Sermon on Luke 8:5-15 & the Seventh Ecumenical Council

More than twelve hundred years ago, our fathers gathered in the town of Nicaea for what would become the seventh ecumenical council, which is especially remembered for its defense of the holy icons against the iconoclasts – or image-breakers.

Now, I don’t know how many of you have tried to make an icon with the traditional medium of egg tempera, but it’s a rewarding and prayerful experience and I do recommend it. There’s a kind of intimacy you can gain with the saint that you are painting, which comes simply from spending so much time before the image as you help to deepen and clarify it with layer after layer of the translucent medium. One thing we are losing all sense of in this instantaneous information age is the value of spending time with things. Painting an icon in the traditional medium forces us to slow down and immerse in the sacred thing we are doing.

To work with egg tempera you must mix the pigment with the emulsion – which is egg yolk – while you are painting. This is because the emulsion does not keep and so the paint will spoil if you don’t use it the same day you make it. Anyway, working this way rather than with premixed liquid paints allows you to better see, touch, and smell the material you’re working with. And it becomes clear that, for the most part, pigment is dirt. It is various kinds of earth. In fact, some of the pigments even have names like “green earth” for example.

So, when we paint an icon, we are making an image of a holy person out of dirt, out of dust, out of the ground, out of earth. How fitting! Because remember, it is of this that we are actually made.

The holy images are made from earth – just like you and your loved ones and all of us. The council says that the holy images may be “painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable material,” but all of this has the same source: the earth.

My name is mud. Or, anyway, that’s what Adam might have said. The name Adam in Hebrew most literally means dust man. Or sometimes you see him called clay or earth or mud. Because it is of this that we are made. We will all “return to the ground, for out of it we were taken; we are dust, and to dust we shall return.” (Gen 3:8)

Today, our Lord teaches us in his parable about different kinds of ground. And he’s talking about us – about different kinds of people. We different kinds of people are really different kinds of dirt, see? But you can do a lot with dirt. Remember the holy icons. This dirt that we are, like the holy icons, can become worthy of veneration, because we all receive the seed of the word in us. The spermatikos logos, as St. Justin Martyr puts it.

This is a familiar image. Remember again Adam. Adam – and, in Adam, all humanity – is earth with God breathed in. “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (Gen 2). The word of God speaks the earth into human life. So: earth, plus the word of God, equals human life. We see this in the account of the creation of humans in Genesis. And we see it again today in the parable of the sower as Jesus tells it. Only now the word is depicted as a seed in the earth.

Whether or not this seed takes root in us, gives life to us, depends on our receptiveness to it.  We must be like the good soil and hold the seed of the word of God “in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.” Humility is clearly part of being like good soil.

Humility is honest and good. Humility is truth. And, the truth is, we are dust. Remembering this – being mindful of our earthiness – is humility. The word itself contains this meaning. It come from the Latin humilis, which literally means “on the ground,” from humus, meaning “earth.”  Another word likely also comes from the same root as humus: human.  So, again, this is what we really are and humility lies in embracing that truth. To be humble is to be a human aware of your own humanness – which is really your own creatureliness. We, like all the earth, are created by our creator and exist in that relationship to him. We are not the creator. We do not author our own reality, whatever the world may say to the contrary. The humble know this.

The grace of recognizing our lowliness, earthiness, and creatureliness – the grace of humility – lifts us up from earth to heaven and helps us to grow in ever greater union with our creator.

All this talk of humans being made of dirt may have given you the impression that I am down on humans. But nothing could be further from the truth. Remember where we began – with the holy icons, themselves also made of earth. But these we kiss and venerate and love, just as we do the holy relics of our saints. We do not treat them with contempt, but with veneration. This has everything to do with the seed of the word planted in the earth of the human.

It is God that makes us holy and breathes life into us. It is his presence in the earth of our bodies that makes our bodies worthy of veneration. In the icons, there is always the halo. The flesh is painted with common earth. But the halo is made of gold and represents the grace surrounding the holy men and women of God. It is this grace that makes anyone holy and nothing else. Just to recognize humbly that you are soil will make you better soil to receive the seed of the word of God in you. Be of honest and good heart – be humble – remember who you are and who is God – and that will give life to you and make you whole and holy.

