Thomas Sunday

Sunday, April 26, 2009: ANTIPASCHA. 2nd SUNDAY OF PASCHA — Tone 1. St. Thomas Sunday. Hieromartyr Basil, Bishop of Amasea (ca. 322). St. Stephen, Bishop of Perm (1396). Righteous Virgin Glaphyra (322). St. Joannicius of Devich in Serbia (13th c.).

Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you." When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord." So he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!" Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing." And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

( John 20:19-31)

Christ is Risen!

Christos Voskrese!

Christos Anesti!

We heard most of this morning's Gospel last Sunday at Agape Vespers. Unlike last week, however, the Gospel reading stopped at verse 25 where Thomas, having just heard from his fellow disciples the news of the resurrection says: "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."

There is, as there was the case with the final Gospel ( Mt 27:62-66) that we heard at the end of both the Twelve Passion Gospels at Matins on Great Holy Thursday evening and at the Lamentations Service that is the Matins service for Great and Holy Friday evening at Lamentations, something stark about the Gospel reading for Agape Vespers.

Especially because I know the story I expect the Gospel to come (in both cases) to a successful conclusion. I want to move quickly past that moment when the Jews “ sealing the stone, and setting a watch,” ( Mt 27.66) and to the moment when “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary,” encounter with an angel and announcement of the Resurrection in Matthew 28. And likewise, I want Thomas' challenge to be answered, I want the Risen Lord Jesus to appear to Thomas as Jesus appeared to the women disciples and eventually to the disciples.

In wanting to hear the proclamation of the Resurrection, I'm desiring something that good. There should be no question that in wanting this I want what is good. The problem is not so much, or so it seems to me, what I want to move toward as what I am so anxious of leaving behind.

In one sense the story of Jesus' last week is far from humanity's finest hour. Religious faith and the laws of civil society are both bent and twisted to serve the ravenous desires of the human ego for power and control. And as much as the events of Holy Week are a chronicle of sin in high places, of the ways in which those charged with the common good in the religious and secular arenas are willing to betray the trust of their office, it is also a very intimate, homey story of sin. It is not only those who a great who betray Jesus. He suffers betrayal and abandonment at the hands of those who He loved and who loved Him.

And it seems that at first not even the news of His Resurrection can undo humanity's commitment to our self-defeating life of sin.

And even when there is faith, even when the news of the Resurrection is received, it is reception isn't pure. Human ego and our desire to dominate one another is still present, mixed in as it were, with our faith. It is worth remembering that the same men who in John's Gospel proclaims the Resurrection to Thomas are inclined (in the words of Luke's Gospel) to dismiss the women's proclamation “as idle tales,” that did not believe (24.11).

St Mark sketches out for us a bit more of the “apostolic” disbelief in the Resurrection.

Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept. And when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe ( 16.9-11).

The story of the Resurrection, like the events of Great and Holy Week that precede it, is also not humanity's finest moment.

St Peter Chrysologus, the fifth century bishop of Ravenna, describes the Apostle Thomas “a sleuth” and “a little too clever” for his own good. Rhetorically, he asks about Thomas

Why does the hand of a faithful disciple in this fashion retrace those wounds that an unholy hand inflict? Why does the hand of a dutiful follower strive to reopen the side that the lance of an unholy soldier pierced? Why does the harsh curiosity of a servant repeat the torturers imposed by the rage of persecutors? Why is a disciple so inquisitive about proving from His torments that He is the Lord, for His pain that He is God, and from His wounds that He is the heavenly Physician? (“Sermon,” 84.8, quoted in ACCS , NT vol IV b, p. 367)

Why, in other words, can we (like Thomas) not leave sinfulness behind?

Peter explains that Thomas' questions are asked in anticipation of his “going to preach” the Gospel “to the Gentile.” And so Thomas takes on the role of a “ conscientious investigator” so that through his careful examination “he might provide a foundation for the faith needed for such a mystery.” And Christ, in anticipation of the Gospel which was to be proclaimed, “kept His wounds . . . to provide evidence of His Resurrection.”

Like it or not, the path to faith must, necessarily, proceed along the way of doubt and disbelief. Not because, as some would have it, because faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin. No, I must walk the path of unbelieving because that is my beginning point. All the ways in which we say humanity fail during the events of Great and Holy Week are not simply history, they are my story as well.

And, just like Thomas, my faith is weak and demands proof. And, again like Thomas, my need for proof is so strong that I am willing to be cruel if cruelty is what it takes to undo my disbelief.

To stop here, to see only the depth of human sinfulness and more deprivation, is to tell only half the story. If the events of Great and Holy Week reveals the depths to which human beings can sink, they also make clear the heights to which we can ascend. If Holy Week is our darkest moment, it is also in Christ and in those who did not abandon Him, Mary the Theotokos, “His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, . . . Mary Magdalene [and] the disciple whom He loved” (Jn 19.25, 26) our finest moment. If in Adam we betray Him, in Him and in the faithful few who stand by Him, we are faithful.

The temptation though is to imagine that some how I can separate in myself Thomas from John (to name only two disciples), that my own unbelief and cruelty are themselves something other than faith and love misdirected and undeified. It is so easy for me to blame Thomas and praise John.

Curiously, the Apostle John does not blame Thomas, he does not begrudge his brother apostle his questions and doubts. In fact, at the end of his life, the Beloved Disciple looks back to the events he records for us and remembers Thomas' challenge: "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."

And remembering those long ago events, he writes to the Church:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. ( 1 Jn 1.1-4)

My brothers and sisters in Christ, our doubts, or little (and not so little) acts of cruelty and betrayal are the signs that we have not yet been transformed by divine love. But that transformation cannot happen if I deny the presence of doubt, or cruelty, or betrayal or any other sin in my own heart.

To borrow from St Romanus the Melodius, human sinfulness is part of “the bramble which endured fire” which, though “burned” is “not consumed.” The Fire of God's love does not destroy, it heals what is ill and transfigures what is earthly. And once deified, “To many who had a little doubt” Thomas is able to “presuade them to say, 'Thou art our Lord and God.” (“Kontakion on Doubting Thomas,” 30.1-3, ACCS , NT vol IV b, pp. 371-372).

But none of this comes for me any more easily then it did for Thomas and the others. It requires that I pause and reflect not simply upon my own sinfulness or God's mercy. Rather I must see both together and then, like Thomas, reach out to the God Who again and again comes to find me who does not even know I am lost.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Enthusaism of the Crowds

Sunday, April 12, 2009: ENTRY OF OUR LORD INTO JERUSALEM (Palm Sunday). St. Basil the Confessor, Bishop of Parium (8th c.). Hieromartyr Zeno, Bishop of Verona (ca. 260). Ven. Isaac the Syrian, Abbot of Spoleto (550). Monk Martyrs Menas, David, and John, of Palestine (7th c.). Ven. Anthusa the Virgin, of Constantinople (801). Ven. Athanasia, Abbess, of Aegina (860). Ven. Acacius the Younger, of Kavsokalyvia (Mt. Athos—1730).

Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray Him, said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always. Now a great many of the Jews knew that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus. The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: Hosanna! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!' The King of Israel!" Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written: Fear not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your King is coming, Sitting on a donkey's colt." His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him. Therefore the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead, bore witness. For this reason the people also met Him, because they heard that He had done this sign.

(John 12:1-18)

The Gospel for Palm Sunday divides neatly in to two different, though internally related, stories.

We have the first half of the story that looks back to yesterday's celebration when we commemorated the restoration of Lazarus to life after four days in the tomb. The second half of the Gospel commemorates Jesus' triumphal entrance into Jerusalem. The first half looks backwards to what was done, the second half forward to what is yet to be done: the death of Christ on the Cross and His glorious third day resurrection from the dead. And in both parts of the Gospel, there are the various human actors who never quite seem to understand Jesus.

Jesus is shown sitting at table Lazarus with Martha—as always—busy with much serving. And there is Mary who, again, has chosen the better part and anoints His feet with costly ointment. There is Judas, the disciple, the thief and the one who will soon betray his friend and teacher.

Outside this domestic tableau there are the Jewish authorities who jealousy and fear of Jesus has turned murderous not only toward Jesus but Lazarus who restoration to life has caused many to come to believe in Jesus.

And of course, as always, there are the crowds. Today the crowds welcome Jesus as their King and Liberator. As St John Chrysostom has it, today the crowds “showed now at last that they thought Him greater than a prophet: And went forth to meet Him, and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel, that comes in the name of the Lord.”

In this, of course, the crowds are more correct then they know.

Unlike the undisciplined enthusiasm of the crowds, St Augustine, looking at the events of Palm Sunday with the eyes of sober faith. He knows that it is “a small thing to the King eternal to be made a human king. Christ was not the King of Israel, to exact tribute, and command armies, but to direct souls, and bring them to the kingdom of heaven. For Christ then to be King of Israel, w as a condescension, not an elevation, a sign of His pity, not an increase of His power. For He who was as called on earth the King of the Jews, is in heaven the King of Angels.”

It is in the space between undisciplined enthusiasm, or if you will a faith that is untempered by asceticism and reason and the sober faith that has been so purified that will grow the seed of the crowds later rejection of Jesus. The crowds, for all their passion and noise, cannot bear the difference between who they think Jesus is and Who He is actually.

As with the crowds, so to I think with each of us in our own spiritual lives. It is easy for me to fall in love with my idea about God or (for that matter, my neighbor) and to love the image more than the Person that the images points me toward. Like the crowd, I am tempted always to sentimentality, to falling in love with my own feelings and thoughts at the expense of my supposed Beloved. In the Church's more exact language, like the crowds, I am subject to prelest , spiritual delusion.

While the Apostle Paul does not use the word, he nevertheless is aware of prelest and its effect on the person. He warns the young bishop Timothy to not “give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith.” (1 Tim 1.4) He warns Timothy that those who do give themselves over to prelest eventually stray from Christ and instead give themselves over to “to idle talk” and pride “desiring to be teachers of the law,” but fail to be such since they understand “what they say nor the things which they affirm.” (vv. 6-7)

The idle talk that Paul mentions is rather more serious than we might imagine. It is because of idle talk that over the next week the crowds will turn against Jesus. Their prelest inspired disappointment will quickly turn to rage, a rage that not only kills their own souls, but is unwilling as it is to accept any limits on itself, will turn Christ over to be crucified.

Compare this to the words we heard last night at Vespers:

Thus says the Lord, 'Rejoice, daughter of Sion. Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your iniquities, he has ransomed you from the hand of your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. You shall see evils no more. At that time the Lord will say to Jerusalem, 'Be of good courage, Sion Do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst. The Mighty One will save you. He will bring joy upon you and renew you by his love. He will rejoice over you with delight, as on a day of festival. And I will gather your afflicted. Alas! Who has taken up a reproach against you? I will work for your sake at that time. And I will save her that was oppressed and receive her who was rejected, and I will make them a boast and famed in all the earth'. ((Zephaniah 3:14-19, LXX)

The therapy for prelest is, I think, found in the prophet's words: I must rejoice in God. I must do this not in undisciplined enthusiasm, but as the fruit of repentance, of my acceptance of God's forgiveness not only of me, but all humanity. To do so requires from me courage. Why? Because once I see all humanity as loved and forgiven by God in Jesus Christ, I set myself against those who imagine—as did the Jewish authorities—that they, and they alone, know God's mercy, a mercy they hold fast to as if it was something of their own making. Those who do this are like Judas, for their own selfish ends they steal from the common grace of God for all humanity. If I am like this, how can I imagine that I will not murder God once I have Him in my grasp?

My brothers and sisters in Christ, God delights over His People today; God delights over you and all humanity. He knows that in a few days they, we, I, will betray Him and yet this in no way lessens His delight, His love, His forgiveness, for us, for you and for me. Even though by my own actions I give myself over to sin again and again, God in Jesus Christ will renew me, as He renews all of us, by His love.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Healing Silence

Sunday, November 30, 2008: 24th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (10th of Luke)—Holy and All-praised Apostle Andrew the First-called (62 A.D.). St. Frumentius, Archbishop of Abyssinia (Ethiopia—ca. 380).

Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, "Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity." And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, "There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day." The Lord then answered him and said, "Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound-think of it-for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath? And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him.

(Luke 13:10-17)

St Augustine sees in the woman with "a spirit of infirmity," the woman that Jesus heals in this morning's Gospel, a figure of the whole human race. We, each of us, like her, us "bent over and bowed down" Augustine says. But where this is literally the case for the woman, our own infirmity is somewhat different. In the case of humanity the "devil and his angels have bowed down the souls of men and women" causing them "to be intent on temporary and earthly things" stopping us "from seeking the things that are above."

With Augustine's observation in the back of our mind, we might want to ask, what is it that has us bent over? What is it that has caused me to neglect my own spiritual life, my own relationship with Jesus Christ and His Body the Church? Where is it that I have turned inward and away from God and my neighbor?

While the answer for each of us will be, I suspect, a bit different, we nevertheless can speak in a general way of the sign or the symptom of our own personal infirmity. We get a clue as to this in the words of St Cyril of Alexandria. Reflecting on the response of the ruler of the synagogue, the saint says that he is "not angry because of the Sabbath." Turning in his sermon to speak to the ruler of the synagogue St Cyril tells him: "Since you see Christ honored and worshipped as God, you are frantic, choked with rage" and so you "waste away with envy."

And then the saint comes offers his diagnosis: "You have one thing concealed in your heart and profess and make pretext of another." The angry heart is a heart held in the grip of "vain reasoning." Though the context is different for each of us, we are all of us at different points in our lives doubled over in anger, "choked with rage" in Cyril's words. If I am honest with myself, how can I deny that, like the ruler of the synagogue, there are times in my life when Christ can justly call me a "hypocrite, pretender, and insincere"?

And like the ruler of the synagogue, I often make use of the things of God—of the Gospel, of Holy Tradition, and the teachings of the saints to name only three—to justify my anger, my lack of concern for the "things that are above." And more often than not my anger takes the form of my criticism of others, forgetting as I seem to do quite frequently that I am bent over myself.

Looking then into the angry heart, what might be the way out? How can we, like the woman in the Gospel, come to stand upright and be healed of what has bound us? How might we lay aside what St Ambrose calls our own "earthly burdens" and our burdensome lusts and so learn again to stand upright and experience in this life a foretaste of Eternity?

For the first several years as a priest I would encourage people to fast and pray. But what Id didn't realize is that for many the Church's counsel that they fast and pray is just one more burden, another thing on an ever growing to do list. Before any of us can find profit from prayer and fasting, we must first simplify our lives. I don't mean here that we should begin by selling all our possessions and giving to the poor, though God love you if you can do so freely and cheerfully. No what I mean is something different.

Our first step to being restored by grace to spiritual health is to cultivate in our life silence. As I said a moment ago, I would encourage people to pray whose lives were filled with noise and activity. TV, radio, music, internet—all of these constantly going, making noise, distract the person from thing Eternal and enslaving them to things temporal.

So we need first and foremost to cultivate in our lives. Silence is not merely the absence of sound but is, as the philosopher Max Picard writes, the space between sounds that make words meaningful.

Our lives are so filled with noise that it masks the sound of anger and rage in our hearts. Worse, the noises deafen us to the pain and lose to which anger and rage are the typical human responses. Underneath your anger is sorrow, lose and pain. There is in each our lives real suffering that Jesus longs to heal.

The ruler of the synagogue was no doubt an important man in his community, a busy man, a man with great responsibilities. If he is an unsympathetic figure in the Gospel it isn't simply because of his hypocrisy. It isn't simply because they would deny grace to the woman in affliction. No, what makes him such a pitiful figure (to borrow again from St Cyril) is that the ruler stood there in the presence of Him Who by the "glory and the splendor of His works solved all inquiry and doubt in those who sought Him without ill will" and missed the opportunity for healing himself.

Because the ruler of the synagogue would not, could not, still even for a moment his own angry thoughts, his own raging heart, "Shame fell" on him for his "corrupt opinions." Rather than be lifted up, he "stumbled against" Christ "the chief cornerstone" and so was himself "broken" rather than healed.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, amidst all the activity that quite rightly goes along with our preparations to welcome the Birth according to the Flesh of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, let us cultivate in our lives moments of silence. Still, if not the anger at least the irritation, so that, unlike the ruler of the synagogue we will not be covered in shame but rather in the glory of the Divine Light.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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Love is First A Turning Away from Anger & Harshness

Sunday, November 23, 2008: 23rd SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (9th of Luke): Afterfeast of the Entry Into the Temple. St. Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium (394). St. Gregory, Bishop of Agrigentum (6th-7th c.). Repose of Rt. Blv. Great Prince Alexander Nevsky, in schema Aleksy (1263). St. Mitrophán, in schema Makáry, Bishop of Vorónezh (1703). Martyr Sisinius, Bishop of Cyzicus (3rd c.). Martyr Theodore of Antioch (4th c.).


(Above: Rembrandt's, The Rich Fool)

Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?' So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 'And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

(Luke 12:16-21)

Glory to Jesus Christ!

There is, as I sometimes forget, a seeming harshness to the Gospel. We see that harshness in the parable that we hear in the parable of the rich fool from St Luke's Gospel.

Look what happens in the parable, judgment is simply pronounced. There is no dialog, no discussion, or exploration of options. There is none of those little ways we have of avoiding, or at least softening, the truth of our situation. Jesus is brutally straightforward: The rich man is self-satisfied fool who has placed his faith in himself, in his own abilities and the wealth he has accrued. But when seen in the Divine Light, all these things are revealed as without substance. "There is no there, there," as Gertrude Stein once said in a rather different context.

At this point though we must exercise great caution; we ought not to think that the harshness we hear in the parable and in our Lord's words reflect any anger in God. Speaking of how God calls the sinner to repentance, St Ephrem the Syrian says that

Our Lord gives most of his assistance with persuasion rather than with admonition. Gentle showers soften the earth and thoroughly penetrate it, but a beating rain hardens and compresses the surface of the earth so that it will not be absorbed. "A harsh statement evokes anger" [see, Prv 15.], and with it comes injury. Whenever a harsh word opens a door, anger enters in, and on the heel of anger, injury.

The harshness, the anger, we hear in the parable belongs not to God, but to the rich fool. Or, as St John Chrysostom has it, "All things depend on our decision, certainly also to raise anger or to soothe."

Thinking about the parable, and how the fathers understand anger, I begin to ask myself what it is about the rich man, about his heart, that becomes a source of damnable anger?

I think that the answer is to be found in the rich man's trust in himself. His self-confidence is a confidence that he purchases at the expense, as St Cyril of Alexandria reminds us, of charity. Let me be clear here, it is not wrong to have confidence in the talents and gifts God has given you. But this is not the situation of the rich man; (again from St Cyril) he

does not look to the future. He does not raise eyes to God. He does not count it worth his while to gain heaven. He does not cherish the poor or desire the esteem it gains. He does not sympathize with suffering. It gives him no pain nor awakens his pity. Still more irrational, he settles for himself the length of his life, as if he could reap this from the ground. . . . "O rich man," one may say, "You have storehouses for your fruits, but where will you receive your many years? By the decree of God, your life is shortened."

His self-confidence, his trust in himself, comes at the expense of trust in God and compassion for his neighbor. I suspect that, in the beginning, his lack of trust in God was, as it is for many of us, more passive than active, more a matter of a certain flaccid thoughtlessness rather than vigorous malice. So to with how we respond to our neighbor. Rarely do we hate our neighbor or wish him ill. My lack of pity typically reflects carelessness on my part than any hardness of heart.

But slowly my lack of trust in God, my lack of compassion for my neighbor can, and does, becomes an active distrust and even an open hostility toward others whether human or divine. More at first from carelessness than malice, I come to see God and neighbor as opponents, as obstacles to the expression of my will and the fulfillment of my desires. It is this carelessness, that the fathers of the desert called acedia, or (to use a more modern terms), a forgetful indifference to the spiritual life and a preference for my own will. In a word, the rich man's folly is the fruit of the sin of sloth.

