Homily for 13 September 2015--The Elevation of the Holy Cross

The Message of the Cross Makes the World’s Wisdom Foolish

Homily for the Elevation of the Holy Cross (13 September 2015, 14 September 2003)

1 Corinthians 1:18-24                                         John 19:6-35

 

In today’s reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul explains “the message about the Cross.”  It is still a hard message for us to understand.  Like so many aspects of Christian faith, it seems contrary to what we think of as normal.

Just think of a few of the paradoxes of our faith:  Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to forgive those who hurt us—but our first reaction is to hate our enemies and to try to get revenge.  Mary was a virgin, yet she gave birth to a son.  Jesus is the Son of God, yet He became a man.  Jesus died and was buried, but He rose to new life.  In the Divine Liturgy, we offer bread and wine, and the power of the Holy Spirit changes them into the Body and Blood of Christ.

So here’s another paradox:  the cross was the most humiliating and degrading form of death the Romans used to execute common criminals.  Yet Jesus willingly suffered that death so that He could rise in glory and give salvation to the human race.

This is what St Paul is talking about when he says, “God has made foolish the wisdom of the world.”  The wisdom of the world is what we think we know.  It is the whole mass of facts and beliefs and opinions and customs that “everybody knows.”

But in fact what everybody knows is different from place to place and from time to time.  A few centuries ago, in Europe, everybody knew that bathing frequently was unhealthy.  Now we are almost fanatical about washing.  Not so long ago, everybody knew—including the Catholic Church—that God approved of slavery.  In the USA, everybody knows that all of the people in the Middle East are Muslim.  When I was growing up in the almond-growing country of Central California, everybody knew that green almonds were poisonous.

What “everybody knows” isn’t necessarily true.

St Paul says, “The Jews demand signs and the Greeks desire knowledge.”  He means that different groups or nations have different ways of looking at the world.

For us Christians, the Holy Cross changes the way we look at the world.  It is a stumbling block to some and a joke to others, but to us believers it represents Christ,, the power and the wisdom of God.

The Holy Cross is like the flag of Christians.  It does not save us, but it is a symbol of our salvation.  It reminds us of God’s love and of Jesus’s life-giving death.  It consoles us with the knowledge of forgiveness and salvation.  It inspires us to endure suffering.  It stands in the middle of the world like the Tree of Life stood in the middle of Paradise.

But the Cross is meaningless to us unless it makes us remember that the wisdom of the world—the stuff “everybody knows”—is foolishness.  When we see the Cross, we must remember that Christians are different from the rest of the world.  We live by the message of the Cross—Jesus’s message of love and forgiveness and justice and salvation—not by the message of the TV dish or the internet.

Today we sing, “We bow in worship before your Cross, O Christ, and we praise and glorify your Holy Resurrection.”  The world’s wisdom says the Cross is humiliation and death.  The world’s wisdom says there is no Resurrection.  God’s wisdom says that Jesus came so that those who believe in Him would be called by Him, would be His brothers and sisters, would love one another as He loved us, and would not perish but would have eternal life, 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 6 September 2015--15th Sunday after Pentecost: "Which Commandment is the Greatest? Love."

Which Commandment is the Greatest?  Love.

Homily for the 15^th Sunday after Pentecost (6 September 2015, 5 September 2010)

2 Corinthians 4:6-15                         Matthew 22:35-46

 

Today’s reading from the Gospel according to St Matthew tells about the scholar of the Jewish Law who tried to test Jesus by asking, “Rabbi, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?”

We have to wonder about this question and the motivation behind it.

Why would this scholar or anyone want to test Jesus?

Did he want to find out if Jesus really knew the Law?

Did he want to see if Jesus will give the answer that the experts in the Law would agree with?

Did he want to see if Jesus would say something wrong?

At any rate, we can be sure that if he was “testing” Jesus, it wasn’t just out of curiosity or the innocent wish to have a discussion.

Asking “which commandment is the greatest” implies that some commandments are not so important as others.

Maybe this fellow was expecting to hear about the importance of proper offering of sacrifices or about the right way to fast or about money or property or ritual purity—all of which are covered in the Law.

Maybe he was fishing for an excuse to slack off one some things if Jesus said something else was more important.  We can imagine him thinking, “What a relief!  Not working on the Sabbath is more important than welcoming strangers or paying my tithes.”

Maybe, just maybe, he was actually trying to find out what was important in his life.

