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Saint John of Kronstadt tells us that we celebrate the various feasts of the Church because “the festivals ought to influence our life, to vivify and kindle our faith in future blessings, and maintain in us a pious and gentle disposition.” To that end, he tells us that we should investigate the history of the event, the greatness of it, and to seek the fruits that it can bring to us if we believe. So it is that on this Sunday before the Nativity of our Lord in the Flesh, the Church gives us a glimpse into the history of the Nativity of our Lord and its greatness.

It is often said that throughout the ages, our Lord had been preparing His people so that, in the fullness of time, a woman, the most Holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, might be found worthy to be the Mother of our Lord. Our modern ways of thinking might lead us to think of this in evolutionary terms. God was making selections among His people which would lead them to greater and greater holiness. But this is not the case.

While preparing a mother for Himself, our Lord allowed sin to abound in the world in order for us to recognize the need for a Savior. This morning we heard the genealogy of Christ as given in the gospel according to Saint Matthew. What we sometimes lose because of the seemingly endless series of “begats,” often combined with a lack of scriptural knowledge is that the Lord Jesus Christ is not descended from the finest of humanity. While there are many people in that genealogy who are among the righteous ones of the Old Testament, there are others who are problematic at best.

The genealogy mentions that Judah and Tamar had children together, but Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law whom he mistook for a harlot. Rahab, who protected Joshua and Caleb when they went to spy out the land of Canaan, was a harlot. Obed was conceived by Boaz and Ruth, but Ruth was a foreigner from Moab. David was a great King and a man after God’s own heart, and yet when it mentions that he fathered Solomon, it was to Bathsheba whose husband David sent to the front lines to die. Solomon worshipped the idols of his foreign wives. He was succeeded by foolish kings, prideful kings, and Manasseh who did more evil than any other king.

And yet, we are told in the gospel this morning that our Lord’s birth fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, ‘God with us.’” This is not because God is now with us in the incarnate Word of God, but because God was with us all along and now is with us in an even more perfect way. Saint Athanasius the great says “For this purpose, [the re-creation of the world] the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world. In one sense, indeed, He was not far from it before, for no part of creation had ever been without Him Who, while ever abiding in union with the Father, yet fills all things that are. But now He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and Self-revealing to us.”

Our Lord loves sinners. He is not afraid to be found in the midst of them. This was true from the fall of Adam until the present day. He loves each of us and desires for us to be united to Him. So no matter what your sins might be, our Lord desires for you to draw near to Him. We can’t do that and hold onto our sins, but if we are willing to leave our sins behind, He will draw us to Himself. Former harlots and adulterers, even the worst king ever all repented and are counted not just as ancestors of Christ, but as righteous – as Saints.

When our Lord was in the house of Simon the Pharisee and a harlot washed His feet with her hair, Simon was scandalized that our Lord didn’t know what kind of woman she was and would allow her to touch Him. Our Lord scolded him saying that Simon didn’t even offer him water to wash His feet, but that she didn’t cease washing them with her tears and kissing them. He tells Simon “her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”

Understanding that God is with us, turn your back on your sins, and show your gratitude for the forgiveness He has given you. God is with us, so we must not depart from Him. Saint John of Kronstadt tells us “Man is constantly perishing through sin, and therefore he requires a constant daily Savior. This Savior is Jesus Christ, the Son of God; only call upon Him inwardly with living, clear-seeing faith in your salvation, and He will save you.” He reminds us that when we cling to Christ, when we call out to Him daily, even at every hour, or every minute, we experience the blessing of being close to Him here and this is how we kindle within ourselves faith of future blessings. Make your faith come alive by leaving your sins, and constantly turning to Him for help, protection, and refuge.

While Saint John wants us to celebrate feasts, rightly, he also knows how we often celebrate them. He said that these festivals of the Church “are mostly spent in sin and folly and met with unbelieving, cold hearts, often wholly unprepared to feel the great mercies which God has vouchsafed to us through the particular event [that] is celebrated.” This is the danger. As we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord on Tuesday, we might not keep in mind the greatness of the Feast. We might forget that God is with us, and spend the Feast with the world.

