You heard two epistles and two gospels, one epistle
and two gospels. The second gospel was in honor
of St. Gregory Palamas, whose icon you see in
the center of our church. The second Sunday is
dedicated to his memory. I'm not really going
to speak about him today, but just let me give
you a short sketch. He died in 1359. So why is
he important to us? It's a long time ago. There
have been plenty of other people since that time.
He's important to us because of his defense of
the church that we indeed can know God just like
that man who was raised in the first gospel that
we heard. We tend to think about God and catechism
in some of our minds tends to be Let's get as
much information about the church as we can.
But it's about knowing the Lord, our Savior.
If we don't know Christ, our Savior, then it's
all just in our mind. St. Gregory lived, interestingly
enough, the last five years of his life was during
the Black Plague. I've read most of his sermons
that are in English. It's a nice, beautiful,
big book. He doesn't complain once about it.
He had a different approach. He sorrowed for
those who died. He prayed for those who died
without repentance, without knowing Christ. And
he tried to encourage the flock. He was imprisoned
for five years by one side of a Byzantine civil
war. He was imprisoned for five years by Muslim
raiders. He wasn't a man that kind of led a sheltered
life. But he knew suffering. He knew hardship.
This is the saint we exalt today. What I want
to speak about is the gospel. This gospel of
the second Sunday of Lent. During Lent we read
the gospel of Mark. We read the epistle to the
Hebrews. After Lent in Pascha time. Up to Pentecost,
we read the Gospel of John. When we get there,
it's clear why at that point. In the epistle
from the Hebrews today, you heard this important
verse. We must give the more earnest heed, pay
more attention to the things we have heard and
learned, lest we drift away. Drift away from
the faith. It's that drift. That I worry about
myself. I learned recently that there are quite
a few fish that only swim upstream. Against the
current. You've seen those salmon jumping to
go back to their spawning grounds. Those same
fish, they float downstream when they're dead.
So, about the drift that St. Paul tells us, brothers
and sisters, there's going to be plenty of current
against us in our Christian life. Current from
within us, our own sins, our own ignorance, our
own weakness, and current from outside in the
world, and from the evil one. When we start to
drift, With the way of the world, we're spiritually
dying. This is what I look at in myself. So the
gospel is illustrating to us that very fact,
but in a very dramatic and incredible way. Imagine
being there. Jesus is speaking in a house. It's
got a thatch roof, I suppose, and it's completely
packed. And there are four men who want to take
their friend who can't walk, he's paralyzed,
to see Jesus. Because they know Jesus already.
This is only chapter two of St. Mark. They know
Jesus is healing. This is what God does. This
is a sign of the kingdom to come. We're preparing
for Pascha, right? So there's a story of a man
who is healed from paralysis. He gets up and
walks. But how does he get to Jesus? This incredible
story, it's not just, oh, make way, make way,
this guy's coming in. No, it was too crowded
for that. These men had the idea, let's go up
to the top of the house, remove all this thatched
roof stuff, and lower this man down by a rope
right in front of the Lord. What courage, what
ingenuity. How dramatic is that? Imagine being
there and seeing that. Incredible. The crowd
prevented those four men, and Jesus said, it
says in the Gospels, I'm sorry, St. Mark says,
Jesus saw their faith. That crowd prevented those
men from getting to Jesus. You know, there's
plenty that keeps us away from God. We really
can't blame anybody else for the most part. It's
within ourself. And now, in a very practical
way, two weeks into the Lenten fast, I've learned
once again that valuable lesson. Last week was
about the icons, right? Well, I've learned the
lesson how un -icon -like I am. We are to be
the image and likeness of God. It says that we
are created in his image and likeness. How unlike
that image I am. I have much in common. I've
discovered over the time of the last two weeks,
just trying to fast a little bit, just trying
to pray a little bit, how much like that paralyzed
man I really am. It's so hard to turn away from
the usual self -centered habits, to become oriented
to Christ. No, we stay oriented to ourself, to
become oriented to prayer and fasting. What did
St. Paul mean when he said, give heed, pay attention
to the things which we have heard, lest we drift
away? What have we heard? We've heard from the
beginning of the gospel, and this has to do with
Lent, That repentance is a radical, radical change
in our life. We tend to think of repentance,
and it has a part in this, as I didn't pray enough.
