Homily 695– 6APE
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
July 12, 2026
Epistle:  (110) Romans 12:6-14
Gospel:  (29) Matthew 9:1-8

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

Our priorities are all messed up in our day.  And have been since the fall of humanity, when the ego took over and clouded the nous.

That’s a bold statement, but a true statement.  The collapse of the human nature, which we call “the fall of humanity from Grace” or “the fall” for short, resulted in the focus of our attention, the objective of our being, shifting away from God and to ourselves.

All of a sudden, God becomes an afterthought.  God becomes an inconvenience.  God becomes, basically, a problem for us – for humanity.  We begin to focus on our physical needs, whereas before we had no needs.  We begin to focus on what we receive in a relationship, whereas before we just experienced and gave love.

Life became all about us, and nothing about God.

God tried so many things to get our attention back, away from ourselves and back on Him, on His Grace, on His Goodness.  But we humans are a stubborn bunch, and the ego within us is telling us constantly, no one will care for you more than you do, so rely on yourself.

But what if I told you that isn’t what we were created to be?  Would you be interested in that?  Because that is the truth of the creation and the world in which we live.  Our world, including us – humanity – are not created to be the way we are now.  We cannot with any honesty say in any way “God made me this way.”

We are fallen.  We are not created fallen, we are not created fallen.  Humanity was created in God’s words, “very good.”  Perfect even!  It is maybe a theological and practical mistake to think that God creates us individually.  That isn’t what the scripture, nor the tradition of the Church, tells us.

It tells us God knows us before we are born – while we are in the womb of our mother, God knows us.  See, God created the human being, then divided that being into male and female, then told that male and female to be fruitful and multiply.

Have children.  As we say in the wedding service over and over again, may you live to see your children’s children.  May you be fruitful like the olive branch and produce much fruit.

Those of us who come after the creation, however, are inheritors of life, not inheritors of creation.  We inherit the fallen human nature, not the perfect created human nature.

So we can never say, “this is the way God created me.”  Our aspirations are very, very different.  Our aspiration, our goal, is to become who God indeed created us to be.  Who we are now is people separated from God in every way, because we have inherited the fallen nature.

With this being our situation – what do we do?  How do we live?  We have all the instruction from the Church, captured for us in the Scriptures and the hymns and prayer cycle and fasting cycle.  To what end?

This morning’s Gospel gives us a clue, and indicates where our priority should be.  What Christ tells the paralytic is what He tells us – Be of good cheer!  Your sins are forgiven!

Set aside the response of the scribes for the moment.  What does Christ mean by “your sins are forgiven”?  If we understand sin, in Greek amartia or “missing the mark”, to be our separation from God, especially because of our ego – our will, or our pride – then we can clearly see the point.

We used to be separated from God, and now we are not.  Our sins are forgiven.  Our separation from God is ended.  We can now reorient ourselves – our whole being – back to where God created it to be.  On Him, and Him alone.

That reorientation to God is what we call repentance, in Greek, metanoia – a change in our overall direction and mindset.  It is only possible because we are indeed forgiven.

We sometimes see around us that very few people repent.  Our world and especially our Protestant brothers and sisters, love the idea of forgiveness!  But they never quite get around to repentance.  They don’t change.  They still focus on self-gratification and self-satisfaction.

Genuine repentance doesn’t have a “me” component to it.  It is not – and this may sound strange – it is not changing our behavior.  It is not discontinuing certain actions or thoughts.

What it is is focusing our entire being – 100% of everything we are – on Christ.  And through that focus, on everyone around us made in the image and likeness of Christ.

Very few people actually implement this in their lives.  Even within the Church, people are reluctant to set their selves aside, to set aside their pride and ego and will and dreams and desires, and focus on God, and allow whatever happens to us, whatever we experience in this world, to be accepted as “God’s will”.

Importantly, St. Paul tells us that all things work to our good when we focus entirely on God.  He says it today, even.  Use the gifts we may possess in the service of others.  Place the honor of others above your own.

Even when it is hard.  Even when it doesn’t make sense.  Even when others take advantage of us as a result.  Maybe especially then.

Because what Christ also shows in the account of the paralytic is that He can and does heal us physically as well – but only to prove that He is the One who forgives, and makes repentance possible.

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