Eph. 2: 14-22
Luke 13: 10-17

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

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Fred and Lucinda had their eight-year-old nephew Leroy to stay for the summer. To entertain him, in the evenings they played a card game called Memory which consisted of cards arranged face down. Those playing took turns, trying to turn over matching pairs of cards; if they got a match, they kept them and went again. The person with the most matches was the winner. As they family played, Fred remarked, "My strategy is that I focus on two or three specific pairs that I’m trying to get, and after I get them, I pick out two or three more." Lucinda said, "My strategy is that I start on the cards in the corners, and each turn I work my way towards the center, trying to remember all the cards." Fred asked, “What about you, Leroy, what’s your strategy?” Leroy replied, “When y’all ain’t lookin’ I peak under the cards."

Cleary, Leroy had no problem breaking the rules, unlike this morning’s synagogue ruler who insisted that the keeping of rules take precedence over mercy.

In this morning’s Gospel reading we are presented with a woman crippled by her affliction of being bent over double. There are, however, many ways of being crippled, and the physical is only one of them. In response to Christ’s healing of the woman the ruler of the synagogue declared with real indignation. “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day”. With these words, we come to realize that there are two afflicted people in this reading: The woman, afflicted by what was probably Marie Strumpell disease, and the ruler of the synagogue, who was crippled by a spirit of legalism.

God intended the Sabbath to be a day of rest and worship, but the religious leaders of Jesus’ day had turned this blessing into a burden. Because of their legalistic approach to God’s commands, the religious leaders had developed an elaborate written code of all the actions that were prohibited on the Sabbath, including any type of work. They considered healing to be part of a doctor’s line of work, and practicing one’s vocation on the Sabbath was forbidden. Therefore, according to their religious regulations, Jesus’ healing of the woman that day, the Sabbath, was a breaking of the law.

Fred and Lucinda were awakened at 3 o'clock in the morning by loud pounding on their kitchen door. Fred got up and went to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, asked while swaying, “Got a push?” Angrily, Fred replied, "Not a chance, it’s three o'clock in the morning," and slammed the door and went back up to bed.

Lucinda asked, "Well, who was that?" Fred said, “Just some drunk guy wanting a push. I told him to go away." Lucinda reprimanded Fred, saying, "Don't you remember, about three months ago, when we broke down and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!"

Appropriately chastened, Fred got back out of bed, went to the kitchen door, opened it, and called out, "Hello. Are you still there?" "Yes," came back the answer from out in the pouring rain. Fred asked, "Do you still need a push?" The man called out eagerly, "Yes! Please!" So Fred asked, “I can’t see you; where are you?” The man out in the pouring rain replied, "Over here! On the swing!"

One can only imagine what Fred’s response was. The outraged response of this morning’s synagogue ruler, blinded by his need to have rules be rigidly obeyed, showed that he was unable to recognize the miracle of healing that had been effected right before his eyes. We say to ourselves that WE would have immediately recognized the miracle of the healing that had just occurred. But then, how come we don’t see the miracles that God performs all around us right now? Someone is healed of their chronic, angry attitude, and instead of rejoicing we wonder, “What’s he up to?” Someone’s arrogance is turned into friendliness, and we wonder “What does he want?” Someone’s negativity becomes hopefulness, and we wait for him to return to being his old negative self. Although we might not like to admit it, we… like the synagogue ruler… view others with our own set of rigid rules.

The synagogue leader was in bondage to rules. He was so busy being an official “religiously good” person, keeping all of the rules, that he had ceased to be a compassionate and loving person… which, ironically, is what the keeping of those rules was intended to bring him to! In God’s great scheme of things people always come before rules… always!

Jesus’ actions toward the leader of the synagogue challenge us to ponder our own bondage to rules: How often does the fact that people break a rule that we have set for them limit our ability to love them and treat them with care and respect? In short, the question for us is: How do we view others?

Having a predetermined view of others prevents us from perceiving the miracles that God is doing with them, right here in our midst. It is not only during Great Lent that we are called by the Church to re-examine our inner life and the attitudes that feed it; Christmas Lent is also a time of repentance and reflection, and repentance is about change.

