The Light

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.

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

"Are you a child of light, or are you a child of darkness?" I do well to ask myself this question each day.

It cannot be both in any measure. God insists that my saying must be either "Yea" or "Nay." St. Paul affirms that in our Master there is only "Yea." Speaking to the the congregation at Corinth, he asked,

Did I use light-ness [or] do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me
there should be yea yea, and nay nay? But as God is true, our word toward
you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, Who was preached
among you .... was not yea and nay, but in Him was [only] yea. (2 Cor 1:17-19)

Only light, only "Yea," will do. Any embrace of the world and its ways, which is a rejection of God (our "Nay"), can never be. Yes, we may leap up and crow as young men and women, "Wait! We will change the world!" But this is foolishness, and soon our outsized pronouncements, amplified by social media and demonstrated in unruly protest and rioting, devolve into madness. The dark power of the world cannot have a part in the light. Both the world and God can never be. For this is a crossroads, and we must decide whose we are: children of light or children of darkness? As we consider those who belong to God on All Saints Day, this is the great question.

First, may I share something personal on the Feast of the Saints? Two stand out for us. We look to them especially — for guidance and example. The first is the Most Holy Mother of God, Mary Ever-virgin. The second is the Beloved Disciple, whom we also term The Theologian.

The first is the quiet woman, the woman wrapped in silence. Her humility. Her simplicity of speech (so few words!). Her unwavering stability and faithfulness. Here is the heart of Christianity. Our Community is dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos. The name of our Hermitage (given us by the First Hierarch and Primate of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Hilarion) expresses this devotion. "Our Lady of the Angels Hermitage," he named us. We look to her community and that of the Blessed Disciple as the earliest and most reliable picture of Christian life.

After all, does not the Son of God issue a divine command from the Cross?

When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved,
He saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple,
Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. (Jn 19:26-27)

The Letters issued from their Community (so few words .... the briefest books of the Bible) afford us little windows into their way of life.

Here we find, not subtlety, but direct and clear and plainly spoken instruction:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world,
love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of
the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father
but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who
does the will of God abides for ever. (1 Jn 2:15-17)

Never far from our minds are the words of the departing Christ, Who also taught plainly and directly. As we read from our Gospel lesson just last week,

I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me. (Jn 7:9)

It turns out that the only parts of the world for which God prays, and which He blesses, is a circle of light that we may think of as the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst. These are the ones who love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and bodily strength, who are in charity with their neighbors. These are the ones, who in their love of God, reject worldliness. There can be no blending or mixing of these two ways of life, for one is death to the other. Should we attempt to be "lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth," declares the Lord Jesus.

To continue with the First Letter from the Community of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Blessed Disciple,

God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship
with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth;
but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one
another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 Jn 1:5-7)

Who is your neighbor, then? The ones who walk in the light having fellowship with one another. These have become family, and God is their Father:

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God;
and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.
Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but
we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
And every one who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure. (1 Jn 3:1-3)

The Kingdom of Heaven comes into sharper focus here. God sent His Son to help us reclaim our divine goodness. As we have learned from the Church Fathers, we had wandered away from God embracing the world, building our cities, making our own rules, and had forgotten who we were: what we were supposed to look like, to Whom we belonged, and where we were bound. So the Father sent His Son, the perfect image of humanity, that we might also become God's children, like Him reclaiming the family image in ourselves. Those who have done so, "who shall be like Him" who, therefore, will "see Him as He is" .... these are the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst.

Let us also say on this holy day, these are the living saints bound for Eternal Light.

Because of God's gift to us of sovereign freedom, it is not possible to look into any human soul and predict what he or she will do with absolute certainty. If someone were to look into my soul, they would see a swirl not-made-yet decisions. They might see the whispers of the evil one passing through my mind — temptation. They would see my vision of the Kingdom of Heaven, my desire to be faithful. They would see my commitment to the Hermitage and to the Sisters which guide the practical aspects of my life. There would be all manner of things in a mist, in a swirl. It is not a neat outline of words and deeds about to be executed, not a computer program executing procedure after procedure. No! At any moment, I might make any choice! Temptation is necessary, therefore, to know the soul. Actuation is moral life.

