A homily delivered in the Three Hierarchs Chapel at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary on the Feast of St. Demetrios (Monday, October 26, 2015).

Some excuses never get old.

When I was little, if my brother did something to me, I’d do the same back to him. I’d launch a proportionate retaliatory strike. If he pulled my hair, I’d pull his hair. If he punched me in the arm, I’d punch him in the arm. And whenever I got caught, what do you think I said?

“He did it to me first!”

Somehow, without ever having been taught, my kids know the exact same excuse.

“Why did you do that to your brother?”

“He did it to me first!”

This excuse is as old as time, yet every generation picks it up and uses it. And it’s not just kids that use the excuse. Husbands and wives use it to excuse insults and infidelities. Neighbors use this excuse to justify snubs and petty treachery. Nations and regions are torn apart by brutal retaliation and blood feuds. And in every case, it is all based on that age old excuse:

“They did it to us first.”

“Someone hurt me, so I have the RIGHT to hurt them back.”

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A proportionate, retaliatory strike.

But does it bring life?

There is a famous line from a play, where villagers are being unjustly driven from their homes, and they say, “We should stand our ground, we should fight. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!” And the main character replies, “Very good. That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.” And it’s true.

Blinded by a quest for justice on our terms we cannot see our neighbor as a human person, created in the image and likeness of God. All we see are dark fearful shadows. And having been rendered toothless, we starve, unable to eat at the table of God’s mercy. Instead we choke on the smoke of our smoldering anger. We dwell on old wounds and grievances as if they could do anything more than poison our souls.

Today Jesus says to us, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.” So, according to the age-old excuse, Jesus had every right to hate the world. Of all the people who have ever lived, Jesus had the most reasons to hate the world back. He was innocent. He had done nothing wrong. He had committed no crime. He healed the sick, he gave sight back to the blind, he cast out demons, he fed the multitudes. But yet, he was convicted by the religious authorities of being a blasphemer, and he was convicted by the governor of being a political trouble-maker. So they stripped him naked, and whipped him, and marched him through the city, and nailed him to a cross, and let him hang there until he died.

If anyone had the right to hate the world it was Jesus.

But he knew better.

Yes, the world hated Jesus, but God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God acted first, out of love and mercy and compassion. He came into the world and facing the horrors of the Crucifixion, as the world went mad with hatred, Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Instead of making excuses, Jesus makes the perfect sacrifice. He offers himself. And today we see that same sacrificial love in the life and death of St. Demetrios.

St. Demetrios was born and raised in a Christian family in the late third century, before Christianity was legal. His father was a high-ranking imperial official in Thessalonica who maintained a secret Church in his home. When Demetrios’ father died, the emperor appointed Demetrios to succeed his father as proconsul.

But in addition to the normal imperial duties of managing and protecting the city, the emperor commanded Demetrios to eradicate Christianity in the city and execute anyone who called on the name of Christ. Demetrios accepted the appointment as proconsul, but instead of carrying out the emperor’s command, he returned to Thessalonica and publicly confessed his Christian faith, proclaiming the Gospel to all that would listen. Upon learning that Demetrios was a Christian and that he had converted many to the faith, the emperor ordered his arrest.

At dawn on October 26, 306, soldiers came to his cell and ran him through with spears. Instead of making an excuse, St. Demetrios made the perfect sacrifice of his own life.

Martyrdom breaks the cycle of violent retribution. The Christian martyr does not go down in ball of flaming rage, but rather makes a simple statement:

I would prefer to die than to renounce my faith in Christ, so that you may know the power of the love of God.

Since his death and burial, the relics of St. Demetrios have been a source of consolation and inspiration to generations of believers. Multiple empires and hundreds of wars have come and gone since the death of St. Demetrios, but his witness to the love of Jesus Christ remains. The martyr does not die in spite of his persecutors, any more than Jesus died in spite of the world. Rather, the martyr dies for the salvation of the very ones who persecute him.

This is the love of Christ.

This is the power of God.

So today is not a day for excuses. It is a day to bring the love of Christ into the world. Smell the air, right here in the chapel. Do you smell the sweet aroma of myrrh? It is not unlike the myrrh that streams from the tomb of St. Demetrius. It is the wonderful aromatic reminder we have on our clothes every time we return home from Church.

