Sermon
March 2, 2008
Goals without plans are
fantasies-Lenten Goals/Plans
I
begin this morning’s remarks with an announcement that there is sadness
throughout much of the Orthodox world this morning—today is the last day you
can eat meat until Pascha if you are keeping the traditional Lenten fast.
Goals
without plans are fantasies. They never
come true. If I have a goal to lose ten
pounds but no plan on how to do it, then that goal is just a fantasy, it will
never come true. If it is your goal in
your life to reach the
And
plans must match the goal. Back to my
weight loss goal, if that indeed is a goal, then the plans I make must be
appropriate to the goal. I can’t say
that my goal is to lose ten pounds but the plan involves eating a pint of ice
cream each day, while watching multiple hours of television. That is a plan, but it doesn’t match the goal
of weight loss.
In
your spiritual life, if salvation is the goal, then there must be a plan and
the plan must match the goal. A plan to
arrive in church every Sunday at 11:30 a.m., or to with-hold my pledge form
because I’m mad at the priest or the Parish Council, a plan to come to church
twice a year on Christmas and Easter, a plan to never fast, rarely pray, go to
church only on Christmas and Easter, never go to confession, and to engage in
gossip rampantly is not a plan that matches the goal of salvation.
In
8 days we will begin the period of Great Lent in preparation for Holy Week and
Pascha. And so this week is the time to
evaluate what are your goals for Lent, and assuming that you have some, what
appropriate plans will make so that your goals can be achieved. If there are no goals, or there are goals but
no plans, or if the plans are not appropriate in working towards the goals,
then this Lent will be relatively meaningless.
And
to this end I again this year offer the program of the Lenten Covenant. I’ve written extensively about it in the
Messenger which hopefully you have all received but want to offer a couple of
words this morning to explain and to encourage.
First of all, over 50 people did this program last year, and many of
them encouraged me to offer it again this year because they got so much out of
it. As you can see from the Messenger,
there is a two page form that lists a menu of plans to help in a Lenten Goal of
growing closer to God this year. The
menu includes fasting, prayer, worship, reading the Bible, reading a theology
book, going to confession, changing one bad habit, and the one that is most
important, a goal for once Pascha is over.
The menu offer several levels of commitment for each area. Each area is important—it is important that you
fast, pray, worship, read scriptures, go to confession, and change a bad habit
if you are going to get something out of this Lent. But if you’ve never fasted before, the
covenant offers different levels of difficulty.
So if you’ve never fasted, perhaps you should check the easiest
level. If you’ve mastered the first
level, perhaps this year you challenge yourself with the second level. If you’ve never read the Bible, don’t commit
to reading the whole Bible during Lent—that is a huge commitment. Commit rather to something smaller like
reading a chapter a day, or perhaps reading the Gospels, something that is
challenging but attainable. If you’ve
never worshipped in church on a day that isn’t Sunday, don’t commit to every
service during Lent, but commit to one service per week, or even commit to one
of each of the Lenten services, which would be three extra services over the
six weeks of Lent. Regarding confession,
how many hours of your life have you spent alone with an Orthodox priest to
talk about your salvation? If you are
over age 20 and the answer is zero, perhaps you need to think about changing
that this Lent. If you are over age 60
and the answer is zero, you’ve got even more incentive. Think about how many hours a year you spend
watching television, or listening to music, going to movies, doing yardwork,
gossiping on the phone—it adds up to hundreds of hours each year, thousands of
hours over a lifetime. And then think
about how many hours you’ve spent in your whole life talking about your
salvation, about repentance, with an Orthodox priest. Sadly, for many people, the answer is zero.
If
you elect to participate in the covenant program, here’s how it works: Fill out the covenant form that is in the
Messenger. Make a copy and keep it on your
night stand or in your Bible or on your refrigerator, somewhere you’ll be
reminded of it. Put the other copy in a
sealed envelope with your address on it and put it in the box that’s up here in
front of the church. During Lent, I’ll
pray for each person who has filled out a covenant form. And after Pascha, I’ll mail the envelopes
back to you, still sealed. That will
allow you to see how you did, and it will also prove that I never read the
covenants—this is a promise and a commitment between you and God.
