Sermon

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Vasilopita Sunday

I was chatting with a friend this past week about various customs that we Greeks do associated with the New Year. She was telling me how when she went to her parent’s house, they told her to come in with the left foot first and step on a coin because she was the first person to enter the house after the New Year. In my house growing up, we also had a set of customs for New Year. My father, being from Crete, brought these customs with him to the United States. He would open the windows of the house at midnight to let in the air of the new year. He would throw sugar on the patio for the sweetness of the new year. And we too had a ritual for the first person to come into our house on January 1. I’ll never forget the year that the life insurance man wanted to come by and have us sign some papers because he happened to be in the neighborhood. My Dad dragged in the neighbor’s child, made him eat something (because you can’t say you went to someone’s house if you didn’t eat something), then sent him back outside, just so the life insurance man wouldn’t be the first one in our house. Yes, like many of you, I grew up with some bizarre customs. And my father, to this day, will ask me “Where did the New Year find you?” As if I am lost on December 31 every year waiting for the New Year to come and find me. This year, the New Year actually found me sleeping. It is my custom to try to get a good night’s sleep the night before Liturgy, and being tired on New Year’s Eve, and with a Liturgy on New Year’s Day, I called it an evening around 10:30. While many people can’t remember how they began the new year, I always begin mine the same—celebrating the Divine Liturgy.

One of the customs associated with the New Year is the Vasilopita. Most of us know the Vasilopita as the bread with the coin in it. Many of us cut one in our families, all anxious about who will get the coin and the good luck for the year. Someone told me recently, “I made a Vasilopita, my mother mailed me a vasilopita, we went to a friend’s house on New Year’s and had a vasilopita, and we still have the Vasilopita at church—four chances to get the coin and have a good year.” No, the Vasilopita isn’t like an athletic contest where there is one winner and everyone else is a loser. Nor is the Vasilopita a custom based on superstition, like throwing sugar on the patio or opening the windows of the house at midnight.

The tradition of the Vasilopita comes to us from the fourth century. St. Basil the Great lived in the fourth century. He was the Bishop of Caesarea in Asia Minor. He was a dynamic preacher. He was an excellent writer. He authored the Divine Liturgy, later edited by St. John Chrysostom. We still celebrate St. Basil’s Liturgy in its entirety ten times a year, including the five Sundays of Lent. St. Basil is known as one of the Cappadocian Fathers and much of Orthodox theology is based on his writings. St. Basil participated in the Second Ecumenical Council where the Creed was finalized into its present form. He was founding hospitals and orphanages. St. Basil also was one of the founders of monasticism. St. Basil, tradition holds, was baking bread with money in it and going and throwing it through the windows of the homes of widows and orphans who had no money. The bread would appear mysteriously and the family receiving it would have money to get them through the year. The bread came to be known as “Basil’s bread” or in Greek “Vasilopita.” “Pita” is bread or pie, and “Vasilios” is the Greek for Basil. St. Basil died on January 1. And like most of the saints who we commemorate on the day of their deaths, we commemorate St. Basil on January 1. And we cut the Vasilopita on January 1 or thereabouts, not for the New Year, but in memory of St. Basil. It’s just a coincidence that it’s on New Year’s. St. Basil is known as one of the three Great Hierarchs of the Church, together with St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory the Theologian. Each is remembered prominently in the church, especially through iconography. We have each of the Three Hierarchs in the altar, as well as on the Pulpit in our church. Each of them is celebrated on his own day—St. Basil on January 1, St. Gregory on January 25 and St. John Chrysostom on November 13—and all three are celebrated together on January 30.

So, we cut the Vasilopita each year in our homes and in our parishes, in honor of St. Basil, and his example of philanthropy. We do not do so that the New Year will be lucky, as if we are gambling, but so that the New Year will be blessed, by God, through the Intercessions of St. Basil. We bless the Vasilopita and in turn ourselves, with the prayer that this year will be one of philanthropia, philanthropy, goodness—God blessing us and we in turn will show goodness to others. In our church, we cut the Vasilopita asking God to bless our church, our parishioners, and the various ministries of the church, wit the prayer that each ministry of the church will be a ministry of philanthropy, of goodness, and will impart the message of Christ to others inside of this community and outside of it. A coin is baked into this Vasilopita and we pray that the person or organization that receives it will take the lead in ministry and philanthropy in our church this year. After we cut the Vasilopita for the organizations of the church, there are several Vasilopitas that have been cut and are in a basket for the members of the community to take. Some of the pieces have coins in them. St. Basil founded what is today known as the Philoptochos Society—Philoptochos literally means “friend of the poor.” Philoptochos is based on the work of St. Basil, helping those less fortunate in society. And one of the national ministries of Philoptochos and our church is St. Basil’s Academy in New York, an Orthodox home for children who have no home. In my last parish, there were two sisters who spent their childhood growing up at St. Basils, and they were both school teachers, leaders in our church, and raised model families. So I know that the academy does good work. Traditionally, the Sunday a church cuts its Vasilopita is an outreach Sunday for the St. Basil’s Academy. So, as you pick up a piece of Vasilopita, those whom I will call up here, and when you take Vasilopita from the basket on the way out, there will be a Philoptochos member of our church taking up a collection for St. Basil’s. By making a contribution, we, too, become like St. Basil, a friend of the poor, a friend of the orphaned. And with that, let us offer our Vasilopita for our parish this year, with the prayer that God will bless us, through the Intercessions of St. Basil, our parish, each organization, and each parishioner, that this year will be one of philanthropy, of kindness and generosity to our fellow human being, that we will complete the year in health, and that along the way we will have joy, and most of all, grow in our sense of spirituality, to become a friend of all, just as St. Basil was.