So today, the moment you feel the slightest hint of anger or resentment, think of this smell right now, and remember the love of Christ that fills our hearts this morning. In some small way, perhaps known only to God, sacrifice part of your life for the sake of your neighbor. Respond to an insult with a kind word. Repay an offense with an act of kindness. React to anger with the love of Christ. Offer yourself for the sake of your neighbor, and glorify Jesus Christ.

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The Rev. Dr. J. Sergius Halvorsen (SVOTS ’96) received his M.Div. from St. Vladimir’s Seminary and completed his doctoral dissertation at Drew University in 2002. From 2000 to 2011 he taught at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell Connecticut, where he also served as Director of Distance Learning. He was ordained to the priesthood in February 2004, and currently serves on the faculty of SVOTS as Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Rhetoric and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program.

The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) have elevated His Grace Bishop Paul of Chicago to the rank and dignity of archbishop.

His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon and the Hierarchs of the Holy Synod made the decision Wednesday, May 27, 2020 during their regular Spring Session (via teleconference), in recognition of Archbishop Paul’s five years of outstanding service as a bishop, leading the Diocese of the Midwest.

“Congratulations to the newly elevated Archbishop Paul of Chicago,” wrote His Beatitude on Twitter. “His yeoman’s work in shepherding the vast Diocese of the Midwest make him most worthy of this elevation. I wish His Eminence inexhaustible energy, peace, and joy. Axios!”

Archbishop Paul began theological studies in September 1991 at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, from which he received his Master of Divinity degree summa cum laude and served as valedictorian in 1994. He was ordained to the priesthood by His Eminence, the late Archbishop Job of Chicago and the Midwest, on June 25, 1994. On October 20, 2014, he was tonsured to monastic rank with the name Paul, in honor of Saint Paul the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople. On October 21, 2014, the Holy Synod elected him to fill the vacant Episcopal See of Chicago and the Diocese of the Midwest. Archimandrite Paul was consecrated to the Episcopacy and enthroned as Bishop of Chicago and the Midwest at Chicago’s historic Holy Trinity Cathedral on Saturday, December 27, 2014.

• Read Archbishop Paul’s full biography at OCA.org

May God grant His Eminence, Archbishop Paul many years!

A homily delivered in Three Hierarchs Chapel at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary on Sunday, October 25, 2015.

We are so familiar with most of the readings that we hear in Church on Sunday mornings, especially those that recount a memorable parable, that we rarely pay attention to what it might say to us—we think we already know.

So, we heard today the parable of the rich man and Lazarus; and as soon as we hear the first words “There was a rich man”, we think we already know what the parable is going to be about: that the rich are going to have a hard time getting into heaven, while the poor, having had a hard time of it in this life, will get in much more easily.

And then we are tempted to identify ourselves with the poor; after all, even if we are not as poor as some, we certainly are not as rich as others! There are many others who are much richer than we are, and they are certainly going to have a hard time of it. Even if we are not as destitute as Lazarus, we still find ourselves in more hardship than we would prefer—we are not as rich as we would like to be.

But if we pay closer attention, we will see that it is not simply about objective riches/poverty, but about attachment.

It is striking that in the parable, the rich man is not named—he is simply known as one who is clothed in purple (a royal color), fine linen and who ate well. He is not named; as it says in the Psalms, about those who do not fear God: “I will not make mention of their names with my lips” (15.4). The rich man is not known by name, but is known rather by his possessions. And they are possessions which he has not used for the benefit of others, in a philanthropy, extending God’s own philanthropy—love of mankind; rather they are used for his own adornment and luxurious living.

Known by his possessions, the rich man is in fact possessed by his possessions.

And this is the reason he will have a hard time when he passes on from this life: it is not simply that he has had great possessions, but that he is their possession—they own him. He has not used his wealth for the benefit of others, but been too attached to what he has.

On the other hand, the poor man is named—Lazarus. Yet it is not simply his poverty which grants him a place in the kingdom, but that he has endured the situation into which he was born without complaint. He did not spend his life moaning about it, but rather takes an attitude like Job.

For him to have complained about it, would be like the rich man’s attachment to his possessions: as paradoxical as it might seem, the poor man would have become attached to his poverty—and this in turn would have kept his heart back in this world, and caused him great torment.

What the contrast between the rich man and Lazarus sets before us, as with Christ’s others words about material wealth, mamon, and our heart being where our treasure is, what all this presents to us is the challenge to be detached from the things of the world and to place all our hope, trust and love in God.

To live in such detachment, of course, requires faith. After all, it is not the evidence of our eyes that will persuade us that we can in fact give more generously to the poor than we like to think; the evidence of our eyes will always be to the contrary—I will be visibly poorer if I do so. The evidence of our eyes is not enough, and so the parable concludes with Abraham saying that even if someone should return from the dead—providing visible evidence—it would not be enough to persuade; if they do not already believe Moses and the prophets, no visible proof will suffice.

Moses and the prophets, of course, direct us to Christ, as the eternal and unchanging Word of God. And as we heard in the epistle, it is by faith in him that we are made righteous, not by anything that we can do of ourselves. In fact, as Paul said, in our desire to be righteous in him, we will be found to be sinners—that is, we are found to be living without the law, outside of the law. It is no longer a comprehensive system of regulations that we have to fulfill to appease our deity (however much we might tend to view religion in that manner). Rather if the righteousness of God is revealed in his crucified Son, then what is demanded of us is that we be, as Paul said, crucified with him.

And we have learnt from today’s parable a concrete way in which this is lived out is through our detachment from all worldly things; a detachment, not a despising; a detachment which enables us to see all things as the good gifts of God and frees us to use all things for the benefit of others—so that all things are indeed good gifts from God (not merely in word, but in reality), and so that we are not simply known by our possessions, or our achievements, but are known by a name.

And perhaps even more: as Paul concluded, if we are crucified with Christ in this way, then we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. We are called to be Christ’s own presence in this world; let us pray that we have the strength and courage to respond to this upward call of God in Christ, leaving behind all earthly cares to offer a sacrifice of peace and love.

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Fr. John Behr (SVOTS ’97) is the former Dean of St Vladimir’s Seminary and Professor of Patristics,

In this gripping audio interview, St. Vladimir’s graduate Fr. Geevarghese (Bobby) Varghese (’17) talks about how COVID-19 quickly and devastatingly took over almost all of the New York-area hospital where he serves as chaplain. He talks about how the pandemic changed the way he performs his hospital ministry and about witnessing one patient’s poignant final days. Father Bobby also shares how surviving COVID-19 himself and later seeing his wife test positive for the virus deeply impacted him.

Father Bobby Varghese was ordained to the Holy Priesthood on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross in 2019. He is currently the assistant priest at St. Mary Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in Staten Island, NY.

Listen to Fr. Bobby’s interview with the Seminary’s Ginny Nieuwsma below.

The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) announced March 30, 2020 the appointment of Archpriest Thomas Soroka as Project Manager for the Departments of the Orthodox Church in America. With the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, Fr. Thomas will plan, coordinate, and oversee the work of the different ministry departments of the Church.

“The coordination of the work of the ministry departments is crucial as we work to implement the vision set by His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon in his work Of What Life Do We Speak,” said Archpriest Alexander Rentel. “Father Thomas is well known throughout the Orthodox Church in America and brings to the job a wealth of real-world experience gained from senior management positions at Accenture, Bank of New York Mellon, and PNC Bank.”

In his appointment, Fr. Thomas will remain the rector of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, McKees Rocks, PA where he has served since July 2000. Father Thomas is married to Matuska Joni Soroka and they have three daughters.

Father Thomas studied in St. Vladimir’s Seminary’s "Collegiate Division" from 1982 to 1984 and holds two degrees from Duquesne University. He is a member of the Archdiocesan Council of the Archdiocese of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania and frequently speaks on church growth and parish revitalization. Father Thomas is well known also for his work for Ancient Faith Radio where he hosts a live call-in show, Ancient Faith Today, and two podcasts, The Path and Sermons at Saint Nicholas.

“I’m greatly honored and humbled to be entrusted with this blessed work and very excited to help develop impactful and necessary resources to support our parishes and faithful in their church life,” said Fr. Thomas.  “At every decision, our work will be guided by the question, ‘How can we support parishes so that they can focus on their ministry to thrive and grow?’ I want to hear from parishes and leaders about their needs and how the Departments can best serve them. Our clergy and faithful have so many outstanding ideas to ensure that our parishes and people are equipped to do the work of ministry and I can’t wait to start tapping into that.”

