OrthoAnalytika
Today, Fr. Anthony covers Chapter Twenty-Three: ON TIMES OF DARKNESS with the faithful of Christ the Savior in Anderson SC. We changed the format a bit, having the class as we enjoyed our after-Presanctified collation of PB&J's, PB&B's, collard greens, and tobouli. Enjoy the show!
info_outline The Way of Ascetics - Chapter 22OrthoAnalytika
Chapter Twenty-Two: ON THE USE OF MATERIAL THINGS WE are made up of soul and body; the two cannot be separated in our conduct. Let the physical therefore come to your aid: Christ knew our weakness and for our sake used words and gestures, spittle and earth as media. For our sake He let His power flow from the fringe of His garment (Matthew 9:20; 14:36), from the handkerchiefs or aprons that were carried away from the apostle Paul's body (Acts I9:I2), yes, from the shadow of the apostle Peter (Acts 5:I5). Therefore use all that is of earth as a staff of remembrance on your troublesome wandering...
info_outline Homily - ForgivenessOrthoAnalytika
Matthew 6:14-21 Romans 13:11-14:4 In today’s Gospel, the Lord tells us to lay up treasures in heaven, how do we do that? It’s not hard. And it’s, it’s actually a lot easier than fully investing in your 401k. Because the amount of love that is available to your heart, to share with others, that will then compound back into your own heart has no limit – its source is unending. The problem is that we are so often closing our hearts. One of the things that I study as a political scientist is polarization. And there is no doubt – the data are clear – that our society is plagued by...
info_outline Bible Study - Job:8 to the EndOrthoAnalytika
Bible Study – Job Class Six: Job 8:1-11:1; 11:1-42:22 From the Orthodox Study Bible. JOB 8: [Bildad’s nonsense] TO THE EARS OF BILDAD, JOB’S SECOND RESPONDENT, a man even less tolerant than Eliphaz, the foregoing lament seems to be an attack on the justice of God and the entire moral order. Unlike Eliphaz, however, Bildad is able to make no argument on the basis of his own personal experience. He is obliged to argue, rather, solely from the moral tradition, which he does not understand very well. Indeed, Bildad treats the moral structure of the world in a nearly impersonal...
info_outline Homily - Prejudice, Objectivity, and PerseveranceOrthoAnalytika
Homily – Prejudice, Objectivity, and Grit St. Matthew 15.21-28 Gospel: Then Jesus left and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried; “have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; for my daughter is severely possessed by a devil.” But Jesus did not answer her at all. So his disciples came and pleaded; “send her away, for she is crying after us.” Jesus replied; “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Then she came and knelt before him saying; “Lord, help me.” And Jesus answered; “it...
info_outline Bible Study – Job 2:16-7:14OrthoAnalytika
Bible Study – Job Class Five: Job 2:16-7:14The trial of ideas begins.
info_outline Homily - Spiritual Investing?OrthoAnalytika
Homily on the Talents Main point: What do we with the riches God has given us? Multiply them! How? By investing all those riches in spiritual activities that provide a strong return on investment and having enough self-discipline not to waste them on activities that cause spiritual harm. There are many kinds of riches that the Bible and Tradition teach about; today we’ll talk about spiritual and monetary riches. How to Get a Good Return on Spiritual Riches • Baptized Christians have all received riches (the grace of Baptism – a life in Christ!): what do we do...
info_outline FSAW - Falling Short of the Glory of GodOrthoAnalytika
In this episode of "Father, Speak a Word," Fr. Gregory Jensen, PhD and Fr. Anthony talk about why we should celebrate our shortcomings (as we repent of our sin). The conversation is based on Fr. Gregory's substack article "." [The audio has been corrected.]
info_outline Bible Study – Job 1:13-2:15OrthoAnalytika
Bible Study – Job Class Four: Job 1:13 – 2:15 From the Orthodox Study Bible. Job Loses His Children and Property 13. Now there was a day when Job’s sons and daughters were drinking wine in the house of their elder brother, 14. and behold, a messenger came to Job and said, “The yokes of oxen were plowing, and the female donkeys were feeding beside them. 15. Then raiders came and took them captive and killed the servants with the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!” 16. While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said to Job, “Fire fell...
info_outline Homily - What is a Home?OrthoAnalytika
Homily Notes on Zacchaeus Sunday: What makes a home? Walk in – can you tell (that a place is a home)? The feeling? · Feelings and intuition are unreliable; generally, they are the way the subconscious mind puts together other indicators · But to the sense our feelings are reliable, some places are haunted by memories of being home “The clutter?” There is something to this. · Imperfect indicator (museums have lots of stuff… & I hear there are homes with no...
info_outlineHomily on Luke 5:1-11.
