Homily for the Commemoration of our Venerable Father Savvas the Sanctified
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
I congratulate you all on the feast day of the creator of our liturgical typikon, Saint Savvas the Sanctified! He found favor with God in the fifth century, defending the Church from the heresy of Monophysitism, and thanks to his struggles and labors, the Church of Jerusalem remains the mother of all Churches to this day. The Church of Jerusalem did not succumb to Monophysitism, although many patriarchs of that time, under pressure from emperors and heretics, were drawn to heresy. Saint Savvas not only defended the true Orthodox faith but also set a rule for us to live by. This rule of Christian life is called the Typikon. Today, we should talk a little about our affairs, our rule. People often complain that nothing works out for them, that everything seems to fall through their fingers, and they conclude that God has forgotten them. Such words are sinful and must be confessed; they testify to a lack of faith in God’s providence and show that we know better than God how to live.
A Christian must act as he must, and it will be as God has decided. We must literally fulfill God's commandment and not plan anything. This is the only normal, God-pleasing path. Why do some of our undertakings fail? Because they can harm either ourselves or others. We don't yet know this, but God, with His foresight, does not allow us to fulfill them. Humans are unable to calculate all the possible outcomes of our future behavior. There are many cases when a person gets what they want, and then is not at all happy about it. If we learn to thank God for failures, for the fact that nothing is going well for us yet, we will see how we can utilize God's good will. Our failures are also one element of God's plan.
As King Solomon said: “There is a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together” (Eccl. 3:5).
Without scattering stones, gathering them together will not happen. And sometimes it's more useful to scatter stones than to gather them together. One failed undertaking can lead to many good ones.
A Christian must fight his narcissistic egoism, which often begins to whine that everything is bad, everything is terrible, and the world is not pleasant. If we courageously follow God, who says: “I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight” (Isaiah 42:16), then we will see that even failure was intended by God's providence as a path to our success!
We simply must remember that God guides us, God saves us. Why are we often dissatisfied with our spiritual growth? Sometimes we don't put in the effort, and that's very bad. Other times, a person struggles and struggles, but nothing comes of it, and this is because the Lord uses this weakness to heal a greater sin. The ultimate sin in the world, the most difficult to cure, is the sin of pride. And sometimes God allows (not blesses, but uses evil) a person to fall into a certain sin so that they understand their weakness, their stupidity, their recklessness, their inability to cope without God, and so that, having understood this, they turn to the Creator for help from both the sin and the pride that lurks behind it.
God uses goodness, our efforts, and even our falls for good. No sin can be justified; we must repent of it and strive to overcome it, but God does use it. We just need to remember why He does this. God uses it for healing. Having fallen into sin, we should not despair, but rather strive to learn a lesson from this state, from this fall. We must understand that we are powerless without the Creator, but with Him, we are strong and powerful. God is truly Mighty; He is the source of all strength and all power. And those who unite with Him are permeated and imbued with Divine power, sufficient for any endeavor. Experience shows that if a person succeeds in everything, they become very carnal, tied to the earth. And the more successful a person is, the more connected they are to the earth. The Lord does not want people to be tied to the earth, and cuts off these attachments so that a person does not suffer during death, so that he does not end up empty-handed for eternity.
And very often, God's admonitions and punishments fall not on obvious scoundrels (who understand that they are scoundrels), but on those who consider themselves good, who say they do nothing wrong, who help people, who care for their families. And then the question arises: why is this happening to me? It's precisely because you've become attached to the earth, and the Lord tears you away from the earth and doesn't want you to be a respectable animal, but wants you to be His son. God wants you to live in eternity, not to cling to the earth, even in your supposed human goodness.
This is crucial to understand, because without this, we will either grumble against God or stop doing anything at all (which is sheer stupidity). We must understand that our task is to cast aside all plans, to put aside all worldly concerns, in order to receive the King. We must reduce worldly concerns to a minimum; we must do them, but not devote our hearts to them; we must do them, but live for God. Saint Theophan the Recluse said that there are deeds, and then there are side-effects. All our worldly affairs should be side-effects, but the main deed is serving God. And our service to Him should not be in the future, for example, by accomplishing some great feat someday, but in the present — doing what we must do now. If we have a missionary trip ahead of us, we should not ponder or fantasize about how it will go, but rather prepare for it: buy canned goods, repair kayaks for rafting down rivers. This is how you should always act and in everything - do only what is now.
This is logical. There is no past, no future, only the present, in which we live with God. We must serve God now, thank Him now, and the future is in the strong hands of the Risen Jesus. He will not let us go to ruin so easily; the Lord does not allow a Christian to perish so easily. He redeemed them with His precious blood, and it is impossible for a Christian to simply fall into hell. The Lord will pull them out, even though they often struggle; He will save them, even though this may seem unpleasant, but the Lord is still more faithful and wiser than you and I. And we must learn to trust Him. He is the wall behind which a person can hide and find safety; He is the stronghold, and no one who trusts in Him will fall. Let us inscribe these words in our hearts and thus rid ourselves of the despondency and hopelessness that so often consume us. May God help us all!
God bless you!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
