Pastor: Fr John Vazquez | (518) 462-0579 |
fatherjohnvazquez@gmail.com
Wednesday, October 2nd—8am—Divine Liturgy
Wednesday, October 2nd—6pm—Paraklesis of St George
Friday, October 4th—8am—Orthros
Saturday, October 5th—Great Vespers with Bible Study to follow
Sunday, October 6th—9am—Orthros and Divine Liturgy
Monday, October 7th—8:15am—Coffee with the Fathers—join us at Alias Coffee on N. Pearl St in downtown Albany as we study Hymns on Paradise by Ephrem the Syrian
Sunday, October 13th—9am—Orthros and Divine Liturgy—join us for apple picking after Liturgy (Philip Orchards 270 Rt 9H Hudson, NY 12534)
Sermon—Sunday 14th Sunday After Pentecost
Lk 6.31–36
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—one God, Amen. We hear today this great teaching of our Lord—to love our enemies.
If that’s not one of the most foundational teachings about being a Christian, I'm not sure what is.
It's also one of the things that separates us as Christians from almost every other kind of people. We love our enemies. We follow the example of our Lord. We ask him to forgive those who have hurt us.
This summer, I read a book about this very thing.
It's called the Count of Monte Cristo. And in this book, there is a young man. He's 19, 20 years old. He's just about to get buried, he's just become a captain of a ship, everything is looking great for him. And then he's betrayed by some people who he thinks are his friends or his acquaintances. And he's thrown into prison for 13 or 14 years, and everybody thinks he's dead.
In prison he meets another prisoner, and he becomes a very learned man. He's able to do many things, and through, through that friendship makes an indelible stamp on him but while he's in prison, he can't think about anything except for revenge. And getting back on those who hurt him, those who betrayed him.
After he's out of prison, his friend in prison had told him about this huge fortune that he could find on this island, this deserted island and he goes and finds this fortune, and he spends eight, nine, ten years planning revenge on each of these men who had betrayed him. It's a very entertaining book, but at the same time, it is sad as it misses the point and the heart of what it is to be a Christian. This man—the Count of Monte Cristo had gone about things in the wrong way.
He planned everything to a T, very meticulously.
He not only wanted revenge but taking it a step further, he really wanting to make his adversaries suffer as much as he could.
If we think about it, this is a natural impulse that we have—to seek revenge if somebody hurts us. If somebody comes up and punches you in the face, the first reaction is to fight, not to turn the other cheek.That's not your first reaction.
We asked today to allow the Lord to be judge because once we become the judge, and take on that role ourselves, we take that out of his hands, and then it is up to us.
And then we take away the opportunity for blessing
So how can we combat this—this impulse that we have for vengeance that we have against our enemies?
We have an example, from the holy scripture of Joseph, the patriarch, who was betrayed by his brothers. He was sold into slavery by his brothers in Egypt. And after years and years, he becomes the second in command in Egypt.
His brothers eventually experienced a famine where they are living and they come down to Egypt and they're seeking grain.
Joseph if he wanted to, he could've got the revenge on them at that time and refused the grain and refused to be reunited with them, but this is not what Joseph does. And of course, this is an example of how our Lord is.
It's called a “type” in the Bible—an example of who our Lord is and what He does.
When we follow the example of Joseph, rather than the Count of Monte Cristo we can find peace and union with God.
We don't want to be planning and scheming and figuring out what we can do to get revenge on our enemies because this ultimately separates us from God and gives us an experience of hell.
We scheme and plan and our thoughts are consumed with vengeance and there is no room for love and forgiveness and if no room for love and forgiveness, no room for God.
We can combat this sin of vengeance on three levels because sin happens on three levels.
And we hear these three things in the gospel today.
The first thing is to love and we can do this by praying for our enemies.
Sin begins in our mind, and then it extends to our words, and then it extends to our actions.
So the first thing we do to deal with this sin and vengeance that can come up in us is to pray, pray for our enemies.
Praying for those who are hurting us and offending us is difficult to do, but when we do that, an amazing thing happens and that is that our heart is softened towards that person.
There are sometimes, at least from what I have experienced myself, where I don't want to pray to that person that has wronged me.
I don't want my heart to be softened towards that person. But unless we do that—give ourselves over to prayer, then our hearts cannot be softened and we cannot begin to fight sin in its first appearance in our mind.
The next thing we can do is to do good and be kind.
We practice being kind to all of those who are around us. So that when we have to be kind to our enemies, we can extend a kind hand to them.
And when we are kind with our words we can have more harmonious relationships with others.
So keep guard of your words and what comes out of your mouth, trying to say good things, beautiful things, kind things.
When we are kind with our words then, we can be kind with our actions. And that's the last thing.
We can lend and not expect anything in return.
Now, how hard is that to do?
You offer someone something and they're using it, and a month or two goes by and you’re like, “hey, I could use that right now.”
But when we lend, when we offer something, we need to not expect it back in return. This is what our Lord has asked us to do. To do good, to lend to others not expecting anything in return.
By doing these three things, praying for others, doing good through being kind with our words, and lending and not expecting anything in return, we can combat the temptation of vengeance that would creep up and grab hold of us and that may be one of the most difficult things to deal with as a human being.
Through the patriarch Joseph and the intercession of our most holy Lady the Theotokos may our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen us to love our enemies. Amen.
