Life Transfigured - The Podcast: Recent Episodes
Justin Miller
Sermons and other messages of Rev. Alex Miller, pastor of Holy Transfiguration Church in Crawfordsville, Indiana
Guest Homilist: Fr. Radoslav Philipovich of Indianapolis served the Liturgy for us today while Fr. Alex is out of town.
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Fr. Alex Miller reads the pre-Lenten message of metropolitan Gregory, ruling hierarchy of the American Carpatho-Russian orthodox diocese.
The topic of this first paper is the subject of Original Sin.
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I regret that I am behind getting these published in a timely manner, but hereafter it won’t matter. These are excellent teachings from Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church
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A sermon regarding the Russian people in diaspora
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Fr. Alex takes us through the experience of St. John Maximovich deciding to evacuate the Russian community from Shanghai to the Philiines.
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Fr. Alex Miller concludes the review of the articles in the tabernacle of Moses and the corresponding arrangement of the Orthodox temple
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Today Fr. Alex Miller continues his series on the life of our patron Saint, Archbishop John Maximovich, a real close up look at this marvelous man. Also continuing this year’s series on the Divine Liturgy
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Fr. Alex Miller continues his series on the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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Today we learn about the way Orthodox Churches are modeled after the divinely revealed structure of the tabernacle of meeting in Exodus.
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This episode includes the series about St. John Maximovich and the series on the Divine Liturgy
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Father describes for us the sources for all that we know of the life of the blessed Virgin Mary.
Multifaceted episode
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Fr. Alex reads to us from the Life of the Virgin Mary. http://archangelsbooks.com/proddetail.asp?prod=HACLIFETHEO-01
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This is the 20th sermon in this series of homilies on the divine liturgy of the holy Orthodox Church.
We have been systematically looking at all of the types and shadows and prefigurements of the Divine Liturgy in the Old Testament and today we come to a close look at the tabernacle of the Jewish people as they wandered through the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt.
Moses spent 40 days with God on Mount Sinai and during that time God showed to him all that happened in the creation of the world and then revealed to him how he desired for the people of Israel to worship Him.
He begins with a very general and overall description of what He wants them to do:
“Speak to the children of Israel that they take first fruits from everyone who gives it willingly from the heart. Then you shall take my first fruits. This is the offering you shall take from them:
Gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, and Scarlet cloth, finespun linen and female goats hair, ram skins dyed red, and skins dyed blue and incorruptible would, oil for the light and incense for anointing oil, and for the composition of incense. Sardis stones and stones for the carved work of the breast plate and the full length robe. Also you shall make me a sanctuary and I will appear among you according to all I show you that is the pattern of the tabernacle in the pattern of all its furnishings so you shall make it.”
God is asking the people to give the first fruits of their lives, a tithe of all they have for the sole purpose of building and furnishing a special and unique place where God can dwell among them.
Look around you! Isn’t that what we have done here? Willingly from our hearts we have given the first fruits of our lives to build this church, to furnish it, and to continually supply it with what is needed for divine worship of the Most Holy Trinity.
This introduction concludes with a statement that is repeated over and over throughout this lengthy description of how the tabernacle is to be constructed,
“And see to it you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
My children in Christ it is so important that we have this concept deep in our hearts and our minds and in our physical lives. That is to live by divine revelation given to us through holy scripture and holy tradition and a spirit-filled life.
“God is the Lord and has revealed Himself to us, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.“
To be in the church is to live in that divine cloud that descended on Mount Sinai where God revealed Himself to Moses and showed him the pattern of divine life.
Every encounter with God follows this pattern: Moses went up the mountain and God came down from heaven to meet him there. When we pray, when we make the sign of the cross, when we turn to God in despair or thanksgiving, when we gather here at the church, we are ascending to Him and He comes down to meet us.
This ascension can be as simple as lying in bed and whispering “Lord have mercy.“
It is the offering up of a broken and contrite spirit.
“A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, a broken and humbled heart God will not despise.”
