This week's sermon in advance...

Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee
January 28 2007
Homily

February 19th is coming and the time for preparation is at hand.

Pure Monday, the beginning of the Lenten fast arrives on that day and in anticipation and hope the Church calls us to prepare even now with the most important change of all, the diet of the heart and soul.

It’s not that the food part of the fasting doesn’t matter. In fact in our consumer culture where everything seems to exist to cater to whatever appetite we have the food part of Lent is extraordinarily important. We Americans are almost always on the edge of gluttony and frequently leap over it with abandon. But since we often never travel far to see other places and other circumstances we hardly have an idea of how materially rich our life actually is. Often our fasting is a feast to the hungry of the world. What we consider asceticism is wealth beyond measure to many.

So the Church calls us to prepare and remember that to whom much is given much is required and the measure of our life at the end of time is not in the accumulation but in the generosity. The nakedness and hunger of the poor, and not our status, will be the standard of our judgement. And what we share with others will be the measure of our reward.

Prepare your kitchens now as the Sundays ahead call us to leave milk and meat behind. Store up humble food to aid your prayers and resolve to the greatest extent possible not to make excuses. All must fast unless they are children under the age of seven or those who for valid medical reason must take food with medicine or have a condition like diabetes which requires a unique diet. If you are asked to be a guest in the home of a person who is not Orthodox for the sake of humility you should eat whatever is prepared and not make a show of your fast.

There are no illusions about the ease of this holy work. In a glutted culture with messages of consumption all around us the temptations will sometimes be fierce. Cravings will emerge. You may not have been to McDonald’s in years and suddenly it will seem like a very good, even irresistible, thing. You may want to give in for a moment in the promise that you’ll do double tomorrow for the lapse of today. Rationalizations are temptations that appeal not to baser instincts, even thought they draw on them, but rather to our power to think and negotiate. At times they seem wise, but the truth is they are still the voice of an inner spoiled child screaming at the grocery store because they want that candy bar by the checkout.

The truth is you’ll need to draw on the resources of prayer, the Liturgy, the Scriptures and some good old fashioned gumption to fast well in the days ahead. And a hundred times a day you may ask yourself “Why am I doing this?” The answer is in our Gospel reading.

Many Christians believe that the real us is a spiritual intellectual being somehow housed in our body. How many times have we been to funerals where the preacher talks about how the “real” person is not with us anymore but in heaven and the “shell” of the body is here with us. People mean well by believing this, it allows them to avoid having to face the struggles that come with having a body that suffers from the brokenness common to us all and facing the reality that it must die. But its not Christian to see ourselves as a soul or a mind temporarily dwelling in a body.

We are a unity of soul, mind, and body that together make up the entirety of what it means to be human. Our humanity consists of all the parts of who we are in union with each other. Death is not the departure of the real us from the temporary shelter of our body but the unnatural separation of our soul and our consciousness from its natural union with the body. A soul without a body is incomplete and body without a soul expresses that fundamental loss of humanity by dying. One day that brokenness will be reversed in resurrection and our humanity will be completely restored as our soul, our mind, and our body will be reattached to each other and restored so that we can be fully human again in a way that we can only imagine in our current brokenness.

The point of this all is that what we do with our bodies affects our soul and our mind and all who we are. When our bodies grow ill all of us is affected. When we commit sins with our bodies the whole of our being is damaged and sometimes destroyed. When we discipline ourselves by refusing to give in to cravings and challenge the whims that come from that part of who we are that is broken physicality we begin to purify all of who we are, body, mind, and soul, and bring it in ways small and large towards its true destiny, being like Christ.

Humility in our consumption is part and parcel of a humility of soul and mind. How you choose to face this eating part of this fast will be directly related to the grace and joy and peace that will emerge at its completion. Fast well and you will, even in the struggle, begin to know a kind of grace and love that those who cut corners will not experience. Be humble in what you put in your body and you will know in a very real way the humility of the Publican in our Gospel but also the salvation he found as well. Resolve in these coming weeks to lay aside the whims and whinings of this present society and you will indeed have moments of great struggle but also see a bit of heaven as well and the joy that made the Saints blaze like fire.

A few weeks to go and the fast begins. Clean the cupboards out. Make your home ready. Tell the kids why they’re not going to have all those treats and why this matter. Remind yourself. Prepare yourself. Embrace the joyous struggle. Know that the humble will be, in God’s good time, exalted, the penitent forgiven, and those who engage the struggles and challenges will be given the victor’s crown.