Of course, people are still asking these same questions two thousand years later.  Now, they can’t talk in person with Jesus as the scholar of the Law did, so often they ask their priest.

And, again, sometimes it’s a test—they want to find out if Father really knows the Bible or the Liturgy or Church teaching or our Tradition.

Sometimes people ask questions in the hope of getting an answer that will make them happy—or at least not guilty.

Sometimes they want to catch a priest saying something “wrong” so they can report him to the bishop or ignore him or gossip about him.  (Actually, that’s the opposite order.  They would rather talk about him—“Do you know what Father said?”—or ignore him—“We know better, so we don’t have to pay any attention to him—than call the bishop to complain, knowing that the bishop probably wouldn’t listen to them anyway.)

Sometimes people ask about commandments or the Bible or Church teaching because they want easy answers.  They want the priest to tell them, “Just do A, B, and C and you’ll be OK with God and you’ll go to heaven.”

And sometimes they want to hear an answer that lets them think that they are already doing everything right.

But the answer Jesus gave to the scholar’s question—which is the answer Jesus gives to all of our questions—upsets all expectations.  It destroys legalistic, simplistic, rule-oriented, what’s-the-minimum-I-need-to-do thinking.  It destroys it completely.

Jesus almost says that individual commandments are important because, if you keep these two basic general commandments, you will naturally keep all the rest of them.

Here they are:  “Love God completely, totally; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

These two simple commandments are actually more difficult to keep than a whole list of specific do’s and don’t’s.  They require us always to be aware, to be thinking about how our actions and thoughts and feelings reflect our relationship with God and with other people.

This is because God loves each one of us as a person, not as a unit or an abstraction, so relationships with God and with other people cannot be reduced to abstract rules.  Real life is messy and unpredictable, as we all know, and only love can handle that messiness and unpredictability.  Rules and laws can’t handle it.  Only God’s love and mercy are flexible enough to deal with human life (after all, God created it!)—and our love and mercy have to be based on God’s (because God created us in God’s image and likeness).

If we always act out of complete love for God and if always love other people as we love ourselves—or as if they were ourselves—then we can’t go wrong.  Laws and rules can provide guidelines, but they cannot take the place of the mercy and love of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to whom we give thanks and praise and glory now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Homily for 23 August 2015, 13th Sunday after Pentecost--"Whatever You Do, Do It In Love"

Whatever You Do, Do It In Love

Homily for the 13^th Sunday after Pentecost (23 August 2015, 26 August 2012)

1 Corinthians 16:13-24                         Matthew 21:33-42

 

“Whatever you do, do it in love.”  This is how St Paul begins the last paragraphs of his First Letter to the Corinthians.  The letter is full of teaching, of reminders, of advice—even of scolding.  But at the end he sums it up this way:  “Whatever you do, do it in love.”

This is the basic rule for Christian life.  It hardly seems like it should be necessary to repeat it, but if we look at our own lives we begin to see why St Paul had to say it again.  We do things for many reasons, but a lot of the time love doesn’t seem to be one of those reasons.

Today’s Gospel reading shows us one of those other reasons—and also shows us the consequences of not acting in love.  The vine-dressers who lease the landowner’s vineyard do what they do—cheat the owner, abuse his agents, even kill his son—because of greed.  Their desire for possessions and profits has terrible consequences not only for their victims, but also ultimately for themselves—they will be put to death for their crimes.

But everything would have been different if they had acted in love.  They wouldn’t have made as much money as fast, but no one would have died, and they could have enjoyed a long and productive relationship with the landowner.

Greed is probably the most common motivation for our actions, but we also do a lot of things out of pride.  We have to get our own way—or we feel that we have to pay back someone who has offended or insulted us.  And we can’t seem to see the consequences of our prideful actions.  All we can see is the immediate satisfaction of getting what we want or of getting even with someone who has insulted or offended us.

So we have greed and pride as common motivations for our actions.  Unfortunately, we also often act in fear.  Sometimes we are afraid of the unknown, so we are unwilling to move ahead in faith because the desired result cannot be guaranteed.  Sometimes we are afraid of punishment or disapproval or of what “people” will think, and so we fail to do what is right or good.  We don’t want to stand out or to oppose what “everybody” is doing, even if we know it is wrong.

In the Gospel reading today, Jesus points to the meaning of His parable about the wicked tenants by quoting Psalm 118:  “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes.”  This quotation shows that God’s motive is always love for His creation, and that even our wicked actions can be turned to God’s purpose.

