Translating the Tradition

Fr. Justin (Edward) Hewlett
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Sermons and miscellaneous musings from St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Church in Vancouver, BC, Canada - mostly by Fr. Justin Hewlett. translatingthetradition.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    The Diamond Rule: A Minecraft Story

    In today’s Gospel reading, we have a principle, a command that we all know, and we all know it super well: “Do as you would be done by.” The Golden Rule, right? And so I want to use the classic fantasy technique of defamiliarization today, and tell you a story. More specifically, a Minecraft story. You may not know this, but in addition to being a priest and a teacher, I am also a Minecraft server administrator. This came about quite a few years ago now, when Minecraft was still a fairly new thing and everybody was like, “Oh, this is kind of cool.” And I thought, well, I’ll approach the principal of my school… I teach in a school that is a virtual school, if you will. We have students all over the province of British Columbia, so they don’t really get a chance to meet with one another. So the experiment I proposed to the principal was: “How about I start a school Minecraft server? It’ll be a nice virtual playground for everybody, and everybody will have a chance to actually meet with one another in this virtual world.” For those of you who don’t know Minecraft, if you haven’t been paying attention over the last however many years, it is a game made up of blocks, and these blocks make up an entire virtual world, and everybody can come and join in and work together and play together in it. So my vision was for a community of students who would be working together and playing together and having a good time together in this little virtual world. And I was the one who was going to create the world for them. In the context of this story, without intending any disrespect, of course, to the Creator, I am God. Because I actually have creative abilities. If you know Minecraft, you know there’s survival mode and creative mode. Everybody in this world was in survival mode, except for me. I’m the creator. And so I started up the server, and it was good. The students would join in and they’d be working together and playing together, and I’d come bounding across the grass to them: “Here, have a pickax, or here, have a hoe, or here, have a shovel.” Everybody worked and played together, and in the midst of what I called Diamond Town, I built myself a nice large tower, and I put in the tower for myself a diamond throne. And it was good. Then I went away to explore various regions, and when I came back to my tower, to my diamond throne, the tower was exploded, and the diamonds were stolen. Now, all of a sudden, this idyllic world, in which I had been building a community where everybody had been working and playing together very happily, was really, irretrievably, irreparably destroyed. Because rebuilding the tower and the diamond throne was, for me, the work of a moment. It didn’t matter. I can almost snap my fingers — well, do a few clicks of the mouse — and it’s all back to normal. But what I could not repair was the relationship that had been destroyed by this act. So I rebuilt the diamond throne, but now this was looming in the background, and I went away again and was exploring different regions of the world. And then one of the students — I had a little newspaper that I had these students make, called the Almost Daily News, which was basically just blog posts — posted that someone was trying to assassinate the king. That’s me. When I came back and started to investigate, I found this. If you know Minecraft, if you die, you respawn at whatever place you last had your bed. And right over top of my bed, at the top of Diamond Tower, was a continuous fall of lava. So if I had died and respawned, I would have been stuck in an infinite, horrific, hellish, eternal loop of: “Oh, I’m back. I’m dead. Oh, I’m back. I’m dead.” Very clever, if you stop to think about it. Then something happened that I didn’t anticipate. The relationship had been damaged, but now everybody in the server was wondering who did this. I didn’t have the investigative tools that I have now, so there was no way to determine who did it. But everybody wanted to know. And anything else bad that happened in the server was automatically assumed to be the same person. So there was a witch hunt going on. “It was you!” “Oh, no, no, it was you. I saw you skulking around Diamond Tower.” It was getting out of hand. And so I finally figured, okay, I’ve got to deal with this. I did two things. First, I replaced the entire Minecraft world with a bedrock box — just as boring as you could possibly get in Minecraft, because you can’t actually interact with bedrock — with signs all around the box saying, “If you continue to bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed.” If you know your Scriptures, that’s from Galatians, the Apostle Paul. The next time they logged in, they were like, “Whoa, what’s going on? Where’s the world? This is not good. This is looking kind of boring and horrible and hellish.” And I think they got the message. But I knew I also needed to do one more thing. I needed to get everybody participating in this world to make what I called The Commitment. And here’s the tie-in to the verse. I didn’t want to actually do the verse, so: “Respect one another’s in-game persons and properties at all times.” If you’re playing on my Minecraft server, the TLA Minecraft server, at the school I work for, you can only do so if you make the commitment to respect one another’s in-game persons and property at all times. In other words: “Do as you would be done by.” As I say, this was an experiment, and this is a school, so this is all supposed to be somehow educational. I got the students to reflect on the experience. From that point on, I enforced this commitment pretty carefully and pretty rigorously. I also introduced new tools so that I could actually see what people were doing in the server. If somebody did not abide by The Commitment, and was stealing from another player or doing something like that, I would kick them out of the server. Excommunication, of a sort? And the idea was always: you’re out for now, but you need to reaffirm your commitment to The Commitment, and if you do this and you apologize, then you’re welcome back. That’s the whole point, really, of excommunication. With this in place, I was maybe just a little bit worried, because I did have to come down fairly hard on certain students, who possibly were the ones who tried to assassinate me. Towards the end of the year, I asked the students to reflect on what they had learned from all this. And what I was actually really surprised by, and probably shouldn’t have been, given my experience as an Orthodox Christian priest, was that they were very appreciative of the enforcement of the law in the server. Because, they said, it made this server, this world in which we were all interacting with one another, a safe, enjoyable place to play with one another. So we have to think for a moment about how this works with us as human beings. Because of course, we have done the same thing. We don’t really want to do what God tells us to do. In fact, we’d almost like him not to be there at times, especially when we’re doing what we’re not supposed to be doing. And so God, of course, has introduced this thing called the Law. The Law was given by God to the people of God at Mount Sinai for their good. To establish a community in which the people who participated would all be committed to this set of rules, and would understand and know how to conduct themselves and how to love one another. Here’s what the expectations are. They’re really clear. This is why the Israelites, God’s people, always understood the Law as something good. Jesus himself says that the Law is good. But of course, there are a lot of laws, right? You have the Ten Commandments, and then you have a few more and a few more, and by the final count, it comes up to, I’ve been told, 613. I haven’t counted myself, but that’s a fair number of laws to keep track of. So there’s that problem — the problem of increasing complexity. But there’s another problem, maybe even deeper and more subtle. As soon as we have the law — and any firstborn child will know this — the law is an excellent weapon to use against your younger siblings. “You can’t do that. Mom and Dad said no, you can’t do that.” And you become the enforcer. (Not speaking from experience or anything, as a firstborn child…) But that is one of the dangers of the law: we end up trying to use it against one another, when that was not the point of the law from the beginning. The point of the law from the beginning was love. To teach us how to love one another. And so, when Christ comes, he gives us a nice, simple, boiled-down, easy-to-understand version of the law: “Just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.” But the context is actually important here. Because this is Jesus giving the Beatitudes. This is the Sermon on the Plain, in Luke’s Gospel. He has just said what we heard sung so beautifully in the Beatitudes. And having given the Beatitudes, he ends, as in Matthew, with: Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets. Wait. Rejoice when people are misrepresenting me? Slandering me? Saying horrible things about me? Then he goes on to say: Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. But I say to you, love your enemies. Wait, wait. My enemies? The ones who are out to do me harm, who are out to deliberately hurt me, possibly even to kill me? This is potentially suicidal

