Hey everybody this is Steve, and if your parish suddenly disappeared...who would notice?
As a kid, I remember going to food festivals for all the parishes in my neighborhood.
I’d get to eat lots of delicious food, listen to fun music, just have a great time.
As I got older, I met people who weren’t Orthodox Christians.
People whose only contact with the Church was those parish festivals.
Now, sometimes that’s great.
I have friends who first encountered the Orthodox Church at a parish festival.
And then eventually were received into the Church.
But it often seems like the interactions we have with our neighbors are purely cultural.
Or purely ethnic.
That we share good food and good music with our neighbors, but not the Good News of the
Gospel.
In fact, I remember speaking to a visitor at a parish festival one time.
And I invited him to come into the church to pray with me.
But he was surprised.
Because he didn’t realize that a church was hosting the festival.
He thought it was just a cultural thing.
As far as he knew, Jesus wasn’t at all a part of what was going on.
This reminds me of a story that a young adult named Sean shared on our interview podcast,
“We Are Orthodoxy.”
Sean went to college in the Bay Area, in California.
And one day, he realized that high school students not too far from where he lived were
really struggling.
Struggling with poverty.
And violence.
And a lack of opportunity.
Sean thought it would be great for his Orthodox Christian parish to help those kids in the
wider community.
But the parish didn’t seem very interested in helping those high school students.
In fact, Sean began to realize that his parish spent a lot of time and money and effort on
their food festival but not on actually helping people.
So Sean did what he personally could to help.
And he continues to be active with groups that help disadvantaged kids.
But Sean also slowly drifted away from the Church because that kind of outreach wasn’t
a priority for his fellow Orthodox Christians.
He began to realize that his values, his desire to care for his literal neighbors, didn’t
fit with his experience of the parish.
As you can probably guess, this is where we get our main question today.
If Sean’s parish had suddenly disappeared, it would have had no real impact on those
suffering nearby because up till then...that parish had had no impact on those suffering
nearby.
So again I ask - if your parish were to suddenly disappear from planet earth, who would notice?
Who would be impacted?
Would anybody care?
Now, there’s two ways to think about this.
On the one hand, we can point our fingers at others.
We can point our fingers at particular people and parishes we know.
But being a Christian isn’t about pointing our fingers at the sins and shortcomings of
others.
This really starts with us.
And we have to ask ourselves:
Do we act like Christians?
And this is an especially important question for us as Orthodox Christians because our
sense of identity is often wrapped up in the confidence that we’re right.
That the Orthodox Church has continued to pass down the true Faith from the time of
the Apostles until now.
Which is true.
What we receive from the Church today is what the Apostles received from Christ almost 2,000
years ago.
But if we claim to have the same Faith as those first Christians that lived two thousand
years ago, we should also act like those early Christians acted.
We should live the way that they lived.
That doesn’t mean we should stop using electricity and cars and start wearing sandals and robes
instead of sneakers and t-shirts.
It means something much more than that.
It means acting in accordance with the Word of God.
The earliest Christians didn’t just learn Christ’s Word by reading about it in a book.
They heard it from Jesus Himself or from other people that knew the Lord.
In fact, many of the earliest Christians were present for (or knew someone who was present
for) Jesus’ greatest articulation of His Word: the Sermon on the Mount.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives an outline of what it means to act like His disciples.
What it means to act like a Christian.
He explained how to pray, how to fast, how to trust God.
But before all of those things, He told those listening this:
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14-16
This is what it means to act like a Christian!
To shine Christ’s light into the world through our love and good deeds!
To transform the world from a dark place, to one of light and joy!
The earliest Christians understood the Lord’s teachings.
And they put those teachings into practice.
In the Acts of the Apostles we read that the first Christians sold their land and houses
so they could support those in need.
They healed the sick and cared for the poor.
They went to jail and were killed because they refused to stop worshipping Jesus, the
Son of God.
