In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today is the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee. We could also call it the Sunday of the Tax-collector and the Pharisee. On this Sunday, we start our journey towards Great Lent in a serious way. This week there is no fasting. On Wednesdays and Fridays this week, we have the blessing to eat whatever we like. The reason that we do this is partly to remember that the Pharisee’s way of behaving did not do him any good. He was bragging that he was fasting twice a week, and so when we do not fast this week, we are saying to the Pharisee (as it were) : “Your way of fasting was not doing you any good”. Why was it not doing him any good ? He was making a big production of it. He was pointing out everything that he did. In essence, we might say that every single solitary cent that he gave to the Temple, he had to publish. He had to make everyone know how much money he gave. Every time he did anything that was good and proper, he had to stand up and proclaim it and let everyone see what a good person he was. This man could be compared to some Orthodox Christians today who behave similarly. This is an easy trap for any of us to fall into. However, if we fall into it, we have to get out of it because as the Lord says (as it were) at the end of the Gospel today : “Those who puff themselves up and make something of themselves in front of everyone, are going to have their legs cut off, or at least have the rug pulled out from under them ; they will find themselves sitting instead of standing tall”.
Why is this ? It is because being an egoist cuts a person off from God. It cuts a person off from other people. It cuts a person off from life. Being an egoist, looking after one’s own things, one’s own children, one’s own concerns, one’s own property, one’s own affairs, drives a person back and brings a person no friends (except friends who know that one has money or influence or something else). People who are so self-centered will have friends only who will use the friendship in the same way. People who are self-centered and care only about themselves, will have friends who, when trouble comes, will disappear in a flash. Just as this sort of self-centered person uses other people and relationships with other people only for what can be gotten out it for oneself, other people will use him in exactly the same way. Of course, that is the way of the society in which we live. In this society’s mentality, very often we have friends not because we love the person. Rather, we gather around ourselves the “right sort of friends” who can contribute to our status in society. We become something that we are not, and we become even more inflated. Then, when difficulties and hard times come along, where are these friends ? They are nowhere to be found. When we have become weak, an unwanted and unexpected by-product of our pride, this weakness shows that we have declined in prestige and influence. It shows that we are no longer dependable and that they can get no more from us, and so they leave us alone.
It does not do any of us any good to insist that everyone see what a good Christian I am. It only does me good if the Lord knows that I am trying to be a good Christian. I know myself as a sinner. I know that everything good that I have would not be mine to use unless the Lord gave it to me to use. Each of us is supposed to be like that tax-collector (even though we may not have committed such great sins as he did). Our hearts are supposed to be like his heart. That condition is one of humility. He knew himself. He knew that he was a sinner, and he knew that all he could say was : “‘God, be merciful to me the sinner’”. The Lord was merciful to such a person. If we look in the New Testament, we can see every single solitary time that the Lord is teaching us this very lesson. Time after time there are people who think that they are someone, make a big production of who they are and what their position is in society. The Lord says : “Think again. Find out what your priorities really are”.
We always see Him pointing out the so-called lower person, the people who know who they are, those who have their hearts in the right place and their priorities straight. These are the persons who really know : the ones who are like children in the Kingdom of God. These are the ones who are like children with hearts that are single-minded, directed towards the Lord, and interested in serving Him alone, first and foremost in life. These are the people who are the greatest because they do not make much of themselves. Perhaps they have a lot of money and perhaps they are well off, but that does not mean that they therefore draw attention to this fact. They use what they have well and glorify God in everything that they have. That is what the Lord is asking of us. He says : “Do not be a letter-man with a big “I” on your chest. (That was my Mother’s favourite expression when someone was being a very prideful person. She would say : “That guy is a letter-man all right, with a big ‘I’ all over his chest”). We are not supposed to be this letter-man, with a big “I, I, I, me, me, me” written all over us. We are supposed to be thinking of the Lord first and ourselves second (if not third). The Lord comes first, and the needs of other people come even before ours. The Lord Himself said that we cannot do more for our friend or someone we love than give our life up for someone we love. Sometimes other people’s welfare comes even before our own when we are living in accordance with the Gospel. Sometimes other people’s lives are even more important than our own when we are living in accordance with the Gospel. So we sacrifice our lives for the sake of theirs and for the welfare of the Kingdom of God.
It all boils down to what our priorities are. Are we interested in ourselves only ? Or are we interested in being our true selves, and our true selves as found in relationship with God ? Are we interested in putting Jesus Christ first in our lives and interested in serving Him before anything else ? If we are interested in serving the Lord before anything else, at least we can say : “Thank God. I hope that I am on the right track”. Life is so uncertain that we are never sure of our salvation until we have finished this life completely and crossed into the Kingdom. However, our hope is increased every time we take the Lord’s hand, every time He saves us from our sins, from our selfishness, from our wilfulness and from our pride. Every time we take His hand and He saves us, our hope is renewed that we will be able to live with Him in the Kingdom. Always, in our lives, we have to be aware of the Lord and serve Him first and only. Everything else will be added ; everything else will make sense. Everything else will be fulfilled, and all things necessary will come to pass only when we put the Lord first, as the good publican did.
May the Lord give us the Grace so that our hearts will always be aware of Him and keep Him first in and above everything. May our whole lives glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today’s Gospel reading gives us the fundamental lesson of the Christian life. The big temptation in living the Christian life (especially in North America), is to spiritualise our Faith. This “spiritualisation” shows up as we try to tell ourselves that everything is all right as long as we are meditating and praying and not doing anyone any harm. Therefore we try to live a good life by ourselves and be sort of upright in ourselves and take pride in being honest. That is approximately all there is for most people’s attitude towards religion and religious life : be good ; live a decent life ; do not do anyone any harm. That is what most people seem to think has to happen in what they perceive to be a spiritual life. Today’s Gospel reading shows plainly that that is anything but enough. Much more is demanded of us than merely some sort of abstract “good life”.
We are expected by the Lord to do something in our lives – something concrete, something touchable. Many times I have talked about living Love. Love love, love. The Gospel is full of examples of living love. However, loving God is not some abstract, warm, fuzzy feeling in the heart. Loving God is not merely standing in church and saying : “Oh, isn’t it wonderful ! The choir is so beautiful today. It’s so lovely”. It is not simply sitting in church and saying : “Oh, what a wonderful preacher the priest is” (if he happens to be one) or “Can’t he sing nicely” (if he happens to sing nicely). This is the least part of Christian living. It is true that standing in church and praising God is the first thing that we must be responsible for doing, and be full of joy about doing. However, if that is all that we are doing, then we had better think again. The Gospel says today from the words of the Lord Himself that in order to expect to live in the Kingdom, we have to be ready to do concrete acts of love towards our brothers and sisters. The Lord says that if we visit the sick, if we go and visit those who are in prison, if we put clothes on those who have no clothes, if we feed those who are hungry, then we are doing the will of God, the Father. Then we have hope of entering the Kingdom of Heaven and being with those on the right hand of the Lord.
If we live just by ourselves, and say : “I live a good life. I don’t hurt anyone, but that’s all. Don’t ask me for anything. I don’t bother anyone. I don’t trust anyone”. If that is how we are, we had better look closely at today’s Gospel reading. Love must act. Love must do. You might remember seeing the musical My Fair Lady. In the movie version, Eliza Doolittle has a young man who is very much in love with her. He sings songs outside her window and he reads poetry to her. All his poetry and all his songs say : “Oh, how much I love you, Eliza Doolittle”. In the end, she gets fed up with it because pretty words do not mean anything. I am sure that anyone here who has been married for a long time (or even a short time) or if you have been part of family life, you will know that the words “I love you” do not mean anything by themselves. Meaning comes when love is evident in action. The one who says that he or she loves has to do something about it. Love is meaningless if it is only words. Love is real if it is accompanied by acts, deeds, things. That is why we are always giving each other flowers and candy : to show that our love is more than just words. That is why we help those who are ill, and look after each other when we are ill, and look after each other when we cannot look after ourselves. That is why we do dishes when we are not expected to do dishes. That is why we clean when we are not expected to clean. That is why we open doors for each other and say : “After you”. That is why we shovel the sidewalk without being commanded to do it. All these little tiny actions carry love with them. Why do I do the dishes ? Why do I vacuum the floor ? Why do I shovel the sidewalk ? Why do I polish the car ? Why do I help to make meals ? Why do I do anything ? I do it because I love, that’s why. If I did not love, I would not do anything at all.
However, these acts of love have to go farther than just our family living. We have to be ready to visit those who are sick. In our parish there is Mrs. n who gets some visitors, but she does not get very many. As far as I know, only three or four of us go to see her regularly. She is 95 years old. She is almost blind now, and can hardly see anything. It gets very lonely. She cannot watch television ; she cannot read letters ; she cannot see to do anything as we can. However, she has first-class hearing, and she likes to talk. It should be our responsibility to go and see her. There are more. There is also Mrs. n who is ill and does not see anyone either, these days. We can at least phone her and talk to her. In our own community we should be more attentive about seeing who is not here on Sunday. We should find out who is ill. It should be our job. It is not just the priest’s job. If someone is absent, we can call them to see if they are all right and if they need any help. That is actively doing the love of Jesus Christ.
If things are going well in the parish, and no-one is ill, what can I do ? I can give money to Oxfam. I can help people who are starving somewhere else in the world. I can send money to help the Orthodox refugees in Lebanon who have had to leave their homes because of war. I can do all sorts of things. I have to listen to God saying in my heart : “Do this ; go help this person ; go visit that person”. If I have arthritis and I am not strong enough to move around very well, what do I do then ? We can listen to God speaking. Sometimes during the day, someone’s name will come into our mind. Those names do not come by accident. Those names come to us from God. What He wants us to do when those names come to us is to pray for those people. It may be that the person has some need, or is ill or sort of depressed and does not know why. If I do pray for those people whose names come to my heart, just saying “Lord have mercy” for those persons, then I am helping the Lord to do something for them. I may not find out what my prayers do, but they do good for the person. Sometimes when the Lord brings a name into my mind and I cannot forget that person, that means that the Lord wants me to pray in a serious way for that person. Therefore, I pray many times that day for him or her, saying “Lord have mercy” ; or “Remember n and have mercy”. That is the least we can do. If we are able to do more, then the Lord expects it of us.
All these ideas that when we die we just simply go to Heaven and everything is wonderful are dreams. We are not likely to go to Heaven unless, with the Lord’s help, we put ourselves on that road now. We put ourselves on that road now by doing good to those around us and helping those around us by prayers and by actions. When the chips are down, we even love those who do not love us ; we even love those who hate us ; we even love those who kill us. That is the Christian way. That is the work of the Gospel.
How do we do this ? There is only one way. We come here every week and receive the Lord’s Body and Blood, in order to let Him live in us, so that He Himself will give us the strength and the will and the love. That is the only way. Therefore, let us now come to Him and stretch out our hands to Him and let Him give Himself to us. Let us live in the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The Gospel and Epistle readings are both preparing us for Great Lent. They are speaking about food, because in Great Lent food is one of our chief occupations, preoccupations and sometimes even manias. (It can sometimes be a phobia, but it is mostly a mania.) Although the Lord and Saint Paul are speaking about food, primarily they are concerned about the attitude that is necessary when we fast.
The Lord is pointing out that, first of all, our attitude in fasting must be one of prayer. We do not fast simply because the rules say that we have to fast. If we are going to fast, we have to pray while we fast. Prayer goes with fasting like horses and carriages, hands in gloves, and ducks to water. If we undertake only to fast, we might as well be on a diet. It would not do us any more good than possibly losing weight. Fasting has to be accompanied by prayer and that is one of the reasons why in Great Lent we have many services in order to help us along in our praying. We need each other when we are praying. We can, of course, fast alone (the Lord exhorts us to fast alone in our closet and not to fast with fanfare). However, we pray together because we need each other. We give each other encouragement and strength to pray when we do it together, particularly in Lent when the devil is busy trying to keep us from doing what we are supposed to do. He is busy trying to make us interested in and nostalgic for a T-bone steak every day. He is anxious to try to make us think that praying is too much trouble, too tiring, too much of a struggle. All that discouragement and despair he tries to throw under our feet so that we will slip on a banana peel and forget where we are going and what we are doing. That is why we need to be here as much as possible.
