Gethsemane.  The fact that they go to a Garden is significant – where were Adam and Eve at the fall?  The Garden of Paradise, the Garden of Eden.

Jesus prays three times, with such intensity that He sweats blood.  That prayer, that “if it was possible, the hour might pass from Him.”  He tells the Father directly – “All things are possible for You.  Remove this cup from Me.  Yet,” he says.  In some translations, “nevertheless,” he prays, not what I will, but what You will.”

Not what Jesus wants – but what the Father wants.  He does the opposite of what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden.  He – and please, hear this if you hear nothing else this morning – Jesus set aside His human ego.  And accepted the Father’s will.  And, in that Garden, Christ restored humanity to it’s God-created glory.

Brothers and sisters, this is the Cross that Christ picked up that evening.  Our Lord agreed, voluntarily, to renounce, to crucify, His ego in favor of God.  That is the Cross.  Crucifixion of His ego is the Cross that Christ picked up, and the same cross is what we must pick up.

We must deny ourselves, that is to say, we must crucify our own ego, our own desire, in everything we do, and follow Christ.  Christ followed through by doing what He didn’t want, but committed to do – He gave up His human life.

And Christ did Himself what He asks of us.  Deny ourselves.  Take up the crucifixion of our ego – our intellect, our logic, our meaning and purpose.

Because that is how we follow Him.  That is repentance.  That is how we obtain eternal life.  We simply choose to follow God, and not ourselves.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Sin, not sickness.

Homily 588 – 2 GL
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
March 31, 2024
Epistle:  (304) – Hebrews 1:10-2:3 and (318) – Hebrews 7:26-8:2
Gospel:  (7) – Mark 2:1-12 and (36) – John 10:9-16

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Every year when we read this Gospel, I’m struck that the focus isn’t where I think it should be.  My humanity wants to go to the healing as the focus.  Here is a paralytic who struggles – or, rather, his friends struggle – mightily to get him before Jesus.

Successfully, too!  In the end, the man gets up and walks out, to the amazement of everyone present, and surely to the amazement of everyone who heard of the account later.  But the more I encounter this passage, I’m reminded again and again that the healing isn’t the point at all.

This passage reveals something that applied to the paralytic, and also to us.  Christ is about healing – but not necessarily healing our physical limitations or illnesses.  He is first and foremost interested in forgiveness.  Forgiving our sins – that is to say, forgiving our imperfections.

It is almost like Christ tells us that the physical body doesn’t matter – because it will eventually pass away and die.  That doesn’t mean that we should abuse our bodies, or that we should not care if our bodies live or not.

What it does mean is that the body is a gift from God.  We became separated from God at the fall of humanity.

An important theme we will hear repeatedly during Great Lent and Holy Week is that Christ came to save fallen Adam, and by that, Christ saves us all.  All humanity.

So, in the same way, when we read Genesis, we shouldn’t read the account of the fall as happening to a special human long ago.  We should read that account as us.

We are the ones who fell, because Adam is each of us and all of us.  After all, if Christ is said to save Adam, and Adam is us, then we need to be consistent.  If we are Adam now, then we are Adam in Genesis 3.

And it isn’t just poor old ancestor Adam that questions God.  It isn’t just Adam who listens to himself rather than his creator.  It is us.  Adam represents us – Eve represents us.  Adam is us – Adam is me.

So one thing that this season should be telling us is that this isn’t about anyone else.  It is about us.  If we understand that like the paralytic we are also limited, and broken, then we need to also understand that the priority isn’t on our physical bodies.

The priority is on our eternal being.  The bodies we have are amazing and wonderful gifts of God, and we should – we must – take care of the bodies we inhabit.  Not because of some inherent value, though.  We take care of the body because it is the temple of God, which houses what was made in God’s image.  The temple of the Holy Spirit.

That is why the body is important.  But Christ makes quite clear that while we need to take care of our body, if our body gets in the way of our soul – our connection to God and connection with God – we should prioritize God.

If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.  If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.  That is to say, prioritize your soul and spirit, not your body.  As Christ says it is better to enter the Kingdom maimed than not enter the Kingdom at all.

Christ isn’t focused on our appearance, nor on how we feed or clothe or shelter ourselves.  Christ did none of those things.  He had no home, He had one set of clothes, He didn’t carry food and often didn’t eat at all.

