God’s logic is different from ours; this is the mystery of life. Because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, we can now enjoy eternal life. And the cross is the symbol of the power and authority of the philanthropic God on earth – a triumph of death – through His death as a human but His resurrection as God.

Therefore, our greatest power is not what we have, but who we are. And we are Orthodox Christians – communicants of the Risen Body and Blood of Christ – and we are transformed into this new logic and new life.

But we must put into practice this new life that Christ has given us. This is the life of the Church, the life of the Divine Liturgy. Then we will gain the full extent of the power of this new mode of life – which death cannot destroy – it merely changes its external form and improves it!

And so, we venerate the cross of Christ which tells us of God’s coming to us, and of our return to Him – both accomplished by the death of the cross. We have been given the ability to die, and yet to live. This is the logic of the Divine Liturgy.

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is Monday, September 14th. Orthros and Divine Liturgy begin at 8am.

This weekend marks what would have been our Annual Greek Festival. Let us reflect on this while offering prayers for the health and resilience of our parishioners, their families, our community, and our world.

Let us look forward to the days we can once again come together without restriction to work in fellowship and share our church home with the community safely!

Until that time, the loss of our festival does present us with a significant financial hardship. As you know, all festival proceeds go directly towards supporting the operating expenses of our parish. This has been a primary catalyst for embarking on our “FAITH and LIGHT for All Generations” campaign with the goal of raising $125,000 to offset losses caused by the pandemic.

This weekend, when we would normally be enjoying our festival–the fellowship, the fun, the music, the dancing, the food, the pastries, the Greek beer, the Ouzo–we humbly ask that you reflect on what you may have spent leading up to the festival and throughout festival weekend, and consider offering this amount as a donation to our FAITH and LIGHT campaign.

We understand this time is impacting everyone in many ways and, therefore, all expressions of love for our church are deeply appreciated. It is your love that keeps alive the Faith and Light of our church, now and for generations to come.

May you have health and God’s blessing! Ygeía kai evlogía Theoú na éhete!

To Offer a Donation…

Please click on our Donations and Stewardship tab and select the Faith and Light option. Alternatively, you can mail or drop off a check to the church office. Please be sure to note “FAITH and LIGHT” in the memo so your funds can be attributed to this campaign

Michael, the great and chief commander of God’s bodiless hosts, both before the incarnation and after, showed compassion and solicitude toward the race of man [Josh. 5:13-15; Dan. 10: 13, 12: 1; Jude 1:9; Rev. 12:71. He bestowed many benefits on earth before the coming of Christ, and afterward he showed even greater care and love toward the Christians. Read more…

Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou

In this passage, clearly, our Lord is speaking of an impossibility, not a mere difficulty, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And yet Christ gives hope even to the very rich: “For man it is impossible, for God all things are possible”.

But why does Christ tell us that it is impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven? What is so terrible about wealth?

St Basil the Great regarded great wealth as equal to not loving our fellow human beings, as he makes abundantly clear in his exegesis of today’s Gospel passage:

“…if what you say is true”, says St Basil to the Rich Man, “that you have kept from your youth the commandment of love and have given to everyone the same as to yourself, then how did you come by this abundance of wealth? Care for the needy requires the expenditure of wealth: when all share alike, dispersing their possessions among themselves, they each receive a small portion for their individual needs. Thus, those who love their neighbor as themselves possess nothing more than their neighbor; yet surely, you seem to have great possessions! How else can this be, but that you have preferred your own enjoyment to the consolation of the many? For the more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love”. (To the Rich)

And as he iterates elsewhere:

“The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes which are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy”.

St Basil, like St John Chrysostom and other Church Fathers, believed that whatever one has that is over and above one’s needs should be given to those who have less. But this is complicated by the human tendency to adjust the definition of “need” to fit one’s current level of income. Those who have more tend to use more.

St Basil treats this subject in his sermon, I Will Tear Down My Barns, which deals with the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12: 16-21) who, on the very day he was to die, said to himself that he will tear down his barns and build larger ones to store his goods. St Basil regards this tearing down of the barns to build larger ones as a metaphor for expanding the baseline of need. “Barn” represents our definition of need; what we think we need to live. St Basil says that if we never have any extra to share, it is because we adjust our definition of need to suit our situation.

This is why wealth can so easily become an obstacle to love and salvation. Our definition of need becomes distorted, and we begin to see luxury and excess as a necessity, overlooking the abject poverty and genuine need and deprivation of others, favoring our own comfort and abundant wealth over the most basic needs of our fellow human beings.

