Rector: Fr. Seraphim Holland, http://www.orthodox.net/

Contents:

Brothers and sisters, today is Zacchaeus Sunday; it one of the five Sundays that precedes Great Lent and helps us prepare for the Great Fast.

Zacchaeus was a publican and very rich. This meant that he was very corrupt because the way publicans became rich was by extorting more money than the Romans actually taxed. They were Jews, but they extorted their own people for their own personal gain.

Zacchaeus had heard about Christ; everybody had heard about Christ. He was the "happening" thing at that time and He was an event wherever He went. People came out of curiosity, as well because they believed or wanted to be healed.

As Christ is coming into town, passing through Jericho, Zacchaeus hears about His arrival. And something in Zacchaeus' soul, although he probably didn’t even understand it at that time, desired to see Christ. Perhaps he had some hope he could change and amend his life, even though he had been so far away from God for so long because he had been so corrupt; hurt so many; lied, stolen. Probably he contributed to people’s death by extorting money from poor widows and such. But he wanted to see Christ, but he was small, short, and the crowd was large and he wouldn’t be able to see Christ. So, being a cleaver man, he ran ahead and climbed into a tree so he could see Christ.

Now what do we understand from this? The Scripture is a historical record, but it is also a mystical teaching. This historical event teaches spiritual truths, and teaches us how to live. Now, I have also told you that you should read the Scriptures to see how they apply to you, both the good and the bad. When you see a sinner in the Scriptures, beg the Lord to forgive you of your sins. When you see someone righteous, confessing in the Scriptures, beg the Lord that you would have the strength to do the same. When you see Zacchaeus, beg the Lord that you would be freed of any avarice, any grabbing on to money, any greed, any dishonesty, any lack of compassion … all these things that Zacchaeus had in abundance, like shall we say, a legion of sins ².

Also, when you see Zacchaeus, notice how he climbed up into a tree. Even though he was hindered from seeing Christ, he didn’t give up. The press is the crowd of people who were keeping him from seeing because he was short. I ask you look at the spiritual meaning of what the press is — it is our sins, our passions, our worldly concerns, our false priorities. And also the press is our shame. It is important to understand this. Many of us understand about our sins and desire not to sin anymore, but this press of shame often keeps us from seeing God because what God wants you to do when you sin is to run to Him, and the "press" is a formidable obstacle between us and the arms of our Father.

Our Lord uses the image of a child to teach us what our disposition should be after we sin. A child who has been in a normal family with parents that love him when he sins and his parents scold him or spank him, what does he do? He cries big tears and then he hugs his parent and says, "I’m sorry" immediately. This is how we should be when we sin so we can see Christ again because sin makes our eyes grow dim. We are not able to see Christ when we sin.

We should be like Zacchaeus; when we sin we should push pass the press. And the press indeed is often our own shame; our own incredulity about our sins. Why are you surprised when you sin? I have said this to some of you in confession, probably almost everybody. Why be surprised when you sin? Why be offended when you sin? Your sinning shouldn’t offend you. Your sinning offends God. When you sin, push past that pride that the devil puts in your way and struggle to repent of that sin so that you will restore full communion with God in your soul.

Brothers and sisters, the press is just not entanglements in the world. We create our own press. The press could be depression; this press could be despondency; this press could be our shame. Or it could be other sins: laziness, wrong priorities, anything that keeps us from Christ …all these things are the press.

You must find a way around the press. If you do not have the strength to push past it, then find a way to be over it like Zacchaeus was. And how did he find his way to be able to see Christ? By rising up, by going into the tree. Always, the only way that we can accomplish anything is by having our eyes on Christ, by thinking of things above and not earthly. So if there is something that you cannot conquer, something that grieves you, something that saddens you, then you must climb the tree, you must make the effort to pray and as part of your praying to be struggling to follow the Commandments.

Now Zacchaeus didn’t know these things. All he wanted to do was see Christ. Now Christ saw that there was a good heart buried under all that corruption in Zacchaeus. So when He passed by him, He said, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thine house."

Now this occurs with us, too, brothers and sisters. When our Lord sees that we have pushed past the press, even if it is only a small amount, even if we are still in the middle of the crowd, but struggling to get out, even if we haven’t made it to the tree, much less been able to climb it with exalted thoughts and prayer, the Lord sees this and says, "Make haste, make haste. I will abide with you." Make haste means: "consider My living inside you, My Grace that I give you to be the most critical and important thing in your entire life. Run to it! Order your life according to it!" Make haste today. Today salvation comes to our house, and every day because the Kingdom of God is within us.

God is very close, very near brothers and sisters. And He is constantly telling us, "Make haste! Come down! Be with Me. Learn of Me. I am meek and lowly. My yoke is easy. Learn of Me. I am sweet; a sweetness that you cannot experience in anything else. I am joy, a joy which you cannot obtain from anything earthly. I am incorruptible and I will make you who are corrupted perfect." The Lord says this often, brothers and sisters.

Do you hear Him say, "Make haste"? Do you hear Him say, "Today I will abide in your house," that is, your soul? Do you hear this? A Christian should hear this. Everyday you should be trying to prepare your house; make it a little bit cleaner. A little bit more straightened up, so that the Lord would abide in it as an honored guest.

Now Zacchaeus had not repented of any of his sins before the Lord said, "Come down.," but the Lord knew he would. The Lord accepts us because of our potential brothers and sisters. We can become perfected; He knows how to accomplish it. The only thing He asks of us is that we make haste; the only thing He asks of us is that we make an effort. That we struggle, that we try, that when obstacles are in our lives, we find ways around them by His grace and with His help and with our effort.

They go and have dinner at Zacchaeus’ house. Zacchaeus is full of joy because here was a Rabbi, a great teacher, who accepted him. No one else accepted him because he had defrauded so many people. And he felt joy. There must have been such a feeling in his heart at the time of joy and expectation and that maybe he could change now. Maybe he could put off this burden that had been dragging his conscience down for so many years.

But there are people in the crowd, at the dinner, that are saying that he is a sinner and they are murmuring about it. The Lord hears this and so does Zacchaeus. So he pledges to the Lord, "Behold, the half of my goods I give to poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four-fold." If you work out the math, basically Zacchaeus has just impoverished himself. A person who has been accustomed to silk pillows and the finest of foods and an abundance of wine and probably to wealthy courtesans to give him his every whim and wish, suddenly is going to make himself poor for the sake of Christ. This is repentance, brothers and sisters, this is contrition.

The Lord requires this of us; requires that we give up what we were so that we can become what we should be. Jesus waits for Zacchaeus to say this (of course He knew he was going to say it), and when He hears it says, "This day is salvation come to this house." Now what is salvation, brothers and sisters? In the West, salvation is thought of in such a miniscule fashion. There is such poverty in the minds of people when they consider what salvation is! Most people think that salvation is that when you die, you go to heaven. Salvation is, "Well, you have sins and Jesus Christ pays the penalty of you sins and you go to heaven."

May it never be that we have such a small view! Salvation is restoration, brothers and sisters. Salvation is completion. Salvation is being made perfect. Salvation is being able to cast off everything that hurts, everything that is heavy, and to be able to see Christ as He is, to be able to know the true nature of things. Salvation is when a soul changes. And Zacchaeus was changing.

Brothers and sisters, do you hear the Lord telling you to make haste? Do you hear the Lord saying salvation has come to your house? Do you hear the Lord telling you about His sweetness? About his perfection? About His love for you? Do you hear these things? Perhaps you don’t hear these things. You should hear them everyday. If you don’t hear, this is because you have sins that are holding you down.

Push past the press, brothers and sisters. The whole world is going to go away. It is going to be recreated. Everything will be made new. Will you be new? If you have not become new, if you have not changed, then you will be like that old piece of cloth…it can’t be put on a new wineskin ³. Brothers and sisters, be like Zacchaeus. Press past the crowd; find a way to see Christ. And when Christ speaks to you, make haste and come down and do everything in your power so that He may abide in your house and never leave. May God help you in all things. Amen.

Today is the Sunday of Zacchaeus, one of the five Sundays that immediately precede Great Lent. This is the first Sunday that we begin to speak of things specifically to prepare ourselves for the Great fast. Why would the Holy Spirit select this reading to prepare us for the Great Fast? Well, it is the story of a man who repents. It is a story of how a soul converts. It shows how a soul changes. Isn't that the purpose of our life? It is to change, to become like Christ, to become pure. Great Lent is the time of the year when we must focus more diligently on repentance.

Zacchaeus changed, through the agency of the God-man, Jesus Christ, and also though an application of his will. He is a case study in how to live the Christian life, how to DECIDE to change, how to STRUGGLE to change, and how, after ACCEPTING God's mercy, to RESOLVE to continue to amend and become better. All these elements are in this story.

Zacchaeus was a publican (the Apostle says that he was the chief among them), and he was rich. This definitely indicates that he was a very evil man in the beginning of his life. He also defrauded many men. Publicans were not just those who collected taxes. They were invariably corrupt, and often swindlers, and murderers and thieves. They would rob widows so they could have ivory in their palaces. Zacchaeus was the worst of the lot, he was "top dog," but his conscience bothered him. Even in the midst if his flagrant conduct, there was a small seed in him, waiting to grow. It troubled him, and told him that "what I am doing is wrong, what I am doing is not fulfilling. What I am doing is evil and wretched and corrupt." These pangs went on for a good many years, since it takes a long time to become the CHIEF publican. During that period of time, he was developing a conscience. Zacchaeus was a Jew, although a terrible one. Certainly, he knew about the Jewish law, and about the Messiah. He heard the things about Jesus. Indeed, as the chief publican, he was probably given the most important seat in gatherings, by the chief hypocrites, the Pharisees, and Sadducees. He probably heard about Christ often. When he heard of him, he somehow understood that there was something magnificent about Him, and in the midst of his personal depravity, he wanted to find out. His curiosity about holy things will lead to his redemption, just as it did for St. Mary of Egypt. ²

It says that He wanted to see Jesus, Who He was, but he could not, "for the press." ³ Do you remember, wasn't it last week, when we talked about the press?

⁴ The blind man wished healing from Christ, and had to shout to make himself heard over the cacophony of the press. He was told over and over "Be quiet, be quiet, don't bother Him." What is the press? It is our passions, our sins, doubts, despondency, and our laziness. Sometimes it is others who tell us that we are crazy, or that's not my way of life, why are you being so fanatical? Both inside and outside the church we get this sort of warfare and temptations. This is the press.

