Sermon

Holy Monday Night

2007

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. (Matthew 23: 23) This evening, we heard one of the harsher pronouncements of Christ, a pronouncement of judgment upon the Pharisees and scribes of the temple, for their abuse of authority.

Most of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments. There are more than 600 other commandments to be found in the Old Testament, guidelines and rules for how one was to live as a member of the Jewish faith. These rules were meant to serve as guidelines for the people, how to live in harmony with God and with each other. As is often the case leaders abused their positions of authority, in this case, holding their knowledge of the rules above the people. An example—sacrifices of animals were common rituals in the temple. In fact, in thanksgiving for the birth of a child, or recovery from sickness, and other blessings, it was prescribed that sacrifices were to be made, of animals that were ritually clean, without blemish, the scripture says. Pharisees and temple priests would receive the sacrifices and make the judgment whether the animal was without blemish and acceptable as a sacrifice. If it wasn’t, there were people in the temple selling animals that were ritually clean and inspected by the priests so that if you brought a sacrifice which hadn’t been up to muster, you could buy one there. Well, it comes as no surprise that nearly every animal brought as a sacrifice to the temple was judged to be with some blemish, so that people were forced to buy the temple animals, and the temple leadership had a nice source of income. This is one example of abuse. Concerning ritual, where the emphasis should have been offering a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God for the birth of a child, or some other blessing, the emphasis became, “Is the animal ritually clean, is it without blemish?” And where the temple and leadership should have been concerned with mercy, justice and faith, these things were absent from the temple, which was run on rules, money and judgment. And Jesus condemned the temple leadership, because this was not the intension of God, a loving God who offered commandments as helpful guidelines to deepen the relationship people had with God, not to oppress people.

The Orthodox Church is a lot like the Jewish temple. It has many guidelines. It prescribes many rituals to be done revolving around times of the year or occasions in one’s life. And it also is full of the same temptations as the Jewish temple. There is the temptation for church members to be judgmental on the ability of fellow members to adhere to the rules rather than meeting individuals at whatever level they are and trying with compassion rather than coercion to straighten out their paths. There is the temptation for the church to become a place of rituals rather than a place of love and compassion. There is the temptation to look at the church as “an organization to which I belong,” rather than a living organism of which I am a vital part. There is structure in the church. There needs to be structure, otherwise there is chaos. Our church has a highly structured prayer ritual, and this is good. It provides words for our minds and our mouths, so that only our heart needs to work when we are praying. But prayer is more than rattling off Kyrie Eleison 40 times. Prayer is communication with God, a dialogue with our Creator. And when we say, Kyrie Eleison, or Lord have mercy, we are praying for God’s mercies on us—His love, His guidance, His forgiveness, His help—which we so desperately need. I find it helpful to have books that provide words to speak to God which I already have in my heart, but it does little good to say the words without the proper disposition of the heart, a heart that longs for God, a heart that is warmed with the mere mention of God’s name, a heart that leaps for joy when it participates in the things of God—prayer, worship, the sacraments, Christian charity. And the church is more than an organization. It is a community. It is a koinotita, which has the same root as koinonia. At the center of the koinotita, has to be the Theia Koinonia. So that when one belongs to a church, he or she is a member of a community that revolves around the Sacrament of Holy Communion. And so as Jesus speaks to the leadership and membership of the Jewish temple of 2,000 years ago, He speaks to us also. Woe to us, if church is just another organization to which we belong, rather than a community where the goal of every member is a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. Woe, to us when we pray, if we just heap up empty phrases with our mouths but offer nothing from the hearts. Woe to us, if we become so busy with the administration of the community, with the fundraisers, with the building, with the programs, that we forget about love, prayer, worship, the sacraments, and acts of Christian charity. For as Jesus says, we need to do these, without leaving the others undone. We need a church organization. And prayer books help to bring structure to our prayers. But we can’t forget that church is an organism, and that prayer books bring words to address to God from our minds and our mouths, but are not a substitute for the feelings of our hearts.