But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.

Today’s readings and Gospel are about concerns.

As we approach the holy season of Lent it is right for the Church to remind us about concerns. Do I have too much? Do I work too hard? Do I have my priorities straight? Too much, too little, too strong, too weak.

Our first reading consists of two verses. Isaiah 46:14-15. Two simple verses to tell us that God will never let go of us.

In Jesus we find the fulfillment of that promise. God came to us, revealing Himself, saving us, renewing us, and rebuilding what was broken. Jesus came because God can never let us go, after all He is our Father and has promised His constant love.

Thus Jesus came to usher in the end times. In doing so He revealed the requirements for the road ahead.

During Lent we will recall what this meant.

Jesus’ coming meant more than a few kind words and an occasional healing from a nice guy. It meant the revelation of God’s total commitment, His unending love and care for us.

Our reflection on Jesus’ mission will culminate in the sacrifice of Good Friday. The day when all that was broken was taken up on the cross.

On Easter Sunday we will see death broken, evil destroyed, and the road ahead – the road that leads to heaven, fully open to us.

In Easter we will hear the Gospel account of the road to Emmaus. That road is symbolic in that those disciples walked it, listening to God’s word, and in the end reached the revelation of Jesus. Recall what they felt on the road. Their hearts burned. They were filled with joy.

The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!

Friends,

In today’s Gospel Jesus reminds us that in the days of the kingdom, the days that will be ushered in by His death and resurrection, concerns are no more. God is present. He is here. Life has changed.

Really, worrying about things is meaningless in respect to this new life – the new life in which we share. God’s grace and love are sufficient. His end game has been revealed and we know where we are headed. As such nothing, no worry, no concern, nothing physical, nothing known or unknown, not even the depths of hell nor the heights of heaven can contain the extent of God’s grace – His care for us.

Brothers and sisters,

St. Paul wraps this all up. He is not worried about the judgments of the Corinthians, of human tribunals, or even his own account of himself. Paul places his faith solely in the judgment of the Lord. Beyond that, Paul is on message – he is working at his task – the building of God’s Kingdom.

Paul knows that he is living in the midst of the eschatological promise of Christ. The earth is fading away, time is moving forward, the day of the Lord is neigh. Paul knows the Lord’s word and the words found in Isaiah 40:8

The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.

It is more than living with concerns over what to eat or what to wear. It is more than living with concern over the world’s judgments or self judgment. Our call is to live through Lent and through each day as people focused on one thing – the Kingdom of God. God’s grace is enough – it is sufficient to get us there. We cannot contain that love – only live in it.

Let us go forward then, forward this day, forward everyday, forward through Lent in thankfulness, in joy, in expectation seeking first the kingdom and His righteousness. In doing so we acknowledge that God’s life — God’s way — is enough for us.

Amen.

I am the LORD.

That phrase occurs over and over in the Book of Leviticus. The Book of Leviticus is a book of Law given by God to the Hebrews. It is a legislative document. Throughout the book God lays out His Laws and commands, and at the end of each He says —I am the Lord.— or —I, the LORD, am your God.—

He is asking us to recognize that fact.

We are sixty days from Easter, two weeks out from the start of Lent.

In this time of preparation the Church reminds us of something very key. She reminds us of what God has asked us to recognize. While we may recognize it in the intellectual sense it bears hearing. God is our Lord. God commands us, rules over us, and is in charge of our lives. We are to recognize that intellectually and from the gut.

We are to recognize that in our baptism, and in our coming here, we surrender to God. We pray that He makes use of us. We ask that He take our will, our very being, for His purposes.

Brothers and sisters,

That is the hardest choice. The choice to give oneself to another. To put our trust into the hands of someone else. To give up our will, our knowledge, our desires, and to replace those with knowledge of God, God’s will, and God’s desire. It is even more difficult because we know that God is demanding, that God has all sorts of requirements we do not really, and let’s be honest here, that we do not really like.

Look at the Gospel – turn the other cheek to those who strike you. Someone wants your shirt, given them your coat as well. Your boss or spouse asks you to go the extra mile, go two. Give to whomever asks, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow. Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.

Is God crazy? Doesn’t He know about credit risk, painful cheeks, and the fact that it gets pretty cold in upstate New York without a shirt or coat? He wants us to love Osama, and the atheists who think we are all delusional and schizophrenic?

Yes, that’s right.

Further, God wants us to give up sin. That little moment of selfish pleasure, cast it aside. That rush we get when we show ourselves as superior to another – let it go. More than let it go, repent of it and do it no more.

St. Paul goes on to tell us that we shouldn’t delude ourselves with pride in our own wisdom:

If any one among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise.

My friends,

The fact is this. God created the world, and each of us, setting us on the road of return. We are all bound to Him and for Him, each according to the measure of grace that we have been given.

As we walk that path, drawing ever closer to God, we must recollect and remember these things:

First, that our Lord is God.

Second, that our wisdom, our personal strength is nothing if it not conformed to God. We can say we know everything. We can be astrophysicists, accountants, attorneys, surgeons – and all of it is lacking if we do not count ourselves as fools because we lack in the knowledge and wisdom of God.

Third, we must place ourselves into God’s hands. We are safe there, even when the world hits us, takes our coat, demands our work, and persecutes us.

Fourth, God demands repentance, a true inner change. We must reorder our way of thinking and living, aligning it with God’s direction.

Fifth, we must recognize God’s presence in all. God is in all, and all are called to return to Him, regardless of their station, class, religion, or the good or bad they have done. He is most particularly in us for as St. Paul tells us:

Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

Of these things some will ask, Well how do I know what God wants? How can I know when it is all so unclear, so uncomfortable?

When asking that question recollect and remember, God has sent His Son to teach us. We have Sacred Scripture and Tradition to guide us, and the Holy Church, ever present, to instruct us. Not only that, we know that God promises an eternity of joy with Him if we conform ourselves to Him.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

There is nothing unclear in the beatitudes, in Jesus’ instruction to:

be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

As we approach Lent let us set our sights on re-ordering our lives. Let us resolve to live in union with God and His Church. Let us listen to God as He tells us:

Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.

Yet we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.
Rather, we speak God’s wisdom

Today we enter the holy season of Septuagesima. Easter is only 70 days away. We jump right from Christmas joy to the contemplation of the Lenten journey which lies ahead.

Today we consider wisdom, and choices.

The Apostle Paul tells us that the Holy Church teaches wisdom. That’s a hard thing to accept.

It is hard to think that, until we realize that the wisdom, the truth that we teach, is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ as taught and preached by the Apostles, the Fathers, and our Bishops down to this day.

We teach what He taught. We desire what He desired. The Church desires that each and every person live in the truth. The Church desires that you and I surrender to Christ, and to the image of Christ in each other.

Brothers and sisters,

The Book of Sirach is a book of wisdom. Wisdom is truth boiled down to its simplest elements:

There are set before you fire and water; to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand.

We have choices to make. Paul tells us that the Church teaches wisdom. Wisdom tells us that we have a choice.

Our great and holy founder, Bishop Hodur taught the very same wisdom. People can come to us, to His Holy Church. If they find truth and light here they are welcome to stay. They are welcome to learn wisdom from the Holy Church. If they do not find it here, if their conscience leads them elsewhere, we hinder them not.

We desire that all come to the truth. Therefore we welcome all who come to seek the truth. We desire that all come to Christ, all those seeking, wishing to learn, desiring to love. Let them come here to find, to learn, and to love. Above all we desire that all form their conscience in accord with the wisdom of God – and in the end make the decision for Christ – to be more than church goers, to be Christ followers.

This weekend we held a rummage sale.

We held a rummage sale because, believe it or not, we are Christ followers. We found a means to raise a few dollars to help a member of the Holy Church in his ministry to the children of Iraq, children in the one of the very worst areas of Iraq.

We did not consider politics. We did not consider the fact that the children we serve may never fully know the reality of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We simply helped a man who bears the cross of Christ on his uniform; helping him witness to Christ.

As we walk through this holy season let us consider the ways in which we live as Christ followers. Let us examine our consciences in that regard. Jesus taught us that it is the state of the heart that matters. Our sins are more than the doing of the sin, they begin in the heart. He told us:

Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’

In other words, be honest through and through.

Let us hold Christ in our hearts. Let us live as Christ followers. Let us see Christ in every person on earth.

Wisdom is to follow Christ. Let that be our choice.

Amen.

I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people

In the days of idols, and to this very day, people pray to the things their hands have made. The idols of old were made of stone, metal, and precious stones. Yet those idols bore nothing for mankind, other than their resemblance to us.

The idols people worship today bear nothing for us. Money cannot buy happiness as the old saying goes. Sex cannot buy relationships. War cannot buy peace. Government cannot assure justice.

The fact is this. Nothing wrought by man can substitute for God. Nothing can fulfill our longing for what is transcendent, what is eternal —“ except for God.

Throughout the centuries people have run about carving idols, worshiping trees, the thunder, the sun and moon, and doing all sorts of things, not because they were primitive or ignorant, but rather because they needed to fulfill the desire of their heart —“ the built-in desire for God.

If God were cruel He would have left us to wonderment only. He would have left us alone in our attempt to figure it all out. But we are blessed and graced because God is good and loving.

In His loving kindness God deigned to come among us and to reveal Himself to us.

We now know God. We begin our prayers and every homily with an acknowledgment of His revelation to us, the Sign of the Cross. We pray in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Today’s Solemnity is a commemoration and celebration of God revealing His identity to us. Today God shows Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

God’s revelation to Isaiah told of the One who was to come:

Thus says the LORD:
Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased

In Jesus that prophesy was fulfilled. God, in the person of the Son, came to dwell with us. He showed us what God is like. He taught us how to live God’s way —“ which is very foreign to the way you, I, and the rest of the world live. He told us that God demands repentance. That God heals and that God sets us free from our captivity to the old idols.

Brothers and sisters,

Not only did God show Himself, He set no requirement as to the —kind of people— who could come to Him.

Peter and the other Apostles were devout Jews. God quickly stepped in, to reveal to Peter and the rest, that God is for everyone. Peter goes to meet the gentile Cornelius and his family. He is sent there through God’s message and promptings. When Peter realizes what he has encountered he plainly states:

—In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him.—

The Orthodox refer to this Solemnity as the Theophany; the revelation of the Holy Trinity, God —“ Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

After Jesus was baptized,
he came up from the water and behold,
the heavens were opened for him,
and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove
and coming upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens, saying,
—This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.—

Humanity hears the voice of the Father. Humanity sees the Holy Ghost descending in the form of a dove. Humanity meets the Son.

How blessed we are. How fortunate for us. How loving the God we proclaim and teach.

God in His fullness has been shown to us. Not a mysterious God only known through prophets. Not a god that we have fashioned. Not a God hidden in the mists of time, unrevealed, unknown.

We have God in plain sight.

As the Christmas season draws to a close take this opportunity to rejoice and celebrate. Take this opportunity to renew your commitment to the only living and true God. There is no other God. There is no other form of God.

Here is God revealed. Reform, repent, be reborn, know and love Him, do His will, follow all that He has taught.

Amen.

They prostrated themselves and did him homage.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany of our Lord. This is the day we commemorate the Lord’s appearance, manifestation, and shining forth to the entire human race —“ represented by the Magi, the Three Kings.

A shinning forth; we have all had that experience, that sudden realization, when something long struggled over becomes apparent.

Some refer to that as the moment the light is turned on, the ah-ha moment.

I would like you to place this imagine in your minds. Imagine a group of doctors working in a lab, attempting to develop a cure for a serious disease. They are doing their job. In an instant one of the doctors yells out, —There it is! I found it! It’s the cure!—

So I ask you, keeping those doctors in mind, when did the Magi have that ah-ha moment? When did they realize the totality and complexity of what they encountered? When did the light go on for them?

The Magi are well documented historical figures. The Greek historian Herodotus noted that of the six tribes or castes of the Medes, the Magi were a hereditary caste of priests. They were highly influential in Median society until the unification of the Median and Persian Empires in 550 B.C. The Magi continued to exist in unified Persia, and they became prominent once again between 226 and 650 A.D.

The Magi appear in the book of Jeremiah. The Prophet Daniel may have carried a title specific to the head of the Magi during the Babylonian captivity.

Now let’s think of those doctors once again. Like the doctors the Magi were sitting back home in Iran and they were doing their job. They were searching the world, nature, and the sky for a sign, for an indication of what was to come.

In an instant one or more call out, —There it is! It is the sign! Something great has occurred.—

So the Magi set out and followed the star.

Brothers and sisters,

As the Magi traveled I am sure they discussed the possibilities. What would they see? What would they find? They were trying to do their job. They were focused on figuring it all out. As to faith, they may not have had any. The encounter with Messiah, the King, was yet to come.

The Magi finally arrive —“ not really twelve days after Christ’s birth, probably substantially later. They arrive and see a humble house, a young girl, and a baby.

What happens next?

They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

When they finally got there their eyes were opened. They had their Epiphany. They fell on their faces before the awesome power of God. They came to the realization that this humble child was sent to, as Mary proclaimed:

show mercy to them that fear him;
to scatter the proud in the conceit of their heart;
to put down the mighty from their seat;
to exalt the humble;
to fill the hungry with good things; and
to send the rich empty away.

My friends,

The Magi are like us and we are like them. They were no surer than you or I. They did not fall into a deep and abiding faith in God. Like us they had to take a long journey —“ and by that journey they reached Jesus, the Christ. When they reached Him they had their Epiphany, their ah-ha moment. The light was turned on. They saw.

Some of us are still trying to develop that kind of faith. We are not sure, but we are doing our job. Like the Magi we have set out to find the answer. Like the Magi, what is at the end of the journey is that ah-ha moment, that epiphany.

We will each meet God in our own time, and according to His grace. I urge you to hold to that confidence. I urge you to recognize that your journey will end in the experience Isaiah prophesied:

you shall be radiant at what you see,
your heart shall throb and overflow

Amen.

Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the mark of the covenant between you and me.

Jesus Christ’s incarnation marks a radical change in the manner in which the chosen people relate to God.

As you may recall, there was quite a debate in the early Church over the issue of circumcision.

To the Jewish followers of Jesus circumcision was a fact. It was a sign, in their flesh, marking their relationship with God.

St. Irenaeus states:

Moreover, we learn from the Scripture itself, that God gave circumcision, not as the completer of righteousness, but as a sign, that the race of Abraham might continue recognizable… but the circumcision after the flesh typified that after the Spirit.

This thing, symbolized in the flesh of the Jewish people, was a foretelling of the greater and perfect covenant that was completed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The early Church’s debate ended with the Council of Jerusalem, when the Holy Church, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, determined that circumcision was unnecessary for salvation.

This was the radical change. This was the change that allowed us entry into God’s new reality.

We do not need to carry a sign in our flesh. Our flesh is no longer symbolic of our relationship to God. Rather, the flesh taken on by Jesus, the God-man, bears the symbols of our relationship with God.

His resurrected flesh bears the fleshy symbols of the new covenant.

St. Thomas directly experienced those fleshy symbols when Jesus told him:

“Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side…—

What Thomas saw and touched is the new reality, the new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ.

On this Solemnity of the Circumcision of our Lord we must renew our efforts at recognizing and living within this changed reality. Living with the fact that God’s adoption of our flesh changed everything.

The goal of life is no longer getting through each day, knowing that death awaits us at the end. Rather it is living with our eyes focused on the promise of eternal life. Death is no more.

Brothers and sisters,

Jesus’ perfected and resurrected body bears the signs of our salvation.

As each day passes God sees in His very hands, feet, and side the love He bears for us. In those nail and spear marks He sees us reborn, recognizable not in something that is part of our body, but something that is within us.

He looks within us and sees our adoption. He sees people who by baptism and confirmation have chosen to take up His reality. He sees people willing to walk ever more closely to God, people on the road to perfection in the new and eternal Kingdom.

Look on the symbols borne in the flesh of Jesus Christ. This is the new covenant. This is the new reality. This is our joy and our peace.

Amen.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen

Consider the shepherds, but do not dwell on their poverty or their hard life. Consider these shepherds – now joyful men. Men whose life just became something altogether different.

Joy!

Consider yourselves. Recall a moment from your life that was exceedingly joyful. A birthday party when you were four or five, your wedding day, the day of your ordination, the birth of a child, a promotion, the moment you first took the love of your life into your arms.

Joy!

What do you remember? What did those shepherds remember?

What we remember from the joyful moments of our lives is the moment itself.

We may recall a detail or two, the lighting of the room, a color, something nondescript. The detail itself is unimportant. Rather when we see a room lit in the same way, or run across that color, or other nondescript item, our joy is recalled.

The shepherds walked away giving no consideration to the details of shepherding or anything else. They were caught up in a moment of pure joy.

As Christians we are often accused of being somber, dwelling on weakness and sin, looking toward the day of our death. But that is not who we are. Rather we are the people Jeremiah describes – people who have been changed:

Then shall the maidens rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy

Joy!

Brothers and sisters,

It is as simple as that. Jesus Christ is our moment of joy. Jesus Christ is a moment in time as well as the eternal continuous moment.

The joy He brings is real in each moment, like the moment the shepherds found what the angels foretold. His joy is also everlasting.

For that reason our life is not a life of somber woe caught up in the dread of hellfire or eternal loneliness. It is a joyful life – a life changed forever.

Jesus’ entry into the world was meant for all of us – so that like the shepherds we might come to Him and worship Him in a moment of time. Then, like the shepherds, we are to walk away with eternal joy – returning, glorifying and praising God for all they we have heard and seen.

