Today is Meatfare Sunday – the third Sunday of the Triodion already – the Sunday of the Last Judgement. This means that we are now but one week and some hours away from the beginning of the Great Fast – and today is the last day before the lesser fast of Cheesefare Week. So, we now prepare ourselves to embrace again the rigor of a penitential season.

The three pillars of every penitential season are – as is well-known – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These means of bringing us to repentance are revealed to us in scripture – especially in the Sermon on the Mount – and are recommended to us by the fathers of the Church – for example by St. Maximos the Confessor.[i] Today, I would like to focus in on that last pillar, which I feel is often somewhat neglected and which is particularly important when it comes to our Last Judgement.

Jesus – the son of Sirach, that is, in the book known as Sirach – teaches us not to neglect the giving of alms (Sirach 7: 10). And Jesus the Christ, in his Sermon on the Mount, assumes that we will give alms. He says “when you give alms,” he doesn’t say “if you give alms” – just as he says, “when you pray…” and “when you fast….” These things are not optional if we are Christians.

Whatever good things we have are not truly our own alone but belong also to those who do not have these good things. Giving simply helps to restore balance to the cosmos upset and distorted by all kinds of sin. We can be covetous even with what we regard as our own property, let alone the property of others, and this covetousness separates us from the God who gave us everything we have so that we can be generous with others.

Jesus also tells us how to give – in secret and not so that we may be seen by others (Matthew 6: 2). Today, he might have said, when you give to the poor, do not film it and post it on YouTube under the guise of a social experiment, but give in secret, and your Father who watches in secret will reward you (Matt 6:4).

It’s interesting – I just want to point out – we often hear this list of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – and there’s a logic to this order. After all, in one sense, almsgiving results from prayer and fasting – so it comes after. Fasting leaves us with more to give and prayer inspires us to give. Nonetheless, it’s worth pointing out that, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus puts things in a different order – he speaks first about almsgiving and then about prayer and fasting (Matt 6). So maybe this gives a little more primacy to the issue of almsgiving then we are generally wont to do.

In the Book of Tobit, the Archangel Raphael says that “prayer and fasting are good, but better than either is almsgiving accompanied by righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than abundance with wickedness. It is better to give alms than to store up gold; for almsgiving saves one from death and expiates every sin. Those who regularly give alms shall enjoy a full life” (Tobit 12: 8 – 9).

Now, first of all, what constitutes almsgiving? Well, it’s giving dollars to beggars, right? Or, it’s donating to charitable causes? Something like that. Well, these are good things and almsgiving encompasses them, but it’s interesting to look at the Greek word here: ἐλεημοσύνη. Maybe this sounds a little bit familiar because we so often repeat the phrase, Κύριε, ἐλέησον, which means Lord, have mercy. The word here has “mercy” as a root.

So the word means a bit more than giving alms as we tend to think of it, though it carries that meaning as well. It refers also to compassion and to practicing the virtue of mercy. In other words, it refers to doing the works of mercy – including the very works upon which we will be judged when the Son of Man comes in his glory, according to the teaching of Jesus Christ today (Matt 25:31).

When we give something to eat to someone who is hungry, when we give something to drink to someone who is thirsty, when we welcome a stranger with hospitality, when we give clothes to someone who needs them, when we take care of someone who is sick, when we visit someone who is in prison or bound by whatever circumstances – all of this is ἐλεημοσύνη – these are all ways of showing mercy and compassion – and they are all forms of almsgiving (Matt 25:35-36). Just note that – according to what Jesus is teaching us today – it is our practice of mercy in these ways that will determine whether or not we are entering the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the cosmos (25:34). It is on the basis of our almsgiving – and not our fasting, for example – that we are judged.

Remember that the desert fathers kept a strict rule of prayer and fasting. Well,

A brother came to see a certain hermit and, as he was leaving, he said, “Forgive me abba for preventing you from keeping your rule.” The hermit replied, “My rule is to welcome you with hospitality and to send you away in peace.”[ii]

That’s almsgiving. Love is the highest rule and the greatest commandment and hospitality is the clearest expression of love.

