The Struggle and Joy of Spiritual Renewal

In this heartfelt sermon, Fr. Geoff delves into the challenges and joys of spiritual renewal. He explores the importance of prayer, the journey of becoming Orthodox, and the call to respond decisively to God’s invitation. Through anecdotes and scripture, Fr. Geoff invites listeners to embrace change, prioritize spiritual growth, and participate in the divine banquet.

Transcript

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I'm going to start with a confession today. I said to Khouria Janet during the week, "I don't think it's realistic for priests to be expected to pray as well as do everything else they're supposed to do." And I thought, you know, if I didn't have to pray in the mornings, then I could get a lot more done. I was tempted.

Fortunately, I didn't because, if you don't know anything about me, I had an Anglican priest who was my spiritual father for 30 years, and he disciplined me in saying my prayers every day. So fortunately, it was a temptation that I was able to overcome. But it's a constant temptation when there's so much going on in our lives to not respond to the invitation of God to spend time with him, to be welcome at his table every Sunday, and so on.

We all get these temptations. I'd just like to say about my spiritual father, he discipled me for 30 years until I became Orthodox, and he couldn't cope with me becoming Orthodox. But I couldn't not become Orthodox once I'd seen that this was the true church. I couldn't not unsee it. But he hadn't seen it, so that was a difficult decision to break that friendship there at the end. Sometimes we have to do that sort of thing. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to make difficult decisions which hurt us and others. We have to follow our consciences and hopefully the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This morning, we're going to bring in 14 people to become catechumens for the first time. And maybe they've had this struggle as well about having to make some people unhappy because of their choices. But this is reality in life.

Now, the message today from the epistle and the gospel are for the catechumens. It's amazing how these things kind of work because what we have to realize is that it's not just a matter of becoming a catechumen or choosing to follow Christ. It's actually a matter of choosing not to do some things and leaving them behind. Past belief systems, bad behaviors, sometimes precious friendships. Although we shouldn't be breaking friendships, it's usually the other side that breaks them. But I thank God for each catechumen coming up today for your courage to take on this bold step. The scriptures have some truths for us today.

We're called to reflect on an important truth. God's invitation to his kingdom is for everyone. The benefits are available to everyone, but it demands a positive and a decisive response from everyone who comes. Here's the benefit. Colossians 3, the epistle, when Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

St. Paul reminds us in the epistle that the appearance of Christ reveals the glory that belongs to all believers. This is very encouraging to know that this benefit is for us all. But St. Paul also makes it clear that this glory is only accessible to those who put to death the old self. The self which is bound by the things he mentions in today's epistle: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry.

The old self is also marked by the following things: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of our mouths, and lying. Now, I'd be dishonest if I didn't say that sometimes I trip over and fall as well with some of these things, even now after all these years. But I know I've done it when I've done it, and I struggle and I try to overcome it and I ask forgiveness.

To live in Christ is to put on the new self, renewed in his image, leaving behind these bad behaviors. We have to leave them behind. We have to choose to leave them behind. If we slip up and fall over, we get up again. All these saints around here, they're saints not because they lived a perfect life, but because every time they fell, they got up again.

We must never allow the devil to keep us lying flat on our faces in the mud. It's not easy, and we'll have to struggle to take off the old man and put on the new. The Orthodox method of course is the ascetic method. Remember confession, almsgiving, fasting, the Eucharist, scriptures, service, saints, all undergirded with prayer.

Part of the good news of the gospel is that with Christ in us and the Holy Spirit guiding us, we have all we need to lead godly lives. But it takes time. Remember Mary of Egypt, 17 years in fornication took her 17 years in the desert to overcome that passion and then eventually become a saint. So don't expect just by becoming a catechumen or just by getting baptized all your problems are over.

Then the battle starts and we have to struggle. But when we do fall, we have the sacrament of confession, thank God, and we can restore our relationship with Christ. We're encouraged to always keep short accounts with God.

Another part of the good news is that with Christ in us, it means that distinctions between Greeks and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, slaves and free, fade away. Christ is in all and is all. At the last count, we had 20 different cultures in this church, in this parish, represented here. And the main thing that holds us together is our faith in Christ. And, of course, the English language, which we all speak.

I know that some people think that it's natural for people to gather together in cultural groups, and it is natural, but St. Paul is talking about something supernatural where different cultures can come together in one group. And that's what we're doing here at St. The Good Shepherd. It's wonderful. It's a picture of heaven actually where all the tribes will gather around the throne.

So there's some benefits. We get on with different cultures and we have Christ in us, and one day we'll share his glory. There's more for us here in the gospel today. Jesus tells the parable of the great banquet. A man prepares a great feast, sends out invitations, yet the guests make excuses. One mentions a newly purchased field, another the oxen he's bought, and the third one is marriage. The banquet's ready, but they all refuse.

On the surface, their excuses appear to be reasonable. But when we think about them closely, they reveal the ongoing control of the old self, the old man if you like. Lives distracted by worldly cares and material priorities causing them to fail to respond to God's call.

The first guest claims he cannot attend because he's bought a field and he needs to go and inspect it. When you look at it in detail, you think, well, this is a bit crazy. He's going to go at night when the feast is on to look at a field. He should have inspected it before he bought it and he could put it off till tomorrow in the daylight and inspect it then, but he didn't. So, it was an excuse, and it exposes laziness, carelessness, and wrong priorities.

The second guest also declines the invitation mentioning the need to test newly bought oxen. You'd think that he would have tested them before buying. Both these demonstrate the preoccupation with earthly concerns and how they can crowd out the invitation of God. The third guest blames his marriage for non-attendance. Here we see the avoidance of personal responsibility and self-examination. Have we seen this before where the man blames the woman? It reminds us of Adam and Eve, doesn't it? When Adam was found in the garden after they sinned, he said, "Oh, the woman you gave me made me do it." You know, it's the same thing. Same thing here. I'm married, I've got a wife, I can't come.

By prioritizing any human relationship over communion with God, the third guest illustrates a further symptom of the old self, one that clings to earthly ties, worldly ties, rather than fully accepting a new life in Christ.

As with most of Jesus's parables, there are two dimensions here. There's the historical dimension. The initial guests represent the Jews, the Jewish people who received God's first covenantal invitation through Abraham and the prophets. We're going to hear about Daniel at the synaxarion this morning. This is the connection with the holy fathers. Today is the day of the holy fathers. So, we're remembering the forefathers, the forefathers of Christ, the faithful fathers who led up to his arrival on this earth. Unfortunately, though, the Jews were distracted with worldly cares and failed to recognize the fulfillment of that covenant and they turned down the invitation to follow God when he became a human being all those centuries ago, millennia ago.

But the rejection of the Jews, the first invited to the feast, leads the master to widen the invitation to the marginalized, the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame, and finally those along the highways and the hedges. So, salvation history demonstrates God's insistent mercy. If it's rejected by some, he still offers it to any who will accept it. And it's offered to all humanity. And that's included us. Thank God. Thank God. It's come to us, Gentiles, non-Jews, 2,000 years after Christ was on this earth here in Australia. And 14 people today are taking that step into a closer relationship with Christ in the church.

So that's the historical dimension of this parable. The personal level. At the personal level, the parable speaks to each one of us. God approaches every heart, calling each of us to eternal life in the kingdom, a banquet prefigured by the Eucharist every Sunday and sometimes on feast days. Previous acceptance like being baptized as a baby or the faith of our grandparents or whatever is no guarantee if we allow worldly distractions to dominate. If we cling to old self's cares, if we exclude ourselves from the feast week by week, the parable warns us that this could result in a bad outcome.

We need to examine our own priorities, put off our old self, and embrace renewal in Christ. So once you're catechumens, once you're baptized and received into the church, then you're expected to come to the Eucharist every week. You're expected to say your prayers every day. It's an invitation from God to have fellowship with him day by day. What a wonderful thing. Why would we reject that? Well, because we're busy. Like I've been tempted. Too busy. But we have to make time. God wants to have that fellowship with us.

Excuses that reject God's loving invitation reveal ingratitude, presumption, and carelessness, and they warn us that the banquet of eternal communion demands a positive response from each one of us every time the invitation comes.

St. Paul's epistle helps us to understand the character of these excuses. The field represented covetousness and earthly preoccupations. The oxen reflect desire and attachment to possessions. And the excuse of marriage demonstrates avoidance of personal responsibility and misplaced priorities.

Each of these stems from the dominance of the old self and each leads to the exclusion from the banquet. Renewal in Christ, however, enables acceptance. The invitation is extended to all and God requires entry through grace, never by force, but through his persistent, loving persuasion.

The parable concludes with urgency. The master wants his house filled, drawing in those who weren't initially invited. Yet the first guest tastes nothing, emphasizing the irreversible consequences of persistent refusal.

It's interesting. You sometimes talk to people who say, "Oh, I'll repent when I'm on my deathbed or when I'm older. I want to have fun now when I'm young." But you know what? Very few people convert when they're late in life. There are a few. If you look at the graph of age, when people convert, it kind of goes up like a bell curve. And when you're young, of course, you're very young. There is a few. And it's kind of in the early years, your teens, 20s, maybe 30s, and then it sort of peters off until you get down to your 80s, 90s, and very few people convert there.

The more times you say no to God, the harder it gets to say yes. So, you're doing the right thing by becoming catechumens now while you're young. The message is clear. Live by faith, not by the distractions of the old self. Respond decisively to God's universal insistent invitation. Embrace the renewal offered in Christ and partake in the eternal banquet accessible to all who respond to the call.

Every divine liturgy is a foretaste of this eternal feast. At every liturgy, the master stands at the door inviting us to his table. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," a famous verse from Revelation 3. You go to a Protestant church and they have what they call altar calls. Some of you might have responded to those. The Orthodox Church has an altar call every Sunday. When you come forward to receive the body and blood of Christ, it's there every Sunday. And it's a choice. Am I going to go forward or not? Am I going to be here or not?

God willing, we always will be. May we always choose to respond without delay, putting aside the old self, embracing the new in Christ, and entering into the joy of communion with God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Now to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit be ascribed all majesty, dominion, and praise now and forever to the ages of ages. Amen.