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’s our life. We have been baptised into Christ, and therefore, we put on Christ. We are all carrying Christ. We are all Christo-phores, 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 the Saviour behave in His life? We just heard it. It didn’t matter what day it was – He was ready to meet the needs of His creatures. So, 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 a woman 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’s life-giving. It’s just life itself. It’s bringing Christ to the one who needs it. That is not work – it’s life; it’s joy. It is true that the body might get tired sometimes with all of these activities, but it’s not work like they were talking about in the Law, and the Old Testament. It’s not a desecration of the Sabbath; it’s not a rejection of anything; it’s not a perversion of anything – it is the fulfillment 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’s how we like it. Pretty well everything about us is saying that we are control-focussed. We want things our way. We don’t bother to consult the Lord about anything first – we always think about it ourselves, and do it ourselves first, and maybe we eventually get around to thinking: Is this what the Lord is asking?
Abraham encountered God personally. Everything that he did afterwards was because of this loving encounter with God. He trusted God in doing what was otherwise ridiculous, and inexplicable: pick up, and move to nowhere – go wander around with your family – just because I said: Do this, and I will multiply you. However, Abraham did. He did because he had an encounter of love with God, and he trusted God to fulfill His Word. So, God did fulfill His Word, regardless of the many tests that Abraham encountered.
In due course came the Law on Sinai – the Law, which is prefaced by these words which we are repeating all the time, ourselves (because we are the new Israel, after all): “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength" (Deuteronomy 4:5). After those words, come the Ten Commandments. Those Ten Commandments are describing what a life looks like if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. If you do love God above everything, then, of course, you will not worship any other god; you’re not going to make idols; you’re going to keep the Sabbath Day; you’re going to respect your parents; you’re not going to kill people; you’re not going to steal from people; you’re not going to tell lies; you’re not going to covet things or try to take things away from someone else; you’re not going to be distracted by all kinds of things. You’re going to live in love, and you’ll do things in a positive way. Your life will be full of virtue because your life is fired by the love of God.
The Mother of God, herself, we are always told, is probably the supreme example of what it is to be a Christian. It is an ironic situation we have on Mount Athos in this context where no women can go. At least that’s officially the case. (A very few women actually have been there, and they have been queens, and it would be hard to say no to them; very few women have been there, and that was a long time ago.) There is one woman who is always there, and that is the Mother of God. She is the Abbess of that whole Holy Mountain, and of all those monks (who don’t 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 talking about it. I was only there for a few days, but all the time I heard about it: how they are listening to the Mother of God, and serving the Lord. They are following her example, and following her direction. How does she serve the Lord?
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 harmony of love with Her Son. Like Adam and Eve at the beginning, she does not, and they did not, need to ask much about what is God’s will because their hearts are open always to what is God’s will; their hearts hear what is God’s will, and they do God’s will. You 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 …”. The Lord answers: “Rather, blessed are those that hear the Word of God and keep it" (Luke 11:27, 28). In this He is referring to His Mother – she hears the Word of God, and keeps it. Following Him, she lives according to this Word of God. The Word of God in her case is her Son. She hears the Word of God, and she keeps it. She is the example of how we are supposed to be living. Our hearts are supposed to be, in the context of this love, 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’s pretty well unavoidable because of the environment in which we live – which is fog. Thank God we get the chance to go to Confession sometimes to clear the cloud away. But still, 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, distracted 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, doing the things that he is doing in the Church’s life, with the responsibility that he has, should have had the protection of these prayers, and this kind 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, didn’t 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. (There, a bishop is like a Lord in the House of Lords – it’s not a small thing like the Canadian bishop.) He 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 they 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 kind of reverie, as bishops are known to be in some other dimension somewhere; and the nervous young cleric is sitting there. Finally he was brave enough to open his boiled egg. To his great shock he discovered this egg was “off”. Then he didn’t 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 came to himself, and saw the boy picking at this egg, and said: “Something the matter with your egg, Boy?” With a tone of voice like that, the young man was multiplied in his fear, and shaking, said: Oh no, sir, it’s 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 in those moments when we “come to”, that 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 guess I have some people accompanying me in this fog. In this fogginess we still come to the light, and the Lord shows us the light, and dispels the fog. He warms us with His love. It’s important 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’s important for us, also, to turn to the Mother of God, our example, and 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 important for us to turn to her for her protection, for her direction, her guidance, and like her, with her, without the fog, without any fog, but in the brightness of the light of her Son, to glorify the all-holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.