To learn more about the work of the department ministries click here, and to contribute to their work click here.

(This article has been reprinted from OCA.org)

“Unity in Diversity.” This expression speaks about a balance between wholeness and difference, between integrity and variety. The idea is sometimes rooted in our teaching about the Holy Trinity: God is a unity, one God, in a diversity of persons, Father Son and Holy Spirit. Unity in diversity can also suggest something very important to us, as human beings, but specifically as Orthodox Christians. Because it can illustrate that things or people don’t have to look, walk, talk, and think exactly alike in order to be in union with each other.

Not all differences can be held together. Some differences between us really do divide us. Thinking about Orthodoxy, if someone were to say that Jesus Christ is not divine, or that he’s not human, that person would be at odds with the Orthodox Christian faith, and therefore divided from it. But not all differences divide. In fact, some differences make for an even deeper unity.

This sounds surprising, but anyone in a reasonably healthy marriage knows this instinctively: two people don’t have to become identical to each other in order to be in union with each other. In fact, it is often precisely the differences that make their union not only more interesting, but also more real, more substantial. We don’t, as a rule, marry mirror-images of ourselves.

Unity and diversity play themselves out within any human society, grouping, or family. And they have long been applied to the unity and diversity that characterize the Church. St Paul gives us the image of the Church as a body, with members that are different and interdependent (see especially 1 Cor. 12). From its apostolic beginnings, then, the Church has always been thought of as a community of diverse members with diverse gifts, and the diversity of the saints continues to testify to how differently the same Christian faith and life may be expressed in this world.

The Church’s diversity-in-unity was also articulated in a striking way in the second century. In the midst of a heated crisis in the Church concerning the date on which Easter should be celebrated, St Irenaeus of Lyons considered the various practices and dates and said: “The difference in practice confirms the unity in faith.” Yes, you read that correctly. The differences confirm the unity. They testify to it. They strengthen it. This pronouncement challenges our logic: wouldn’t you have thought that it’s unity in practice that confirms unity in faith? Well that can happen too. But what is being said here is also true, and deeply important: the very fact that we can embody diversity, yet agree in the matters of the greatest significance, confirms and deepens our unity. It means that our unity doesn’t depend on our being identical, or completely undifferentiated. In short, unity is not uniformity.

St Irenaeus’s saying confirms the principle of “unity in diversity,” or perhaps “diversity in unity.” Unity in the most important sense, unity concerning the things that really matter, is not threatened but enriched by diversity. Fr St Irenaeus, the different dates of the Paschal celebration did not threaten but even enriched what really mattered, namely the fact and the life-giving content of the Lord’s Pascha itself.

But with all its enriching potential, the interplay of unity and diversity also poses two serious challenges:

• Unity is not uniformity, but the challenge is to identify and maintain coherence and unity within a diverse body. In the Church, that means the challenge of holding together diverse views, showing where they cohere—and also where they do not.

• The other challenge is to recognize and even promote a genuine diversity, to show people that being “Orthodox” doesn’t necessarily mean doing and thinking in exactly the same way. If we do this right, we will be helping people understand what being “Orthodox” really consists in.

Both of these challenges require us to identify what is the unchangeable core of our faith and life, those things that cannot be denied or distorted without the loss of our unity. Having identified that core, it becomes possible to identify both the possibilities and the limits of diversity. For example, we can be on different calendars and be one Church. We can hold different teachings about “toll houses” and be one Church. We can  even believe different things about how and when the world came into being (7,000 years ago, or 14 billion) and be in one Church.

But we cannot be one Church if some of us are saying that Jesus was “merely a very great man,” or that “Jesus was divine, but only appeared to be human.” It would also be hard to imagine being in the same Orthodox Church if some of us were to teach that “human personhood only begins at birth, and that therefore abortion is only the loss of a mass of cells.” These would be genuine divisions of teaching or practice, not just “a healthy diversity of expression.”

The examples I just gave are pretty obvious. But in fact, unity and diversity pose deep challenges to the Orthodox Church today, specifically in North America. We seek to be one. We seek to express our common Orthodox identity in a way that both recognizes and transcends our ethnic histories and identities. We desperately seek a unity that has, up until now, proved too challenging to be realized.

