In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. In the readings, there were
technically six readings. They get announced
as one epistle and one gospel, but there were
technically three epistles, three gospels. And
I want to start by pinpointing the second gospel,
the gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke, it's
an interesting text. In many of the manuscripts,
in many of the versions, it actually doesn't
call the story a parable, which I think is provocative,
to say the least, because what it shows us is
it shows us a conversation that opens up between
a saint and someone still The fact that these
worlds can kind of blur together and spill over
towards one another in communication, in prayer,
in dialogue. But it tells us, regardless, whatever
way we take it, it tells us this story about
a rich man. About a rich man who was clothed
in beautiful garment, fine purple, fine linen,
all of these things. Perhaps not unlike how we're
clothed. And he went through his life and he
lived the good life. He lived the rich life.
He lived the life of ease. He lived the life
of greed. The life of self -service. The life
of going through life and focusing on himself
and not others. And he walked by this guy all
the time, this poor guy, Lazarus, who had nothing,
was a beggar. And he never acknowledged him once.
And the Lord tells the story, the end of life,
this poor guy, he went into Abraham's bosom.
which in ancient Jewish ways of talking means
he went into essentially paradise. The rich guy,
he went into Hades. And in a sense, what the
Lord is saying, they both got what was coming
to them. And the rich guy in Hades, as it's described
very unpleasantly, is hot, is thirsty. They've
traded places. The rich guy now looks a lot like
the poor guy, begging. And he sees Abraham, and
he sees this poor man whose name he doesn't even
know, and he speaks to Abraham. And he asks Abraham,
essentially, to have mercy on him. to have mercy
on him first and foremost, which Abraham says,
well, there's a chasm between us. There's nothing
that can be done. And then he asks him to have
mercy on his family. Go to my brothers. Send
him to my brothers. Send this poor man to my
brothers, Lazarus. And Abraham responds and says,
well, If they have Moses, they have the prophets.
He says, no, if someone will go to them from
the dead, then they will listen. Abraham responds
and says, no, if they don't hear Moses and the
prophets, they will neither listen should one
come to them back from the dead. And I think
this is an interesting thing to think about considering
we are commemorating the life of St. Demetrius
this morning. St. Demetrius has shown up multiple
times from the dead, from his blessed repose
to many people. He has gushed myrrh from his
relics. He has shown the marks, the life of the
resurrection from his own body in his death,
in his repose, in his falling asleep. However,
I think when we place this text, Next to St.
Demetrius, in tandem with the John text about
persecution, we are given another picture of
what we should focus on when we think about St.
Demetrius, his life. St. Demetrius came from
a family, a Roman family, whose father undoubtedly
wore fine linens and purples and beautiful garb
in his public life. and yet secretly was a Christian
and raised St. Demetrius. His parents raised
him in the Christian faith, their only child.
They educated him. They reared him in the life
of Christ. They had a church secretly in their
house as Demetrius' father was very close to
the emperor, Emperor Maximian Galerius. He was
the proconsul, the ruler of Thessaloniki. And
the emperor had no idea about his father's secret
life and his son's faith. And so Demetrius was
enlisted to be a soldier, enlisted to follow
the ranks of his father, to prize the Roman life,
this life of luxury, this life of ease, this
life of service to Caesar. And he did. And he
was eventually appointed to be pro -consul, the
ruler of Thessaloniki, to replace his father.
And there was one thing the emperor said to him,
besides protecting the city, is there are a lot
of Christians here, and you ought to persecute
them, and you ought to minimize them. and you
ought to suppress them. And of course, Maximian
Galerius, he was one of, he was an emperor, a
co -emperor in the time of Diocletius. Diocletius
is the other emperor. In the last terrifyingly
horrible persecution against Christianity in
the Roman Empire, Galerius, Maximian, would be
the one. to abolish persecution against Christians
in the Edict of Sertica. And two years later,
Constantine would legalize Christianity in 1313
with the Edict of Milan. But it wasn't this point
yet. And he sends Demetrius into the city. And
Demetrius, rather than persecuting Christians,
rather than living a secret life, maybe a double
life, He opens his faith. He opens his heart.
