In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever.

Brothers and sisters, the fast is nearly upon us and all of us are thinking about food. We're thinking about that Meatfare dinner downstairs. We're thinking about how today's the last day for eating meat until Pascha. And we're thinking ahead to all the demands coming up. What am I giving up? What is allowed? And what is not? And when?

And often there's this voice somewhere in there that's saying, "Why do I have to do this? Why are we so hung up on this fasting, this Great Fast that we have to endure for all these days just that we get to have Pascha at the end of it?"

Well, the answer is you don't have to. You don't have to. We heard last week from the Apostle Paul that all things are lawful. You can eat whatever you want all the time. There's no law that you're breaking. And this week we hear from St. Paul that food does not commend us to God. He does not care whether you are eating lentils or steak. It does not make a difference to God. You're not giving him something by giving up something for Lent.

The kingdom of God is not full of rules and minimums and boundaries. We are tempted, especially when it comes to things like Great Lent, to be thinking in those terms. And we find ourselves dividing one against another, evaluating, judging what's going on over beside me here on that person's plate and what someone's doing in their house over there. "Oh boy, look at that person. They're not fasting very well, are they?"

Brothers and sisters, that has nothing to do with God. That is the work of Satan, the accuser, the devil, the divider.

We are given one rule and one measure to follow, and that is Jesus Christ himself and the love that he has revealed to us and called us to participate in ourselves—to come and follow him, to be like him, to clothe ourselves with him. And so we ask one question: Is what I am doing drawing me closer to life in Christ, or is it pushing me further away?

You see, we are commemorating today the Sunday of the Last Judgment. And there will be a judgment. That's the other side of the world. We could do whatever we want. There's no checklist that we're measuring up against, you know, like something at the DMV or whatever. "Do you have all the items checked off and then you get a pass to enter the kingdom of heaven?"

But rather what happens, what Jesus describes in that parable that we heard of that dread day of the Lord, is that all of us will come into the presence of God himself, and he will call us to approach, and take a deep breath of us. See what we smell like. Do we have the scent of his beautiful flock, or do we have the stench of hell on us?

That's what it comes down to. What am I doing in my life right now? How is that forming me? Am I more like the devil, or am I with God's help being drawn closer to him? That's what it's all about.

And so we hear from St. Paul today, "Beware lest this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to others, to those who are weak." We get tired of the church's rules—to fast and pray, to confess our sins, worship, go to even more church services and longer church services, to seek virtue in all these ways, give up all our vices that are so pleasant and familiar. And we're sure that we can somehow lead a decent good life without all this accumulation of stuff, all these things that are demanded of us.

And it is true that there is no manual, there is no regimen to follow or recipe that will lead us into the kingdom of heaven. But still there is one sure rule against which we will be measured, and that rule is love.

Are we revealing love for God in how we treat our neighbor? If I indulge myself in my desires, what of my brother? If I am filling myself up with all the things that I crave and I demand, what then of the one before me that is going hungry and thirsty? What of the one who is suffering, who is lonely, who is neglected, who is despised and treated with contempt, who is being treated unjustly and cruelly while I carry on with my daily business and enjoyment? What then?

How is that actually showing me to be a follower of Jesus Christ who while he was with us on this earth went out of his way to sit and eat with sinners, with those who are despised by the great and the good?

Is what I'm doing drawing me closer to love for God and love for my neighbor or not? And I could say I am a citizen of heaven. I have liberty. But that liberty is stamped with the image of Jesus Christ.

When I look upon my neighbor, do I see one who is merely an object for my own imaginations? Someone for me to use for my own enjoyment, my own idle imaginations and worse? Or do I look upon my neighbor and realize that there, hiding under the surface of the dirt and confusion and difference that is making everything so difficult for us in this earthly life—underneath all that, do I recognize the indelible imprint of the image of God?

Do I realize that this one who's been put into my path by the hand of God is to me the face of my Savior Jesus Christ? And as I treat this one, so I treat my Lord and God and Savior.

St. Paul offers himself as an example. He says, "Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? I've seen Jesus himself." Yet he makes himself a servant of the churches. His work in the Lord is the seal of his apostleship.

That gives us a whole new perspective on Great Lent, on the fast before us. We are doing these things. We take these burdens upon ourselves. We train ourselves in these disciplines of prayer and fasting and almsgiving so that the eyes of our hearts would be renewed, that we would little by little learn to love God more in our neighbors, in serving our neighbors specifically, concretely, self-sacrificially. And that we would learn to love our neighbors more by working daily at learning to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind. That these go together.

That we every day look out for one another. Even the least, the one that we most want to avoid, the one that we're most tempted to overlook—even that one, we look out for. We encourage, we lift up and allow ourselves to be lifted up, recognizing the need in the one that we confront and giving sacrificially in love for God and learning to love this one before us.

And by doing this day by day throughout the coming fast and day by day from Pascha onwards all the days of our life, the work that we do for one another in the Lord's name in love for him, this is the seal on our life in Jesus' name. And it is for us the way into his everlasting kingdom.

Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever