All around us, the leaves are dying and falling from their trees. The days are shortening and sunset comes earlier each day. We’ve given up trying to save daylight, whatever that means.

The Western Church has just finished their celebration of Allhallowtide. That is, Hallowe’en, All Hallows’ Day, and All Souls’ Day – the Days of the Dead – during which they remember all those who have died – first all the martyrs and saints, and then all the departed. This seems like an appropriate season for reflecting upon death, as nature itself is falling asleep and darkening.

We celebrate All Saints too, of course, on the Sunday after Pentecost. And we remember and pray for all the departed on Souls Saturdays – usually five times a year. So, we’ve got that covered.

As a priest, I also have the opportunity to remember those who have died at every Divine Liturgy. If you wonder what I am doing quietly in the altar at the table of preparation before the Divine Liturgy begins, among other things, I am praying for the dead. That is when I quietly celebrate the Πρόθεσις or Προσκομιδή, during which I prepare the bread and wine to be offered for the Eucharist. As a part of that rite, I place particles on the diskos for the Theotokos and all the saints – who have died – and also particles for those among the living and among the dead for whom you have asked me to pray or for whom I wish to pray

There are now more among the departed for me to remember. This week, I attended two funerals – one for Katie’s grandmother, who was 106 years old, and another for Joe Katona, a friend and parishioner for St. Michael’s in Toledo. He made a lot of that kolbasz that many of you ordered for last Pascha. So, we pray for them among the departed now. On the diskos, two less particles in the row for the living and two more in the row for the dead.

I also remember at every Divine Liturgy some who died very young. One was a classmate in his twenties. Another was a teenage girl. We know not the hour. Many of us – probably most of us – have been close to someone who has died. We can sympathize with the mourners in today’s Gospel.

The 12-year-old daughter of Jairus was young, but she was dying and, while Jesus was occupied with the healing of another woman, she did die. A man from Jairus’s house came and said, “Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher anymore.” The mourners gathered swiftly. Already by the time that Jesus reached the house, there were many there weeping and bewailing her.

Death can have this kind of effect on us. I remember suddenly getting a text message that a mentor and friend of mine had died. I immediately fell to the ground. Sometimes there’s an automatic physical response like that to grief. Sometimes there’s not. There’s no right or wrong way to feel when we hear that someone has died.

Death is a mystery. We think we know something about it but today our Lord shows us that even what we think we know we don’t know, actually. One thing we think we know is that there’s no point intervening anymore after a person has died. As the man said, “Your daughter is dead – do not trouble the teacher anymore.” As if being dead meant that the Lord wasn’t going to have something to say or do about it. I mean, that makes sense to us. We have a real tendency to think of death as the period at the end of the sentence – that beyond which there is nothing more to say – or that beyond which point there’s nothing we can do.

The people know that the girl is dead. These people know what death looks like – they were not so insulated from death as we tend to be – and the gospel doesn’t say that the people think the girl is dead but that they know she is dead. But then Jesus comes and says that the girl is not dead, but only sleeping. So they laugh at him. Doesn’t Jesus know the difference between sleep and death?

Well, Jesus knows the way things really are, well beyond the understanding available to those of a worldly mind. Remember, he is the God who calls the things that are not as though they are – who calls into existence the things that did not exist – who gives life to the dead (Rom 4:17). So, when Jesus says the dead are sleeping, he need only wake them up. And when someone has died and there remains no more hope, we can hope against hope because we have such a God as this – a God for whom death is equivalent to sleep (Rom 4:18).

The Lord does just this. He takes the girl by the hand and wakes her up, calling to her, “Child, arise!”

The Lord was prepared to call her death sleep – to call a thing that was not as though it was – and thus to make it so. Remember that he is the word of God through whom all things are made.

When Jesus calls her to arise, her spirit returns to her and she gets up at once. Now, death is the unnatural separation of the spirit from the body. James says, “The body without the spirit is dead” (2:26). So, if her spirit had left her, such that it could return when Jesus called, she had indeed died.

