This sermon was preached at St Thomas Albanian Orthodox Church on 5 April 2009 during the Pan-Orthodox Vespers hosted by the COCC.

Our father among the saints, Gregory of Nazianzus, once said that “What Christ did not take into Himself He did not heal, but what is united with God is also being saved.”

Now here’s the first thing those words mean: there is nothing that is new to our Lord; no sin that He is doesn’t already know about; no temptation that He’s never felt; no affliction or addiction that He’s not tasted. Not that our Blessed Lord did what we do. When He was tempted, He did not give in; and when He suffered He did not despair or lose hope. But we must believe Our Lord truly was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. And when we believe this, then we can also believe that we have a great High Priest who knows what we go through, and so He can and does sympathize with every one of our weaknesses.

There is no doubt that St Mary of Egypt had to embrace this truth as the first step of repentance. First our holy mother among the saints needed to believe and confess that her evil deeds were not outside the realm of God’s mercy. First she had to believe and confess that everything she was ashamed of would not automatically disqualify her from embracing our Lord. And first she had to know that whatever she had done would not prevent the Lord from embracing her. And when she believed this truth; when St Mary of Egypt took to heart that even her vilest deeds, even her most ungodly wickedness, even her most shameful acts had been assumed and consumed by her Lord—then could she have the boldness and confidence to confess her sins.

Today we commemorate and celebrate St Mary of Egypt. But we do not commemorate her just to tell her story. We commemorate and celebrate St Mary so that we might imitate her faith and courage. We commemorate this great saint so that we might imitate her confession; so that, before Pascha, we too might go to confession.

Now what keeps us from going to confession? What causes us to put off going to our spiritual father? Is it the belief that we have nothing to confess? Or is it rather our fear that Our Lord God does not understand, that He can’t identify, that He doesn’t really know what it’s like? In other words, we’ll confess—but to someone who really doesn’t know us, and what we face, and how hard it is. Now if we could just find someone like that—someone who truly understands, and has been there, and can sympathize with us.

Yet that is precisely who St Mary of Egypt found—a sympathetic ear; and more than a sympathetic ear. She found the Lord and God who had been there and back; who knew her sin not intellectually but also experientially. And St Mary found the Son of Man who had endured her temptations, and so was able to help her—all all men—who are tempted. And when she found Him, she received courage—the courage to confess.

Now isn’t that what confession is? Isn’t confession the courage to name our sins aloud, and also the courage to live against our ungodly desires? For it certainly takes courage to confess. And it certainly takes courage to live for others and against we selfishly pleases us. Yet where does such courage come from? Certainly not from the commandments. The commandments are good, but ultimately they show us that we’ve missed the mark; that we don’t measure up. And they show us how we should live. The commandments encourage us to do what is right, but they don’t give us courage.

Where then do we get the courage to confess? It comes from Our Lord Himself, who gives us His Spirit so that we might begin to know and believe that He will not turn us away—because He’s suffered our temptations.

Remember St Gregory’s words: “What Christ did not take into Himself He did not heal, but what is united with God is also being saved.”

These words mean that Our Lord has truly and really assumed and taken into Himself—into His life-giving flesh and blood—our temptations: our desire to control, our desire to satisfy our urges, our desire to accumulate, our desire to lash out, our desire to want what others have, our desire to feed our appetites, and our desire to lose heart and give up and give in to our fears.

All of these deadly sins, all of these ungodly passions and desires, Our Lord has both assumed and consumed. He has made them His own and swallowed them up in His person. He doesn’t just know about them. He took them in and suffered their sting, and then put them to death in His flesh. And He has done this for only one reason: so that He might transform and convert these ungodly passions, so that He might change them into godly desires—the godly desires which transform us.

Just think about this: Our greatest instinctual fear is that we will die. Death comes to us all. Death is inevitable. But every one of us does whatever we can to avoid death, escape death, and deny that we are dying. We even change our appearance and wear clothes so that others think we’re really not as old as we are. And why do we do that? Because getting older means getting closer to death. So we try to look and act younger so that we don’t have to deal with the death which lurks right around the corner.

Yet what does Our Lord do with death? He takes it, swallows it completely down into His flesh, so that He can transform and convert and even bless it so that it now becomes the way into the life of the world to come. Think about it: our greatest enemy Our Lord makes our greatest friend. Our greatest fear Our Lord transforms into our way to life. Our greatest curse now becomes the passage to blessedness. The thing that separates us from our mothers, is what Our Lord changes so that it now becomes the way we are born into the fullness of His kingdom.

