Speaker 1: Welcome to Hill Country Homilies. Weekly homilies from Holy Nunciation
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, Name.
Speaker 2: The Father and so I'm the Holy Spirit Lord to
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ has a seat if you like, Beloved in Christ.
Speaker 2: We gather today on the third Sunday of great Land,
Speaker 2: this blessed season of repentance and spiritual struggle, to contemplate
Speaker 2: one of the most challenging but transformative teachings of our
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus Christ. From today's Gospel reading, we have heard
Speaker 2: his solemn call, whosoever will come after me, let him
Speaker 2: deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Speaker 2: This is no gentle suggestion, is no optional aspiration. It's
Speaker 2: not limited to the particularly devout. This is the fundamental
Speaker 2: requirement of Christian discipleship. Yet in our modern world, saturated
Speaker 2: with comfort and ease and self importance, this cause often
Speaker 2: appears not merely difficult, but even confusing as we struggle
Speaker 2: to understand the words of Christ. Maybe it even appears
Speaker 2: impossible when we do understand. But yet, as we will see,
Speaker 2: Christ does not ask of us what he does not
Speaker 2: first accomplish in himself, and he does not leave us
Speaker 2: to bear our burdens alone. So as we begin to
Speaker 2: think about what Christ is asking of us when he says,
Speaker 2: deny yourself and take up your cross and follow him,
Speaker 2: let us remember this first vital point. Your cross may
Speaker 2: not be my cross, and my cross may look nothing
Speaker 2: at all like your cross. The mystery of the cross
Speaker 2: is deeply personal, but universally shared. Every soul bears a
Speaker 2: unique cross. The widow wrestling with loneliness carries a different
Speaker 2: burden than the merchant tempted by avarice. The young person
Speaker 2: battling the passions of the flesh faces trials that are
Speaker 2: very much unlike a parent who watches their children drift
Speaker 2: away from the faith. The monk in his cell struggles
Speaker 2: differently than the laborer in the marketplace. And yet, while
Speaker 2: our crosses are distinct in particular to each of us,
Speaker 2: we share a common calling. Each of us must bear
Speaker 2: our own, and this fundamental truth should teach us a
Speaker 2: profound humility and our relationship with one another. How dare
Speaker 2: we presume to judge our brother and sister, unaware of
Speaker 2: the interior of battles being waged in silence. The person
Speaker 2: who might seem harsh you could be enduring chronic pain.
Speaker 2: Or the work acquaintance who seems withdrawn may be grieving
Speaker 2: a loss we know nothing about. We have no idea
Speaker 2: what cross our brothers bury. In truth, this is why
Speaker 2: during went we pray, as instructed by Saint Evron, the
Speaker 2: syrian O Lord and master of my life, grant me
Speaker 2: to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother.
Speaker 2: But if we are all called to carry these different crosses,
Speaker 2: there must be some commonality that binds us all this command,
Speaker 2: and there is. Each cross has one thing in common,
Speaker 2: and that is Christ. In each and every cross that
Speaker 2: we are called to carry, we carry it for Christ,
Speaker 2: as did Simon of Syreen, who helped our Lord carry
Speaker 2: his cross to Golgatha. Because each of our cross is
Speaker 2: if we fail to carry them, if we choose instead
Speaker 2: to separate ourselves from God through indulgence and sin, through
Speaker 2: satisfaction of self, will we wound Christ afresh. Yet we
Speaker 2: also carry our Christs, not just for Christ, but through
Speaker 2: Christ by His love. Both at his urging, as we
Speaker 2: heard in the Gospel, but also by his grace. Blessed
Speaker 2: Augustine illuminates this mystery with profound wisdom when he writes,
Speaker 2: how hard and painful does this appear? The Lord has
Speaker 2: required that whoever will come after him deny himself. But
Speaker 2: what he commands is neither hard nor painful when he
Speaker 2: himself helps us in such ways, so the very thing
Speaker 2: he requires may be accomplished. For whatever seems hard, and
Speaker 2: what's enjoyed, Love makes easy here the comfort. In these words,
Speaker 2: it is love, the divine agape, love that poured itself
Speaker 2: out upon the cross, that transforms the impossible into the bearable,
Speaker 2: and the unbearable into the salvi effiic. Similarly, cesareus or
Speaker 2: less taught us. Love of self was the ruin of
Speaker 2: the first man. If he had not preferred himself in
Speaker 2: the wrong order, he would have been willing to be
Speaker 2: subject to God, and he would have preferred God to self.
