Notes for  13 June 2018

Preachers are different, and they preach in different ways. This is especially true of Christianity, which is unthinkable without preaching. But Christians too, if we speak of the history of Christian preaching, have preached in different ways. And the main distinction in all times was the distinction between preaching as narration and preaching as witness.

Originally, for all Christian preachers, including Paul himself, preaching was precisely witness, witness to Christ and to the Kingdom. This is not surprising: Christianity is not a religion, but life with the risen Christ in His Kingdom, and the first Christians could speak only about this. Of course, they could also talk about other things, but when asked what Christianity is, they could tell only one thing: about life with the risen Christ in His Kingdom.

Such a witness wants nothing from a person; he wants only to let him share in what he himself has experienced, to make him, like himself, an inhabitant of the Kingdom by introducing him to the One who opened this Kingdom to him. So Paul, addressing the members of the Corinthian church, says that he needs nothing from them of what belongs to them, that he needs them themselves, in order to make them the same inhabitants of the Kingdom as Paul himself had become by that time.

But another kind of preaching is also possible, not preaching as witness but preaching as narration. In the history of Christianity, there came to be more and more such preaching and such preachers the more Christianity became a religion, acquiring the characteristic features of religion: its own ritual, doctrine, and structure.

Now preachers had the opportunity not only to bear witness to Christ and to the Kingdom, but also to acquaint listeners with that religion, new to them, of which the preachers had begun to feel themselves adherents. Sometimes this could be interesting to listeners, but unfortunately it often turned out that the main thing in Christianity, Christ and the Kingdom, receded into the background during such preaching.

Of course, in the earliest Christian period there were fewer opportunities for this kind of preacher than later, but judging by Paul's letter to the Corinthian church, they had already begun to appear: the Jewish religious tradition gave them many opportunities in this respect. Paul, as can be seen, strives to set priorities so that the secondary does not obscure the main thing and does not prevent those seeking Christ from finding Him and entering the Kingdom.

For most of us the grim picture Christ describes is something remote. Some may remember that persecution did indeed soon descend upon the Christians and that everything happened exactly as the Lord had foretold: Christians—people who bear the name of Christ (see Matt. 10:22)—were persecuted, tortured, and executed. They also very often encountered incomprehension among those close to them... Some may remember the martyrs of the twentieth century, who passed through the same grief and pain. But few of us have personally experienced anything similar. And this is something to regret. For the Lord addresses these words of warning not only to the Twelve, but to all of us. He calls us the light of the world (see Matt. 5:14), yet this “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Christians are people who stand on the boundary between this world and eternity. Our position is very dangerous: the world did not know our Teacher (see John 1:10), and it does not love us either. Yet we have gradually grown accustomed to coexisting with the world and have learned to compromise. We will have to answer for this “lukewarmness” of ours (see Rev. 3:14-16)... Therefore it might perhaps be better for us if we were threatened by some danger, persecution, or oppression, because it is in extreme situations that the steadfastness of convictions and relationships is tested—the strength of faith and of our bond with God.

In today’s Old Testament reading, the prophet Elijah addresses each one of us. So who, then, is god in our life? The Lord—or someone else (or something else)? How long will we limp on both knees, trying to please both sides and combine the incompatible—service to God and indulgence of our own whims? In today’s reading, the Israelites needed a miracle—fire from heaven—in order to turn to the Lord. Will we, who believe in Christ’s Resurrection and receive the sacrament of His Body and Blood, be able to say with all our heart that the Lord is God in our life?

Today's reading contains the apostle Paul's well-known words: “What accord has Christ with Belial?... What agreement has the temple of God with idols?” These words convey to us something very important which God fostered in His people for centuries and which is not at all obvious to those of us who did not inherit that formation: the rejection of mixture. For centuries the Law fostered this trait among the Jews by forbidding not only the mixing of faiths but even the mixing of linen and woolen threads in one fabric.

In the twentieth century (and in the nineteenth too), agreement between the temple of God and idols was a popular idea. The new religious movements of the past two centuries are almost always a vinaigrette of finely chopped Christianity and all manner of religions. Alas, however much we may wish otherwise, reconciliation and accord with one another are possible only in the Truth. Showing mercy to one another makes sense not because it makes no difference which gods we worship, but because this is what the one true God expects of us.

Azariah prophesies about Israel’s coming apostasy. But which Israel is he speaking about: only the kingdom of Israel, contemporary with Asa, king of Judah, or the entire people, whose inner unity does not disappear even when they are outwardly divided? It seems that he is speaking about the whole people, for the apostasy of the Israelites is not only their sin; it is also a warning and a visible image of the dangers and temptations that threaten the inhabitants of Judah no less. The prophetic words foretell disasters, and yet we should note that Asa took courage when he heard them. A clear vision of problems, however difficult they may be, makes it possible to reach a definite decision and courageously set about putting it into practice. Thus Asa, having learned the will of the Lord, gathered the people to renew their covenant with Him.

One might ask: why make the covenant again if the people had made it long ago? But the people are not a single mass; they consist of particular, entirely real persons, and each stands directly before the Lord, who knows each one by name. It is therefore not enough to acknowledge that one’s ancestors once chose a religious tradition. In new generations, each of us independently confirms our choice before the Lord.