OrthoAnalytika

Homily on the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman; St. John 4:5-42.  What are we to learn about water that is more than water and the secret food that sustained Jesus?  Listen and find out!

St. John 5:1-15; Acts 9:32-42.  Three lessons: A Life lesson from St. John Chrysostom: We must persevere, even when there is no clear solution.  A moral lesson from St. Augustine: There is a time for being cared for and healed, but there is also a time for healing others. A theological lesson from St. John Chrysostom: God set it up this strange way to prepare us to understand the real healing that would come through baptism.  Enjoy the show!

St. John 5:1-15; Acts 9:32-42.  Three lessons: A Life lesson from St. John Chrysostom: We must persevere, even when there is no clear solution.  A moral lesson from St. Augustine: There is a time for being cared for and healed, but there is also a time for healing others. A theological lesson from St. John Chrysostom: God set it up this strange way to prepare us to understand the real healing that would come through baptism.  Enjoy the show!

Homily on Belief
St. John 20:19-31

Does God hate doubt? Did he shame doubters? No, He had a different approach.

He wants us to know the truth; but this is MUCH less about facts than it is about us knowing Him as the God. In St. John 14:6, He says “I am the Truth...”

He does not want us to remain in doubt about Him, His power, or His redeeming love for us. He wants us to believe in Him. Again, in John (11:26), He describes how important this belief is: it is the only way to have real life. But He is patient and will draw the earnest seeker into belief.

But what does it mean to believe in someone? It means that you can trust that person, trust their intentions, and trust their power to do what it is they are saying they will do.

In a healthy marriage, a husband believes in his wife and the wife believes in her husband. In a healthy home, children grow up believing in their parents; they trust them, their intentions, and their power.

When that belief is gone, no actions are going to be able to save the relationship. A spouse that is convinced their partner is going to find evidence – even if the mind has to make it up – to support that. And so the whole dynamic changes; without belief their can be no connection; no blessed unity; no harmony; no “life”.

Christ is worthy of our Trust. His intentions towards us are clear: He loves us and desires us to have eternal joy with Him and each other. His power to do what He has promised is similarly clear: He has risen from the dead. And He has given us reminders of all this: we share in His Body and Blood in part to keep the reality of His promise alive in us. To help us drive away the doubt.

You have united yourself to Christ. You believe in His love and you have accepted that love. You believe in His power and you have accepted that power.

The mind will still come up with doubts; but that is what the mind does. It comes up with ideas. Over time, as we learn to really trust Him, these doubt will trouble us less. But in the meantime, don't be afraid of your doubts. As in any good relationship, bring them out into the open. This is the safe place to do that; not here during worship, but here in this community. I guarantee you that you won't be the first to express the ideas your mind has come up with; incredibly intelligent and well-educated people and experienced people have thought those thoughts.

If those thoughts were generated out of love and a genuine desire to know, then working out the answers here in God's presence will be a holy act. History shows this without exception. The answers may be hard to hear, but being good isn't always easy.

History also shows that if we use questions out of malice or a desire to mock God or His children, that we will learn nothing from our dialogue with Him. But malice is a poison; the only way to cure it is by pulling out the poison. Facts don't help at all.

One last note about doubt. When you believe, do it gently, patiently, and with love as you share it with others. God did not mind people who came to Him with questions because He knew the connection of honest dialogue would bring them into a relationship – that is to say, a belief – in Him.

But He had no patience with people who believed so strongly in the wrong things that they hurt others for it, especially when they did this in His name. (Pharisees)

So believe in Christ; believe in His love for you, and His power to bring you into the only life worth living.

Homily on Belief St. John 20:19-31

Does God hate doubt? Did he shame doubters? No, He had a different approach.

He wants us to know the truth; but this is MUCH less about facts than it is about us knowing Him as the God. In St. John 14:6, He says “I am the Truth...”

He does not want us to remain in doubt about Him, His power, or His redeeming love for us. He wants us to believe in Him. Again, in John (11:26), He describes how important this belief is: it is the only way to have real life. But He is patient and will draw the earnest seeker into belief.

But what does it mean to believe in someone? It means that you can trust that person, trust their intentions, and trust their power to do what it is they are saying they will do.

In a healthy marriage, a husband believes in his wife and the wife believes in her husband. In a healthy home, children grow up believing in their parents; they trust them, their intentions, and their power.

When that belief is gone, no actions are going to be able to save the relationship. A spouse that is convinced their partner is going to find evidence – even if the mind has to make it up – to support that. And so the whole dynamic changes; without belief their can be no connection; no blessed unity; no harmony; no “life”.

Christ is worthy of our Trust. His intentions towards us are clear: He loves us and desires us to have eternal joy with Him and each other. His power to do what He has promised is similarly clear: He has risen from the dead. And He has given us reminders of all this: we share in His Body and Blood in part to keep the reality of His promise alive in us. To help us drive away the doubt.

You have united yourself to Christ. You believe in His love and you have accepted that love. You believe in His power and you have accepted that power.

The mind will still come up with doubts; but that is what the mind does. It comes up with ideas. Over time, as we learn to really trust Him, these doubt will trouble us less. But in the meantime, don't be afraid of your doubts. As in any good relationship, bring them out into the open. This is the safe place to do that; not here during worship, but here in this community. I guarantee you that you won't be the first to express the ideas your mind has come up with; incredibly intelligent and well-educated people and experienced people have thought those thoughts.

If those thoughts were generated out of love and a genuine desire to know, then working out the answers here in God's presence will be a holy act. History shows this without exception. The answers may be hard to hear, but being good isn't always easy.

History also shows that if we use questions out of malice or a desire to mock God or His children, that we will learn nothing from our dialogue with Him. But malice is a poison; the only way to cure it is by pulling out the poison. Facts don't help at all.

One last note about doubt. When you believe, do it gently, patiently, and with love as you share it with others. God did not mind people who came to Him with questions because He knew the connection of honest dialogue would bring them into a relationship – that is to say, a belief – in Him.

But He had no patience with people who believed so strongly in the wrong things that they hurt others for it, especially when they did this in His name. (Pharisees)

So believe in Christ; believe in His love for you, and His power to bring you into the only life worth living.

The Lamentations/Praises from the Matins service of Holy Saturday.  Rdr. Nicholas Perkins sang the verses; Fr. Anthony Perkins (his father) sang the Psalm verses.  Enjoy the show!

The Lamentations/Praises from the Matins service of Holy Saturday.  Rdr. Nicholas Perkins sang the verses; Fr. Anthony Perkins (his father) sang the Psalm verses.  Enjoy the show!

Palm Sunday Homily.  

Where do we get our spiritual strength? What is the source?  Is our spiritual health fragile and dependent on the circumstances, or is it robust?

Do the events and people in our lives “damage our calm”, or do we have the kind of “peace that passes all understanding” guarding our hearts?

The default setting is for our calm to be defined by the state of our ego; our pride.

• When we feel insulted or taken for granted, our peace is threatened and our joy diminishes.

• When people show appreciation for us, or praise us, we feel serenity and our joy abounds.

This really is a litmus test for our spiritual maturity: how do we respond to insults and a lack of appreciation; and how do we respond to praise.

If deepest state of being is offset by these things, then we have work to do.

The easy way: surround ourselves with the right kind of people! (safe places?)

A bit harder: mental games. Learn to write off or ignore criticism and look for positive things to cling to. This can include using theological ideas: “If God be for me, then who can be against me”; “I am a child of God; it's not my fault if these sinners don't see that.” Also games for praise.  Another way is to just check out - lots of ways to protect our ego.

But learning to hear criticism and praise objectively (and not through the needs of our ego) is necessary for our improvement!

God wants to have joy, and to have that joy in abundance; irrespective of our situation.

The God-man Jesus Christ demonstrated this in the events we are now celebrating:

• Praise: Palm Sunday

• Criticism: His Trial and Passion.

In neither case was He altered by them. His emotions were affected, but His sense of self and His sense of purpose was unchanged. Because He was never separated Himself from the Light and Truth that are themselves unchanging.

AND THAT IS THE ANSWER FOR US TO. To have Christ in us and us in Him; because no matter how much we work on them and no matter how we change our environment to make it easier for us to be content and happy, there is one even that our ego's can NEVER be strong enough to overcome...

Death. It faces us all. It faced Jesus. But He overcame it and through Him we can overcome it, too.

But only if we rely on Him and not our egos. And we can test how we are doing by looking at how our joy is affected by criticism and praise.

May God give us the courage to live in Him and Him in us so that we may overcome death and sin.

Palm Sunday Homily.  

Where do we get our spiritual strength? What is the source?  Is our spiritual health fragile and dependent on the circumstances, or is it robust? Do the events and people in our lives “damage our calm”, or do we have the kind of “peace that passes all understanding” guarding our hearts?

The default setting is for our calm to be defined by the state of our ego; our pride.

• When we feel insulted or taken for granted, our peace is threatened and our joy diminishes.

• When people show appreciation for us, or praise us, we feel serenity and our joy abounds.

This really is a litmus test for our spiritual maturity: how do we respond to insults and a lack of appreciation; and how do we respond to praise.

If deepest state of being is offset by these things, then we have work to do.

The easy way: surround ourselves with the right kind of people! (safe places?)

A bit harder: mental games. Learn to write off or ignore criticism and look for positive things to cling to. This can include using theological ideas: “If God be for me, then who can be against me”; “I am a child of God; it's not my fault if these sinners don't see that.” Also games for praise.  Another way is to just check out - lots of ways to protect our ego.

But learning to hear criticism and praise objectively (and not through the needs of our ego) is necessary for our improvement!

God wants to have joy, and to have that joy in abundance; irrespective of our situation.

The God-man Jesus Christ demonstrated this in the events we are now celebrating:

• Praise: Palm Sunday

• Criticism: His Trial and Passion.

In neither case was He altered by them. His emotions were affected, but His sense of self and His sense of purpose was unchanged. Because He was never separated Himself from the Light and Truth that are themselves unchanging.

AND THAT IS THE ANSWER FOR US TO. To have Christ in us and us in Him; because no matter how much we work on them and no matter how we change our environment to make it easier for us to be content and happy, there is one even that our ego's can NEVER be strong enough to overcome...

Death. It faces us all. It faced Jesus. But He overcame it and through Him we can overcome it, too.

But only if we rely on Him and not our egos. And we can test how we are doing by looking at how our joy is affected by criticism and praise.

May God give us the courage to live in Him and Him in us so that we may overcome death and sin.

St. Mark 10:32-45.  In this homily, Fr. Anthony shared three lessons from the life of St. Mary: the distinction between worldly happiness and an anti-fragile joy; how our sin alienates us from knowing and loving God and neighbor; and the difficult need to trust God with our transformation into divine children through and in His grace.  Enjoy the show!