One of the early Christians setting the example for this way of life was Saint James, the
Brother of the Lord.
St James was the first Bishop of Jerusalem.
And his life was marked by incredible holiness and humility.
As one early Church historian wrote:
“He used to be found kneeling on his knees, begging forgiveness for the people - so that
the skin of his knees became horny like that of a camel's, by reason of his constantly
bending the knee in adoration to God, and begging forgiveness for the people.”
(Hegesippus, “Commentaries on the Acts of the Church”)
St James was clearly a person of intense and constant prayer.
But that’s not where St James’s example of acting like a Christian ended.
For him, being a Christian was about more than the faith he confessed, or the private
prayer he offered to God.
St James wrote one of the epistles that’s collected in the New Testament.
And in this epistle, St James talks about how Christianity isn’t just about what we
say our faith is.
Christianity is about what we do.
It’s about how we act.
“Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.…
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans
and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
(James 1:22, 27)
Early Christians took Christ’s teaching and St James’ example and not only lived
it, but passed it on to other Christians.
Less than a hundred years later, St Athenagoras wrote a letter defending the Christian way
of life, saying,
“Among us you will find uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who... are unable
in words to prove the benefit of our doctrine... but exhibit good works; when struck, they
do not strike again; when robbed, they do not go to law; they give to those that ask
of them, and love their neighbours as themselves.”
St. Athenagoras the Athenian, A Plea for Christians chapter 11
Again, a hundred years after that, Christians were still acting in the way Christ taught
and the Apostles preached.
In 292 A.D., when a major epidemic hit the city of Alexandria, most people simply threw
the sick out onto the street to die.
But St Dionysios, who was the Bishop of Alexandria during the epidemic, wrote that Christians
sacrificed their lives to take care of those that were sick, saying,
“Most of our brother-Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves
and thinking only of one another.
Heedless of the danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and
ministering to them in Christ…
Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their
stead...”
Fast forward another hundred years after that, and Christians like St Basil the Great and
St John Chrysostom were starting the first ever orphanages and hospitals!
And Christians like St Macrina the Elder were dedicating their lives to helping widows and
those in poverty!
All of these things definitely weren’t easy for early Christians to do.
It meant sacrificing time, money, resources, and even their own lives to shine the Light
of Christ into a dark and troubled world.
But Christians did exactly that because that’s how Jesus taught His Apostles to act: with
love and kindness.
Imagine if the early Christians had never existed!
Imagine if hospitals and orphanages had never been started!
Would the world notice?
Would it feel like a darker place?
I think so…
So let’s take a few moments and ask ourselves the same questions:
If I weren’t here, if my parish weren’t here, would people see the world a little
more darkly?
Would they notice the lack of our Christian love?
Would they notice our absence?
If we can’t truly and honestly say that the answer is “yes,” then maybe it’s
time we start acting like Christians.
And now is the perfect time so start.
We can start today by adding to our daily discipline.
Last week we covered how to start (and keep) a prayer rule.
But that’s not enough by itself.
Maybe we need to make almsgiving a part of our spiritual practice.
Maybe we need to develop a culture in our parishes and homes that reflects the first
Christian communities.
We know it’s important to make time to see God in the face of an icon.
We know it’s important to make time to encounter Him in a daily habit of prayer and worship.
What we can’t forget is that it’s just as important for us to work to meet the Lord
in the face of our neighbor.
Because we need to keep our eyes open to see the needs of those around us.
To feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, and to welcome those who seem strange to us.
That is what it means to act like a Christian.
So how can you start?
Well, we’ve put together a workbook to help you think about what this means for you and
your community.
And you can find the link down in the doobley-doo.
Because it’s time for us to act like Christians.
It’s time we follow the Christians who came before us and start shining the Light of Christ
into a world that so desperately needs it.
So let's be the bee, and act like Christians.
Be the Bee, and Live Orthodoxy.
Remember to like and subscribe, and share.
I’ll see you all next week.
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