Homily for 21 June 2015--Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: "Active Faith Frees Us to be Slaves of God"

Active Faith Frees Us to be Slaves to God

Homily for Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (21 June 2015, 8 June 2008)

Romans 6:18-23…………….Matthew 8:5-13

 

Today’s readings from St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and St Matthew’s Gospel present two ideas that seem to contradict themselves.  They appear paradoxical until we examine them carefully.

Here are the two ideas:

Faith as action, and slavery as freedom.

We usually think of faith as static, as something that just is.  But the Centurion who comes to Jesus and asks for the healing of his servant has active faith.  It brings him to Jesus and it makes him declare, “Just say the word and my servant (or slave; the word is the same in the original Greek) will be healed.”

This Centurion knows that God’s word is true and that God’s power is effective.  And so he has no need for drama or making a fuss—even though he’s probably worried sick.  After all, he depends on his slave for all kinds of assistance—taking care of his clothes and his weapons, preparing his food, delivering his messages, maybe even writing for him.  And he also has to deal with the pressures of his job as an army commander.

Very likely, then, there is a strong bond of affection and dependence between the Centurion and his slave.  Certainly we can see that he does not regard his slave as just his property—if his horse was sick, he would not ask Jesus to heal it.  The Centurion recognizes his slave’s human worth and dignity, despite his status as a slave.

This reminds us that Christ came to save all people, regardless of status, or family, or money, or anything else.  It also reminds us that we therefore need to pray that God will save other people, not just ourselves.  Our faith is personal but communal, not individual.

People who keep their faith private or think that they are already good enough or pious enough or holy enough, or that they deserve salvation because they were born into Christian families, may in fact not be saved.  Faith has to be active.

At the same time, as St Paul tells the Romans, once we profess our faith in Jesus Christ, once we are baptized into His life, we become slaves to righteousness.  That is, we willingly accept God as Master of our lives.  In faith, we turn our lives over to God.  We basically say, like the Centurion, “Just say the word and your slave (me) will be healed.”

It seems obvious that being a slave is a bad thing—you have no freedom, and freedom is very important to us.  But accepting slavery to righteousness means being free from slavery to evil and sin.  Slavery to God is freedom from slavery to the Devil.

Being slaves of God’s righteousness makes us free to live in faith, without fear or anxiety.  We know that we can come to the Lord and ask for healing—for ourselves and for others.  We know that our faith can be put into action in every aspect of our lives—like the Centurion, who lived his faith in his military job and in his personal relationships.

Being slaves of God’s righteousness puts responsibility on us to do our Master’s will all the time, not just for an hour on Sunday.

Being slaves of God’s righteousness means we have to practice love and mercy and justice at home, dealing with our spouses and children and brothers and sisters; at work, dealing with our bosses, our employees, our co-workers, our customers; in our business dealings; at school; on the athletic field—everywhere.

Our faith has to be active—always asking God to take care of others, as the Centurion did.

Our faith has to be humble, like the Centurion’s when he said, “I am not worthy to have you come to me.”

Our faith has to be strong, like the Centurion’s when he said, “Just say the word and it will be done.”

When our faith is humble, strong, and active we can give ourselves voluntarily as slaves to God, confident that He will say the word and we will be healed, we will be free, we will be saved, we will gain eternal life.

So with active faith, as slaves to God, let us give thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for Sunday 14 June 2015--Third Sunday after Pentecost: "Don't Worry!"

Don’t Worry

Homily for Third Sunday after Pentecost (14 June 2015, 17 June 2007)

Romans 5:1-10…………….Matthew 6:22-33

 

In today’s reading from the Gospel of St Matthew, Jesus says that we can’t serve two masters.  We can’t serve God and money.  If we are devoted to money, we will neglect God.  And if we neglect God, we are giving our lives to the Evil One.

Jesus also says that since we cannot serve two masters we should not worry about food or drink or clothing—in other words, we should not worry about all the details of everyday life.

The Lord knows us well.  He knows that we do worry about food.  Not just “Is there enough to feed my family and to keep them healthy?” but also “Is there enough so that my guests won’t think that I’m cheap?” and “Is it organic?” “Does it have trans fats?” “How much cholesterol is in it?” and so on.