And what the desert fathers call acedia the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas calls "the natural atheism of the soul." Or, to use another of Levinas's images, acedia sees life as a "warm bath," comfortable, without demands, but also without challenges and progress and which is lived in isolation from all others, be they God or neighbor.

But for all that it fosters in us a spirit of passivity and isolation acedia is also the well-spring of anger and harshness. I cannot live passively and in isolation. Eventually the ebb and flow of daily life will challenge my delusions. It is in that moment of challenge that the anger in my soul will flare to life and, even if I do not utter a harsh word, I will entertain harsh and horrible thoughts against my neighbor and even against God.

The rich man in the parable is a fool; he sees God and neighbor as opponents, as thieves and enemies. But, as it often is in the spiritual life, there is hidden within even the darkest sin a hint of grace and mercy. Try as he might the enemy of souls can never quite obscure the path back to God—and how could it be otherwise? Since he has always been a liar; he never creates, but only corrupts; he can never reveal the truth, but rather always works furiously, and purposelessly, to obscure what God has made manifest, in creation, in Christ and in each and every human heart.

And if this is true generally, it is especially true in the parable of the rich fool.

If my spiritual death is a dying by degrees, well, so too is our salvation something that is accomplished by grace and equally small changes. By divine grace and our own small acts of gratitude toward God and compassion for our neighbor in need we can be healed of the anger and harshness that grips our lives. And we can even in this way be healed of the passive indifference to the spiritual life we call acedia. And all of this can be done here and now, in even the most ordinary and humble circumstances of everyday life.

How are we to begin? Humbly, by small steps that we take right now.

"Love sinners," St Isaac the Syrian to us, "and do not despise them for their faults. Remember that you partake in an earthly nature, and do good to all. Let your manner be always courteous and respectful to all. For love does not know anger or lose its temper or find fault with anyone out of passion." He continues by telling us that we must "not reprove anyone," that we must "avoid laying down the law," and "shun impudence in speech," and above all we must "Be subject to all in every good work, except to those who" like the rich fool in the parable, "love possessions or money."

To God be the Glory!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Receive That Which Has Already Been Given

Sunday, November 9, 2008: 21st SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (7th of Luke) —Onesiphorus and Porphyrius of Ephesus (3rd-4th c.). Ven. Matrona, Abbess, of Constantinople (ca. 492). Ven. Theoctiste of the Isle of Lesbos (881). Ven. Onísifor (Onesiphorus) the Confessor, of the Kiev Caves (Near Caves—1148). Martyr Alexander of Thessalonica (4th c.). Martyr Anthony of Apamea. Ven. John the Short, of Egypt (5th c.). Ss. Eustolia (610) and Sosipatra (ca. 625), of Constantinople. St. Nectarios Kephalas, Metropolitan of Pentapolis. Ven. Euthymius, Founder of Dochiariou Monastery (Mt. Athos—10th c.), and Ven. Neophytus, Co-founder of the Monastery. Icon of the Most-Holy Theotokos, "SHE WHO IS QUICK TO HEAR."

And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus' feet and begged Him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him. Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. And Jesus said, "Who touched Me?" When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, "Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?' "But Jesus said, "Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me." Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. And He said to her, "Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace." While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, "Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher." But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, "Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well." When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, "Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping." And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead. But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, "Little girl, arise." Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given something to eat. And her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.

(Luke 8:41-56)

For St Ambrose of Milan the woman with the issue of blood is an image of the Church of the Gentiles—of us who, before we came to faith in Christ, "lost all the gifts of nature and squandered the inheritance of life." He continues by saying that we did this, we squandered what wealth we had as we ran vainly from one hoped cure after another.

Thinking about Ambrose's observation, it is important to keep in mind that he is not of individual believers in the Church who came from outside Judaism. No, he is speaking about the whole of the non-Jewish people, the whole of the Gentile nations—who by grace must grafted on to the Jewish People (see Rms 11.16-24). As with the Apostle Paul, for Ambrose there can be in Christ no "me" or "you" or "them," only "we" and "us."

This isn't a denial of human uniqueness—far from it since this would be a denial of not only human responsibility but the love of God for each human person. It is rather a rather stark reminder that because I am social being what I do, always do as a member of some type of community.

Either, therefore, together we reach out for healing, for forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ with the Father and one another or we don't. And if we don't we simply continue to squander the gifts we've been given personally and as a community in our futile attempts to find life and health and hope and forgiveness and reconciliation and love separate from Christ.

This second path, the squander's way, is not really an option that we can choice. Because of Adam's sin this is where the human community already finds itself each and every single day, day in and day out. Not that love and forgiveness, to take two quick examples, are absent from the lives of fallen humanity. Love and forgiveness can be found outside the Church, but they are damaged. They do, but apart from Christ they remain still-born, a source of joy, but also something that drains us and wears us down.

And if this second path is always already with us when we were apart from Christ, it is always also with us even now that we are in Christ. This second path, the way of death, is always present as a temptation.

If we succumb to this temptation, if we return to that path that Adam laid out for us by his sin, we die.

But even here, even in death we are not abandoned. As with the little girl in the Gospel, the daughter of Jarius, Christ comes to restore us to life. Christ comes not to the immoral but to the dead; He comes, as the later Fr Alexander Schmemann once put the matter, not to make a bad people good, but a dead people alive.

This transition from death to life hinges not simply on the grace of God, but on our own willingness to understand, accept and act on the truth that no one is saved alone.

Yes salvation comes to me and to you.

Yes Jesus is my Lord and Savior, even as he is yours.

But, I am saved, because you are saved, because we are saved.

He is my Lord and Savior, because He is yours, because He is ours.

If we lose sight of this, if we forget or act as if we are not saved together, or as if the grace given you somehow comes at my expense, then in that moment we become again like the woman with the issue of blood. We become unclean, ever weaker, and more frustrated chasing one false hope after another.

But again, even when we fall, there is Christ. A life of false hope need not be our lot. What the Apostle Paul says of himself, he says for all of us, personally and as a community, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." "(Galatians 2:20)

Reflecting on his imprisonment by the Soviet government, Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes in The Gulag Archipelago,

It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains . . . an uprooted small corner of evil. Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.