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The Sunday Before Theophany, Great Vespers stories, Sunday sermon Divine Liturgy series.
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Each year we kick off with the Eighth Day after Christmas, commemorating the circumcision and naming of the Lord Jesus as well as the Day of a great Father of the church, Basil the Great!
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https://www.evernote.com/shard/s403/sh/4698aba4-8b31-edf8-a9fc-a9e81a71ba16/f6b58464c69b976b686ce5f0fcb82e54
December 6, 2020 Divine Liturgy Series, Number 15 By Fr. Alex Miller This is the 15th sermon in this series of homilies on the divine liturgy of the holy Orthodox Church. Thus far we have been going step-by-step through the book of Genesis detailing God‘s revelation to man of who he is, who we are because of him, and how he desires to be worshiped. Today we come to one of the most perplexing, challenging, and foundational events in this narrative. After many promises from God and after many years of waiting Abraham and Sarah are finally given the gift of their son Isaac, the fulfillment of God‘s promise that from Abraham he would make a great nation and out of his loins would come one who would be a blessing to all nations. Then God asked Abraham to do something totally contrary to every human way of thinking, he asked him to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering. If god is good how could he make such a demand of Abraham. This raises the important question, “is God good because he is God or is he God because he is good?” Neither question can be answered adequately. The truth is that God is beyond all human constructs or ways of thinking. And yet he has chosen to reveal himself as Trinity, as father son and holy spirit, three persons sharing one divine nature. God by nature is other oriented because he is three persons not one. God is love which by definition is relational, always oriented towards the other. And this is the essence of who man is created in the image of God to be in a relationship with God and with other humans. Abraham in a way which we cannot comprehend seemed to have a perfect understanding of this reality. He trusted God absolutely and therefore when God challenged him to do something totally contrary to nature he obeyed. Scripture does not fill us in on the psychology, the drama, the emotional aspect of what this must’ve been like for Abraham. We can only speculate on the difficulty that he faced in seeing his beloved son and his dreams and hopes all coming to a violent end at his own hands. Of course Abraham was well acquainted. Of course Abraham was well acquainted with the concept of sacrifice Every place that he lived he built an altar to God and he offered animal sacrifices upon these alters as part of his expression of his devotion to God. It is very likely that other tribes and cultures either through their own imagination or through the instigation of the evil one we’re practicing human sacrifice in order to appease a God that they did not know. But the true God in his revelation to mankind as we have studied this far makes no such demand upon those created in his image. And yet in this story we find God doing exactly that. This story like the rest of the narrative is all at the same time historical symbolic, typological and prophetic. It actually happened in space and time but was symbolic of a deeper reality and prophetic of something that was going to happen in the future. “Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and he said take now your beloved son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a whole burnt offering on one of the mountains I tell you.” Notice how carefully God emphasizes the beloved does of Isaac “your beloved son whom you love.” So Abraham went with Isaac with wood for the altar with fire (tinderbox) and with servants to the place God appointed. When they arrived at the place Abraham instructed his servants to remain there while he and Isaac went up on the mountain. The mountain is Calvary Abraham is the father Isaac is the son. (Mount Moriah is the mountain where God instructed Solomon to build the temple). So Abraham took the firewood of the whole burnt offering, and laid it on Isaac his son. The firewood is the cross which Jesus himself carried to Calvary. When they arrived Isaac said to Abraham “my father, here is the fire and the firewood, but where is the sheep for the who
October 25, 2020 Divine Liturgy Series, Number 8 By Fr. Alex Miller This is the eighth sermon in the series of homilies on the divine liturgy of the holy orthodox church. Christian worship in its most basic form is participation in the Lord’s Supper. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself laid the foundation for this on the evening before he was crucified when he gathered with his disciples in the upper room to celebrate the Passover with them. In preparation for the passover Christ said to his beloved disciples “with fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I say to you I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Notice that the Passover is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. When the Lord sat down for the Passover meal with his disciples, a ritual which Jews had been practicing for centuries, he laid down for them the basic rubrics or framework for the divine liturgy. “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying ‘this is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me, likewise, he also took the cup after supper saying, ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you.’ “ Everything that we do liturgically, beginning with Vespers, then matins, then the various elements of the divine liturgy all prepare us for participation in the Lord’s supper. This includes all of the other services of the church conducted throughout the week and prayers that we pray at home around our family altars. As orthodox Christians we live from Eucharist to Eucharist, from the Lord’s supper to the Lord’s supper. This is Christian worship, plain and simple. This is the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. Saint Paul affirmed the simplicity of the liturgy and the centrality of the Lord’s supper in one of his epistles to the church of Corinth, “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the same night when He was betrayed took bread and when He had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘take eat this is my body which is broken for you do this in remembrance of me’ in the same manner He also took the cup after supper saying ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood this do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.“ 1 Corinthians11: 23-25 Saint Peter refers to the mystery of the Lord’s Supper in more theological terms in one of his letters where he makes the profound statement, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you and the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” “We have become partakers of the divine nature.” 2 Peter 1: 2-4 So we see from Jesus Christ himself and from his apostles that partaking of the Lord’s supper is the very heart of Christian worship, and that the Lord’s supper is the fulfillment of the Passover. Therefore to truly understand what is happening in the divine liturgy we need to understand the Passover. Beginning next Sunday we will be looking at the old testament beginning in the book of Genesis all the way through the book of Malachi to plumb the depths of the meaning of the Passover. We will look at how it serves as a foreshadowing of what Christ would accomplish through his life on earth, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension into heaven, and the establishment of the Lord’s supper, the Divine Liturgy, the eucharist, as the primary means by which we participate in His divine life and the Kingdom of God.
October 18, 2020 Divine Liturgy Series, Number 7 By Fr. Alex Miller This is the seventh sermon in a series of Homilies on the divine liturgy of the holy orthodox church. By the way the divine liturgy is often referred to as the holy Eucharist. Eucharist is from the Greek meaning “the Thanksgiving.” This is in reference to the most important moment in all of the divine services and that is the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in the partaking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last week we completed a brief study of the foundation of the divine liturgy, that being a discussion of who God is and who we are because of him, based on the creation narrative from the book of Genesis. We saw in the creation narrative that at the end of each day the lord said there was evening and morning, the first day, the second day, the third day and so on. This pattern of marking time is knit into the fabric of humanity and was adopted by the Jewish people and subsequently by the orthodox church which is the continuation or rather fulfillment of what God began in the nation of Israel. Therefore when we speak about the divine liturgy we need to understand that the liturgical day begins in the evening with great vespers. The opening song of great vespers is Psalm 103 the beautiful creation narrative hymn. Another prominent hymn of great vespers is Gladsome light: “Oh gladsome light of the holy glory that shines from the heavenly Father, the holy , the Blessed, Jesus Christ.” Could this be that light that shone on that first day of creation when God the Father said “let there be light?“ Some of the church fathers speculate that this is so. Sunday morning the procession towards the divine liturgy continues with matins, or morning prayers. When the priest comes into the church before vesting he stands before the closed royal doors and prays the usual prayers. When he recites the hymn to the theotokos (birth giver of God) that begins “open to me the doors of compassion...”the royal doors are opened. So it is that at the beginning of matins it is if we are standing in the presence of God in perfect creation before the fall with no barriers and the priest swings the censor over the altar in the form of a cross and pronounces, “glory to the holy consubstantial and life-giving and undivided Trinity now and ever and unto the ages of ages, amen.” Immediately after that very beautiful and moving moment the priest closes the royal doors and the six penitential psalms are chanted. This rubric is a symbol of the fall of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the garden of Eden. The penitential psalms are chanted in a subdued and quiet manner, no candles are lit, and no activity takes place within the nave at that time. At the conclusion of the penitential psalms we begin to chant “God is the Lord and has revealed Himself to us, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The lampadas are lit and hymns of the resurrection begin to be sung and the procession towards the joyful celebration of the Eucharist begins to ascend and continues this ascent throughout the rest of matins until the beginning of the Divine Liturgy. The full celebration of the Eucharist is this: great vespers, matins, and Divine Liturgy. For me this liturgical experience is much like sitting down to a three course meal. Great vespers is the salad and appetizers, matins is the main course, the meat and potatoes, and the divine liturgy is the dessert. Growing up in a protestant culture most orthodox Christians have adopted the one hour a week Sunday only mentality and therefore only partake of the dessert. How healthy do you expect to be spiritually if all you ever do is eat the dessert? I invite all of you to partake of the entire meal.