We see what that looks like every December 25. The world celebrates Christmas, not as a reminder that God loves us so greatly that He enters into His Creation to remake it and to draw us to Himself, but rather as a celebration of greed, consumerism, gluttony, and over-indulgence of every kind. Perhaps we even entered into those ourselves instead of remembering that we are supposed to be fasting in preparation to receive our Lord. If so, now is the time to redirect our attention to Him, and to seek forgiveness and reconciliation, warm your hearts by remembrance of the great things that He has accomplished for your sake. Prepare yourself by fasting and prayer, even if it is just for a little over one day. Empty yourself, as the Lord emptied Himself. Take the form of a servant as He took the form of a servant. So that when the Feast of the Nativity arrives you may meet God as God comes to meet you.

Luke 14:16-24

Today we begin our final approach to the feast of our Lord’s Nativity and we are reminded through this parable of the wedding feast of the great work of our God to prepare for His Incarnation.  Everything for the wedding feast of the Son was meticulously prepared throughout the centuries and generations from Adam to the Virgin Mary – nothing was left to chance.  Next week we will hear the account of the details of the lineage of our Lord reminding us again of this great preparation. Today, let us look at the parable.

When all was ready, the King called his nobles to the celebration.  Now, in modern culture, it’s easy to think of these nobles just as the king’s “rich cronies” but that’s not exactly how it was.  In a monarchal system, nobility emanates from the monarch – he bestows nobility upon his servants who have shown particular qualities that he wishes to reward and utilize.  So, in this case those who were initially invited to the wedding feast, the nobles, were the particular servants of the king; those who had been chosen by him to work with him in his kingdom.  But these nobles had forgotten how it was that they become rich and powerful in the first place, they forgot the source of their nobility.  They forgot that they were servants of the king and got caught up in their own self importance and their own self interests. And so each one in turn refused the summons of the king for their own reasons (which seemed to them very reasonable).  This refusal angered the king – his chosen servants were no longer fulfilling their responsibility to him, but had gone off on their own tangents – and so the king dis-invited them and turned elsewhere for those who would share the celebration with him.

The king sent his loyal servants into the city to find the poor and the sick and disabled and bring them into the banquet.  These loyal servants did indeed do just that and still there was room for more and so the king sent them out again, this time to the highways to collect travelers, pilgrims and strangers in order that the wedding feast might be full. It was these new guests who received the benefit of the king’s preparations.

We recognize, of course, that the King in this parable is God Himself and that He has prepared for the wedding feast of His Son – our Lord Jesus Christ.  The original invited guests, who had been chosen by the King to help Him celebrate the great mystery of His Incarnation were the Jews, the physical children of Abraham.  But many of the Jews, especially those who occupied positions of power and influence, had forgotten why they were chosen and were completely taken up by their own interests, plans and desires.  They had no time to respond to the King – and in fact did not even recognize the significance of His invitation.  When these Jews boasted that they were “sons of Abraham”, Jesus replied that God could make even the stones into the children of Abraham.  These guests were then “dis-invited” and the King turned to those servants who were still loyal to Him – that is the Holy Apostles – and sent them out to fill the feasting hall with new guests.  The Apostles first went to the citizens of the King’s own city – that is they went to the Jews and preached the Gospel, inviting them into the wedding feast.  While many of the leaders of the Jews ignored them or even persecuted them, still some of the people responded and entered into the wedding feast of the King.  But still there was room and so the King, that is God, sent His servants, that is the Holy Apostles, out into the world to invite strangers, that is the nations of the gentiles, into the feast. 

