The Gospel of Luke 15:1-10

At that time, the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

The Gospel pericope for today comes from the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 15 and verses 1-10 and is story of the Lost Sheep.  This is a wonderful pastoral story of the shepherd who leaves his flock, to go after the one sheep that has gone astray.  Sounds simple on the surface, the shepherd needs to care for all of his sheep if he is to make a profit, but what is the spiritual application of the particular passage?

Once again we see the Pharisees and scribes getting on their high horse, not unlike what I see today, and complain that Jesus is meeting with, and eating with, sinners.  Having a meal with a sinner would have defiled pious Jews and so this was avoided, and obviously, pointed out by them when others do it.  But this is what Jesus was all about.

According to the spiritual interpretation of this passage by the fathers, the hundred sheep represent all of rational creation and the one represents humanity that has gone astray.  Christ sees the value in the one sheep, humanity, so much so that He is willing to come and save it.  The other ninety-nine are the righteous who remain faithful to God.  There is also an incarnational representation here according to the fathers.  The ninety-nine represent the angels in heaven and Christ came to earth to save the one lost sheep, humanity.

What is being said here, and I think something we all need to be reminded of from time to time, is that “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” Matthew 9:12.  The Church is the hospital for those who need to become healthy.  In a previous essay I wrote about the Good Samaritan and in that parable the Inn that the man was brought to is symbolic of the Church where he was cared for.  Not necessarily in a physical way, but in a spiritual way.

Christians are not perfect, far from it, and we all need the salve that the Church has to offer.  When Saint Francis founded his order there were three things that he wanted them to do, heal the wounded, bind up those who are bruised, and to reclaim the erring.  This is what the Church needs to be involved in, not politics, but healing, healing the wounds of the culture that is in desperate need of healing.

I recently had the opportunity to catch part of the new Ken Burns documentary about the Roosevelts and I have to say that I was impressed and I need to watch the entire film very soon.  If you have not seen the film, it is an autobiographical film about Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor as they become more prominent in American history.

I was truly amazed by all that they were able to accomplish.  But what amazed me the most was the sheer determination that Franklin Roosevelt had to not let the fact that he was paralyzed stop him from reaching his goals in his life.  I was unaware of the amount of pain he was in on a daily basis especially when he would try and walk with the braces that he wore on his legs.  But with all of that he did not let it stop him, he continued to push forward and became President of the United States.

When I was eighteen I enlisted in the United States Army and went off to Fort Leanordwood, Missouri for basic training.  This was the most difficult thing I had ever done in my life up to that point.  We were pushed beyond the breaking point physically, mentally, and spiritually but in the end I was much better for it.  I can remember the drill sergeants constantly pushing us to do just one more push up or to run just a few more steps. Motivation and determination were the key to fulfilling the mission of completing basic training.

I think the life of a Christian is the same way, we need motivation and determination to complete the mission.  So very often I come into contact with people who tell of their spiritual struggles, let me just say that is you are not struggling spiritually you are not working hard enough at it.  We talk about what it is that makes this a struggle and how to overcome it and soon they are back on track.  Living an authentically Christian life in this world today is not easy, but then again it is not supposed to be easy.

I have written in the past about forgiveness and how we are to forgive all who have wronged  us whether or not they accept the forgiveness we are offering.  Being able to forgive those who have harmed us is one of the most difficult parts of being a Christian, but we have to do it not only for the person we are forgiving but for ourselves.  We have to push through the difficulty of it for the sake of our own spiritual health.  In the end we will be happy that we were able to do this.

My parish in Southbridge Massachusetts celebrated its 90^th Anniversary of ministry.  We took time to reflect on the history of the Church community and the sacrifice of the founders of their time, talent, and treasure to build the community that we have today.  They were all immigrants who came to America in search of a better life for their families.  Many of them worked at the American Optical Company and would climb the hill to the site of the church after working long hours, and literally build the church with their own hands.  The determination of the founders to build this community was evident at our celebration.  They did not give up and neither can we.

How often do we give up on something just because it is going to be difficult to accomplish?  What would have happened if Franklin Roosevelt gave up when his legs hurt and he just curled up somewhere and gave into his disability?  We cannot give up.  We need to find the determination to push through all of the difficulties in our lives and complete the mission, no matter what it is.

