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Matthew 22:2-14

In this parable our Lord talks about the wedding feast of the Son – that is the union of the Son of God and His Bride – the Church.  There are many different aspects to this parable and we will look at only a few.  First there are those who were invited to the Feast but who refused the invitation.  On the very surface this relates to the Jewish people who were chosen by God to be the core and substance of the Church for they were to bring forth the Messiah and proclaim Him to the world.  But the Jews did not recognize the Messiah and even turned against Him.  They refused the invitation and so were excluded from the Feast. 

Let us take a brief look at why these honored guests refused the invitation to the Feast.  First there is possessions – one who had just purchased land; second there is worldly work and activity symbolized by the oxen; and third is the love of pleasure - the one who had just married a wife.  We could focus all of our comments on this, but let us just touch the surface.  How many of us let our possessions get in the way of attending the wedding feast (that is the Divine Liturgy).  We find that our possessions, our homes, our cars, boats and other toys, etc. all call to us louder than the voice of God.  “Oh I would love to go the Liturgy, but I just have to take the boat out for the weekend and I can’t make it!”  Or, how many of us find that our worldly activities prevent us from the Divine Liturgy. “Oh Lord, I’d love to be at Your feast but I have to work – I have a sporting event to attend or a game to play – it’s hunting season and I need to get my deer in”.  Or finally, the love of pleasure overrules our love of Christ. “I’m so tired, I’ll just sleep in a little more; I have this party to go to with my friends; I’ve been invited out for coffee…”  We all have excuses – but let us recall what we are missing and the consequences of refusing the invitation of our Lord to His Feast.

Leaving behind this overview of excuses, let us look at those who did accept the invitation and attended the feast.  This is a very interesting thing because the guests at the feast are the members of the Church – and they are the Bride as well.  We are invited by our Lord to be not only guests at the wedding but we are invited to become His Bride.   When we are called from our former life – wherever we might have been – to come to the feast, our Lord first and foremost washes from us the filth of sin which clings to us by Holy Baptism.  Then He anoints us with the Myrrh of the grace of His Holy Spirit that we might be filled with the aroma of the virtues.  He takes from us the filthy rags of our own labors and clothes us instead with the robe of Righteousness. He brings us to the Table where were are given not ordinary food but heavenly manna – the most excellent food of His own Most Holy Body and His own Precious Blood. 

But there was one guest who somehow was not properly attired.  He had washed in Baptism (for that was the path into the feast) and anointed and clothed, but his wedding garment had become soiled again with the dirt of sin, the aroma of the virtues was lost in the stench of self will and unrighteousness, the dirt which had been washed off began to pile up and the once white garment became unrecognizable.  He stood out among the other guests as one who did not belong.  He had not refused the invitation, but refused to participate in the life that was offered and implied in the invitation.  He turned away from the Host and separated Himself from the Bride. 

Seeing this out of place guest, the Host confronted him asking why he was not wearing a wedding garment.  The man was speechless – he had no excuse.  So it is with us.  We start with all kinds of excuses (as we mentioned before) but when the moment comes that we stand before Christ Himself as the Great Judge, all those excuses evaporate and we are left with nothing.  This guest, who had separated himself from Christ and from the Church by his sinful life, was then bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness where there is “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth”.  Too late those who separate themselves from Christ and alienate themselves from the Church realize their mistake and are tormented by unending regret and sorrow, but to no avail for the time is past for such sorrow.

Since we all sin, how is it that the other wedding guests were not in the same condition, how did they preserve their wedding garments and the aroma of the grace of the Holy Spirit?  The answer to this is very simple – repentance.  Repentance, weeping for our sins, wailing over our weakness, will cleanse the soul of this dirt so that it does not accumulate and does not weigh us down.  The entire time of our life is given to us for repentance, for sorrowing for our sins.  And our Lord, Who loves us and desires that no one is lost but that all are saved and come to the knowledge of the truth is quick to forgive and to restore the purity of our wedding garment that we might not be cast out of the feast. 