Death is a mystery – but God reveals something of it to us. Our Lord has not left us entirely in the dark about death. Remember, Jesus Christ himself experiences death and rises up from it. He knows about death both in his omniscience as God and as a human in the only way that a human could know about such a thing – by experience. Also, the Holy Spirit reveals to us some facets of the mystery of death through the scripture he inspires (2 Tim 3:16).

From scripture and the witness of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, we can see that death is not annihilation. Atheists will say that what we are after death is just the same as what we are before conception – nothing. But the Lord through the scripture makes it clear that we are everlasting creatures. We begin but we do not end, regardless of whatever we may think, say, or do.

Scripture compares death to sleep. It was revealed to Daniel that “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (12:2). And listen to what Paul says to the Thessalonians, as we read at every funeral:

We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep (1Th 4:13-15).

Paul often uses the terms death and sleep interchangeably, as does Jesus when referring to the death of his friend Lazarus. Death can be compared to sleep mostly because every time we go to sleep, we wake up again. And in the light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it becomes clear that we can say the same thing about death: we die, but we wake up again.

Yet, this metaphor of death as sleep can be taken too far. For example, death is not unconsciousness. It is not annihilation, and it is not unconsciousness either. The week before last, we heard the story of the rich man and Lazarus, who die and have two very different experiences, which make it clear that those who have died are not experiencing unconsciousness but are aware of what’s going on – among the living as well as among the dead – and are able to communicate with one another. Notice that Abraham speaks about Moses and the Prophets – people who were born and lived and died long after Abraham himself had died – making it clear that Abraham has been aware of goings on among the living all along since his death.

Speaking of Moses, the consciousness of those who have died is apparent also from the fact that, at the Transfiguration of Jesus, Moses talks with Jesus (Luke 9). Now, the unconscious would not be able to carry on such a meaningful conversation about what Jesus was to do in Jerusalem. So, the dead are not asleep in the sense of being unconscious, but asleep in the sense of waiting to wake up.
Therefore, we remain in meaningful communion with those who have died. Death does not end our relationships, our friendship, or our love.

We are going to die, but, rest assured, having died, we will one day hear, as did the daughter of Jairus, “Child, arise!”

Today, Paul tells us that the gospel he is preaching is not man’s gospel (Gal 1:11). It is not a gospel according to man. He tells us that he did not receive it from human beings, but that it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ (1:12). It comes to us, through Paul and others, from God.

We must always bear this in mind as we sit at the feet of the apostles and listen to the gospel. Paul says the only gospel – for there is no other gospel (1:7) – is not a gospel according to man. Yet, at every Sunday and feast day Matins and at every Divine Liturgy we read the Gospel according to Matthew, or according to Mark, or according to Luke, or according to John. Those are four men, but the gospel is not according to man, says Paul. Paul is also a man.

Still, when we listen to the gospel, we are not merely listening to human beings, if we have ears to hear, but are listening to the Lord himself. At the same time, it is clear the Lord has chosen to speak to us through human beings.

This necessarily informs how we are to understand the holy scripture. The scripture is inspired. It is Spirit-breathed. It comes, as Paul says, by “revelation.” It is a means by which God reveals himself to us – to its authors, readers, and hearers.

The nature of these inspired words is not as simple as it at first appears. God speaks through people, but the words they use are always subject to interpretation. Scripture is authored simultaneously by both God and human beings. Consequently, the words of divinely inspired scripture sometimes have divinely intended meanings that their human authors did not intend.

Later in his epistle to the Galatians, Paul will interpret the story about Hagar and Sarah from Genesis as an allegory about the old covenant and the new covenant we have in Christ. I can tell you: the human author of Genesis surely did not foresee this meaning in that story. But God did, and that’s the point. It’s God’s meaning that we seek above all.

God’s intentions are simply greater than any human author could have possibly foreseen. This is common with messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. That is say, the Jesus Christ we received is certainly the same one that was prophesied throughout the Old Testament, but he is certainly not like what the humans who wrote it were expecting. God obliterates our expectations and fulfills them beyond our imagining.

Therefore, if we are to hear God’s voice through the scripture, we must be to open to the awareness that not even our impossible task of discovering exactly what the historical human authors of the text intended – not even that is adequate. It is also necessary – indeed more necessary – for us to seek out the fuller sense of scripture intended by the Holy Spirit who inspired the human author.

