A Pattern in Making Disciples

1) Christ teaches the Word of God, and the Word of God stirs listeners to initial faith.

2) Christ involves the new believer in a specific challenge, and the new believer personally experiences the grace of God; he or she feels unworthy, yet amazed.

3) Christ calls the new believer to become a permanent disciple and co-worker with God. The new believer freely and totally gives over his or her life to the Lord and has a new sense of mission as Christ’s disciple.

We too, are called to DISCIPLESHIP and to lower our nets for that “great catch”. Consider, for a moment, the state of the world around us. Consider this city we are in, and the cities and towns nearby. Consider the frightful nature of the world, of the overflowing cup of evil all around us. Consider the huge numbers of confused and frightened people, darting this way and that, like frightened fishes in a great dark sea. Some, though perhaps not all, would doubtless find peace and joy if they could but find Christ, in the fullness in which we find Him in our Holy Church. We need only lower our nets, as Christ bids us, and we can catch them for Him. How do we do this?

We can do it by witnessing for Christ through the lives that we lead. If we are kind, patient, and generous towards our neighbors, that in itself is the beginning of our witness. If we are models of Christian piety in our lives, praying, keeping the fasts, attending Liturgy, and remaining close to the Church, that too is a witness and will attract a larger catch. Finally, we must not be ashamed of Christ’s Church by hiding it from those around us. If neighbors or friends or acquaintances have no religious life, or if they are dissatisfied in their current religion, we can invite them to attend Divine Liturgy and introduce them to our Holy Church and our community of faithful. So, let us not be apprehensive in sharing the beauty of our Eastern Church with others. Let each of us strive to follow in the footsteps of the holy apostles Peter, James, and John, by becoming catchers of souls for Christ. Let each of us also put aside all those things that distract us from our real purpose in this life, let us leave those things, as the Gospel says, and, like the apostles, follow Christ. Amen.

Third Sunday After Pentecost

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?In today’s Gospel reading Christ urges us not to be anxious about our lives and bodies - what we shall eat, drink, or wear. But how can this be, if we must eat and drink, and clothe ourselves? Are we not earthly beings, who are bound by laws of biological existence?
Christ came to restore our nature, to lift us out of the fallen state, and to give a new and original order to our lives. Our spirit must now find nourishment in God, the source of being; our soul must be inspired by things divine, even as the spirit draws it to God; even our bodies must not live “by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4)
Christ is not calling us to stop eating - He Himself ate and drank, and His disciples did the same; He is not calling us to disregard our clothing - He Himself wore a robe made for Him by His Most Pure Mother. Christ is not calling us to reject our life, but to sanctify it: to bring every aspect of our life to the service of the kingdom, to remember that the goal of Christian life is THEOSIS - a union with Christ and ascension of our nature to the right side of the Father, not SHOP - OSIS - a union with groceries and ascension to the nearest shopping mall.
“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well” (Mt. 6:33). Note that Christ is saying that these things will be yours as well. God knows that we need all these things. He placed us in this world, and He blesses the labor of our hands. But let us not be like the man to whom God said “Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20). Let us instead firmly bind our hearts to heaven by making it: heaven - our treasure. Only such a life is pleasing in God’s sight, because only such a life is truly life, life in the fullness of being and life abundant (John 10:10). Amen.