Parable of the Wedding Banquet
(St. Matthew 22: 1-14 -.)
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. For the first time, when I heard today's reading of the Gospel (St. Matthew 22: 1-14 -.) I was struck very deeply and painfully by the passage. In it we are presented with a man who, like all other beggars who had been called by the king to his feast, came, but instead of sharing the king's joy, accepting to enter the halls of the king and to become a partaker of the rejoicing, thought only of one thing: to walk as fast as possible into the dining room and eat.
What struck me in it was the fact that many of us — probably too many — come to the Liturgy not simply to meet face to face with the Living God become man, God who, having become man, chose to suffer and to die, to open for us the gates of Paradise — the door to the bridal feast. Instead of thinking of coming and meeting Him in adoration, in awe, we often come to church — and indeed this is the case with our private prayers — that we approach only to receive. The man who is depicted in today's Gospel is a man who had a total indifference, cared nothing for the joy of meeting the King, of sharing the feast with others, of being in His presence, purely for the beauty and joy of it.
Aren't we very often like him? Do we come to the liturgy, do we come to prayer simply to say to God, 'Give, I want something, I need something. You can and therefore You must; it is Your duty to give.' So often people think of praying just as a beggar thinks of stretching out his hand in the hope that something will be put into it, and so often we come to the Liturgy, which is a miracle of the most intimate and deepest possible meeting with the Lord, in order to receive, to receive peace, encouragement, and to receive something which we should not dare to receive in such circumstances, to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. And I could give you an example of it which struck me more than forty years ago, on one unique occasion, thanks be to God. I had not yet begun the Liturgy, and suddenly I heard someone knocking at the door of the sanctuary. I came out, and there was a gentleman, not an ignoramus, but a man who had received religious education in his youth in Russia. He was knocking at the door, and when I asked him what he wanted he said, 'Is this the place where I can receive Communion?' I said 'No, you must stay for the Liturgy, make your confession, and we will see whether you are ready for it.' And his answer was, 'I have no time for all this, I have been invited to lunch. Can't I receive Communion at once and go?'
This was an extreme situation, a monstrous one, but isn't it the extreme of something which happens to most of us, that we come to God, whether in prayer or in Communion, simply to snatch something, expecting something and claiming it from Him? I think we should give more thought to the way in which we come to church, in which we enter it. So often, I notice that in the most holy moments of the liturgy, someone comes, turns his or her back on what is happening in the sanctuary, goes to buy candles, and goes around lighting candles at the moment when the prayers of consecration are being said, or a blessing is given, or special prayers are being offered. The liturgy, as every service in church, is not simply a private affair in which we come to beg and to receive, or even not to beg but to claim a right and to receive. It is a moment when we should enter like the publican into the church, knowing that we are unworthy to cross the threshold of the house of God, the place which is His unreservedly, while the world has been betrayed into the hands of evil. We should enter and stop for one moment, to realise where we are, in Whose presence we are, and then become aware of what is happening at that moment. We should be here before the beginning but, if we are late, at least stop, reflect and observe, and move only if there is a moment in which this can be done without — I shall say this sharply — blasphemy or sacrilege, ignoring what is happening: the words of consecration, the prayer to the Mother of God, or any other prayer which is central to the event.
Let us reflect on this. Let us all re-read this small passage in which we are told about this man who, invited to meet the King face to face, to have the joy of meeting Him, the miracle of an encounter, discounted all and said, 'I only want to take.'
Amen.
Dormition of the Mother of God
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
The Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God - which combines two events: Her death and Her resurrection in the body on the third day - has been for centuries, indeed, from the very beginning of the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church its Feast, its joy, its glory.
The Mother of God has not been a passive instrument of the Incarnation; without Her 'Amen' the Incarnation would have been as impossible as without the will of God. She is the response of the whole creation to God's love and to God's gift of self not only to mankind but to the whole Cosmos He has created. And in that we rejoice, because Her word is our word. Her word was perfect, as Her trust was, Her faith was, Her gift of self was. Ours is imperfect, and yet our voices resound within Hers, weakly, hesitantly at times, but with faith and also with love.
She is the glory of all Creation; the Mother of God: one might have expected that death could not touch Her; but if death and a death so cruel could touch Her Divine Son, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, the Son of God and the Son of man - of course She had to pay the tribute of all the earth to the sin of man and also die. But according to Orthodox Tradition, death could not keep Her prisoner. She had given Herself unreservedly and perfectly to God, and it was to God, no longer to the earth that She belonged. And on the third day, when the Apostles came and reopened Her grave for one of them to be able to venerate Her, who had not been present at Her burial, it was found empty: She had risen because the bonds of death could not hold Her, and corruption could not touch a body which had been the body of the Incarnation. What a wonderful joy to think that now, side by side with the risen and ascended Christ, one of us, of mankind, a woman of flesh and blood is enthroned and in Her we can see the glory which will, we believe, be ours if we are faithful to God as She was.
So, let us rejoice, and not only here where our church has been dedicated since the early eighteenth century to the Assumption of the Mother of God, to Her Dormition, but with the whole Russian Church, and with all those who belong to it and are scattered over the face of the world, one with the Mother Church, one with the Mother of God, worshipping the Lord with all there is in us and seeing in Her the image of the whole Creation in adoration before the Living God.
Amen.