Fifth Sunday after Pentecost 2023

Deposition of the Venerable Robes of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos at Blachernae

Ambon Prayer 64 (Common for the Theotokos)

Title

I Did it My Way

Outline

You may have heard of a song “I did it my way”

The singer (Frank Sinatra) is boasting of his independent life, that he is a self-made man, so to speak, whatever others think, and is ending life without significant regrets.

This is the theme song of much of our culture, sometimes “sung” totally individualistically, sometimes “sung” with a reference group, “We did it our way.”

But without a transcendent value system dependent on something other than our subjectivity, why should one boast? One might well be boasting as one slowly sank on the Titanic? How does one know?

Our Gospel is an interesting story

Matthew loves doubles, perhaps to have two witnesses, so we have two demonized men. We are not told how they became demonized: generational curse? childhood contact with the occult? habitual sin? So we do not know how much of it was originally their choice. What we do know, more from the other gospels than from Matthew, is that their community could not free them, although the community seems more interested in protecting itself by controlling them than in freeing them.

What the men seem able to do is to come to Jesus - perhaps he drew them - and even then it is the demons who speak: “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” It sounds like they are trying to persuade Jesus that he has no rights over them - yet. (The men may not have had any awareness of this conversation.)

In the end they bargain with Jesus to go into the pigs. ritually impure animals in what had been Jewish territory, which, being demons, they disorder and destroy. The human beings are fully restored and ordered at Jesus’ feet.

The townspeople take it in, respect Jesus’ power but not his values, preferring pigs/money to people, doing it their way, not Jesus, and ask Jesus to leave rather than asking him to heal others in the area. Their way did was temporary gain of goods, while Jesus’ way was restoration of kingdom order to people.

Romans generalizes these principles in the context of the Jew-Gentile split over Jesus

The Jewish people largely rejected Jesus wanting to serve God their way (“zeal for God, but it is not enlightened”), their interpretation of the Torah. But Paul argues that Jesus/Christ is the end, the goal, the purpose (telos) of the Torah, namely that all who commit to Christ will be made righteous before God. This is like the “ordering” of the demoniacs - they are no longer disordered, but ordered in the sight of God and Jesus.

It is not that we can control Jesus, i.e. get him from heaven or get him from among the dead, but that we can commit to, submit to, trust in Jesus. This was normally done at baptism: “confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.” You can only pledge allegiance to a Lord, a ruler, a Caesar, whom you believe is alive and can receive your fealty. This submission, not your doing it your way, leads to rescue, salvation, release from the powers of darkness, being brought from disorder into the God-ordered life of the kingdom. And that submission is just what we find in the baptismal confession.

Brothers and sisters, if we live his way in allegiance to him we will have true freedom and true life

People and cultures are under the powers of darkness, some obviously because they are so disordered, some obvious only to those who know the order of the kingdom, some only apparent to those who listen to the Spirit.

They cannot get free, only seek freedom, sometimes in wrong sources and sometimes by seeking Jesus.

Jesus does not ask them to do this or that, for he has to enable them to break with sin, but only to recognize him as the living sovereign and will to submit to his rule, to trust him. Then he does the ordering in our lives, in his way, in his timing, although always with our will.

Use this as your template, your glasses, and you will see how to become freer yourself and also how to walk with Jesus in the freeing of others.

Readings

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 7-9-2023: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

EPISTLE

Romans 10:1–10

10 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to

God for them is that they may be saved. 2  I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. 3  For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4  For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified.

5  Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by it. 6  But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8  But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); 9  because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 7-9-2023: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

GOSPEL

Matthew 8:28–9:1

28  And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. 29  And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” 30 Now a herd of many swine was feeding at some distance from them. 31 And the demons begged him, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of swine.” 32 And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the swine; and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and perished in the waters. 33 The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, and what had happened to the demoniacs. 34 And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood.

9  And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city.

Notes

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) (7-2-2023: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost)

SUNDAY, JULY 2, 2023 | OCTOECHOS

Byzantine Lectionary (Revised Julian) 7-9-2023: Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Bright Vestments

Matins Gospel Luke 24:13–35

Epistle Romans 10:1–10

Gospel Matthew 8:28–9:1

Listen📷 My Way Song by Frank Sinatra Lyrics Videos

… And now the end is here And so I face that final curtain My friend I'll make it clear I'll state my case, of which I'm certain I've lived a life that's full I traveled each and every highway And more, much more I did it, I did it my way … Regrets, I've had a few But then again too few to mention I did what I had to do I saw it through without exemption I planned each charted course Each careful step along the byway And more, much, much more I did it, I did it my way … Yes, there were times I'm sure you knew When I bit off more than I could chew But through it all, when there was doubt I ate it up and spit it out I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way … For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself then he has naught Not to say the things that he truly feels And not the words of someone who kneels Let the record shows I took all the blows and did it my way