He did the minimum necessary to keep the body functioning.  When He went into the desert to be tempted, He fasted eating nothing for 40 days.  But the temptations offered to Him by the Evil One weren’t food, or clothing, or shelter.

The temptations put before Christ were human, earthly power.  Satan tried to stoke Christ’s human ego, the same way he tried to fool Adam and Eve into following their ego instead of God.

See, Satan didn’t know if this was the Son of God or not.  He never found out.  As we will hear on Holy Friday and Holy Saturday, only after the crucifixion and death did Satan get the full picture of what has happened.

In the end, it was Satan’s ego that destroyed him.  Satan’s unwillingness to acknowledge and worship God.

Yet, we who live in physical bodies still think it horrific if our bodies are not indulged.  If our ego isn’t built up.  We demand tasty food, that we never feel hunger, that we experience warmth and comfort in all seasons.  That we experience status and the praise of others.  That we have power.

But everything that is given in this physical world is an illusion of pleasure – an illusion of joy.  It isn’t real.  It fades away, quickly, and perishes.  And like a drug, it creates in us the desire to do it again.  To experience power again, to experience wealth and status and praise again.

Like our physical bodies, those passions and wants will die with our physical limitations and deformities.  Only the spirit will continue.  And in the great resurrection, when the new heaven and new earth are brought forth, we will have new bodies, bodies without limitations, bodies that will never perish.

When Christ tells us that He forgives us – like He told the paralytic – He forgives us for one purpose.  To live with Him and in Him.  To repent of the self-determination that is so common of our day and age.  To live not for ourselves, but for others.

That is the fast we undertake.  To heal us physically and mentally and emotionally is a great blessing – but we will still pass away, our bodies will return to the dust from which it was taken.

The fast we undertake is not to heal our body.  The fast we undertake is to heal our soul and our spirit.

So brothers and sisters, fast – and repent – for the Kingdom of God is here.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

The joy of fasting.

Homily 587 – 1 GL
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
March 24, 2024
Epistle – (329-ctr) – Hebrews 11:24-26, 32-12:2
Gospel – (5) – John 1:43-51

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

During this time of Great Lent, we are asked by the Church to deny ourselves of things that provide us pleasure.  We are also asked to examine, in some detail, where we are spiritually and even physically, and to go to confession to seek the healing and change which is from God.

And the inevitable questions that arise – why are we subjecting ourselves to this?  Why aren’t we doing something differently?

Which, put another way, is that we say, “That rule makes no sense.  It defies logic.  Therefore, I conclude that I should do something different.”

To answer that question, we should turn to the book of Genesis, chapter 3, and look at what happens when we ask why, and derive the answer from our own logic:  “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”

Human logic is not the same as God’s logic.  We don’t know God’s logic.  We only know one thing about God’s logic – it is given to us as instructions out of His unfathomable Love for us.  It is our logic that leads to death and destruction.

In verse 17 of the same chapter, God tells Adam, “cursed is the ground because of you.”  Not because of God’s will, not because of God’s logic – because of ours.

I tell you this to say that many of our struggles with fasting, and with self-denial and asceticism, could be minimized if we quit fighting and questioning and just accepted what is given to us.

To take it even further, St. Basil in his first homily on fasting tells us to approach fasting not with gloom, but with joy!  Joy because we are being healed!  He says, “It is absurd not to rejoice in the soul’s health, and rather to sorrow over the change in food and to appear to favor the pleasure of the stomach over the care of the soul.”

And yet, we face fasting and self-denial with a dread and foreboding sadness.  Why is that?  Isn’t it because we don’t prioritize, or even consider, the state of our soul?  We are so desensitized to our soul that we only value that which is part of our bodies.  Our bodies – which will die and return to the dust.

We feed that which will die, because it is necessary.  We take that need for food and convert it to pleasure, which is a feeling of our fallen selves.  We convert a need into a vice.  All of which passes away.

Fasting allows us the opportunity to see food for what it is – fuel for what passes away.  St. Basil goes further:  “Now if all were to take fasting as the counselor for their actions, nothing would prevent a profound peace from spreading throughout the entire world. Nations would not rise up against one another, nor would armies clash in battle. If fasting prevailed, weapons would not be wrought, courts of justice would not be erected, people would not live in prisons, nor would there ever be any criminals in the deserts, any slanderers in the cities, or any pirates on the sea.”

