For I hear many whispering.
Terror is on every side!
"Denounce him! Let us denounce him!"
say all my familiar friends,
watching for my fall.
"Perhaps he will be deceived,
then we can overcome him,
and take our revenge on him."
But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble,
they will not overcome me.
They will be greatly shamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
will never be forgotten.
O LORD of hosts, who triest the righteous,
who seest the heart and the mind,
let me see thy vengeance upon them,
for to thee have I committed my cause.
Sing to the LORD;
praise the LORD!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hand of evildoers.
Today's Song of Praise is taken from Psalm 69 (Ps 69:8-10, 14, 17, 33-35):
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
For your sake I bear insult,
and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers,
a stranger to my children,
because zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I pray to you, O LORD,
for the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.
Answer me, O LORD, for bounteous is your kindness;
in your great mercy turn toward me.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
"See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.
Let the heavens and the earth praise him,
the seas and whatever moves in them!"
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Today's Epistle is from the Letter of Paul to the Romans, beginning at the 5th Chapter, and the 12th Verse (Rom 5:12-15 ):
Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned -- sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
+ A Reading from the Gospel of Matthew, beginning at the 10th Chapter, and the 26th Verse (Mt 10:26-33):
"So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
From this verse, too, flows the Orthodox teaching on Original Sin -- not that it is a personal inheritance, through the sexual act, transmitted from one person to another, but that it was a breaking of the heavenly order and brought chaos and death in its wake. The Garden of Eden was the state of grace immediately after the creation of the world -- when mankind and all creation were in union with their creator.
The Roman Liturgy of Holy Saturday still sings: "O Felix culpa..." "Oh happy sin, that merited such a Redeemer..." Balancing Adam's sin of dislocation and willfullness, is Jesus' sacrifice of himself to the Father's will, to re-unite the fallen world to its Maker.
It is this work of "theosis" -- binding back the whole of creation to its Creator -- that we are called to in Baptism. We are called to transform ourselves and the world around us. Not only metanoia -- changing our own hearts -- but metaphusis -- changing the whole world.
The Gospel commands us to not only seek personal holiness (although this is very important, too) but also social justice and responsible use of the earth and its resources. We are not only to make ourselves better, so that we can escape from this disordered world, but change that world -- conquer the disorder -- that it, too may be united with its Creator.
Gnostics -- and their modern Calvinist Manichean descendants -- perpetuate Adam's sin by attempting to rend spirit from matter and subject both faith and the physical world to the vagaries of human reason. In Genesis, God pauses after each day's work, and sees that all things are good; in the New Testament, Jesus says plainly that He and the Father are one; in another place, he says that we are joined to Him in the Eucharist.
Christ came into the world to heal the split which Adam's willfullness had caused, and to triumph over the death that had entered in with that split. Let us pray therefore, that we may grow in grace and holiness, both believing and practicing the Faith taught by Jesus to the Apostles, and they to us, and, guided by that Faith, bring all creation back into union with God, whom we praise . . .
In the Name of the Father +
And of the Son +
And of the Holy Spirit +
Amen.