Homily for the Sunday of the Forefathers, 2016

            Today we celebrate the Sunday of the Forefathers: those men and women of the Old Testament who, in the words of the apolytikion, were “justified by faith.” There was Adam, the first-created and his wife Eve; and Abel the righteous, and Enoch who walked with God. There were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Rahab, and Ruth; David and Solomon, Daniel and the three holy children—all of them, and many more besides, who were justified by faith.

            What does it mean to say they were justified by faith? Nothing but this: that they were justified by Christ. He is their life. They looked forward to him, longed for him, loved him, wanted nothing more than to sit with him at his banquet table in the Kingdom.

            We only understand the lives of the forefathers when we see their connection to Christ. To take but a few: Abel makes the proper offering and himself becomes a sacrifice. Rahab hangs the scarlet rope from her window, proclaiming in advance the blood of Christ. Ruth forsakes her own people to be joined to God’s people; her sorrow is turned to joy by Boaz. David, the man after God’s own heart, sings constantly of Christ, his Mother, and his Church; Solomon builds the Temple, which prefigures the Theotokos and the Church.

            Christ is their life. And that’s the most important reason we celebrate them. They looked forward to the coming of God in the flesh, according to his ancient promise. What he spoke, they trusted. That faith shaped the way they looked at life, and shaped the way they lived.

            We celebrate them, too, because they teach us a valuable lesson. They lived in anticipation of the Christ who would come; we live in celebration of the Christ who has come. They stood between the first promise and its fulfillment; but we stand between the fulfillment of the promise and its completion. While we look back on Christ’s conception and birth, his service and suffering, his dying and rising and ascending—we also look forward to his return. As St. Paul says in our Epistle, “When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

            That hope, that anticipation of Christ’s return, shapes the way we live from day to day. Our life is not measured by the ebb and flow of politics, or the wars and rumors of wars, or the search for human justice. Our life is measured by Christ: his mercy and grace and love for mankind. I saw that life in action yesterday, as many people took time out of their busy Saturday to help Deacon Michael and Mary move to their new home. I’ve seen that life in action in countless other ways, and I could point to each and every one of you and give examples.

            So let us be encouraged, brothers and sisters; let us be inspired by the lives of those who came before and anticipated Christ. Soon, soon, our wait will be over, our faith will become sight and our hope will be fulfilled. “When Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with him in glory”: in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Homily for 9 October, 2016

         In this life, everything is hidden under its opposite. That is a great mystery, and yet it is true. And if we learned the lesson, it would revolutionize the way we live. The sorrows we face could be tokens of mercy; the joys we experience could be calls to repent and return.

         In today’s epistle, St. Paul draws a remarkable contrast: “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”

         On the one side he puts the way that things seem. We seem to be imposters, unknown, dying, punished, sorrowful, poor and having nothing. On the other side he puts the way things really are. We are true, well known, live, are not killed, are always rejoicing, making many rich and possessing everything ourselves.

         We Orthodox have a category of saint, the holy fool, who embodies these words of St. Paul. St. Basil the Blessed, St. Ksenia of Peterburg, St. Andrew of Constantinople—all these were given the grace of Christ to live their lives as homeless, sometimes naked, always disconnected from the ‘normal’ life around them but profoundly connected to the life of the living Christ. If you’ve seen the movie Ostrov—The Island—you’ve seen a depiction of a holy fool.

         It doesn’t matter to me which side of the political spectrum you stand on: liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican or Libertarian—every Orthodox Christian must see that if any time and place called for a holy fool to arise, ours is surely it. Look where we have gotten with our much-vaunted reason and education!

We have completely lost the human person. Women are treated as objects. The unborn are ripped from the womb and left to die. The poor are dishonored and disrespected. We identify ourselves with our greed and desires, and enshrine them in law. We are caught between slogans like “Black Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter.” We talk, but don’t listen; we give advice, but don’t take it; instead of works of mercy to the poor, we give words on social justice about the poor. We try to make the rest of the world in our image, and do not deal with the problems at home. When Scripture pronounces God’s harshest judgment, it does so in these words: “And so God gave them up to their own desires.” Are we not there, friends? Are we not there?

        

This is no time for nostrums, or pious pronouncements. Nothing can save us now but repentance. We must give up trying to look respectable. As St. Paul told the Corinthians, “Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise.”

        

With repentance there is hope, even in the midst of death. As we carry the corpse of western culture out to the cemetery…as we see its promise end in silence…perhaps we shall encounter Christ again, as did the widow in today’s Gospel. He raised up Russia after 70 years of atheist Bolshevism. He can do the same for us.

