Sermon

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Confession/Self-examination

This evening and tomorrow, we will enter the period of time of the liturgical year that the church calls the Great and Holy Lent. Lent is also called the season of the Fast, because traditionally during Lent, we abstain from certain kinds of foods. And in other places, it is referred to as the time of joyful sadness. The joyful part of Lent points to its conclusion, the joyous feast of the Resurrection of Christ. The joy refers to our anticipation for the end of the journey, when we not only commemorate the Feast of Feasts, the most significant event in the history of humanity, but it refers to the joy we feel when we anticipate God’s kingdom. It refers also to the joy one feels when they have made it through an endeavor successfully—it refers to the joy we can experience if we make for ourselves a challenging and reflective journey through the Great Lent.

Those who do not love worship will say that their sadness in Lent is due to the increased length of the Liturgy and the long services of Holy Week. Most devout Christians will feel sad during Holy Week as we re-enact the Passion of Christ. For some it will be the sadness of a sad movie—the story is a sad one, so of course we’ll feel sad—and hopefully for some it will be a reflective sadness, how could humanity kill the Son of God two thousand years ago? How can humanity still be killing Him to this day? Even the most sincere Christian will feel some sadness when fasting, as they pass over certain foods they enjoy eating. But the sadness of the Great and Holy Lent is found in our own self-examination, when we look at ourselves and see how far we have missed the mark this year, when we see how far we are from God.

In previous weeks, we examined two stories of self-evaluation from the Bible. We met a Pharisee and a tax collector. And we met two brothers in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Two of the four were exalted in the eyes of God, and two of them were humbled. The two that were humbled were those who upon self-examination found nothing to be lacking. The two that were exalted were those who, upon examining themselves, found a wide gulf between where they were, and where they knew they should be. The Pharisee, ostensibly a good man, offered a prayer of self-congratulations. The older son told his father, I have never done anything wrong—in the eyes of God, these two were found to be lacking. The tax collector cried out to God for mercy, even though he didn’t feel deserving of it. The Prodigal Son repented and went back to his father and threw himself at his father’s mercies. God exalted the prayer of the tax collector. The father restored the Prodigal Son.

These two stories set the tone for the Lenten journey—for the purpose of Lent each year is not self-congratulations, but humility. It’s not exclaiming how far we’ve come, or what we’ve done, but a careful and somber reflection of how far we have to go, and what we’ve failed to do. When one considers the majesty of God, we seem like pretty trivial beings. Some people put a human face on God—He is our friend, our companion. We put human actions to Him—We walk with Him, we talk with Him. But think about God as Almighty—Pantocrator—Creator of all things. Think of God as He appears in the dome of our church—not in one of the pews as one of us, but as ruler over all things, and we seem pretty insignificant. If I do unbelievable good things, my fellow man will be impressed. As an example, if I donate enough money, someone will name a building for me, or a wing of the hospital, so my name will stand in perpetuity. And with my fellow man, it doesn’t matter if I donated the money with pride or with humility. But it does with God—was that offered with love and thanksgiving, a gift from God’s own gifts, thine own of thine own, as we say in the Liturgy. Or with self-aggrandizement—glory given to self, with no mention of God. And as the Gospel said this morning, we are supposed to give to God in secret, delighting not in the adulation of our fellow man, but with the knowledge that our gift has been blessed by God.

As I mentioned a moment ago, the catalyst for the stories of the Publican and the Pharisee and the Prodigal son were moments of self-evaluation. For many people, the concept of an evaluation is a scary one. If one is being evaluated by someone else, there is fear that a poor evaluation will have negative consequences. In a job situation, that could mean loss of job, or loss of a raise, or loss of reputation. And if one is being evaluated by himself, there is a quandary—evaluate oneself too harshly, it gives fuel for others to criticize. Evaluate too leniently, and one will be accused of being too proud.

Given the choice, I would rather be evaluated by someone else, rather than leaving my own judgment up to myself. Because I’d rather take someone else’s advice and that way if someone is wrong, it’s not going to be me. I’d rather trust someone else to evaluate me, than trusting myself to do it. In the context of my life as a Christian, the person who evaluates me is my spiritual father. He is a priest with whom I established a relationship several years ago. He prays for me, I pray for him. He loves me and I love him. He looks out for me and I trust him. This is the basis for our relationship. Ours is also a great friendship. There are times we laugh, times we cry, times we work together, and other times we are at leisure. But there is a very special time we share, when I look at him as father and he looks at me as son, and I place my journey to salvation into his hands, I open my heart and share with him the things that burden me. I open my soul and I talk to him honestly about the things that keep me from God. I open my eyes and out flow tears of sadness over things I have done wrong. I open my mind and ask questions about things I don’t understand. When I speak to him in this context, which in Orthodoxy we call the sacrament of confession, as I pour out my heart and soul to him before God, he always sits with his eyes closed. He doesn’t need to look at me, only listen to the pains, while he prays for guidance to offer the spiritual advice to heal them. When I am through talking, I open my ears and listen. I open my mind to new ideas. I open my heart and allow it to trust what he is saying. I open my soul and all the bad things leave and my soul is cleansed. It is no longer hurting. It is no longer angry. It is at peace. I kneel and he prays over me. My eyes are open, and this time they are filled with tears of joy. And as I rise from that bed of spiritual sorrow, he embraces me, with the same embrace the father had for the prodigal son. He doesn’t judge or condemn me. Rather he is more committed to the relationship because when he prays for me, he now has new things to pray about. And as I leave that encounter, I am not only filled with joy about having a soul that is cleansed, but I am joyful because he has provided direction and all I have to do is follow it. This relationship works because there is trust on my part, sincerity on his. I bring honesty, he brings discernment. Together we share vulnerability. And because we share vulnerability, we share love as well.

I cannot imagine going through my spiritual life, trusting my own self-evaluation of my relationship with God, any more than I can imagine going through life without a doctor, trusting my own self-evaluation of my health. I have a doctor. I trust him. I am honest with him, and when he diagnoses a problem and offers a cure, I am obedient to what he says. After all, who am I, he is the expert. If I am sick and he says 10 days of medication are needed, and I feel better after 3 days, I don’t pronounce myself cured and stop, I do all ten days.

God gives grace to His priests, to diagnose the spiritual illnesses of his flock, the same way He gives the talent to doctors to diagnose the physical illnesses of the body. God’s priests are responsible for the flock the way a shepherd is to a flock of sheep. When a sheep is lost, the priest is supposed to find that lost sheep. When the sheep has run away, however, or when the sheep hears the voice of the shepherd but does not want to be found, then it is the sheep who is at fault, not the shepherd. And when one tries to divide the flock the way the wolf scatters the flock of sheep, it is then up to the shepherd to protect the flock and to expel the wolf.

Confession is not an optional sacrament. Not ever going to confession will threaten your spirit the same way that never going to a doctor will threaten your health. Self-diagnosis and home-made remedies will only carry you so far. I encourage you to go to confession this Lent. I encourage you to do it sooner than later, because as it get close to Holy Week, I begin to run out of time and then I have to rush through something that sometimes takes time, and I don’t want to do that to anyone. If you don’t feel like you can look at me as a spiritual father, or father confessor, then I encourage you to look up one of the other priests in this area and go to that priest. There are people from other churches who come to me, so no worries, it is no burden for them. When the Prodigal son made his way back to his father, he intended to make himself a servant to his father, he didn’t know that the father would restore him and would throw a celebration in his honor. Conversely, with confession, you know the end of the story—you know you will be restored and renewed. Thus, even though the journey is difficult, the ending is always happy. There is a lot of hurt in the people of this community. Actually, there is a lot of hurt in people, period. God is the healer of the hurt. Confession is where we bring the sorrows to God so He can turn them into joy. Just like Lent is the somber journey that ends with the joy of the Resurrection.

I am excited about Great Lent—I am glad we make this journey every year, because it seems that every year, I need this time of joyful sadness, this time of prayerful reflection, to strengthen me and re-orient me in my journey to salvation. This is also a time of renewal for our community. Most of you should be familiar with the Lenten covenant concept—I wrote about it extensively in the Messenger—I preached about it last Sunday. If you are going to participate in this program, you can leave your covenant here in church in the box in front of the altar on your way out, or come in some time during the coffee hour if you feel self-conscious about putting it in here while others are around. If you didn’t bring one and want to fill one out, there are some up here in front. Later this afternoon, I will copy down the names of everyone participating and make a prayer list and every day during Lent, I will offer up prayers for you. If you didn’t buy the Orthodoxy 101 book, they are on sale in the bookstore. If we sell out, don’t worry more are on the way and should be here by next Sunday. This evening, we will begin Lent with the Forgiveness Vespers at 6:00 p.m. This is one of the more powerful services of the church year—it is the opposite of the Resurrection Service, as everything goes from light to dark. It will also be very humbling, as we will ask for forgiveness from one another. Each week of Lent will be filled with moving and somber services—every Monday evening, Wednesday evening and Friday Evening. These services are quite different from Sunday Liturgy—they are more sedate, quiet, reflective, and I strongly encourage you to attend some of them. There will be an extra service tomorrow morning, the penitential Canon of St. Andrew at 10:00 a.m. The final Saturday of the Souls is this Saturday at 10:00 a.m. And the first meeting for the Lenten Covenant group is Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. following Pre-Sanctified Liturgy. A Lenten meal will be served. After church, one of our young adults will be taking sign-ups for the adult Lenten retreat on March 10.

