December 2024 sermons

17/12/2024

Sunday December 1
Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
We just heard the Lord’s parable (Luke 12:16-21) about the rich man who rejoiced that he had gathered an abundant harvest.  The parable illustrates the words of the Lord, , ‘So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God’.  The Epistle today was from St Paul’s letter to Ephesians where he writes about a different kind of richness: God who is rich in mercy … and the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-10). St Paul talks about a new mode of life, which opened with the coming of Christ.

The rich man represents that meaningless life of people who put all their trust in material wealth which can disappear any minute. How? When physical life stops, wealth comes to an end.  What is the point of that wealth? The apostle talks about that lifestyle as death. We were dead in trespasses and God made us alive together with Christ, as He says in Ephesians. This is the powerful revelation which is echoed in many places of the New Testament. Through faith in Christ and life according to this faith we are connected to the death and resurrection of Christ.  Why else would we feel such joy at Easter? It is not just because of some remembrance of an event that happened 2000 years ago and not because we are so happy to be breaking the fast!  We are happy because we are connected to Christ’s resurrection. We feel it. The more work we do during Lent to prepare for this event, the more we will feel that connectiveness to Christ’s resurrection.

The resurrection is a fact. It was witnessed by hundreds of people, and thus it became an empirical fact. These witnesses were willing to die for their faith in Christ. It just proves how serious and real all of this was. The saints tell us that Great Lent is our yearly tithe to God. That is roughly about 10% of the year, but our whole life should really be an ongoing journey with Christ, not just during Lent . It is useless to make an effort during Lent and then during the rest of the time to behave like the rich man in the parable. In this journey with Christ, we learn to train our heart to become indifferent to material and external riches of this world. We need these things because we live in the body, but the difference is between the person who puts all his love and trust in those things and the person who merely uses them and is not enslaved by them, like this rich man was. In accepting a different attitude to the world, to people around us, and to our ourselves, we begin to discover different riches. We discover the riches that St Paul describes; the riches of God’s mercy and great love towards us.

I mentioned Great Lent, but now we have just begun the Advent in preparation for the Nativity of Christ.  It is a challenging time in the Southern Hemisphere, with all the end-of-year celebrations and BBQs! Let us do what we can to limit these worldly passions within us, at least temporarily, because we are in Advent. This way we can grow richer in Christ, in God.

Sunday December 8
Explanation of the Liturgy

The recent English Liturgy was a teaching Liturgy where the altar table was brought out to the centre of the church so that parishioners could see what happens in the altar and learn more about each aspect of the Liturgy. The following is a short explanation of the parts of the service by Fr Nicholas Karipoff.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Today the church celebrates the last day of the Feast of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple. As I mentioned on the day of the feast last Wednesday, the temple is about sacrifice and learning. The Liturgy also has these two aspects – education first, and then sacrifice.  We’re going to talk about this today.  It will have to be superficial otherwise I will be speaking for far too long!

As you know, the Liturgy has three parts. The first is the proskomidi or preparation of the elements, of the bread and the wine, and importantly it is the time of commemoration when the clergy take out particles from the prosphora bread for the living and the dead. Then comes the Liturgy of the Catechumens.  In the ancient church catechumens were allowed to stay only for the first part of the Eucharistic liturgy and then they were told to leave.  We still hear the words in our service today: “Catechumens depart…”.  They had to leave because they were not baptised and could not receive Holy Communion.  The final and main of the Liturgy, the Liturgy of the faithful, begins from the time the choir starts singing the Cherubic Hymn.

The educational part of the Liturgy is the Liturgy of the Catechumens.  Initially there is an exclamation “Blessed is the Kingdom...” followed by the Litany of Peace. Then the choir sings antiphons, texts from scripture or the psalms set to music, followed by more litanies. After this is the small entry when the clergy process from the altar with the Gospel. This will look a bit different today because we have moved the altar into the centre of the church.  The Liturgy is basically unchangeable except for a few parts in the liturgy of the catechumens and these changeable parts happen next. The choir sings the troparia, short hymns to the patronal feast or saint, then saint or feast of the day. Then after the choir sings the Thrice Holy – Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal have mercy on us – there is the prokeimenon of the day - a short refrain sung to introduce the scripture reading - and the reading of the Epistle, followed by the reading of the Gospel.  The readings are set out for the whole year. Traditionally the homily follows the reading of the Gospel.  The Liturgy of the Catechumens ends with the litany of the catechumens and some other small petitions.  The educational part of the liturgy has finished, and the Liturgy of the Faithful begins.

The Liturgy of the Faithful is the sacrificial part, no longer the learning part. The Cherubic Hymn starts this section.  This hymn brings the attention of the faithful to the necessity of absolute focus during this part of the service.  We now put aside all earthly cares. The hymn is broken up into two parts by the Great Entry.  At the Great Entry we transfer the Holy Gifts which have been prepared, from the table of preparation to the altar.  After some more litanies there is the “kiss of peace”.  Now this is done just by the clergy but in the early church all people in church would exchange this kiss.  The creed follows - I believe in one God… - and after that we begin the Eucharistic Canon. This is a long prayer, parts of which are sung by the choir, while the leading bishop or priest continually reads it quietly.  In the early church every part of the prayer was heard aloud by the congregation.  The Eucharistic prayer has four parts based on the themes of the Passover prayers. What is the connection?  Our eucharist is the entry into the one and only Mystical Supper, which is outside of time. The Mystical Supper itself followed the Passover celebration which the Lord Jesus Christ celebrated with His disciples.  This is why the church preserves those themes.  Then we have communion of the clergy and preparation of communion for the faithful. After Holy Communion, the Holy Gifts are transferred back to the table of preparation.  This is a symbolic action to show the Ascension of the Lord.  The whole Liturgy is a celebration of Christ’s life, beginning with the proskomidi.  We remember Christ’s birth and His death. Time is limited to speak now about all the symbolism and theology, but we will cover it in the future.

December 19, 2024 St Nicholas Day
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
We hear in the psalms, Wonderful is God in His saints, the God of Israel. Israel, of course, refers to the people of God in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The church is the new Israel.  Saints really are wonderful and God is wonderful in them because He shows His infinite truth and beauty and love and every other virtue possible that we can think of , through the saints. Today we celebrate St Nicholas who is one of the most popular saints in the Orthodox world, and also in Southern Italy.  The expression Santa Claus comes from Germany showing he had been popular in the West as well as the East. In our diocese of about forty parishes, four are dedicated to Nicholas.

We hear from the troparian of the saint that he is a rule of faith and an image of meekness.  Meekness is one of the Christ-like characteristics. St Nicholas is also known for his great compassion to the needy; he saved a destitute family by throwing small bags of money into their windows at night, which became the inspiration for Santa Claus.

There are countless miracles of St Nicholas.  He is a true friend of humanity.  There was a well-known miracle in the city of Xarbin, China, where I was born.  As St Nicholas is the patron saint of travellers there was a large icon of the saint at the railway station, built in 1888 by the Russian imperial government.  Travellers would put up candles and pray before they boarded the train.  He was well known not just to the Russian population there, but also to the Chinese. There was a case when a Chinese man was drowning in the river there and he remembered about St Nicholas who he had heard about, although he did not even know his name. So he called out and said, "The old man at the station, help me!" As he was drowning, he saw an elderly man running on top of the water who grabbed him by the hand. Then the man lost consciousness and came to on a sand bank.  This man became Orthodox afterwards.  The saints are God’s missionaries as well. In the Far East St Nicholas is very prominent.  He speaks a lot to the eastern Asians.  The main Japanese Orthodox church in Tokyo is dedicated to St Nicholas.

St Nicholas is remembered every week.  Every Thursday he is commemorated along with the apostles. He represents the hierarchs who are the apostles of every generation. The other days are dedicated: Sunday to the Resurrection, Monday to the angels, Tuesday to St John the Baptist, Wednesday and Friday to the Cross and to the Mother of God. And Saturday is the day of All Saints and the departed.

It is wonderful to be here in church today, to celebrate such a great saint!