However, even more, the fact that we are praying is not enough. The Lord is asking of us a certain attitude of heart : an attitude of heart which is sensitive to the strengths and weaknesses of other people. Although I may be strong and have liberty in the Lord, I am not going to exercise my freedom when I know that my brother or sister is going to fall because of my strength. And so I appear weak in the presence of other people. For instance, perhaps I know that the Lord is going to forgive me if I do not keep the strictest, total vegetable fast in Lent because I work hard or because of some other reason. Yet I know that I have a brother or sister who is a fanatic about the vegetable fast. Therefore, I do not cause my brother or sister to stumble and fall into sin by my insisting on eating cheese in front of my weaker brother or sister. Instead, I eat what that person eats when I am around that person. However, the same thing should go for the strict vegetable-faster, too, who knows that someone may have a physical weakness or some other reason for not keeping the strictest fast. If a person in good faith and with a good heart is able to keep a very strict fast in Lent, when he or she is with those who are unable by reason of heavy work or whatever other reason to keep a strict fast in Lent, then one, in one’s strength, bends the rules and does not cause another to stumble.
The Lord is calling us to be sensitive about each other. He calls us to care for each other, and to love each other enough to know what our weaknesses are and not to play on them but to be sensitive and considerate of them. By being like this, we will be able to encourage each other to live the Christian life as we cling to the Lord and persevere in the fast. May we be able together in a little while with joy to glorify and worship the Lord in His Resurrection from the dead. As pre-Lent comes to an end, tomorrow we will be ready to forgive each other for everything visible and invisible, known and unknown, voluntary and involuntary that we have done or not done to each other. We will begin the fast with a clean slate, asking God to help us keep the fast.
May that same Lord, indeed, help us to pass through this Great Lent in such a way that we will be yet stronger in our ability to remember Him, to imitate His love, to do the work of His love at all times throughout the year. May our lives thus glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today is Cheese-fare Sunday. That means that traditionally when we go home, we will fill ourselves up with bliny and all sorts of cheese and really enjoy this last day before Great Lent begins. Tomorrow we begin our journey towards Pascha in a serious way. As much as we may enjoy the bliny on the last day of dairy products before Great Lent, we have to remember the fundamental lessons that are being taught by the Gospel today.
Tomorrow, we begin to fast. What are we supposed to be about when we are fasting ? Why are we fasting anyway ? The Lord warns us against fasting as the Pharisees did. The Pharisees fasted in order to let everyone know that they were fasting and how hard it was for them to do this. They showed that there was so much pain and that their stomachs were in agony ; they did not clean themselves, and they did not wash ; they threw dust on themselves to show everyone what good fasters they were. When we fast nowadays we do not do these sorts of things. However, what do we do that is like the Pharisees ? We may be at someone’s house and be offered food that is not lenten and we may say : “Oh, no ! I cannot possibly eat that because it is Great Lent”. However, hospitality is very important, and if the host has made a mistake, it is not our job to beat him over the head with the mistake. However, even worse than that, we could be looking around to see how other people are eating in Lent. For instance, if someone is weaker for some reason or other, it is rude enough to go up to someone and ask why he or she is eating non-lenten food. However, the very worst thing that we can do is to gossip about it, and tell the whole parish how terrible it is that n is eating fish on a non-fish day in Lent, for example. What we are called to do is to be sensitive to each other in Great Lent.
Why do we fast ? We fast because we are remembering Eden, as Adam is remembering Eden. Today, we are celebrating the memory of Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden. In the hymns last night, Adam was sitting down and remembering all the beautiful flowers in Eden. He was moaning because he had been exiled from the beautiful garden, his true home. We are remembering those days, ourselves, and we try not to eat anything except vegetables in memory of those days. More important than that, we fast in order to make certain that our bodies are our servants and that we are not the servants of our bodies. We discipline our bodies in the fasting days so that our bodies co-operate with our spirits in every way to help us live in the Kingdom. It is not a negative thing at all ; it is a positive thing. It is not something that we should hate to do, but rather something that we should enjoy, because we do it in order to draw ourselves closer to the Lord. We try not to waste time cooking elaborate dishes but we simply eat some boiled vegetables that do not take a long time to prepare. We do not worry too much about it so that we can spend extra time praying. Fasting is absolutely no good unless it is accompanied by prayer. Fasting and praying go together. Without prayer, fasting is completely useless. We might as well follow the “Weight Watcher’s diet”, or something of that sort. We are fasting in order to draw ourselves closer to the Lord, and we try to spend more time in prayer during fasting-time for that purpose.
Besides drawing near to the Lord, the most important demand is drawing near to each other. These fasting-times are intended to help us to grow in being more loving and more sensitive to each other. All the readings in the New Testament that have prepared us for Great Lent have to do precisely with this sensitivity to each other. They prepare us to pay more attention to the weaknesses of each other – not so that we can gossip about them, but so that we can help each other be stronger by praying for each other. The important thing is to recognise that each one of us is a sinner. There is no-one who lives and does not sin (see 1 John 1:8). We sing that all the time in our Panikhidas and it is absolutely true. There is no-one on this earth who is not a sinner. If we think that we are so good that we are not sinners, then we are on our way to the hot place fast. Every last one of us is a sinner.
Remembering all these details, let us ask the Lord to keep us mindful not only about what fasting truly is, but also what is the true and correct spirit which motivates it. Fasting is not a diet. Fasting is also not eating nothing all day and then feasting all night. Fasting is spiritual athletics (see 2 Timothy 2:5) which strengthen us so that with God’s help we may know and love the Lord more deeply. As CBC’s Friendly Giant always said : “Let us look up. Let us look 'way up”, and thus keep our hearts and minds in the Lord and nurtured in His love.
In doing so, may our whole lives during this coming Lent become more transparent with the Lord’s love. Thus, when we come to celebrate our Saviour’s Resurrection, the joy of that great feast will carry us all the way through to the next Pascha. May our whole lives glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Saint Paul says in his prayer : “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, … make you complete in every good work to do His will” (Hebrews 13:20). Indeed, the Lord is able to help us perform every good work. He is more than able to help us to do everything that He wants us to do. However, in every case there is one thing that stands in the way. The Lord is able, but are we ourselves able to let Him work His work in us ? Are we ourselves able to let Him ? Actually, we are not, not instantly. Even before we are truly able to let Him work His good work in us, transform us, transfigure us and raise us, we have to be ready to ask Him to help us.
When we have asked Him to help us, we open the door to Him to come into our hearts and enable us to ask Him to do more, and to let Him work His work in us. Why am I saying this ? The simple fact is that we have to realise that we do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven on our own strength. We do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven simply because we live such a good life. We do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven for any other reason than that God loves us, and He forgives us. All that He wants from us is for us to love Him back, and to live a life that shows this love. Living the Christian life is very simple and straightforward. It is, however, not so very easy. The demands are few, but not easy : love and forgiveness. Loving, at least in the way God wants us to love is not all that easy. We must have His help to be able to love in the way that He wants us to love. If we are not ready to ask for that help, if we are not ready to let Him work with us and in us, if we are not ready to co-operate, He is not going to make an invasion. He gave us freedom, which is part of our being made in His image. We are free to reject, just as Adam and Eve were free to reject, and they did. So we, as well, are free to reject the Lord and His help. If we want to follow the devil’s path, then we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are good enough to get into the Kingdom of Heaven by ourselves.
If we want to live in the Kingdom, we have to remember, first of all, that the Lord is all-powerful and all-loving. He loves me. He loves us all, each of us – all. He wants us to be living with Him forever in the Kingdom. It is up to you and to me to take those steps that will help Him work in us. One of those steps is being here right now, today, praising Him, standing here in the Kingdom as we are always when we praise Him, standing in the Lord’s presence, serving Him, united with our brothers and sisters who have gone before us.
On this Saturday, we pray for all our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep a long time ago at the very beginning of this parish and even beyond that. We pray for them because we are not separated from them. We are united with them in the Body of Christ. As we stand here today, so our brothers and sisters who have gone before us are standing together with us in the Kingdom and offering their praises to the Lord. We all offer to the Lord our praise, and the Lord feeds us all with Himself, with His Body and His Blood. As we continue to ask Him to come into our hearts and to continue to work in us, He works little changes in us little by little. We become stronger, better able to love in the right way. We become less and less selfish, more and more caring of other people, more and more concerned with Him, also. After a time of this co-operative living, when we look back on ourselves as we were some years ago, we can actually see that the Lord has done something (although we cannot see everything that the Lord has done). However, the Lord is merciful and He allows us to see that there are some changes for the good. We can immediately say : “Thank God that He helped me out of that mess. I did not think that I could come along that far”. “The God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep”, who loves us and knows each one of us by name (and then some), will make us perfect if we work with Him. If we let Him, He will make us perfect and give us not only the image but the likeness of Himself.
Let us commend ourselves and each other to the Lord, and let His love work in us and amongst us. May that love build us, all of us together, up into the Body of Christ. Let us be transformed by Him, and let us glorify in our lives the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today, we are celebrating the memory of what one of our professors called one of the greatest of Orthodox theologians, Saint Gregory the Theologian. Professor Sergei Verhovskoy used to say that he is the only one of the Fathers who is 100 percent Orthodox. That is a very good recommendation from Professor Verhovskoy, who was rather critical.
How does a person get to be this sort of theologian and bishop of the Church ? It is by living the Gospel, by following the directions of Saint Paul, and by not allowing pride or personal gain to get in the way but always doing the work of the Lord. It is also by exercising the gifts that have been given as described by Saint Paul in the Epistle to the Corinthians (see 1 Corinthians 12), and by building up the Church on the Truth, which is Jesus Christ. This truth is not gained by being a philosopher, a journalist, a private investigator or a law-maker. A true theologian is a person who knows God and then speaks as clearly as possible about the experience. That experience is consistently the same sort of experience that all Christians have always had. We can tell if a person is on the right track by whether what he has to say about his knowledge of God is correct. We measure the correctness by how the writing fits what the ancient Fathers have to say. By contrast, we can also tell how he has been “led down the garden path” by certain strays. If the person speaks about God in the way all the Fathers and Mothers of the Church have spoken, then the person remains a Father or Mother of the Church. There are Fathers and Mothers of the Church today just as there were in the days of Saint Gregory the Theologian about 1500 years ago.
Since we are all expected by the Lord to become theologians, since we are all expected to build up the Body of Christ and be saints by our baptism, therefore, we humble ourselves and give ourselves to God not as slaves, but as loving children co-operating with Him. We allow Him to work in us and we allow him to create in us not only our true selves, but the true selves of all those around us. We allow ourselves by humility to be transfigured as the Lord was transfigured on the mountain and as other saints have been transfigured since then. We allow ourselves to be transfigured into our true selves that are found in Christ. We allow ourselves, then, to share this transfiguration with those around us. By allowing ourselves to be transfigured, we become an example to other people. By allowing ourselves to live in Christ, and to put on all the weapons of the Gospel, all the armour of which Saint Paul speaks (see Ephesians 6:13), we allow ourselves to be prepared to be a good example. Then we are exercising those gifts that the Lord has given us.
The Lord does not give us all the same gifts because we are not all just the same. The individual gifts, although very similar, are not identical to each other. Each person exercises his or her own gifts. Exercising our own gifts teaches other people that they have gifts as well. As we exercise our gifts in the love of Christ, we encourage other people to do the same. The more we exercise our gifts and strengthen others in the Body of Christ, the more they strengthen other people. Thus, the whole Church becomes stronger in the world because people are exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are supporting, strengthening, healing, loving and lifting up other people.
That is essentially what we have to do as members of the Body of Christ. We co-operate. The fundamental lesson for us is to remember that we are the members of the Body of Christ. In order for the body to function properly, the members must co-operate. Our arms cannot do things by themselves ; neither can our legs or any other parts of our bodies walk by themselves or function independently. The whole body functions by co-operative effort, and each individual member is only able to function at all because it is joined to the rest of the body. That is what our living together is supposed to be : co-operation, mutual encouragement and strength (and sometimes correction), general building up, and overall co-operation. This co-operation is what brings about real unity. We humble ourselves. We remember that we are members of His Body. We recognise that we are not the Head ; but as the members of the Body of Christ and for the sake of the rest of the Body, we allow ourselves to be governed by the Head, Jesus Christ. In this way the whole Body is able to function well together and be saved by healing, strengthening, renewing and re-creation.
Therefore, as we come to receive the Lord this morning, let us ask Him to renew us and bring us to that transfiguration so that we may be truly properly functioning members of the Body of Christ, able to know Him well so that in due course, we may be given the “O” stamp of approval of Professor Verhovskoy (and the “O” means Orthodox). Thus, each of us will be a true knower of the Lord, and therefore a true theologian, glorifying in our whole life the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today we are singing : “Before Your Cross we bow down in worship, and Your holy Resurrection we glorify”. The Cross comes to us in the middle of Great Lent, not so much to remind us that Good Friday is coming, but to give us fresh courage in our attempt to be refreshed in our walking towards Christ. The Cross comes to us in the middle of Lent, and we bow down before that sign, as we glorify the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We bow down before the Cross, and bowing down before it, we offer the Lord our worship. We do not bow down before a piece of silver or wood, and kiss a mere piece of silver or wood. We are venerating the true Cross whenever we kiss these signs of the Cross. Even if we were to be able to kiss a piece of one of the few remaining pieces of the true Cross, we would still be glorifying Him who was crucified on it, Jesus Christ. We know that whenever we venerate one of our icons or make the sign of the Cross, our veneration goes straight to Christ. All these items are windows to Heaven, and these windows take us always to Christ. They take us directly to Christ Himself, or they take us to Christ through the life, example, and prayers of those who have been holy, noticeably holy, in their living and who have shown us the Lord. All this is clearly set out in the writings of Saint John of Damascus.