Here is the heart of how we continue to live in the Church, how we become the Bride of Christ, how we celebrate this wedding feast – repentance.  Our Host knows our weakness, He knows our sins, He knows our deficits and sicknesses; and His love is so great that no matter how great our sin, it cannot ever surpass His lovingkindness, compassion and forgiveness. He brings us into the wedding feast, He washes us, He anoints us, He clothes us and He feeds us – and He forgives us when we fall and repent.

Therefore my brothers and sisters, let us repent.  Should we fall, let not even a second or a part of a second pass before we begin our repentance.  The demons suggest to us that we have to “cool off” or even more ridiculous we have to wait and let God “cool off” before we can repent – Foolishness!  Let us repent as quickly as possible, as soon as we realized our sin, as soon as we see that we have departed from the communion with God. Let us repent so that our merciful and compassionate Lord can pull us out of the abyss into which we have fallen, clean off the dirt from our souls and set us again at the banquet Table that we might participate again in the feast and be reunited with Him as His Bride.

Let nothing come between us and our Lord, but set aside every obstacle, avoid every trap of the enemy and if we do fall let us repent without delay and without fail.  In this way we become not only guests at the Wedding Feast of the Son, but we become the Bride and are united with Him in eternity.

Matthew 21:33-42

Unlike many of our Lord’s parables, the parable that we just heard has a pointed and obvious meaning to the audience that our Lord was speaking to: that is, the Jews.

In this parable, the householder is the Father, the husbandmen are the Israelites, the servants of the householder are the prophets, and the householder’s son is Christ. This is stated plainly in the verse immediately following today’s pericope. Christ says: “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” Saint Jerome, Saint Theophylact of Ohrid, and Saint John Chrysostom all tell us that this parable is a warning to the Jews who had received the Law and the Prophets and the Lord prophesied his own death at their hands. Our Lord tells them that the vineyard will be taken away from them and given to “others”, that is the Gentiles. This parable is full of details regarding this warning, but let us not be content to assume that the relevance of this parable ends with the Jews. Instead, just like all of our Lord’s parables, this story has many layers of meaning and many ways to apply it to our lives today.

At one level this parable is about our Lord’s church: The Church as a vineyard, and those who are in positions of leadership as the vinedressers of that church, responsible for nurturing and pruning the vineyard, unto a rich harvest. O how we priests ought to measure ourselves by this parable. Am I a faithful vinedresser, faithful to all of you, faithful to our Lord and His vineyard the Church?

On another level, St. Paisios of the Holy Mountain employs this same parable to reflect on the God-given vineyard that is Christian family life; husbands and wives and children living together as a little church.  He asks: Is your little church bearing a rich annual crop?  Beginning with you, husbands and wives, are you tending your vineyard with grace and love and humility?

Bear in mind the warning at the end of the parable: “When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.”

Our Lord’s warning can easily be applied to all of us who are part of the Church. Just as the husbandmen beat and killed the servants of the master, how often do we find ourselves pushing aside our conscience because it is calling us to repentance? How often do we chafe at the rules of the Church that call us to fast, pray, and give alms? We think this life belongs to us and that the Church makes unreasonable requests of us that make us uncomfortable or take away from our enjoyment. We may consider these rules outdated or unfair, or “just for monks”.

As the husbandmen considered the fruits of the vineyard as belonging to them, do not we also consider the fruits of our labors as belonging to us alone? Yet, we fail to remember that the whole vineyard of this life was provided by God Himself. Saint John Chrysostom says: “Observe the great care that the owner took with this place and the extraordinary recalcitrance of the people. He himself did the work the tenants should have done. It was he who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it and built a tower. He left little for them to do. All they had to do was take care of what was there and to preserve what was given to them.”

Just as the householder planted the vineyard, hedged it around, dug the winepress, and built the tower before letting it out to tenants, our Lord crafted with His own Hands all the good things that come to us from life, from this land, and from our labors themselves. Your hard work does not create success or wealth; rather, it is the Lord’s good faithfulness and mercy that rewards the works of your hands. And yet, when our Lord asks us to set aside a pittance that is rightly due to Him, for in reality all is due Him, we despise Him for it. All the fruits of the vineyard belong to the householder who owns it and who labored to set it up. Just as all that is good in this life is due to Him Who made it and Who in His love gives it freely to us.