A little boy used to escape his bedroom after being punished by crawling out of his bedroom window and down an old fruit tree to the ground. One day, he overheard his father saying that he inten ded on cutting down that old, useless tree the next day. That afternoon, the boy bought a bushel of apples, and spent that night tying the apples to the barren branches. From his bedroom the next morning he heard his father shouting to his mother in the kitchen, “I can’t believe it! It’s a miracle! That old tree hasn’t yielded any fruit for years, and now it’s covered with apples!” Pleased with himself, the boy smiled… until he heard his father say, “And the thing of it is that it’s a pear tree!”

Change is not about coming up with the same answers to life’s questions. Let us take these next 3 weeks of this Lenten season to change, to sweep the dirt out of our mind’s cave, so that we might make ourselves presentable for the God Who Comes, for this Emmanuel, this God-with-Us.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

November 27th

The Holy Great Martyr James the Persian (the Sawn-Asunder) was born in the fourth century into a pious Christian family, both wealthy and illustrious. His wife was also a Christian, and the couple raised their children in piety, inspiring in them a love for prayer and the Holy Scriptures. James occupied a high position at the court of the Persian emperor Izdegerd (399-420) and his successor Barakhranes (420-438). But on one of the military campaigns James, seduced by the emperor's beneficence, was afraid to acknowledge himself a Christian, and so he offered sacrifice to idols with the emperor.

Learning of this, James' mother and wife wrote him a letter, in which they rebuked him and urged him to repent. Receiving the letter, James realized the gravity of his sin. Faced with the horror of being cut off not only from his family, but also from God Himself, he began to weep loudly, imploring the Lord for forgiveness.

His fellow-soldiers, hearing him pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, reported this to the emperor. Under interrogation, St. James bravely confessed his faith in the one True God. No amount of urging by the emperor could make him renounce Christ. The emperor then ordered the saint to be put to death.

They began to cut off his fingers and his toes one by one, then his hands and his feet, and then his arms and legs. During the prolonged torture St. James offered prayers of thanksgiving to the Lord, Who had granted him the possibility of redemption from his sins by enduring these terrible torments. Finally, the martyr was beheaded. Christians gathered up the pieces of his body and buried them with great reverence.

Eph. 2: 4-10
Luke 12: 16-21

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

Glory to Jesus Christ!

On New Year’s day Clem called Fred on the phone. “Hey, Fred,” Clem began, “Happy New Years! Did you make any resolutions?” Fred proudly replied, “I did: To make Lucinda as happy as I can all year." Fred then put Lucinda on the line and Clem asked, “Lucinda, did you make any New Year’s resolution?” “I did,” she replied. Clem asked, “Well, what was it?” Lucinda replied, “To make sure that Fred keeps his New Year’s resolution."

One might say that Lucinda has a self-centered interest in Fred’s resolution. This morning’s parable also talks about self-centeredness, particularly about the self-centered accumulation of goods and the impoverished inner life that such an orientation forms. Quite plainly, this Gospel parable is about the sinful mindset of hoarding. When one is possessed by hoarding one expresses the belief that God can’t be trusted to take care of us. To such a mindset, gratitude is not possible.

This coming Thursday is our national holiday of Thanksgiving, the one day of the year when the people of our nation give thanks to God for taking care of us. Unfortunately, our national expression of thanksgiving seems to be confined to only one day out of the year. For all of the other days, our culture teaches us to be greedy, to always be hungry for “more”. I would hazard a guess and say that even we here this morning, to one degree or another, believe our culture’s Gospel of Greed, a gospel that says that it is automatically good to always want more and to acquire more. It is to such a mindset that Jesus Christ speaks this morning.

So why would Jesus Christ suggest that the desire for “more” be considered disordered? He classifies it as “disordered” because such an orientation is, in the end, the worst thing that we can indulge in for our soul’s happiness. There is a thirst at the core of our being… the thirst to be in relationship with God… which is a part of the ordinary impulses of all human beings. There are many impulses that are part and parcel of being a human being, such as hunger, the sexual desire, the need to rest. When these impulses become disordered, we Orthodox refer to them as “passions”: At such times, the desire for hunger becomes gluttony, the desire for sex becomes addiction, the desire for rest becomes laziness and sloth. When our thirst for God becomes disordered it becomes acquisitiveness, which our culture re-brands as becoming a “Collector”.

It is this “dis-orderedness” that Christ is addressing this morning. Human impulses become disordered when we allow them to become more important to us than our relationship with God. Like the man in the parable, we seem to think that if we want something then there is nothing wrong in our pursuing of it. What Christ poses to us this morning is the question: What if everything that I “want” is not what God wants for me?
It has been said that a miser is one who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. This morning’s parable is not actually about “things”, but about the desperate miserliness of self-centeredness, and this follows upon last Sunday’s Gospel reading about the Good Samaritan, which was also about the issue of self-centeredness versus other-centeredness.
So, we might ask, how was this morning’s rich man self-centered, since the parable doesn’t say anything about him being wicked, or evil, or unjust? In Christ’s little teaching tale this morning, the rich man congratulates himself, as if the wind, the rain, and the sun that God sent had nothing to do with his success. You don’t hear him say: “Well, I have so much money now, and the Lord has been so good to me, I think I’ll give something to that family down the street who don’t have anything.” There is no thought of either giving thanks to God for the wind, rain, sun, and crops, or of sharing his bounty with others. His obliviousness to God and to others shows that he has become a hostage to his self-centeredness. And holding us hostage is the work of the passions.

To paraphrase Jesus Christ in this morning’s parable, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Christ’s point this morning is that a life lived without a relationship to God is, ultimately, a life without treasure, no matter how many “things” might have been collected in that life.

A community of ducks waddled off to duck church one Sunday to hear their duck preacher. After the service began the duck preacher spoke eloquently of how God had given the ducks wings with which to fly. He pounded the pulpit with his wings and proclaimed, “With these wings, there is nowhere we ducks can not go! There is no God-given task we ducks cannot accomplish! With these wings we no longer need to just walk through life: We can soar high in the sky!”

Shouts of “Amen!” were quacked throughout the duck congregation. The duck preacher concluded his message by exclaiming again, “With our wings we can fly through life! WE......CAN.....FLY!¨

Ducks all around quacked out loud “AMENS!” Every duck loved the service. In fact all the ducks that were present commented on what a wonderfully convicting message they had heard from their duck preacher.... and then they left the church and waddled home.

So, by the end of this Nativity Lent, will we waddle or will we fly? Will this Lenten season entertain us, or change us? We are also coming up to our nation’s feast of Thanksgiving this week, the ONE day when our entire nation gives thanks to God for his blessings. This morning’s Gospel reading should cause us to wonder: Does “blessings” mean getting everything that we can lay our hands on?

There’s a difference between “having enough”, and hoarding. The man in today’s reading was preoccupied with hoarding. What is “enough”? Does “enough” include everything and anything that I might want? And am I so preoccupied with having “more” that I am not able to be thankful for what I do have, which is, after all, the whole point of Thanksgiving?

Have you ever wondered why opportunity knocks once, but temptation bangs on the door constantly? Today’s parable should give us pause to consider the role that the temptation to hoard, the temptation of self-centeredness, and ingratitude play in our life. And then, on Thursday, let us give thanks to God for his merciful generosity in allowing us one more day to come to our senses to value him more than any “thing” else.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

November 20th

Saint Gregory the Decapolite was born in the city of Isaurian Decapolis (ten cities) in the eighth century. From his childhood he loved the temple of God and church services. He read the Holy Scripture constantly and with reverence.

In order to avoid the marriage which his parents had intended for him, he secretly left home. He spent all his life wandering: he was in Constantinople, Rome, Corinth, and he pursued asceticism for a certain while on Olympos. St. Gregory preached the Word of God everywhere, denouncing the Iconoclast heresy, strengthening the faith and fortitude of the Orthodox, whom the heretics in those times oppressed, tortured and imprisoned.

Through his ascetic effort and prayer, St. Gregory acquired the gifts of prophecy and wonderworking. Having attained purity of heart, he was granted to hear angelic singing in praise of the Holy Trinity. To better contend against the Iconoclast heresy, St. Gregory left the monastery of St. Menas where he had labored for a long while, and he went again to Constantinople. At the capital, a grievous illness undermined his strength, and he departed to the Lord in the year 816.

Saint Proclus, Archbishop of Constantinople, from his early years devoted all his time to prayer and the study of Holy Scripture. The Lord granted him the great good fortune to be a disciple of St. John Chrysostom (November 13), who at first ordained him as a deacon, and then to the holy priesthood. He witnessed the appearance of the Apostle Paul to St. John Chrysostom. St. Proclus received from his teacher a profound understanding of Holy Scripture, and learned to elucidate his thoughts in a polished form.

After the exile and death of St. John Chrysostom, the holy Patriarch of Constantinople Sisinius (426-427) consecrated St. Proclus as bishop of the city of Kyzikos, but under the influence of Nestorian heretics he was expelled by his flock there.

St. Proclus then returned to the capital and preached the Word of God in the churches of Constantinople, strengthening listeners in the Orthodox Faith and denouncing the impiety of the heretics. He once preached a sermon before Nestorius in which he fearlessly defended the title "Theotokos" in speaking of the holy Virgin. Upon the death of the Patriarch St. Sisinius, St. Proclus was chosen to take his place. Having thus been made Patriarch of Constantinople, he guided the Church over the course of twelve years (434-447). By the efforts of St. Proclus, the relics of St. John Chrysostom were transferred from Comana to Constantinople in the time of the holy emperor St. Theodosius II (408-450).

When St. Proclus was Patriarch, the Empire suffered destructive earthquakes, lasting for several months. At Bithynia, in the Hellespont, and in Phrygia cities were devastated, rivers disappeared from the face of the earth, and terrible flooding occurred in previously dry places. The people of Constantinoplecame out of the city with the patriarch and emperor at their head and offered prayers for an end to the unprecedented calamities.

During one prayer service, a boy from the crowd was snatched up into the air by an unseen force and carried up to such a height that he was no longer to be seen by human eyes. Then, whole and unharmed, the child was lowered to the ground and he reported that he heard and he saw the angels glorifying God singing: "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal." All the people began to sing this Trisagion Prayer, adding to it the refrain, "Have mercy on us!" Then the earthquakes stopped. The Orthodox Church sings still this prayer at divine services to this very day.

The Constantinople flock esteemed their Patriarch for his ascetic life, for his concern about the downtrodden, and for his preaching. Many works of the saint have survived to the present day. Best known are his discourses against the Nestorians, two tracts of the saint in praise of the Mother of God, and four tracts on the Nativity of Christ, setting forth the Orthodox teaching about the Incarnation of the Son of God. The activity of the holy patriarch in establishing decorum in all the church affairs gained him universal esteem. Surrounded by love and respect, St. Proclus departed to the Lord after serving as Patriarch for twenty years.

Gal. 6: 11-18
Luke 10: 25-37

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

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Fred and Lucinda were attending a marriage seminar on communication, and the instructor told them that it was essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other. He asked Fred, “What is your wife’s favorite flower?” Fred leaned towards Lucinda, touched her arm gently, and, proud that he knew the right answer, said, “Pillsbury All-Purpose, right?”

Perhaps if every good deed that we did was immediately rewarded we would find it a bit more profitable to be a Christian. But, as we all know, it’s just not that easy. In fact, sometimes, we are tempted to just follow the letter of the law and no more… but in doing so we act more like lawyers than like Christians.

The lawyer at the beginning of this morning’s parable asks, “What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” In the discussion with Christ about goodness, what the man is actually asking Christ is, “What is the least that I have to do in order to be saved?” When he is told by Jesus that one’s goodness is manifested by loving God and neighbor, the lawyer, in true lawyerly fashion, then asks Jesus, “And who IS my neighbor?” In response to this question, Christ tells the parable that has become known as that of “The Good Samaritan”.

In the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Jesus is asked the question: "Which is the greatest commandment in the law?" Jesus gave the same answer there as he gave to this morning’s lawyer: Love God. Love your neighbor. Jesus then states that all of the law hangs upon these two commandments. This means that love for God and love for our neighbor is what all of our spiritual practices should produce.

In the cases of the priest and the Levite in this morning’s parable, their supposed “goodness” failed to produce compassion for others, resulting in their viewing the man by the side of the road, and his needs, with indifference, in much the same way that Dives viewed Lazarus at his gate: They simply didn’t want to get involved. According to Christ’s equation, the lack of concern for the man in the ditch is proof of the lack of love for God, no matter how many religious observances you might keep.

Fred, Joe, and Paul were talking in a bar. Joe and Paul were boasting about the amount of control that they had over their wives, while Fred just quietly drank his drink. Finally, Joe asked, “Fred, what about you? What kind of control do you have over Lucinda?” Fred replied, “Well, just the other night my wife came to me on her hands and knees.” The other two men were amazed. And then Fred continued, “She said: ‘Get out from under that bed and fight like a man!’”