But how much more wonderful it is to cooperate with God from the beginning, to do everything in love so that we do not have to be afraid, so that we don’t have to worry about our wounded pride, so that we can accept God’s good gifts without being greedy or selfish.

God’s love is the model for our love.  It is the basis for everything God does—creating us in His image and likeness, giving us intelligence and free will, correcting us when we go wrong, accepting our repentance, sacrificing His only Son to take away our sins, sending His Holy Spirit to guide and protect us, and raising us up to eternal life with Him.

So let us also do everything in love—as God does—and 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 30 August 2015, 14th Sunday after Pentecost--"Refusing God's Invitation Has Serious Consequences"

Refusing God’s Invitation has Serious Consequences

Homily for the 14^th Sunday after Pentecost (30 August 2015, 2 September 2012)

2 Corinthians 1:21-2:4                         Matthew 22:2-14

 

The story of the King’s wedding feast in today’s reading from the Gospel according to St Matthew is, as the reading tells us at the beginning, a parable.  A parable is kind of a story in disguise.  It seems to be about one thing—such as a king’s wedding feast—but it’s really about something else—such as the Kingdom of Heaven.

The details in the story stand for aspects of the hidden meaning.  For instance, the King’s son is obviously Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  The guests who refuse to come to the feast are the Jews, God’s Chosen People, who did not accept Jesus as God’s son, the Messiah.  The replacement guests, good and bad, gathered from the roads and streets, are the Gentiles, to whom the Gospel was preached after the Jews rejected it.

But parables aren’t limited to one meaning.  At the time of Jesus, it was a great concern to Him that His own people, the Jews, refused to accept Him.  But in our time, we accept that Jews worship God their way and Christians worship God our way.  Surely, the meaning of the parable is not that we should feel superior to the Jews, or feel sorry for them, or persecute them for not accepting Christ.

So what does this parable say to us, here in St Joseph Church in Lansing in 2015?

Some things don’t change.  The King is still God the Father, the Ruler of Creation.  The king’s son is still Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

But suppose the wedding feast is the Church—and not just the Church in general, all over the world, but our church, St Joseph in Lansing in 2015.

And suppose that the invited guests who refuse the King’s invitation to his Son’s feast are people who belong to our church (or at least claim to, or ought to), who have not only received the present invitation but have actually accepted many invitations in the past.  But now they refuse.  And like the people in the parable, they make their excuses:  I’m too busy.  I’m too tired.  Sunday morning is the only time I can go shopping.  I have guests from out of town.  I have to work.  I have to babysit.  I have to go to a baby shower.  It’s too expensive.  It’s boring.  I don’t like the people—or the priest (who’s so boring)—or the lack of parking.  Etc.  Etc.  Etc.

All of us who have gone to many wedding receptions know that often we don’t go for our pleasure or enjoyment, but out of love and respect for the people hosting the banquet.  We don’t refuse to attend because we don’t like the caterer or the DJ or the hall; or because it’s too expensive or inconvenient.  We go to honor and celebrate with our family and our friends, because we value our relationship with them.

Of course, if we did refuse, we would not be killed and our houses burned, unlike the disrespectful guests in the Gospel parable.

But refusing God’s invitation has serious consequences.  If we refuse God altogether, we risk eternal death and punishment.  If we refuse to accept God’s invitation in our local church, we are rejecting God.  We are saying that we don’t respect and love God and we don’t appreciate the great generosity and love of God’s invitation to join Him at the great banquet in His house—the great banquet of salvation in which the host gives Himself to His guests.

And we risk the punishment of never being invited again, of being replaced by people who do appreciate God’s glorious hospitality, even though they were not the first ones invited and come from outside our community.

We need to be grateful for what God has given us; we need to appreciate it and respect it.  If we refuse God’s invitation, we may never receive another, and could be thrown out into the darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.

So let us accept the invitation with joy and gratitude, let us put on our wedding garments and bring along our families and friends, and 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 16 August 2015, the 12th Sunday after Pentecost--"By the Grace of God, We Are What We Are"

By the Grace of God, We Are What We Are

Homily for the 12^th Sunday after Pentecost (16 August 2015, 22 August 2004)

1 Corinthians 15:1-11                         Matthew 19:16-26

 

In today’s reading from St Paul’s First Letter to the Christians in Corinth, the Apostle provides a brief overview of the Gospel he has preached and offers a short but clear defense of his apostleship, which leads him to conclude that it wasn’t who preached the Gospel that mattered.  What mattered was that the Gospel was proclaimed and the people believed.

