Homily
20th Sunday After Trinity
9 November, 2008
As our brethren next door say each week, just before the Holy
Scriptures are read, “Wisdom! Let us
attend.”
From the Gospel of Matthew,
beginning in the 7th verse of the 8th chapter…
“And Jesus saith unto
him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not
worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my
servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under
me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and
he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard
it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you,
I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”
X In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, one
God. Amen.
As you can see, I am departing from the usual custom of
preaching on the theme of the Sunday Gospel or the Commemoration of the Day’s
Saint. Because, we find ourselves today
on the brink of a great adventure in our lives; and I’m not referring to the
recent events relating to our earthly citizenship. Rather, we need to “attend” to some official
“stately” matters regarding our citizenship in heaven.
This Saturday and Sunday, we will receive our ambassador from
the Courts of Heaven, in the person of His Grace, Bishop BASIL. We just heard that when Jesus made a visit,
he didn’t find anyone with “great faith” in Israel, but he did find it in the life of “an outsider”…one who was not even a member of God’s Covenant
Family. When Bishop BASIL is among us
this next weekend, what will he find?
Let me tell you what I hope he finds. I hope he finds a priest who is faithful in
prayer, fasting, study and evangelism.
And I hope he finds a flock of people who are seeking those same
qualities in their spiritual lives too.
Let me tell you what I know he will see. I KNOW that he will see this group of people
who have taken upon themselves the task of pioneering a new mission work of the
Orthodox Church. I KNOW that he will see
these adventuresome pioneers working hard.
I KNOW that he will see some who are worn out and tired. And before he comes here to speak whatever it
is he will speak, this morning I want to say, [as John Wayne] “Let’s circle up
the wagons and say a prayer.”
In our American history, we know that the pioneers of the 19th
century who crossed the Mississippi River, traveling to all points West, endured
many hardships. Some were so great that
we would have called those people crazy for attempting to travel through that
wild and dangerous territory. However,
they continued because of the promises that lay ahead, even though some were
lost along the way. May we never forget
that Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame for the joy that was set
before him.” [Heb. 12:2] Abraham never
quit looking for that “… city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is
God.” [Heb. 11:10] Joshua and Caleb
never quit believing that the small-in-stature, people of Israel could boot out
the giants inhabiting the Promised Land.
Let me ask you another question.. If you are given a task to
accomplish something new, would you quit after 2, 10, or 100 attempts? If I could have had a chance to ask Thomas
Alva Edison that question, he would have either slapped the stupid out of me or
just fallen on the floor from laughing so hard at me. His pioneering spirit pressed on in spite of
apparent failure for over 9,000 times before he successfully created the first
electric light bulb.
What did England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill see
during the dark days of WWII, when Nazi Germany was dropping bombs all over his
country that caused him to tell the nation, “Never give
in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small,
large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” He saw
the evil in the aggressor nation and knew that the war would be lost if the
people of England simply gave up and allowed their convictions of honor and
good sense to be lost in surrender.
It’s no secret that being a pioneer is tough work. No one denies that it’s hard to continue on
when some of our buddies are no longer on the same wagon train. But let me remind you that we did not choose
to travel on this trail just because of the companions who were with us. We chose this, first and foremost, because we
had discovered the True Church. In the
parable of “The Pearl of Great Price” Jesus described the man who found a
treasure hidden in the field. So
valuable of a treasure it was, that the man sold ALL of what he had in order to
purchase the field. Likewise, we have
“sold” our rights to comfort and security in order to have the treasure of
salvation that no man can take from us.
Most of us have made all the rounds throughout the churches
of Christendom seeking the Church, which is the pillar and ground of all
truth. Like the Prodigal Son, we have
exhausted ourselves and spent the years of our Christian living in trying to
make the Church into the image we so piously thought she should be. Having lost whatever reputation we might have
had, we decided to see if we could just be good little servants in our Father’s
House. Well, not only have we been
enthusiastically “Welcomed Home” by our Father in God, Bishop BASIL, but he has
entrusted us with the high-calling of establishing an outpost of Orthodoxy
which will honor the western culture in which the Orthodox Church existed for
the first 1,000 years.