We are of course deeply concerned to be Orthodox. Sometimes we show that concern only by repeating all the formulas perfectly, getting every element of the liturgy, its vestments, architecture, and singing perfect. Nothing wrong with a loving effort to get these things right. The problem lies when we think that the substance of Orthodox faith and life resides entirely in them. If that’s what we think, whether consciously or not, then there becomes only one right way of praising God, one right Ochtoekos, one right set of vestments and hats. And one calendar on which the whole edifice is properly based. To think this way would not only be a great loss to the life of the Church, it wouldn’t be Orthodox.

St Irenaeus’s statement about, differences confirming unity, had to do with calendar issues. Can’t we go further? Aren’t there are other issues on which it is possible to do and teach things differently, provided we hold to the key elements of the apostolic faith? It is our responsibility to identify the diversities that can be held together in the unity of the Church.

One of the most significant and genuinely challenging cases in point is the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the “Oriental” Orthodox churches – the Coptic, Armenian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Indian-Syrian Churches. In recent decades an official, Church-delegated dialogue process has affirmed that “both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith, and the unbroken continuity of the apostolic tradition.”[1] The first thing to do would be to test whether we agree with that statement. Because if we do, in other words, if the real theological unity has not been compromised by the historical terminological diversity of these church families, then we have a serious challenge before us: the challenge to live out the unity that we have identified, and admit within the life of One Church a greater diversity of liturgies, theological formulas, and saints.

Can we, Eastern and Oriental churches, together, conceivably embody a unity in diversity, a diversity in unity? It would require many of us to rethink what “Orthodoxy” looks like. We would have to ask what is currently keeping us apart: are there still genuinely church-dividing theological issues? To what extent are we in fact living in the mere habit of separation, learned from centuries out of communion? Are there liturgical, ministerial issues yet to be resolved? Is part of what is keeping us apart simply the fear of a greater diversity—not in matters of apostolic faith and practice, but in language and “culture?” I do not wish to prejudge the answers to these questions. But we owe ourselves, each other, and our God, the most thorough, responsible, prayerful consideration of such things.  Christian love for the other, and Christian pursuit of truth wherever it is to be found, impel us to do no less.

I think then that the one great goal of all who are really and truly serving the Lord ought to be to bring back to union the churches who have at different times and in different ways divided from one another. 

— St Basil the Great, Epistle 94

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[1] Second Agreed Statement (Chambésy, Switzerland 1990), §9.

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Dr. Peter C. Bouteneff is Professor Systematic Theology at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. He has broad interests in theology ancient and modern, but as a great fan of music and cinema he is also committed to exploring the connections between theology and popular culture, regularly offering a course on religious themes in film (one of his current courses this fall is “Religious Themes in Film”). Prof. Bouteneff co-directs the Arvo Pärt Project at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, an in-depth endeavor involving concerts, lectures, and publications. His most recent book is Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence, that has been hailed as “a triumph,” “a game-changer for Pärt scholarship,” and “a must-read for any listener or performer of Pärt’s music.”

On Saturday, March 14, 2020, St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVOTS) Alumnus Dn. Basil Crivella was ordained to the holy priesthood. Priest Basil was ordained at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, Mentor, OH, by the hand of His Grace, The Right Reverend Paul (SVOTS Class of 1994), bishop of Chicago and the Midwest (OCA).

Father Basil studied in St. Vladimir's Master of Divinity (M.Div.) program from 2016 to 2019. He holds an associate's degree in Liberal Arts from Westmoreland Community College. Before studying at SVOTS, Fr. Basil served seven and a half years on active duty military service with the United States Coast Guard, taking part in search and rescue along with law enforcement operations on both Lake Michigan and in the Caribbean Sea, and he served as the logistics petty officer at a search and rescue station on Lake Erie. Father Basil, his wife, and their three children were received into the Orthodox Church while he was serving with the Coast Guard in Fairport, Ohio.

Since leaving SVOTS, Fr. Basil has been attached to St. Nicholas, his home parish. He is awaiting confirmation of his first parish assignment as a priest.

The St. Vladimir’s Seminary community wishes Fr. Basil, Matushka Rose, and their children many years!

