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. FEB 2

    Waiting

    We spend a lot of our lives waiting. And it can be really tough. We’re waiting for justice. We’re waiting for, I don’t know, an appointment at ICBC or something like that. We’re waiting for the fruition of some sort of hope. And what we see in the Gospel reading today is, well, a lot of waiting. It begins, of course, with Mary and Joseph. Mary has been waiting 40 days. She’s had a firstborn son under the Levitical law with its categories of clean and unclean. She was unclean for a time, with these categories understood as being connected to moments of, well, lack of bodily integrity, shall we say, but also also connected to the significance of some of those moments. And in this case, it’s a fairly significant moment. She’s just given birth to her firstborn son, and having given birth to a son, she now waits 40 days, which is the time of her purification. Interestingly, in the Levitical law, the period of purification after giving birth to a girl was 80 days, while we, as Orthodox Christians, retain the custom of giving the woman 40 days off from church when she has a baby, whether it be a boy or a girl. I suspect that’s because the Levitical law, with its categories of clean and unclean, has been superseded in Christ. We no longer worry about those categories, although occasionally they do show up in the prayers for those who, in some of the many other cultures that Orthodoxy engaged with, have an understanding of clean and unclean which the church does accommodate, according to the Apostle Paul’s instructions on following the dictates of one’s conscience. In Christ, we no longer call things clean or unclean, but we do tend—and this is part of where I’m going with this—we do tend in the church to reenact, in every context possible, that which the Church as a whole has gone through. And so, given that Mary waited 40 days and then came into the temple, when the days of her purification were complete, to present a sacrifice—to do what the law required: the redemption of the firstborn. They were obviously poor, that’s why the sacrifice was two turtle doves or two young pigeons. So, as Orthodox Christians, with women who have children, have had a baby, boy or girl, we give them 40 days off, not simply to relax and bond with the child, although that is the natural thing, but also to participate in this mystery that we are all participating in, which is our union with Christ: our union with Christ in all of the history of salvation that he enacted. So Mary’s been waiting 40 days, but of course she’s been waiting longer than this. She’s been waiting nine months, because that’s when she received the Annunciation. And of course, again, if you look at our church calendar and do the math, Annunciation, which is coming up on March 25th, falls nine months before Christmas. And so here she is. She’s coming into the temple. She’s waited nine months, and now she’s waited another 40 days, and is redeeming her firstborn child with Jesus’ adoptive father Joseph. And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him, and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And so here’s a man who has had a revelation from God, Simeon. He was just, he’s devout, and God has told him that he’s not going to die until he sees the Messiah. That’s got to be a pretty amazing revelation, particularly because he’s not the only one waiting. We’ll get to that in a minute. But he’s been waiting now for the coming of the Messiah, and here Jesus comes into the temple, and he recognizes by the Spirit of God that this child Jesus is the Messiah, is the Promised One, is the one that God has promised to his people to deliver them. And so he comes up to Joseph of Mary, takes the baby, and he blesses God and says, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your word, for mine eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.” It’s an interesting prayer, given that the main focus of the people of Israel on the coming of the Messiah was the last part, “the glory of your people Israel”; but he also says that this is “a light to enlighten the Gentiles” because of course this is what the world needs—the world needs something more than the paganism and the idolatry and the power politics and the horrors that it has endured up until this point. It needs something that will allow it to transcend its tribalism and allow it to move past the anger and the mutual assured self-destruction that has come to characterize it. And that’s precisely what the Messiah was, is. He’s not simply the glory of Israel. He is that, but he’s a light to enlighten the Gentiles, that is, the whole world. And then, of course, while Joseph and his mother, and Jesus’ mother, were marveling at these things, another person comes up to