In the Gospel reading this morning, we have a scene that's not so unusual for Christ in the Gospels. He takes pity on an ill person and he heals them; he has a run in with the religious authorities of His day. These things come together several times in the Gospels, and they happen separately on many occasions. Our Lord uses these confrontations with the leaders of the Temple to try and show them how they've come to worship the things of God's law, and they no longer care for the things of God. This morning He calls them hypocrites, and reminds them that they would help an animal on the Sabbath, so why not heal this woman who has been suffering for 18 years.

They've lost proper perspective-remember when Christ reminds them that the Sabbath is created for man, and not man for the Sabbath. The law was given for man's healing, but it had become a burden just as bad as the burden of their sins. Christ comes to release us from what St. Paul calls "the curse of the law," and we see that release most perfectly demonstrated in the choice to heal this woman's spirit of infirmity instead of following the man made law about what tasks could be done on the Sabbath. This release from the law was a great gift for the Jews - over time they had composed hundreds of religious laws that God's chosen people were supposed to follow in order to be "good Jews." The law had become a monster.

And the Father's have us read this Gospel (and others that are similar) to remind us that we now live under the law of the grace of Jesus Christ. We don't blindly follow rules in order to be good Orthodox Christians, we follow Christ. Now, this doesn't mean that there aren't laws and rules - the Church has canons, we still follow the 10 Commandments and the Beatitudes and the Gospels, there are still expectations of morality and norms of daily living. But it all has a new meaning in Christ.

We do face a constant temptation to become slaves of the law. The Church offers us a multitude of advice on many aspects of living as a Christian in the modern world. And it's a great temptation to turn the canons of the Church into law. Canon means rule, mean, normal - the Church provides us with guidelines for what should be the norm. We see this perfectly now, in the fast. There's a rule, or a norm, for Orthodox Christians during the Nativity Fast. But in Christ these norms aren't vicious laws that beat us down; they provide us with guidance so that we can discover the joy of being in Christ. If we're mired in sin, we can't see the light of Christ. If we're slaves to our own will, we can't see the light of Christ. So the Church helps us in discovering the joy of living in Christ.

This is a very sobering Gospel reading we have this morning (reading can be found at the end of this entry), especially relevant to this "financial crisis" that our nation finds herself faced with (what's happening to all of our wealth?--is the commentary we hear constantly right now).

The rich man in the parable is already wealthy, he already has land and barns and goods. And this particular year the Lord blesses the ground, and his crops yield plentifully-he has more than he knows what to do with, more than he can possibly use or even store. So he decides to tear down his barns and he builds even larger barns and storehouses. His thought is only for his own ease of living-he'll have so much stored up that he can sit back for many years, take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry. But the Lord's analysis of the rich man's situation is this-"Tonight your soul will be required of you." And the question-"then whose will those things be which you have provided?" In other words, tonight you will die; now what good will all of these riches do you?

Our Lord is really hard on the rich both in His preaching and in His parables. But this particular man isn't censured because of his wealth, but because of his greed. Everything that he possibly can acquire, he keeps for himself. The saying is not money that's the root of all evil, but the love of money, the love of possessions (which really flows from the love of ourselves). Pride-the original sin. It's not that the rich man thinks consciously that he's better than everyone else, but that's how he lives; he's only concerned with his own status, with his own comfort and will. What a huge temptation this is for us. And this is the insidious way that pride gets us. Maybe our temptation isn't thinking we're God's gift to the human race (maybe it is). Our temptation, our struggle, most often, is that we live without regard for others. It's not even that we choose to ignore the needs or hurts or desires of others. We just don't notice them; we're so wrapped up in our own path in life, that we pass by other people without even realizing what we're doing. And in some ways that's even worse than the pride that puffs us up to think that we're better than everyone else.

Apathy, not paying attention and not noticing, is much harder to see in ourselves and much harder to address than a more severe manifestation of really any particular temptation, but especially pride. St. John of the Ladder has some magnificent words to help us see and dig out the pride hiding within ourselves (quotes from The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2001). Firstly, a good reminder, a boundary definition for us all to remember about pride-"A most learned elder spiritually admonished a proud brother, but in his blindness he said: ‘Forgive me, father, I am not proud.' The wise elder said to him: ‘What clearer proof of the passion could you have given us, son, than to say, "I am not proud?"'" (Step 23.14)

Click here to listen to this week's episode of Jason's Get Wisdom podcast, and click here to download the free study guide for this episode.

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There are few areas of life that are more problematic for the spiritual life than those that involve money. St. Paul teaches that the love of money is the root of all evil, “for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10). The Lord therefore warns us, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15). He continues with a parable involving a rich man who neglects God in his pursuit of wealth; God condemns him and notes that his wealth alone will not enable him to enjoying eternal life. Christ concludes, “So is he who lays up treasures for himself, and is not rich toward God” (12:21).

This is a great video on the teaching of the Orthodox Church on the nature of the Gospel, the End of the Age, the nature of Israel, and Armageddon. American Orthodox tend to absorb Protestant views of all these topics from our environment. The truth of the Orthodox Church is very different from what most of think we know about all these topics.

Click here to listen to this week's episode of Jason's Get Wisdom podcast, and click here to download the study guide for this episode.

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Romans chapter nine deals with the issue of God’s fairness: is it fair for God to extend His mercy to some people, but refuse to extend it to others?

There aren't many situations in which it's good to be called a fool —  except in one little-known category of the Christian spiritual tradition: The fool for Christ.

His Excellency's lecture delivered at Seattle Pacific University.