June 14/27, 2004
Beloved Clergy and Parishioners in the Lord, Grace and Peace be with you.
SUNDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK
The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans [§ 93]. Brethren:
6 18Having been freed from sin, ye were made slaves to righteousness. 19I speak in human terms on account of the weakness of your flesh. For as ye presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness unto sanctification. 20For when ye were slaves of sin, ye were free as to righteousness. 21Therefore what fruit were ye having then in the things of which ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22But now having been freed from sin, and having been made slaves to God, ye have your fruit to sanctification, and the end everlasting life. 23For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 25]. At that time:
8 5After Jesus entered into Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, beseeching Him, 6and saying, "Lord, my servant is laid on a sickbed in the house, a paralytic, being terribly tormented." 7And Jesus saith to him, "I will come and cure him." 8And the centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not fit that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak with a word only, and my servant shall be healed. 9"For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goeth; and to another, 'Come,' and he cometh; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he doeth it." 10And after Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to those who followed, "Verily I say to you, not even in Israel did I find so great faith. 11"And I say to you that many shall come from the east and west, and shall recline at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of the heavens. 12"But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the darkness, the outer one; there shall be there the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth." 13And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go thy way; and as thou didst believe, let it be to thee." And his servant was healed in that hour.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today is the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, and we hear this Gospel reading about the centurion with the ill servant. Isn't it noteworthy that we have so many Sunday gospel readings which refer to faith? This, of course, is done purposely because faith is so important.
In this Gospel reading, we have a centurion, one who is a pagan, and beholding our Saviour, he realizes that this is God incarnate. And he comes to Him and says, "I have a servant in my house who is sick, a paralytic, and he is greatly tormented." Our Saviour says, "I will come and heal him." Then the centurion shows that he knows that Christ is omnipotent, that He has the power to do whatever He wishes. The centurion shows this by saying, "Lord, I am not fit that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak with a word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goeth; and to another, 'Come,' and he cometh; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he doeth it."
It is as if the centurion is saying, "It is so easy for You to heal him. Just say the word; and just as it is easy for me to say to one of my slaves, 'Go,' to another one, 'Come,' and to a third, 'Do this,' so it is easy for you to heal this person - for all creation is under authority to You." And after Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to those who followed, "Verily I say to you, not even in Israel did I find so great faith."
In Israel there should have been this faith; but instead, they were calling Him a winebibber, a glutton, a demonized person, and they were even wanting to kill Him! Here, with this man who is outside of the Faith of Israel, we are given another testimony and confession of Faith that our Lord Jesus Christ is God-almighty, and that He can do anything He wishes. So our Saviour says, "And I say to you that many shall come from the east and west, and shall recline at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of the heavens."
Isn't it nice how Christ describes this? He says, "Many shall come from the east and west, and shall recline at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of the heavens." And we know that when we recline at table, it is to enjoy all kinds of nice goodies… and so it is to show us that nice things will always be given unto us if we live a good life worthy of attaining the Kingdom of heaven.
"But the sons of the kingdom," - these people, these sons of Israel, who persecute Me - "shall be cast out into the darkness, the outer one; there shall be there the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth."
See how the roles reverse. Who are those who come from the east and from the west? Those are us, who were not born into the house of Israel, according to the flesh, but yet we are born into the house of the New Israel according to the spirit through Holy Baptism. Those who were born into the house of Israel of Old according to the flesh, who had the promises, the law, the prophets, and the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament will be rejected and cast out into the outer darkness.
The epistle reading this week is also very interesting for us to study. St. Paul talks to the Romans, and says, "Brethren, having been freed from sin, ye were made slaves to righteousness." He is speaking to these people who came from the east and from the west, who were pagans, and says to them, "Through baptism, now you are freed from sin, and are now made slaves to righteousness." We can certainly understand this. We, who are baptized, always desire to do the right thing; and this is because of the grace of the Holy Spirit that is within us.
He continues, "I speak in human terms on account of the weakness of your flesh. For as ye presented your members as slaves to uncleanness," - in other words: before, you were slaves to the passions, - "and to lawlessness unto lawlessness," - and so he is saying that in the past, we were not slaves to righteousness, we were slaves to all manner of filth, and we did these unclean acts without the least hesitation, - "so now present your members slaves to righteousness unto sanctification."
