and keep it”
(Theotokos Temple Feast)
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
You and I are temples of the Holy Spirit. That is our life. We have been baptised into Christ, and therefore, we have put on Christ. We are all carrying Christ. We are all Christophers, and therefore, wherever we are going in our lives, whatever we are doing in our lives, people around us should be able to encounter Christ in you and in me if we are truly mature, Orthodox Christians.
How did our Saviour behave in His life ? We just heard the answer to this question. It did not matter what day it was – He was always ready to meet the needs of His creatures. Therefore, today in the Gospel, He heals a woman on the Sabbath. That got Him into trouble because according to the Pharisees of the time, healing anyone who was sick on the Sabbath Day is work. This attitude is what corrupted the Law. For the Saviour, and for anyone involved in the work of the Saviour, work is not that. Setting people free, healing people, bringing Grace is not work – it is just life itself. It is life-giving. It is bringing Christ to the one who needs it. That is not work – it is life ; it is joy. It is true that the body might get tired sometimes with all these activities, but it is not work as work was understood in the Law of the Old Testament. It is not a desecration of the Sabbath. It is not a rejection of anything. It is not a perversion of anything. It is the fulfilment of the Law.
We human beings tend to be rather like control-freaks. We like to be able to explain everything, to understand everything, to make everything work, and especially to make things work according to our understanding, our desires. That is how we like it. Nearly everything about us is saying that we are control-focussed. We want things our way. Therefore, we usually forget to consult the Lord first about anything. We always think about it ourselves, and do it ourselves first, and maybe eventually we get around to thinking : “Is this what the Lord is asking ?”
Abraham encountered God personally. Everything that he did afterwards was the result of this loving encounter with God. Abraham trusted God in doing what otherwise seemed to be ridiculous and inexplicable : pick up ? move to nowhere ? go wander around with your family ? do these things and more because God said : “Do this, and I will multiply you ?” However, Abraham did do all these things and more. He did, as a result of his encounter of love with God and he trusted God to fulfil His word. God did fulfil His word, regardless of the many tests that Abraham encountered.
In due course came the Law on Sinai. This Law is what we often call the Ten Commandments. This Law is summarised by these words which we ourselves are repeating all the time (because we are the new Israel, after all) : “You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart, from your whole soul, and from your whole power” (5 Moses [Deuteronomy] 6:5). The Ten Commandments are describing what a life looks like if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength. If we do love God above everything, then, of course, we would not worship any other god ; we would not make idols ; we would keep the Sabbath Day ; we would respect our parents ; we would not kill or murder people ; we would not steal from people ; we would not tell lies ; we would not covet things or try to take things away from someone else ; we would not be distracted by all sorts of things. We would live in love, and we would do things in a positive way. Our life would be full of virtue because our life would be fired by the love of God.
I was only on Mount Athos for a few days, but all the time I heard about how the monks are listening to the Mother of God, and serving the Lord. They are following her example and following her direction. She is the Abbess of the whole Holy Mountain and of all those monks (who do not let women go there mostly because of their own weakness, and not because of anything else). Those monks serve the Lord under her direction. They are always speaking about it. It is an ironic situation in this context where no women can go. At least that is officially the case. (A long time ago, a few women have actually visited there, and they were queens. It would be hard to say “No” to them.) Nevertheless, there is one woman who is always there, and that is the Mother of God.
The Mother of God serves the Lord in freedom. She serves the Lord in might and strength. That is why she is called the “General” of the conquering hosts of heaven. She does all this because she is living in a harmony of love with Her Son. Like Adam and Eve at the beginning, before the Primordial Fall, she does not, and they did not, need to ask much about what is God’s will because their hearts were open always to what is God’s will. Their hearts heard what is God’s will, and they did God’s will. We hear in the Scriptures very often on the feasts of the Mother of God the little passage where a certain woman says : “‘Blessed is the womb that bore You …’”. Our Lord replies : “‘More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’” (Luke 11:27, 28). In this passage He is referring to His Mother. Indeed, she hears the Word of God and keeps it. Following Him, she lives in accordance with this Word of God. The Word of God in her case is her Son. She lives in complete harmony with the Word of God. She is the example of how we ought to be living. In the context of this love, our hearts ought to be open, alive, mindful, conscious, ready always to do the will of the Lord.
Most of us are spending our lives in one state of cloudiness or other. It is virtually unavoidable because of the foggy environment in which we live. Thank God we get the chance to go to confession sometimes to clear the cloud away. Nevertheless, the Lord in His mercy (despite all this cloudiness) is asking us to do what is right. Even bishops can sometimes get confused by this cloud, disturbed by this cloud of distraction, forgetfulness, sin, whatever. Take myself, for example. This morning I tonsured n a reader. N should have been tonsured a reader about twenty years ago. I finally woke up. N should have had the protection of these prayers and this sort of ordination because of the responsibilities that he is carrying and the service that he is offering to the Church. However, the Bishop, in his confusion, did not catch on.
Now I will tell you a little joke, because this is how our life is. It has to do with the Church of England. There was a very young, green assistant priest who was summoned for some reason to the bishop’s house for breakfast, and he was scared to death. (In England, a bishop is like a lord in the House of Lords : he cannot be insignificant in public society in the way a Canadian bishop can be.) The curate comes to the bishop’s house, and he is shown in by the butler, and he goes into the dining-room. The bishop comes in ; they say their prayers and sit down. The curate (the young assistant priest) is given boiled eggs for breakfast. The bishop has them, too, of course. The bishop sits there in his sort of reverie (it is popularly understood that bishops live in some other dimension somewhere), and the nervous, young cleric is sitting there. Finally he is brave enough to open his boiled egg. To his great consternation he discovers that this egg is “off”. Then he does not know what to do, because an egg that is “off” is not exactly appetising, and there are various people who say one should not touch such a thing. The bishop finally comes to himself, and sees the boy picking at this egg, and says : “Something the matter with your egg, Boy ?” Upon hearing a tone of voice like that, the young man is multiplied in his fear, and shaking, says : “Oh no, sir, it is very good in parts !” Some other things are like that : very good in parts, but not so good in other parts.
What is important for us is that when we do “come to”, we do give thanks to God for His love for us, for His extraordinary patience with us as we bumble around in this life, in this fog. I suppose that I have some people accompanying me in this fog. In this fogginess, the Lord shows us the light and we do come to the light. He dispels the fog. He warms us with His love. It is essential for us to give thanks to Him, and to allow Him to keep this fog away from us more and more in our lives.
It is important that we turn to the Mother of God, our example, and that we ask her for her protection. I have read so many accounts of how her protection has been helping people in their lives. I have experienced it too, myself. However, more important are the significant things that have happened to other people in their lives – how the Mother of God is sheltering them, protecting them, guiding them, directing them in and to her Son. It is necessary that we turn to her for her protection, for her direction, her guidance. Like her, with her, without any fog, but in the brightness of the light of her Son, may we glorify the all-holy Trinity : the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.