Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Byzantine Catholic Homilies • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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God's grace comes to us, but it can be received without fulfilling its purpose. Luke's narrative of the great catch of fish shows Peter receiving grace and it becoming fully fruitful as he and his companions walk away from their catch and boats, following Jesus. The call to us is to follow Paul's example in not putting any obstacle in the way of others' receiving God's grace and then also not to receive the grace emptily ourselves, receiving it without 100% commitment.

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Our Venerable Mother Euphrosyna

Title

Do Not Accept the Grace of God in Vain

Outline

“We entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain” is a fascinating clause

It asserts that God’s grace, his undeserved favor, even his enabling presence, has come to people and they have received it, even welcomed it, but it could be an empty welcome, a welcome that does not bear fruit, a grace that does not reach its desired end.

We see this in our gospel

Jesus, the Word himself, is proclaiming the word of God by the Lake of Gennesaret. Our attention is first on the crowd, pushing forward to hear, accidentally pushing him back towards the lake as they hang on every word.

A bit down the shoreline there are two fishing boats. The fishermen are not in the crowd, but are washing their nets as they did every morning. We do not know if they are listening; they seem to just happen to be there.

Jesus politely commandeers Simon’s boat, getting him to put out a little from shore so that he has a floating teacher’s seat - dry, uncrowded, and with good acoustics - Simon keeps the boat steady and in doing so must listen.

The discourse ends, the people move away to their midday meal, and Jesus instructs Simon to put out farther from shore and cast their nets for a catch of fish. Jesus has apparently noted they were washing nets but not haggling with fish buyers.

Simon is impressed with Jesus as a teacher, but makes it clear that he does not expect any result from casting their nets except dirty nets - after all, Simon knew his business. He was probably also tired and wanted home and a bed.

The result of this reluctant obedience is nets starting to break, a desperate signal to their partners, and two boats full to the gunwales and close to sinking. It was not just a catch, but the catch of a lifetime, a catch to be memorialized in song for generations.

The words he had heard make sense to Simon now. The divine had come close. He became aware that he was not worthy of the divine. Perhaps he feared that they would sink and go down to Davy Jones. He knew his Scripture: it is a fearful thing to have God come close (cf. Isa 6).

Jesus has extended the grace of revelation of who he is, the grace of an enormous catch, and now the grace of a call into his missional community: “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” “Do not fear; I have more for you.”

Simon - and his partners as well - get it: “when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.” They could have come to land, thanked Jesus for their great catch, and have gone home, missing the real grace of God. But they recognized that the grace of God demands total surrender, demands all of us to make room for all of it, and so they left all and walk on down the beach with Jesus, with full hearts, with no knowledge of where they were going, but with silent joy.

So it is possible to receive grace emptily, without getting the real grace, and it is possible to receive it fully with joy: “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.”

What does that say to us?

First, put no obstacle in anyone’s way. Paul then lists how he “as servants of God . . . commend ourselves in every way.” What a list of hardships, what a list of virtues - following the missional Jesus is not for wimps.

“through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”

But, second, that also says that Paul had not received the grace of God in vain. He was 100% in for however long it took to fulfill his calling. We must ask ourselves whether we are 100% in too.

I have been reading a fellow priest’s reflections on St Pius of Pietrolcina: Padre Pio gave himself 100% to identification with Christ and 100% in love to those Christ brought to him. There is amazing love and suffering.

We do not have Padre Pio’s calling, nor Paul’s, nor Peter’s, but grace has come to us calling each of us into union with Jesus and his self-giving missional love. The question is whether we have responded 100% to our call or whether we are thanking Jesus for the fish, thinking that that is the grace, and looking for a fish buyer so we can turn it into an early retirement.

Readings

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 10-2-2022: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

EPISTLE

2 Corinthians 6:1–10

6 Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,

“At the acceptable time I have listened to you,

and helped you on the day of salvation.”

Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 3 We put no obstacle in any one’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 9-25-2022: Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

GOSPEL

(18th Sunday)

Luke 5:1–11

5 While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. 2 And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, 7 they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Notes

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) (9-25-2022: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

SUNDAY, September 25, 2022 | OCTOECHOS

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 10-2-2022: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Matins Gospel Luke 24:12–35

Epistle 2 Corinthians 6:1–10

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 9-25-2022: Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost