A poem from Alexei Khomiakov

A mes enfants

Souvent, à l'heure de la profonde nuit,
Chers petits, j'allais vous contempler avec amour;
Souvent, j'aimais vous marquer du Signe de la Croix,
Prier pour que sur vous demeurât la Grâce
Et l'amour du Dieu tout-puissant.

Veiller avec attendrissement sur votre repos enfantin,
penser combien vos âmes étaient pures,
Espérer de longs et heureux jours,
Pour vous, charmants enfants sans souci,
Quelle douceur et quelle joie c'était!

Quand j'entre maintenant, partout l'obscurité :
Plus de vie dans la chambre : le petit lit est vide;
Dans la lampe, devant l'Icône, la lumière est éteinte :
Je suis triste : mes enfants ne sont plus,
Et le coeur se serre si douloureusement!

Enfants, à l'heure de la profonde nuit,
Priez pour celui qui priait pour vous,
Pour celui qui aimait vous marquer du Signe de la Croix;
Priez pour qu'avec lui demeure aussi la Grâce
Et l'amour du Dieu tout-puissant.

Aksana Belle Sterk

I am now the grandfather of three wonderful kids. Our daughter Marina gave birth to her firstborn, Aksana Belle Sterk, yesterday morning at 10:12 am. Proud father is her husband Nathan. Aksana was 7 lb 8 oz and 21" long.

In other news, our other two grandkids are coming for a brief visit starting tomorrow. Hooray!

Each time...

...I come to campus for the first time in the Fall, I find a new lilt in my step and a song in my heart. To work at what one loves is one of the chiefest delights given us while we are able to see the sun.

Sermon on the feeding of the 5,000

Put yourself in the disciples’ place. They had followed the Lord to a desert place for renewal. But then the crowds came, and Christ in his compassion healed them. Now it was getting late.
The disciples took note of the time, and place. They saw the peoples’ need, and were concerned. “We need to let them go,” they thought. “They’ll need time to find food.” So they came to Christ, and asked him to release the crowd.
Now come those shocking words. The Lord responded, “They don’t have to go away. You give them something to eat.” Catch the weight of those words. “YOU give them something to eat!” Here they were, twelve men more or less—poor men, with little or nothing to their name. There was the crowd, thousands and thousands of them. And now, their Lord says to them, in essence, “Feeding that crowd is your responsibility.”
I wonder, sometimes, if we ever see the needs around us as our responsibility. Most of us have learned the survival skill of looking the other way, of not paying attention to the needs around us. The homeless guy at the entrance ramp, the lonely people in the nursing home, the single mother who’s trying to figure out how to feed her kids: there’s just so much need that if we thought about it, we’d be overwhelmed. And so we ask ourselves, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and move on, never thinking that it was Cain, the first murderer, who first posed that question.
Politically, both the left and the right have ways of avoiding these needs. The man on the right, the conservative, may say “Those folks have needs because of bad choices they made. Let them figure it out for themselves.” The people in our text, for example, should have thought about how they’d provide for themselves in a desert area.
And those on the left, the liberals, likewise avoid the needs. “We should tax the wealthy, so that society can take care of these needs.” In other words, there is a problem. But it’s not my problem. It’s the other guy’s problem.
But Christ calls us to see the problems around us, as our problem. Maybe some folks made bad decisions to get them where they are. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore them. And if we wait for the government to fix the problem, we’ll be waiting a long time. The needs around us are here and now, and they’re our responsibility.
Only when we see the greatness of our responsibility, will we learn the greatness of our Lord. The disciples answer Christ, “We have only five loaves and two small fish.” That was barely a snack for a couple of people, let alone thousands. But Christ says, “Bring them to me.”
“Bring them to me.” Here’s stewardship in a nutshell: that we take whatever little we have, and bring it to Christ. You know, for every age there’s always an excuse for not giving. The young person says, “I don’t make enough, and I have lots to buy.” Then when college is done, it’s “I have to pay off my loans.” Then comes a family—“I have to buy a house…I have to take care of my kids.” And then comes retirement—“But I don’t have enough saved, and what will come of me?”
Bring your resources to Christ. When we give that tithe, that 10% of our income, it represents giving all that we have. Indeed, the most important thing we give is our very bodies. St. Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as living sacrifices, wholly acceptable to God.”
The needs before our parish are daunting indeed. We have been given this little building, on this little piece of land. We’d like to do so much more: to build a permanent temple, with a cemetery, a school or old folks’ home. We’d like to help our neighbors in practical, useful ways. How can we do it? Well, we can’t, in our own strength.
We must learn, rather, to bring what we have, to Christ. Let it be our business to be faithful in giving, faithful in serving our neighbors. And let it be his business to give us what we need to serve those in need: whether it be a permanent temple and a school to teach his word, or food pantry to feed the hungry—or whatever else he has in mind.
You know the rest of the story—how that the disciples brought their food to Christ, and he blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them to give to the crowd…how everyone ate his fill and still there were twelve baskets left behind.
Still today the Lord multiplies the loaves. We offer him bread and wine, his gifts mingled with our labor. And he gives it back to us as his own life-giving body and precious blood. He feeds our bodies, he forgives our sins, he fills us with his own indestructible life. Give as much as we can, we can never outgive our merciful and man-befriending God.
So let us rise from this place, filled with his gifts, ready to embrace the needs we see around us—to make them our responsibility. Let us bring to him the little we have, with grateful hearts, and learn in our own lives how good the Lord is. Let us be faithful with the things of this passing life, so that we may receive a rich reward in his kingdom, which has no end. Amen.