The divinely inspired meanings of scripture – meanings that God intends for us his people to understand – at times vary from and occasionally even contradict the human authors’ original, historical, intended meanings.

Scripture is multivalent. It has many meanings at the same time. One text, for example, has the meanings that its author intended as well as those that its original readers and hearers understood, as well as meanings found later by various types of reinterpretation, including allegory and typology.

It is clear that God does intend some meaning or meanings of every inspired text. That is what it means for the text to be inspired. The difficult task we have is to discern with faith and prayer which of these meanings God intends for his people to understand, and which he does not.

If we readers of scripture (and I hope all of us who can read are readers of scripture – I put the daily readings in the bulletin so that we will read them) if we are convinced that God’s intended meanings may be greater that humanly intended meanings, it can give the text the breath to speak to us in this age as meaningfully as it did thousands of years ago. Think on this: at the very moment that ink was put to papyrus by an inspired human hand, God, who is outside of time, intended a meaning by the selfsame written words for you and me to understand. He was speaking even then to us.

We want to know what God is saying to us, don’t we? Then read the scripture! He is speaking to us in the scripture.

But if there is a distinction between human intention and prophetic or divinely inspired meaning – as well as the possibility of contradiction between the two – how do we figure out what God is really saying to us?

Not by any tool of science or history alone is it possible to discern whether an interpretation of an inspired text is a meaning that God intends. Rather, the tools of faith, prayer, and inspiration must guide the interpretation of inspired texts, because, as St. Gregory Thaumaturgas writes, “No one can understand the prophets if the prophetic Spirit does not give them the ability to receive their meaning.”  Inspiration must be in both the writing and the reading of the inspired text. If God’s meaning is to be revealed to you, he must inspire you!

The only way to know God’s intended meaning of scripture (or anything else, for that matter) is by faith, for “faith is a true knowledge,” as St. Maximus the Confessor writes.  Faith and faithful interpretation of history – and not history alone – will reveal God’s intended meanings of scriptures. Faith, of course, acts in and on history. History and faith are not mutually exclusive. Salvation by faith is a historical accomplishment.

But those of us who seek what God is saying to us in scripture must not only be historians but also, and more importantly, theologians. That’s right, you must be a theologian. Evagrios of Pontus points out, “If you are a theologian, you truly pray. If you truly pray, you are a theologian.”

Prayer is an essential component to the interpretation of scripture and to the seeking of God’s meaning of scripture. Prayer is not a historical critical tool, but it is the supreme theological tool. Without it, no interpreter can find God’s meaning in holy scripture.

When we realize that God is speaking to us through people, as he does in scripture, even at times without their knowledge and apart from their intention, we may realize also that he could speak and is speaking through us and through others to the world here and now today. The Word of God is not only the words of the Bible. Paul was preaching the gospel, and not only writing it for us to read.

And even more importantly, but, as Origen writes, “The Word of God is in your heart. The Word digs in this soil so that the spring may gush out.”

“The reading of the Bible,” is a means by which “the Word digs into us and saves us,” as fr. Thomas Spidlik writes.  The inspired scriptures have value primarily because of their power to inspire believers – to inspire you – in the true sense – that is, to fill you with the Word by the power of the Spirit. The Word is not just written. It is also read and heard and interpreted. It is also preached. It is also lived, and “the finest exposition of the Bible is the life of the believer.”

If we believers open to the reality that God, and not only this or that historical human, is speaking to us personally through scripture, then what St. Jerome says comes true for those of us who read it: it unites them to the bridegroom Christ.    It aids our divinization (our θέωσης). For us believers, “the reading of the Bible is not only an intellectual activity; it is going to school with the Spirit,” as Spidlik writes.  If we seek God’s meaning in the scriptures, we will behold in scripture the glory of the Lord, and will be “changed into his likeness” (2 Cor 3:18).

On Luke 16:19-31

I like to feast. That’s probably becoming more apparent as my girth expands. That’s because I feast too much. My Sicilian rector once observed that I am “a good fork.” God be merciful to me, the sinner.