It was said of an old man that he dwelt in Syria on the way to the desert. This was his work: whenever a monk came from the desert, he gave him refreshment with all his heart. Now one day a hermit came and he offered him refreshment. The other did not want to accept it, saying he was fasting. Filled with sorrow, the old man said to him, “Do not despise your servant, I beg you, do not despise me, but let us pray together. Look at the tree which is here; we will follow the way of whichever of us causes it to bend when he kneels on the ground and prays.” So the hermit knelt down to pray and nothing happened. Then the hospitable one knelt down and at once the tree bent towards him. Taught by this, they gave thanks to God.[iii]

Fasting is good because it teaches us self-control, discipline, and detachment from the things of this world and, when we have learned these things, we can be more hospitable. Again, as Raphael teaches Tobit and Tobias, “Prayer and fasting are good, but better than either is almsgiving,” and the Eastern Christian tradition is right, I believe, in emphasizing hospitality as its most cherished form of almsgiving. In giving hospitality, we sometimes give of ourselves in a more personal way than when we give money, food, or clothing. Hospitality causes us to share our homes, our time, and our very way of life. [iv]

Indeed, we must “not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrew 13:2). Remember the hospitality of Abraham to the three strangers who came to his home (Gen 18:1-5). By this, he showed hospitality to the Lord and, through his hospitality, the Holy Trinity is revealed to us. Jesus teaches us today that whatever we do to the least of these, we do to the Lord (Matt 25:40, 45). This is never more clear than in the case of Abraham showing hospitality to the three strangers who are in truth of the appearance of the Lord to him. It’s really something – isn’t it? – that the icon that we know as the Rublev Trinity was first known as the Hospitality of Abraham. When we show hospitality, the Lord is revealed to us. When we see the face of Christ in the face of all of our brothers and sisters and in every stranger that we meet, we will welcome him in them, show them hospitality, and give them all we have to give. Every person in need who comes to us is a coming of Christ and a theophany of the Lord, if we have eyes to see.

 

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[i] “Almsgiving heals the soul’s incensive power; fasting withers sensual desire; prayer purifies the Intellect and prepares it for the contemplation of created beings” (Maximos the Confessor, First Century on Love, 79).

[ii] from The Paradise of the Desert Fathers

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Light for Life, Part Three, 48

To be prodigal is to spend money or resources freely and recklessly – to be wastefully extravagant.

This Sunday we continue the theme of repentance & forgiveness, already dealt with on the Sunday of the Publican & Pharisee.

The Epistle, St. Paul deals with the mortification of the flesh because in 8 days we will begin a period of the Fast. St. Paul tells us, “Don’t you know you are members of Christ and our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Fasting from food is neither the only or the highest form of fasting. Purity of heart and thought, as well as the body itself is imperatively require of us, whether in marriage or celibacy.

What is the center of the Gospel? Is it the change of heart experienced by the young man who left his father, squandered his inheritance in a life of debauchery, suffered such hunger that he envied the pigs (The Prodigal Son (like Adam rebelled against his father) feeding the swine would be like Jewish skid row. He could not sink much lower), who had husks to eat, and then decided to leave and return to his father. The Prodigal Son realizes how many of his father’s hired servants had bread enough to eat. The bread symbolizes Christ, who is known through the Scriptures and the Eucharist.

There are people, as they live prodigally from their youth, who observe in themselves many improper things. Spending their time in drunkenness and wantonness, they have fallen into a depth of wickedness and reached despair, which is a result of pride. The Church Fathers wished to save the prodigal from despair, showing God’s forbearance and plenteous goodness, they aim to entirely uproot such passions from sinners’ hearts and to inspire them to take up a virtuous life again. The Fathers’ purpose is to show that there is no sin whatsoever that can prevail over His
love for mankind.

The central figure of the parable is the father. The presence of a completely unselfish and freely given expression of tenderness. The father has waited and kept watch for the prodigal. When seeing him far off he could no longer restrain himself, overwhelmed with compassion, runs out to meet his child, falls on his neck and kisses him warmly. This self-humiliation for the sake of the lost indicates the way in which our Father, through Christ’s sacrifice, actively seeks those who stray.

The Father in this parable represents God, the Lover of Mankind. The two sons are the two kinds of men, righteous and sinners. Christ compares sin to the carob pod, being as it feed for swine. The carob pod at first tastes sweet, but afterwards it leaves a tough pulp in the mouth, which are
the same properties of sin.

The Father accepts the son in repentance and does not chide, but displays His divine and paternal compassion by enfolding him in His embrace. He gives him a “garment,” Holy Baptism, and as a “seal and token’ the grace of the All-Holy Spirit. The Father sacrifices for him the “fatted calf,”
His only-begotten Son, and He allows him to partake of the “flesh and blood,” the Savior’s Holy Communion.

