Lord teach us your ways...

Homily on the third Sunday after Pentecost

Romans 5: 1-10; Matthew 6: 22-33.

One thing that is certain is that life can be full of challenges. It is easy to be tempted to give into worry and stress. Yet Christ is clear: we are not to worry and are to trust in Him. He tells us in today's Gospel that we are not to worry, for we will be provided for by God. God loves us and will always ensure that we have what we need. Many atheists try and paint God as a monster, yet their view of God falls short and is transactional – you do this for me and I will do that for you. Yet this is not the way it works. God actually does not need anything from us. However, He desires that we choose to come to Him not out of fear but out of genuine love.

Saint Seraphim of Sarov puts it in this way:

“If a man has no worries about himself at all for the sake of love toward God and the working of good deeds, knowing that God is taking care of him, this is a true and wise hope. But if a man takes care of his own business and turns to God in prayer only when misfortunes come upon him which are beyond his power, and then he begins to hope in God, such a hope is vain and false. A true hope seeks only the Kingdom of God... the heart can have no peace until it obtains such a hope. This hope pacifies the heart and produces joy within it.”

This is the wonderful thing God offers us: hope. As Saint Paul mentions in today's Epistle, that hope is poured into our hearts by the All-Holy Spirit. Therefore, we are to be people of hope, charity, and love. Of course, there are people out there who do not wish us well, but we are to show them love and pray for them always. A Christian is called to love even when it seems impossible. This is what makes Christianity revolutionary, in that it calls us to do the seemingly impossible: to love those who hate us. We are blessed because we have the perfect example of love. This love came into the world that we might have life within us. God did not need to give His life on the Holy Cross, but He did so because He wanted to show us the depth of His love. Imagine that Love came down, took on our humanity, and raised it up with Him.

Saint John of the Ladder makes it clear that unbelief is a form of pride, for he says:

“Whoever has become a servant of the Lord fears only his Master. But whoever is without the fear of God is often afraid of his own shadow. Fearfulness is the daughter of unbelief. A proud soul is the slave of fear; hoping in itself, it comes to such a state that it is startled by a small noise, and is afraid of the dark.”

What this means is that if we trust God then we will give ourselves over to Him. A soul that is proud has succumbed to the ancient rebellion of the angels who chose themselves over God. Without God's protection we can do nothing that is of any value – with Him we can become icons of Him. What this means is that with the grace of God we are slowly shaped by Him as if we were on a potter's wheel. This is the wonderful thing because we have been gifted free will – we are conscious and can make our own decisions and, as such, we are not unconscious robots who have no ability to make up our minds.

Saint Silouan the Athonite puts it in this way:

“The Lord does not show Himself to a proud soul. The proud soul, no matter how many books it reads, will never know God, since by its pride it does not give place for the grace of the Holy Spirit, while God is known only by the humble soul.”

One such humble soul was Saint Nektarios of Aegina who, although academically gifted, was denied the Patriarchal Throne of Alexandria. He went on to live life as a bishop sent to the backwaters. Yet he had something that his ambitious enemies did not have, and that was humility. It is said that in his old age he would enter the towns of Aegina in tattered robes, showing that he was dead to the ways of this world. He was a man much despised by his enemies. Once, the then Patriarch of Constantinople, Meletius Metaxakis, came to personally attack him about how he lived – he had allowed a convent of nuns to form on his property, and his enemies were trying to accuse him of wrongdoing with these nuns. Metaxakis abused him verbally for over an hour, accusing him of many evil acts, yet Saint Nektarios just sat there and said, “Yes, my lord.” Anyone of this world would have put the Patriarch in his place, yet Saint Nektarios was humble because he knew that he did not belong to this world. In fact, once one of the sisters did not realise that he was praying in his room and opened the door to see him engulfed by sacred fire in ecstasy, floating above the floor.

God gives spiritual gifts to those whom the world would happily despise. There have been many saints who were seen as mad. We call these men and women Fools for Christ, and they were often given great spiritual gifts and chose to hide these gifts because they did not want to be corrupted by the temptation to lord those gifts over others. One such saint was Saint Xenia of Saint Petersburg, who wandered the streets of Saint Petersburg after the death of her husband. She gave up the pleasures of this world and gave away all her riches to the poor, much to the disdain of her money-hungry family.

Another such saint was Saint Chrysostomos the New, who resisted the unjust calendar change that was forced on the Greek Church by the aforementioned Meletius Metaxakis. He was a humble man who loved God and was noted for his piety and lack of worldly ambition. Eventually, after learning of opposition to his election, Meletius began to unjustly persecute our saint, forcing him to flee to Alexandria. In Alexandria he was offered the Patriarchal See, an honour he declined. Eventually, he accepted the smaller See of Florina in Greece and was bishop there until illness forced him to retire. After he refused to change his beliefs on the holy calendar of the Church, he then began to minister to the many Orthodox Christians who refused to worship on the new calendar. For this he was persecuted by the bishops of the Greek Church, yet throughout all of this he persevered and humbly did the work of the Lord. We know that his labours were not in vain because when his grave was opened he was found to be incorrupt and emitting a beautiful heavenly scent which was so overpowering that it filled the whole street where he was buried.

Therefore, let us pray that, like these saints, we may learn to be humble and follow the will of God. Let us also pray that we may grow in our relationship with God and grow in our love for Him. For He is a God who loves mankind and only wishes the best for us.

Saint Chrysostomus Pray for us.