The Vessel

We need to pay attention to what we

allow to be placed into our vessel

There was once a wealthy, but miserly man, who was gifted a very expensive bottle of fine French wine. The next evening he was invited to a dinner party in the home of a duchess. He decided that since he needed to take something to present as a gift for the dinner table he would take that expensive bottle of wine.

But then the more he thought about it, he decided that he wanted to try the wine first. So he took a corkscrew, opened the bottle of wine, poured a little of it into a glass, and he loved it. So he had a little more, and found he loved it even more, and decided that this was too good a wine to “waste” on that dinner party.

So he poured it into an empty bottle of inexpensive wine while pouring the inexpensive wine into the now empty bottle of the expensive French wine, and then took it to the dinner party. Now of course it was noted by the buttler that the bottle had already been opened, and he thought that was rather peculiar. But he allowed the wine to be brought to the table.

When the grand duchess had a little poured in her glass and toasted everyone, she tasted one of the worst wines she had ever tasted. And her grimace carried with it a look telling everyone that they probably didn’t want to try the wine, and they didn’t.

There’s a comparison here to who we are. We are the vessels, and we are filled with the Holy Spirit upon our baptism. Then we progress on and we essentially waste what the Holy Spirit has filled our vessel with. Then we start thinking about temptations that come our way, and even though we have the grace that’s within us to resist the temptations, we give in and surrender to them.

We judge other people, we lose our temper, we take God’s name in vain, we use foul words, we cheat on our income tax, we short-change people when we can, we don’t leave much of a tip for the waitress who’s working very hard and has a family to support. We do all of these things that are contrary to what it means to be a Christian.

Essentially every time we make an infraction against God and His commandments and the grace that dwells within us, we are pouring the expensive wine out of the vessel. And, since the vessel can not remain empty, who comes along and starts to fill this vessel? The demons come and fill it, and the original contents of this vessel, the Holy Spirit, is displaced by them. And thus we waste God’s grace by the way we live, as if we are not a Christian and never were.

We need to think about this, and with God’s help we need to reform, and take our Christian life seriously, behaving like a Christian.

Can you imagine what it would be like to see that lovely, pious old woman that you see in church every Sunday who lights candles and greets everyone with a kiss suddenly losing her temper in the grocery store and cussing someone out, using foul words? It would impact you in a terrible way. And yet each and every one of us at some point does the same thing, scandalizing other people. But most of all we turn our back on God at that moment.

We need to pay attention to what we allow to be placed into our vessel.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Tuesday February 9, 2021 / January 27, 2021
36th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Translation of the relics (437) of St. John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople.
Venerable Peter of Egypt (5th c.).
New Martyr Demetrius at Constantinople (1784) (Greek).
Venerable Titus the Soldier, monk of the Kiev Caves.
New Hieromartyr Peter (Zverev) of Voronezh (1929).
St. Demetrius Klepinine, priest of Paris (1944).
Venerable Leonty (Stasevich) of Ivanovo (1972).

The Scripture Readings

James 3:1-10

The Untamable Tongue

3 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. 2 For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. 3 Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. 4 Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.

See how great a forest a little fire kindles! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

Mark 11:11-23

11 And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when He had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.

The Fig Tree Withered

12 Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. 13 And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.”

And His disciples heard it.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

15 So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 16 And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. 17 Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”

18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His teaching. 19 When evening had come, He went out of the city.

The Lesson of the Withered Fig Tree

20 Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. 21 And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.”

22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

John 10:1-9

Jesus the True Shepherd

10 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.

Jesus the Good Shepherd

7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.8 All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

Hebrews 7:26-8:2

26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.

The New Priestly Service

8 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.

John 10:9-16

9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice;and there will be one flock and one shepherd.