Homily on the Prodigal Son for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity 2019

So here's another homily, preached August 18, 2019, at Christ Church Anglican, Summerville SC, where I am the non-chalcedonian, West Syriac Rite Orthodox\Old Catholic priest in residence (or something).  On the traditional American Anglican/Episcopalian Ordo Kalendar, this was the Ninth Sunday after Trinity.

First, here's a link to the audio. If you can only listen to read the text, I would recommend listening since I did occasionally, as they say, "depart from the prepared text."

Homily on the Prodigal Son

And here's the text:

Readings: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Luke 15:11-32

These Readings Are Found Here

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Good Morning.

And…

I get to preach on the Story of the Prodigal Son!

But first, the Epistle: There are two major things here. The first is the sacramental realism that one also finds throughout the New Testament. There is not a single example in the New Testament that can be stretched to infer that the sacraments are not spiritually efficacious. No, baptism is, in the words of St. Paul elsewhere, “the washing of regeneration” and the eucharist is, in the words of St. Paul immediately following this reading, “communion with the body and blood of Christ”.

I am not going to focus on the latter section, vs 14 to the end of the chapter, but a couple of things should be noted in passing. First, in saying that one cannot partake at the “table of the Lord” and “the table of demons,” St. Paul strongly implies that the Eucharist, like the rituals which involve killing animals in pagan temples and offering these animals to pagan deities, is indeed a sacrifice. However, perhaps now is not the time to discuss this further, but only to note that such implications are found throughout the New Testament as well as the Old.

But back to the epistle reading for today: the Children of Israel participated in what the Letter to the Hebrews calls “shadows” of the sacramental realities that we have. Nevertheless, they sinned and their lives were often cut short. Thus, let us never think that just because we participate in the sacraments, our perseverance is faith is assured. We can, and often do, wander. However, such wandering is really to be expected. Thus, the question then becomes, what do we do next? Do we repent and return to the Lord? We have a sacrament for that as well, BTW. And what does repentance mean exactly, anyway?

Well, one thing that Luther was right about, at least in his 95 Theses (and I don’t think, actually, that Roman Catholic theology, then or now, disagrees): The Christian Life is one of perpetual repentance. There are a couple of ways of illustrating this. One is a statement from a monk, I think of the East. He was asked what the monks did all day. Said he, “We fall down and we get up. We fall down and we get up.” Now, the immediate, literal reference was to the fact that monks, and other Eastern Christians, literally fall down many times a day during prayer, prostrating themselves, and then, they get back up and do it again. Of course, there is also a less literal meaning: we fall into sin, and then, and repent and we stand back up. If the monks continue to lie on the floor, they will fall asleep (monks don’t sleep a great deal so they are often continually fighting off sleep). If we don’t get back up, we too will fall into a different sort of sleep, a spiritual stupor.

Another way of speaking of “repentance”, a word that, in Greek, literally means “to change one’s mind,” is to consider how we drive motor vehicles. Even going in a straight line, we must remain alert and continually correct our direction of travel. If we don’t (assuming we are not driving one of these new, self-driving cars), we will either end up on the curb or in the ditch on the far right or, in the wrong lane. This is a vivid picture of repentance, I think. Constant vigilance and constantly correcting course.

So now, on to the Gospel reading: but before I say I anything else, I want to say that the Father in this story gives us about the clearest picture we can have of God the Father and of, indeed, the other two Divine Persons, as well as of the Trinity that is the Godhead. When we read, “God is Love," in I John, John is serious.

We know this, of course, intellectually. But do we know this, do we experience this, down in our gut, in our heart, in the depths of our being. Do we experience the fact that God is Love?

As you know, I grew up in a very devout, Evangelical/Holiness household with a lot of Pentecostal influence. While my father, a lay preacher who indeed filled many pulpits on many occasions in the very rural part of the world where I grew up, would have said he believed that “God is Love” because the Bible says so (my father stated that if the Bible stated that Jonah had swallowed the fish, he would have believed it), he would immediately have found ways to qualify it. Also, my parents were pretty old school when it came to discipline, and, while perhaps some children benefit from this, I did not. I was already a “good kid” and the last thing I needed was to get spanked for the occasional mistakes, or even worse things, that I actually did.

