CONFORMED TO HIM, WHO LIVES IN PERFECT FREEDOM

Today, the Gospel reading is about anxiety, since here the Lord condemned anxiety, but exalted trust in God as an example.  Naturally, our example in our life of trust is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, because He gives us a faithful model on every page of the Gospel. Not only did He advise absolute trust in the Father’s plan, but He also lived this trust even unto the death on the cross.  Complete trust in the Father and His compassionate designs in our life is a frequent theme of the Lord’s parables and sermons.  First, let us examine the parables. Through the parables, the Lord teaches us that we must believe in the goodness of God; specifically, we must believe that God is better than we are. For example, He describes the Good Shepherd, leaving ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness, in order to seek the one, lost sheep, and then He describes the woman, who, although she has nine coins, she spends the whole day sweeping the house, until she finds the one, lost coin. Similarly, He speaks concerning the Good Shepherd, Who cares for the sheep with a care that extends even to death. Then, also, He describes God’s response to perseverance in prayer, when He compares God to the man, who gives his children good things (he gives bread, instead of a stone, and an egg, instead of a viper), and also He compares God to the unjust judge, who becomes so wearied on account of the petition of the old widow.

Trust in God is the theme to which the Lord refers, when He says: “the lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your body will be filled with light.” The Lord speaks about perspective on the world, when He uses the word “eye.” We have to have the proper perception of the world, in order to understand the plan of God and our place in it. There are two different ways to conduct ourselves in the world: to trust in ourselves, or to trust in God. This is a major theme of the Gospel—God is worthy of our trust; our life proceeds according to His plan, and His plan is compassionate to us. Nevertheless, our meditation on Sacred Scripture and our practice of prayer show us the appropriate perspective, namely, God created His plan for His glory, not ours. For this reason, the rule in our prayer books makes sense, since it directs us, in the morning, to go first before the holy icons to pray the Prayer of Jesus: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” When we go before the icons at the beginning of the day, we remember that proper perspective—the world and the plan of God are about God’s glory, not about us. Let us consider the incorrect perspective, which would establish in our minds, if we first went before the mirror, since thus the mirror would become our icon, just as our trust and the meaning of the world and the plan of creation would be in ourselves.

This theme was very important for the Lord Jesus personally, since He inherited this emphasis from His ancestor King David.  Indeed, the Psalms of David were the cornerstone of His life in prayer, because all of these songs focus on trust in God, especially during periods of great stress. In the psalms, we can pray with the very same words, which the Lord Jesus prayed during His earthly life. By this practice, we become conformed to the Lord in our thoughts, just as, by the holy Mysteries, we become conformed to Him in our souls. For we, who mystically become children of God through life-giving Mysteries (Baptism, the Eucharist, etc.), need to become conformed to Him in our thoughts.

We Christians constantly talk about conformity and freedom. How can we broach these subjects, which seem so contrary? In this world, conformity is indeed contrary to freedom, but in Christianity, these ideas are two sides of the same coin, since our conformity is to the Him, Who lives in the complete freedom of the will of the Father. For, only the Lord Jesus is not bound by death, and through conformity to Him, we also become unbound by death in Him.  Freedom from death is complete freedom, because life without death is life with fear—in other words, the life of perfect love.

We need to have a correct perspective, namely, our life has to be full of splendourous confidence in God, so that we can see the world in the way God intended. The healthy perspective is the mind of Christ Jesus, to Whom we try to conform ourselves. To be conformed to Christ is perfect freedom.