Monthly Archives: June 2018

Freedom in Christ

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Sunday, June 24 (O.S., June 11) 2018: Fourth Sunday after Pentecost;Holy Apostles Bartholomew and Barnabas (1st c.).

Epistle: Romans 6:18-23/Acts 11:19-26, 29-30
Gospel: Matthew 8:5-13/Luke 10:16-21

Glory to Jesus Christ!

With his usual understatement, the Apostle Paul contrasts the two forms of slavery to which we may be subjected. I am either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.

Paul’s language here, though stark, is not meant to be taken literally. He is speaking, as he says, “in human terms” to help us understand from what we have been saved.

More importantly, he wants us to understand that for which we have been saved: to share in the life of God. Or, as he says, to receive “holiness, … everlasting life” which taken together are “the gift of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We tend to associate holiness with moral rectitude. A holy person is a virtuous person. While holiness and virtue are related, we often misunderstand the relationship between them.

A saint is not holy because he is virtuous. Rather, he is virtuous because he is holy.

In the Scriptures, God is called holy not because He is virtuous as we understand the term but because He is sovereign. God is not, as we hear again and again, the god of this place, or these people. He is rather the God of god, the God of All. As such, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts.

Holiness is another way of saying that God is wholly and absolutely free. Or maybe more accurately, nothing and no one compels God.

It is this freedom that God gives us in Jesus Christ. This why the baptismal service begins with prayers of exorcism. Not because we believe the candidate is possessed by a demon but to give the devil formal notice that this person is no longer his but now belongs to Christ and His Church.

Only once this notice is given, is the candidate is baptized. That is to say, through the faith of the Church and the words of the priest, the candidate is adopted by God and comes to share in that deep and expansive freedom we call holiness.

So, having been made holy in baptism, what now?

Now, as Paul says, we are to be obedient to God; we are now “slaves of righteousness.”

In the World, and let’s be frank sometime even in the Church, “obedience” is a harsh word. Obedience in Christ however is not a matter of humiliation. It is not a means of degrading others or asserting control over them.

Rather to be obedient to Christ means to join our will to His. To want, in other words, what God wants for us.

Look at the first Gospel reading. The centurion is a man of obedience. He knows how to command because is “a man under authority” to others. Obedience comes if not easily to him, then freely.

Just as he joins his will to that of his superiors, so too he joins his will to the will of Jesus. He has no need for outward shows of grace. It is enough for him that Jesus wills that the servant be made well.

The centurion’s obedience and faith are absolute.

True obedience, true holiness, is to want what God wants. As for true freedom, it is to do what God would have us do. Or, to put it simply, obedience, holiness and freedom are all facets of love.

If I love you I want for you what God wants for you. Love begins in my willing to make my own God’s will for the person.

As love matures, I move from sharing in God’s desire to action. It is this that is true and lasting freedom. And so we see in the second set of readings, the willingness the disciples to preach the Gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons, and to care for the poor from out of their own funds.

My brothers and sisters in Christ! To be truly free means to love others as God loves them. To be free means that we not only want for others what God wants for them but that, like God, we are willing to sacrifice to help this come to past.

And of this because we have “first been loved by God.”

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

In Each Moment, Trust in God

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Sunday, June 17 (O.S., June 4) 2018: Third Sunday after Pentecost; Synaxis of Halych Saints; Synaxis of Odessa Saints; Saint Metrophanes, First Patriarch of Constantinople (325).

Epistle: Romans 5:1-10
Gospel: Matthew 6:22-33

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Thinking is so much easier than praying.

It’s easier to have good thoughts about God or my neighbor than it is to stand before God in prayer. It is likewise easier to make plans for God than it is to give myself over to God. Hardest of all though, is to learn to trust God not just in the big things–which after all, come only now and then–but in the myriad little things that make up my daily life.

And yet, that daily, hour by hour, minute by minute, trust in God is precisely what Jesus asks from us. He asks us to have the same trust in Him that He has in the Father. And this is hard.

Most Orthodox Christians in America, thank God, don’t worry about food or drink or clothing. This doesn’t mean we don’t have our own worries. Neither wealth nor poverty frees us from concerns that distract us from the Kingdom of God. Whether rich or poor, hungry or full, naked or clothed, we are all subject to worries that cause us to make small compromises.

For most of us here this morning, these compromises in and of themselves, are rarely significant. Most are minor, petty even. But in the aggregate, they tend to blind me to the presence of God in my life.

And yet in each moment, God offers Himself to me and to each of us. At times, He offers Himself to us in the good things He bestows. But there are other times when He offers Himself to us through the good things He withholds or even takes away.