Approximately 5 years ago, I had lunch with Fr. John Riccardo on Byzantine New Year. Fr. John and I have some similarities in our upbringing. Fr. John encouraged me to attend an Unbound Conference. Fr. John gave a talk entitled “The Father’s Blessing.” Father John spoke of the Prodigal Son. He referenced Fr. Dn. Lawrence in his Riassa running to greet his son would be like the Father running in the field to greet the Prodigal Son. The next day was the Sunday of the Prodigal Son and I thought of Fr. John Riccardo’s words as I was proclaiming the Gospel.

The robe signifies the righteousness that is granted by baptism, the ring is family identity and the sandals refer to walking according to the gospel, the fatted calf to be killed and a feast prepared. God does not simply restore a repentant sinner to the grace he might have possessed before sinning: he bestows on him the greatest grace he could receive, a maximum of grace. The story of the prodigal is our own story….

Like the Prodigal Son, I desired to live a life according to my will. I went on a retreat – Holy Transfiguration Monastery with Teens in the 70s. I am grateful to a couple here at St. Stephen Church who prayed for me this past fall at Medugorje and gave me the weapon against my Goliath (5 Stones – Prayer with the heart, Eucharist, Holy Bible, Fasting and Monthly Confessions).

There was thunder, lightning & rain for hours while I and other teens were trying to sleep in tents. It seemed like the weather conditions were God’s judgement on us as teens. I committed my life to God if I was kept safe. The commitment (although at the time seemed feeble) it turned out to change my life in a several ways. Fr. Fred Saato was the Retreat Master. I had the opportunity to reconnect with Fr. Fred 10 – 12 years later. I was invited to the Byzantine Melkite Convention at the Renaissance Center in Detroit. I got on an elevator with Archbishop Lutfi Laham of Jerusalem w/o realizing who he was. I was going to hear Archbishop Laham speak about the Holy Spirit.

About 15 years later, after Archbishop Laham became Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch, I had the opportunity to serve & vest Patriarch Gregorious on his 1st visit as Patriarch to the United States.

The elder son does not enter into the common joy because he cannot comprehend his Father’s loving generosity. But the human Father stops him, responding calmly with kind and gentle words: “You are always with Me, and it is fitting to be glad and to rejoice with your Father. This parable can also be understood in reference to the Jewish people and to us. The parable was placed here by the Holy Fathers because it uproots the despair and faintheartedness to engage in good deeds and it exhorts anyone who has sinned like the prodigal son to repentance, which is a great shield that averts the enemy’s arrows and a mighty means of defense.

The parable also teaches us that we should not be troubled when sinners repent and are received by God when we ourselves are struggling, with God’s help, to live a life of righteousness. We must not judge our neighbor’s life – that belongs to God alone – nor God’s bountiful mercy, but
we must rejoice with Heaven when a sinner returns to the Father.

As we continue through this preparatory period, the teachings on humility and repentance appropriately prepare us to proceed with a contrite spirit further into the great season of compunction.

O Christ our God, through Your unutterable love for mankind, have mercy on us and save us. Amen!

Today’s confluence of the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee and the Great Feast of the Meeting of our Lord Jesus Christ with Simeon and Anna is rare. (I think it’s even cooler than the fact that today’s date is 02/02/2020, which is a palindrome to boot!) In any case, it struck me as an unusual and difficult challenge to try to say something about both of these very different themes. That is, until I read the gospels (Luke 18:10-14 & Luke 2:22-40). The gospels have a way of bringing everything together.

Jesus begins his parable saying, “Two men went up to the temple to pray” (Luke 18:10).

And Simeon, “inspired by the Spirit…, came into the temple” and there, when he met Jesus, he “blessed God” and prayed to the Lord (Luke 2:27-29).

And the prophetess Anna, “did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day” (2:37).

You see the theme here? Here are four examples of prayer in the temple – 3 with something to teach us of how to pray in the temple and 1 with something to teach us of how not to.

But first of all, a question: What does praying in the temple have to do with us? Do we pray in the temple? Remember, Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth” (John 4:21, 23). Now, the temple is in Jerusalem, so to say that we’re no longer to worship the Father in Jerusalem but in the Spirit is to move our prayer away from the Jerusalem temple, isn’t it? So what does praying in the temple have to do with us?

