In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Since the very beginning, everything has been, and ought to have been about the relationship of love between the Creator and the created. We are the created, and not the creators. This is where we get confused sometimes and follow in the footsteps of him who thought he was equal to God, then rebelled, and fell from Grace. Actually, he did not think he was equal to God ; he even thought he was greater. At least, that is how we understand it.
Pride can actually be like that. It is very plausible. There are people in mental hospitals who think this way. That is why I am saying that it is plausible. When people fall into a delusion, they can fall very far. A lie can become all-consuming. This lie, this self-preoccupation, this self-centredness, is a very dangerous thing, a very deadly thing. It is important for us to remember how deadly it is, because this consumer society in which we live is consumed with this sort of selfishness. It is consumed with this sort of self-preoccupation : me, me, me, I, I, and I. We can see around us what is the result of that in the decay of human society, in the inability of human beings to live together in harmony (which is at an all-time low). We can see it in the decay of all creation, which we are causing ourselves because of our self-centred way of going about life.
There are many consequences to this self-centredness : many deadly consequences. If we examine human history, we can see that human beings over the whole course of their existence have learned the equivalent of zero about how to live. We have gained a terrific amount of technical knowledge and ability. We can fly to the moon, but we cannot live on earth. We poison our own nest, as it were. We are really a wreck as a race.
That is why the challenge for us who are Christians is so great. We are the ones who have the experience of God’s love. This self-emptying love is revealed in the Incarnation of the Only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ. He emptied Himself, became a human being, and allowed us to kill Him upon the Cross whose image is before us. He allowed us to kill Him so that He could rise from the dead, conquer death, overcome sin, and restore to us the possibility of communion between ourselves and our Creator which we ourselves ruptured.
In allowing Himself to be killed upon the Cross, the Saviour made what was a disgusting instrument of torture, a symbol of shame, of death, and of defeat become instead a symbol of life, victory, and love. We, who venerate the Cross, venerate Him who was crucified upon it, as Saint John of Damascus says. Every time we wear our Crosses upon our bodies, every time we venerate the Holy Cross in our homes or in the church, we venerate the true Cross, and through that true Cross, Jesus Christ, Himself, who was crucified upon it.
It is this Cross that conveys life and healing to us. That is, after all, how they found out which of the three crosses that Saint Helena discovered in Jerusalem was the authentic and true one (because they were all fragrant). Which one was the true one ? It was the one that raised someone from the dead. That is how they could tell. That true Cross continues to convey Grace, and there are pieces of that true Cross amongst us to this day. In this parish there is the blessing to have such a tiny particle of the true Cross. Do not underestimate the blessing of having such a relic of the true Cross. (Relic means remains. In this case, it means a particle of the veritable Holy Cross.) Thus the Holy Cross throughout the world today still conveys the healing love of Jesus Christ, who died upon it and who rose again from the dead. I say “throughout the world” because of the very many tiny particles of this Cross which are shared amongst Christians throughout the world. We Orthodox Christians share in that life, in that victory, and in the love which conquered and conquers everything that is evil, dark and deadly. We are the ones who are responsible for carrying Jesus Christ with us wherever we are, and whatever we are doing, and showing Him by our behaviour (not solely by our words) to people around us.
Why do I say not solely by words ? I say that because we are living in such a corrupt time that words do not have any meaning to most people. Today, words are just something that you use for some sort of minimal convenience. Words themselves do not have much meaning nowadays. I still remember, when I was a child, seeing the musical My Fair Lady. Eliza Dolittle was being courted by this poet, and she said (to paraphrase) : “Words, words, words, I am sick of all these words. If you really love me, then show me that you really love me. Do not just talk about it”.
This is what the whole world is saying to us, Orthodox Christians, too. It is saying to us : “We have plenty of words, and most people who are using words do not mean anything they say. Therefore, if you are really Christians, show it to us ; prove it to us by how you live. The rest is all window-dressing. People say one thing, but they do another thing. We want to see a people, a believing people, who follow through, who say that they are Christians and live it ; a people who are not like everyone else, betraying, deceiving, etc”. They want people they can trust so they can understand that the love of Jesus Christ is, in fact, what we say it is, what Jesus Christ says He is. He says : “‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’” (John 14:6).
In order to do this, brothers and sisters, we have to work at our lives. We have to remember the words of people who were around Jesus Christ, words like : “‘He must increase, but I must decrease’” (John 3:30). That is really important for us to remember. Jesus Christ must increase, but I must decrease. I am not the engineer of my life. Jesus Christ is in charge of my life. It is my business to listen to Him, and to let Him guide me on the path I am supposed to be treading. If I do that, through me He will accomplish all sorts of wonderful, seemingly impossible things.
However, if I continue to try to engineer, I will continue to wreck things. Human beings, as I said, are non-learners, not just slow learners. As a race, we are non-learners. For instance, the United Nations was a so-called bright idea for people who did not believe in God but thought that they could organise the human race, and make human beings work together. They thought : “If only we have a nice system, everyone will say : ‘Yes, that is the way we will work together. It is only logical’”.