Zacchaeus could not, for the press, because he was little of stature. He was small, and weak. He was unable to see God without some help. He ran before Christ, knowing the way of Christ, where He was going to go. If he had climbed in a tree in the suburbs somewhere, he would not have seen Christ, because the God-man was making his way through the middle of the city of Jericho. He had to be where Christ was going to be. We spoke about that last week, and the same meaning is here this week. You must be in the way of Christ, so Christ can come to you, and say come down, as He said the Zacchaeus.

It is interesting to see what "sycamore tree" means. It means a "wild and unruly fig tree." It has a fruit that is kind of silly looking, and entirely useless. It does not bear fruit. It bears garbage. So he climbs up in a wild and unruly tree. We should think of our human nature when we contemplate this tree. Our nature is wild and unruly, but somehow, with God's help we can tame this unruly nature, and we are able to elevate our thoughts to heavenly and important things. This is what Zacchaeus did. He climbed up in a tree, elevating his thoughts to the God-man. He took his nature and used it for godly purposes, instead of dissipation. We must take the nature that God gave us and use it for godly purposes, instead of drunkenness or debauchery, or fantasy about what we wish our lives would be, or pride, or despondency or all those other things with which we indulge ourselves. Instead, we must contemplate God, and good works and the fulfilling of the commandments.

Let us too climb up a sycamore tree and elevate our thoughts. Let us also, whilst elevating our thoughts, fix our concentration carefully. While Zacchaeus was up in the tree, he certainly was not examining the bark or the leaves. He was looking intently, shading his eyes, and watching to see when and where the God-man would appear. He was also being ridiculed. You can imagine that such a man who was chief among the publicans certainly ate fine food, and was a bit portly. A little fat man in a tree would be a very funny thing to see. We as Christians also feel exposed in our unruly fig tree. The world tells us that what we are doing is foolish. Even other Orthodox jeer at us and tell us what we are doing is foolish. Even we torment ourselves by asking: "what is the point, what is the use?" We war against ourselves, others war against us, the demons war against us, and sometimes we wonder who IS on our side, when we forget that the whole host of heaven with the God-man Jesus Christ is with us. Be like Zacchaeus. We are like him in sin, so we should be like him in virtue. We should climb up into the tree, and fix our thoughts on Christ, and not be unduly concerned about the other things that are going on in our life.

Zacchaeus was a great sinner. Why would he have any reason to think that the God-man would want anything to do with such a terrible sinner? In the same way, why should we have any reason to think that the God-man would want anything to do with us? We promise we will not commit a sin, and we do it the next day. We promise to try, and yet we make very little effort. Why? Because the God-man has said that he wants to save us. Because "He who began a good work in you will complete it" ⁵, so says the apostle.

The questions that I just posed are the ones the demons entice us to ask. Zacchaeus was a man of great soul, because even though he was depraved, he had the courage to do something about his depravity, even to the point of exposing himself, and hoping that the God-man would heal him. We must do this.

We have an advantage that Zacchaeus lacked. He did not know for sure what the outcome of his seeking Christ would be. We do. The church tells us all the time. God will receive our repentance if we try to make an effort. So any of this that goes on in our head, things like "I am not doing enough, it is not worth it even to try. I broke the fast today, so the rest of the day is shot," those kinds of thoughts are strictly the evil one trying to further sully you and bring you down, down, down. We must be like Zacchaeus. He knew he was a great sinner, and yet he still climbed the tree.

I told you before, and I will say it again and again, salvation is won by LIVING in Christ! We must act according to what we know. We already know that we are great sinners, but we also know that God is great, and wishes to save us and has made us able to be saved, via the incarnation and the life we are told to live in the church. We must climb into the tree, and hope in His mercy, and He will give us mercy.

Now Christ comes up to the tree, and sees this small fat man gazing down at him, and says something remarkable. "Zacchaeus, come down, because I am going to dwell in your house today." ⁶ Christ saw Zacchaeus' intent, and recognized him. This moment happens to us as well. Sometimes we recognize it, other times we don't know.

I was told this many times, and I have already lost track of how many times I have said it myself — the Christian life is a long process. There are many days that we feel we make no progress whatsoever, but our perseverance will win us the prize. That is the truth. It is a truth that is obscured by the world, but it is the truth. Zacchaeus had his time when the Lord told him to come down. He assured Zacchaeus that He had received his repentance, and would make him a new man. We have our times as well. There are thousands of these times in a man's life, when God enlightens him, and vivifies him, and helps him in some way. We must increase our vision because this happens all the time, and we do not notice.

Zacchaeus is joyful, and brings the Lord to his house to have a great feast. Now, there are some people, there is the press still, that is murmuring. What is the world is Jesus doing with such a sinner? Well, you cannot see inside a man, which is reserved for God alone. God saw the repentance of this man, who was still a short fat man with much riches, at that moment. Be careful. We have all judged someone too many times.

We have seen that Zacchaeus was a great sinner, who developed a conscience. Because of his conscience, he was motivated to try, and to seek out Christ. Now let us see that after repentance and the acceptance of God's mercy comes something else. We must have firm resolve to do better. Zacchaeus heard all this murmuring about him, and he was hurt by it. He wanted to show the Lord that he really did want to change, so he told Him, and the people that were around that if he had taken anything from a man by false accusation, he would restore him fourfold, and half of his goods he would give to the poor. ⁷ Since he got most of what he had through deceit, he just made himself pauper, and his mathematics was not too good. But his soul was burning with zeal, and God received his repentance, and Zacchaeus went on to live a fervent Christian life. Notice also how Christ waited until Zacchaeus expressed firm resolve to live a moral life before He declared that salvation was come to his house. ⁸

Can you discern three aspects of repentance now? One is that a man develops a conscience, and then he strives to find Christ, in the midst of the "press." And another is that he must accept that God will receive him. Zacchaeus came out of the tree, and was joyful. A sinner came down, and felt the love of God, and accepted that God could save him. And then, when troubles occur, we must have the resolve to continue to live the Christian life. Zacchaeus does us the great favor of showing us repentance in microcosm. Let us all learn something from him

I have heard so many say to me " I don't see any change in my life, and I don't feel anything." The way we find change in our life, and the way we see and feel God is by struggle, and by time. There is no other solution. The church knows nothing else, but toil, ands prayer, and hope. We must fix ourselves in the way of Christ, and elevate our thoughts, God will come up to our unruly tree, and will touch us, continually, over and over. Eventually, His touch will be so real to us that everything else will be as a phantom. God help you to struggle, and persevere, in the midst of all your trials and difficulties, so that when God calls to you, you will hear, and come down from your unruly way of life, and He will abide in you.

It is a formal beginning to our preparation for the Holy Fast, and is the first day we read anything from the Triodion this year. We are now in a period of time to prepare ourselves — 4 more weeks. Next week follows the Prodigal Son, then the Sunday of the Last Judgment, then the last Sunday before the Holy Fast begins — the Sunday of Forgiveness. There is not much more time, and this time is given for us to reflect upon what it is that we need to do to improve ourselves.

The church gives us some help here. The Sunday before this day is always the Sunday of Zacchaeus, who was a publican. Today, we read about another publican, just a nameless person in a parable. This event never actually occurred; it is a parable our Lord used to teach us. However, it has extra meaning when we think of it in light of the story of Zacchaeus, and in our mind's eye, equate the publican in this parable with Zacchaeus.

In this parable we see two kinds of humility — or rather, humility and its evil opposite, pride — and two kinds of knowledge. We see the pride of the Pharisee, and the church in its hymnology points out the differences between his pride and the humility of the publican. In order to fully understand the lesson we must see that the Pharisee was not completely wrong and the publican was not completely virtuous, and yet, one of them was justified and the other was not.

The Pharisee was not condemned for keeping the fasts. He was not condemned for doing righteous good works. The publican was not praised for the life of sin that he had led. Rather, the Pharisee was condemned for judging another man, for using a measure in measuring that he was not capable of truly fulfilling himself. He was condemned because he was either unaware or did not care about the hidden sins that he had in his life, and how he truly was impure before God. He should have been in his demeanor just as the publican.

And the publican — why was he justified? He was justified because of his humility, but there is a very interesting aspect to his humility that we must know. He certainly did not judge another man, but he was well aware of his sin. There is something I see over and over again in our society and even in those who are Orthodox in our world as well, since we breathe poisoned air and hear poisoned ideas and we have some of that poison accumulate in us. I see this problem constantly. That is, that people, because of their sins, even though they know that they are wrong, and they want to do better, and have an inner conviction that something is wrong and unholy — instead of struggling against them, because they fail so often — they find a way to avoid being continually pricked by their conscience and being made aware of their sin.

This happens among profligate people. Why do you thing that people drink, or find themselves lost in promiscuity or other debauchery? This is to lose themselves from the reality of who they are and how far they are away from virtue. Everyone knows internally what virtue is — it is built into our hearts; it is built into our character. The Apostle Paul talks about it in Romans, and it is very evident that all men know what is right. But when he falls so far short of virtue he is afraid to really tackle the problem, as it is a very difficult one. So, in extreme cases, he falls away through debauchery, disbelief, falling into extremely wrong doctrines and ideologies and ways of life. And if we get into this state (and it is easy to fall into it: beware!) we deny and deny and deny the reality of who we are, and Who God is. Because generally someone must be blamed, and you can bet that we do not like to blame ourselves very often.

Another thing that people do when they are aware of their sins and wish to do better and continually fail — they fall into despondency. This is not so much where they blame someone else, or fall into impure activities without any heedfulness at all, but their despondency eats them alive. Truly, despondency kills more than any other sin. 

Let us imagine now that the publican of today's parable IS Zacchaeus. One of the fathers I read quite often, the Blessed Archbishop Andrei, draws this parallel and it is a striking one. Imagine the life of Zacchaeus before he was enlightened by Christ. He was the chief among the publicans. He was the biggest sinner. This meant that he had been guilty of murder and of defrauding widows and orphans. How so murder? He may not have killed a man with his own hands, but he caused people to starve, widows and orphans with no money, who had no means to live, and they starved or became sick and died. Their murder was on his head. And of course, he was a thief, and a man in his situation, with so much abundance, would fall into every kind of sin. Certainly he had his pick of any wealthy courtesan he wanted, who feigned affection towards him because of his money, and he certainly ate the finest of foods, and drank great quantities of the finest of wines. There was much that he did that was wicked and abased. We can probably truly say, without being guilty of a sin, that we are not as bad as that!