To
supplement the Covenant, there are a couple of things I offer for your
consideration. First, last year I
suggested some Lenten reading which many of you did. This year, I am again making that suggestion,
and the reading for this year will be the book “The Way of a Pilgrim,” which is
on sale in the bookstore. There are a
limited number of copies but if they sell out, more are on the way, and we’ll
start a waiting list and hopefully have them by next Sunday. We will discuss this book towards the end of
Lent, on Monday, April 14. Secondly,
there will be four meetings—every two weeks of Lent and the week following
Easter, to discuss progress on the Lenten Covenant and to discuss different
ways to improve our relationship with God and the church. At the third meeting, we will discuss the
book “The Way of a Pilgrim.” Dinner will
be provided at each meeting. Also during
Lent, there will be a retreat for adults held on Saturday, March 29. Of course, there will be plenty of services
on Sundays and other days, beginning next Sunday evening with the forgiveness
vespers.
The
over-all goal of the covenant is two things—First, the opportunity for some
marked spiritual growth and challenge for this Lent. Adding anything to our already too busy lives
is a challenge, so participating in the Lenten Covenant to any degree is going
to challenge you. Secondly, and most importantly, seven weeks to practice some
new spiritual behavior will hopefully inspire you to make some of your Lenten
changes into permanent changes in your spiritual life. However, all of this starts with having a
goal, a closer relationship to God, and an appropriate plan with which to get
there.
In
this morning’s Gospel lesson, we are introduced to two groups of people who
stood before the Lord at the last judgment, which we will all face. They all had something in common. What was it?
When the Lord told them that they had either ministered to Him or failed
to minister to Him, they were all surprised.
The righteous said, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger
or naked or sick or in prison and help you?”
Their habit of helping people was so ingrained in them, they ministered
to others as if they were ministering to the Lord, and they did it all the
time. And as for those who failed to
minister to others, their lack of concern was so ingrained that they could not
see the image of the Lord in any of their brethren. They too were caught by surprise—“When did we
see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and we
did not help you?”
People
were surprised when confronted with Christ about their good deeds, or lack
there-of. Because one group had made it
a habit to do good deeds, so much so that they didn’t even think about doing
things for the least of God’s people. It was just a habit. And the other group made it a habit to ignore
the needs of others, so much so that they didn’t even think about doing things
for the least of God’s people—it was just a habit to ignore them.
Here’s
one very important opportunity to live out the lesson of this Gospel right here
at our church—I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Do you know the person sitting in the pews
next to you this morning? When I finish
my sermon, if you don’t know that person, introduce yourself to them. Do you go to the coffee hour? Why not?
Is it because you don’t know anyone?
Do you always sit with the same people?
Do you go up and introduce yourself to someone you don’t know at this
church? Why not? The Bible says we’re supposed to. Let’s change that habit and start introducing
ourselves more, enlarge your circle of friends.
I may have been here for nearly four years, but I am still a stranger to
some of you. And until you know everyone
who goes to
Goals
are reached with plans, and successful plans mean good habits, whether spending
habits, saving habits, eating habits or living habits. I know from my personal battle with weight,
that diet and exercise aren’t things to binge on when trying to lose weight and
then forget about them later, it’s a lifestyle change that has to occur. It
doesn’t do much good to do a crash diet only to return to the bad habits once
one has lost a little weight. And with our spiritual lives, if the goal is
salvation, there has to be a plan, and the plan ultimately is not a Lenten plan
but a lifestyle plan. It doesn’t do much
good to be a spiritual superman during Lent only to return to bad habits once
Lent is over. In a weight loss program,
one has to lose the weight first and then change some lifestyle issues to
maintain it. And in the spiritual growth
program, one has to grow towards God and then maintain the growth—that’s what the
Lenten Covenant and Lent are all about-setting some concrete plans for
Lent.
I
said at the outset that goals without appropriate plans are fantasies. The church, in her wisdom, provides us with
the Lenten period each year as a way to encourage us to grow in our faith. If you have no goals and no plans for this
Lent, it will just be another seven weeks on the calendar, at the end of which
we will light a candle, sing a hymn and eat some soup in the hall. If you set some goals and make some plans for
this Lent, the results could be life-changing and can really springboard you on
your journey to salvation. When it all
gets down to it, that is really the goal of our lives—Lent affords us the
opportunity each year to make and to achieve plans that will take that goal
from fantasy to reality with our hard work and with God’s grace. Amen.