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"In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we celebrate that sweet, that most sweet name, that most sweet term that has ever appeared in human philology, the most sweet term that has ever appeared, and has lain upon the tongue of man, that most sweet word, which is at its depth not simply a word, but at its depth is true action in Christ Jesus.
Orthodoxy means that we worship Christ as He should be worshipped; that we believe in Christ as He should be believed in; that we believe, accepting all of those things which the Holy Fathers have given us; accepting them totally in our hearts; and making Orthodoxy the guiding light, the north star upon which we plot our daily lives.
For this great, great gift of God, that great gift of God of Orthodoxy is, among all of the blessings that God has given us, the greatest of all. Nothing of mankind can we compare with it. Nothing that mankind has philosophized and invented from his mind, however bright he might be, however inspired he might be, however great an engineer or inventor he might be, nothing — and you can think of the most extraordinary inventions of man — none of these things can even hold a candle to Holy Orthodoxy. For all of the things that man has made, as marvelous as they are, are first of all gifts of God. And after that they are, in all cases, things to make our life here on earth easier, to make our ability to communicate easier, to build, to extend humanity and human civilization further and further. But none of them enables us to both see and to aspire to the next life. That life which is eternal; that life which has no end; that life which is the life of those blessed of the Kingdom.
But we must caution that at its depth, at its essence, Orthodoxy is missionary. Orthodoxy must be extended; it must be shown to others as the great treasure that it is. If it remains simply a philosophy of life, if it remains simply a code of manners, a set of traditions that do not hear the internal, indwelling of the Holy Spirit, then we have done nothing. We have simply been hypocrites; we have simply been liars to ourselves, fooling ourselves, thinking that we are Orthodox, when indeed we are far from anything like being Orthodox.
The first thing that the Apostle Philip did after he met our Saviour was what? He didn’t just simply stay close to Him to hear what He had to say, but he ran to find his brother. How many of us having seen, having taken into ourselves, having seen the majesty and the height of Holy Orthodoxy have run immediately to show it, to share it, to bring someone with us, to say, Come and see, as the Holy Apostle Philip said to Nathaniel? Come and see; be convinced of your own eyes; be convinced of your own understanding, of your own observation, of not only how this Prophet, this Rabbi, this Teacher speaks, but how He lives. Come and see the supreme love that radiates from Him. Come and see. We must, with our behaviour; we must, with our example, also say Come and see.
We are not all called to be apostles. This is the excuse that so many of us give for keeping our Orthodoxy tightly, tightly covered in a glass cabinet, sort of as a museum piece, taking it out once in a while to dust it, making sure that not a single spot or anything falls upon it, as if anything the world could do could spoil Holy Orthodoxy. The world cannot — because this is Divine. Orthodoxy is the Truth of the Holy Trinity. It cannot be hurt; we can only hurt ourselves pounding against it, trying to fix it, trying to mold it into our own ways. We break ourselves; we do not hurt Holy Orthodoxy. So do not fear to expose it to other people; do not fear to show this mighty treasure.
The Holy Apostles — all of whom, except for the Holy Apostle St. John the Theologian, died martyrs — spread Orthodoxy within one generation, or perhaps a half a generation because they were already grown men when they were called to be Apostles. They spread Holy Orthodoxy from the British Isles, maybe through Scandinavia. We’re not absolutely certain; but we know that from the British Isles eastward to the very borders of China. There are still people who call themselves Christians — St. Thomas Christians indeed — who date from this time, but because of their isolation they have fallen into various errors concerning the teachings of Christ. Nevertheless, they stand as witnesses that truly St. Thomas reached those borders, those places in the East.
The Christian message was passed north to the Scythians, and south as far as Africa. As far south as to Africa and the kingdom of Ethiopia, where one of the Apostles placed a Bishop, Frumentios, who was the founding father, together with the Apostles, of the Church of Ethiopia — which also, being separated from the trunk of Orthodoxy, has fallen into various differences in matters of Faith. Nevertheless, these people stand as witnesses that they were preached to by the Holy Apostles.
And what have we done? What have we done so that we can honour the name of Christian, so that we can be worthy of the name of Christian? Because to be Christian is to be an apostle. To be Christian is to be a missionary. We read in the works of the Venerable Bede the history of the English Church and People. How many of the early missionaries to the British Isles, after the Apostolic visitors, how they laboured to bring even one county to the Holy Orthodox Faith. We see their names in the list of the names of the Saints of the day. They are very strange names to us, even as our Greek names must be strange to them. Nevertheless, when you read the Venerable Bede, you see there a reflection of the life of the monks of Egypt, of Syria, of the East, because the Holy Spirit that motivated and animated these Fathers is one and the same.
We must be missionaries. We must double the talent that we have received. For most of us being weak people, most of us being far from Apostolic stature, have received only one talent, that talent being our Holy Baptism; that talent being our Chrismation and our participation in the Holy Mysteries. Yet we are still expected, as we learned a couple of Sundays ago, we are still expected to at least double that. We are to at least double that talent, so that before we leave this world we have brought at least one more soul to the Holy Faith. We have brought at least one person to the Apostolic Faith, the Apostolic Church, which is Orthodoxy.
Our Saviour has made it very clear in His Parable of the Talents, that we will not be congratulated by God if we hand Him back the gift, the talent, that He has given us, as we have received it. For He did not congratulate that servant who had received the one talent, who had gone and buried it so that he might not lose it. He did not congratulate him for bringing it back to Him whole, unspotted, unused. But He called him lazy; He called him indolent; He called him unfaithful. Here he is having given back that talent to the Lord Who gave it to him whole, with no diminution, and he’s still called lazy, indolent, unfaithful.
Who of us wants to hear such a thing? Who of us wants to hear that we have brought back our Baptism unsullied, clean, pure, white, exactly as it was given to us, without spot or wrinkle? If we hand that back to our Saviour on the Day of Judgment, can we expect to hear anything other than what that unfortunate, that miserable, that lazy, indolent and faithless servant heard?
The matter of spreading the Faith is not only that of saving another person’s soul. As precious as this is, this is not the only reason. We are assured by the Holy Apostle St. James at the very end of his Epistle — which scholars say was probably a sermon that was written down, for its form and content are more of a homily than of an epistle. He says at the end, if we see a brother who is on a wrong path in matters of faith, in matters of behaviour, in whatever, and we turn him from that bad road, that path that leads to destruction; we turn him from that, and we bring him back to Christ, then there is a promise attached. You will not only save a soul, but you will cover a multitude of sins. Who of us does not need this assurance? Who of us does not need this promise? Who of us does not need to hear that not only have we helped in the saving of a soul, but we have also covered a multitude of sins, both of his and of mine?
I dare to say to you: Be grateful that you as individuals, being laymen, have that glorious title of a priesthood, of a people made holy by priesthood; for the Priesthood of Jesus Christ has made us holy. Everyone participates in this people who have been made holy by the Priesthood, in other words by the Mysteries of the Orthodox Church.
You must pray for me, because, as you see, I’m covered here with tassels and fringes. I’m covered here with tassels and fringes, which are not decorative, though certainly they do have a beauty to them. But they are to remind this Pastor that, hanging from his throat while he was a Priest there were the ones on his stole, on his epitrachelion, on this garment; then having become a Bishop, I have put on another garment with guess what at the ends: more fringes. And therefore it is a very foolish thing for a man to seek to become a Bishop; an evil thing. For the Episcopate is itself a good thing, as St.Paul says, but it is not a thing to be sought for, because it adds responsibility upon responsibility; it adds burden upon burden; it adds so much, that were it not that the Priest is supported by a multitude of Angels, and by the Great High Priest Himself, Christ Jesus our Lord, surely no one would stand. Our Father among the Saints, John Chrysostom, says very few Bishops will be saved, and of those who sought the office, none. Truly a frightening thing.
Please pray. Pray for yourselves, pray for your family, become missionaries to your own inner circle, first to yourself, by making yourselves small Christs, and then to your most intimate circle. And then to a wider circle as God gives you grace, being an example without even having to open your mouth, but simply by how you live, you preach Christ Jesus. You preach the uniqueness, the wonder, the joy of being an Orthodox Christian. For to be a Christian is not to have a long face; to be a Christian is not to have a condemning eye; to be a Christian is not to be watching for sins in other people. To be Christian is to have yourself turned inward, careful with yourself, and not hiding the gifts that God has given you.
For these are the promises of Christ Himself, Who is Orthodoxy. Jesus is Truth; Orthodoxy is Truth; therefore Orthodoxy is Jesus. We pray that our Lord will give us strength — in these evil times, but then again when has the world not been evil; we pray that our Lord will give us strength in these evil times to be true missionaries, first of all to ourselves: to heal ourselves from the schizophrenia that we have because our mind is separated from our heart, and therefore we have all become schizophrenic. We all have a double, at least a double, identity. To bring through prayer, through the Jesus Prayer, through the prayers, the services, the practice of our Holy Church, to bring our hearts and our minds back together where they were. In that way become true worshippers, true examples, true imitators of Christ Jesus Himself, Who together with His Father and the Holy Spirit, was, is, and ever shall be our only Hope. Amen."[/quote]