Entrance of the Theotokos by Fr Maximos (Rossi)

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

Spirit, one God, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy

on us and save us. Amen. It is a great joy to

be with you once again. I am actually here as

we had a family reunion yesterday, a family reunion.

The actual occasion will remain nameless so that

I can get on with the homily. But anyway, it

was joyful. So here I am, and I am, as a preacher,

I am looking out at two mountains, a giant mountain

and a lesser mountain, but they're connected

by the same range. The giant mountain is how

to understand the entry of the Virgin into the

temple at three years old and dwelling in the

Holy of Holies. And the slightly lesser mountain

is the scripture that the Holy Tradition has

given us to help us understand this, which is

kind of interesting. Especially the Martha and

the Mary story. Of course, you know the Martha.

Everyone, we all know the Martha and the Mary

story. But how does this story actually help

us understand the mystery of the Virgin in the

Holy of Holies? That's our challenge. That's

my challenge. And so I'm asking you, as good

brothers and sisters, to pray with me. That the

Holy Spirit will give me the proper guidance

so that words will come out of me that will be

fruitful to the occasion and helpful to each

of us. So, in preparing for this, I read both

homilies of St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 52 and

Homily 53. Homily 53 is an extraordinary homily.

It's a work of genius. It would be a third mountain

to have to try to analyze it. But it is a paean

of worship, a paean of adoration, a paean of

veneration to the Mother of God and a uniting

of the truths of our Orthodox faith within all

of that. But how do we bring it down? How do

we bring it down to our life? Maybe we're not

supposed to bring it down to earth, but how do

we raise ourselves up to it? I mean, it is in

the temple. The idea of a temple, what does that

mean to us today? Even we call our churches temples.

And for a good reason. Because it has a narthex,

a nave. a sanctuary, and a holy of holies. But

do we understand that in the way that we should?

So I'm going to take a brief excursus to kind

of deal with this point, and that's this. I recently

heard a lecture by an academic philosopher, and

he was actually a real philosopher. It was something

that he gave recently, and the title of the lecture

was Living in Eternity. And so my ears perked

up. I said, oh, this is going to be good. But

it was not expressed from a Christian standpoint.

It was expressed from a Platonic standpoint because

he was trying to analyze the work of Plotinus,

the philosopher who lived in the 3rd century,

on eternity and time. Now what he said in that

lecture isn't important, but at the question

and answer period, there was a challenge. Somebody

asked him, what does Plotinus think of memory

and what does Plotinus think of hope? And he

dispensed with memory, saying, well, if Plotinus

thinks that memory is... is a temporalized thing.

It's just in this world, doesn't exist in eternity.

And as for hope, he said, there is really no

even virtue of hope in the Platonic tradition.

And then he said this thing that caught my ear.

He said, you know, one of the main differences

between Platonism and Christianity is that Christianity

In Christianity, hope is a virtue. And not only

a virtue, it's a theological virtue. But in Platonism,

if you believe in hope, which is to say, if you

believe in the future, you are as far away as

possible from eternity. Now that struck me. It

struck me for two reasons. One, there seems to

be a modicum of truth there. There seems to be

something we can learn from that. But the second

thing is, of course, it doesn't go to the vision

of God. It doesn't go far enough. It doesn't

really express the idea of the Holy of Holies.

But it does express something about eternity.

How? The idea that eternity is now. It's an eternal

now. It's not in the future. This is the truth.

Eternity is not in the future. It's now. It's

only now. So living in eternity has to be living

in the now. All right. With that as our background,

let's now look at the scripture. What is the

story of Martha and Mary? What are we to learn

from that? Well, you know, we know it so well.

We have learned to think that Martha and Mary

are types. You know, just like Leah and Rebecca,

Rebecca or Rachel? Yeah, the two wives of Israel,

of Jacob, you know, that we read about, that

we hear about in the canon of great Andrew. Leah

is the type of activity, and the other is the

type of contemplation. Is Martha a type of activity

and Mary a type of contemplation? Is that what

we're being told here? I don't think so. I don't

think so. And here's why. Let's look at the scripture

closely. Not looking for a type, but just looking

for what's going on. What happens in this scripture?

First of all, they go to a village, right? A

certain village. And a woman in that village

invites... Mary welcomes them into her house.

It's her house. It doesn't say anything about

Lazarus, her brother. It's her house, so she

invites him in. And she has a sister called Mary

who sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to

his word. So clearly, Martha is the stronger

figure. Martha is the elder. Mary is the younger

sister. Then what she says to Jesus is a complaint.

But what a complaint it is. What presumption.

What presumption she uses there. And we don't

hear that. We just hear, you know, why don't

you have her come and help us? But what does

she say? She actually says, and I'll read it

to you. She says, but Martha was distracted by

much service. And she approached him and said,

Lord, do you not care that my sister has left

me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help

me. You see what she's doing? She is inviting

Jesus to take her side. Why? Because her side

is the correct one, according to her. According

to the social rules of the day, women served

the guests. Period. That was it. That was a rule.