Now what Our Lord does with death is also what He does with all those sins and passions which drive us to death. Our Lord transforms our sins into His forgiveness; He takes our unrighteous deeds and exchanges them for His righteousness; and He converts our selfish desire into a desire to love Him and all men. And how does He do this? By drinking down the bitter cup of our death so that we might drink the sweet cup of His precious Blood.

And that’s how Our Lord’s mercy works. He takes what is killing us and transforms it in His flesh, so that when we feast on His Body and Blood, we might be transformed.

That is the mercy, the grace, the comfort, the hope and the life that gave St Mary of Egypt and all the saints the courage to confess their wicked past, and to abandon their ungodly habits, and to live no longer for this life but for the life of the world to come. To strive no longer to gratify our flesh, but to strive just as hard and even harder for the fullness of the Father’s kingdom—that takes courage: the courage that Our Lord offers and presents and gives in His sacred mysteries.

Once more, I need to remind you of St Gregory’s words: “What Christ did not take into Himself He did not heal, but what is united with God is also being saved.”

During these two weeks before Pascha, let us recall that Christ Our Lord has taken and united to Himself not just our sinful desires, not just our death, but our entire persons; and He has done this so that He might bring us safely through the hardships of this life to the glory of His resurrection. And as we recall this, let us pray to St Mary of Egypt and our patron saint so that we might have the courage to confess our sins to our spiritual father, so that we might celebrate with full and unending joy these coming days, and most especially the glorious feast of Our Lord’s victory for us over death and the grave; for to this Lord Jesus Christ belongs all glory, honor and worship, together with His all holy Father, and His good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

The First Sunday in Advent
St. Luke 21.25-33

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

Beloved Spiritual Children:

Our Blessed Lord Jesus has often instructed us in the true delights of the heart. He has told us how great His love is for us, how He has mercy on us, how intimately He unites us to Himself by His Spirit, how He has stored up riches for us, and how earnestly He longs us for us join His saints and angels in His heavenly kingdom. And when we hear these things, how our hearts burn within us! And how our desire fades for this world and this world’s good!

Yet now, with that same deep compassion and undying love, Our Lord today warns us that we may lose these riches and His kingdom. For while Our Lord God will never quit His love for us, and will never leave us nor forsake us, He knows that we can become so enwrapped in the cares and occupations of our life, in our pursuit for fleeting honors, and in satisfying our present appetite, that we lose our focus and so may miss out on the things that truly make for our peace. Our Lord knows that we can become so preoccupied with ourselves and our own anxieties that we forget all that He has given us and promised to us; and live unmindful that this is not the world we ought to desire.

Therefore, Our Lord, through His Holy Apostle St Paul, gently rouses us from our slumber and awakens us from this false dream which entices us to think only about job and finances, about the here and now. And Our Lord Jesus Himself, in His own words, urges us not to look down or even to look forward, but to lift up our heads so that we might both see what He has in store for us, and even now taste and partake of the redemption that He gives us. For what are the good things in this world—except (at their best) an immature and incomplete foretaste of the greater goods of heaven? And what are the worst things in this life—except a discipline which increases our longing for eternal joys?

Therefore, Our Lord through His Church urges us not to lose sight of Him and His kingdom.  But how does He urge us? By calling us to practice restraint, to discipline both our flesh and our desires, to decrease what we think we must have—especially during these four weeks—all so that we might retain and attain the kingdom He has prepared for us.

In His wisdom, Our Lord has hidden from us the day when we shall know and achieve the fullness of His kingdom. Yet that we don’t know should neither discourage us, nor lead us to live only to satisfy our current hunger. Instead, let our lack of knowledge lead us to apply ourselves diligently to the life Our Lord has given us, and to practice even now to live in His kingdom. And let us do this, not by gratifying the flesh, with its evil desires, but by making no provision for the flesh. And let us walk honestly as children of the light, casting off the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light, even Our Lord Jesus Christ.

For you already know the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ—how He has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; how He has clothed you in His Spirit with an unstained garment; how He has made you a partaker of His saints in the light; and how He has fed you with the finest wheat flour and given you to drink of the sweet honey from the Rock.

He has done this precisely so that when our world is shaken, when the powers and kingdoms of men begin to tumble, when our lives seem to careen out of our control, and when men begin to lose hope—then we, the children of God, may not fear, but instead may know that our redemption draws nigh, and that our salvation is nearer than we believed, and that the kingdom of God is at hand.

Let us then pray to our patron, the Holy Mother of God; to St Andrew, whom we will  commemorate tomorrow; and to all the saints, that by their prayers we may not lose sight of the Lord’s kingdom, but may retrain and discipline our appetites and passions and desires, and so, by God’s grace, inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world; through Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with His Father and the all holy and good and life-giving Spirit, belong all glory, honor and worship, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Fr John W Fenton
Holy Incarnation Orthodox Church
27 January 2008

Septuagesima Sunday
St. Matthew 8.23-27

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

Dearly beloved:

What is this race which we run?