them. Anna, a prophetess. She’s a widower. After she lived with her husband seven years, her husband died, and now for 84 years she’s been in the temple. So she’s been in the temple worshiping and praying God, although we might even consider that maybe she’s not even waiting. I mean, she is in a sense. In fact, I would suggest that she’s waiting in the sense that we are all called to wait. She is waiting on the Lord. Her entire life revolves around the temple of the living God. And she’s moved from the joy of marriage into the joy of being in the presence of God for 84 years. And she comes up as well. She’s a prophetess, and she gives thanks to the Lord and speaks of him to all those who are looking for redemption in Jerusalem. But of course, as I already alluded to, Anna and Simeon and even Mary herself are not waiting alone. All of the people of God, all of the children of Israel have been waiting for years, hundreds of years, for the promised Messiah, for the one that God has promised to them. And many, as the author of the epistle to the Hebrews said, many of the holy people passed away without seeing this come to fruition, because God had, again, according to Hebrews, God had provided that they would not be made perfect without us. Because this salvation that he is preparing in Christ is not simply for the Jewish people. It’s not simply for the people of a particular time or place. It is for all time, in every place. Because this is how God transforms waiting. See, the basic problem with most of our waiting is what we’re waiting for. We’re waiting in line to see the government agent. And we know that when we get there, then it’s basically just a stamp on a document. And it’s actually pretty darn meaningless. Maybe that document will help us to get somewhere or do something, but the actual process and the actual culmination of that waiting is pretty lame if you think about it. Or we’re waiting for something more significant. Maybe we’re waiting for the fruition of some hope that we’ve been working for, working towards. But even that hope, which may be meaningful to us, is meaningful only to us and or maybe to us and a few other people. Or we’re waiting for something larger, perhaps. We’re waiting for justice to be executed on the oppressors. We’re waiting for deliverance from oppression and evil and harm. In fact, the whole world is waiting for this. And the amazing thing is, that has already come. That deliverance has already come in the person of this little baby being brought into the temple of God, the Promised One, the Messiah, the one who transforms our approach to death. Because now Simeon can say, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace.” Because he has seen the one who fulfills in himself, all that longing for God. The one who comes and is born in order to die, that he might reveal the way of life to all of us. The way of love to all of us. Because, as I say, the world is being torn apart by tribalism and warfare and strife and evil and power and oppression. And the sense that we have in our hearts is that we have to do something about this. Maybe I should protest. Maybe I should do this or that or the other thing. And the answer is, no, you don’t have to do anything except wait on the Lord. Now, this waiting is hard. Because when is God going to do something about this problem? When is God going to resolve this? And so it is that we have, throughout the Scriptures, and throughout our tradition, practice at waiting. We’re going to get 40 days worth of practice at waiting, as we wait for Pascha to come. 40 days plus, actually. We all should know exactly how long 40 days is, because we know that’s the length of Nativity fast. And the amazing thing is that as we wait for Pascha to come, as we wait for whatever feast it is that we’re fasting and praying and waiting on God to bring, it comes. Every year, it comes. And this is a promise going back all the way to the days of Noah when it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and the whole world was destroyed. And when Noah comes out of the ark, God says to him that springtime and harvest will not be disrupted evermore. And it’s no coincidence that Pascha comes with the spring. This is the renewal of life that God has begun in Christ, that God has begun in us, as we have laid aside our power politics, as we have laid aside our tribalism, as we have laid aside, following the example of Christ, the hatred that we have for our enemies, and instead have embraced the way of love. Because as we do this, we participate in the salvation of the world. We do everything that is in our power to participate in God’s long-term plan for the universe in which all of us, Jew and Gentile, slave, free, male, female, all of us are united in this one little baby brought into the temple. The salvation

