 Hymns
Apolytikion of Dormition of St. Anna Fourth Tone O Godly-minded Anna, thou didst give birth unto God's pure Mother who conceived Him Who is our Life. Wherefore, thou hast now passed with joy to thy heavenly rest, wherein is the abode of them that rejoice in glory; and thou askest forgiveness of sins for them that honour thee with love, O ever-blessed one. Kontakion of Dormition of St. Anna Second Tone We celebrate now the mem'ry of Christ's ancestors, while asking their help with faith, that we may all be saved from all manner of tribulation as we fervently cry aloud: Be thou with us, O Lord our God, Whose pleasure it was to glorify them both. Homily +In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be. Today's gospel is a sobering one. There are many anxieties in the world around us and in the Church about the meaning, power, and nature of demons. The evangelists did not focus morbidly on this phenomenon, but they were compelled by Christ's ability to triumph over the demons, and so told the remembered stories about our Lord casting out demons. In a way, it's fortunate that we don't have to anxiously examine demonology texts or learn how to do elaborate exorcisms. We are given a clear and reassuring context by the holy gospel. Therefore, let us examine what it tells us. In this passage, we are reminded of an important truth: that, in the words of St. Paul, "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities". This text often causes unneccessary fear when it is used in the context of our spiritual life, but today's gospel shows us that it is an encouragement to deeper love. We are reminded that our fellow human beings, no matter how deep the enmity between us, are not our enemies in God's eyes. Instead, our enemies are the demons and the forces of sin and evil that they try to take advantage of. It was a practice of the saints when reading the Scriptures to take the passages about physical violence or anger and apply it to violence against the demons, rather than assuming that God is calling us to wound our fellow humanity. In Gerasa, a predominantly Gentile city, Jesus arrives to a community enduring great fear and danger at the hands of these demons. The possessed men are "violent" and are hindering the regular flow of trade, pilgrimage and travel. Yet as dangerous as they are, these demons immediately tremble and bend before the presence of our Lord. Here, then, is our first lesson: The demons, whatever they may be, are powerless before Christ, the God we serve and who dwells within us by the Holy Spirit. Christ finds the demons in a tomb. There was a belief widely held in ancient times that the souls of the dead could become demons and cause trouble on the other. For this reason, the saints said, these demons were hiding in the tombs to play upon people's fear. But St. John Chrysostom reminds us that whatever journey the soul takes after death, God watches over each soul and leads them to the place they are called to be. The process is a mystery, but the outcome is sure. For this reason, we need not fear the dead, but rather pray for them. We pray for them not for our sakes, not to protect ourselves against their being "restless", but for their own sake, that God might give them whatever grace they need to complete their journey to God's own heart. We pray for the dead because we love them, and because we know that God loves them. The demons ask Christ, "have you come to torment us before the time?" They refer most likely to the Day of Judgment. As I mentioned before, to the extent that the demons are the enemies of God and God's creatures, we need not be surprised that they will receive punishment for their crimes. Yet it is also the calling of some saints to pray for the demons and their repentance and transformation to the good. This is a mystery beyond our full understanding, but the Scripture does allow for its possibility. The Greek word here for "torment," vasania, originally meant to test the purity of a metal with a touchstone. As with many other references to trial or purgation in the life to come, the metaphor is one of judgment, purification, and possibly pain, but not of mere vengeance or wrath. There is hope for even the demons to be redeemed, but it is our job to resist their harm and evil with all the righteous anger God gives us, and let God worry about the rest. The demons, seeking to flee the presence of Christ, ask to be sent out into a herd of pigs. The consensus of the saints on this event is that Christ was not capitulating to the demons' request, but used this situation as a moment of teaching. The fact that the demons drove the pigs to their deaths shows what they would like to do to human beings. The fact that they could not do this to the two demoniacs shows that God's own image within us and God's power over the human soul prevents them from doing so. We learn from this another lesson: that demons have no power over humanity to cause ultimate harm, and that God preserves even those unlucky few who may be possessed. When such events do occur, the Church has been given a bounty of prayers and services to restore a person to full spiritual health. We are never without the medicine of God's grace in sacrament, and we dwell always under the protecting shadow of God's wings. There is, also, a deeper spiritual lesson in Christ's actions on behalf of the city of Gerasa. The way of the demons is violence, extinction, fragmentation, both towards others and ultimately towards themselves. This is also, beloved, the way of sin. Though most of us do not cause violence to others to this degree, it is possible for any of us to lose sight of what matters, to use others as a means to our own ends, and to lose touch with our common humanity. The Gerasene swine serve as a warning that, as St. Paul says, "the wages of sin is death." We see this on personal and systemic levels, in the ways that fear, self-protection and pride can create situations where people's full humanity is disrespected. We do not need to see demons to see the fruits of their labor. Likewise, we do not need to have supernatural powers to fight them. We drive out the demons by prayer, by love, by gentleness and justice, by doing acts of righteousness to break down the death we see in the world, and make it the fertile ground for new life in Christ. Our works bear fruit in Christ's vineyard, and we can know whether something is demonic or divine by its fruit. Ironically, church leaders who misuse exorcisms to try and erase someone's gender or affectional orientation are doing the demons' work for them. They are playing into the same patterns of erasure, fragmentation and scorning the image of God. They, like we in our own ways, must repent of the ways they harm others and seek to live as Christ would have us live: casting out darkness in the world around us by our love, our hope and courage, and our faith. It seems that the Gerasenes did not fully understand what had happened. They were afraid, and asked Jesus to leave, for fear that something worse would happen to them next. Jesus came to heal and protect them, but he also respected their autonomy. They were afraid. Sometimes, even with the benefit of hindsight, and knowing who Jesus truly is, we will also be afraid. And this does not lessen our worth or our capacity to resist spiritual evil on every plane. Christ is with us. Greater is He who is in us than the one who is in the world. May we walk with courage, confidence, humility and love in the midst of all the challenges we face, material and immaterial. May we know that our spiritual warfare must fight sin and evil itself, rather than our fellow human beings. And may we take comfort in the hope of our incarnate, crucified and risen Lord, who is ever and always our Immanuel. Amen.
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+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ is in our midst! (He is and ever shall be). Today, Christ teaches us to be the light of the world. As is often the case, he reminds us that action is as important as belief, and faithfulness is as important as faith. In St. John's gospel, Jesus declares himself as the light of the world. In Matthew, he tells us that we, too, can be the light of the world. We should not be surprised at this, humbling though the thought may be. After all, it is also written in the gospels, that if we have faith in Christ, we will do the works he did on this earth, and still greater works, because he is now with the Father and the Spirit gives us the strength of divine grace. In order to accomplish this in our lives, Christ calls us to the fullness of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. St. John Chrysostom explains that the instruction to "do and teach" the commandments is ordered this way for a reason. While we need both orthodoxy and orthopraxy, we cannot adequately teach the truth of what God calls us to until we live in accordance with the truth and act on God's commandments. For this reason, the Orthodox Church only awards the title of "theologian" to saints whose lives of gospel virtue showed them facets of God's truth that they were able to confess and proclaim organically, in an outflow of love and righteousness. In other words, theology is what we do before it is anything that we say. We see this dynamic play out in the Fourth Ecumenical Council. An important council, as it refuted a harmful heresy about Christ. Yet also a controversial council, as it alienated large swaths of Orthodox Christians whom we now understand to be speaking different nuances of the same undivided truth. Indeed, if we zoom in a bit on a few of the proceedings of this council, we can see where the Church's leaders both succeeded and failed to uphold Christ's commandment to "both to and teach" the commandments. The Council of Chalcedon was held in the 4th century. It was called, in large part, to examine the theology of Eutyches. More specifically, it was held to discern whether Christ had one nature that was both human and divine, or two natures, one of each. The question was important to preserving the integrity and holistic nature of the faith, but it can seem a bit arcane to our modern context. For our reflection today, I am less interested in the specifics of the doctrine, important though they are, and more interested in how the imbalance of faith and