"For when ye were slaves of sin, ye were free as to righteousness." Yes, anybody who is a slave of sin does not care in the least about righteousness. So one can say that we were free as to righteousness, because we gave absolutely no care about what was right and pleasing to God.
"Therefore what fruit were ye having then in the things of which ye are now ashamed?" Fruit? What fruit did we have? None. We had no fruit whatsoever. But now, when we look back, we are all ashamed of that time when we gave ourselves over to sin. "For the end of those things is death." And yes, now we understand that the end of that type of life was death.
"But now having been freed from sin, and having been made slaves to God, ye have your fruit to sanctification, and the end everlasting life." That is quite understandable. "For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Of course, anybody who spends their life in sin has got to expect that their end is going to be death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord; and truly it is a free gift, for because of our little effort, God gives His mercy and His strength, and His will in us to do good, and then He gives us the last free gift … and that gift is eternal life with Him.
Church / Monastery News:
The above sermon is one that Archbishop Gregory wrote several years ago. He and Archimandrite George are in Bulgaria, visiting and strengthening our clergy and faithful there. Please keep them in your prayers that they have a safe and productive travels.
Here is a post from Bulgaria to the ROAC-America list:
Dear Faithful,
God bless you!
Vladyka Gregory and I arrived safely in Bulgaria yesterday. We
celebrated vigil on Saturday night with Fathers Lyudmil and John.
This morning we celebrated the Hierarchal Divine Liturgy, and by the
goodwill and blessing of God, Subdeacon Marian was ordained to the
holy Diaconate. His wife Galina, with all the faithful, were present
for this memorable event. Many Orthodox women from the nearby
villiage of Kralevdol (King's Valley) attended the service.
Please pray for us as we are about to set out to visit our other
priests in Bulgaria.
In Christ,
+George, Archimandrite
Calendar of Events for Upcoming Week:
This Friday is the feast of Saint John Maximovitch. Extra prayers are in order on this day for this great wonderworker of our days.
Crumbs from the trapeza table:
On Baptism:
St. John Chrysostom: "The complete immersion or submersion of an individual in Baptism is the figure of the death of the old man, and his emergence from the water as reborn is a figure of the renewal and consecration of a new life in the figure of the Resurrection. We do not bury people by sprinkling a handful of earth over their heads or by shaking a little shovel full of dirt over them. No, we bury them completely, deep in the earth. Immersion, that is, Baptism is one thing and sprinkling is another. They are not the same, and that is why the Holy Scriptures make a point of telling us that Saint John the Forerunner was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, "because there was much water there." Indeed, why should St. John the Baptist, or our Savior, take the trouble to go all the way down to the Jordan River if any little washbasin elsewhere would have served the same purpose?" (On the Holy Pascha [PG 50. 437])
St Basil the Great: "Whether a man have departed this life without baptism, or have received a baptism lacking in some of the requirements of the tradition, his loss is equal…For the tradition that has been given us by the quickening grace must remain for ever inviolate. He who redeemed our life from destruction gave us power of renewal, whereof the cause is ineffable and hidden in mystery, but bringing great salvation to our souls, so that to add or to take away anything involves manifestly a falling away from the life everlasting…In three immersions and an equal number of invocations (of the individual Persons of the Trinity) the great mystery of baptism is made complete…" (On the Holy Spirit [10,12, 15])
St. Cosmas of Aitolia, the Wonder-worker, Equal-to-the-Apostles, and New-Martyr: "Holy priests, you must have large baptismal fonts in your churches so that the entire child can be immersed. The child should be able to swim in it so that not even an area as large as a tick's eye remains dry. Because it is from there (the dry area) that the devil advances, and this is why your children become epileptics, are possessed by demons, have fear, become superstitious; they have not been baptized properly." ("The Seventh Teaching", in N. M. Vaporis, Father Kosmas, the Apostle to the Poor, HCO Press, Brookline, MA [1977], p. 112)
Through the prayers of our holy fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
In Christ,
Peter, archdeacon