No matter how deep the darkness in a person's heart or a community, no matter how much evil seems to have succeeded, we must not forget that Christ lives in us and that together we live in Him. For too long it seems that God's People have lived as if this were not true, as if there was some other standard besides Christ. In giving us Himself, Christ has given us everything—all that is necessary has been proved for us. All that is lacking is that which He cannot give us, our free consent to him. All that is needed is that, like the woman with the issue of blood, like Jarius and his wife, that together we reach our hand to Him and receive that which He has already give us: Himself and each other.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Caring For the Community: Stewardship of Our Treasure

Sunday, September 28, 2008: 15th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (1st of Luke)—Tone 6. Ven. Chariton the Confessor, Abbot of Palestine (ca. 350). Synaxis of the Saints of the Kiev Caves (Near Caves). Ven. Kharitón of Syanzhémsk (Vologdá—1509). Ven. Herodion, Abbot, of Iloezérsk (1541). Prophet Baruch (6th c. B.C.). Martyrs Alexander, Alphius, Zosimas, Mark, Nicon, Neon, Heliodorus, and 24 others in Pisidia and Phrygia (4th c.). Martyrdom of St. Wenceslaus (Viacheslav), Prince of the Czechs (935). Schema-monk Kirill and Schema-nun Maria (parents of Ven. Sergius of Rádonezh).

So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net." And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men." So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.

(Luke 5:1-11)

We come now to the third and final element of our consideration of Christian stewardship, treasure or the financial aspect of stewardship. By way of introduction to what is often the most challenging part of stewardship, let me quickly summarize what’s been said to this point.

Christian stewardship is part of the general human vocation to work. We are all of us called to cooperate with God in making the creation a fit and beautiful home for the whole human family. As Christians we are called not only to work, but in Christ to freely and creatively use our time, talent and treasure to redeem human ingenuity, creativity and effort that have all been marred by Adam’s transgression in the Garden. Put another way, we are called not simply to cooperate with God in the work of creation but also the work of redemption. A Christian steward is one who puts his or her time, talent and treasure to the service of caring for the physical, social,
educational and spiritual needs of the human family.

The exact form this stewardship will take in the life of a particular Christian is determined by many factors. Our life circumstances, the needs of those around them, and must fundamentally of all their own personal vocation all shape what it means for each of us to be a steward. It is this last one, the vocational, that we most typically neglect in challenging people to be stewards.

So the first question to ask when discerning my own stewardship commitment is not how much money will I give, but what is my calling? What is my vocation? It is out of these questions that our stewardship emerges.

Unfortunately, and here let me turn to a consideration of the financial aspect of stewardship, we rarely ask these questions either of ourselves or of those in our parishes when we ask people to commit financially to the work of the Church. What we typically do instead is talk to, really at, people about numbers.

Let me explain how we typically have approached stewardship and then contrast that with what I think is a more holistic approach ground in the human and Christian vocations.

In an early time—and for me “earlier” means a parishes I served within the last 10 or 15 years—we asked people to participate in the financial life of the parish by paying dues. For all practical purposes, if one wished to a member of the parish, one paid a set annual amount. While sometimes membership included participation in the sacramental life of the Church, that is, the at least occasional reception of Holy Communion and yearly Confession, the sacraments often fell by the wayside. What mattered instead was that people paid their dues.

(I should add that while the dues system was common, it was neither a universal practice nor was it always practiced a heavy hand way that was indifferent to the spiritual life of the parishioners. But even at its best, the dues system tended to leave people with the impression that the Church was a fraternal organization not unlike the Masons or Shiners rather than the Body of Christ.)

Recently there has been a move away from dues and toward tithing, or giving 10% of your income to the parish. Unlike dues, tithing is usually presented in a way that is sensitive to the spiritual aspects of how we use our money. But, and forgive me if I offend here, tithing is often presented as if it were the biblical model of giving. It isn’t.

As it is usually presented today, tithing is a modern rather than New Testament or patristic practice. The New Testament does not recommend the practice of tithing as. And while there were some Church fathers who preached in favor of tithing, they generally focused neither on giving simply 10% nor on giving what one gave to the parish. St John Chrysostom, for example, argued that since we have received so great a gift from Christ as eternal salvation we ought to give more than 10%. We should give, 20%, 30%, 40% or more—having received all, we should give all. And, he concludes, we should give it to the poor without consideration for how they would use what they are given.

Both the dues system and tithing have their merits. And both are often well-intentioned attempts to meet a real concern, the financial health and stability of the local parish. But both approaches, it seems to me, rely on coercision to do so. In the first case, the dues system, one often found oneself or family members threatened by a lay board with a denial of the sacraments. An infant would not be baptized, a young couple would not married, the dead not buried, because you were not a member. (Even today one finds parishes where one must “join” the parish via a financial commitment in order to be married for example.)

Our practice of tithing is can also often be manipulative. Granted it isn’t coercive in the way the dues system is. But it is no less often an affront to the vocational basis of Christian stewardship for all that it is more gently taught. As I said above, while there is some support for tithing in the Scriptures and the Fathers, there is nothing in either that suggests that one must give 10% of one’s income to the parish. If anything, tithing is offered as the standard for one’s support not of the parish but the poor. This isn’t to say giving a tithe of your income to the parish is wrong. It certainly is not wrong. But, and this is the important part, it is not an obligation. The most one can say about tithing is that it is a rough and ready guideline. It is not a standard.

So what is the standard?

In his second epistle to the Corinthians Saint Paul tells us this:

But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always having all sufficiency in all things may have in abundance for every good work. (9. 6-9).

When I first heard this passage in St. Paul, the thought I had was that I was supposed to give what God wanted me to give. And do so with a great big smile on my face. In other words, I thought I had to make myself cheerful, whenever I was called upon to make a sacrifice.

But thinking, I have since come to realize, is exactly backwards.

We are not asked to be cheerful about what we give, but rather to give only that which we can give freely and cheerfully. The emphasis here then is not on the giving but on being cheerful.
And so again, God loves a cheerful giver.

So what are we to do if we wish to be wise stewards of our treasure? How do we make use of our money in a manner that honors our own personal vocations?

What I will often tell people is this: Decide how much you can set aside for charitable giving. As a practical matter, 10% is a good base amount—but you are not limited to that amount if your circumstances suggest something different. The important thing here is that you set aside an amount even as you set aside regular times for prayer and hold to a fasting rule based on the tradition of the Church and the circumstances of your own life.

When it comes time to dividing up what you set aside, I usually suggest that half go to the parish and half go for other charitable needs. Let me say right up front, I’m not saying give half to the parish this because I think the parish is more important. Rather, it reflects the fact that we usually can do more as a community than as individuals. Add to this that, as practical matter, outside of the family, the parish is the community with which we are most involved and so it is the community through which we most actively participate in and do the most good.

Money given to Orthodox organizations such as the International Orthodox Christian Charities, The Orthodox Christian Mission Center or non-sectarian agencies such as the Red Cross (and I would encourage you to support one or more of these) is usually spent according to someone else’s idea of what is important. Contributions to the parish are local and are usually spent in a manner that is closest to what God would have from us in our own lives.

Finally, we must keep in reserve at least a small amount for unanticipated charitable giving. It might be a special appeal from the parish, or the Red Cross. It might just as easily be a need within our own family or circle of friends. If, thank God, that need doesn’t arise, well, give the money to the parish or IOCC—but as wise stewards of our treasure, we need to prepare for what we cannot anticipate.

