HOMILY: Rejoice in the Lord!

HOMILY: Rejoice in the Lord! – December 29th, 2019

Readings: Philippians 4:4-7, John 1:19-28

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; one God. Amen.

As we come to the end of another calendar year, we approach this time with words of thanksgiving for all that we have and have endured, and also of expectation as we rejoice for what is yet to come. We look at the past twelve months and we realize that most of us have much to be thankful for: we rejoice for our successes and triumphs; we rejoice for our health and wellbeing; we rejoice for our family and friends; and we rejoice that Christ is in our midst, where He is and ever shall be. For all these things we give thanksgiving and praise, prayer and supplication always, for we remember that all things come from the Father.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”

These are the words of Saint Paul in our Epistle reading this morning, and regrettably we recognize that it is not always easy to rejoice, for not all moments seem pleasant to those that endure them; to those that endure loss; to those that endure suffering; to those that endure heartache and hardship; to those that endure the darkness because it seems as though the light has left them. Yet, even in times such as these we can find reasons to rejoice; for, in our sufferings we find strength; in our pain we find the power to endure; in the loss of all things we are freed from the world; in the loss of life we rejoice in hope, and look for an age yet to come. No matter the darkness and how cold it may seem, we hold onto the light of Christ, for the Light will dispel the darkness, or make longer the shadows and reveal the objects within our lives causing them.

Saint John Chrysostom also says similarly in his own Homily on the letter to the Philippians:

“It is comforting to know that the Lord is at hand…Here is a medicine to relieve grief and every bad circumstance and every pain. What is it? To pray and to give thanks in everything. He does not wish that a prayer be merely a petition but a thanksgiving for what we have received…How can one make petitions for the future without a thankful acknowledgment of past things?…So one ought to give thanks for everything, even what seems grievous. That is the mark of one who is truly thankful. Grief comes out of the circumstances with their demands. Thanksgiving comes from a soul that has true insight and a strong affection for God.”

We rejoice because He is with us, and we have much to be thankful for. We look forward to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we rejoice, because he is our Lord God, and King. Then, we look forward to and celebrate theophany, the revelation of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – on the waters of the Jordan, and rejoice because He is all merciful and compassionate toward His Children. We endure the somber period of the Lenten season, and we rejoice because He is Risen, having endured His crucifixion upon a cross, dying that we may live. He ascended that the Holy Spirit might descend, and we rejoice that we were worthy to be recipients of God’s grace. We endure the darkness of this world, just as the many saints who have gone before us, but we rejoice in the resurrection yet to come; we rejoice in God’s love and our healing of soul and body, the salvation of many, and the forgiveness of all.

We give praise and thanksgiving for the days that have come to pass, and look forward with joyful expectation at what is yet to come. Paul tells us not to be anxious about anything,“but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” We pray with thanksgiving, and we give voice to our thoughts, making them a tangible thing, making them real; for, even all of creation was spoken into existence. So, we say our prayers, say our confessions, say our creeds, that all these things may become real within us; that they may manifest themselves in our lives. Yet, this is only but a single reason why our prayers matter, not only to ourselves, but to the very world in which we live.

Our prayer is an encounter and relationship with God. It is through prayer that we anchor ourselves to the present moment, for indeed it is the only moment in which we can encounter God. Yes, we look back with thanksgiving on the past, and we look forward to the future with hopeful and joyful expectation, but it is only the present moment that matters to us. God is present to us at all times and in all places. He is present simultaneously in the past, present, and future, but it is only in the present moment in which we live, exist, and experience this life. Christ himself exhorts us in the Gospel of Matthew to “not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own,” and there is little we can do about the past, so we pray always, offering up the present moment to God, so that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Tomorrow may remain a mystery, but today is a gift from God, and I jokingly say that this is why it is called the present.

It is only in the present moment that we can be still and know that He is God; but, the world provides no such peace. Far too often the world lives in a distracted state of mind, and with many, their focus of attention is divided between their mobile devices, tablets, and cell phones instead of the people and places around them in the present moment. People would rather interact through an artificial glass wall, numbing any sense of true relationship and warmth we would experience with others. We are often distracted by the advertisements and sales pitches of the world around us, telling us how the world should look – billboards, magazine racks, television commercials, radio commercials, gossip and opinion, and so forth – driving us to focus on that which we should have, instead of what we have right now. Our attention is scattered on a vision of how the world tells us things should be, instead of how the world really is. Our mind is often divided between our past and future concerns, but rarely on the importance of the present moment. Because of this, many people have no joy, cannot rejoice or be joyful, because this can only happen within our present moment. Prayer and thanksgiving can only happen where we are.