Whether God offers Himself to us in what He gives or what He takes, in each moment God nevertheless offers us Himself. It is up to each of us–you and me–to accept God’s offering of Himself to us. We do this by offering ourselves back to Him. I must entrust the whole of my life to God.

This is what it means, turning briefly to the epistle, to live by faith. It isn’t a matter of denying the bad things that happen to us. We are simply lying to ourselves when we pretend that everything is really alright when it really isn’t.

To live by faith means to be willing to receive the God Who offers Himself to us by entrusting our lives to Him in each moment of our life. To live by faith means to respond to God’s sacrifice in Jesus Christ by freely offering my life back to God in every moment of my day.

Like I said, praying is harder than thinking. But trusting, trusting is harder than prayer. It requires from us real effort. It is tempting when I don’t get what I want, or when I lose what I have, to turn bitter against God. It’s tempting when life is disappointing, to lay the blame on God and to turn my back on Him.

Thinking of my own life, and especially of the things I hope to get but never did, I can’t help but wonder. What did I want then that matters more than who I have in my life today? What sacrifice did God ask of me yesterday, that was so great, so onerous, that I would prefer that you not be in my life today?

My brothers and sisters in Christ! St Paul tells us to “rejoice in suffering.” He says this not because suffering is good–it isn’t–but because our sacrifices make clear to us the true worth of what God gives us in every moment of every day. Himself.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Grace is Promiscuous

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Sunday, June 10 (O.S., May 28), 2018: 2nd Sunday after Pentecost; All Saints of Ukraine and North America.All Saints of the Holy Mount; Ven. Nicetas, bishop of Chalcedon (9th c.). St. Eutychius, bishop of Melitene (1st c.). Martyrs Heliconis (244). Hieromartyr Helladius, bishop in the East (6th-7th c.). St. Ignatius, bishop of Rostov (1288).

Epistle: Romans 2:10-16/Hebrews 11:33-12:2
Gospel: Matthew 4:18-23/Matthew 4:25-5:12

Read St Paul quickly and you’ll miss what he’s saying.

Yes, we all have sinned; on this, there can be no debate. Based on the evidence of my own life, it is simply a lie for me to suggest otherwise.

I know that I have sinned and that I have fallen short of the glory of God. The Apostle, however, introduces a distinction here that (like I said), I might overlook if I just read him quickly.

Yes, we all have sinned but this isn’t primarily why we fall short of the glory of God.

We fall short because we are creatures. Sin complicates this, it makes rigid an observation that should inspire us to humility in the presence of God, gratitude for His grace, and a desire to give ourselves over in love ever more fully to Him.

Instead what we do, what I do, is look for reasons to condemn my neighbor for his shortcomings while being willing to excuse my own. Basically, “you” fall short of the glory of God because of sin; “I” fall short of the glory of God for perfectly understandable–and so excusable–reasons.

Paul anticipates my self-justification. After pointing out that all have sinned and that all have fallen short of the glory of God, he reminds us of something else we too easily forget or overlook. God has inscribed His law in each human heart.

If sin is ubiquitous, divine grace is promiscuous.

There is no human heart that has not been touched by God’s grace. And as firmly as we are in the grip of sin, we are held more firmly–and more gently–by divine grace. Sin has neither the first word nor the last word in our lives.

Though sin would have us believe otherwise, our lives are acts of divine grace. No matter how terrible the sin, no matter how hard the heart, no matter how unrepentant the sinner, God is there wooing us, inviting us back to our one true homeland.

Sin cannot undo the fact that we belong to God and our sustained by His grace.

Today the Church celebrates an interesting feast. Last week, we celebrated all the saints of the Church–known and especially unknown. Today, we celebrate all the saints–again known and unknown–of a particular place. While the feast is the same throughout the Church, the locality changes.

Like politics, holiness is local. And so today Orthodox Churches throughout the world celebrates the saints of their nation, the saints of their place. Today we profess and proclaim in our liturgical life that God’s grace has touched the hearts of those who have gone before us in this place wherever this place might be.

So what does this mean for us?

It means this: Today we thank God not simply for the saints of North America, or the United States. No today, we thank God for the saints known and unknown, of Wisconsin, Madison, and even the Isthmus.

The challenge this places before us is this: How has God’s grace touched this place–Madison–and these people who live here?

This isn’t an idle question. Much less is it mere sentimentality, of telling ourselves “Let’s all feel good about where we live.” We are not asking the question because we the spiritual equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce or the tourist board.

Rather we ask the question because Jesus has commanded us to imitate Him. Just as He called Peter and Andrew, James and John, and made them “fishers of men” He has also called us to be His disciples, apostles, and evangelists.