Evidently, there were problems in the Church in Corinth, so that St Paul has to remind them of the faith he preached to them, through which they are being saved.  Then he adds, “unless you have come to believe in vain.”  I think he is warning them to focus on their faith in salvation through Jesus Christ, not to be distracted or led into doubt by questions about his authority.

Because St Paul defends himself, we can guess that some people were attacking his reputation and his authority to preach.  After all, he was not one of the Twelve whom Jesus chose as His disciples.  Paul had not even known Jesus personally.  And he was widely known as a fanatical persecutor of Christians.  No doubt his critics were using all these facts against him.

But Paul says that he only taught what he had been taught—he just passed on what he had received.  This is his first defense.  Then he recaps the appearances of the Lord after the Resurrection—giving himself a sort of apostolic genealogy.  “Last of all,” Paul says, “the Lord appeared to me, as to a person born out of time.”  He means that, since he was meant to be an apostle, he had somehow been born at the wrong time, so that he did not actually meet Jesus in person.

Paul confesses that he is unfit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the Church of God.  But even though he should have been unqualified because of this, God chose him anyway and provided the grace to compensate for his sinful past and other inadequacies.

He says, “By the grace of God, I am what I am, and God’s grace towards me has not been in vain.”  There is a saying that God draws straight with crooked lines, and this applies to us as well as to St Paul.  By the grace of God, we are what we are.  This means that God has some purpose for each of us.  We should not waste time trying to fit into some role or category that other people decide is right for us.  We have to discover what God wants us to do, and God’s grace will not be in vain towards us.  God’s grace in us will guide us to accomplish the purpose God has in mind for us.

Often we worry that we are not living up to our families’ expectations or our friends’ expectations or society’s expectations.  We hear that we are too lazy, or that we work too hard.  We hear that we are too fat, or that we are too thin.  We hear that we are not smart enough, or that we are too smart.  We hear that we are too shy, or that we show off too much.  We hear all kinds of things that make us feel insecure or not good enough.

Sometimes it takes us a long time to quiet down so that we can hear God calling us to fulfill God’s expectations.  But God is persistent.  God’s love is unfailing.  Eventually we hear God calling us.  It may be to marriage.  It may be to single life.  It may be to ordination.  It may be to business or to public office.  It may be to a quiet life or to a very active one.  It may be something totally unexpected and difficult.

But so long as we stay true to who we are by God’s grace, God’s grace will not be in vain towards us.  For nothing is impossible to God.

So 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 9 August 2015, the 11th Sunday after Pentecost--"You Can't Be a Christian and Refuse to Forgive"

You Can’t Be a Christian and Refuse to Forgive

Homily for the 11^th Sunday after Pentecost (9 August 2015, 24 August 2003)

1 Corinthians 9:2-12                         Matthew 18:23-35

 

The message of our Lord Jesus Christ in today’s Gospel reading is direct, clear, and strong.  If we do not forgive our brothers and sisters from our hearts, God will not forgive us, and we will not be saved to eternal life in Heaven.

There is no room in Heaven for resentment, holding grudges, and refusing to forgive.  Heaven is full of God’s perfect love, and where there is love there will always be forgiveness.

Nothing demonstrates human sinfulness more than the refusal to forgive.  Our Lord Jesus Christ, even when He was hanging on the Cross in agony, forgave those who killed Him.

Yet we hold on to petty insults as if they are precious treasures.  We use them as excuses not to forgive.  We remember that such-and-such a person once said something about our family.  We remember that Mrs So-and-so told our children to be quiet in church.  We remember that someone asked us to park more carefully so that others could get by.  We remember that someone failed to answer a greeting.  We remember that our son announced that he would be a musician instead of an engineer.  We remember that our daughter said she would marry her “unsuitable” boyfriend whether we liked him or not.  He wasn’t even Lebanese; he might even have been a Californian!

We cherish these things in our hearts and say that we can never forgive the insult or the shame.  What would people think if we forgave these horrible things and acted as though nothing had ever happened?  What would people say if I remained friends with the person who gossiped about my family and the woman who shushed my children?  What would happen to my reputation if I still welcomed in my home my son the musician and my disobedient daughter and her unsuitable husband?