In the sixth chapter of John, after Jesus taught the
disciples that bread and wine was to eaten as Jesus’ flesh and blood, it is
recorded “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also
go away? Then Simon Peter answered him,
Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. “ With all the
questions and uncertainties in their future, they continued to “run the race”
of faith because of their confidence in Jesus, knowing that he “who shall
endureth until the end shall be saved.” Let me repeat the whole sentence…”And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s
sake, but he that endureth until the end shall be saved.” [Matt. 10:22]
After
all of our collective years of going from church to church; now that we have
found our home in the Orthodox Church, I believe that all of us could also say
with the original twelve, “To whom shall we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
Yet,
the reality of life is that we will always face opposition as we progress in
our theosis; in our becoming like Christ.
The question we must answer is where and what will we settle for? We dare not settle for less than what Christ
has set before us to inherit. As Satan
tempted Jesus in the desert for forty days, we must maintain our guard on the temptation
of looking at the difficulties and deciding to quit before crossing into the
“promised land.”
You
remember in the movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” that George Bailey (Jimmy
Stewart) was facing the hatred and opposition of that rascal, Mr. Potter. The drama of the movie centered in George’s
consideration of ending his own life because the future looked so bleak and the
present was so difficult. Then the
angel, Clarence, helped him to see what life in his town would look like had he
followed through with ending his life.
In the vision of his future, George found everyone he knew to be worse
off than if he had lived. He saw his
house in shambles. He saw broken
relationships. The lesson learned is
that even though you might not see it, your life has value and importance to
all whom you know.
My
prayer for us today is that we have the eyes to see through this vale of
darkness. May we see our place as the
cathedral builders were in ancient days.
When they began to build those massive stone cathedrals, they planted
oak trees at the same time so they would have the wood to build those great
flying buttresses which would support the ceilings of those structures. They started and continued on their projects
knowing that their work would not be completed in their lifetime.
When
we do our grocery shopping and choose the fruits and vegetables for our family,
do we even stop to consider the blood, sweat and tears that many of the farmers
went through to be able to get their goods to the store? What would you do had they decided to
prematurely retire because of the opposition from insects, fire, drought and
even government taxation?
When
we first came to St. Elijah’s to worship, how many of us stopped to consider
the great sacrifice of those who began this church? Their
history is displayed just outside this chapel but even the newspaper clippings
do not give the intimate details of their struggles to establish this
church. I dare say that none of the
original founders, ever in their wildest dreams, could have envisioned a
multi-million dollar edifice like this place.
Unfortunately, most of us forget that the beauty and comfort of this
church can only come from those who have made great personal sacrifices before
us.
Today,
spiritually we stand on the shoulders of countless giants of the True
Faith. Tomorrow, those who embrace the
faith and worship of the pioneers of St. Andrew Western Orthodox Church, will number
you among “the giants.”
St.
Paul said, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall
reap, if we faint not.” [Gal 6:9] As I
said at the beginning, we are on the brink of a great adventure. And I would be less than honest with you if I
didn’t tell you that I’ve had my moments of hesitation to “endure to the
end.” But the cure for this disease of
the attitude is to remember the gift of Subdeacon John Dutcher. It would have been so much easier for him and
his family to fight the cancer had he not been concerned and committed to the
building of the new altar for this family of St. Andrew’s. Through his tremendous suffering and battle
for health, he was not weary in his well doing.
He has reaped his reward. And
besides St. Andrew, himself, Subdeacon John has taken his place in that “great
cloud of witnesses” and is praying that we all continue to “run the race” of
faith with endurance.
When
His Grace, Bishop BASIL is among us this next weekend, may he find in our midst
a group of pioneers who are able to see the vision of what will be as we continue
to bring the Orthodox faith to this western culture. May he find in us a people who hunger and
thirst after righteousness. Blessed are
you, for the kingdom of heaven will be yours.
X In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, one
God. Amen.
Fr. Mark Wallace
St. Andrew Orthodox Church
Oklahoma City, OK
FrMark@StAndrewOrthodox.info