The Cross comes to us and reveals to us that Jesus Christ was crucified and died, and that He also was victorious over death and rose from the grave. That is why the Cross comes to us in the middle of Great Lent. It comes to us also to remind us about how we are supposed to be living. As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is saying, we have a High Priest who was tempted in everything as we were, and are. Although He is the Son of God, He emptied Himself and became a Human Being in order to save us (see Philippians 2:7). He was tempted in everything, and He allowed Himself to be put on the Cross to suffer and to die for us. Not only did He die for us, but that Crucifixion brought life. That sign, which was the most horrible sign of defeat in the days of the Roman Empire, became the sign of victory, life and light. As this great High Priest lived, so we are called to live. As this great High Priest was victorious over sin and death, and gave life to the world, so we are called in Him to be victorious and bring life to the world. We bring life to the world by living love. We bring life to the world by encouraging and strengthening each other in living in Christ and following Him no matter how difficult, no matter how painful that is. How do we do that ? We take up our Cross every day and follow Jesus, said the Gospel today. The Lord Himself holds us in our path. Our path is to take up our Cross and follow Him.
I have been serving the Lord now for more than fifteen years in parish work, and every year at least one person (if not half a dozen people) says to me : “Why don’t you leave time for yourself, and why don’t you take better care of yourself ? Why do you run yourself ragged ?” It is a good question to ask again today. I cannot say that I have been anything like the best priest in the past fifteen years, and I cannot say that I am the best example by any means, because I know how much I am a sinner and how great my weaknesses are and how much they paralyse what God would do through me if I did not paralyse myself. I do not know about you, but the example that I had when I was growing up was the example of parents who loved me very much and who gave up all sorts of things for the sake of selfish me. They gave up all sorts of things. You have no idea, and neither do I of how much they gave up for the sake of me, my brother and sisters. I know that you not only experience the same thing, but I see that you do the same thing yourselves for your children. All the time you are giving up all sorts of things that you could be and do for the sake of your children, and for the sake of those you love. It is a way of life, especially for Christians.
However, in the world, it is not unnatural that people should do this because that is how real love operates. In the world there are some shadows of that real love, not only selfish love. Especially amongst Christians, this way of life : giving and giving up opportunities and all sorts of advantages for the sake of children, is the way we are and how we live. We are trying to live out our love the best way we can. It is because I had that sort of example that I can do as I do, even if it is reckless, and even if I stretch myself. I can’t do anything else. I can’t operate as a parish priest in any other way. I have tried over the years that I have served in parishes, to limit what I should do and conserve energy. Probably I could have done a better job of rationing the things that I have done and the amount that I have been available to you. However, no matter how much I try to do it, it does not work. I am a perpetual “yes-man”. If you phone me up and ask me to do something, or if you need me for anything, I am going to say “Yes”. Unless it is absolutely impossible, I am going to say “Yes”.
I am going to say “Yes”, because I am anxious that the life of this parish should grow, and that the love between brothers and sisters should grow. That is why I do that. That is why I answer the phone in the middle of the night. That is why whenever I am home, I always answer the phone even if it is three in the morning. That is the only way that I can exercise the gifts that God has given to me to exercise – to be available. Even though it is not logical and even though I know that I should not do many of the things that I do, I cannot stop. That is essentially what taking up the Cross entails. It is trying, as much as we can, to put other people first, to help build up the love of Jesus in other people so that they can have the hope of being saved.
The reason that Christ stretched out His arms on the Cross was not only so that He could die. Rather, He stretched out His arms in order to accept everyone, to accept the whole world in His love. He reached out on the Cross to embrace the whole world : all its sin, all its death, and all its selfishness. He did this in order to give us life. The same attitude ought to be our attitude in life. We stretch out our arms, and we give love. We give ourselves. In giving this love, we give Christ to one another, to our children, to our neighbours, and to people whom God sends. In reaching out in this love, we give them the life that Christ wants to give them.
Therefore, let us remember who we are : Orthodox Christians. Knowing that we glorify Jesus Christ, let us remember to make our prostrations before the Cross with joy. By bowing down in this way, we show that we are ready for the Lord to be the Lord of our lives, for Him to enter us and to live in us, and to give life to our sacrifices, to our offering of ourselves for His sake and for the sake of all those around. Therefore, with our whole lives let us glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are repeatedly hearing how Jesus is that perfect High Priest who fulfilled all the Law, who fulfilled all sacrifice, who fulfilled everything that was required for our salvation. What we see today is evidence of how He is, in fact, our High Priest not only because the sacrifice of Himself is predicted at the end of the Gospel reading, but because He is the Agent of God’s love in that perfect way.
Wherever Jesus is, wherever Jesus is present, there is always a reaction of some sort. We see that always in the Gospel. Wherever Jesus is, something happens. In this case, it is a devil tormenting a child. We are told that this torment had been going on for a long time. Although His disciples had tried more standard methods to get rid of it, only Jesus Himself is able to do it and He does it with just one word of command. He says : “‘Come out of him and enter him no more’”. Instantly the child is healed. Wherever Jesus is, life comes. When He comes into our lives, there has to be a similar response. We ourselves are called to live in the Kingdom. We are called to live as sons and daughters of the King. The characteristic way in which members of the Kingdom live is in an open and active response to the Lord : an immediate desire to give of oneself for the welfare of other people as well as for proper worshipping of the Lord.
It is true that the devil does not come out except by prayer and fasting. He does not come out of our lives except by our prayer and fasting. In part, anyway, that is why we Orthodox Christians spend so much of the year in fasting days. During these fasting days, we actively turn away from sin. We try to bring our lives into conformity with the Gospel. We are supposed to spend all these days praying even more than usual, and building up our resources in the Kingdom. We should be preparing ourselves for doing whatever the Lord has called us to do.
Prayer and fasting. This is one of the essential characteristics of growing in Christ. What is another ? Here in this parish, we can speak about one very practical way in which believers are supposed to behave. For a long time now, this parish (like many other parishes, but not by any means all parishes) has operated more or less for itself. People seem to have grown to believe that the only way to contribute to the life of the parish is by paying the dues. We all know how sensitive the issue of the dues is. We can never talk about dues without someone getting upset. That is, perhaps, a reasonable reaction because paying dues is not the proper way for a parish to operate, even though we do operate that way and even though we seem to be stuck with this system for the time being. Nevertheless, paying dues does not allow us to behave naturally the way Christians ought to behave. Paying dues puts a block in the way of our response to the Lord. It tempts us to be minimal. It tempts us to say : “Those few dollars are all I have to give. I will throw a dollar on the plate now and again, and that is all that is necessary”.
However, that is not how Christians have always responded, and it is not what the Bible tells us to do, either. Even in the Old Testament, we are told that the natural response to God is simply to give. The suggestion in the Old Testament is that we should first of all recognise that God gives us everything and that without the Lord we are not at all even alive, let alone active. Everything that we are and that we have is because the Lord blesses us and gives us life. Because of this, the Old Testament (and the New Testament also) as a strong suggestion says that we should give at least one-tenth of what we have to the Lord. We see that always in the Old Testament – one-tenth of the harvest goes to the Lord, to the Temple. One-tenth of everything that people have goes to the Lord. Even Abraham, when he had been successful, gave thanks to the Lord by giving one-tenth of everything that came to him to this priest-king, Melchisedek (see 1 Moses [Genesis] 14:20) whom we heard about today.
However, one-tenth of all that we have is not only one-tenth of income. One-tenth of time, one-tenth of energy, one-tenth of talents, one-tenth of everything that I am and that I have should go back to Him as a sign of my love for God. This is a fundamental Christian attitude. If this parish operates on the basis of dues (to help determine who is a member of the parish), that should not mean that that is all I am expected to give as a Christian. The Lord expects me to give much more. The Lord does not demand that I give everything back, but as a sign and a symbol of everything, one-tenth is not very much. It is ironic, but even in this secular world, we can deduct twenty percent of our income for charitable giving. Some people give away twenty percent of their income. That is pretty good. We believers often tend to fall into traps. Some people might criticise me for talking about this sort of thing. The fact is, however, whenever we might turn on the television, and listen to Jimmy Swaggart, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell or anyone else of these Protestant evangelists, what do they say ? They are all the time quoting the Bible and saying : “You must give ten percent. Ten percent belongs to the Lord. It doesn’t belong to you, and if you don’t give it to the Lord, you are going to be in trouble”.
Orthodox Christians tend to be subtler about these things, but that does not mean that the demand of the Scriptures is any different for us. One of the funniest things that I can imagine is when Orthodox Christians sometimes criticise Calvary Temple or maybe even one of these Anglican Churches, and yet they envy how much money goes in and out, and how much they can do in their parishes. Do you know why ? It is because the people are reminded over and over and over again that God requires a sign of devotion from His people, a sign of this response of love. Therefore, people give. If we Orthodox Christians do not manage to produce and to be effective in society, there is only one reason – we do not give. We do not share. We do not honour the Lord with our gifts. We do not respond to Him. We only give Him peanuts instead of giving Him our whole selves. We just throw a kopek or two towards the Lord instead of saying to the Lord : “Here I am. Everything that I am, You give me. Help me to use what I am to Your glory”.
Whatever we do, let us not allow ourselves to be limited by bottom-line giving of ourselves, or of our energy, or of anything else that we have. Let us not wait for someone to come begging and to say : “We have a big project, and so we need money”. The response of Christians does not wait for such things. The response of Christians is giving because of love without asking any questions, without waiting. We give ourselves, our energy, our time, our abilities, not just money. Let us ask the Lord to help us to pray always ; to give thanks always every day ; to act out that love which we have for Him, and to show in all the visible ways that we can how much we love Him and how much we love each other. May every aspect of our life proclaim our love for our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good and life-creating Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Some of you might know that this week I was away at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery, and while I was there I was tonsured to be a monk. What does this really mean ? Monastic tonsure is called a “second baptism”. It is called a second baptism because a monk is called to live a life of complete repentance. In other words, from the time he is tonsured, he is expected every day of his life to be turning towards Christ. Every day his life is supposed to be dedicated to serving the Lord above everything else.
If for no other reason, I suppose that this is one reason why it is a good thing for a bishop to be a monk, as long as he pays attention to this particular pre-requisite. He must put Jesus Christ first before anything else for the rest of his life, serving Him, and Him alone. He must put away everything of the world and put Jesus Christ first.
Although I do not look or dress any differently, nevertheless in my heart I have to be much more serious than I have been until now about what I am doing and how I am serving the Lord. One of the first things that I must do is to ask everyone to forgive me, and that is what I am doing right now. I am asking you all (and not just because I became a monk but also because we are getting close to Pascha) to forgive me for all the things that I may have done or said which may have upset you or made you angry sometimes. Also I ask forgiveness for all the things which I did not do with and for you all together that I should have, because I do know that I did not do many things that I could have done and should have done while I have been here. For all these things I am asking you now to forgive me.
We all know that now we are in a transition time and there are many things that we are going to be tempted to be anxious about. However, if we hope to get the right priest for us, here in this parish, this will not be achieved by our political manoeuvering. It is not going to come by badgering the Metropolitan, and phoning him every day saying : “Vladyka, who is going to be our priest ?” The right priest for this parish is going to come for us when all of us remember together to ask the Lord to send the right one. Such a person is very hard to find. There are plenty of gifted people in the Church, but there are not many who have the right combination of gifts for serving this community. It takes hard searching to find the right person out of all the priests that there are in North America : the one who has the right gifts and is willing to come and to serve the Lord here. Our first responsibility as the Body of Christ is to pray together to the Lord that He will send the right person.
I am going to do that myself, and I am asking you to do that every day. Every day, ask the Lord : “Please, Lord, send us the right priest”. Let us ask Him to show us how we can pray better and help Him by our prayers to bring the right priest here to serve us, so that we can all serve Him together better here. Let us from this day dedicate ourselves to this prayer ; every day asking the Lord to send the right priest. Let us also ask the Lord that together we may enable this Temple to be a shining beacon of love for the one God in Trinity : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
When He is working with His creatures, the Lord does not do anything without preparation. Always He is preparing the way for the works that He is going to do. That has been the case from the very beginning. Today we have an example of this preparation. The raising of Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the tomb for four days is a preparation of the hearts and minds of those who follow the Lord for what is to come – His own Resurrection from the dead on the third day. It is not as though Jesus had never raised anyone from the dead before, but anyone else who had been raised from the dead was very briefly dead and people could say : “Oh, he was just in a coma”.
