Our Lord Weeps Tears of Love

The following is an excerpt from the sermon preached at Holy Incarnation Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church. Following the lectionary for Gregorian Use parishes in the Western Rite Vicariate, the sermon is based on the Gospel reading for Pentecost IX: St. Luke 19.41-47.


God our Savior will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Therefore, Our Lord God is constantly reaching out to us; constantly seeking us out; constantly offering Himself to us. And as He does, He urges us to deny our self-chosen loves, to sacrifice willingly and freely all that we are, and to live in the love that He gives, the love that He is. For He truly cares for us. And so Our Father does not wish us to suffer misery, or to grieve, or to experience hardship. Neither does our Father desire, will, plan or devise that one of us should turn away from Him and His mercy. He would rather that we attain true and lasting happiness by faith and obedience. He would rather that we attain the good that He is, and live forever within Him, by abandoning self-reliance and instead pinning our hopes solely to Him. When we do that, then we have the freedom to own up to the evil we do, the meanness we feel, the temptations that overtake us, the fears that control us. For when we rely solely on Our Lord and look to Him as the most loving Father, then we know that He will not turn His back on us, that He will quickly and enthusiastically embrace us, that whatever suffering we endure will be for our everlasting good, and that He will never cease to lavish upon us His unending love.

This love we see in today’s Gospel. Our Lord Jesus looks down on Jerusalem—not in anger, but in love. He sees them as they are now, and also sees what they will do and the regrettable path they will take. He sees the disobedience, the pride and the arrogance of His beloved people—of the people He calls His own. He sees them pulled along by the nose by their selfish desires, and enslaved by their fears, and blinded by their hatred. And He sees the end—how it will all play out, how they will destroy themselves, how their pride will bring down their beautiful city and their wicked instinct will drive them to consume their own children. (Cf) When Our Lord Jesus sees all this, He pities them. And when He beholds the city, He weeps over it.

Let us understand that Our Lord weeps, not because He is helpless in the face of such evil. For the Lord does not stand idly by when the devil attacks His creation; or when evil threatens good; or when the wicked murder the righteous. Our Lord weeps, not because He is helpless or because His hands are tied. Rather, Our Lord weeps because they refuse the help He offers, the mercy He speaks, the forgiveness He presents, the hope He gives, the love He is. He weeps because He offers them a way out—the only way out—and they will have nothing to do with Him and His offer. He weeps because He knows it does not have to end this way, yet He sees that they are bent on destroying themselves. But most of all, Our Lord weeps because He loves them; and in His love, He longs for them to attain happiness by loving Him, by trusting Him, by fearing nothing but Him, and so by welcoming the peace with God that He is and gives. Yet they refuse to know the things that make for their peace.

Let us also understand that Our Lord’s love is not like the fearful love that we often have for others. Our Lord will not smother us with His love. He will not love us in such a way that He forcefully makes us love Him. He will not override the freedom He has given us to choose our own loves. And so, like all true love, He risks all—even losing us—so that He might gain us wholly and completely. And so Our Lord weeps—because His beloved has spurned true love; because His beloved has rejected His love; because His beloved has preferred another love—a love that will not satisfy, that will fade, that is fickle; and so, a love that is not strong as death, and will not raise the dead to life.

Yet Our Lord has been raised from the dead. He is strong as death because He overcame death. And Our Lord is stronger than death since He has both raised us from the dead, and will raise us from the graves. And so you have seen His love—how He willingly sacrificed all for us; how He gave of Himself entirely so that we might entirely have Him and His love. This has not been hidden from your eyes of faith; and you have known the things that make for your peace. And with all this, you know that you have also been called His own, His beloved, the love of His life.

Zeal for the Life to Come

The following is an excerpt from the sermon preached at Holy Incarnation Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church. Following the lectionary for "Gregorian Use" parishes in the Western Rite Vicariate, the Gospel reading was St. Luke 16.1-9.


The depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God are so unsearchable, and so surpass our knowledge and exceed our imagination that Our Lord must resort to seemingly strange non-examples in order to illustrate His mercy which we can barely fathom. And so it is in today’s Gospel. We hear Our Lord tell a parable about an unjust steward—a fraudulent and ungodly man whom Our Lord commends because of his wisdom and shrewdness in getting what is not his and in making sure that his crime leads to a soft landing. Why does Our Lord commend such wicked perfidy, such unchristian treachery? Why does our perfect Lord God hold up this criminal as a shining example? What lesson does Our Lord wish to teach us?

