Ephesians 4:7-13
Troparion
Matthew 4:12-17

Return to Eden

The man of Eden has appeared — dressed only in natural clothes, eating only a manna of wheat cakes and honey (Ps 81:16), fragrant of the morning of earth. His miraculous presence has shocked the entire Eastern Mediterranean attracting everyone, everywhere to him, clamoring for the waters that might restore them to their original journey back to Eden. The Synoptic Evangelists and St. Peter attest that his ministry of waters was like a second Noah's Flood, cleansing the earth. And being cleansed, being restored to a previous innocence, a general expectation was abroad that Eden might be opened, for what is Eden but harmony and union with God?

This is the context with which we must hear Jesus words cited in our Gospel lesson this morning:

As a former Franciscan, I am aware that my own tradition was founded in this mournful spirit during the thirteenth century, called the Sons and Daughters of Penance. The idea was grounded in an invented system of theology known as the "treasury of merit." That is, by offering a penitential life, it was thought, one could build up merits along with other penitential sisters and brothers making reparation for the sins of others. But, as I say, this was an invented Roman Catholic concept. It had nothing to do with the Apostles, the Early Church, or the ancient Orthodox Catholic faith.

From the beginning one of the greatest among the Latin Fathers objected to this understanding of metanoia. During the late second century, Tertullian, who is called the "founder of Western theology," protested that penance has nothing to do with the word Jesus used. Metanoia means "to make a U-turn." The concept is that you realize you have been going in the wrong direction. Naturally, you stop and backtrack. Metanoia signifies these three things: the realization that you are headed the wrong way, stopping, and then going back to the right path. A related word to metanoia is the Latin word for conversion, which means "to turn around."

When the context is one's whole direction of life, often there are warning signs that we have been going in the wrong direction: we become depressed; we are fatigued; we feel empty inside. Life itself may feel like a great weight ... and a pointless one.

How many people respond by "medicalizing" these symptoms of spiritual deadness by taking anti-anxiety medicine, which only makes things worse. As Blaise Pascal famously wrote, there is a void inside us that only God can fill, yet, being alienated from God, people will try to fill it with all manner of things: drugs, alcohol, illicit sex, food, material things, shopping ..., which will only increase our awareness of that void.

Once we make the U-turn, where do we go? The answer, of course, is where we got off track. For most young people drugs and sex were involved. The proof of this is staggering: STDs that have reached unprecedented levels and an opioid epidemic that today includes 10.3 million users in the U.S. with 130 overdose deaths every day. A startling and clear picture of life gone-off-track.

But then there is the other side of the story — the people who did not choose this path in the first place and never would ever after. They were born breathing Eden's air, and they never stopped. Yes, the Roman Catholic saint, Augustine of Hippo, invented the concept of "Original Sin" in the early fifth century, which shifted blame for his longtime promiscuity and alcoholism from himself onto Eve and Adam. But the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church never taught this invented theology and still does not. The Orthodox Church teaches that each and every one one of us was born in God's goodness and that to journey to Heaven, we need only continue in that goodness. Many have and do.

Should we stray from this good path, then attend to the remedy voiced by the Lord Jesus: Metanoiete! Make a U-turn! Do sit on the ground and blubber and flagellate yourself ... and devise ways to punish yourself, but simply arise, dust yourself off, turn around, and go back. The insight is simple: the wrong path cannot lead to the right path. Go back.

We know that everyone is invited to to this marvelous life with God, born to it and then called to it all our lives. For the Lord Jesus tells us that a man prepared a great banquet and that all were invited (Lu 14:16-24). Who will step forward to claim this union with God, this harmony with His statutes and holy ways? We might call it remarkable that no one accepted the invitation. But, then again, who in our own world accepts the high calling of God's way of life? Not quite no one, but very few.

In another parable, we are told that a king announced a wedding feast for his son (Mt 22:1-14), but some approached God believing that they did not have to change their manner of life signified by their failure to put on a wedding garment. At this, God is affronted. What is involved then? What sort of wedding garment must we wear to please God? The reassuring truth is that we were born wearing this regal attire. The Lord Jesus tells us that we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless we reclaim the hearts we had as children. We were born as children. We were born with this heart.

And what is that state of mind? It is the mind and heart and soul with which every human person is born: simplicity, innocence, openness, sincerity, purity.

And are these not the attributes of the Lord Jesus?

Simplicity. The Lord our God is One (Deut 6:4). He is indivisible possessing absolute integrity, without contradiction, with every part of Him answerable to every other part. It is the Deuce, the deceiver, who is not simple. His name is Legion, for he is many (Mk 5:9).

Innocence. God is holy and is completely alien to sin, whose definition is not-of-God. Sin is the very nature of the evil one.

Openness. God Is Who He Is: "I AM Who AM."

Sincerity. Sarcasm and irony are foreign to Him.

Purity. He is Goodness itself, and all that He has made is good in its origin and essence.

The Lord Jesus tells us to turn, go back, and claim the identity and life which was ours at our birth. Christian life is a journey. Its end is very much like its beginning — to be made in the Image of God and then to permit it to bloom in all of its fullness: to the royal family resemblance. Any other direction is the wrong way and will lead us to all that is not-life, not-God, and not ourselves. We were not born to the false, but to the true. And we will never have peace until we come back to our true selves, which is the goodness of God.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.