Tag: FrDan

Restless

Transcribed St Luke’s sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous  

The gospel that we read today is a short Gospel placed between 2 of the most remarkable events that occur in the Gospels.

  1. The multiplication miracle 
  2. Christ talking about the Eucharist and how we should eat His body and blood

So, this Gospel is sandwiched between these two events, and if not read in this context it won’t make too much sense. Once the people have seen the multiplication miracle, they remember Moses when he gave the manna when they were starving. As a result, they try to make Jesus King. It then says that once they did so that Jesus departed alone to the mountain. Afterwards, the disciples waited till later that evening to start crossing the sea of Galilee, and after having rowed 4 miles(7km) they saw that Jesus came walking to them saying to them “it is I, do not be afraid”. 

The next morning, the few thousand people who were on the other side of Galilee got in boats and crossed the sea. When they get there they see that there’s only one boat, then they remembered that Jesus wasn’t on that boat. So they were confused as to how He got there, so they asked him a question (which is the centre of this Gospel); “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Basically asking in a nice way, How did you possibly come here?!

Jesus answers and says, “Most assuredly I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.”

But notice that they have forgotten something. They just wanted to make Him king of Israel and now they’ve forgotten. Just yesterday, He had performed a miracle that had convinced them utterly that this Man should be the King of Israel, the Messiah, the Redeemer, the one sent to deliver Israel. And then within hours they’ve completely forgotten. So Christ tells them, You’re only following, not because you saw the signs, but because I fed you.

St John Chrysostom, one of the early church fathers, says, “they forgot about making Him king, that’s how fickle humanity is. Now they just want more food.”

This is the story not only of these few thousand people but of all humanity. This is our entire lives, we chase after satisfaction without looking to the one who satisfies. That is the nature of all lust and desire, you keep chasing it but not seeing that it’s a sign of something else, it points to someone else, it points to a higher union.Every desire, if not looked at our own hearts, is an attempt to be satisfied. Whether its lust, sex, food, pride or vanity. All of these are a yearning to be satisfied, and all of these sins are a state of restlessness, agitation, an attempt to be satisfied but you can’t quite get there. 

St Augustine was somebody who did this for some time. But even when he did try to seek a respectable marriage and left all these women he’s been with and even left his concubine/lover he says that he tried to chase women after women to find satisfaction but he just couldn’t. In his confessions he writes the most stunning line;

“Our hearts were created for God, and so they remain restless until they rest in Him.”Restless being a state of anxiety, agitation and annoyance. 

This is specifically our hearts;  We are in a state of agitation, seeking a higher union, but we just don’t see this. There’s this infinite hole in our hearts and we try to fill it with finite things, things that are limited and cannot satisfy. Then we wonder why we remain anxious, unsatisfied, yearning and addicted. Because what were trying to do is satisfy ourselves infinitely with something that is limited. That is why we must have mercy on those who separate themselves from God, those who sin, those who behave agitatedly. Because this happens in trying to fulfill their desires that are not corrupt or evil, they’re just weak. They’re searching for the one who gives the sign, but they’re stuck on the sign, and they keep going back to the sign, not understanding it and just trying to be satisfied by the sign alone. They forgot to seek God and just try to still that infinite restlessness until they rest in God;

“Most assuredly I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.”

Jesus’ words are a response to the agitation of these people; they are a response to us. We have chased the sign and have forgotten the one to whom the sign points to. 

St Augustine says a beautiful line; “How many seek Jesus for no other objective than to gain some kind of temporal benefit?” One has a business that they need help in so they ask for the intercessions of the clergy. Another is oppressed by one that is more superior to them and so they seek God for help to have influence on someone to whom he himself has little influence. Each person wants something.The Church is filled with people like this.

Jesus is scarcely sought after for His own sake.

Even Christ infers that we seek Him not for Him but for something else. And all of these things are signs; something that points to something else. And yet, we can’t see that, were just stuck on the sign. What we think are our goals- Satisfying lust, pride, ambition, glory and love- are in fact just pointers. 

It’s almost as if you make a journey to Niagara Falls. And as you’re walking you see a sign pointing in the direction towards the falls. Then you start taking photos with the sign, you stare at it, you spend time around it and then you go home. Inside you know that there’s something left unsatisfied from the day. Was that what I was really aiming for?

Is that what we were really created for?