The last words you heard sung give us a clue: “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” To say it another way: those who seek to indulge their flesh, who live as if this life matters most, who look not beyond the grave and yearn for nothing more than the fading, corruptible things that seem to give momentary relief—these folks are more zealous and clever and driven in their pursuit of these things, than those of us who have renounced these things and strive to pursue the kingdom of heaven and the fullness of life in God. Their determination far outdoes our own; and we should be ashamed. That’s Our Lord’s point. That’s His lesson. Put yet another way—Oh, that we exhibited as much energy and passion for the things that lead us into the eternal love of God as many have for the things that drive man more quickly and more deeply into hades.

...

[P]erhaps you can [also] see that in the parable Our Lord makes yet another point—a more subtle point: namely, that we are both the children of this world and the children of light. In other words, the unjust steward is not the example of the person we’re not or should never be. Rather, Our Lord is subtly stating that we are the unjust steward who often fixates only on this world and the fleeting gratification it offers, while neglecting to stoke and feed the flame of Christ’s light within that urges us to look beyond this world, beyond its empty promises and false hopes, beyond its short-lived loves and into God Himself and the kingdom He has prepared for us, and the love that He is and embraces us with and desires us always to live within.

Who, then, is the rich man? Is it not Christ Our Lord? And are we not the squandering steward—to whom the possession of the world has been completely entrusted for cultivation; and who, in baptism, promised to offer the world back to God not in selfish enjoyment, but in thanksgiving for His enduring mercy?

Let us understand, then, that, in the depth of His rich mercy, Our Lord God reaches out to us and cries out for us in this parable that you have heard. He cries out to us—so that we might not lose our way, but return and continue to be the good stewards of His creation, of His kindness, of His love. And He reaches out to us—so that, by His Spirit, He might enkindle in us a greater zeal, fervency and love for the life to come so that we are willing to sacrifice all that we are and all that we have as we strive to obtain that which matters most. And that which matters most is not this world for our own enjoyment and pleasure. What matters most is this world offered to Him so that He might renew, sanctify, quicken, bless and bestow it back upon us as the good thing that He first made it to be. What matters most is that we make use of this world’s goods, not for our selfish ends, but so that Our Lord might convert them to be the means of our salvation. And so what matters most is that we readily sacrifice our self-loves, our selfish desires, and what we think satisfies—all so that we obtain the fullness of our true love, our heart’s true desire, and all that Our Lord has promised.

St Peter Chrysologus Excerpt

Salt indeed is a healthy seasoning for all food, if it is used in limited amounts; otherwise, used immoderately, both the salt itself is ruined, and it destroys what it seasons. For an excessive amount makes bitter what a moderate amount could have made tasty. So too the reasoning faculty that is in us, if it should have moderation, provides flavor, gives birth to understanding, produces prudence, enlarges the heart, increases ability, gives mature expression to what must be said, puts eloquently what must be heard, becomes delightful to itself, and becomes perfectly delightful for those who partake of it. And certainly that reasoning faculty will be sweet as honey which will let nothing bitter come out of its mouth.

We have made these introductory remarks, so that our reasoning may be kept within the bounds of moderation in interpreting the Gospel, so as not to ruin the food of life, the divine nourishment, the heavenly flavor, but so as to preserve them for us with most judicious sobriety, according to the words of the Apostle: “To know no more than it is right to know, but to know in sobriety.” (Rom 12.3) But now let us listen to what the Lord has said.

There was a certain rich man (Lk 16.1). And who was this man if not Christ? Who is rich except the One who in our poverty kept possession of all the riches of creation? There was a certain rich man. He often used to say this to the Jews, so that they would understand that the opulence of divinity belonged to him even in the poverty of his humanity.

…

… and he had a steward. Who is this, if not the human being to whom the possession of the world had been completely entrusted for cultivation? …

And a charge against him was brought before him. Therefore, was it a rumor that he believed, did he come to know it because of news spread by a rumor? Far from it! But at issue was that those things which he knew, which he was concealing out of kindness, he then began to investigate since the earth was making the accusation—“The cry of your brother’s blood is shouting out of the earth.” (Gen 4.10) The earth is shouting, heaven is shouting, the angels were grieving, since by then the whole story was circulating around the world.

… that he had squandered his property. Earlier we read that this man’s younger son had squandered his property (Lk 15.13), now it is asserted that the steward had squandered his goods. Just as the same Christ is God and man, and the same is father and head of the household, correspondingly it is the same person who is both steward and son. Here we have diverse circumstances, a change in names, but no difference in persons.

… and he summoned him. He summoned him by means of the Gospel. … And what does he not do by means of the Gospel, by means of which he criticizes behavior[?] [H]e lays bare what was hidden, he exposes one’s conscience, he reproves offenses, he enumerates sins, and to the one who persists in them he threatens punishment, although to the one who changes his ways he promises pardon in return[.] … He ascribes what he knows to what he has heard, because he does not wish to hasten the sentence against the guilty, and he calls into his presence the convict as if he were only accused, since he is so eager to forestall condemnation with pardon.

Give an account of your stewardship; you will no longer be able to be steward. Why does he join such severity with such kindness? Why does he remove him from stewardship before receiving his report? … As man he now asks for an account, as God he announces what is now at hand and what will be. … He asks for an account, not to exact, but to forgive. He asks, in order to be asked; he asks here, so as not to ask there; he asks in this age, so as not to ask at the judgment; he is in a hurry to ask, in order that the time of punishment not preclude time to make amends.

Source: The Fathers of the Church: St Peter Chrysologus: Selected Sermons, Volume 3 (Catholic University of America Press, 2005) 110.175-177

Mercy Gives Time to Make Amends

In one of his homilies on the parable of the unjust steward, St Peter Chrysologus ascribes the summoning of the fraudulent man and the quick judgment of the rich man to mercy. "[The rich man] summoned [the unjust steward] by means of the Gospel." The summoning, then, is not mean-spirit or vengeful or even an attempt to "be done" with him. Rather, it is motivated purely by love. How can this be, given the quick sentence that is passed? Here is how the blessed saint describes it:

Give an account of your stewardship; you will no longer be able to be steward. Why does he join such severity with such kindness? Why does he remove him from stewardship before receiving his report? … As man he now asks for an account, as God he announces what is now at hand and what will be. … He asks for an account, not to exact, but to forgive. He asks, in order to be asked; he asks here, so as not to ask there; he asks in this age, so as not to ask at the judgment; he is in a hurry to ask, in order that the time of punishment not preclude time to make amends.

Read a larger excerpt of St Peter Chrysologus' sermon on Luke 16.1-9.

How to Read Difficult Scripture Passages

The parable of the unjust steward is as challenging to the modern ear as it was in the early church. Homilists of all ages struggle over how to understand and interpret this narrative; particularly the following "punchline": And the lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had done wisely: for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. 9 And I say to you: Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity; that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings. (Lk 16.8-9)

St Peter Chrysologus has at least two sermons on this pericope. He opens his first with this comment which, I think, gives the best perspective on how to approach not only this parable but all difficult passages in the Scriptures. In doing so, he places reason in its rightful place--as an obedient, subservient aid to understanding the God-breathed words.

Salt indeed is a healthy seasoning for all food, if it is used in limited amounts; otherwise, used immoderately, both the salt itself is ruined, and it destroys what it seasons. For an excessive amount makes bitter what a moderate amount could have made tasty. So too the reasoning faculty that is in us, if it should have moderation, provides flavor, gives birth to understanding, produces prudence, enlarges the heart, increases ability, gives mature expression to what must be said, puts eloquently what must be heard, becomes delightful to itself, and becomes perfectly delightful for those who partake of it. And certainly that reasoning faculty will be sweet as honey which will let nothing bitter come out of its mouth.

We have made these introductory remarks, so that our reasoning may be kept within the bounds of moderation in interpreting the Gospel, so as not to ruin the food of life, the divine nourishment, the heavenly flavor, but so as to preserve them for us with most judicious sobriety, according to the words of the Apostle: “To know no more than it is right to know, but to know in sobriety.” (Rom 12.3) But now let us listen to what the Lord has said.

Read a larger excerpt of St Peter Chrysologus' sermon on Luke 16.1-9.

False Prophets, False Promises

The following is an excerpt from the sermon preached at Holy Incarnation Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church. Following the lectionary for "Gregorian Use" parishes in the Western Rite Vicariate, the Gospel reading was St. Matthew 7.15-21.



False prophets make false promises. And false promises are false because they offer nothing real, nothing lasting. They promise not to gratify your soul, but to gratify your flesh. They promise not to deliver you from this world’s evil and death, but to help you embrace temptation and sin. They promise great rewards not to those who sacrifice themselves for others, but to those who sacrifice to improve themselves. They promise not to bring you closer to your Lord God, but to draw you more and more inside yourself. And so false prophets “promise a wisdom and a knowledge of the truth which they do not possess.” (St Augustine) In doing so, they set before our eyes the goal of making the best of life in this world. Or they urge us to disdain this world in favor a world without form, and void; a world that is no world; a world that is the product of vain imagination.

Truth says that we should be aware of false prophets with their empty promises. For they come not to comfort, but to devour. They falsely promise a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Prov 16.25) And so they come not to help us in the Way and strengthen us along the Way, but to distract, to discourage and to dispirit us in the Way that leads to through death to Life, through sacrifice to Love, through evil to Good Himself. Truth warns us; yet His desire is not to scare us. Neither does He want us to lose heart. Rather, He wants us to see clearly the Way the Spirit gives us to walk, the Way which Our Lord Jesus is, the Way that leads into the passionate embrace of Our Father. This Way is not easy. Truth Himself says as much when He tells us not to judge, not to condemn, not to get angry, not to make vows rashly and not to follow our wandering eye. And we know the Way is not easy when Truth says that we should love our enemies, give to those in need, and fear nothing except losing Him.

Again, Our Lord’s desire is not to scare us off, but to let us know how it is. Forewarned is forearmed. And so He wants us to know what deceits the devil will use, what schemes the world will employ, what pull our own flesh will exert—and also, what false promises false prophets will make. Resist these, Our Lord says. Abstain from that which takes your eyes off Me. Refrain from that which uses your body not for My glory. Defy that which speaks against Me and My promises. And avoid at all costs that which disrupts your life with Me.

Sublime Divinity & Tender Humanity in Christ's Feeding

Tomorrow is the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. In the lectionary used by Western Orthodox parishes employing the Divine Liturgy according to the rite of St Gregory the Great, the Gospel reading is from the Gospel according to the holy evangelist Mark.

The following is an excerpt from sermon by St Maximos the Confessor on this Gospel (Mk 8.1-9). It is taken from M. F. Toal's "The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers" (3.289-291).

Our Lord Jesus Christ in many and various ways revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, as also in His mysteries and sacraments, the sublimity of His Divinity and the tenderness of His Humanity, so that those who ask of Him shall receive, those who seek of Him shall find, and to those who knock it shall be opened to them. For all the wonders He wrought in this world, when clothed in our frail nature, He did for us. It was not without reason the Lord did these things, nor as if were idly and without purpose. Christ is the Word of God, Who speaks to men, not in words only, but also in deeds. And furthermore, this event which is read of in the holy Gospel today seeks for the one who will understand it; and when he has understood it, joy will fill his soul.

And in this reading from the Gospel we are to consider at the same time in our one and the same Redeemer, the separate activity of both His Divinity and His Humanity; and we must detest with all our heart the error of Eutyches, who presumed to put forward as Catholic truth that in Christ there is but one sole operation. For in either case, he who says that He was only man will deny the glory of his Creator, and he who says that he is God only will deny the compassion of the Redeemer. For that the Lord had compassion on the multitude, lest they faint or hunger or through weariness of the long way to their homes, makes known to us that He possessed the tenderness and affection that belongs to human weakness; but that He fed four thousand men with seven loaves and a few fishes was, we believe, a work of divine power.

…

[In this Gospel], four thousand, which means that all people, from the four points of the heavens, are filled with the sevenfold grace of the Spirit unto Life eternal.

And so, beloved, we who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, not through the Law but by faith, who are redeemed, not by its works but by grace itself; who are filled, not from the five loaves, that is, from the Five Books of Moses, but by the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, as the blessed Isaias had prophesied, saying: The Spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the Spirit of knowledge, and of piety; And he shall be filled with the Spirit of the fear of the Lord (Is 11), let us continue in this grace of the Sevenfold Spirit, in which we were called, being filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2.38) through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, God for ever and ever. Amen

The Latest LXX Translation

Christopher Orr has alerted us to a recently released electronic edition of a complete, fresh translation of the Septuagint. The work is entitled A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title, and promises to be printed and released by the end of the year by Oxford University Press.

The Translation Manual decidedly follows the translation principles of the NRSV, including as these pertain to "gender specific/inclusive-language" issues. Here are the specifics from the manual:

c. Gender specific/inclusive language: NRSV policy is to avoid "all masculine language referring to human beings apart from texts that clearly" refer "to men." [Footnote 1 B. M. Metzger, R. C. Dentan, and W. Harrelson, The Making of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (Grand Rapids, 1991), p. 76).] Thus, the NETS guidelines are as follows:

(1) One should generally retain the NRSV reading (especially its circumlocution in the plural number) . . .