The Church did not need to wait for [COVID19 and the ensuing global economic crisis] to know that wealth can so easily become an obstacle to love and salvation. It is a crisis that was caused by the greed of the wealthy. Thus, we are witnesses to the fact that Christ’s warning about wealth remains as relevant now as it did some 2,000 years ago!

Christ warns us to not attach ourselves to worldly treasure, but to the Kingdom of God. “Do not store for yourselves treasure on earth, which rusts and decays and which thieves break into and steal. But store for yourselves treasure in heaven. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”.

This is why, at every Divine Liturgy, the priest commands, “Let us lift up our hearts”, to which the people respond, “We lift them up unto the Lord”. But for our hearts to be with God in heaven, we have to let go of all the worldly attachments that keep our hearts on earth. That is why, as we begin now to prepare for Holy Communion at the Divine Liturgy, we will hear the words, “Let us now lay aside every care of this life, that we may receive the King of All”.

Christ tells us that the Kingdom of God is like a pearl of enormous value. When someone finds it and realizes its worth, he sells everything he has in order to obtain that pearl. (Matt. 13:45-46)

At the Divine Liturgy, we are reminded that what is more important than anything in this world, more valuable than anything in life, more precious than life itself, is the Kingdom of God. And if we sacrifice everything for that Kingdom, we will find that we have not really sacrificed anything at all, but rather, we will have gained something more precious than anything in the world. We will have gained eternal life, the life of God and His Kingdom which shall have no end.

Claiming what we’re owed

In this section from Matthew’s Gospel, Christ speaks to us in a parable through which He wants to define the reality of human relations and to show the way which is both desirable and beneficial for us to follow. A servant came across a fellow-servant, to whom he’d lent a very small sum, but which he’d not yet been able to reclaim. He rushed at him and nearly strangled him in his efforts to get back the small amount of money he’d lent. Despite the distress of the borrower, who begged him on bended-knee for a little more time to repay, the servant who had made the loan had his debtor dragged away and locked up in prison. You might say that this behavior on the part of the servant who lent towards the servant who borrowed was perfectly legal and reasonable. In the final analysis, according to the prevailing economic principle world-wide: ‘Agreements have to be kept’.

On the basis of this four-square logic, it’s entirely natural to claim what’s been agreed and to insist on the implementation of contracts, principally because it’s the responsibility of each of the parties involved to look exclusively to their own interests and to defend and protect them, given that the position of the other party is always considered to be rigid and inflexible. In other words, if someone suffers as the result of an agreement which is not being honored, it’s his or her own fault, since they should have had the sense either not to agree to the terms in question or to have ensured that the terms would be met. This thinking lies at the very heart of ‘capitalist morality’, which is an extension of the Protestant ethic.

God’s blessings

What is it that the lender servant forgot? What is it that makes his behavior towards his fellow servant unacceptable? The fact that immediately before this, not another servant but his lord and master had forgiven him an unbelievable amount that he owed and which he’d never have been able to repay, even if he’d sold all his possessions, the members of his family and even himself. And in fact, his master forgave the debt because the servant who owed it had entreated him to do so.

In other words, Jesus comes and reminds of the countless blessings from our Holy God towards us. These are rich blessings, given to us without our deserving them since we’ve disappointed God so bitterly. We were in debt to such an extent that nothing could act as a counter-weight to our sinful apostasy or give us any hope of salvation. And yet the Creator didn’t become enraged with His creation. If creators -painters, poets, artists, composers, sculptors or writers- don’t like what they’ve created, when it doesn’t meet their expectations, when it’s failed, they have the right to destroy it and start something else. God didn’t do this, though, when His creation didn’t meet His expectations and when it rose up and made war against Him. He sent His Only-Begotten Son and Word, so that, through His incarnation, He could refashion the human race, not simply granting forgiveness of sins but bestowing something very much greater: sanctification, deification, eternal restoration in the kingdom of heaven.

If we’re indebted to such divine love, aren’t we also accountable and responsible for the way we enjoy and run our lives? And if, while we’re worthy of the worst punishments, we actually enjoy the greatest blessings, by what right do we not imitate God our Father even to the slightest degree, by copying, with droplets of love, the torrential outpouring of love from His heart? By what right, when we’ve scandalously benefited from the logic of love, do we forget this and confront others with the logic of revenge?

Metropolitan Ieronymos of Larisa and Tyrnavos. Source: pemptousia.com