Amazing, right?  If fasting were the norm, the saint says, “nothing can prevent us from passing our life in profound peace and tranquility of soul.”  And that, brothers and sisters, is what we pray for in this life.  Not to be entertained, nor to have our bellies full, nor to offer ourselves pleasure and comfort.  But to have what is greater, immensely greater, than all of those things.  The presence of God with us.  Our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is exactly why St. Paul tells of those in the Old Testament who refused to allow their desire for comfort and pleasure overcome their desire for God’s presence.  And they are all here with us now – and in every place, and always.  Praying for us, encouraging us, supporting us.

So what does all this have to do with our self-examination?

First, we want to ensure that our priority is not pleasure and comfort, but God’s presence.  We have to decide – and we decide day by day, hour by hour, and moment by moment.  We have to decide to follow what God tells us and lay aside all earthly care.  This means we don’t think about the necessities of life, because the necessities of life are of the earthly life, not the heavenly one.  God knows what we need, and will provide our needs, in conjunction with our effort – our labor.

What we need may not be tasty, nor appear beautiful to the eyes.  It will be what sustains us, within our mortal flesh.

Once we decide that, we need to look at no one other than Christ.  We can’t examine or notice our neighbor, as that is deceptive.  Who compares themselves to one who is sick in order to be healed?  The fact that my cancer is less advanced than someone else’s doesn’t provide me any insight for my health.  The fact that my broken bone is a hairline fracture while others have a compound fracture doesn’t mitigate my need for treatment.

St. Gennadius of Constantinople writes, “To judge sins is the business of one who is sinless, but who is sinless except God? Who ever thinks about the multitude of his own sins in his heart never wants to make the sins of others a topic of conversation. To judge a man who has gone astray is a sign of pride, and God resists the proud. On the other hand, one who every hour prepares himself to give answer for his own sins will not quickly lift up his head to examine the mistakes of others.”

So we cannot even look at anyone or anything to compare ourselves other than Christ.  We have the canons of the Church which tell us what a Christian life looks like.  We have the 10 words from Mt. Sinai to tell us what our life should be.  We have the Beatitudes, the blessings, of Christ to offer what we should strive for.

We have to keep our full attention on Christ, and not be distracted by our neighbor.  Or those we see on television or in the media.

Keeping our full attention on Christ is what it means to follow Him.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Internet Orthodoxy

Homily 586 – 41 APE
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
March 17, 2024
Epistle – (112) – Romans 13:11-14:4
Gospel – (17) Matthew 6:14-21

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

All the Gospel lessons appointed for us are important, but in this day of Internet Orthodoxy, the Epistle reading is particularly significant for us.  One phrase in particular jumped out at me.

Not sure if it jumped out for your or not.  St. Paul writes to the Romans, “Accept the one who is weak in faith, but not to enter into arguments over disputable matters.”

Now, St. Paul in this passage was, strangely enough, not talking about fasting.  St. John Chrysostom comments on this passage that there were those that took the Jewish law to the extreme, and expanded on the kosher dietary laws.  So, they didn’t eat pork, but in addition, ate no meat at all.

Plus, in Archbishop Dimitri’s commentary on Romans, he believes that there were others who abstained from meat entirely, so that they would insure that they never ate meat that had been sacrificed to idols.  Then, there were those who ate everything, believing that the Law was of no value anymore.

So, this was not about fasting to St. Paul.  However, the Church, in its wisdom, has provided this passage on this Sunday, as we begin the Great Fast, so there is something here that applies to the fast.

St. Paul’s direction never specified which of the three approaches to eating meat was correct, or superior, or even minimalist.  St. Paul accepted all three approaches.

He does say it took a very strong faith to ignore the kosher laws, and the prohibition on meat offered to idols, and that eating only vegetables was for the weaker in faith.  Meaning, abstaining from meat in all forms was a safer path.

Critically, St. Paul commanded that each approach be accepted by all.  Accept the one who is weak in faith.  Do not look down – that is, feel superior, to those who practice differently than you.