Our charitable giving is giving to help met the needs in the different communities of which we are members. It is important that we not limit our giving to only the parish.

Let me make that stronger: No ethical priest will ask you to simply support the parish with your time, talent and treasure. As I said, we are all of us members of many different communities—our family, the parish, the diocese, the Church, our country, and the human community. The needs of different communities do not the same immediacy for us. But this doesn’t mean that, for example, our commitment to the human family should be less important than our commitment to our own family.

The commitments are different to be sure—but this reflects our ability to more directly influence for good one community rather than another. I can more easily work for the good of my family than I can, say, the Orthodox Church throughout the world.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, our stewardship commitment, our use of time, treasure and talent, is not something that can ever be limited to only one area of our lives or remain as a static percentage of our income. By its very nature, and St Paul alludes to this in the passage I quoted a moment ago, stewardship means that we grow and develop in the use of our gifts. We must not simply do good passively, in response to events and then only when asked. Instead if we are faithful to our own vocations and our call to be stewards of all the good things which God has given us, we will find ourselves increasingly seeking out ways we which we can be of service personally and directly.

May God in His grace and love for mankind make it so for each of us today and forever until we stand before Him in that Kingdom which is to come.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

To Burn and to Shine is Perfection

Image via Wikipedia

Sunday, September 21, 2008: Today's commemorated feasts and saints... 14th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST—Tone 5. Sunday After the Elevation of the Cross. Leavetaking of the Elevation of the Cross. Apostle Quadratus of the Seventy (ca. 130). Uncovering of the Relics of St. Dimitry, Metropolitan of Rostov (1752). Ven. Daniel, Abbot of Shuzhgorsk (Novgorod—16th c.). Ven. Joseph of Zaonikiev Monastery (Vologdá—1612). Hieromartyr Hypatius, Bishop of Ephesus, and his Presbyter, Andrew (ca. 730-735). St. Isaac (Isacius) and Meletius, Bishops of Cyprus. Martyr Eusebius of Phœnicia. Martyr Priscus of Phrygia. Twenty-six Monk Martyrs of Zographou (Mt. Athos—1285). Ven. Cosmas the Bulgarian of Zographou (Mt. Athos—1323). Ss. John and George, Confessors (Georgia, 20th c.—Sept. 8th O.S.).

When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. And He said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power."

(Mark 8:34-9:1)

Speaking of us who have been "baptized into Christ" and have "put on Christ forevermore," the Apostle Paul says that we "are the body of Christ, and members individually." (1 Corinthians 12.27, NKJV) He goes on to say something that never fails to stop me with amazement. The Apostle doesn't tell me what I am supposed to do; he doesn't list my obligations as a Christian. Instead he tells me, tells all of us that, well, let me simply quote St Paul:

And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. (vv. 28-30)

Rather than telling us what I am supposed to do (and by implication, what I have failed to do) St Paul reminds us of who we are and of the gifts God has given all of us. In another place, he tells us that these gifts are given to each and every Christian not only for their own personal good but for the good of the whole Church, and through the Church for the salvation of the world. As he says, the gifts that you have been given are given to you personally in order that you are able to succeed in your call to "prepare God's people for works of service," and "so that the body of Christ," the Church, "may be built up." (Eph 4.11, NIV)

In the theology of the Orthodox Church, it is in Holy Baptism that we receive our own personal gifts. In Chrismation, as the late Fr Alexander Schmemann reminds us, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit as a confirmation that we are called personally to a life of good works. This call, finally, is nurtured in us by our reception of Holy Communion, our daily prayers, our fasting and above all through our acting on the talents we have been given.

While there are a number of ways in which we can come to understand what is our own personal work is within the Body of Christ, in November we will have an opportunity as a parish to take time out of our busy schedules and reflect together on our own callings and how each of us might be a wise and generous steward of the talents we have been given. I am referring to the "Called & Gifted" Workshop that we are hosting Friday and Saturday, November 21-22. Having participated in this workshop last year in Toledo, I know from experience how helpful these few hours will be for you if you take the time to participate.

One of the reasons the parish council and I are excited about this workshop is that it is a very practical, low key, solution to what is probably one of the greatest challenges facing the Orthodox Church. The Fr Nicholas Afanasiev in his book The Church of the Holy Spirit expresses this challenge this way:

There can be . . . in the Church, . . . no members who do not minister in it. … People cannot measure the quantity of grace which God gives without measure, but each of us knows that this measure is not always the same. The grace shines brightly in the saints, but in others it gleams little by little while never dying out. While the gifts of the Spirit are different, grace remains one and the same. But the appropriate measure of grace can be different even with the same gifts. … Wherever ministry is, there is the Spirit and wherever there is no ministry, there is no Spirit and no life. (pp. 16-17)

Not only are all of us called by God to fulfill certain task in His Name, God blesses us in baptism, chrismation and the Eucharist with the gifts (charismata) we need to fulfill the work to which He has called us. Without wishing to take away from the excellent work done by the parish council, St Ann's Society, the Church school teachers and choir, we should not think that these ministry, essential though they are to the life and health of the parish, are the only ministries to which people have been called.

There is not an Orthodox Christian parish in America (to take but one example) that was founded by the clergy. All of our parishes were founded by lay people and, especially in the case of our older parishes, lay people from the "Old Country" (which ever one that might be) or by their children or grandchildren. Again and again, it is the laity of the Orthodox Church, that have borne witness to the fact that God has blessed His Church with great gifts for (as Paul says) the building up in love and truth of the Body of Christ.

And not only that, again and again it is the laity who have testified to the generosity of God by their own willingness to respond generously, even sacrificial, to God's call by the use of the gifts God has given them.

In spite of the frustrations and even failures, we see all around us the evidence that Christ has poured out on His Church, on us, through His Holy Spirit, a great "diversity . . . of . . . gifts" that "God himself gives 'to each … for the common good.'" Again, as Fr Nicholas writes (pp. 20-21) it is "By virtue of this fact, there can be no" inactive Christians, no Christians without a calling and a ministry in the Church for the life of the world. Why? Because there can be such thing as an "inactive gift of the Spirit because the Spirit is an active principle by his very nature." Fr Nicholas then turns to his brother clergy, he turns to me, and says that "To deprive [the laity] of their dignity as [ministers of the Gospel and coworkers with Christ for the salvation of the world] is equivalent to depriving them of the gifts of the Spirit, of which God has made them drink on the day of their baptism." (1 Cor. 12. 13)

There is no one here this morning that has not been blessed by God with talents that, in ways both great and small, are given to him or her for the salvation of the world.

And there is no one here who if he or she responds, in even a small measure, to that call will not glorify God in their own lives.