And we worry about what to drink—whole milk or low-fat or non-fat?  The right brand of liquor—Johnny Walker Red or Johnny Walker Black, or Blue or Green or whatever?  We worry about getting our favorite Starbucks coffee drink.  We even worry about water—chlorinated?  Filtered?  Purified?  Bottled, imported, “smart”?

And we worry about clothes, and cars, and granite counter-tops.  We worry about shoes and schools and sports scores.  We even worry about worrying . . .

And what does Jesus say about all this?  He says, “Don’t worry.  God will take care of what you need—as long as you seek first the Kingdom of God.”

Great!  That’s one more thing to worry about.

Actually, it’s not one more thing; it’s the only thing:  “Seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well.”

But what does Jesus mean by this?  What is the Kingdom of God and how can I seek it?

The Kingdom of God exists wherever God’s will is known and accepted and fulfilled.  The Kingdom of God exists perfectly in heaven, where the souls of the righteous and the angels are in perfect relationship with God, living in God’s glory and love and mercy and justice and peace.

We also pray that the Kingdom of God may be established on earth, every time we say the Lord’s Prayer:  “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

We seek the Kingdom individually—each person in his/her own life—and also as a community, as the people of God in the Church.  To do this, we need to learn and understand God’s will, God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s justice.

We have to study and learn the teachings of the Christian Church.  We have to read the Holy Bible.  We have to participate fully in the life of the Church—praying, singing, going to confession, receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ.

We can’t just say, “I went to Catholic school” or “I went to church with my mother” or “I know how we always did things back home.”  We have to make a conscious effort to find out and to understand and to live as Christians—here and now, all the time, every day, in every place and every part of our lives.

We must strive to make the Kingdom of God real in our homes, in the schools, in our workplaces, in the supermarket and the doctor’s office, even on the freeway (maybe especially on the freeway).  When we try to bring the love and mercy and peace and justice of God to every situation and every person, we will be doing what God asks us to do, and we won’t have to worry about anything else.

So let us seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and give thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for Sunday 7 June 2015--Second Sunday after Pentecost

God Shows No Partiality

Homily for Second Sunday after Pentecost (7 June 2015, 14 June 2009)

Romans 2:10-16…………….Matthew 4:18-23

 

In the Epistle reading for today, St Paul writes, “God shows no partiality,”

This is a surprising statement to everyone who thinks “my religion is the best.”  St Paul tells us instead, “Glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good.”  He means that all people have to live holy and righteous lives, obeying God according to the way God teaches different people.  God shows no partiality; God judges different peoples according to the relationships He has established with them.

In the Old Testament, God made His Covenant with the Jews, saying, “I will be your God, and you will be my people,” and giving them the Law through Moses.  The Law governed how God’s chosen people should relate to God and to one another.  It didn’t make the Jews better than other people; it just set up a special relationship between God and them; it made them responsible to God in a specific way.  This is what St Paul means by saying, “All who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.”

In the New Testament, God makes a New Covenant with people, through Jesus Christ, the True Word of God who became human to gain salvation for the human race.  Jesus brings a new way of relating to God:  conscience, not Law.  St Paul says that “the Law is written on [our] hearts” and is witnessed by our consciences.  And it is the life and teachings of Jesus that form our consciences.

So the absence or non-applicability of the Law of Moses doesn’t mean that we can do anything we like, claiming that our conscience told us it was OK.  A properly formed and developed conscience will always reflect what Jesus our Lord has commanded us:  we will do by instinct what the Law requires.  And, though we will not be judged according to the Law, we will be judged according to our secret thoughts by God, through Jesus Christ.

So, just as the Jews will be judged according to their Covenant with God, we Christians will also be judged according to our Covenant with God.

Being Christians imposes responsibilities and obligations on us.  Becoming followers of Christ transforms our lives, just as it completely changed the lives of Andrew and Peter, James and John when, Jesus said to them, “Come, follow Me.  Now you are fishermen, but I will make you fishers of men,” as we heard in today’s Gospel reading.

St Paul says that it isn’t those who “hear the Law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the Law who will be justified.”  This is why we can’t simply claim to be Christian as if it were a race or nationality or birthright.

If we don’t live our Christianity through prayer and worship, through observing the fasts and the feasts of the Church year, and through acts of charity for all of our sisters and brothers, we’re not really Christians.

If we get married in the church but don’t participate in the life of the church, and if we baptize our children and fail to bring them to church and teach them the faith, we’re not really Christians.