  2. 3d ago

    Mawidge and True Love

    In honour of my son Simon’s beautiful post “The Mistake of True Love”, which references another one of my recent wedding homilies, I’m re-issuing this, perhaps my all-time favourite wedding homily, releasing it for the first time here on Substack. Mawidge. Mawidge is what bwings us togever today. So begins the homily of the impressive clergyman in that classic movie, The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride is, of course, a modern-day fairy tale. And as such, it is actually incredibly instructive for us, because the fairy tale is the distillation of the wisdom of Christianized Europe. And as we all know, the fairy tales end: “ And they got married and lived happily ever after.” The Princess Bride, however, as a modern-day fairy tale, gives us a good contrast between this often — how do I say it — bowdlerized ideal of marriage that is presented and kind of misunderstood within a religious context. The impressive clergyman continues, “that bwessed awangement, that dweam wivin a dweam,” and goes on from there, but gets interrupted a number of times because of what’s happening at the gates. See, what’s happening at the gates is the contrast in this fairy tale. The impressive religious ceremony being put on by the evil Prince Humperdinck, as he forces the Princess Bride to marry him, is in the process of being disrupted by a motley crew of heroes. Westley, Princess Buttercup’s true love, is storming the gates of the castle. This provides the important contrast between what we have presented to us — this misunderstood and often far too shallow religious ideal, with all the trappings and all the beauty and even the kind of nice, happy, oversimplified fairy tale ending — and the harsh reality of marriage, which is true love. You see, again, the impressive clergyman prattles on: “and wov, true wov, will fowow them forever.” But if we look at the content of his sermon — what little we have of it, because it keeps getting interrupted, also by Prince Humperdinck, who wants the wedding to hurry up, “Skip to the end!” — the content of it is all passive. Love is this blessed arrangement, this dream within a dream. It will follow them forever. It’s all very nice and beautiful and kind of saccharine sweet, but that’s not the reality of true love. Shakespeare had it right — I think it was he who said, the course of true love never did run smooth. It’s actually a battle, a fight. You have to go through the fire swamp and all of its perils. The flame spurts, which fortunately are preceded by a popping sound, so hopefully, as those flame spurts of anger pop up in a marriage, you’ll learn to recognize them and avoid them whenever possible. Or the lightning sand, which drags you down with all the weight of expectation that each spouse lays on the other, but you eventually learn to recognize what that looks like, and so you can avoid that too. Or even the rodents of unusual size, which are just the everyday problems that somehow get magnified into huge, insurmountable obstacles by the basic process of living together and trying to actually love one another. So we need to be able to recognize these problems and struggles, and to anticipate that they will happen — this will come. This is what we, as human beings, have to go through as we struggle toward true love. Now, fortunately, even in this modern fairy tale there is a happy ending. But it does require the ultimate sacrifice. Westley is actually killed in the process, and is brought back to life by Miracle Max and his pill. But this is precisely what the husband, in particular, is enjoined to do. The husband is enjoined, as we heard in the epistle reading, to be Christ to his wife — to love her as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her. That’s your job, Max. You have to love Rosa as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her. And remember, when we’re talking about that, we can think of it in all these beautiful religious terms. But no — the Church is us, in all our messed-up-ness. And fortunately, you have help, just like Westley had help. You have the occasional giant who can carry you around, or even the occasional drunken sot who is barely able to lift his own sword. These are the people that Christ has saved and surrounded you with, and brought you into. This is the motley crew that is the Church. And this is what enables us to get past even the deadliness of death — even our own death. That’s the hard part: dying to ourselves, over and over and over again. But in Christ, as we follow his example, we are given the power to rise up, and to continue on, and, with the help of those around us, to soldier on, and to persevere, and to win the hand of the Princess Bride. The Princess Bride also has something enjoined upon her. She is called to submit to her husband — and I think the most important element that clarifies that comes right at the end — and to respect him. That’s often hard. We husbands are often not worthy of respect, or not acting in a way that is really worthy of it. And yet it’s part of the love and the trust that, as we see Princess Buttercup doing at the end of the movie, she affirms: “My Westley will always come for me.” That faith in your husband is what elevates him, what gives him the strength to carry on. So it’s this collaborative work that the two of you are engaged in that is the work of true love. True love is not simply something that follows you forever. It is something that you enact, that you fight for, that you strive for. The one thing that is perhaps missing from that amazing classic, The Princess Bride, is that you have one more absolutely indispensable and ultimately insurmountable ally in this struggle. That is God himself. He is the one who joined you two together. He is the one who has made the two of you, together, the arena within which the pair of you work out your salvation in fear and trembling, and in love and humility. And as you do so, that fairy tale ending — which so often seems so unattainable, “and they got married and lived happily ever after” — can, and will, come true: in yourselves, and ultimately in our experience as the Church in relationship to our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, with the Father and the Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

