sermons 2 - St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church

The Dormition Fast: Waiting with Hope

August 10, 2014 By St. Paul Emmaus

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, August 10, 2014
Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

We are now most of the way through the Dormition Fast, those first fourteen days in August when we gather with the Apostles at the bedside of the holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord, as she prepares to pass from this earthly life into the age that is to come. We are in this time of waiting and keeping vigil for the moment when God chooses for her to bring her soul to Himself.

This image is quite an immediately potent one for me right now, because, as you know, my own mother Sandy is at this moment making the same preparation to pass through death into life. You know that I do not usually speak about my own life in sermons, because a good sermon is not about the preacher. But perhaps there are some things that I can share with you from this experience that may be of some benefit as we prepare for the Feast of the Dormition and most especially as we prepare ourselves for our own passage through death into life everlasting.

When we heard that my mother’s diagnosis of aggressive brain cancer had been confirmed, as you know, we rushed to be with her, because we had no idea how much longer she would be awake. She wanted to see all her children and grandchildren, so Kh. Nicole and I stuffed our three rambunctious younguns in the back seat of our little Prius and set out for the more than 1,800 mile journey to Colorado. It took us three very long days to get there, with overnight stops in Indiana and Kansas, and you can only imagine what kinds of sounds proceeded from the back seat.

When we finally arrived, I dropped Nicole and our two boys off at the place where we were staying, and I took our daughter to the hospital to see my mother, where she was in hospice. My father and my mother’s two sisters were there. I had asked my father if it would be okay for me to pray for my mom in the way that we are used to praying for the sick in the Orthodox Church, and so when I got there, I greeted her and asked her if she would like me to pray for her. I prayed a few brief prayers for her and anointed her with oil from St. Thekla Monastery here in Pennsylvania that Mother Justina gave me to bring to Colorado, since I could not give her holy unction.

And I have to imagine that, even though anointing with oil for the sick is something not much practiced in the variety of Christianity practiced by most of my family, they at least have read James 5:14: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”

The next morning, my mother asked for our immediate family to be with her, and my father, brother and sister were all there. We spoke with her for a while, and then each of us spoke with her alone. I told her what she meant to me and asked her to forgive me for all the trouble I had given her in life, especially as a young man.

The next evening, my mother called us all together and spoke with each of us quite directly, ending by praying for each of us. It was rather intense and dramatic and clearly took a great effort, and I think most of my family expected that she would pass away almost immediately, though eventually she just fell asleep again.

Over the week that followed, Kh. Nicole, the kids and I visited my mom every day. Most of the time I would just sit with her and read to her from the Scriptures, but we also talked about various little things. I wished I could stay with her until the time finally came, but the doctors are saying that it could still be a couple months, and there are things we need to do during that time here in Pennsylvania. So we’re back for now, at least until the time comes for me to return for the funeral. And now we wait and watch.

A couple months ago, my mother wrote in a passage my dad shared with me this week that she felt that she was always waiting on God for something. And in a life that for her was defined by a lot of moving from one place to another, from one project to another, the shape of life can become defined by waiting. The next thing is always on the horizon. The next moment will be coming.

All this was perhaps prefigured for her when she was born, because the doctors told my grandmother that my newborn mother was going to die, so they might as well take her home and just wait for that to happen. But of course that’s not what happened. My grandmother accidentally overcooked some baby formula, which then happened to be just the right thing for my mother to swallow and keep down and begin to be nourished.

And my family now finds itself waiting for the earthly end of that life God chose to save so many years ago. We are waiting for my mother to die. We don’t want it to happen, but it’s happening. We don’t know when it will be happening. But we still have to wait. And we also watch. And those who are there with her in Colorado are waiting and watching most closely. And the rest of us keep our vigil from afar.

Sometimes in life, waiting can be overwhelming. We don’t know what will happen next. And waiting is often accompanied by worrying. My grandmother must have been worried for my baby mother. My family is worried now for her: Will she feel too much pain? Will she remain herself up until the end? Will there be someone in the room with her when she passes into the next life?

