Second Sunday of Great Lent 2021

You heard two epistles and two gospels, one epistle

and two gospels. The second gospel was in honor

of St. Gregory Palamas, whose icon you see in

the center of our church. The second Sunday is

dedicated to his memory. I'm not really going

to speak about him today, but just let me give

you a short sketch. He died in 1359. So why is

he important to us? It's a long time ago. There

have been plenty of other people since that time.

He's important to us because of his defense of

the church that we indeed can know God just like

that man who was raised in the first gospel that

we heard. We tend to think about God and catechism

in some of our minds tends to be Let's get as

much information about the church as we can.

But it's about knowing the Lord, our Savior.

If we don't know Christ, our Savior, then it's

all just in our mind. St. Gregory lived, interestingly

enough, the last five years of his life was during

the Black Plague. I've read most of his sermons

that are in English. It's a nice, beautiful,

big book. He doesn't complain once about it.

He had a different approach. He sorrowed for

those who died. He prayed for those who died

without repentance, without knowing Christ. And

he tried to encourage the flock. He was imprisoned

for five years by one side of a Byzantine civil

war. He was imprisoned for five years by Muslim

raiders. He wasn't a man that kind of led a sheltered

life. But he knew suffering. He knew hardship.

This is the saint we exalt today. What I want

to speak about is the gospel. This gospel of

the second Sunday of Lent. During Lent we read

the gospel of Mark. We read the epistle to the

Hebrews. After Lent in Pascha time. Up to Pentecost,

we read the Gospel of John. When we get there,

it's clear why at that point. In the epistle

from the Hebrews today, you heard this important

verse. We must give the more earnest heed, pay

more attention to the things we have heard and

learned, lest we drift away. Drift away from

the faith. It's that drift. That I worry about

myself. I learned recently that there are quite

a few fish that only swim upstream. Against the

current. You've seen those salmon jumping to

go back to their spawning grounds. Those same

fish, they float downstream when they're dead.

So, about the drift that St. Paul tells us, brothers

and sisters, there's going to be plenty of current

against us in our Christian life. Current from

within us, our own sins, our own ignorance, our

own weakness, and current from outside in the

world, and from the evil one. When we start to

drift, With the way of the world, we're spiritually

dying. This is what I look at in myself. So the

gospel is illustrating to us that very fact,

but in a very dramatic and incredible way. Imagine

being there. Jesus is speaking in a house. It's

got a thatch roof, I suppose, and it's completely

packed. And there are four men who want to take

their friend who can't walk, he's paralyzed,

to see Jesus. Because they know Jesus already.

This is only chapter two of St. Mark. They know

Jesus is healing. This is what God does. This

is a sign of the kingdom to come. We're preparing

for Pascha, right? So there's a story of a man

who is healed from paralysis. He gets up and

walks. But how does he get to Jesus? This incredible

story, it's not just, oh, make way, make way,

this guy's coming in. No, it was too crowded

for that. These men had the idea, let's go up

to the top of the house, remove all this thatched

roof stuff, and lower this man down by a rope

right in front of the Lord. What courage, what

ingenuity. How dramatic is that? Imagine being

there and seeing that. Incredible. The crowd

prevented those four men, and Jesus said, it

says in the Gospels, I'm sorry, St. Mark says,

Jesus saw their faith. That crowd prevented those

men from getting to Jesus. You know, there's

plenty that keeps us away from God. We really

can't blame anybody else for the most part. It's

within ourself. And now, in a very practical

way, two weeks into the Lenten fast, I've learned

once again that valuable lesson. Last week was

about the icons, right? Well, I've learned the

lesson how un -icon -like I am. We are to be

the image and likeness of God. It says that we

are created in his image and likeness. How unlike

that image I am. I have much in common. I've

discovered over the time of the last two weeks,

just trying to fast a little bit, just trying

to pray a little bit, how much like that paralyzed

man I really am. It's so hard to turn away from

the usual self -centered habits, to become oriented

to Christ. No, we stay oriented to ourself, to

become oriented to prayer and fasting. What did

St. Paul mean when he said, give heed, pay attention

to the things which we have heard, lest we drift

away? What have we heard? We've heard from the

beginning of the gospel, and this has to do with

Lent, That repentance is a radical, radical change

in our life. We tend to think of repentance,

and it has a part in this, as I didn't pray enough.