And there is no one here who, in glorifying God, will fail to shine with divine light and burn with zeal for Christ and His Church.

To be a wise steward of the talents given us by Christ is no great burden. It requires only that we become ever more who we are already in Christ.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, become who Christ has called you to be, become who you are already. Use the talents you have been given and, in so doing give glory to God and reveal to the world, and yourself, your dignity as children of God, coworkers with Christ, and that you are already citizens of the Kingdom of God which is to come.

If I may, let me end by paraphrasing one of my own favorite saints from the medieval West, Bernard of Clairvaux. In a homily on the Nativity of St John the Baptist, Bernard tells his listeners "Merely to shine" with the divine light "is futile; merely to burn" with zeal for God and His people "is not enough; to burn and to shine [this is] perfection." May we all of us personally and as a parish, shine with the divine light and burn with zeal for God and His people and so manifest ourselves as having been made perfect in Christ by His grace and our own efforts!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

How Then Shall We Live? Our Use of Time

Sunday, September 14, 2008: Today's commemorated feasts and saints... 13th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST-Tone 4. THE UNIVERSAL EXALTATION (ELEVATION) OF THE PRECIOUS AND LIFE-GIVING CROSS. Repose of St. John Chrysostom (407 A.D.). Monk Martyr Macarius of Dionysiou (Mt. Athos-1507). Monk Martyr Joseph of Dionysiou (Mt. Athos-1819).

Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him." The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." Therefore, when Pilate heard that saying, he was the more afraid, and went again into the Praetorium, and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. Then Pilate said to Him, "Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?" Jesus answered, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin." When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" But they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!" Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center. Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.

(John 19:6-11,13-20,25-28,30-35)

We are continuing our consideration of Christian stewardship. To summarize what we said last week, stewardship is concerned with how we use our time, talent and treasures to make of the creation a fit and beautiful home for the human family. In other words, our stewardship is part of how we fulfill God's call to our First Parents Adam and Even "to be fruitful and multiple, to fill the earth and subdue it."

There is, and again as we saw last time, a second level as well to stewardship. If stewardship is a synonym for the general human vocation to work, as a uniquely Christian pursuit, stewardship takes on an ascetical character. Christian stewardship is concerned with the redemption of human work, effort, creativity and ingenuity in and through our personal and shared obedience to Christ. It is important to keep in mind that no matter how much I imagine myself to be a good person I am always subject to the temptation to exercise my own creativity and ingenuity in a way that separates me from God or my neighbor. Or, and this is worse still, I might (as many have done) put my efforts into projects that separate from God or my neighbor, obscuring or even undermining by my actions his vocation, his own calling. All of this is to say that often human effort and creativity are misdirected.

In the Old Testament especially, sin is often described as "missing the mark." The idea here is this: Just an archery a small deviation left or right, up or down, will cause an arrow to miss the target, so too I often deviate from what God would have me do and so I "miss the mark" for my own life. Often the work I do is marred by sin. This often reflect my own personal sin (I do something sinful), but it might also reflect the selfishness of others, or simply some form of material want.

Our work than is an experience of joy and of corruption and frustration marred as it is by sin. Our work, as with the whole of human life, must be redeemed by Christ. To see this a bit more clearly, let us together reflect on the Cross of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ as we celebrate the Exaltation of the most Holy Cross. When we do we see immediately two different, but not unrelated truths.

First and foremost, the Cross makes manifest to a fallen world the depth of God's love for us poured out in Jesus Christ. Second, it is by the very brilliance of the light of God's love for us, which makes abundantly clear how corrupt human work has become. Let me explain.

Think for a moment of the long history of human effort, legal, religious, cultural, scientific and technological, that preceded the Cross. The Cross was for the Roman Empire a favorite means of executing those who--whether criminal or not--threatened the power of Caesar. It was imposed and sustained not only by the legal authority of the Empire, but also its military might and administrative genius. All of this human effort had to be brought to bear in order for Jesus to be crucified. And not only that. As the Gospel makes clear Jesus was sent to the Cross by those religious authorities who misappropriated and corrupted for their own purposes, the profound religious heritage that was the birthright of the whole Jewish people.

All of this otherwise good and fruitful human work was misdirected. The Cross makes manifest how the best in human ability can tragically miss the mark. Failing not only to glorify God and create for the human family a fit home, our work instead creates in the human heart a depth of fear and shame to the human heart so profound that "nothing is too hard" for mankind, even the murder of God.

At the same time that the Cross reveals the depth of human sinfulness, of my sinfulness, we must remember that it is first and foremost an expression of God's love and mercy. As such, the Cross reminds us that even horribly corrupted, human work still reveals God. But how different from the experience of Adam and Eve before the fall is my discovery of God on the Cross, for on the Cross, and by my own hand and as a reflection of my own misdirected work, He is killed and I reveal myself to be not a steward of His gifts but in fact the one who turns those gifts against the Giver.

How can we avoid then the misuse of the gifts we have been given?

As wise stewards of the gifts that God has given us, we should first and foremost use the gift of time to draw closer to God the Father in Jesus Christ through the Power of the Holy Spirit. "From this moment on," St Herman of Alaska says, "let us serve God at all times." This is accomplished not by simply spending time in church at Vespers or Liturgy. Don't mistake my meaning, I not suggesting people stay away from the services, far from it in fact. It is here, in the Church assembled in prayer before our Creator, that we learn how and for what we are to pray.

But too easily I can fall into the reassuring, but mistaken, notion that the measure of my relationship with Christ is how many hours I spend in services. For too many Orthodox Christians, participation in the formal worship of the Church is seen as the whole of what it means to spend time with God.

What I have in mind is a little different I think. As wise stewards of the gift of time we need to cultivate in ourselves a gentle openness and remembrance of God's presence in our lives. How easy it is for me to forget that each moment of my life is a sacrament of God's loving presence not only for me, but the whole human family. Just as Christ come to you in the Eucharist under the form of Bread and Wine, so too He comes to you in the seconds and minutes, the hours and days, the weeks, months and years that make up your life. In each moment, great and small, Christ is there with you and it is only necessary that you remember that at all times, and so in all places and in all things, you are in His Presence and He has embraced you with His love.

With this realization in my heart, whatever might be the frustrations and even failures I may encounter in my work--whatever that work might be--each moment of my life carries within it the possibility of my drawing nearer to Christ.

And not only that.

Mindful of Christ's presence in my life opens me to the realization that in each moment of my life Christ can draw others to Himself through me.

And not only that.

Mindful of His Presence in my life, he is able to draw me to Him through others.

How then should we spend our time, that one gift that, once used, can never be replenished? By striving to keep in mind that God is With Us at each moment of our life and that far one distracting from the other, our communion with God and our work (granted in very different ways) can each support and sustain the other. A wise steward of the gift of time sees time as much a sacrament of God's love for us as the Cross or the Eucharist.