If we refuse to love and forgive our enemies, if we refuse to help the poor and sick and hungry and jobless and homeless, we’re not really Christians.

Like Andrew and Peter, James and John, we have to answer Jesus’ call to follow Him.  We have to let Jesus transform our lives.  We have to form our consciences according to Jesus’ teaching, not just follow the letter of the Law.  And we have to live in a conscious and deliberately Christian way, doing good because the Law has been written in our hearts by God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for Sunday 31 May 2015--All Saints Sunday

A Great Cloud of Witnesses:  We Are All Called to be Saints

Homily for All Saints (First Sunday after Pentecost) (31 May 2015, 3 June 2012)

Hebrews 11:33-12:2…………….Matthew 10:32-38, 19:27-30

 

Today, on the first Sunday after Pentecost, the Church commemorates All Saints.  Every day of the year, we remember and honor certain saints by name—some famous, some not.  We also remember and honor certain saints by name in the prayers and services of the Church—the Theotokos, St John the Baptist, St John Chrysostom, St Basil the Great, and others.  We all have our personal devotions to certain saints—maybe the one we were named for, maybe one belonging to our family or village by tradition, maybe one who is meaningful to us through personal experience or inspiration.

But today the Church reminds us that all Christians—all of us, and all of those who have gone before us, and all of those who will come after us—are called to be saints:  the “Holy Ones” of God.

St Paul reminds us of this when he calls the saints a “great cloud of witnesses.”  He also reminds us of what we have to do in order to join that great cloud of witnesses.  And in today’s Gospel reading, our Lord Jesus Christ gives us some very clear—and also pretty difficult—advice on how to live holy lives.

When St Paul calls the saints a “great cloud of witnesses,” he’s telling us two very important things:

First—like a cloud, the saints are sort of above us and around us.  Sometimes they seem closer and heavier, sometimes more distant and sort of fluffy.  Sometimes they storm; sometimes they provide shade.  Like the droplets of moisture that form a cloud, the individual saints form this great cloud of witnesses.

Second—they are a cloud of witnesses:  they have a function, to be examples to the world and to us, examples of Christian faith and life.  Like the people of the Old Testament whom St Paul describes, different saints have different talents, different experiences, different ways of witnessing.  But all their words and actions and trials and sufferings and deaths are meaningless unless they are connected to faith.

This is true for us, too.  Jesus says, “Whoever acknowledges me before other people I will acknowledge before my heavenly father,” but “whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

We can’t call ourselves Christians unless we live as Christians.  We have to live in a way that joins us to that “great cloud of witnesses”—God’s Holy Ones.  This takes determination and work.  It’s not going to happen unless we make efforts all the time.  No one ever became a saint just by sitting around and wishing they were holy.

First, St Paul says, we must “rid ourselves of every burden and sin” that holds onto us and holds us back from living holy lives.  This means that we have to look honestly at ourselves, to discover and admit our shortcomings and failures, and to repent—turn ourselves around in the right direction.

Second, that right direction is following the lead of Jesus Christ.  We have to “persevere in running the race, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.”  He has done it; He is showing us how; He wants us to succeed.

Third, we have to follow Jesus in an open way, not secretly.  We should never be afraid to thank and praise Him for creating us, for loving us, for guiding us, for saving us.

Fourth, we have to put Jesus first in our lives.  It’s kind of hard to hear Jesus say, “Whoever loves father or mother, or son or daughter, more than me is not worthy of me.”  But our families are not God; we must not make them into idols and worship them.  They are gifts from God, so we must treasure them.  The best way to do this is by living holy lives and setting a good example.  Parents have to be witnesses to their children, showing them how to put Christ first, ahead of selfish desires.  Parents, let your children see you pray, teach them to enjoy coming to church, share with them the goodness of helping other people.

Finally, we can’t expect rewards in this life.  Being Christian is not easy or comfortable or profitable in worldly terms.  The only reward that counts is the joy of eternal life in God’s love.  That is the reward that awaits us when, by God’s grace, we will join all the saints in that “great cloud of witnesses,” giving thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for Sunday 25 May 2015--Holy and Glorious Pentecost Sunday

Jesus Changed the Meaning of Pentecost:  Not the Law, but the Holy Spirit

Homily for Pentecost (Seventh Sunday after Pascha) (25 May 2015, 8 June 2003)

Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11…………….John 7:37-8:12

 

Today we celebrate the Great Feast of Pentecost, the day when the promise of God the Father to send the Holy Spirit was fulfilled.