Sometimes, waiting even for what is likely the inevitable can be too much. I’ve seen more than one person post on my dad’s Facebook profile that they’re praying for miraculous healing for my mom. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. We pray for healing all the time, and we should pray for healing. But when I saw those comments, I thought about what it would have been like if one of the Apostles had approached the deathbed of the Mother of the Lord and said to her, “We’re praying for a miracle for you!” It just doesn’t make sense.

While I know my mother would not compare herself to any of the great saints of the Bible except to hope she could be like them, her own passage through death into life is very similar right now to that of the Virgin. She is at peace with it. She even said when they brought her home, “I know why I’m here.” Almost every word she speaks to people is to tell them about God’s blessings in her life, about His love which has been more than she could ever imagine. She kept saying to me, “The love of God is beyond measure.”

No, I don’t want my mom to die. She’s only 61. It should have been years from now. My dad should have his beloved wife into his old age. My mom should live to see her great-grandchildren. But that’s not what’s happening. And when the Virgin Mary passed through death, I am sure that there was great sorrow at her passing, too. No one wanted her to die. No one wanted this woman who had held the very God of the universe within her womb to leave us all alone. Think of what was being lost! Think of that unique human experience of God passing from this world!

And think of what it must be like to be waiting for that, waiting in uncertainty for the inevitable.

In remembering the passing from this life of her grandmother, my mother wrote this: “Waiting can be hard, but I learned that it is in the waiting that we get to spend time with God in His presence. Grandma’s presence was a wonderful place to be. I never really knew why when I was young. I know now. She loved me so much! God’s presence is so wonderful because He loves me so much!”

And so we wait. But we are Christians, and so we wait while redeeming the time. Whether we are waiting for something good to happen, for something bad to happen, or even just waiting for the completion of our own days here on this earth and our passage through death to life, we do not wait without hope. We do not wait without action. We wait with expectation. We wait with love to be in the presence of the God Who loves us, the God Whose presence is indeed full of wonder. Our waiting is a waiting that is happy to be here for as long as we can. We are here to be with God. And that is enough.

To God therefore be all glory, honor and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Spiritual Paralysis and the Resurrection

May 12, 2014 By St. Paul Emmaus

Sunday of the Paralytic, May 11, 2014
Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Christ is risen!

On this fourth Sunday of the bright festal season of Pascha, we remember today how Christ raised a paralytic from his bed beside the pool of Bethesda, who had lain unable to move for some thirty-eight years.

In considering this man whom the Lord healed, I especially am drawn today to consider all of the ways in this life in which we experience paralysis, but most especially in our thoughts. In our minds, we tend to think of situations and people in conventional ways. We form thoughts and narrative structures that play out whenever we are in a certain situation or with a certain person—they are almost like scripts for a play or a movie.

When I am in a situation in which I feel uncomfortable, I access the script for being withdrawn and cautious, passive and inwardly focused. At times I can be an extrovert, but at other times I become quite introverted, because that is the script that I have in my mind. My thoughts are paralyzed into one image, one story that tells me what will happen and what I will do.

When I am in a place where I feel at ease, I access the script for being affable and outgoing, even charming, even if that is sometimes inappropriate, because that is the image I have in my mind of what I should be doing there, what will be happening, what I think is appropriate and fits with the story I have in my head.

It is the paralysis of social interaction.

When I am with someone I like, someone I admire and respect, my script is the one for brightness, intelligence, even love. Failings on his part are easy to forgive, and I may even overlook something that should be dealt with.

But when I do not like someone, my script may be to cut him off, to avoid him, to be critical and judgmental toward him, to scrutinize and criticize everything about him. Every failing is a black mark on his person, even if he may otherwise be virtuous and hardworking. I have heard it all before, and I will react the same way again.

It is the paralysis of relationship.

We can also have paralysis in our jobs, in our classrooms, in our homes, and even in our church. In all of these places, we typically act according to set scripts we have in our minds—probably not conscious scripts, probably submerged somewhere into a place we don’t think of too often.

This is why things do not change for us even when we want change. Even if we want change—for instance, in a relationship—we often feel as though it will never change, even if the other person really does change, because we still are acting according to the script we have written for him.

There is a difference here, of course, between the paralysis we are speaking of and the simple act of being consistent and reliable. Both are products of the same power within us, though. Our culture tends to worship innovation and progress, but our hearts still love consistency. It is the desire for eternity that is planted within us. We want a God Who will never change, Who will always be there, Who will always love us and provide life to us. And since we are made according to His image, we also tend to act in predictable, unchanging ways, especially as we get older and even “set in our ways.”

So the problem is not that we have repeatable patterns of thought and behavior. The problem is when those patterns are paralyzed in dark ways. When I cannot enter into an uncomfortable situation and rise above myself, above my insecurities and above my desire not to bother with anything or anyone new, then I am paralyzed. When I cannot see someone as a child of God, as someone who is fundamentally created to be good and whose own bad behavior is the result of the soul’s suffering, then I am paralyzed. When I cannot enter into the church looking for ways to challenge and stretch myself, to sacrifice more of myself, to become more than I have been, then I am paralyzed.

Paralysis in the human body comes when the connection between nerves has been detached, when the signals being sent from the brain do not successfully reach the muscles, and so there is no movement. Paralysis in the human soul comes when the inner core of our hearts that desires God is cut off from the rest of our thoughts and behaviors. The signals being sent from God through that innermost spiritual nerve center do not successfully reach our thoughts and our actions, and so there is no spiritual movement.

So we are like this man, who lies next to the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years. There is no reason to believe he will ever change. And even if someone comes to us with the hope of that change, we may make excuses, playing out the script in our minds, for why we will not change. Paralysis is easy. We may not actually prefer it, but we choose it, because it is easy. Even if we don’t actually like it, it is always easier to stay the same.

But in the light of Christ’s resurrection, we are given the possibility for change. That ancient script written by the devil and first acted out by Adam and Eve; that script that says we are inevitably bound up in our sins, enslaved to our passions, controlled by our egos; that script that tells us that nothing will ever truly get better; that script that says that I am who I am and that’s just the way it is; that script that says that the end of all our stories will be death—that very script was torn up by the death of the Deathless One.

Jesus has written a new story, a story received from His Father and confirmed in the Holy Spirit. And that story is not a story of paralysis. It is a story of healing, a story of movement, a story of transformation from glory to glory. We can access that story by choosing to set aside our mental scripts and to act according to a new Author and Director.

When Jesus comes to encounter the paralyzed man lying by the pool of Bethesda, He asks him whether he wants to be healed. Instead of simply saying “yes,” the man complains and explains why he cannot be healed. I often do the same thing. When given the opportunity to be healed, I instead explain why I cannot be. But here is the One Who is writing a new story, a new way of being, a new way of thinking and acting. And He is saying to me and to you, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk!”

We do not have to live in paralysis. We can be saved. We can be resurrected, not just on the Last Day, when all mankind will be resurrected either to life or to judgment, but even now. This life of mine that seems dead and hopeless, this relationship of mine that seems like it will never change, this situation where I have given up hope, this spiritual life where I have become stale and unready to move—all of these things can be changed by the resurrection.

How do we do this? The problem is complex—complicated. But the solution is simple, though not easy. When I want to withdraw and pull away from others, I swallow my pride and say hello. When I have no hope for a relationship, even if I have no reason to believe the other person will ever change, I forgive and start over. When I am stuck in a single way of serving in church, I look for something I have not done before. When I want to make excuses for why I cannot be healed, I instead say “yes” and get up when Christ calls me.