The overall theme of this portion of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans is not about fasting, or even the piety or practice of Christianity.  Archbishop Dimitri says, “We should keep in mind that the Apostle’s aim is the peaceful coexistence of living together, for the Gospel’s sake, of the divergent peoples who made up the membership of the Church at Rome., in accordance with the decree of the apostolic council of Jerusalem (in Acts 15).”

Now some things St. Paul mentions are not to be part of Christian life.  Of that there is no question – sexual immorality, drunken parties, and he even throws in strife and jealousy for good measure.  But things like individual piety and individual ascetical practices – what we eat, how we fast, our prayer rules, things of that nature – St. Paul tells us to be tolerant.  St. John Chrysostom points out that St. Paul may have feared that “out of a wish to be right about a trifle, they should overthrow the whole.”

A bit later in Romans, just after the passage this morning, St. Paul gives us the reason he values this unity so much.  In verse 12, he tells us that each of us shall give account of himself to God.  “Therefore,” he writes, “let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolves this, not to put a stumbling block or cause to fall in our brother’s way.”

In Chapter 15, verse 1, he ways “We then who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.  For even Christ did not please Himself.”

“Bear with” doesn’t mean tolerate.  Or even “to put up with.”  It means to carry together.  βαστάζειν (bas-TA-zein) is the Greek word.  To bear, to carry, to support, to lift.

So, we might look again at the weight training analogy – we are expected to be spotters for our brothers and sisters.  We help lift the weight that they cannot lift, or struggle to lift, on their own.

“Now may the God of patience and comfort,” St. Paul writes, “grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It is unity.  It is peace.  That all of us share and be of one mind and one voice.  Division and arguments should be unknown to us.  And the fact that they aren’t unknown at all gives us, or should give us, pause to consider how we, me, individually, are failing.

So, practically, what does this mean?  Can we still ask about fasting to one another?  Can we still ask about the spiritual disciplines?

I would say yes, to an extent.  We need to ask about our practices privately, to those we look up to as examples in the Christian life.  The priest is such a person.  Your sponsor – your godparent – is such a person.  Your friend is such a person.

Perhaps not so much in public.  Like on the internet, for example.  The person you ask should know you personally, face to face, in real life as the kids say.  Don’t ask or even answer an avatar or screen name!  Our faith, and our practice is one of personal connection, not abstraction.  We shouldn’t ask someone off the street for advice on Christian ascetical practices anymore than we would ask someone off the street for advice on treating cancer or migraines or a broken ankle.

The Gospel lesson adds to this.  Our Lord tells us that other people shouldn’t be able to tell that we are fasting!  This practice of fasting, we do for ourselves, not for others.  Not for display, not for praise or rewards.  Any reward we receive is the only reward we will receive!

The promise that Christ offers is that our rewards from God will be visible.  We won’t say or do anything to indicate we are fasting, or praying, or whatever our discipline is.  But it will be visible to those around us, because it will usher in peace.  It will usher in joy.  It will usher in contentment.

Mostly, it will bring us humility.  And humility is visible.  We try and try to hide it.  But humility is visible.

That is when we are storing up our treasures in heaven.  That is when we are crucifying the ego.  That is when we are acquiring the Holy Spirit.  And according to St. Seraphim of Sarov, thousands around us will notice and be saved.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

God has told us.

Homily 585 – 40 APE
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
March 10, 2024
Epistle – (140) – 1 Corinthians 8:8-9:2
Gospel – (106) – Matthew 25:31-46

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

What we have this morning is the absolute proof that God is not out to get us.

Many of us when we think about God, we think about rules.  We think about morality.  We see God looking, watching, waiting for something to trip us up, so that He can say “Gotcha!” and send us to the place where there is darkness and crying and gnashing of teeth.

God is seen as a judge.  A sure judge, a just judge.  A fair judge.

This portion of scripture, of the Gospel of St. Matthew, tells a different tale.  It tells of a God who so loves us – me and you – that He tells us in advance what will get us into the kingdom.

Many people ask me what is the minimum they can get by with and still be in the Kingdom of God.  They don’t outright say that.  It comes in the form of confessing that they should be doing more.  More fasting, more praying, more giving.