Through retreats, daily prayer and the reading of Scripture, fasting, participation in the services of the Church, the cultivation of times of silence in our lives, and above through all the regular reception of Holy Communion, frequent Confession we come to an ever deeper awareness and appreciation of the presence of God in our lives. Though it may represent a relatively small percentage of how we spend our time, a sound spiritual life is essential if we, personally, as a parish and as a Church are to fulfill Christ's call to create a fit and beautiful home for the human family.

Having now secured the foundations of Christian stewardship, our vocation to work and the right use of time, we will in the next two weeks turn our attention to the practical means of stewardship: the use of our talents and our treasure.

May Christ our True God, through the power of His Precious, Life-Giving and most Holy Cross, open our hearts to a lively awareness of His Presence in each moment of our lives.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Stewardship & the Human Vocation to Work

As part of my parish's stewardship campaign, I will be preaching of various aspects of Christian stewardship for the whole month of September. I will include for reference the Gospel for the Sunday, but since my sermons are more catechetical than exegetical this month I will deal only marginally with the text.


On re-reading the sermon this morning, I noticed a number of typos that I have since corrected.

+Fr Gregory

Sunday, September 7, 2008: 12th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST-Tone 3. Forefeast of the Nativity of the Most-Holy Theotokos. Sunday Before the Elevation of the Cross. Martyr Sozón of Cilicia (ca. 304). St. John, Archbishop and Wonderworker of Novgorod (1186). Ven. Serapion of Spaso-Eleazar Monastery (Pskov-1481). Martyrdom of St. Makáry, Archimandrite of Kanev (Pereyaslavl'-1678). Apostles Evodia (Euodias) and Onesiphorus of the Seventy (1st c.). Martyr Eupsychius of Cæsarea in Cappadocia (2nd c.). Ven. Luke, Abbot, near Constantinople (10th c.). Ven. Cloud (Clodoald), Abbot, founder of Nogent-sur-Seine near Paris.

Now behold, one came and said to Him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" So He said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." He said to Him, "Which ones?" Jesus said, "'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' " The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

(Matthew 19:16-26)

If we think about stewardship at all, we usually limit ourselves to concerns about money and then only insofar as we need to keep the lights on and pay the priest.

While certainly these are laudable goals for the parish (especially paying the priest!), Christian stewardship is significantly more than simply a matter of paying the bills. Together with our prayer life, our fasting, and our participation in the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church, stewardship is an essential part of our Christian life. More than what we say how we use the three basic elements of stewardship, time, talent and treasure, reveals what we value, how we view ourselves, and what we imagine it means to be human. To begin our consideration of stewardship and its role in my life as I strive both to understand who I am in Christ (vocation) and live out that identity (asceticism) let me begin with the most universal question raised by stewardship: What does it mean to be human.

This may seem to be a strange place to begin, but think about it for a moment. Before we are any of us Christians, that is before any of us our baptized or make a commitment to Jesus Christ, we are all of us human. The importance of our shared humanity should not be minimized; after all we are saved and made one in Christ precisely because God took on our humanity. He becomes as we are, in the frequently repeated phrase of the fathers, so that we might become as He is. Deification, theosis, presupposes not only divine grace poured out by the Holy Spirit (above all through the sacraments) but also a common humanity shared not only with other men and women, but also with Christ our True God. Too often, especially in the early years of my own spiritual life, I saw the Gospel as an escape from the shared human nature and struggle.

As I have grown older, if not necessarily wiser, I've come to appreciate St Irenaeus' argument that in Christ the whole of human life is recapitulated, or assumed, by Christ. Why is this important? Because as the saint reminds us, that in us which is not assumed by Christ is not healed by Him.

So faithful to the example of Christ and the teachings of the fathers, let us look first to our common human vocation as we struggle to be faithful to who Christ has called us to be.

The human vocation is written not simply in the first pages of the Holy Scriptures, but (if we accept the testimony of the Scriptures) inscribed also in the creation itself. Indeed, reading the opening chapter of Genesis and seeing the creation of the human couple, Adam and Eve our First Parents, the fathers saw humanity not only as an icon of the Most Holy Trinity, but also as the goal of creation. It for us that God creates; even as later it will be for us that He becomes Man in Jesus Christ.

Taking a longer view, and mindful of the incarnation, the fathers saw humanity as the point at which the Uncreated and created met. To be human is to be the place of communion between God and the cosmos. We are this because we are both a microcosm and a macrocosm; we are both the creation in miniature even as we also contain the whole creation in ourselves. For this reason on turning his mind and heart to God King David says of us all: "What is man that you care for Him?"

In the moment in which our creation is completed, we read in Genesis the divine command to our First Parents: "Be fruitful and multiple, fill the earth and subdue it." While this certainly refers to procreation, to the begetting and raising of children in marriage, it also has a more general application. To be human is to be productive and profitable and to make of the creation a fit home for the human family. In a word, the vocation of the human person is to work.

But work in Genesis means much more than what we think of it now on the other side of Adam's transgression. In Genesis, we see God first and foremost as an artisan. As a potter forms clay into vessels both beautiful and useful, so to God takes the unformed matter of the cosmos and shapes it into something beautiful and good. This is not an abstract goodness or beauty, but one that is fitting for man. God creates something beautiful and good for us and then He charges us to continue that work of shaping creation as a beautiful, good and fit home for ourselves.

The primordial human vocation is this: After God and in God, we are to be as God for the creation and one another. We are called by God to exercise our gifts and ability to shape not only the material world, but also the social and cultural world according to the needs of the human family. This is not simply a functional task, but one which from (beginning to end, in both means and modes) is to be characterized by beauty and goodness.

Before all else, to be a steward is to commit oneself personally and generously to using the gifts of time, talents and treasure God has given each of us to create a good and beautiful home fit for the human family. But how we use out time, talent and treasure is not only an expression of our original vocation. While it has always required effort, even before the Fallen, because of Adam's transgression our work is often frustrating and marred by want and conflict. If sin has marred our vocation, it has not been undone. If anything one of the great sorrows of human life is the myriad ways in which our original vocation is so often left unfulfilled, still born and even aborted by human selfishness and material want.

It is for this reason that our work must be in Christ making our stewardship not only an expression of our shared human vocation, but also an expression of our personal effort to redeem human work, creativity and ingenuity.

In the next three weeks, I want to explore with you the three elements of our stewardship: time, talent, and treasure. As I said at the beginning, how we use time, treasure and talent reveals not only what we value, but also who we understand ourselves to be as a Christian community. May we by our stewardship show ourselves to be faithful disciples of Christ and found worthy at the end of our life to inherit the place prepared for us from all eternity.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory