The Second Coming

   The Holy Orthodox Church remembers our Lord’s Second Coming on this Sunday each year—the Sunday that begins Meatfare Week.

The Gospel reading begins: ““When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.”

The words from this first verse of today’s Gospel that always capture my attention are, and ALL the holy angels. 

There is no scriptural reference detailing the total number of angels in heaven.  St. Paul goes so far as to say, But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels. (Heb 12:22)  In short, there are so very many of them that perhaps only God Himself could number them!

The next phrase in today’s Gospel says, All the nations will be gathered before Him.  How many people is this?  Given today’s statistics, it is nearly 8.3 billion.  All of those angels.  All of us.  All gathered before the Judge, before one Man.  He returns to do what St. Matthew describes next: He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 

What identifies the difference between a sheep and a goat?

A sheep is one who “does” without taking note of their good deeds.  They feed, they give drink, they shelter those in need.  They clothe those who are naked.  They visit the sick and imprisoned.  The goats also take no note of their “inactions” in not doing for others.  And the fascinating part of the account is that neither sheep nor goat sees their connection with the Lord.  Both ask the same question: When did we see You in need, Lord?  The difference is in the Lord’s answer.  You did (or did not) do it for Me when you did (or did not) do it for….  Those separated as sheep are surprised to find that it was in fact Jesus for Whom they were providing.  Those goats are surprised to find that it was in fact Jesus Whom they were ignoring.  Each group does what they do because of their character (or lack thereof).  Wise virgins wait.  Good servants serve.  Sheep also serve.  The difference compared with nature is that we are free to choose to be a sheep.  We are free to choose to be a goat!

Who are those who benefit from the goodness of the sheep?  The least of My brethren.  The Greek word used for ‘brethren’ carries a connection between people as being joined by a common womb. It is yet another view of the Parable of the Good Samaritan—everyone is my neighbor, and all of us are one people, we have a common Father, we are all brothers and sisters.

Minimally at every Divine Liturgy, but also for most of us within our own daily prayer rule, we pray the Nicene Creed, within which are these words: And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.  We echo the words of today’s Gospel reading in our daily prayers!  Do we call to mind Matthew 25 when we pray the Creed?  If not, why not?  If not, do we look for the Second Coming as being a certain event, one that looms on the human (and my personal) horizon?

This is What it Means to be a Father

   Or a mother, for that matter.

One of the definitions we have for God is, God is Love.  And we know that God is One in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  So when God the Son sets out to explain to His creation (mankind) how he should understand God, what description can He offer to help us understand that which is beyond our ability to comprehend?

He gifts to us the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

In the Gospel of St. Luke we find the scribes and the Pharisees grumbling.  This Man receives sinners and eats with them.  This is a judgmental attack toward God for His being loving and merciful!

And so our Lord attempts to lovingly bring them under His wing by offering not one, not two, but three parables.

First there is the parable of the man who has a hundred sheep, and he leaves the ninety-nine to go and find the one that is lost.

Second there is the parable of the lost coin and the fervent effort the woman makes to search for and find the lost coin, and of her rejoicing when she recovers it!

Continuing through the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, we finally we get to what this author considers to be the ultimate parable given us by our Lord, that of the Prodigal Son.

You see, the son was exceedingly cruel.  Metropolitan Anthony says this about him:  When he says, ‘Father, give me my part of your inheritance,’ do the words not mean, ‘I can’t wait until your death...It is now that I want to reap the fruits of your life… Let us come to an agreement—for me you are dead.  Give me what belongs to me, or what would belong to me after your death, and I will go and live the life I have chosen.’

Isn’t this emblematic of our own behavior toward our Heavenly Father?  While we are with Him, we receive all we need from Him.  But we feel limited by His rules.  He expects integrity and truth from us.  He expects us to understand the true meaning of love from Him.  But too often, these expectations toward us are too much for us.  We take His gifts, then turn and use them not as He would intend, but only to profit ourselves, without any returns to Him.

I for one can’t imagine agreeing to the young man’s request, knowing his inexperience and the danger to which it would expose him.  But this Father is wiser than I am.  His caving to the request indeed exposes the young man to many things not immediately to his benefit.  But spending all, having to find a means of living, seeing oneself envying the swine for the food he is providing to them, all of this brings him to a core-level change, he came to himself.

Please note that related to this revelation is the image of fasting.  He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, but no one gave him anything.

It is this hunger that changes him, and immediately he considers his Father’s own servants, and brings him to the point of generating his fervent confession.  Father, I have sinned!  He offers no excuse.  He knows this is all on him!

Now, see the love of the Father, Who seemingly unceasingly stayed fervently looking for His son’s return.  Jesus tells us that the Father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

The Father spoke no words to the son.  He spoke only to the servants.  Bring a robe.  Put a ring on his finger.  Put sandals on his feet.  Kill the fatted calf.  Let us celebrate!

As Metropolitan Anthony suggested the son’s motive of considering his Father as dead, so now the Father reverses this perspective.  For this My son was dead, and is alive again.

Lord, instill within us a heartfelt desire to be faithful children, worthy of the love You show us each and every day of our lives.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Giving Thanks Properly

 God, I thank You that I am not like other men.  While it is a fact that David in the Spirit wrote, It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High (Ps 92:1), such a virtuous encouragement to offer heartfelt thanks to the Lord does not provide license to turn the praise into judgment of another.

But this is human nature, isn’t it?  If I set out to assess my spiritual state in life, is my analysis founded on Scripture and the instructions of my Lord, or does my judgment of self get run comparing myself to someone else?

We’ve all at least heard such things, and if truth be told, we’ve most likely all participated in such things.  “Yes, I did thus-and-such wrong, BUT others have done so much worse!”  In short, we ‘justify’ ourselves not on an absolute scale (“Sin is sin!”) but on a relativistic scale (“I’m not as bad as……”)

Consider for a moment the Pharisee’s words.  I thank You that I am not like other men.  What does this mean analytically to the one making the ‘prayer’?  The clear implication is that only I am without sin.  How dangerous a position is that to take with the Just Judge?

And what kinds of other men are  we talking about? 

1) Extortioners:  My memory is not so good, but just last week we heard from a man whom our Lord called by name who said this: If I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.  In these words, Zacchaeus is admitting to extorting money, and he is offering the repentant response of giving back four times what he stole unrighteously.

2) The Unjust:  Recall the account of St. Moses who lived a life of crime, but was saved by his repentance.

3) Adulterers:  We have the example of St. Mary Magdalene, who by repentance saw the Lord expel seven demons from her, and also St. Mary of Egypt who although lived a life of sin in her youth received great spiritual strength in her old age by repentance and fasting.

4) Tax collectors:  Remember, St. Matthew was a tax collector.  Also today’s Publican, who went to his house justified is in this group.  The Greek word for justified here is dikaioo, and it carries the meaning to render as innocent!

And so those being judged by the Pharisee as unworthy of God’s love and attention are among the first to find His favor—when they also find repentance.

The Lord is so very careful to spend so much time, so many words, describing the Pharisee with at least 40 words in his description.  What does our Lord say about the Publican?  Twenty-nine words total, but seven of greatest import—God, be merciful to me, a sinner!

Today, the Church gifts to us the entry point, the gate, if you will, to enter into the season of the Fast.  How does She open this gate to us?  By gently teaching us, as taught by St. Theophan, to focus on that one and only thing I have been given the ability by my Lord to be able to change.

Myself!

David said in Ps 51, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.  Lord, I beseech You, put that Spirit to right myself into my heart.  And teach me to pray fervently and continuously, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!