        

So let us live in repentance, dear brothers and sisters of Christ. Let us stop measuring with the world’s measure, and learn to measure all things by the wood of the cross—the only truly straight edge. Let us embrace, as we are able, the foolishness of him who foolishly gave himself utterly and completely to ungrateful slaves. Let us embrace, to the degree we can, the weakness and shame and scandal of the Cross. For as our Bishop reminded us a few weeks ago, there can be no resurrection Sunday without first knowing the pain of Great and Holy Friday.

On Prayer and Personhood

            Here’s a scary thought: Prayer reveals who we are. It’s the most characteristically personal activity. Consider the Pharisee and the Publican.

           

The Pharisee, we’re told, prays to himself. He was a self-made man, full of his own deeds, with no room for God or for others. “God, I thank thee that I am not like other men; for I fast twice a week, and pay tithes of all I owe…not like that publican.”

The Publican stood afar off and didn’t lift his eyes to heaven. He saw nothing wrong that anyone else had done. He merely opens the depths of his broken heart to the merciful and man-loving God: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” He alone went home justified by God.

But in both cases, prayer revealed the person.

What do my prayers reveal about me?

Consider all that I do in the course of a day.

I eat. I drink. I sleep. I feel pain and pleasure. All these reveal that I am an animal; for I share all these with the animals.

I think. I plot. I plan. I read and write. All these reveal that I am rational, like all other people and like the angels.

But none of these reveal who I am; they only show what I am. Prayer alone reveals my person. Prayer alone shows who I am.

Am I so busy pursuing animal appetites and worldly concerns that I forget to pray? When I was a little boy and sat down to lunch, I sometime started to dig in without praying. My grandma would stop me, saying, “Essen, nicht fressen”—“Eat like a human, not like an animal.”

Prayer is that most personal activity, because I open myself up before the Three-Person God. I open to him the depths of my being, and seek the depths of his. I bring before him all those other persons he has brought into my life, and offer my requests for them, and give thanks for them. To put it simply, in prayer I relate to God personally. That is why, when we pray, we begin with “Our Father.” Not just “Creator God,” which would make me just a creation. Not “My Father,” as if I stand apart from others, but Our Father. Here I include all those dear to me and not so dear, all my fellow Christians…indeed, every man and woman and child for whom Christ died and rose again.

Today’s Gospel is the high-priestly prayer of Christ—the real “Lord’s Prayer.” And it’s precious to us, because it reveals to us Who He is.

He begins by calling God “Father.” He doesn’t say, like we do, “Our Father,” but simply, “Father.”

And in so doing, he reveals himself the only Son of God, one in essence with the Father, as our Nicene Fathers confessed. He is the Father’s Son.

What is it, after all, to be Son? What does that word mean?

A son is the same nature as his father. Canine fathers produce canine sons. Human fathers produce human sons.

A son is a different person from his father. I am what my father was, but I am most certainly not who he was.

A son is, in some sense, from his father…in a way that the father is not from the son.

What about space and time? My son is younger than I am. He occupies a different place than I do.

But space and time are features of the created order. God is not a creature. So those don’t apply in him. From all eternity, the Father begot the Son; they are co-eternal. And when the Son became enfleshed, he did not leave the Father.

He is also our Savior. Even though his Person is divine, the Second Person of the blessed Trinity, that divine Person willed to join himself to our created nature. Without ceasing to be God, he became man, that through his life and death and rising we might share the divine life. Just as he is one in essence with the Father according to his divinity, he is one in essence with us according to his humanity. Begotten eternally of his Father without mother, he was born in time of a Mother, without father.

So he prays, “I have revealed your name to those you gave me.” In the ancient world, to know a thing’s name was to have access to it…to know it.  When Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord, he revealed his name to the angel. But the angel did not reveal his name back. But Christ has revealed God’s name to us; and so we have access to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. And this, my friends, is to have salvation: to share the life of the Holy Trinity.

He keeps and preserves us, too. “Holy Father,” he says, “keep them in thy name.” You see, the cares and pleasures of our body, and the worries and delights of our rational soul, can work to draw us away from that saving name. So the Son asks the Father to keep us in the name; and the Father answers the prayer of the Son by sending forth the Holy Spirit, who prays in us with groans too deep for words…who intercedes for us according to the divine will.

And so we need not fear. For the Son intercedes for us with the Father. And soon we will celebrate that great day when He poured out the Spirit from the Father upon his waiting disciples. What can we say in response? What can we do? What else, but to walk through this life in prayer and praise and thanksgiving to the only true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.