3rd Sunday after Pentecost (June 29, 2025) Isaiah 49:13-19, Romans 3:19-26, Matthew 6:22-34

A preached by Sister Cecelia
Holy Wisdom Church

There are so many valuable lessons from the Scripture readings today, but one of the first sayings from the gospel stood out for me.

It has many translations. Here is one: “If your eye is pure, there will be sunshine in your soul. But if your eye is clouded with evil thoughts and desires, you are in deep spiritual darkness.”  Other translations are: “The eye is the lamp of the body [or, The lamp of the body is the eye]. If your eye is healthy or sound, your whole body will be full of light. If your eye is unhealthy or diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness or in darkness, If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

What is this spiritual vision that enables our eye to be pure, healthy, or sound? It is our capacity to see clearly what God wants us to do with our lives. This insight can be clouded by our many thoughts, desires, interests, and goals that are self-serving.

 In this gospel, Jesus then refers to things within the reach of our senses- like the lilies of the field and birds of the air- that we might more easily grasp His teaching. We understand the value of light in our lives. The mind (nous) is our spiritual eye. Keeping our spiritual eyes good or wholesome is fundamental to our Christian life. Planting ourselves squarely in the present moment is a condition for being fully alive and happy. Our personal rebirth or enlightenment begins here and now! Today, let us take time to notice. We can go through life on automatic pilot, or we can discipline ourselves to pay attention to each moment with openness and gratitude. Moments of beauty easily lead us to pray when we are awake to their presence, when we see with our spiritual eye. The mystic theologian St. Gregory of Nyssa indicated in his writing: “The whole of creation is but one single temple of the God who created it.”

We have the opportunity to look again at who we are, at where we want to go in life, at how we are getting to where we want to go. We need to know that we are living for something of value. Will we leave this world better than when we found it? We need to carry a light into the darkness of the world so that others too, may follow and find the way.

Mary Magdalene can be our model. The Magdalen had banked her whole life on the fact that the vision of Jesus would come to fullness. She believed in him and believed in everything he taught. She followed him to the end, even when others fled. She followed him in the light and finally, like the rest of us, she followed him through the darkness. She continued in the faith that what had come to life in her, even if suppressed in the world around her, could not die.

The message is clear. When we follow Jesus, the path is often through darkness to what looks like failure and defeat. But when we ourselves carry the message of Jesus here and now, we carry within ourselves the promise of new life. We live the ongoing message of the Resurrection itself: What comes in the name of Jesus will not die. Darkness will be overcome as long as we ourselves never let the light of Truth be blown out in our own hearts.

Sermon 209 June 22, 2025: Sg 3:1-4, 6-11; Ac 2:40-47; Lk 24:13-35 “Christ at Emmaus" - "Seen and unseen"

As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

       When we recite the Creed, which we will do again this morning, we may be so habituated to saying it that we can let the text just slide over us without really penetrating our consciousness. For example it opens saying God is the "maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible." One might also say "all things seen and unseen." We have no trouble comprehending the concept "all things visible." Since the Enlightenment, we in the West especially, put our trust in the reality of the physical world. But "all things invisible" is another matter.

       Something unseen can be right in front of us, but we don't see it. This can happen when we are looking for something we have misplaced and we walk right by it in our frantic search for it and do not see it. But another way of looking at something and not seeing it is when we are looking at someone and we see them, their physical presence, but we do not see into their heart. A person's inner world is not visible to us. Although the aura of that inner world might be visible or at least sensed.

       But unseen can cover many other phenomena. In scripture unseen or invisible often refers to angels and other "bodiless" powers. Many things that were once in the category of invisible may now be detected by scientific methods. Sound waves, wind, and electricity, for example. But what about love? 

       Today's gospel reading about the risen Jesus joining Cleopas and his companion as they dejectedly walk on the road away from Jerusalem is not about mistaken identity, it's about love. The two disciples didn't see him, even though they saw the person walking with them. Of course, this story is given to us along with many others, to witness to Christ's resurrection.

       Why did Jesus come to them? They were in despair. He knew this. He came to rekindle their faith. But the faith Jesus represents is something beyond what they expected. "We thought he was the one to liberate Israel."  It is so human to project our needs or preconceived notions onto Jesus or God. "We thought he was the one to save our dying daughter." "We thought he was the one to end all wars." "We thought he was the one to eliminate all evil in the world." We can all add to this list.

       Being with a loved one who is dying is love. The outcome doesn't change, the love that animates that act also doesn't change.

       God is love. We can't see God because we can't see love. We experience it. To enter into God is to enter into the all embracing love that is God. Our journey on this earth is a prelude to that final destination. Cleopas and his companion's hopes for this life seemed to have died on the cross. They didn't see the larger reality. Christ had to restore their faith. He had to show them in a physical reality that they could understand--and see--in order to open their eyes to the reality beyond the physical. Then he disappeared--but he was not gone. He remained with all his disciples on their journeys to spread the good news.

       I just finished reading a biography of Archimandrite Roman Braga. ^[1] I suspect that someday our church will recognize him as a saint. Near the end of his life, Fr. Roman, in guiding a young priest monk [heiromonk] to see the need for balance between formal theological education and the practical experience of the Christian life, said: "The Last Judgment will not be a theology test; it will be about what you did." In critiquing his own ascetic practice Fr Roman said to his disciple, only one prostration is needed. Smiling, he continued, it takes a thousand prostrations before you get to that one wherein you truly die as your head touches the ground and come back to full life upon rising.

       And what is that full life we rise to? It is the love of God. Jesus walked with Cleopas and his companion to reorient them once again toward the salvation to which he is calling all of us. The love that holds us through and beyond all joys and sorrows of this life.

       Christ is in our midst!

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^[1] Journey to Simplicity : The Life and Wisdom of Archimandrite Roman Braga. Daniel B. Hinshaw. Yonkers NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2023, pp. 517-18.