In the parable, the householder sends his son to the husbandmen expecting that surely they will at least reverence the heir himself. Yet, the husbandmen slay him. Do we not do the same? Christ Himself comes to us through His Body the Church. He comes to us profoundly in Communion, He teaches and instructs us through His bishops, He heals our sins in confession through His priests, He blesses our homes and our food and our vehicles and so much more. Yet we betray Him and slay Him in our hearts when we return immediately to our sins.

Brothers and sisters, let us be ever mindful of Whom this vineyard belongs to. Let us be good tenants, good husbandmen, good and faithful servants who render unto Him the fruits in their seasons. Let us give gladly to God, for all things belong to Him. Let us attend to His servants, our conscience, the clergy, rather than beat them or drive them away. And above all, let us reverence His Son, Who comes to us in humility. May we receive Him gladly and with fear. And may we rejoice in the works of our hands as good laborers in His vineyard.

Mt 19:16-23; 1Cor 15:1-11

“What must I do to have eternal life?”  This young man asked for all of us the question that we all ask constantly.  Some people only ask this question with a limited understanding of what life is, asking how it is that they might prolong their body’s life and live as many years as possible before the inevitable death.  They have lost the awareness that life is more than the body and that this earthly existence is only the beginning of eternity. Others ask it, looking for a way to preserve their conscious existence beyond the capacity of the physical body. They have completely distorted what life is and reduced “consciousness” to a set of electronic impulses (incomprehensibly complex and undefinable) which can be transferred from the medium of the brain to a different medium. They don’t know that life does not reside in the brain but in the inner heart, the nous, of the man.  The brain is only the abode of rationality which, when it is taken out of its proper context of the whole person, ceases to have any existence. Now these two examples are only a sampling of those who have completely lost the concept of life as eternal existence in communion with the One Who is Life.

Among those who still have some awareness that life is more than the body, that life is not limited to this world and that God is the source of Life, there are still many different ideas of “eternal life”.  For some “eternal life” is simply an Edenic continuation of “life as we know it”, a life of unending sensual pleasure, only a different plane.  This too is incorrect.  Eternal life is nothing less than a life that is lived in complete union and communion with God, a life that is filled with His Light, His Life, His Joy, His Presence, His Grace.  We can’t even begin to describe what this might “look like” and those who have tried (St John the Evangelist for example) have only been able to do so in metaphoric images (as we see in the book of the Apocalypse). And yet, we know that somehow we desire this indescribable and incomprehensible thing called “eternal life”.

How then can we enter into this eternal life.  The answer to the question has always been before us.  God Himself is eternal life, and so if we desire to participate in His Life, we have to approach Him and follow His directions.  The first thing that our Lord instructed His young inquirer was to follow the Law, speaking specifically of the Law of Moses. This is not to be overlooked for throughout the writings of the Old Testament law and the prophets as well as the Chistian Fathers, the Law was never seen as a stand alone entity, but rather it was the introduction of grace.  If one were to find God’s grace he would have to follow the path set out by the Law.  The Law prepares us to receive grace, it opens the capacities in us for grace to find a home and to dwell.  This emphasis on grace is important for it is “by grace” that we are saved – that is, grace is the means by which we are brought into union and communion with the Living God.  And so we seek grace in order to discover eternal life and to acquire it and it is by following the Law that we will successfully pursue grace.

