Homily 692– 3APEints of North America
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
June 21, 2026
Epistle:  (88) Romans 5: 1-10
Gospel:  (18) Matthew 6:22-33

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul makes a statement that has echoed throughout the centuries and certainly throughout my life.  As a Baptist, it was one of the verses we memorized in our youth groups and club.

Chapter 5, verse 8:  God entrusts his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That passage itself evokes a reaction – one of awe, one of thankfulness, one of utter gratitude.  It is intended by those quoting it to slap us in the face as it were, to bring us to the reality of our situation.  But there is a downside.

Most of us stop there.  We bask in the feeling of being loved, of being safe, of being comforted.  Maybe it is worth thinking about this further.  If Christ died for us – why would that be necessary?  Did you and I really do anything that terrible?

We don’t like to think of ourselves as bad persons.  And to be truthful, the Church doesn’t say that we are bad persons either.  Nor does the Scripture.  We need to put the death of Christ into different terms.  “Christ died for us.”  That passage doesn’t say we were bad either.  It doesn’t say that we disappointed God.  It says that we were sinners.

Most of us might understand sin to be – quote – being bad.  I don’t think the message of the Church and of the Scriptures bear that interpretation out, though.  Sin is much broader and more significant than that.  Sin is separation from God.  It is even as small as breaking eye contact.

We live in a world with two potential poles on which we can focus – on God, or on us.  When we look to serve others, looking at the needs of others, we are in fact focusing on God.  When we look at the world around us and seeing what we enjoy or what brings us love, we are looking at ourselves.  Our ego demands our attention.  That is what we would call in Greek “amartia” – missing the mark.

That is sin.  We break our connection with God in that moment that something distracts us.  That something can be anything – it doesn’t have to be greed or vice.  It can even be religious in nature.  We can argue about Christ.  We can debate with one another over a myriad of things about our lives in Christ.  Fasting, prayer rules, reading Scripture.

All of it is taking our eyes off of God, and looking to satisfy our ego.  We want to be right.  Neil deGrasse Tyson said famously, “One of the great challenges in this world is knowing enough about a subject to think you’re right, but not enough about the subject to know you’re wrong.”

There is a place for discourse and questioning within the faith.  That inquiry, that discussion, has to be open minded.  Social media is not our friend in this regard.  Sadly, to me, social media has become a place where being declared right is more important that finding Truth.

If you want to be right, that is your ego – if you want to discover Truth, that is Christ.

Openminded-ness is the important part.  We can question, we can debate, we can even argue.  As long as we are willing to be found wrong.  Even without proof.

It is uncommon to find that level of discourse in our lives anymore.  Debate is no longer about learning.  It is about winning.  Anytime winning is part of the equation, sadly, our ego is the one being fed.  Our ego is growing, not our faith.

So in that vein, Christ dies for us.  He dies not as a substitute for us, but in order to heal us.  He dies, so that we may be reunited to God.  He dies, so that we can repent.  Earlier I mentioned missing the mark – amartia.  Here I have to mention another Greek word.  Metanoia – change.  A change in our focus and direction.  That is repentance.

Christ dies so that we may repent and be reconnected to God, the source of all life.  St. Paul in another place tells us that the wages of sin – the reward for separation from God – is death.  This is what Christ rescues us from.  It isn’t punishment, it is Him accepting the wages, the reward, that we should receive.

Since Christ is God, the act has the effect of death ceasing to exist.  We have no wages to earn anymore.  Sin, separation from God, is no longer to our benefit.  Instead, we receive the – not wages, not wages – gift.  The gift of life.  The gift of healing.  The gift of God Himself with us.

My brothers and sisters, that is the joy, that is the brightness, that emerges from the Cross.  It isn’t punishment, it is healing.  It isn’t anger, it is love.  It isn’t justification, it is reunification.  It is the prodigal returning home.

What do we return home to but a feast, and the embrace of our Father.

What we do next is pretty critical, though.  We need to destroy that part of us that keeps turning us away from God and back into ourselves.  We want to be able to look within us and not find ourselves at all, but find instead God.  And if we are faithful at repentance – over and over, day to day, moment to moment – our ego, our will, our pride will be destroyed.

It will be destroyed and replaced with God Himself.  It begins for us at baptism, but continues with the periodic reminders of the Divine Liturgy.  At the elevation of the gifts, it is us on the paten and in the chalice.  We speak frequently of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist – but that real presence is dependent on our real presence in the offering.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Glory to Jesus Christ!