Glory to Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. God truly
wants man to be his equal, his likeness. God
directs his gaze toward man and seeks out his
deep heart. His desire for man's heart to know
a spiritual and divine sensation, as Proverbs
says. This kind of inner life, not the mere exercise
of thinking, is what elevates man's existence
above that of animals. Rational thought may distinguish
us from them, but if it is occupied merely with
our physical well -being, then we are hardly
above the level of an animal feeding itself.
If our inner life is dissipated and lost and
wasted in the things of this world, it will surely
end in the grave along with our physical body.
But as we have said, our divine calling is so
much higher than this. God wants man's deep heart
to know the living. spiritual and divine sensation
of his presence within her. And when a person
becomes aware of this treasure in his heart,
a godly fear comes upon him. And as soon as this
godly fear takes hold of our heart and we begin
to feel God's life -giving energy, we enter into
a personal relationship with the personal living
God. We heard an account of a man who came to
Jesus Christ. This man could not have imagined
what we know. That at the name of Jesus, every
knee should bow, both those on earth, those above
the earth, those below the earth, to the glory
of God the Father. And he came and asked a question
about something he could do. This gospel has
to be read in the light, and I do mean literally,
in the light of the two feasts we just celebrated,
Transfiguration and Dormition, if we are going
to make any sense at all of what Father Zacharias
just told us in this marvelous book. The light
of Christ shown to us on Tabor and in the light
that received the mother of God, bodily risen
into the kingdom of God. Dear people, let me
misquote St. Paul. I don't say this to shame
you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
Come to the great feast days. In thy light shall
we see light, we sing. It's true. The world looks
different in that light, and the stories we hear
in the gospel, we interpret in that light. We
have been given a gift that that man could not
imagine when he asked that question. Our question
comes out differently. At the transfiguration,
a voice from heaven said simply, Hear ye him.
The apostles heard the voice. Hear ye him. Just
like at the baptism. This is my beloved son.
Hear ye him. Saint Theophon the recluse asks,
why the father would say only this? Hear ye him.
And he answers, because obedience, obedience,
that the ability to hear and to follow, it's
not to become a... humiliated slave. We hear
this word obedience and it's colored for us in
our culture. So, so distorted. To hear and to
follow. Obedience was being shown to the disciples
on Tabor as the very door into glory. It's as
if the father were saying, do you want this?
Then hear what he tells you. O apostles, O disciples,
O people of God, and do it. Walk in the path.
You will enter a light that does not come at
you from the outside, but rises up within you.
You will be filled with the light of joy, of
goodwill, of all knowledge. Sorrow will come.
Sufferings will come. The cross will come. Sorrow
will pass. The noise of the passions will go
quiet. On earth, you will become heavenly. Born
of earth, you will become of God. All things
will be yours because you will have become Christ's.
Thank you, St. Theophon, for telling us. This
is the promise. Are his words too far -fetched?
Does this make us feel inadequate, like giving
up? Like, no way for me. Sorry. I'm busy with
my life. Jesus looked at his disciples and said
to them, they were probably feeling that. With
men, this is impossible. But with God... All
things are possible. Yes, the saints are granted
this now in this life. And by God's help, we
too shall experience this and attain it in the
life of the age to come at the resurrection.
The man came. He said, what do I need to do to
have eternal life? What his understanding, his
idea of eternal life was. Was nothing like I
just described. Or what Father... Zacharias just
told us. It wasn't like that. How could he possibly
know? And I wonder if our ideas too may also
be rather earthly limited. What must I do to
attain a happy life and be comfortable? That
just doesn't work. The young man's vision of
eternal life was earthly. Perhaps ours is too
sometimes. Hear ye him was heard by Peter, James,
and John on the mountain. And this man heard,
sell the riches that are holding you back from
true life and come and follow me. This is the
same voice offering the same light, the same
kingdom, the same door, which is obedience. Christ
was inviting him with love onto Mount Tabor to
be with him. And yes, the way does go through
the cross. Jesus is telling the rich man, okay,
you want the real kingdom of heaven and not just
some assurance of eternal happiness in human
terms, then do this, what I say. Jesus is not
what we call seeker friendly. His sayings can
be hard. But only hard because we want our own
way so much. It's usually not that hard in and
of itself. What makes doing God's will hard is
the fact that I don't want to do it. Anything
but that for the most part. And for this particular
man, his possessions were the thing that kept
him. He was speaking of the commandments, wasn't
he? Which commandments? And he listed them that
he kept. But it was keeping him from doing the
first commandment of the Ten Commandments. I
am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no strange
or other gods before me. And he did. And when...
Jesus revealed what this man lacked. A vision
of God and of true salvation and of eternity
and of heaven. The man could not accept it and
he wanted, like us, to retain control. He wanted
his individualism to remain intact. He was a
man who had done well and a young man. And he
wanted to keep doing well. on his own terms,
with Christ added respectfully somewhere near
the top of his priorities. Perhaps the young
man, like me, was a hypocrite, posing to Jesus
as if he had actually fulfilled the commandments,
as he said, from my youth I have kept them. Notice,
which is why I ask you to come to the vigil.
You'll hear so many things. At the vigils we
sing, From my youth. Many passions have warred
against me. But do thou help me and save me oh
my savior. It's a bit of honesty there about
our own condition. Do we keep the hope of God's
kingdom. That we experience at those vigils.
As Saint Theophon described it. As Father Zacharias
tells us. The deep heart. The love and fear and
wanting to be with God. Do we have that hope
of God's kingdom revealed to us? Can we hear
the good news and follow Christ? And it's simple.
We simply go home today and we pray. If there's
anyone that you need to forgive, you do it with
your whole heart. Not expecting any kind of,
I don't know, completion to that relationship.
If there's anything that you have done, you ask
forgiveness. It's like that. That's what we do.
We prepare ourselves to be here, to be with each
other. We try to love our neighbor. Any one of
those things is not difficult, especially with
the grace of God that inspires our heart, our
hands, our voice, and our eyes and our ears to
go forward in obedience to follow him. You know,
eternal life is not something that one can acquire
by doing something doable. It's by following
the Lord. So if we welcome Christ in our heart,
has he found a place within us to rest his head?
Do we know this feeling of rest and repose? Or
anxiety instead? Father Emilio Noce, a great
elder from Athos, says, why do we bar the door
of our heart to him? Why do we choose ourselves
over God? We do not, it seems, want God to be
justified in his word, as we say in Psalm 50,
but rather we seek our own mind and our heart.
But brothers and sisters, remember this. God's
promises are true. We look at the saints, we
read the example of those that have gone before
us, we read the scripture, and we, like Abraham,
we follow. And our heart will rejoice and be
filled with the love of God and our neighbor.
We cannot do it by ourselves. And we will have
riches in heaven. There's nothing evil in itself
about money. This is not about that. The love
of money is the root of all evil, not the money.
But this man could not distinguish. He could
not remove that from himself. His heart had grasped
it. Let not that happen to us. Our society, it
can happen to us very easily. We can pursue this
life of being comfortable rather than the life
of the kingdom of God first and all other things
we need will be given. Amen.