Sunday 22 December
Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
In today’s gospel reading about the ten healed lepers (Luke 17:11- 19), the Lord responded to them crying out to Him by telling them to go and show themselves to the priests. The miracle of healing did not happen immediately, but they knew what Christ’s words meant. According to the law they had to go to the priest to be certified to show they had no leprosy. In their excitement and expectation of the healing (that happened along the way), they were all absorbed in their own selfish thoughts, except for only one man, a Samaritan, came back to thank the Lord.
In the passage from the St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5, which preceded the gospel reading, we hear a snippet of what sounds like an ancient Christ hymn of the Apostolic period: ‘Awake you who sleep, arise from the dead and Christ will give you light’. These words were likely part of the baptismal service, and they speak of several things. First, repentance, awakening from a life of sin which means a life without God. Secondly, rising from the dead to a participation with Christ in the life of resurrection and, as I’ve said countless times, resurrection begins now, not later. Thirdly, illumination to see and understand things very differently to the way the world sees them. Illumination is obtaining the mind of Christ
In the story of the ten healed lepers, only one of them wakes up from his sleep of self-centred life. The others do not. One might ask, why is it so important to thank God, does He need it? Of course not, He does not need it. He does not need anything at all. Nothing. He is completely self-sufficient. We need it. We need it to have a relationship with God otherwise we have nothing to give Him.
The healed leper, the Samaritan, feels with all his being that he needs to come back and to thank God. His way back is repentance, just like in the parable of the prodigal son. The prodigal son comes to his senses and journeys back to the father.
Further in St Pauls passage today he tells us, paraphrased, to not waste our lives. We have entered this life in Christ in repentance, and as they say in America, ‘Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk’! St Paul talks about a characteristic expression of pagan life, being drunk with wine. The Christian is called to be filled with the spirit, not wine, and in verses following today’s reading Paul explains this happens in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. The repentant and grateful heart of the healed leper sings this song of praise to the Lord. This is what the angels do, they sing all the time. This is what the life in Christ is about is - to sing in your heart to the Lord, rising joyously from the dead, from the meaningless pagan existence. Seeing the hand of God in even the smallest things of our life is far better than constantly stressing out about things we cannot control or change, and then getting depressed and seeking solace in going to the fridge in eating and drinking, trying to drown our sorrows that way.

Sunday, December 29
Father Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Today the Church celebrates the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, the second last Sunday before the feast of Christmas. The forefathers were the Old Testament righteous, people who responded to the call of Christ, to participate in His supper. This supper opens fully in the New Testament, and it is the life in Christ which focuses on the mystical supper that we participate in, like today.
We hear in today’s parable (Luke 14:16 – 24) that many of the people who were invited declined the invitation citing seemingly valid reasons for why they were unable to attend. All these excuses reflect their worldly and materialistic focus - new land, oxen and marriage in its psycho physical level.
The passage from St Paul’s letter to the Colossians chapter 3, which we heard before the gospel, talks about the need to put off the old man with his deeds of anger, wroth, malice, blasphemy and filthy language. This is the life that comes through in the old man, which St Paul talks about. He explains that these symptoms of sinful life come from the passions, that are characteristic of pagan behaviour, and he lists two especially; sexual immorality and materialistic greed which he calls idolatry. The old man and his deeds cannot be overcome simply by trying to keep some set of moral rules. From our baptism, or at least from a mature adult acceptance, we have to commit to dying to sin and rising with Christ. The Lord himself gives us Christ’s heavenly bread. This is the food for the new man in Christ, not the old man that we were just talking about.
I was asked recently, by a Western Christian, about how Orthodoxy sees Holy Communion. This is certainly something we need to understand properly in a theological sense, because correct theology translates into correct and practical spiritual life. As St Gregory the Theologian writes, “We are sanctified by the humanity of God”. We fight our sinful man by fighting our desires, and we show that we are serious that we want to rise with Christ. His life then becomes our life and Christ lives within us. The Lord calls us continually to participate in His supper and His life. Every day we are faced with these choices. We choose spiritual life or psycho physical life, symbolised by the excuses given in today’s parable. These choices happen in small things. The Lord says elsewhere, “Be faithful in small things”, What are these small things? Our thoughts. These small things add up to dictate how our life is lived.
Let us be attentive to our thoughts, to what passes through our consciousness, because very often we do not know what has gone through our consciousness and only realise later. But if we remain attentive, we will notice the thoughts and feelings and we will be able to choose how we respond. Then we can begin building this life with Christ which He terms as his supper, just as we heard in today’s reading.

Sermons

December 2024 sermons

Location

QUICK LINKS

Contact Us