    16 min

  2. FEB 2

    Zacchaeus, the Publican and the Pharisee, and the Right Response to the Squandering of Our Talents

    As an experiment, I thought I’d try getting Google’s NotebookLM AI to summarize my sermon, and I was rather impressed with the following (lightly edited) results: In his sermon for Zacchaeus Sunday, Fr. Justin explains that as Lent approaches, we must reflect on the “gifts galore” and spiritual talents we have received from God. He observes that like the tax collector Zacchaeus, humans often squander or misuse these gifts rather than using them to love and serve others. To illustrate this, Fr. Justin connects three specific scriptural accounts from the same section of the Gospel of Luke as last Sunday’s Gospel reading: * The Parable of the Ten Minas: Fr. Justin highlights the servant who hid his mina in a handkerchief because he viewed his master as an “austere man” who reaped where he did not sow. Fr. Justin notes that this servant is judged “out of his own mouth” because he misunderstood God’s character, projecting the image of a strict judge onto Him as an excuse for his own failure to use his gifts. * The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector: Fr. Justin presents this parable as a “corrective” to the servant’s fearful theology. He contrasts the Pharisee, who exalts himself through public displays of piety, with the Tax Collector (the Publican), who humbles himself, beating his breast and crying, “God, be merciful to me a sinner”. This humility leads to justification, as “he who humbles himself will be exalted”. * The Story of Zacchaeus: Fr. Justin notes that Zacchaeus is a real-life manifestation of the repentant Publican. Despite being a “chief tax collector” and “traitor” to his people, Zacchaeus humbles himself by performing the undignified act of climbing a tree just to glimpse Jesus. Fr. Justin relates these by showing that while the “wicked servant” in the minas parable remained paralyzed by a false view of an austere God, Zacchaeus was transformed by God’s actual goodness and acceptance. When Jesus identifies with Zacchaeus by eating at his home, Zacchaeus is moved to rectify his misapplication of talents by giving half his wealth to the poor and restoring fourfold to those he cheated. Ultimately, the conclusion is that we must correct our theology by moving away from the “austere judge” mindset. By humbling ourselves like the Publican and Zacchaeus, we change our way of life to invest our God-given resources into acts of loving service, thereby fulfilling the commandments to love both God and neighbour. 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

