Sermon on the genealogy of Christ

            Have you ever thought about the fact that the people of the Middle Ages didn’t think of themselves as living in the Middle Ages? No; as far as they were concerned, they were modern. All the world’s prior history was leading to their time.

            And so it is with us, too. We children of the 60s and 70s had a saying, “Never trust anyone over 30.” We were the center of history; our parents and grandparents were old folks. Then time played its cruelest joke on us. We got older than 30. We had kids, and now we have grandkids. We have become our grandparents. And we have discovered, just as every previous generation, that the world doesn’t revolve around us. Like the old hymn says, “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away/ They fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.”

            Each generation thinks that it is the point of history. Time proves us wrong, so some move to the other extreme—the view that history has no point, no center. History is just “one thing after another”—in the words of Macbeth, it’s a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

            Today’s gospel sets things straight. History does have a center, a focus, a point. But it’s not us, here…it’s two thousand years ago and an ocean away. St. Matthew goes through the genealogy of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. And what a tale it tells!

            We hear of Abraham, the friend of God and father of the faithful; Isaac, the child of promise, the one who showed Abraham’s obedience; Jacob, the sneak, who got the blessing by deceit. It’s a story of sinners. Unlike most genealogies, it lists some women, too. But all of them have a question mark by their name: Rahab the harlot…Ruth the foreigner…Bathsheba the adulteress.

            We hear, too, of the high and low points of Jewish history. From God’s promise to Abraham till David the king, 14 generations go by. From that pinnacle to the exile into Babylon, another 14 generations. And from the Babylonian captivity till God’s promise to Abraham was fulfilled, took another 14 generations. Promise… Kingship…Exile—all lead to the center, the point of it all—the birth of enfleshed God. For history is, you see, his story.

            And because it is his story, it is our story too. When God the Son became man in the womb of the Virgin, he took on our humanity, in all its fullness, apart from sin.  Isn’t that what today’s gospel is all about?

            God the Son’s becoming man is, for us, a comfort. We do not have a God untouched by our weakness. He knows what we’re going through. He knows hunger and thirst, he knows poverty and temptation. He even knows sin—not because he sinned, but because he took our sin on himself and conquered it for us.

            God the Son’s becoming man is also a challenge. There are many human beings, but only one humanity. When I say, “I am human,” “You are human,” “Christ is human,” the word “human” refers to one and the same thing. 

We have a habit of excluding some from the human community. When the head of the NRA spoke about the school shooting in Connecticut, he referred to “monsters among us.” Some of our leaders refer to the Iranians seeking nuclear power as “insane.” When we were broken into, some of us thought, “What kind of person would do that?”

But the reality is, there are not two or more humanities. All these people: the school shooter, our enemies on the world stage, and those who hurt us personally—all alike share the same humanity with us, and with incarnate God. So do the poor, the prideful, the weak and the wealthy.

The challenge for us, then, is to love them all alike—not making distinctions, not allowing for classes, not treating anyone different from another. For God the Son became man, and in his incarnation he embraces each and every one of us. Let us, therefore, embrace each other in love! History is his story, and his story is the story of abiding love, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

           

Homily for Second Sunday of St. Luke

Today's texts teach one theme: the theme of theosis. In our Epistle we hear, “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” And the Lord Jesus says, “Love your enemies...and you will become sons of the Most High.” 
 

What is theosis? Quite simply, that we become sons and daughters of God: that what he is by nature, we become by grace. Or, as St. Athanasius says, “God became man, so that we might become god.”

 
God, in Christ, became man.

He who was eternally begotten of a Father without mother,

      was begotten in time of a mother without father.

He whom the heavens cannot contain,

      was held within the womb of a woman.

He who nourishes all creation,

      was fed on milk.

He did not come because we were worthy,

      but because we were dead, in trespasses and sin,

      held by Satan in bondage to sin.

He did not come because we sought him, or wanted him;

      he came because he is good and loves mankind,

      because he saw his work falling into decay,

      and willed to raise us to life,

           to forgive our sins,

           and restore his image and likeness in us.

He won us for himself, by active, patient love,

      by taking our guilt and sin on himself,

      and by pouring out his holy, divine life into death.

He rose from the dead, trampling down death by death,

      and to those in the tombs bestowing life.

He ascended into heaven, that he might fill all things;

      he poured out the promise of the Spirit from the Father

           upon his waiting Church.

Now the Holy Spirit works in the Church, bringing us through the Son to the Father.

The Holy Spirit indwells us, and so we are God's holy Temple.

