Sermon Notes by Fr. Constantine Lazarakis and Roy Bradbrook

Homily 7th Sunday of Matthew, July 27, 2014

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus heals two blind men. When they ask for healing, He asks them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ When they answer in the afirmative, Christ heals them and proclaims, “According your faith, be it done unto you.” This is a constant theme in Gospels. When Christ heals an infirmity, He states, time and time again, “Your faith has made you well!” When he heals the servant of the centurion, Christ attributes the healing to the faith of the centurion. When he heals the woman with issue of blood, He attributes the healing to her faith. Time and time again, Jesus says, “your faith has made you well.” There is an extremely important message here: if we want to benefit from our relationship with God, be must be faithful, we must believe. God’s presence is not the variable. God’s love is not the variable. God’s willingness is not the variable. In fact, He is the one and only invariable factor that we ever can experience in our lives. God is truly omnipresent. He is truly all merciful. When we come to church, He is here. When we get in the car, he is there. When we sin, and when we do good, He is there! When we go to sleep, and when we wake up, He is there! He loves us unconditionally and He loves the whole world whether we know Him or not.

The goal of our lives as Christians, the thing we really want is to cultivate a receptivity to God’s grace. His Grace is there, but are we ready and able to receive it? Being a recipient of God’s grace really depends on what is in our hearts and whether we are ready to receive Him and be changed for ever. We are all in varying degrees of receptivity and our goal must be to find ways that enable us to receive more and more of God’s grace and love, which abundantly surround us. So how do we cultivate this condition of receptivitiy?

How do we make ourselves compatible with the omnipresent God? In the Epistle reading today, we are given one good way. We are told by St. Paul that we should think of ourselves as soldiers. He says, “No soldier on service gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to satisfy the one who enlisted him.” A soldier is on a mission. A soldier has marching orders. A soldier stays focused on the task at hand, the task is clearly defined by the general. Our general is Christ! Our marching orders are in the Bible. We need to envision ourselves as on a mission from God. We need to focus our lives on His will, and set aside all other pursuits Our mission as soldiers of God is to spread the good news of Jesus and how through His death on the Cross, Hiss Resurrection and His ascension into Heaven we received that incredible gift of Life Eternal. We, as soldiers of God, are called to do good works. We are agents of his mercy and love on this Earth, so full of strife, so in need of His mercy and love. We are called to make sensible use of all of our resources, however small, to the Glory of God.

So Let’s go home today on a mission! let’s redefine our ourselves as Go’s Soldiers. And let’s pray that we may open our hearts and our souls to be receptive to God so that our relationship with Him may heal our every infirmity, and bring us to our fullest potential. Amen.

St. Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy 2:1-10

TIMOTHY, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier on service gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to satisfy the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will grant you understanding in everything. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel, the gospel for which I am suffering and wearing fetters like a criminal. But the word of God is not fettered. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with its eternal glory

The Gospel of Matthew 9:27-35

At that time, as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly charged them, “See that no one knows it.” But they went away and spread his fame through all that district. As they were going away, behold, a dumb demoniac was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the dumb man spoke; and the crowds marveled, saying, “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.” And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.