Excerpts from Sermons: "Holiness Is When God Acts Through a Sinner'
Archpriest Demetrius: New martyrs were the people who kept telling the truth in this abode of
sorrows. They told the truth about Christ, about man and his calling, using not
only words, but also their personal lives. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh used
to say that one can tell the truth from two positions: either the position of
power or the position of absolute weakness, total impotence. The Church must be
totally powerless like God, because God does not force anyone, he does not
coerce anyone: God is love and he always reaches out to us and calls to our
conscience, our hearts, and our minds.
Sermon after a Liturgy on the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of
Russian Church (February 7, 2016)
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Priest Sergius: Today we commemorate one of the greatest
pillars of the Church — Saint Gregory the Theologian. The life of this man is
comforting to us in many ways because, although he was a great theologian, he
used to have certain shortcomings like everyone else. When he was assigned
bishop to a semi-rural town where he could not possibly earn any interest, so
to say, he simply ran away. Many people condemned him of this later.
As we learn about such flaws in the saint's
biographies, we should understand that holiness is not a mountain top that no
one can climb, where a person is more than a human being. Holiness is when God
starts to act through a sinful and weak person. It is when God acts in that
person in spite of his human talents or weaknesses. Then this is not a human
achievement but rather God's grace.
Sermon after a Liturgy on February 8, 2016
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Archpriest Sergius: We all are confessors
but this is not because we go to confession. We are confessors because the Lord
has given us a chance to profess our Christian beliefs in real life: not just
watch a church service on your home TV or come to church twice a year to light
a candle but come to church every week and testify before God what total
failures we are as Christians. What we ought to do is not to count our sins
during a confession but to confess that we do not know how to love Christ and
we are not yet ready for open persecutions.
Time flies quickly, so we should learn to become
confessors during each service, as if we are to suffer for our faith tomorrow
and we need to get ready. First of all we must be confessors of the love of
Christ…
Sermon after the All-Night Vigil on February 6, 2016
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Our Church is unified, one and apostolic, and this is where her
strength lies. Save for this, the hell's gates would have prevailed
over it long ago. Today we read in the biography of the Three Holy Hierarchs
how these saints introduced this catholic spirit because divisions based on who
is better, higher, cleverer or more spiritually advanced cannot be tolerated in
the Church of Christ. We must be aware that we all serve one God.
Sermon after a Liturgy on February 12, 2016
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Archpriest Andrew Lemeshonok: When Apostle Peter was
told that Jesus was in his boat, he exclaimed in terror, «Depart from me; for I
am a sinful man, O Lord» (Luke 5:8).
What should we do when we receive Christ? Christ
is in you — and it's an open wound! The more you live, the more painful it
gets. When you see this awful, unappreciative attitude to God, any optimism or
enthusiasm that you could possibly have disappears. What doubts could you have
when Christ dwells in you? Is there anything that the Lord has not given you?
What else does He have to do to make us alert, to make us happy in the Lord and
capable of defeating all sorrows and sadness of this world? There are no
sorrows, in fact, because everything is temporary and transient. This is why we
should inhale the clean air of the church, the air of repentance, as often as
possible. The church is the place where people must hear the truth about life,
that the prince of this world will be driven away, and that we should not fear
death.
We keep insisting on our own truth even in
details. Shouldn't we admit our mistakes? Oh no, we are always right, we are
heroes, aren't we? It makes me sick, this attitude, this lack of understanding
why we have come to church and what for. Try correcting someone — you wouldn't
be happy that you did. What can we be talking about, what Christianity? We have
to speak about the eternity.
This is crazy — establishing a monastery in this
world. How can we change stubborn, selfish, and envious people? This is
impossible! However, there is one way to do this, my brothers, there is a way!
We read a story in the Lives of Desert Fathers that a hermit used to water a
dry stick for many years every day. He worked really hard to bring water from a
remote well. Finally, this dead and dry stick blossomed! See what this story
hints at? With God, everything is alive, if only we want to come alive. He can
make Abraham's children out of stones. So as we turn to this God, we cannot but
be saved, we cannot but encounter the Heavenly Kingdom. Of course, we will!
When an individual partakes of the Holy
Mysteries, he may not be aware of anything but he opens his mouth and humbles
down, praising the Lord. We hope that this drop of Jesus' blood will feed us
like that dry stick. Gradually, drop by drop, drop by drop — imagine how much
blood of Christ we already have! We have already had a blood transfusion. We
must be like Christ already. How can we spoil that blood with sin and passion?
How do we manage to do that? It's surprising!
Anyway, this is not the end of the story, my
dear friends, and I am glad that the days are longer and longer, and the sun is
shining more and more brightly. Pascha is near! Today we have to work hard and
not to trust the sin that will keep persuading us that we won't be saved. Of
course, we will, but not without pain.
Sermon after an Akathist to St Elisabeth on February 7, 2016
