Pastor: Fr John Vazquez | (518) 462-0579 |
fatherjohnvazquez@gmail.com
Tuesday, October 29th—4pm-7pm—Wake for Raymond Jefferson at St Sophia's Orthodox Church on Whitehall Rd
Wednesday, October 30th—8am—Divine Liturgy
Wednesday, October 30th—10am—Funeral for Raymond Jefferson at St Sophia's
Wednesday, October 30th—6pm—Paraklesis of St George
Friday, November 1st—8am—Orthros
Saturday, November 2nd—8am—Orthros and Divine Liturgy for the Feast of St Raphael of Brooklyn
Saturday, November 2nd—5pm—Great Vespers with Bible Study to follow
Sunday, November 3rd—9am—Orthros and Divine Liturgy—ALL PARISH MEETING AFTER DIVINE LITURGY
Sunday, November 10th—POTLUCK AND PIES AFTER DIVINE LITURGY (FEAST WITH US AND JOIN IN A PIE CONTEST BEFORE THE NATIVITY FAST BEGINS)
Sermon Luke 8.40–56
Who Touched Me?
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—one God. Amen!
Christ is in our midst!
In this gospel today we hear the good news—the gospel of salvation preached to us.
I want to tell the story in more of a filled out way so that we can understand this fact.
This woman is sick and her life is flowing out her—the Old Testament tells us that the life is in the blood (Lev 17.11)—so her life is leaving her
And she has been this way for 12 years.
When Adam and Eve fall they experience this condition where their life is flowing out of them. They are no longer able to experience the life they had before of union and communion with God because they have separated themselves from life with Christ by disobeying the commandment
The commandments are given to help us understand what God’s ways are.
They are also given to us as a way to reveal to us that there is no possible way to keep all of them so that we won't die (Gal 3.21-23). Only One can do this and we know who that One is.
These commandments are given then and they are like a weight upon us. They show us there is nothing we can do.
But sometimes we might think that there is something that can be done. As we hear, the woman goes to different physicians seeking to find healing but she finally realizes she can't find healing.
So she hears that Jesus is coming by and she says to herself this One can heal me. I will go to Him.
She goes to Him but with her condition she should not be in the crowd because she is unclean (Lev 17), she should be outside the community, separated and removed because of her uncleaness
And in the midst of trying to reach Jesus in the midst of the crowd others are becoming unclean through her contact with them, nevertheless she is seeking to reach our Lord. Our unclearness affects those around us...
So we see she has this faith that our Lord can heal her and that this healing will be accomplished through simply touching the hem of His garment.
This is where our life in Christ begins, with faith—where our salvation begins—with faith in Christ.
And she finally reaches Him, touches His garment and receives healing….
But what comes next is a most crucial part of the narrative
Our Lord says—who touched me?
Everyone denies it as we heard but then the scripture tells us that—when the woman saw that she could not remain hidden she came trembling and falling down before Him
So when our Lord asks us that question—because He asks us this question
We, like the woman, must be willing to come out and declare to Him the truth as well.
We need to be able to lay ourselves bare before Him, knowing that there is no program, not enough commandments that I can keep, not enough money for me to have, there is nothing that can save me but You Lord—my life is leaving me, I am mortal, I am dying and I need You Lord.
This is how we receive that peace and that healing from our Lord.
Now, do all of us receive that physical healing? No we dont....people still die whom we love, we still are plagued with sicknesses and troubles...
So what is this healing anyway?
Well, the story is not over because Jesus is going to Jairus’ house to another girl whose life has gone out of her—who has died.
These two women are connected—the one has had this flow of blood for 12 years, and the other is 12 years old
So this connection is drawn for us.
The answer to the woman who has touched the hem of the Lord’s garment is that the healing she receives is Life in Christ—immortal life. This kind of life is the true healing.
Its not necessarily that we are healed from our physical ailment or that we are now going to be able to keep the commandments perfectly.
It means that we have to keep laying ourselves bare before Christ when He asks us who touched me?, who is that is coming to me?
It’s me Lord—the sinner, its me—the one who cannot keep the commandments, its me—the one who keeps messing up
We have to be able to make that admission. When we cant make that admission that we are imperfect this is when we don’t have this gift of Life from our Lord because we still think we can be our own savior in that case—or perhaps that our case is hopeless
It is really hard to make this admission before our Lord—that we need him, that we are imperfect and unclean, that we keep stumbling, that we can't do what He asks us.
This admission is very difficult because we do want to be good enough and for people to like us
So this story is all of our story. Its not just the woman from the gospel. Its my story, your story, all of our story.
Our Lord does 99% of the work, we just have to do that little bit. We just have to be willing to admit we dont have it figured out and that we need Him
Part of this honesty can happen with our brothers and sisters in Christ and part of this honesty is practiced in confession
Not putting up a front about who we are before others or before Christ is hard.
In addition to this difficulty there is the difficulty of wanting to analyze ourselves, our sins, our thoughts our experiences.
But we don’t need to analyze any of it…
"Well, I had this thought and it was bad and this is how I can fix this bad thought or this is the excuse for why did I did that bad thing?"
No, just leave it as it is and bring it to Christ who saves us...
This salvation in Christ is how this gospel is the story of salvation then.
We only have salvation and deliverance through being honest with God about our imperfections.
Our world today doesn’t give this message though
The world today tells us either that we can be perfect if we just try hard enough
Or, it tells us that we are perfect in our imperfection, that there is nothing that needs to be done, just stay the way we are and if people don't accept me for that, they are wrong.
These are two sides of the same coin—two destructive lies that, if accepted, cause us to reject the gospel of salvation and our means of union with God.
We are not perfect, we are not fine the way we are...we need Christ, we need to make our way to Him
We only have life through Christ—meditate on this…the only way we have life with Him is to lay ourselves bare before Him
Do this through standing quietly before the icons and allowing those things inside us to boil up to the surface and then make your way through the crowd of these thoughts and remembrances to come and touch the hem of our Lord’s garment in confession
When we do this we will then receive the blessing of Life as we see that when the Lord restored Jairus’ daughter to life He commanded that something be given her to eat—the bread of Life, the Holy Eucharist.
May our Lord strengthen us to be honest and come out from hiding
Through the prayers of the Theotokos may our Lord have mercy on us and save us, Amen.