Sermon on the dumb demoniac, the crowd and the Pharisees

Hall-of-famer Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” That saying makes us smile because, while it seems to make sense, it really doesn’t. A fork in the road is an either/or, not a both/and. You go one way, or the other. You can’t go both ways.
Today’s gospel shows us that the same is true in our encounter with Christ. The Lord heals a dumb man, casting out a demon. The crowd responds with praise, saying “This has never been done in Israel.” And that was true! Every kind of miracle the Lord did in his earthly ministry had been done already in the Old Testament: lepers cleansed, sick people healed, dead people raised—even feeding many with a little food. Only one kind of miracle was new. And that was the casting out of demons.
Why does the Lord repeat the same kind of miracles that happen in the Old Testament? It was to show that he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament, the one who, in himself, brought together all those things that had been done piecemeal before him. But why, then, does he cast out demons? In this way he shows his greatness, and the purpose of his coming. As St. John writes, “The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.”
The crowd praises Christ. But the Pharisees harden their hearts and say, “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.” They could not deny what he had done, and so they serve as unwilling witnesses of Christ’s power. Admitting the work, they still reject Christ—in the only way left to them. They attribute his power itself to the devil. But that’s irrational…it’s madness. Why would Satan fight against himself? They showed that same irrationality later, when the Lord rose from the dead and they told the guards to say that while the guards slept, the disciples stole the body. But such is the fate of all those who reject the love of God in Christ. Such “wisdom” becomes folly.
The crowd praises Christ; the Pharisees reject him. But nobody stays the way they were before. That’s because every time we encounter Christ, it is a fork in the road, a moment of crisis, a time of decision.
Where do we encounter him? We encounter him here in this time, when his word is proclaimed, his promise given, his body and blood offered to the faithful. Our hearts are changed, for good or for ill: for good, when we embrace him in repentance and draw near in love; for ill, when we put off repentance or draw near outwardly while hardening our hearts inwardly.
We encounter him, too, in dealing with others and especially the least of his brothers and sisters, day after day. When we see someone in need and turn away, it hardens us ever so slightly. When we open ourselves to serve them, and to receive them, we open ourselves to him.
Let us learn to see our lives for what they are. Our life doesn’t consist in the “stuff” we accumulate, in the things we have; for in the end, all that will be given to someone else. All those things are but the wax in the candle. But the candle’s life consists in its burning; and our life consists in the decisions we make, moment by moment—to receive the forgiveness and life Christ extends to us, or to turn from him to our own way, seeking pleasure and power.
Let us then beware, lest we think “Tomorrow I will repent, tomorrow I will believe, tomorrow I will follow Christ.” For that “tomorrow” doesn’t exist, and we may wake up to find ourselves far from him. This is the time of crisis, the fulcrum of our life, the fork in our road. So let us say “This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. We will seek him, we will serve him, we will praise him right now, in the only time and place and people he gives us.”

Raskolnikov's dream

I've been listening to Dostoyevsky's novels on my mp3 player. I want to post a few excerpts that have struck me as interesting. Here's one: Raskolnikov's dream from near the end of Crime and Punishment. It strikes me as prescient:


He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter.
When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was
feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned
to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the
depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen.
Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these
microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them
became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered
themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the
truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions,
their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible.
Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection.
All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that
he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat
himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know
how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what
good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed
each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in
armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would
begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers
would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring
each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns;
men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was
summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned,
because every one proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and
they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups,
agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on
something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused
one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations
and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The
plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be
saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined
to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but
no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their
voices.