It’s true that we no longer limit our spiritual sacrifice either to the place of the mountain, as the Samaritans do, or to the temple in Jerusalem, as the Jews did. But still we do go up to the temple to pray in the Spirit. Because the Word became flesh from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, our bodies have become the temples of the Holy Spirit and the place that we worship God (John 1; 1 Cor 6:19). So, yes, we still go up to the temple to pray and, yes, we have much to learn about it from the gospels today.

Now, the embodied temple is always with us, making possible the unceasing prayer to which we are called and which is modeled also today for us especially by the prophetess Anna (1 Thess 5:17).  She “did not depart from the temple” (Luke 2:37). Now, all who are in Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit never depart from the temple of our bodies. We are like Anna in this. Let us also be like her “with fasting and prayer night and day” (2:37). Let us also imitate her devotion in coming to the place of prayer. She was always in the temple, let us come constantly to church.

The church, understand, is the gathering of God’s people together in worship of him. Gone is the place of the Jerusalem temple as the exclusive or preeminent place for that worship and prayer, but not gone is the gathering of the people of God. Where two or three of us gather in Jesus’ name, there he is in our midst! Contrariwise, if we do not gather in his name, he will not be in our midst. If we do not come often to the church, like Simeon and Anna went often to the temple, we will not be here to meet Jesus.

It was probably not a Sabbath when Simeon and Anna came to the temple that day. Simeon came to the temple that day not because it was his habitual time to come, but because he was inspired to do so by the Spirit (Luke 2:27). Let us like Simeon listen to the Spirit’s inspiration to come and gather and pray to the Lord here with our fellow believers, even if it’s not a Sunday or a holy day of so-called “obligation.” Come because the Spirit moves you to, which is not the same thing as coming when you feel like, but it’s also not the same things as coming because you think you have to. When you come in the Spirit, like Simeon, you will meet the Lord Jesus here and bless God his Father.

Come constantly like Anna. Because she was constantly in the temple, she was there to meet the Lord when he came. Let’s take advantage of any free time we have and offer that time to the Lord in prayer – more time to Lord and less to the endless distractions our culture has on offer. I’m preaching here also to myself. When you retire, or if you have already retired from a full-time schedule of work, consider whether some greater offering of your time belongs to the Lord. The truth is, it all belongs to the Lord. Anna understands this and so went constantly to the temple, not only on the Sabbath and Holy Days.

The Spirit descends upon us here at St. Stephen even on weekdays, you know. And that Spirit makes present to us the very Lord God Jesus Christ here in this place even when it’s an ordinary day. Even when there really are only two or three of us. Even when all we do is gather in his name to pray. We don’t need to limit our participation to those days highlighted on our calendars. Are we more motivated by the colorful shading of the calendar date on our wall calendars from the Byzantine Seminary Press than we are by the presence here of Jesus Christ our God? Jesus is here waiting for us here every day. Don’t you yearn to be here with him? Doesn’t your heart ache to return when you must stay away? Let’s stir up the fervor in our hearts by prayer and fasting night and day, like Anna.

Whenever we do go up to the temple to pray, spiritually speaking, whether it is here in the church or alone in our prayer corners, let us do so with humility like the publican, and without judging others in any way. The publican can teach us how to pray: “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

Notice something else about the publican’s prayer: he does not mention the Pharisee at all. The Pharisee mentions the publican – saying, “God I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this publican.” But the publican makes no comparison at all – not even in an inverse way. He does not say, “O Lord, this Pharisee is so much holier that I am,” or any such thing. Even that is a judgment we are not fit to make. The publican does not compare himself at all. Comparison to others may not be the best way, when it is time to pray. The publican says only and simply, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

Humbling yourself is not the same thing as tearing yourself down or beating yourself up or demeaning yourself. Those things are an insult to the God who made you and made you his good image. Humility, rather, is truth. A recognition in the presence of the Lord of what we really are – his children made in his image – and what we have done. We are sinners, it is true – all of us – and if we acknowledge this in our prayer, crying out to God for mercy, he will justify us, as a father who longs to reunite with his child.

When we go up to pray in the temple, therefore, let our prayer be humble like the publican’s, constant like Anna’s, and filled with the Spirit like Simeon’s. In this way, we will encounter the Lord Jesus in our prayer and give thanks and praise to God his Father.