Here we have before us the history of the Church.  Christ our True God, became man and He gathered to Himself all those who remained true to their calling as the chosen people of God. He selected twelve of these followers as His closest and most trusted servants and sent them out to preach the coming the Messiah to the Hebrew people.  The Apostles continued this preaching not only during the earthly life of Christ but after His crucifixion, resurrection and ascension into heaven.  Many among the Hebrews responded to their teaching and the Church was initially an extension of the Hebrew religion.  But as the Jews rejected Christ and persecuted the Church, then our Lord sent His Apostles not only to the Jews but to the gentiles as well – calling all mankind unto Himself.  And so the Gospel is preached in all the world and continues to this day and will continue until the feast is filled.

And here is something to pay attention to – the Master’s words to his servants that while there was still room at the feast that they should continue to gather guests to the celebration.  It is said by the Fathers of the Church that Christ will come again when the number of the Church is complete – that is when the wedding feast is filled with guests.  The fact that Christ has not yet come is an indication to us that the feast is not yet filled – there are still those in the world who will respond to Christ and enter into the wedding feast.  And we, who are in the Church, are the ones who are charged with inviting those guests into the feast.  Yes, we are the missionaries of the Kingdom of God to the world, the ones charged by God with the task of calling all mankind to Him.

How are we to fulfill the Master’s command to us to call the world into His Kingdom?  We can take the example of the saints that we remembered earlier this week, the first saints of Alaska, St Herman and St Juvenal.  St Juvenal was a priest monk who along with his companion, another priestmonk named Michael, set out in opposite directions to preach the Gospel.  Left behind, a simple monk who established himself on a small island near Kodiak, was St Herman.  Although not a priest and not charged with traveling throughout the country preaching, St Herman became the example for us of how to be a missionary in our own place.  He shone the light of Christ on the Alaskan peoples simply by living the life of Christ.  First and foremost, he lived a life of prayer.  At his hermitage he was constantly in prayer for his brothers who were preaching the Gospel and also for the unenlightened people who surrounded him. He amplified the power of his prayer by his ascetic life (for fasting does indeed link with our prayer to empower it) The power of his prayer attracted the people to him and he received them with humility, compassion and love. These Christ-like qualities, are the words with which St Herman preached the Gospel to the Alsakan people – they are the reason that he above all his companions is remembered as the first saint of North America and the enlightener of the Alaskan people.

We can do these things as well.  We can live lives of prayer, especially prayer for those around us.  We can come and pray in the Church along with our brothers and sisters in Christ as often as possible – not just on Sunday mornings or Saturday evenings, but whenever the services of the Church are being celebrated.  Beyond this we pray at home every day. We pray for our family and our friends.  We pray for co-workers, acquaintances and people we encounter in our daily lives.  We can and should pray for every person that our Lord sends to us each day.  We even pray for our enemies and for the people who simply irritate and annoy us.  All of this prayer is empowered by our fasting – to deny ourselves even a little bit on a regular basis.  We can fast by limiting what we eat; we can fast by limiting how much we eat; we can fast by forgoing unnecessary pleasures in our lives and offering them to God as a sacrifice.  Any act of self-denial can become a part of our fast.  All of this makes our prayers more effective.  Having prayed in our interior lives for others, we then let those prayers affect our outer lives by acting towards others with love, with compassion, with forgiveness, with gentleness and kindness.  These kinds of actions are the result of the Holy Spirit working in us, they are the fruit of the Holy Spirit Who acts in our own lives.  These actions are the words with which we preach the Gospel; even in silence these words of our inner prayers and our outer Christ-like actions are the way that we proclaim the Gospel to the world.  In this manner be the light of Christ to those around you, attracting them to Christ as a moth is attracted to the light of a flame.  In this way fulfill the will of God, our King Who desires that the whole world be admitted to His feast in His Kingdom.  Until the coming of Christ, there is still room at the feast and so until He comes, we are the candles which burn with His light calling the whole world to Him.

One of the challenges of parenting is trying to instill manners and a sense of gratitude in children. Modeling good manners is essential if we want our children to have them, but inevitably, parents still spend plenty of time reminding their children to say “please” and “thank you.”