How many times have people come to me in the confessional and admit that their minds had strayed, that they entertained bad thoughts. I would reply, "Forget about all that! What did you do?"

"Well, I haven't done anything, Father."

"I am sorry that no one has told you," I would say. "But everyone has tempting thoughts .... at least most of us. There are some who are perfect."

Actuation is the main thing. St. John writes,

He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one
born of God commits sin; for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because
he is born of God. By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are
the children of the devil: (1 Jn 3:8-10)

You see, if you give in, if you consent to evil in a whole world of good possiblity, trading away everything in order to receive back nothing, then you are not part of the Kingdom of Heaven.

At our deaths, therefore, we will be tempted, so God may know the state of our souls. These temptations are called "Aerial Toll-Houses," taught by virtually every Father of the Church according to Fr. Thomas Hopko (Hopko, Aerial Toll-Houses). Those who have truly reclaimed their divine birthright ("born of God," St. John writes) will not be attracted or charmed, but rather, repulsed by these images.

You see, this is not a school exam where, if you get one percent wrong, that's an "A+." No. Choosing evil over God in any quantity is a failure. According to St. John,

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments
are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is
the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world
but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 Jn 5:1-5)

If you truly believe. If you believe that you have a part in Him, and He has a part in you, that you both share the same family image, the how could you possibly trade it away?

But wait! Isn't there any part of worldliness that is blessed by God?! St. John the Theologian answers that

.... the whole world is in the power of the evil one. (1 Jn 5:19)

Let your sayings, therefore, "be 'Yea, yea' or 'Nay, nay,' for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil" (Mt 5:37), the Lord Jesus counsels us.

Over and over again, the Blessed Disciple calls the followers of Christ, not merely children signifying adoption, but "little children" suggesting purity and innocence. Does not the one whom we call "Blessed Mother" also see us in this light? As being little children? And this is our freedom — the freedom and lightness of being that belongs to the child. We are not to burden ourselves, examining or passing judgment on God's commands. Our role is to love our Father in Heaven and to do what children do: to obey in simplicity and trust. Surely, resistance and friction from a world that hates these qualities (1 Jn 3:13) will be great. Clever darkness always scoffs at those who love God's light.

Today, as the Orthodox Church honors the Saints, we revere these little children, who lived in the light, who forgot the ways of the world, who loved Father God, Brother Jesus, and each other completely, and then passed on to their home.

Let us also hold the course, therefore. There is no pleasure or compromise or anything else that the world has to offer which might compensate us for the loss of Heaven. We remember our First Parents, how they literally had everything good in the world, but traded away everything because they wanted more than everything. They wanted light and other-than-light. What did they receive in return? Nothing .... and less than nothing: disease, heartbreak, and death.

Look around you. Do you not see their legacy? Does not the evil one contrive to make this bargain with us today? To trade away everything priceless and good in order to get back nothing and far less than nothing. You say you can't believe it? I say, I can't believe how many consent to it every day.

Yet, Father God has not lashed us to this mother and father. He offers us adoption that He might be our Father, the most wonderful Father any child could hope for. Jesus reminds of this when He says plainly and directly,

He who loves [their earthly] father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.

Who could doubt the rightness of this divine command? The heart and soul that God gave us was to be ever pure and ever good, never to wear a foul and decaying visage .... truly, "not worthy of God."

Be children of light. This is the manner to which you were born. This is the pedigree stamped upon you at birth. This is the only peace of mind you shall ever know captured by the poet in two lines:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Here is the kingdom of light: an infinite now of innocent goodness and a mind filled with wonder.

Be children of light. For this there is mirth in Heaven, and the Saints in Light long to welcome you.

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