Palm Sunday Homily

As preached by Brother Marc
Holy Wisdom Church

Though today is Easter on the western calendar, on the Orthodox calendar we are just beginning Holy Week, with Pascha coming next Sunday. 

This week is a week of pilgrimage. We in the Church are moving through heart-rending gospel events toward a new risen life with Christ.

This week puts us on the Path taken by Christ, who embodies the wisdom of the Torah, biblical prophets and psalms through which God speaks to us. 

Our six-day journey can stir up deep feelings inside us. We may begin to see how deficient and slow we are before life’s challenges. 

The Lord Jesus teaches us the ways of prayer and the passageways of love. He mentors us on how to follow those even in the midst of pain, fear and suffering. He laid down his life to point out the rough, narrow road to abundant life. He was one of us, and after the resurrection he invites us to gradually become holy and mature in giving and accepting love. 

During Christ’s humble procession into Jerusalem, the crowds spread out their cloaks and palm branches for him on the road. They covered up the dirt and dust, but the result was also a welcoming red carpet for the Messian and the star of the day. 

Still, Jesus was not blinded by the power and glory of popularity. The crowds faded. He showed his true self later, very intimately, when one of the thieves crucified alongside him asked, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom;” and he responds, “Yes, I promise you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Our Holy Journey now leads us into a space for lament, struggle, and sorrow. Time slows down now, and with him we pass through betrayals and unanswered prayer to a landscape of darkness and death. In his humiliation we may feel our own hurts or indignation. In the heartless reactions of those around him we may wonder about our own smallnesses. Trying to maintain the upper hand: some say, “Being right is better than being loving or loved!”

Now was the supreme hour of humanity, the time to confront both the tiny evil within and the great evil outside us. It was the Lord’s hour to sacrifice and to save, and along with him we are filled with anxiety and pain.

Some on the road “were displeased.” They wanted a powerful, savvy leader, a figure of violence, to oppose Roman violence (always a tempting way to go). Then the horror of untruth and duplicity reveals itself on the appalling Way of the Cross. 

How will we follow Christ in our hearts this week? Can we give respect instead of self-pity to our own suffering: this is how we break from our untrue selves! Let us face up to our blindness and weaknesses, “Yes, that’s me!” and ask for healing and forgiveness for being offensive. 

Do we dare give kind attention to a person less sympathetic toward us? 

Do we think enough of Christ to curb our impulses just a little and urge ourselves to be thoughtful and honest. To let our bad habits shrivel up and die. To see each person’s woundedness, and in the presence of Christ let our judgmentalism melt away in embarrassment.

If we are cannot do more on this pilgrimage, let us still quietly show love with a big heart in the journey of life. In the final hour of Holy week, already the first hour of the New: let us not be shy making our heartfelt appeal, “Remember me, Lord, when you come into your Kingdom.”

Christ is in our midst!

April 14, 2019 Deuteronomy 30:11-20, Romans 10: 5-13; Luke 16: 19-31

As preached by Sister Cecelia
Holy Wisdom Church



Glory be to Jesus Christ!

This morning St. Paul told his hearers that it was no longer true that the only way to God was by keeping the law. Paul told them that the way to God was to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and was alive even now. The people would find this way to God shatteringly and incredibly new. For both Jew and Gentile, believing in Jesus with their hearts and giving witness to this belief by their actions was now the criterion for the way to God.

We don’t need to go up to heaven or the abyss of hell, for God is here. And God has set before us life and prosperity, death and adversity. If we obey God’s commandments by loving the lord God with our whole mind, heart, and soul, by walking in God’s ways and observing the commandments, we shall live.

One commandment is necessary: believing in Jesus and His teachings.

One of the many meanings of the gospel parable of the shepherd looking for the lost sheep is that the shepherd is a symbol of Jesus seeking us. If we are walking in God’s way, we too will seek out those who are lost. How do we best do that? What kind of witness can we give of our belief in Jesus? True conversion must begin with ourselves. Jesus said to those accusing the woman caught in adultery that they must face their own wrongdoings before throwing the first stone. We cannot take on the evils of the world until we confront what is in our own hearts. We cannot change what is beyond us until we repair what is broken within us. We cannot lift up the fallen until we realize that we are stumbling.

When we do this, we will be people of compassion. We will not be blinded by the disappointments and hurts that might cause us to reject others. We will be able to open our hearts to recognize and welcome the good everyone possesses.

We will have the courage to reach out to those who fall along the road we travel, so that we may transform what is evil into the grace to seek forgiveness, that the experienced hurt will be replaced with healing and reconciliation.

Like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies, but then produces much fruit, we allow ourselves to change, to be re-created in the image of God. Like the sap from the maple trees that is gathered as a clear liquid, boiled down until the water evaporates, and becomes maple syrup, we can transform our lives by letting our self-centeredness be boiled away. In moving beyond anger and disappointments, beyond our fears and skepticism, we can make this a season of hope and healing for ourselves and those we love.

