As an aside, we have the honor of sharing the same geographical area as the myrrh-streaming Iveron Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God. But its custodian does not walk in and say, "Now stream myrrh!" That does no accord with God's nature as Jesus discloses: "there will be no sign."
The Kingdom of Heaven is not a "pixie dust" religion. It is not true that some of us, called wonderworkers, have been awarded magic wands. Remember, the timezone of the Kingdom of Heaven is now, and in this infinite now, marvelous things take place. But we must be present to God in this now, and He must be near to us. Most important, because it is the without-which-there-is-nothing is the state of our souls:
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Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace
that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy." (1 Pet 1:13-16) |
We must present ourselves to God as being holy and acceptable (Rom 12:1). For if we have befouled God's dwelling place within us — with our lusts, with our boisterous egos, with our unworthy distractions — then we have lost God. Yes, He is there. But we do not receive Him.
Do you recall the story of King Saul? Samuel sends him off to battle the .....which people?.... the Amelkites? He commands Saul, "But do not take the spoils!" Yet, as Samuel awaits the return of Saul's army, he hears coming down the road the bleating of goats and sheep .... the forbidden spoils. Samuel demands, "Is this not the bleating sound of disobedience?" What happens next? The blessing falls off of Saul never to be reclaimed again.
Do you know what my constant petition to God is? "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me?" For I do not know when I can longer reclaim it.
But if we "present ourselves to God as approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed," (2 Tim 2:15), then we have placed new and powerful instruments into His Hands. And He will use them! I have seen so many people used as His instruments! Overwhelmed with demand from God! These godly women! There lives became overwhelmed. As soon as the wake in the predawn light, they begin planning the tasks God has given them to do. They are still at it when they lay their heads down at night after their prayers!
I look at Sr. Maryann, and I cannot avoid the thought, "This little frame crushed by the Fourth World!" She stepped forward at age eighteen and said, "Here I am!" And she never looked back.
He will overwhelm, you for He has so much to do and so few instruments with which to do it!
What are the first signs of nearness to God, and His nearness to us? It is summed up in a premise Jesus reveals throughout all four Gospels: Do you believe .... ?
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".... and as you have believed, so let it be done for you."
(Mt 9:28)
And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well." (Mk 5:34) Then He said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you." (Lu 7:50) .... to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His Name .... (Jn 1:12) |
These people participate in God's mysterious energies, and they have opened the door. They have become themselves wonders under His hand, and, yes, His wonderworkers.
For how are we to enter into relationship with anyone we don't believe in — whether literally or emotionally and spiritually? Would you marry someone you don't "believe in"? Would you accept tonsure or ordination from an abbot or bishop you don't "believe in?" (I wouldn't. I have passed several times.) All relationship begins and continues in mutual trust.
All of this brings us to the master question, the crossroads of life:
| "Who do you say that I AM?" (Mk 8:29, Mt 16:15, Lu 9:20) |
Our answer is the entry point to our own wholeness, even to our physical wellness .... or not. It begins and ends here.
Sadly, the "takers" among us have commodified this living, holy participation in God's energies.
Our volunteer, Timothy, asked me about my unsettledness concerning the sacrifice of the Mass. I explained, this commodifies our encounter with God. "Here, You take this. And I will take that." That is the idea of the sacrifice of the Mass. This is not relationship. It is quid-pro-quo. These takers say they want to Jesus to sweep them into Heaven.
In the Scriptures, we find Simon the Magus they simply wishes to possess the power of wonderworking. And he will pay good money!
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But Peter said to him, "Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God
could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God." (Acts 8:20-21) Again, the without-which-there-is-nothing. An on-offer problem: Is our heart right? There is no part way. There is no compromise. |
For centuries the placebo effect has been the bane of researchers because it muddies the results of their experiments. What really worked (from their point of view)?
Several decades ago, one physician took the opposite view. He said that no power that heals ought to be rejected by any doctor. If a patient's confidence, can make her well, then we ought to this, so he launched a cottage industry around his new coinage: "the well-body response."
Other scientists, though, recognized that this inner power can cut two ways, however. For example, a patient's expectation of harm or injury can be actually injurious, so a new name was proposed: the meaning effect.
But, like Simon Magus, their desire to possess healing power has led them astray. Jesus invites us into relationship with Him, which begins with the question, "Do you believe?"
As a related example, consider love. I cannot move on in a serious relationship of the heart if I do not get to those all-important words: "I love you." And then I wait, praying against prayer, that I hear the reply, "I love you, too." Jesus comes to this all-important, intimate moment with the question, "Do you believe?"
Remember His hallmark teaching: "The Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near" and Metanoeite — transform your mind that you may meet with God where God Is in His marvelous Kingdom! Closeness to Jesus is where the power resides, for the Son of God is the Lord of all Life.
