Enacting the Kingdom Fr. Yuri Hladio & Fr. Geoffrey Ready

We enter into our new series, Narrative Theology, by considering what it means to do the right thing, and by what methods we should discern what the right thing is anyway. Ethics are based on stories such as what a human person is, what the goal of our being is, and what constitutes a good life. As Christians, our ethics are based on the greatest story of all: the story of God.
Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss the different branches of ethics that many modern-day Christians subscribe to, and the ecclesial ethic that early Christians followed, an ethic which we should strive to return to. It is an ethic that is practiced, like one perfects their craft, until it becomes a habit, and habit becomes character, and character forms us to be people who will respond in any given situation by enacting the Kingdom, God’s shalom, God’s peace, for all of creation.
This series on Narrative Theology will centre around internalizing this ethic so that as the Church we can faithfully encounter every situation, including the situations that we never anticipated, without fear, because we’ll have become the right kind of people. God’s people.


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If life is a play, indeed a drama, what are our lines?
Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore the analogy of God's story as a five act play, where we have intimate knowledge of the three acts that have come before, book-ended by intimate knowledge of the final act, while in the midst of act four.  
As Christians we often look for a script, or mistakenly think we already have and know the script, when in reality this is an unscripted act.  We have to improvise.  With utter fidelity, we must receive the tradition that has been given us (acts 1-3), and honour the telos we are headed towards (act 5).  We must train, so that we instinctively react in the right way when faced with any given situation, to properly enact God's story in the world.


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 We are so excited to begin our new series created just for our patrons, Your Liturgical Bible.  The Scriptures are the source material for our liturgical services, either directly or indirectly.  The goal is to provide our listeners with the tools to read the Scriptures in a way that informs how we experience Liturgy, and then ultimately allows us to bring that Liturgy into our everyday life.
There is another podcast, Bible Project, that does an excellent job of describing certain pillars of biblical literacy that help us approach Scripture properly.   Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey take a look at these pillars from an Orthodox perspective, beginning with Divine and Human Literature, Unified Literature and Messianic Literature.
Check out the Paradigm series here: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/paradigm/ 


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"Your Liturgical Bible" is our new series created just for our patrons.  We will be exploring what the bible is - and what it's not.  We will discuss how we're meant to read Scripture, how it connects with Liturgy and our life, and how we can use it to enact the Kingdom.
In this second of half of our series introduction, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore the remaining pillars of biblical literacy which will help us approach Scripture properly: Communal Literature, Ancient Literature, Meditation Literature and Wisdom Literature.
Please reference the Paradigm series by the Bible Project here, to learn more about these pillars: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/paradigm/


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 We have now gone through the seven pillars of biblical literacy as outlined by the Bible Project podcast, but there is a pillar that was missed.  This forgotten pillar, or perhaps better called the Pillar of Pillars, is the bible as Liturgical Literature.  
Of course the bible precedes our Divine Liturgy, yet if the Liturgy is understood as the experience of who God is, of being with God and God with us, then we see that it is the very origin of the bible.  Liturgy is the natural home of the bible.  Liturgy is where we go when we want to understand what the bible is all about.  Liturgy is the wrapping around the whole of the Scriptures.
In this episode, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss how the bible requires full and intentional liturgical participation,  exploring a variety of fun metaphors such as Hamlet, car mechanics, Comic-Con and map-reading. 


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While the themes of the waters of life and death are intertwined in the Scriptures, in this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore the aspect of water that is life-giving and fruitful.
From the creation account, through the prophets and into the New Testament, the Scriptures are woven through with experiences of living water.  As Orthodox Christians, we enact this story in our liturgies, recalling the creational and healing purposes of water, and understanding that living water is intimately connected with those who are living according to God's purpose and totally dependent on His grace.


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