He embraces Christ openly. He preaches Christ.
He stands up for Christ. And so many more come
to the Christian faith. And he rules the city
with benevolence. He is the ruler. He is kind
of like the mayor or something. Maybe we would
think about it in this way nowadays. He's generous.
He's loving. He's compassionate. He's kind. He
has resources. He distributes them freely. He
brings so many into the Christian faith. And
he stands up for his faith boldly. And, of course,
the emperor eventually hears about it. His anger
comes personally to the city and confronts him.
And Demetrius hears about it, and he knows what's
happening. And so he gets his friend Lupus. And
he donates all of his resources, all of the wealth
that his father accumulated that was inherited
to Demetrius, all of the wealth that Demetrius
inherited. And what the rich guy didn't do, Demetrius
does. He says, distribute this all to the poor.
Give it all away because he knows what's coming.
And the emperor comes, confronts him. He says,
I've heard these things. I hope they're not true.
Demetrius says they are true. They are true.
I'm preaching Christ, and I'm opening the doors
to the kingdom, and I know what it will cost
me. So he gets thrown in the prison and prepares
for martyrdom. Another interesting thing about
that text in Luke is Abraham says, brings up
Moses and the prophets. It's interesting. We
sing the Beatitudes every Lord's Day. And the
way the Beatitudes end, which we don't sing,
but the way they end in the Gospels is they bring
up the prophets and the life of the prophets
and the persecution of the prophets and how Christians
are conformed. To the prophets, right? Because
Christ is, these words are for us. They're not
just like frozen in time. And so the next thing
that happens is Galerius raises up this guy,
Laeos, this giant Goliath figure of a man. Starts
creating all these gladiator games. And Demetrius'
friend Nestor, who is... who doesn't want Christians
to be killed by this guy, asks for the blessing
from Demetrius to stand up against this guy in
the gladiator ring. And Demetrius blesses him,
makes the sign of the cross over him, and says,
you will defeat him, but you will end up suffering
for Christ. And what happens? He goes into the
ring. He defeats this guy, praying for Christ's
help. And we're thrown back into the life of
the prophets immediately. The persecution of
the prophets, the victories of the prophets,
the faithfulness of the prophets. Think of David
going up against Goliath as Goliath hurls all
of these horrible things against David, cursing
him by his gods, cursing him by his Philistine
gods. No doubt, Laos is doing the same thing.
A German, a vandal. And the emperor gets angry,
and he has both of these guys, both of these
saints, to be more respectful, martyred. Demetrius
martyred in his own prison with 306 spears and
lances against him. This is the holy great martyr
Demetrius. Who could have lived this life of
ease. This rich guy. But he conformed his life
to the life of poverty. Giving everything away.
Giving. When he had the chance. He preached Christ.
Openly. And when he had the chance to give away
everything. He did. Freely. And when he had the
chance to suffer for his Lord. He did. He welcomed
it. And I think. I think when we look at St.
Demetrius' life, we have to find ourselves in
it, in a sense. I should say, the persecution
we endure as Christians is nothing like the Roman
persecution that Diocletius inflicted. We get
made fun of, we get poked at, yeah. But we worship
freely. in such a beautiful place like this.
Many of us have wealth. I mean, we live in California.
But we have these opportunities to enter into
the life of St. Demetrius. He was a Thessalonian.
And it's interesting that the scripture readings
don't use the letters to the Thessalonians at
all. But the Thessalonians, Paul wrote to them,
and the Thessalonians were so ready for the age
to come upon them. They were so ready for Christ
to come and judge the living and the dead. They
were ready. And Paul actually calms them down.
Paul says, let's live quiet lives. Let's live.
godly lives. Let's live respectable lives to
all. Let's bear Christ, but let's do it lovingly.
Let's do it quietly. Let's do it wherever the
Lord has us, whether it be a proconsul, whether
it be, I don't know, a banker, an accountant,
a doctor, a priest, a graphic designer. I don't
know, but wherever the Lord has us. Let's live
lives that are decent, quiet. Let's rejoice always.
