The Gospel of the Cross

Before we process with it to the tetrapod on for the Veneration, the Holy Cross is on the holy table in the place where the gospel usually rests. The typicon instructs us to place it there before Vespers the night before the Veneration of the Holy Cross. It rests on the holy table all night long in the place of the Holy Gospel. How can anything take the place of the Holy Gospel? Nothing can. But that Holy Cross contains within itself the whole gospel.

What is the gospel?

Christ is risen from the dead. By death, he tramples death and to those in the tombs, he grants life.

That’s the gospel.

We’re about halfway to the great day when we get to sing those words - halfway to Pascha. This week is the midpoint of the Great Fast. And here, in the middle of the fast, in the middle of the church, stands the cross.  

Only in and through the cross is the gospel of resurrection available to us. The only way to life is through death.

Jesus says today that whoever loses their life for his sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it. That sounds like the cross, doesn’t it? The way to the gospel is the way of the cross. The way to life in Christ is death in Christ. We are baptized into his death so that we might also rise with him.  

But then Jesus says that there are some who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power (Mark 9:1).

Most of us hear that and think that sounds pretty good. We think, "Hey, I hope I get to be one of those people who doesn't have to taste death." But, if we're saying that, it's like we haven't been listening to what Jesus is saying about the cross.

Are we following him, or aren’t we? To go after Jesus means to embrace the cross. Would we rather not taste death unless first we see the kingdom of God? Unless we have proof? Do we need to be impressed with power first? Must we see to believe?

Jesus says that if we want to come after him, we must lose our life  (Mark 8:35) and let him save it instead of trying to save ourselves. Those of us who try to save ourselves are lost. We fail as saviors. There is one savior, and his name is Jesus Christ.

Is anything in our life or even our whole life more precious to us than life in Christ? Are we afraid to lose it? Or even to lose worldly things or comfort, or position, or human respect, or power?

Are we ashamed of him or of the cross ? Do we care more for the esteem of our fellow humans than for being the beloved of God? Do we regard the opinions of this adulterous and sinful generation to be of some great weight (Mark 8:38)?

When Jesus calls a generation adulterous, it’s worth remembering that we are adulterous whenever we are unfaithful to God by failing to keep his commandments. Whenever we hold anything or anyone or our own lives higher than God in our hearts, that is adulterous.

It’s worth periodically examining our priorities so that we may repent when they get out of whack. So that we may return again to the Lord and renew our focus on him.  

The way of the cross is the way of repentance, which “is the beginning, middle, and end of the Christian way of life,” as St. Gregory Palamas says.

Fascinatingly, to be marked with the cross was a sign of repentance even before Christ. In the prophecy of Ezekiel, those who sigh and groan over the sins of Jerusalem are marked with this sign on their foreheads (Ezekiel 9:4; Jerome Commentary).

Let us be unashamed of Jesus Christ and of his cross. Wear a cross to remind others and yourself that you’re a Christian. Make the sign of the cross whenever you pass by a church or a cemetery or a funeral, whenever you hear a siren or pass by an accident, before you eat a meal. Fill your whole life with reminders of the cross.

And do not forget even for one day that your own true life was created upon that cross – your life in Christ was born there and, if you embrace that cross, it will continue with him forever. For that it is worth giving up everything.

The Least

on Matt 25:31-46

Each of us has someone that we love the least. Maybe this is an enemy who has done us harm. Someone who abused us in various ways or humiliated us. On the other hand, maybe it's just someone God has put into our lives that we simply ignore.

We may not even know who it is that we love the least. In fact, it's likely that we don't – because it's precisely someone that we're ignoring when we ought to be loving them.

Someone we ought to care for as a friend or a brother or a sister, but we neglect them because they distract us from our personal goals. Someone lying outside our gates like Lazarus, who we step over as we go about our daily life. We think we're minding our own business maybe – but, really, we're failing to recognize in this other person the image of God.

On the other hand, it might be your wife for your husband or your mother or your father or your son or your daughter or your brother or sister that you love the least. Whoever it is, we all have someone we love the least.

This is who Jesus means, I think, when he says, whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto me (Matt 25:40). The least of Jesus's brethren are those of his children we love the least. And we are all God's children. Let us commit ourselves to welcoming and caring for all of God's children. This would a good plan for us, because it is on our caring for one another, above all, that we will be judged.

