Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Peter H. Davids

Byzantine Catholic Homilies • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

Paradoxical Discourse Relation

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Christian faith is not the golden mean or one extreme or the other, but both extremes held in tension: honor and glory held in tension with suffering and disgrace. Acting in faith is hearing which word the Father is speaking in which situation and acting on it in trust with the full awareness that he can also speak the other word as well.

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Prefestive Day of the Dormition; The Holy Prophet Micah. Translation of the relics of our Father Theodosius, Hegumen of the Monastery of the Caves

No special Ambon Prayer mentioned

Title

Paradox

Outline

Our culture loves to collapse paradox

It is either all black or all white

The Republicans are demonic and the Democrats are saints or quite the opposite - either way the choice is clear and both sides are not to some degree partake of both the demonic and the saintly

Likewise, Catholic Christianity is evil because it exalts the family dooming women to slavery under patriarchy like the handmaids of the movie, but it is also evil because it calls those in religious and to a great degree clerical vocations to chaste celibacy, which is, in the world’s eyes, unnatural and impossible.

But our readings exalt in paradox as the core of Christianity

1 Corinthians presents Paul embracing his humiliation

He can say, “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” That is an honorable vocation

Jesus can say that the Apostles will rule peoples, sitting on twelve thrones; Paul says that the saints will rule over even angels.

At the same time he can say, “I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men.”

Rather than exhibiting power they exhibit weakness, “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate.”

Rather than ruling with others serving their needs, “To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly clothed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands.”

This is the lot of the saints down the ages, including monastics.

Our gospel presents Jesus as the man with great trust in the Father and power who will end up rejected and killed by humanity according to the will of the Father.

Having just been transfigured and then having talked about his passion on the way down the mountain, he comes to the crowd and a man begs him to heal his demonized-epileptic son, whom Jesus’ disciples could not heal.

Jesus cures the son with a word, for, as the context shows, he has heard the word of the Father and trusts that word and so it becomes his word. That is what having faith means: discerning the will of the Father, trusting that the Father will do his will, and speaking that will into the world.

Now such healings should and did bring Jesus honor in his society.

But right afterwards Jesus tells his disciples that the will of the Father in which he trusts and which he now speaks to them contains, not his exaltation, but his total rejection: “The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.”

What a contrast to the transfiguration; what a contrast to the great healer and teacher; but without holding both in tension one does not have Christianity nor does one have the trust or faith that Jesus has in the Father.

Brothers and Sisters, paradox is endemic in orthodox faith

We look on political parties and with G K Chesterton say, “Hudge and Gudge,” that is, both are vicious and demonic and both are godly - it is not black and white, which is why Christians have often created third parties.

We look on Christian leadership and say that while we shall reign in heaven, to try to reign on earth with wealth, power, and celebrity, often leads to forfeiting heaven and embracing the demonic. It is the monastic and those willing to embrace suffering who are on the way to sainthood - I think of St John Chrysostom

We look on our lives and we realize that as we draw near to God we hear both the call to suffer privation and disgrace for the kingdom and the word that we are princes and princesses in the kingdom. Both suffering and healing prayer are the will and word of God in which we trust, each in its own time and situation.

Embrace paradox, for it is at both extremes held at once that the essence of the Christian faith lies, for our God is far bigger than the either-or. He is the God of mystery.

Readings

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 8-21-2022: Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

EPISTLE

1 Corinthians 4:9–16

9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly clothed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the dregs of all things.

14 I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 8-21-2022: Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

GOSPEL

Matthew 17:14–23

14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said, 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” 17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” 18 And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”

22 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, 23 and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.

Notes

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) (8-14-2022: Tenth Sunday after Pentecost)

SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 2022 | OCTOECHOS

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 8-21-2022: Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Bright Vestments

Matins Gospel John 21:1–14

Epistle 1 Corinthians 4:9–16

Gospel Matthew 17:14–23

Blue

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