And it still exists to this day. I mean, in certain

societies. I mean, I recently, in 2013, went

on a pilgrimage to Serbia. And we had a big feast

at one of the towns there. And it was the Feast

of St. John the Baptist. And we were all invited

in for a feast day to a long hall with two long

rows of tables. Everybody sat down, but all the

women served. All the men sat down, all the women

served. The only women that were sitting were

the women in our pilgrimage group. They sat because

they were guests. So she was saying to Jesus,

these are the rules. And she was saying, you

must help me. Get her to help me. That's what

she was actually doing. So when Jesus said, Martha,

Martha, and by the way, do you hear the deep

affection that Jesus has here for her? The deep

affection and love he has, Martha, to say twice,

Martha, Martha. You know he loves her. You know

he cares for her. She's not a type to him. She's

not the type of activity. She's a person. And

he, loving her, says, you're troubled by many

things, Martha, dear Martha. But Mary has chosen,

Mary, but there is one thing needful, and Mary

has chosen the good part, and it shall not be

taken away from her. So, clearly there, Jesus

is, his reprimand is not to, is not just to reprimand

Martha for being busy, but to say, the reality,

I'm here. Christ is here. God is here in person.

Social rules, the social mores don't compute,

don't fix. They are transcended by this reality

that we're living in right now. And this is then

proved by the next two verses, which are added,

you know, the verses that are added, where the

woman, hearing him from the crowd, lifts up her

voice and she says, blessed is the womb that

bore thee and the breast that nourished thee.

And then what does he do? He immediately, he

doesn't say, yes, well, thanks, that's my mom,

you know. He doesn't do that. What did he say?

He said, yea, rather, but rather do them. It's

more important than blessed is the womb. blessed

are those who hear the word of God and keep it.

So there again too, he deflects, he deflects

the social rules that we all live by and points

to the presence of life that he is living, which

is eternity. So when we then think, when we think

of, Mary, in the temple, the temple then representing

all of creation, all genuine holy temples represent

the whole of creation, and the Holy of Holies

is there. To go in there as a three -year -old

and to voluntarily, according to St. Gregory

Palamas, to voluntarily, of her own will, leap

up those stairs and walk up to the high priest

there. And he was directed to bring her in, into

the Holy of Holies. And she accepts this. This

is a reality beyond our normal life. It's beyond

our social life. It's inconceivable for us. And

yet, this is what we are honoring. So what are

we honoring? What we are honoring is what Mary

did there, what Mary does there. What she accomplished

for us there was not just God's honoring her

by having her in the temple sitting around the

Holy of Holies because he knew that in the future

she was going to be the mother of God. That's

clearly there. But for us, in order for us to

really grasp this and not get lost in all the

wonderful expressions that we have about the

Virgin Mother. that we don't really understand

because they just go right by us. Rejoice, O

Virgin Theotokos, you know, we say. They go right

by us. But they are all there for a purpose.

They are all there. They are all expressions

of eternity. And so what Mary, what she is doing,

is she is showing us how to live in eternity.

So, as St. Gregory, Palamas says at the very

end there, when he says, he says that so we,

in order to follow her, in order to understand

living in eternity, this is what we must do.

This is what as Christians we must do. As Christians,

if we are like Martha, we are troubled by many

things, right? We're worried and exposed to many

different things. And we don't hear Jesus saying

to us, Joel, Mary, Gail. Twice, you know, you're

troubled and worried by many things, but one

thing is needful. One thing is needful. So Mary

in the gospel is not a symbol of contemplation.

She is an image of someone who's sitting at the

feet of the Lord of glory. Contemplation is obviously

there, implied, but what's really there is the

one thing needful is for us to turn from everything

in this world within our hearts and turn toward

God in eternity. We must learn to live in eternity

while we're living in the present. Jesus didn't

say to Martha, you know, what you're doing is

wrong. She was actually doing right by society.

By the social order of things. That's the way

to do it. And we can't just throw the social

order up in the air and say it has to go by the

board. No, that's how we have to live together.

It's ways we learn to live together. It's the

way that society learned to live together and

we have to learn it our way. But within that,

our hearts have to be turned toward eternity.

So we learn to live in eternity. And thus...

And thus we can say then with St. Gregory that

we can say that through Mary we learn this truth

that we have our dwelling places, our dwelling

place should move from earth to heaven. And then

following the words of St. Maximus the Confessor

who said that who said to the apostles at the

transfiguration that they moved from flesh to

spirit. We have to move in our beings from flesh

to spirit. And then finally, that we have to

acquire this longing, a longing for eternity,

a longing to live in eternity, so that... And

that longing has to kind of overwhelm the things

we do in daily life. Not that we have to give

them up, but we have to kind of do them in the

light of, in the shadow of. And we can't be Christians

if we don't do them that way, if we don't learn

to think that way, if we don't learn to act that

way and move that way. So what I think... what

this feast is telling us, is showing us, is not

just that we honor the Virgin Mother for all

that she has done, but we honor also her for

showing us the way to live in eternity. And if

we can't live in a way, if we can't live in eternity

now, then we must strive to live toward eternity.

So if we're not living in eternity, at least

let us live toward eternity. Because in that

way, we will be truly Christian. And in that

way, The only hope that is God -like, the reason

why hope is called a theological virtue is it

is the hope that is according to God. And God

exists in eternity. As Saint Maximus the Confessor

says, the reality around God is infinite and

eternal. So living in eternity means living toward

God. all times, even in the social situations

you're in, even in raising a family, even in

your job and whatever, there is something in

you oriented toward eternity and doesn't get

lost in the daily life. So this is what I think

and I pray that our Virgin Mother is telling

us, that she loves our praise, she loves to hear

us say rejoice. but she is now the source of

joy. So who are we saying rejoice to? We're not

the angel anymore. We are people living toward

eternity, trying to live in eternity. And I think

that's really the message that the Theotokos

would like to give us in the 21st century, in

2021, as we go on. So God bless you, each one.

Learn, learn, learn above all to live toward

eternity. Amen.