So this is not to complain, but I want to make the point that I grew up with deep ambiguity about God’s love for me. Now, my father was an Wesleyan Arminian. This means that he thought that it is possible, once reborn, to become unreborn. Now, he was right about that, but not really in the way he thought. Anyway, such teaching, coupled with an Anselmian view of what Christ accomplishes on the cross, did not help matters.

So, at some point, around my sophomore year of high school, I encountered Peter Gillquist, then a “once saved always saved” charismatic Baptist, along with similar teaching from Hal Lindsey, and became convinced, at that time, that “once saved always saved” was correct. This lifted a huge psychological and spiritual burden and allowed me to begin developing more normally, not only as a Christian, but as an adolescent.

Fast forward a bit: I’ve graduated high school, gone off to Marquette University, become Roman Catholic, and eventually dropped out of Marquette due to majoring more in “politics and partying” instead of any academic subject. I soon find myself in the U.S. Navy and stationed in Charleston at the Naval Hospital. So, I eventually take some leave and drive northward, back to my old stomping grounds, to attend the graduation of an on-again/off-again girlfriend in Milwaukee (This was before I met my wife.) Her brother, a high school senior, is also there, and he and I hit it off, so he and I talk his mother into allowing him to stay a bit longer, and I will bring him home via Pittsburgh.

So, when we leave Milwaukee, I drop him off in Pittsburgh and head South. Now, bear in mind that at the time, the nation-wide speed limit was 55 and, while I was something of a prodigal son myself, I was not one to drive any faster. So I drive south through W.VA and VA and into NC. In Southern VA and into NC, I had to detour off the Interstate and take mountainous two-lane roads for a time due to roadwork and finally, I get back on the southbound freeway in NC. It is getting dark and I am not at all sure that this little Pinto will make it. I have to be back in Charleston the next morning or I will be AWOL. So I am praying quietly: “Lord, please let me get back in time! Please don’t let me be AWOL!” And so on.

Now, I have had some rather profound experiences with the Lord, generally letting me know that I should stop being a twit. I include this statement to make it clear that I am NOT bragging. Well, this was one of those experiences. I distinctly “heard”, in my mind, the Lord say, “I LOVE you! Do you really think that I am just out to get you? I LOVE you!” While I did not immediately begin living a less prodigal life myself (I was, after all, young and in the Navy), that had a profound effect on my spiritual life and my expectations of God.

So yes, God loves us, each and every one of us, and when we “come to ourselves” in a far-off place, and return to God, to the Church, God is waiting with open arms to welcome us.

But then, we have to say something also about the older brother. These are the people that most concern me, although there are times when I am tempted to move in this direction as well.

I know a woman who, at least when I last had any contact with her, maybe 5 or more years ago, was the “older sister”. She lives a respectable, responsible lifestyle. Works hard, pays her bills, goes to church, volunteers at church. But she thinks, and she has said this, that God owes her something because of this and she is not fond at all of the prodigal types nor of the fact that God loves them as much as God loves her.

So here’s the deal, to cut to the chase so to speak: we’re all going to die into God, into the immediate, undiluted experience of God and the Divine Nature which, as we said, is “Love”. Now we also read in Scripture that God is “consuming fire” and we read that in the age to come, Satan, the demons, and yes, apparently some humans will be consigned to a place of torture, a “lake of fire”.

So how can we reconcile these two things? Well, first, if God is “consuming fire”, what will be consumed? Our sin and the things that it produces, of course. As with gold, and we read this in Scripture as well, God will purify us, as God is indeed now doing in our lives as Christians. These are the things that burn when they come in contact with God and the first of these is self-righteousness. “Love covers a multitude of sins” we read. “Cover” here basically means to remove, resolve, heal from. The more we love, the less self-righteous we become, and, in the end,the only sin that God cannot deal with is self-righteousness. It stops us from allowing God to heal us of everything else.

Now, such self-righteousness can take many forms. I have known people, for example, who were struggling with the Church’s teaching, with Christ’s teaching, on this, that or the other thing (okay, so especially with young people, this is usually related to sex, but it can be other things as well, even the command to treat others like we want to be treated), and so they stop trying and they stop praying. Now, I suspect many of us stopped trying to conquer this or that sin in the past, but the real problem is when somebody stops praying. What happens is that they usually eventually lose their faith completely. This is a form of cognitive dissonance.

So, a word to pass on to anyone in this situation: keep praying no matter what!

Finally, something that must be said, speaking of sex: Divine Love is not merely detached, as we read of in I Corinthians 13. It certainly starts there, but it also includes interpersonal affection, and finally, God really does DESIRE, infinitely DESIRE that we be in communion with the Divine Persons. This is the purpose of which we were created. God desires, infinitely desires, to be in communion with us humans. Thus, a Divine Person became human, as was the plan from the beginning.

Again, this stuff excites me! God loves ME! God loves US! God loves EVERYBODY!

So, with that in mind, all we can do is offer praise and thanksgiving, glory, honor, and worship, to this one God, the unoriginate Father, the only-begotten and incarnate Son+, and the all-holy, good, and living-giving Spirit, proceeding from the Father and resting on the Son, eternal, adorable, and one in Essence, both now and ever, in both worlds and unto the Aeon of aeons. Amen.

Homily for Trinity Sunday and Fathers' Day, 2019

Homily for Trinity Sunday and Fathers' Day,  June 16, 2019,

Christ Church Anglican, Summerville SC

By Fr. Gregory Ned Blevins, West Syriac Rite Orthodox-(Old) Catholic Priest in Residence

Readings:  Revelation 4:1-11 John 3:1-15

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.  Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Good Morning.

So let’s imagine some “person on the street” interviews, with the question being, “What are some major Christian holidays or holy days?”  Of course, probably the first and most frequently named would be Christmas, but Easter, and maybe, Pentecost, would be named as well.  Would anyone name Trinity Sunday?  This is certainly not as likely as mentions of the others.

Well, as of today, which is Trinity Sunday, we reach the culmination of a liturgical and theological journey we began on the First Sunday of Advent, about a month or six weeks before Christmas.  This journey has included Christmas, and Easter or Pascha, and Pentecost.  But today, Trinity Sunday, is the culmination and after today, up until the next First Sunday of Advent, we observe, at least on the traditional Anglican liturgical kalendar, the season of Sundays after Trinity.  This latter can be thought of as the “Season of the Church”.

Oh, and today is also Fathers’ Day.  What a coincidence!

You will never hear me complain about having to preach on Trinity Sunday.  I LOVE celebrating the Trinity!  At the same time, I never really understood the Trinity (and yes, I can say that I have some understanding of the Trinity) until I began exploring Eastern Orthodox Christianity.  That understanding began with a book called The Orthodox Church written by an Orthodox bishop, a man who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy from the Church of England, Timothy Kallistos Ware, and then, my learning continued with a book called Being as Communion:  Studies in Personhood and the Church by a man who was a Greek Orthodox lay theologian when he wrote it.  He later was made a bishop, largely, as I understand it, because of his theological prowess.  His name is John Zizioulas.  He later wrote another book called Communion and Otherness:  Further Studies in Personhood and the Church.  These books not only helped me to come to an understanding of the Trinity per se, but also, the critical importance of the fact that God is Trinity for ecclesiology and the importance of ecclesiology in our lives as Christians.

So thus, the text for his homily is not from either of the readings, but is found in two other places, Romans 12:5 and Ephesians 4:25.  In both places we read, “we are members one of another.”  We also read, in Ephesians 3:14-15, that “every family” "in heaven and on earth", takes its "name" from the Father in heaven.  Thus, every family, every community of humans, including humanity as a whole, images, is an ikon of, the Divine Community that is the Trinity.

So thus, the Creed could say that “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,” not only “maker of all that is, visible and invisible,” but also, “source of all that is, both created and uncreated”.  You see, in one eternal act, the Father “generates” or “begets” or “gives birth to” the Eternal Son and Word and also, breathes forth the Holy Spirit.  (Thus, God the Father is "the Father who give birth".)  In so doing, the Father empties Himself, putting all that the Father is, the infinite Divine Being, Essence, and Substance, into both the Son and Spirit.  In turn, they are, as St. Irenaeus says, “the two hands of the Father” who work together to bring creation into existence and then, to redeem and finally, to consummate to that creation as well.

For us humans, creation and redemption are first a matter of being ikons, or images, of God, both as persons and also, as a whole species.

So therefore, we are members one of another, as baptized Christians, because, first, each of us is a member of Christ.  That is, we are members of Christ’s body, the Church.   And because of this, we are, indeed “members one of another.”  We are brothers and sisters.  We are family.  We are community.  We are one in Christ.

And the basis of this is the fact that humanity, created in the image and likeness of God, is being re-created in that same image and likeness in the Church, in Christ, the Incarnate God the Word and Son.

And that is true because God, the Three Divine Persons, are themselves “members one of another.”  In theology, there are two technical words for this.  One is "interpenetration".  The other is "perichoresis".

God the Most Blessed Trinity is Community.  God is the Eternal, Archetypal Community of Three Eternal, Divine Persons, yet one in Being, Essence, and Substance.

Christianity, beginning with the Incarnation itself, is a synthesis/sublation of both the supernatural revelation of Judaism and the natural, but often distorted, revelation found in paganism:  God is Community and the People of God are invited to become gods, as Jesus says, expanding that community through participation in the Incarnate, executed and raised up God, being made/becoming by grace, adoption, and incorporation what the three primordial Divine Persons are by nature and essence.

So what does that mean for us in the future and then, because of what it means for us in the future, what does it mean for us in the present?  In the future, we shall fully share in the Divine Nature and thus, be fully that “beloved community” in the Kingdom of God that we were created to become.  We read at the end of the Book of Revelation of the New Jerusalem, described in highly symbolic terms, but what makes this New Jerusalem and the New Heaven and New Earth what it is will be the fullness of the manifestation of God and our communion with the Three Divine Persons as well as with each other.

We also read a couple of other things in Scripture that point to the future fullness of the Kingdom of God.  We read that “God will be all-in-all” or “everything to everyone”.  We also read that in Christ, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  This too will be fully manifest in the fullness of the coming Reign of God:  no ethnic divisions or domination of one ethnic group by another;  all will be free as "slaves" of God; and if one is male or female will have little importance.

So, in this life, here and now, we experience a foretaste of this, especially in our celebrations of the Eucharist.  I have perhaps mentioned this before, but the Eastern Orthodox emphasize this especially, noting that each celebration of the Divine Liturgy, the Eucharist, brings us into that Kingdom where it is possible, as Fr. Alexander Schmemann notes, that bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, something not possible, he writes in "this world".  In the Anaphorae, or Eucharistic Prayers of the Byzantine Rite as well, not only is the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus as well as Pentecost referred to in the past tense, but the second coming as well.  The vantage point is that of the future Kingdom of God.

But there are also more “practical” implications.  We have been given behavioral directives and these are grounded in love, the divine love called Agape that is the love which constitutes the Divine Essence.  We find a description of this love in I Corinthians 13.  Love God and love neighbor, we are told.  Who is the neighbor?  Everybody and anybody, including those least like ourselves, those we are least likely to want to love, normally speaking.   Treat them like we wish them to treat us, and so on.  Of course, that often requires a good measure of forbearance and forgiveness in that we all tend to be much more lenient with ourselves and judgmental of others unless we work to change this.  Thus, perhaps we should attempt to reverse this, except we need to be lenient with ourselves while also giving our neighbor the same benefit of the doubt we give ourselves, so simply turn the tables here is inadequate.

In short, we in the Church are called to live, according to the grace given us, in a way that images the Kingdom of God here and now, and that Kingdom is nothing other than the shared communal, Divine Life of the Three Divine Persons.  Regarding this, St. John Chrysostom, the fourth century Archbishop of Constantinople, thought that the Church of his time saw few signs and wonders because it had marginalized the communal living of the very early Church, confining each such community to either single men or single women who had taken specific vows, these being monks and nuns.  He may have a point.

So today, on Fathers’ Day, we celebrate the Divine Community that is our God, the Most Blessed Trinity, in whom the fullness of our life is found.  Let us also celebrate and give thanks for all parenthood, biological and otherwise, in that it participates in the Divine Parenthood of God the Father, the "Father who gives birth".

To the Eternal and unoriginate Father, to the only-begotten and Eternal Son+, and to the All-Holy, Good, Eternal, and Life-Giving Spirit, proceeding from the Father and resting upon the Son, be all glory, honor, and worship, both now and ever, in both worlds and unto the Aeon of aeons.  Amen.

A New Ministry Project in a New Context: An Introduction

Well, about seven months old actually.

Several years ago, I had been approached by Fr. Steven Smith, a young African-American priest, now in one of the lesser-known, but older, Continuing Anglican jurisdictions, about assisting him in a Church plant here in Summerville, South Carolina.

Late in 2018, I finally got back to him, and after obtaining the necessary blessings from his bishop and mine, I began assisting him with Sunday Mass, alternating preaching every other Sunday with celebrating.  The liturgy used is from the 1928 Prayer Book\American Missal and often involves incense.  We are also learning to sing this liturgy, although I don't think we are as far along with that as either of us would like.  As far as I know, this Church plant, Christ Church Anglican, is the only place of worship in the Summerville SC area using the '28 Prayer Book on a regular basis.  The next closest place of which I am aware is St. Timothy's Anglican Catholic Church in the West Ashley area of Charleston, about 20 miles away.

So Christ Church Anglican, a start-up if there ever was one, worships in a rented chapel on the grounds of the Reformed Episcopal Cummins Theological Seminary.  The chapel, formerly "St. Barnabas Episcopal Church", was purchased by the REC and moved to the current location many years ago.  The edifice is now known as "Bishop Pengelley Memorial Chapel of the REC".  The seminary address is 705 S. Main Street, Summerville, and the freestanding chapel is located behind the main building on E. 6th Street South.  Mass is at 11 AM every Sunday morning.  We welcome you!  If we add additional service or activities, I will post them here on my blog.

Above, Fr. Steven gives the final blessing.  His son Jayden is the acolyte.  Below, I pronounce the "Ecce Agnus Dei" (in English).  For several Sundays, the air conditioning was not working, so I vested minimally.

And the chapel interior definitely grows on one.

The main reason I posted this was to serve as an introduction.  Over the past few months, I have accumulated several sermons based on readings from the single-year eucharistic lectionary of the 1928 American Anglican Prayer Book.  I have intended to post them for some time, but hadn't gotten to it.  They will not be in chronological order, and the first one will be from Trinity Sunday and Fathers' Day, June 16, 2019.

Watch this space!

An Initial Question...

What will the eschatological "Reign of God" look like?  Let's brainstorm in the comments.

I'm Back!

After what?

Six years.

Well, I've been on Facebook.

And what, you ask, is on my mind?  Anything?

Well, yes.  Yes, there is.

And that would be the intrinsic, integral connection between socioeconomic liberation as a function of the Christian Good News (you know, "Gospel") and personal salvation, also a form of liberation.

There will be more later.  However, at this time, I just wanted to regain access to this blog.

Shlama,
Avva/Fr. Greg

Ascension, 2012

"O Christ our God, upon fulfilling Your dispensation for our sake, You ascended in Glory, uniting the earthly with the heavenly. You were never separate but remained inseparable, and cried out to those who love You, 'I am with you and no one is against you." - Kontakion of the Ascension, Byzantine Rite

Pascha, 2012

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

(Christmas 2011) Christ is born! Glorify Him!

He Who holds the whole creation in the hollow of His hand is born of the Virgin.
He Whose Essence is incomprehensible is wrapped in swaddling clothes as a mortal.
God, Who in the beginning formed the heavens, lies in a manger.
He Who rained down manna on the people in the wilderness is fed on milk from His Mother's breast.
The Bridegroom of the Church summons the Magi.
The Son of the Virgin accepts their gifts.
We worship Thy Nativity, O Christ!
We worship Thy Nativity, O Christ!
We worship Thy Nativity, O Christ!
Show us also Thy holy Theophany!
(Byzantine Rite) 

Axios! Many years! (to the Antiochian Catholic Church in America)

Today, October 23, is the Feast Day of St. James, the "brother" of the Lord and first bishop of Jerusalem. A very early liturgy, the one used by all of the West Syriac Tradition, including the ACCA, is attributed to him. It clearly forms the basis for the Liturgies of the Byzantine Rite and Armenian Rite, and is echoed in certain anaphorae, or Eucharistic Prayers, of the Coptic Church.

It is also the 20th anniversary of the autocephaly, or independence, of the Antiochian Catholic Church in America.

Axios! Many years!

The following are Prayers-Hymns from the Byzantine Rite, used at the Liturgy (Eucharist) in honor of St. James:

Troparion Tone 4
Thou hast received the Gospel as a disciple,/ thou art invincible as a martyr,/ and bold as the Lord's brother,/ thou dost intercede as a hierarch./ O righteous James, pray to Christ our God that He may save our souls.

Kontakion Tone 4
God the Word, only-begotten of the Father,/ came to us in the last days./ He has made thee first shepherd and teacher of Jerusalem/ and a steward of spiritual mysteries./ we honour thee, O Apostle James.