ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

The Ox and the Ass
Sermon preached by Bishop Basil of Amphipolis at the church of the Holy Trinity and the Annunciation, Oxford, 9 December 2007.

Luke 13: 10-17

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen

We heard today the story of the healing of the crippled woman on the Sabbath. This Gospel is appointed to be read in the midst of the Nativity Fast. There is probably no greater contrast between the Church’s year and the year as experienced by society as a whole than at this time of year. The Church fasts and the world celebrates. And there is here a basic pattern in the life of the Church which is very important to bear in mind and to experience.
In the life of the Church, we fast and then we feast. We never feast without first fasting. We never enter into spiritual joy without first experiencing some form of ascetic restraint. Of course there are different levels of joy, and there are different levels of fasting, and we can see that in relation to practical liturgical manifestations.

During Great Lent, for example, the Easter Canon is sung once, at the very beginning of the Fast, and is never sung again until Easter day itself. But during the Nativity Fast, we actually sing the Canon of the Nativity of Christ on every Sunday during the Fast, as the katavasia of the Canon in Matins.

This difference is one of the level of penetration into anticipation and ultimately into glory. The fast of Great Lent takes in the whole of human history. It begins with the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, at the very beginning of human history, and anticipates the Resurrection, which is, in a sense, the end of time. The Nativity Fast on the other hand, celebrates and calls to mind the history of Israel. It is interesting that the genealogy of Christ which is read on the Sunday just before the Nativity, is not that of Luke, which takes it back to Adam. We read the genealogy of Matthew, which takes it back to Abraham. In other words there is a kind of restriction here, and the intention is quite clear.
Having said all this, where does today’s Gospel fit in to this pattern? It seems to me that we are in a position to relate it quite closely to the Nativity, and therefore to the Nativity fast, and we can use the icon the Nativity as the framework for doing this.

The icon of the Nativity is one of the most complex of the liturgical icons. There are a number of different figures in it. Through the icon we are called upon to venerate the birth of Christ, but we are also called upon to identify with the figures in the icon, for example with the shepherds who come glorifying God, with the wise men, who for all their wisdom come bearing gifts to this young boy child, with the women bathing Christ in a basin of water, showing tenderness towards the infant Christ.  We are called upon to identify in a way with Joseph, who is quite clearly being tempted. He is doubting, asking what is actually going on. All of us have moments when we do not understand. We are invited to identify with Mary, as the very archetype of the human being, bringing Christ to birth in herself – just as we are all invited to bring Christ to birth in ourselves.

What then are the ox and the ass? If we look at the dark centre of the icon, in almost all icons of the Nativity you will see the ox and the ass looking at Christ as he lies in the manger. This is a reference not to the Gospel, but to the book of Isaiah, for in Isaiah 1:3 the prophet says:

The ox knows his owner and the ass knows his master’s crib. But Israel does not know, and my people do not consider me.

In this icon, then, there is a contrast between the faithfulness and the knowledge of the ox and the ass, and a lack of knowledge and lack of faith – because the ‘crib’ in Isaiah corresponds to the manger, and the ‘owner’, of course, corresponds to the Creator, God. In other words we can identify not only with the human creatures, but even with the ox and the ass, because they know the owner, and the crib in which he is laid. And the faith of those two dumb animals is of a simplicity which I believe Christ would like us all to have

In today’s Gospel Christ rebukes the rulers of the synagogue when they complain about healing on the Sabbath: ‘Does not each one of you loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to water?’ In other words, Christ compares the ox and the ass to the woman who is being healed. He sees in her someone who is locked up in a stall, tied, restrained – and he unlooses her and leads her away to water.

In fact in both cases, the ox and the ass represent our humanity: in Isaiah as creatures of God called by their very existence to acknowledge their Creator, and in the Gospel as fallen creatures bound by Satan, locked up Satan, and freed by Christ from their bonds and led by him to partake of eternal life – that spiritual water which is given us to fill our souls.  From this we can conclude that Scripture has quite extraordinary depths. They are a constant invitation to reflection - reflection in the light of the Gospel, in the light of Christ.

There are hidden connections between the biblical text and our own experience of God. Christ has looked for these and he finds them, as did the Apostles and the disciples, and in due time we ourselves. This process of interrogating the Scriptures and finding in them the story, not only of the salvation of Israel but the salvation of each one of us, is something that goes on and on continually. We ourselves are there in the ox and the ass. We are present in them, in the icon and in the Gospel story today – in the one as creatures called to recognise the Creator, and in the other as fallen creatures, freed by Christ and led by him into eternal life.
Amen.