Don’t get me wrong – those are good and in fact necessary things for us.  Just not for salvation.  They are the responses we should be giving to God for His love for us.  They are necessary for us to begin to actually see God’s love for us.

We as humans are obsessed, and not with God.  We are obsessed with ourselves.  The one aspect of technology that I would change if I could is the free time it has given us.  You might ask why?  Isn’t free time a good thing?

Yes and no.  It is if we use that time to contemplate and love and direct our attention to God.  If we, like most of our society, use it to look inward, to see how to give ourselves comfort and pleasure and ease, then no, free time is not good.

It becomes destructive for our essence – our souls.  Free time becomes a way to become self-absorbed.  We want to make ourselves better.

We say that unironically!  We say that like it is a good thing!  We want to make ourselves better.  It sounds like a good thing.

But it isn’t.  It doesn’t recognize that we didn’t create ourselves.  We didn’t somehow will ourselves into existence.  More than that, it doesn’t recognize that we don’t know what the meaning of make ourselves better even is.

God made us.  God crafted us, before we were even born, when we were yet still in the womb even, God knows us.  He knows what is best for us.  He knows what He created us to be.

We spend time and money on self-help, and then depend on others to tell us if we are successful or not.  To tell us what successful even means.

What if I told you that the best way to help yourself is to love God with all your being?  And to love your neighbor?  That the best way to find love is to give love – to show love.

We decide that based on a self-help book or seminar or retreat, if we can just accept ourselves as we are, and convince ourselves we don’t need to change, then we will have succeeded! 

We put all this effort into change, only to be told that the essence of self-help isn’t to change at all.  We focus on ourselves, thinking that in doing so, we will become the best possible person, but we can’t define what the best possible person is.

Isn’t the best possible person the one who loves?  Isn’t the best possible person the one that makes others feel respected and important?  Isn’t the best possible person the one who truly loves?

That is what Christ gives us today.  What we have seen over the past couple of weeks is that there is nothing we can do to ourselves to obtain salvation.  But there is certainly things we can do for others.

Maybe the most striking thing about this passage is that the people who are told to depart are the ones who never saw Jesus.  What they were looking for was Jesus like perhaps we see in the icons, or the miracle worker, or the one coming from on high.

They saw people in need, but said – I will only help Jesus.  I’m only interested in Jesus.

The ones who are offered eternal life, on the other hand, had no idea that they were in fact doing things for Jesus.  They just saw people in need – and had compassion.  And not only had compassion, but did something.

And with that compassion for others, they discovered much to their surprise they were doing something for and to Jesus Himself.

So we can enter into lent and focus our attention on our fasting, and adhering to the rules.  Or, we can enter into lent and fast and pray and give all of our attention to those in need around us.

I would go so far that if fasting is so challenging that it requires your whole focus, and doesn’t allow you to have the freedom to focus on God, then you might be doing it incorrectly.  Because we do that – we are so obsessed with finding the exceptions or the loopholes that we get ourselves in knots.

I know – I do it too!  I look for ways around the fasting rules.  Can I have lobster every night?  By the rules, for certain!  But my bank account won’t allow that.  At the core, I still want to use food to provide pleasure for myself – my mouth, my stomach.

Instead of eating peanut butter and jelly and pasta with marinara and not worrying about it.  Think how much simpler my life would be!  How much free time we’d have!

So, when beginning a fasting regimen, as we begin this week with not eating meat, it might even be better to simply start with showing tangible compassion to those in need around us.  To give our food no thought at all.

Because in the end, at the last judgment, that will be what provides us with our salvation.  God has told us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Equality may not be what you think it is.

Homily 584 – 39 APE
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
March 3, 2024
Epistle – (135) 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Gospel – (79) Luke 15:11-32

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

The Sundays before Great Lent begin are called the Lenten Triodion.  This is named not because there are three Sundays.  In fact, there are four Sundays in the triodion.

No, it is called the Triodion because during these weeks, at Matins, sometimes called Orthros, there are only three odes of the Canon which are read.  Normally, a Canon has 9 odes.  So already the Church is telling us to get ready as something different is about to happen.

We have four Sundays, as I said, beginning with the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee.  And today, the Sunday of the Prodigal Son.  Next week, the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, and finally, the Sunday before Great Lent begins, the Sunday of the Last Judgment.

