Forgive me, a Sinner.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Like everyone else, a lot of our parish plans have changed because of the current situation.
For example, this coming weekend was supposed to be our first Open House Weekend for 2020. Dr. Mark Tarpley was going to speak to us about media and technology; we were each going to attend every one of the services and events during that weekend, and we were all going to invite a guest to join us for one of those services or one of those events.
However, because of the corona virus, we have postponed all that. Our Open House Weekend has been rescheduled for Saturday, October 3, and Sunday, October 4. Dr. Tarpley will still be able to join us, but, if we’re going to be honest, a lot of us will have to admit that we are actually relieved. It’s not that we mind participating in those sorts of events; we just don’t like inviting other folks to join us. We don’t like talking to others about the Faith. It makes us uncomfortable; it makes us nervous, and, so we’re just as happy to push that responsibility down the road a few months.
But that actually gives us time to work on that whole dynamic. Because it’s not possible to be an Orthodox Christian and also avoid the work of outreach and hospitality. Just think about this morning’s gospel lesson: That passage comes from St John; Christ Jesus is talking with the Samaritan woman. The apostles are trying to get our Lord and Master to eat, but Christ Jesus tells them that His food is talking to this woman. In other words, what nourishes, what sustains our Lord and Master is the work of outreach.
We see the very same thing at work in this morning’s epistle lesson. That passage comes from The Acts of the Apostles, and it describes the founding of our Patriachate, the Great City of God, Antioch and of All the East. And what is it that we see those Antiochian Orthodox Christians doing? They are practicing hospitality; they are welcoming their friends and family members and neighbors and co-workers into the Church; they are connecting all those people with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So outreach and hospitality are not optional programming emphases in which we can participate if we are so inclined. Outreach flows from the very heart of our incarnate Lord and Master; hospitality is part of our DNA as Antiochene Orthodox Christians. But what is we just honestly aren’t any good at it? What if we aren’t out-going? What if we always freeze up when people ask questions? What if we’ve tried this before, and we consistently get turned down?
Those are genuine concerns, but there are three things we need to point out here. First of all, outreach and hospitality are just like all of our other Christian responsibilities: We’re supposed to do them, even if we don’t have any sort of natural aptitude in those areas. For example, some people have very tender hearts, and they readily forgive others; but we all have a responsibility to forgive those who have hurt us, whether or not we find it easy to do so. Some folks are really good at fasting; they are natural ascetics, and food just doesn’t have much of an attraction for them. However, we are each of us called to fast, even if it is difficult for us.
Of course, some folks are out-going and articulate and confident, so outreach and hospitality just comes naturally to them. But even if we lack those qualities, we are still called to do the same work. And that brings us to the second point we need to make here: The more we practice hospitality and the more we reach out to others, the better we will get at it. We will become more comfortable with whole process; we will gain more experience talking to others about the Faith, and we will be more aware just how much all this work depends upon the grace and guidance of the Most Holy Trinity.
But there’s one more point we need to make, and this is something we need to avoid: When we are apprehensive about outreach and hospitality, it’s tempting to fall back on technology. And technology can be very helpful when we are trying to connect with others and provide them with basic information—in fact, as we get closer to our Open House Weekend in October, we will be asking you to publicize the event on social media. But those sorts of efforts are only going to be helpful to the extent that they make it possible for us to have face to face conversations with people.
That’s what Christ Jesus does in this morning’s gospel lesson. He’s the Savior of the world; He has come to redeem the entire planet, so you would think that He is going to want to reach as many people as He possibly can. Yet our Lord and Master takes the time to have an actual conversation with one woman; in fact, He ends up spending the better part of a day with her. And that kind of personal interaction should also be our goal.
But that’s also not going to happen through technology. Our current technology allows us to exchange information and share photos; we can even see the folks with whom we are visiting, but, as we’ve learned in the Pascha Book Study, and as we’ve all been reminded over the past few months, that’s not at all the same as actually being face to face and interacting with people.
Here’s the bottom line, bed-rock principle that we need to keep in mind: When the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit wanted to reach out to us and welcome us into the hospitality of Their Divine Community, They didn’t provide us with a book or a picture. The Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity became one of us and came to us. Holy Scripture and the Holy Icons help us to get closer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but that ecclesiastical technology was never intended to replace a one on one encounter with our Lord and Master. And that should be the goal of all our outreach and all of our hospitality: a face to face, person to person conversation with our family members and friends and neighbors and co-workers.
That conversation can happen long before our Open House Weekend in October. That conversation may not happen until months after that particular weekend. But whenever that conversation happens, it will be the main thing that helps folks get even closer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So Mothers and Fathers, Brothers and Sisters, as we rise together and turn to our Sunday Typika, let us ask Christ Jesus to guide us and sustain us in the work of outreach and in the practice of hospitality, because that is how we will honor our heritage as Antiochian Orthodox Christians, that is how all those that we love will be brought into the Kingdom, and that is how we will all be able, with one mouth and one heart, to praise and glorify the all honorable and majestic Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.