When we find the treasure we once had, as the woman did who found her lost coin, we rejoice and give thanks to our God. We wonder if the beggar Lazarus is at our door. Are the struggles of others largely unnoticed by us? So many are suffering from crippling poverty or hopeless illness. So many are hungry for respect and acceptance of their abilities to be used for the common good. So many are victims of bigotry and bullying. They are distrusted and avoided because they are the “wrong” social class, the “wrong” religion, the “wrong” skin color.

Everything in life has something to teach us, if we only allow ourselves to look at it enough. May our lives be transformed into Paschal joy as we take up our own crosses in the same spirit as Christ’s own selflessness and compassion.

Christ is in our midst!

Sermon 164 Mar 31, 2019 Mk 8: 34-9:1; Heb 9:11-14; Si 28:2-12 Cross

As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church



In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!


Anchors Aweigh, my boys, Anchors Aweigh! Any navy types here? Not sure what that service song brings to mind for you but as I was thinking about today’s gospel and the Cross celebration, the symbol of the Anchor came to mind. Its shape is reminiscent of a cross. Its purpose, when it is lowered into the water, is to hold a ship in place.

Our faith is anchored in the cross. No matter what storms in life or in our faith we might have to endure, the cross is the reminder of our destiny if we are indeed to follow Christ. The traditional troparion for St. Herman of Alaska refers to the Cross of Christ being both planted firmly in the ground of this new world and also raised on high. Though mixed images, both are central to our faith, being firmly rooted in the reality of the cross, but also willing to carry it on high, in joyous celebration of the victory over death that its symbolizes.

In today’s gospel, we are challenged to take up our cross and follow Christ. Scripture scholars and commentators have devoted a lot of energy and spilled a lot of ink wrestling with this phrase. Just exactly what does that cross mean? Some argue that the cross refers to the many crosses we have to carry in our lives. Others say it means that we are to carry the cross that Jesus carried and be ready to die for him and for the Kingdom he promised. I tend to think that the second part of that phrase is the critical gloss that explains the meaning of the cross. “Follow me.” After all, Jesus used a similar image in other contexts.

Think of the paralytic who is healed and then told to “take up your mat and go on your way.” In this regard, Jesus is telling the paralytic not to be anchored any longer to the past, but rather to accept the liberation that Jesus has given him and then move on in life. However, in todays gospel Jesus adds “follow me.” Notice, Jesus does not say “take up my cross” rather, he says take up “your” cross. Each one of us will carry our own cross, unique to us and our circumstances. But as with the paralytic, Jesus did not say throw away your mat, but rather, take it up. Take up your mat, take up your cross. We are taking up the things that can hold us back. We accept them but do not let them trap us or keep us from doing what we are called to do.

What are we called to do? Jesus came into this world to do the will of the Father. And Jesus did not let any obstacle keep him from doing that work. Not rejection, opposition, ridicule, abuse, attacks, or even his death on the cross. So if we are to follow Christ, as he invites us to do, we can’t let our crosses hold us back. But we also cannot pretend that they have disappeared. We have to bear them even as we embark on the mission of following Christ, that is, doing the work of the Father here on earth.

After all, the ship at anchor is not going anywhere unless it lifts up its anchor, unless that sailor gives the shout, “anchors aweigh!” But it also does not toss the anchor overboard, they take it on board. They carry it with them. We too carry with us all our realities, all our burdens. We take them up. But then comes the second part of the word form Jesus: “follow me.” This is also the same idea as Jesus saying learn from me, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And what are we to learn from Jesus? We are to learn to live and pass on the greatest message about God: that God is love and we are to live within that love and transmit it to others. By doing so we are also doing as Christ did, we are taking up the Cross of his mission and being the ones to carry it onward. We heard about many of the acts of mercy recommended to us this season in the pre-lenten hymnology.

“...let this be the way we live: let us feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty; let us clothe the naked and welcome the strangers, and let us visit those in prison as well as those who are ill. Let us treat everyone as we ourselves would like to be treated, that by our love for each other the world may recognize us as followers of Christ...”

Sticheron from Judgment Sunday

Engaging with these is learning from Christ to do the work of the Father here on earth.

What about the young man who questions Jesus about what he needs to do to enter the Kingdom of heaven, to be saved. At the end of that conversation Jesus told the young man he needed to sell all he had, give it to the poor and “follow me.” As a wealthy young man he could not bring himself to do that. He let his “burden”, his wealth and all that it meant to him, control his life and prevent him from attaining the goal he thought he wanted.

So, to take up our cross is to pull it up out of the ground and carry it, not use it as a tether to hold us in place. Lent is the opportune time to take up Christ’s challenge, to follow him on the path to that paschal celebration fully engaged in the charitable work of the father.



Christ is in our midst!