What happened to this bad man? He was enlightened by God in a way that was wondrous and miraculous and totally outside of what he expected. Therefore, he in his zeal said, "I will restore fourfold to anyone I have defrauded, and I will give half of my goods to the poor," and he had great warmth in his heart when he was in the presence of Christ, and he wanted to do better.

And then came tomorrow, the next day. He fell back into his bad habits. He still had avarice, and he still had lust, and he still had a desire for wine. He still had a weakness for all the things that he wished to get away from, so certainly he would have fallen, again and again and again. Look at the life of St Mary of Egypt. Can any one of us say we were as bad as she was? I don't think so. Look what happened to her. When she realized how evil she had been and she desired to change, she went into the desert and for 18 years (if you read her story, you can see this) — EIGHTEEN YEARS! — she spent these years struggling with lustful imaginations and hearing songs that she used to hear when she was in drunken orgies, again and again in her head, and desiring to have flesh meats and wine which she used to drink in abundance. Eighteen years! So many of us, if we had to spend only a year struggling against lust and being unsuccessful — we would just throw in the towel, and go back across our Jordan, back to the former life we had been living, because we were not "cuttin" it. She spent 18 years doing this, till finally God removed from her this lust and this depravity which she had so carefully cultivated from the time she was a maiden. It took 18 years. Very few of us in this room have been Orthodox 18 years, much less struggled 18 years against our passions.

Why did she do such a thing, and why did the publican Zacchaeus (shall we say), struggle so, and go into the temple and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner?" Why didn't he just give up? That's the most likely thing to happen in this world: most people give up. The reason they give up is because they do not have salvific knowledge of Who God is and what He has done, and what He will do. I said this so many times — our life is spent in learning TWO pieces of knowledge that are critical to our salvation. And they must be done in parallel and a little bit at a time. Too much of one or two much of the other will cause our death. The pieces of knowledge are of ourselves and of God. As a man grows in knowledge of God he learns how great God is and he develops confidence, and he develops this overwhelming desire to become holy. As he grows in knowledge of himself he sees those areas in his life that are not in keeping with Who God is, and he desires to change them.

But if a man learns of himself outside of learning about God, you can see in our society what happens. You can see the depravity of people. You can see their angst and anguish over their life's situation for it is outside of God. Many very poetic things are said by people in music or literature that are TRUE, but they do not give the solution; they only know (and this just partially) the problem! If they do not know the solution, they cannot gain salvation. And the solution is the God-man Jesus Christ, Who has enlightened us and come to all of us, unworthy ones. He came not to the worthy, but the unworthy. Not to the pure, but to the impure! And as we grow in knowledge of that, then we will become pure.

The problem with sin in Christians is not so much that they just want to do it and don't care. The problem is that they don't understand really truly Who God is. The knowledge of God cannot be learned from a book or listening to preaching or teaching — it is learned from within. All these things help — the services of the church, preaching in the context of the services, keeping the fasts. They are all essential, absolutely. I have said this before, and I suppose I should learn to stop saying it, since it scares some people, but I believe that if a man does not fast, and if he does not value the services, it is very unlikely that he will be saved. Not because of the sin of not fasting or of missing the services because of frivolous reasons or laziness, but because you won't know God if you eschew these things, because this is how God reveals Himself to us. And if you don't know Him, then when there is a sin that you have trouble with — it will devour you. You will have no chance against it whatsoever, because you will not know how to fight it. 

This publican UNDERSTOOD God. He also knew himself. This man was guilty of murder, of theft, of lying, of cheating, of every kind of debauchery and sin, but he wanted to change. So he went to the temple knowing that he was unworthy, but at the same time knowing Who God is, and since he knew who God is, there was hope in his breast, and he knew that God could change him. That is why he came into the temple and that is why he did not think about anything else except his own sin, and that is why he looked at the ground and did not care about the virtues or the vices of anyone else. He was too consumed with his own pressing problem. And he was justified, because of his faith. Because he had faith in God — in a true Being, not in some phantom or fantasy. Because he was living according to Who God is. Was he failing? Was he still falling into lust, and even debauchery? Most probably. Did he still have the lust of avarice in his heart? Oh yes! It takes a long time to divulge yourself of your passions. It is a hard lesson to learn. When I became Orthodox I thought some things I had difficulty with... well, I would not have trouble with them any more. And even now I struggle against them.

But I know that God can save and God will save. That was his purpose for becoming incarnate, to save sinners, like me, and like you. And the only way to know this in your heart is to live according to it. Christian knowledge is not static. It is not words on a page; it is life. Salvation is to be had in living, in living according to God is. 

This is what the publican did. He knew who God is, and he knew himself, and the thought of who he was sickened him and made him sad, but he still went to the temple even though he could not look up to heaven because he could not behold the brightness of God because of his impurity. Even though he was in fear and trembling, he had confidence in God's mercy, because of making even a small effort. That is where you gain knowledge of God, brothers and sisters. That is where you gain confidence that you can be saved. It is by making an effort. I did not say — being successful in your effort — because if that was the criteria, then we all indeed should fall into deep despondency because none of us would be saved.

It is not how good we are at change by which God judges, but is us how good we are at making an effort to repent. And it is a miraculous thing — we will change, but we not see ourselves change. Things happen so quickly. Consider our children. One moment they are just laying in the crib and making incomprehensible noises, and the next moment, they are young adults and saying things that touch our souls in ways that we never knew that they could be touched. It happens overnight. That is how it happens with our souls. We think we are muddy and filthy and unclean, and we struggle and we think that we are making no progress whatsoever, but unknown to us, although sometimes known to those who love us, we make changes, and we come closer and closer to God. And there will be a day when we have sweet release from those things that beset us.

If I did not believe that, then I would have no reason to live — none whatsoever. And that is why so many people blow their heads off — they have no reason — no hope at all. If all that life is, is this life, then it is a cruel joke, and a cruel comedy. But we know we are Christians. We know that God lives in us, and even if we sin, God will hear our repentance and receive us time and time again. And if you are not sure of that fact than you have not learned enough of Who God is. And you had best study this very important subject — it is called Theology — to study God, to learn of God, the science of sciences. And the laboratory in which you learn is your own life! Live life in Christ. That is what this publican was doing. The Pharisee, although he had great knowledge, (but knowledge without humility just puffeth up), he did not have the feelings that we should often have, of feeling incredibly unworthy. He lived in an externally righteous way and thought himself righteous, but he was even more depraved than a man who visits a brothel every night, because he had not real fear of God in his eyes.

Do you see the contrast? Do you see what made the Pharisee fall away and what made the publican cleave to Christ? And why are we considering them now? Why is this reading today? Well, we are going to be speaking of the last judgment soon, and we will also consider another repentance — that of the prodigal son. These are hard subjects. The church is trying to prepare us so we can look inside ourselves and learn of ourselves and learn of God during the great fast, by struggling as much as we are able, and even BEYOND what we are able. In fact, the Christian life is continually living beyond what we are capable of. God said unto us, "be ye perfect for I am perfect." And through the Apostle He says, "pray without ceasing," and He says, "turn the other cheek" when someone smites us, and, "if our enemy has us go with him one mile, to go with him two." He tells us impossible things — things that cannot be accomplished and yet they WILL be accomplished because He lives in us.

If you have any doubts whatsoever those doubts are because you are not living with enough effort, and if you make the effort — I tell you — that you will become absolutely sure that God lives in you and He will save even you, a sinner. You know your sins better than anyone else does, and if you have sensitivity, they hurt. They make us very sad, but despondency does not belong in a Christian's character. And if is in your life, this just means that you have not learned enough of God. So you must study Him more. Study Him in keeping the fasts. Study Him in the services. Study him in pulling your mind back to prayer after it has wandered away into the ravine and onto the mountainsides. If you have one minute of prayer in a three-hour vigil service, then you have accomplished something great that day. It's true.

God help us to be like this publican in his virtue. Yea, I say his virtue. It is a great virtue when a man knows himself and when he knows God. I tell you, when those two pieces of knowledge are in a man, he WILL be saved. Amen.

¹ This homily was transcribed from one given in 1997, on the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee. This Sunday is part of a five Sunday sequence that precedes Great Lent. There are some stylistic changes and minor corrections made and several footnotes have been added, but otherwise, it is essentially in a colloquial, "spoken" style.

It is hoped that something in these words will help and edify the reader, but a sermon read from a page cannot enlighten a soul as much as attendance and reverent worship at the Vigil service, which prepares the soul for the Holy Liturgy, and the hearing of the scriptures and the preaching of them in the context of the Holy Divine Liturgy. In such circumstances the soul is enlightened much more than when words are read on a page.

Luke 15:11-32

The Church gives us another example today, about repentance. It tells us another part of the story. This is the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, and is yet another Sunday that prepares us for the Great Fast. We are coming quickly upon it. Next week will be the Sunday of the Last Judgment, after which we stop eating meat, and after that is the Sunday of Forgiveness, and we then begin the fast, the following day.

The church has had something very important to say about repentance the past few Sundays, if you have been listening carefully. Actually, there have been three aspects of repentance that have been shown to us. One aspect is humility. We saw the publican ² whom, in our mind's eye, we may consider to be Zacchaeus ³, and we saw how his humility saved him. But this was humility with knowledge, because with humility comes knowledge of God. Although he was humble and would not look up to heaven, he was still bold in his prayer to ask God for mercy, because he knew God would give him mercy.

The Sunday before, we saw Zacchaeus. We saw that he was a very bad man, but he changed. Repentance involves changing the way you live, the way you think. It also involves, truly, making restitution. It is not that restitution will save us. There is nothing that we can do to earn our salvation. Restitution is something that should come from deep within us. We should desire to make ourselves better in those things in which we have been lax. Whether our sin be depriving a man of his goods, as Zacchaeus did, or unclean thoughts, or any other sin, whether our sin be an internal sin, or an external one, or whether it has affected other people or affected no one except ourselves, we must desire and struggle to be better.

Now we see another aspect of repentance that is so important today, especially in light of what we are going to read and contemplate next week. That is, God receives a man's repentance. This may seem to bean obvious statement, hardly worth making, but in actuality, many people do not really believe God will receive their repentance, or that they can truly change. We can see how marvelous God's mercy is in this parable we have before us.