When we look at the first two Sundays of the Triodion, with the two parables, we are confronted with ourselves.  Last week, perhaps we saw ourselves in the Pharisee.  This week, though, we may see ourselves in both of the main characters.

The prodigal takes his inheritance from the Father, and goes off to live a life outside of the influence of his family.  He squandered his inheritance, and lived as the Gospel says, “immorally.”

He was what we might call, “the life of the party.”  The one everyone wanted to be around – funloving, ready to party, with the resources to back it up.  Until the resources were gone.  Maybe we’ve known these people.  Maybe we were, or even are, these people.

And before we quickly dismiss the younger brother by saying that doesn’t happen today, take a good look around.  How many people, on social media, or that we may know, have taken leave from their families, and converted a van or SUV, or bought a sailboat, determined to seek adventure around the world?  Isn’t that exactly what this younger brother did?

He didn’t like the monotony of farm life.  He didn’t like working in the fields.  He thirsted for adventure, for something new, something that would touch something inside him that would register as “fun” or “enjoyable.”  There are whole categories of videos and social media about these people.  So we dismiss them at our peril.  They are doing exactly what the younger brother did.  Living perhaps more morally than he did.  But leaving home to find themselves, to find adventure.

Contrast that with the second character, that of the elder brother who stayed at his father’s side, working diligently, asking for nothing.  Maybe we behaved like this one, ready to do “the right thing.”

What puts them in opposition is the same thing, though.  The fathers of the Church call it pride.  Selfishness, ego.

The younger comes to his senses, and returns home intending to be not his father’s son, but his father’s hired hand.  He comes home in shame and remorse.  He recognizes his selfishness – and he repents.  He changes his situation.

The elder brother on the other hand has nothing to repent from.  He has been living a model life.  Never asking for anything.  But when the brother comes home and he sees the reception given by the father to the younger, something inside snaps.

He begins to stew.  He is angry.  And why?

Because he has been treated differently.  He focuses on himself, and how he was treated.  It is obvious that the younger and elder sons are in fact treated differently.  The father acknowledges that fact.

But the challenge to the elder brother is to look outside himself.  To rejoice because the brother is found.  Resurrected, even!

So in one story, we can identify, perhaps, with both brothers.  Maybe we have or need to come to our senses and repent.  And maybe we need to rejoice that the one who was as good as dead is now alive.

We aren’t being treated the same.

Maybe what God is illustrating here is a different understanding of equality.  Is God’s equality different than ours?

Let’s look at example, which may explain it better.  If I drive a Ford Mustang GT350, my engine requires 10 quarts of oil.  If I drive a Ford Fiesta, it takes 4.2 quarts of oil.

If I give them the same amount – one will have too much or one will have too little oil.  It won’t run right.  There is a high risk of engine damage.  So, I treat them the same by giving them not the same amount, but rather exactly what each of them needs.

We too have different needs.  Will we learn to look not at what God gives to others, but what he gives to us?  Why the competition?  It is ingrained into the American psyche at least from birth.  Or at least grade school.

Somehow we get the idea that the blessings of others come at our expense.  But we don’t know their sorrow.  We don’t know their need.  We don’t know their hunger, their loneliness, their grief.

The Church gives us this Sunday to remind us, as we go into Lent, that our salvation, our discipline, is not a competition.  It truly isn’t.  And I encourage all of us to think about that during today and the upcoming week.

Observe yourself, keep a count of how frequently you see someone who is “more successful” or is given a “bigger break” than you.  Just count.  How frequently are we angry that someone cuts us off in traffic, or takes the parking space we were targeting.

And when you reflect on that count, think how different your life would be if you received what they did.  Chances are, the differences are insignificant.  They might even be harmful.

Because an overabundance is just as dangerous as a shortage.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Who are we?

Homily 583 – 38 APE
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
February 25, 2024
Epistle – (296) 2 Timothy 3:10-15
Gospel – (89) Luke 18:10-14

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

You have probably heard me say that most of the time, when I prepare my homilies, I’m preaching to me.  That is still true, and here’s what it means:  I read the epistle and gospel, and try to share with you what I find interesting.  Most frequently this is something I need to apply to my own life, and perhaps you or someone you love can benefit from this.

