SUNDAY OF ORTHODOXY
Sermon by H.G Bishop Emilianos of Meloa, 6th March 2017
We heard in the Holy Gospel about the calling of the two Disciples of Christ, Philip and Nathaniel. For this reason, today I thought of saying few words about the Apostolic calling. In our days this apostolic calling does not apply only to monastics, unmarried priests or bishops. Becoming an Apostle also applies to the ones who have families and to every single one of us. We all know that Apostle Peter was married and how Jesus cured his mother-in-law from her fever. We also know that the bishops in our early Church were married.
We should all follow the Apostolic calling we have inside us. God created us all in His Image and Likeness. We are all called to become Saints. That’s our Apostolic calling.
To be able to follow our Apostolic calling we need to give up a few things. And sometimes we have difficulties giving up things for the right reason, but surprisingly, we could easily do the same sacrifices for different reasons. To follow a career, you have to make sacrifices and even sacrifice your own family or yourself sometimes. To succeed in your marriage and your family, you have to deny your father and mother, and your own passions. To sacrifice the above, for example, the love of God and our fellow men, we could find it impossible.
We will now look into the temptations Jesus faced in the desert. The three temptations He went through. The reason is because these temptations give us a good idea of our greatest passions. If we manage to free ourselves from these passions, we can easier succeed in our family, in our lives as Christians and in our Apostolic calling. The three temptations of Christ in the desert were: the love of money (φιλαργυρία), the love of pleasures (φιληδονία) and the love of vain glory (φιλοδοξία).
Ιn order not to end up in a divorce we have to deny ourselves and leave everything non family related behind. If we get married because we love money, then we will marry a rich person and see him/her as an investment. That’s what people do when they love money. We will then never be able to see the other person as the other half of ourselves. We will never feel one with them. We will never give ourselves to them. We will constantly want to selfishly take everything from them and keep it to ourselves.
If we marry someone because we love pleasures, then when they get sick or age a little bit or when they are not able to respond in the sexual way that we loved them for, then we will start looking around for similar or new things which we can no longer find in our partner. This will end up in a very messy situation for our marriage. That’s why the Fathers of the Church do not allow sexual relations outside of marriage. This is why we have to love the soul of the person and not only their body. Otherwise, we will regret it later on. Every marriage needs solid foundation to last through time and difficulties.
There was a couple in Cyprus and the wife ended up being paralysed. So the husband was working as a labourer all day and when he was going back home, he had to cook for his wife, he even had to give her water to drink because she couldn’t even do this for herself. He also had to clean everything, and by the time he was to go to rest it was midnight. So the wife was telling him, “Why don’t you just throw me away and go and start a new life?” He used to answer: “Do people through away diamonds? They never throw away diamonds. They keep them”. He was saying this because he loved her. He was also telling her: “If I was to marry again now that you are sick, I would have marry you and you alone only.” This was because although her body was sick, he loved her soul and although her sickness was making him tired, his love didn’t change because his love was true love.
The third temptation of Christ was vain glory. If inside the marriage one of the two has personal ambitions, like a big career, or for his kids to love him more than the other parent, or if he wants to be the one that makes the decisions in a family, these things can shake the marriage. In order to succeed in our marriage and in order to succeed in our Apostolic calling, we should deny ourselves and especially in these three ways that we said; the love of money, the love of pleasures and the love of vain glory.
Jesus ends His Gospel today by saying what people who follow His Apostolic calling should expect. He said to Apostle Nathaniel: “from now on you will see the heavens opened and angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man”. When He was talking about the “son of man”, not only was He talking about himself, who was God and became man, but He was also referring to every person, every single one of us. Hhat he was trying to tell us is that He will make us gods by grace if we follow this path. God’s Angels will be following us, helping and serving us the way they were/are doing with the Saints. The way our guardian Angel does for us regardless if we realise it or not.
If we don’t deny ourselves and give up few things, we can’t follow a Christian life, we can’t have a healthy family and we can’t become Saints. We need to seriously consider changing and accepting our Apostolic calling.
We should all follow the Apostolic calling we have inside us. God created us all in His Image and Likeness. We are all called to become Saints. That’s our Apostolic calling.
To be able to follow our Apostolic calling we need to give up a few things. And sometimes we have difficulties giving up things for the right reason, but surprisingly, we could easily do the same sacrifices for different reasons. To follow a career, you have to make sacrifices and even sacrifice your own family or yourself sometimes. To succeed in your marriage and your family, you have to deny your father and mother, and your own passions. To sacrifice the above, for example, the love of God and our fellow men, we could find it impossible.
We will now look into the temptations Jesus faced in the desert. The three temptations He went through. The reason is because these temptations give us a good idea of our greatest passions. If we manage to free ourselves from these passions, we can easier succeed in our family, in our lives as Christians and in our Apostolic calling. The three temptations of Christ in the desert were: the love of money (φιλαργυρία), the love of pleasures (φιληδονία) and the love of vain glory (φιλοδοξία).
Ιn order not to end up in a divorce we have to deny ourselves and leave everything non family related behind. If we get married because we love money, then we will marry a rich person and see him/her as an investment. That’s what people do when they love money. We will then never be able to see the other person as the other half of ourselves. We will never feel one with them. We will never give ourselves to them. We will constantly want to selfishly take everything from them and keep it to ourselves.
If we marry someone because we love pleasures, then when they get sick or age a little bit or when they are not able to respond in the sexual way that we loved them for, then we will start looking around for similar or new things which we can no longer find in our partner. This will end up in a very messy situation for our marriage. That’s why the Fathers of the Church do not allow sexual relations outside of marriage. This is why we have to love the soul of the person and not only their body. Otherwise, we will regret it later on. Every marriage needs solid foundation to last through time and difficulties.
There was a couple in Cyprus and the wife ended up being paralysed. So the husband was working as a labourer all day and when he was going back home, he had to cook for his wife, he even had to give her water to drink because she couldn’t even do this for herself. He also had to clean everything, and by the time he was to go to rest it was midnight. So the wife was telling him, “Why don’t you just throw me away and go and start a new life?” He used to answer: “Do people through away diamonds? They never throw away diamonds. They keep them”. He was saying this because he loved her. He was also telling her: “If I was to marry again now that you are sick, I would have marry you and you alone only.” This was because although her body was sick, he loved her soul and although her sickness was making him tired, his love didn’t change because his love was true love.
The third temptation of Christ was vain glory. If inside the marriage one of the two has personal ambitions, like a big career, or for his kids to love him more than the other parent, or if he wants to be the one that makes the decisions in a family, these things can shake the marriage. In order to succeed in our marriage and in order to succeed in our Apostolic calling, we should deny ourselves and especially in these three ways that we said; the love of money, the love of pleasures and the love of vain glory.
Jesus ends His Gospel today by saying what people who follow His Apostolic calling should expect. He said to Apostle Nathaniel: “from now on you will see the heavens opened and angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man”. When He was talking about the “son of man”, not only was He talking about himself, who was God and became man, but He was also referring to every person, every single one of us. Hhat he was trying to tell us is that He will make us gods by grace if we follow this path. God’s Angels will be following us, helping and serving us the way they were/are doing with the Saints. The way our guardian Angel does for us regardless if we realise it or not.
If we don’t deny ourselves and give up few things, we can’t follow a Christian life, we can’t have a healthy family and we can’t become Saints. We need to seriously consider changing and accepting our Apostolic calling.