and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. I greet
you, brothers and sisters. I greet those of you
weathering the storm. Hopefully your hearts are
warmed by the Lord and by the Gospel message.
Christians are accused of two things often. First,
and I think it's reasonable to say, Christians
are often accused of being obsessed with sin.
Being obsessed with feeling guilty for sin. Being
obsessed with the possible punishment of hell.
But that's not the orthodox way. We have today
The commemoration of this marvelous icon to my
left. Icon made without hands. We've just celebrated
Dormition, the joyful feast of the entry of the
Theotokos, the most pure one into the kingdom
and the life of the age to come. And before that,
we celebrated the incredible feast of Transfiguration.
are anything but obsessed about guilt and sin
and punishment. If anything, it's obsessed with
the beauty and the glory of God. And particularly
the feast day of this icon, Archio Orpheus, the
one made without hands, the story which you can
read about, in which Christ pressed a cloth against
his face, and this image was imprinted on it.
and it was sent to Abgar, prince of Edessa, far
to the east, who had the disease of leprosy.
So this is the first icon of the church. And
it's important that it's the icon of Christ that's
the first icon, because it tells us not just
about sin, although it says something about that,
and not guilt for sure, and not punishment, but
the beauty. of our own calling, the beauty of
what we are created to be in his image. Transfiguration,
Dormition, this icon displays for us, first and
foremost, our heavenly calling, what we as humans
are called to be. Like God. Like God. And the
other thing that Christians are accused of is
being distant, especially Orthodox Christians.
I don't know about evangelicals. They're accused
of being too involved. Of being distant and uninvolved
and mystical to the detriment of those around
them. But this is also false. We have an understanding
of sin and sorrow. And suffering. So the church
gives us not only the commemoration of this incredible
icon. But it also gives us this account from
the Gospel of Matthew. Which we hear more of
during Lent. From the Gospel of Mark. But essentially
the Lord is coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration.
And like Moses. Coming down from Mount Sinai.
What does he find? Lack of faith. Chaos. Accusations
against the disciples. Not very polite by a man
asking something for Jesus. Your disciples couldn't
do this. Doesn't speak well of this man's approach.
The Lord comes down to sin and suffering. And
the disciples who had been given the power to
cure. all manner of diseases and to cast out
demons just in the previous chapters could not
do it. The man had no faith. The scribes and
the Pharisees there wagging their fingers at
his disciples saying, you can't do this. And
the disciples also, Jesus says, have little faith.
There's no faith and there's little faith. Why
could We not do this, they say. And Jesus says,
you know, there's a strange idea out there, and
it has been for some hundreds of years, that
all we need to do is try harder, have a little
bit more education, put money in the right places,
and we will solve all kinds of problems in our
society. Let me quote for you a very short three,
four lines here from a famous preacher from the
1960s. He said this, It's the strange conviction
that if a man goes on thinking, inventing, and
governing, he will be able to conquer by his
own strength and his own ingenuity the nagging
forces of evil. Remember, the boy wasn't a lunatic,
wasn't ruled by the moon. He had a demon. There
was evil present there. And this preacher goes
on. He says, just give people a fair chance and
a decent education, and they will save themselves.
This idea has swept across the modern world like
a plague, ushering God out and Escorting man
in. Substituting human ingenuity for inner spiritual
guidance. He goes on. But the problem that has
always frustrated man has been his inability
to conquer evil by his own power. He is constantly
asking in pathetic amazement. Why can't I? Why
can I not cast this out? Why cannot? I remove
evil from my life. Whether it be addiction or
pornography or hatred, anger and resentment,
gluttony, desire to acquire, and so forth and
so on. People will make a resolution on New Year's
Eve. We're going to stop this. We're going to
start that. Next New Year's Eve comes around.
Nothing happened. St. Paul said today, We are
not sufficient in ourselves. So, while the Orthodox
exalt the beauty of Christ and his holiness and
our calling to be with him, and while we also
can see sin and suffering and know that something
has to happen, we are to minister to those. You
know, the worst accusation a Christian could
receive, the church could receive, would be what
this man said to Christ. Your disciples, they
couldn't do it. Not to heal somebody, because
Christ isn't asking us to do that. Not to solve
world hunger. He's not asking us to do that.
Your disciples, they did not reach out. did not
give to the poor. They did not give of their
time. They did not console. Your disciple didn't
call me when I was sick. Your disciple didn't
come to see me when I was lonely. Your disciple
gave me no clothes when I was naked or a place
to stay. We're called to do the thing in front
of us, to be involved that way. But we're called
to do something more. If we are to rise to the
image from which we were created and of which
we are to attain, the image of God, his likeness,
this is not just about action at a social level.
Who was this preacher I quoted? Anybody recognize
him? That's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But what
he couldn't go on to say, and what he did not
go on to say, is that Jesus Christ gives us the
two things we need in order to cast out evil,
first from ourselves, and maybe in our community.
And maybe then we can reach out. You know, people
want to solve all the problems of the society
right now. But we can't do two things, which
are absolutely necessary, without which, our
Christian faith will become irrelevant to us.
And what are those things? The Lord was very
clear. Lord, why could we not cast this out?
This only comes out, he said, by prayer and fasting.
Prayer, not as obligatory time set in the morning
and the evening. which we kind of power through,
and we're tired, and we've got something else
to do that day, and we have to rush through it.
No, prayer as conversation with God, and ultimately
as prayer standing in his presence, being with
him, and being enlightened by him. And fasting,
not just as something, I'm not going to have
a hamburger, but I might eat a whole bag of Lay's
potato chips. Fasting as, for the same reason,
if I'm going to play a piece of music, I practice
it to gain capacity to play it. If I'm going
to shoot baskets in a basketball league, I'm
going to practice shooting a basket so I can
hit the mark. I get the capacity to do that.
If I want to be able to sing, I have to practice
so my voice has capacity. If I want to be and
stand as a Christian in likeness and image of
God. and cast out from my own soul. He says,
all you have to do is have faith as small as
a mustard seed. That's small. It's living, though,
and it will grow. Then the mountain in the heart,
St. Ambrose of Milan said, will be made flat,
and the valleys will be lifted up, as the prophet
says. We're Orthodox Christians, brothers and
sisters. Let us attain and always keep in our
vision the beauty of Christ and our own pathway
to be in his likeness. But it won't happen, and
our faith will be irrelevant to us. And the church
might be full, or it might be empty. But without
prayer and fasting, we cannot. have the capacity
to hold God's grace within us so that all that
we need from God will be given and all that evil
that is within us will be cast out and those
whom we touch, those whom we are with, those
that we bring charity to, they will be blessed
too and as we will be. To our Lord who guides
us on the way, shows us the light of his face.
The honor and glory now and ever to ages of ages.