Sowing Abundantly

Each of us knows – or, at least, should know – the hallmarks of the Orthodox way of life. First of all, there is prayer: which we might say is to be in conversation with God. Conversation, of course, involves both talking and listening; and relationships cannot exist without conversation. Prayer, then, becomes a way for us to grow closer in relationship to God, if we learn to enter His presence on a regular basis, and if we will listen as well as talk. There is nothing wrong with prayer that praises God, and gives Him thanks; there is nothing wrong with sharing with Him our hopes and fears, asking for help for others and for ourselves; but we must also listen, especially with our hearts, to what God may be saying to us, even as we are talking with Him.

Next comes the discipline of fasting. Above all, this is a strength and a skill we exercise and develop beginning with dietary restrictions. We all know there are days and seasons we mark by removing meat, eggs, and dairy products from what we eat; and even abstaining from fish, wine, and oil on the most strict days. By following this teaching and practice of the Church, we learn obedience – from which flows reverence and meekness; and meekness attacks the root of sin, which is pride. Fasting also is a form of training, such as what an athlete does to prepare for competition. Fasting helps us teach our flesh that it cannot always have whatever it wants whenever we want it; and this discipline can grow to help us resist other passions that would lead us into sins if we surrendered ourselves to them.

Prayer and fasting, above all, are the signs of the Orthodox way of life. There is another practice, however, that we do not speak about as frequently, yet is, nevertheless, one that is quite important: giving. This is the subject spoken about in the reading today from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church. St. Paul is writing here to remind the faithful of this important practice of the Orthodox way of life. What, if anything, should we take from this to do in our own lives?

Remember that, in the Old Testament, the people of God were given, as a law, the requirement to give ten percent of what they received – a tithe of their year’s income. This is not what St. Paul is telling the faithful. Rather, he tells them that the act of giving is a voluntary act; and then he addresses how we are to think about giving. What does he say?

St. Paul does not promise that those who give will receive an earthly reward of wealth. He reminds us that God has given us all that we have; and calls upon us to give in the same way that God has given to us – that is, to be generous. He uses a powerful image: “He who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; while he who sows abundantly will reap abundantly.” What do we sow when we give? He also talks of sufficiency and abundance. We are promised that we shall be given what is sufficient for our needs, so that we can learn to be free of the things of this world, including food, clothing, and shelter; and by trusting that God will provide what we need, and learning to not live with what goes beyond sufficiency – which is what the world would have us do – we will have enough to give for the benefit of others, while setting aside for ourselves treasures in heaven.

Put another way, St. Paul, and St. John Chrysostom as well, want us to distinguish between what we need – sufficiency – and what we want. St. John Chrysostom uses an example of a person spending very large amounts of money to clothe and entertain someone from the theater, but who, when confronted with a poor man in need of alms, gives little or nothing, perhaps out of the fear that giving will bring poverty on him, the giver, as well. He asks, what will be said to this person, who used the richness given by God for earthly things, but neglected the spiritual aspect of giving without thought of return or reward, which we do when we give to help those in need – and let us remember that part of the reason we give to the Church is to make it possible to meet the spiritual needs of others, both in our midst and in the world.

Brothers and sisters, we are called by the fathers and the saints to share with them in the Orthodox way of life. Let us fast and pray; and let us give, not from necessity, but in thanksgiving for what God has given to us. Let us ask God for the grace and strength to live sufficiently, but no more, so that, by being generous with what God has given us beyond sufficiency, we may use this wisely, giving to the Church and for those in need, so that we may live abundantly in the life of the Spirit, both now, and unto the ages of ages.

God's Love in Action

As you know, the life of the liturgical year is one that is rich. The calendar of the Church year is extensive. Each and every day has a saint or saints whose lives are celebrated, and there are feasts and fasts and the celebration of a wide variety of events. Some of the saints, and some of the feasts and fasts and events are well known to us all, and we look forward to that day, and to come to church to come into the presence of the Lord in a special way, to be with Him and to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and the offering of His most precious and holy Body and Blood for us to eat and drink, so that our wounds in body, mind, and spirit may be healed, and that our souls may be saved. The bread and the wine that become, by the grace of God, the Body and Blood of Christ are real food, essential food, with our physical bodies being nourished through the material elements of bread and wine, and our souls refreshed by the grace of God, so that the life of Christ given to us in our baptism may grow strong, and be seen in us, bearing fruit unto salvation.

The saint we celebrate today is not the first choice on the liturgical calendar. This is not to say that our holy father Anthony the Roman is not worthy of our attention – far from it! The story of his life and ministry have much to teach us about who we are, and about what we may do, if we will embrace the life of the Church, as the fathers have taught us. Our holy father Anthony was born in the city of Rome in the year 1086, some 32 years after the Patriarch of Rome excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, who returned the favor, in this way bringing into its fullness a division of the Church, east and west, that had been developing for over 200 years, and that has persisted to this day. (If you think it was difficult to restore unity to the divided Russian church after 80 years or so of separation – and it wasn’t easy! – imagine what will be needed to restore the unity of all Christians…) As a result of the split, those who remained faithful to the Orthodox Church and faith were persecuted, including our holy father Anthony, whose parents had raised him through their own pious way of life to love the Lord and to serve the Church. He gave away all he possessed – and his family had been wealthy – to help those in need, became a monk, and went to stand on a rock in the sea, to pray to God in an Orthodox manner. As he prayed, the rock was separated from its lower layers, and, by the grace of God, the saint was carried across the sea, and up the river to the city of Novgorod the Great. There our holy father Anthony built a temple in honor of the Mother of God, and established a monastery in which many monks were found. He served as the abbot for many years, and proclaimed the grace and mercy of God through many miracles, before he departed this life in the year 1148.

There’s another reason why he is celebrated today – a personal reason. Our holy father Anthony the Roman is the saint for whom our late archbishop Antoniy was named, the saint Vladika Antoniy revered. Now, I have to be honest and say that the story of the saint sailing across the ocean on a stone as if it were a boat is one that my mind, shaped by the rationalism and skepticism of our culture, must struggle to accept; and there is no explanation apart from the grace of God, the Worker of miracles. But although that aspect of the life of the saint is distant, the same is not true of the faith of the saint who fled from this earthly life and spent 14 months in prayer on a rock, and whose love for God and for those made in the image of God was so great that he found the wealth of this world to be useless unless it served the glory of God and met the needs of God’s people. How do I know this? I know because I saw the same love, the same devotion, the same humility, and the same charity in Vladika Antoniy. He loved the services of the church; he loved to be in the church to pray; he looked after his flock with love and care; and he repented of his sins with humility. He lived a simple life, and kept much of his devotion to God a secret – including the fact that he was a monk of the Great Schema, which made his ministry as a bishop all the more extraordinary, as the task of being a shepherd of the flock entrusted to him by God kept him from retreating into the life of a recluse, which is what monks of the Great Schema typically do. He found a way to fulfill his vows as both a monk and as a bishop; and those of us who had the privilege of knowing him, and of serving with him are rich because of his example in our lives. I believe that the last person he ever ordained was me, when he made me a deacon; and I pray, for his sake, that he did not make a mistake when he did so.

I am telling you these things about Vladika not to praise him, but to remind each of you that we all know of someone like him: someone who lives the Orthodox faith and life in a way that touches us in our hearts, inspiring us to do more – for, among other things, they show us what is possible when we live in and through and for Christ our God, and not for ourselves. We are called to do the same: to accept God’s love for us, taking His love into ourselves as we take the bread and wine of His Body and Blood; and sharing that love in serving others, teaching in words and by example the way of life that we share with the angels, if we are willing. So, let us give thanks to God for the life and ministry of our holy father Anthony the Roman; and let us also give thanks for those who, in our sight and in our hearing show us God’s love in action in our own lives as well.