My uncle Frank died last week. And yesterday we buried Maria, a sister of the Rosens and a cousin of the Burjas. And, as Father Deacon Lawrence mentioned last week, Rick, the Deacon and Doctor and Carpenter who was making some new tables for our holy place, also died recently. Death is all around us, occurs regularly and inconveniently, and comes for us all. We know not when.

In a Byzantine funeral, we read several Gospels. There may be a gospel read at the home (or, these days, at the funeral home) just before the body is taken to the Church. Actually, I am told that in the old village churches, the custom was to walk and to carry the body in procession from the home to the church and to stop three times on the way and each time to read a gospel. When the body arrives in the narthex of the church, there in the narthex, before we carry the body into the nave, we read a gospel. Then, after we sing the Beatitudes, there are readings, including a gospel. Then, when the funeral in the church is ended, we recess back to the narthex and there, before the body is taken from the church, we read a gospel. Then, at the graveside, before the interment itself, we may read a gospel.

By my count, that makes up to seven gospel readings over the body of a departed Byzantine Catholic. Perhaps this is the reason that our funeral books provide seven gospel readings to choose from. I do not know. Now, you may say that you have been to a Byzantine funeral and you do not recall hearing so many gospel readings. True. Many of these readings are listed as optional and we do not always choose to read them. And because of the realities of modern life, we now seldom-to-never walk in procession from the home of the departed person to the church with their body and so the opportunity to read gospels during this procession is lost. Nonetheless, if you have been to a Byzantine funeral, I expect you have heard at least three gospels read over the body of the departed. Why so much Gospel reading to the dead? Can the dead hear the gospel? And, make no mistake, these proclamations of the Gospel are addressed to the person in the casket or the coffin every bit as much as they are addressed to those who have come to mourn and pray.

The departed one is a participant in the funeral. They are with us in the church not only in spirit but also in body one last time. The funeral is the last service they attend in the body until their Resurrection. This is one reason why we do not encourage cremation and, even if the body is to be cremated for unavoidable reasons, that we would have the funeral in the church with the body before the cremation.

With regards to the cremation question, please do not mistake me. This can be misunderstood in superstitious ways. So let me tell you something clearly. When God says to ashes, “Become a living man,” they do. It wouldn’t be the first time, remember, that God made a man out of dust. He can do that sort of thing.

When the dead are reduced to dry bones, the Lord knows that even then they can live. The Lord told Ezekiel to prophesy to dry bones in the valley and say, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord… Behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” And when Ezekiel had thus prophesied, “there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And… there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them… and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.” (Ez. 37:1-14) We read this from Ezekiel at Jerusalem Matins, which is the funeral of Christ and my favorite service of Holy Week.

The word of God is mighty over all creation. Even dry bones hear the word of God and stand up. And there is no question or fear that the cremated will not rise. They will rise as surely as any will rise. They will rise first before the living to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess 4:16-17). So please do not mistake what I have been saying. Rather it is a question of sensibility and symbol. A symbol by the way is a presentation of reality and not merely a signpost. If we really believe that this person will arise as surely as did the son of the Widow of Nain in today’s gospel, and we really understand and meditate upon that for a long time, I don’t think our instinct will be to burn their body until it is reduced to ashes. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from a resurrection perspective to do that to a body. It’s not going to stop the hand of God from raising them. We have no fear. And if you have cremated your loved ones, you have done no evil. Sometimes there is no other way and the Church understandingly permits this. It’s only that burial is a better way, as the Church has always recommended.

And it is better for the departed one to attend their own funeral in the body.

If you read carefully the prayers of the funeral, you will notice that many of them are written in the first-person singular. Not “we” but “I.” For example, we pray, “I am the image of your ineffable glory even though I bear the scars of my transgressions…. Grant me the homeland for which I yearn, and again make me a citizen of paradise.” Not all, but many of the prayers of our funeral are written this way. These are the prayers of the departed person lying among us, to which we give voice because they have lost the power to sing in the church. So we sing for them. We give voice to their prayer for them.

What’s the use of all of this? Do the dead hear the gospel? Can the dead pray to the Lord? Will the shades stand and praise you? (Ps. 88:10). Yes! And again I say yes. That is indeed the whole point.

