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

When we’re in a missionary situation as is this community, it is important for us to remember, and keep remembering WHO HE IS that we are serving, and what we are about. This is the case especially when we continue to make beginnings, as we are. This Gospel lesson today about the raising of the only son of the widow of Nain is an important lesson for us in this: Who is this that we are serving? Just Who is Jesus Christ?

When the Lord raises the young man from the dead, He does it out of compassion because this widow, with her only son dead, would have no-one to look after her. This was in the days when there was no social welfare, as there was not in most of the world. We, in Canada, tend to get a little bit lax about these things, and forget how good we have it here. The fact is, in those days, and to this day in most of the world, if you are a widow, and your only son has died, it meant that you would have nowhere to live. You would have had no-one to look after you. You would have no home. You would end up being a beggar. It’s a horrible situation for many women to be in, except that in some cases there is a certain amount of relief.

Our monastery, our little hermitage in BC, in a sort of a way is avant-garde in this respect, I think, because every year that little community that has nothing buys a cow for a widow in India – a different widow every year. Why do they do that? If they buy a cow for a widow in India, this cow will give milk (in India they don’t kill or eat cows). With the milk this widow can make some money, and she can have at least a basic, minimal existence. I guess there are some other things that you can do with cows, also, to make money (farmers know that sort of thing, and I don’t have to explain it).

This widow in Palestine doesn’t have any such resource. In case you didn’t know where Nain is, it’s a little place not far from Mount Tabor, not far from the place of the Transfiguration. We could almost say it’s in the valley at the foot of the mountain. This is where this is happening. The Lord, out of compassion, raises the widow’s son, and restores not only her son to her, but her livelihood, her protection, her dignity. He restores everything to this woman. The reaction of everyone around is as we heard it: everyone is completely amazed. They certainly recognised that Jesus had to be at least a prophet, and a great prophet at that. I think that the only other record of resurrection through the prayers of anyone in the Old Testament will have been through Elias, and Elisha. Those two are the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, and so people are immediately associating Christ with them.

Who is this that is able to do such a thing? He is more than a prophet, as we know. He is the Son of God. He is the Lord of the living, and the dead. He is the One who is the Word by whom all things were made. As such, He can do exactly what He did: raise the dead. He did this many times in the time of His ministry on earth. It isn’t as if He doesn’t still do it, sometimes. There are occasions still when people are resuscitated from the dead by Christ through the prayers of the faithful. Even in these days it does happen. This is WHO HE IS that we are serving: the One who is the Lord of life.

He is the Lord of all life, and He is the Lord of your life, and my life. It is important for us to remember this because we have to ask in association with this: why did He create us, and why does He continue to create us in large numbers (and not by recycling, as some people think)? He creates us that we might enter, and live forever in a loving relationship with Him. He is the Giver of life, and He loves to give life. He loves to give life in love. The two things, “life”, and “love”, are synonymous, and go together (it doesn’t matter what cynics say). We are created to love. We are created to give life with Him. We are created to nurture life together with Him. At the same time, we are created to worship God.

How are we to respond? Love is a two-way street. God creates us. He gives us life. He gives us everything. Even though we think we do it all ourselves, nevertheless, He is the Source of all. He gives us everything. How do we respond if we love Him? Every polite Canadian knows that you have to say “thank-you”. We Canadians are quite good at saying thank-you (and, in fact, if we don’t send thank-you notes for numbers of things, the giver gets a crooked nose). We know that we ought to be thankful, and express this thanks. We also know that it is expected of us, too, with each other.

How much more is it the case with the living God. We should be doing our part to express our thanks to the Lord. Our whole life should be, in fact, a loving response of thanksgiving. Everything about our life should express this thanksgiving. That’s why in traditional Orthodox cultures (which Canada has not yet become), people are always giving glory to God for everything. If someone says thanks, the person being thanked gives glory to God right away. I like to tell about when I was a “green” seminarian many years ago, and I was visiting a Greek women’s monastery. The nuns were so nice to us, and hospitable. As a polite Canadian leaving the door, I thanked the Abbess, and she said: The Lord. I said: Thank you, also. She said: The Lord. All right, I said: Yes, Mother. And of course I meant: All right, I catch the drift. She knew that you have to refer everything to the Lord. Who am I, myself? God is everything. Everything has to be referred to the Lord, Himself.