    22 min

  3. JAN 19

    Pray and Do Not Lose Heart

    So in today’s Gospel reading, our Lord is approaching Jericho, and there’s a blind man sitting by the side of the road. He’s begging, because if you’re blind in those days, they didn’t have a lot of alternative support for you. And so the basic way that you got by was you sat and you asked people for help. And so that’s what this man was doing. He hears this large crowd going by. And he asks, “What’s happening? What’s going on?” And so they tell him that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And he calls out. And it’s interesting. He doesn’t call out, “Jesus of Nazareth, have mercy upon me!” He says, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Now to understand what this means a little more fully, we need to back up a little bit. Jesus has just been talking to his disciples again about his death. And, once again, they really don’t get it. He’s saying, “Behold, we’re going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon, and they will scourge him and kill him, and the third day he will rise again.” So, in retrospect, for us, it’s pretty clear. But of course, as they are hearing what the prophets have to say, they’re not quite getting it, because they’re thinking, again, of a political Messiah: one who’s going to come in and sweep away the Gentiles, and restore the kingdom to Israel. And Luke really drives home the point that they don’t get it here. He says, “But they understood none of these things, this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.” In other words, they really, really didn’t get it, like, thrice over. And yet, this blind man, who can’t even see what’s going on, who has to ask people what’s happening: he recognizes who Jesus is. Even though he’s blind, he can see that this is the Messiah, the Promised One, the Son of David. And so there’s this contrast here between Jesus’ own disciples, whom he’s telling very clearly, “This is what’s going to happen,” and the blind man, who, despite his blindness, actually sees more accurately than Jesus’ disciples do. Now, those around, who are going on before, warn the blind man, “Look, look, you’re making a scene!” If there’s one thing we really don’t like, it’s any kind of scene, right? And so they tell him, “Look, shut up! Just be quiet.” But he cries out instead: he cries out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” So Jesus then stands still and commands the blind man to be brought to him. And he asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Because “have mercy on me” is actually fairly general. “In what way do you want me to have mercy on you?” And the blind man blurts out, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” Although here, actually, I prefer the ESV’s translation, “Lord, that I may recover my sight.” Because if you go all the way back—everything’s in context, layers upon layers upon layers of context—if you go all the way back to the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, in Luke Chapter 4, Jesus opens up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he reads there The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. So he begins his public ministry by reading them this passage, this prophecy, which includes, among the signs that are going to reveal that the Messiah is coming, recovery of sight for the blind. And in fact, it’s the same Greek word, ἀναβλέπω, there as this blind man is using here. In other words, the blind man understands the prophets better than the disciples do. And so he’s asking for the fulfilment of that prophecy from the one, the Messiah, the Son of David, who came to fulfil that prophecy. And, you know, it wouldn’t hurt to be able to see again, right? So Jesus says to him, “Receive your sight,” or “Recover your sight. Your faith has made you well. And immediately, he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people when they saw it, gave praise to God.” So, again, in order to fully understand the impact here, we do need to also understand the larger context. So we’ve looked at some of the context, reflected on the immediately preceding context and looked at the overarching context—I guess you could call it—of the beginning of Jesus ministry, but there is one more bit of context I want to introduce here. If you read the Gospels through—and I do recommend this. I mean, I also recommend you read the daily readings that are in the lectionary, and if you do that, you will eventually read the gospels through, but it’s also good to just pick up the Gospels and read them through, the whole thing. Maybe not at one sitting, maybe two or three, though the Gospel of Mark, you can probably manage in one sitting. But if you read them through, you’ll start to see that Luke is divided up into sections. Luke, as I’ve said before, carefully structures his narrative. He says so right from the beginning, that he wants to make an “orderly” account. And if we back up just to the beginning of this chapter, which is in the same section of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells the people a parable which is fairly relevant here. Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ ” Then the Lord said, “Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” So I love this parable. There’s this judge, he’s not a good judge. He doesn’t care about God. He doesn’t care what people think about him. He doesn’t really even care about doing his job, which is to implement justice. And this widow comes to him. And she’s coming to him day in and day out, saying, “Give me justice from my adversary.” But he doesn’t want to. He’s like, ah, that’d be too much trouble. I don’t want to do that. But she keeps coming, and coming, and coming, and coming. And she keeps on coming. Finally, he’s like, man, if I don’t do something, this woman’s just gonna wear me out. Fine, I’ll hear the case. I’ll give her justice against her adversary. And I love it that, in this parable, God is compared to this unjust judge—and that’s deliberate. Because Jesus says, “Hear what this unjust judge says. And shall God not avenge his own elect, who cry out day and night to him. Though he bears long with them. I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?” And one of the other themes that you find in this section, if we go a little further—I won’t go into this one in depth—but you’ll remember, of course, the parable of the talents; well, Luke has it slightly different: his is a parable of the minas. And one of the things that Luke highlights in his version of the parable is that this nobleman entrusts these minas to his servants and then he goes away because his citizens don’t want him to rule over them. And he’s away for a while and it’s eventually he comes back. And his servants, you know, report to him. But there’s this delay. And if we think about this in terms of our own experience of the presence of God, it often seems like there’s a delay. It often seems like, as we pray, as we cry out to God, asking him for this or that or the other thing, there’s a delay. And the question is, “Is that delay permanent? Does God not care?” “Does he even exist?” is the question that we are forced to ask ourselves these days, just by virtue of the society that surrounds us, that is saying to us, “No, he doesn’t exist. You’re just dumb.” But what Jesus says here is very clear. And what Luke reinforces here, with the story of the blind man, is very clear. We should keep praying. We should keep trusting that God cares about us, far more than the unjust judge. And why? Well, one, the prophets have said this. We live in this era of the fulfilment of all that the prophets have said. And we have had signs upon signs upon signs recorded here in the Scriptures that God has not abandoned his people, Israel, and he has not abandoned us, his holy ones, whom he has called and adopted into the chosen people of God. He will never abandon us, his holy ones. But from our temporal perspective, you know, God may be acting speedily, but for us, it seems like a long delay. When is it gonna happen? When is what I am asking God for going to come to pass? When is this problem or challenge that I am encountering, going to be gone? When is he going to address it? And the answer is, keep praying. Keep praying, keep bugging God until he’s tired… no, he won’t get tired of us. But keep bugging God, just like the blind man. Keep bugging God, just like the widow bugged the unjust judge. Now, that may, at some points, involve us changing our prayer. Because, like the disciples, we don’t always see clearly. We want this. We want God to solve the problem this way, and sometimes our prayers are very specific. “Lord, this