He births us in holy Baptism, he anoints us with holy Chrism, he makes the bread and wine to be Christ's own flesh and blood so that we might receive Christ,

     and with Christ, forgiveness; and with Christ, eternal life.

Let us not forget how great a price was paid for us, beloved;

     let us not forget to what end it was paid.

Christ did not suffer to make us happy, to give us our “best life now.”

He did not die to give us an excuse to wallow in sin and self.

He did not rise to give us this life, extended out forever.

He suffered to give meaning and purpose to our suffering;

He died so that we might die to sin;

He rose to give us his own divine, indestructible life.

It's through much suffering that we enter the Kingdom of God;

it's through dying to sin that we are free to serve others;

it's through sharing his own indestructible life that we truly know God.

This is an election season, beloved; in a little over a month we will choose who will govern our nation and state. But every day, and every moment, we hold a little election. Shall we let the idols around us, come to live in God's temple? May it never be!

Rather, if we are the Temple of God, and we are, then let us give ourselves over to worship. (That's what temples are for, after all.) Let us be constant in prayer, in Scripture, in giving thanks to God.

If we are the sons of God, and we are, then let us live as sons of God. Let us seek Christ in the least of his brothers and sisters: the poor, the sick, and the ones whom nobody loves. Let us love our enemies and do good; let us lend, expecting nothing in return. Let us learn to become merciful, even as our God is merciful: for that, beloved, is the way of theosis...that is the way to the Kingdom, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Sermon on Sunday before Holy Cross (Jn 3.14f; Gal. 6)

            A priest once heard a woman sobbing in the stillness of a church. He wondered, “What could be the problem?” Did someone die? Were they ill? Had they lost their job? He went up to console her and asked, “What’s the trouble?”

Her answer stunned him. “Father, I call myself a Christian. But my life is going well. I have no suffering, no sorrows, and no problems worth talking about. I am worried that perhaps I have fallen from Christ.”

            How strange her remark sounds…but how right-on it is! The Christian life is marked by suffering. The Christian life is marked by the cross, and where there is no cross, there there is no Christ. St. Paul told the Hebrews, “If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”

            Now sometimes the cross comes to us unsought. The person whose marriage falls apart despite their best efforts…the one who hears that horrid word ‘cancer’ from the doctor…the one who becomes isolated at school because he bears the name of Christ…nobody wants these things, no one desires them, but they come nonetheless.

            Joachim and Anna bore the cross of childlessness. When we read their story, and hear how uprightly they lived, and how cruelly they were taunted, it makes us weep. But it was through their suffering, and through their prayers, that God made them ready to become parents of the Theotokos. How else can we explain how willing they were to give her up to life in the Temple at just three years of age? Their suffering bore rich fruit.

            But what about us? What if we have no suffering in our life, to speak of? Well, in such times we can take up the cross of self-discipline. Prayer, fasting and alms are all means by which we say “no” to ourselves and “yes” to God and to others.

            There are those who like to say they follow “the theology of the cross,” and surely the cross is a wonderful theology to follow. But for St. Paul and for all the saints from then till now, the cross is not merely a clever phrase, or way of speaking. For all the saints, the cross is a daily experience of being united to Christ in his sufferings. St. Paul says, “God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of Christ, whereby I was crucified to the world, and the world was crucified to me.” And again, he tells us, “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.” Where there is no cross, there there is no Christ.

            But why? Why is the cross so necessary for the Christian life? If we are the children of God, then why must we suffer…why must we discipline ourselves?

            In the first place, the suffering of Christ was the means by which he gave his life for us; and if we are to receive that life, suffering is the means by which it enters us. In today’s gospel Jesus tells Nicodemus, “As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, so that all who believe in him should have eternal life.”

            Think of a blood transfusion. The one who donates the blood, gives it through a wound opened in his body with a needle. But the one who receives it, must receive it through a wound opened in his body likewise with a needle. When we embrace suffering, not with complaining but with repentance and faith, we are joined to the one who joined himself to us completely on the cross.

            And suffering accomplishes its work in another way. Soren Kierkegaard tells the story of a swan who flew high above a barnyard. He worked hard to get his food; but the ducks in the barnyard were fed by the farmer. One day his curiosity got the best of him. He landed in the barnyard. To his surprise, the farmer didn’t try to catch him. Instead, he fed the swan.

            Day after day, the swan began to land in the barnyard for his food. He grew fatter and slower. Finally one day the farmer went to grab him…and he had become so fat he was unable to escape.