In the gospel reading this morning, our Lord met a group of ten lepers, and through their example taught us how to say “please” and “thank you.” These lepers stood far off from our Lord, knowing that they were made unclean by their illness. Nonetheless, they knew that the Lord had power to make them well again, and so they cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They acknowledged Him as master, and asked for Him to show mercy on them in their pitiful state. Our Lord then ordered them to go show themselves to the priests. It was the job of the priests to verify that someone had recovered from leprosy, but these ten men were not yet healed of leprosy. Going to the priests was an act of faith. They had to believe that by the time they got to the priests they would be healed. And this is indeed what happened. At this point, one of the men, a Samaritan, a despised foreigner, returned to thank our Lord and to glorify Him. One can assume that the others would have gone on to the priests who would examine them, and make sacrifices for them. They would change their clothes and shave their hair and then have more sacrifices given for their cleansing.  If they wanted to be reunited to the community, they would have ritually offered thanks, but the Samaritan came to Christ and thanked Him from his heart.

This morning, we also celebrate the conception of the Mother of God by Righteous Joachim and Anna. These two were godly people who lived virtuously and blamelessly, giving generously to God for the needs of the temple and to the poor. They pleased God in all they did, but they were deprived of the fruit of the womb. They fasted and prayed fervently for a child, and they brought sacrifices to God in the hopes of receiving their hearts’ desire. But as they grew older, their sacrifices were refused by the priest, and they were reviled because it was assumed that they were secretly sinners who were barren on account of their sins.

Saint Joachim departed into the wilderness and resolved to pray and eat nothing for forty days. Saint Anna, likewise, poured out her heart to God in prayer with tears. They promised that if they were given a child they would bring it as a gift to God, offered in service to Him. They each received an angelic visitation telling them that their prayers would be answered. Before this conception was accomplished, they both went to the temple to offer thanksgiving, in faith knowing that the truth of this message would certainly be accomplished. They offered lavish gifts of thanksgiving for what they had not yet received, and when the child was three years old, they brought her to the temple in fulfillment of their vow.

In her prayer to God, Saint Anna said “Thou Who didst open the womb of Hannah, the mother of Thy prophet Samuel, look down now upon me and hear my prayer.” Today the Church also remembers this conception which we read about in 1 Kingdoms. There was a man named Elkanah who had two wives, one who gave him numerous children, and the other, Hannah, who was unable to bear a child. Though Elkanah loved Hannah, his other wife would revile her for her inability to conceive. Hannah coupled her prayer with tears and fasting. Going to the temple, she made a vow to the Lord saying, “O Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.” The Priest Eli, seeing her mouth moving but no words coming out of her mouth, thought that she was drunk, She told him that she has not had any wine or strong drink. Between dedicating her son to the Lord, not letting a razor touch his head, and not having wine and strong drink, she was offering her son to take a Nazirite vow. Eli said, “May the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to Him.” And so she went and offered sacrifice and then conceived Samuel, a name which means “I have asked for him from the Lord.”  Once the child was weaned, she took him to the temple and offered sacrifice for Him and offered Him to the Lord saying, “As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.”

What we see in these three stories, is that giving thanks is more than just a formality. In Saint Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, he says “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” We should live our lives in thankfulness. Just as a child can be forced to say “Please” and “Thank You” without actually being grateful, it is not sufficient to give thanks, we must be thankful. It is interesting how often a child will ask for something and rather than saying “please” when asking for something, and “thank you” once they have received what they asked for, they will instead ask for something saying “Please and thank you.”

In all that we ask from the Lord, we should be thankful even in the asking. We show this by the preparation of our hearts. Like the lepers, we recognize our uncleanness and stand apart, we ask for mercy because of our sinfulness. Like Joachim and Anna, we live generously and demonstrate love for God and our neighbor. Like them, and like Hannah, we fast, and we pray with tears of contrition, knowing our unworthiness.