    17 min

  4. JAN 6

    The Great Blessing of the Waters

    As we’ve been going through Father Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World, one of the things that Father Schmemann is very careful to point out is this dichotomy that we human beings naturally fall into: we have the spiritual, which is up there, and then the physical, the ordinary, the mundane, which is down here, and we kind of have an almost “never the twain shall meet” attitude. The thing about the baptism of our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, that we are just celebrating right now, is that it brings those two things together, definitively, absolutely, revelatorily (Is that a word?), and in a way that cannot be denied. Because, as our Lord was incarnate, as he took upon himself human flesh, he united himself to us in all the humblest, weakest, most servile, commonest ways possible. He was laid in the manger because they didn’t have a cradle for him. He was born in poverty. He was a refugee. He was just an ordinary human being in almost every way possible. I mean, when he begins his ministry it becomes clear that he’s not just an ordinary human being, but it even says in the Scriptures that he “learned obedience”. Wrap your brain around that. What does it mean for God himself, the Son of God, to learn obedience? But that’s what the Scriptures say. And then he comes to John the Baptist, who has been preparing the way before him diligently, working for this moment, when the Messiah will reveal himself, in all his power, in all his splendour, in all his glory. John the Baptist has been calling the people to repentance and getting them to undergo baptism, which was unheard of for the Israelites because this was what somebody who wanted to convert to Judaism did. But John is saying, no, no, all of you have to prepare yourselves by getting baptized—and they did. They flocked to him. And then, out of all those people who are flocking to him, comes the Messiah himself. And John is kind of horrified. Like, “Whoa, wait a second. You know, I should be baptized by you! I can’t do this.” And Jesus says, “Let us do so for now to fulfill all righteousness.” And he is baptized by John the Forerunner in the Jordan. And, as he comes up out of the water, he sees the Spirit. The heavens open up. So here we have again, heaven, high above all things, which is now opening up, and the Spirit of God—which, if anything is spiritual, I think it would be the Spirit of God—descends on the incarnate Word of God, in the form of a dove. And a voice comes from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” And so our Lord, in his baptism, unites heaven and earth, the spiritual and the physical, those things which are most exalted, and those things which are humblest and most ordinary, because as Hopkins put it, the world is charged with the glory of God. The grandeur of God, it flows all through creation. And we just miss it. We just don’t realize it. But the feast that we have here today reminds us of this, and the water that we bless today reminds us of this, because what is more ordinary than water? We use it in our cooking, we use it to clean our houses, we use it to bathe in. We use it to drink on its own or in various unfortunately mixed beverages. It’s the stuff of life. But we don’t even think about it. We take it for granted, until it’s gone, and then that’s all we can think about. You know, if we’re walking through the desert—I haven’t done this myself, but in all the stories, the guy who’s walking through the desert, the only thing he can think of is water, right? But for most of our lives, we’re not thinking about it. So here what we’ve done today, as we have called down the Holy Spirit to descend upon this water, and to sanctify this water, and to bless this water, is to set it apart, to make it holy, set apart to God. And then we are going to take of this water and take it into our homes and use it to bless our homes and drink it. If we need to take our pills, we drink them, as Orthodox Christians, with holy water. And we are going to use this to remind ourselves, however, often we need to, that the world is charged with the glory of God. That all these ordinary things, that we go about every day just doing, and living, and being: work and sleep and eating and praying and playing, and being with one another, all of these things, our Lord involves himself in, our Lord sanctified, made holy by his presence in them, and we now participate in the ordinariness of our daily life in union with him, indwelt by his Holy Spirit. So that there is nothing that is ordinary, that is not now shot through with the spiritual, with the supernatural. And it’s all summed up here. In water. The water that our Lord descended into, in anticipation of his death and his burial, his resurrection on our behalf; the water that, he, together with the Spirit of God, and God the Father, separated out, so that dry land could appear, and we could live; the water that was the forces of death and chaos, that he himself unleashed to destroy the earth, and then promised never to do that again. The water that he himself created, and drank, and bathed in, and just did all that ordinary stuff in and with, reminds us of his presence. Because, God, in him, Emmanuel, is with us. Poem referenced: God’s Grandeur The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. —Gerard Manley Hopkins 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 min