Introduction: How Christ Builds the Church
This is a beautiful story from the ministry of Jesus Christ. It comes on the heels of his Baptism, his temptation by the devil in the wilderness, and the beginning of his preaching ministry in the synagogues of Galilee. In this Gospel, Christ has started building something very special; something that would never fall; something that would bring healing to broken humanity; something through which He would change the world. He began building the Church. And He did it with simple fishermen on the side of a lake.
Continuation: We are Building, too
Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we are about to begin building. We want to build something that will never fail; something that will bring healing to broken people; something that will transform a troubled community. We are building a new parish. Today’s Gospel provides a wonderful lesson for us on this very thing.
In his homily on today’s Gospel, St. Nikolai Velimirovich writes;
“Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain.” (Psalm 126:1) If the builders build in God’s name, they will build a palace, even their hands are weak and their material poor. If, though, the builders build in their own name, in opposition to God, the work of their hands will be brought down as was the Tower of Babel.
There is no power that can bring God’s work to ruin. Pagan palaces and cities fall into ruin, but God’s huts remain standing. That which God’s finger upholds stands more firmly than that which [the mythical titan] Atlas supports on his back… May the almighty Lord preserve us from the thought that we can achieve any good without His help and His blessing…
Today’s Gospel should serve as a warning that such vain thoughts must never be formulated our souls. It speaks of how all men’s efforts are in vain if God does not help them. While Christ’s apostle’s were fishing as men, they caught nothing; but when Christ commanded them to cast their nets once more into the sea, they caught such a great haul of fish that their nets tore.
Why would anyone think they can build something worthwhile without Christ? I don’t know. It is futile. We know better. But we do it all the time.
Understanding the Curse of Sin: the example of marriage
Let’s look at the example of marriage. So hard to get it right, and so many ways to get it wrong. Why is it so hard? It isn’t because people aren’t trying. In fact, they are trying all kinds of things… but they aren’t working very well. At best, some couples might end up with a marriage that lasts, but marriage was not just meant to endure. It’s not supposed to be like a boxing match that makes it to the final round; with the two so tired they can hardly lift a glove and they just lean on one another gasping and looking forward to the bell (or, as is as likely to happen in marriages, the two just hang out in their separate corners doing their own thing until the final bell sounds). A good marriage does more than last, it brings joy to its members and its fruit brings happiness that endures from generation to generation.
But why is this so rare? It should come as no surprise. Most of our children come from broken families. It isn’t their fault, but this really puts them behind the eight ball. They come from broken families and a broken world, so they have bad examples and have internalized all the wrong instincts. Brokenness has been imprinted in their minds and hearts; this cannot help but shape their actions, no matter how good and noble are their intentions. Even if they try to rise above and do things right, what examples are they going to follow? Television? Movies? Their friends? Their hearts? None of these are reliable guides – all of them are fallen. If statistics are correct – and there is no reason to doubt them – our young men are learning more about how to relate to women from pornography than anything else. And the expectations and self-respect of our young women are being influenced by this same blighted culture.
Is there really any wonder that we are so bad at marriage? That even young couples who try to get it right often end up building a perverted parody of the kind of blessed union of flesh and spirit that we celebrate in the Mystery of Crowning? That we have far more “towers of Babel” than temples of true love?
Reiterating the Problem… and the solution
To repeat the Psalm; “Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain.” (126:1). We cannot overcome our own brokenness by trying harder or following the examples and guidance of people who are broken, too (St. Matthew 15:14; … if the blind lead the blind both will fall into a pit). An alcoholic cannot live a healthy life by trying harder; he has to admit his problem, heal and transform his heart and habits. And he has to let God be the foundation of this process. This is why twelve step programs are so successful: they transform the hearts and habits of the repentant, with God as the foundation of the process. How many people with addictions do you know that continue ruining their lives because they think they can work everything out on their own?
