Sermon on Matt 9:27-35.

I’m going to tell you the same thing this year that I told you last year about this gospel. But I’ll try to say the same thing in different words. You don’t want to hear the same words two years in a row. We like a little more spice than that. Otherwise, we wouldn’t need a sermon at all.

The gospel itself says what needs to be said – and says it better than any preacher, even if his mouth is made of gold and his words are like pearls. So let’s not get any wrong ideas, the sermon has a place, but its place is beneath the proclamation of the Gospel. It’s like the placement of the candle or the lamp before the holy icon.

There’s no question here of the relative importance. The icon is what matters most. The flame is there to give living light to the icon. Likewise, a sermon, if it is any good, illuminates the gospel. If the sermon is no good, that’s unfortunate but thanks be to God the gospel continues to shine with its own light.

Likewise, the icons are filled with an interior light. I don’t know if you’ve studied the icons too much, but if you compare them to classical images, or to images produced during and after the Renaissance in the West, you can observe a significant difference with regard to the lighting. The figures in an icon are illuminated almost as it from within. The light shines from within them, rather than from a chosen external source or sources. When you study Western painting, one of the things you have to master is choosing and remaining consistent to a light source. And when you study Eastern iconography, you have to forget what you learned from Western painting. Anyway, that is the case if, like me, you were first trained in a western-style and then moved on to iconography.

But you see, the point of this is, the icon shines with its own light, and the gospel shines with its own light, yet the candle helps us to see the icon, and gives it a living pulsing warmth, and the sermon, if it is any good, does the same for the gospel.

Anyway, I haven’t gotten around to repeating myself yet. Here is what I would like to repeat, we can learn a lot about how to pray from these two blind men who follow after Jesus, saying “Have mercy on us, son of David!” I’m going to say again, like I said last year, that this is one of the roots of the Jesus prayer.

Yes, Father, we know. You told us that last year, and we would never forget what you said from one year to the next.

Nevertheless, some things are worth repeating. And one of those things is the Jesus Prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.

You can hear an echo of this, I think, pretty clearly in the prayer of the two blind men. They have the right idea: follow after Jesus, call out to him and say, have mercy on us! This is the way of life. Jesus is the way and he is the life.

“My advice to both the young and the elderly is for each one of you to make a prayer rope.  Hold it with your left hand, and as you make the sign of the Cross with your right hand, say:  Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Those are not my words. They are the words of Saint Kosmas of Aitolos.

It’s hard to overstate the simplicity of this discipline of this Prayer. When I have suggested it to some, they have protested but they don’t know how to do this prayer. They said, we’re familiar with the rosary, but we don’t know how to pray this chotki. This baffles me. Because, while the Rosary is a lovely private Roman Catholic prayer devotion, it’s actually quite a bit more complicated than the chotki, or prayer rope.

Allow me to explain how we pray the chotki. On the each of the knots, we repeat the prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy on me, the sinner.” If this is too much, you can simply say “Lord Jesus, have mercy.” You now know how to pray the chotki.

So do it. Pray it every single day. Get yourself a small 33 knotted one for starters, rather than one of those that goes on for miles. Then when you pray that daily without fail, maybe consider moving up to one with 50 knots, or a hundred knots, or then 200 knots. Or don’t. So long as you continue to pray.

The mysticism surrounding this practice has left some mystified to the extent that they do not attempt to pray this prayer. And that is a tragedy. Remember the simplicity of this prayer and keep to it, even when you hear of the mystical experiences it has transported others into. Even if you do not yourself have these mystical experiences, at least not yet.

The experience we mainly hear of is the seeing of the uncreated Taboric light. That is, the light with which Jesus shone at his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. The light of God made visible to men. After all, we are praying to the one who is light, like the blind men who prayed to him and were given light by him with which to see.

When we called out repeatedly to the light of all for mercy, it is no wonder he fills us with his light. Remember how I spoke before about the icons shining with an internal light. A light coming from within. Our whole purpose in life is to become one with Jesus, who is the light of all, and to be filled with his light. We are all called to holiness. The halos in the icons are meant for your heads as well as for those who are already in glory. But we cannot fashion our own halos. And the light shining from within the holy ones in the icon is the light of Christ.

So how do we join them in this blessedness? One way I know is to humble ourselves before our creator and to call out to him again and again without ceasing, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner.”

The best things are worth repeating, like the gospel, which we repeat each year.

Let us never stop repeating the Jesus prayer, not even for a moment. Let us repeat the prayer of Jesus as often as our hearts beat. May our lips ceaselessly and prayerfully murmur the name of Jesus as we go about our day. And he will fill our lives with his light and drive out every darkness. Though we have been blind, he will make us to see.

On Matthew 9:1-8 

Aslan always calls us humans “sons of Adam” and “daughters of Eve.” This is true. That is, Adam is a type of the humans we are. I am Adam. When the Lord walks in the garden in the cool of the day and calls out, “Adam, where are you?” it’s you and me that he is looking for (Gen 3:8-9).

As such Adamic humans, we are subject to all manner of affliction. Because, through our father Adam, “sin came into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom 5:12). Affected and weakened by our mortality, we have all fallen into sin and short of the glory of God. We all stand in need of forgiveness. And we are all witness to suffering and death.

Today, one of our fellow suffering sons of Adam – a paralytic – is carried by his faithful friends to Jesus. And Jesus calls this suffering son of Adam, “my son.” So, the son of Adam becomes the son of Christ, who is the new Adam. Jesus says to him, “Take heart, my son” or, “Be of good cheer, my son,” or, “Have courage, my son. Your sins are forgiven.”

