Protopriest Nicholas Karipoff Sermon (11th August 2013), 7th Sunday after Pentecost
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit The early Church used to have a different structure of the liturgy than we have today. For the readings they used to have an Old Testament reading then followed by the Gospel and then by Epistle. We no longer have Old Testament readings during the liturgy at all and we have reversed the order of New Testament readings. I would like try this approach in looking first at the Gospel and then the Epistle, which gives more practical advice about Christian life with the Gospel setting the tone. We had the passage from Matthew Chapter 9 where the Lord heals two blind men and dumb demoniac. We see different reactions. The majority of the people, the simple people, said: “This is such a great miracle that never happened in Israel at all”. Then the Pharisees, the ones who considered themselves righteous, said: “He casts out demons by the ruler of the demons”. We usually have a very negative attitude to the Pharisees but in fact, we forget that the some of them converted to Christ afterwards, after Pentecost. And St Paul himself, from whom we have the passage of his Epistle to the Romans today, he was among those Pharisees, because he was an enemy of Christ as Saul, who persecuted the Church. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Light that enlightens every man who comes into this world. However, His presence in Israel was such a blinding Light that not everybody was ready to receive that Light. It was too much for some people, for their passions; ones, like the future St Paul. The passion of pride of those who attempted to fulfil the law blocked and prevented them from accepting that Light. Because of that, the Lord left it to His Church after Pentecost to communicate His Word to the people in the more diluted way. This is when some of those Pharisees who were against Christ actually turned to Him and became wonderful members of the Church. Let’s listen to what this former Pharisee says in his short reading we have today to the Romans. He writes: “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please our neighbour for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself but as is written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be likeminded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus.”(Rom.Ch15 1:7) It is important for us to understand when we see that we are growing a little bit in the law to have patience with other people and to bear each other’s burdens because otherwise we will be behaving like those unconverted Pharisees who did not have that patience. They were the ones who thought they knew everything and they condemned and judged severely those who did not live according to that strict law the way they did. If we instead have patience and communicate through condescension, the love of God to other people, who have not yet reached the way of life we are living, then we will contribute to their salvation and we will be God’s true messengers. Very often we want to have this control over people, get impatient and think: “Why don’t you grow up?”. The other person cannot grow faster.
It is like in the parable of the seed. The seed planted in the ground has its own rules and processes. It cannot be speeded up. Each one of us is like that but when we reach a certain level of knowledge and vision, we become a very impatient with other people who do not have the same understanding. We are actually like all the Pharisees, preventing them through our pride and our passions from entering the Light of God. If we have more patience and allow other people to develop according to their own free will then things will be different. So, this is the lesson of today’s Gospel. Let’s not be the “control freaks” with our family members, with our children, grandchildren and try to change them not by force, otherwise we will be doing that the Western philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau said:” We have the right to make other people happy even by force.” That is not Christianity. May the Lord help us learn that happiness happens when we are patient with people. Amen.