We are often so focused on doing, that we leave little time for the act of being, being Children of God, being Saints, being perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Though, one should not consider the act of doing, and the act of being, to be two separate things. For, we have been exhorted to pray without ceasing, but this is not always an act of words. We become our prayer within our day to day lives; we incarnate Christ into the world; and we become that which we pray for, that for others and ourselves.

Prayer is the beginning of all theology, as Vladimir Lossky says. Prayer alone will give our soul the spiritual strength to endure all things. So, without prayer, there is no spiritual life alive within us. Our faith, our prayer, should become a state of being – it is not enough to say prayers, but we must become our prayer, become a Christian, and incarnate our faith by word AND deed. Our prayer life should be lived, and our prayers should be interwoven with our life, otherwise they become vestigial words and phrases that we simply offer in our short periods we turn towards God. Our prayers and our actions should become two expressions of the same situation. Also, we must approach our prayer life as a mutual relationship of friendship. God must be the object of our prayer, our wanting, for the intensity and elation of our prayer is often about the object of our prayer rather than the one to whom our prayer is addressed.

“All of life, each and every act, every gesture, even the smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should offer not what one has, but what one is.” (Bishop Kallistos Ware)

This is the gift we give: our lives. We do this because it is the only gift we can give which is reciprocal of itself, given in response to the gift which we have received ourselves: eternal life. It is for this gift, and many other reasons we are exhorted not once, but twice by the Apostle Paul in the same passage to rejoice; to be thankful for everything in prayer and thanksgiving. So let us become joy; let us all become Joy to the world because Christ our King has come, and is coming. It is a beautiful day our Lord God has made, so let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Through the prayers of our holy fathers and mothers, and Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.

Amen

Virgin Mary “Rejoices in Thee” (All Creation Rejoice), Orthodox Icon

HOMILY: Christ the King

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HOMILY: Christ the King – December 8, 2019

Readings: Daniel: 7:13-14, Colassians 1:12-20, John 18:33-37

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

We have come to the end of our liturgical year, through the course of which we have celebrated the birth of Christ, and the joy and salvation that his coming promises to bring. We have celebrated the theophanies of Christ our God, wherein the truth of God has been revealed to us. We have remembered the passion of Christ and repented of our own iniquities through the penitential season of Lent. We have celebrated Christ and the lives of the saints surrounding Him and following Him, that we may remember their lives and examples for each of us to follow. We once and always look forward with expectation from the moment of Christ’s birth, from the moment of our present lives lived in Christ, to the coming of Christ our King and our God. He entered the world as a suckling child, from the womb into the care of the Theotokos; became the sacrifice for all men that the whole world might be redeemed; and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father. He shall come again as a conquering king, who conquered death by death; who is the King of Kings; who is the Lord of all creation; He who is the head of the body, the Church, which is His Kingdom on earth. Within the Church, which Christ created with his own precious blood, we find the Truth, the Way, and the life. This is the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is life within him, and it is this Kingdom to which we all belong as citizens of heaven, for as Saint Paul says, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,” our King and our God. He also elucidates the kingdom of God as life in the Holy Spirit, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” So, we recognize the Kingdom as that which is already given to those of us who believe; to those of us who live and lead righteous lives under God our King; to those of us who incarnate the Kingdom of God into this world, and by whom this kingdom is created by the grace of God. We are Christ’s first and foremost, and if the first “flag” we fly is not Christ’s, then one must ask if He is truly our King and our God? The flag of nations should never precede the flag of faith. The flag of this world is not our own, for we are citizens of heaven first and only; for, we are but “sojourners and exiles in this world,” and should live as though we have no permanent part in it. For there is nothing in this world that is worth our lives in Christ; nothing in this world that can give us true joy; and nothing in this world that will endure in this life or the next.

Christ is our King, and the Kingdom over which he reigns has no place, it has no borders and holds no land; it has no end and begins in all places; it excludes no one, but includes only the faithful. We know where the kingdom rests by the fruits of its people, for Christ himself has said the people “will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is also the same quality by which we know Christ loved us, for he sacrificed himself that we may live life eternally. So then, what is a Christian life without sacrifice, but an empty and vestigial expression of a divine truth. True love engenders sacrifice, a sacrifice of self; of free will. It is through the sacrificial quality of love by which it is recognized. It is within the sacrificial quality of love that the Kingdom of God is found, for God is Love. It is with Love that Christ reigns as King over all creation.