Speaker 2: Our crosses, then, are not punishments. They're being inflicted upon
Speaker 2: us by a vengeful God. A lot of people think
Speaker 2: that they see somebody suffering tearing their cross, and they think,
Speaker 2: you know, God is punishing that person. But this is
Speaker 2: not what the cross does. Rather, the cross are these
Speaker 2: sacred instruments of our salvation, the very means by which
Speaker 2: we learn to order our love rightly, to prefer God
Speaker 2: to ourselves, the eternal to the worldly, and the soul
Speaker 2: to the body. So, if brothers and sisters we are
Speaker 2: to carry our cross, how do we do it? This
Speaker 2: is one thing to tell them do it. It's another
Speaker 2: to tell somebody how to do it. And there's not
Speaker 2: much in the scripture about that except that first part,
Speaker 2: deny yourself. It's a pretty good instruction. To take up
Speaker 2: the cross means to bear whatever is troublesome or burdensome
Speaker 2: in this life, and in bearing it faithfully, to follow
Speaker 2: Christ in the way of the Cross. When we truly
Speaker 2: follow him according to his teaching and his precepts, when
Speaker 2: we truly attempt to live as he lived and taught
Speaker 2: us to live, we will inevitably encounter resistance from those
Speaker 2: around us. Many will contradict us and stand in our way.
Speaker 2: Some will deride us for our faith. Others will actively
Speaker 2: persecute us, and not just from outside the church, where
Speaker 2: we see it. The lot from pagans or unbelievers who
Speaker 2: reject the gospel. But even those who visibly wear the
Speaker 2: title of Christian oppose many of us who choose to
Speaker 2: fitlock faithfully in Christ's way, criticizing judging that which they
Speaker 2: don't understand. You may have heard it if you talk
Speaker 2: to someone who's outside the church about the fast. Oh
Speaker 2: that's legalism, you know. Oh, that sounds like the Jewish law. No,
Speaker 2: they just don't understand what we are being asked to
Speaker 2: do or why we do it. Yet they have words
Speaker 2: to say. We're called not to yield to their falsehood
Speaker 2: or to despair at their lack of understanding. The calls
Speaker 2: us to a elegate balance, a spiritual wisdom that the
Speaker 2: Church fathers have long understood. Tolerate sinners, but don't yield
Speaker 2: to them. We must not allow apparent prosperity of the
Speaker 2: wicked to seduce us and to compromise with the truth.
Speaker 2: In our modern world, we see this in many many ways.
Speaker 2: We have a culture that tells us compromise our sexual
Speaker 2: morality because it's too hard to ask people to be chased.
Speaker 2: We have a culture that tells us that wealth and
Speaker 2: worldly status is the most important thing on this earth,
Speaker 2: even at the expense of our souls, and the subtle,
Speaker 2: not so subtle these days suggestion we can serve both
Speaker 2: God and Mammon, that is, both Christ and the false
Speaker 2: values of the world. All of these we will see
Speaker 2: and hear over and over and over, and they are
Speaker 2: utterly false. The loneliness that comes from standing firm and
Speaker 2: the faith when our Christian neighbors and challenge not just
Speaker 2: our practice, practice, but our very belief pressures us towards
Speaker 2: unfaithfulness and worldliness. That's the intent, and the daily struggle
Speaker 2: against the demons of pride, envy, greed, and self righteousness
Speaker 2: that assault us from within provide a ready excuse for
Speaker 2: people to just put down the cross and please man. Yet,
Speaker 2: in these trialses, precisely at this point where we were
Speaker 2: called to remember the encouraging words of Saint Cesirius, you
Speaker 2: will do well to despise all things for the sake
Speaker 2: of Christ, in order that you may be fit for
Speaker 2: his companionship. Our crosses are the price of following the
Speaker 2: King of kings, and the reward for burying them faithfully
Speaker 2: is communion with Him. And we must understand if we
Speaker 2: do not carry our cross, if we choose not to
Speaker 2: carry our cross. Our cross will carry us, but not
Speaker 2: in the right direction. If we refuse to carry our
Speaker 2: cross consciously, intentionally, with a willing surrender to God's providential will,
Speaker 2: our cross will carry us in a manner far more
Speaker 2: destructive and spiritually periless than if we had embraced it willingly.
