July Sermons 2025

Sunday July 6
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Today’s reading about the healing of the young servant of the centurion in Capernaum (Matt 8:5-13), shows the two natures of Christ.  Christ shows surprise at the faith and humility of the centurion, showing His human nature, and then as God He says the word that brings healing. Christ says:  I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.  He says that, too, to draw the attention of the people surrounding Him to this wonderful man and his spiritual gifts.  
Why is humility so important in our relationship with God?  You will notice that all the teachers of spiritual life constantly talk about humility, more than anything else. There are several reasons for this.  God is meek and humble Himself.  It is useless to relate to Him in the way we try to relate to human beings in our fallen state. In that context people often try to say nice things and compliments to others in order to get something from them. But God does not need this.  He has no need for any of our righteous grimacing. God wants us to understand our pride which is our constant attempt to find a measure of independence from God. That is why we cannot have a proper prayerful relationship with Him. In worldly settings a person might acknowledge the superiority of the other person, but without discounting their own importance. This inevitably creates mercantile transactional relationships.  But Christ invites us to be like children. A child brings trust and love to their relationship with parents.  They have nothing to give.  That is exactly what the centurion brings to Christ. He understands that he has nothing to give to the Lord and that is why He is not asking Him to come to his house. Instead, he asks:  just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
Some people say Christ had promised to his disciples – which means to us as well – that if we ask for anything in His name He will do it for us.  Yes, He did say that. But we need to understand it properly and not think these words amount to a right that we have. It is not a right.  To speak of rights is to speak of these legalistic and mercantile relationships. Religion is mercantile but Christianity is not, because it is not a religion!  The carnal sons of Abraham thought that they had rights before God.  This is why St John the Baptist humbled them so severely and told them Don’t call yourselves sons of Abraham.  God can make sons for Himself out of these rocks.  We can see in the gospel stories it is often foreigners, like this centurion, and the Canaanite woman, which teach us about the proper relationship with God. The gospel of Christ turns worldly values on their head. He says: Unlike the world, I have come to serve not to be served.  He is the King of Kings! And He has come to serve! He wants us to follow Him in this.  He did not despise anybody - pagans, publicans, harlots, sinners or rough types like the Good Thief. He accepted everyone.  They were closer to the Kingdom than the ones who consider themselves to be righteous thinking,  God, you have these rules and I keep these rules so you owe me! These people, the sinners, understood who they were and who God is without any delusions. This is what Christ wants us to learn from them. 

Saturday July 12, 2025, St Peter and Paul 
by Fr Peter Sheko 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today the Holy Church celebrates the memory of the holy great apostles, Peter and Paul. On this day I usually speak about one or the other; this year my focus is on St Peter and his painful lesson of self-awareness. 
In last night’s Gospel reading, John 21:15-19, we heard one of the most tender and powerful moments in all the Gospels: the Risen Christ restoring His apostle Peter. It’s a quiet scene, just a few words exchanged over a charcoal fire, but beneath the surface, it is an ocean of mercy, truth, and transformation.
Peter, the bold one, the rock, had denied his Lord three times. He had promised he would never abandon Christ. But when the moment came, fear overcame love, and he said, “I do not know the man.”
And yet… here on the shore, after the resurrection, Jesus asks him:
“Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Three times.
He doesn’t say, “Why did you betray Me?”
He doesn’t ask, “Are you ashamed?”
He simply asks about love.
And this is where we must pause. Because this moment is not just about Peter. It’s about each of us. It’s about the journey of self-awareness, of coming to see ourselves as we truly are, and allowing Christ to meet us in that truth.
Peter had to face himself, and not hide behind excuses; “I was afraid” or “Everyone else ran too.” He had to stand before Christ and let the question pierce his heart:
“Do you love Me?”
True self-awareness begins not with self-hatred, but with honesty. By naming our failure, we allow Christ to heal it rather than staying in it.
Peter’s tears in the courtyard after his denial were not the end of his story. They were the beginning of his conversion, of a deeper, truer love.
Each of Christ’s three questions gently touches Peter’s wound. Not to shame him, but to redeem him. He is not condemned; he is re-called, re-commissioned, re-formed.
This is how the Lord works with us. He does not crush us when we fail. He calls us again, often through the very place we fell.
He does not define Peter by his denial.
He defines him by his love, even a humbled, trembling love.
And what does Jesus say after each confession of love? “Feed My sheep.”
Peter is not just forgiven, he is trusted. He is given a flock. He is made a shepherd.
Peter now knows who he is. Not a hero. Not a perfect man. But a man who has failed, been forgiven, and still dares to love.
This is true Christian maturity: to love God not because we are strong, but because He is merciful.
To say, like Peter, “Lord, You know everything, you know that I love You”, even when our love feels small or shaky.
Peter emerges not as the boastful disciple, but as a humble apostle—one who will lead others with compassion, having first received it himself.
Brothers and sisters, self-awareness is not a modern psychological idea, it is a deep Orthodox principle. The Church Fathers speak constantly of “knowledge of self”, as the beginning of repentance and the foundation of spiritual life.
We must know ourselves, not just our strengths, but our wounds, our fears, our failures and bring them into the light of Christ.
Like Peter, we must hear the Lord’s question addressed to us: “Do you love Me?”
And we must answer, not with pride, not with shame, but with love.
Even broken love. Even trembling love.
Because love is the only thing Christ asks for.
And if we love Him, even after we have fallen, He will say to us, too: “Feed My sheep.” 
“Follow Me.”
Peter’s journey is not from strength to strength, but from failure to faithfulness.
And in that, there is great hope for every one of us.
May we, like Peter, grow in self-awareness, not for self-judgment, but for healing.
And may we always return to Christ, who asks us simply and profoundly:
“Do you love Me?”
 
