Fifth Sunday of Great Lent - 2020 Fr. Lawrence Margitich

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

of the Holy Spirit. that could console you and

help you during these days. I pretty much gave

up with finding the right words and hoped only

that God would send me some kind of inspiration

through prayer. Well, some inspiration came,

but it wasn't exactly through prayer. It was

like everything else these days. It was through

the Internet. I received an email from our dear

friend, the former Vincent Rossignol monk, Maximus,

and he said that he was going to be giving a

sermon at a local church, but couldn't do it

because he couldn't go, obviously. So I said

that I would be happy to quote some of the words

that he gave us. And the first thing I want to

say is, like him, I see that, as he says here

in his homily, a couple of weeks ago, Lent would

have seemed like a very long slog, a very difficult,

weary, painful, endless trial. But now we're

at the fifth week, the last Sunday of the fast.

And we're honoring this wonderful, sublime, incredible

woman. Mary of Egypt. We've read her life this

week. We pondered in hymnography words about

her in the Canon of St. Andrew, in which she's

mentioned prominently at the end of almost every

ode. And Lent is almost over. One more week and

it will be Palm Sunday. The time went quickly

in some ways. And I'm hit. as he says here, with

the realization that I have not accomplished

or fulfilled anything spiritually that I had

hoped I would at the beginning of Lent. Of course,

if we could plan ahead, maybe things would have

been different at the beginning of Lent, considering

the circumstances, but probably not. I'm not

anywhere near where I should be in my journey

towards union with God. And this thought is stinging

when faced with this woman here. Her memory and

the gospel we just read about the woman that

comes and is weeping at Jesus' feet. Weeping

because she knows that he loves her. And can

forgive her sins. Take that burden away. And

she pours ointment. Expensive ointment. And apparently

she was a prostitute. Like Mary. And she poured

it on his feet. And she wiped his feet. This

is what our Lenten journey should have been like.

That kind of love for God. But it wasn't. I take

some consolation. In the fact. Not just because.

I'm thoughtless and lazy and prideful and think

that, well, God will forgive me anyway. It's

okay. I probably do think that. No, I take consolation

also in the fact that hearing this gospel about

the disciples following Jesus, they're not walking

ahead of him as would have been customary. They

were following him and they were going, he had

set his face toward Jerusalem. This gospel isn't

just there to tell us, oh, next. The week after

is going to be Holy Week. You know, we should

get to church. Obviously, we can't. This gospel

is there to tell us that the cross is the center

of our life. This cross is to tell us that our

Lenten journey now is over. Now we're journeying

with Christ, and we're going to live these days

in a very different way. We started with being

cast out of paradise, and now here we are, almost

at Golgotha. A horrible place to be. But a place

in which absolute despair, suffering, pain, loss,

being crushed is turned into victory because

that's how God uses things. God never works out

of power and strength, said Metropolitan Anthony,

but only out of weakness. Because that's the

way we are. So I take some consolation. that

although I have failed in the fast, God has patience

with us. He knows our circumstances, our situation.

I also take some consolation in the fact that

the two of the closest disciples, James and John,

who had been with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration,

which I see up there in the corner, the height

of the church. along with Peter, come to Jesus

with the most inappropriate question. Peter had

already tried that. Get behind me, Satan. Peter

tried to tell Jesus, the Romans crucify Messiah

pretenders all the time, Lord. You're not the

pretender. You are the Son of God, the Christ,

the King of Israel. So no, you can't be crucified.

Peter tried that. James and John didn't seem

to learn. So I take consolation that though I

am clueless too with my Christian life, those

that had seen miracles, that had seen Jesus transfigured

in glory, still did not understand. So we don't

understand either until we live it. Two more

things I want to say, not just about, oh. The

difficulty of keeping the Lenten fast, that's

self -evident. But in that difficulty is the

very answer we need. Is the way God has planned

for us. What do I mean by that? James and John

asked Jesus a question. And Jesus is patient.

