Our Father

SERMON preached on Sunday, August 28, 1994

To-day, during the Liturgy, I was struck with new strength, a new sense of awe at the words we say in the beginning of the Lord's Prayer: «Our Father».

These words have a double dimension. The one which is easily accessible to us and yet by which we live so little; and the other one which is so awesome that we should pronounce the words only after having searched our heart very deeply, very thoroughly and contritely.

We understand «Our Father» always as indicating that these words signify that He is the Father of all of us, that we are all His children, His daughters, His sons; and that should be enough for us to create between us relationships of a depth, of a purity, of a generosity which would make the Church an image of the Kingdom of God already come with power. There should be no separation between us, no rifts. The frailties of the ones should be supported by the strength of the others. There should be nothing that mars the world and makes it a place so ugly and at times so terrifying to live in. But even on that level we fall short of this simple understanding: that we are all brothers and sisters because God has accepted us as His children.

But there is another dimension which is even more awesome. If you read that passage of the Gospel in which the Lord gives this particular prayer to His disciples, it is clear that when He says: «Say, our Father», He means «My Father and yours». And that means that we should not be daring enough, arrogant enough to say such words without realising that we claim by doing so, to be brothers and sisters of Christ. Indeed, after His Resurrection, He said to the women: «Go to my brothers and tell them of it».

Christ recognised us as brothers and sisters. Are we worthy of such recognition? Much less than in the first sense in which I indicated the meaning of these words, can we say that we aim at being with regard to God what His only begotten Son has been. That we are with regard to the created world what the Lord Jesus has chosen to be? To give His life that others may live?

And yet, how often we repeat these words without feeling that they are to us a challenge, a challenge which we must face all the time: Am I at one in Christ? Can I speak to the Father of Christ as my own father because in Christ I have become truly His son or His daughter?

This applies supremely to the way in which we should be able or not, to come to Communion. We come to Communion at times from the very depth of our being; but at times in the traditional way, in a light manner. Saint Paul has a warning for us: if we come and receive the Gifts of God unworthily, they will be to us a consuming fire. 'Unworthily' means in a state of sin unacknowledged, unrepented – and by repented I do not mean bewailed, but fought against so that it should no longer be part of our life.

At times we come not in such a condition that makes the reception of the Holy Gifts unto condemnation to us; but we come light-mindedly, easily, because it is a feast, because it is our namesday, or simply because it is a Sunday, because all are called.

Yes, but all must respond with understanding and a sense of responsibility. And to those of us who are immature, those of us who come lightly, without understanding, not separated from God by a sin that amounts to being His crucifiers, but simply by our inability to understand what we are doing and what happens to us, Saint Simeon the New Theologian says words that may be up to a point a consolation, but are also a warning. He says: God is merciful and if we come to Him incapable of communing with Him, He steps out of the Holy Bread and the Holy Wine, and we partake of bread and wine, not of His Body and Blood.

But that is not simple. To think that God abandons His creatures of bread and wine because of us, is something very frightening. This bread, this wine, in a mystery of communion, has become what the whole creation is called to be when God shall be all in all, when everything shall be pervaded with divinity, shine with divinity, be divinised. And because of us, this bread which already had entered into this mystery, is deprived for us, falls back into the realm of natural things, of a world which we call natural, but which is simply a fallen world.

So, let us reflect when we say the Lord's Prayer and ask ourselves: where do I stand? On one level, am I a brother or a sister to those who surround me? If I am not, how can I say such words? How can I say: «Forgive as I forgive» if my whole life is a denial of my neighbour? And on the other hand ask ourselves: what about my communion with God? How deeply am I at one with Christ? Can I say these words as He said them, because I am at one with Him? And then we may come to Communion less easily, but with a new depth, a new faith, and bear fruit of what we will have been given.

How wonderful it is that God received us in our frailty, in spite of our sins. But Saint Seraphim says: «Christ will receive you, but do you realize the price He pays for it? Calvary, the Crucifixion, death, the descent into hell».

This is the challenge which is before us whenever we say the Lord's Prayer, or whenever we come to Communion. Let us be earnest about it and then we will grow from strength to strength and Christ will be not only with us, but in us. Amen.