10th Sunday after Pentecost / Martyr Andrew the General / 1 Cor. 4.9-16; Matthew 17.14-23
F/S/HS. Brothers and sisters, I want to reflect this morning on persons who once lived a certain way of life, and how this life became transformed into the image and likeness of Christ.
The Apostle Paul, himself at one time an ungodly anti-Christian man, tells those members of the church at Corinth that we are being transformed into the [image of Christ] from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3.18). Paul himself well knew of this glory to glory transformation. Those who once knew him as a zealous hater of Christians would not recognize this new Christian man, so transformed had he become.
The Apostle Peter, at one time given to secular pursuits, now touched by the presence of Jesus in his life, speaks of becoming partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust (2 Peter 1.4).
A not uncommon question to me is: Fr. Daniel, are there certain things that drew you to the Orthodox Christian faith? In answer, near the top of my list, is always that I have been deeply moved by whatever it is within our Orthodox Church that transforms human lives. The answer of course is that it is God who transforms these lives. But God’s church—the Orthodox church—is, to use the ancient metaphor, the boat wherein that transformation occurs.
Persons whose lives were once deeply broken and wounded become transfigured while living within this boat; their lives become illumined with joy and the glory of God. I have witnessed this transfiguration, this illumination in many of your lives. God’s grace spares you from seeing what I see, lest you become puffed up with pride.
At the heart of these transfigurations are at least two powerful realities. The first is God’s unmerited grace and mercy active in your life, active in a way that draws you into ever deeper love and communion with our Lord.
But second is the role that you must play in the journey of your transfiguration. If Holy Spirit draws us, then human spirit has to respond, has to cooperate. Our role is to yearn for God; to desire to show up—show up to all of the various medicines offered by the church, for our healing and our transfiguration. Our role is to commit to stay in the boat.
To commit to participating in the services of our church, to cultivate a life of prayer, to Commune regularly of our Lord’s precious Body and Blood, to give alms to those in need, to love our neighbor, even our enemy. God does His part. We have to do our part. And when we do our part, God’s grace and mercy promises to abound that much more.
I want to share a story about a life transfigured in Christ. As you will see, utterly key to Chandra’s story—as rendered in her diaries—was the sheer force of her will, her resolute commitment to remain in the boat—God’s church—and to practice a life of prayer and fasting; not just fasting from certain foods, but fasting from all of the stuff that once so stained her soul.
Because it is the absence of prayer and fasting that is at the heart of this morning’s Gospel story, a story about why our Lord’s Disciples were unable to cast the demon out of a man’s son. Why? Because they had gone slack, had turned soft on their prayer and their fasting.
Chandra’s story comes to us by way of Julia Demaree-Raboteau. Julia was the wife of Al Raboteau, who reposed three years ago. Al, a huge presence in African American Orthodox circles, met Julia when he first attended Souls In Motion Studio, in the heart of New York City’s Harlem district, a place dedicated to awakening and nourishing the artistic spirit in all of the residents who frequented Souls In Motion. Julia was the founder of Souls In Motion.
Many of those who frequented Souls In Motion suffered mental illness. This was not the case with Chandra. Instead, Chandra’s life was characterized by years of utter chaos and instability. Best she knew, she records in her diaries, that chaos and instability afflicted her family going back at least three generations. Chandra could not hold down a permanent job; she bounced from restaurant to restaurant, doing part-time waitress work. Friends came and went from her life. She could not sit still, so racked was she with anxiety and worry about what each new day in her life would hold.
Chandra met Julia, and then Al, when she started attending Al’s poetry readings and writing workshops at Souls In Motion. She was deeply drawn to the practice, introduced by Al, of beginning each workshop in silence, a single candle in the center of all of those gathered, the Jesus Prayer being slowly chanted—one Jesus Prayer after another, for fifteen minutes.