I wasn't very strict with my fasting. I kind
of had cheese or whatever. I had an argument.
I had some bad thoughts. It's important that
we identify those things for sure, but that's
not repentance. Repentance is tearing off the
roof of a house and getting to see Christ, no
matter what's against us. That's what we've learned.
That's what we have to pay attention to now.
We have to give our attention to, as St. Gregory
Palamas would say, theology. Did I say theology?
Yes, I meant theology. When we think of theology,
you think of someone going to seminary or reading
big fat books. No. No, that's not theology. Theology
is one who prays. And one who prays is a theologian.
As the old saying goes, my grandmother couldn't
read English, but she was a theologian. She knew
the Lord Jesus Christ. She could speak about
him and her experience with him in prayer. She
had the godly virtues which brought that. Now
here I'm going to get a little technical. Because
I'm going to quote Vincent Rossi, Father Maximus.
But what he said is completely relevant. He gave
a sermon on this day four or five years ago.
You can listen to it on our website. I won't
take as long as he did, but he had more to say.
The virtues. St. Gregory of Palamas says, the
four friends in the gospel, well, there are two
things. The four friends in the gospel is the
parish. bringing the catechumens to the church.
That's the first thing. The four friends in the
gospel are the hymns, the liturgy, the prayers,
bringing us to true repentance, knowing Christ.
The four friends of the gospel are you and I
supporting one another in our Christian walk.
The four friends of the gospel, however, says
St. Gregory Palamas, Are the virtues. Self -condemnation.
Sounds harsh. I'll tell you what it means. Compunction.
Constancy in prayer. And commitment. They bring
us to the Lord. Self -condemnation is what? It's
honesty about yourself. That you can say you're
wrong when you're wrong. It's honesty to look
at yourself without shame. before the living
God, before your brothers and sisters, and be
who you are, but strive to be the image of God
and the likeness that he gives us grace to be.
That's self -contemptation. Compunction is what?
It's the heart touched by sorrow. If I come to
confession and I say, Father, I was very sloppy
in my fast. I didn't pray enough. Honestly, I
think like the rest of you, I don't really feel
too sorry about that. I suppose I should, but
that's not the problem. It's the not praying
enough and the fasting sloppily. It's that I
don't see that I have completely disfigured what
God has given. That I'm not the person God is
blessing me to be. When I realize that from my
self -knowledge and my honesty about myself,
that's when compunction comes. That's when tears
come and sorrow comes to the heart. And that
sorrow then brings us to the next thing, the
next virtue. Constancy in prayer. Because we
love God. We know he loves us and we want to
love him back. And then we love each other and
we want to pray for one another. Those in sorrow.
Those who are sick. Those who are grieving. And
just to pray for the salvation of everyone. And
that leads to the last thing. Because we know
God is faithful to us. It leads to love. Our
commitment to him which becomes as strong as
his commitment to us. The virtues, self -condemnation,
compunction, constancy in prayer, and commitment.
These are the things that bring us to the Lord.
These are the characters of the four friends
that bring the paralytic from the roof. They
tear a hole in it big enough to let him down.
The roof is our mind, our thoughts, all the things
that we use to wall us off from God, to roof
over our precious, protected, sometimes shameful,
darkened life. We hide from God as Adam and Eve
hid. But the four friends rip all that junk up
that covers the soul, and we find ourselves before
the Lord. He forgives our sins first. Notice
the gospel is all about the forgiveness of sins,
very little about the raising. Our sins hold
us to the fallen world so that the, as Vincent
would say, the super nature of Christ, which
we're meant to have by grace, our sins don't
let us unite to that. Arise, take up thy bed
and walk, the Lord says. And we have the liberating
experience of the deifying grace of the saints.
Yes, we are meant to be theologians. Every man,
woman, and child. Theologian is the one who prays,
and the one who prays is the theologian. That
is what this feast day is about today. And may
God grant to each one of us personal... loving,
faithful, and true knowledge of his work in our
life. Amen.