Sermon on the paralytic, 2011

Today’s text presents a challenge to the preacher. It’s the account of the paralyzed man whose friends bring him to Christ. What makes it a challenge is that we read about this same event more than once a year. The gospels record lots of events from the Lord’s life; why would the church choose to repeat this same one, but from different evangelists?
I can think of two reasons. In the first place, the events that get repeated speak to deep needs of our human condition. We need to hear some things again and again. That’s why couples who’ve been married fifty years still say “I love you” to each other. As St. Paul told the Philippians, “To say the same thing again is not burdensome for me, and it is necessary for you.”
In the second place, each evangelist looks at the same event through a slightly different lens. If you read the parallel accounts closely, you find that different evangelists mention different things. Sometimes the differences can be slight. But the life of our Lord Jesus is a jewel, and turning it ever so slightly brings new light to us.
That’s the case with today’s text. Matthew’s version is very similar to the other evangelists in many respects. Other people bring the paralytic to Christ. Seeing their faith, he speaks pardon to the man. The scribes murmur, and the Lord silences their grumbling by healing the man.
All these things we need to hear again and again: that sometimes we are sick because of sin; that we need each other (Christianity is a team sport); that Christ’s word really brings about changes in our life.
But today I want to focus on something unique to St. Matthew’s account. Look how the text ends. “When the crowds saw this, they were amazed and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.” Did you catch that? “To men.”
It’s not at all what we would expect. Jesus is the one who heals—not the enemies, not the crowd, not the apostles. So why would St. Matthew say that God gave such authority to men? What can this mean?
Recall, first, the words of the Lord. Before he healed the man, he told the scribes, “So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” Here he calls himself the Son of Man. And that in itself would fry our circuits. For it’s an expression that harkens back to Prophet Daniel. In a night vision, Daniel saw one like a Son of Man, being presented to the Ancient of Days. This Son of Man receives an everlasting dominion, an indestructible kingdom. When Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man,” he’s claiming precisely that for himself—a divine title.
But here’s what fries our circuits. That title is Son of Man—a word that speaks clearly to the Lord’s humanity. And to drive the point home even more, he says, “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” In other words, this isn’t just for night visions of far-distant spiritual events. This authority is for here and now—for life as we live it, with all its warts.
When God the Son took on our flesh, and became incarnate of the Virgin, all the fullness of his divinity was poured out on his humanity. So now, both according to his divinity and his humanity he knows all things, he has all authority, he is everywhere present. His deity does not destroy his humanity, but fills it. All this is his by virtue of the Incarnation. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.”
When Matthew says the crowd glorified God who had given such authority to men, it means first and foremost that God gave such authority to this Man, his Son made flesh for us. The divine essence cannot be communicated to his humanity, for that would destroy it. But the divine energies, in all their fullness, are given to his humanity so that, by the nature of the Incarnation, they belong to Christ’s humanity.
That still doesn’t explain the words “to men,” however. And here’s where it gets really marvelous. The crowd understood that in principle, if such authority was given to this man, then God meant it to be shared among humanity in all its persons. In other words, what belonged to Christ’s humanity by virtue of the Incarnation, is given through that humanity to others who share his humanity. What is his by nature, becomes our by grace.
We see that played out in the rest of Matthew’s gospel. To cite but two examples: When our Lord comes to the apostles, walking on the water, Peter says, “Lord, if it is you, command that I come out on the water too.” The Lord gives the word, and Peter walks on the water. Now Christ walks on the water because in the union of his Person, the divine energies are poured out on his humanity, in all their fullness. But why does Peter walk on the water? Because what is Christ’s by nature, becomes others' by grace.
Again, the Lord tells his apostles, “Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.” The divine authority to forgive sins is communicated through Christ’s humanity, to his apostles.
We mustn’t misunderstand. This doesn’t mean that any Christian can do everything Christ did, at any time of our choosing. The divine energies are divided in the Church. The Panagia receives their fullness by grace--"Rejoice, full of grace!" Gabriel told her-- but as St. Paul says, the Spirit divides the gifts among the people of God. We need each other, and the divine energy of God’s love binds us all in one body.
Further, the divine energies benefit us only when we receive them in humble, repentant faith. When Edison was developing the light bulb, he had a problem. As soon as the electricity passed through the filament, it would glow, briefly, then burn up. Only when he removed all the air, and put the filament inside a vaccuum bulb, would it continue to glow. So too the energies of the Spirit only work savingly in those emptied of themselves in the fear of God, in repentance and faith.
In the Eucharist, for example, Christ himself shares his true, life-giving body and blood with us, and thereby shares his life with us. But if we receive him without faith, without repentance, we receive them to our judgment. That’s why we call out “With the fear of God, in faith and love draw near!”
This gift of the divine energies is not just a theory. It’s a practical, daily reality, as we see in the lives of the saints. What enabled Christina, a teenaged girl, to endure unspeakable tortures? What gave strength to Boris and Gleb to give up their royal thrones and even their lives, rather than raise a hand against their unjust brother? It was this divine energy, working in them.
Beloved, God has great things in mind for us. We cannot accomplish them with our wealth, wisdom or power. He doesn’t need those things. He needs humble, open hearts. Let us receive him as he comes to us in faith and fear, loving him who so loved us that he gave himself into death for us. Then we will be able to say with Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Then, too, like that crowd so long ago, we will give glory to God, who has given such authority to men.