Opening Homily at the 14th All-American Council

Bishop Seraphim : Homily
Being Salt and Yeast
Homily at the Divine Liturgy
Opening of the 14th All-American Council
Toronto, Ontario
Sunday, 17 July, 2005


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

By the Grace of the all-holy Spirit, once again, The Orthodox Church in America is assembling together to listen to the guiding of the Holy Spirit, and to try to accomplish the Will of God in our life together in the Church. Once again, we have assembled because we love our Lord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ, and it is our desire to serve Him.

This is now the fourteenth time our Church has assembled as an autocephalous Church ; and the context in which we are assembling is different now, by far, from what it was, when the first of these assemblies took place. Right now, we are living in times which could be described as “out of joint”. We are living in times in which right has become wrong, and wrong has become right ; black has become white ; white has become black. Society’s understanding of how to live life has been turned upside down.

Because of this, we Orthodox Christians of The Orthodox Church in America (who are supposed to be the local Orthodox Church in, and for, North America) are called to be yeast and salt in this territory, as our Saviour has called us to be (see Matthew 5:13 ; 13:33). We have a huge responsibility. We have a huge responsibility, because, in the context of this distortion and this turmoil and the atmosphere of constant war, it is so difficult to persevere on the right path. I do not think that there has been a time without war during my lifetime. It seems that there have always been wars since I was a child. I have this phantasy that when I was a child, during “the good old days of the British Empire”, things were quieter. Probably I am deceived. Indeed, the more I read, the more I know that I am deceived about this. I must change my sentiments. Regardless, the times in which we live require a great deal from us, because everything around us works against us.

It is a time in which, as the Gospel according to John describes, darkness is trying to overcome the light (see John 1:5). It is difficult for us, very difficult for us, to maintain a sense of equilibrium, a sense of where we are going, in the midst of all this. It is very difficult indeed. If we are not careful, we will fall into some dangerous traps, traps mostly of the intellect or of the passions, traps which will divert us from our sense of direction. That is the environment in which we find ourselves this morning, as we stand in the presence of our Saviour and of the centurion, and as we witness the healing of the centurion’s servant (see Matthew 8:5-13 ; see also Luke 7:1-10).

Our Lord found in this centurion, converting to Christ, more immediate faith than He found in the children of Israel – children who had inherited the promise and the covenant. This was because people had become distracted from the right course. They had forgotten their sense of perspective, and what comes first in life. As a result, they were floundering, as human beings always do under similar circumstances. I am noted for saying that “human beings are very slow learners”. I have yet to be proven wrong, because I cannot see how human society has truly progressed in any way in more than 5,000 years. I recall talking to one of the best Egyptologists on this continent last year, and asking him the question : “Is anything different or better, in over 5,000 years ?” He replied : “No, it is worse”. We are not learning anything, because we cannot keep our eyes on what is our end, and what is our purpose in life. That end and that purpose is only one – Jesus Christ : loving Him, knowing Him, and serving Him.

Regarding the heretics, whose failures and foibles we recalled in our hymns last night at Great Vespers commemorating the Fathers of the First Six Ecumenical Councils : those conciliar Fathers kept a sense of direction, not because of their intellectual powers alone, but because their great intellects were informed and guided by the love of Jesus Christ. Their hearts knew Who Jesus Christ really is. The heretics, on the other hand, fell into intellectual traps. They were afraid of the implications of the depth of God’s love. They tried to rationalise around this love in order to make the Incarnation of the Love of God – Jesus Christ – more “acceptable” to humans, somehow. They tried in their various ways to “box in” God’s love. That never works. The Fathers, who preserved for us the Orthodox Faith, did so because their hearts and their minds were not separated, but rather united, and they knew the Lord. They knew Who the Lord is, and they also knew who the Lord is not.

You and I, as salt and yeast on this continent, are not going to be winning people by intellectual games and arguments, because this society in which we live is far too clever for all that. Our society is far too clever for the standard debates and arguments that we have used in the past to help people find God. These days, because people are so cynical in North America (they have “seen everything”, or they think they have seen everything), it comes down to the “brass tacks” of what sort of life you and I live. “Big Red” still has some surprises in store, I think ; but we, ourselves, are not responsible for the turmoil others are living in. We, ourselves, are responsible for keeping our hearts and our minds on Jesus Christ. We, ourselves, are responsible for living a life that is conformed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This life, conformed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is characterised by self-giving and self-emptying love. Actually, this life is characterised by nothing else than self-giving, self-emptying, serving love, imitating the Master Himself, Jesus Christ – who, when He washed their feet, said to the Apostles, as it were : "You have to do as I am doing". We have to imitate Him. I, myself, still have to learn a prime lesson that I was taught by a parishioner many years ago in Winnipeg, who said to me : “So you are greater than God, are you ?” I wondered what he was getting at. He answered : “I notice you never take a day off. God took a day off, don’t you remember ?” I am afraid that I still do not quite catch and apply his meaning, and that was more than twenty years ago. When I talk about “slow learning”, I know what I am talking about.

People around us, who are lost in all sorts of webs of deceit, pursuing the emptiness of trying to be comfortable in this world ; people who are broken and damaged badly by the pain of life ; people whose hearts are “dried up” – they are the ones who are looking to you and to me, Orthodox Christians, who profess to inherit the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth of Jesus Christ. They are looking to us to show Jesus Christ to them. The only way in which we can show them Who Christ is, is by how we truly love each other, in conformity with the Gospel.

In my early days as a priest, I was really depressed – a lot and often – by how little I found the people reading the Scriptures : by how ignorant people in our Church were of the Scriptures. Now, things are a little bit better. I now hear that people at least read the prescribed daily Scripture-portions. That is all right ; and after these twenty years and more of serving, I am glad to see that much. However, my brothers and sisters, those Fathers who “saved our bacon” 1500 years ago and more, were people who read deeply from the Scriptures every day. They were “bathing” in the Scriptures. They were “swimming” in the Scriptures. They knew the Bible by heart — not by memory, but by heart — because they read it so much. It is important for us to remember that if we are going to know Who Jesus Christ is, then it is in these very Scriptures that we are going to find out Who He really is, and how we are supposed to live.

I really took heart when I was a “green” seminarian, and a “one-year-old” priest, when I went one day to Saint Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania. I met for the first time the now departed Archimandrite Vasily of very blessed memory ; and I heard, through secondary sources, that his kellenik (cell attendant) had, not long before, been commenting about how nice it was that Archimandrite Vasily (who by this time was an old man) had asked his cell attendant to read the Bible to him every day. Then, when they had come to the end of the Apocalypse, Archimandrite Vasily had said : “Oh, that was so nice, let’s start again !”

That is exactly how we would feel when we are “normal”. There are people these days who do have that attitude towards the foundation of our life in Christ – the Holy Scriptures. You and I, brothers and sisters, have got to grow up in our life in Christ, in our love in Christ, because it is not in systems, it is not in techniques (although they help), it is not in our use of manipulative or political strategies, it is not in any of these alone that we can put any trust. It is only when we know in our heart Who Jesus Christ is, and when we are testifying by our life to that Truth, to Him who is the Truth – our Lord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ – that we can truly grow up.

That is what this coming week is all about : deepening our love for Jesus Christ, encouraging each other to persevere (no matter how difficult it is) in serving Jesus Christ ; in being salt and yeast, imitating our Saviour, as He calls us, in His love, to do. He calls us to be life-givers and light-givers to those around us – in all humility, with no pride, but only with the love of Jesus Christ, whom, with all love, we here all glorify, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.