  3. Aug 24

    Spiritual Success

    We are given, in the modern world, a great many different definitions of success. We might define success as getting straight A’s in high school and university. Or we might define success as getting a really good job by the age of 25. Or we might define success as having so many YouTube followers by this point in your YouTube career. Or whatever — we have a lot of different ones. They all tend to revolve around: how much, or how many? In the Jewish world, in the ancient days, in the days of our Lord, there was a fairly different definition of success, but not completely different. And the rich young ruler here who comes to Jesus — he’s pretty much the definition, the Jewish definition, of success. He keeps the commandments faithfully. So he’s clearly pious. He clearly cares about God and about his neighbours. He’s keeping the law. And it’s also really clear that God has blessed him: he’s rich, he’s got lots of stuff. And in the Jewish understanding, if you want to see whether or not somebody has God’s favour, well, look how many sheep they have. Abraham had a lot of sheep, right? So here this young man comes to Jesus, and he’s pretty successful by the standards of his day. He comes up to Jesus and says to him, “Good teacher, what must I do to have eternal life?” So he recognizes that even in the midst of his success, even in the midst of his fairly good relationship with God and with the people around him, he’s missing something. And Jesus’ answer is really interesting. It doesn’t actually begin by answering the question. He says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God.” And then he goes on to say, well, “If you want to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments.” And so the young man says, well, there are a lot of commandments — yes, you’ve got the ten, but some scholars have broken it down to over 600 different commandments. So he asks the natural question: which ones? And Jesus goes on to list the six that have to do with his relationship with those around him — that is to say, with his relationship with his fellow man. And the young man says, “Well, I’ve kept all these from my youth — I’m still missing something, what am I missing?” And so Jesus tells him exactly what he’s missing: “If you want to be perfect, go sell everything that you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me.” So this is a really interesting criterion for what would be, of course, ultimate success within the Jewish or Christian understanding. Sell everything that you have. (Now, admittedly, this is for this particular guy — it’s not necessarily telling all of us to sell everything that we have. Hope not.) But then — and this is the clincher — come and follow me. The young man went away sorrowful, because he has a lot of stuff. And it says in one of the Gospel accounts of this that Jesus looked at him and he loved him. And he certainly sounds kind of sad as the young man is going away. He turns to his disciples and says, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And when his disciples heard it, they were — well, it says greatly astonished — but I think they were deeply disturbed. This guy’s the definition of success. He’s kept the law. He’s got money, he’s been blessed by God. Who then can be saved? If it’s hard for this guy, it’s got to be even harder for us. And Jesus simply looks at them and says, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” I want to go on to the second gospel reading in just a minute, but let’s stop for a minute and unpack a couple of things here. First of all, as I said, when the young man asks which commandments, Jesus tells him the six that have to do with our relationship with human beings, with those around us — six of the ten. The other four are about God: you shall have no other god before me, you shall not worship a graven image, and so on… remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. But the six he lists here are: you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honour your father and your mother. And, interestingly, the Ten Commandments’ last one — you shall not covet — he sums up as, “you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” I only just noticed that this morning, and it struck me: that’s an interesting gloss. What is he doing here? What does it mean to covet? Maybe for this young man, who has lots of stuff, coveting isn’t really a problem in his mind — because he’s got everything that he wants, everything that he needs, well, except eternal life. And so Jesus translates it for him, and for us: love your neighbour as yourself. Because when you think about it, coveting is really looking at our neighbour and saying, “Oh, they have that — I want that. Why don’t I have that? It’s really not fair, and I kind of wish they didn’t have that, so I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable not having it.” What is that? It’s a lack of love for your neighbour. If you actually loved your neighbour and saw that he has something good, you’d say, “Wow, that’s great, that’s awesome, I’m so glad you have that cool car,” or whatever. So Jesus is, as always, talking very clearly and specifically to the person in front of him. He knows this young man; he knows exactly what he needs. That’s also why, at the very beginning, he asks, “Why do you call me good? There’s no one good except God.” Because he wants to get him thinking. If Jesus really is good — if he’s really coming to him for this authoritative pronouncement on what he needs to inherit eternal life, and if he has seen Jesus as he must have by this point, and heard about all that Jesus has done — maybe he actually has some insight, maybe he can actually think about who Jesus is. He’s just called him good. What does he really mean by that? And so when Jesus tells him at the end of this discussion, “Sell everything that you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me,” what he’s asking for is the recognition, the acknowledgement, the understanding of who Jesus really is — what allegiance he should really give to Jesus. All right, the second Gospel reading. This one is given to us because today is the leave-taking of the Great Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos. And Jesus is entering into the house of Mary and Martha. Now, this is, of course, not Mary his mother — it’s Mary of Bethany. But we like puns in the church, and we like these fairly clear parallels — if you remember, we’ll get to this… So he goes to the house of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, whom he later raises from the dead, and they welcome him into their home. Martha gets busy — she’s bustling around, making sure everything’s clean and tidy, or maybe it’s clean and tidy already, but needs a little more, adjusting the vase, making sure the flowers in it are fresh, and making sure all the food they’re going to eat is prepared and really good. And as she’s doing this, she’s getting more and more annoyed, because every time she thinks, “Wow, there’s so much to do,” she looks over at her sister Mary, and Mary’s just sitting there, at Jesus’ feet, listening to him talk. It’s like, “I would like to do that too — I’d really like to just sit at Jesus’ feet and listen, but I have all these things I need to do, and you’re not helping me with any of them.” Finally this frustration boils over, and she comes to Jesus and says, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to come and help me.” Jesus answers her and says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about a great many things, but really only one thing is needed — and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” What part? Well, she’s sitting at the feet of him who is the Word of God, listening to the words coming out of his mouth. She’s chosen, maybe a little more directly than Martha, to follow Jesus. That being said, I think we can give Martha some credit here. What is she doing? She’s trying to serve God, and none of that is wrong. Jesus doesn’t say to her, “That’s the wrong part, you’ve chosen the wrong part.” He says Mary has chosen the better part. What Martha has chosen, therefore, is something good — but her response to that choice, how she’s making it, how she’s engaging with it, is undermining the choice. Because instead of doing what she’s doing simply out of love for Jesus, she’s now doing it while also looking over at somebody else and coveting what they have: “I want that peace. I want that opportunity to relax. I would like that.” And then it boils over into anger and frustration with this other person. And that’s us. We’re so obsessed with the other person, with the other person’s success, with what the other person has that we don’t have. Or we’re so obsessed with what we do have, and just want to hold on to it — that’s really all we want: “Okay, I’ve got some good stuff here, I need to hold on to this stuff.” And so what happens to us is we get caught up in these various definitions of success that actually have nothing to do with real, ultimate, eternal success. “I’m putting all this time and energy and effort into this presentation, or into this meal, or into this supra, or whatever it is that we’re doing, and I want it to be successful and good and wonderful.” Or, “I’m putting all this time and effort and energy into my career, making sure I’m advancing,” or into my studies, or whatever it is. None of these things are bad. The problem is they can become a distraction for us — a distraction from the one thing that

  4. Aug 24

    It’s Not about the Theology

    I want to do things a little differently today. Instead of a three-point sermon, I have three mini-sermons. They’re not exactly connected to each other, except by the day. But I want to preface my remarks by saying that I hope they are all genuinely practical — because one of the things that has struck me after almost 30 years of being Orthodox is that it’s really not about the theology. Now don’t get me wrong, theology is wonderful and important. If you’ve been attracted to the Orthodox Church because of the riches and depths of Orthodox theology, glory to God, that’s wonderful. But even for those of us who have fallen in love with Orthodox theology, the whole point of the Church’s teaching about who God is is so that we can work out our salvation in fear and trembling. It was one of the more disturbing realizations I had about ten years in, when I realized — I had converted to Orthodoxy because I wanted to be right — after all, this is the one true Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church — and that’s not a horrible reason for converting… But about ten years in, as we were reading and studying the sayings of the Desert Fathers, it suddenly struck me, powerfully: this is about me. It’s about me having to allow God to change me. And I really don’t want him to change me. I’m happy to repent of my sins to get rid of my guilt, but I don’t actually want to change. But that’s the whole point. The whole point of Jesus’ teachings is so that we can change and grow into the people God made us to be in the beginning. And we see that all through his ministry. So I want to start with the Gospel reading we heard for the Icon Made Without Hands. I’m not going to talk about that particular icon — if you want to look up the story, go look it up, it’s pretty cool. But the reading itself has Jesus and his disciples going down to Jerusalem. It begins by saying that Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” — which he would have had to do: he knows what is awaiting him there, and he knows that this was his ultimate destiny — this is what he has to accomplish, but it’s going to be pretty hard. So he has set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, and he’s going in the most direct way possible: straight through Samaria. I won’t belabor the point about the relationship between Jews and Samaritans, other than to remind you that one of the key contentions between them was, where do you worship? The Samaritans had built a nice temple on Mount Gerazim, but of course, the Jewish tradition was that you had to worship in the temple at Jerusalem. And so when the Samaritans saw Jesus and his disciples with their face clearly set to go to Jerusalem — this was obviously their destination: they’re going to Jerusalem to worship — they wouldn’t let them in. They showed them no hospitality. They essentially (whether literally or figuratively) slammed their doors in the disciples’ faces. The disciples were distraught. Even given the horrible relationship between Jews and Samaritans, one of the things that is absolutely sacrosanct across the ancient world is the duty to show hospitality to strangers. It was a sacred obligation. They didn’t have hotels — well, they had a few, but it wasn’t quite the same: if someone is traveling and needs a place to stay, it’s your job is to look after them, not to slam your door in their face. So the disciples are furious. James and John come to Jesus and say, “Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” Now, Elijah did do this. When soldiers were sent to arrest him, he called down fire from heaven which consumed them. He was just one unarmed man — when you send a whole host of soldiers to fetch someone, you expect them to come back with their prisoner. But Elijah simply prayed, and fire fell down from heaven and consumed those who were sent to arrest him. This actually happened twice, because the king kept sending more soldiers. The third time, the officer sent fell down before Elijah and begged him not to call down fire, and Elijah was merciful. So this is something that God does, apparently, in certain circumstances. And so the disciples felt it would be entirely appropriate for God to do the same here — to send down fire from heaven and consume those villages that had so rudely rebuffed the one they loved. Because, of course, it wasn’t just about them: the Samaritans had been horribly rude to the Christ, the Messiah. But Jesus turns to them and rebukes them: “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” And they went to another village. I love that last line. They just went to another village. Simple solution. And I think one of the things we can take away from this — particularly as Orthodox Christians, people who have found the one true Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church — is that there is a temptation to be a little triumphalistic, or to be very eager to guard the honor of the tradition we have inherited and come to love. And when people aren’t honoring that tradition, this can become our natural response: I’d like God to send down fire from heaven, and maybe not consume them, but at least show them that I’m right. But in that response, we show that we do not know what manner of spirit we are of. Because the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And one thing especially important for those of us who are converts to Orthodoxy to remember is that we were wrong too, once. That’s why we’re here. If we don’t extend the same grace to those we’re talking with — or who are maybe trash-talking the Orthodox Church within our hearing — the same grace that God extended to us, then what manner of spirit are we of? The second thing I want to say is something you have heard me say over and over again, and I’m going to say it again, because it is so deeply important for us as we work out our salvation in fear and trembling. It’s the other Gospel reading we heard today, from Matthew. You know the story. A king decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he was going over the books, he found someone who owed him 10,000 talents — a debt on the level of a nation-state. The king calls him in and commands that he be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all that he has, so that some payment can be made. He’s not going to recover 10,000 talents from that, but at least he’ll recoup some of the losses. And the servant is obviously deserving of some punishment — I don’t know how he racked up a debt of 10,000 talents, but probably not by doing the right thing. The servant falls down before him and says, “Master, have patience with me and I will pay you everything.” Which is, of course, ridiculous — there is simply no way he’s ever going to repay 10,000 talents. But the master is moved with compassion and releases him, forgiving him the entire debt. So the servant goes out the door, thinking this is wonderful, he’s off the hook — and immediately spots a fellow servant who owes him money. Not an insignificant sum, but something like a third of a year’s wages. He goes up to this man, grabs him by the throat, and says, “Pay me what you owe.” The fellow servant falls down before him and says, “Have patience with me and I’ll get you the money.” And the servant who has just been forgiven 10,000 talents will have none of it and has the man thrown into prison. The other servants see what has happened, and they go to the master and tell him everything. The master is unsurprisingly unhappy, and says, “You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?” And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due. “So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” I don’t know how much more solemn a warning we could receive from the mouth of the most compassionate man who ever lived. But if we do not learn to forgive, we will find ourselves in a hell of our own creation. There is a root of bitterness that grows in us as we refuse to forgive that will consume and destroy us, and make our life a living hell. And I don’t even want to think about what might come after. Jesus is warning us that it is absolutely, fundamentally, life-savingly essential to forgive as you have been forgiven. It’s right there in the prayer he teaches his disciples: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But forgiveness is hard. What prompts this particular parable is Peter asking how many times he should forgive his brother — seven times for the same offense? And Jesus says no. Seventy times seven. And, just in case Peter is thinking that’s 490 which is a lot but it is a limit, Jesus tells him the parable. This is a parable I keep returning to because it is our greatest tool as we are learning to forgive, as we are struggling with forgiveness. Because forgiveness is generally not just an “oh yeah, I forgive you, it’s fine.” Maybe if someone steps on your toe, you’ll forget about it the next day. But if someone has done something life-altering to you, and you’re still living with the consequences, or perhaps you’re suffering repeated wrongs day after day — this is hard work. How do we do it? The answer is this: remember what you have been forgiven. Have a correct understanding of just how much you have been forgiven. Because we don’t know the life circumstances of the people who are hurting us, or that we’re struggling to forgive. We’re not God. We don’t know them. But we do know our own life circumstances. We know all the grace that God has poured out on us day in and da