No matter how we might boast about ourselves, it is how we live out our lives, our behavior, which others read. What kind of sermon are we Orthodox Christians here in Rincon to those who watch us? Does our supposedly “Christian” behavior speak of concern for others? And the opposite of concern is not hatred, but indifference. It is because too many of Christ’s followers are indifferent and keep crossing the road to avoid others that there is so much misery in this world.
The Priest and the Levite kept the letter of the law and performed all of their Temple duties. And yet, they were not made better people because of their religious practices. It is entirely possible that, even though we come to church regularly, we, too, might be neglecting our spiritual life and growth. Has our involvement with church and Orthodoxy… and God… resulted in concern for others? When we see someone in some kind of need, how do we respond? Do we try to address that need, or simply assume that someone else will do it and pass by the person and their need? Do we justify to ourselves our indifference with “I’m already too busy. I don’t have the time.”
“I don’t have time”… is that really true? There are times when each of us has a bit of the Priest and the Levite within us, when we noy only don’t want to get involved, but also don’t want to be honest with ourselves about our non-involvement. The fact is that if we are indifferent, then we have stopped being a Christian because we have turned away from Christ’s commandment to love one another.
The following are laws which are actually still on the books: Young girls in Wheeler, Mississippi are not allowed to walk a tightrope, unless it is in a church; in Blackwater, Kentucky, tickling a woman under her chin with a feather duster while in a church service carries a penalty of $10 and one day in jail; in Honey Creek, Iowa, no one is permitted to carry a slingshot to church, except for the police; no one in Leecreek, Arkansas, is permitted to attend church in a red-colored garment.
Clearly, at least in the places just cited, following the letter of the law does not guarantee growth in wisdom. In the same way, do our Lenten fasts result in concern for others? In this morning’s Gospel parable Jesus shows us the danger of observing spiritual practices and yet not attaining the end to which they are supposed to lead. What a terrible condemnation of our lives it will be if, after all of the services we have attended, if after all of the sermons we have endured, our lives have produced a resounding… indifference.
Christ ends this morning Gospel reading with a question personally addressed to anyone who calls themselves his disciple:
“’So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?’ The lawyer said, ‘He who showed mercy on him.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’”

Glory to Jesus Christ!

November 13th

Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, one of the Three Hierarchs [January 30], was born at Antioch in about the year 347 into the family of a military-commander. His father, Secundus, died soon after the birth of his son. His mother, Anthusa, widowed at twenty years of age, did not seek to remarry but rather devoted all her efforts to the raising of her son in Christian piety. The youth studied under the finest philosophers and rhetoricians. But, scorning the vain disciplines of pagan knowledge, the future hierarch turned himself to the profound study of Holy Scripture and prayerful contemplation. St. Meletius, Bishop of Antioch (February 12), loved John like a son, guided him in the Faith, and in the year 367 baptized him.

After three years John was made a church reader. Later on, when St. Meletius had been sent off into exile by the emperor Valens in the year 372, John and Theodore (afterwards Bishop of Mopsuestia) studied under the experienced instructors of ascetic life, the presbyters Flavian and Diodorus of Tarsus. The highly refined Diodorus had particular influence upon the youth. When John's mother died, he accepted monasticism, which he called the "true philosophy." Soon John and his friend Basil were being considered as candidates for the episcopal office, and the friends decided to withdraw into the wilderness to avoid this. But St. John, while evading the episcopal rank out of humility, secretly assisted in Basil's consecration.

During this period St. John wrote his "Six Discourses on the Priesthood", a great work of Orthodox pastoral theology. The saint spent four years in the toils of wilderness life, living the ascetic life under the guidance of an experienced spiritual guide. And here he wrote three books entitled, "Against the Opponents of Those Attracted to the Monastic Life", and a collection entitled, "A Comparison of the Monk with the Emperor" (also known as "Comparison of Imperial Power, Wealth and Eminence, with the True and Christian Wisdom-Loving Monastic Life"), both works which are marked by a profound reflection of the worthiness of the monastic vocation.

For two years, the saint lived in a solitary cave in complete silence. But the saint was obliged to return to Antioch to recover his health. In the year 381 St. Meletius, the Bishop of Antioch, ordained him deacon. The years following were devoted to work on new theological writings: "Concerning Providence" ("To the Ascetic Stagirios"), "Book Concerning Virginity," "To a Young Widow" (2 discourses), and the "Book of St. Babylos and Against Julian and the Pagans."