The people next to us and around us, and the situations in which we find ourselves may not change. But we can change. And in our changing, we will begin to see everything differently. There will be hope where there was none. There will be faith. There will be love. This is the power of resurrection.

To the risen Lord Jesus Christ, with His Father and the Holy Spirit, be all glory, honor and worship, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. Christ is risen!

Awakening to the Resurrection

April 27, 2014 By St. Paul Emmaus

Thomas Sunday, April 27, 2014
Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

Christ is risen! Glory to His third-day resurrection!

Concerning this second greeting, “Glory to His third-day resurrection,” I had occasion recently to look up what the original Greek text for it was. It is always a little irritating that we sometimes have to deal with different translations for liturgical texts, sometimes from the same sources, and since I found different opinions on this one, I wanted to go and check what the original was so that I could have a better understanding of what might be correct.

Having figured out that one particular word that kept getting inserted in some translations was not in fact in the Greek, I also happened to note something a little surprising to me, though it will not be surprising to Greek speakers: The word that’s used in this greeting for “resurrection” is not the one we’re most used to: anastasis, which literally means “standing up.” Anastasis is what’s written on icons of the Resurrection, and Greek speakers wish one another Kali Anastasi before and at Pascha. And of course the names Anastasios and Anastasia are all derived from anastasis. But that’s not the word in the Greek original for “Glory to His third-day resurrection” or the response “We adore His third-day resurrection.”

Rather, the word is egersis, which means “awakening.” So we are literally saying “Glory to His third-day awakening” and “We adore His third-day awakening.” Egersis is mostly used in ancient Greek to refer to waking up from sleeping, but it’s used metaphorically in the New Testament to refer to awakening from death, both when Jesus does it and also referring to the raising of other people from the dead.

So while the most common Greek term for resurrection means “standing up,” we also have the sense that resurrection is about “waking up,” as well, and even though we don’t usually translate it that way, we greet each other at the end of services during this Paschal season with a reference to Jesus’ “awakening” from death.

It is in this light, that resurrection means “waking up,” that I would like us to contemplate the Paschal mystery today.

There have been countless people over the centuries for whom the liturgical, mystical experience of the resurrection, especially the services of Pascha, was indeed a time of awakening for them. Nothing matches the joy of Pascha. Nothing eclipses that bright sun that arises in the middle of the night, that light that is never overtaken by night. It is an old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes, but we might paraphrase that by saying that there are no atheists at Pascha.

But just as some atheists in foxholes might throw up a prayer to God to save them in the middle of a firefight yet not return to prayer once the battle is over, some people do come to Pascha or to other experiences of God and then later go away not having really woken permanently up after the experience. But some do wake up and stay awake. There are conversions in foxholes, and there are conversions at Pascha, whether it is that bright night we just celebrated a week ago or the ongoing Pascha that characterizes all of Orthodox spiritual life. There are people who wake up and then stay awake.

And what do we mean by this awakening? In its most powerful sense, there will be a general awakening of all mankind that will happen at the end of time because of Christ’s awakening from the dead. All shall be raised on the last day. It will not be life after death but life after life after death. Many people ask what happens to us when we die, but from a Christian perspective, what happens to us after that is far more interesting. After the temporary period of waiting that begins when our souls separate from our bodies, the two will be reunited, and we will all be raised, all of us rising from that sleep of death.

But there is also another sense that we may awaken even while still living this earthly life, and that awakening will very much affect the manner of that future awakening for each of us. That is, if we truly awaken in this life, then when we awake from death at the end of time, we will experience eternal wakefulness rather than eternal dying.

But what does this awakening in this life look like? What does it consist of? How do we stay awake?

I recently had the beautiful experience of describing the most basic of Christian doctrines to someone who simply did not know them. As the words of the Gospel revealed themselves, this person started telling me things suddenly started making sense that never made sense before, that the Gospel answered questions that he didn’t even know to ask but now made a lot of sense to ask.

When the Gospel of Christ’s coming into this world as truly God and man, with His life, teaching, suffering, death and resurrection, is preached and then really incorporated into our basic way of approaching the world and interpreting the world, then it really is an awakening of the mind. Life is still tough, but in the Gospel—in the light of Pascha—life truly has clarity and meaning.

And the most profound awakening in the mind that we see from the encounter with the risen Jesus in Pascha is the one revealed in today’s Gospel with the Apostle Thomas meeting the risen Jesus and crying out “My Lord and my God!” Because of the resurrection, Thomas not only has clarity and meaning for his own life, but he gains ultimate clarity and meaning. He recognizes God when he sees Him. There really is no greater clarity, knowledge or meaning than that.

But the biggest effect that our awakening to the resurrection has on someone is not only what he can see and know, but that he is set free. What does this mean? In our world, ultimate power over people is held by those who can control life and death. There are many ways we are restrained and controlled by this means. It is why tyrants and unjust rulers keep their power, because of fear, because of their ability to control others by threatening them with death.

But if the resurrection is real, then that means that death has no real meaning, no power at all. Yes, we may temporarily die once, but there will be life after life after death. The rulers of first century Palestine colluded with the greatest empire the world had ever seen to put the innocent Jesus to death, yet death could not hold Him. The grave had no power over Him. The Author of Life could not be held by corruption.

This is what it means for us to awaken—whether it is a major awakening with repentance and deep conversion or even just a brief moment when something makes sense that did not before. Because of this awakening, we are set free, perhaps a little or perhaps a great deal, from the power of death.

There is hope and liberation by our embrace of Pascha! We do not have to live in fear, even if our lives on this Earth are short. Because the hope of the resurrection changes our perspective on life. This is not all there is. We will indeed one day come awake, just as Jesus did.

The most beautiful morning to awaken on is Pascha. Yes, it’s beautiful even if we ended up waking earlier than we wanted to because the kids got up or because we just stayed up too late or the neighbors got their chainsaws going or whatever. It’s beautiful because in that awakening, we awaken to a new day, a day when death has been overthrown, a day when clarity and power and meaning have come to our renewed minds, a day when we can take all courage and joy, because there is nothing to be afraid of, for death itself has begun to work backward.

We will all one day awaken to that final and universal resurrection. And then no one will ever need to sleep again, not for the resting of bodies nor the sleep of death. And when we awaken, we shall see our Savior Jesus Christ as He is, and in that awakening, we shall be like Him—fully awake.

Christ is risen! Glory to His third-day resurrection!

The Beginning of Baptism

January 17, 2014 By St. Paul Emmaus

Sunday after Theophany, January 12, 2014
Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

A recording of this sermon can be heard via Ancient Faith Radio.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

Today is the Sunday after the Great Feast of Theophany, and even though the feast is now past, we are still within the afterfeast of Theophany, which is completed on January 14th. The content of this feast is of course the baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan at the hand of John the Forerunner, and it is taught by the Church that this baptism was not for the forgiveness of any sins committed by Jesus—God forbid!—but rather to make Christian baptism possible and indeed to begin the sanctification of the whole world.

As we contemplate these themes, I would like to focus in on one of them, and that is that Christ’s baptism inaugurates Christian baptism.

We think of baptism as a quintessentially Christian practice nowadays, but there are other religions that baptize, and first-century Judaism was one of them. Before Jesus Himself was baptized, His cousin John was out in the wilderness baptizing people. Certainly John was not baptizing anyone into the Church with Christian baptism, because it hadn’t been established yet by Christ. So what is John’s baptism about? The baptism of John was a Jewish ritual that was associated with repentance and the remission of sins.

Now, this was not an invention of John’s but was already an established part of Jewish tradition. Ancient Judaism had a number of different kinds of ritual washings for various purposes, and a few of them included full-body immersion as in Christian baptism. The Scriptures tell us in this case that John was baptizing people as part of repentance and forgiveness of sins, doing his job as the “voice crying in the wilderness” prophesied in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, preparing people for the coming of Jesus. And there is also a traditional Jewish use of full-immersion washing that is required in order to convert to Judaism.

So we see here three elements of Jewish baptism that are familiar to us—repentance, forgiveness and conversion. All three of these aspects to baptism are retained in Christian baptism. We may not think too much about repentance and forgiveness or even conversion when a baby is being baptized, but these things are still operative. Even a newborn infant who has not committed any personal sins still bears the inheritance of the infection of sin from Adam and Eve that needs baptism in order to begin its cure. This aspect is a bit clearer when we baptize an adult, which is always preceded by confession, because adults have indeed committed personal sins.
Yet when Jesus is baptized, He is not merely co-opting the Jewish ritual cleansing for Christian purposes. He is adding something to it. When people are baptized into the Church, they are not only repenting, being forgiven and converting. They are also putting on Christ, as St. Paul says in Galatians 3:27 and as we sing at the baptismal service and on certain feast days: “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

“Putting on Christ” is not just a metaphor. When someone is baptized, Christ comes to dwell in him and His identity begins to work on the newly-baptized person’s identity. The image of God in that person can begin to grow that person into God’s likeness, as well. That potential is activated. Someone who is baptized begins to become like Christ. The union of the divine and human that is Christ’s by nature can become ours by grace. He is both God and man, and we can become human beings in union with God.

But what is activated by baptism is not absolute and perfect for all time. It has to be cultivated and built upon over time for it to become truly effective. Baptism is not a magic spell that guarantees the recipient a place in the resurrection of the righteous at the end of time. It is rather a preparation for the synergistic working together of God and man that is the spiritual life, which has the potential to lead to everlasting life, but only if worked out, as St. Paul says, “with fear and trembling.” If it is not worked out throughout life, then the result is not everlasting life but rather everlasting dying.

So we can put on Christ, but we can also put off Christ. Even though baptism would never be repeated for someone who throws off its power, and even though he will always have that great grace of baptism, it is only effective for him if he keeps it and nurtures it and helps it to grow by cooperating with it.

And that is part of what Christian baptism retains from Jewish baptism, that characteristic of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. In order for baptism to continue its work in us, we have to continue to repent. It is not a one-time event that permanently seals our eternal destiny. It is the beginning of a journey.

And as we journey with Christ to become more like Christ, we will also see that the sanctification given in baptism begins to work on what is around us, as well. It works on other people, in that the hope and grace within us also draw other people to Christ. When they see that love of God genuinely within us, that humble spirit of kindness and compassion, then they are also attracted to God’s love and may also become filled with God’s grace, which is His real presence within.

But the sanctification which baptism gives us also works on even the world around us on a cosmic scale. Many of the saints saw the natural world begin to work differently around them, no longer bound by the curse that was laid when Adam and Eve sinned. Wild animals became tame. The earth and the elements of water and so forth became more easily fertile and helpful to them rather than as obstacles that have to be overcome. And someday, that harmony of creation that is seen in a small amount around the saints will grow to encompass the whole cosmos at the end of all things.

For when Christ comes to be baptized in the Jordan, He does so to begin His reclamation of all creation, with mankind at the very center of it all. His love and power and glory and healing flow into that water and from there flow into the world. And it can flow through us, as well, if we will open ourselves up to it.

I know that life often can be complicated, confusing, painful and even tragic. What makes it possible for Orthodox Christians not only to endure all this but actually to thrive and to progress in holiness and love is knowing that someday this will all pass away. Someday, the disharmony will again become harmony. Someday, all the tears will be wiped from every eye. Someday, what began there in the Jordan 2,000 years ago will finally be complete and will reach into every place.

In the meantime, we muddle forward. And we do so with hope and love, because God has called us not only to endure the suffering of this world, but actually to participate in His sanctification and transformation of it. He has called us to be blessed with His holiness by means, among other things, of the purification and operation holy water. And He has also called us to bless those around us with that same holy water, to bless the world with it, as well, to bring His power everywhere.

Holy water is one of the many means of blessing that God has given us, but of all those means, it is perhaps the most primal and the most universal. It is sprinkled everywhere without hesitation. There is nothing that cannot be touched by it and changed by it, given the possibility for revealing God’s goodness in everything. Sometimes, that revelation is invisible to us, but sometimes, it also becomes visible.

And the greatest of all the blessings of holy water is that great mystery of holy baptism, which was given to us so many centuries ago and yet remains new as today for all who would come and receive its cleansing power.

To our Lord Jesus Christ therefore be all glory, honor, power and worship, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

How Do You Feel About Faith?

September 25, 2013 By St. Paul Emmaus

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 22, 2013
Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

A recording of this sermon is available via Ancient Faith Radio.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

Exactly 190 years ago today, in the year 1823, is the day that a not quite 18-year-old young man said that he was led by the appearance of an angel to begin digging in a hillside near his home in Manchester, New York. He said that he found buried there a stone box, and inside it were a set of golden plates inscribed in a language he called “reformed Egyptian.” He tried to remove the plates but was reportedly prevented from doing so by the angel, who kept telling him to come back annually to the place.

Finally in 1827, he reported that he removed the golden plates and brought them back home and set to work translating them into English by use of a special set of seeing stones that he put into a hat. He would place his face in the hat and then dictate the translation to scribes, who had to get the dictation correct or else God would supposedly prevent him from letting the dictation go forward. The translation took place mainly in a little town called Harmony up in the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania. It is also in Harmony that the young man said that a resurrected John the Baptist appeared to him and another man and restored the priesthood of Aaron through them in 1829. The two men subsequently baptized each other in the Susquehanna river, the waterway that defines much of the geography of Eastern Pennsylvania.

Those familiar with American religious history will of course recognize this story as the beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormons, founded by the young Joseph Smith. The translation made from the golden plates is called The Book of Mormon.

There are some big problems with Smith’s story about finding the golden plates and also with many of the claims in The Book of Mormon regarding ancient civilizations in America and other such things—Egyptologists have, for instance, never heard of “reformed Egyptian.” There is nothing to corroborate its existence as a language apart from Smith’s claims about it. And since he claims to have given the golden plates back to the angel, they can’t be examined by anyone. And there is also no archaeological evidence of any sort to back up major parts of the historical information described in The Book of Mormon. No one has ever found evidence of all these civilizations in America that the book describes. These are just two examples of the numerous difficulties that come if someone begins examining Mormonisn to see whether he finds it believable.

But people do believe it. So why is Mormonism growing so quickly? How can people reconcile these many historical problems with the claims made by The Book of Mormon and other scriptures of the Mormon religion? Mormonism provides this supposed key, and it is taken from its scriptural book Doctrine and Covenants, which was penned by Smith in 1829, also in Harmony, Pennsylvania:

“But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right” (Section 9, verse 8).

How are you supposed to know that Mormon doctrine and claims are correct? Pray and ask God if it’s right, and if you feel that it is right, then you know that it is right. No problem, right?

If you find that an unreliable method for knowing the truth, then you’ve just identified a major religious cultural problem of our time. Many of us, even here in the Orthodox Church, make decisions about ultimate things, about eternal truth, based on how we feel.

I’ve heard, for instance, people say that they became Orthodox or that they remain Orthodox because the worship feels mystical or reverent or powerful or ancient. Some people say that Orthodoxy feels like “home.” For still others, it may feel likable or comfortable. Or maybe it just feels cool.

Contrast that approach to knowing the truth and making choices based on it to what we heard in today’s Gospel. After Jesus calls Simon Peter and tells him that he would be “catching men” rather than fish from then on, no one says, “How do we feel about this?” or even “Let’s pray about this and see if we feel peace.” There was a feeling mentioned, of course—astonishment at the sudden great catch of fish that they had made when they let down the net at Jesus’ command. Of course they feel that way—it’s an obvious miracle. But Jesus doesn’t say to Simon, “Notice how you feel right now? That’s how you know this is true.” He does address the feeling, but He says, “Do not be afraid.”

Don’t mistake what we’re saying here, though—there’s nothing wrong with feeling that the Orthodox Church is your home, that it is reverential, ancient, mysterious, etc., even comfortable or even cool. The problem comes when we turn our feelings into a test of authenticity.

Why is that?

The most obvious reason is that feelings are notoriously unreliable. When confronted with a mystical vision of a ghost in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge quite rightly suggests that his experience might be the result of an undigested bit of beef. He doesn’t trust it. Scrooge is of course not the hero of the story at that moment, but he has a point. How can he know whether what he is confronted with is truly more grave than gravy?

Another problem with the reliance on feelings as a test of authenticity is that feelings are relatively easily accessed and received. So you’re here, and it feels great. You feel the reverence. You feel the power. Maybe you even feel the love. So you got what you came for. Is there any need for further study? Is there any need for real repentance? Is there any need for deepening your faith? You already feel great, so why do the extra work? Why go any further on the path, when you’ve already arrived at your destination?

And what happens when feelings change? What if your parish changes and you don’t like it as much as you once did? What if you move to another parish and it just doesn’t feel like home? What if you get a new priest and his style is quite different from the previous one’s? What if you just get bored? What if you get married and your spouse’s experience of Orthodoxy kind of gets in the way of what you once felt? What if you find out that the history of the Church is a bit more complicated than that breakthrough tract you once read that changed your mind about everything? What if the people around you in church are more worldly than you imagined that this faith must produce? What if the priest or the deacon turns out to be a big sinner? What if your life circumstances change and you can’t be here as often as you once were? What if it feels like no one around you actually is living the Gospel, maybe even including you?

All those things can radically alter our feelings about the authenticity of this faith, about Christ. What then? Well, in many cases, we know what happens then: People leave. People get mad. People move on. People fade away. People give up because the shininess wore off.

So how does Simon Peter know that he can trust the Lord Jesus, Whom he has only just met at this point in the Gospel story? How can any of us trust that this faith is true? What is the one, secret key to authenticity, to knowing what is right? I do not think that there is one.

We human beings make our best decisions based on a combination of reason, experience, trust and intuition. Feelings can fall in there somewhere, and I would never tell someone that it’s bad to feel feelings. It’s not. Feelings can be very useful. But to make them the secret key to discerning authenticity is very dangerous. Of all the things we use to make decisions, feelings are the most unreliable, the most unpredictable, the most subject to our sinful passions and self-delusion.

If the Orthodox Christian Church is to be your path, make it your path not because it feels good or right, in whatever way it might feel good or right. Make this your path because you trust that God was serious when He said He would build His Church and you see that this one really has kept the faith the same all these many centuries. Make this your path because here is how get to true humility and love, even when it hurts, even when it’s hard or boring or you just don’t feel like it any more. Make this your path because this faith is reliable in the way that Christ is reliable—not comfortable, but challenging and transforming and healing.

Yes, you may feel some feelings along the way, and thank God for them! But there is much more to an authentic and wholly human pilgrimage in following Jesus Christ. How we feel can be a nice bonus, even a consolation from God, but it is not what brings us home. What sustains us when our feelings are soaring, falling, stagnant, erratic, comfortable or uncomfortable? We embrace the whole of this faith with everything that we are.

To the Holy Trinity therefore be all glory, honor and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

The Dormition Fast: Waiting with Hope

Spiritual Paralysis and the Resurrection

Awakening to the Resurrection

The Beginning of Baptism

How Do You Feel About Faith?

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