  5. Aug 24

    The Death-to-Self of the Theotokos

    So we’re all gathered here for the great feast of the Dormition, which of course commemorates the falling asleep of the Mother of God. And I want to begin by looking today at the epistle reading that we just heard. The epistle reading is, of course, about Jesus. Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant [or slave], and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as man, he humbled himself, and become obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God also has highly exalted him, and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven and those on earth, and of those under the earth, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. It’s a beautiful and powerful expression of our Lord’s divine glory and his humility in which he set aside that glory. So what does it have to do with Theotokos? With Mary? Well, I think the clue is in the first verse of the pericope. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” You see, we’re called Christians. This is what we profess to be. We are first called Christians at Antioch. When they’re like, “Oh, these guys, they’re like little Christs.” Which, of course, is what “Christian” means. And Mary was the first Christian. She was the first one to trust in Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah, and to look to him for her salvation, and for the salvation of all her people. And so, while this passage is, of course, about Jesus, it’s supposed to be about all of us. And, after all, if you think about it, most of us tend to think fairly highly of ourselves: you know, we’re not bad people. We’re actually, you know, pretty good. People should really recognize that. And, you know, honour that and treat me nicely and maybe even celebrate me a bit, right? This is, in our, in our pride, in our natural self-centredness, this is how we tend to think. Of course, as soon as we have this mindset, and then put it up against the mindset that Paul has just described here, we realize how stupid it is. It’s like, well, I’m not exactly the creator of the world or anything like that. And even my best writing is really kind of pathetic when you look at it. Jesus, of course, had every reason to expect honour, to expect to be acknowledged. He was, of course, in the form of God. It would not have been robbery for him to consider himself equal with God, with the Creator of the universe, because he was the Word by which the universe was spoken into existence. But, instead, what did he do? He made himself of no reputation, taking on himself the form of a bondservant, taking on himself the likeness of men, and as he was found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the shameful, horrific, tortuous death of the cross. And it is for this reason—therefore, God has highly exalted him, and given him the name which is above every name, that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. And the thing is, Paul is not just talking about Jesus. He’s talking about us. Not merely in the sense of, well, this mindset, this humility that Christ displayed to us is something that we should do, but also that this glory is something that we can look forward to. And that is, of course, exactly what Mary, the first Christian, experienced. In the Matins Gospel reading, which we didn’t read yet—I’ll read a bit of it for you here today—Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, who’s pregnant with John the Baptist. And she’s six months pregnant, and, as Mary enters the house, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. And she speaks out with a loud voice and says, Blessed are you among women. And blessed is the fruit of your womb. But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord. And Mary responds, My soul magnifies the Lord. And my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Saviour, for he has regarded the low state of his handmaiden, and behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. A splendid scene. And one that only two people saw. One thing to keep in mind here, as we think about these words that Mary is saying, that Elizabeth is saying, blessed are you among women, blessed are the fruit of your womb, there will be a fulfillment of everything that was promised because of your belief, and Mary’s amazing magnification of the Lord, rejoicing in the Lord, for regarding her own lowly estate, and rejoicing in the realization that all generations would call her blessed—that hasn’t happened yet. None of that’s happened yet. In fact, the one thing that has happened at this point is Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, has been thinking about divorcing her, putting her away quietly, because he’s an honourable man. But, you know, she’s a young teenage girl, and she was supposedly so holy, and now she’s pregnant. What’s that about? And this is the actual on-the-ground context for this amazing magnification of God, this amazing hymn of rejoicing, and how God is exalting her and working through her. I think that we can learn a thing or two from this. We’re very often—especially in this age of social media—quite concerned about how people view us and think about us, and think about our ideas, and, you know, we want to make sure that there’s no misunderstanding. I must post a response to this Facebook post (or possibly a Substack post), because somebody said this about me, and that’s not quite true. I have to tweak that, and we have to defend ourselves. Or even just in our regular non-online interactions: it hurts when people misunderstand us. When they assume bad things about us. When our reputation is at stake. And yet, this is exactly what the world did with both Mary and Jesus. They misunderstood. They misjudged. And what’s the response? “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” How does she manage it? How does she do it? And I think the answer is actually really, really simple. She’s not thinking about herself. Just as Jesus wasn’t thinking about himself. She was thinking about God, thinking about what God would inevitably, by his promise, do through her. What he would accomplish in her, by his grace, poured out upon her, and not only upon her, but upon the whole world, that would benefit from her simple act of saying yes. And the amazing thing is, of course, that it does all come to pass. Even if it isn’t already here yet, it is coming: the ultimate exaltation of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, every knee bowing before him, every tongue confessing, that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father—this is coming. This is the work that God is working here and now, in the world, in us, through us. As we have that mind, which was in Christ Jesus, our Lord. As we have that mind, which was in Mary, who became, by her simple yes, the Theotokos, the God-bearer, the Mother of God. And this is our calling too. Both the cross—the misunderstanding—and the glory, as we embrace what God is doing, as we rejoice in the grace of God, so we, too, can be what we are called to be, God-bearers in this world, that in us and through us, as Christ is exalted, so we too participate in His glory, to the glory of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Scripture readings referenced: * Philippians 2:5-11 * Luke 1:39-49, 56 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