He knows what they're going to ask. Just like

a parent knows when a child's going to ask something

very stupid. He already knows. But we're patient,

and it's okay. They ask, can we sit on the right

hand and the left? When you are in glory. After

we marched into Jerusalem. After the Romans have

been crushed. After you're enthroned as the king.

We want to be on your right hand. because we're

close to you. They even had their mother come

to ask him that. Little did they know that Jesus'

throne outside the gates of Jerusalem would not

be one of marble and gold with a crown of gems.

His throne would be the cross, and on his right

hand and left hand would be two other crosses.

That's the road we're on now. The road of difficulty.

The road of self -denial. But the road in which

God's grace is always present. God's strength

is changing our weakness into something else.

His grace is manifest in our weakness. We know

that all this can be taken away from us. In Russia,

in 1910, holy Russia, nobody would have thought,

except maybe Lenin and Stalin and their madness

and Trotsky, that in 10 years, bishops, priests

would be taken away and shot, sent to gulags.

The faithful people sent to work camp in gulags.

Churches shut and blown up. 10 years. Could it

happen here? God only knows. But all this could

be taken away from us. And so we live the way

of the cross, the way outside of Jerusalem right

now. Here's what our dear friend, Father Maximus,

says. He says, what is it that we need to learn

today about St. Mary of Egypt in the desert and

St. Zosimas in the desert and the cross and the

weight of the cross? That Jesus tells us today.

And also. I don't have time to preach about it.

But Jesus' final words in this gospel. Without

which we can't understand any of it. To be first

or last. We have to be the servant of all. As

Jesus is. Who gave his life as a ransom to many.

Then we understand this. That our Lenten effort.

Our life effort. What we should be busy. doing

as Christians is to acquire union with God in

love, in spirit, and in truth. That's the final

destiny for each one of us, because we've been

created in the image of God, unless we forgot

the lesson of Sunday of Orthodoxy already. And

above all, says Father Maximus, Our orthodoxy,

our right belief, our right worship, our right

practice, our right glorification must be grounded

in the inner realization and not merely held

up by our external habits and practices, which

are good and which are inspired by God and which

are given to us for our salvation, but we spend

too much time on the external, looking around.

For whatever is external to ourselves, whatever

is material, can be taken away. The right to

assemble in church can be denied us. Our very

bodies can be destroyed. But Jesus has warned

us to fear not them that kill the body, for they

are not able to kill the soul, but are not able

to kill the soul. But rather, fear him which

is able to destroy. both soul and body, in hell.

Our orthodoxy, our devotion to Christ, which

is lived out most perfectly in the Divine Liturgy

and the Holy Eucharist, yes. But what we bring

to it is that brokenness and that weakness and

the love of that woman that was in the Gospel,

not the foolishness of James and John. An interior

orthodoxy of warmth of the heart. Which is the

center of our being. When we memorize something,

a psalm. Many people are trying to memorize Psalm

15 right now, I understand. When you have it

memorized, what do you say? I've learned it by

heart. You don't say I've learned it by mind.

The heart is the center. The depth of our being.

it's there that our Orthodox practice has to

be well -grounded, well -planted, and watered

with the teachings of the Church, the moral life

of the Church, the grace of God which comes from

that. So, to finish, Fr. Maximus says, let's

fight the temptation, and it will be. So fight

it with all your heart, the temptation to be

discouraged or anxious or angry about what is

happening today or distracted from the one thing

needful. We must not succumb to fear or to false

knowledge. We must fight the temptation to brood

or fixate on the social upheaval that we are

going through. We must resist the temptation

to take our attention, our mind's eye, of the

center, capital C, of our spiritual life. Capital

C, Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, Christ

victorious over all the powers and principalities,

Christ in St. Zosimas, Christ in St. Mary of

Egypt, who through the ministries and incarnate

ministries of the Theotokos led her not only

to the expunging of all sins, but to the ascension,

the raising up to the angelic life while on earth,

showing us that we can be transfigured. The possibilities

of the image of God in which we are made, being

made very clear. For ye have not received the

spirit of bondage to fear, but ye have received

the spirit of adoption whereby we cry. Abba,

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

Spirit, be all glory, honor, and worship.