Ukrainians have a language full of expressions of referring everything: glory, thanksgiving, health – everything – to Christ. Our English language needs to find the way to do the same. We Orthodox Christians in Canada have to develop this habit. We have to learn from our ancestral cultures (that have been baptised by the Gospel) what they did in response to the Gospel, and do it according to our culture here. We have to find the way to do it. It’s not as if we have to find it so freshly, because many Christians (not Orthodox Christians) who lived in Canada (let’s say before a hundred years or so ago), actually did come from a culture that knew this also. The English language does have some history of this. However, certainly in the last fifty years, it’s all gone out the window. Even things I remember from my childhood are forgotten. It’s important for us, Orthodox Christians, to recover this way of speaking, this way of talking, reminding ourselves to give glory to God, and thanksgiving to God for everything.

Primarily this is remembering where we belong on Sundays, and feast-days, and every possible occasion: that is together here before the Lord’s table, giving thanks to Him. That is what this Liturgy is primarily about. There is a great deal of praise in it, but the main part of the whole thing is thanksgiving. With the praise there is thanksgiving. When we are standing here today in this assembly (in this temporary temple), we are being what the Lord created us to be. We are doing what God created us to do: expressing together our joy at being one in the love of Jesus Christ. We are expressing our gratitude to God that we can be together. We are expressing our gratitude that we can have this mutual encouragement with, and for each other in this mutual thanksgiving, and glorification of God. We owe it to the Lord to be here as often as possible. We owe it to the Lord, who gives us everything. Because of our love for Him, it’s part of our loving response. It’s part of who we really are. It’s part of what we have to do to be who we really are. We are expressing our real selves by being here today, together, worshipping Him, giving thanks to Him, expressing our love for Him, and allowing Him, by His Body, and Blood to feed us, to renew us, to strengthen us, and to enable us to persevere.

We heard today what the Apostle had to endure (and that was only a shadow of what he had to endure). Every sort of abuse the Apostle Paul endured. He, along with the other Apostles, endured all sorts of horrible things. They were being tested by people who could not believe that God loved them in this way. This unbelief, this testing happens to this day for us. We don’t get beaten up usually (not in Canada, not yet). We don’t usually get put in jail because we are Orthodox Christians. We don’t usually lose our lives because we are Orthodox Christians in Canada at this time. However, people sometimes are not very nice to us. People sometimes will ridicule us. Sometimes people will say very bad things about us. Sometimes people will shun us, and ignore us because we are Orthodox Christians.

When people are unkind to us, it’s important for us to be patient, to give thanks to God, to pray: “Lord have mercy” for the people that are treating us badly, and to wait. Through our prayers sometimes people who treat us badly end up turning about, as the Apostle Paul, himself, was turned about in mid-track. He, himself, who was a persecutor of the Church, was turned about through the prayers of believers, and through the Grace of the love of Jesus Christ, whom he met on the road to Damascus

When we are blessing those who are persecuting us, and praying for those that are treating us badly, in the course of all of this, we open the door for the possibility of their hearts to soften, and to change. How many times in the lives of martyrs do we see that the suffering, and the death of a Christian will turn about the hearts of the executioners who become Christians. The executioners, themselves, are also killed. It has happened many times in Christian history. It has happened even in the most recent Soviet persecution in eastern Europe. The persecutors, the punishers, the torturers had their hearts softened by the faith of the Orthodox believers.

It’s important for us to do simple, straightforward things about being faithful as Orthodox Christians: loving God, loving Jesus Christ, remembering to put Him first in everything. Everything else falls into its place. If we don’t put Jesus Christ first, our lives are distorted, weak, and emaciated in the long run. Let us, dear brothers, and sisters do our part now together in offering ourselves, our lives, and each other, all together, to Christ, our God, glorifying Him together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and Life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America