Bulletin for 2021-09-12 – St. Stephen
Sermon on Matthew 22:35-46
If we are practicing Byzantine Catholics, then we are well acquainted with the Book of Psalms. If we are not well acquainted with the Book of Psalms, then we have not yet begun to practice our Byzantine tradition. Our Byzantine tradition of prayer is positively steeped in the Psalter. We pray the Psalms constantly and at every liturgical service, including this Divine Liturgy, though, interestingly, least of all. All of our other services include even more Psalmody. We truly follow the instruction of Saint Paul, when he tells us to “greet one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all [our] heart[s]” (Eph. 5:19). This apostolic tradition is here very much alive.
And remember that tradition is a living thing if it is anything of value at all. The great scholar of history and theology Jaroslav Pelikan said from experience, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; [whereas] traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition.”[i]
So while we keep the good tradition of singing Psalms, it is good also for us to find a way of doing it that we will actually do, rather than insisting that only one of the ancient ways is worthwhile. Often, if we take that tack, we soon discover that these ancient ways are rather cumbersome, as it turns out, and so we give up the whole thing. Better, as I say, to sing the Psalms according to a rule we will actually keep in our actual real lives.
And one piece of guidance I would give you, whether you asked for it or not, is that your prayer should include at least some psalmody. Not overmuch, necessarily, but some. It is not necessary for lay people to keep the Byzantine monastic cycle of psalmody, which goes through the entire book, all 150 Psalms, each and every week, and twice a week during the Great Fast. That’s a bit much for most of us who are living in the world and, if we try to do it, we may soon burn out and give up the whole thing. Rather, the tradition that stands there to inspire us. If the monks and nuns of our tradition can keep this great discipline, perhaps we can at least pray a psalm each day. That would be a good thing. Don’t be intimidated. Some of them are quite short. Here is a Psalm in its entirety, which we always pray at Vespers:
Praise the Lord, all you nations, acclaim him all you peoples! Strong is the love of the Lord for us; he is faithful forever (Psalm 116).
There, you see? That’s not too much. You can pray a Psalm each day. And it is worthwhile to do so.
The Book of Psalms contains the revelation of God. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit. And it is the prayer book of Jesus Christ himself. This book in a unique way contains the prayers of God to God. For example, when we pray Psalm 21, we are praying a prayer that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and which was prayed to our Father in the heavens, by his only begotten Son in his humanity as he hung upon the cross and cried out, “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?” “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” This Psalm therefore connects us into an unfathomable inner experience of Christ our God like no other prayer can.
We know this from the gospel. Now, if we were to pray that same psalm apart from its gospel context, we would fathom it even less. In fact, this same great and holy book becomes so unwieldy if divorced from the gospel, that it can even begin to lead some people astray. That which is holy and edifying and divinizing could be confused and distorted and manipulated by the enemy to mean in some cases the very opposite of what God means by it. Never forget that the devil quoted the Psalms while tempting Jesus in the desert (Matt 4:6; Ps. 90:11, 12).
I will give you an extreme example. In the Psalms we proclaim, “Do I not hate those who hate you? abhor those who rise against you? I hate them with a perfect hate and they are foes to me” (Ps. 138:21-22). This is a psalm that we Christians pray. As I said, our monks and nuns pray this prayer every week, and twice a week during the Great Fast. Meanwhile, Jesus has given us a new teaching: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). We have here a contradiction, it would seem. Some Christians have been so perplexed by this, that they have removed this Psalm and others like it from their own cycle of prayer. We Byzantines do not do this. Rather we seek to know what God means by it.
Speaking about this very Psalm, St. Basil the Great says, “It is not hard for us, if we wish it, to take up a love for justice and a hatred for iniquity. God has advantageously given all power to the rational soul, as that of loving, so also that of hating, in order that, guided by reason, we may love virtue but hate vice. It is possible at times to use hatred even praiseworthily.”[ii]
And then he quotes the same verse I have already mentioned. It’s clear, I think, that Basil is starting with Christ and his gospel, and is understanding the psalms he’s praying only in that context and from that perspective. Therefore, and only because of this, he is able to see that the “ones” we are to hate are no fellow humans or creatures of God, but only vice and iniquity, which God did not make. In interpreting the Psalms this way, St. Basil is following the example of Jesus himself, as we heard in the gospel this morning.
Today, Jesus reveals a manner of understanding the Psalms to the Pharisees he is talking with. He quotes Psalm 109: “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool” (Ps 109:1). He reveals this to be a Messianic psalm about himself, the son of David who is none-the-less also the Lord of David. In fact, he is the Lord God who created David and knit him together in his mother’s womb.
Apart from the guidance of Jesus Christ, this psalm would never have been understood that way. The Jews were expecting a Messiah, but that he would be God incarnate went well beyond their expectations, even though that truth was already being proclaimed in their own Psalms. They could not see it there. And neither would we be able to see it if we did have Christ to open our eyes to it.
And so, in addition to praying the Psalms each day, which I encourage you to do, also read something of the gospel. Because it is only in the gospel that the revelation of the Psalms is made manifest. We need both if we are to commune with God in our prayer. “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ,” says St. Jerome, so let us immerse ourselves in them day and night to grow in our relationship and intimacy with our Lord.
[i] Carey, Joseph (June 26, 1989). “Christianity as an Enfolding Circle [Conversation with Jaroslav Pelikan]”. U.S. News & World Report. 106 (25). p. 57.
[ii] Homilies on the Psalms
Great Vespers will begin at 4pm on Saturday, September 4th, 2021
Sunday Matins will begin at 8am on Sunday, September 5th, 2021
Matins Propers for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Tone 6.
The Divine Liturgy begins at 10:00am on Sunday, September 5th, 2021.
People’s book for the Divine Liturgy
Divine Liturgy Propers for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Tone 6.
Whenever we are unable to pray the Divine Liturgy, we traditionally pray Typika in its place. Click here for a Typika Booklet.
Sermon on Matthew 22:1-14 & Mark 6:14-30
We heard two gospels this morning and that’s because today is both Sunday and the Beheading of John the Forerunner. Strikingly, both of these gospels tell us about a feast, but they are two very different feasts. The gospel for the beheading of John centers on the birthday feast of Herod and the gospel for this Sunday tells us about a wedding feast. Remarkably, too, both stories involve murder. But while Herod’s birthday party (with its themes of lust, vanity, and murder) may serve as an image of hell, Jesus’ parable about the wedding feast is, he tells us, an image of heaven (Matt 22:2).
Still, for a wedding story, this parable is rather violent. Now, some of the guests invited to the wedding feast simply make light of it and – excusing themselves by this or that trifle – do not come. Others, however, shamefully seize and abuse and kill the servants whom the king sent bearing the glad news and invitation. Understandably outraged at this, the king sends in his troops. But they not only kill those heartless murderers, but also burn their entire city.
Having no guests left and finding his first-invited guests unworthy, the king invites in a multitude from the streets. This is where we come in, I expect. But the violence does not end here.
The king sees among the guests a man who has on no wedding garment and asks him how he got in so inappropriately dressed. The man says nothing. He is speechless. He has no defense. Some sources even say that the wedding garments would have been provided by the king in a situation like this. So what’s really going on here, once again, is refusal of the king’s hospitality. So the king has him bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
What is the meaning of all this violence? What kind of party is this? What party comes with such stakes? This is rather like getting a wedding invitation – but in fine print at the bottom is written, “come celebrate with us or die.” It becomes rather clear that we are not talking here about the usual kind of wedding party. We might not want to be invited to a wedding like this – it sounds rather dangerous – but, like it or not, we are invited.
It is a free invitation to celebrate, but it’s an invitation we’d better accept. It’s an invitation with teeth. It is an occasion of great joy, but it is deadly serious. Those unwilling to partake joyfully will have hell to pay. Because this wedding feast, as Jesus says at the outset, is like the kingdom of heaven. The wedding garments we are to put on as we enter this feast are like those we put on at baptism and again at the second baptism of holy repentance. That is, they are Christ himself, for all those who have been baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. To be thrown out of this wedding hall is to be thrown out the gates of heaven.
But, you know, this party isn’t just exactly like heaven either. For one thing, it’s a party to which both the good and the bad have come. I’ve been to a few parties like that.… In fact, we’re at a party like that right now, if you think about it. This church – this Eucharistic celebration, is like a party to which both the good and the bad alike are invited. The sinners and the saints sit together…. For that matter, they’re usually sitting together in the same seat. If you’re wondering whether you’re a sinner or a saint, remember: you can be both. This struggle between the good and the bad happens mostly on the inside.
This parable reminds me of a passage in C.S. Lewis’ novel The Screwtape Letters, which I highly recommend. It’s framed as a series of letters from a senior demon named Screwtape to a junior demon – his nephew Wormwood – with advice on the best way to tempt a soul to keep him out of heaven and secure his place in hell. The demons sardonically call their victims “patients.”
Well, Wormwood gets in trouble one day when his “patient” converts to Christianity. Screwtape is mightily displeased. But, he assures his nephew, their hope of damning the poor soul to hell is not yet lost. “One of our great allies at present,” says Screwtape, “is the Church itself.”
You see, Screwtape is well aware of what Jesus is saying in today’s gospel: both good and bad guests fill the wedding hall – and the devils can use the bad ones to help corrupt the good. The Church in this world is a mixed bag. Don’t we know it.
Screwtape points out that the new Christian will get to his pew, look around himself and see just those neighbors “whom he has hitherto avoided.” You’ll want to “lean pretty heavily on those neighbors,” he advises Wormwood “It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains,” writes Screwtape. “Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous.… Never let him ask what he expected them to look like….”
It may be, of course, that “the people in the next pew” are actually good and holy people. Of course, if they’re not, writes Screwtape “– if the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge player or the man with squeaky boots is a miser and an extortioner – then your task is so much the easier.”
You see, the demons will use our sins not only to drag us down but also to drag others down with us, if they can. Our neighbors see our sins and our hypocrisy and it sometimes convinces them that the Church itself is hypocritical or ridiculous or even evil. Of course, I’m reminded of that old retort to the common complaint that there are too many hypocrites in church: “Don’t worry, there’s always room for one more.” So, let us not judge one another. Let us look instead to our own sins.
That’s the point, I think. All are invited and welcome to the feast, regardless of their sinfulness. But those who accept the invitation have a serious duty. This love feast is not a free-for-all, come-one, come-all, do-as-you-please, orgiastic bacchanalia, no matter how it has been treated by members of the Church at all levels. This is a wedding feast – a celebration of commitment, fidelity, fruitfulness, life, and love. A wedding is where two become one, and at this wedding, we the Church become one with Christ our Lord. Those unprepared to celebrate these things – those unwilling to put on the wedding garment freely offered by our king – cannot remain in the kingdom of heaven. We are now before the gates of the kingdom of heaven and our king is inviting us in. His invitation is this: Repent, and know the joy only Christ can bring.
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