There will come an end of all things – the second coming of Jesus Christ – and the final judgment of each and every one of us, as we hear in today's holy gospel.

Russian c. 1660 in Yaroslavl

Let’s let fear of this judgement spur us to begin to love one another – especially those we love the least. When our love is perfected, it will cast out of us any need of fear (cf. 1 John 4:18). Until then, let us have a little fear.

Let us embrace whatever is necessary to motivate us to forgive those who have wronged us and try to do what good we can for them. Sometimes this means only that we pray for them and for all blessings upon them because we ourselves are powerless to intervene in any direct or material way. Many times, however, there is direct good that we can do – food, and clothing, and shelter that we can provide – and we neglect to do so at our peril.

Today, Jesus describes that peril as fire and punishment (Matt 25:41, 46). Elsewhere, he describes it as weeping and gnashing of teeth where the worm never dies and the fire is not quenched and as the outer darkness.

We have many ways avoiding the fulfillment of God's command to give to him by giving to the least of his brethren – to those we love the least. Sometimes, we are cleverer than the rich man who stepped right over Lazarus in brazen indifference to that brightly shining image of God lying at his own doorstep. That is, sometimes we pack up and move.

Americans are especially good at this. Rather than loving the neighbors we find ourselves surrounded by and working to provide for them whatever they may need, we can just move to another city, another town, or another neighborhood where the neighbors leave us alone because they just want to be left alone too. Where we share an unspoken mutual agreement to ignore each other in exchange for not being bothered by the inconveniences of others' needs. Pretty as neighborhoods like this may be, they are in some cases a thin disguise, the façade of an edifice of hell, a whitewashed tomb, you might say. Such may be a neighborhood built out of the desire to escape people we find uncouth or undesirable – people elsewhere known as the least.

Wherever we find ourselves, however, it is not too late. God always puts people in our lives with needs so that we will have an opportunity to give. The needs and even the begging of others is not the nuisance to us it may seem to be, but a gift and an opportunity from our Lord himself to show our Lord himself that we welcome him and care for him and love him.

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb 13:2).

It takes only a fraction of a moment to repent, to begin to love, to work for and seek the good of the ones we love the least.

We know that our Lord is the Lover of mankind. We know that he is merciful and kind and that he forgives all who repent. Yet, woe to those of us who take this knowledge of his merciful loving kindness – his ḥesed – and let it become an excuse for us to be unloving, thinking, “Oh, God will forgive me. I need not care for others.”

We must not forget that our God is awesome, mighty, and powerful beyond all measure. True paternal love, such as his, is not a spoiling and overindulgent love. God our father is not afraid to discipline us. In his love for us, he wants to make us into great men and women by his grace – by any means necessary. And greatness consists above all and becoming like God, who is love.  

Are you love? Am I love? If we are not yet love, we are not yet God. If we are not yet love, then let us have a little fear. If we do not love and also have no fear of God, we are damned. There is indeed something to fear. We damn ourselves by our failure to love and our failure to fear God.

Today's reminder of the coming Last Judgement exists to call us to repentance. Repent, forgive, and be forgiven. Today is Judgement Sunday. In one week is Forgiveness Sunday. God is both just and merciful – the end and the beginning.

We will be judged and we will be given every opportunity to repent. We are even now being given the opportunity to repent. Today. Let us not waste this one as we may have wasted many that have come before. There will be a final opportunity – we know not when – and it may be this.

Withdraw for a time.

Christ is baptized!

And immediately after his baptism, he was led by the Spirit into the desert, where he was tempted by the devil. This is the gospel we heard yesterday for the Saturday after Theophany (Matt 4:1-11). The 40-day fast of Jesus in the desert immediately after his baptism foreshadows for us the coming 40-day Great Fast before Pascha. The Great Fast before Pascha is also the Great Fast after Theophany. When Pascha is very early, the Triodion starts almost immediately. This year, however, we have endless days of feasting – well, until the end of February.

Jesus endures his fast in the desert in preparation for his ministry. Though he is perfect and unchangeable in his divinity (and so you might think he doesn’t need any preparation), in his perfect humanity, he does change and need preparation.  He grows in wisdom and in stature, as Luke tells us (2:52). In the desert, Jesus experiences hunger, which is a very human thing to experience. He fasts and then he is hungry (Matt 4:2). And he is tempted by the devil to eat bread.

Fasting weakens us. At first, it makes us more susceptible to temptations, not less. Anyone who has made a strenuous effort at the Great Fast knows it has a tendency to produce irritability, short tempers, and the easy formation of resentments. This is why some of the fathers point out to us that it does no good to fast from meat if we were only going to turn around and bite the backs of our brothers and sisters.

Fasting also weakens Jesus. Here is God in the wilderness weakened in his humanity and hungry.

  

But we submit to this time of weakening as a necessary training. It's a bit like when an athlete undergoes a strenuous workout. You know that when you lift a lot of heavy weights it actually, in the short-term, weakens you. That same day, you're wiped out. The very fibers of your muscles are torn apart by the effort. However, they respond to this by healing over time and coming back with greater strength so that, next time, they can lift that weight more easily.

The same is true of the spiritual effort of fasting and other ascetic labors. They train us in self-denial. Then when we're tempted to do things that really are evil, unlike eating food, which is not evil, we have the strength to resist – like Jesus resisted his temptations in the desert – because we’ve practiced not giving into our desires. Habit is a powerful thing. And we're going to need good habits and great strength because greater temptations are coming to us then we have so far experienced.

The same thing is true in the human life of Jesus Christ. He comes out of the desert, which he entered to be tempted and strengthened in his humanity, only to walk straight into horrible adversity. Today, we hear in the holy gospel that, immediately after he rebukes the devil in the desert, he hears that John has been arrested (Matt 4:12). John, his Forerunner and his Baptist, the servant to whom he had bowed his head and from whom he had received baptism only 40 days or so before.

This arrest bodes poorly for Jesus, you understand. He and John were publically affiliated with each other. The authorities that had arrested John would likely be coming for Jesus next. This is one of those adversities for which Jesus trained in the desert. This is a moment of spiritual discernment by our Lord. He has a decision to make, and in making it he must not be rattled by difficult circumstances.

He could rail against those authorities that have arrested John and heroically be arrested with him. He could witness to the gospel by bravely facing the false accusers right away. But Jesus is able to respond to the adversity dispassionately and with wisdom. He knows that first the gospel must be preached to the people before he is given up, or rather freely lays down his life for us.

First, he must preach. For our faith, as Paul will teach us, comes by hearing – and hearing the preaching of Christ (Rome 10:17). If the word was not preached, it would not be heard, and we would have no faith. So, Jesus does not stand at this time and rail against the wicked persecutors of John. Rather, at this time, he withdraws into Galilee and leaves Nazareth and goes and dwells in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.

By this example he teaches us, St John Chrysostom says, that “it is not blameworthy not to throw oneself into peril.” This was shown to us also when Jesus was a baby. When Herod ordered the slaughter of the Holy Innocents in his effort to destroy the Christ Child, Joseph is warned by an angel in a dream and the Holy Family flees into Egypt (Matt 2:13).

Knowing of coming peril and destruction, it is at times good for us to withdraw for a time. This is not to say that we are to be cowards. Far from it. Jesus embraces the cross and commands us to do the same. We must be courageous, but we need not be foolish. (Though perhaps some of us are to other kinds of foolishness – to the ascesis of folly – to be fools for Christ’s sake). But Jesus is no fool. He reserves his passion for a better time. It is necessary, as I say, for him to preach the gospel first.

It is interesting to note, as Matthew does, where this adversity sends him and where he consequently first preaches the gospel. To the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. It will help to know something about this place. Where are Zebulun and Naphtali? Or, maybe, who are Zebulun and Naphtali? Well, first of all, they were two sons of Jacob, according to the Book of Genesis. They are two fathers of two of the 12 tribes of Israel. The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali settled in the North. It was here that the Jews experienced their first captivity by the Assyrians. It was here that they first forgot the Torah and descended into idolatry.

When Isaiah describes them as a people who sat in darkness, it helps to have some understanding of what he's talking about (Isaiah 9:2). These are the people who have forgotten the Lord – and it is to them that the Lord comes. For those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned (Matt 4:16). That light is Jesus Christ and his preaching of the gospel.

Isn’t this remarkable? Those who first forgot the Lord and abandoned his law and turned to other gods – it is to them that he first of all comes! It is among them that he first preaches! We are never abandoned by the Lord, even if we have abandoned him. Very much to the contrary, he comes to seek out and save those who are lost, confused, mired in sin, and idolatrous. Us, in other words. The beautiful shepherd leaves behind the 99 sheep on the mountain to go and find the one who has gone astray (Matt 18:12).

And listen to the first word he preaches to them and to us, the first word he preaches ever to anybody: “Repent…, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  

An Invitation with Teeth

On Matthew 22:1-14

You know, 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 – for both the good and the bad now sit together at the feast – and the king makes sure the bad do not go unpunished.

He 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 and 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 you’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 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 in the pews…. 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 others. 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.


This is a reworking of a sermon I preached two years ago: Celebrate or Die

Holy Repentance leads to Holy Communion.

St. Mary of Egypt
19th century

Our holy mother Mary of Egypt is a glorious example of repentance, and she shows for us, I think, the deep connection that exists between Holy Repentance and Holy Communion.

In her youth, Mary was brazenly impenitent. She was nymphomaniacal, jaded, and profane. For seventeen years in Alexandria, she lived a dissolute and promiscuous life. It is not known how she began to suffer from this “insatiable desire and… irrepressible passion”[i] but I suspect that she had suffered from the sins of others. It is hurt people who hurt people.

Anyway, upon hearing of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to Jerusalem from her home in Alexandria, Mary resolved to accompany the pilgrims, not as a pilgrim but rather to use them to satisfy her lusts.

By choosing young pilgrims to the Holy Land to be her sexual partners and conquests, Mary heaped evil upon evil. These were people who were trying to repent and experience God and Mary resolves to do her best to distract them from that purpose and to seduce them. She is successful, too, and by prostitution, she pays for her passage to Jerusalem. Beyond even this, she “frequently forced those miserable youths even against their own will [into every] mentionable or unmentionable depravity.” So her sins here are manifold and one sin begets another, just as it does in our own lives.

But the grace of God is all-powerful and God's love for us is not diminished by any of our sins. Mary pays for her passage to Jerusalem with sin, and yet in Jerusalem, despite her own impure intentions, she experiences God. She was “hunting for youths,” but God was hunting for her and “seeking [her] repentance. For He does not desire the death of a sinner.” God brings good out of evil. He does it all the time. Listen to what happens next.

Mary is so jaded and free of compunction for her sins, she is so impenitent about what she has done and is doing that, following everyone else, she marches right up to the doors of the Church of the Anastasis – the place of Christ's resurrection – the Holy Sepulchre – and intends to go in among the pilgrims as if she is one of them – though in her heart there is no piety or fear of God – she is following the crowds for her usual reasons.

God sees through our masks – straight into our hearts. There is nothing Jesus hates more than our hypocrisy. He condemns it again and again with vivid language. We are whitewashed tombs (cf. Matt 23:27). Don't say, “Oh, he's only talking about the Pharisees, not me.” Don't look at Mary's sins and say, “Thank God I am not like her.” Let us remember our own sins and repent of them like the publican (cf. Luke 18:11).

God – who is not mocked and is not fooled by our pretensions – sees Mary coming (cf. Gal 6:7). And, out of love for her, does not let her in. She finds that she cannot walk into the holy place. She tried three or four times to enter but each time was repelled by a mighty force. This is a great mercy from the Lord because this spiritual force opens her eyes to her own sin and brings her to repentance in which is her one hope for salvation – without which we cannot be saved. Take this seriously: St. Mark the Ascetic says, “There is a sin which is always ‘unto death’ (1 Jn. 5:16): the sin for which we do not repent. For this sin, even a saint’s prayers will not be heard.”[ii]

Mary is a creature of extremes. She had sinned boldly and now she begins her repentance with an even greater zeal. After she repents before an icon of the Theotokos and promises to “never again defile [herself] by… fornication,” she is able to enter the holy place. Mary experienced the great mercy of a physical manifestation of the spiritual reality. None of us who are impenitent are welcome in the holy place. Spiritually, we are not in the holy place.

If we are impenitent for our sins, especially if we do not love one another – if we are resentful and unforgiving of those who have wronged us, how can we approach Holy Communion in the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ? Communion in the Lord is also communion with the whole Church. And who's in and who's out of the Church is not a judgment we're competent to make. When we invite the people of God to Holy Communion in the Lord, we proclaim, “Approach with fear of God and with faith.” If you do not fear God or if you have no faith, do not approach! If you do, you will eat and drink condemnation upon yourself because you are not truly discerning the body (1 Cor 11:29). As I say, the force that prevented Mary's approach was a great mercy.

After she did repent, Mary was able to enter the holy place – the Church of the Resurrection – and there venerate the holy cross and she then went the Church of the Forerunner and received the holy mysteries of the Church. Holy Repentance leads to Holy Communion. You can't really have one without the other.

So clearly and emphatically did our holy mother Mary of Egypt understand this, that she then began a life of severe repentance for many years. For seventeen years, she battled the wild beasts in the desert – that is, her own mad desires and passions. When you go to a place of isolation and quiet, you will see more clearly the battle being waged over your own heart.

St. Mary was not a frequent communicant. Only after more than seventeen years of repentance in the desert with severe fasting, ceaseless prayer, and self-discipline did Mary finally again receive Holy Communion from the priest Zosimas.

I'm not going to recommend this degree of severity to anyone. I believe a more frequent nourishment from the body and blood of Christ is helpful and even necessary for most of us as we seek and strive by the grace of God for ever greater union with God.

However, I am going to insist that for the most part, we Catholics have been taking Holy Communion far too lightly for many years – and we do so to our peril. Frequent reception of Holy Communion without holy repentance – will not save us. You can't have one without the other. The first word Jesus preaches to us is, “Repent” (Matt 4:17).

An essential – that is to say, not an optional – part of repentance is the holy mystery of repentance, which our holy mother Mary received in the Church of the Forerunner the evening she began to repent. Whatever you want to call it – going to confession, the sacrament of penance, reconciliation – we can't skip over this entirely and remain in good with the Church. This must be a part of our lives as Orthodox Catholic Christians. This doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from the Holy Spirit through the Church and through the Scripture. We can't live without it. I'm serious – there is no life without it. 

How often you need to go personally is a discussion that you need to have with your spiritual father or mother. A good general guide is to go four times a year – once during each of the four fasts. If you haven't been to confession in a long long time, please make a point of going before the Great Fast ends. It's not going to hurt you. It's only going to help you. It's sin that hurts us, not repentance. As St. John Chrysostom says, “Sin is a wound; repentance is a medicine.” Do not be ashamed to repent. Be ashamed to sin.[iii]

Do not utterly neglect to confess. Do not fail to repent. Let us be inspired by the example of our holy mother Mary of Egypt – by her fervor and zeal for repentance – and let us not take too lightly the discipline of God (cf. Heb 12:5). Let us repent and approach with fear of God and with faith.

---

[i] The Life of Our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt. http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/st.mary.html

[ii]No Righteousness by Works 41, The Philokalia, London, 1979, v. 1, p. 129.

[iii] John Chrystotom, Homily 8, On Repentance and Almsgiving

Nodding in the Presence of the Lord

Kain – unstet und flüchtig
by Wilhelm Groß, 1956/57

"Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, east of Eden" (Genesis 4:16). “Nod” means wandering, so this means that Cain became a wanderer, just as the Lord had said he would (4:12). Note here that Cain had been in the presence of the Lord. Otherwise, how could he go away from it?

Cain was a sinner and a son of those cast out from the Garden of Eden, yet he had been in the presence of the Lord. It is interesting to note that the first time the word "sin" is used in Scripture, it is not used in reference to Adam and Eve – the oft-called original sinners – but to their son Cain. Before Cain sins, he is angry and jealous of his brother Abel, whose offering the Lord had accepted while rejecting the offering of Cain (4:4-5). Seeing this anger, the Lord says to Cain, "Sin is lurking at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it" (4:7). We would do well to remember this when we are angry.

The Psalmist says, "Be angry and do not sin," so the feeling of anger is not a sin (Ps 4:4). And, in fact, it has a good purpose. St Isaiah the Solitary writes, as recorded in the first text on the first page of the Philokalia, "Without anger, a man cannot attain purity: he has to feel angry with all that is sown in him by the enemy." This is the right use of our anger – and our incensive power, as many fathers call it. Our anger is to be used against the demons and our evil thoughts and our own sins. The Psalmist says, "Be angry and do not sin; commune with your own hearts on your beds and be silent" (4:4). You see, it is against the evil powers in our own hearts that we must be angry. If we are able to be silent and still and at peace, it is because we are waging war in our own hearts.

Our anger is useful but it is also dangerous. When we are angry, sin is lurking at the door – and also when we are hungry or lonely or tired or in any other way weakened. We must be watchful because these things will lead us into sin if we have no self-control – if we have not mastered our passions but they have mastered us.

Today, anger also leads Lamech into sin. A young man strikes him and vengefully he kills him for it (Gen 4:23). An unmastered anger blinds us to all justice and proportion and turns us into monsters.

Before Lamech, anger led Cain into sin, just as the Lord warned him it would if he did not master it, and he killed his own brother. Yet despite all this, note again that it was Cain who went away from the presence of the Lord. It was not the presence of the Lord that went away from Cain.

The Lord had cast his parents out of the Garden and away from the Tree of Life for breaking his commandment, but still the Lord was present to Cain. The Lord did not regard the offering of Cain, which Cain had offered only in the course of time rather than from the firstlings as did Abel[i], but still the Lord was present to Cain and spoke to him and warned him and told him how he was to avoid sin by mastering his anger. Even after Cain failed to do this and murdered his brother, the Lord continued to speak to him. He punished him,[ii] but he tempered his punishment and would not let Cain be killed for what he had done, even though this is what he deserved. In the end, it was Cain who went away from the presence of the Lord. It was not the presence of the Lord that went away from Cain.

Do not turn away from the presence of the Lord. No matter what sins you may have, turn to the Lord. That's what conversion means – to turn to the Lord. When you turn to him, you will find that he has not turned away from you.

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[i] “Honor the Lord… with the first fruits of all your produce” (Prov 3:9).

[ii] “The Lord reproves him whom he loves” (Prov 3:12).

We do not limit grace.

Saturday was the feast day of St. Mary of Egypt and Sunday – the last Sunday of the Great fast – we remembered St. Mary of Egypt again.

Before her repentance, St. Mary of Egypt was, as Simon the Pharisee observed today about the woman of the city, "a sinner." Though she is often thought of as a prostitute, her sin was not so much prostitution as fornication. Saint Sophronios says that she would not charge her many sexual partners, but survived instead by begging and spinning flax. She was, like so many of us in this hypersexualized culture, consumed and driven "by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion" of lust.  

She went to Jerusalem among the pilgrims, but her reason for going was not pilgrimage. Rather, she went in a large group for the purpose of seducing many partners. Some might question how such a sinner could even think to enter the holy city and its holy places.

But remember the sinful woman of the city in Simon's house (Luke 7:36-38). She goes right up to Jesus himself and, weeping, wets his feet with her tears and wipes them with her hair and kisses his feet and anoints them. Though she is a sinner, she touches Jesus. And Jesus, who is more than a prophet, knows that she has sinned, yet allows her to touch him.

On the other hand, when Mary of Egypt, who is also a sinner, tries to enter the house of Jesus – that is his Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Church of the Resurrection – she is prevented by an invisible spiritual force. 

Why? What's the difference between these two sinful women? Why does Jesus allow one to touch him and kiss while the other is prevented from even entering his house? There is only one difference between them – repentance. The woman of the city in the Pharisee's house is penitent. She is weeping. And she is loving. She does not cease to kiss Jesus's feet. So all her many sins are forgiven because she loves much (Luke 7:47).

Meanwhile, Mary of Egypt tries to enter the holy place of the Lord while yet impenitent. She goes to that holy tomb not seeking to anoint the body of the Lord, but rather while seeking more partners for her lust. The invisible blockade that she experiences is in fact a strong medicine. It's not meant, I don't think, simply to keep the holy separated from the unholy or the clean from the unclean, but it is meant, I think, to reveal to her her situation and to bring her to repentance.

And, gracefully, it has this effect. Seeing outside the church an icon of another Mary – that is, of the Theotokos – she does repent. She weeps and laments, like the woman of the city in the Pharisee's house. And she learns that true love for the Lord surpasses any self-satisfaction gained by indulging in the passion of lust. Trying again, in her new state of penitence, to enter the Church of the Resurrection, she finds no force keeping her out. And she does enter and there she kisses the Holy Cross, just as the woman of the city kissed the feet of Jesus. She who is forgiven much loves much.

Now what might her fellow pilgrims have thought of her at this moment? Seeing this woman who they knew to be among their number expressly for the seduction of their members, now entering the Holy Sepulchre weeping and kissing the Holy Cross, what might they have thought? When Simon saw the sinful woman enter his house and kiss the feet of Jesus, he thought, "If this man were a prophet he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." If Mary's fellow pilgrims were true followers of Christ, then they rejoiced at her repentance. But if they were like some of us, then they probably had thoughts rather similar to Simon’s. They may have thought "Who is this woman to kiss the Holy Cross? She has not embraced the cross by her dissolute living.” They may have judged her and thought her presence among them in this place at this time inappropriate.

I hope not. But if they did, the only true judge knew their thoughts. And if we have thoughts like this about those who come among us, he knows this as well, and we will hear about it. Let's keep our thoughts on our own sins rather than on the sins of those around us.

For things are often not what they seem. A person who seems to us to be a great sinner may, in fact, be awash in the holy grace of forgiveness through repentance.

This was the case with Mary of Egypt. She seemed to be still a great sinner, but in truth, her glorification by grace, by the life of God, had already begun. She went immediately after her eyes were opened to the holy mystery of repentance, was absolved of her sins, and received holy communion. This is the proper, ordinary, and churchly way to begin again the life in Christ after we have sinned. When we fall, we get up again. When we sin, we repent and enter again into communion with the Lord through the mysteries of the Church.

But then Mary did something less ordinary, less usual, and even less churchly by some standards. The next morning, she crossed the river Jordan and then lived the rest of her life – 47 years – in the desert as a hermit. I say this is a less churchly way of life because, for one thing, it is extremely peculiar for a person to be called directly into the anchoritic life – that is, to live alone as a hermit – without first having lived the coenobitic life for a long time in community. (Though, there are other examples of this – particularly in early monasticism – such as St. Antony the Great.) And then, even among anchorites, it is peculiar to live most of life deprived of the holy mysteries, especially the Eucharist. Yet, they say, that this is what Saint Mary of Egypt did. After that first holy repentance and communion, she went into the desert and never communed again, until the day that she died many years later.

A year before she died, St. Zosimos, a priest (whose feast day is Tuesday), came upon her in the desert. She was so rough from her many years of ascetic practice, that from a distance he did not at first know for sure whether she was human. She told him her life story and she asked him to bring her holy communion the following year on Holy Thursday, which he did, on the banks of the Jordan – the same place she had received communion the last time. When she came to receive communion from him, she walked on the water of the Jordan to meet him.

Abbas Zosimas and Mary of Egypt. 17 c. 

Here is a woman who defies all of our churchly expectations. Living apart from church services, even apart from frequent reception of holy communion, and yet living a life somehow filled with grace and faith. I do not recommend that we all imitate Mary of Egypt in her way of life. St. John Climacus (who we remembered on the Fourth Sunday of the Great Fast), warns us, after all, that the avoidance of church services is a sure sign of the deadening of the soul. But I think we can hold up Mary as demonstration that God can and does act as he will. He is not confined by us or by our expectations. We do not limit his grace.

It is good to remember John Climacus' observation when we are tempted to avoid church services. But I think Mary of Egypt is marvelous for us to consider when we are tempted to judge others for the way it seems to us they are living or not living the Christian life. We do not necessarily see their life in Christ or where God is leading them. We do not know what prayers they pray in their closets nor do we see their ascetic practice. Sometimes there is one whom the Lord loves in his own way and for his own reasons, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Do what they say, not what they do.

One Sunday morning, two men came to our parish church to pray and attend liturgy.

One was a pious and learned Byzantine Catholic gentleman. He had studied and knew our faith well. He rigorously observed the traditional fasts as described in the Typikon – even fasting twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year.  He always knew the tone of the week and often made well-informed comments on Facebook. He prayed the Divine Praises daily with his family. And, more than this, he really was an upright man. That is, he did not drink too much nor did he eat too much. He did not look at pornography, or look at others lustfully. He gave a full 10% of his income to the parish before taxes. He was honest with his employer and faithful to his wife.

The other man was a drug dealer from the neighborhood.