I wasn't very strict with my fasting. I kind

of had cheese or whatever. I had an argument.

I had some bad thoughts. It's important that

we identify those things for sure, but that's

not repentance. Repentance is tearing off the

roof of a house and getting to see Christ, no

matter what's against us. That's what we've learned.

That's what we have to pay attention to now.

We have to give our attention to, as St. Gregory

Palamas would say, theology. Did I say theology?

Yes, I meant theology. When we think of theology,

you think of someone going to seminary or reading

big fat books. No. No, that's not theology. Theology

is one who prays. And one who prays is a theologian.

As the old saying goes, my grandmother couldn't

read English, but she was a theologian. She knew

the Lord Jesus Christ. She could speak about

him and her experience with him in prayer. She

had the godly virtues which brought that. Now

here I'm going to get a little technical. Because

I'm going to quote Vincent Rossi, Father Maximus.

But what he said is completely relevant. He gave

a sermon on this day four or five years ago.

You can listen to it on our website. I won't

take as long as he did, but he had more to say.

The virtues. St. Gregory of Palamas says, the

four friends in the gospel, well, there are two

things. The four friends in the gospel is the

parish. bringing the catechumens to the church.

That's the first thing. The four friends in the

gospel are the hymns, the liturgy, the prayers,

bringing us to true repentance, knowing Christ.

The four friends of the gospel are you and I

supporting one another in our Christian walk.

The four friends of the gospel, however, says

St. Gregory Palamas, Are the virtues. Self -condemnation.

Sounds harsh. I'll tell you what it means. Compunction.

Constancy in prayer. And commitment. They bring

us to the Lord. Self -condemnation is what? It's

honesty about yourself. That you can say you're

wrong when you're wrong. It's honesty to look

at yourself without shame. before the living

God, before your brothers and sisters, and be

who you are, but strive to be the image of God

and the likeness that he gives us grace to be.

That's self -contemptation. Compunction is what?

It's the heart touched by sorrow. If I come to

confession and I say, Father, I was very sloppy

in my fast. I didn't pray enough. Honestly, I

think like the rest of you, I don't really feel

too sorry about that. I suppose I should, but

that's not the problem. It's the not praying

enough and the fasting sloppily. It's that I

don't see that I have completely disfigured what

God has given. That I'm not the person God is

blessing me to be. When I realize that from my

self -knowledge and my honesty about myself,

that's when compunction comes. That's when tears

come and sorrow comes to the heart. And that

sorrow then brings us to the next thing, the

next virtue. Constancy in prayer. Because we

love God. We know he loves us and we want to

love him back. And then we love each other and

we want to pray for one another. Those in sorrow.

Those who are sick. Those who are grieving. And

just to pray for the salvation of everyone. And

that leads to the last thing. Because we know

God is faithful to us. It leads to love. Our

commitment to him which becomes as strong as

his commitment to us. The virtues, self -condemnation,

compunction, constancy in prayer, and commitment.

These are the things that bring us to the Lord.

These are the characters of the four friends

that bring the paralytic from the roof. They

tear a hole in it big enough to let him down.

The roof is our mind, our thoughts, all the things

that we use to wall us off from God, to roof

over our precious, protected, sometimes shameful,

darkened life. We hide from God as Adam and Eve

hid. But the four friends rip all that junk up

that covers the soul, and we find ourselves before

the Lord. He forgives our sins first. Notice

the gospel is all about the forgiveness of sins,

very little about the raising. Our sins hold

us to the fallen world so that the, as Vincent

would say, the super nature of Christ, which

we're meant to have by grace, our sins don't

let us unite to that. Arise, take up thy bed

and walk, the Lord says. And we have the liberating

experience of the deifying grace of the saints.

Yes, we are meant to be theologians. Every man,

woman, and child. Theologian is the one who prays,

and the one who prays is the theologian. That

is what this feast day is about today. And may

God grant to each one of us personal... loving,

faithful, and true knowledge of his work in our

life. Amen.