Sermons & Homilies
Around the year 271, there was a young man who lived in Lower Egypt, born to wealthy landowner parents, both of whom only then recently died, leaving the young man to care for his little sister and the upkeep of the family home. This young man went to the Divine Services one day, and while there he heard the Gospel which we have just heard. A friend, writing about this experience, says that the young man realized this passage had been read for his sake, and he immediately left the church, gave away all the land that he had inherited, and then sold his possessions, distributing the money to the poor, and saving some for his sister. This young man we know as St. Antony the Great...
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In today’s Gospel lesson, we heard how Christ comes to save a man tormented by the thousands of demons inside him. This possessed man was driven out of human society. The other Gospels report two such men, but really, there is no communion in evil. Two wicked men together are not a company. In separating themselves from God, they truly are separated from each other as well, despite seeming evidence to the contrary. In the description of the man possessed by a legion of demons, the Gospel portrays so vividly the effects of sin on man. Sin leaves a man insane, naked, and alone, a walking corpse living amongst the tombs.
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"And what is a merciful heart? It is the heart burning for the sake of all creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing…" The heart of a merciful man "burns without measure in the likeness of God." Thus St. Isaac expands upon the mercy that today’s Gospel is exhorting us to have.
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When the future Elder, Arsenie Papacioc, was asked as a soldier in his 20s what he would do if he were a general to train soldiers, he replied, “I would teach them to die, if they didn’t fear death, they wouldn’t be so cowardly. They would fight better, and win”. “I would teach them to die”. This lesson from a soldier is pertinent for us today. It is no surprise that analogies between the spiritual life and physical combat are as old as Christianity itself. Just as courage in the face of death is necessary on the front line of war, so too, is it necessary for each one of us as we engage in spiritual warfare. And it’s this unwillingness to die that we see is the ultimate downfall of the rich man in today’s Gospel.
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Today is the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, the “summer Pascha,” one of the greatest of all the Great Feasts, and a day of surpassing spiritual consolation and joy. It is called the “summer Pascha” not only because the height of its glory and the radiant splendor of its joy, but also precisely because on this day, all the divine promises of Pascha have now been fulfilled — not only in the theanthropic person of Christ, but also in the quintessentially human person of Mary, the Mother of God. Today the Queen of Heaven proves to us — beyond any shadow of doubt — that death has truly been put to death, that heaven has truly been opened to the whole human race, and that Christ our God has truly come to make even us lowly sinners into nothing less than “partakers of the divine nature” (2. Pet. 1:4), destined to come — just as she has — “unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Today, all the gifts and promises of Christ shine forth in the person of His Mother, as a pledge and a foretaste of the day on which they shall shine forth in us all.
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