But the alcoholic and philanderer do not just hurt themselves. We know from history and our own observations that the children of alcoholics and broken homes are cursed by both nature and nurture. Again, it isn’t fair, but it is true. If we want the next generations to succeed we have to be honest about both the cause and the cure of what ails them and us. The cause is our brokenness and the cure is Christ Jesus. The cure is His Body, the Church. The cure is the Way of Holy Orthodoxy. All else is vanity. Towers of Babel. Sand castles in a low tide.
Back to the Today’s Gospel: becoming fishers of men
The curse of sin is the very thing that Christ came to remove. To put it in very practical terms, Christ came to save our marriages, to heal our addictions, to restore our sanity, and to replace our sorrow, pain, and frustration with joy and eternal blessedness. That is to say, He came to save us from the very real, very specific, and very damning problems in our lives. And not just ours gathered here today, but everyone’s. A world that was created good groans in agony, and our Lord loves it too much to allow that to continue.
And so He became a man, He taught us, He dies for us, He was Resurrected and Ascended into Glory, and, more to today’s point, He established the Church to be the Ark of our salvation. What a beautiful image a boat is for the Church. Think about it: we are drowning in a sea of sin and trying to tread water amidst a storm of temptation. We cannot survive this on our own, and it does not help to band together – eventually even the strongest swimmer must succumb to weakness; moreover, the weak are infamous for dragging the stronger down. It is a terrible situation to be drowning in this stormy sea. Our breaths are numbered, and we are sure to die in agony. It is only a matter of time. But into this bleak scene comes salvation: the apostles cast out their nets and pull us in to the safety of the boat. We can finally breath without struggling. It is calm in the boat. It is here that our real healing begins… and as part of that healing, as part of our cure and The Cure, we ourselves are given nets and told to put them to use.
Conclusion: we cannot catch men if we don’t try; we cannot catch men if we don’t learn how
We are in the boat. Here at Holy Resurrection, we have the fullness of the faith (we are like a fractal of the Universal Church) so it is fair to say that we are both in the boat and the boat itself.
But remember that bit earlier about how nature and nurture conspire against our marriages? You know me well enough by now to know that I wasn’t just talking about marriage. Marriage is an image of the Church: the union of flesh with one another and the union of that one flesh with God (Ephesians 5:32). Why should we think that we are naturally any better at living as the Church than we are with marriage? The same forces work against us: we suffer from both nature and nurture. Just as good intentions are not enough for the children of broken homes, they are not enough for us as we try to build this parish. Without serious help, we will just end up building the equivalent of a miserable and failed marriage, another Tower of Babel, a perverse monument to our own fallenness. We need help. And I don’t mean hiring consultants or trying to find the perfect priest – this is even more important than that.
Without Christ, we are like the Apostles in today’s lesson before our Lord came; “toiling all night and catching nothing” (St. Luke 5:5). It had been a hard night and they had given up on catching anything, but then Christ came and told them to go back out, and they caught more than they could carry. So many that their boats almost broke.
Brothers and sisters, the Orthodox community of Asheville has been through hard times. Like Simon in today’s lesson, we have good hearts and the best of intentions, but we are tired; and we had pretty much given up on catching fish.
But the Lord told us to get back out there and get it done. And so we get back to it. We try again.
We are smart in the ways of the world. We all have ideas about how this should be done. We will be tempted to rely on our own strength and our own hearts. But our hearts are broken and our strength will fail us. “Except the Lord build the house, all who labor labor in vain.” (126:1). But for those who put their trust in the Lord and in His way – there is no limit to the good that they can do.
This is where we are. We have given our lives and the future of this parish to the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Simon, we don’t always see the point of what the Lord commands, but also like Simon, we will follow Him. We know how that story ends, so we know how ours will, too.
The catch will be great; so great that our walls will scarcely be able to hold the number of men, women, and children we have pulled in to the safety of the Church. So great that we, like Simon calling for the second boat, will have to plant another parish to give us enough room. After all, there are a lot of people drowning in the waters around us. We cannot allow them to perish – it is God’s will that all be saved and come to the fullness of the Truth.
It is a tough calling.
But we do not labor in vain: because we are building according to the Lord’s command. We are transformed into fishers of men.