action played out in its proceedings. Let us return, then, to Eutyches. Eutyches was likely still sore from the divisions that had wracked the Church only a few years prior at the Council of Ephesus, a similar council that rightly dismissed one theologian's problematic ideas but in so doing cut off an entire wing of the Church, namely, the Church of the East. In reacting against Nestorius, who cut off Christ's divinity entirely from his humanity, Eutyches went too far in the other direction. He taught an understanding of Christ which swallowed up Christ's humanity into his divinity. And as we know, whatever aspects of human nature the Word are not taken on by the Word, the Word does not save. Christ must be fully human as well as fully divine in order to be our savior. Furthermore, Eutyches went around accusing many clergy of secret Nestorianism. He was so concerned with avoiding a very specific error in orthodoxy that he became an extremist for an equally problematic view, both in his teachings and in his actions. We see, beloved, in the words of St. James, our Lord's brother, that right belief without right action is dead. Eutyches was condemned by the Church for his heretical beliefs. In the example of Pope St. Dioscoros of Alexandria, we see an example of the opposite problem. Dioscoros rejected Eutyches' beliefs. He held to the beliefs of St. Cyril, his predecessor, who taught that Christ was fully human and fully divine, while still only having one nature. The intricacies of this belief are a discussion for another time, but suffice to say St. Cyril was broadly respected by both the Alexandrians and the Church of Constantinople. Dioscoros' beliefs were sound. However, in trying to solve the conflict in the Church, Dioscoros committed the opposite failing as Eutyches. He thought that a simple flex of power, by accepting Eutyches back into the fold and deposing the Ecumenical Patriarch who exiled him, would solve the deeper crisis of faith and understanding that the Church was going through. Instead, it led to Patriarch Flavian being brutalized by Dioscoros' supporters, Eutyches remaining condemned and clinging to his heresy, and the Church in Constantinople wrongfully ejecting the majority of the Church in Alexandria from communion. We must take bold actions for Christ, but we must also remember, beloved, that bold actions will not suffice on their own without a proper orientation of the heart, a harmonious communion of mutual accord which allows the Church to hear the still, small voice of Christ in our souls speaking the truth which sets us free. Thankfully, in recent decades, the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox church have realized that we share a common faith, and have begun to repent of the unjust accusations hurled at one another. The anathemas have been lifted, and talks have been ongoing as to the resuming of full communion. Indeed, on a practical level, this communion has been achieved. Members of one branch of the faith who wish to be received into the other are now only required in most places to undergo confession before receiving the Eucharist. There is no second baptism or second chrismation. We can rejoice that the harmony of righteousness and love, of action and faith has begun to be restored. Christ's commandment gives us a framework for discerning faithful action today. On the one hand, there are times that call for decisive action without delay. We are to do the commandments. To seek justice now, to love mercy now, to walk in humility now. Many who seek to delay contemporary movements for social justice in our context claim that needed change is "too radical" or "hasn't been thought through." They forget or ignore the fact that the right discernment and deep intuition of unjust status quo has been felt out and fully known by marginalized communities. They have done their discernment, and now it is time for them and us to act. Yet we must also exercise continued discernment as we seek to know exactly how to act. We must recognize that social change will not stick unless it is grounded by soul change. Paradoxically, we must do the commandments before we are able to teach them, but we must continue to know, internalize and teach them in order to transform the world in such a way that positive change is not swept away in the next cataclysm, but lasts because it is written on our hearts with God's Law. And in all of this, we remember we do the good work with God's help, and by God's grace. We are called to shine with the light of Christ, and to shine so bright as to draw all the world in love and compassion towards him. Christ gives us two commandments of greatest importance. They are not easy, but they are simple. "Love the Lord your God with your whole being," and "Love your neighbor as yourself." The work of our entire lifetime is to do these things, to to do them as well as we can, and to teach others to do the same. May we shine with the love of Christ for all God's children. May we bring faith and action together into an integrated life of discipleship. And may our courage to do deeds of justice always keep an equal pace with our love for God and one another. Amen.