What dreamers ! The United Nations has turned into nothing but a political wrangling place where people beat each other up with money and power. Human beings, as I have said, are non-learners. It is no different right now from the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, and we know what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. It is no different from the time of the tower of Babel, and we know what happened to the tower of Babel. It is no different from the time of ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs, and I have proof. One of our priests, newly retired from his secular job in n, was a teacher of Egyptology at n University (where he became, I am told, the fifth best Egyptologist on the whole continent). I asked him : “Is it any better now or any different now than it was in the time of the Pharaohs ?” He said : “No, it is worse”. He ought to know. He is an excellent, respected scholar of ancient Egypt. What I like about him is that even knowing all that, and knowing that things are worse now, he still has a sense of humour. I think you would like him. However, it is not easy to meet someone in n, 8,000 kilometres away. Because I have been there, I can tell you. However, Father n has been here, so maybe some of you know him. He is lovable, and he is eccentric as a Christian ought to be, but he does know his Egyptology, and he does know human beings.
It is our responsibility to remember what the Apostle Paul said to us this morning, that for him to live is Christ. Everything is referred to, and in, and about Jesus Christ. That is what we, Orthodox Christians, have to work on in our lives, giving up our selfishness and our stubbornness. Stubbornness can be all right as long as it is stubbornness with Christ. However, if we are stubborn because we are exercising our own independent will, we are going to get broken on our stubbornness. I can tell you that because it has happened to me a few times in my life. I do not wish the same for you. That is why I am telling you : “Do not do as I sometimes do myself. Do what I say”.
What the Gospel says and what the Apostle Paul says in effect is this – put the Lord Jesus Christ in the driver’s seat of your life. Allow Him (hard as it is) to guide every detail of your life. Ask Him : “What am I supposed to do today in this or that situation ?” Learn how to listen to your heart. Learn how to look for peace in your heart about this decision or that decision. Look for where there is disturbance, and if there is disturbance, do not go there. Look for where there is coldness, and if there is coldness, do not go there. Look for where there is peace : go there. Look for where there is warmth : go there. Look for where there is joy and love : go there. That is your heart telling you by the Grace of the Holy Spirit and with the help of your Guardian Angel, what God’s will is for you, and what He wants you to do. When you are tempted to do something, when you get a warning sign in your heart, you had better think twice about doing something. If you get this warning sign in your heart, or you hear : “I would not do that if I were you”, then maybe it is a better thing (instead of being stubborn, and doing it anyway because you want to do it) to be safe, and say : “I will not touch it because it is hot. I do not want to get burnt”.
We have to learn to listen to our hearts. We have to learn to listen to the Lord. All these saints that we are surrounded by on the walls, whose lives we read (whose lives were kindly prepared for us in summary by Father Lawrence, along with many other writings he has provided for our convenience), these lives tell us about people who have struggled to do the same thing. One way or another, all human beings are no different from you or me. They are all the same sort of ordinary human beings. Do not get any idea that these saints are some sort of spiritual professionals who have a Ph.D. in how to pray. Many of them did not know how to read or write. However, they did know how to love. They did know the Gospel by heart, because they listened.
Recently I was being told about a priest who was serving in Greek in some village somewhere where people did not have a very high literacy rate. He read the Gospel, and at the end of the Divine Liturgy, when he was giving the Cross and people were leaving, one of the grannies came to him and said : “Father, you missed a word in the Gospel today”. She was illiterate. How did she know ? Because she had grown up hearing this Gospel her whole life. She had listened intently with her heart, and she knew the Gospel. That is why some people in places like that have no texts. We Canadians so love to have our little books right in front of our nose as we follow the Divine Liturgy text, that we cannot see anything that is going on around us. Those grannies do not have the possibility of putting their noses in the text, but they use their ears and they use their hearts. The Lord puts the word of the Gospel in their hearts. He puts the Divine Liturgy, all the tropars, and the services in their hearts.
How many times I have heard of people in churches in those ancestral countries of Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, who could sing Matins or Vespers by heart, with the stikhs. Come to think of it, I remember hearing not long ago that in an English-speaking parish, there was a problem with texts. Somehow the people who were the singers and the readers remembered enough together that they were able to sing Vespers by heart. That is how the Lord does things with us. He does things like that with us to make us wake up. He says : “Yes, you can do it. You do have it in your heart. You do not have to depend on that piece of paper. You can speak to Me and sing to Me straight from your heart, and I will help you remember how to do it”.
He does. Usually He does it not just one person at a time, but all together. Thus we start to sing to the Lord, and we all help each other to do it. No matter what little bit one might forget, another remembers, and it all goes well. In fact, that is how the people in the Gulag Archipelago in the days of the Soviet Union in Siberia managed to pray. They remembered the Gospel, and they remembered the Epistles by heart, together. No matter how hard the Communists tried to wipe them out, they did not wipe out the Church.
Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church. We do have to remember that, because the days of communism, especially in Russia, were very tough. In the days of the Second World War, when Stalin was being invaded by Germany, Stalin had already put so many of the bishops in jail that there were only three bishops left who were not in prison (and they were old and decrepit). It was a providence that the war came as it did because Stalin was not born yesterday. He knew that the only way the people would rally behind him (because he had already slaughtered many millions of people in Russia and in Siberia) would be if the Church said so. Therefore, he let the Church out of prison in order for that to happen. The Lord does what He does. It is amazing how the Lord organises things.
The Lord Jesus Christ is in charge of everything. He is in charge of our lives. He is in charge of the Church. He will not abandon our Church. He said that He is the Head, and the gates of Hades will never prevail against the Church. Let us all together offer our loving hearts to the Lord, as we praise and glorify Him : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.