The two readings from the Holy Bible for today both mention this feast, because it was a Jewish holy day before it became a Christian holy day, and Jesus and His disciples celebrated it.

It still is a Jewish holy day—Shavuot, the celebration of the giving of the Torah, the Law, to Moses and the Hebrew people.  It comes 50 days after Passover—just as for us Christians the feast of the giving of the Holy Spirit comes 50 days after Pascha.  The Greek word Pentecost means “50 days.”

When the disciples were all together in one place to celebrate on the 50^th day after Passover, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, they had no idea of what was going to happen to them.  They were simply gathered for the holy day like all the other Jews.

And when Jesus stood in the Temple on the last day of the festival and proclaimed that He was the light of the world and also that anyone thirsty should come to Him and drink, no one knew that He was talking about the Holy Spirit that He would send from the Father—the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who would lead believers into all the truth.

And that is the crucial difference between the Jewish Pentecost and the Christian Pentecost.  Both are from God, but the Jewish Pentecost is about the Law and the Christian Pentecost is about the Holy Spirit.  I often say that the coming of Jesus changed everything—and this is another example of that.

For the Jews, the Law given by God to them through Moses guided every aspect of their lives.  It was God’s way of showing them what to do in order to live in good relationship with God and with each other.  Understand and obey the Torah and you will have favor with God.  This is what they celebrate at Pentecost.

But for us Christians, it is the Holy Spirit given to us by the Father through the asking of Jesus that guides every aspect of our lives.  The Holy Spirit shows us what to do in order to live in right relationship with God and with each other.  The Holy Spirit empowered the disciples to speak all languages so that they could preach and teach Jesus’ message of salvation to all peoples.

In his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul writes that the Spirit brings “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  In the First Letter to the Corinthians, he says that the Spirit gives various gifts to people to use for the good of everyone, such as wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, and so on.  This is what Jesus meant when He told the disciples to wait for the promise of the Father, and when He said, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

Jesus promises us enlightenment and wisdom—the ability to see clearly and to make good choices.  He doesn’t promise us rules that we can follow without thinking.  He didn’t say that when the Holy Spirit comes it will lead you to the Law; he said that the Holy Spirit “will lead you into all truth.”  He changed the meaning of Pentecost, setting us free from the Law and giving us the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

And so, for this great gift, we give thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God, unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for 17 May 2015--Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council

Our Fathers in Faith Established the Basic Beliefs of Christian Faith

Homily for the Sixth Sunday after Pascha (17 May 2015, 1 June 2003)

Acts of the Apostles 16:16-34…………….John 9:1-38

 

On the sixth Sunday after Pascha every year, the Church celebrates the memory of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, which was held at Nicea in the year 325.  In 2015, 1690 years later, we might wonder what was so important about the Fathers, or Bishops, who attended that council.  Why should we remember them today?  Why should we have a Sunday dedicated to honoring them?

We can’t really answer these questions without knowing something about the time and the circumstances.  In 325 Jesus had been gone from the earth less than 300 years.  For example, that’s about the same length of time that has passed since the American Declaration of Independence.

In 325, Christianity had been legal only 12 years!  The capital of the Roman Empire had moved to Constantinople only one year before.  It was an amazing time for Christians.  We no longer had to hide our faith and celebrate the Eucharist in houses and caves and even tombs.  We no longer had to worry about being forced to worship the pagan gods or the Roman emperors.  We no longer had to be afraid of persecution and torture and gruesome executions.

On the other hand, Christianity became the official religion of the Empire.  The Emperor and his bureaucrats expected the Church to support the government; they expected bishops to keep the people in order and loyal to the Emperor.  Yet there was no huge, well-developed Church bureaucracy to step in and do these things.  There was no standard liturgy—bishops and priests improvised the prayers according to the custom of their town or city or province.  There wasn’t even a basic agreed-upon statement of what Christians believed.

Of course this led to confusion and arguments and divisions.  People accused each other of being heretics simply because they didn’t agree about things we now take for granted as the Truth.

The hot argument of the early 4^th century was whether Jesus Christ was actually God, equal to the Father, or whether He was a created being given special power and status by God.  Arius, a priest from Alexandria, claimed that Jesus was inferior to God the Father—that He was the greatest of creatures, sort of adopted by God to do God’s work on earth.  Not knowing any better, and not being able to find out by studying the Gospels for themselves, a lot of people accepted Arius’s ideas and followed him.  In some places, they threw out or even killed bishops and priests who believed otherwise.

