Gospel for the Second Sunday of Saint Luke
October 2007 Metropolitan
Moses
By His Eminence, Metropolitan Moses
The Lord said, As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them that do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore compassionate, as your Father also is compassionate (Luke 6:31-36).
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have just heard a Gospel reading that begins with a passage that is quoted in part by many in a slightly revised way, “Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.” This is saying is called the golden rule by many and, for many, this is the definition of basic common human decency. We all can appreciate that we should treat people as we would like to be treated. There are watered down, popularized versions of this verse, such as, “if you scratch my back, I will scratch yours” or we can get alone and negotiate for a “win-win or no deal” as they say in management circles.
But our Savior is saying much more than this, so it is the rest of this passage that we need to pay careful heed to.
If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye, for sinners also love them that love them. And if ye do good to them that do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same,
that is, fallen man is capable of this.
And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
Here our Savior is not limiting us to simply doing to others that which we want to be done to ourselves, He is calling us to a completely transformed life.
It is written in the Old Testament that man is made in the image and likeness of God, the image because of reason and free will and the likeness because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Adam and Eve sinned and from that time, the Holy Spirit departed from them and death reigned and sin was a major component in the life of all men. The goal of life became self-preservation and self-indulgence, that is, men lived self-centered existence.
Now through Baptism and the Eucharist we once again receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If, after Holy Baptism, we begin a new way of life we become a new creation and these great things our Savior speaks about in today’s Gospel passage become possible. Fallen man can work out deals of win-win, fallen man can say, if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, but it is only with the help of the Holy Spirit can we attain to the things our Savior is describing.
With His next words, our Savior raises the bar very high and calls us to achieve something that is extremely difficult:
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore compassionate, as your Father also is compassionate.
From these words of our Savior we can see that our struggle is not simply to fulfill an external set of rules. Christianity is not just a moral code. The Christian life is lived in the heart and it is only through trying to manifest this new creation in our own hearts in our attempts to cooperate with grace that we can even come close to attaining to anything of what our Savior talks about in today’s gospel. How can we find it within ourselves to forgive our enemies? It is almost natural for fallen man to be vindictive and remember wrongs. How can we find it within ourselves to be compassionate as our Heavenly Father is compassionate? We cannot live according to the old man and achieve this. God became man in order to make a new creation of man. Our calling as Christians is to struggle to manifest eternity and the triumph over death and sin in our own hearts. If we fail in this virtue, we fail as Christians, if we succeed in this virtue we have hope of eternal salvation for eternity is manifested in our hearts.
It is a great struggle to transform the heart, and the only way we can overcome tendencies towards self-preservation and self-indulgence, is to experience the higher good. Saint Isaac the Syrian wrote, that ‘unless a soul is intoxicated with faith, that person cannot be healed of the malady of the senses and overcome attachment to material things.’ In other words, unless we are truly familiar with the things of God, the scripture of God, unless we have an active prayer life, unless we fight that struggle in our hearts and weep and entreat God until we find the consolation of the grace of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, there is no way in the world we can fulfill these commands.
On this day also we celebrate the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God. This feast commemorates the vision of Saint Andrew the fool for Christ and Ephiphanius his disciple in the church of Blachernae in Constantinople. The saints saw a vision of the Mother of God spreading out her veil to cover the faithful with the grace that was given her by God. This spiritual reality is set before us in the depiction of the holy icon of the Protection of the Mother of God. In the icon the Mother of God spreads her hands over the congregation and she is encompassed by an array of many saints and intercedes in our behalf. This feast is a great encouragement for us all. We have the Mother of God and all of the saints for spiritual allies. There are times when it seems impossible and beyond human nature to overcome the raging of our hearts. We have the Mother of God who can root out evil from our hearts and protect us even from the negative inclinations found within.
So on this day let us resolve to look to our Savior and become familiar with the things of God, so that being intoxicated with faith we can lift our hearts and minds on high, even when we have to forgive our enemies, even when we are called upon to be compassionate even as our Heavenly Father is compassionate. Amen.