  6. Aug 7

    The Encouragement of the Transfiguration

    When I think of the great feast of the Transfiguration, I always think about encouragement. This feast above all — well, I guess Pascha is the most encouraging; Pascha is off the charts — but this feast really seems to be focused on encouragement. You hear it even in the hymnography: one of the reasons Christ went up on Mount Tabor at this point was to encourage his disciples, so that as they knew what was going to happen to him, they would also know who he really was. This incident is recorded in all three of the Synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — and interestingly, in all three it occurs in roughly the same context. The Gospels rearrange things sometimes, especially Luke, but here we have three things occurring one after the other in all three accounts. The first is Jesus asking his disciples who he is. He says, “Who do people say that I am?” They answer: “Some say Moses, some say Elijah, some say one of the prophets.” But then he turns to them and asks, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus responds, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Peter then messes up a little, because the very next thing Jesus does is tell his disciples what is going to happen to him. They’ve just confessed him as the Messiah — they have a whole set of preconceptions about what the Messiah will do, what he’ll be like, what will happen when he comes — and Jesus blows all of that up with what he says next. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, crucified, and die. And Peter says, “No, no, we have to make sure this doesn’t happen to you, Lord.” And Jesus turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan.” He goes on to say that unless someone takes up their cross and follows him, they cannot be his disciple. Given that this is the context in all three Gospels for what happens next, you can see why the disciples might have needed some encouragement at this point. It’s like: okay, great, the Messiah is here — and he’s going to die, and nothing we were expecting is going to come to pass, and now he’s telling us we have to do the very same thing, take up our cross and follow him to our deaths. This doesn’t sound like much fun. So it’s at this point that Jesus goes on a hike with his disciples up Mount Tabor. I just had the pleasure of going on a hike with some of my family. One of the things about hiking is that it’s great, especially when you get to the top — you look out and the whole world is spread out before you. But the hike itself is often tough, especially up a mountain, especially if you’re getting older like I am. My legs start feeling like rubber; I’m not sure I can actually make it all the way. The disciples were far more used to walking than we are, but this must have been, to some extent, their experience too as they hiked up Mount Tabor with Jesus. When they get up there, they’re tired, and they drift off. When they look up, they see Moses and Elijah standing with Jesus, and Jesus’ garments are — I think it’s Mark who says — whiter than any laundry soap could make them. Just absolutely brilliantly white. He is transfigured before them, transformed. And what are they talking about? The disciples overhear some of the conversation, and Moses and Elijah are talking with Jesus about the things that are going to happen to him. So even here, it’s in the context of what is to come. Then Peter, again not quite sure what to say, says, “Lord, it’s good for us to be here. We should build three tabernacles — one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” And he has some justification for this. Moses is a pretty important person. He leads the children of God out of captivity, leads them to Mount Sinai where they encounter God as he delivers the law through Moses to his people. On that mountain, it’s all darkness — they look up and see no form of anything, just darkness. In fact they’re so scared that when they hear the voice of God, they tell Moses, “You go up — you’re the one who needs to talk to God face to face, because if we hear him, we’ll die.” So Moses goes up into the mountain and talks with God face to face, as a man talks with a friend, and receives the law from him. While he’s up there, he asks to see the glory of God. And God says, “Sure, we can do that — but this might be dangerous for you, so I’m going to hide you in a cleft of the rock, and I’ll pass by in front of you. You’ll just see my back, but you’ll get to see my glory as far as you can bear it.” And he does this, covering Moses with his hand as he passes by, and he proclaims his name: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.” He proclaims to Moses who he is. And Moses makes haste, bows his head to the earth, and worships. And of course Elijah was pretty important too — one of the first really great prophets, who does all these amazing miracles. He too meets God on the mountain. When he does so, it’s a little less glorious in its circumstances; he’s on the run from the king and queen who are trying to kill him. But God strengthens him and brings him to the mountain. There he hears a great wind — but the Lord is not in the wind. There’s a great fire — but the Lord is not in the fire. There’s a great earthquake — but the Lord is not in the earthquake. The Lord is in the still, small voice. And then Elijah goes and anoints kings and essentially rearranges the geopolitical landscape of his day. So yes, Moses and Elijah are really, really important — it kinda makes sense that there should be three tabernacles, one for each. But at that point a great cloud overshadows them. The Fathers describe it as a cloud of light, not of darkness. And a voice comes out of the cloud: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear him.” They fall on their faces, and when they get up, Moses and Elijah are gone. All they see is Jesus. This is the encouragement given to Peter and James and John, to prepare them for what is to come. This is the encouragement given to us, to prepare us for what is to come. This is the revelation of the new order that God himself is establishing in Christ — something that transcends the Mosaic Law, something that transcends even the greatness of the greatest of the prophets, something that reveals to us the very name and nature of God himself. God made flesh. God made one of us. Revealed to his disciples, revealed to us, in his glory — as far as we can bear it. This is why the fathers were so captivated by this incident and loved this feast. Because this is the revelation of who we are destined in Christ to become. This glory that Christ has, which he shares with us. The glory he had from the beginning of the world, which he sets aside in order to become one of us and subject himself to death, even the death of the cross — and which is renewed in him. As one of the Desert Fathers says, holding up his hands: “If you will, you can become all flame.” The glory of those who are created in the image of God, as that image is renewed in us, as we are in Christ. That is our destiny. That is what we are called to: to become all flame, to be consumed by the glory of God, to be partakers of the divine nature, in Christ. But it’s hard to get there, which is why we need the encouragement. Peter, even after speaking about our becoming partakers of the divine nature, goes on to exhort his readers — reminiscing on this event precisely in order to encourage them. In his second epistle he writes: We have these great and precious promises, that through them we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. For this very reason, give all diligence to adding to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and you abound in them, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent — make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble. For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you will do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. This is our calling. We need to persevere. We need to set aside all those desires that so easily distract us. We need to make our calling and election sure. And it means taking up our cross and following Christ — giving up our reputation, giving up anything that gets in the way, giving up all sorts of things we really want. But it’s worth it. Because what we are called to is to share in the glory of God, to be a part of that glory, to be partakers of the divine nature, to be defined entirely by light and by love — that we might be truly to his glory, the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Scripture readings referenced: * Exodus 33:11-23; 34:4-6