  5. JAN 5

    The Point of Prophecy

    So today, as we get ready for the great Feast of Theophany, we begin with the beginning of the gospel of Mark. And the gospel of Mark begins with prophecy. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophets, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” Actually, we spoke last Sunday about the prophets, just briefly, so today I wanted to mention a little more about the role of the prophets, because there is a bit of a misunderstanding that tends to be out there, that the prophecies and the prophets were there so that you could read them very closely and figure out, from all sorts of kind of mystical clues, what exactly God was going to do and when he was going to do it and so on and so forth. Kind of like prophetic bingo, if you will. The one problem with this kind of approach to prophecy now, as we live in the “end times”, at the end of all things, is that when you’re playing prophetic bingo, and you’re like, oh, well, hey, look, I’ve got wars. Oh, wait, I’ve got rumours of wars, and I’ve got earthquakes and floods in various places, and, and, oh, I’ve got Bingo! Because we live in the last days. And that’s precisely what the apostles, what they, what struck them as they were looking at the various prophecies. Because, this isn’t really the point of prophecy. It was to let us know ahead of time. That was the point. And God made it clear to his people, Israel, that that was the point, in the book of Isaiah that we just heard, quoted from, as well as Micah. God says to his people—and this is a pretty clear articulation of what the point of prophecy is: I have declared the former things from the beginning. They went from my mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass because I knew that you were obstinate, and your neck was an iron sinew, and your brow bronze. Even from the beginning, I have declared it to you. Before it came to pass, I proclaimed it to you, lest you should say my idol has done them, and my carved image and my moulded image have commanded them. (Isaiah 48:3-5) In essence, what we have here is God, the eternal God, the great I am, for whom all of time is spread out, not in sequence, but as all unfolded to him at the same time, telling his people, what is going to come to pass so that they will know that he is God. So that they will know that, in contrast to those idols which don’t know anything about what’s going to happen, that he knows exactly what’s going to happen. And in fact, he is the one who brings it to pass. Because he alone is the true God. And some of what he tells them is actually pretty specific. For example, a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a child, and you shall call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz (poor kid!), which means swift to the spoil and speedy to the prey. And before the child is old enough to distinguish right from wrong, the lands of the kings that you are worried about—This is a prophecy given to the king Ahaz, after he refused to ask God for a sign. God gave him a sign anyway!—that the lands of the kings that you’re worried about will be laid waste before this child is even old enough to distinguish right from wrong. So very specific timing, very specific prophecy, to let King Ahaz—who was one of those kings who was kind of wishy-washy when it came to worshipping the most high God—that God, Yahweh, the the creator of the world, was the one and only true God. And this is exactly what God has done down through the ages. He lets his people, those whom he has chosen, know what is coming, even going all the way back to Abraham. Abraham, of course, you remember at the tent of Mamre, entertains three visitors, and then, as they’re getting up and to go, the one says to him (presumably God), “Shall I not let Abraham, whom I have chosen, know what I am about to do?” Or, later on, in Moses’ day, God talks to Moses face to face as a man talks with his friend. Because what does God want? From us? He actually wants friendship with us. And what is more typical of friendship than saying, “Hey, I have a secret, I’m going to tell you.” Or, “Hey, I have a plan. Let me let you know ahead of time exactly what I’m going to do.” That’s what God does with his people. Beginning with Abraham, going down through Moses and the prophets, he calls his people, and he tells them exactly what he’s going to do, through his servants, the prophets. That’s not all he tells them, through his servants, the prophets. He also—as he is reminding his people that he is God—he also calls them to repentance. That was what all that part about your neck being like an iron sinew, was about: You stiff-necked people. You really don’t want to repent. You don’t want to bow the neck. You don’t want to bow the knee to God. You don’t want to actually change your ways, but that is precisely what you need to do. And the prophets were always calling the people to repentance, telling them that they needed to change their ways, because God was going to come and do stuff amongst them. And they should get ready for that. And that’s exactly what the last of the really great prophets, John, does. Which is why the Mark begins his gospel with characterizing John as a voice in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Because John comes preaching this gospel of repentance. Telling the people of God, they need to repent because the Messiah is coming. He’s on his way now, and he is going to appear amongst them. John makes it very clear that he is not the Messiah. He is not himself the promised one of Israel. He’s simply a messenger, a voice, preparing the way for him. And he says, at the end of the passage today, that he’s not even worthy to stoop and unloose his sandals, because while John baptizes with water, the one coming will baptize with the Holy Spirit. And this, therefore, is why, when the apostles have been trained up by our Lord, and he’s divulged to him his whole heart—all that is on his heart—he has told them that he has not hidden anything from them. He himself says to them the reason that he has told them what’s going to happen. Because of course you remember, Jesus, hmm… rather like God, tells his disciples, what is going to happen.And they don’t like what they are hearing, right? He tells he tells them that he’s going to go down to Jerusalem, and they’re going to take him, and they’re going to crucify him. Peter then says, “Lord, these things must not be.” And Jesus, who has just told him, as Peter has just confessed, “that you are the Christ the Son of God,” that he’s blessed and that flesh and blood has not revealed this to him, but his Father in heaven, now turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan!” Right? They don’t want to hear what he’s telling them, but he is telling them this. Why? He says, “I have told you now, before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.” Almost like what we just heard in Isaiah chapter 48, about how God works with prophecy, telling them that he’s telling them this before it comes to pass, so that they may know he is God. And Jesus goes further. He says, Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, and that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:13-17) Again, if we think about the whole point of the prophets—or even further back than that, the law and the prophets, because the prophets were always calling the people back to the law of God—what was the point of that teaching? What was the point of that proclamation? What was the point of that prophecy? It was to call God’s people to metanoia, to a change of mind that would enable them to love one another, to be defined by love for one another. So that they could be the friends of God. And here Jesus, as he fulfils all of the prophecies, as he brings to pass and sets in motion all of what God has planned for us as his people, he tells his disciples, I have not hidden anything from you. I no longer call you servants. I call you my friends. Because a servant doesn’t know what his master wants. He just gets orders, like, go, do this, do that. A servant doesn’t get to say, “Uh, why?” The master will just say, “What? No, you’re my servant. Just go do it. I don’t need to have to explain everything to you.” But Jesus says, no, you’re not servants. You are my friends, if you do what I command. And so this culmination of all the teachings, culmination of all the prophecies, that the apostles saw in their day, where it’s not merely a virgin bringing forth a child, but a virgin, who has never known a man, bringing forth a child, the fulfilment of the prophecy in the grandest, most complete terms possible, reveals to us exactly what God is calling us to become: his people, his friends. And as we begin with repentance, and as we continue in repentance, allowing God to change our minds, to reform us into the image in which he created us at the very beginning, as we enter into the waters of baptism, uniting ourselves with Christ in his death, his burial, and his resurrection, we’re uniting ourselves to the God who united himself to us, so that he might call us his friends. And all he asks of us, all of the prophets have e