Obviously, this threatened the peace and unity of the Empire.

So the Emperor Constantine called all 318 bishops in the world to a meeting and told them that if this was going to be a Christian Empire they had to decide what Christians believed.

Today’s readings from the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of St John help us understand the bishops’ actions and decisions.

In the Acts, St Paul warns the priests and bishops of Ephesus that they must take care of the church and guard it against “fierce wolves” who would try to attack the people and against false teacher speaking twisted words who would try to lure the people away from the true faith.  Obviously, for the Fathers at Nicea Arius and other heretics were such fierce wolves and false teachers.

In the reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus makes it clear again and again that He and the Father share divine identity.  He says that the Father gave Him God’s name.  He says that He and the Father are one.  He says He lost none of those entrusted to Him except the son of perdition.  Of course, Jesus was talking about Judas, who betrayed Him and then, realizing his sin, killed himself.  But the Holy Fathers at Nicea saw that this description also applied to Arius, who was also betraying Jesus by denying His divinity.  From this passage, we can see that the unity of the Church mirrors the unity of God.

So the Fathers of Nicea condemned Arius and his heresy.  They wrote the Creed, which says clearly that Jesus is “true God from true God, begotten not made, one in essence with the Father.”  They established the basic beliefs of the Christian faith.  They are truly our Fathers in the faith.  And that is why we remember and honor them, because they taught us how praise and glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God, unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for 10 May 2015--The 5th Sunday after Pascha: "See the Glory of God or Find Someone to Blame?"

See the Glory of God or Find Someone to Blame?

Homily for the Fifth Sunday after Pascha (10 May 2015)

Acts of the Apostles 16:16-34…………….John 9:1-38

 

In today’s Gospel reading, St John shows us two very different ways of looking at life.  One is to look at things that happen and see how they reveal the glory of God.  The other is to look at things that happen and try to find someone to blame.

Unfortunately, that second attitude seems to be more common.  When something goes wrong, or something bad happens, people everywhere look for someone to blame.  It’s the Jews.  It’s the Muslims.  It’s the Americans.  It’s the North Koreans.  It’s the immigrants.  It’s the rednecks.  It’s the pointy-headed intellectuals.  It’s the feminists.  It’s the religious right.  It’s the gays.  And so on.  When I was growing up, we knew who to blame for everything—the Communists.  Now I see things more clearly and blame the Republicans.  (No offense to those of you who may be Republicans--you know I don't talk politics in church.)

Of course, when life is good and things go right, people will sometimes say, “Thank God.”  But generally we are like the disciples, who want to blame either the blind man or his parents for his blindness.  We are like the Pharisees, who do not rejoice that the blind man has been given the ability to see, but instead want to find out who has undermined their power by healing the blind man and has broken the Law by healing on the Sabbath.  They know what they want to see, and don’t need to be bothered by the facts.  Finally, when they can’t get the answers they want, they turn to making personal attacks on the man who had been born blind.

But Jesus and the man born blind see things very differently.  Jesus tells the disciples that the man was born blind not because of sin, but so that the works of God might be revealed in him.  And the man born blind answers all of the Pharisees’ questions with the simple declaration, “If this man were not from God, he couldn’t do anything.”

In every situation, we can see God at work or we can look for someone to blame.  We can rejoice that someone was healed or we can blame someone for breaking the rules.  We can feel sorry for ourselves in sickness or in hard times, or we can thank God for what we do have and trust in God’s help to deal with our problems.  We can complain about the people who don’t come to church or we can give glory to God for bringing enough people to church so that there is a church to come to.  We can be happy that people love each other and want to get married, or we can denounce them for being the wrong religion or the wrong race or the wrong nationality or the wrong gender.

What we cannot do is refuse to see God at work in the world.

Everything we are, everything we do, everything we have comes from God.  All creation reveals the glory of God.  Sometimes it’s not easy to see.  Sometimes it’s hard to understand.  But our job is to believe in God’s love and goodness and mercy at work in the world and in us.  Jesus is the light of the world, and God opens our eyes to see that light.

So let us live in Jesus’ light and see the glorious works of God and give thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God, unto the ages of ages.  Amen.