The father who has the two sons is God the Father. The younger of the two sons is humanity. The younger son is you and me. We should see ourselves in this younger son. What did he do? The father was getting old, and the son did not want to wait for him to die. He wanted his inheritance NOW. So he said, "Give me my inheritance now." His father, who loved him, must have grieved over such a request, because he knew it would most probably be harmful to his son, and also he wished to have his son with him, but he gave in to him because of love. God does the same thing with you and me. He gives us things that are good and precious, and we misuse and abuse them, but He gives them nonetheless. He causes the rains to fall on the evil and the good, and He even does much good to the evil, hoping that they will turn and repent. That's what he did with the younger son, knowing what the son was going to do.

The son goes into a FAR country. There is sometimes much meaning in a single word. He went into a FAR country. It was far away, a land full of debauchery and uncleanness, FAR away from God, FAR away from salvation. And, indeed, if the man had died in such a state, he would have perished. He would have died far from God. But when he was in this far country, did he give any thought to God? No. He wasted his living with harlots, as his older son is so careful to point out later, and in debauchery and uncleanness of every kind. He had not thought whatsoever for his father, and how he had caused his father pain. He had no understanding how faraway he was from salvation. And that is how we are, too. Maybe not all of the time, but so much of the time what we do is so foolish, so stupid, and yet we do not see this or understand. We might live many, many years and not understand how evil the things we do are.

This son was the same way. He had no understanding of the evil he was doing and of the uncleanness and of how far away he was from God. And then the inevitable happened to him. He had wasted all of his living, and now began to be in want. He had no money, and was hungry and cold. He had to join himself to a citizen of the country who really did not care about him at all, and he was told to feed pigs. And this unclean food, which the pigs were eating, looked appetizing, because he was so hungry.

He began to be in want — what does this really mean? It describes much more that the younger son's penury. Humanity is in want. Remember that this younger son represents humanity — he represents you and me. Both the good and the evil that are in humanity are represented in this man. The debauchery, and also, the dignity of soul, later, when he repents. When the son begins to be in want, he recognizes what his needs are. The unclean food, given him by the devil (for that is who the citizen of that far country is), cannot satisfy him, even though he is hungry for it. He looks back in his mind's eye and he says: "I once lived with my father who loved me, and I had food and clothing and friends. And I was in an atmosphere of love and acceptance and affection. How could I have been so foolish to have left that all behind?" And he grieves and weeps bitterly over his misfortune. But notice that he did not blame anyone for his situation. He did not blame his father for allowing him the inheritance, which, by the way, is something that a lot of people do with God. They blame Him for their sins. They do not understand how much God loves them and gives them all good things for their salvation. Instead, they blame Him if there is something wrong. "Why hasn't God taken this sin away from me? I have been struggling with it for two months, two years. Why is this happening to me? Why don't these people like me? Why do I have troubles here, troubles there?" Always blaming God.

By the way, as an aside (I am famous for these, unfortunately!),every single evening at Vespers, we pray that we not make "excuse with excuses in sins" ⁴. This shows how prevalent this sin is, and how important the church thinks it is to fight it. But this son did not make excuses. He recognized his want, and what was wrong with him.

Then he "came to himself." This is a very hard thing to understand. A man cannot be saved unless he comes to himself. What does this mean? Well, I have spoken of it many times. In saving our souls, what two things must we know? One is to know God, and other is to know ourselves. The two are learned in parallel. If you learn only of God, you will be filled with pride, and your soul will be paralyzed. If you know only about your sins and your unworthiness and know little about God, you will be filled with despondency and fear, or escapism, and your soul will also be paralyzed, unable to do good. This is the more common sin for Christians, I think. Despondency is very common and happens in each one of us to a greater or lesser degree. And if it happens in too great a degree, I tell you, you won't be saved, because you won't be able to do the things you need to do to learn of God. But if you learn of yourself and God at the same time, God will reveal Himself and self-knowledge also, within you. Then you will believe in the depths of your soul that you are a great sinner, but you will nonetheless say to yourself with confidence, "God will receive my repentance!' and you will see the situation you are in, and you will want to be better, and you will know that you CAN become better!

I see this again and again, where people do not ACCEPT that they CAN change. Sometimes, to be perfectly honest, people don't want to change. They have an inkling, a desire, a little bit, to change. "I want to stop this sin. But I like this sin." And they don't have the gumption to make the effort. God even understands this! This is why we have a "baseline" of things we must do as Christians — keeping the fasts, saying our prayers, coming to church — because without those things we would truly fall faraway. But that is not enough, mind you, because a man must make an inner change. He must know of God and he must come to himself. And he must say exactly what the younger son said. He said, "I will arise and I will go to my father. I will make an effort. I will not only talk about my sins and lament about them and do nothing. I will arise and make a great effort."

And then the son realized how far away he was. He was in a far country. And he still had to travel a long way, even until his father would see him, from a long way off. So that was a great struggle. That is what we must do. We pile sin upon sin in our soul. Everything that we pile onto our soul we must painstakingly take off, one brick at a time. So the more we pile on ourselves, the more difficult it is, and the further away we are, and the further we must travel back. But this younger son was great of soul, because he struggled back.

What was his attitude? It was not absolutely correct, but his misunderstanding was corrected by his father later. He went and said, "I will go to my father and say I have sinned against heaven and earth, and I am not worthy to be called your son." So far, he is absolutely correct. But then he said, "Make me as one of thy hired servants," and God will not do that! That's not our God! He will make us friends! ⁵ This son, as he was walking back to his father, did not understand this. But we can understand, because we have the perspective of history and the Holy Scriptures to tell us: God will not make us as hired servants! Jesus Christ said He would make us friends. "I will call you friends, and there are many mansions in my father's house." ⁶ So we will not be hired servants. We will have everything that our Father has available for us!

And this is the meaning when the father saw his son and ran out to him. Can you imagine this meeting? The son is bedraggled and poor, starving, faint both of heart and of body, and the father comes to him and embraces him and kisses him. He puts the ring on his finger, a token of the father's love and his authority; He kills the fatted calf, and makes merry because his son has come home. The son was only expecting to stay in the shack with the hired hands, and maybe to have a little bit of meat once in a while and his father gave him back EVERYTHNG that he had lost, and more than he had lost. That is what our Father will do for us.

The Church tells us about it right now, because we are now about to enter into a period of time when we had better think about our sins quite a bit. Next week we will talk about the Last Judgement, and it is terrifying what will happen in the Last Judgment for those who do not repent. But, if you only read that, and do not understand from today that the Father will accept your repentance, then you have lost the most important part of the story. This part is that God will accept you, if you arise, and go. And I can speak honestly here, that the major problem is that most people don't want to "arise and go." And therefore when they don’t arise and go, they cook up in their minds all kinds of ideas, about why they cannot stop a certain sin, or do better. And yet, they are not doing the things that God has laid out for them to do to bring them back to Him. If this fits any one of you, then may it be that you would understand the things that you must do, and that you would have a firmer resolve to arise and go. A man cannot do something with full effort unless he believes it with full conviction. Our life is difficult. It is painful. And we have trouble fighting our sins, and some are so pleasurable that we have trouble wanting to fight them. The question is, "Why bother?" If we do not know what God will do for us, then we do not have the resolve to really, really attack our sins, and enter into the kingdom of heaven. So the Church tells us what God will do. He shows us, as a loving Father, He will take us in His arms, and will put the ring upon our finger, which is His authority, you know, and His dignity, and His image. The ring has an image on it, doesn’t it? That is the image of God, which is within man. And He will kill the fatted calf, and we will feast sumptuously for all eternity.

But we're not at that point yet because we're still wearing flesh, and we're still having difficulty with our sins. So, most of us are somewhere in that journey from the far country. And we must continue that journey. It is described with only a few words here in the Scriptures. He starts to journey, and then his Father comes upon him. Well... that’s not the way it really happened! He had to journey for quite some way before his Father saw him. He was quite a ways away, and he still had to travel a long way. Rectifying our life is like that. It takes a long time, and a lot of effort, but the Church tells us clearly what the effect of it will be, what the outcome will be. Keep this in your mind. It's very important to remember these kinds of readings in the Scriptures because when you start to think of your sins, they will overwhelm you if you don't realize the love of God. And next Sunday, and then the Sunday after that, and all the Sundays of Great Lent and all of the services of Great Lent, are full of recounting and remembering our sins and our unrighteousness and our wickedness. It's good to know those things; it's good to remember those things, because it keeps us from pride. But if you only learn those things, and you don't know of God's mercy, then you will fall away. Vast amounts of people that call themselves Christian have fallen away already, because they cannot understand the greatness of God in parallel with their wickedness. They either cast one away, or the other. They dumb down God, or they have exalted pride in themselves — one or the other. And you can see that many modern day heresies are because of these two things.

So, arise! Today, decide to arise. And when you fall down tomorrow, get up out of the dust and continue to walk. And if you cannot walk, then crawl, but keep going towards God. And if you have fixed in your mind what God has promised, then God will help you. And you will have the strength. No matter how weak you feel, you will have the strength to be saved. Amen.

Sunday of Forgiveness.

Today is the Sunday of Forgiveness, and it is also the day we enter great Lent. After we pray the Vespers service of Forgiveness early this afternoon, we will then be in the Holy Fast. Why is it that we fast? We have a blueprint for our life in the Gospel today. It is interesting also, because today we are also commemorating the Finding of the Head of the Forerunner, and we have this gospel reading that has much richness in it. I want to quickly focus on one thing that it said: "... the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." ²

We are going to do violence now. We are setting out on a path of doing violence to the violent one. We are casting that which is corrupt within us, and the Church has given us a path to do so. Our Lord said, first of all, if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. ³ First and foremost in the Christian life is to forgive. To forgive is to be like God — because God forgives all. God loves all, without any respect for persons. So when we forgive, we are participating in the energy of God. We are acting like God — and indeed — that is what we are to do. In the scripture it says, "Ye are gods" ⁴. We are to act like gods. We are to acquire virtue, compassion, holiness. Yea, even perfection, because the scriptures also say "Be ye perfect, as my heavenly Father is perfect" ⁵.

So one must become like unto God, and the first step is to forgive.

And he says, But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ⁶

This is actually a promise and a threat, but the promise is so much more powerful than the threat. Oh, yes, if you do not forgive, you won't be saved. If you hold grudges, even though someone has harmed you greatly in this life, you won't be saved, because, over and over, the Church says, the Holy Scripture says, the saints say, the Holy Spirit says: forgive, forgive, forgive.

And if you do forgive, what will happen? You will see Christ. You won't be corrupt anymore. You'll have peace, you'll have rest. The promise is greater than the threat. Absolutely.