We must also understand that when God gives a gift, He does so not for our gratification, but for our salvation. When God answers our prayer, we owe to Him the proper use of that gift. It seems almost crazy to us to ask for a child and then hand that child over to live in the temple from a very early age. We want all the benefit of gifts for ourselves. But what an even greater gift it is to receive from God, offer that gift it back to Him for His glory, and then receive continual gifts of grace that flow from it.

This morning we also celebrate the icon of the Mother of God “Unexpected Joy.” The young man in the icon kneeling before the icon of the Mother of God used to go out each night to sin, but before leaving his house, he would say a prayer asking to be given success in his sinful endeavors. One night he saw wounds on the hands, feet, and the side of our Savior, and he asked how he got the wounds. To his surprise, the Mother of God answered him and told him that he was responsible for those wounds because of his sin. It was this that caused him to repent. So we must make our requests rightly, they must be in line with God’s will, not our own.

We show thankfulness in the moment of our asking by our obedience to God’s will, and our faith and trust in Him. We submit all things that we ask for to His will, and then we begin giving thanks and offering our prayer and our contrite hearts to Him before we even receive the things that we have prayed for. So having made our requests, we don’t behave like unmannered children who keep begging for what we want. Instead, we throw ourselves into living in accordance with God’s commandments in a God pleasing manner, and praying as we ought to all the time, not just when we are seeking some favor.

Finally, we must never forget to turn back and give thanks when our requests are fulfilled, and we must always pay our vows to the Lord our God. We must be thankful even in our asking, but we must be especially thankful when our prayers have been heard and answered. It is easy to move on with life when we have been given all that we want, but it is the sign of true love for God to thank Him for His love for us. When we are in need, we will pray for hours, when our desires have been fulfilled, it is a struggle to pray for a moment. But even when we look at the prayers of the Church, our pre-communion prayers are substantially longer than our post-communion prayers. Our Lord expects very little from us, but we shouldn’t hesitate to give everything to Him in gratitude for His blessings.

So count your blessings. Give thanks for them as often as you can. Live in thankfulness. Make your requests known with contrition, humility, prayer, fasting, and thankfulness. Obey God’s commandments, walk faithfully. Make your vows and pay them, and turn back to give thanks. Live this way all the time, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Luke 18:18-27

Today we heard how a young man came to our Lord to ask how he might obtain eternal life.  This was not the first time that this question had been posed for we heard a few weeks ago how one of the scribes, in an attempt to test Jesus, asked him how he might obtain eternal life.  At that time Jesus answered the question with a question asking the scribe – who was a scholar of the Law – what was written in the law.  He answered truly that the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your mind and heart and soul and strength and that the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.  Seeking to justify himself he then asked the Lord, “And who is my neighbor” to which our Lord responded by giving us the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Today however, Jesus did not answer the question with a question.  Seeing the sincere heart of the young man who approached Him, Jesus answered by pointing out the requirements of the law, “Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, honor your father and mother.”  The young man hearing this responded that he had done all these things.  Then Jesus said to him, “One thing only you lack – sell all that you have, give it to the poor and come and follow me”.  The young man went away sad for he was very rich.

Naturally, upon hearing this exchange, we focus on the issue of attachment to earthly possessions.  Because this young man had many possessions (for he was rich) and they exerted quite a hold on him, this last commandment to let go of the world and all that it offered seemed almost impossible.  Now each of us here today probably has more worldly possessions and greater wealth than this young man (even though in contrast to the world around us we may be “poor”).  Therefore, our first thought should be to release the hold that we have on the world, in order that we might instead grasp onto the heavenly riches that God offers to us.