This is how we remain unsatisfied and restless. Yet were not sure why. We want something but we don’t even know what. I’ll never forget that when I was a young medical student I was in surgery with one of the top urologists in Australia, and he said to me, ‘Ive chased my entire life to because the number 1 urologist in the number 1 hospital in Australia. I chased it until I became the head of the department, and now I’m 50 years old and I’ve stopped. Yet I can’t stop thinking, what am I doing?’ He was in a state of agitation, always yearning, but not too sure what for. These things leave us empty and don’t actually achieve what they’re mean to achieve. 

St John Chrysostom says from the perspective of Christ; 

“I fed your bodies so that after this you may seek the food that endures, which nourishes the soul. But you run right back to the food that is temporal. Therfore you do not understand that I lead you, not to this imperfect food, but to that which nourishes not the body but the soul.”

This material satisfaction is supposed to point us to Him, it Is in itself good, there’s nothing bad with is. Love, intimacy, fear; all of these things are good but they’re only signs pointing to Him. Even today on Valentine’s Day, we should never forget the words of St Paul; 

“But I speak of a greater mystery, that of Christ and the church.”

Even our marriages and our love points to Christ and the church, the laying down of His life for the church and the churches response to that. 

So let us then lift up our eyes to Christ, the one to whom our hearts were created for. The one whom our hearts are restless for, so that we can say with St Augustine “our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” 

What’s remarkable is that at the end of that passage in St Augustine’s confession he ends with this conclusion;

“Through Your own merciful dealings with me my Lord and God, tell me what You are to me, say to my soul ‘I am your salvation’, say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening Lord. Open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation.’ Let me run towards this voice and cease hold of You. Do not hide Your face from me, let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed.”

Not seeing the Lord is death. 

Glory be to God forevermore, Amen

Who is my neighbor?

St Luke’s transcribed sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous

The gospel today is a well-known gospel that ends with a passage. A passage where a lawyer comes to question our Lord. He comes to the Lord standing up- all details we should pay attention to- and asking, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

So, our Lord sensing and knowing that the lawyer has come to deceive Him doesn’t answer but instead asks the lawyer a question;

“What is your reading of the law?

The lawyer responds saying ‘You shall love God with all your mind and all your strength, and you should love your neighbour as yourself’. These two that he mentions are known as the 2 tables of the law; the vertical table and horizontal able. The vertical being the love of God and the horizontal being the love for neighbours. So, Christ hearing this says, “do this and you shall live”. A direct response to his question, but it continues further, and we miss what immediately follows this. The lawyer then asks another question wanting to justify himself; “who is my neighbour?”

In 1st century Palestine, as it is in the middle east today, a teacher would actually sit while the students would stand, opposite to what we have now. So, the lawyer is standing is faking humility, pretending to be a student ready to listen when in fact he isn’t.

So, who is this neighbour he asks? As a response, Christ gives the story of the Good Samaritan.

The beaten man in the story is assumed to be a Jew because he is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. And as he is being beaten, he is left beaten and stripped and a priest passes him by. Most priests at the time would have lived in Jericho, so he would have gone to Jerusalem to pray and go back home. Due to the number of priests, the priests most likely prayed once or twice in the holy of holies throughout their lifetime. So, the priest passes by, most likely not even walking because due to the priests being quite wealthy at the time. Christ is very specific in saying that “when the priest had seen the man, he passed by the other side.” There was no ignorance, he saw him and then chose to walk on the other side; he saw a man that was beaten, disfigured and stripped. So, looking at him all he knew is that he wasn’t a Jew; he could have been a pagan, Samaritan, Greek, he could have been anything. The priest couldn’t distinguish whether he was a Jew because he was stripped, and blood covered the majority of the man. The priest also couldn’t tell if he was dead or not. Back in those days if someone was dead and you touch them, especially a priest, they would become defiled. Consequently, there would be a 1-week ceremony to cleanse them. During that week there were a lot of restrictions on what he could and couldn’t do. To the priest, all of this was not worth the risk, so the priest walked past, considering the man not to be his neighbour.

Next up was a Levite, who were generally known to be assistants to the priests. The Levite replicating the actions of the priest.

And then Christ continues;

“But a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him (notice the words that he used, they’re very specific, translating to ‘he had compassion’), so he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine. And he set him on his own animal, brought him to the inn and took care of him. On the next day when he departed, he took out 2 denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, ‘take care of him, and whatever more you spend on him when I come again I will repay you.’”