But it’s not a bad thing to feast and to celebrate on occasion. Feasting itself is a good thing.

Recall the parable of the prodigal son. What does the father do when his son finally returns home to him? He kills the fatted calf and feasts and celebrates with his beloved child.

Jesus himself attends and contributes to a wedding feast in Cana.

The Church gets in on this too. We feast. We celebrate. On every icon screen are twelve icons of events we call ‘feasts.” We call them feasts because they celebrate events that call for a feast. Above all, this refers to the eucharistic feast of the divine liturgy – but it also carries the sense of celebrating and sharing a good meal with friends and family. There’s a time to fast and a time to relax our fasting, to cut loose and party. This is part of what’s good about being human and being children of God.

The first Franciscans were no Friar Tucks. They fasted severely and practiced strict asceticism. So much so that one day Brother Morico came to St. Francis and asked him if they should fast even on Christmas Day, because it fell on a Friday.  St. Francis was flabbergasted. Fast?! “On the day on which the Child was born to us? It is my wish,” he said, “that even the walls should eat meat on such a day, and if they cannot, we should smear the walls with meat!”[i] Francis, it would seem, recognized that here is a time for feasting – and even for rather extravagant feasting.

But today’s gospel begins with feasting of another kind. Jesus says, “There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day” (Luke 16:19). He not only feasted, but feasted sumptuously, and he not only feasted sumptuously at times in celebration of great occasions, but feasted “every day!”

And furthermore, he acted in this way while the poor man Lazarus lay starving and full of sores just outside his gate (Luke 16:20). He did not ask this man in. He did not invite him to join his feast or send any portion to him at the gate. This is grotesque.

The prophet Amos saw grotesque imbalance like this in his day. He was a simple shepherd called by God to speak against corruption and injustice at a time of great material wealth and decadence. He says,

Woe to those who… eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the midst of the stall… who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first of those to go into exile, and [their] revelry… shall pass away (Amos 6:4-7).

And we continue to see imbalance like this in our own day. Being as well sated as many of us are – as I am – can render us insensible to the sufferings of others. Too much comfort can blind us to the discomfort of the poor and needy. Perhaps we hate to be reminded of that because it disturbs our precious comfort.

The tradition of the Church gives us a remedy we ignore at our peril – a remedy that may well have saved the rich man from his torment in the flames had he observed it faithfully: a balanced cycle of feasting and fasting.

We celebrate occasional feasts as expressions of our joy in the Lord. Note that this feasting is occasional. We are not to feast every day, like the rich man. Cookies aren’t for every day, as Pani Katie tells the children and me, but only for special occasions. I should probably listen to her. And when we feast, let’s also remember that the less fortunate are always invited and welcome to join us.

And to balance this feasting, the Church invites us also to many days and seasons of fasting. Count them all up and about half the days of the year are fast days. Half and half. This is a balance.

Fasting is for many reasons, but sometimes we forget the reason of justice. We fast to humble ourselves before the Lord. We fast to train ourselves in virtue and to cleanse our hearts of vanity. We fast also so that we will have more to give. Fasting is to enable giving. Proper fasting consists in consuming less, which means spending less money. These savings are not meant to pad our investment accounts. They’re meant to be given to the poor.

The Shepherd of Hermas tells us,

You must taste nothing except bread and water on the day on which you fast. Then, you must estimate the cost of the food you would have eaten on that day…, and give it to a widow or an orphan or someone in need. In this way you will become humble-minded (Herm 56: 6-8).

This is good and practical advice for us if we are to avoid the tormented condition of the rich man in today’s parable. We might consider drawing up a more austere grocery budget during the fasting seasons and giving the savings to Food for the Poor or to another charitable organization. Or, better yet, giving it directly to those in need in our communities.

Our next fasting season, which will be in preparation for the feast of the birth of our Lord, begins in less than a month, so give this some thought.

Each fasting season ends with a feast. And a life lived simply in the Lord, without flaunting extravagance in the face of the poor, but rather sharing all that we have with those in need, will end at the heavenly banquet table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt 8:11).

 

 

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[i] Saint Francis of Assisi, Celano, Second Life, Chapter CLI