Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Spiritually
speaking, spiritually speaking, we are still
on the Mount of Olives where Christ ascended.
where he told his apostles, where he told the
Theotokos, the disciples, Lo, I am with you even
to the end of the age. And the Catochian was
saying, one of the hymns said, If he is with
us, no one can be against us. This means he is
always with us because we are united to him.
He shares our flesh and blood. And this is an
unbreakable connection. He is always with us.
And this is true even if you feel down in the
dumps emotionally and frustrated and afraid from
all that is taking place. Whether you feel disgusted
or angry or afraid or despondent or you blame
this side or you blame that side. the lord is
with us are we with christ that's what is an
important question for us and as orthodox christians
we have to not run away but we have to see experience
understand and accept that our land is experiencing
deep division and pain Again and again and again.
However it has come about, I'm not capable of
analyzing any of that. But what I do know about
is the judgment of God. If you read the scriptures,
you know something about the judgment of God.
And what you know about the judgment of God,
it means that God sets things right. He brings
justice to his creation. God's judgment is always
upon us. If we judge ourselves, says St. Paul,
then we will not be judged. God's judgment is
upon us now and always. Can't we see that violence
and brutality beget more? violence and brutality
and sin. In God's judgment, he has allowed this
to come upon us because of our iniquity and our
division and our sin and brutality, corporately
as a nation. Maybe this person or that person
has done nothing, but just as we share the same
nature with Christ, he shares with us. We share
a common human nature. All this becomes an alphabet
of sins. I listed all the sins that I could think
from A to Z, and there are plenty of them. But
if I started saying them, then someone would
ask me, well, why did I leave off this one, and
I didn't do that one? The bishops of our church,
the Orthodox Church in America, released a statement
yesterday. I'll read just a little bit of it.
We, the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops
of the Orthodox Church in America, mourn the
tragic death of Mr. George Floyd on May 25, 2020.
We too have looked before at the footage of this
episode and condemned the brutal actions that
caused his violent death. We look to the civil
authorities to bring justice. Let us be sensitive
to those that feel they're afflicted and enter
into that. I'll say something about that in a
minute. No, I'll say something now. When we sin,
when we see sin around us, when we see division
and hatred and brutality, Then we pray. And I
don't mean, oh God, please help so -and -so.
No. We pick up our prayer book. We say the supplicatory
candy, the Theotokos. We fast. I don't mean on
Wednesdays and Fridays, but I mean we fast. We
don't eat. We do prostrations. I don't mean two
or three. As many as you can do. I mean tears
begging God to help us. Now this isn't a lecture.
It's a sermon. So I'll remind you about what
I know. The sin of Cain in Genesis. God warned
Cain. He said this, Sin is crouching at your
door. Grasp that image. Sin is crouching at your
door. It desires to have you, but you must master
it. Sin is mastering us. Orthodox Christians,
we have said nothing and done nothing for our
country, hardly at all. We're a little blip.
These press releases, no one hears them because
we've made no impact, because our faith is weak,
because we've not lived the gospel the way the
Lord has given it to his apostles and disciples.
We've watered it down and we end up blaming other
people for all our problems rather than saying,
Lord, this has come upon me for my sins. Sin
is crouching at the door. If we are Christians,
we're responsible for all and everyone. This
is the teaching of St. Silavon of the Holy Mountain.
And the wrath of God is coming upon us. What
is the wrath of God? God is love and good and
long -suffering, merciful. His wrath is when
he lets the human anger and pettiness. He doesn't
have any of that. But he lets us have our way
when we go down that road and we don't turn to
him. This is the wrath of God. He lets man go.
He hands him over. He abandons him for maybe
a little while. So we repent. If we don't repent,
then our choice of evil multiplies. And the moral
evils to which God has delivered a heart of heart
appear to be very vices characteristic of our
own times and days. You've seen the news. O Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us
and on thy world. Pray, my brethren. Pray for
our land. Pray for the people that feel aggrieved
and abused and support them. If you don't have
love from God, then you can't know how to support
them. If we don't have love for God, we're hopeless
after all we've been given in the Holy Church.
What's our approach? Listen to the words of St.
Cosmas the Aetolian, who lived his life under
the repression and oppression of the Turkish
-Muslim authorities in Greece. He says this,
Even if we perform upon thousands of good works,
my brethren, fasts, prayers, almsgiving, even
if we shed our blood for Christ, we don't have
these two loves, the love of God and the love
of brethren, but on the contrary, have hatred
and malice toward our brethren and blame them.
All the good we have done is of the devil and
we go to hell. But you say, We go to hell despite
all the good we do because of a little hatred?
Yes, my brother. Because that hatred is the devil's
poison. And just as when we put a little yeast
in a hundred pounds of flour, it has such power
that it causes all the dough to rise, so it is
with hatred. It transforms all the good we have
done to a devil's poison. Through the prayers
of St. Cosmos, Lord, help us. Our situation stands
in stark, bitter, sorrowful contrast to the gospel
we heard today, which is what I want to leave
you with, which is about unity, which is about
union in Jesus Christ. God becomes man so that
we may become like God by grace, the divinity
of Christ, equal in honor and divinity and essence
with the Father, sharing our human nature. On
this Sunday, the Sunday between Ascension and
Pentecost, specifically the Church directs our
mind to this great mystery, the mystery of piety.
And we celebrate the 318 Holy Fathers of the
First Ecumenical Council who gathered in the
city of Nicaea and ended their deliberations
on May 20th, the year 325. Nicaea is now the
city of... Iznik, Turkey, 50 miles outside of
Istanbul. Nicaea is gone. The faith remains.
This tells me that the fashion of this world
and the things that are visible don't gate your
life by them. They pass. It's the things that
are invisible from God that aren't in flux but
are eternal and we set our hope and our life
on them. And I hope that when we recite the creed
in just a little while, that that incredible
thing that we've received from the 318 fathers
of Nicaea, it's been handed down to us, it's
been given to us, that we live it. Do we struggle
with it? Face the fears and the possible doubts.
Confront them. Because our faith is not philosophy.
It's not religious formula. As Father John Sheddick
said in a sermon on this gospel a few years ago,
he said it wasn't a bunch of guys sitting in
a room saying, now what do we believe? Let's
think about that. No, not this, but that. None
of that. It's not some secret gospel. It's not
hazy, mysterious. It's not a secret religion.
What was true for the apostles, what was true
for the 318 fathers of the First Ecumenical Council,
what was true for the martyrs must be true for
us too, is what the Savior said in prayer to
the Father. I have manifested thy name unto the
men, the apostles, whom thou gavest me out of
the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them
to me. They have kept thy word. Now they have
known all things whatsoever thou hast given me
are of thee. This is what we have to do. For
I have given unto them the words which thou gavest
me, and they have received them, and have known
surely that I came out from thee. They believe
that thou didst send me, that he is the way,
the truth, and the life. How to summarize our
salvation? God became man, so that we may by
grace become as God is. Anything lasts is not
salvation. So, beloved, walk on the straight
and narrow way. Love God. Love your neighbor.
Repent of the sins of our nations. You may not
have done those sins, but we're united to one
another. Seek peace. Pursue the glory of God.
Pursue Christ. Walk on the way of the truth and
the life. This is what the Church presents to
us this day, before the Feast of Pentecost. Glory
be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the
Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to ages of ages.
Amen.