And then He gives us some counsel about fasting. "Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward." ⁷ These are among the most terrible words in all of scripture: "They have their reward." This life, this life of corruption, and foul odors, and difficulties, and sadness and strife, and tempests — that is where they have their reward. These are terrible words. So if you want your reward now, God will give it to you. You can be as a hypocrite, you can make it appear that you are holy, and some people will say, "Isn't that remarkable what he is doing. I could not do that. He must be filled with the Holy Spirit." But if you have the reward only now, your life is a total waste.

Then He tells us, in a figure through the glass darkly, as it were, what our reward will be. He says, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: (20) But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: (21) For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." ⁸ Do you know what we have been promised? All the world tells us a story of death, dying, difficulties, passions and sadness — all the world. No matter how rich a man becomes, the world is a difficult place because within, there is a pitched battle. And a man with a conscience is not at peace with who he is. He wants to become better. The whole world is corrupt, all we ever see. But what does He say? "If you lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven, they do not corrupt. They will last forever." These are amazing thoughts here: Forever. No corruption. Full of satisfaction, peace, rest. I do not have a day that I am at rest. There is not a day that I do not endure sadness. There is not a day that I do not sin. But there will be a day, in the eighth day, if I struggle now, and also, if you struggle, that we will be in the presence of God. The mind cannot conceive and understand what this means, because all we see is corruption, and everything changes. It is so hard to stay good. Things change all the time, and so often, it seems, for the worse. But our Lord and Savior is telling us, If we lay up treasures for ourselves now, in heaven they will not corrupt. We won't corrupt!"

In the other reading, John, a great man, greatest born of woman, could not understand. It was so incomprehensible to him that the Messiah had actually come. He believed, but he was full of wonderment, so he sent his disciples to Christ, and our Lord said, "Look at the evidence. The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, the poor have the Gospel preached to them." ⁹ That is the greatest miracle. It gives people hope. It makes people know what they are alive for. We know what our Lord can do.

The evidence is all there, even though the world constantly countermands and slanders that evidence, every single day of our life, but we know the truth! And this is why we are entering upon the Fast. Because we want to lay up treasures in heaven, and we want to win the kingdom of Heaven by violence. Violence against our passions, violence against that which saddens us — that part of us which is incomplete. We want to cast it out, so that we can be filled. That's why we fast. The reason one must forgive is because the task in our life is to become like God, to be filled with Him, and to become like Him morally — to share in the energies of God. His love for us will transfigure us and make us incorrupt. And a man cannot become incorrupt, he cannot become like God, if fundamentally he disavows himself from that most fundamental aspect of God: God is love. Love forgives. Love forgives seventy times seven times; love forgives infinite times. No matter how great the transgression, the forgiveness is greater.

This is why we begin Great Fast with Forgiveness ceremony. No, it is not just a ceremony. Every man who looks into his heart sees that he falls short with every breath he takes, and that he wrongs every man. If you see one of your brothers or sisters, and they have a difficulty, some conflict in their marriage, or with their children or with some substance or some other such thing — we all fall into difficulties — you should berate yourself and say, "Have I prayed for my brother? Have I done something to help my brother? Is it possible that he or she is in peril because of my incompetence?" That's why we ask forgiveness of one another, even if we have not exactly offended everyone specifically. But then again there might be grudges that need to be settled today, too, and we must do this if we wish to enter into the Fast.

The Apostle says, "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. " ¹⁰ This is the time. The church sets aside this time, this tithe, or tenth, of the year, so that we would be able to intensify and remember who we are, and who God is, and change. The first step is to forgive, and then we proceed with the Fast. And I tell you it will be difficult. I have been through seventeen of them, and all of them were difficult. We all have our different temptations. One is tempted to eat meat. Another is tempted to be angry. Another is tempted to fall into despondency. Another is tempted in another way. As many souls as there are, so many temptations are there. But we struggle together as a community praying for one another and fasting and believing that there is a reward and that it is permanent. Nothing in this life — nothing — is permanent, and we are living for permanence. And when I think of these thoughts, it makes it a bit easier to abstain from this food or that, or to make more prostrations, or to forgive my brother, even when he has harmed me, even when he has hurt me purposefully, because everything in this life is going away, except for how we have lived. The way we have lived, if it is holy, is going to endure

There is something else during this great fast all of you should do. It is very important for us to pray for one another, and also to pray for Paul, Susan and Seth. They are going to be made catechumens next week. We are going to have the service to make them catechumens, and the exorcism part of the service, just before Liturgy next Sunday. I would ask you and admonish you, as ones who love, because He loved us, that you will be here to support them in prayer, and not just on Sunday, but during the whole time of their catechuminate, that they would learn of sweetness, learn about faith, about the sweetness you can never have enough of. And yet indeed there will come a time when we will have enough. But not in this life. In the next life. We will be completely filled with Him if we live now according to Who He is. Amen.

Today, brothers and sisters, is the first Sunday of the Great Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy. The Church wants to tell us some things. Indeed we should come to Church always with the expectation that God will teach us something, whether it be something we learn with our mind and consciously understand, or something that penetrates the soul, and helps us in an unseen way. A most important statement for a Christian to understand, even after He has lived the Christian life for some quite some time in this particular gospel reading is, "Come and see." This is what the Church is telling us. Is not Great Lent always a period of time when, with all the fasting and the longer services and the time of the year being more intense, there more temptations? Don't we sometimes have doubts? Don’t we have difficulty? I don't know a person who does not have them, and as a priest I can say this with sincerity, because I know so many of you so well … we all have doubts, we all have difficulties, we all have temptations. The Lord says "Come and See."

The Church says "Come and see". What is She telling us to come and see? The question which preceded this instruction (and more than this — also a promise, a pledge, a rallying cry) by Nathaniel to Philip was, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Now this can be understood in a historical sense in that Nazareth was city of no account and unimportant; a backwater. Could anything good come out of Nazareth? But the spiritual meaning of the text, is that Nathaniel asks, "Can anything good come out of my Nazareth? Out of my Heart? Can I be changed? Can I be made whole?" This is the question that He asks for us, because we ask it of ourselves. Now I am talking only to Christians here, to those who have at least begun to believe, begun to lead the Christian life, or desire to follow the Christian life. Those who do not desire to follow it, to whom the Christian morality, the Christian Commandments, the Incarnation of Christ are unimportant things — I am not speaking to those people. Such a person must be converted first, have something of a small spark of repentance in their heart.

I am speaking to the Christian, the one who desires to know Christ, and has difficulties in life and doubts because of those difficulties. Now a perfect time to speak of it because it is after the first week of Lent, which is often, in my experience as a pastor, very difficult for people, and a time when many temptations occur. The devil knows that if we do not make a good beginning, we will not make a good end. This is true in anything we do. We must struggle to make a strong start so that when we lag at the end so that as St. John Chrysostom says, "you will have momentum built up to carry you through those difficult times." The Church is saying come and see. Come and see. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can I be changed? Can I really stop doing these things that I despise about myself? Can I really believe fully, in every way with every ounce of my being? Can I really become purified? Yes indeed, you can. And why can we, and how can we? The Church tells us this, too. By faith we can have good come out of Nazareth. Now this faith is explained to us. Examples have been given to us, very strident examples. Examples that make us feel enflamed with enthusiasm. We heard of the Saints of old (and this was even before the Promise, which we Christians enjoy!) stopping the mouth of lions, being sawn asunder, and wandering about in sheep skins and goat skins, being destitute and afflicted. These were great heroes the Apostle Paul talks about, who conquered by faith. The world did not think that they conquered. It thought they were defeated. But we understand what victory is. Victory is in the heart. Victory is when a man overcomes his own self with the help of God and becomes purified and becomes fire.

But also, besides those examples of ways of living and thinking, when St Paul speaks to us when He writes to the Hebrews, the Lord also is showing us something about faith in His Gospel that we must not forget. There is nothing accidental in this story of Nathaniel meeting Christ. First He was under the fig tree; Phillip comes to him and says to him that we have found the Messiah. Nathaniel says, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" How can this be? Remember the spiritual meaning … can anything good come out of me? Can I really be changed? Can I really appropriate Christ? I have so many weaknesses, every day I fall. I cannot seem to defeat this enemy. I seem to have circumstances that consistently cause me to fall. I continue to have difficulties, to have doubts, to be frightened. All these things are my Nazareth. So Nathaniel comes with Phillip because Phillip says, "Come and see." Then He meets the Lord. And the Lord says: "Whence thou knowest me?" Nathaniel says to the Lord. "Verily when thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee." There is deep meaning here in these words, brothers and sisters. The Lord knows us. He understands us. He knows our deepest inner desires, He knows our motivations, and He knows our weaknesses. He knows how to help us. He knows our desires before we know them. This is quite important for a Christian to remember. Moment by moment, truly we feel so often that we are alone. I only discovered after I was an adult that every teenager had the same doubts about themselves as I had. That I wasn’t good looking enough, my hair looked weird, being nervous with girls, all those things that every teenager goes through.

The reason I mention this is because as priest I know that all of us go through doubts, go through uneasiness in our faith, even if our uncertainty is only about ourselves. The hours and the evening prayer of St. John speak about it … deliver me from faintheartedness. We have great faintheartedness. All of us suffer from this malady, this affliction of not being able to believe fully in the Resurrection. And we somehow believe that we are alone in our struggle. I previously thought this until I became a priest and saw that I am not alone. We tend to believe that our weaknesses are not applicable to the promise in some way. We say: yes if we had enough faith, yes if we did better in this or that, we believe that God can change us... But we don’t believe that we will be changed, because we feel alone. I am convinced of this and that is why I speak on this kind of subject so often. I am convinced that our lack of faith is what holds us back from truly appropriating the love that God wants to shower upon us, wants us to feel — and actually He has already greatly blessed us — He wants us to feel it. He wants us to feel the warmth, to feel the embrace, but we are not capable until we are able to believe fully.

Now of course, if we are to believe, we must act. The Christian life is acting according to the Commandments as well as believing them and we must take them all seriously and lament if we do not follow them in their exactitude. We must also believe not such that we have to think it but so that it is part of our being. We must believe that Jesus Christ knows all of our circumstances, all of our struggles, all of our deepest desires, even those we can not express or are afraid to say out loud. He knows them all because He saw Nathaniel under the fig tree and He sees all of us. He sees our Nazareth. He knows how to defeat it. He knows that good will come out of it because He has placed his image in us and He desires to burnish that image, to polish it, to remove all the dross and mud from it so that it gleams and shines. And He will do this if only we allow Him to, if only we believe that He can do it. Not for someone else, such as, for instance, the Saints or even those Christians we know and admire, but for ourselves we must believe this. Certainly we believe in the Resurrection, we believe in miracles, we believe that all these things that the Saints have done are true and holy and righteous, but we can’t see ourselves doing them. If it’s for humility sake that we say that we are not worthy of such things, that is good. None are worthy, but all can be made capable. I am convinced that it is not humility that makes us believe that we cannot do righteous things; that we cannot change. It is weakness of faith. Brothers and sisters, the Lord says to us today, "Come and see."

