In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
With today’s Gospel and Epistle readings, I could keep you here for a long time, but I will be merciful. I actually would like to talk about many of the things that are in those two readings because they are so rich in sources of encouragement for you and me in our attempt to live our Christian life. Instead of my talking about everything in those two readings, why do you not later on this evening when you are home having a cup of tea or coffee, and relaxing for a little bit, open your Bible to the last chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and the last chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John, and read them over. They are very easy to find. I think that after all the things that have happened today, when you look at these passages again, you will get some encouragement and strength, and be able to put things into perspective.
God’s mercy and Grace are beyond our ability to understand, just as the depth of His love is beyond our ability to understand. That is one of the reasons why the Lord is repeating to the Apostle Peter today : “‘Do you love Me?’” “‘Do you love Me?’” “‘Do you love Me?’” The Apostle Peter got somewhat irritated by the end. Our Lord was trying to make a point : “If you really do love Me, then you are going to look after My sheep”. Who are these sheep – except human beings ? This is the primary responsibility of every priest and bishop – to feed sheep. That is the purpose of this Divine Liturgy – feeding sheep – and we are the sheep in this case (except the Church always talks about human beings as rational sheep, not dumb sheep). I have seen sheep at work, and we can be like that too, it is true.
Confession is repetitive. It is all the same. Everyone commits the same sins. Each of us has a tendency to think that he or she is especially horrible somehow. It is a good thing that we think that, by the way, because we should think of ourselves as nothing so that God can make something of us. However, we tend to focus on how bad we are, and we forget about God’s Grace and His love, which help us overcome our weaknesses. Sometimes our confessions are rather repetitive. If anyone ever thinks that it must be interesting for a priest to hear confessions, it would be better to think about giving priests caffeine pills instead, because it is so repetitive. Yes, there is Grace there, and what is good is that God’s Grace acts during these confessions. God is able sometimes to speak through the conversation between the priest and the penitent in order to provide the right word of hope. That is what is interesting – to see how God provides. The priest often does not know what he is saying ; he does not know always the significance of the words that are coming from him. But God knows what the person has to hear. God gives the priest the words that he needs to give to the people who are opening their hearts to the Lord before this priest. That is where the interest comes. The sins are the same, over and over. The priest could just put on a record if he wants to hear these things. It is always the same, so do not think that it is anything fantastic to hear confessions. It is a duty, nevertheless, a heavy duty.
I am saying these things today, because since we are ordaining Deacon n to the Holy Priesthood, these are things that will involve him and your relationship with him. Deacons are not distinguished from priests in terms of feeding sheep, but the way they feed the sheep is different. Deacons, in particular, are people who embody Christ as a servant. Christ is our servant. We are always running to Him, crying to Him : “Help me ; give me ; give me”. He often does give (although not always precisely what we are asking for). However, He does look after us. This is part of His continuing service. It is a reflection of the depth of His self-emptying love, the love that He is speaking of in the last chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. This love is selfless, and it does not make distinctions. It is even. It is self-emptying. Therefore, when a deacon is doing his service in the church one way or the other, according to his particular gifts, he is showing what Christ does for you and for me. He is showing us that we are supposed to be doing the same thing. By how he serves in the way of Christ, the deacon is supposed to be showing a Christian how to live his or her life.
A priest also, as the Apostle Paul says in the Epistle to Timothy (see 1 Timothy 4:12), has to try to give the best example possible. The Apostle show us how a Christian family lives in love and in service, focussed around Christ, so that the believers in the parish will have some hope that they can do it, too. Now, I know, because I have heard it too many times, that many people think that a priest or a deacon is the way he is because we pay him to do it. However, that is not at all how it is. People do not pay the priest or the deacon to do what they are doing, because if they tried to pay him, they could not afford it. For instance, nowadays even doctors are not on twenty-four hour call. However, if someone is having a heart attack in the hospital and needs him to come, most priests will still answer the phone at two in the morning.
God’s Grace and God’s mercy are poured out on the Church because the Lord loves us, and He wants to feed us and nurture us. He wants us to be like Himself. What does this mean ? How could it be ? In case we have any serious questions about what it would be like, all we have to do is to look at this last chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the context of the whole book of the Acts of the Apostles. Very close to the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, we see the Apostle Paul before he was an apostle : how he was a zealot for God, how he was misguided, putting Christians in prison, and even killing them (although not personally, but he contributed to it). We have to look at that, and then look at the end of the Acts of the Apostles, and see what sort of a change, what a transformation there has been in this man who was a real fanatic in the wrong direction before.
The Apostle Paul is now, at the end of the Acts, full of love. In a previous chapter, when the ship was sinking near the island of Malta, and the soldiers were going to kill all the prisoners (including Paul) he convinced them that no-one would survive the shipwreck unless they kept everyone alive. Some of them tried to abandon ship, swim, or escape in boats. The Apostle Paul spoke, and they listened, and they were all saved. Not a life was lost in that shipwreck. Then we see the Apostle Paul being bitten by a viper. When a viper bites, it is not that long before the end comes. It is a quick death from a viper bite. (It is not as quick as death from certain snakes in Australia, I am told. In Australia, there is about thirty seconds after the snake bite. It does not hurt to be always prepared to meet your Maker.) Well anyway, this viper bit the Apostle, and they were certain that divine justice was being administered to this man. Then they found out that nothing happened to him. Nothing at all happened to him, and he carried on as though it were a mosquito bite. Then, of course, they decided that he was a god. That was yet another distortion. Everything about this is so typical of the way we are – from one extreme to the other. It took him a while to convince them that he was only a human being, but that he had God’s Grace. He showed God’s Grace and His love by healing people on that island.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be a pagan soldier, standing next to this man, connected to him by chains for much of the time ? Here we have this unbelieving soldier, standing next to this man who is healing people, raising people from the dead even, doing things that no-one else could do, and that they had never seen before. Can you imagine what an effect it would have on someone ? It did have an effect, because our martyrs’ lists are full of soldiers. In the first 300 years of our Church’s life, it is amazing how many soldiers there are – soldiers who were converted because they saw the suffering of Christians being killed for their faith. They became Christians themselves. They turned to Christ, and became saints and martyrs themselves. They intercede for us.
Our lives can be fruitful like that, and that is the point. Our lives can be fruitful like that if we continue in our daily lives to try to let the Lord’s love grow in our hearts. Let us look for opportunities to do good in, for, and with Jesus Christ. Let us not allow our fears and our timidity, our shyness and our embarrassment to overcome us because we are behaving in a way different from general society. We cannot behave in a way that is as different as that of the apostles. I do not think we can. In the first place, even though our society is so secular now, it still has enough Christian vestiges that we do not stick out quite so much as a sore thumb (although I do a bit because I dress the way I do). Most Christians do not stick out at all. They do not look any different from anyone else, but their lives testify that in Jesus Christ there is hope, life, strength, victory, health, healing. There are all these things and more in the love of Jesus Christ.
Let us do our best through the prayers of the Apostle Paul, and through the prayers of all the departed Orthodox Christians for whom we are praying on this Soul Saturday. Through the prayers of all the founders and benefactors of this holy Temple, through the prayers of our personal ancestors – our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters (spiritual and physical) who brought us to Christ – through all their prayers, let us do our best to follow their example, and glorify Jesus Christ with our lives, saying with Saint John Chrysostom : “Glory be to God for everything”. Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.