    15 min

  6. 12/29/2025

    Wisdom, Folly, Prophecy, and Free Will

    Somewhat similar to the pattern that we see at Pascha (and, indeed, Christmas is for us in many respects a mini Pascha—you’ll notice I’m wearing white), the Sunday after the great feast, we have a bit of a downer in terms of the Gospel reading. After Pascha, of course, we have the great and glorious joy of Pascha, and then we have Thomas Sunday, Doubting Thomas. This one is even more of a downer, really, when you think about the content of what we just heard. So we’ve just had the birth of the king, the king of the Jews, whom the wise men came to worship, and now the current king of the Jews, Herod, decides that he’s going to kill him. It’s a pretty solemn contrast and kind of makes you think about, well, what this world is—well, was, but really still is—that Christ came into. Because Herod, in his paranoia and the horror of his action, really is, in many respects, a stand-in for all of the horrors of human civilization down through the centuries. A stand-in, really, for us. One of the slight complicating factors in this story, at least in terms of how we tend to approach it, is the prophecy. Every time we have a prophecy, one of the big questions that comes up is free will. If God knows ahead of time that this is going to happen, and then he tells us ahead of time that this is going to happen, does that not mean that God made it happen? And this would be something pretty horrific if God made it happen, right? All of the infants, two years old and under in Bethlehem, are killed by Herod. I think it’s important for us to then understand that prophecy is probably better thought of more like a parent who loves their child and says to their toddler, who is just starting to move around, “That stove over there is hot. If you touch that stove, you will get burned.” It’s a warning; it’s a prediction of what will happen. And then, of course, inevitably, the child toddles over to the stove and says, “Hmm. What’s going to happen? Ow! Why didn’t you tell me?” Well, I did tell you. Just because you have foreknowledge of something, it doesn’t mean you made it happen. Again, I can look over and see my child across the room handling something, and I know exactly what’s going to happen. They’re handling it carelessly: it’s going to fall and it’s going to break. But, at least in terms of my own limited human abilities, there’s nothing I can do about it. Here is where it gets a little more complicated, because there is something God could do about it, but at what cost? Because when God made us in his image, one of the great gifts that he gave to us—and, as Paul says, “the gifts and the calling of God are without revocation”—is the gift of free will, agency, and authority over the world that we live in. What we see here in this story is all of those gifts going wrong, being abused by Herod. And there’s also a contrast in this story: the three kings—well, the three wise men, actually—are kind of a beautiful contrast to what Herod is doing. Herod, of course, was the king of the Jews at the time, famously paranoid, and we see an example of this paranoia here. The wise men come from the east seeking him who is born king of the Jews. They come naturally to the capital, Jerusalem, and they ask where he is. These magi are ancient astronomers; they’ve seen a star in the east, which they see as a sign from God, and they spend months travelling to Jerusalem to honour the new king—they assume Jerusalem because that’s where the king of the Jews would be born, right? Eventually they come to Herod, and he gathers his chief priests and scribes and asks them where the Messiah is to be born. And they quote the prophecy: “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.” Herod then calls the wise men in to him, determines from them exactly what time the star appeared, and sends them to Bethlehem saying, “Go and search carefully for the young child, and when you have found him, bring back word to me, that I also may come and worship him.” So they go off to Bethlehem, and they find the young child, thanks to the star, and they rejoice with exceedingly great joy. And they open their treasures to him and they present gifts to him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And if you know the old Christmas carol, then you know exactly what each one of those represents. They are recognizing him as king, as God, and as the one who is going to die for the world. But then, of course, they are warned by God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, so they return by another way. Herod then finds out and is absolutely furious that his trick didn’t work, and he gives orders that every child two years old and under, according to the time determined by his conversation with the wise men, must be slaughtered. Fortunately, God does intervene, at least with Joseph, and maybe with more. According to tradition, John the Baptist gets caught up in this too, and this is why he ends up in the wilderness. But an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.” So they get up and they leave. It’s interesting, too, to think about what the implications of this are: God did not come down and directly intervene here. He didn’t cut off Herod’s free will. He didn’t even come and exert his power with his twelve legions of angels that Jesus said he could have sent to save him from the cross. Instead, Jesus experiences what it means to be a refugee. He’s already experiencing what it means to be helpless. Now he and his adoptive father and his mother are refugees in the land of Egypt, just like his people were. Again, he’s identifying with us, his people—with us, in our humanity, in every imaginable aspect. But I want to focus our attention here on the horror, for a moment, of this terrible exercise of the gifts that God gave to Herod, and I want us to think about what that means for us. Herod, in this horrible, terrible action, exercises his free will. He freely chooses to issue this order. He also exercises his God-given agency: he has the ability to speak or not to speak, to give orders or not to give orders, and he chooses to give the order that he hopes will protect his kingship. And he uses his authority, which we would understand as his God-given authority as a ruler, in this unimaginably horrific way, which actually echoes the order of the Pharaoh way back when, when he gives orders that all the young children of the Hebrews be thrown into the Nile to make sure that his kingdom is safe. And, when we stop and think about it, is this not also what we so often do, especially when we are motivated, like Herod, by fear and paranoia? We use our free will, but the choices that we make are often—especially when motivated by fear—bad choices. And then our agency gets involved. I’m going to choose to do something with my life. Often it’s some form of addiction or some form of protective action or some form of—well, whatever it may be—where we turn and we actually engage our physical bodies in this choice that we have made with our spirits. And then, even worse, we can get others involved in our sin, in our fear, in our self-centeredness. Contrast this now with the wise men. They too made a choice. They saw a star in the east. They are using their God-given intelligence and abilities to read the heavens, and, as they see this sign that very clearly shows them that someone is born king of the Jews, they then undertake, they make the decision, they use their God -given agency over a sustained period of months to journey to find the one who is born king of the Jews. And then, as they find him, what are they motivated by? They’re motivated by love of God, obviously, in terms of the quest. But, as they come into his presence, they’re motivated by joy. And in joy, they open their treasures to him. All that they are able to offer: gold, frankincense, myrrh. This is what we are called to do. To not act out of fear. To not allow that paranoia, that self-preservation, that sense that I must preserve my integrity, I must preserve what I have, I must preserve my life at the cost of whatever may be around me, at the cost of the abuse of my own free will and agency. No. If we are motivated by love, and we act on that, we make our choices based on that, and we open our hearts, open our resources, open our time to love, honour, and joyfully worship God, that’s the end, our purpose. The end of that trajectory of love is joy. We see the path of folly in Herod. We see the path of wisdom in the wise men. Let us exercise our God-given free will, and our agency, and our authority in the path of love to the destination of joy, to his glory, the glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 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

