Sunday after Dormiton Fr Nicholas Solak

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We come to church this

morning, and we notice that everyone is wearing

blue. The servers, the priests, the deacons,

the covers are blue, and before us is the winding

sheet of the Theotokos, and the icon of her adormition

is there at the center, and a loy decorated in

flowers, and it dawns on us that we are still.

in this feast of the falling asleep of the Theotokos

of St. Mary. St. Mary is held very highly in

humanity because she gave birth to God. That's

like a mouthful, it's like mind -boggling. In

the Troparion that is sung, it says that she

is the mother of life, life with a capital L.

She is the bearer of God, the mother of God.

And she is held in a very high place because

of her obedience. When she says to the Archangel

Gabriel, she doesn't say to the Archangel Gabriel,

this is my life and I want to go to college.

Who are you to tell me how to live my life? Rather,

she says, be unto me according to thy word. We

also hold her in very high regard because she

beautifully and quietly and peacefully lived

into that obedience. She lived in a world like

we do, a world where the kingdom of God was entering.

The kingdom of God is coming. into a world that

is fractured, broken, and fallen. And in that

meeting of those two worlds, there is a great

measure of, and the word I'm going to use is

tension. Maybe there's a better word. But where

the kingdom of God is coming into this fallen,

fractured, broken world, there's this tension.

And she lived in that tension. beautifully, peacefully,

quietly. It's that place where divine glory meets

human suffering. Where revelation meets rejection.

Where beauty meets mess. There's a lot that we

don't know, but we can imagine. We can imagine

these things. That she... followed her Lord,

her son, our Lord, through the valley of human

misery that she saw the pool of Siloam where

all the paralyzed and blind and demon -possessed

and crazy people were all gathered there waiting

for the waters to be stirred. And when they were

stirred, they all rushed in, shoving each other

and screaming at each other and cursing each

other to get to the waters that were just stirred.

She was there. She saw that human misery. But

she also saw Zacchaeus come down from the tree.

She would have heard the Sadducees, the elders,

the scribes, the Pharisees, always with their

envy, their anger, their vitriol toward God.

But she would have also seen that woman who had

that hemorrhage for 12 years. Walk away that

morning with new life. She would have seen the

rich young ruler. Who walked away from eternal

life. Because he had many possessions. But she

also would have seen the woman give her two mites.

In holy week. She would have seen the anger.

The hatred. The betrayal. But she also would

have seen that sinful woman. Pour out her heart.

Her tears. Her ointment. and dry our Lord's feet

with her hair. She lived in that tension, that

tension of the kingdom of God coming into this

broken, fallen, you want to say like stupid world.

Now, somebody could ask this. They could say,

and it's actually, it's a good question. Like

if the kingdom of God is coming into this broken,

fractured, fallen, stupid world, Why doesn't

it just overcome all of this? Like all of this

injustice, all this innocent suffering. Why doesn't

it just make the world what it was meant to be?

The church has an answer to that question. Before

I share the answer, I'm going to say two things

about the answer. Well, three things about the

answer. First of all, ironically, there is no

answer. But I'll get to that in a moment. There

are some people, maybe even many people in the

world, who find the answer to be unacceptable.

For those of us in the church who are in the

faith, if we can catch this answer and hold it,

hold it long enough so that we can appropriate

our lives to it, that we can begin to live in

function of it, if we can integrate it into our

hearts, then we're home free. We've got it. The

answer, which ironically is not an answer, is

the kingdom of God coming into this world is

not an answer. It's not a solution. It's not

a fix. It's not a program. It's a person. It's

the person who was born from the fleshy womb

of the Theotokos. It's a person. who is a persecuted,

crucified, risen, and glorified Messiah. It's

a person who did not come into this world, nor

ever will come into this world by force, bulldozing

our humanity and our freedom, who doesn't come

in a way of saying to fix our humanity or to

erase our humanity, but to heal it, to invite

us into healing our humanity. There's this tension

that we live in of the kingdom of God coming

at us with an invitation for healing while we

live, work, breathe, eat in a fallen, broken,

fractured world. And we live in that tension.

That tension is the overarching structure. Of

St. Matthew's gospel. The tension of the divine.

And the human. And St. Matthew's gospel. We're

in the season right now. Of St. Matthew's gospel.

It's the summer gospel. It begins at Pentecost.

Right after Pentecost. We close John's gospel.

And we open Matthew's gospel. And it carries

us through the summer. All the way until next

month. When we celebrate the exaltation of the

cross. When we then jump to Luke's gospel. But

Matthew is the summer gospel that has this tension,

this overarching tension of the kingdom of God

coming into the world, into a fallen, broken,

fractured, stupid world. And it doesn't resolve

that tension, but it says, enter into that tension.