What if Jesus's parable of the publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:10-14) began this way? I retell it this way to help us hear what Jesus is really saying.

In this day and age, when we hear the word "Pharisee," we think immediately of hypocrisy. Its second definition in the dictionary is, “a self-righteous person; a hypocrite.” When we hear the word "Pharisee," the admonition of Jesus – “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites" – is always ringing in our ears. To call someone a Pharisee is to insult them.  

But this is not how those listening to Jesus would have heard that word. By "Pharisee," was meant someone who belonged to a group of Jews who rigorously observed the law, the Torah, and the tradition, who revered the scripture, and believed the prophets, who believed in the resurrection of the dead, and that the greatest law was to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our minds and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In short, they were pious and upright men, rather like the pious and upright Byzantine Catholic I've just described. And seemingly rather like Jesus himself.

I once attended a talk by a local rabbi in Pittsburgh and a man asked him during the Q&A section at the end what he thought of Jesus. And he said that Jesus was a Pharisee. This is shocking to our Christian ears, but that is very much how the original audience of this parable might have understood things.

When we hear that a publican and a Pharisee go up to the temple to pray, we already know who the bad guy is – the Pharisee! Jesus’ hearers, on the other hand, would have been shocked by the notion that the publican would be justified and that the Pharisee would not – that the Lord would receive the repentance of the tax collector, but shun the self-glorification of the pious and observant man.

But maybe if we hear that a drug dealer and a pious and learned Byzantine Catholic attend church together, we'll tend to suspect the drug dealer of being the bad guy. But if that drug dealer comes here to pray with a repentant heart, he will be justified. And if that pious Byzantine Catholic comes here pridefully and exalts himself rather than God, he will not be justified. And that’s what this parable is supposed to do. It's to turn our assumptions on their head – especially our assumptions about ourselves.

Jesus isn't saying that it's all alright to defraud people of their income, or that it's alright to sell illegal drugs or any other sin. "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" (Rom 6:15).

The Pharisee was not an extortioner. He was not unjust. He was not an adulterer. He fasted twice a week and paid his full tithe to the temple. Jesus elsewhere praises these things by his words and his actions.

Just last week, when the tax collector Zacchaeus repents before Jesus of defrauding people of their income, Jesus responds, saying "Today salvation has come to this house." Jesus is no friend of extortion or fraud. It is repentance from these things that brings salvation. And to repent means to turn away from evil – not just to say we’re sorry, but to go and sin no more.

Regarding adultery, Jesus teaches us that "who looks at a woman with lust - or covetousness – has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:28). He condemns this adultery, even as he does not condemn the adulterous woman.

Jesus himself fasts and prays.

So no, Jesus is not telling us that it's all right to sin, nor is he telling us not to tithe and fast and pray. Far from it.

The Pharisee’s avoidance of certain sins and his prayer and fasting and tithing are good things. We should imitate the Pharisee in these things, but never in his self-exaltation. Jesus teaches us elsewhere that “the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice…. They do all their deeds to be seen by men…. [Remember,] whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt 23:2-12). This is an important warning for us as we prepare to enter the Great Fast. Do not make a show of your fasting.

With this parable, Jesus is teaching us, as St. John Chrysostom would later put it, that " “Even if we have thousands of acts of great virtue to our credit, our confidence in being heard must be based on God’s mercy and love for men. Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall he saved.”

We pray repeatedly in our liturgies that we may spend the rest of our lives in peace and repentance. Repentance is a way of life, not just a moment, and we must embrace it if we are to go away from the temple justified.

Today, we begin the Triodion. We begin preparing for the great fast. And this first week of preparation, we are forbidden to fast. Some say that this is so we will not be able to boast of our weekly fasting like the Pharisee. We must pray, but we must not pray like the Pharisee, pridefully comparing ourselves to others. Soon, we will often pray the prayer of St. Ephrem: "O Lord and King, let me see my own sins and not judge my brothers and sisters." Like the publican, let us see and confess our own sins and not the sins of our neighbors, our families and friends, or our enemies.

"Oh faithful, let us not pray as the Pharisee, for those who exalt themselves will be humbled. Let us humble ourselves before God with the publican and let us say: Lord have mercy on me a sinner."[i]

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[i] First Sticheron of Vespers for the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee