Dear Friends
Christians repent; we view the world with its evil and the evil which we ourselves have added and are called to respond with “This is not good: I must change.” And this is hard, this is challenging. The Church does not meet us with the message “You are fine as you are,” but with the opening words of Christ in the Gospel, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
And I flounder and I squirm, “I’m basically alright,” I lie to myself, “I don’t need to change.” And God, through his Church, replies to me, “Repent.” I must repent, I must change, I must accept responsibility for the evil I have committed and turn to the living God. It is no good blaming others and calling on others to change—”Others have done more evil than I,” I try to justify to myself, “I am a force for good in this world”—because this is precisely the opposite of the Gospel: it is the self-justification of the Pharisee rather than the humility of the tax collector speaking (see Luke 18:9–14).
The Church offers to you and she offers to me the opportunity to repent: daily through prayer, and through Confession where we can admit to God before a witness our sins. And when we repent, when we turn again to the living God, we renew our baptism and show ourselves as true heirs of eternal Life.
Ours is a Faith requiring change—my own change—which is so against our culture, but by admitting our sins and being able to let them go they no longer hold power over us and we may truly be free.
“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”
We now serve a meal following the Liturgy on Sundays. All are welcome.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
A meal, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is about more than just sustenance, more than about satisfying hunger, it is a communal activity. We spend time apart at our own activities—some of these may be with others while we may be completely alone—but come together around food to celebrate with one another, to rejoice in each other’s successes and commiserate over failures. Yes, indeed, a meal is about more than eating food.
Christ responds with today’s parable to someone, in the verse immediately preceding today’s reading, who said “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” (Luke 14:15) And the Lord takes this most human of activities, this most basic act of our race, and fills it with himself; it is natural to sit at a dinner table and eat together, and rather than saying “union with me is a spiritual event, a mystical event, an event of the mind and intellect,” the Lord describes Life itself in these terms, “A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many; and at the time of the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for all is now ready.’” Union with God is not some mere mental activity but community, sitting down and enjoying food together.
How do you respond to the Lord? How do I? He says to you and he says to me, through his servants, “Come; for all is now ready.” Without judgement, without requirement, the God says to you and he says to me, “Come.”
You and I, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, have come together today to join ourselves to God at the Banquet, at the Eucharist, at the Feast: we hear the calling and receive the Word of God. But it becomes all too easy for us to forget that this is still a human event, still a meal and we must interact with our fellow guests. We have come together to be united to the Lord but, in order to do that more fully, we must be united to each other. We are gathered together, here and today, to commune with the living God but we gain nothing if we do not do so as community—we would, otherwise, be turning our Faith into mere sustenance, mere satisfaction of our hunger, rather than the Banquet of the Kingdom laid out for us freely—for the sake of receiving divinity we would reject our humanity and so reject our very selves.
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Services this week
Friday 16th December
Discussion on the Book of Numbers, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 17th December
Vespers, 6.30 pm
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Sunday 18th 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. 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 community?
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
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