Sermon on the 7th Saturday After Pentecost

Matthew 10:37 – 11:1

In today’s Gospel we heard one of Christ’s so-called hard sayings: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”

At first glance, it sounds as if Christ is telling us to love our families or loved ones less. But that is not what He says. He says not to love our parents, our children or any others who we may have love and affection for “more” than Him. The question is not whether we love them, but to whom is given the first place of our love.

This also immediately raises the question: who does Jesus claim to be? Who can make such a demand? No human being, no prophet, no saint could ever dare to demand that we love them before all else. Only God can ask for the first place in the human heart. One of the greatest commandments in the whole of Scripture is to love the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul with all our mind and all our strength.

So this passage tells us Who Jesus Christ is. It reveals Him as the divine Son and Word of God incarnate.

Paradoxically, putting Christ first does not diminish our love for others – it purifies it. When our love for family or friends is detached from Christ, that love can become possessive, controlling and can hinder our salvation. Our relationships can cause anxiety because we feel we must be able to control the outcome of everything. When our love is ordered correctly we learn to entrust everything first to God. This allows us to love others freely in the same way that God does. Parents become less anxious to control their children and are more willing to entrust them to Christ. Children honour their parents not merely out of a sense of duty but out of love for Christ. Husbands and wives become more faithful and self-giving. The Fathers say that every created love finds its proper place when it is ordered toward God. The closer we come to God, the closer we truly come to one another. I’ve noticed that this concept is actually most clearly seen in the celibate or monastic life. The monastic life is not a natural calling. It is supernatural. Most people who embark on it do not cease to have the natural inclination to family life. But by bypassing the fallen mode of human relationships a person can learn to love people so much more deeply. A person learns the universal love of Christ. The monastic renounces belonging to one family so that, in Christ, he may become brother or sister to all. This is not a rejection of human love but its purification and expansion. The goal is a heart so enlarged by grace that it can love every person without preference or partiality, reflecting the love of God Himself, “who desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4). In this way, monasticism does not escape love; it becomes a school of perfect love.

For most of us, this Gospel is not about dramatic choices between Christ and our families. It is about the quieter decisions that reveal where our hearts truly are. Whose voice has the final authority in my life? When Christ’s teaching conflicts with my comfort, my ambitions, or even the expectations of those I love, whom do I follow? That is what leads naturally into His words about taking up the cross. The cross is not only the suffering that comes to us; it is the daily choice to remain faithful when faithfulness costs something.

And that is why the passage ends with Christ’s great paradox: the one who tries to preserve his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life for Christ’s sake will find it. This is the pattern of the Cross and the Resurrection. Christ asks for the first place in our hearts not because He wishes to take anything good away from us, but because He alone can give everything back to us transfigured. When He is first, we do not lose those we love; we learn, perhaps for the first time, how to love them as He loves them.

Deacon Ambrose Theodorou