In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

With today’s Gospel, and Epistle, I could keep you here for a long time, but I’ll 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. So, instead of my talking about everything in those two readings, why don’t you later on this evening when you’re 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 St John, and read them over. They’re very easy to find. I think that after all the things that have happened today, when you look at these passages again, you’ll 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’s one of the reasons why the Lord is repeating to the Apostle today: Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? The Apostle Peter got somewhat irritated by the end. The 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’s what this Divine Liturgy is about – feeding sheep – and you’re the sheep in this case (except the Church always talks about human beings as rational sheep, not dumb sheep). I’ve seen sheep at work, and we can be like that too, it’s true.

Confession is repetitive. It’s all the same. everyone does the same sins. We tend to think that we’re especially horrible somehow. It’s 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. But still, we focus on how bad we are, and forget about God’s Grace, and His love, which will help us overcome our weaknesses. So, sometimes our confessions are awfully repetitive. If you ever think that it must be interesting for a priest to hear confessions, I think you should give priests caffeine pills instead, because it is so repetitive. Yes, there’s Grace there, and what is good is that God’s Grace happens during these confessions, and 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’s what is interesting – to see how God provides. The priest often doesn’t know what he is saying; he doesn’t know always the significance of the words that are coming from him. However, God knows what the person has to hear, and 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 don’t think that it’s anything fantastic to hear confessions. It’s a duty, nevertheless, a heavy duty.

I’m saying these things because today, as 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’re always running to Him, crying to Him: Help me; give me; give me. He often does give (although not always exactly what we’re asking for). However, He does look after us. This is part of His continuing service. It’s a reflection of the depth of His self-emptying love, the love that He is talking about in the last chapter of the Gospel according to St John. This love is selfless, and it doesn’t make distinctions. It’s even. It’s self-emptying. So 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 you, and me that we are supposed to be doing the same thing. The deacon is supposed to be showing a Christian how to live his or her life by how he serves in the way of Christ.

A priest also, as the Apostle Paul says in the Epistle to Timothy, has to try to give the best example possible of 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 many times, that a lot of people think that a priest or a deacon has to be the way he is because we pay them to do it. However, that’s not at all how it is. People don’t pay the priest or the deacon to do what they’re doing, because if they tried to pay them, they couldn’t afford it. Even doctors now are not on twenty-four hour call. However, most priests will still answer the phone at two in the morning if you’re having a heart attack in the hospital, and you need him to come.

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 look like? In case we have any serious questions about what it might look 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). So 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 is sinking near the island of Malta, and the soldiers are going to kill all the prisoners, including Paul, he convinces them that no-one will survive the shipwreck unless they keep everyone alive. Some of them tried to abandon ship, swim, or run away in boats. The Apostle Paul spoke, and they listened, and they were all saved. Not a life was lost in that shipwreck. Then you see the Apostle Paul being bitten by a viper. When a viper bites you, it’s not that long before your end comes. It’s a quick death from a viper bite, but it’s not as quick as death from certain snakes in Australia, I’m told. In Australia, there’s about thirty seconds after the snake bite. It doesn’t 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 if it were a mosquito bite. So 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 extremity 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 three hundred years of our Church’s life, it’s 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’s 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 can’t behave in a way that is as different as that of the Apostles Peter and Paul. I don’t think we can. In the first place, even though our society is so secular now, it still has enough Christian vestiges that we don’t stick out quite so much as a sore thumb (although I do a bit because I dress the way I do). Most people don’t stick out at all. They don’t look any different from anyone else, but their lives testify that in Jesus Christ there is hope, life, strength, victory, health, healing. There is all of these things, and more in the love of Jesus Christ.

Let’s 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 St John Chrysostom: “Glory be to God for everything”: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America