    16 min

  7. 12/15/2025

    How Can We Refuse the Heavenly Banquet?

    Today’s homily was (for me) relatively short, so, rather than posting the transcript here (the automated version of which is already readily available), I want instead to add an addendum: “the sermon after the sermon,” as I like to call it. In both this parable and in our Lord’s rejoinder immediately preceding it, those to be invited to the feast are “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” and even random strangers who happen to be passing by who are compelled to come in. We can and should understand this initially in its literal sense: when we give a banquet we should invite those in need, who cannot possibly repay us. But we can also see in this—especially those of us who are converts to the faith—ourselves: those who were poor in spirit, helpless, unaware of the true nature of reality, who have been compelled to come in by the grace of God at work in our lives and have found ourselves the recipients of a heavenly banquet we did not anticipate receiving. Now joyful, illumined, and satiated, our response should be one of deep gratitude and adoration and praise towards our unexpected benefactor, along with a desire to complete what is, in the parable, the unfinished work of filling the banquet hall with other beneficiaries who may well be as unaware of their spiritual needs as we were. Our motive and our modus operandi should not be to “compel them to come in” in any physically coercive sense, but rather to so reveal the splendour of what they are missing out on that they can’t help but be as moved by the invitation and the experience as we have been. Because the benefit of being illumined, of being healed by the joy of the heavenly banquet is simply something too good to keep to ourselves! Scripture Readings Referenced: * Luke 13:22-17:10, with a focus on today’s reading, Luke 14:16-24 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

    15 min

  8. 12/08/2025

    What Do We Do When the Days Are Evil?

    [The how of all that follows here is outlined in the preceding parts of the homily, in the audio recording. What follows is the conclusion of the matter:] All things are exposed or made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. That’s what the light does. It shows things for what they truly are. It makes manifest the reality. Sometimes it’s an ugly reality, and people dislike the light being shined on it. But that’s okay. We still have to do it. Because it’s not something that we can even really control. It’s something that we simply are. We are light. And as we live as children of the light, we illumine the world around us, we help people to see it for what it truly is. Something broken, something leading only to death and destruction. Therefore it says, “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” And I kind of love Father Lawrence’s theory here. There’s no Old Testament verse that actually says, “Awake, you who sleep. arise from the dead and Christ will give you life.” But it’s quite possible that this was, in fact, a hymn of the church, possibly even a baptismal hymn of the church. Because that’s precisely the sort of thing that we understand baptism to do. It wakes us up. And as we wake up from this slumber that we are in and rise from the dead, it is Christ who gives us light. The light of the way of life that saves us from this way of death. The light of this new humanity that we are to put on, even as we shuck off the old humanity that is trending towards death. And so this is the way that the world will be saved through us. Not by any great work, not by any great conquest, but by simply being who Christ has called us to be, by living as children of the light, putting on this new man. And as we do so, we are awakening from sleep. And this then is the true awakening. Whether you’re awake or woke. As Christians, you are awake to Christ in God. You are awake to the truth of the love of God. And that this love, as it has been poured out in our lives, is that which we have to live out in the world, loving those around us, bringing them by that love, by that light into awareness of the brokenness that they are struggling with, and leading them, by our love, into the only place which is illumined. But then spreading that light throughout the world, as it has already been spread, from generation to generation, illumining the darkness, and showing the mercy, the love of God that he has so richly poured out upon us, to all those around us, that we and they might be to his glory: the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Scripture readings referenced: * Ephesians 4:17-5:21 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

    20 min
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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
    78
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Fr. Justin (Edward) Hewlett
  • Show Website
    Translating the Tradition