Sermon on Luke 6.31-36

Today, preaching to us not on the mount, but on the plain, Jesus admonishes us to behave in quite extraordinary and unworldly ways.

He tells us to do to others what we wish they would do to us (6:31). That’s as opposed to getting all you can get, doing what you can get away with, and looking out for number one, which seem to be guiding principles of life in the world.

Jesus tells us to love, not only those who love us, but even those who hate us. St. Maximus the Confessor says that Jesus commands us this “to free [us] from hatred, irritation, anger and rancor, and to make [us] worthy of the supreme gift of perfect love. [We] cannot attain such love if [we] do not imitate God and love all men equally. For God loves all men equally and wishes them ‘to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’” (1 Tim 2:4).

A lot of people in the world and in the Church support family values. As well they should. But sometimes, our idea of strengthening the family goes no further than loving those who love us. And sometimes we even think it includes hating and seeking to destroy those who would tear our families apart.

And that’s not enough. Jesus sets us a higher standard. What about loving our enemies? Or the enemies of our families? What about murderers and drug dealers and prostitutes and rapists, who make our neighborhoods unsafe? Do you want them dead? I have heard fellow Christians speak murderously of evil men. I myself know what it is like to hate and even to want dead someone who would hurt the innocent or the weak. May God forgive me, the sinner. Let me tell you something, God does not desire the death of a sinner, but rather that he repent and live (Ezekiel 18:23). This is the word of the Lord that came to Ezekiel (18:1). So, when we desire the death of a sinner – even if he is a terrorist, even if he hurt our child – we are not like God.

Jesus tells us to do good to those who do no good to us. Giving on condition of getting is just bartering. It isn’t love. Just because someone isn’t in a position to do anything for us, doesn’t mean it’s alright for us to neglect them. If we were Christians, the needy would attract us, not repel us. We would seek people in need – people among whom we could do good without receiving anything in return.

Remember that Jesus said that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35) and they say that this was also the motto of St. Nicholas, the patron of our Byzantine Catholic Church,

Jesus tells us to lend our goods and our money expecting nothing in return. Now this is distinctly unworldly. Already, more than five hundred years before Christ, the Lord plainly says to Ezekiel that a righteous man does not lend at interest (Ezekiel 18:5,8). Nowadays, collecting interest is as common as opening a savings account or an IRA. And, given the economic reality that our money has no fixed value, I suppose sometimes these interest rates are not usurious in that they do not increase the value of our savings so much as maintain it. But it seems we have lost all understanding of usury in the contemporary world and Church.

Even if interest rates are not always usurious in the contemporary context, they often are. Witness the predatory pay-day loan stores that pop up especially in poor neighborhoods to take advantage of those who already have little by offering them needed loans, but with outrageous and crippling interest. The Christian ethical principle to keep in mind with lending is that a loan is always to be made for the benefit of the borrower, not the lender. This is just exactly backwards of how the world thinks.

Meanwhile, Jesus goes beyond prohibiting the collection of interest and commands us to expect nothing in return for our loans. Not even the principal, let alone the interest. Now that’s radical. It’s downright ludicrous, in fact, by any worldly measure. That’s not even what we’d call lending, It’s more like just plain old giving. I think that’s his point.

Treat others as you want them to treat you. Love even those who do not love you. Do good even for those who do not do good for you. Lend without expecting any return. Why? What is the purpose of all this seemingly disproportionate behavior?

Do you know who you would be like if you did all these things? Well, I will tell you: you’d be like God.

God loves us, even when we do not love him. He loves even his enemies, those who hate him, and those who persecute his Church. He loved Paul before, during, and after his persecution of the Church. Jesus loved and forgave those who crucified Him even as they were driving the nails into his hands and feet.