Sunday 13 July 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Each year we hear this story from Matthew’s gospel; it is the shorter version (Matt 8:28 – 9:1) Two other synoptic evangelists, Mark and Luke also have the story in a slightly longer version and the church has Mark’s version read again each liturgical year. Why would the church find it necessary to repeat this story, as St Paul says, ‘Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the powers of darkness’ (paraphrase).
The two demoniacs are described in the gospel as being fierce, they attacked anyone who dared to pass through that area, close by to them. Look at how many violent crimes are committed. What is the state of these people that commit these crimes, surely it can be described in the same terms as demonic possession? Yet other behaviour that cannot be classified as criminal behaviour can be caused if not by total possession, then certainly by demonic influence. 
Those who have read the book of St John Climacus, the Abbot of Sinai, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, will know there is a story in there where he describes a man who came to the monastery and asked to be accepted into the brotherhood. This man was from the ruling class in Alexandria. The Abbott, who was spiritually astute, saw that this man was a troublemaker, “cruel, sly and haughty”. The Abbott gave him an obedience to stand at the gates of the monastery and ask every person who walked in to pray for him, saying, “pray for me, Brother, I am possessed by a demon”.  After some time, he reached such deep humility and meekness that he was as gentle as a lamb. 
We often have difficulty in separating the person from their behaviour. But that Abbott did not have the same problem, he saw the reality of sinfulness and passions, but he also saw the beauty of that person’s inward life which was not evident. As the holy fathers explain, “Hate the sin but love the sinner”.  Why? Because every single human being, no matter how bad they seem to be, carries the image of God which is indestructible.  The potential is there in every person, and we must never forget that. 
This is exactly what we see in today’s story. The Lord shows compassion to these violent two beings that would attack everybody. In the same story presented by Mark and Luke, they add that the Lord ask that the demoniac (in their story it is just one), “What is your name?” and the demon said, “Legion”. A legion is several thousand warriors, they went into two thousand pigs as Mark tells us, and these demons were the cause of evil in the men. 
Let us learn not to be provoked by bad behaviour of other people. It is not easy, but we have to do it. Our problem is that we do not see our own passions and sins clearly, yet we expect other people to show exemplary behaviour in their words and actions. We often fail to see that we, too, provoke other people with our words and deeds. It takes two to tango! The tango is a very passionate dance, but passions come in different shapes and sizes. 
We have self-will, irritability, anger, envy, jealously, vainglory, pride and the list goes on. We rub people the wrong way with all those things. So next time we are tempted to get angry, irritated with someone, or we are tempted to gossip and judge people, we have to put the brakes on. We need some power and assistance for the breaks which comes from God. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. This will give you some power assistance, to put the brakes on. 
Worldly people think that we only fight flesh and blood, that people are just physical beings, psycho physiological beings, but Christians should know that all good and all evil have their source in the depths of our being. 
Who do we want to win within us? The demons like these two people? We should understand that if we have not overcome these beings acting upon us inside ourselves, we cannot defeat them in other people.
 
Sunday 20 July 2025
by Fr Nicholas Karipoff
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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today’s gospel and epistle readings speak of the church as “liturgy” in its original sense of the ancient Greek word, which referred to citizens of the city state being called together to perform works for the common and public good. In the gospel story, Matt:91-8, four men bring their paralysed friend in a stretcher to the feet of Christ. What an image of prayer as action, what an image of the church as liturgy!  Christians often forget that the Lord teaches about active ministry.  After He told the  parable of the good Samaritan to the man who asked who is my neighbour, He says, “Go and do likewise”!
Prayer of the mind and of the heart is very important as transformative process that changes our spirit, when prayer reaches a measure of humility it brings gifts of God’s grace which are tangible proof that the faith of the person is a living faith, then it is externalised in the gifts and the ministries. 
Today’s passage from Romans Chapter 12, which we heard before the gospel, St Paul talks about the church’s one body in Christ where members have different functions, but they complement each other with their gifts and the ministries. He lists various gifts and ministries including prophecy, ministry, teaching, exaltation, charity, leadership and mercy. He further talks about love in avoiding evil, clinging to that which is good, being kind and affectionate, preferring the other person to oneself. Wow, how difficult is that! Being diligent, fervent in prayer and spirit, rejoining in hope, patient in trials and tribulations, charitable and hospitable. Finally, the apostle teaches us, like Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, to love our enemies.  He writes ‘bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse’. That is what Christianity is about.
Often people do not hear the epistle readings or understand them well. They find it easier to relate to the gospel stories which we hear on Sundays, because they are simpler. The letters of the apostles are  a continuation, commentary  and expansion of the gospel message, but they speak of how to apply it in concrete and practical ways. 
It is not a bad idea to go back home and open Romans Chapter 12 and read it! It is a very moving passage. It is not a very long chapter; today we heard  part of that chapter, the middle part. When we compare our own life to this moving picture of real Christian life, we should be filled with a sense of shame for ourselves. What kind of Christians are we? Instead of great patience and love extending even to our enemies we are regularly provoked into dividing people into ‘us and them’. This is something that we can all relate to. That is bad enough in itself but people try to expand these opposing camps, they build up their own party by putting pressure on members of families and their friends to subscribe to their particular party line. Party politics. Is that appropriate for Christians? 
When we are tempted to abandon the love of Christ and join the ranks of those who see hate as a virtue, we should say to ourselves: Stop, remember who you are, you are a Christian! Let us love one another as we hear in every liturgy, then we will use our gifts and ministries to carry our weaker members in the same way that we heard in the gospel story, these four wonderful men carrying their paralysed friend.  Then the church around us will be energised by the mighty words of Christ, ‘Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you’ and we will get up from our spiritual paralysis and start walking, not just talking. 
 
Sunday  27 July 2025
By Fr Nicholas Karipoff
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 
Today the church celebrates the memory of the Six Ecumenical Councils, and the services provide a liturgical icon of this triumph of Orthodoxy in the Councils. At the same time, we know from the history of the Church (or Councils) that the events that led up to them were often very turbulent. It is important for us to know this iconic history of the church which fortifies us in the faith that Christ always wins. However, it is just as important to know the unsanitised dynamics of the tensions and temptations that always accompany the history of the church. 
People may be shocked when they read about the tribulations of the church in history however a knowledge of history gives us a proper perspective of our own life and the life of the church in our times. 
AS an example I will present  one aspect of the story of the life of St Gregory the Theologian, Holy Hierarch (fourth century).  When he was appointed the see of Constantinople, there was not a single church that belonged to the Orthodox. Instead, they belonged to  heretics, mostly to Arians. St Gregory began serving in a private home and because his word was so powerful, he had so much love, these heretics started to come and to listen to his sermons. Some of the heretics came with sticks and tried to disperse the crowd but it grew and grew until eventually most of the churches belonged to the Orthodox by the time he finished in Constantinople, which was not very long.
When we compare episodes from the lives of the fathers and the proceedings of the Councils with our realities, we should find inner peace and trust in God.
St Paul in Romans Chapter 15 tells us that ‘We who are strong should bear the weaknesses of the more vulnerable’, he further quotes from Psalm 68, ‘The reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me’, in other words, the slander and vilification that people directed against God, Christ voluntarily accepted as God and as man. The Apostle writes that while we should imitate Christ in being patient with people, who have, well sometimes, different opinions to us, our goal should be unity in Christ, see what St Gregory did.
St Paul writes, ‘May the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like minded to one another’, and further he gives the words that are used in the liturgy about being one mind and one heart. And indeed, storms of sea whether they are in the gospel, in past history, or in the life of the church now are challenges to our patience and love, challenges to bring about calm through Christ and us being Christ like, imitating Him.
Some people may ask the question, well why does God allow these things at all? The answer lies in our free will, the great gift that has been given to us, and secondly, in our sinfulness through the fall which we all must overcome. Storms in nature can be scary but when the storm rolls over there is a sense of relief, peace and a freshness in the air. The air is clean and pure. Storms can bring damage as well, but damage is always rebuilt. Life goes on in a renewed way. Christ is in our midst; He is and shall be as we say in the liturgy.
You will see priests giving each other the kiss of peace before the Eucharistic cannon.
Christ is in our midst. He is and shall be. 

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