Hymn Texts
For the Resurrection, Tone 2 - When You descended unto death, O Lord who yourself are immortal Life, then did You mortify Hades by the lightning flash of Your Divinity. Also when You raised the dead from the netherworld, all the Powers of the heavens were crying out: O Giver of life, Christ our God, glory to You. For St. Euphemia, Tone 3 - To the Orthodox you brought elation, * to the heretics, humiliation, * lovely virgin of Christ, St. Euphemia. * For you confirmed what the Fathers decreed as true * during the Fourth holy Council in Chalcedon. * We entreat you now, O glorious Martyr, pray for us * to Christ our God to grant us the great mercy. For St. Olga, Tone 1 - Giving your mind the wings of divine understanding, / you soared above visible creation seeking God the Creator of all. / When you had found Him, you received rebirth through baptism. / As one who enjoys the Tree of Life, / you remain eternally incorrupt, ever-glorious Olga. Homily +In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be. Today, the 3rd Sunday of Matthew, our Lord warns us against the dangers of valuing wealth above all else. This stern rebuke, "you cannot serve both God and mammon," is clear and unequivocal. However, as with all the commandments of Christ, it contains layers of deeper meaning for us as Christians to ponder and apply to our lives in a more radical way. Here, I'm not referring to some "secret knowledge" or meaning, but rather to the practice of taking the Lord's words to their logical conclusion. All of us have different relationships to money, and different relationships to resources. We are wealthy, or poor, or somewhere in between. The gospel is meant to, in the words of the Mother of God, "put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalt the humble; to fill the hungry with good things, and to send the rich away empty." We can and should examine our relationship to our actual, physical wealth. If we are wealthy, whether in money or resources, how can we give radically for the benefit of those in need? Perhaps more importantly, how can we redistribute our resources so that we are no longer the wealthy exploiting the poor, but dwell on an equal footing? If we are poor, whether in money or resources, how can we receive from our wealthy siblings in Christ, how can we pray for them and continue to speak prophetically against the power of Mammon which corrupts our society, both inside and outside the Church? And yet, Christ's words also speak a deeper message to both rich and poor: Do not be anxious about your life, about your food or drink or clothing. But seek first the Kingdom of God and God's righteousness, and these other things will be given to you as well. Beloved, how often does a scarcity mentality prevail among us? How often does our striving for "enough" cut us off from true connection with one another, and with God? I'm not condemning our need to care for our bodies' basic needs. After all, Christ did not say "do not eat," but "do not worry about what you will eat or drink." We can work, pray, and provide for our needs while trusting God in peace, and not allowing our worries about our needs to cause us to close off our hearts from others. It is not survival itself, but the scarcity mentality that causes strife, hatred, greed and fear in our human communities. Christ calls us to a radical trust, and a prayerful pursuit of our day to day lives that is open-hearted to the needs of one another. Even if we cannot provide for each other's bodily needs in every circumstance, we can share generously what we have, whether little or much. And we can share the gift of community. St. Paul also understood this. He reminds us that we are not hoarding up resources or security in hopes of some far off time. "Now is the day of salvation. Now is the acceptable time." We wait with eagerness for Christ's redemption of all things, for the Kingdom of God to fully break into our present reality. And this is meet and right. But the inbreaking has already begun. And our attitude towards our neighbor here and now will shape and determine how we experience the Kingdom when God is truly all in all. To "seek first the Kingdom" is to live a life of radical generosity and compassion for one another, to live as if we were already in the Kingdom, even as we continue to provide as best we can for the needs of the body, needs which will be fully met for all when Christ returns. St Olga, Apostle to the Rus, whose memory we celebrate today, understood this. She lived in a time of turmoil. Many of her subjects, both Christian and pagan, feared the loss of power, security or resources should "the other side" triumph. St. Olga was both patient and bold, trusting in God for everything. When she went to Constantinople to be baptized, the Emperor's officials gave her a beautiful golden plate inlaid with jewels. This was a tribute befitting her status as a Grand Princess. Olga accepted it gratefully, but then donated it to the Church. Like the woman who anointed Jesus' feet, Olga gave freely to God, trusting that she would receive back whatever she needed. Back in Rus, she continued to evangelize and live a holy life, establishing the faith more deeply in her homeland. She knew that Rus would not fully embrace the gospel in her lifetime, but she was not discouraged. She built churches, spoke boldly of the beauty of the faith, and convinced her son Sviatoslav to loosen the persecutions against the Christians enough that the church could grow and remain stable. She met people where they were, and kept the faith with a deep love for