And He has called us to do this here. Not in North America, or the United States or Wisconsin, or even Madison but here, on the Isthmus.

This means, to return to St Paul, that Jesus has gone before us and by His grace and love for mankind prepared the hearts of each person we meet here. Again, if sin is ubiquitous, divine grace is promiscuous; God has poured out without measure or consideration His grace into the life of each and every single person.

Our task? Our task is to discern what God has done. And so we ask:

How has God prepared the people of this place to receive the Gospel that they might be saved?

How has God prepared the people of this place to participate in the sanctification of the world?

How has God prepared the people of this place to join us in conforming society evermore closely to the Gospel?

How has God prepared the people of this place to become part of that great cloud of witnesses?

My brothers and sisters in Christ! At the Divine Liturgy we sing the Beatitudes. These outline for us how we are to go about fulfilling the task we’ve been given. We will at another time look at these in more detail.

For now though, let us draw encouragement and comfort from our Lord’s promise that if we are faithful to Him, He will bless and sustain us even when the world turns against us.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Today, We Are Called to Surrender

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Sunday, June 3 (O.S., May 21), 2018: First Sunday after Pentecost; All Saints; Holy Equals-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine (337) and Helen, his mother (327). St. Cassian the Greek, monk (1504).

Epistle: Hebrews 11:33-40; 12:1-2
Gospel: Matthew 10:32-33; 37-38; 19:27-30

Glory to Jesus Christ!

There’s something odd about the spiritual life.

Generally, we think about life as a process of acquisition. As we grow older we gain knowledge and skills, friends and possessions. Taking St Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews as our guide to the spiritual life, however, points us in a different direction.

For the Apostle, the spiritual life is not about acquisition but, as he says, “laying aside every weight and sin” which would keep us from running “with perseverance the race that is set before us.”

Especially at the beginning to follow Jesus, “the pioneer and perfector of our faith” will often feel like a series of loses.

Jesus Himself alludes to this in His words to the disciples:

He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Hearing this, and with his usual self-effacing subtly, St Peter replies “Lo, we have left everything and followed you. What then shall we have?”

If Paul would have me lay aside my sin, Peter reminds me that I must lay aside not only sin but “everything.” That is to say, I can’t love anything or anyone more that Jesus. Even those relationships that are the foundation of human life and have been with us from the beginning–father, mother, son and daughter–must be surrendered.

And in their place, I am called to take up my cross and follow Jesus unreservedly.

As I said, especially in its first moments, the spiritual life often feels like a series of losses.

What is lost, however, is not “houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands”–these are returned to us “a hundredfold” and with “eternal life” as well. The command to pick our cross and follow Jesus is not a command to hate our family, to despise the work we do, or to turn against our native land.

It is rather to give all these things their proper weight and value relative to God. What feels like a loss, isn’t really; it is an incalculable gain. Now we have all these things in Christ. And that which is in Christ will last forever.

When I stop demanding from family, or work, or country, or myself for that matter, what only God can provide, I am free to delight in these same things. The real sorrow of being a sinner is that my selfishness keeps me from loving family, work, country and yes, even myself, as they really are and as God would have me love them.

Instead of loving my friend, I am infatuated with my thoughts about my friend. The same thing happens in the other relationships and tasks that make up my daily life. They are idols of my own creation rather than what they really are meant to be for us: Messengers and channels of God’s love.

The problem, to put it directly, isn’t that I love father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, house, work, country or myself but that I fail to love them all. What I must give up to follow Jesus are my selfish illusions about life. I must give up the comforting half-truths I tell myself to avoid accepting responsibility for my actions.

Once we make this initial sacrifice something wonderful and awe-inspiring happens. We find by God’s grace an unimaginable willingness and ability to love. Saying “Yes!” to God allows us to in turn say “Yes!” to all creation.

When I stop seeking my own will and instead seek the will of God, I discover what it is to love because I discover what it is to be loved by the God Who created me.

It is because they experienced God’s love for them that the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us, the saints,

…conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection.

Torture, mocking, scouring, imprisonment all these and worse paled in comparison to the saints’ love of God that followed naturally and in abundance from their experience of God’s love for them.

My brothers and sisters in Christ! Today we are called by God to surrender everything so that we can receive those things that last: faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:13)!

Today we are called to surrender everything so that we can receive the peace that “surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7)!

Today we are called to surrender everything so that we can receive the many gifts contained in the One Gift of Holy Spirit which received a short time ago!

Today we are called to surrender everything so that we become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) the source of all good things!

Today we are called to surrender everything so that we become saints!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory