Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost 2022

No special Ambon Prayer

The Holy Bishop-Martyr Cyprian. The Holy Martyr Justina. The Holy Andrew, Fool for Christ

Title

Liturgy as Love

Outline

I have been reading a book called Liturgical Dogmatics

While written by a Latin Rite Catholic, it draws from East and West as appropriate. It is more about our liturgical existence than about a particular rite.

The purpose of humanity is the worship of God, liturgy, including the ordering of creation as a priest-ambassador towards its proper worship. But as we worship God we become increasingly like him, which is deification, and in this we go beyond the creation we order to him.

Now let us read our texts in light of this

Paul decries the worship of, the exalting of the creature

We are supposed to be ordering the creature towards God, towards its right liturgical function, towards being what it should be in God’s creative harmony.

When we instead order ourselves towards it, giving it the value, the service (liturgy) that only God can have, then we become less than God’s people, less than his sons and daughters. We become bent towards the creation rather than leading the creation to its proper harmony in relation to God.

That is why we must be separate from such activities, even separate from those who engage in such activities, which in essence make the creation revolve around a human or the human race rather than be directed by the human race towards God.

The many spiritual disciplines, including the ascetic disciplines, help us in this right ordering, while our undisciplined passions turn us towards the creation rather than towards God. “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.”

Now let us look at the Gospel

This section from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain seems so different, for there is nothing about idols or idolatry.

The core idea is “as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.”

Well, what do we want human beings to do to us? We want them to treat us as God does and since God is love, we want them to treat us with love. There we have the whole of human creation reflecting God’s love back towards him, being ordered for and by God himself. OK, then act that way towards others. Seek their good.

But human beings are bent, sinful, or, as Augustine wrote, curvatus ad se, turned in on themselves, making themselves their own god. Therefore, they are often not seeking our good, but seeking to use us, even abuse us, for their perceived good.

Well, we are to throw a monkey wrench into this disharmony by acting as God does, as God did in Jesus. “Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

That is how Jesus acted. That is how we are to act. And in doing that we do what we can to lead others into the worship of God. It is a priestly service.

Now, it is not an easy priestly service. After all, Jesus was most forgiving and most priestly when he was crucified and we may have analogous experience. But in that very act we are most in right relationship to God, we are moving most quickly towards divinization. We are “sons and daughters of the Most High.”

Brothers and sisters, one does not learn liturgy only by theory

One learns it by practice. Practice is at first awkward and then starts to feel right and then we are able to intuit the angels around us and the moves of the Spirit.

So also our texts call us to get rid of distractions, our bending towards creation, and instead draw creation into the harmony of God.

And our texts call us not to get drawn into the dysfunction of human culture, but rather to respond with the self-giving love of God and so do out little bit to order human culture towards God.

And the promise in all this is not that we will be successful and all creation will follow us towards harmony with God, but that we will ourselves be divinized, we will become more and more sons and daughters of God. And that means that we join in the divine liturgy, the dance of heaven.

Readings

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 10-9-2022: Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council

EPISTLE

2 Corinthians 6:16–7:1

16  What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will live in them and move among them,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

17  Therefore come out from them,

and be separate from them, says the Lord,

and touch nothing unclean;

then I will welcome you,

18  And I will be a father to you,

and you shall be my sons and daughters,

says the Lord Almighty.”

7 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 10-2-2022: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

GOSPEL

(19th Sunday)

Luke 6:31–36

31  And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.

32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35  But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Notes

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) (10-2-2022)

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) (10-9-2022: Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council)

Matins Gospel Luke 24:36–53

Epistle 2 Corinthians 6:16–7:1

Gospel Luke 6:31–31 (19th Sunday, Slavic)