The Samaritans were a very unique sort of people. In the old testament, the Assyrian kingdom conquered the northern tribes of Israel, the 10 northern tribes. What they did was very interesting. Their system to break a culture was with the aim to prevent any revolt from happening later on so they would deport Israelites all around and would also bring people from all around the world to settle them in Israel. So, they couldn’t band together for a revolution. There was a hybrid of people living there together in the northern part of Israel. God because their practices and evil it is said in scripture that he sent lions there to kill them. So, they thought that the gods must be against us, and banded together to make a new temple. They formed a new hybrid religion; a mix of Judaism and a mix of Assyrian religion. And so, the people of Israel hated the Samaritans as they are a mixed-race and as far as the Israelites are concerned, they defile the temple.

This means that when Christ mentions a Samaritan everyone would have been shocked and confused. It is the Samaritan that saw the man and had compassion. The priest, Levite and Samaritan all saw the same man, they all had eyes. The Samaritan would have also been unsure if the dying man was his neighbour, and in fact, it is more likely that the man was a Jew, his enemy. Meanwhile, the others would have been more convinced it was their kinsman. And yet the Samaritan saw him, he had compassion upon him. The Samaritan was moved deeply within to help, this isn’t someone who has decided for the first time in his life to do a good deed. But rather this is somebody who has a spirit of goodness, that chooses to give himself to people because he sees himself as their neighbour. He was moved deeply within for someone who may or may not has been his neighbour. Everyone expects Christ to say that a priest passed him by, then a Levite and after that a certain Jew or farmer comes and helps and maybe that the person that was dying on the ground was a Samaritan who would have been their enemy. So, they expected this to be a parable about how good some Jews can be, and yet Christ does the exact opposite. He’s beautifully subversive. Instead of that, He talks about one of their enemies having mercy on them.

A Samaritan helped a man who was passed by a Priest Levite who both were so concerned about who their neighbour is. Just as the lawyer was asking who is my neighbour?

The Samaritan then uses all that he has to help the man;

  • He uses his bandages, wine and oil for the wounds
  • Puts the man on his own animal
  • Risks his life by going into a Jewish town

Imagine the look of a Samaritan walking into a Jewish town with a near-dead Jewish man on his donkey. There was a cost to loving his neighbour.

So, Christ then asks;

“So, which of these three was neighbour to the one who fell among the thieves?”

The lawyer replied, “He who showed mercy on him”, he couldn’t even say the Samaritan. Notice how Christ worded it from the perspective of the hurt man saying, “who was a neighbour to him.” And so, the question isn’t who is my neighbour but who am I a neighbour to?

Christ defines the neighbour is one who has mercy. In fact, it is Christ who is our neighbour, the one who loves and has mercy on us. In Patristic thought, they always understand that it is Christ Himself who is the Samaritan in this case.  He is the one who sees us all, no matter where I’m from or who I am, He sees us. He moves deeply within, He binds our wounds, He heals us with the wine and oil that is his, and then He carries us who are beaten on His own animal. As Origen says;

“Christ carries us to Church, that Inn is the church. And he promises to the Innkeeper that He will return and care for us again.”

Christ showed us that he was the man’s neighbour not that the man was His neighbour. It is possible for us to imitate Christ and care for those who are among thieves. Only if we are like Christ and serve all and become a neighbour to all, only then will we hear the words of Christ;

“Do this and you shall inherit eternal life.”

To conclude, St Anthony once said, “Our life and our death is with our neighbour.” How you treat the person next to you is either your life or your death.

Glory be to God forevermore, Amen.

Waiting On The Spirit

Waiting On the Spirit

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous

Passage John 16: 23-33

Last Thursday we celebrated the Ascension of Christ, and next Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Pentecost.

Today we are in between, Christ has ascended, and we still are awaiting the Holy Spirit. And the Gospel chosen to read today can be very confusing. It begins with some very confusing statements from the middle of John 16;

“in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask and you will receive, that your joy be full.”