It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how often a read a passage of Scripture there is always something new to learn from it.  Sometimes I take Scripture for granted and think I have gleaned everything from it and then, wham, something hits me right in the face and that was true with the parable of the Good Samaritan that was read on the first Sunday of the Nativity Fast. (Luke 10:25-37)

We know the story, a man gets robbed and beaten and is left on the side of the road.  A priest and a Levite pass by, changing the sides of the road while doing so.  Next comes a Samaritan, a man despised, and he takes action.  He helps the man right where we is, but then he loads him on his own beast and takes him to an inn where he pays the inn keeper to nurse him back to health.  He tells the inn keeper that he will reimburse him for all of his expenses when he returns.

I the sermon I preached on this Sunday I mentioned that it was no mistake that Jesus singled out the priest and Levite in the story.  These two men are the ones that one would expect to the help the poor soul on the side of the road but chose not to.  One commentator on this passage suggests that titles and positions are meaningless to God when good deeds do not go along with them.  St. Cyril of Alexandria speaks about it this way, “The dignity of the priesthood means nothing unless he also excels in deeds.”  The priest should have stopped to help the man, but he did not.

The story begins with a lawyer asking what He must do to gain eternal life.  Jesus asks him what the law says and he responds with love of God and love of neighbor.  This is the essence of the Gospel.  But then the lawyer asks Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” and Jesus responds with the parable.  In the end the Samaritan is the one who is the neighbor to the man but he is also an image of Christ.

The Samaritans were despised by the Jews and so it was no mistake that Jesus used a Samaritan in this story, which was kind of in their face, to show them how they should live.  The Samaritan “came down” to help the man when no one else would.

During coffee hour after church, someone asked me if the person who was beat up was a Samaritan and perhaps that is why the others would not help him and why the Samaritan did.  My response was we do not know and that the ethnicity of the man was left out of the story to show that it does not matter who or what the person is we MUST love them and help them when they are in need.

There are two other spiritual aspects to this story that should be investigated.

Jerusalem is a place of peace that is symbolic of communion with God.  However, Jerico was a place that was famous for sin.  The man was going from Jerusalem to Jerico and fell among thieves.  This is symbolic of our life as we move away from communion with God and move towards the life of sin.  We fall among thieves, those who try to rob us of our spiritual life, the world, the cares of this world that we feel are more important than our spiritual life.  All of the “earthly cares of life” that we are to lay aside.  We must be on guard against this.

Everything in Scripture has a meaning, each word is chosen for a reason and for a purpose so a look at the bandages, wine, and oil is necessary.  These are sacramental images for the garment of baptism that delivers us from the wounds of sin.  The oil is symbolic of the oil of chrismation which brings new life in the Holy Spirit.  The wine is the communion of the body and Blood of Christ that brings us to eternal life.  The beast of animal that the Samaritan put the man on is Christ bearing our sins in His own body and the inn is the Church, the place where the love of Christ and spiritual healing comes from.

The Church needs to be a place of healing and restoration and the Church people need to be the ones to bring this about.  Not for financial gain, but for the mission of the Church and for our own salvation.  It does not need to be any more complicated than just getting it done.

On the 16^th of November the Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Matthew.  Matthew was the son of Alphaeus and was originally called Levi.  He was a tax collector by profession and therefore not well liked by his countrymen.  Matthew is an example of the power of transformation that Christ brings when we decide that we are to follow Him.

Like some of the other Apostles, Matthew was called by Jesus with the simple invitation to “follow Me.”  I have mentioned before that we tend to make things complicated but if we follow the example of the Lord we simple invite people by asking them to follow us or, as was used by Jesus when calling Andrew, “come and see.”  It does not have to be any more complicated than that.

Matthew was sitting in the custom house by the entrance gate to the city when Jesus passed by and Jesus asked Matthew to follow Him.  Notice that Jesus did not command him to follow but simply placed the invitation in front of Matthew and he took it.  I get the impression that Jesus did this a kind of an “over the shoulder” remark as He passed by, but the point is that this was simple invitation to have his life transformed.

The verses from the Vesper service tells his story:

The Word who had no beginning called you from the ranks of publicans to be His disciple, O Matthew, and urged you to follow Him in order to share in the kingdom He promised. The, O blessed one, you left all things, renouncing trouble and confusion, and you followed Him with a sure step. Now, O eye-witness of our God, you are filled with the ineffable vision of Him. Pray to Him to save and enlighten our souls.

Matthew is the best example of the transforming power of the Gospel.  He was a tax collector, and a rather well off man as tax collectors usually were.  By all accounts he was a cheat, as tax collectors often were.  He lived a life that was full of everything he wanted.  But there was one thing missing, his life was on a collision course of destruction.  He was so mired in his own sin that he could not see it, but Jesus did, and he gave him a way out as He does for all of us.

The Gospel is an invitation to “come and see” and to “follow Him” the true master of our lives.  There are tens of thousands of self-help books on the market that promise this or that if you just buy this book.  I can promise you that the only one being helped by those books are the people who wrote them!  The Gospel is transformative, Matthew experienced the living Gospel in the person of Jesus Christ, we have the opportunity to experience the living Gospel through His Church and her Sacramental life.  All we have to do is “come and see.”

But I will warn you, following the Gospel is not easy.  We will be required to change our lives and the way we do business.  Matthew realized that his life was incompatible with the Gospel message and he had to allow himself to be transformed.  We will be required to do the same.  We will have to cast off the old person in order to put on the new, and that might be difficult, but He will help us all we need do is take His hand and He will lead us along the right path.

Following Jesus will not change us in an instant, it will take time.  Many years ago, when it was discovered that smoking was bad for us, there were many commercials on television talking about our lungs and how after we stop smoking, they start to change from black back to pink.  This took time, years in fact, to reverse the damage that had been done.  Our lives are the same way but once we make the decision to become a follower our lives will start to be transformed.

This time of preparation, this time of Advent, should be used to allow the Gospel to form, inform, and transform our lives and we, like Matthew will be able to renounce “trouble and confusion” and “follow Him with a sure step.”  All we have to do is make the decision to do it and except His daily invitation to us to “follow him.”  Will it be easy, no but it will be the best decision we have ever made.

With these three simple words, Come and see, Jesus called his Apostles to come and see what a life changing experience following Him would be.  They set out on a journey that would change their lives in ways that they could not imagine.  Simple fisherman, tax collectors and other men and women, followed Jesus as he raised the dead, healed the sick, chased out demons and they were with Him at the last supper.

These same three words apply to us as we begin the Nativity fast in preparation for the coming of the Christ child.  We need to come and see, come and see that He has to offer us and how He can change our lives.  It is not a change that takes place in an instant; it is gradual change that comes over time, time or prayer and time spent with Him.

Do not lose sight of what this season is about, it is not about parties and shopping, it is about your relationship with Jesus, which is the “reason for the season.”  Parties and shopping have their place but they cannot be the central focus of this time that is set aside for our preparation.

It will be difficult to slow down during this period where the world wants us to be busy.  The world wants us to stand in line to buy the latest thing that in six months or less, we will forget we even have it.  The world wants our focus to be on the material things of life while the Church asks us to slow down, and bring the gift of ourselves and what we have to offer, and lay it at the feet of Christ.

We come to the manger like the Wise Men of old bearing gifts not of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, we coming bringing the only gift we have, ourselves, and we offer it to Him who gave His life for ours.

Come and see the beauty of the season.  Come and listen to the hymns, not Sleigh ride, but the ancient hymns of the Church that will usher in the season.  Come and see how you will be transformed if you just open yourself up to the process and allow God to work in you and through you.  Come and see all that God has waiting for you.

I was at a recent conference focusing on the topic of church growth and evangelism.  The presenter was talking about the numbers of Americans that do not attend church.  We did not get into the reasons why they do not attend as that is immaterial what matters is that they do not attend.  He mentioned that he read where 80% of those that do not attend church would attend if someone asked them, well I am asking you, dear readers, to come and see.  Do not wait for the eve of the feast, come and see now!

Each year, for the last five years, Fr. John Peck runs the 30/40 Days Pastoral Blogging Challenge from his blog The Preachers Institute.

The idea is simple, those who chose to sing up, both clergy and lay, blog each day during the preparation time prior to the great feast of the Nativity.  In the West this time is called Advent but for us Orthodox it is called Christmas Lent.  More on this tomorrow.

So look for daily blogging for the next 40 days, well I hope to be able to blog each day for 40 days.  Some posts might be short and others longer but I hope to focus on the spirituality of the season as a way to keep us focused during this time.

A list of all the participants can be found here.