LIVING ORTHODOX

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

Brothers and sisters, a blessed Lord’s day to you. This Sunday’s Gospel reading is on the parable of the king who sent out invitations to his son’s wedding banquet. We can, if we look at this as the Holy Fathers instruct, see how this parable speaks to Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as His bride. 

Dear ones, forgive me as I’ll be using a theological term today, a wonderful word, “hypostases,” which means a person (in the concrete sense). Why is this important? Because the Holy Fathers use this word to communicate the concrete reality of the three persons of the Holy Trinity, and in particularly, the tangible reality of the incarnation of our Lord. The union of the unseen with the seen. The divine, with the mundane. Earth and Heaven. This is how Christ is the sole mediator between God and man, because He is fully God and fully man. He, in this parable, highlights how we are to be joined to Him for He is the banquet which is offered every Sunday. This is why He said, “do this in memory of me”— anamnesis: to make present again. 

We are to be born again, in water and the spirit, and we know this to mean in Baptism, in which the waters are mystically changed into the waters of the Jordan. We are united in the very same water in which Christ was baptized. In Baptism, we put on Christ; we have the wondrous wedding garment: a garment of light, of salvation. 

Beloved, those who were invited but were unworthy and killed the messengers of the king are often said to be the Jews, but this can also apply to us. For if we fall into pride, in ourselves, in our nationality and history, we too can elevate this to the level of a false God. Much like the Jews, who no longer worship the concrete reality of God; they now worship a philosophy, an idea. This may also be said of schismatics and heretics. We must learn that to preserve our wedding garment, in order that we not be bound and cast out by the angels, that this means living the Gospels. How? How do we apply these hard sayings you may ask. By reading the lives of saints, following their examples, as they lived the Gospel in action! They lived Orthodoxy! 

We must remember that our pride, opinions, and comforts cannot be equated with God. We must put Him first by serving Him, by sharing our faith, and this starts with living it. Not fighting to prove its superiority like many Protestants do, but in applying the Gospel and being patient and long-suffering. Reading the lives of saints, the Holy Fathers, and, most of all, reading the Gospel in light of these and our Holy tradition.

Doing so, you may, by the grace of God, preserve your Baptismal garment and enter into the eternal banquet. 

Amen. 

Fr. Mikhail