            Kierkegaard asks us, “What if someone had scared off the swan…had made his time in the barnyard unpleasant.? The swan would never have been caught by the farmer. That’s what the cross does in our life. It reminds us that this life, where so many glory in the wrong things, is fundamentally upside down. All the glory, all the pleasure, all the power of this world ends at the grave.

            But those who have been joined to Christ in his sufferings have something different to look forward to. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs-- heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

            So let us learn to embrace the suffering that comes our way in this life. Let us embrace the disciplines of prayer, and alms, and fasting. Wherever we see Christ suffer, there let us join him, whether it is the poor, the hungry, the sick—wherever he hides himself. For our cross, embraced in repentance and faith, joins us to Christ’s cross, the source of our life. And by the cross the Lord will teach us to look past these present passing pleasures, to the eternal joy at his right hand, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Sermon on the Sunday after Transfiguration, 2012

            Two things surprise me about today’s Gospel lesson. While the Lord Jesus was on the mountain with Peter, James and John, a man had brought his demon-possessed son to the other disciples and asked them to cast out the demon. Try as they might, they couldn’t do it. So when the Lord returned, the man came to him directly and asked him to do it. At once the demon left the boy. The disciples, all embarrassed, took Jesus aside privately and asked, “Why couldn’t we cast it out?”

            And that brings us to the first surprise. Jesus answers, “Because you have no faith.” Ouch! He doesn’t say, “Because you have small faith,” or “because you have weak faith.” No; he tells these men who had been living with him for two years or more, “You have no faith.” Zero. Zip. Nada. Talk about bringing someone down to the ground!

            Think of all the problems we face. Sometimes, as in our Gospel lesson, others bring us those problems. (As Tevye says, in Fiddler on the Roof, “Life obliges us with hardships…”) We wonder, “How can I help this person who’s come to me for aid?”

And sometimes we bring those problems on ourselves. We worry, we think, we try different strategies, all to no avail.

Meanwhile, we assume that we have faith, and that we just need to figure out that missing something—whatever it might be. But all to no avail. Our problems don’t so much get solved, as get exchanged for other ones.

What if all these other problems just distract us from the one problem that all of life’s about? What if we keep on attacking the symptoms, but never address the root cause?

What if, instead, we took the Lord’s diagnosis to heart? “Why, Lord, am I so ineffective? Why can’t I get things done for you?” “Because you have no faith.”

When I first became Orthodox, Deacon David Khorey told me about a priest he knew growing up. The priest used to say to people, on a regular basis, “Pray for my conversion.”

“Pray for my conversion.” Isn’t that what’s it’s all about, after all? The struggle of our lifetime isn’t with this or that problem others bring to us…or the problems we see in ourself. The struggle of our lifetime is simply this: that before we die, we come to faith in our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Didn’t he say, after all, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Didn’t his apostle say, “I do not consider that I have made it my own”—and by “it” he means “the righteousness from God that depends on faith”?

Why, after all, do we struggle with prayer, and reading the Scripture, and coming to Matins and Vespers? Why do we seek our own pleasure, and get into power struggles? Why do we grow so often dissatisfied? At root, it’s a faith-problem.

In the book, The Way of a Pilgrim, the pilgrim goes to a renowned monk for confession. The pilgrim lists every sin he can remember from his youth up. When the monk sees his list, he tells the pilgrim, “You have all these things, but you’ve forgotten the main sins.” “What do you mean?” the pilgrim asks, and the monk gives him his own list. Four items are listed, and one of them is “I have no religious belief.”

But just that fact brings us to the second surprise of the text. And to me it’s even more amazing than the first. Jesus doesn’t forsake these men. St. Matthew continues, “As they were traveling together through Galilee…”

He knew that one would betray him. He knew that another would deny him. He knew that all of them alike would forsake him. But he didn’t forsake them. He stayed with them. He gave them all he was, and all he had.  As John says in his gospel, “…Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the uttermost.”

You see, unbelief doesn’t get the last word with Christ. Neither does sin. Neither does death. His love for us is the ground on which we build our faith. His holy death covers our sin—indeed, by death he trampled death, and rose again for us. Take a look at the icon of the Anastasis. The Lord Jesus stands triumphant over death and hades; all the locks of hades’ gates lie scattered and broken beneath him. And then, in his strong hands he pulls Adam and Eve from hades. Look carefully, and you will see that he is holding them by the wrist, not by the hand. There is synergy, of course—they have their hands extended. But the work of pulling them out is his work.

So let us stop swatting at symptoms, and look to the root. Let us accept the Lord’s judgment and see that our problem is with faith. Let us learn to say with Deacon David’s friend, “Pray for my conversion.” For he who died for you and rose for you, promises, “I will never fail you, I will never forsake you. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. In the world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.”

A Strange Uniate argument

We had an interesting guest at the parish today--a Byzantine Catholic whose brother is Orthodox. Both were raised Protestant. When I expressed surprise to the one brother that he would have chosen to become Byzantine Catholic, he used what I consider to be an odd explanation.

Referring to JH Newman's The Development of Doctrine, and connecting it to John 6, he claimed first, that doctrine has continued to develop (in the Newman sort of way). He then claimed that the end of John 6 is normative for the whole history of the church, and that unless a body continues to develop its teachings and bring each new generation to a crisis-point--a point at which some or many of Christ's disciples leave or are tempted to leave--unless that happens, such a body cannot be the Church Christ founded.

To him, it is proof of Orthodoxy's error that it has held no council since 787. (Of course I pointed out the council of 879, which rejected the filioque; I could also have cited the Palamite councils of the 1340's, but no matter.) In any case, I found it odd for a Uniate to argue that the Orthodox Church presents no ongoing crisis-point at which some leave, given that the Uniate movement arose precisely as a departure from the Orthodox faith in favor of Rome.

But I've seen a similar defense for western discussions of, say, original sin and justification. "We in the West have had to deal with more problems than you in the East," this argument goes, "and so our theological language is more precise than yours." It seems to me to be a little like a Saab owner arguing that his car is superior to a Honda, because it has required more time in the shop.

The Church has had councils since 787, of course, as mentioned above. But ongoing theological crises scarcely seem to be a hallmark of truth. It is good when dysfunctional homes work through troubles to achieve some modicum of stability; but it is better when no such internal troubles arise.

Homily for Pentecost 2012

            Today is the feast of Pentecost. Today God’s promises are fulfilled, our hope is accomplished, and the Church is born. Today the curse of Babel is reversed. Long ago men sought to make a name for themselves by building a tower to reach heaven, and by divine judgment their tongues were scattered. But today the Holy Spirit is poured out in tongues of flame, and God unites men and women and children of every race and tribe and tongue, by giving them the name of the consubstantial Trinity, one in essence and undivided.

            Those of us who came from western Christian traditions knew the Sunday after Pentecost as the Sunday of the Holy Trinity. But in the Orthodox Church, we mark the day of Pentecost itself as the day of the Holy Trinity—and there is wisdom in this choice. For on this day, at last the Spirit is most clearly revealed as he comes to the Church in fiery tongues. Here is how St. Gregory the Theologian puts it:

“The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely.  The New manifested the Son, and suggested the Deity of the Spirit.  Now the Spirit Himself dwells among us, and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of Himself.“

But why this ordering of revelation? St. Gregory continues, “For it was not safe, when the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, plainly to proclaim the Son; nor when that of the Son was not yet received to burden us further (if I may use so bold an expression) with the Holy Ghost; lest perhaps people might, like men loaded with food beyond their strength, and presenting eyes as yet too weak to bear it to the sun’s light, risk the loss even of that which was within the reach of their powers; but that by gradual additions, and, as David says, Goings up, and advances and progress from glory to glory, the Light of the Trinity might shine upon the more illuminated.”  Thus far Gregory.

So the order in which God shows himself is Father, Son and Spirit. But the order by which we come to know him, reverses the order. We come in the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father. The Spirit makes us to know the Son, for “no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit,” as St. Paul says, and Christ himself says, “when the Comforter comes, he will bear witness about me.”

By the grace of the Holy Spirit, we come to know the Son. In the 19^th century, some liberal theologians wrote lives of Jesus. Finally, Albert Schweitzer wrote a history of those books. He remarks that the Jesus each of them portrayed looked a lot more like an idealized portrait of the theologian. And it happens again today, as people take Christ out of context to make him support their own agendas. At the end, we begin to wonder who Jesus is.

The Holy Spirit makes it clear. He brings us to know Jesus as the Son of the Father, Light from Light, true God from true God, one in essence but distinct in Person. He also makes us to know his own relation to the Son, for at the Baptism of Jesus he comes from the Father and rests on the Son. And so we believe, and so we confess, that the Spirit proceeds, not from the Father and the Son, but from the Father alone, and rests on the Son.

So in the Second Comforter, we come to know the First Comforter, the Word of God made flesh for us men and for our salvation. And through the First Comforter, we come to know the Father. On the night of Christ’s betrayal, Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” Jesus responded, “Have I been so long with you, and still you do not know me? Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father…I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.”

Note carefully: Christ distinguishes his Person from the Person of the Father. He does not say, “I am the Father,” but “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.” But he shows their unity of essence by speaking of “Father” and “Son,” for all fathers are the same essence as the sons they beget. Horse fathers beget horse sons, human fathers beget human sons. Since, in this case, the Father is God, the Son must also be God.

Through the Son we know the Father. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.” The cross of Christ is not that of an innocent child crushed by an angry, abusive father.  At Christ’s cross, rather, we see the complete, self-giving love of the Father. Such love!—that he gives us the one in whom dwells all the fullness of deity bodily—utterly and completely gives him, life into death, that through his death we might share the life of the Holy Trinity.

And now, let us never go further. Let us never seek to innovate, or be creative. Let us remain in the teaching we have received, the faith given once for all to the saints. Each week we say, just before the Creed, “Let us love one another, that with one accord we may confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity one in essence and undivided.”

To remain in the Orthodox faith is to remain in love—love for God who has revealed himself, and love for all those who faithfully handed down this truth to us. And the reverse is true. To depart from love—to act out the pride of Babel—is to depart from the Orthodox faith.

So on this day of Pentecost, let us, like them, remain together and in one accord. Let us love each other fervently, not only in word but in deed and truth. By this all men will know that we are Christ’s disciples; and by this we will come, in the Spirit and through the Son, to know the Father.

Why would anyone in their right mind go to get water at high noon? Getting water, back then, was hard work. It wasn’t a job you’d want to do by yourself. And it certainly wasn’t something to do in the heat of the day. Yet there she was, day after day, in the heat of the day, coming to the well. But this day something was different. A man sat there—a Jew. He sat by the well, tired. Whether we recognize it or not, we put up little walls around ourselves. There’s the wall between the sexes, the wall between social classes, the wall between old and young. It requires extra effort for us to approach someone who’s different than we are. We have to climb these walls first. At the well that day, that tired Jewish traveler broke down all the walls—it was as if they didn’t even exist for him. First he talked to her. “Woman, give me a drink.” She was shocked, and pointed out the walls. “How can you, a Jewish man, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” Now that he had her attention, he shocked her. “If you had known God’s gift, and who asks you, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” She was confused. Living water? Who did he think he was? So she tried to put him into context. “Our father Jacob gave us this well to drink from; are you greater than him?” See how gently, yet powerfully he replies. He doesn’t compare himself directly to Jacob. He points out that Jacob’s water doesn’t really satisfy our thirst…but that his water, the living water, will become a spring inside us. (Talk about indoor plumbing!) So she commits herself to him. “Sir, give me this water, so that I might not thirst, or have to come here to draw.” Her heart is opening…the walls are down…all, that is, but one. “Go call your husband,” he tells her, “and come here.” “But I have no husband,” she answers. “You speak truly,” he says, “for you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband.” Now the last wall comes down. Now we understand why she came every day at noon, by herself. She was a woman scorned by all the others, an outcast, a misfit. He knew it all…but still he loved her. But she was also a woman with insight. She confessed him to be a prophet, and asked him the most burning Jewish/ Samaritan question: where is the right place to worship, in Samaria or Jerusalem? She wasn’t ready for his answer. “Soon,” he said, “neither here nor Jerusalem. For God is looking for those who worship him in spirit and in truth.” Who was this weary traveler? Clearly he was greater than Jacob. He even seemed greater than a prophet. So she brought up the Messiah. “When Messiah comes, he will explain everything to us,” she said. “I who speak to you am he,” Jesus replied. Now her life was truly turned upside down. She forgot all about getting water. She even left her water pot there at the well. She ran into the town and broke down their walls by saying, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he be the Messiah?” We often hear this text preached as an evangelism text…and so it is. But this morning, I invite you to put yourself in the place of this woman, Photeini...to see how Christ deals with us. Her daily trip to the well represents the things we thirst for every day…our desires. In Jeremiah, the Lord says, “My people have committed two great evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed out for themselves broken cisterns, which hold no water.” The walls we build around ourselves, to protect ourselves, simply don’t exist for him. He knows us as we are. Yet still he loves us. He offers us the living water—his Holy Spirit—so that we may be refreshed and energized day after day to live for him. The mediaeval write Thomas de Celano meditated on todays text and wrote, in Latin, Quarens me sedisti lassus; Redemisti, crucem passus; Tantus labor non sit casus! Translated, it says, “Seeking me, you sat weary (by the well); you redeemed me, suffering on the cross; (O Lord,) don’t let such labor go for nothing! It won’t go for nothing, beloved, as we open ourselves to Christ like St. Photeini…when we receive from him this great gift he gives…the gift of living water. Thirsty? Come and drink!