Let us consider the general picture around our lesson this morning. Where are we in St. Matthew's Gospel? Following a tempest on Lake Genessert which threatens to shatter their small boat to splinters, Jesus and His Disciples land on the shores of an impossible destination: the lost Tribe of Gad. The Son of God offers Divine life to the Gadarenes His intentions that are spelled out in crystal clarity in the great final oracle of Isaiah (Isaiah 65-66). For the Disciples are part of nothing less than a royal progress of God, Who rules the winds and waves, on to a visitation to one of the deplorable back waters in His care. Isaiah calls this place abominable. Thus, the Disciples must contrast two extremes: on one hand, Jesus' Divine rulership on the one hand ("Who is this that commands the winds and water?") and, on the other, God's willingness to stoop even to the most stench-filled puddles among His provinces.
Moreover, in both places — upon a tempestuous sea or amidst the culture of death and demonic possession — He invites His human creatures into Divine life. This is always His invitation. When He calls you, and you answer, "Yes, Lord," you have entered Divine life at that moment.
He asks the Disciples at sea,
| "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" (Mt 8:26) |
Later He will invite Peter to walk upon this same sea, which Peter does for a time. Yet, he will fail, which Jesus attributes to his faint-heartedness in embracing Divine life.
You see, Peter's stumbling block is not so much his lack of faith — he has just seen Jesus walking upon the sea and his has experienced the fullness of his own Divine powers. Surely, we believe what we see with our own eyes! No, it is not lack of faith. It is his refusal of Divine life.
We might ask at this moment, "How could that be?" How could someone be offered Divine life and then walk away? It happens all the time. Do you recall St. Augustine's famous refusal? "Lord become the Master of my life! .... but not tonight."
Do we not see two very different approaches to faith life? On the one hand, we see confident sons and daughters of God advancing to fullness, even to the full stature of Jesus. On the other, we see the all-too-common posture of passivity: "Save us! Give to us! Heal us! Sweep us into Heaven!" The former is Divine life itself. The latter, so common among Christians, will not lead to Divine life, but rather is a journey which never began.
In Gad, the bar is even lower. Healing the Gadarenes, Jesus implores them to abandon their vile practices — to borrow Isaiah's language, "sitting among the graves, spending nights in the tombs, eating swines' flesh and drinking the broth of abominable things" (Isa 65:2-10). He offers them new life in Him, cleansed life, purified life, Divine life, wholly acceptable before God. But again, to borrow the language of Isaiah, their reply is
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"'Keep to yourself,
Do not come near me, For I am holier than you!'" .... (Isa 65:5) |
.... reminding of our own culture's response to Jesus.
As we know, they will drive Him out of their land.
He returns to other side. Upon His arrival a very different scene plays out. We see people fully confident in the new Divine life of Jesus. They know that the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near. They are ready to live boldly into this power. A paralyzed man, (signifying the paralysis of Judah-ism) arises from his bed, even bearing the heavy weight of it on his atrophied legs. Two men who are blind (signifying blindness to God and the opaque civil religion of the Temple) now are flooded with the Uncreated Light. They eagerly embrace the life of grace:
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And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them,
"Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to Him, "Yes, Lord." (Mt 9:28) |
He goes to raise the dead in one sentence. In the next, He heals a woman from a longtime hemorrhage. Yes, He continues to be rejected by the abominables, yet is He surrounded by those Who embrace the Divine life into which He invites everyone:
| But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took [the dead girl] by the hand, and the girl arose. (Mt 9:25) |
Indeed, the entire lifeworld around the Son of God leaps up with vigor and confidence! A general celebration of the Kingdom of God plays out before us! A mute man speaks.
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Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues,
preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. (Mt 9:35-36) |
Here is Jesus visitation to Gad writ large: the Lord of Life stretching out His healing Hand all day long (Isa 65:2) yet surrounded by a lost people, a hard-hearted people .... and each of them so near to having abundant life (Jn 10:10).
The subtext for this outpouring of Divine life, given and received, is prophesied in the Book of Isaiah:
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They shall see the glory of the Lord,
The excellency of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, And make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted, "Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you." Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert. (Isa 35:2-6) |
No, Jesus does not dispense faith-healing, nor is He a wandering faith-healer (which is why so many good priests shy away from these sort of services). Reducing Jesus to the role of a faith-healer or, worse, a guru who helps us get in touch with our own inner powers is not only wrong. It leads us to a far distance from God, to a goal of self-sufficiency. Our own inner powers become the thing instead of intimate relationship, and finally union, with God.
Splendid isolation? A figure overbrimming with self-possession trusting in his own powers? We have a model for that separated and prideful man: His name is Satan.
The point of the Kingdom of Heaven is entering a vast unity, a participation in God's goodness and life-giving energies. It is in that closeness to God and closeness to authentic godly people which is the sphere of Divine life.
The Lord God
has announced the new age.
With Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, and the other Patriarchs,
we meet with God.
We break away from the civil religion and hybrid pagan rites of the Zion Temple.
We meet with God under His open skies, everywhere.
And He will meet with us.
For He has sent His Son to be with us,
where He is.
And in that place is Life, even eternal life.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.