  7. Jul 27

    The Foundation

    More than 20 years ago now, in the summer of 2005, a young priest who was kind of wet behind the ears, fresh out of seminary, worked with his mentor to determine that they should probably have a new mission in the major city in the area. And so the beginning of that new mission was to establish who would be actually willing to go out on a limb, leave the comfort of the large mother church, and go and help to start this new mission in the city. And so, in order to determine that, in order to begin fostering community, the young priest decided to have a Bible study. And in that Bible study, he chose as the very first passage that this group was going to consider, 1 Corinthians, which we just heard in the Epistle reading. That young priest was, of course, me and my mentor was (and is) Fr. Lawrence. And the little community that we were beginning to establish there in the summer of 2005 was, of course, St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Mission, although I didn’t know at the time it was going to be called that. I thought it was going to be called St. John the Theologian Mission, which it was originally blessed as. But that's another story for another time. I chose this passage for a couple of reasons. One, I actually knew 1 Corinthians reasonably well. I'd done a fairly thorough study of it. I really like 1 Corinthians. It’s a great epistle. And it is particularly helpful, I think, for a new church because it is St. Paul's letter to a church that's getting a whole bunch of things wrong. Not everything wrong, but a whole bunch of things wrong. And I particularly was drawn to 1 Corinthians for this very passage which we heard read just now. Paul is writing to the Corinthians and he says to them, I plead with you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you. But that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, that by those of Chloe’s household, [everybody knows, of course, who Chloe is in Corinth] that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephus, or I am of Christ. And here, of course, one of the things in the back of my mind is the very, very last thing I wanted for a new mission in Vancouver was for anybody to say, “Well, I am of Father Justin.” And then to have other people say, “Well, I am of Father Lawrence.” But I think even as it was relevant back then, it’s even more relevant today. Because there are any number of things in our society that are trying to pull us apart, actively trying to set us against one another. And most of those in our society are taking the form of various labels. Now, labels are convenient. I’m not slagging labels or saying we should pretend they don’t exist or never use labels, but I think they can, as we adopt them and apply them to one another, they can be extremely harmful. So I would really hate to see here in St. John’s a group of people who are labeling themselves either Woke or Conservative, or Left, or Right, or Traditionalist, or Renovationist, or whatever label you want. These are labels that are out there. They’re convenient catch-alls, or it’s like, oh, this set of beliefs, or this set of ideas, or whatever else. But labels are even worse, I think, than people. I mean, at least if you’re saying, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Father Lawrence,” or “I am of Father Justin,” at least there you have the complex reality of a whole person and all of the nuances of the beliefs and idiosyncrasies and all of that that flows into a person that you’re attaching yourself to. With labels, I mean, it’s just a collection of ideas. It has no concrete reality in and of itself. And the basic problem with this, besides the fact of us attaching ourselves to ideas which may or may not be Orthodox or may or may not, more importantly, be the Truth—the basic problem with this is that we are all this radically complex collection of not only ideas, but of practices, of habits, of whatever it is that each one of us created in the image of God is. And even with all that amazing complexity of the human individual, Paul says, that’s not enough. I don't want any of you saying, I am of Paul. I don't even want any of you saying, I am of Christ. He goes on to say, Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God, he says [He’s so distressed by this, so distressed by this division within the church that he actually says] I thank God that I baptized none of you. Oh, except Crispus and Gaius, lest anybody should say that I had baptized in my own name. Oh yeah, and I also baptized the household of Stephanas. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel, not with the wisdom of words lest the cross of Christ be made of no effect. Paul goes on from this to say just a little later here in his epistle to the Corinthians, that “no one can lay any foundation other than that which has already been laid.” And what is the foundation? Jesus Christ. It is Christ that unites us. It is Christ who is our foundation. It is the Gospel, the teachings of Jesus Christ, as lived out by Jesus Christ, as lived out by the apostles, as lived out by holy men and women down through the centuries, that is the foundation of our essential collective reality, that is that which unites us to one another despite all of the petty disagreements that we have, despite all the, “Well, I think this, but you think that.” That’s okay. That’s fine. We can talk about that as long as we talk about it in love. “Speaking the truth in love,” Paul says, “we will in all things grow up into him who is our head.” So yeah, you’ve got to talk these things out. Sure. But that’s what children are doing. And we’re just children. We need to grow up. And we need, moreover, to grow up together into Him who is our head. That is Jesus Christ. He is not only the foundation, He is the head of the body, which is the Church. He is the one that we follow. And it’s His teachings that we try to embody in the Gospel, in the Cross. Now Paul goes on to say, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer [the debater, the YouTube influencer] of the age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign. And the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men. And the weakness of God is stronger than men. This thing that we’re involved in, this thing that we have united ourselves to, or just begun to unite ourselves to, it’s bigger than any one of us. It is a way of life that just in terms of the wisdom of the world doesn't make sense. Love your enemies? Do good to those who hate you? Pray for those who persecute you? Love those who despitefully use you? What does that mean? How can you do that? That doesn't make any sense. If you love your enemy, he might kill you. And then what? But of course, the cross changes all of that. Of course he might kill us. So what? We’re gonna die. All of us are gonna die. Mortality rate is 100%. The question is not, are you gonna die? The question is, how are you going to die? For whom are you going to die? With whom are you going to die? (Now, of course, I’m thinking of The Lord of the Rings. This is a good day to die. With all of you by my side.) Because we are in this struggle together. We are in this fight together. And if we can die with and in Christ, laying down our lives for the other, embodying that love for enemy, which is the core of the gospel, which was lived out by Christ right on the cross, then death has no power over us. The world and sin have no dominion over us. We are free in Christ. How can we not embrace that over and above anything else? So this is the foundation, I hope, of our community because no other foundation can be laid. And there is neither Fr. Justin nor Fr. Lawrence nor Deacon Evan nor Reader Maximus nor Matushka Sarah. We are all one in Christ. He is making us one. Not that we have already attained. We’re not there yet, as we also heard Paul himself say in the other epistle reading that we heard today. We’re not there yet. And we have to acknowledge that. That is also part of the foundation here. We’re being grafted in. We’re growing up as we speak the truth in love with one another. We are working to attain this unity. And it is a work, but it is the only real and only worthwhile work worth dying for and living for: that we might be one in Christ to his glory, the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages. Amen. Scripture readings referenced: * I Corinthians 1:10-25 * Philippians 3:7-14 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com

  8. Jul 6

    Spiritual Warfare

    Today, as we got to induct a new catechumen, I got to say one of my favorite lines — addressed to Satan — saying: “Call to mind him who commanded you to enter into the herd of swine,” and “your power, which has not power even over swine.” And we got to hear the Gospel reading that talks about exactly that. This passage comes up fairly frequently in the Sunday readings, and I wonder if it’s because the early Church had a fair number of catechumens being inducted, so either the reference or the Gospel would have been particularly relevant to them — maybe more obviously so in those early days than it is to us. We tend not to think terribly much about the spiritual world and its existence and its impact on us. In those earlier days it seems to have been a little more “in your face”, because Jesus encountered a great many people who were oppressed, tormented, or even possessed by demons — and he delivered them all. As we heard in the other Gospel reading too: all who came to him with sickness or who were tormented by unclean spirits were healed. I want to talk today about that healing which is available to us through Christ — that power over the unseen world that is ours in him. But I’ll also add a small footnote from one of my mentors, C.S. Lewis. If you haven’t read The Screwtape Letters — which are obviously not real, but actually very real correspondence between a senior tempter and a junior one on how best to tempt human beings — you should read it. One of my favorite parts is where the demons are lamenting the fact that they have to go hidden for now; it’s their new strategy, so that people won’t clue into the spiritual struggle going on that they are involved in. They don’t like flying under the radar, but that’s what they have to do now. So I want us to look at the second Gospel reading we heard, the one from Luke, which also references unclean spirits, in light of the first. This is where Luke talks about Jesus coming down to a level place — if you feel like harmonizing the Gospels, maybe it was a level place on a mountain; if you’re not too worried about it, as the ancients weren’t, you can assume that the exact location of this sermon doesn’t really matter. Or you could note that Jesus, as a teacher, would have said the same things in multiple places — it doesn’t really matter. He comes to a level place with his disciples and a great multitude from all Judea and Jerusalem and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, as well as those tormented by unclean spirits. And they were healed. The whole multitude sought to touch him, for power went out from him and healed them all. The first thing to note here is that Jesus has power not only over unclean spirits but over sickness — and, as we know, even over death. He has the power of life at work in him because he is the source of life, and evil cannot stand in his presence. But the next thing I want us to think about is how this works. Because we know something about evil, even if we haven’t had a scientifically verifiable encounter with the supernatural — we know about evil because it’s right here in our own hearts. And so we need to understand what Jesus teaches us not only about evil, but about the far greater power of good. Having healed them all and cast out the unclean spirits, he lifts up his eyes toward his disciples and says: Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. I’ll pause there. Being poor, being hungry, weeping — these are not states that the people of Israel would traditionally have considered states of blessing, states in which one experiences the presence — and the outpouring of goodness that is the presence of God. And yet Jesus is very obviously addressing this misconception. We can think about it in terms of what Jesus says elsewhere about what happens when a spirit is cast out. He describes it as a house emptied of its ugly, horrible presence, swept clean. But then the evil spirit comes back, finds the house empty and swept, and invites seven others like himself to come and inhabit the house — inhabit the person with him. And the last state of that person is worse than the first. So even as Christ manifests his power over evil, he wants to protect his disciples from the sources of that evil. And part of the source of that evil is this misconception: if you’re poor, if you’re hungry, if you’re weeping, if people don’t like you — obviously you’re not blessed of God, obviously God’s presence is not with you. And Jesus says no. You who are poor now are blessed, for yours is the kingdom of God. You who are hungry now are blessed, for you will be filled. You who weep now are blessed, for you will laugh. And you who are hated by men when they exclude you and revile you and cast out your name as evil for the Son of Man’s sake — you are also blessed. You should be rejoicing and leaping for joy in that day, for your reward is great in heaven; for in like manner their fathers treated the prophets. We cannot judge the presence of God, or even the blessing of God, by our physical circumstances or even by our feeling of his presence or absence. Our theology needs to go deeper than that. Christ is teaching us to understand the goodness and power and love of God — that he is at work even in these unfavorable circumstances. And one thing this does in terms of spiritual warfare is it fortifies us against the weapons of the enemy: fear and despair. Fear and despair can easily overwhelm us, so that we feel that it’s all over, it’s all a lie, and that puts us into a state where we are vulnerable to temptation, and more than that, into a state where we actively pursue things in a way that is evil. If we are afraid of poverty, what does that tend to look like? Greed. Avarice. Acquisitiveness. We need more, and just a little more, and if I have a little more I’ll be safe. If we’re afraid of hunger: gluttony — I’ve finally got a chance to eat, I better eat as much as I can right now. Or fear of mourning and sadness — there are all sorts of responses here: think of things like PTSD, or our tendency to entertain ourselves to death, just filling ourselves with laughter. And the fear of man: if you’ve ever seen a people-pleaser, that’s the ultimate back-and-forth — like that fable of the man and the boy and the donkey, where everyone keeps complaining about who’s riding and who isn’t and who is carrying what, until in trying to please everyone they end up with the donkey falling off a bridge. Trying to please people is also an opening for the enemy. But if we do not fear these states — if we understand that even in poverty, hunger, weeping, we are blessed by God; if we know that God will not leave or abandon us in these states but will bless us and fill us and give us what we need: our daily bread — then we are freed from that fear, freed from that despair, freed from the clutches of the enemy. And that’s precisely what Jesus did with the demon-possessed men. He simply manifests his power. The demons, even as he’s approaching, are afraid of him: “It’s not time yet! Don’t cast us into the abyss — there are pigs over there, send us to the pigs.” He says one word: “Go.” They go into the pigs, and the pigs are sensible enough to run down the slope and drown themselves. Probably not what we should do, but I guess pigs can. And so the demons end up with no place to be anyhow. This does mean that a whole crowd of people come, and they’re really annoyed with Jesus, and those people rather fulfill what he goes on to say next. We didn’t read this part, but it’s relevant, so I’ll read it now. After all these blessings, Jesus also pronounces a number of woes: Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. If we think about this in terms of the other Gospel reading — what were these people thinking, these folks who were really annoyed that all their pigs were now floating dead in the lake? Their conclusion was to ask Jesus to leave: “Get out of here, we don’t want you, this is too expensive.” These are precisely the people against whom these woes are pronounced. They had lots of stuff — before the pigs went into the lake, anyway — they were full and didn’t need anything, they certainly didn’t need Jesus around. And they were rejoicing; now they’re mourning over the loss of their pigs. That’s the fulfillment, or partial fulfillment, of these woes. And Jesus simply complies, because it’s not his job at this point to dispense judgment. He has come to reveal the blessing and the grace of God. So what does he tell us to do? How do we actually live out this reality of blessing, this understanding that God is providing for us and will continue to provide for us, that he will look after us as his children, and be with us as his children, through thick and thin? If we have this realization, he says: I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do also to them likewise. If we are living in this state of blessing, if we are living in anticipation of the goodness of God, if we are living in the knowledge that no matter what happens God is with us and we are blessed by his p

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About

Sermons and miscellaneous musings from St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Church in Vancouver, BC, Canada - mostly by Fr. Justin Hewlett. translatingthetradition.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Fr. Justin (Edward) Hewlett
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    96
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Fr. Justin (Edward) Hewlett
  • Show Website
    Translating the Tradition