In the year 386 St. John was ordained presbyter by Bishop Flavian of Antioch. St. John was a splendid preacher, and for his rare talent with God-inspired words he received from his flock the title, the "Golden-Mouthed" ("Chrysostom"). For twelve years the saint preached in church, usually twice a week, but sometimes daily, deeply stirring the hearts of his listeners.

In his pastoral zeal to provide Christians with a better understanding of Holy Scripture, St. John employed hermeneutics, an interpretation and analysis of the Word of God (i.e. exegesis"). Among his exegetical works are commentaries on entire books of the Holy Scripture (Genesis, the Psalter, the Gospels of Matthew and John, the Epistles of the Apostle Paul), and also many homilies on individual texts of the Holy Bible, but also instructions on the Feastdays, laudations on the Saints, and also apologetic (i.e. defensive) homilies (against Anomoeans, Judaizers and pagans). St. John as presbyter zealously fulfilled the command of caring for the needy. Under St. John, the Antiochian Church provided sustenance each day to as many as 3,000 virgins and widows, not including in this number the shut-ins, wanderers and the sick.

At the beginning of Great Lent in 388 the saint began his commentary on the Book of Genesis. Over the forty-day period he preached 32 homilies. During Passion week he spoke about the Betrayal and about the Cross, and during the Paschal Bright Week his parishioners were daily instructed by his pastoral discourse. His exegesis on the Book of Genesis was concluded only at the end of October (388). At Pascha in the following year the saint began his examination of the Gospel of John, and towards the end of the year 389 he took up the Gospel of Matthew. In the year 391 the Antioch Christians listened to his commentary on the Epistles of the holy Apostle Paul to the Romans and to the Corinthians. In 393 he addressed the Epistles to the Galatians, the Ephesians, Timothy, Titus and the Psalms. In his homily on the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. John denounced a schism in Antioch, "I tell you and I witness before you, that to tear asunder the Church means nothing less than to fall into heresy. The Church is the house of the Heavenly Father, One Body and One Spirit."

The fame of the holy preacher grew, and in the year 397 with the death of Archbishop Nectarius of Constantinople, successor to St. Gregory the Theologian, St. John Chrysostom was summoned from Antioch, and elected to the Constantinople throne. At the capital, the holy archpastor was not able to preach as often as he had at Antioch. Many matters awaited the saint's attention, and he began with the most important -- with the spiritual perfection of the priesthood. He himself was the best example of this. The financial means apportioned for the archbishop were channelled by the saint into the upkeep of several hospices for the sick and two hostels for pilgrims. The archpastor fasted strictly and ate very little food, and he refused invitations to meals because of his delicate stomach.

The saint's zeal in spreading the Christian Faith extended not only to the inhabitants of Constantinople, but also to Thrace to include Slavs and Goths, and to Asia Minor and the Pontine region. He established a bishop for the Bosphorus Church in the Crimea. St. John sent off zealous missionaries to Phoenicia, to Persia, and to the Scythians, to convert pagans to Christ. He also wrote letters to Syria to bring back the Marcionites into the Church, and he accomplished this. Preserving the unity of the Church, the saint would not permit a powerful Gothic military commander, who wanted the emperor to reward his bravery in battle, to open an Arian church at Constantinople. The saint exerted much effort in enhancing the splendor of the church services: he compiled a Liturgy, he introduced antiphonal singing for the all-night Vigil, and he wrote several prayers for the rite of anointing the sick with oil.

The saintly hierarch denounced the dissolute morals of people in the capital, especially at the imperial court, irrespective of person. When the empress Eudoxia connived to confiscate the last properties of the widow and children of a disgraced dignitary, the saint rose to their defense. The arrogant empress did not concede and nursed a grudge against the archpastor. The hatred of Eudoxia against the saint blazed forth anew when malefactors told her that apparently the saint had her particularly in mind in his sermon on women of vanity. A court was convened composed of hierarchs, who earlier had been justly condemned by Chrysostom: Theophilus of Alexandria, Bishop Severian of Gabala, who shortly before had been banished from the capital because of improprieties, and others.