This is why you should struggle through the Great Lent, even if you are wondering, "Why am I fasting?" The purpose of fasting is to open the heart to God so that God will enlighten us and help us with things. Perhaps your thoughts also say "I am in a worse mood now than I was before! I am snapping more at my children, or at my wife, or at my coworkers. I am having more difficulty with thoughts than I had before. Or I still have trouble with this sin or that sin. What use is it to deprive myself of eating? What use is it to struggle till the end? I’ll just be tired on Pascha and I won’t feel the Lord. Not as much as I want to." These are our doubts. Some of you express openly doubts about yourself. Others of you have not been able to express it openly, but I am convinced that we all have these kinds of doubts to a greater or lesser degree. That is why the Church is telling us today, as we have embarked now upon the first week of the Great Fast, "Come and see." Come and see that good things can come out of Nazareth. We can be completely changed. Everything that applies to the Saints applies to us, absolutely and positively. Jesus Christ came for us, for every man, He wants everyone to have fullness, completeness, regardless of how weak we are, regardless of what happens to us, He wants us to be completely changed. And we can be. Indeed, as Christians, we must believe this, if we are to truly call ourselves Christians, we must truly believe that we can be changed. Now the only way to be changed is through great effort. It takes great effort, make no mistake about it. The way to perdition is very wide, and very easy, and it is downhill. And the way to paradise is truly a narrow road and a difficult road. But it is not difficult because of our Lord; His burden is easy and His yoke is light. It’s difficult because of our own faithlessness and our weakness and because of our own predilection toward sin that beguiles us. And we play mind games with ourselves and find ourselves in snare after snare after snare. Truly you must struggle if you are to be a Christian.

Great Lent is a struggle; other fasting periods are a struggle. They are only an example of the Christian life. They are not in totality the struggle of the Christian life. If fasting is your greatest struggle, then indeed you have not struggled enough. Fasting should be an aide to you in the real struggle that God wants you to have. Perhaps for some that is a frightening thought, because fasting is so difficult. Even attending church services may be difficult. But indeed God wants to bring you beyond this struggle of fasting and services and prayer, and fill you with himself completely. He wants to make you all fire. And it will indeed happen, regardless of what kind of man or woman you are, if you have faith that you can be changed. And if you must struggle with that faith, and not give up even though you fall, and continue to struggle to live righteously, even if, for the moment, you are not righteous. In our age what has happened is that sins have been re-codified, they have been renamed, reassigned. Things we understand to be sin, the world calls virtue, and these are. Many things, not just sexual sins that are obviously happening in the world today and being called virtuous, but all manner of other things. Why does the world, and even us, since the Psalmist has us beseeching the Lord each Vespers that we not "make excuse with excuses in sins," speak about sin so? Because people struggle against these sins and they can’t make it, they can’t hack it. Instead of accepting this reality that they are weak and they need a Savior and they can be changed if only they believe the words "Come and see," and acknowledging (and more than this: embracing !) the struggle that comes with it, the sweat and the tears and the blood that comes with it, they redefine what a sin is. We see these examples in secular life, but also we have these examples in our own life when we excuse ourselves from our sins. For the Christian excuses himself mostly because he cannot bear that he calls himself a Christian, but does not act as one.

I say, Christian, admit boldly to the Lord, that I am a Christian but I don’t act as one. Or I desire to act as one. Be willing to say it, be willing to say it out loud. Be willing to admit that you fall short continually but have great hope that He can, and not just can but will, change you if you live by faith. Look at the examples of many of the saints. They had many falls in their lives. And yet, they are righteous. How can this be? Because they were willing to come and see. They were willing to take the trip. Now Nathaniel only walked a few paces to see Jesus. But this trip is indicative of our life. The Lord says I will show you greater things than these. Not just that I know you are under a fig tree; not just that I know all your thoughts. I knew you yet while you were in the womb. Not just those things; Greater things than these will I show you. I will show you that you can be completely changed, completely made whole. Have no fear, have no sadness, have no doubts, have no sins, have no shame. Have no pain. I will show you greater things than just that I know you. I will show you that I will change you, this is what the Lord says to Nathaniel. And this is what the Lord is saying to us. We appropriate this change by believing the words of the Lord. By understanding their meaning. He knows us and He will change us. Good will come out of Nazareth, come out of the heart because of our faith. Brothers and sisters — beg the Lord for faith, beg Him for faith, because this is the key. Faith is just not belief. Faith envelops the whole man and makes him fire, and makes him able to change. This is what faith is. Faith permeates our life. We must appropriate the Lord’s promise with all the struggles and difficulties that the Christian life entails.

Because of the promise the Church asks us: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb 12:1-2). He has begun our journey with our baptism. He was with us then, He’s with us now, and He will finish the course for us. You must have faith that He who began a good work in you will complete it in Christ Jesus. Certainly a good thing will come out of Nazareth. May God grant you faith.

Read the scriptures slowly and carefully. See what the Lord says to you, see where you fit into this scripture, see where you have vices — or perhaps where by the grace of God, God has helped you in some thing and you have some virtue — not of your own worth, but because God has helped you. This is how we should read the scriptures. This is not just history, and something that happened a long time ago; this story is given for our edification. The Lord healed many thousands of people, and we don’t have very many records of His healings. So there must be something important about the way this man was healed for us to take note of.

He comes to Capernaum, and He is very popular in these days; this is still in the – shall we say, the honeymoon period; all the common people Him. The scribes and the Pharisees didn’t like Him, but they couldn’t move against Him, and even some of them were somewhat taken by Him because of all the buzz that was around Him. Everyone was saying, "Can you believe what’s happening? Everyone is being healed, and this man is speaking with such authority..." At the beginning of His ministry, there were many who loved Him and wanted to throng about Him (who would later leave Him, and even be accessories to His being slandered and murdered), and this is the case today. There are so many about Him that people can’t even fit in the house where He is preaching. They are all about, outside the door, and He preached to them.

There is a man who is paralyzed, and he has asked his friends to help him. He has four that will take him on his bed, and want to bring him to Christ. Because of the press (the crowd of people), he couldn’t get to Jesus.

What is this press, brothers and sisters?

This "press" is often mentioned in other healings; this press is the obstacles that we encounter in our Christian life. We encounter great obstacles. Now in the case of this man who was paralyzed, he wouldn’t have the strength to press through a group of people on his own, and even with help it would be immensely difficult; how can you carry a stretcher through a huge crowd of people? It is not possible.

So what did they do? They overcame the press by climbing onto the roof.

A roof is high above all things. The scripture uses this analogy just as it uses mountains sometimes, to say that this is how we should be in our Christian life. We should look up — we should be thinking of spiritual things, not of carnal things, not of just daily things — and we should elevate our mind — to contemplate pure things, and things that God wishes us to know. These people got up on the roof. So of course it was a practical act to get up on the roof, so that they could break the roof tiles and let him down, and it was rather ingenious actually. But it is also an indication of how we should be, brothers and sisters.

You know, we encounter the press, and we stop in our tracks. Let’s face it: this society is a very difficult one for a Christian to live in, because there is such coldness, and it infects all of us. There is such materialism, there is such hardheartedness, there is such wishy-washy-ness as far as what to believe. And even among the Orthodox, there is this sort-of mixing of the world with holiness — and, of course, what becomes of hot and cold? It becomes lukewarm. And the Lord hates lukewarm.

The whole world is lukewarm. And we live in this difficulty. This is the press. It’s quite hard for us to live in this world.

In fact, I was reading something from Fr. Anatoly the younger, who was a martyr, one of the last Optina elders. I can’t quote it well, but basically the inference, the gist is of what he was writing is that Christians in the last age won’t do great miracles, and their faith won’t even be that great, and their purity won’t be that great. But, because they have endured in a time which is the worst of all times, God will give them a crown for even being Christian during this time. Indeed, because it is a difficult time. It is a time of unbelief, it is a time of lukewarm-ness, and we are surrounded by it, and we are infected by it.

So it is difficult for us to get past the press. And why should we get past the press? Because we’re paralyzed too. We have spiritual paralysis. We have spiritual blindness. If any man can look inside himself with any amount of honesty at all, he sees that he is really broken inside, incomplete. There are terrible sadnesses that happen in our life. There are terrible things that we just can’t cope with completely.

And I say, if any person thinks that life is easy, and that things are really okay, than I say that you should really be afraid, because God is far from you. According to the fathers, if we’re not tempted, then we’re not being saved. Because we ARE incomplete, and we are weak creatures. Oh yes, we have the image of God within us, and God has promised that He will be with us until the end, that He will complete the good work which has begun in us. But in the meanwhile, as we are approaching that goal, there is so much about us that is so pitiable. And we must get past the press if we are truly to get any kind of relief. You know, the press makes a lot of noise, and there is a lot of distraction, and this very well describes the Christian life today.

So how do we get past the press? Get up on the roof.

Not just get up on the roof, but there must be labor involved in the Christian life, brothers and sisters. You know that one of my pet phrases, or pet ideas, is that the greatest heresy of all time is that the Christian life can be fought without labor, that salvation can be gathered and garnered without labor. This is the great heresy of our age — it has been around now for quite some time — that we can actually be saved without labor. Oh no, it takes great labor on our part to be saved; it takes effort for us to push by the press; it takes effort for us to get on the roof, to elevate our minds to things above, not to things below, not to carnal things, not to just day-to-day living.

I think day-to-day living is like a narcotic in our day; it is easy to lose track of holy things, to say "I haven’t read scripture for so long, I forget my prayers, I have the wrong ideas, the wrong motivations," and to just sort of flow through life. We must fight through these things, get on the roof, have our minds elevated and break through the roof tiles — which is effort. There is great effort involved in breaking through a roof.

So then, after these men had broken through the roof, they let the man down. What a spectacle that must have been. This man was not afraid to make his disability known to all. There must have been some people who thought that this was really craziness, and who might have laughed. But he was unafraid, because he wanted to be healed.

