Dear Friends
What is the future of the Orthodox Church in this country, this region, this town? What do you hope to see in the future? Because our future will not merely happen: it takes planning, preparation and action. What do you want it to be?
For some, they might want to see more of the same. Our Church community comes together each weekend to celebrate the Liturgy, a chance to meet with friends and like-minded individuals, an oasis in our modern world before we return to the rat race of modern life. For others, we might serve as a way to explore likes and dislikes of worship, an alternative to other Christian traditions, so they can find that which they find is most homely and comfortable. For others still, they may want us to help them keep alive a distant memory of a place long left behind but still haunting them, to scratch an itch they can’t quite reach: whether because of distance travelled or a change in thinking, the memory is there but is fading.
Are these your wants and desires for the Orthodox Church and for our community? Are they mine? Because they would colour our plans for the future.
Then Jesus said to [the Jews], “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.
This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.” …Therefore many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”…
From that time many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more.
Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
John 6:53–58, 60, 66–69
Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The Gospel points us towards what the future of the Church is: to provide an access point, an encounter, with eternal life. And this is radical, this is amazing—Church is not about meeting the like-minded, exploring worship traditions or keeping alive a memory, the only future for the Church is one in which we receive eternal life.
And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
John 17:3
Not know about God, not answer a quiz on the topic of God, but come into contact with God, receive God, be united with God.
And I must set this as my goal, my destiny: because I am a Christian, I am called to make this my reality so that I must work to bring eternal life, for myself and for others, and must change myself so that I may receive it. And you are too. For we all are invited to make the Kingdom of God present here in Eastleigh and throughout this entire region by bringing eternal life to those who are dead, to those who are held captive by sin.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if we are to be the Church, if we are to be worthy of the name Christian, we must have our future set only on eternal life and we must work—together and cooperatively—to make this a reality. We must, here and now, work together to bring the Resurrection of Christ to our world. May this be, by the prayers of the Theotokos, the Holy, Glorious and All-praised Twelve Apostles, and of all the saints.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Were the events of today’s parable in a different order, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the actions of the Servant would make sense. If first,
“[He] came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt.”
then it would make sense, because this is how our world works. We make a deal, an agreement, a transaction, and we expect the other side to come through. And when this does not happen, we expect compensation, vengeance and retribution. “Pay what you owe,” is our own rallying cry, our own justification, our own way of ascribing guilt. The “wrong,” the “sinners,” must pay for their crimes, pay for their guilt, pay for their iniquity, while the “good” may bask in their own self-righteousness.
Yet I am the Servant. I am the one who has come into contact with the King and been forgiven a great fortune, I have received forgiveness so that neither I nor those I love—since our sins affect not only ourselves but our families, our friends, our neighbours and even the entire world—are sent into the slavery of prison: I have been liberated and set free. And yet I still act according to the standards of this world: “Pay what you owe.” Because, dear brothers and sisters, I have accepted the Lord’s forgiveness without a change of character, I have accepted the Gospel but only on my own terms: “Lord, I believe,” I state, yet if I am being honest I must add, “as much as suits me, as much as helps me, as much as I do not have to serve others, as much as I do not have to feel indebted, as much as I do not have to forgive.”
…
Read last Sunday’s Sermon, Pay what you owe.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 25th August
Discussion on the Divine Liturgy, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 26th August
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Sunday 27th August
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 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 meet 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
[email protected]