John 16:23-24

But it is important that we read this Gospel in the context of the entire Gospel, especially the few previous verses;

 “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again, a little while, and you will see Me because I go to the Father.” Then some of His disciples said among themselves, “What is this that He says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘because I go to the Father’?”  They said, therefore, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is saying.” Now Jesus knew that they desired to ask Him, and He said to them, “Are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me’?” (Verses 16-19)

So, at this point the disciples are confused, then Christ says to them;

 “Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.  A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for the joy that a human being has been born into the world.  Therefore, you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”

John 16: 20-22

Then we start the Gospel of today;

“And in that day, you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask and you will receive, that your joy be full…”

So, within the context of the chapter, we see that Christ is speaking about His ascent to the Father, that they will be sorrowful because He is leaving them, but they will be joyful once again. Just like a woman who forgets her anguish of labor after giving birth. Soon they will receive the Holy Spirit in them, and this is the presence of God within them. But the disciples in this period are still confused, and this is why the Gospel starts here;

“in that day,” As Christ is ascending, the Holy Spirit descends and fills their hearts and “you will ask Me nothing”

However, this makes no sense, its contradictory. Christ says you will not ask anything, but if you ask, He will give you. So, should we ask or not ask?

So, there is confusion. But we find that the problem is translation. In the first sentence, “you will ask” is in fact translated to interrogate or question. In the second sentence, it means to make a request or petition. One speaks about interrogation and another about petition; so two different things are happening.

So, what Christ is saying here is that “in that day, you will no longer question Me,” as a response to their confusion. The Spirit will be given to them and they will lose this confusion as God will dwell in them. Then we see another fault in translation in, “Most assuredly.” This weakens the meaning, in Greek, it is “Amen, Amen, I say to you.” Similar to how people respond to how a preacher may say something, “Amen.” It is almost like an affirmation or acceptance of what someone is saying. So, this is unique in that Christ starts the sentence with ‘Amen.’ He does this so often as He doesn’t need us to confirm His words or accept them as they are the words of God. So, there is no contradiction in these sentences.

Origen, one of the early church fathers, comments on this verse;

“He didn’t say ‘when you ask’, or simply ‘when you ask the Father’. But rather ‘When you ask the Father, in my name’”

Christ says in the Gospel of the matins of this morning that “I am The way, The Truth & The life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. And if you had known Me, you had known My Father also and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

So, Philip hearing these words says;

“Ok Lord show us the Father,” then Jesus replies, “Have I been with you so long that, yet You have not known Me, Philip. He who has seen Me, has seen the Father, so how could you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

Only through Christ, do we see and know the Father. Christ becomes man to show us the way back to God; that’s the meaning of the prayer of reconciliation that we pray in the mass. The Lord becomes man in order to reconcile us to God. So, we know Christ, so we have access to the Father.

It reminds of me of something that happened a long time ago, in 2012, before I was a priest. I was on a trip with Fr Sam, Fr Paul, and Fr David. None of us were ordained, and we were in Egypt just visiting the monasteries. And it happened that as we were planning our trip, Pope Shenouda III died and they were finding a new Patriarch. So, it happened that as we were going it would be the enthronement of Pope Tawadros. One of the monks had extra tickets and offered that we go, so of course, we went. We found that when we got there it was so organized, but when they saw our tickets, they didn’t believe that a bishop would give his tickets to people from another country he didn’t know. So, we kept getting lead around in circles unable to enter; until one of them said, ‘It’s ok, captain sheriff is going to get you in,’ we said, ‘who is captain sheriff?’, ‘He’s the head of the scouts.’ We then weren’t allowed to enter, until, a man came saying, ‘Do you know who these guys are?! Captain sheriff said let them in!’ They were startled and proceeded to put us into the 2nd row. We know Captain Sheriff and therefore we got access through him.

It’s a similar situation with Christ, we know Him, His name gives access to the Father and the capacity to look to the Father. Christ has resurrected a path back to God for us.

St Cyril of Alexandria says;

“Having blessed them and gone ahead a little, He was carried up into heaven, so that He might share His Father’s throne; even with the flesh (us), that was united to Him. Christ made this new pathway for us when He appeared in human form. After this in due time, He will come again in glory with His Father and His angels and will take us up to be with Him, let us glorify God.”

So, Christ creates a pathway for us when we are lost. When lost in a forest, there would be nothing more assuring than seeing footprints or a path. Christ shows us how to live, love, and forgive. He is “the way, the truth and the life” as He says, He resurrected a path, but He also treads that path so that we would know the way back to the Father.

As St John Chrysostom says;

“As Christ ascends, we as humanity ascend with Him,” because we know Christ and now have access to the Father.

⛪️ Full Sermon Here ⛪️