October 4, 2020 Divine Liturgy Series, Number 5 By Fr. Alex Miller Genesis 1:26-31, Genesis 2 At the beginning of the liturgical new year I began this series of homilies on the divine liturgy by looking at the foundation of who God is and who we are because of him. We have been working our way through the Genesis account of creation and today we come to the sixth day and the pinnacle and completion of all that God created. The account of the creation of Adam brings to a conclusion this chronological narrative of how God created all that exists. The account is immediately followed by a separate explanation of creation that is complementary to it. Critics of the literal creation story say that these two accounts contradict each other and therefore show that they cannot be trustworthy. However when understood beneath the lens of scholastic scholarship and the writings of the holy fathers we see that these two accounts are completely compatible and complementary to each other. So let’s look at the conclusion of the chronological narrative and then move on to the complementary narrative. By way of review here are the six days of creation: Day 1 The heavens and the earth, light, and the invisible angelic world Day 2 The separation of the waters above the heavens from the waters below the heavens(heavens, firmament, sky, atmosphere) Day 3 Separation of the water from the dry land and the bringing forth of vegetation from the dry land. Day 4 The sun the moon and the stars Day 5 Fish in the sea and birds in the air Day 6 Land animals and the creation of man Then God said let us make man in our image. In this final day of creation and in this narrative God tells us three specific things about man: first of all, that he is created in the image of God secondly, that he was created male and female and thirdly, that he is created to have dominion over all creation. The final verses of chapter 1 establishes the fact that all of the vegetation growing on the earth was given for food for man and for all living things and that it was very good. Chapter 2 of Genesis begins with a description of the seventh day, the day of rest. And then begins a separate narrative of creation that is not chronological but is more of an overall summary of creation with emphasis on the creation of man and a description of the garden of Eden. Here the emphasis is not so much on chronology but rather on purpose and function. Chapter 2 gives us greater detail about the creation of man. The first man Adam was formed from the dust of the earth and “God breathed in his face the breath of life and man became a living soul.” Then we have a fairly detailed description of a specific part of creation known as the garden of Eden where man would be placed. In this description are listed some rivers that flow from the garden and some of the rivers have names that continue today in contemporary geography, Tigris and Euphrates. We are told that God placed man in the garden to tend it and we find the admonition to partake of everything in the garden except for one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then God said something very important about the nature of man, he said “it is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.” This is where we need to be very careful in how we read this text. The next verse says also God formed out of the ground all the wild animals of the field all the birds of heaven and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. Critics read this verse without precision and interpret it to mean that God created Adam and then created all the animals. But that is not what it says. The text is not speaking chronologically but rather generally about creation. It explains that in addition to the creation of Adam, God had also created the birds and all of the land animals, and he brought them to Adam to see what he would name them. In other w
This is the fourth sermon in a series of homilies on the Divine Liturgy. By Fr. Alex Miller We have begun this series by looking in depth and who God is and who we are because of him. As an introduction to this subject we are specifically looking at the first six days of creation. To review we have stated that on the first day God created out of nothing the heavens and the earth, light and the invisible angelic world. On the second day he separated the waters above the sky from the waters below the sky. Today we look at the third day of creation. On the third day of creation God separated the water from the dry land and caused the land to bring forth all forms of vegetation. The fathers of the church write about this extensively and state that this explosion of vegetation occurred instantaneously not over a long period of time as it is supposed by the theory of evolution. Also they state that every plant and green vegetation that grew up had within itself its own seed according to its kind. This again is contrary to the theory of evolution which claims that complex things develop from more simple things and this development takes place over millions of years. Again we see the beauty the logic and rationality of God in the way that he is putting creation together beginning with water, then separating the land, then producing vegetation growing on the land which would become a beautiful garden and habitation for all the animals and ultimately for mankind. On the fourth day of creation God created the sun and the moon and the stars and set them in the heavens and set them in motion in a predictable and consistent pattern of movement. The sun immediately initiated the process of photosynthesis to allow for the growth and nurture of all of the plants and vegetation growing on the earth. On the fifth day the Lord caused the sky to be filled with all kinds of birds and the oceans to be filled with all kinds of fish and swimming things each of them created according to their kind. With everything set in place for the sustenance of human of life: water, land, sky, and sun, birds filling the sky and fish filling the sea, on the sixth day God created all the land animals each of them according to their kind, male and female he created them. This again is totally incompatible with the fairytale of evolution. All species were created in a single moment of divine inspiration and each species was created mature and carrying within itself the means to reproduce according to its kind. All of this was done in a rational logical intelligent order to prepare the world for one last crowning moment of creation: “let us make man in our image.” Next week we will conclude our discussion of creation with a detailed look at the crowning event of this narrative: the creation of Adam and Eve.
September 20, 2020 Divine Liturgy Series, Number 3 Genesis 1:6-8 This is the third sermon in a series of homilies on the divine liturgy. We have begun our study by looking at the first chapter of Genesis to know clearly who God is and how he has created us and the world in which we live. We have begun this way because it is essential in worship to know who you are worshiping and who you are because of your creator. The nature of the one you are worshiping shapes the way you worship and the action of the worshiper is shaped by one’s self awareness. In the first two sermons we looked at the nature of God and we looked at the first day of creation. Today we will address the second day of creation which often is overlooked and misunderstood. In fact it is safe to say that the meaning of the second day of creation is so obscure that it is mostly ignored. “Then God said let there be a firmament in the midst of the water let it divide the water from the water and it was so. Thus God made the firmament and God divided the water under the firmament from the water above the firmament so God called the firmament heaven and God saw that it was good and there was evening and morning the second day.” It appears that after the first day of creation all that existed was basically disorganized water. So on the second day of creation God begins to bring order to the created world and begins to organize and set up the water system that would eventually be one of the primary sustainers of creation. We now have three components of the material world: we have the water below the firmament, the water above the firmament, and we have the firmament itself. The water below the firmament is basically the sphere of what we call earth completely covered with water, we have space or sky surrounding that sphere and then we have water above the sky whose nature is not completely understood. Scientifically we understand now that the world is set up with a water system and interaction between the water that exists on the earth and the water or humidity that is in the atmosphere or above the atmosphere. We Know that this system is very sophisticated and very intelligently designed to keep the world relatively stable in terms of temperature and environment. Firmament represents what we call the sky or atmosphere or space. It’s possible that before the great flood the the waters above the firmament or sky existed in the form of some type of canopy or greenhouse cover extremely dense with moisture and which allowed light from above but kept out some of the more harmful radiation of the sun which would be created later. (In the description of the great flood we read about catastrophic changes to this water system, both the waters below the firmament and the waters above the firmament. We will not say more about that at this time but will address it in greater detail when we discuss the fall of mankind and the great flood.) The reality is that we do not know the exact nature of the firmament and the waters above the firmament in the beginning but we do know that the fathers of the church interpreted it so that this is exactly what happened on the second day and that it was the second step in the creation and the ordering of a sustainable and nurturing world. We see that God in a very intelligent and ordered way step-by-step is preparing creation for the inhabitation of some special form of life, that is humanity. Going back to the first few verses of Genesis we see the action and involvement of the holy trinity, the Father speaks, the Son creates and the Holy Spirit hovers over the water. God is Trinity and we must worship him as Trinity otherwise we are not really worshiping him at all. This is the foundational point of the divine liturgy which we are going to be studying throughout this liturgical year, God as Trinity and humanity in the image of God. The second day is an affirmation of this one basic premise: Creat
September 13, 2020 Divine Liturgy Series, Number 2 By Fr. Alex Miller Genesis 1: 1-31 This is the second in a series of sermons on the divine liturgy of the holy orthodox church. Before getting into the liturgy itself this year I feel it’s important to establish the foundation of who is the subject of this worship, what is his nature, and who we are because of him. To do so we must begin in the beginning with God as creator and so today’s sermon is really going to be a Bible study of the first chapter of Genesis. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are what I like to refer to as reverse prophecy. This section of the Bible is unique in that it is telling us things that only God is eyewitness to. These events, especially the acts of creation, the six days of creation were observed only by God himself and through divine revelation this knowledge was imparted to Moses. The nearly universal consensus of the church down through the centuries has been that this account of creation is to be taken literally and not metaphorically or mythologically. The holy fathers of the early New Testament church from the second third fourth century and so on to this day have testified to this. It was only with the introduction of evolution by Charles Darwin that parts of Christendom began to doubt the authenticity of the creation narrative. It is important to note that Charles Darwin and his colleagues were motivated by the hatred for God, racism and for a hatred of any limitations on the sexual appetite. This is also true of Margaret Sanger the founder of Planned Parenthood. She especially was intent upon the extermination of black people and to this day planned parenthood continues it’s genocide upon the African-American population. The theory of evolution is a man-made fairytale. Not only is it totally contradictory to holy scripture it is unsupported by modern science and it has been proven to be a total impossibility. My children in Christ therefore let us approach the book of Genesis with total faith and trust in the reliability and the accuracy of this account of the beginnings of our world. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was formless and void. In the beginning God. That is all that existed and even the word exist does not explain God. All we can say is that God has been, is, and will ever be, three divine persons, father son and holy spirit perfectly united in one nature. God brought the world into existence out of nothing, ex nihilo. This is the only explanation for what we see. If you press an evolutionist to explain the source of the “primordial slime” they cannot. Though many of them will say “well it came from another planet.” In other words they just kick the can down the road. On day one of creation God brought the world into existence and it was invisible and unfinished, formless and void, and covered with darkness. “The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water.” On the first day after bringing the world into existence God said “let there be light.” In these first few verses we see the reality of the holy Trinity: the Father speaks, the Holy Spirit hovers, the Son, in response to the Father, creates. The holy fathers of the orthodox church teach that on this first day in addition to creating the world and illuming the world with light God also created the angelic world, the invisible world. This is suggested by various scriptures of the Old and New Testament. Many of the holy father’s have grappled with the question of the nature of the light which was present on the first day. They all agree that it was something different from the sun and the moon and the stars which were created on the fourth day. Many modern Christians have confused these two sources of light or have suggested that is just a mistake in the text or that it really doesn’t matter but it is clear from the patristic record the holy church took this question very seriously and too
September 6, 2020 Divine Liturgy Series, Number 1 By Fr. Alex Miller Genesis 1:26 “Let Us make man in Our image.” In preaching I follow a three-year cycle: the first year I preach from the Gospel reading appointed for the divine liturgy, the second year I preach from the epistle reading, and the third year I preach a series of sermons specifically about the divine liturgy itself. This is the third year in the cycle and so this today is the first sermon in this series of homilies about this unique service of worship which we call in the Orthodox Church “the divine liturgy.“ How do we worship? This is an essential question for any serious Christian. Any serious discussion of worship must begin with the question “who is God and who are we because of him?” This is because worship is basically about a relationship between persons. The basis for this relationship is found in the very first chapter of Genesis verse 26 “let us make man in our image“. Many of us may have been told in Sunday school when we were growing up that God created man because he was lonely. This is not true. Who was God speaking to when he said “let us make man in our image.” ? God the Father was speaking to the Son and the Holy Spirit. God exists outside of time and space in a community of divine love between the three persons in one nature. God was never lonely, he was never alone, and God is beyond all human constructs of what it means to exist. From the overflowing of his love and goodness and creativity He brought the world into existence and created man in His image. God is Trinity. Throughout the creation narrative in the book of Genesis it is repeatedly said of creation that it was good but when it came to the creation of man for the first time we hear a negative statement “it is not good for man to be alone.” As a being created in the image of God, man was fashioned for relationships. God did not intend for the first created man to be alone. Not only did God desire for Adam to have a relationship with Him as his creator, but he also desired for Adam to have a relationship with other humans, beginning with the first woman, Eve, of whom Adam said, “this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” Therefore worship in its most basic form is the expression of a relationship between a personal God and His creation, human beings created in the image of God. This relationship is characterized by love and freedom. Before we begin speaking about the divine liturgy itself I want to go through holy scripture from the beginning in genesis to the end of revelation and show you the development of worship in the history of the world and the history of the church. In so doing it will become clear that the divine liturgy is not a human construct but is indeed God‘s revelation to man of how we are to worship him in spirit and in truth.