God does good for those who do no good for him. What good can we – we, who are sinful – do for God? What gift can we creatures offer to our creator worthy of his greatness? And yet, he gives us every good thing. All blessing flows from our good God. He gives us our lives, our loved ones. Every simple pleasure and every blessing come from God.

“He is kind [even] to the ungrateful and the selfish” (Luke 6:35) As the life of Hosea prophesies, even if we are unfaithful like Gomer, God is faithful (cf. 2 Tim 2:13).

So this way of life Jesus commands us to today is nothing less than a prescription toward theosis. Do these things and you will be like God. Jesus says that if we do these things, we will be “sons of the Most High” (Luke 6:35). These things, which are impossible without grace, help make us again like God.

 

Sermon on Luke 5:1-11

The people pressed upon Jesus to hear the word of God. So much so, that he felt the need to get into a boat – Simon Peter’s boat, as it so happens – and to put out a little from the land so that he could sit and teach the people from the boat. In their urgent desire to hear the word of God, which comes uniquely from Jesus Christ, who is himself the word of God, they were even making things a bit uncomfortable for him, such that he had to improvise from a boat a sort of makeshift ambo from which to preach. We can understand, maybe, their great insistence on hearing the word from him who is the word.

But are we so eager to hear the word of God? If Jesus were in town, would we press upon him to hear the word of God? As it so happens, Jesus is in town. He is here in this church every day. He is proclaimed in the gospel and he is present here in the holy mysteries – confession, anointing, & eucharist. He is in our hearts and minds and bodies. He is alive in us and in this world.

But how aware are we of his living presence among us? Or, do we live as if he is away in some far-off place? Are we pressing upon him? When the gospel is proclaimed here in this church, do we always give it all of our attention? Or, do we let our minds wander off?

In Catholic churches, it is common to observe an overwhelming preference for the pews in the back. Often, we are far from pressing upon him to hear his word! Zeal and eagerness to participate more fully are often in short supply. An attitude of minimum obligations prevails. That is, we ask not how much we can do to grow closer to God in his holy Church but rather what’s the least we must to do in order to still call ourselves practicing Catholics.

They’ve even drawn up lists of these minimal obligations. For example, in order to be a practicing Catholic, they say we must at least keep these precepts of the Church: 1. We must attend Divine Liturgy (or at least some Divine service) every Sunday. 2. We must confess our sins at least once a year. 3. We must receive Holy Communion at least once a year during the Paschal season. 4. We must also keep holy the so-called “holy days of obligation.” 5. We must observe the Fasts of our Church. And 6. we must provide for the material needs of the Church according to our ability.

Alright, fair enough, these are good things for us to do. I suppose you’ll get no argument from me about that. And I suppose I’ll even go along with the observation that if a person isn’t even interested in trying to do these things, it would really be a stretch to call them a practicing Catholic. However, the attitude that seeks the minimum so ardently that it needs to have all this spelled out has probably already missed the point.

Where is our fire and our love for the Lord and his word?

The Byzantine tradition offers a maximalist approach to the spiritual life rather than this minimalist approach. Our full tradition of liturgical prayer, fasting, spiritual discipline, and charitable work, which is constantly proposed to each of us by our tradition, is likely more than any one of us is even capable of, at least on our own. Of course, one of the reasons we are a Church and not a confederacy of individuals with private pipelines to Jesus is that each member of the body of Christ has his or her own gifts and his or her own vocation within the body. And, together, we can do the work of Christ and live the Life of Christ more fully than we can alone.

And what is that work? Among other things, it is to preach to word of God both in words and, above all, by our love for our neighbors. Love of neighbor is our best and most effective tool of evangelism. It will bring people to the Lord and to the Church more effectively than persuasive arguments – not that there isn’t a time and a place for that as well. But only if we speak the truth in love. If we speak some truth, but not in love, it’s not really the word of God we’re proclaiming, because God is love.

This word of God we are to preach is like the nets, says St. Augustine, that Peter lowers into the deep for a catch. It brings in so many fish that two boats are filled to the point of sinking.  May our evangelism be so effective, by the grace of God.