Eventually Chandra inquired about Al and Julia’s religion. A year later she was baptized into the Orthodox Church. During her catechesis, and in her first years as an Orthodox Christian, Julia noticed that it was the practices and disciplines within the boat that brought such stability to Chandra’s life. Chandra committed to attending four services a week. She adopted a morning Rule of Prayer. She read the lives of the saints daily. She gave alms in the form of baking loaves of bread and making pies for those who frequented Souls In Motion.
Julia reports that within three years Chandra had quite literally become a different human being. She became a living flame, in Julia’s words, a woman full of the light that was her Savior’s Holy Spirit living and active within her. Chandra took on a position of leadership at Souls In Motion. She enrolled in college, the first in three generations in her family to pursue higher education. She wanted to be a nurse practitioner; she wanted to be a healer of people’s souls and bodies.
Five years later Chandra achieved her goal. She held down a full-time job at a woman’s health clinic in the Bronx, not far from Souls In Motion. But two years later, at the age of 37, Chandra reposed, the victim of pancreatic cancer. Julia, while cleaning Chandra’s apartment, discovered Chandra’s diaries. Chandra’s family had no need for them, and wanted Julia to take possession of them.
In one diary entry composed a year following Chandra’s baptism, Julia stumbled upon a quote from the early church father, Pseudo-Dionysius. Do the sacred acts, then you will know. Julia recalled a class at Souls In Motion, taught by Al, about what exactly are the sacred acts that Pseudo-Dionysius referenced, and the importance of doing these acts. What astounded Julia was Chandra’s notes on the class, as recorded in her diaries.
A religious self, Chandra’s diary expounds, is a combination of thought and practice. Most historical people thought it obvious that insight and transfiguration comes about by way of deliberate practices in one’s life—doing daily religious practices in your life produces insight. Whereas contemporary people have lost sight of this conviction; contemporary people too often think that insight is the result of digesting information alone.
No, Chandra’s diary records, following the lead of Pseudo-Dionysius. Listen to Chandra’s words, sisters and brothers. There is a crucial need for a method of achieving insight, and this method is the daily exercise of particular practices that cumulatively create a religious Christian consciousness. Our Orthodox church—the boat—provides us with these practices. My task is to do them.
No wonder, Julia concluded, no wonder that Chandra gave herself so whole-heartedly to attending her Orthodox church services nearly daily, to a life of prayer, to almsgiving, and to prayer and fasting—fasting from certain foods per the guidance of the Orthodox calendar, and fasting from the chaos and out-of-control life that she had led all of her life, until she became an Orthodox Christian.
I brought him to your Disciples, but they could not cure him, this morning’s Gospel story says, about the father who brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus’ disciples (v.16). Then, a short time later, the disciples came to Jesus and said (v. 19), Why could we not cast [the demon] out?
After all, the disciples hitherto had performed miracles. They had cast demons out. So what happened that they could no longer perform such miracles? St. Nikolai Velimirovic speculates that it is because the disciples had grown weary; no longer were they praying and fasting as they once did, as Jesus had taught them to do.
Their Lord is nearing His Passion. The disciples are more and more confused with His mission; perhaps Jesus is not the King they once held Him out to be. Consequently they start to slumber and grow weary of living their daily faith as Jesus had told them to live daily, including a daily life of prayer and fasting. This kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting, Jesus concludes. In other words, you my beloved disciples have not been praying and fasting as you should, as I taught you to. Which is why you cannot cast that demon out.
Dear ones, God plays His role by touching our lives with His grace and His mercy. Our role in helping enable this transfiguration is to do the sacred acts, sacred acts like prayer and fasting. Where we are steadfast in such acts, then, as in Chandra’s life, does our life begin to take on a resplendent clarity. We see life more clearly. We know how to act with sharpened focus. A spiritual formation takes place that better enables us to be little Christ’s lovingly dedicated to the healing of others. Do the sacred acts, said Pseudo-Dionysius. Then you will know. F/S/HS