However, Lazarus was already in the tomb and decomposing. He was certainly dead, and there was no doubt about it. We cannot make the excuse of a coma with Lazarus. Lazarus was “dead as a doornail”. The Lord, the Giver of Life, came and spoke the word, and Lazarus came to life. He went on to be a leader of the Church. The Lord works very hard at preparing. Clearly there was careful preparation for the resurrection of Lazarus. When it happened, it was something that no-one in the world had ever seen. Nevertheless, it was not quickly that the Lord’s followers understood what was going on. When He Himself was speaking about His own Resurrection, they always tried to detach it from reality, and thought in vague terms just as Lazarus’ sister had said : “‘I know that he will rise again on the resurrection at the last day’” (John 11:24). However, Jesus had something much more immediate than that in mind.
It is the same thing with resurrection as with teaching. Not only did Jesus Himself raise people from the dead, but great prophets in the past also raised people from the dead. Elias and Elisha are two famous examples (see 3 Kingdoms 17:23 and 4 Kingdoms 4:35-36). However, in none of these cases was the person dead long enough to be decomposing. All through history, there have been plenty of teachers speaking about God and His love. There have been many great, enlightened men and women throughout the history of creation, who have been speaking for the Lord to His people, and telling them what He is like and Who He is, and how much He loves His people, and how His people should behave. Always His people do not pay attention. Always, predictably, His people “do their own thing”. Always, predictably, His people detach themselves from facing God. Even when Moses came down from the mountain, they could not stand to look at the glory on his face and even made him put a veil on his face as a woman in those days put a veil on her face (and in Muslim countries today, women still veil their faces). They made him veil his face because they could not stand to confront the glory of the Lord which was present in Moses and shining from him so that anyone could see it. It was not like Saint Seraphim of Sarov : only Motovilov and only very few others could see the glory shining in him. However, with Moses, everyone could see it and they could not bear it.
People, in their sin, usually put a distance between themselves and the Lord. Thus, they keep the Lord at arm’s length, so that He does not bother them too much. That is how sin operates in our lives. Every time that we are putting the Lord at arm’s length, and keeping Him away like this, we are being just like those Israelites, and just like those followers of Jesus, and just like the Pharisees who were so hard-hearted. We will not let the Lord in. We will not let the Lord work. We will not let the Lord bring that Resurrection into our lives now because we are afraid of what might happen. We are afraid of what the Lord might ask us to do and what He might ask us to be. We are afraid to be different. We are afraid to stand out. The Lord does not ask us ever to do anything bad. He sometimes may ask us to do things that appear strange or difficult, but He never asks us to do anything bad or anything that will endanger our souls. He will never desert us. He always looks after us. Even if someone kills us – big deal. He loves us and gives us eternal life. That is where our hope is.
It is easy to be dull and to keep the Lord far away. We do it only because we are sinful and rebellious and selfish and stubborn. We do not really want to do what the Lord wants us to do every single solitary moment of our lives. We want to be able to do what we think the Lord wants us to do a few days out of the week at the most, and even only a little part of them. We start looking at our watches when His worship goes on longer than we think it should. We get impatient instead of letting ourselves rejoice in being in God’s presence, in being with the One we love. Our attitude in worship and in life is supposed to be like that of people who are deeply in love with someone. People who are deeply in love with another person never want to be separated from that person. They always want to be near the person that they love. When they are not immediately close, they always somehow feel the reality, the nearness and the presence of that person. That is how it is supposed to be between us and the Lord. We are supposed to have that sort of love for Him. It should be love that rejoices in being in His presence whether it is here, or at home, or while driving, or while we are working in the garden or while we are making bread, or while we are doing whatever we are doing, whether we are in offices or digging ditches. This is the nature of true Christian love.
When we can rejoice in being in His presence, rejoice in His worship, rejoice in glorifying Him and praising Him, then we will know that our love has taken at least a baby step towards being what it should be. We will know that His Resurrection life is truly, actually working in us. However, He is not going to force us. Lararus could be raised from the dead because Lazarus loved the Lord. It is not only just because the Lord loved Lazarus that He raised him from the dead. It was because Lazarus also loved Him. Therefore, Lazarus was able to hear the Lord’s voice and come forth.
There are many people whom the Lord is calling and calling and calling and calling, but they are the living dead. They are like zombies. They walk through this life looking after themselves and no-one else. They cannot hear the Lord call. If the Lord’s voice came with a trumpet call, blaring so that everyone could hear it, these people would not hear it. They would refuse to acknowledge that it was the voice of the Lord. They would say : “Oh, it’s the spirits calling” before they would acknowledge that it was the voice of the Lord. They would find every possible way that they could find to keep the Lord away because they do not want to have Him interfering and messing up their programmes and lives. They would stay in the tomb because they refuse to hear the Lord’s call. They will not accept His love.
You and I are here today offering our praise to the Lord. As we come to receive Him, let us be like Lazarus this morning and come out of our dead ways. Our lives are often dead ways : dead ways of thinking, dead habits, hard-hearted customs, hard-hearted pre-dispositions, negative thinking, and all sorts of junk in our lives. Let us hear the voice of the Lord speak to us : “Come out of those deadnesses. Come out of that dead space in which you are. Come out to life. Come out and live. Come out and be filled with the Spirit and live in the Kingdom. Do the work of the Lord. Give life to others”. Therefore, as He gives Himself to us, let us take His hand ; let us love Him, and let us be filled with His Resurrection life. Let us glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today, the Jewish people are escorting Jesus into Jerusalem. They are waving palm branches and branches of olive trees (we have pussy willows because there are no palm trees handy). They cry to Jesus : “Hosanna”. “Hosanna” is what was given for the king of Israel only. The people were sure that Jesus, who is coming, is going to be the King of Israel. He is going to make everything right. He is going to get rid of the Romans, who were occupying their country. A few days later, when they discover that Jesus, in fact, is not going to take over and boot out the Romans, they turn on Him and the Jewish people very much contribute to His Crucifixion on Friday. We will see this as we come to church this week and hear the readings from the Gospels day after day. We will see how the people (and even His own disciples) turn away from Him, desert Him, and wonder who He is.
Too many people have preconceived ideas about who Jesus is. They think that they can use Him to fit their own plans and make Him over into their own mould. They can use Jesus to suit their own purposes. The Jewish people at that time were soon to find out that they were very much mistaken. Jesus is more, much more than merely some sort of king, some sort of earthly ruler, some sort of person who is going to bring justice on the earth and make everything nice and warm and cozy and “at home”. Jesus is much greater than that. There is no such thing as an earthly king who can make everything right. It does not matter what political party we belong to or what ideals we hold in politics, whether we are socialists or conservatives : it does not make any difference. People are sinful, selfish and greedy, and no matter which political system we embrace, there is going to be at least some injustice. Political systems are no end in themselves. They only help us govern our country. They only help keep order.
What really matters is : Is there justice in my life ? Am I treating my brothers and sisters with justice ? Do I behave as God wants me to behave ? Do I treat all my brothers and sisters in this world as equals ? If I do not, I have no business saying anything about what happens in South Africa. I do not even have too much business complaining about the way the federal government treats the Inuit and the Aboriginals in this country unless I, myself, am ready to treat everyone as equal, as a child of God, no matter where we come from on earth.
Where does this fixation on an earthly kingdom in Jerusalem lead us now ? Contrary to expectations, the fact is that Jesus is not King of any ordinary kingdom. He is the Ruler of the Kingdom of Heaven which includes every creature that God makes, especially us, human beings. When God set about to save us human beings, He did not say that only the Jews are going to be saved. Even back in the Old Testament times, He never said that only Jews are going to be saved. He said that all the world would be saved through them because they were supposed to be an example (except they shut everyone out).
Therefore, God gave the Kingdom to us to spread the Gospel all around the world. Our ancestors who came from Russia did a very good job of that when they came to Alaska, and established the Church in Alaska. They converted all sorts of people there. Our ancestors in Russia were also very good at bringing Christianity to people in Kenya and in Persia. In fact, the mission that the Russians established in Kenya is still going on, and is nurtured within the Alexandrian Patriarchate with help from the Finnish Orthodox Church.
We have to be their legitimate spiritual children. Our behaviour in the world should be as theirs was only 100 years ago. The Russian missionaries would still be doing the same thing today if Alaska had not been sold and the Western government had not closed the door to Russian missionaries. The result of that closure was the need for the Aboriginal Orthodox to hold on tightly to Christ with very little spiritual support from human beings for over a century. What is this behaviour that we ought to emulate ? It is speaking with power about the joy and the life of Jesus Christ : the life that He gives us, and the ability to live with meaning, hope and power. We show that Jesus is Lord of all that is, and that He is able to take us out of our darkness and the dirt of our sins, and give us the ability to live a life that is positive, powerful, life-giving, and healing to other people. Jesus is the One who, as Lord of all creation, and Lord of our lives, heals broken hearts, heals broken relationships, brings forgiveness between people, restores everything to unity and gathers everything together. Earthly kingdoms separate, break up, and destroy. Greatly were the political Jewish people disappointed in Jesus Christ, because He did not come and establish that Israel that they thought would save the world. The Messianic Kingdom was going to keep everyone out and be stronger than anyone else. It was going to subdue the world. They were very greatly disappointed.
You and I are standing here today in the Temple of the Lord, in the New Jerusalem, which is the Kingdom of Heaven. Every time we stand together like this, we are gathered as the Body of Christ, and we are standing in the New Jerusalem. Are you and I going to be like those political Jewish people ? Are we going to be like our unfaithful spiritual forefathers ? Are we going to betray Christ ? Are we going to kill Him with the way we live ? Are we going to kill Him with our sins ? Are we going to kill Him some more by not forgiving other people, by hating, by holding grudges, by being like everyone else in the world ? Or are we going to be able truly to say : “‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!’” Are we going to live as children of the true Kingdom, the Kingdom which has no earthly barriers amongst people ? There are no borders in Christianity. We are all one Body. We are all members of Christ. We are all citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. We are all sons and daughters of the King, and it is time we all behaved like that.
This coming week we are all going to be walking with Jesus as He walks toward the Cross, which He did voluntarily for our sake. No-one made Him do it. Only His love for us made Him do it. He offered Himself. He was killed. He rose on the third day. All this we are going to be celebrating during this coming week. Let us give ourselves to Him. Let us offer our lives to Him, and try to behave in love as citizens of that Kingdom so that we will never deny Him, never betray Him, and never give Him a kiss as Judas did. May we confess Him as the thief did : “Remember me, O Lord, in Your Kingdom” (see Luke 23:42). And in that heavenly Kingdom, may we with joy eternally bless the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today, we hear the Lord saying : “‘Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life’”. Already Jesus had been feeding this crowd on Himself, the Word. He gave them the words of hope and eternal life. Then He nourished their bodies. In all this He was busy trying to show them where their priorities ought to be. Of course, He withdrew to pray, and we know that the apostles went ahead of Him by boat. The Lord caught up to them by walking on the water. No-one ever expected such a thing. He did this not to demonstrate how fantastic and wonderful He is and what wonders He can accomplish. They had already seen that. Certainly He gave His disciples a scare when He walked up to them on the water, but as soon as they knew who it was, they willingly received Him.
The fact is that the whole world is looking for Jesus all the time. They are looking for Him and His love. They are busy trying to find that fulfilment which in their hearts they know they must have. They are looking for that food which gives eternal life. They are striving to be fed, but no-one feeds them. We feed enough people nowadays with regular bread, as we send all sorts of food to places such as Ethiopia (although certainly we do not do enough). However, on the other hand, what are we doing about giving people what they are actually looking for, especially here at home ? Very often the things that we do are equivalent to that question that Jesus asked : “‘If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?’” (Luke 11:11) That seems to be more or less what we do. For instance, when people are looking for Jesus Christ, very often we give them “Orthodoxy” instead. We give them the rules of our Fathers. We give them tradition with a small “t”. It is not the tradition of Jesus Christ. We very often speak to people about whether we should stand up or sit down, whether we should cover our heads or not cover our heads, but we generally do not give them the love of Jesus Christ. The love of Jesus Christ comes first. That is what we must give first, and that is what people are looking for. How do we live out this love of Jesus Christ ? Do we do it by making pysanky at Pascha ? by cracking eggs ? by how we do our poklons ? by how we cover our heads or how we do not cover our heads or by whatever else we might do ? In fact, it is not in externals alone that we live out our love for Jesus Christ. The first thing we have to be ready to do is to reveal to others through our lives Who Jesus Christ is. He wants to give them this Bread that is eternal life. The Bread that gives eternal life is Himself.
Since the whole world is hungering for the Lord, let us be like Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who, every day of his life, after he finally was certain that he knew Who Jesus Christ is, went around always saying : “Christ is risen”. Every day of his life, to every person that he ever met, he said : “Christ is risen”. We should be like that. We should be people who reveal Jesus Christ to each other in such a way that no-one can doubt that we know Him and no-one can fail to meet Him through us. It should be that when you and I are going around, people are always aware that they are somehow involved with Jesus Christ. When we are with our friends, our family, at work, it is not necessary that we mention His Name (or rarely, if we do). We can help the Lord to touch them and reach them through expressing in practical ways this renewing, life-giving love, and this support that love gives. Even when we criticise, we still support in our love. When we criticise something that is wrong, we do not slash with our swords and chop someone in half. We support. We say : “Brother or sister, such-and-such a thing is wrong, and we have to do something about it”. We do not have to say aggressively : “You are wrong !” We have to be careful how we approach each other. We have to approach each other in love so that every time we speak to each other, the power of Jesus Christ’s love is meeting the people we are with. They are being fed. They are being introduced to Him, and they are learning how they should live, and why, by observing how we live.
A huge amount of our lives is filled with words : talk, talk, talk, all the time. The fundamental way for Christians to preach Christ (even when someone wants to know about Orthodox Christianity), is to be just like the Apostle Philip and say : “‘Come and see’” (John 1:46). The only way people can understand anything about us as Orthodox Christians or about Jesus Christ is to come and see ; to come and experience ; to come and be. We do not have to talk to people about Jesus Christ all the time. We just have to live Him. We just have to be Him for other people. We do not have to speak and explain and explain and explain : we just do. If someone is sick, we go to visit him or her. If someone needs something, we provide it. We do not have to talk ; we just do. One fundamental characteristic about Orthodox Christians and their prayer life is silence. We learn after a while that in our prayers we do not have to talk, talk, and talk to the Lord and wear Him out by our gabbing. All we have to do is look at Him and love Him. We adore Him. We hold our hands up to Him like this and worship Him. We do not have to blather forever and ever. It is the same thing about preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we have to speak, but mostly we have to be and do. There is a saying : “Preach the Gospel incessantly ; if necessary, use a few words”.
Let us ask the Lord this morning as we come to receive Him, to help us to be like our spiritual Fathers and Mothers who are not all known so much by their words. Of course, Saint Basil the Great is known for his writings, and Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Gregory the Theologian are known for their words, too. They had a special service to provide from the Lord. However, Saint Seraphim of Sarov is not so well known for his words, and neither are Saint Nicholas, Saint Vladimir or Saint Barbara, for example. All these persons were recognised quite soon after their repose for their actions. Just by their lives, they proclaimed that they loved Jesus Christ first before anything else. We do not have big books left by most of these holy people but we do have the testimony of their lives. All we have to do is to be Christians who live our lives in Christ. We practise. We do. We do not have to babble on ; we just do. We show that we are Orthodox Christians not by how much we talk about it, but by how much we live His love and by how much we bring Jesus Christ to people around us. By that, by our silence even, just by our being, we proclaim that Christ is risen. May our lives in the love of Jesus Christ, just as Saint Seraphim, proclaim the Resurrection of Christ and glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen
Today, we are remembering that time when those women, called the “Myrrh-bearers”, came to the tomb early in the morning and found the stone already rolled away.
An angel is sitting there and telling them that Christ is risen from the dead. These women were women who had been accompanying Jesus everywhere. They were helping Him and serving Him, and they are called “women disciples”. That means women followers, women imitators of Jesus Christ. These women also went on to bring about the conversion of other people, just as the men did. By their serving, these women ministered to the Lord in extremely important ways. I think that they set some sort of a precedent for how the service of women is really the foundation of Church life throughout the centuries.
That is why most of the sisterhoods in our Church are called “Myrrh-bearing Women”. I mean parish sisterhoods and not monastic sisters. The sisters of this particular parish are called the Myrrh-bearers and all the women of the parish are part of it. Their responsibility above all is to serve Jesus Christ. Of course, men also are supposed to serve Him, as Joseph of Arimathea served Him, and as the holy Archdeacon Stephen served Him. The manner of service of men and women, although they are sometimes different in the Church, are sometimes the same. All the modes of service of men and women together in the Church perform the same function. All are for serving Jesus Christ and for exercising the gifts that He has given to us. The purpose of all these gifts is to build up and strengthen those who are believers first of all, and secondly and most importantly, to testify to Jesus Christ, to bring Him to where we live so that other people may see Him, and believe.
Other people see Jesus Christ in you and in me, and that is how they come to know Him. That is how we also came to know Jesus Christ in the first place. We were touched by the example of others who knew Him and live in Him. It is the same with our spiritual fathers and mothers. We can only have one set of biological parents : one mother and one father physically ; but in the course of our life we can have many fathers and mothers spiritually. Their responsibility as mothers and fathers is to bear Christ, to carry Christ themselves and to introduce Him to us, and us to Him. Once they have introduced Jesus Christ to us, they help us grow in Jesus Christ, if we will. No-one forces us to believe in Jesus Christ. No-one forces us to serve Jesus Christ, just as no-one forces me to be friends with anyone. Vera can introduce me to Stefan as many times as she likes, but if I do not want to be friends with Stefan, I will never do it. If Stefan introduced me to Vera, it is the same thing. He could introduce me to Vera a million times, but if I do not wish to be friends with Vera, it will not happen. It would be too bad (but thank God I choose to be friends with both in this case). The principle is the same as bringing Jesus Christ to each other. Our responsibility is to introduce. Other people’s responsibility is to accept the introduction and to become friends with Him, as we are, although we have become more than just friends with Jesus Christ. We have become His brothers and sisters. We have become the adopted children of God, the Father. We have become princes and princesses of the Kingdom.
In the Acts this morning, we heard about how much work there was for the apostles to do in the early days. There was so much work to be done by these apostles that people began to criticise, because some of the widows were being neglected in the distribution of food. In those days, there was no such thing as pensions, welfare or insurance. Therefore, if the husband died, the widow was left without any way to get an income unless she had children who were old enough to support her. Once in a while she could survive if she had a business sense and had some money to get going. She could survive if perhaps her father had money. However, when their husband died, very many widows were left completely out in the cold and they had to beg. The early Christians behaved very differently from society which left the women alone and did not pay much attention to them. Even the Jewish society which was supposed to look after widows, did not bother too much. Thus, our ancestors in the Early Church and afterwards were very careful to look after the widows, orphans, and other people who were in need. The Church supplied them with food, housing, clothes and looked after them in general so that they did not suffer from need. That is how they shared everything in those days.
It seems to me that one way in which we can apply the life of those days to this day is as follows. Nowadays, we have a reasonable amount of welfare. Nowadays, we have a reasonable amount of pension money. Nowadays, we also have all sorts of institutions to look after people. When a person gets old, often the person goes to a nursing home. Once the person goes to a nursing home, the person is forgotten, like Mrs. n, for instance. I talk about her all the time because she is an example of this. She is in the nursing home and she is far away. Not very many people go to see her because she is far away. If these were the old days, the days of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Philip and Bartholomew and all the apostles, Mrs. n would not be living there. If she were not living with her family, then she would be living in some sort of a house that the rest of the parish would provide for such old people who cannot live by themselves. They would look after her in every way.
We do not need to do that nowadays, but we do need to visit because our old people who cannot get out get very lonely. Mrs. n gets lonely. Even though she lives at home and has someone to look after her, she gets lonely. She has the phone, but the phone is not like having tea with someone. It is not the same. There is also Mr. n and so many others who do not see very many faces from their spiritual families here. Most often these people do not get out as often as they would like to. I am saying that, as Myrrh-bearers, it is our responsibility to take care and to remember who is sick. There are many people like this and it is our responsibility to pay attention to their needs.
We are very busy but we should discipline ourselves once a month to go and see someone. Our sisterhood has appointed one person already to make certain that people (especially sick people in the hospital) are visited sometimes. However, it is not that person’s responsibility to do all the visiting because we are all the brothers and sisters of these people who are too old or too sick to come to church as often as they want to. It is the responsibility of us all to phone, or once in a while (perhaps once a month) to go and visit them, have a cup of tea, share a few words, bring an orange or something and say, as it were : “You are my brother, you are my sister. I care about you and I am interested in you”. That is what our responsibility is supposed to be like, I think. That is the most practical way in which we can apply today’s Gospel. Let us remember how those deacons were chosen to look after the people who were in need. Let us remember that our responsibility is like their responsibility. Although each of us has different gifts, we are each of us called to look after each other with the love of brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.
That is how we demonstrate that we love. It is no good simply to say : “I love you”. By showing up and having a cup of tea with Mrs. n, for instance, or by trying to surprise someone else, we show that we care. Perhaps some day when we are driving on our way somewhere, we could just drop in for twenty minutes for a cup of tea and say : “How are you ?” That is all that is necessary. People really sense the love of Jesus when we do that. They really understand how the love of Jesus works when we do little things like that. A telephone call, a little visit, a cup of tea is not much, but it is everything, on the other hand.
This morning, as we come to receive Him, and as He gives Himself to us, let us ask the Lord to help us put His love more into practice. Let us ask Him to open our eyes, our minds and our ears (but most particularly our minds together with our hearts), and to remind us what we could and should do. Let us ask Him to remind us whom to visit, whom we can go and see, who needs to hear a word of care or a word of love from a brother or sister. Let us then listen for Him to speak to us. Some day when we are in the car, perhaps we will drop in to visit Mrs. n and surprise her. We could have a quick cup of tea and say : “How are you ?” and “Christ is risen”. By doing this, we will truly glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today, on the fourth Sunday of Pascha, we celebrate the healing of the paralysed man. This man, who had been paralysed for 38 years, had been lying by this pool called “Bethesda” for an exceptionally long time. He had been hoping that he would be able to be first in the water when the angel stirred up the water so that he could be healed of his disease. However, someone always got there first. He was very much exasperated, but still he was full of hope. Still he kept trying.
When Jesus came to him and healed him, He said : “‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’”. When the Lord later found him in the Temple, He said to Him : “‘See, you have been made well. Sin no more’”. As I have said before, many of the things that are wrong with us come from sin. It is not always our own sin. Sometimes it is just because we are human beings, and all humanity is terribly sinful. That is why some terrible things occur to us, and sometimes that is why we get sick. However, there is a way out, and the way out is Jesus Christ. He is the Life-giver, and wherever Jesus is, there can only be life – no sickness, no sorrow, no sighing – only life. When Jesus told the paralysed man that he should not sin any more, He was telling us something that we must remember. That something is that sin paralyses us. As long as we participate in the works of darkness, as long as we do not unite ourselves to the Lord, as long as we insist on “doing our own thing”, we are paralysing ourselves, like that man who was lying for 38 years on the ground.
The Lord does not want us to be like that. He does not want us to be paralysed by our selfishness, by our greediness, by our anger, by our unwillingness to forgive. He wants us to put all this away. He wants us to live powerfully and healthily in the Kingdom. However, the only way we can have any sort of spiritual or physical health is to be united to Jesus Christ and determined to live in the Kingdom, to live in His life-giving love.
How do we do that ? The answer is very simple. We just do it. Of course, the question comes : “But how do we do it ?” By living as Jesus does. When we meet someone who is spiritually or physically ill, we bring the healing love of Jesus Christ to that person. If someone is ill, we go to that person if we can. Whether we can go to that person or cannot go to that person, we pray for that person to be healed physically or spiritually. We unite ourselves to Jesus Christ every Sunday when we come here. We unite ourselves to Him and share His love and His life with those around us. If someone is hungry, we feed them. If someone does not have enough clothes, we give them clothes. If someone is short of money, maybe we can lend them something, or even give them something if possible, depending on how God moves us to act. No-one can say how we are supposed to act precisely in any individual case, because human beings are all different. The circumstances in life are all different also. God calls you and me to behave towards each other in love.