I want to see that here at St. Stephen. Go and cast your nets, which are the word of God, into the waters of this Downriver area and beyond, throughout Southeastern Michigan.

What’s that you say? You tried that already and it didn’t work? You toiled all night and took nothing? Nevertheless, go out into the deep and cast again. It is the word of God you are casting and it can haul them in so that our little church is filled to bursting.

First, of course, before we can become more effective evangelists, we must deepen our own love and obedience to the word by whatever means necessary. We won’t convince others if we’re not convinced ourselves – if we don’t take this seriously ourselves and strive with whatever strength we have toward God. It’s true that union with God can only be achieved by God’s own grace and not by our effort, but this is not meant to encourage laziness on our part.

When it comes to the spiritual life and growing closer to Jesus Christ, instead of asking, “What’s the least I need to do?” or, “What fulfills my minimum obligation?” let’s learn to start asking, “What more can I do? Am I doing everything I can to press upon Jesus to hear the word of God so that I can live it and preach it to all creation?”

 

 

[1] CCC 2042

[2] CCEO, canon 881 §1

[3] Augustine, Sermon 248.2.

Sermon on Mark 8:34-9:1

“What will the profit be, if someone gains the whole world and loses his life? Or what would someone give in exchange for his life?” (Mark 8:36-37).

Jesus is asking us a rhetorical question. It’s meant to be obvious to us that our life is worth more than the whole world. And that there is nothing not worth giving for our life.

Life is “God’s greatest gift,” just as Joseph says to Clarence in that movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. If you’re like me, you watch that movie every Christmas season. Now, it does make some glaring theological errors. For example, we do not become angels like Clarence after we die, but that is a whole other conversation and some things the movie does get right, including this: that life is God’s greatest gift to us.

And this life we have been given, just as the title says, is wonderful. It is filled with wonder. So, let us wonder at it for a while.

And let’s examine what does and does not make life wonderful. In the movie, George Bailey learns eventually that it is not money that makes life wonderful even if, as he says to Clarence, it “comes in pretty handy down here, bub.” He learns that the far more wonderful thing about life is love. The love of friendship, of marriage and family. It seems me that he even learns to love his enemy Mr. Potter by the end.

When George turns to God in his darkest hour, God intervenes to save his life. There are, as I said, some good and true things about this story, despite its few glaring errors. This is what God really does: he saves our lives. We know he is our Savior, but sometimes we forget what he’s saving us from. He’s saving us, ultimately, from death. He comes that we may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).

Let’s turn to the scripture, which, as it turns out, is an even better source of true teaching than a Frank Capra movie.

In another place Jesus teaches us, “he who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25). This show us that Jesus is saving us not for the life in this world, but for a different and eternal life. There’s a distinction here between two kinds of life. For that reason, someone might misunderstand and object to Jesus’ earlier rhetorical question with the proclamation that there are some things worth dying for. And of course there are! No one is a clearer example of this than Jesus himself. But when we die for the things worth dying for, even though we die, we live. If we die for the things of this world, on the other hand, we’re dying for nothing and we’re risking a different kind of death

The life in this world is the life of enslavement to the things of this world. Yes, money, the love of which is the root of all evil (1 Tim 6:10), but also all the passions: not only greed, but also lust and hatred and envy and pride and vainglory, and gluttony and sloth and so on. This is part of what Jesus means by “the life in this world” that we are to hate. As I mentioned last week, St. Isaac the Syrian teaches us that “The ‘world’ is the general name for all the passions. When we wish to call the passions by a common name, we call them ‘the world.’” So the life in the world is the impassioned life. And it is not life in this sense, not life in this world or according to the values of the world, that Jesus comes to save, but rather eternal and everlasting life, the life which is part of our true nature, which we were truly created for. Life itself which is union with life himself, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the life.

The way to this life is through the cross, which we continue to exalt today.

In today’s epistle, Paul writes, “I’ve been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:19-20).

To live as Christ, first we die as Christ. We take up our cross and follow him. We die to our passions and to the things of this world & then in him we know true and everlasting freedom, love, and life.