(Photos: Daniel Bein)

Ancient Faith Radio (AFR)’s popular program Ancient Faith Today is back with a new host, Archpriest Thomas Soroka, an alumnus of St. Vladimir’s Seminary. Father Tom helped re-launch the live, weekly call-in radio show on Tuesday, January 14, 2020.

Ancient Faith Today, which began in 2012, became a staple of AFR’s lineup under former host Kevin Allen, who reposed in the Lord in August of 2018.

“Tonight, as we turn the page on a new chapter of Ancient Faith Today, we dedicate this first show to Kevin’s memory,” began Fr. Tom. “And we take on a challenging subject that was very important to him and, frankly, to all of us: Orthodox unity.”

Tuesday’s episode delved into the topic of Orthodox unity with two other men with strong ties to St. Vladimir’s: Protodeacon Peter Danilchick, a trustee emeritus, and Dr. Charles Ajalat, a former trustee, honorary doctorate recipient, and father of a St. Vladimir’s graduate (Richard Ajalat, ’13).

• Listen to the Ancient Faith Today episode, “Orthodox Unity.”

Fr. Tom Soroka is the pastor of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Mckees Rocks, Pennsylvania, and directs the Pan-Orthodox Choir of Pittsburg. He holds a degree from Duquesne University and was a student in St. Vladimir’s Seminary’s "Collegiate Division" from 1982 to 1984. His other podcasts, The Path and Sermons at St. Nicholas can also be heard on AFR.

A homily delivered in Three Hierarchs Chapel at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary on Sunday, September 27, 2015.

Your soul covered the earth, and you filled it with proverbs and riddles. Sir 47.15

 

Proverbs and Riddles

I have to admit at the outset of my word today, that this gospel presents a passage I have struggled with.

The problem I have is that the text just seems so matter-of-fact, so straightforward: Jesus sits in a boat the Sea of Gennesaret, he teaches, calls the apostles, who are fishing, and they fish again and have an overwhelming catch. What is there to say? There are questions about why he goes on a boat to teach the people rather than from the shore where they are, but, at first glance, they seem more a curiosity than the stuff of a sermon.

Nevertheless, I will attempt anew to offer a word on this passage holding as a basic presupposition the word that the Apostle Paul spoke to Timothy, “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (II Tim. 3.15).” Therefore, I will attempt to be like David, and “will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve [the] riddle [of this passage] to the music of the Psalter (Ps. 49.4).”

Daily Life

What struck me first about this passage is the Lord’s involvement in the daily life, the daily work of the apostles. He meets them in the midst of their activity, their hard work. Fishing is not a glamorous profession: the fish, scales, guts, nets, the water, and boats all add up to backbreaking, hard, dirty work. But in the midst of this work, he comes and gets in their boat, teaches the people, and calls the apostles through the sign of an abundant catch of fish.

From workaday perspective, a basic paradigm emerged: Jesus comes to them even though they are not looking for him. He comes to them precisely when they are preoccupied with so many other things. Just like God looking for Adam and Eve in the Garden, or Jesus meeting the Samaritan Woman at the Well, or the disciples on the road to Emmaus on the first day of the New Creation, Jesus comes to them and reveals himself to Simon, James, and John.

We should consider this paradigm carefully and expect that our Lord meets us in our day-to-day lives, when we are not expecting it, when we are preoccupied with so many things. He meets us and calls us to follow him. And this perhaps is why we do not hear this call. We look for him on our own terms to confirm our lives, our needs, our wants, our desires—but he is coming and looking for us to follow after him. He is coming out of love for us and wants us to fall in love with him in the same way he loves us.

Note, too, that he does not make the disciples’ physical work, their livelihood, indeed their lives any easier; in fact, everything becomes more difficult with such a catch of fish and will become harder with the promise of a new type of fishing. Even so, they fulfilled their tasks obediently and brought forth great abundance, as is evidenced by the great haul of fish then, and by our presence here in Church today. Drawing from this, after the Lord comes to us, we cannot expect the Lord to make our earthbound lives easier; rather, they will be harder in a certain sense. We can carry this burden, lighten it even, by knowing that we carry it in the service of Christ.

Apostolic Witness

But going further into this passage, I note that there is another reading of this story that involves the Apostolic witness of Christ. They accomplish everything in this passage after he taught. They came to know him, heard his word, and followed his command. This provides us with further meaning from this gospel: our burden will be lightened with the knowledge of Christ. Again, the disciples were able to accomplish so much after Christ taught, after they came to know him. For us then, coming to know Christ will allow us to do much and live our lives in his service.

But how do we come to know Christ? The image presented in the gospel today is key: we see him sitting like a teacher of old on the boat, the people were even pressing around him to hear “the word of God (Lk. 5.1).” A boat is an image of salvation; it allows you to traverse the stormy waters from one point to another. In other words, the boat is an image of salvation, and also the Church. The Church, the place were Christ sits and teaches even to this very day, maintains this Apostolic witness that will enliven us, empower us to hear the call of Christ and to follow after him. If we feel empty, alone, incapable of following him, of leading the life he has called us to, the place to be renewed is here, hearing his word through the scripture, the liturgy, and in the midst of this Apostolic community.

The Alpha and the Omega

In preparation for this sermon, I read a few things about Lake Gennesaret, which is also called the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberius. It is an enormous freshwater lake both in width and depth. It provided livelihood for many because of its water, its fish, and as a means of transport. It is fed by the River Jordan, which flows through it, but it is also fed by underground springs. And here another aspect of this reading came to me: just by sitting there, our Lord taught us about himself without words.

Consider the setting: our Lord astride the waters. The “waters” in the scriptures are often synonymous with chaos and death. This image of our Lord sitting on the boat together with his apostles provides us with a perfect image for how chaos and death are subdued and destroyed: by his teaching and by the Apostolic activity. By these things, all things are brought into order and into life. The water becomes not chaos and death; but Christ, the Lamb of God sitting as if upon his throne, makes the waters flow in an orderly fashion, bringing life. Christ’s teaching is like the spring of water feeding the lake, which so many in a dry and arid land need for the basics of life. It is life-giving. The Apostles’ preaching is like that great river, the River Jordan, flowing into it, receiving that water, that life, and going forth from it and bringing this life to those who also need it. Brothers and sisters, this life is our life, this teaching is for us. Our Lord meets us right here and right now at this moment in our lives, seeking to bring us into the life he has for us, a life of service, following his teachings, indeed, a life with him, from now and to the ages.

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Archpriest Alexander Rentel, a 1995 M.Div. graduate of St. Vladimir’s, finished his doctoral dissertation under the direction of Fr. Robert Taft, SJ, at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome in January 2004. Prior to coming to St. Vladimir’s as a professor, Fr. Alexander was a 2000-2001 Junior Fellow in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. He has taken numerous research trips to Greece, Italy, and France. He was ordained to the priesthood in July 2001. He and his wife, Nancy (née Homyak, M.Div. 1995) are the proud parents of three children, Dimitrios, Maria, and Daniel.

This is the final part in a three part series on The Lord’s Prayer by Dr. George Parsenios, Sessional Professor of New Testament at St. Vladimir’s Seminary and Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. This article is republished with the permission of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

The word translated here as “temptation” is the Greek word “peirasmos.” The term appears in the New Testament to describe many types of temptation, but it also appears in biblical passages that describe the temptations awaiting the faithful in the last days, when even believers will be hard pressed to renounce or ignore their faith. God will support the faithful in the midst of such temptations. Revelation 3:10 says, “I will preserve you from the hour of temptation (peirasmos).” We should not imagine, though, that such temptation lies only in the future. In Christ, the kingdom of heaven has already drawn near (Matt. 3:19). We are already in the time of trial, already tempted to fall away, and we beg for God to deliver us from this trial. In the midst of such struggles Christ remains our savior, as he says, “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that the present world is not our final home. We are citizens of a heavenly commonwealth (Phil. 3:20) and we must live here and now in the light of our heavenly future. Such an approach to life meets with necessary struggles, but we do not toil alone. The same Lord who gave us this prayer also promised, “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt. 28:30). Amen!

This article has made extensive use of the following two works: Dale Allison, The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination (Crossroad, 1999); Alistair Stewart-Sykes, (transl.) Tertullian, Cyprian and Origen on the Lord’s Prayer (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004). Those interested in further reading may consult them.

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George Parsenios, M.A. Duke University, M.Div. Holy Cross School of Theology, M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. Yale University, is Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and Professor of New Testament at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. Used with the kind permission of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Department of Outreach and Evangelism.