Speaker 2: Saint Augustine observed with spiritual insight when I noticed that
Speaker 2: you were being slowed down in your divine purpose by
Speaker 2: your preoccupation with domestic kills, I felt that you were
Speaker 2: being carried and dragged along by your cross, rather than
Speaker 2: you are carrying it. What else does the cross mean
Speaker 2: than the mortality of this flesh. When we do not
Speaker 2: actively and willingly carry our cross, we are first passively
Speaker 2: but then actively dragged by it, enslaved by it. Our
Speaker 2: unexamined sufferings become masters over us rather than servants of
Speaker 2: our spiritual transformation. Our unresolved griefs become festering wounds that
Speaker 2: poison our souls and turn us away from God. We
Speaker 2: choose the muck of the mud over the life and
Speaker 2: the light of Christ. Clem and Alexandria warned of the
Speaker 2: great spiritual peril that follows from neglecting our calling of
Speaker 2: carrying that cross. Those who neglect good works may fail
Speaker 2: to grasp just how much the good work of God
Speaker 2: has benefited them. Hence they're less capable of praying so
Speaker 2: as to receive good things from God, and even when
Speaker 2: they receive them, they are likely unaware of what's been
Speaker 2: given them. This is a trategy of spiritual blindness and
Speaker 2: ingratitude which follows from giving or putting down the cross
Speaker 2: and giving in to the way of the world. Our
Speaker 2: crosses become for us burdens and obstacles and instruments of
Speaker 2: our destruction instead of transformative encounters to our salvation. So,
Speaker 2: my brothers and sisters of Christ, the time for half measures,
Speaker 2: for spiritual complacency, for divided arts between the things of
Speaker 2: God and the things of the world. As time has passed,
Speaker 2: our Lord calls us. Our Lord calls us to a
Speaker 2: decisive commitment to pick up that cross and to turn
Speaker 2: in our whole person towards him. Will we deny ourselves
Speaker 2: and take up the cross with faith love? Because that's
Speaker 2: one of the things you hear today. A lot of
Speaker 2: people prostance orthodox all like that. You know, save you
Speaker 2: take up your cross and follow Christ. Take up your cross,
Speaker 2: but they leave that first part off. Deny yourself, take
Speaker 2: up your cross, and follow Christ. Because if you don't
Speaker 2: do the first, you won't finish the second. You won't
Speaker 2: be carrying that cross. That cross will be carrying you
Speaker 2: across a finish line that you don't want to be
Speaker 2: carried across. Remember, your cross is the shape of your salvation,
Speaker 2: is the instrument by which we are conformed to the
Speaker 2: image of Christ. It's the narrow way that leads to life.
Speaker 2: It's the path to resurrection and eternal glory. So as
Speaker 2: we continue in this holy season of great land, let
Speaker 2: us here again with renewed commitment that called our Savior Christ,
Speaker 2: whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, take
Speaker 2: up his cross and follow me, for in doing so,
Speaker 2: in losing ourselves for his sake, we discover that we
Speaker 2: do not lose our lives, rather we find them. So
Speaker 2: may our merciful Lord grant us the courage and searching
Speaker 2: self examination, the fortitude of taking action, of first picking
Speaker 2: up and then carrying that cross, and finally the sustenance
Speaker 2: through his grace and energies to win the struggle to
Speaker 2: carry that cross to the finish and so doing to
Speaker 2: claim that great prize which Christ has already won for
Speaker 2: us and the name of the Father and the Son
Speaker 2: of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Speaker 1: Amen, thanks for listening to Hill Country homilies. For more information,
Speaker 1: visit Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church at www dot Denunciation, tx
Speaker 1: dot com, and please join us again next week