Palm Sunday
April 12, 2020
On the bitterness of the Lord; ω γενεά άπιστος, έως ποτέ ανεξομαι υμων!
Many of us, thank God, have well worn bibles in our homes. And of all the reading we do, how different it is when we read the Holy Scripture. I read again and again the words of God and the wisdom of the patriarchal fathers whose words were chosen to be included in the canon, the narratives of events forever marked by God's upraised right hand, and also the sins of an incredulous people, these also, and yet with each reading in turn there is always something new, something vital, for the holy scripture is a living word set on fire as it is by the holy light of God's countenance and impressed as it were with His image and fingerprint so to speak.
One may note a certain darkness in the lower right of a page often turned, in some cases even by a parent or forbear who held this book before us and of whom we received it as an heirloom. And other pages clean and white not often turned. These pages like the readings read tonight are like the bitter herbs of the Passover plate which are barely palatable but yet good for our health body and soul. Oh who can bear the bitterness of God?
Some impious souls would cynically call this a Jewish history book as I have heard more than once. Yet who amongst the nations would in the keeping of their history enumerate the sins, failings, cowardice, and punishment as the Jewish people have done here. Who would be compelled to be so honest? And if we would think Ill of the Hebrew people, the very race that was marked out by God to carry the work of Abraham in monotheism; He who was called friend of God, and who’s name will never be forgotten, and let’s face it we are talking the early Bronze Age here. And if we were to think ill of the Jewish people in the time of the great prophet Moses giver of the law and seer of God in that how many times his people embittered him. And if we hearing the words of the Lord here tonight, which like the lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah is a piece of biblical literature very seldom read. The lower right corner of the unfurled pages as white as snow, and cast shame and blame upon the Jewish people then I will tell you that anti Semitic babble has no place amongst the Christian people.
But father! The Jews are the ones who killed Christ! This I have heard in my life too many times from those who lack the moral integrity of the Jewish people. The Jews don’t need us to remind them of the sins they have committed even in Old Testament times until now. But do you oh Christian pretend now that you are in possession of a baptismal robe as if in snowy white? Do we hear the Lord citing the hypocrisies of the Pharisees yet believe falsely that these very same words do not apply to our hypocrisies? Or do we think falsely that our hypocrisies will be getting a free pass. Even though we do not bother even to confess them as sins before the priest as the church instructs us.
You who bless God & rightly so for He is worthy of all our praise, but them speak malice against your fellow Christian and repeat gossips that may or may not be true. How we render also the suffering and even the nailing to the cross, the mockings, the spitting in the face, as something which pertains to “the Jews” in evil days now called out and more rare called the Christ killers. But how we misunderstand the mystery of the cross and render ineffectual it’s powerful dynamic when we blame others and not all of us collectively for the suffering and crucifixion of the Good Lord who walked in our midst and yet how we repaid Him by nailing Him to the cross.
But father! the Bible says that the Jews had Christ nailed to the cross it is written plainly. Ahh yes thus it is written, but we shan’t wash our hands so easily like pilate The Jews weren’t around when we walked the glorious St. John Chrysostom to his death, whom now we call the golden mouthed and who’s liturgical words enshrine for us the mystical supper. No that was the Christians killing the Christians. And the Jews weren’t around when we belittled and exiled the saint Nektarios to an impoverished exile. No this also had to do with our own clergy. And the fratricidal wars that occur between East and west these also are firmly grounded in theological and canonical necessity. The latest of which in Ukraine orthodox priests blessing the soldiers on both sides and our patriarch slandered for not allowing Ukraine to be once again beaten into submission. But can you see my brothers and sisters that we have all shared to embitter the Lord, we have all shared in the guilt of the cross and we should stop looking elsewhere for someone to blame for our sins since it is the power of the cross to cause us to find in ourselves the blame and thus bring us to repentance and a new life.
This new life free of hypocracy causes us to flee from judging our brother like a man who possesses a field of flowing wheat, ready for harvest, who would not chance to throw a-cigarette tossed in mindless pride and haughtiness. Would he risk the field he worked for just to play it cool? Neither should we risk the loss of our hard earned good deeds and fasting by talking trash about another and this especially in our demogogic times when we easily ridicule leaders and dignitaries and yes also bishops and priests. Well father I hear the paper is full of the stories of sinful pedophile priests, and yes it is true but has not the entire society been now held captive entranced as it were in porno which is the number one search on the internet and with an inverted morality that by the way we also force feed to the children? We mourne the loss of innocence and yes whoa to the one who commits the unthinkable, would that he were never born; but in our time we have all become tainted also and our children lose also their innocence right before our very eyes in depraved television and internet spectacles and we are weak and helpless to stop it.
Therefore let’s us find the means and ways of repentance and kiss the feet of Christ which bore with us...a faithless generation. And let us say with the elder St. Ephrem, teach me to see my own sins and not judge my brother........