Speaker 1: Welcome to Hill Country Homilies. Weekly homilies from Holy Annunciation
Speaker 1: Orthodox Church in Liberty Hill, Texas. Holy Annunciation is an
Speaker 1: old calendar Orthodox church sharing the faith of the Apostles
Speaker 1: and the love of Christ with all who seek His truth. Now,
Speaker 1: let's listen to this week's homily and the.
Speaker 2: Glory to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Have a seat if you like, you know, in our
Speaker 3: modern culture, in our modern culture and even reaching back
Speaker 3: some generations, there's always been a special set of wisdom,
Speaker 3: if you will, that people pull out and apply specifically
Speaker 3: to matters of business, and particularly to matters of deal
Speaker 3: making and negotiations. Indeed, particularly in the last few decades,
Speaker 3: there's an explosion of books giving advice on business and negotiation.
Speaker 3: One of the most famous of those books you've probably
Speaker 3: heard of. It was written by none other than Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: entitled The.
Speaker 2: Art of the Deal.
Speaker 3: And in the Art of the Deal, Trump says a
Speaker 3: few things about negotiation. He says, for example, leverage is key.
Speaker 3: Don't make deals without it, rather use it to enhance
Speaker 3: your position.
Speaker 2: And later he says what.
Speaker 3: Economic theory tells us as the basis of any transaction
Speaker 3: when he says deals work best when each side gets
Speaker 3: something that it wants from the other. Now, this is
Speaker 3: the essence of free market economic theory. Two otherwise unrelated
Speaker 3: parties enter into an agreement because one has something that
Speaker 3: the other wants and vice versa. One has a product
Speaker 3: or property, the other has money. They make the exchange,
Speaker 3: and the happiness of each is increased because they've exchanged
Speaker 3: something that they were willing to part with for something
Speaker 3: that they desired. Now I find these things interesting because
Speaker 3: my undergraduate degree was in business economics and we studied
Speaker 3: this transactional approach that the free market theory requires. It's
Speaker 3: said that we can apply economic theory to every human decision.
Speaker 2: In fact, Ludwig von.
Speaker 3: Mesis, who is probably the foremost free market economy economists
Speaker 3: of our times, entitled his Treatise on Economics Human Action
Speaker 3: to indicate.
Speaker 2: That all that we do is driven by economic utility.
Speaker 3: It's driven by this transactional evaluation as we seek to
Speaker 3: maximize our personal utility. And in one class discussion I'll
Speaker 3: Never Forget, the professor asked the class, what do you
Speaker 3: call it? When one person's individual utility is increased by
Speaker 3: the presence of another person and vice versa, and the
Speaker 3: whole class sat there with looks on their face, until
Speaker 3: the professor looked at us and answer his own questions, said,
Speaker 3: we call that love even the greatest of emotions. In
Speaker 3: our modern time, both in the world in an academia
Speaker 3: is being reduced to a transaction or an exchange. But
Speaker 3: in our gospel reading today we hear a very different
Speaker 3: approach to human relationships and a very different ideal of love.
Speaker 3: In today's Gospel, we hear the words of Christ to
Speaker 3: the apostles. They are preparing to be sent out into
Speaker 3: the fields where there would be doubters, mockers.
Speaker 2: And to be sure of persecutors.
Speaker 3: They would soon face people who want nothing to do
Speaker 3: with them or their message, and who would most prefer
Speaker 3: to seize and to kill their teacher. And Christ, with
Speaker 3: his words, both prepares them for this eventuality and guides
Speaker 3: us in understanding the true manner in which an orthodox
Speaker 3: Christian must relate to other humans, both those that love
Speaker 3: us and those that hate us. Christ begins by essentially
Speaker 3: stating what we call today the Golden rule, as you would.
Speaker 2: That men should do to you, do ye also.
Speaker 3: To them likewise, But then he directs them in what
Speaker 3: this means in a manner that is very contrary to
Speaker 3: the egoistic and self focused approach of man.
Speaker 2: He calls them that same way, to that same way of.
Speaker 3: Living that Jeremiah recorded in his prophecy, writing that the
Speaker 3: Lord says, this is my covenant, and I will that
Speaker 3: I will make with the house of Israel. I will
Speaker 3: surely put my laws into their mind and write them.
Speaker 2: On their hearts. What Christ calls.
Speaker 3: Us to is not the ways of man, but the
Speaker 3: ways of God written onto our hearts.
Speaker 2: Love ye your.
Speaker 3: Enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping nothing again, and
Speaker 3: your reward shall be great. And in doing so Christ
Speaker 3: decimates the transactional approach to human relationships. For if you love,
Speaker 3: then which love you, what thank have ye for? If
Speaker 3: you do for sinners, also love those well. Then if
Speaker 3: you do good to those who do good to you,
Speaker 3: what thank have ye for sinners also do the same.