Hebrews 11:33-42 This is the 41st sermon in a series of homilies on the Sunday epistle readings. This passage includes one of the most powerful phrases in the New Testament. After going through a long litany of old testament saints and a description of how many of them suffered for their faith he describes them in this way, “of whom the world was not worthy.” It is often said that the mission of the church is to produce saints. It is my mission as your pastor to help you become saints so that through your prayers even a poor sinner like me might be saved. We live in a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to the Christian faith. Our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded us to be in the world but not of the world. How do we do this? Clearly we do not want to be in the world and also of the world. Sadly this has been the situation in our country for at least the last 60 years. Christendom has become very worldly and secular in our country. Even within orthodox circles there has been a tendency to accommodate the world at the expense of godliness. There may have been a time in our culture because of its basic Christian roots that being American and being Orthodox were compatible and both taking us in the right direction. Imagine a large boat going down a wide river surrounded by beautiful scenery, hills and meadows and farm fields. This is our country moving through history and our church on the boat moving with it. But now the scenery is less pleasing and the boat is moving faster, we see things breaking down and things on fire. On down the river we hear the roar and see the spray of a waterfall. What do we do? Many see two options: 1)We can stay on the boat meekly obeying the commands of the captain and moving on towards the waterfall. In a certain sense that is what the American church has been doing for quite some time with very little resistance. We have let others steer the ship while we have lived our quiet lives going to work every day going to church on Sunday and trying our best to be good Christians. 2) We can get off the ship. This is the Benedict option which many of us have studied and explored. The basic idea is to accept that the culture cannot be reclaimed, abandon it, and create our own culture by focusing on building true community centered around our Orthodox faith. I would like to suggest a third option. Imagine that in this river there is a fork. One way leads to the waterfall that we hear roaring and we see spraying down ahead of us. The other way continues on to a more peaceful and wholesome surrounding, more like the course we were on before approaching the waterfall. This brings us to the third option. 3) Use every means possible to direct the ship towards safety. How on earth do we do this? Let’s look to the mission statement of our church to find the answer: Holy transfiguration orthodox church Our mission is to experience and share the love of Jesus Christ in a traditional orthodox Christian community growing in godliness. I see in this statement the combination of the Benedict option and the third option that I proposed. In the Benedict option we are called to experience the love of Jesus Christ and to grow in godliness in a traditional orthodox Christian community. But we also say that our mission is to share the love of Jesus Christ. This means we need to offer the same experience to the suffering world around us, and especially our beloved America. I propose that we stay on the ship, build our own community in the midst of it, and with everything that we have determine to steer the ship to safety. How can we do this right here in Hibernia, in Yountsville, in our small orthodox mission parish? First of all, we need to be keenly serious about being a traditional orthodox Christian community growing in godliness. This is how saints are produced. A majority of the Saints are martyrs. While it is true that many of them are saints because the o