Let's pray without ceasing. Those words were
given to the Thessalonians. Undoubtedly, Demetrius
heard that letter over and over again. Let's
be Eucharistic in everything. Be thankful. Give
thanks in all things. Be Eucharistic. receive
everything as if it was an offering that we could
give back to Christ, our life. And should the
time come, let's endure to the end like Demetrius.
I think we live in an age, and maybe I could
speak for my own generation, and maybe I could
pinpoint men in particular. I was reading an
article in, I think it was the New Yorker or
the Atlantic a couple months ago, and it said,
the author put it, women, femininity has been
figured out in our day and age. That kind of
puts it crudely, but that's kind of what it said.
Whether that's true or not, we can debate afterwards.
What is happening in our day and age is now it's
time for men to figure themselves out. Masculinity
has not been figured out because we've inherited
this kind of masculinity where they sort of painted
this picture of masculinity that was more classic,
classically the case, and kind of slammed on
it. And I'll say this, that kind of slamming
that has happened in our day and age. So many
of guys in my generation, we were raised without
men in our life. We were raised without fathers
who disciplined us. Like the scripture says,
that disciplined us, that should have disciplined
us as it was pleasing to them. We didn't even
have that. We didn't have anyone. to say, son,
do this, don't do that. And so many people, men,
and not just women, not just men, women as well,
we're sort of just meandering through the world.
We're sort of just living life from one thing
to the other. We're sort of going from one place
to another, searching for the next thing, exploring
ourselves, just going through life. Rather than
being planted, rather than being rooted, rather
than being disciplined and secured and anchored,
something we can derive, something that we can
see so beautifully from St. Demetrius, that when
the Emperor Justinian, in the 6th century, two
centuries after Demetrius' martyrdom, tried to
move his relics from Thessaloniki, to Constantinople,
the relics shouted out, stay away, do not touch,
because Demetrius is so devoted to Thessaloniki
and helping them and being with them. What can
we say about our own rootedness, our own devotion,
whether it be to our family, whether it be to
our jobs, whether it be to a job, just a calling
in general? Where we can take that, we can approach
it with transfigured eyes and give it to God,
offer it back to God, suffused with his glory,
empowered by the life of the resurrection that
is coursing through us, through our union with
Christ Jesus, our Lord, who pours out his life.
who pours out his divine energies into us, as
we will just in a short time, we will offer ourselves
to him in the bread and the wine. And the Father,
through the power of the Spirit, will offer to
us back Christ. In order to strengthen us, in
order to conform us more to the pattern of Christ,
so that we might become more and more saintly.
so that we might become more and more holy, so
that we might become more and more disciplined,
so that we might become more rooted, anchored
to where the Lord wants us to be, that we might
serve boldly, that we might love freely, that
we might openly confess Christ, though quietly
and not obnoxiously, and do it as Christ puts
it. for my name's sake, if you are going to be
persecuted. That it isn't just us being bombastic
and trying to make others angry. No. It is done
from an anchor of love. It is filled with hope.
It is seasoned by grace. It has all of the efficacy
of St. Demetrius all over it. That is how we
become good soldiers, brothers and sisters. That's
how we fight the good faith, as the apostle puts
it. That's how we live the life of the gospel.
We have nothing to fear. St. Demetrius in his
prison, as 306 lances came against him, really
had nothing to fear because he knew that Christ
has conquered the gates of Hades. Christ has
conquered the devil. Christ has taken his own
lance, the cross, and thrust it through the devil's
head. And the devil can harass us. The devil
can roar. The devil can pounce. But really, the
devil can't do anything to us. Those of us who
have been baptized, chrismated. Those of us who
are coming to the table. Those of us who are
confessing our sins freely. Those of us who are
trying to live the Christian life. Against such
things, the devil has no authority or control.
Think of Job. Nothing can really truly be done
to him. Brothers and sisters, let's stand together
for our faith. Let's fight the good fight. Let's
live quiet and decent and godly lives. Let's
love all of those who the Lord puts into our
orbit. Let's love our families. Let's love one
another. Let's be the body of Christ together.
Amen? Through the prayers of St. Demetrius, our
Lord Jesus Christ, save us.