Our Catholic faith as lived and taught in the Polish National Catholic Church is faith that lives in a continuous moment of joy.

The joy we feel eclipses all else. Everything else exists only in relation to this continuous moment of joy.

The fourth of the Eleven Great Principles of the Polish National Catholic Church includes this statement:

The saving work of the Divine Mediator depends on this: that He reveals to man his primary and ultimate goal – eternal happiness; that God in His Divine compassion and righteousness will bind anew the severed ties between him and the Creator

Our joy is complete in this. That Jesus Christ came and bound us back to God.

Thus our journey to God is a journey defined by our renewed relationship with God; defined by eternal happiness which is in our present and in the continuous joy that awaits us.

Today’s psalm states:

The Lord is King; let the earth rejoice

So let us rejoice because our life has been changed into something altogether different. Our life is moving, moment by moment, to the perfection we will know in heaven. Our life is moving, moment by moment, in the continuous presence of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The hardness of life and all else is of little account. It is of little account because we have joy. Everything we see and do is new because we see it in light of the joy we hold.

Recall this joy at least once each day. Recall, and when you do recall it, glorify and praise God for all you have heard and seen. We are no longer separate or apart from God. The shepherds saw this and they rejoiced.

So we rejoice – Jesus Christ has come. He is our joy and has bound us anew; bound us to God forever.

Amen.

When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home.

Tomorrow evening we will gather in this church to remember the incarnation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In preparation we recall, through today’s readings, what it means to ask and to obey.

Here we have Joseph, the righteous. To the best of his knowledge he’d been cheated on. His betrothed was pregnant.

I cannot imagine Joseph just falling into a deep sleep. He was troubled by this news. It is likely that he was tossing and turning, asking over and over, —What should I do? What should I do?—

Joseph was asking. Should he expose Mary? She would be stoned to death. In Deuteronomy 22 we read:

“If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you.—

He decided that he would divorce her quietly.

It was a practical decision. Stoning was falling out of favor. The Rabbis were concerned with the credibility of witnesses and the extent to which capital punishment had been used.

Joseph was asking, and had reached a decision based on the knowledge that was available to him.

God had other plans.

Brothers and sisters,

We hear the word of God quite often, at least weekly. The readings for the week are posted in the bulletin. The ambitious among you might try reading those. The really ambitious might pray Vespers each day.

We hear and we study. The Sacrament of God’s word is provided for us.

Based on the knowledge available to us, how do we react?

The reading from Isaiah tells of Ahaz:

The LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying:
Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God;
let it be deep as the netherworld, or high as the sky!

Ahaz received the word first hand. What was his response?

But Ahaz answered,
—I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!—

Was Ahaz afraid?

He most certainly was. Ahaz was the King of Judah. He saw the balance of the Northern Kingdoms falling. He himself had fallen into idol worship. He reigned for sixteen years, afraid and looking for answers.

But when God told him to ask, when God told him to be unafraid he refused to ask.

Ahaz had it figured, and he wouldn’t ask, because he was afraid, because he thought he had the answers.

Contrast Joseph. Joseph already had his answer, but when the Lord came to him he responded in the way the Lord asked. Joseph received the sign and he listened.

Ahaz sought answers. He asked and did not obey. Joseph sought answers. He asked and obeyed.

St. Paul tells us:

Through [Jesus Christ our Lord] we have received the grace of apostleship,
to bring about the obedience of faith,
for the sake of his name, among all the Gentiles,
among whom are you also, who are called to belong to Jesus Christ

Paul is talking to us. He is telling us to ask and to be obedient to what has been given. Our chosen reaction is to be one of faith.

Regardless of the obstacles, our fear, our preplanning, we are to ask and to obey as true apostles of Jesus Christ.

Ahaz wouldn’t ask, but God gave the sign anyway. Ahaz was long dead, but the sign was given.

Now we have to live with that sign —“ and in conformity with that sign.

Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters wroteThank you to Ben Meyers at the Faith and Theology Blog through which I located this quote.:

—Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.—

We have been taken to that place. By God’s mercy we can sit here, invoke his name, and in spite of our sinfulness He sees us washed in the blood of His Son. The ceiling will not fall in, only grace will fall down upon us. He sees us as apostles —“ bearing the message of the Kingdom.

We are at a place from which we can never return —“ we are changed. So, we are to ask every day. We are to obey His teachings. Ask, obey, and we will live forever.

Amen.