So when the Lord saw him, because of his efforts, He said "My son, thy sins be forgiven thee." Well the man came because he was palsied — he couldn’t walk — and the Lord said "Thy sins be forgiven." He did this for a reason.

Of course, what is the source of all of our ills? Our sins!

So the Lord heals that which is the man’s most pressing need first. And of course, he knew that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the hypocrites, would think in their minds, "How can this man forgive sins? This is blasphemy," and they would chalk it up in their notebooks and think, "We’re going to get this man."

The Lord then said something quite interesting, something you should take note of. It seems sort of obvious in one way, but there is a very deep meaning in another. "Which is easier to say: ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee,’ or ‘Take up thy bed and walk?’" Well, it’s easy to say "Thy sins be forgiven thee," or something that you can’t see internally, but if you say "Take up thy bed and walk" — well, the man had better get up, or else Jesus would be exposed as a charlatan. Well, that’s rather obvious, but there is a deep meaning here, brothers and sisters. Not an obvious meaning; you have to think a little bit.

The Lord raised the man up from his bed – "Take up thy bed and walk, and go unto thy house." The reason he did this is to show that He, indeed, has power: He can raise the palsied man, He can give the man without eyes sight, he can cause the deaf to hear, he can raise the dead. These are tangible things that we see. The Lord did this because of our weakness.

We cannot see our sins being forgiven. It’s not something that you can have evidence of. Sometimes there is evidence of the Lord healing a man in terms of, let’s say if a man is an alcoholic and he is able to no longer have the demon of drunkenness, or some other such thing, but for the most part, when our sins are forgiven, the Lord knows, and we know, but it is not an obvious thing. That’s why the Lord said "Which is easier to say: ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee,’ or ‘Take up thy bed and walk?’" He was trying to show us "I can do both." Yes, I can say "thy sins be forgiven," and it is not an obvious thing, but I can also raise up the palsied man.

There is another meaning as well. The man’s sins were forgiven AND his body was made whole. Jesus Christ’s resurrection affects the whole man. Every aspect of our personality is affected by the resurrection. This is why a Christian should not feel defeated by anything in his life — because the resurrection applies to everything. Now this is not to have some sort of Pollyanna view of the world and think that because we’re Christians we’ll be rich, famous, athletic and handsome. That might not be the case.

But Jesus Christ is interested in anything that goes on in our life. We must bring all the difficulties of our life to him. We as Christians don’t do this very much; we suffer with our worries, our concerns, and I know many of you and I know that your concerns are not frivolous ones, they are not worldly concerns; they are spiritual things. But you must believe in the resurrection, and the one who truly believes applies the resurrection, with all of its implications, to himself, and his life’s circumstances.

If Jesus Christ can raise up the palsied man, certainly all the other things that He says must be true — not just that He can raise the dead at the end of the age; He’s going to make you alive now. The kingdom of God is within you. Now, not later. This is the meaning of having the man be healed both of his sins and of his palsy, of his bodily ailments.

Now how do we attain this healing, brothers and sisters? By effort. There is no substitute whatsoever for effort.

If a Christian does not struggle, does not strive, does not point himself to Jerusalem and not look back, does not try to ascend, as it were, to the roof, and labor, then he will not be changed. Or, perhaps, he’ll bear fruit, but very little.

May God grant that we would labor, past all of the difficulties in our lives, past all of the frustrations, all of the distractions, all of our sinfulness, all of our bad habits that are so difficult to change, all that press, all that crowd — that we labor past all that, and set our minds on things above, on holiness, on the purpose of our life, which is intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And this intimate knowledge is only possible if we become like Him. We must become like Him to know Him.

This is why we must labor, brothers and sisters. Not because there are the Ten Commandments, the Law and all the rest; this is not the reason we must labor. The reason we must labor is that Jesus Christ wants us to know Him, intimately, He wants us to be healed of every single palsied condition, of every blindness, of every black spot in our souls, of every imperfection, so that we can gaze upon Him, not through a glass, darkly, but face to face – and not in shame, but in indescribably joy. This is how He wants us to know Him. And the only way to know Him is to become like Him. This is why we labor for virtue.

May God help us to labor, and for the rest of this Lent also to struggle so that when we come to the Pascha, the Lord would touch us in a very special, unique way that we can’t even imagine and understand, and strengthen us. May God help you.

Brothers and sisters, a Christian must always be able to answer questions. You must always be comparing things. Constantly, daily, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, you should be making comparisons and you should be making trades. St. Andrew of Crete, in his Great Canon, urges himself to be a great trader.

What is this that he is trading? What shall we trade?

There is a question — several questions, actually — that the Lord asks us in the Gospel for the Cross today. He says, "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" This is not a rhetorical question. This question has a correct answer. Actually, it has two answers that are equally correct.

One answer is that a man can give nothing to deserve salvation, nothing in exchange for his soul. Nothing is worth eternal life. There is no way he can pay God so that he will deserve salvation. That is one answer.

And then, there is another answer, which is the more important of the two, I would say. What can a man give in exchange for his own soul? His life. If a man gives his life, God — God redeems him. We don't deserve it, we are weak, but we can give our heart to God, give our way of thinking to God, give our priorities to God, give our striving and our effort to God. Not our successes, not our abilities, because we can give nothing in exchange for our soul. We don't have enough ability to give to God; all God wants of us is our heart, and He provides us with the ability.

And how so? St. Paul very succinctly, tersely, beautifully sums up the meaning of — the reason for — the Incarnation of God. He says "we have a great High Priest, Who has passed into the heavens," and he goes on to say, "We have not a High Priest Which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Jesus Christ became as we are, the same stuff that we are made of, tempted in all ways as we are, and yet did not sin — and not only did He not sin, but He ascended back to His Father, in the flesh. The things which He tells us to do — and He tells us many things — we are capable of doing because He Himself fulfilled these things. He is not some unreachable, far away High Priest that we cannot identify with. He bore our weaknesses and made them strong. He bore our infirmities and healed them. Everything that He expects of us, He has already done! As a man, he has done these things. If we understand what Christ has done for us, then we will understand how we can give our life in exchange for our soul. There is nothing that we have of ourselves that is worth salvation — to be able to gaze up on our God. But Jesus Christ has made us capable.

Now, how do we go about making this exchange — this exchange of things corruptible for things incorruptible, things temporal for things eternal, things that fade away for things that endure, things that will be forgotten for eternal remembrance? How can we make this exchange, brothers and sisters? This question should be one which you are answering moment-by-moment. We make this exchange by denying ourselves, and taking up our cross, and following our Savior on the same path that He walked and the same path that the saints walked.

And how is it that you deny yourself? You deny those things that are not according to God; your deny those things that are corrupt and that will go away; but trade, trade with you will, your heart, your desire, so that you can create a great treasure in Heaven. The way of the Cross is a way of denial, it is a way many times of sorrow, and pain, but it is a way of enlightenment, and of being invigorated. Good comes out of the soul when God dwells in it, and you desire to do what is right because God dwells within you, and you can think nothing else. Denying yourself, brothers and sisters, is just denying what you already know is going to go away. If you struggle against a lustful thought, that struggle is eternal and will be remembered. If you say one kind word to someone, that will be remembered. The promotions you get, the television programs you watch, the vacations you go on, the foods you eat — all of that will be forgotten. None of that is eternal. But any good work done in the name of God is remembered and is permanent.

Brothers and sisters, in our hearts is a desire for eternal life. All men have it — that is why people want to be famous, that is why people want to leave things to their heirs, that is why people want to do something big in the world — because they have a desire for significance. But that desire for all those things is really just a perversion, a twisting, of that good desire that God has put in our heart to be permanent, to not change, to be perfected, to be whole. This is what the Christian life offers us. Have you ever wondered why at the end of this reading the Lord says "There are some that stand here that shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power?" Why does He say that? He is talking about the Cross, a little bit, and all of a sudden, almost out of the blue, He says "there are some here that will not taste of death, until they see the kingdom of God come with power." What He is referring to is what happens right afterwards, which is: He goes up on a mountain at night, with Peter, James, and John, and He is transfigured before them, and they see Him as He is, the Uncreated Light, God — so as to show them, and therefore, through them, us, that He is reliable; the things He tells us to do, they will get us where He wants us to go, and where we should desire as well. After He came down the mountain, He looked just like any other man, and when He was on the Cross, He bled like any other man, and He felt pain like any other man, and He died like any other man. But the apostles remembered, and we should remember too, the One Who hangs on the Cross is the One Who hung the stars in the heaven. The One Who suffers on the Cross is the One Who takes away every suffering. The path that He tells us to walk, He walked Himself, and He did more so besides.

Now we understand in secular things that it is nonsensical to pay more or something than it is worth, or that it is nonsensical if there is a great bargain not to take it. Why in spiritual things do we understand the medium of exchange so poorly? Why is it that we pick things that will not last, things that will only indulge ourselves for a moment, for a season, and then they're forgotten, they're gone? Why do we do this? The Lord says, "What can a man give in exchange for His soul?" Nothing, and everything. Everything you do should be in exchange for your soul, brothers and sisters, not for your indulgence. Everything you do should be for your salvation. Deny those things that you know are wrong, and live for Christ.

Now, some people are frightened by Christianity, even within the Church, because they think of Christianity as only denial, self denial: "I can't have any pleasure, I can't have any fun." That's not it at all. If a person follows Christ even a little, inside their heart is such happiness that it is all they desire. Any amount of denial is inconsequential to them. Does an athlete, when he is stretching for the finish, having raced a long race, tired, with pains in his legs and in his lungs — does he care about his physical pain? When he is stretching for the finish, he only sees the victory ahead of him. Everything else is inconsequential; it matters not. For a Christian, we feel pain, things are difficult. But it should not matter. Does a woman, after her travail, regret that she went through pain? Does it matter to her when she has her baby? Not at all. If this were the case, that she had regret, everyone would have only one child. But she is willing to go through the pain again because of the love for that child.

Brothers and sisters, the Christian life is really in many ways no different than secular life. If you put effort into it, and desire, you will be rewarded. Without effort, there is no fruit. An athlete who does not train is mediocre. A scholar who does not study does not know the things that he purports to know. The big difference between the Christian life and secular life is that your efforts, if they are in denying yourself and taking up the cross, are eternal.

