Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The words of St. Sava of Serbia: “Give up everything for Christ, but give up Christ for nothing.” And, the words of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ: “’No man can serve two masters. . . . But seek ye first the Kingdom of God . . . .’”

Perhaps it might do us well in these many Sundays after Great and Holy Pentecost to remember that now we must concentrate on living what we have received by the grace of God. In other words, this is the whole point of the descent and reception of the Holy Spirit. Through Him we have been received into the Kingdom of God, infused with the divine grace of that very Kingdom which is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,” according to St. Paul (Rm. 14:17). St. Seraphim of Sarov famously iterated once, “The aim of the Christian life [the Christ-life] is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit,” which is the blessing of Pentecost renewed again and again in us who pray unto God (Pre-Epiclesis Prayer). So, when our Lord and Master invites us – no, commands us – to “’seek first the Kingdom of God,’” we are to do that very thing. We are to tenaciously pursue without apology the sweet and blessed wine of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, no less so than when we were madly in love pursuing our beloveds. This, beloved, is the “ordinary” of the Christian life.

To be Christian, beloved, is take up the Cross of Jesus and to follow Him wheresoever He may lead us. It is to have no other choice but Jesus Christ. For the Master has claims upon us by virtue of our creation by His hand and by exclusive virtue of His salvation procured for us even while we were despisers of God (Mt. 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30; Rm. 5:1-10).

All of life, therefore, belongs to Him and is lived under the all-seeing eye of God Who already knows our every need – needs, according to the Gospel, shared as well by believer and unbeliever alike – which God supplies regardless of our love for Him or not. In this, He makes no distinction, favoring one over the other (Mt. 5:43-48; Rm. 2:11; Ep. 6:9). However, this does not relieve us from His call to follow Him, to come to Him and to learn from Him Who is “’meek and lowly in heart’” (Mt. 11:28-29).

And this, my beloved, means we have some choices to make. For all the choices before us are either to seek God and His Kingdom before anything else – to make God and His Kingdom our priority in this world – or, by default, to make the world and its empty promises our aim, our hope, and our goal. Perhaps some might deem this to be unfair and too restricted looking to have our cake and eat it too. To some it may even seem like we’re taking this whole Kingdom-thing to the extreme, fearing fanaticism. But, this is the reality. We have been created for and designed for another world, the world to come, the Kingdom that is not of this world. If it were, then our choices would be easy or, at least, easier (Jn. 18:36). But, the God Who Himself has condescended to meet us in the flesh, Who has gone to the extreme (fanatically so?) to reconcile His very enemies through the blood of His only-begotten Son, necessitates an equally extreme response on our part. How can One Who has paid the supreme and ultimate Sacrifice be simply handed a “Thank You” note in return? If there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends, how much moreso, then, to do so for those who want nothing to do with you (Jn. 15:13)? Does this love not demand something greater from us who are its unworthy beneficiaries?

Thus, we are to “Give up everything for Christ, [and to] give up Christ for nothing.” We are to make our choice for the Kingdom of God and not for the kingdom of this world. We are to choose the divine and holy Master Who for so great a love willingly gave up His life into the hands of sinners so that we who are sinners might be saved, might be enlightened with true Light and real Life – with the grace of Heaven! This, beloved, defies what generally passes for Christianity in our culture, a Christianity enslaved and in bondage to a distorted understanding of the Cross which, in turn, distorts everything else, including the Kingdom of God. A Cross without a corpse is not a Cross, thus making the Kingdom of God empty and not worth our time and effort, let alone our faith. This kind of cultural Christianity produces no saints. It has souls who own Bibles but rarely read them; souls who possess prayer books but who are not possessed by prayer. They have icons but hardly venerate them. And as for the Church and her saving and sanctifying services, they attend if convenient to their lifestyle.

This is not what our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ envisions when He tells us to subordinate ourselves to the Kingdom of God (to use the Deacon’s words from last Sunday), to “’seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.’” In order to see the Kingdom of God, however, we must lift up our eyes from the horizons of this world and look to God Who made Heaven and earth, from Whom our help comes (Ps. 120 [121]:1-8; 122 [123]:1-4). This means, then, it rejoices our souls when said unto us, “’Let us go into the House of the Lord’” (Ps. 121 [122]:1). For it is only then and there that all things are made known for what they are and we find ourselves renewed and refreshed spiritually (Ps. 72 [73]:1-28). If we see the glory of this world as beautiful and fulfilling, how much more the glory of God and His Kingdom of righteousness – the Kingdom for which we have been created, the Kingdom created for us? Here in the Presence of God upon the Cross we see and understand that one thing which is needful (Lk. 10:38-42). But, just like Mary who gladly chose the “’good part,’” we, too, must choose: to seek the Kingdom of the Crucified King above all else or to pin our desires on that which is, by comparison, secondary? It is only when we find the Kingdom of God and are possessed by it, that is, filled with the Holy Spirit, that all these other secondary things take their proper place in our lives with the Cross of the Kingdom of God at the very center around which life revolves and finds its meaning and purpose. As the saints would tell us, without this struggle of making the choice, there would be no virtue found in us. This, beloved, then, is the great value of our tribulations in which, St. Paul says in today’s Epistle, we glory (Rm. 5:1-10).

Perhaps we can boil this all down to the simple but profound wisdom of St. Porphyrios: “Love Christ; put nothing before His love. Christ is everything.”

Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

PROPERS:

Rm. 5:1-10

Mt. 6:22-33