So what jumps out at me from this really brief passage is that our salvation is rooted deeply in our recognition that we are unworthy of it.

We are completely unworthy of everything – salvation, the Eucharist, life itself.  We don’t deserve it.  And, more than that, we can’t deserve it.  Nothing we can do, nothing that we can NOT do, will make us worthy of it.

The Pharisee does all the – quote – right things.  He thanks God.  Not for anything other than making him great.  Making him different than everyone else – and by implication better than everyone else.

He touts his own obedience to the most miniscule aspects of the Torah, the Law.  He brags about his fasting.  He brags about his tithing.

To be honest, it seems that the issue is – he brags.  Doesn’t matter what about.  He brags, and that is feeding his ego.  His self-righteousness.

But Jesus tells us that his bragging didn’t justify himself before God.  In fact, the opposite.  It was the sinner, the publican, the tax collector, who was justified.  Why?

He knew himself well enough to beg for mercy.  And, give us perhaps the most poignant and powerful prayer Christianity has ever known:  God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

All of our prayers, if we reduce them to the essential plea to God, is for His mercy.

If you are like me, perhaps you envision God in heaven, stern faced, looking down at us and saying, “Beg and grovel, insignificant creature!”  You don’t deserve Me.  You will have to jump through more hoops than that to enter My presence, you undeserving slug.”

Perhaps I’m a bit harsh in imagining God.

Yet, what we know, is that God isn’t like that at all – AT ALL.

God waits, patiently, for us to figure out that we are nothing without Him.  That we are truly wasting the most precious gift – life itself – by our self-focus.  He is waiting for us to recognize that He is even there.

Humanity is so self-absorbed at this point that it has become somewhat comical.   If not for the tragedy, it would be comical.

Back when I was in college, back in the 1900’s, everything in life from the media to even those who thought themselves Christian were proclaiming that self-focus was the answer to all our problems.

They called it the “Me” era.  That phrase was coined by an editor at New York magazine, Tom Wolfe, in 1976.  He defined the dream as being “changing one’s personality.  Remaking, remodeling, elevating, and polishing one’s very self.

He wasn’t wrong.

Our nation had just come out of the 1960s, a time of civil and social upheaval and justice.  The bohemian culture had grown into the hippie culture which had taken a mainstream turn.  The motto was “if it feels good, do it.”

That was where we began to embrace our fallen nature as “normal.”  As not in need of correcting and healing.  We, like Adam and Eve before us, said, I’ll fix it.  I’ll do it.  I don’t need God, I can do it myself.

Problem is, we can’t.  We just can’t.  Try as we might, all the self-help books, and pleasant self-improvement seminars and retreats, and all the loads of cash we pay – and we are no better.

St. Paul predicted this, by the way.  In the letter to Timothy which we read this morning, he speaks to the fact that all who desire to live Godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, and that what he calls “wicked imposters” will go from bad to worse, and deceiving others, because they are deceived.

What is the solution?

Same as it was in the beginning.  The opposite of self-acceptance and selfishness.  The solution is self-denial.

You have heard this before and will likely hear it again:  the whole of the Christian life is found in self-denial.  In crucifixion of our ego.  Christ puts it so plainly:  “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

How can we start this process?  I would offer that to begin is maybe the most difficult part of the journey.

The first step is to decide to do it.  That’s it.  Then, don’t focus on denial, nor on indulgence.  Focus on God.  Focus your attention, your thought, your very being, on God.  Focus on His love for us.  His desire for our attention.  His desire for our love.

The more you focus your attention on that one thing, the less bandwidth you have to focus on yourself.  If God consumes your every waking moment, then you will have no time remaining to focus on yourself.

Be in God’s presence.  As we begin the week without fasting, be thankful to God, over and over and over again.  Be thankful to Him who loves us and desires us and gives us life.

That, dear brothers and sisters, is humility.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Being with sinners.

Homily 582 – 37 APE
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
February 18, 2024
Epistle – (285-ctr) 1 Timothy 4:9-15
Gospel – (94) Luke 19:1-10

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Why do we have a problem with sinners?

When Jesus goes to the house of Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, that is one of the criticisms leveled at Christ – and reading the text closely, they were talking behind Jesus’s back to the disciples – the criticism that Jesus was staying with a sinner.

With the benefit of 2,000 years of hindsight, as well as the words of our Lord elsewhere, we know that being with and serving sinners is why Christ came.  He washed the feet of the disciples, then said that our role is to do the same to others.

But do we really believe that?  Sometimes the behavior of some would have me questioning that proposition.  The story is told of the man, probably homeless and hungry, that came into Church, late, dirty, smelly.

The people looked at him, some turned away in disgust, others acted like he wasn’t there at all.  A few told him to shush, after he had a coughing fit.  He got the message and left.

There was a bar around the corner.  He walked in, was greeted by the bartender, a couple of people smiled and asked how he was doing.  He ordered a drink, and in his shaky hands, dropped it and broke the glass.

The bartender smiled, and told him not to worry, and poured him another drink no charge.  The waitress came by several times asking if he needed anything.

Which of the two places showed love?

I’m thankful that we don’t do that here.  But some of our brothers and sisters do.  We hear them tell people that because of their sin, they aren’t welcome in Church.  I guess the self-appointed guardians of our temples have decided that they aren’t worthy.

They don’t have to be homeless.  They don’t have to live on the street.  Maybe they love people who share their biological sex.  Maybe they use drugs or other mood altering substances.  Maybe they are workers in those industries and places that aren’t discussed in polite company.  Maybe they don’t understand why the gender they have isn’t the gender they are comfortable with.  Maybe they escaped persecution, or escaped poverty, looking for a new start to take care of their family.

The Church, on the whole – and I mean those who call themselves Christian, including some Orthodox Christians – the Church dismisses these folks.  Says they are unclean, unrepentant.

And that would be correct.  They are.  But then again, we all are.  We are all unclean.  We are all unrepentant.  Maybe our sins aren’t as visible as theirs.  Maybe their cry for help, and for love, and for understanding is masked by their demands for rights and recognition.

When you have been thrown out of churches, thrown out of families, and find yourselves truly alone, willing to do almost anything to fit in somewhere, even when fitting in means living what we call euphemistically an “alternative lifestyle.”

Jesus had no problem with sinners.  He knows all of us, and our sins and our imperfections, and He loves us anyway.  He loves us in spite of us.  In spite of our unwillingness to repent – to change our ways.

In many ways Jesus was significantly more tolerant with the sinners than with the disciples and certainly with the people in the Temple.  His favorite term for the Pharisees was “hypocrite.”

Will Jesus say that about us?

As we think about this, recall that very few of us, I include myself in this, very few of us venture outside these walls and seek to find these lost souls where they live.  And when the Holy Spirit draws them to Church, we let them know they aren’t loved here either.

Now again, that hasn’t been our experience here at Holy Transfiguration.  We have had people with a variety of desperate situations in our midst, and I’ve been so thankful that we have by and large tried to help, and make them feel welcomed if not comfortable.  I can think of several that many of us thought were, frankly, mentally ill who stayed and fellow-shipped with us for quite a while.

I’m so thankful for that.  Truly thankful.  But I’m not sure it is enough.  We may not behave that way, but our neighbors and friends who call themselves Christians are giving us a reputation.  Like it or not, we are lumped in with those calling for exclusion.

Online, where anonymity provides cover, we agree with those who want to exclude people from our presence until they repent – until they change.  Or, maybe worse, we are silent, and in our silence provide our amen to maintaining the purity of the Temple.

Some of you are aware that I used to work as an administrator in mental health facilities.  One of the primary differences between a mental health facility and a medical hospital is that in a mental health facility some, perhaps most, will tell you they are fine and have no need to be healed.

The first part of treatment involves getting the patient to recognize their condition.  A condition that will result in most cases in their being ostracized from society.  Maybe from family.

When we say that the Church is a hospital for sinners, we need to adopt the approach of the mental health workers.  First, we will demonstrate that we care, and we will demonstrate that you need help.  Then, we will demonstrate our own healing process, and show the patient how they too can begin being healed.

The world will not tell them they are in need of treatment, of healing.  The world won’t tell them to get thyself to Church to be healed.  That has to come from us.

That’s what Jesus did.  Jesus hung out with sinners.  And we should be like Jesus.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.