The taking up the cross that He is speaking of is not just to be suffering. If suffering happens, so be it. But the taking up the cross is "You, walk as I walk. I have given you an example, you follow it." When your enemy smites you on the cheek, turn the other cheek to him also. If your adversary has taken your tunic, give him your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go with him one mile, go with him two. This is taking up the cross. The Christian life should be mostly described in terms of positives. In the old testament — we were speaking in the Bible study yesterday, that Jesus Christ, when He referred to the Old Testament in His sermon on the mount, He would say "you have heard it said…," or "the ancients said…." In the old days it was said that you shalt not do this, you shalt not do this, and there were strict penalties for all these things. But when Jesus Christ came with the new revelation, with the fulfillment of the old, with the perfection of the old, which was only barely, barely seen in the old days, Jesus Christ didn't say thou shalt not, but thou shalt. That's what the beatitudes are — the Christian commandments.

And all the rest that Christ did showed us how to live. We are capable of it because we have a great High Priest, Who went through everything we went through, and more so besides, and was successful. The only way to appropriate this success, brothers and sisters, is to deny the things that you know in your heart are wrong, and to strive for righteousness. Only the righteous can understand righteousness, only the pure can understand purity. It is a great joy when one is pure. But you can't understand this joy without striving for it — which means casting off things that are impure and struggling to take up your cross and live the Christian life.

I've told you before, I guess I'll say it a thousand times more: the greatest heresy of our age — the greatest heresy, I believe, of the era since Christ came — is that salvation can be won without labor. What a nonsensical thing. The Lord says "take up your cross." He will make you able to carry your cross. And in your self-denial, you will be free.

We are in the middle of the fast — a period when we are supposed to be denying ourselves. Some people look at Lent as a difficult, long ordeal. I tell you, I wish lent lasted all the year. I'm never more at peace then during Lent. A time when things kind of settle down — I can see things a little more clearly.

Brothers and sisters, deny those things that are not of God. Struggle to take up your cross. The Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, struggled with His Cross as well, and was victorious. His Cross was much larger than ours; His Cross included our cross. He has already made us capable; He has already walked the path. All we need do is follow Him. What a glorious thing it is to be a Christian. There is no greater name, no greater honor, than to be able to suffer if need be for our Savior. May God grant you true spiritual wisdom to be able to trade that which will not endure for that which will become eternal.

In life, if you do anything, if you're to be successful, then there are two main ingredients for this success. One is the knowledge of what you want, how you should do it — you must have understanding. Then you must also have the correct priority based on this understanding — or should I say, based on reality. You must be able to perceive what reality is. If you wish to become extremely good in sports, as a basketball player, then the reality is you must work over and over and over again on the fundamentals of basketball. If you wish to be a musician or a scholar or a Christian, you must work over and over and over again on the fundamentals of that discipline, of that way of life. And you must know what is good and what is bad for your desire, and you must have your priorities set straight, so that you will act in accordance with what is good and cast away what is bad.

Today, this reading really speaks about priorities. It speaks about reality, about the ultimate reality. And it poses a question that every one of us should ask of ourselves every day: "What can a man give in exchange for his soul?" ¹ Nothing; nothing is worth as much as the soul. Our Lord said, if He gains the whole world, it's not worth one soul. All that is corruptible, all that is passing away, you can hold onto for a while, but it's like catching wind, because when you die, there's nothing left. So what does it matter if you gain that which is corruptible? What does it matter if you plant flowers in your garden if it's going to be bulldozed the next day? What does it matter when you paint your house, if it's burning? That's what's happening in this world. The world is passing away, so if we hold on to the things of this world, we hold onto that which is corruptible.

Underlying the priorities of a Christian is the understanding of reality, the understanding that the world is passing way. And this is not a bad thing; this not a gruesome thing at all. Who wants to save the world the way it is? With corruption, with death, with sadness, with imperfection, incompleteness, with that longing in our hearts that can't be fulfilled by anything in the world? Who wants to save the world the way it is? Even people that are outside of Christianity don't like the world the way it is. Sometimes they invent things to cover it up, or they lose themselves in some sort of debauchery or some sort of bad opinion or heresy or something of that nature, but basically they're dissatisfied with the world.

But there's a strong illusion that the Evil One puts upon men. But we're willing; we allow it to come into our hearts. The evil one disguises the reality that the world is passing away, disguises the reality of Whom Jesus Christ is, and that to be a Christian is to become like Christ, to struggle, to work, to labor, to sweat, to desire. He disguises this. People want to have power, or wealth, or comfort, or sex, or drugs, or something else that is their passion, something that they think of as life. Now, some people are completely immersed in this thing, in these things of the world. But then others, such as Christians who have not yet perfected themselves, are influenced by the world, by the cares of the world, by their ambitions and their passions. And so constantly we must make an effort to see the difference between reality and what the world presents as reality.

The only solution for us to be able to look past all this delusion — and it is powerful delusion, very, very powerful delusion — the only solution is to labor in the Church. That's all. Not labor outside of the Church; labor within the Church. We have to labor where Christ is to be found. And we must recognize who we are — the reality — who we are, why we're here, why we were born. And we must recognize the purity, the dignity of our soul. Our bodies contain that which is of infinite worth. The Lord equates nothing to the high worth of our soul. He says that everything in the world is not worth one soul. No matter how much money, no matter how much prestige, no matter what goes on in the world — none of it can be bartered for a man's soul. That's a terrible trade.

Today's Gospel summarizes how we are to live, and why. It tells us about real reality. Not what the world tells us is real, but about how a Christian should live, how a Christian should think, how he should be. Our Lord said, " Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."

² It almost sounds like a riddle. To many people in the world this makes no sense whatsoever, and unfortunately also to many Orthodox Christians. They don't understand it. "What do you mean, deny myself?" We spoke about this a little bit last night. God knows that we have built into our character a desire for survival, a desire for life. We don't wish to do harm to ourselves; we wish to protect ourselves. We don't wish to harm our loved ones; we want to nurture them and help them. This is not the kind of denial that's being spoken of. The denial that's being spoken of is the denial of what we think of as ourselves that is actually cruel delusion. When we define our lives by how we live in the world, by our passions, by our lusts, by our desires. No, we are far above those things.

We are created for a purpose. We are created to know the Holy Trinity, intimately, and the whole purpose of our time on earth is to know God. And I tell you, you cannot know someone without loving them. And you cannot love someone without desiring to be like them. Even in a secular sense we understand this. We love people as far as we should love all men, but I mean in the context of loving someone intimately, a husband or a wife or our children. We see that which is good in them, and we rejoice in it. And we might see a friend or a spouse and say, "There's something that is good and wholesome in them, and I want to emulate them. I want to become like that." It's our nature to want to return good for good. That's why it says, " We love Him because He first loved us." ³ God loves us, and we return that love. This is the reality of life.

God also said here, whosoever will. In other words, whosoever desires. If you desire, I will fill you, says the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not desire, I will not force you. But deny yourself. Deny those things in you that are not in keeping with who you are. Deny those things that are on the outside of you. Don't let them come inside — the passions and lusts and all the things that will fall away. But I tell you, He said, if you wish, if you desire. Compel yourself! He gives you the choice, but as a man you shouldn't give yourself the choice. Over and over you should compel yourself to do good and to avoid evil. It's a choice of the will. God will help you with this choice, absolutely, but you must make this choice. You must decide to keep the fasts, you must decide to say your prayers, you must decide the give alms, you must struggle against passions. And if you do these things, God will strengthen you and help you in them. But He won't force you.

And He says, take up his cross. He tells us to take up our cross. What does this mean? This means to work, to labor, but to labor with a purpose. No man digs a hole for no reason; he digs a hole for a purpose, in order to plant a tree. We labor so that we will become like our Savior, so that we will recognize Him and He recognize us, so in the eighth day when He judges all of mankind, He will say, "I know you. Come, join the angels and the saints." And He will not say those words, those terrible words, "Depart from Me, because I don't know you." ⁴ We don't want to hear that.

The only way we can know Christ is to live like Him, to become like Him. And we have no excuses. Our Savior lived just like us. What does the epistle say today? It says, " For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." ⁵ He fulfilled everything that He tells us to fulfill, to the letter, and beyond the letter. So we have the capability in Christ to live godly, holy, pure lives — but with effort, by taking up our cross, by making an effort.

So deny yourselves. Don't deny yourself of godliness; deny your passions and affirm good works. Deny things earthly, and think on things heavenly. Deny grumbling and laziness, and be obedient. Deny illusion, all that is within the world that is illusory, and affirm truth. Feed on truth, which is to be found in the Church. Deny corruption, and strive for perfection. This is our life, and I tell you, when you give into your passions, whatever they are, no matter how big or how small, you are denying reality. Do you realize that? You are denying reality. Now a man who is at the edge of a cliff and says, well, you know, I think I have got anti-gravity shoes on, and jumps off the cliff, is crazy, and everyone would realize he is denying the reality of gravity. Well, just as real is the pernicious effect of sin in our life. And every single time that we sin, we deny that which is within us. That's craziness. It's actually insanity. To sin is to be insane. Well, God will heal us, though, of our insanity, if we struggle, if we take up our cross.

Now the cross is bitter, isn't it? The cross is a bitter way to die. It was known as the most bitter way to die in ancient times; it was reserved only for the arch-criminals. A Roman couldn't be put to death on the cross — only strangers and foreigners. It was a very painful way to die, and it was shameful. Well, medicine can be painful and can be difficult to take. But if we don't take it we won't get well. So our Lord showed that He could take the bitterest of medicines for our salvation. So we should be willing to quaff a little bit of bitterness from our cup.

I tell you, it's not really so bitter, because once you start to taste the sweetness of Christ, you want nothing else. Once you feel His yoke setting easily on your shoulders, and you're at peace, you wish to labor. You wish to work harder. You wish to become better. It's from within, not from without. It's from inside a man, because that's where God lives, and that's where God enlightens. He lives in the heart and He enlightens us, and we wish to become better, and better, and better. And if we do become better, it's because we have an understanding of what God will do for us and what He's already done, and we deny those things that are not in keeping with that. That's the meaning of this phrase, deny yourself.

Then our Lord continues, " For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it."

⁶ To those in the world, another riddle, another difficult riddle. How can I lose my life? My life is precious to me, says the world. Yes indeed, your life is precious, but eternal life is what God is talking about here. He says, if you lose that which is outside of eternal life, that which is of the world, if you lose the things that are going to go away anyway, then you will save your life. See, there are two lives here. One is a life in the world, a life of lust and depravity and heedlessness, and the other life eternal, of perfection. And if you lose those things that are heedless, those things that are depraved, th