Through his father Adam, mortality and paralysis came to the man and in his weakness, he sinned. Through his father Christ, his sins are forgiven, his paralysis healed, and his life promised.

Jesus calls the paralytic man his son, his child, his τέκνον. This word is a term of endearment, an expression of loving fatherly regard. Sometimes there is a whole sermon in one word of the gospel. This word τέκνον is the gospel. When the Son of God calls the son of Adam, “my son,” that’s the gospel. That is God tenderly reaching out to humanity as to his own children and inviting us to reach out to God as to our own father. Jesus is inviting us to a relationship more intimate than that of master and slave, or of teacher and disciple. He lovingly relates to us as a father to his children.

Jesus does not frequently call us his children. Today’s gospel offers us a rare instance of that. Other friendly and familial images prevail. Jesus says that whoever does the will of his Father in heaven is his brother and sister and mother (Matt 12:50). So, we understand ourselves as brothers and sisters of Christ, our fellow human, our fellow son of Adam. He is the Son of God who became the son of Adam, the Son of Man. He is the God who became like one of us, our brother.

We do call him teacher and Lord, and fittingly enough, for that is what he his (John 13:13). He is our brother, but we are not his equals. He is our elder brother, the first born, “born of the Father before all ages,” and the first born of those who have died (Col 1:18). He is above us, of course, and so he is also like a father to us. In fact, his work is the work of the Father (cf. John 5:17). He is about his Father’s business (Luke 2:49). And those who see him, see the Father. He is the image of the Father for us.

Elsewhere, Jesus gives us another parental image of himself, comparing himself to a mother hen. He laments to Jerusalem, “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Mat 23:37). With words and images like these, Jesus invites us into a familial relationship.

St. Makarios the Great says, “He who wishes to be a friend of God, and a brother and son of Christ, must do something more than other men, that is, to consecrate heart and mind themselves, and to stretch up his thoughts towards God…. When a man gives God his secret things, that is, his mind and thoughts, not occupying himself elsewhere, nor wandering away, but putting constraint upon himself, then the Lord deems him worthy of mysteries… and gives him heavenly food and spiritual drink.”

Unfortunately, contrary to St. Makarios, we often get caught up in a minimalistic approach to life in Christ. We ask, “What must I do to be saved?” And we mean, what’s the least I can do and still make it to heaven? What kind of restrictions is Christianity going to place on me? What are the minimum requirements of the job of being a Christian? What rules do I have to follow if I am to be a follower of Christ?

Do I have to go to the liturgy every Sunday, or is it alright if I make it just once or twice a month, so long as I don’t miss three Sundays in a row? The Council of Trullo says that’s enough to keep from getting excommunicated, so that’s enough, right? What about feast days? Do I have to go to church on feast days, too? Which ones? Do I have to go on all the great feasts? Or just on those days that Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh has designated as holy days of obligation? What about fasting? Do I have to fast, too? Do I have to keep the full monastic fasting tradition as described in the Typikon or is it enough to just eat fish on Fridays? What about tithing? Do I have to offer a full ten percent, or can I figure the ten percent after the taxes have been taken out, giving the government the first fruits rather than the Church? Or, what if I just put in a five spot? That’s good enough, right?

My brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s not about being good enough. We get caught up sometimes in this. Rules are good and they have their place. They are there for us when we need to fall back on them. But Jesus is inviting us to more than this. Not to less, but to more. He’s calling us to be his children, his brethren, his friends. He loves us as more than slaves, followers, servants, disciples, or students. We are these things, or should be, but he freely and gratuitously loves us more than that. He loves us as his brothers and sisters and mothers, and as his friends. He says to his true disciples, “I no longer call you servants, but friends” (Jn 15.15). And he loves us as his children, saying to those who are faithful, “take heart, my children, your sins are forgiven.”

So let’s not seek what is the least we can do for Christ who has done everything for us – who lives and dies for us. Rather, let’s seek to do the most we can do. Let’s seek to make everything we do to be for Christ.

In terms of our worship, let us everywhere worship God who is everywhere. Let us come often to the church for worship, but let us also worship God everywhere. Pray unceasingly. Make everything we do prayerful. Worship Christ, who is present in the least of his brethren, by serving them wherever they are in the world.

In terms of giving, let’s give all that we can to the parish, yes, but also recognize that all that we have is really the Lord’s – not ten percent, but one hundred percent. Even the money we pay toward our mortgages is for the Lord’s work, if we are living in Christ. Our houses are to be for the building up of the domestic Church. The Church includes and needs the parish, but it is not limited to parish buildings, programs, and operations. It is everywhere. It is where we live and work and play.

What I’m saying is that life in Christ is not to be merely a part of our life, but our whole life. Jesus does not want to walk into our lives like a boss walks into an office and around whom everyone feels the need to look busy. When Jesus comes into our lives, let’s invite him to make himself at home. He gives us the unbearably profound opportunity to be on intimate, friendly, and familial terms with God. So let us practice constantly an awareness of God’s presence in every moment of our lives, in everything that we do, everywhere that we go. Because, Christ wants to be more to us than our master. Not less than our master, but more. He wants to be our friend, our brother, and our father.

Archimandrite Irenei says, “Christianity proclaims, into our broken and disfigured world, promises that defy our expectation – that sin can be forgiven, that the broken can be restored, that the sick can be healed, that the dead can arise. And yet in the midst of so many great and wonderful promises, there is perhaps none greater and none more profound than the promise that the human person, for all his frailty, weakness, rebellion, and apostasy, this human creature may become the friend of the Creator of all; that he may become brother and son to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”