ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Sunday of the Church New Year
Sermon by Father Patrick Radley,
Church of the Holy Transfiguration, Walsingham, 3 September 2006

1 Timothy 2:1-7                Luke 4:16-22

The readings we have just heard are those specified for the Church New Year, the day on which, once again, we begin to re-live the life of Christ through the services of His Church. It has been well said that the liturgical year forms Christ within us. And this year, because of the events of the last few months in our Church, we have been led to question, each of us within him- or herself, just how Christ’s Church can bring us nearer to Him.

St Luke tell us that Jesus ‘went to the synagogue, as His custom was, on the Sabbath Day’ (Lk 4:16), thus taking part naturally in the pattern of Jewish worship. Throughout His mission on earth he reminded His hearers continually of God’s unending love for His people, a love brought alive in their hearts within the patterns and forms of their worship. So we see Him standing up to read, being given the book of Isaiah; and the prophet’s words spring to life as they are heard in the synagogue.

Today, during our service, a section of St Paul’s letter to Timothy and a passage from the book of the Gospel according to St Luke have been read. They, like that passage from the book of Isaiah, occur as part of our pattern of worship. They take place within a form which is designed to give us a living experience of the truths which they express. In this respect, a service is not unlike an icon, a form both realistic and non-realistic, carrying a truth which can be expressed in no other way.

What is more, this is true of the whole life of the Church, for we inherit a tradition wherein form and pattern, whether in buildings, in icons, in administrative structures or in liturgical practice, all is directed to the one end of bringing us nearer to Christ. Thus, for example, we freely recognise the authority of our bishop, but his position is not part of a hierarchical power structure; rather he is the servant of those who willingly follow his lead, and within the pattern of our Church life he becomes a living icon of Our Lord. It is only when the pattern, the form, becomes and end in itself, that the truths held therein become obscured and deadened.

And so today, within the form of this, the first Liturgy of the new Church Year, we are to return to that moment in the synagogue in Nazareth when ‘all eyes were fixed on Him’ as we listen to His words from the book of Isaiah. Truly it could be maintained of that moment supremely among all others in human history – as soon will be said – ‘Christ is in our midst!’ For there, physically present among them and inspired by the Holy Spirit to make real the words of the prophet, was the very Son of God. And we are going to answer at once, ‘He is and shall be!’ For today also ‘this Scripture is fulfilled in our hearing.

As we gather together week by week and again experience within the Church and its forms the presence of Our Lord, so we come to know in our hearts that ‘the man Christ Jesus’, as St Paul writes to Timothy, ‘ comes as mediator between God and men’ (1 Tim 2:5). He comes as prophesied, to enliven those who are downcast or dead in spirit, to free us from the prison of egoism and superficiality, and to open our eyes to the truth. He comes indeed now today to proclaim ‘the acceptable year of the Lord’, this very year we are now entering.

But the form of our service is to take on yet more meaning as we follow Our Lord’s instructions at the Last and Mystical Supper He shared with His disciples before His death. We shall hear, as our Bishop has well said, the echo of Christ’s words in the form of the consecration of the Gifts. The life that Christ gave ’as a ransom for us all’ is to be given to us in the form of the very elements of physical life, bread and wine. His Body and Blood become our life, the earthly and spiritual food unite in the climax of the presence of the Kingdom of God on earth. And we stand transfigured by the light of the Resurrection, re-made in the image and likeness of our God.

‘God’, says St Paul, ‘desires that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 Tim 2:4). Christ’s Church, established by Him with His Apostles, and confirmed by the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, carries within its forms and services the very truth of our salvation. We must regard this precious inheritance with a depth of loving commitment if this coming liturgical year is to form Christ within us.

Lord Jesus Christ, come and abide in us.     Amen,