St. Paul plainly tells us that we are running a race. And he urges us not simply to run, but to run that you may obtain the prize. Therefore, the holy Apostle sets the goal before us. We are running to win. The prize has been set before us; it is in clear view. Now we must attain that which has been promised. Now we may lay hold on the treasure that has been stored up for us. And with this goal in mind, we run not with uncertainty, not as someone just pounding the pavement and going through the motions. Rather, we should run so that, in the end, we stand with those who have fought a good fight, finished the course, and kept the faith.

Now let us not believe that this is a race with only one winner. There is one prize, but there will be many winners. The payout is large, so many will benefit. Many will be honored, and will share the trophy. So run, St. Paul says. Run that you may obtain it.

But what is this race which we run? What is the course? And what is the point?

Fear propels most runners. They run to stay healthy, to prolong life, to avoid death. Pride propels a few. They run for the glory, for the accolades and fame. Still fewer run for the sheer joy of running. They run because they enjoy the atmosphere, and get caught up in the act. For all three—the afraid, the proud, and the lovers—for all three, the race is this world. They run the human race. That is to say, they run only with this life in mind: to get the most they can from the time they have, and to experience all that the world offers. They afraid fear missing out. The proud want to be remembered in the record books. And the lovers of this world get caught up in the act of living, in taking it all in, in living life to its fullest.

But my beloved children, that is not our race. For this world does not offer the prize that we seek. This world offers only disappointment and death. Its promises fade or are broken. And getting caught up in this world’s living means getting caught up in its march to death. For in the end, this world’s prize may be monuments for a few and satisfaction for some, but the grave for all. The Preacher is right: What does man have to show for all his running in this world? All his days are sorrowful, and the distraction of life is his, for even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity. For a man has nothing better to do under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry. (Eccl 2.23; 8.15 SAAS)

If that is the goal, then the laborers who were idle all day had the best racing strategy. “Let the race come to me.” That was apparently their philosophy. And it worked out well for them. For the longer they sat idle, the less they had to do; yet, in the end, they were made equal to those who had borne the burden and heat of the day.

Yet the householder comes to them, as well as to all the others, and offers them something more, a different race. He offers them a break from their daily doldrums, and invites them to work in his vineyard. Yet what is this vineyard? Is it not a place of power and richness? (Is 5.1 SAAS) Is it not where the true vine grows, and where the vinedresser tenderly and carefully cares for his vines? Is it not where the householder calls us “friend,” does us no wrong, and is good? Is it not the vineyard of the Lord of hosts—and therefore not only escape from this life, but also the life of the world to come?

This vineyard—it is the prize that we seek. It is the both the reason we run, and the reason we wish to run well. For we run not because of fear or pride or love of this world. We run to obtain the prize. Which means that we run so that we might lay hold on eternal life, unto which we have been called.

We, then, are not only the runners that St Paul describes; we are also the laborers that Our Lord has called and invited and pressed into service in His vineyard. He has hired us in Holy Baptism in order to free us from the bondage of this world, and this world’s allurements, and this world’s only sure promise. He has sealed us as His own workers in Holy Chrismation so that we run our race not in vainly, not beating the air worthlessly, but so that we may obtain an incorruptible prize, undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. And He has brought us into His vineyard so that He might graft us to the True Vine so that His life might supply our life, which then produces in us the good fruits of holiness, charity, kindness and other good works. For the householder is Our Father. And His goal for us is not that we live life to the fullest, but that we live life in His fullness.

Let us therefore, my beloved, set our sights not on obtaining the fleeting things of this world. Instead, let us lay aside all earthly cares, all selfish ambitions, all cosmetics which makeover our dying bodies, and all desires for accumulating fame or this world’s goods. And let us also lay aside all fear, all meanness, all impatience, and all pride. For now, in this world, the sorrows of death surround us; but the Lord has heard our prayer from His holy temple, and so urges us to run the race of good faith and well-doing so that we might live within the fullness of His heavenly mansion.

That we may do so we a true heart and firm resolve, let us beg the prayers of the Holy Mother of God, of St Matthias and the other Holy Apostles, of St Boniface and of all the saints; that aided and defended by their prayers, we, who are justly afflicted for our sins, may for the glory of the Lord’s name be mercifully delivered, through Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father, to whom, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, belongs all glory, honor and worship, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Fr John W Fenton
Holy Incarnation Orthodox Church
24 February 2008