There you will find Christ. There you will find

the Lord in that tension. Today's gospel reading.

takes place in a valley it takes place in a valley

because our Lord is walking down from a mountain

just a few verses before today's gospel reading

our Lord was on Mount Tabor where he was transfigured

with Peter James and John and the voice came

from the cloud this is my beloved son whom I'm

well pleased to listen to him and Moses and Elijah

were there And in St. Matthew's Gospel, it says

that his face shone like the sun. And his garments

were dazzling white. Completely, it's called

the glory of Mount Tabor. And he is transfigured,

showing his divine glory. We just celebrated

the feast a couple days ago, about 10 days ago.

And then he's coming down the mountain with Peter,

James, and John. into the valley so he goes from

the glory of Tabor into the mess of the valley

because when he hits the valley there is a desperate

father a convulsing son a clueless disciples

and a bewildered crowd from the glory of Tabor

to the mess of the valley that's the tension

that is there that we're invited to live in the

glory in the mess and that in that space that's

where we could say like The spiritual life is

worked out in that tension. If you have that

tension in your life now, and if you have a heartbeat,

you have that tension in your life right now.

It could be small, or it could be large. It could

be hidden, like you're the only one that knows

about it, you and maybe some friends, or it can

be known, like everyone's talking about it. It

could be interior, like this anger so fierce

it just sits in your chest, or a depression that

weighs like a stone on you, or an anxiety that

just won't go away. Or it can be an exterior,

a tension in a marriage, a tension in a family

that's falling apart, craziness at the workplace

where you're trying to live out your vocation

and offer your work to the world and to God.

But there's like politics and stupidity going

on. Whatever that tension is, and we're all a

part of that tension. Here's the good news. God

is with us in that tension. And if you feel like

that tension is overcoming you, it is not. You

are not losing. You are in the fight. You are

in the battle where you meet Christ. Not only

do you meet Christ, but you discover yourself.

Stripped of your pretense. Humbled by grace.

And you become your authentic self. And the thing

about the answer, being a person, is that because

it's a person, we have, and it's the worst possible

word because of our culture today and our society

today. But it's the only word that we got. Because

it's a person, it's... It's an invitation to

relationship, to enter into relationship with

that person, to enter into communion with that

person. And that's the kingdom coming into the

world. That's the glory of Mount Tabor in the

mess. And that mess is in our lives, but so is

the glory. It is not rarely given or occasionally

given. It is constant in our fallen, broken.

fractured, stupid world, the Gloria Tabor's around

us. Just that Akathist that we're all familiar

with, glory to God for all things, just read

that Akathist. It's always referencing the glory

of God that is in our everyday present life that

we don't see. It's in this liturgy, in this gospel,

in this Eucharist. It's in our family when we

sit down to eat. It's in forgiveness when we

offer each other that quiet moment when we forgive

one another and have that exchange. It's in the

beauty of, I'm from Pennsylvania, it's in the

beauty of Santa Rosa, California. It's a great

beauty. The glory of God is all around us in

the mess. And we are invited to enter that mess

to discover ourselves and discover Christ and

have that communion with the crucified, persecuted,

risen and glorified Lord. There's this passion

prediction that's made in today's gospel. It's

the second one in Matthew's gospel. He says that

he's going to Jerusalem. If you were at the liturgy

yesterday in San Francisco for the ordination

of the bishop, we heard it in that gospel reading

yesterday that Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem

and he tells the disciples, When I get there,

this is what's going to happen. I'll be turned

over to the hands of evil men and they'll crucify

me. There is a line in our liturgical worship

that once you hear it, you can't unhear it. It's

memorable. It's powerful. If you're ever in traffic,

you can just sit there and think about it the

entire time you're in traffic. I think God gave

us traffic to think about the things that we

hear in church. I can't think of any other reason

why he would give us traffic. It's from the Feast

of the Exaltation of the Cross next month, but

it's also in every Resurrection of Matins on

Saturday night. And when the clergy take the

Eucharist back into the altar after committing

the faithful, this is said, this line is, Through

the cross, joy has come into all the world. Through

the valley, the glory of Tabor has come into

all the world. Through the cross, joy has come

into all the world. As we continue to celebrate

the adormition of Mary, we would affirm this.

The valley did not have the final word with her.

Human misery did not have the final word with

her. Death did not have the final word with her.

The valley... The misery, the death in our life

does not have the final word because through

the cross, joy has come to the world. The kingdom

of God has come to us through the mess of the

valley and through the mess of our lives. May

we receive that glory. May we integrate it into

our life. May we live in a function of it. May

we appropriate it to our life so that we too

can participate in the life with a capital L

from which Mary gave birth to. Amen.