(a) if its reading does not run counter to the option exercised by the Greek translator and

(b) if its reading helps avoid misleading masculine singular pronominal references.

(2) One should revise the NRSV when the Greek translator can be shown to have opted for gender-specific language (or non-gender-specific as the case may be). E.g., since Hebrew )Y$ in Pss is rendered by both ANTHROPOS and ANER it may be concluded that gender-specific ANER constitutes a deliberate choice. The same is true for such Hebrew words as )DM, BN, or GBR. Compound terms such as HUIOS/HUIOI ANTHROPON can, of course, readily be rendered by "people", "person" or the like.

This is regrettable, but not unexpected. It is regrettable because it requires the translator to interpret when the text is clearly referring to "men" and when it is generically referring to "mankind/humankind." Specifically, one is asked to decipher with precision the Greek word anthropos which, like then English words man/men may carry not only a generic and specific meaning, but also both at the same time--and quite purposefully. (Cf, "who for us men" [anthropos] in the Creed.)

I've only skimmed a few select phrases and, in doing so, noticed quickly a few infelicitous renderings of the Psalms. For example, the translation of Psalm 1 indicates that this is a scholar's translation and one not chiefly aimed at daily prayer. (I would continually stumble over this phrase: "...on the seat of pestiferous people did not sit down.")

Even if not intended for liturgical use, it is nevertheless good to have yet another translation of the LXX; particularly since this is the preferred OT text in Orthodox Churches. Yet I shall await more eagerly this long-promised translation.

The New Covenant in Christ's Blood

Today the Western Rite Orthodox churches celebrated the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The following is an excerpt of the sermon preached at Holy Incarnation Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church.

Covenants between men are made, broken, fulfilled, revised, renegotiated, and put into effect all the time. Between men, there are millions of covenants. But between God and His creation, between the Lord and mankind, between the Spirit and those who live in the Spirit, there is and has always been only one covenant. It is the Lord’s covenant—the covenant that He established and decreed. And so, unlike our covenants, the Lord’s covenant is based not on negotiated terms but grounded in who the Lord is—in His very self. And since He is certain, immovable and never-ending, the Lord’s covenant is the only certain, immovable and never-ending covenant.

The terms of this true and lasting covenant are as simple as they are straight forward: “I am the Lord your God. … I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.” Those terms have never changed. Several times, the covenant was re-extended, re-established, restored, renewed, respoken. But the terms were never re-negotiated or revised. The Lord God has extended the communion He is to us, and has promised to be our God; and He has declared that we are His people.

Each time the one true covenant has been reaffirmed, bloodshed has ratified and sealed the relationship. So when God reaffirmed His covenant with Abraham, Abraham and all the males in his household shed their blood by being circumcised. And when the Lord God reaffirmed His covenant with the children of Israel—after He had safely delivered them from Egypt, after His servant Moses at Mount Sinai had read the book of the covenant, and after the children of Israel said, “Everything the Lord has said we will both do and hear”—then Moses took the blood [of young calves] and sprinkled it upon the people, and he said: This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.

And today we have heard once again—as we do at every Mass—that when Our Lord God re-established and renewed His covenant, He determined to seal and ratify it not with the blood shed by men or with the blood of bulls and goats, but with the blood of His only-begotten Son. This blood which Our Lord shed on the cross is the blood of the new covenant. And this Lord’s blood is precious—not only because it is God’s blood, but also because it is the price which renews and confirms and re-extends the Lord’s covenant to all mankind.

This covenant which Our Lord’s precious blood sealed is “the new covenant in His blood.” It is new, not because it abolished, cancelled or nullified the covenant which the Lord made with Abraham and the children of Israel. The covenant—and the terms of the covenant—has remained constant. It is new chiefly because now the covenant is located and grounded not just in the Lord’s Word but also is His blood. Not that this makes the covenant more sure, more firm. For Our Lord does not change; and His Word is as constant as it has ever been.

What has changed, however, is how that covenant is received. Before, the Lord’s covenant rested in the unreliable ears of man. Now the Lord’s covenant rests in the sanctifying streams of divine blood. Before, the Lord’s covenant was ratified by the blood of death-driven flesh. Now it is ratified by the blood which is from Life Himself. Before, the blood which ratified the covenant was sprinkled to purify flesh. Now, the blood which ratifies is able to purge consciences since it is the Blood of Christ bestowed with and through the eternal Spirit.