Speaker 3: And if you lend to those from whom you hope
Speaker 3: to receive, what thank heav ye for sinners, also lend
Speaker 3: to sinners to receive as much. Again, every example that
Speaker 3: Christ gives is an example that is contrary to our
Speaker 3: fallen human nature, but fully emblematic of the nature of
Speaker 3: the divine, and whose image we have been formed, but
Speaker 3: whose like not, but whose likeness we were deprived by
Speaker 3: the fault. And Christ, in these words of the apostles
Speaker 3: and to us, calls our fallen human nature back to
Speaker 3: the divine, where hate is met by love, where the
Speaker 3: need is fulfilled without expectation of return. And the promise
Speaker 3: he makes to us, should we do this is more
Speaker 3: than we could ever expect. Your reward shall be great,
Speaker 3: and ye shall be the children of the highest and
Speaker 3: more than this. Christ makes clear that there is no
Speaker 3: credit due to us when we act as the gentiles
Speaker 3: of the sinners of the time and love and give
Speaker 3: only to those who love us or who we expect
Speaker 3: to profit from their repayment. For He says, if you
Speaker 3: do good to them who do good to you, what
Speaker 3: thanks you?
Speaker 2: And say?
Speaker 3: Indeed, says Christ condemns this type of giving. He condemns
Speaker 3: this type of love as unprofitable to us. Saint Gregory
Speaker 3: of Nissa goes even further, saying that when we engage
Speaker 3: in this kind of transactional approach to our fellow man,
Speaker 3: we're more like a criminal. He says, man ought to
Speaker 3: shun that anxiety with which he seeks from the poor
Speaker 3: man an increase of his own money in gold, extracting
Speaker 3: a profit of baron metals.
Speaker 2: Rather, if a man.
Speaker 3: Should call for the harsh calculation of interest, theft or homicide,
Speaker 3: he will not air for what is the difference whether
Speaker 3: a man, by digging digging under a wall, gainst property
Speaker 3: or possesses unlawfully by the charging of interest. Note the
Speaker 3: import of Saint Gregory's work. Even if a transaction were legal,
Speaker 3: even if it has the consent of both the parties,
Speaker 3: it can still be to the condemination of one or both,
Speaker 3: particularly where one party seeks to take advantage of the other. Now,
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters, I don't think it takes too much
Speaker 3: imagination to see how this reduction of human relationships to
Speaker 3: simple transactional exchanges should be of as much or more
Speaker 3: concerned today than at any time in the past. In
Speaker 3: our consumer driven relationships often come about from a transactional perspective,
Speaker 3: what can this person do for me? We see this
Speaker 3: even at the youngest ages, as children or the parents
Speaker 3: of children may seek out friends of friends or play
Speaker 3: dates for their kids that they think can benefit them
Speaker 3: socially or even sometimes financially, and we take that same
Speaker 3: approach into school, into our careers, and I think we
Speaker 3: can all think of examples even where that same approach
Speaker 3: of seeking mutual benefit has gone all the way into
Speaker 3: romantic relationships, family relationships, and even marriage. In fact, not
Speaker 3: to get off track, but what the West has done
Speaker 3: to marriage is a testament to this unholy focus on
Speaker 3: transactional relationships. Unlike the Orthodox marriage ceremony, which recognizes and
Speaker 3: blesses a marriage ordained by God for the salvation of
Speaker 3: husband and wife, in the West, the marriage ceremony is
Speaker 3: a trans action in itself.
Speaker 2: It's a recitation of vowels and promises. It's even called
Speaker 2: a marriage.
Speaker 3: Contract at times, as if we conduce, as if we
Speaker 3: can reduce God's ordained lifetime matrimony to a.
Speaker 2: Legal obligation God forbid.
Speaker 3: That Christ calls us to in this teaching is the
Speaker 3: love that the world scoffs at, that it dismisses as naive,
Speaker 3: or that marks one who offers such love is allowing
Speaker 3: myself to be taken advantage of.
Speaker 2: But what Christ is saying is that if we actually.
Speaker 3: Love the way that God loves, we will be scoffed at.
Speaker 2: We will be dismissed.
Speaker 3: Loving, we may even be taken of advantage of. But
Speaker 3: we are also in that same moment loving our brother
Speaker 3: as our father in heaven loves us. And we are
Speaker 3: doing unto others precisely how we pray that others would
Speaker 3: do unto us if we were in a time of need.
Speaker 3: In this modern time, Today's Gospel challenges us to love
Speaker 3: family members, colleagues, and neighbors without expecting anything in return,
Speaker 3: caring for elderly parents, supporting struggling friends, helping coworkers without
Speaker 3: seeking or expecting two different things, without seeking or expecting
Speaker 3: personal gain, and even more calls us to love those
Speaker 3: who have wronged us, to offer our coat at risk
Speaker 3: of being cold, to offer the other cheek at risk
Speaker 3: of being struck, to love holy, knowing that we may
Speaker 3: be rejected, just as God's own creation rejected him. It
Speaker 3: is this unconditional love that marks us as children of God. So,
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters, as we depart today, let us embrace
Speaker 3: this greatest counsel of the Lord to do unto others
Speaker 3: as we would have them do unto us. But let
Speaker 3: us not do soach passively. Let us actively love. Let
Speaker 3: us seek out those who are in pain and offer
Speaker 3: them relief. Let us seek out those in hunger and
Speaker 3: offer them nourishment. Those without means and offer them resources
Speaker 3: with no expectation of a thank you, much less repayment
Speaker 3: or recognition. And may we all embody the mercy of
Speaker 3: our Father, that we two may be called children of
Speaker 3: the Most High, in the name of the Father and
Speaker 3: the San Ho Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Hill Country homilies. For more information,
Speaker 1: visit Holy Nunciation Orthodox Church at www dot Denunciation, tx
Speaker 1: dot com, and please join us again next week.