MATTHEW 6:14-21

The Lord said, "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

We are going on a journey up a mountain – we should not carry things that are not worth having.

This is part of the connection between forgiveness and fasting;

• “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…”

• Holding onto grudges – remembrances of wrongs – is the polyunsaturated meal that multiplies like the food in Gurgi’s magical sack: no matter how much we eat, there is always more. But the more we eat, the more we are weighed down, the more damage we do to our souls, and the less capable we are of the theotic climb to holiness.

Three types of letting go.

1. Exoneration: this is the ideal – wipes the slate clean

• It was an accident – no intent

• The actor was a child or an innocent; reconciliation should not even be threatened and should automatically be restorred

• The person is truly sorry; takes full responsibility; asks for forgiveness, and shows through their actions that they are reliable partners in love

• IN THESE CASES FULL EXONERATION IS REQUIRED; THE WORLD BECOMES BETTER WHEN WE DO AND WORSE WHEN WE DON’T

• “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

But there is forgiveness with thee.” Matthew 129:3-4.

1. Forbearance

• Apology is qualified or inauthentic

• Let go of the thought

• “Forgive but don't forget”; setting of boundaries

• Allows us to maintain relations with people we cannot avoid or that we love

• Allows for the possibility of eventual exoneration as the person grows in goodness

• In scripture; all the commandments to be patient with one another and for the strong to bear the burdens of the weak speak to this kind of forgiveness.

1. Release

• No recognition of wrongdoing

• No repentance

• No expectation that the person will not do it in the future

• FORGIVENESS OF THIS KIND.DOES NOT EXONERATE

• Liberating.

• “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.” St. Matthew 10:14.

Three Mistakes many of us make:

• Reconciling when it hasn’t been earned through repentance

• • There is not more heartfelt sorrow and desire for forgiveness than that offered by the addict or the one who is set to lose things they value because of their sin.

  • There is also little less reliable.

  • Reliability is an attribute of love. Those adults who cannot be relied on to be reliable do not deserve complete reconciliation. They have earned boundaries of various types. Some belong in category three.

  • Those who demand reconciliation because of the depth of their feelings may be either sincere or manipulative, but it takes discernment to determine if complete reconciliation should be given. For those with whom we have a good history, this can be done in steps.
    
    

• Taking offense when none was intended. We are terrible at discerning intent, but we jump to it so quickly. Offer grace and, if needed, a conversation. Flowing from this:
  
  

• Coming at relationships like lawyers or police interrogators rather than friends and Christians.
  
  

We’ve got a mountain to climb…

Forgiveness is one of the great superpowers granted to us; let's use it properly.

St. Matthew 25:31-46. Fr. Anthony covers the literal meaning and two spiritual meanings of the parable, noting that it should come as no surprise that diligently following the Orthodox Way prepares us to move to the right-hand, glory and thanks to God! Enjoy the show!

(Luke 15: 11-32). Riffing off of St Nikolai Velimirovic, Fr Anthony preaches on the attributes of love - patience, forgiveness, and joy - that the father exhibits towards his sons as he pastors and encourages them them towards perfection.

Revelation Class 14 – 19; Heading to the Final Showdown
12 February 2025
Revelation, Chapter Fifteen - Twenty

Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 79–.

Chapter Fifteen

John sees in heaven the tabernacle of testimony from the Book of Exodus, the traveling tent of the divine presence that Moses and the Israelites carried through the desert. This tent, however, is “heavenly,” which means that it is the original model, the very pattern that Moses copied (Ex 25:9, 40; Acts 7:44; Heb 8:5). …

The tent itself is full of the cloud of the divine presence, the very cloud that led the Israelites through the desert of old. When that tent was dedicated in the desert, the divine cloud took up residence within it (Ex 40:34–38). That cloud later took residence in Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:1–12), where Isaiah beheld it (6:1–4). In prophetic vision Ezekiel saw that cloud return to the second temple built in 520–16 (Ez 44:4).

Chapter Sixteen

… As in the account in Exodus, the intent of this [these] plague[s] is that the idolaters should repent, but in neither case does it happen. …

… Verse 15 contains a well-known saying of Jesus, in which he compares his final return to the coming of a thief in the dead of night. This dominical saying is preserved in the Gospels of Matthew (24:43) and Luke (12:39)….