This court of judgement declared St. John deposed, and that he be executed for his insult to the empress. The emperor decided on exile instead of execution. An angry crowd surged at the church, resolved to defend their pastor. The saint, in order to avoid a riot, gave himself into the hands of the authorities. That very night at Constantinople there was an earthquake. The terrified Eudoxia urgently requested the emperor to bring the saint back, and promptly sent a letter to the banished pastor, beseeching him to return. Once more, in the capital church, the saint praised the Lord in a short talk, "For All His Ways".

The slanderers fled to Alexandria. But after only two months a new denunciation provoked the wrath of Eudoxia. In March of the year 404 an unjust Council gathered, decreeing the exile of St. John. Upon his removal from the capital, a fire reduced the temple of Hagia Sophia to ashes and also the Senate building. Devastating barbarian incursions soon followed, and in October 404 Eudoxia died. Even pagans saw in these events heavenly chastisement for the unjust judgement against the saint of God.

In Armenia, the saint strove all the more to encourage his spiritual children. In numerous letters (245 are preserved) to bishops in Asia, Africa, Europe and particularly to his friends in Constantinople, St. John consoled the suffering, guiding and giving support to his followers. In the winter of 406 St. John was confined to his bed with sickness, but his enemies were not to be appeased. From the capital came orders to transfer St. John to desolate Pitius in Abkhazia. Worn out by sickness, under military escort for three months in the rain and frost, the saint made his final journey. At Comana, his powers failed him.

At the crypt of St. Basiliscus (May 22), comforted by a vision of the martyr ("Despair not, brother John! Tomorrow we shall be together"), and having received the Holy Mysteries, the hierarch fell asleep in the Lord on September 14, 407 with the words, "Glory to God for all things!" The holy relics of St. John Chrysostom were solemnly transferred to Constantinople in the year 438. The disciple of St. John, the venerable Isidore Pelusium (February 4), wrote: "The house of David is grown strong, and the house of Saul enfeebled. He is victor over the storms of life, and is entered into Heavenly repose."

The memory of St. John Chrysostom is also celebrated on January 27 and January 30 .

Gal. 2: 16-20
Luke 8: 41-56

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

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Fred overheard Lucinda on the phone who was breathlessly passing along to her sister some choice gossip. When she hung up the phone, Fred lectured, “You know, you shouldn’t repeat stories about others. That makes you a gossip." Lucinda snapped back, "I’m not a gossip! I’m a news analyst!"

There are times when we create our own confusion by refusing to admit to ourselves that the way that we look at things is not right. In Gospel passage after Gospel passage Jesus Christ tries to get us to see that we are, often, the source of our own misery.
In this morning’s Gospel reading St. Luke presents us with the man Jairus who pleads with Jesus to come and heal his young daughter who is in danger of dying. As Jesus is heading towards Jairus’ home a woman, who had suffered from an ailment for 12 years, who so believes in Jesus’ power to heal her, reaches out as Jesus goes by, touches his garment, and is healed of her long-standing affliction. This woman wasn’t just reaching out with her hand; she was also reaching out with her heart. And it was the state of her heart that caught Jesus’ attention.
We have all received those annoying chain letters which warn of dire consequences should we not participate in the chain letter. Here’s one that’s a little different. “Dear Parent: This is not a normal chain letter. At the bottom of this letter you will find a list of 8 names and addresses. Please send your teenager to the person at the top of the list. Then add your name to the bottom of the list and send this letter out to 7 others. In approximately 2 weeks you will receive 1024 teenagers at your home; simply choose the one that you like. WARNING! One parent broke this chain and got back his own teenager!”
The young sometimes don’t understand how life works and can, annoyingly, refuse an instruction to the contrary. But in regard to Faith, the same can be said of those of us who are older. We often mistakenly think that faith is what we feel, but Faith is a funny thing: It is entirely God’s gift to us, and entirely up to us to exercise it. And it is precisely when we are in the midst of our troubles that we find it hardest to exercise Faith, to reach out and touch Jesus.
When we are afflicted with trouble, all too often we insist on seeing ourselves as powerless, as victims. The fact is that, sometimes, we just cannot seem to realize that all we have to do is to let go of our misery. We humans are perverse in that, sometimes, we are never so happy as when we are making ourselves miserable. Is it not just the slightest bit possible that we make our own misery by the way that we view our troubles?

