Dear Friends
“What does God want from me?” I ask myself, “What should I do for him?” So I decide to do something that I consider “good:” I serve other people, I help the needy, I give to charity, I do things that are objectively good. But I feel that I have not made any progress, that the spiritual life is too hard for me, that I am no closer to God.
This is because, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I am offering God only a part of me—I am offering him what I can do. And this is a good thing, a positive thing, a noble thing, but it is not enough. What the Lord desires is not (only) what we can do but who we are, God wants our complete selves. In this sense, those who can do very little but offer their complete selves offer a greater service to God than those who can do a great amount.
Offer yourselves, today and every day, to the Lord. Offer what you can do—your time, talents, energy, money—but these are secondary to what is essential: offer to him yourselves. You can do this through repentance, rejecting sin and turning completely to the Lord, and you can do this through prayer. You can do this by asking the Lord’s blessing before any task, by making the sign of the Cross, so that even the mundane and ordinary can be God-filled and extraordinary.
Let us, each one of us, offer our complete selves to the Lord.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God, Amen.
I have a spirit of infirmity, dear brothers and sisters, and like the oxen and donkeys I do not look up to Heaven and draw myself to God but I look down at the manger and consider only my worldly desires and ambitions. In this state the Lord comes to me in my utter wretchedness and says to me, “you are freed from your infirmity.” And the Lord comes and says the same to each of you, that we may stand tall together and regard things heavenly over earthly, immortal over mortal, living over dying.
The ruler of the synagogue, too, had a spirit of infirmity, but his was much more serious. For the woman who could not straighten herself had the infirmity physically, he had it spiritually. “There are six days on which work ought to be done;” he cries out indignantly, “come on those days and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.” He speaks thus because he does not understand the Sabbath: for him the Sabbath is merely to make sacred only one day of the week, but the Sabbath is to bring the love of God into every day. The Sabbath is to reveal to God’s people—even in this world of wickedness—the power and majesty of God so that they may be a light to the nations. The Sabbath is not to tie the hands of Israel but to express the freedom Israel has been given: true freedom, complete freedom, freedom with God.
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Read last Sunday’s sermon, A spirit of infirmity.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 10th December
Discussion on the book of Genesis, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 11th December
Vespers, 6.30 pm
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Sunday 12th December
Divine Liturgy, 9.30 am
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Online session is via Google Meet: please get in contact for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We will be meeting at St Francis’ Hall, Nightingale Avenue, Eastleigh, SO50 9JA. It is presently a requirement that you wear a mask unless exempt. Come and See.
Can I help you?
I am here for you, you need only ask. Is there a way I can support your life of faith? Get in touch.
Can you help the mission?
Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.
Your prayers!
With love in Christ
Fr Alexander
[email protected]