Chapter Seventeen

John’s vision of the woman on the scarlet beast is better understood if one bears in mind certain features of his cultural and religious memory [idolatry as fornication; Jezabel as a wicked woman with loose morals connected with Baal; Proverbs on good vs. bad woman (Wisdom vs. Folly); Cleopatra? And Berenice (daughter of Herod); and the city of Rome].

Chapter Eighteen

This chapter deals with the city of sin, Babylon. It is not a prophecy of the downfall of Rome, such as that of AD 410 for instance, but an affirmation of hope for the downfall of what the pagan Roman Empire stood for. …

John’s complaint against the economic and commercial idolatry of his time should be regarded against the background of the Bible’s prophetic literature, especially the prophecies of Amos and Isaiah, who spoke out frequently against the unjust practices of the business world that they knew. price fixing, monopoly, widespread unemployment, and so forth. Actually, such considerations are among the most common in the Bible.

We observe that John does not see Babylon fall. An angel tells him that it has already happened. John, that is to say, has no violent vision. There is no projection, here, of a vindictive spirit; it is, rather, the divine resolution of a cosmic problem. …

Chapter Nineteen

The previous chapter spoke of the destruction of Babylon, pictured as a woman dressed in scarlet. …. We begin the chapter with the “Alleluia.” Although our own experience may prompt us to associate that fine prayer with the sight and scent of lilies, here in Revelation it resounds against the background of smoke rising from a destroyed city. The worship scene portrayed here is related to victory over the forces of hell…

By portraying the reign of God as a marriage feast, John brings together three themes, all of them familiar to the Christians of his day. [banquet; wedding; garments]…

Luke 18:10-14. In this homily on the Publican and Pharisee, Fr. Anthony loses his voice and misses a couple of his points but still manages to spend over twenty minutes preaching about the need for repentance and good habits on the way to holiness. Enjoy the show!

Revelation Class 13 – The Woman and the Beasts
05 February 2025
Revelation, Chapter Twelve - Fourteen

Patrick Henry Reardon, Revelation: A Liturgical Prophecy (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018), 70–78.

Chapter Twelve

… Nonetheless, this is not simply a description of the Lord’s nativity. The Woman in the vision is the mother of Jesus, but she is more; she is also the Church, which gives birth to Christ in the world. The sufferings and persecution of the Church are described as birth pangs (cf. Jn 16:21–22).

The serpent, of course, is the ancient dragon that is the enemy of our race, the one who seduced the first woman in the garden. …

Chapter Thirteen

Up till now we have seen two beasts, one of them from the underworld (Chapter 11) and the other from the heavens (Chapters 12). Two more beasts will appear in the present chapter, one of them from the sea (verse 1), who also has seven heads and ten horns (cf. 12:3), and one from the land (verse 11). …

Far more than ourselves, one fears, the early Christians were aware of the power of evil in the world. They spoke of it frequently in personified forms that are difficult to interpret literally. And the Christians described their relationship to this evil as one of warfare. …

Now we come to the beast arising out of the earth, a parody of Christ in the sense that he faintly resembles a lamb (verse 11). Performing great signs and bringing fire down from heaven (verse 13), he is also a parody of the two witnesses in Chapter 11; in this respect he resembles the magicians of Egypt. The Gospels, we recall, have several warnings against false christs and false prophets, who will work wonders. …

Interpreters of the sacred text, however, have been most partial to the Hebrew form of the name, “Nero Caesar,” which does, in fact, add up to exactly the number six hundred and sixty-six. There are other possibilities, but this explanation seems the most compelling. The number was thus a reference to Nero, the first Roman emperor who ever undertook the persecution of the Christian Church.

Chapter Fourteen

… On the image of harvest as judgment, see Joel 4:13–14 (3:9–14). The Son of Man on the cloud is, of course, from the Book of Daniel, an image that Jesus interprets of Himself in each of the Synoptic Gospels.

The rising pool of blood becomes a kind of Red Sea. Indeed, the following chapter will be full of imagery from the Book of Exodus. plagues, the cloud of the divine presence, the tent of testimony, Moses, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the pursuers.

Luke 2:22-40. Today the Meeting of the Lord was on a Sunday so everyone got some candles! They also heard Fr. Anthony preach on the stories and virtues of some of the participants in this great feast. Enjoy the show!