Well, probably good Christian people would say I did the right thing, the loving thing, the thing Jesus would do.

But the real question is not “What would people think?”  The real question is “What does God think?”  And we know the answer:  “If you do not forgive, God will not forgive you.”

Because we are human beings and subject to sin, forgiveness does not come easily.  Our sinful pride gets in the way.

So we have to practice forgiveness.  We have to work at it.  We have to work at it until we don’t have to work at it anymore.  We have to practice forgiveness until it becomes a habit, and then we have to keep practicing forgiveness until it becomes natural.  This is part of the Christian life of growing in holiness, of developing our relationship with God, of what the Church calls Theosis (becoming God-like).

I am sure that some people will say that of course all this stuff about forgiveness is in the Bible, but, “Father, you just don’t understand our ways.  In our culture, we can’t let people get away with things that shame us.  We can’t forgive these things.”

My answer is that I think I do understand.  Middle Eastern culture is not the only culture that values pride and refuses to forgive insults.  Scottish history is full of battles and murders in retaliation for shame.  The motto of my family, Clan Graham, is even Ne Oublie—don’t forget.

But even if didn’t understand this, one thing is clear.  You can’t be a Christian and refuse to forgive.  You can be Muslim and refuse to forgive.  You can be Jewish and refuse to forgive.  You can be a pagan and refuse to forgive.  But you can’t be a Christian and refuse to forgive.

This is one of the main things that set us apart from all others.  Jesus makes it very clear, so that we cannot claim that we don’t understand:  If you don’t forgive, God will not forgive you.

So let us listen to our Lord, God, and Savior.  Let us forgive one another from our hearts.  And let us give thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the God who forgives us as we forgive others, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

 

Homily for the Great Feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August 2015

The Prophets and Apostles Are Our Witnesses

Homily for the Transfiguration of the Lord (5 August 2015, 6 August 2009)

2 Peter 1:10-19                               Matthew 17:1-9

 

When Jesus went up on Mt Tabor and was transfigured, revealing His Divine Nature while still in His human body, He had two sets of witnesses:  Moses and Elias, the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, and Peter, James, and John, the leading disciples of the New Testament, the first called, after Andrew, to follow Him.

In the Old Testament, God spoke to Moses and Elias, but never showed His face to them, appearing in a burning bush, speaking from a cloud or wind, allowing His back to be seen.

In the New Testament, Jesus was always present in His human body with Peter, James, and John, but had never before revealed His Divine Nature to them.

So the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt Tabor completed God’s revelation for both the Old and the New Covenants.

In addition, the presence of Moses and Elias added to the solemnity and authenticity and believability of the event for Peter, James, and John.  They saw the most trusted witnesses in the history of the people’s relationship with God, appearing with Jesus to verify His actions and to testify to the words of God the Father:  “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.  Listen to Him.”

This is what St Peter is talking about in his letter, which we read today, when he says, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of His majesty. . . .  So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed.”

We know that our faith is true, because it has always been handed down in the Church by witnesses in an unbroken line, going back to the Apostles and Prophets.  It’s not a story made up to be entertaining or to gain control over people or land or money.  It is simply God’s true story, revealed by God and in God, and testified to by our ancestors in faith, who encountered God with awesome and terrifying directness.  (Just look at the ikon of the Transfiguration, with the figures of Peter, James, and John tumbling terrified down the mountain, for evidence of the awesomeness of this encounter with God.)

And what message does God give us in this event of the Transfiguration?  Both Matthew and Peter pass it on to us:  “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.  Listen to Him.”

The message is simple, and essential for our daily life:

1.       Jesus Christ is the beloved Son of God (which makes Him also God).

2.      God is well-pleased with Jesus.  God the Father has full confidence and satisfaction in the work of Jesus—His preaching, His teaching, His willing sacrifice of Himself for our sins, His glorious and life-giving Resurrection that gives us eternal life.

3.      Finally, the Father tells us, “Listen to Him.”  Jesus is our teacher, our guide, our Lord, God, and Savior.  We have to learn His will and do it.  Every day.  For our whole life.

We know this message is true.  The Prophets and the Apostles are our witnesses.  When we believe God’s truth and live it, we also will be transformed, transfigured to reveal God’s love and glory in us, always drawing us into perfect union with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God, to whom we give thanks and praise and glory now and ever and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.