We are not innovating when we proclaim the gospel to the dead. Rather, we are imitating Jesus Christ who proclaims the gospel to the dead. Today, he proclaims the gospel to the departed son of the Widow of Nain. He says to that young man, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” And the dead man sits up and begins to speak. That’s the gospel. That’s the good news. That, though you will die, Jesus will say to you, “Arise!” And you will sit up and begin to speak. That’s the gospel. That is what we’re praying for the person who lies among us at every funeral.

By the way, Jesus said this to the young man as he was being carried out in procession. And this is the gospel that we read as the body is being carried out of the church in procession at the end of the funeral. It is, for me, one of the most poignant moments of the funeral when I proclaim to the person as we are carrying them out, “Arise!” For I know that I am proclaiming, in that moment, the gospel. And the words coming out of my mouth are not my words but the words of Jesus Christ. And they will be obeyed. That person will arise. So, yes, we proclaim the gospel to the dead. The gospel is for them and the gospel is that death will have no dominion over them.

We often hear the expression, “I hope I live to see it.” And I think we know what we mean by that. I used to have some friends who would say, “I hope I live to see the Cubs win the World Series.” I grew up not too far from Chicago, you see. Well, as you may know, people don’t say that anymore. They might say “I hope I live to see the Cubs win the World Series again,” but that’s a whole other issue. Just the other day, Judy said to me that she hopes she lives to see the reunion of the Orthodox and Catholic Church. Amen. But I responded then, because I’m kind of a smart aleck, “You will! Because you will live forever.” That is the whole point. Death for us is no longer death. Death for us is, as Paul intimates, a sleep from which we will awaken (e.g. 1 Thess 4:13-16).

 

Let us press in upon Jesus to hear the word of God (cf. Luke 5:1). When we do, maybe he’ll withdraw a little, as if getting into Simon’s boat and putting out a little from the land, but he won’t neglect to teach us (Luke 5:3).  Let us each seek out and listen to the word of God in our own lives. He is always speaking to us, I believe, in the language of our lives. But it can be difficult to make out what he’s saying over the crashing of the waves.

The word of God to us is often counterintuitive.

What he’s telling us often isn’t what we want to hear.

It’s often not easily recognized or understood, agreeable or believable to us.

Hearing the word of God and keeping it requires a little faith.

Hearing the word of God is like toiling all night in a boat on the lake in the grueling and backbreaking work of fishing. Casting nets, pulling them in, catching nothing. Casting again, pulling in again, catching nothing again. All night long. Hour after hour. Then, exhausted and disheartened, giving up, coming near the shore to wash your fruitless nets and call it quits only to hear a man command you to put out again into the deep and to let down your nets again for a catch (Luke 5:4).

You know how good it feels to get home from work after a long day. But how would it feel if, when you just get home, your boss calls you and tells you to come back in and get back to work? My first thought probably wouldn’t be that this is the word of God to me. My first thought would probably have more to do with what my boss could do with his suggestions. To recognize such a seemingly mad suggestion as the word of God would take a little faith.

Simon, who Jesus will later call Peter, has a little faith. He says to Jesus, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! Nevertheless, at your word I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:5). Notice that he doesn’t say, “for a catch.” Jesus tells him to let down the nets “for a catch,” but Peter just says that he’ll let down the nets. He’s holding on to a little skepticism, I think, but he also has a little faith. As it happens, God is the master of more than fish, and so the haul they take in by heeding his word was enough to nearly sink two boats.

Let us listen carefully for the word of God in our lives and be open to it, because it can be counterintuitive. Our God is a God of surprises.

Hearing the word of God is also like long suffering from a thorn in the flesh – a weakness of body or spirit or condition of life – and asking the Lord to remove it, yet still suffering it and so asking the Lord again to remove it and yet still suffering it and so asking a third time for the Lord to remove it, and finally hearing the word of the Lord: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power reaches perfection in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

The word of the Lord isn’t always what we want to hear. Sometimes he has to tell us three times before we’ll accept it. Accepting it requires a little faith. Paul finally accepts his weakness and even boasts of it, saying, “for the sake of Christ, I am content with weaknesses” (2 Cor 12:10). The word of God can be hard to hear.

Hearing the word of God is also like trying to sleep at night but being woken by the voice of your teacher calling your name, getting up, going to see what he wants and hearing, “I didn’t call you. Go back to sleep.” Then, trying to sleep again, hearing him call you again, getting up and going to him only to hear again, “I didn’t call you, my son. Go back to sleep.” And again a third time – but this time at last your teacher recognizes that the voice you’ve been hearing is the voice of the Lord (1 Sam 3:3-10).

Sometimes we mistake the voice of the Lord for the voice of our human teachers, just as sometimes we mistake the voice of our human teachers for the voice of the Lord. His voice in our lives can be hard to recognize, but our teachers, if they are wise and humble, can help us to recognize him when he calls us.

The priest Eli is a good example of this kind of teacher. It is Eli who finally recognizes the Lord calling the boy Samuel in the night, only to learn that the Lord will punish his house for the iniquity of his sons, to which news Eli says, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him” (1 Sam 3:18). This demonstrates a rare humility and openness to the word of God, necessary in teachers who would help us to hear the word of God in our own lives.

Hearing the word of the Lord is also like suffering the oppression of another nation for seven years and them destroying all the produce of the land and taking all the livestock, instigating famine (Judges 6:1, 4) making you so weak and so powerless against them that you just know that there’s nothing you can do about it (6:15), so you call out the Lord and ask him, “Why don’t you do something? Where are your wonderful deeds? Why don’t you deliver your people?” (6:13) only to hear back from the Lord, “Why don’t you deliver your people?” (6:14). Sometimes we ask the Lord, “Why don’t you help us?” only to hear him say, “You are the help I have sent.”  Sometimes we see our own particular problems because God is telling us to deal with our own particular problems.

This is how it went with Gideon against the Midianites. What the Lord was asking him to do to was unbelievable to him. He was of the weakest clan in Manasseh and he was the least in his family and yet the Lord chose him, of all people, to deliver Israel from the Midianites (6:15). He took a lot of convincing.

The word of God can be like that. It confounds us. It calls us to do things we think are impossible. And they would be impossible without God, but they are not without God. When God calls us to seemingly insurmountable tasks he says to us, as he says to Gideon, “But I will be with you” (6:16), and that makes all the difference.

Sometimes people say that God will never let you suffer more than you can bear, but I don’t think that’s true. Rather, we may get crushed by our problems, but he will bear them in us. He’s the one who can bear them, not us. He will be with us and he will raise us up when we fall (Ps 145:14). It really was impossible for Gideon to drive out the Midianites, but God in Gideon can do anything.

Of myself, I can’t do anything.

God can do anything.

In God, I can do anything God wills.

So, with the guidance of wise and humble teachers, we must listen carefully for the word of God in our lives so that we can know his will for our lives and live in him who accomplishes great, surprising, new, impossible, confounding, and glorious works in and through us.

Do you see that the kingdom of God has come with power? (Mark 9:1) Jesus said to the multitude with his disciples, “There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

I can tell you, almost with certainty, that everyone who was standing there has by now tasted death. I do not say that they are dead! Our God is not the God of the dead, but of the living! And he is their God! I say, rather, that they have tasted death. Just as Jesus Christ himself has tasted death and yet is not dead.

Jesus is not wrong here. He has not miscalculated the day of the second coming, as many modern doomsday prophets often do. This is not what Jesus has done. So, if he is not wrong, and all who was standing there have tasted death, then it can only mean that the kingdom of God has already come with power and some who were standing there have seen it.

So I ask you again, have you seen the kingdom of God? Remember that the reign of God is forever and ever. When the kingdom of God comes, it does not then retreat away again. If the kingdom of God has come already in the lifetimes of those who lived with Jesus, then it must be that the kingdom of God persists now today. But the kingdom of God is among us and the kingdom of God is within us (Luke 17:21). So I ask you again, have you seen the kingdom of God that has come with power?

Who is the king of glory? The Lord Jesus. Who is the king of kings? Jesus Christ! Who is the Lord of hosts? Our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.

It is no earthly politician, neither this candidate nor that candidate, that is Lord of heaven and earth. Jesus Christ alone rules over all and he is King and God of all.

As citizens of this country, it’s important for us to vote. But, if we love our country, there’s something even more important. It’s even more important for us to pray. How often we pray for our civil authorities in almost every liturgical service, and rightly so.

St. Peter teaches us: “Honor everyone. Love the brethren. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” (1 Pet 2:17). Yes, even the emperor, he says. Even Nero, who would slaughter Christians and use their burning bodies as torches to light his dinner parties. Yesterday I saw a Christian confess on Facebook that he would not pray for Ruth Bader Ginsberg. As Christians we pray for everyone, even those opposed to us.

It is prayer for them and for all that can truly bring needed change, which is metanoia – repentance – the change of heart. Change of policy unaccompanied by change of heart yields precious little fruit. This coming Thursday is a National Day of Prayer and Fasting for God’s mercy on our land and the healing and conversion of our hearts. Consider joining in.

Who would Jesus vote for? Would he vote at all? I have no idea. But do we even care? Vote your conscience. But if you leave your conscience unformed by prayer to the one true king and Lord, it will lead you astray. It will be malformed. You’ll be like the wooden puppet Pinocchio before he got his conscience in the form of a cricket. Your decisions will be immature and inadvisable. Pray before you vote. Pray while you are voting. Pray for whoever wins the election, whether or not you voted for them.

I know it’s not November and that maybe I should save all this for then, but today Jesus Christ is talking about the kingdom of God! And I follow his schedule. Because I’m living in his kingdom.

Yes, I am an American. I found that out real fast the moment I visited foreign country. When I went to Germany in my early twenties it became very quickly clear to me that my Americanness was written all over my face. And that it came out in all of my mannerisms and habits and that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. It is an aspect of our identity, where we we’re from, it shapes us. So, yes, I like most of you am an American. But God forbid that I should make that my primary identity. That I should put that first. If my first identity is not in the Lord, I am lost. Indeed, it is for his sake and the Gospels, that we are to lose our lives if we intend to save our lives (Mark 8:35))

What does it mean for us to lose our life for Christ’s sake and the Gospels? For some, it means just that. Many of those Jesus was speaking to would soon after his death and Resurrection begin to join the ranks as martyrs. And martyrdom has persisted into our own day. Just one example among many is the Coptic Orthodox martyrs beheaded by the Islamic State five years ago in Libya. If we are not prepared and willing to act as they did in that kind of situation, then we are not yet truly followers of Jesus Christ. He calls us to lose our life for his sake and the Gospels. Now remember that the gospel is a gospel of life not of death. It is for life that we are losing our lives. Jesus is the life. For nothing else would it be worthwhile after all to lay down our lives. But this is the pearl of great price and we eagerly and willingly sell everything else we have to buy it.

Some of us, on the other hand, do not have the opportunity to die in the flesh by those persecuting Christ and his Church. Does this mean that we are lost? Because we have had no chance to lose our life Jesus and his gospel? Don’t worry, we will have that chance in one way or another

This is in fact the vocation of every Christian. We must take up our own cross. We will discover our own way to lay down our lives. Every vocation – being married or being unmarried, being laity or clergy – is a vocation of martyrdom of one kind or another. Each vocation is to give witness, which is what the word martyr means. And each is a way of giving up our whole lives for the love of others.

This is what Christ does on the cross. He lays down is life for the love of others, for the love of us, and for the love of all. It is on the cross, which we continue to exalt today, that the coming of his kingdom is realized.

We know that Pilate ordered it to be written and posted above Christ on his cross, “Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews”. It’s interesting to note that in iconography, this is not what we find on the cross of Christ. Rather, it says here, Ό Βασιλεύς της Δόξης – the king of Glory. Pilot likely did not consider Jesus to be glorious in this moment. He likely failed to see the kingdom of God come in power here. He did not regard of a cross as the throne of the most high King. He thought of it rather as something he could threaten the king with. When, in fact, it is his throne. And here he is enthroned as king of glory. And some who stood there before when he was preaching and heard him say that there was some standing there who would not taste death until they saw the kingdom of God which has come in power. They looked, and they remembered, and they saw exactly that. That in this moment of supreme weakness and humiliation, was the power of the coming of God to be exalted. By them and us until this very day.

Those of us who do not yet see the kingdom of God, are like pilot who failed to recognize the king standing before him. It isn’t that to the kingdom of God is not among us. It is that we do not see it. It is present and it is invisible. As invisible as it was when Jesus hung on the cross. It looked to be his defeat, but in fact it was his victory. The same continues on and on. The saints of God and his martyrs and those who give testimony and witness to him by their lives laying down their lives both literally and figuratively. We have seen the self-sacrificial love of Christians, I hope. If we have not, we have not yet met Christians. And if we have, we have seen the kingdom of God, and power. The cross gives us power to seek God where God is not. Or where God seems not to be. The cross gives us the power to see the kingdom of God. And to live in the kingdom of God. Even now. Live first of all as citizens of the Kingdom. Let’s make that our identity above all things and l et the cross inform how we see things and all the decisions that we make. May all our decisions be cruciform.