Year 1991

Voluntary, life-giving, loving Submission

Bishop Seraphim : Homily
Voluntary, life-giving, loving Submission
Sunday of the 5th Week after Pentecost
3 June, 1991
Romans 10:1-10; Matthew 8:28-9:1


In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

In today’s Gospel we see very clearly once again that in the presence of the Lord, evil cannot remain. Time after time we see that when the Lord comes into the presence of evil, it is immediately unnerved, causes a disturbance, and has to go. However, it does not automatically go. The evil has to be removed by the Lord. It requires that the Lord act visibly. He speaks. He touches. The Lord acts, and the paralysing and enslaving action of evil is scattered.

How do we know that evil is active in our life ? If anyone thinks that evil is not active in his or her life, then that person is full of pride and blinded by that very evil. In fact, that is what happened to the devil in the first place – he wanted the first place. The devil, who was the prime angel of light before his fall, considered himself to be equal to God. He was blind to the difference between himself and God, and in this blindness he became separated from God. All this happened faster than the blink of an eye. He separated himself from God in deciding that he was the same as and equal to God Himself. He separated himself from union with God. He continues to this day in the very same delusion.

How do you and I know that evil is active in our lives ? There are plenty of signs. I am not going to get technical. However, if there is confusion, that is a clear sign of the devil’s activity in our heart. We do not usually speak about confusion as being such a sign, but in fact, it is a prime sign. You and I know who we are in the Lord, and where we stand. We know where we are going and we know right from wrong. If there is confusion, I do not know very well any of those things. If I do not know clearly who I am, I have been deluded. If I do not know that I am loved by God, I have been deluded. If I do not have peace in my heart, this is also a sign of the activity of Big Red. If I do not have peace in my heart, I have been destabilized by Big Red. If I have continuous anger and hatred in my heart, I have been taken in.

We can forget our sense of direction because we forget the ABCs of living the Christian life. We forget to read the Bible, and we forget to pray. We forget to practice love between us and we forget to recognise Christ in our neighbours and in our friends. We forget to look for the activity of Christ’s saving and touching of your life and mine while we are working, while we are at home, while we are walking down the street, and while we are shopping. We lose track of what is what, where we are going, and how we are supposed to live. We lose track of the fact that we are Christians. We put all sorts of adjectives in front of our Christianity to dress it up and give ourselves excuses for misbehaving. The Lord will not accept any of these excuses. He will not accept any substitutes for the life in Christ. He will not accept any sort of substitute for the living out of His love.

We forget what submission means, as well. The submission that Saint Paul speaks about in the reading today is the same sort of submission that he speaks about everywhere else, but it is we who misinterpret it because we are so broken. The image of submission that pops straight into our mind is that of some poor wretch grovelling on the ground, wringing his hands and saying : “O master, master, don’t chop off my head”, or something like that. This is the submission of slavery and fear that usually is in the front of our minds. However, the submission that is given to us by Christ in the Gospel is the submission which comes with love. The plain facts are that in our relationship with God, in our relationship with Jesus Christ, you and I will not find our salvation unless we submit ourselves to His will. You and I cannot get away with having our own way, with making everything in accordance with our own standards and patterns. We cannot get away with it. Because we have the strong tendency to insist on doing everything our own way, we undermine, destroy, distort, twist and smash the image and the plan of our Lord, God, and Saviour for us.

The Lord wants us to love Him first of all. We know from our human experience that if we love someone, then we try to do the very best we can for that someone. We offer our very best always to that someone. When people have lived well in marriage for a long time, it is clear that this mutual offering of self, of love, of service to each other is active, productive, and life-giving. I have seen people who have been married for sixty years, and couples married as long as that have been deeply in love with each other. They are deeply concerned about each other, and deeply interested in the health, welfare and salvation of each other. They have mutually built up, strengthened and nurtured each other. They have truly been a sign of how Christian love operates. If you know how it works in a good marriage (especially if you are one who has been married for a long time and have lived this way with your spouse), you know that this is what happens, hard times or no hard times (there are always hard times).

The way love properly operates is to do all that is possible to give life, to nurture, to strengthen, to heal, and to build up – that is the sort of submission that we are apeaking about. It is the submission of love, the conformity to God’s will as it is seen in the Gospel and as it is acted out in the Gospel. The Gospel is not a fairy tale. It is the beginning of the common experience of Christians which continues to this very day. It is the experience of how God loves you and me infinitely. He cares for us and saves us on the street, in the air, and at sea. He is involved in our lives. He blesses us, protects us, renews us, and encourages us. He sends people out of the blue for no particular, apparent reason to say something to encourage, heal, strengthen and help us when we are feeling particularly blue and distraught.

Thus we must do for the Lord and for each other and look to the welfare of each other. Let us look to building up, nurturing and strengthening each other. Let us read the Gospel so that we can live the Gospel. Let us read the Gospel so that we can encounter Jesus Christ more and more, not only in the Gospel, but in each other so that we can live in love.

Brothers and sisters, the Lord says to you and to me : “‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his Cross, and follow Me’” (Matthew 16:24). What are we doing in response ? Do we take up the Cross ? Do we take up the Gospel of Jesus Christ ? Like Judas, do we give Him a kiss and deny Him and betray Him ? There are only two ways : the way of repentance from sin, like Peter who denied but repented ; or the way of death, like Judas who denied, betrayed and did not repent. There are only two ways. On which path are you and I walking this morning ? On the way of life in the love of God ? In His love, let us love God above all, and in doing so glorify the all-holy Trinity at all times and in every place and in every way : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

High Time to repent

Bishop Seraphim : Homily
High Time to repent
4th Sunday after Pentecost
23 June, 1991
Romans 6:18-23 ; Matthew 8:5-13


In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

The last verse of the Epistle reading today : “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” is a Bible verse which I had to memorise when I was quite little. When I was little, I did not understand very much about the meaning of that verse. In my life I went blithely on my way, having that in my memory, but not knowing the first thing about it.

Saint Paul himself is very clear this morning. The way of sin leads to darkness and death. Life in Christ, the following of Christ, brings us to eternal life in the Kingdom. It has only been after plenty of stumbling, falling on my face and derrière that I have begun to learn something of what this interior darkness means and what this sin means. It is part of becoming an adult, I suppose. When I was little, I thought that this sin to which the Apostle refers was something gross and horrible, or perhaps something dramatic and terrible. However, I have come to see that it is not necessarily gross sins. It is not only living a soap opera sort of life that leads to death and destruction. In fact, it is the much more mundane, boring, simple, straightforward sins that lead most surely to destruction. It is these boring, uninteresting, humdrum, everyday sins that enable a person to be pre-conditioned to engage in soap opera sort of immorality. In fact, these small sins produce the famous “slippery slope”. This slippery slope brings a person to be able to live the sort of corrupt, degraded life that is shown to us in these soap operas day-by-day. In order to be able to do the sort of gross, corrupt, terrible and bloody things that we see in the so-called “entertainment” programmes on television now (blood and gore flow on television), we have to be pre-conditioned to do that. To be jumping from bed to bed, to be killing people, to be stealing, to be committing adultery left, right and centre, one has to be pre-conditioned and hardened up.

The Lord has built into your life and my life the testimony of our conscience. Our conscience teaches us right from wrong. When we are inclined to do something (or when we have already done or said something that was wrong), there is a burning inside that says : “Oh, Oh !” We listen to that (or we do not listen to that). Either we pay attention to those times when the alarm bells have rung and we say : “Oh, I had better pay attention here, and straighten out my life” ; or otherwise we say : “Aaagh, that is an old-fashioned idea. Where did that come from ?” If I keep saying often enough : “Aaagh, who taught me that sort of fairy tale ?” I harden myself and pre-condition myself to do much worse things. I become capable of doing those gross and terrible things.

We talk and we behave these days as though we are terribly shocked that all around us in the world there is horror after horror. We behave as though we are surprised, somehow, that this should be the case. However, there is nothing surprising about this sort of behaviour in the world. We can see in ourselves how we have led ourselves astray and not listened to the conscience that God gave us. We have not listened to the inspiration and the tugging of our Guardian Angel away from the darkness. No, I have led myself away from the teaching of that Guardian Angel, away from the pleas and the tugs of that Protector sent from God. I have gone on to talk on the telephone at great length about my neighbours, about my friends, about the people I work with, to destroy their reputation and to pass on lie after lie that I have received on that same telephone. In fact, by my tongue I have murdered my brother and my sister. I have ignored the needs of those around me, people who are hungry, thirsty and lonely. I have not met their needs. I have said : “I have better things to do. I am more valuably occupied than to spend my time doing those things which are necessary”. I have hardened myself up and pre-conditioned myself to do worse.

If I have murdered my brother or my sister with my tongue, why is it so surprising that there are many people who have got yet harder and allowed their anger and their hatred to go much farther so that they kill, steal, rob, rape, poison, abuse and oppress ? None of that is surprising. None of it should be surprising because you and I can see all that in our own hearts. I am rebellious. I insist on having my own way. I do not want to read the Gospel. I do not want to be condemned in my heart about my darkness and my wrongs by reading the Gospel and having the Lord confront me face-to-face.

The wages of sin is death”. The product of sin is death because ultimately, when I go on that path away from the Lord, I take myself away from life, itself. Where am I going to find life except in the Lord ? Who is the Giver of life except the Lord Himself ? If I am not going to pay attention to an incident such as we see today in the Gospel reading where, because of His love, once again the Lord heals without even being there physically present ; if I am not going to put my trust and my confidence in His love for me and call out to Him and say : “Save me. Help me” ; if I am not going to put my confidence in Him, then I cut myself off from being myself.

Brothers and sisters, the fact is that you and I can only be ourselves when our life is found in Christ and our life carries the characteristics of this presence of Jesus Christ in our hearts at all times. Our life must bear the tangible marks of His presence which are found in feeding, clothing, visiting, speaking good, encouraging, uplifting, and interceding in prayer for others.

Your life and my life are judged by what we do to and for each other. Have I had patience with my brother’s and sister’s shortcomings or have I condemned my brother or my sister for what I perceive to be faults ? Have I condemned my brother or sister in my heart ? If I condemn my brother or sister in my heart, I have set myself up to be a judge as God. That sort of pride comes straight from the depths of hell. It will take me, and not my brother, to my Judge. If I let my anger turn to hatred, instead of turning myself to repentance and asking God to help me forgive the wrong that has been done to me ; if I have allowed my anger to flare up and turn into hatred, so that I practically wish that my brother or sister would die, I am the one who will die instead. I will not die in the Lord, but I will die in the devil and be taken straight to join him in separation from the Lord of life. I will live in perpetual death in separation from the Lord of life whose love penetrates everywhere.

This morning, as always, the Lord comes to you and to me face-to-face. The Lord stands in our midst and He addresses you and me not only in this Divine Liturgy, not only in the reading of the holy Epistle and the holy Gospel, but He addresses you and me in each other. He says to you and to me as it were : “Inasmuch as you have done good (or have not done good) to one of the least of My brethren, you have done it (or have not done it) to Me” (see Matthew 25:40-45). The Lord comes to you and to me today to say : “Turn away from the ways of darkness that lead to your self-destruction”. He says to you and to me : “‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’” (John 14:6). He says to you and to me that life is found only in Him and in being like Him. The only way we can be ourselves is to allow Him to shape us and form us into that image that He prepared for us, into that plan He has for us and into that way which He has prepared for us and opened for us.

In this church, we are supported by the prayers of all the believers worshipping the Lord for almost a hundred years. We are supported not only by those prayers, but also by the presence of the continuing prayers and love of all those who have fallen asleep before us. We are surrounded even on the walls by these great and holy people – Saint Job of Pochaiv, Saint Gregory the Theologian, Saint Basil the Great, Saint Sergei of Radonezh, Saint Seraphim of Sarov, Saint Barbara, Saint Olga, Saint Nicholas – we are surrounded by them all. They in their love exhort you and me to do as they did : to give up selfishness and self-will and to live in Christ. By their prayers, may we co-operate with them, say “Yes” to the Lord and be able to join them in glorifying our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, it is time for you and for me to put our priorities straight and get our house in order. It can only be done by following the exhortation of our beloved Father Herman, the Elder and Wonder-worker of Alaska, who says to you and to me today : “From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all” and glorify the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.