The Lord said, As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them that do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore compassionate, as your Father also is compassionate (Luke 6:31-36).
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have just heard a Gospel reading that begins with a passage that is quoted in part by many in a slightly revised way, “Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.” This is saying is called the golden rule by many and, for many, this is the definition of basic common human decency. We all can appreciate that we should treat people as we would like to be treated. There are watered down, popularized versions of this verse, such as, “if you scratch my back, I will scratch yours” or we can get alone and negotiate for a “win-win or no deal” as they say in management circles.
But our Savior is saying much more than this, so it is the rest of this passage that we need to pay careful heed to.
If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye, for sinners also love them that love them. And if ye do good to them that do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same,
that is, fallen man is capable of this.
And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
Here our Savior is not limiting us to simply doing to others that which we want to be done to ourselves, He is calling us to a completely transformed life.
It is written in the Old Testament that man is made in the image and likeness of God, the image because of reason and free will and the likeness because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Adam and Eve sinned and from that time, the Holy Spirit departed from them and death reigned and sin was a major component in the life of all men. The goal of life became self-preservation and self-indulgence, that is, men lived self-centered existence.
Now through Baptism and the Eucharist we once again receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If, after Holy Baptism, we begin a new way of life we become a new creation and these great things our Savior speaks about in today’s Gospel passage become possible. Fallen man can work out deals of win-win, fallen man can say, if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, but it is only with the help of the Holy Spirit can we attain to the things our Savior is describing.
With His next words, our Savior raises the bar very high and calls us to achieve something that is extremely difficult:
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore compassionate, as your Father also is compassionate.
From these words of our Savior we can see that our struggle is not simply to fulfill an external set of rules. Christianity is not just a moral code. The Christian life is lived in the heart and it is only through trying to manifest this new creation in our own hearts in our attempts to cooperate with grace that we can even come close to attaining to anything of what our Savior talks about in today’s gospel. How can we find it within ourselves to forgive our enemies? It is almost natural for fallen man to be vindictive and remember wrongs. How can we find it within ourselves to be compassionate as our Heavenly Father is compassionate? We cannot live according to the old man and achieve this. God became man in order to make a new creation of man. Our calling as Christians is to struggle to manifest eternity and the triumph over death and sin in our own hearts. If we fail in this virtue, we fail as Christians, if we succeed in this virtue we have hope of eternal salvation for eternity is manifested in our hearts.
It is a great struggle to transform the heart, and the only way we can overcome tendencies towards self-preservation and self-indulgence, is to experience the higher good. Saint Isaac the Syrian wrote, that ‘unless a soul is intoxicated with faith, that person cannot be healed of the malady of the senses and overcome attachment to material things.’ In other words, unless we are truly familiar with the things of God, the scripture of God, unless we have an active prayer life, unless we fight that struggle in our hearts and weep and entreat God until we find the consolation of the grace of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, there is no way in the world we can fulfill these commands.
On this day also we celebrate the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God. This feast commemorates the vision of Saint Andrew the fool for Christ and Ephiphanius his disciple in the church of Blachernae in Constantinople. The saints saw a vision of the Mother of God spreading out her veil to cover the faithful with the grace that was given her by God. This spiritual reality is set before us in the depiction of the holy icon of the Protection of the Mother of God. In the icon the Mother of God spreads her hands over the congregation and she is encompassed by an array of many saints and intercedes in our behalf. This feast is a great encouragement for us all. We have the Mother of God and all of the saints for spiritual allies. There are times when it seems impossible and beyond human nature to overcome the raging of our hearts. We have the Mother of God who can root out evil from our hearts and protect us even from the negative inclinations found within.
So on this day let us resolve to look to our Savior and become familiar with the things of God, so that being intoxicated with faith we can lift our hearts and minds on high, even when we have to forgive our enemies, even when we are called upon to be compassionate even as our Heavenly Father is compassionate. Amen.