But let us look today at the example of someone who was wealthy and did indeed give all to the poor in order to follow Christ.  Let us look at the example of St Philaret the almsgiver whose memory we celebrated yesterday.  St Philaret was a nobleman in the city of Amneia in the province of Paphlagonia (which is in Asia Minor or modern Turkey) whom God had blessed with great wealth.  Recalling the Gospel commandment to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and cloth the naked, St Philaret was a great giver of alms to the poor.  The region where St Philaret lived was overrun by Moslem bandits and nearly all of his wealth was taken from him.  He was left only with the bare necessities to provide for himself and his family.  This reversal of fortunes however did not deter his almsgiving and soon he was giving not only from the surplus that he had, but he was giving away the very essentials that he had left to him – what was left of his livestock he gave to the poor who needed it and even whatever food and clothing he had, he gave away. In this way he emulated the poor widow of the Gospel who gave two pennies – all that she had – as an offering to God and was counted as having given more than the rich man who gave generously from his surplus.  Seeing his faithfulness, God did not leave his servant to suffer.  Constantine, the son of the empress Irene and heir to the throne of the Byzantine Empire sought throughout his whole kingdom for a suitable bride.  Seeing the beauty of virtue in the grand-daughters of Philaret, the servants of the Empress brought them to Constantinople to be presented along with many others to Constantine that he might select a bride.  By the mercy of God and because of the piety which shone radiantly from her, Constantine was betrothed to the eldest grand-daughter of St Philaret.  By the act of the Empress, the wealth of Philaret was restored.  But the saint did not rest, for he asked his wife to purchase from him his share of the assets that they had received so that she might use them to care for the needs of the family and St Philaret, taking the money he received returned to his life of poverty and gave of the money that he had to all who asked alms of him.  For his entire life, he continued to give all that he had to the poor.  As his death approached, he gathered his family around him again and blessed each one according to the grace that God had given him.  His funeral and burial was marked by miracles and after his death, his wife took the wealth that they had been given and used it to rebuild the Churches throughout the region that had been destroyed by the same attackers that had taken all of the saint’s wealth.  In this way, just as her husband had given alms to relieve the physical poverty of those around him, so she worked to relieve the spiritual poverty that had been imposed on them by the enemy attacks.

St Philaret never stopped giving alms – even when he had nothing to give, still he gave whatever he could to those around him who were in need. When the rich young man of the Gospel came to the Lord seeking to find out what he needed to do to find eternal life, he was hoping for some kind of rule or regulation that he could fulfill and thereby gain eternal life as a result.  He seemed to think that like his worldly wealth, all he had to do was to compile a store of righteousness which would be sufficient to insure that he would have eternal life.  But Jesus pointed out to him that when we come to God seeking the Life that He alone can give, that we must abandon everything else that we possess.  Not only that, we also see that there is no endpoint – once we begin to follow Christ, then like St Philaret, we continue in that path, even to the end of our life. 

Very often we look at our spiritual life as a series of goals that we attain, and that once we attain a certain goal, we move on to the next.  However the reality is that there is no end to our spiritual labors.  When St Philaret had nothing left to give, he did not abandon the giving of alms with the idea that he had somehow fulfilled the commandment to “go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor”.  Rather he continued to follow Christ – continuing to live by the commandment to love his neighbor and so to love God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength.

By our own efforts we can never amass sufficient righteousness to even approach Christ, let alone to live in union and communion with Him throughout eternity.  There is no end to our spiritual labor to follow the commandments of Christ.  Having begun to follow Christ, now we must also persevere, never stopping, never giving up, never thinking that we have “finished”.  He does not ask us to accomplish or “finish” anything, rather our Lord tells us “follow Me”.  This is the life that leads to eternal life – not a life of accomplishments, but rather a life of persistent following, never leaving the path of Christ for any reason, but following Him.  It is not our spiritual accomplishments in this life that bring us into the Kingdom of heaven.  Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself brings us into His Kingdom and supplies all that we need to enter.  He shows us the path and says only “follow me”.  And that is all that is required of us – to follow Christ, wherever he leads, one day, one step, one moment at a time.  St Philaret did not know what the next day would bring, but he did know that each day he would follow Christ, each day he would give alms of whatever the Lord gave to him.  He did not know the exact route or path – but he followed the One Who does know and Who will faithfully lead us into His Kingdom.  Let us then unfailingly follow our Lord Jesus Christ, each day, each moment, that we might enter into His Kingdom and hear from Him the blessed words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord.”

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