The Lenten covenant will be time intensive and require focus—that’s good, it will give us less time to do things that take us away from God—bad habits, idle time, impure thoughts. A meaningful Lenten experience will require focus, will require some degree of vulnerability and humility from each person. If you are not planning on changing anything about yourself this Lent, if you can’t somberly reflect on your spiritual life, this Lenten period will probably do little if anything for you. If there is someone in your family, or a friend who you know will only come for a token appearance during Holy Week, I hope you’ll pick up the phone this afternoon and tell them that they will have lost a wonderful opportunity to grow towards God, and encourage them to come before Holy Saturday. If you are ready to begin the great march through Lent and are somewhat nervous about it, then join the club—I’m nervous too. Nervous about what I’ll be required to do in this community this Lent—the confessions, the prayers, the services, getting it all in. But more nervous about what I’ll find if I look deep within myself and honestly admit where my faults are. We know that it is darkest before the dawn and night always precedes the day. But we also know that the light always conquers the darkness. Thus, sadness must precede the joy, but the joy of Christ will conquer all the sadness.

Lent is not a time to recognize how far we’ve come, but how far we need to go. If the Prodigal Son never took the chance and repented, he would have lived the rest of his life in the slop of the pigs. But because he took that chance, he not only got back the respect of his father, he found his respect for himself.

I leave you with the words of one hymn of the Orthros to contemplate as we begin the Great and Holy Lent: “As I realize the multitude of sinful things I have done, wretch that I am, I tremble before the fearful day of judgment. But trusting in the mercy of your compassion, I cry out to you like David, ‘Have mercy on me o God, according to your great mercy.’” Kali Sarakosti. Have a blessed and meaningful Lenten journey.

Every Liturgy, before a priest receives Communion, he asks for forgiveness from the people of his congregation. It is his attempt to reconcile himself with them before he dares to touch the body of Christ with his unworthy hands. Being a priest is a heavy cross to carry. It is a constant challenge—mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. And in the challenge to minister to so many people, and with the limitations and temptations with which every human being suffers, there are mistakes. Every Liturgy, I ask forgiveness of you for my mistakes—it is a brief moment, some of you may not even notice or hear. But once a year, on this Sunday of forgiveness, as we prepare to enter the fast, I pause in a more deliberate way to ask for forgiveness of my sins of the past year. This evening, I hope I will have a chance to embrace each of you at the Vespers of Forgiveness, to look you in the eye, and ask for your forgiveness. There are some I know who will not attend, and so I will ask for your forgiveness now. Some sins I did knowingly and others unintentionally. And some were sins of omission, things I should have done. Some were sins of indifference—I didn’t pay attention, I didn’t return a phone call. And sometimes, even though I gave my best effort, it wasn’t good enough, something didn’t get done, someone got offended. And for those things, I am sorry. There are some whom I probably will never see eye to eye with, and some who will never see eye to eye with me. And so if you can’t forgive me, I will ask you to pray not for me, but for us, that God will close that distance between us. I’ve probably managed to do something wrong to everyone in this church this year—we are a family. And families who spend lots of time together inevitably wrong fellow family members. And so, to my spiritual children, my spiritual family, I will ask of you two things: Please pray for me. The cross seems to become heavier with each passing year, and thus the challenge to physical stamina, patience and focus becomes more and more difficult. I need your prayers. And please forgive my sins of this past year, the things I did, the things I didn’t do, and the things I should have done. I need your forgiveness, so that I may stand before God to offer this Liturgy on behalf of myself and all of you, and hold His precious body in my unworthy hands with a clear conscience each time I have the privilege to do so. I need forgiveness so that at the end of my life, I may stand before God’s awesome judgment seat and present to him the Body of Christ the same way I was given it at my ordination—so that I may say to Him in truth, of those you gave me, I lost not one. My brothers and sisters in Christ, please forgive me.