Wednesday, March 9, 2005 Meat Fast
The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
Kellia: St. Matthew 20:1-16 1st Vespers: Joel 2:12-26 2nd Vespers: Joel 3:12-21
St. Matthew 20:1-16, especially vs. 15: "Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own
things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?" If we will closely examine this parable of the Lord Jesus concerning a
landowner paying his workers' wages in the evening, it can brightly illumine the relationship between fasting and Divine
Judgment for us. However, St. John Chrysostom is quite right in pressing us to inquire fundamentally, "What then does the
parable mean?" his point being that "it is necessary first to make [this point] clear" before applying its message. St.
Theophylact of Bulgaria states the meaning of the parable quite succinctly for us: "Christ...went out from the bosom of the
Father and hired....each one to labor in the vineyard which is his own soul." The task, then, of the laborers requires those,
"who by the grace of Christ have been made righteous through baptism, [to] receive power to conquer our opponent who
has already been cast down and slain by Christ." What is the name we give to this work within our souls of conquering our
enemy but askesis - the struggle by various methods "to fight the passions and evil habits, to overcome temptation"?
Of course, one of the principal methods for fighting the passions is fasting, coupled with the study of Scripture, prayer, the
cultivation of the virtues - the practice of piety in general. By all of these methods we labor in the vineyard of our souls. In
the matter of Divine Judgment, one of the Holy Fathers rightly asks us, "and just as the hired hand is ashamed to enter the
house and ask for bread on a day when he has not worked, how will you not be ashamed to enter church and stand before
God's gaze when you have done nothing good in God's sight?" God has set fasting and all the ascetic practices before us
as the labor for which He has called us. So God's judgment on our discipleship is involved when we come to receive our
wages in the evening, whether the evening of each day or at the final sunset of our life.
St. Gregory the Great rightly cautions us that at the times of Divine Judgment "no one should boast of his work or of his
time, when after saying this [parable] Truth cries out" 'So the last will be first and the first last.' We know what good
things we have done and how many they are; we do not know with what exactitude our Judge on high will investigate
them." However, the parable does provide light for considering God's judgment on our fasting and all our askesis. For it
shows us that God sets His standards for our askesis (vs. 7); further, that we have no claim before Him on our part that
obligates His judging (vss. 11-15); and, thankfully, that Christ our God Who called us to this gracious labor, is not
capricious but good and compassionate (vs. 15).
Our Master and our Benefactor "agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day" (vs. 2), whether they were called early or late
(vss. 4,5,7). When we "commend our ourselves [our bodies, souls, and spirits]...and all our life unto Christ our God," do
we not declare that our souls are His vineyard, that the labor His, and that the salvation we are to receive is His to give?
It is obviously our Lord Who sets the standards for our askesis. In the Sermon on the Mount, it is He Who defines how we
are to conduct our prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and all our askesis. In the present parable, He stoutly refuses the claim of
those who hold up "the burden and the heat of the day" (vss. 11-14) as constituting any claim for some better or higher
salvation.
The good news for us who are not always as rigorous in our labors as God intends is that the Owner of our souls is good
and compassionate (vs. 15), not capricious. He "is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown
toward His Name" (Heb. 6:10).
Awaken us from the sleep-walking of daily life by an active askesis to clear away the silt in the depth our souls, so that the
spring of living waters may quench the thirst of our hearts.