Fred was walking along the beach and kicking sand when he uncovered a bottle. He picked it up, pulled out the cork, and out came a full-blown genie, who said, “Because you have freed me you are granted 3 wishes, but be advised that with each wish the person you hate the most will receive double what you ask for. Now what’s your first wish?” Fred thought for a moment, and then replied, “I would like 10 million dollars!” “Granted,” the genie said, “And the person you hate the most has now received 20 million dollars. What’s your second wish?” Fred thought a bit longer this time, and finally said, “I want 10 Jaguars, old ones and new ones!” “Granted,” the genie replied, “And the person you hate the most has now received 20 Jaguars, old ones and new ones. What’s your final wish?” Fred thought a long time, thinking about what the person he hated the most would receive, and finally replied, “I would like you to beat me half to death.”

Why is it that we insist on revisiting our miseries, re-tasting how much we hate so-and-so, reliving what he did to me so long ago? Why are we blind to being our misery’s own creator?

As never before we are connected all around the world through instant messaging, texting, email, cell-phones, etc… and yet, we have never been more disconnected from reality: Not only does the driver almost run over the woman crossing the street because he is on the cell-phone, but the woman herself blindly steps out into oncoming traffic because, while she is walking, she is so absorbed in texting that she is unaware of where her feet are taking her. In the same way, we can become so absorbed in revisiting the feeling of our troubles that we become oblivious to the dark places in our heart that that absorption is taking us.

Yes, there are troubles in our life. Yes, things get difficult. But the woman in this morning’s Gospel passage can teach us something. In the midst of her troubles… troubles that had gone on for 12 years… what does she do? Does she just whine, or wallow in feeling sorry for herself, or let herself become a victim of the trouble? No: She reaches out from within the trouble! She reaches out to Jesus Christ… and it is that very act of reaching out that contributes to her healing.

How about if we gave self-pity a much smaller part in our spiritual life? How about if we changed how we deal with bad news? How about if we stopped whining about our troubles? And we can begin by taking a moment this afternoon and asking ourselves: Who are we most like in today’s Gospel reading… one of the crowd who bumps into Jesus, with no intention of that contact with Jesus making a difference in our life… or like this morning’s woman whose faith in Jesus was greater than her misery, and who reached out to touch him?

Glory to Jesus Christ!

November 6th

Saint Paul the Confessor, Archbishop of Constantinople, was chosen to the patriarchal throne after the death of Patriarch Alexander (+ 340), when the Arian heresy had again flared up. Many of the Arians were present at the Council which selected the new Archbishop of Constantinople. They revolted in opposition to the choice of St. Paul, but the Orthodox at the Council were in the majority.

The emperor Constantius, ruling over the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, was an Arian. He was not in Constantinople for the election of the Archbishop, and so it took place without his consent. Upon his return, he convened a council which illegally deposed St. Paul, and the emperor banished him from the capital. In place of the saint they elevated Eusebius of Nicomedia, an impious heretic. Archbishop Paul withdrew to Rome, where other Orthodox bishops were also banished by Eusebius.

Eusebius did not rule the Church of Constantinople for long. When he died, St. Paul returned to Constantinople, and was greeted by his flock with love. But Constantius exiled the saint a second time, and so he returned to Rome. The Western emperor Constans wrote a harsh letter to his Eastern co-ruler, which he sent to Constantinople along with the holy exiled archpastor. The threats worked, and St. Paul was reinstated upon the archepiscopal throne.

But soon the pious emperor Constans, a defender of the Orthodox, was treacherously murdered during a palace coup. They again banished St. Paul from Constantinople and this time sent him off in exile to Armenia, to the city of Cucusus, where he endured a martyr's death.

When the Archbishop was celebrating the Divine Liturgy, Arians rushed upon him by force and strangled him with his own omophorion. This occurred in the year 350. In 381, the holy Emperor Theodosius the Great solemnly transferred the relics of St. Paul the Confessor from Cucusus to Constantinople. In 1326, the relics of St. Paul were transferred to Venice.

St. Athanasius the Great, a contemporary of St. Paul, writes briefly about his exiles, "St. Paul the first time was sent by Constantine to Pontus, the second time he was fettered with chains by Constantius, and then he was locked up in Mesopotamian Syngara and from there moved to Emesus, and the fourth time to Cappadocian Cucusus in the Taurian wilderness."