her people. Paradoxically, in letting go of the need to preserve the security and power of the Church, she ensured that it would blossom and grow in Russia for centuries to come. Two generations later, her grandson St. Vladimir brought her work to completion, and the Russian church has flourished in its lands ever since. Love, generosity, tranquility, courage, trust. These are all virtues of the Kingdom of God, and they can be ours in every moment, when we seek first that Kingdom, the righteousness of God, and the love of God which pours out through us and around us blessings for all people. May we prayerfully discern the use of our resources. May we give without expecting return. May we receive with gratitude all that God gives us. And may we stand boldly in faith and love, building up the Body of Christ and bringing acts of mercy, justice and care to all people. For now is the acceptable time, beloved. Now is the day of salvation. May we turn towards the Kingdom again and again and again, and in so doing witness to its glory in day to day lives. Amen.  bulletin_--_2nd_saturday_of_st_matthew_7_4_21.docx
+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be. Today, St. Matthew the Evangelist tells us of Jesus calling the first apostls. He calls humble fishermen. Later, he will also call women, such as our patron saint, the Holy Apostle Photini. The response of Peter, Andrew, James and John is instructive for us. Immediately, they left their nets, their boats, their livelihood and followed their Lord. We heard last week from Christ the warning that to live the gospel may cost us friends and family, whether we consciously leave them behind or not. God calls each of us to leave behind different things, different situations, different relationships. There is no "one size fits all" call to discipleship, except this: To follow Christ, whatever it takes. Jesus and the apostles began to preach in the synagogues. Why? They were practicing Jews. They and their compatriots were already the people chosen by God. St Theophylact suggests that they preached in the synagogues to show that the gospel was not opposed to God's Law, the Torah given to the people of Israel. Indeed, the fact that they preached to both Jews and Gentiles is a testimony to the reality that everyone is capable of following God, or falling away from God. We cannot claim to be God's favorites because we are Christians, or think that our relationship to Christ excuses us from the work of repentance, discipleship and faithfulness in love of God and neighbor. In the Epistle, St. Paul reflects on this truth. He points out that there are members of God's chosen who do not adequately follow the Law, and members of the Gentiles who do, and vice versa. We follow God's commandments when they are written on our hearts, as God promises to do, regardless of whether we are in the church, the synagogue, both or neither. Because of this, we must remember that no one person or community is totally separated from God. Not even the people we may personally find the hardest to see God in. Our enemies, whoever they might be. Likewise, no one person or community is totally identified with God. We are to examine our own journeys, prayerfully consider our relationship to God, our faithfulness, and to let go of anything that holds us back from truly loving God in one another, and God as Lord. We are to imitate the apostles in their running towards Christ. Today is July 4th, the day the secular calendar sets aside to celebrate the United States' independence from England. America is not a "Christian nation" in the prescriptive sense, but the dominant cultural force in America has been rooted in a particular kind of white triumphalist American Christianity. Orthodoxy, by and large, has not shaped this culture, but as Orthodox Christians in America (particularly those of us who are white), we are not exempt from taking responsibility to mitigate its impact. Here, the gospel can help us. Christ's call to sacrificial discipleship is a rebuke of American exceptionalism. There is no "us and them" of ethnicity, race, religious tradition or nationality in God's Kingdom. There is only the faithfulness of each beloved child of God on their journey towards theosis and the life in Christ. All of us seeking Christ together are Christ's Body, a Body which is one and united without requiring homogeneity. A wise priest once said to me, "We are not called to be Greek. We are not even really called to be Orthodox. We are called to be the hands and feet of Christ." Do we follow God as best we can each step of our journey? Do we love one another, and seek to heal the harm we have caused, with God's help? Do we walk with Christ to heal the broken, uplift the downtrodden, to put down the mighty from their thrones and exalt the humble? Do we pray and continue to grow in courage, faith, compassion, love, joy and other fruits of the Holy Spirit? To the extent we fail to do these things, we go astray. To the extent we live into them, we become more and more divine by grace. Christ calls every nation. Every person of every background. "Come, and follow me." And as we follow Christ, we invite all people into the communion of love that is the very force which holds us together in God. We become channels of God's grace, mercy and love. To rephrase that priest's saying. "We are not called to be American. We are not ultimately called even to be Orthodox. We are called to be the hands and feet of Christ, the love of Christ to and alongside the entire world." Amen. |
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