Christ as King permeates our prayers; is echoed throughout our scriptures; is made manifest within the liturgy and sacramental life of the Church; so, likewise it should be made apparent that Christ is our King in our day to day lives. The culture in which we live reflects the contents of our inner being. If our culture is not changed, it is because we ourselves are not changed. This is why Saint Seraphim of Sarov exhorted that if we “acquire the Spirit of Peace, a thousand souls around you will be saved.” So, it is within society that we will express the contents of our heart in word and in deed, wherein society becomes a mirror of what lies within. It is where the Kingdom of God collides with the kingdom of this world that Christ’s love should manifest itself. How do we treat the homeless man or the mother in need? How do we react to the myriad inconveniences throughout the day? How do we respond to those who are less than pleasant towards us or others? How do we speak to those who are seen as social outcasts: addicts, criminals, prostitutes, the poor and needy, the disabled, and all of the others who do not align with the image of worldly success? We have already been given the answers to these questions by Christ our King, and he pulls us inexorably towards love.

Christ as King reigns over our very souls. It is by his grace alone that we are pulled godward; that every word we speak is one of praise or kindness; that every beat of our heart and every breath we take is done with thanksgiving; that our everyday and ordinary deeds are made extraordinary by their love and compassion for one another; that our own feelings and desires should be an echo of Christ the King, and that which His love desires. Our will is not our own, but that of the King who reigns over all: Jesus Christ our Lord. We can be slaves to the sins of this world, or freedman following their King and their God.

Christ our King has freed us from the bondage and slavery of sin, the passions that compel us to do that which we ought not to do. He commanded us to repent, and so we turn ourselves away from this world. He commanded us to baptize and be baptized, and so the faithful are made clean, “made whiter than snow.” He commanded us to “do this in remembrance of me;” so, we celebrate and partake of his body and blood as often as we can through the Eucharist. We are commanded to “be perfect,” just as the Father is perfect; a feat that can only be accomplished through theosis: our growth and exercise of virtue, and our cooperation with the graces of God. Among these commands, and others like it, Christ tells us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Our Love for Him is known and is proven by what we do. Our love of God is made manifest by our willingness to obey him, and to serve him, and also those in his kingdom. Christ came to serve, so we also serve. Christ came to heal, so let us be a healing presence to all. Christ came to forgive, so let us forgive one another. Christ came to reign over us, so let us always allow Him to reign in us.

Christ is King, and He is a just king, for the Justice of God is the restoration of all creation as God intended it from the beginning of time. Christ is a righteous king for He is righteousness. Christ is a conquering king, for he has conquered and defeated death by death, and in doing so “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” just as Saint Paul exhorted in our epistle reading for today. Christ is our King, and in Him we have faith and find hope, for “to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed,” just as Daniel prophesied. Christ is our King, and Christ is our God, for in Christ alone was the fullness of God pleased to dwell among us. So, We look forward to the completion and perfection of all things in and through Christ the King, the ruler and redeemer of all things. We adore the King of Kings as we bask in the countenance of his holiness and eternal glory, and pray always that we ourselves would be found worthy of the promises of Christ. Christ is the King of mercy, and may he have mercy on us all, and save us.

“Oh come let us worship and fall down before our God and our King.

Oh, come let us fall down before Christ our King and our God.

Oh, come let us worship and fall down before Christ himself, our King and our God.”

Amen.

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Liberty and virtue.

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Liberty and Virtue – December 4th, 2019

Does liberty exist without virtue?

Reading the histories of Greece and Rome, I find that the ancient histories of the Greeks and Romans bore great gifts of lessons learned through the mistakes and successes of the same, passed on to the founding fathers of our Republic. They learned from those great states and peoples who stood before them, and whose memories and lessons still echo through the annals of history: life, liberty, and a particular propriety of government. From the likes of Athens and the Roman Empire, they discovered those roads to be avoided. Through the heroic Spartans and the stalwart Roman Republic, they learned the importance of individual liberties, and the virtue that upholds it. Virtue, a morality that is simultaneously social and individual in nature, ensures a most effective defense against tyranny; for, “vice leads to tyranny, and tyranny leads to even greater vice.” So, it us such lessons that the founders were armed with the principles of revolution, a rebellion made right by its foundation of ideals, making the American Revolution paradoxical in nature: “a revolution fueled by tradition.” They took the best principles of those who came before us, using them to build the best Republic possible, a foundation for the continuity of liberty underpinned by virtue: One nation under God. Indeed, it is the moral fabric that ensures the continuity of a republic. A fabric so frayed and fettered with individual ideologies, so torn apart with divergent desires and subjectivity, so overpowered by feelings over objective truth, is the surety of a doomed republic. History shows us this, in Sparta, Athens, The Roman Republic turned Empire, and every great state and nation that has followed since.

We have not learned from history, so we shall be doomed to repeat it. So, we look forward to the horizon unseen, for insanity is partaking of the same thing repetitiously, and expecting a different result. The world wields nothing different from what it has already wrought, for there is nothing new under the sun. We look forward to the new day, the eighth day that dawns, under the light of which all shall be revealed, and all things shall be made new. So say we all.