The only way we can know for certain how to exercise this love is to be united with the Lord, who is the Source of love. He is the One who gives us the love in the first place, and He is the One who teaches us how to exercise it rightly in each case. For instance, if someone does not have any money, we should perhaps give them money. On the one hand, that would work for certain people and be “just the ticket”, but on the other hand it might be an occasion for sin because of the particular weaknesses of that person which we cannot know. I discovered that by listening to the Lord. That does not mean that just because we sometimes make mistakes in the exercising of our love we should never give of ourselves. We must give of ourselves. We must act. Unless we act, there is no love. Love must operate. It must do. It must express itself. I cannot just sit around saying : “I am a good Christian. I love”. That is no good. That does not do a thing, except say to everyone that I am a big talker. Maybe I have good intentions, but my mother said to me time after time that good intentions pave the road to hell. She was quite right. “I was going to do something” does not get us anywhere when we have to face the Lord. “I was going to be nice to so-and-so” ; “I was going to go and visit ” ; “I was going to take a pie over” ; “I was going to do this and I was going to do that”. That does not hold any water. It is a leaky bucket before the Lord. When we face the Lord it is just like when I was facing my mother. “I was going to” does not get us anywhere, but it got me a red bottom a few times, anyway. It will get us the same thing with the Lord. If I say : “I was going to do this or that”, then I can expect the Lord to say : “Why then did you not do it ?”
If we are not prepared to exercise our love, if we are so “chicken-hearted” that we cannot do a thing, then we have to be prepared for what the Lord is going to give us. The fact is that the Lord loves us. He strengthens us. He protects us from all harm. He corrects us. There is no reason at all not to be prepared to do something. The Lord is going to say to us : “Why did you not … ?” I might make an excuse that I am selfish or scared. However, perhaps I am more likely to be selfish, because, if I am selfish, that is a reason to be scared. If we cannot say that we did not do it for a good reason, then we can expect to get slapped around a bit, as it were. In fact, we can expect to get slapped around a bit right now by the Lord because the Lord disciplines the ones He loves. He loves us, and He wants us to wake up and He wants us to do what is right. He wants us to exercise this love with each other. The Lord says in another place : “If you do good things : visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, go and see those who are in jail, or do whatever else is necessary to meet people’s needs – if you do it to these people, you do it to Me, also” (see Matthew 25:34-36). However, if we do not look after the people who are in need, if we do not go and see Mrs n once in a while ; if we do not go and see how Mrs n or Mrs n is doing today ; if we do not check up on one of them, then we did not do it to the Lord, either. He is going to say : “Why ? Why did you not at least phone ?”
We have to exercise this love, because this love gives life. If Jesus Christ did not exercise His life-giving love, the paralysed man would never have stood up. If He did not exercise His love through Peter, the man who was paralysed would never have stood up, and Tabitha would never have been raised from the dead. We are reading the Book of Acts right now in Pascha because the Book of Acts shows us how the apostles lived out the love of Jesus Christ, and how the love of Jesus Christ built up and strengthened the community. If there is anything we believers here need to do now, it is to read the Book of Acts once a month for the next year, and try to put into practice what is said in that book about the deeds of the apostles.
Let us consider what happened to Peter when Peter was going into the Temple (see Acts 3:1-10). A man was begging for money. Peter said : “’Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you’”. He took the lame man by the hand and he was healed ; he got up and walked around. He was able to earn his own living after that instead of begging. That is what the Lord expects of you and me. He expects us to put our love into practice. We are united to Jesus Christ and we have all the tools that are necessary in this love. All we have to do is to do it. We just have to reach out a hand, and touch and do.
Why not make that our commitment today ? Let us read the Book of Acts once a month (which means about a chapter a day) for the next year, and try to act on the Acts ; to do what the apostles did, because how Jesus lives and works amongst us is no different from how He worked and lived amongst them. His love is the same. We try to let ourselves off the hook, saying : “The times are different”. However, they are not that different. People are people, like they were then. The only difference between people at the time of the Acts and people now, is how much money most people seem to have now, how many machines people have to do their work for them, and how fast they can travel around the world. It is how many gadgets we have that makes us different. Human beings remain the same and they have been behaving the same throughout all the thousands of years of history. Nevertheless, the promises of Jesus Christ are the same. His love is the same. We can be like the apostles, and He wants us to be like them, so let us read the Book of the Acts. Let us act on the Book of the Acts, so that our whole life says : Christ is risen. Let our lives always proclaim the Resurrection of Christ, and glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ is risen
All through the Paschal season, we are hearing readings from the Book of Acts, and readings from various Resurrection Gospels. Most of all, what we are hearing in these passages is what we heard this morning in the Gospel reading about the Samaritan Woman. In the Acts, we see how the communities in those early days were formed, how they were assembled, what their life was like and how they grew.
The Samaritan Woman gives us the perfect example. She meets Jesus at the well. Jesus reveals to her Who He truly is by the things that He says to her. Instantly she accepts what He has to say about Himself. She does not even question it because of the way He presents it to her. He presents Who He is directly, and even though she is a very sinful woman, she still has the eyes to perceive what is the truth. Right away she accepts it. Her immediate response is to ask a question. After she has the question answered in a way she really does not understand, then she runs to the town to tell everyone else : “‘Come and see a Man who told me all things that I ever did’”. The town came out. This town was full of people who by Jewish standards certainly were no good. However, by their own standards, they considered themselves to be better than the Jewish people of Jerusalem.
The people of this town came out. They saw Jesus. They met Him and accepted Him right away. Some of them believed in Him because of the words of the Samaritan Woman even before they had set eyes on Him. As soon as they could see Who He is, they begged Him to stay a little longer. Jesus was only passing through because He was on His way elsewhere. However, the people begged Him and He agreed to stay a little while. This was unprecedented because Jewish people did not even speak to Samaritans, let alone stay with them. He spoke to them. He taught them and He revealed the Kingdom to them. They received Him and they accepted the Kingdom. Instantly a believing community of people turning away from sin and turning towards the Lord was formed in this little Samaritan village called Sychar. Those villagers were ready to have the Holy Spirit living in their hearts.
In the reading from the Acts, we saw people running away from Jerusalem because of persecution. Wherever they went, they immediately established communities. They preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those around them and converted them to the true Faith of Jesus Christ. New communities grew up everywhere. As we are reminded, it was in the city of Antioch in Syria that the followers of Jesus were first called “Christians”. Our call is the same as that of the early Christians, because we here today are the same sort of people as all those that we have been hearing about. We are not any different, even though we do not live in the Middle East and we do not speak Aramaic, Hebrew or Arabic. We are the same sort of people. We are all children of God created by Him to live in the Kingdom. That is why we are the same as those people. Even if we live in the machine age where there are all sorts of gadgets, we are still essentially like all those people we hear about in the New Testament.
Jesus comes to us in the New Testament. When we read it, we meet Him. It is the duty of all Orthodox Christians to read the Bible all the time so that we can truly know Jesus and live the way He wants us to live. He meets us as He is meeting us right now in the Divine Liturgy. He comes to us in His Body and His Blood. As He gives Himself to us, He fills us with Himself. He gives us life and power to live in accordance with His will and to live the life of the Kingdom. He enables us to live that life which is full of love, full of strength, full of power, full of healing, full of light.
It is for you and for me to be like our spiritual ancestors. Our fathers and mothers hundreds and hundreds of years ago responded to Jesus Christ whom they met either in the flesh or in the lives of other people. You and I have met Jesus Christ in the Gospel, in the lives of each other, and in the lives of our mothers and fathers, or at least our spiritual mothers and fathers. We meet Him here, now, in the Divine Liturgy, as we do every time at the Divine Liturgy. We receive Him ; we accept Him into our hearts. Now we must live this life. We must live as the Samaritan Woman lived, as all those other disciples lived, and as the people of Sychar lived. We have to be ready to say : “Come and see. Come and meet Jesus Christ, who gives life to me and to all those who will receive life from Him. Come and see Him. Come and meet Him. Come and know the joy of living in Him as I do, and as we do here”.
That is what we are called to do. We are called to live as believers amongst ourselves so that when someone else comes to visit us, someone who has never met Jesus Christ, someone who has perhaps never even heard of Him, this person will be able to sense this love, this power, this life in our midst and be eager to share it with us. That is how we are called to live. We are called to live as our spiritual ancestors did, as we see in the New Testament. This has been the call to Orthodox Christians for the past 2,000 years : to live as these people in the New Testament lived, hearing about Jesus Christ, meeting Him, receiving Him, and living Him.
It is perhaps a little difficult to think of foreign and unbelieving people coming to meet us here where probably most people around the country are already somehow believers. I suppose that even in a country like Greece, which has been Christian right from the beginning of Christianity, there are occasionally some people who are not believers. It is our responsibility to strengthen each other, first of all in our living in Jesus Christ. If we see one who is not a believer, we are not supposed to run at him or her with our Bible, wave it and quote Scripture. We are not to shake our finger and ask : “Why aren’t you coming to church ?” We are supposed to live an example of love, invitation and acceptance. Thus, without our even having to speak about it, this person will sooner or later be able to see the love of the Lord working amongst us and living amongst us. If this person has fallen away, s/he will turn back to Christ. Or if s/he has never even been told about Christ, this person will come and ask why our lives are so powerful, why our lives are so full of joy, why our lives are so full of selflessness and true love.
Everyone on earth is thirsting for this love. Everyone on earth is parched and gasping for this love even if the person does not know it. Nothing else in the world will satisfy except the true Faith, the true love of Jesus Christ. Only we Orthodox Christians know about it ; only we know how to live it, and only we know how it can be given to such a person who does not know about it and who needs it. Of course, sometimes the Lord intervenes directly. As we come to receive Him this morning, let us ask the Lord to give us the courage to live without any fear this life of love, to share this love amongst ourselves freely, so that others may see and believe. Let us live with each other so that other people may see, believe, and desire to be part of this loving, life-giving, strengthening, healing community in the Kingdom which proclaims every single, solitary day of the year : “Christ is risen”. Likewise, may this community in every way, every day, glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
In the Epistle reading today, we see how the Lord manages to make something positive out of something negative such as the dissension today between the Apostles Paul and Barnabas. Because they could not agree, they went in separate directions. However, the Lord used this disagreement to multiply the proclamation of the Gospel. These were two strong leaders working together, which was a very good thing. However, when the time came for them to separate and to go on to do work individually, the proclamation of the Gospel spread even farther and deeper. Now the Gospel was being proclaimed not only in Asia Minor, but also it was being proclaimed in Cyprus when the Apostle Barnabas went there.
We have to remember always that this is what the Lord is doing all the time in our lives as well. Sometimes we commit serious sins. However, as long as we keep turning towards the Lord and admitting that we have done wrong and that we wish to do what is the Lord’s will, He turns the wrong that we have done to His glory. He is the One who heals what is broken. He is the One who makes up for or fulfils everything that is lacking. The Holy Spirit (as we are always saying) heals what is broken ; He unites what is disunited ; He brings together and unites everything.
The Lord speaks of Himself as the Shepherd of sheep and we are the sheep. A shepherd is someone who looks after sheep, and there is a unity or bond between the shepherd and the sheep. The shepherd is what he does. He is responsible for, and he protects the sheep. When our Lord speaks about being a shepherd, He refers to us human beings as being rational sheep, as it were. After Him, every human shepherd of the rational sheep remains, himself, a rational sheep. This sort of unity is evident when this perfect Shepherd is the God-Man. A shepherd has to know each one of his sheep individually if he is to do a proper job. He has to know the whole flock and he has to know every member of that flock. Not only does he have to know them, but he has to love them and care for them because sheep (as we all know) are quick to wander off and do stupid things. They get lost easily ; and if they get lost, they do not know what to do, and they do not even have the sense to go and find the flock. Therefore, the shepherd has to go hunting for the sheep and bring them back to the flock.
That is what the Lord is always doing in our lives. That is what He is always doing in our lives together in the Church. That is how He administers the Church – as a loving Shepherd gathering and uniting the sheep. The Lord is not sitting up in Heaven detached from the Church. The Lord is here in our midst all the time. He is in the middle of our lives. He is living by His law in our hearts, as He said He would do. He is in the midst of us, stirring up love for Him all the time ; and love for each other increases all the time. The more we co-operate with Him, the more united we all become, and the more united and strong the Church becomes. There is only one thing that is really required of us, and that is the commitment to do His will : to find out what His will is, and then to do it. This is how we live in Him in love.
We are to be obedient, following the Shepherd. That is another big misunderstanding that we have about how flocks operate. In western Europe shepherds are known as drovers because they drive the flock from one place to another. However, in the Middle East, shepherds do not drive the flock. Shepherds walk in front of their sheep and the sheep follow them. The sheep will not follow anyone else but that one shepherd because they know that this shepherd loves them. That is how the Lord is with us. He is not driving us anywhere. He always goes before, making a way for us so that we know where to go. If He were behind us, driving us on, we would always be scared ; we would always be afraid because we would not know exactly where we were going, and we would not even know why we were going there. We would just know that there was a dog and a stick behind us pushing us somewhere we do not know. Instead, our Shepherd, who loves us, goes in front of us so that there is nothing to be afraid of. We know where we are going. If there is a dog, that dog is there to make sure that we do not run away and get lost. In this way, the whole flock goes forward together following the Shepherd whom they love. The Shepherd and the sheep together are one being. That is what the Church of Jesus Christ is : all one being together, Shepherd and sheep.
Our Good Shepherd is with us today. He is today not separate from us. He is today in our midst. He is the One who offers Himself to the Lord and He is the One who offers Himself to us. When we come to Him to be fed by our Shepherd, He Himself feeds us with Himself. He fills us and renews us in His love. Let us come today to that great Shepherd of the sheep, and renew ourselves as sheep in the flock of the Lord and be fed by Him. Let us live in Him and follow Him wherever He leads us. May all our hearts willingly and lovingly follow and imitate our good Shepherd, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and glorify Him together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
This is one of the longest Gospel readings that we have (outside of Holy Week). Who is blind in today’s Gospel ? It certainly is not the blind man who is blind because he who was blind from birth is able to glorify God by the fact that he instantly responds to the Lord. As soon as he knows who the Lord is, instantly he falls down, worships the Lord, and says : “‘Lord, I believe!’” More than once in the Gospel, Jesus said, as it were : “If you cannot believe Me, at least believe the works. Believe what happens ; see how God acts, and understand. Do not be unbelieving but be quick to believe and quick to understand how God’s love works”.
The Jewish people and the Pharisees were not ready to listen. They absolutely refused. They were the ones who were completely blind. They were the ones who could not see the action of the will of God even when all the evidence was right in front of their faces and there were all sorts of witnesses that this was the case. They absolutely refused to believe and in the end they threw people out of the synagogue. They were that angry at not getting their own way. There was no justice whatever, not the slightest bit. Nevertheless, the blind man is not worried about justice from the Pharisees or from anyone else. The blind man is glorifying God because he has been given sight. Our hymns last evening said that he had never in his life been able to see human beings who are made in the image of God. Instead, he had only been able to touch and to hear. When he receives his sight, he is able not only to see with his eyes, but more deeply with his soul.
There is more than one way to approach life and our relationships with each other. You and I are all images of Christ, our Lord. We are icons of the Lord. Time and again, Saint John Chrysostom says (and other Fathers also say) that we are to respect that presence of Christ in each other. We are to look for it and to help it grow. Sometimes we too are just as blind as those Pharisees who could not with their physical eyes see that this man had been healed, and that he had been healed by the love of God. They were angry because he had been healed on the Sabbath Day. The Lord had technically broken the Law by working on the Sabbath Day. They wanted to get revenge and justice, and that is all that they were interested in. What are you and I interested in ? Are we interested in getting justice for ourselves at the expense of everyone else ? Are we interested in getting our own way at the expense of everyone else ? What is important to us ? This is where our blindness comes in. Our blindness has to do with our relationships with one another. Can we see Christ in each other ? Do we affirm Christ in each other ? Do we build up the presence of Christ in each other or do we deny the presence ? Do we live as Christians must live – giving life, being honest, being supportive, healing, and building up the Body of Christ ? Or are we like the world where people eat each other up, slash each other with their words, kill with their words (not to overlook killing with weapons) ? Are we like the world where we serve our own selves first and only, or are we living in the Kingdom as we must ? Do we put the Lord first ? Do we put the service of others and their welfare even before ours ? Which way do we live ? Do we see with the eyes of the Kingdom or do we see with the eyes of the world ?
Today, we are standing in the Kingdom. Do we see that we are standing here in the Kingdom, or is this merely some sort of chummy gathering that we attend because we like to see our friends ? Are we here to glorify God first above all things ? Can we see with our hearts the presence of our spiritual ancestors, our mothers and fathers who have been here before us and who have offered their praise to the Lord, and have given this particular place such an uplifting and prayerful atmosphere ? Can we see them ? Can we feel them ? Can we sense them ? Can we know that our loved ones are here still in the Body of Christ, here in the Kingdom ? Can we see the Lord standing in our midst today, giving us Himself, giving us His life, His love and feeding us with His love ? Can we see Him standing in our midst with His arms stretched out to us, saying : “‘Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’” (Matthew 11:28) ? Are we here instead simply out of habit or obligation ? Do we come to refresh our Russian culture and language ? If we are here only for the last reason, then we are like the Pharisees with blind eyes and we have to wake up. Our first reason to be here must be to offer our praise to the Lord, to unite ourselves to Him, and to be united with all our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters who have gone before us, as well as with each other. The blue ceiling above us is to remind us that we are standing here in the Kingdom, under the dome of Heaven. We are standing here in Heaven in the presence of the Lord before His throne.
As we come to the Lord, He gives Himself to us. He makes us one, all together. Let us ask Him to open our eyes so that we can see Him here, and in each other, and also in other places in the world. Let us ask Him to help us see Him in people that we meet, so that we may bring the presence of the Kingdom out there to the world. The unity in Christ that we find here may we bring to the brokenness of the world out there. May we bring the love that we find here amongst ourselves to those out there who have no love. There, where there is only hate and death, may we bring the life and the love that we find here. Let us ask Him to enable that, so that our lives may glorify the all-holy Trinity and that every minute of our lives we may proclaim : “Christ is risen”.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
We are all very anxious to pin things down. The disciples were anxious to pin things down. In the middle of everything that had happened, they continued to ask the Lord, as it were : “Is it now, Lord ? Is now the time ? Are You going to establish the Kingdom of Israel now ?” The fact is that they were not yet able to understand that the Kingdom of God is a mystery beyond seeing and beyond the limitations of earthly boundaries.
Palestine (as it was known) was a province of the Roman Empire. It was not an area that could contain the Kingdom of God. Even the farthest extents of the kingdom of David and Solomon were not big enough to hold the Kingdom of God. The Russian Empire was not big enough to hold the Kingdom of God and neither was the British Empire, which was even bigger, nor the American Empire, which is big enough, too. Canada, the second biggest country in the world, is not big enough to hold it and in fact, the whole world is not big enough to hold the Kingdom. We cannot pin it down like that. The Lord ascended into Heaven in order to send the Holy Spirit to us. If He had remained with us as His disciples who loved Him wished that He would, He would have had to limit Himself in His ability to be with us. However, He chose not to limit Himself permanently in His ability to be with us. The Lord ascended in order to send the Holy Spirit to us so that He would be with us always just as He promised when He departed from His disciples.
The Holy Spirit did come and spread the Kingdom of Heaven to whatever hearts are prepared to receive Him. All around the world today, as we stand in the Divine Liturgy celebrating this Event, the Kingdom of God is present. All around the world, believers have assembled in places like this, at all different times, to worship the Lord and to be in the Kingdom. Here we stand today, gathered in the Kingdom. However, we ourselves seem to be anxious to put limits on that Kingdom, too. We want to put limits of language, culture, and some other sorts of limits on the Divine Liturgy. In the presence of the Kingdom, this cannot be. How can we put a limit on the proclamation of the Kingdom ? How can we confine it ? The Kingdom has to be proclaimed. Souls have to be saved. People have to be allowed to enter the Kingdom. They have to be welcomed with open and loving arms and raised up in the Kingdom with us.
These souls that are hungry for God’s love have to find it in us Orthodox Christians because they will likely not find it anywhere else except by divine intervention. They must find His love in us and amongst us. Thus, our responsibility is to live in the Kingdom, to live as the sons and daughters of the King to our greatest ability. By reaching out our hands in love together with our hearts, we bring life to the world. That is what our responsibility is. When He parted from us, as He ascended into Heaven, the Lord said, as it were : “Preach the Gospel, the good news of reunion with God, the good news of the love of God for His creatures, and of love and life amongst all human beings in this Kingdom”. That is the responsibility that comes to us from today’s readings : the responsibility to take our Christian lives seriously.
In a manner of speaking, the Ascension into Heaven expresses what is to come for us. We must prepare by exercising our membership in the Kingdom here and now. We must proclaim the truth of the Lord. We must live His love. We must build up and unite the members of the Body of Christ and draw all together to the Lord. He stands amongst us, drawing us to Himself, offering Himself to us, saying still : “‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:20). Let us let Him live in us. Let us let His love and the presence of the Kingdom radiate from our lives together. May this Kingdom bring healing, life, love and victory to many souls hungering and thirsting for Him. May our lives transparently reveal the life-giving love of the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The Gospel reading today is reminding us of that perfect communion which is between the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Three Persons of the Holy Trinity live in perfect unity and perfect communion, and yet each Person retains a distinct identity. The Father is the Father. The Son is the Son. The Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit.
I am not going to go into a recitation of the Athanasian Creed to explain the Holy Trinity this morning. What is important is this matter of perfect communion in love which Jesus says that He has with the Father. It is very difficult for us to understand things like that because we are generally very slow about such things. Even though the Lord has sent the Holy Spirit upon us and filled us, we are still slow. He gave us everything that we need to understand, but we still cannot put two and two together to make four, and come to understand life in the Kingdom. This perfect communion that Jesus Christ has with the Father is what He came to give to us through Himself, through our being members of the Body of Christ, through our being baptised into Him and chrismated with the Gift of the Holy Spirit. The Lord wishes to take us up, we who are members of the Body of Christ, into perfect communion with the Father through Him. He wishes us to be in perfect communion with Him so that we can be in perfect communion through Him with the Father. He wants us to live always in love. How we learn to be in perfect communion with Jesus Christ is to be in communion with each other.
The devil is always trying to break up communion in Christ. He is always trying to throw around distractions, get people angry, get them upset, get them perturbed, and distract them from what their true purpose is, which is being one with Jesus Christ. This is one of the tactics he was using when he encouraged this young boy to fall asleep in the middle of Saint Paul’s sermon and fall out of the window. The devil’s scheme was that he should cast doubts on the apostolic ministry of Paul, and that he would cast doubts also on the power of the Lord to give life by making people discouraged and filling them with sorrow in the midst of the joy of being with the Apostle. He wanted to stab them right in the heart so that they would not listen to the Apostle. That is why things happened more or less as they happened. Even though the boy fell out of the window and everyone thought he was dead, the Apostle went down and said : “‘Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him’”, and they took him up alive. Most of us would not survive a fall out of a window, and even most boys would not survive a fall out of a window of more than one storey in height. Nevertheless, the prayers of the Apostle were such that, in his unity with the Lord, the Lord gave life to this boy who should have been dead. We see that the Apostle is in no way calling attention to himself.
As we see in the Acts of the Apostles, the Lord is continually giving life to those who have physically died. However, more importantly, He gives life to people who are spiritually dead – those who are dead in these sorts of sins : bitterness, anger, jealousy, envy ; people who are dead in the sins of selfishness, pride and rebellion against the Lord. He gives them life. There is more than one way to be in the tomb and have the Lord give life. One can be a zombie. Zombies (as you may remember from the movies) were the living dead. They were supposedly people who had been dug up out of a grave and robot-like were wandering around, catching people and making them zombies like themselves. Figuratively speaking, there are people who behave similarly all around us. They are so full of themselves that they do not have a second for anyone else. They do not care about anything at all except self-preservation. Their lives are lost in themselves, and they are dead to everything. There are also people who are dead because they are full of hatred, full of bitterness, full of anger, and their mouths are used only for vicious words and cutting remarks. Such people, also, are like these zombies : they appear to be alive, but they are not.
The Lord calls us to bring true life to these people and to show them what true life, eternal life actually means. True life consists in giving oneself in love selflessly with no strings attached : I give myself in service to others. The Lord is calling each one of us to be servants of everyone else, and to be seeing what we can do to help everyone else. He is calling us to see what we can do to bring life, hope, love and power into the lives of those who are all caught up in themselves, and totally lost, taken up in the sorrowful emptiness of serving themselves only.
It is our responsibility to teach them forgiveness, to teach them how to forgive. Most of the world does not know how to forgive but instead knows how to wreak vengeance and to take life. The world is getting more and more bloody and bloodthirsty all the time. It is our responsibility to break that cycle with our love, with the power of our prayers and with the power of our union with Christ in His life-giving love. It is our responsibility to bring life to the world, to bring light to the darkness and to raise out of the living tombs those who are wandering around dead but still capable of hearing the word. Living the love of Jesus Christ, it is for us to give them this word of life, by being in communion with each other and with God, and by bringing them into communion with us in Him.
This morning, let us once again strive to unite ourselves to the Lord and unite ourselves with each other. Let us remember that our calling is not to get something out of anyone but to give and forgive. Let us see what there is that we can do to help everyone else, not expecting anything in return. Thereby we will truly live Orthodox Christian lives. Thereby we will truly be united in Christ. Thereby, we will be taken up into perfect communion with the Father. Thereby we will be showing that we are alive in the Holy Spirit and that our whole lives glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today we are reading the conclusion of the Book of Acts, and with it we come to the end of the Paschal season. Tomorrow we begin the Pentecost season. As I have said before, the reading of the Book of Acts is necessary for us. It is important that we remember how the Christian community is built up and strengthened, how we are supposed to be living together, and how the Holy Spirit is still working in and amongst us. Tomorrow we will celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit as He comes to us. During the liturgical services, we will be with the disciples and apostles in the Upper Room in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit comes down in tongues of fire and gives power to those who love the Lord.
It is for us also, in harmony with the action of the Holy Spirit, to be prepared to live in accordance with the Gospel, and in accordance with the love of the Lord. We must remember to be continuously building up and strengthening the Body of Christ, Christ’s Holy Church. More than anything else, it is our responsibility to be nurturing and strengthening the body of believers here in this place by supporting one another, encouraging one another in love. Thus, we are urged to continue following the Lord, living in the Lord, all together and individually. At the same time, we are to exercise all the gifts that God has given us. He has given us all gifts of wisdom, gifts of understanding, gifts of knowledge, gifts of insight, gifts of prophesy. It is for us to discover these gifts in our lives, and to let the Lord work in us with these gifts. He has given us these gifts not just for our own strength, but so that we can exercise love in the community. In our relationships in the community, we can work together with the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. When we can put this love into practice amongst ourselves in the community, we will then be better able to do acts of love amongst people who do not know Christ and whose hearts are searching for Him. It is not all that easy to proclaim Christ to people who have not heard of Him. There are walls that have to be penetrated. It becomes more possible if we believers are able ourselves to exercise this love amongst ourselves in Christ, and all together to save ourselves in Christ.
We are not to be individual human beings concerned about “individual salvation”. That is one of the big mistakes of the television evangelists. We are not so much interested in “individual salvation” since individual salvation can only truly be achieved in community salvation. When we are all working together, encouraging and strengthening each other, there is much less focus on us as individuals. Individuals might be saved somehow, but that is up to the Lord. It is not likely that only one person in a community would be saved, because that person who is being saved is already exercising the love of God amongst others around so that they may be saved as well.
It is not possible to be a Christian and live outside of community awareness and community responsibility. Even Saint Symeon Stylites (whose memory we are celebrating today) who lived on a pillar in North Syria and never moved from it for many years, was not being saved by himself. Through his prayers, he was part of the Church all the time. People did not leave him alone sitting there on his pillar out in the country on a hill. They came and bothered him all the time, asking him to pray for them and asking him to speak to them.
Even hermits are called to serve others, and that service is what our Lord is referring to today when He is speaking to the Apostle Peter. The love of the Lord produces the feeding of the sheep, the caring for the sheep, and the tending of the flock. The love of the Lord must be demonstrated in concrete action. When our Lord says to the Apostle Peter : “‘Feed My lambs’”, “‘tend My sheep’”, “‘feed My sheep’”, He says it to us as well. It is important to remember that the number one fundamental lesson when we are reading the Bible and hearing about the works of all the great people who have gone before us (work done by the Lord through them, I should be careful to say) is that we have the same calling that they have. People throughout the generations are not different from one another. It does not matter if some people lived 4,000 years ago and were great and did wonderful works in the Lord. Living in 1987 or living in 1997 makes no difference. Human beings (although they become much more sophisticated in technology) remain the same in the heart. Their fundamental desires and needs are still the same. Their fundamental requirements are the same, and their call is just the same. The Lord calls His followers to act, and that is why we have read the Acts. Love of Him must be put into action. He calls us to work His works of love in His Kingdom amongst us, reaching out to those who are lost and in darkness.
Just as our spiritual ancestors, our fathers and mothers answered that call, we, too, today answer that call. We come to the Lord today ; He comes to us today. We receive Him today ; He gives Himself to us today. As much as He lived in those disciples and apostles 2,000 years ago, and enabled them by the power of the Holy Spirit to do great deeds and to save souls, He does the same for us in 1987, and God willing, if we should live until 1997, He would do the same thing for us in ten years’ time. May our whole lives now and forever glorify our Saviour who loves us so much, together with the unoriginate Father and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today is our parish Altar Feast. We call it an Altar Feast-day because it is indeed the name-day of the Holy Table of this Temple. This Holy Table is sanctified in honour of the Holy Trinity. Thus, we gather today as a family to celebrate at this family Table. Brothers and sisters, we know that this is our place, our home. This is where we belong. Gathered around this Holy Table, we are where we are supposed to be. This is where we know ourselves, we who are His family. We are the Body of Christ. This is where God reveals Himself to us. This where God gives Himself to us. This is where He feeds us. This is where we are truly ourselves more than any other time. We are truly ourselves when we are here together, gathered in the Lord’s house, in our Father’s house, gathered around our Father’s Table. In our Father’s Kingdom on His Day, we are offering ourselves to Him. We, offering ourselves to Him, are asking Him that we may be seen to be truly be His sons and daughters.
On this day, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. When we look at the festal icon, at the top we can see the Heaven bending down, where there are all sorts of flames of fire heading for the disciples and apostles and the Mother of God. It was not only the twelve apostles who received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The room was full of 120 people. They all, even the Mother of God, are called apostles. In the same way, you and I are called apostles. “Apostle” means one who is sent. You and I are sent into the world to bring the Kingdom with us into the world. As the apostles and the Mother of God all together received the Holy Spirit with fire and were given power, so you and I are given power by the Holy Spirit.
You and I are given the power to go out and live the Christian life in the midst of the darkness of this world. You and I are given the power to bring Jesus Christ to people whose lives are broken, whose hearts are broken with sorrow, whose lives are all burdened with darkness and care, sorrow, selfishness and sin of every sort. You and I are given the power and the authority to bring Jesus Christ to their sorrow, to their brokenness, to their need. You and I, who have been given the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit when we were baptised, are given the power and the authority to bring Jesus Christ to such people, to scatter the darkness with the light and the life of Jesus Christ. We are to bring His life, His light, His love to the lives of those who are wandering, looking, hungering, thirsting for this love, this light and this life that we have.
You and I, just like the apostles, have been given power. Maybe we did not see fire come down, but fire did come down. Maybe we do not realise it, but every time we come and stand here, the Lord comes from the Throne of Glory and gives Himself to us. Every single solitary time He comes to us in this way, this fire comes to us. This fire of His life, this fire of His light, this fire of His love comes to us and it burns away sin. It burns away darkness. It burns away all sorts of sins and hatred and selfishness and pride and envy. The fire burns it all away. It purifies us, this fire which comes to us when we come to Holy Communion. This fire enters us and renews us ; it nourishes us and fills us.
On this fiftieth day after the Passover of the Lord, the Holy Spirit came down in power not just on selected, chosen individuals. If you were here last night, you heard in the readings how the Holy Spirit came down on the prophets, on certain kings, judges and law-givers in the Old Testament days. Some of the Old Testament persons demonstrated His power only once in their whole lives. In those days, the Holy Spirit was only given to a few. In our days (the Day of the Kingdom, the Last Days in which we are always living), and particularly every Sunday (the eighth Day, the Last Day of the Kingdom), on this day and every day the Holy Spirit comes to us as to all the prophets. He comes to every believer, and not only selected believers. Every believer who is baptised and chrismated receives the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit fills us with this power and this life, just as He did for Elias, Elisha, Eli, Samuel, Zadok, Ruth, Rebecca, and Sarah. The Holy Spirit comes and gives us power to be in the Kingdom, to live in the Kingdom, and to bring this Kingdom with us wherever we are in the world in order to bring the whole world back to the Lord. Our responsibility as Orthodox Christians is not merely to pass through this world, but to be in this world and transform this world. Our responsibility is to bless the world by bringing it back and offering it to Jesus Christ, who made it all.
This morning, as we come once again, gathered as a family and as the Body of Christ at the Lord’s Table, let us give ourselves to Him. Let us receive Him with open arms because every single day of our lives, the Lord is standing here with His arms open, waiting for us to come to Him. He is waiting to enfold us in His loving arms to protect us and strengthen us and build us up. With our arms open, let us come to Him and let Him enfold us. Let us receive Him as He wishes to receive us. After we have blessed this water and this whole building, and after we have sat at dinner, let us go to our homes and approach the whole world with open arms. Let us receive those who would come to the Lord and who are looking for Him. With our arms open, may we let the Lord come from our hearts and bring love to His sons and daughters who are lost and bring them back into the family where they belong. We know where we belong. We belong here, together in the Lord’s House, in the Lord’s Kingdom, at the Lord’s Table. All the people out there belong here, too. Let us with our arms open bring them, and offer them with us in the Kingdom so that all together we may truly be the sons and daughters of the King gathered rightfully at His eternal banquet Table where hunger and thirst are no more. Here we are always fed with the water that never ends, from the well that never runs dry, and with the food which never allows us to be hungry again. On the Day of the Holy Trinity, let us glorify the Holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Everything has to be in its right place. Everything has to be in its proper order. That is one of the reasons why, in the Gospel readings, every time we see the Lord encounter people who are oppressed and overtaken by the devil in one way or another, there is always a dramatic encounter. Things are set straight right away. The forces of darkness are creators of chaos, mess, ruination and disorder. The Lord, who is the Source of light, puts everything in its right place. He makes everything be known as it ought to be known, and everyone known as she or he ought to be known. The Lord sets the prisoners free, and gives sight to the blind (see Psalm 145:7-8). The Lord is the One who made everything to be in its proper order in the first place. The forces of darkness try to upset and bring confusion to this order. It is the Lord who restores the order again. We are part of that work of restoration, ourselves.
There is an old Gospel hymn, a really sentimental one : “O to be His hand extended, reaching out into this world of sin”. It is very sentimental and very emotional, but on the other hand it does express what we are supposed to be doing. In some way, we are supposed to be the Lord’s agents, reaching out in this world, doing His work, helping Him to bring things back into their proper perspective and order. We begin with our own lives by putting our own lives in order with the Lord, by going to confession regularly, and getting things straightened out inside. We must get our house in order so that the devil will not have the opportunity to deceive us, to make us think that we are something that we are not and somehow twist our understanding of ourselves.
I think that going to confession regularly is one of the most important things that we neglect in our lives. Of course, no-one likes to go to confession. However, if we are going to keep our lives in order, then going to confession is truly a fundamental tool. When we just go on our own strength and try to live day-by-day, when we try to be satisfied with our own daily repentance, somehow, if we do not go to confession in public, we allow ourselves to get off too easily. We probably use the famous, old excuses and say to ourselves : “I am no worse than anyone else”. “I am just as good as the next person. My sins are not so bad after all”. We let ourselves off too easily. The fact is that our sins are not very good at all. They are worse than not very good at all. They are bad. Our sins separate us from the love of God. Confession is the discipline of coming in front of the rest of the church in order to admit our sins before God and the assembly, with the priest as the witness for the rest of the church. Our spiritual ancestors used to make a confession openly and publicly. We get off easily compared to them. For them, although smaller sins might be dealt with more circumspectly, it was certainly anything that was larger (which could separate the penitent from receiving the Holy Mysteries) that was confessed in this open manner. Such was their humility. Even so, it is now possible sometimes to see that sort of humility.
For us to go to confession before our priest, who is our witness on behalf of the Church, and confess to the Lord in front of everyone else that we are sinners, and to name the sins, is to remove the power of sin over us. By naming the sin, we “undress the devil”, as it were. We expose him. We reveal to him that we know his tricks with us and we confess to the Lord (we are confessing to the Lord and not to the priest) that we have fallen into the trap. Whether we fell into this trap willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly, we nevertheless did do it. We are sorry for it and we wish to put things right.
In such a situation, sometimes the Lord even speaks to us through our priest. Amazing as it may seem, there are occasions when the Lord does inspire the hearts and minds of priests in confession. Things are uncovered that are not even verbalised by the penitent, because the Lord knows us so completely that He will even go so far as to uncover things that we are too afraid to say ourselves. But also, even if that is not necessary, the Lord, through the mouth of a priest (sometimes even the most unlikely and unworthy priest) will say something to us that will set us straight. He shows us not only how we should get over our weakness in sin, but even how to be strong in avoiding sin in the future. These things do occur.
This world in which we live is full of chaos and confusion. For the most part, in this society nowadays, people do not know what their places are. They do not know how they properly relate to other people nowadays because relationships are all confused and messed up. Our roles are mixed up. Things that were generally expected for many generations are now all “up for grabs” in this society. It is up to us, in the midst of all this confusion to find some order, and to bring the Lord’s order back. Perhaps precisely the way things have always been done for generations is not what is going to be found for us in North America. However, it is up to us Orthodox Christians (more than to anyone else) to help to find this order in relationships.