The second instruction that our Lord gave to the young man was to “Sell all that you have and give it to the poor...” But He did not stop there; He continued: “and you will have treasure in heaven.” Our Lord knows us well (and why not since He created us?) and so He knows our hearts and how they move.  He Himself gave us the truth, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”.  The purpose of selling all is to break all ties with this corruptible world so that we might realign ourselves, our loyalties, our desires, our cares and concerns and all our energies on heaven. How do we make this transfer? By transferring our wealth.  Our Lord instructed this young man to transfer all his wealth that was holding him to this world and preventing him from attaining to eternal life from this world and reinvesting it into the heavenly kingdom.  This act of selling all and giving to the poor is less about somehow depriving ourselves of worldly comforts and necessities and is more about reorienting ourselves towards the Kingdom of Heaven.  To hold onto worldly possessions and treasures (whether they be monetary or some other “currency”) only serves to hold us back from moving forward into the Kingdom of Heaven.  In order to enter into eternal life, we have to send our valuables on ahead so that they are awaiting our arrival.  Once we have made the commitment to enter into the Kingdom of God, then we say with wise Solomon, “Draw me O Lord that I may run after Thee.”  We are no longer running away from the world (if that were the case we’d always be looking over our shoulders to see if the world is catching up) but rather we are running towards God with all of our attention on Him to see how close we can come to Him.

Having reinvested our treasure in the Kingdom of Heaven, having reoriented our lives towards pursuing God, then our Lord says to the young man and to us: “and come and follow me”.  This is the heart of the Christian life – to follow Christ.  We don’t just “believe in Him” – though we must – but we also follow Him.  We don’t just study the map (His life) but we follow the map - we live the life.  He is the source of all grace, He is the One Who bestows upon us every heavenly blessing; He is the eternal life that we seek.  And so we follow Him, where ever He leads.

The Holy Apostle reminded the Corinthians in the epistle today the foundation, basis and essence of our salvation, of following Christ when he told them, “Christ died for our sins…He was buried and rose again on the third day” and that he was seen by the apostles, and many others time and time again.  The way to eternal life is not hidden but is laid out before us.  Our Savior revealed Himself over and over again after His resurrection so that as many as would see Him and receive Him would be able to follow Him wherever He leads them so that He might bring them finally into the Kingdom of Heaven.

How can we find eternal life?  The path has always been laid before us, clear and plain to see and to follow.  The first step must be the Law which prepares us to receive that Life, it orients us properly, it opens our soul to the fountains of grace so that they might fill us.  Secondly, we must reorient ourselves – we must abandon this earthly life and the fallen riches that bind us to it.  All that we hold dear must be relinquished in such a way that it is reinvested in the Kingdom of God and becomes spiritual wealth which awaits us – we must build up “treasure in heaven” for where our treasure is, there is our heart.  Thirdly we must follow Christ for He is the Life that we seek.  He is the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father (the Creator and origin of Life) but through Him.  And He does not hide Himself from us but appears again and again in many forms and places so that we might not lose our way, but continue step by step (even when things get difficult and tricky) as He leads us into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matt 10:23-35

In this parable of the two servants who owed money, the lesson that we are given is one of forgiveness and mercy.  Let us then learn the meaning of this parable.  The Master, is of course God and we are His servants.  He has given us everything that we could possibly need or want; a world which is exquisitely designed for our habitation, that is neither too hot or cold, or wet or dry, on which the gravity is perfect for our frames.  He has surrounded the world with air for breathing and given us vast reservoirs of water without which we could not live.  He has filled the world with all kinds of good things – with plants, fish in the sea and animals which feed us and which bring us companionship and joy, with resources hidden in the earth waiting only to be discovered and used.  He set the world in an entire universe given that we might see the glory and grandeur of God.  And what does He ask of us in return for this great wealth which He has bestowed upon us.  One thing – only that we should love Him.

So you see we are the servant who had received great wealth from His Master.  But like that servant we took what God gave us and we began to love not Him but the things of creation, we gave the love that belongs to God to our own selfish ego.  We follow the path of those who rebelled against God and who fight against Him, that is the demons.  And so now when God comes to us and asks to receive what is His, we have nothing to give Him.  We are without resources for we have misdirected everything with our misdirected love. 

And so the Master seeing that His servant was unable to give what he owed, resolved to do whatever was necessary to gain what was His.  He ordered that the servant be imprisoned, that all his possessions were seized and that he and his family were to be sold into slavery that something might be recovered.  So also with us.  God, seeing out inability to give Him the love that is His turned us over to the slavemasters – that is to the demons – who make fun of us, who torment us with our own passions, who mock our efforts to reach out to God. We suffer fear and want and insatiable desires at their hands, we are filled with movements of the soul that seem sweet at first but which turn bitter in the mouth as soon as we acquire them.  Why has He he done this to us? Does God now hate us so much that He would turn away from us and leave us to suffer?

NO!  His purpose is not that we should suffer, but rather that we should taste the consequences of our own sinfulness and from this turn and seek repentance.  The Master in the parable condemned his servant to suffer not to punish, but to get him to turn from his wicked ways and  begin to pay the unpayable debt.  Our God wants the same from us, that we might turn from our wicked ways and begin to offer to God that which He desires of us – that is, to love Him. He wants us to repent.

Our repentance then, the way that we pay off our debt, is to love God.  As soon as the servant in the parable asked mercy of the Master, it was granted to him and he was given a chance to repent, to change his ways, to begin to pay to the Master that which he owed.  So with us, as soon as we repent, as soon as we turn to Him and beg mercy, He frees us from our enslavement that we might begin to work now for Him instead of the former slave masters, the demons. 

Now we embark upon our original path of loving God.  We cannot truly love God in any old way, but we must instead love Him properly as He instructs us.  What does He tell us about love?  “If you love me,” He says, “keep my commandments”. If we would love God we must reorder our lives and live according to His commandments.  What are these commandments that He has given us?  The first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. That is, your entire attention must be focused on God – your heart, soul, and mind encompass all your being, and your strength is the very utmost of your energies.  Everything must be focused on serving God.  The second law is like unto the first, to love your neighbor as yourself.  Love for God is not some formless and shapeless entity that lives in our fantasy.  It is not a good feeling that we have nor is it a “warm fuzzy” or a vague idea.  To love God is to love your neighbor.  To love God is to be like God and to love those whom He loves.  Again, our Lord said that when we do these things (to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless and give drink to the thirsty, etc.) to the least of His brethren, that is to the lowest of any person, then we do them to Him.  But when we despise those in need and want, we despise Him.  So love for God is an active caring for our neighbor. When He taught the disciples to pray, He taught them, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive others who sin against us”.  Again love of God means that we forgive as God forgives, without qualification, without condition, without hesitation.  In describing the blessed man, our Lord said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (which we just sang together).  To love God means to be merciful to others, especially to our brothers and sisters in Christ, in the same way that God is merciful to us.  If we would love God we must love others, forgive others, be merciful to others, just has God has done these things to us.

Now we come to the part of the parable where that love of neighbor comes into play.  The first servant went out renewed and refreshed by his Master’s mercy, but when confronted with a coworker who owed him a trivial amount. He who had just repented, who had promised to change his ways, who had received his Master’s love, mercy and forgiveness, now turned back to his old ways.  Instead of imitating the Master’s love, he subjected one of his fellow servants to the same harsh punishment that he himself had just escaped.  He did not truly repent, he did not return the Master’s love with true love.  And so when the Master heard of this, he reinstated the debt and set the first servant back to the fate that had been pronounced (in order that he might again learn the true nature of repentance).

But there remains one small difficulty for us.  How can we, who have nothing of our own for everything was given to us by God, find the resources to repay God?  We are not left on our own, but are promised by God to receive in accordance to that which we give. The Apostle tells us “But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”  Here the Apostle instructs us in the reciprocal nature of giving and while in the Epistle he as talking about charity and finances, this same truth applies to giving of other things – in this case love, mercy, and forgiveness.  We have nothing of our own, but if we begin to give love, if we begin to give mercy, if we begin to give forgiveness, freely, cheerfully; if we “sow”, that is give, bountifully, God will give to us bountifully, but if we “sow”, that is give, sparingly, grudgingly and sparsely, then God will return to us in the same way.

Let us then sow bountifully that we may reap bountifully.  Let us love our brother and neighbor bountifully that we may receive the unlimited and boundless love of God.  Let us have mercy on our brother and neighbor without stint, that we might also receive the overabundant mercy of God.  Let us forgive our brother and neighbor quickly, immediately, cheerfully that we might also receive complete forgiveness from God. Let us give that we might receive.  Let us give love, mercy and forgiveness without that we might receive in return bountiful love, mercy and forgiveness from God and so be reconciled to Him.

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