by Fr. Barnabas Powell

We are republishing this article from our good friend, Fr. Barnabas, who is the priest of Ss. Raphael, Nicholas and Irene Church in Cumming, GA  and blogger at Sober Joy, co-teaches the course PAST 7201 – Preaching: Proclaiming The Kindgom, with Fr. Nick Triantifilou, the president of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Fr. Nick  was the main professor, and Fr.  Barnabas was the co-instructor. In this preaching lesson, which was given earlier this year, we are given an excellent example of a three-step process to preparing an effective sermon on the Gospel.

Tonight we are going to look at one way to organize a homily to insure that your homily has a clear purpose and a clear structure to encourage effective preaching.

The outline I use is as follows:

Introduction

D.S. – (Declarative Statement)

T.S. – (Transitional Statement)

I. (1st Main Point)

1. (Sub points)

2.

Ill. – (Illustration)

Appl. – (Application)

T.S. – (Transitional Statement)

II. (2nd Main Point)

1. (Sub points)

2.

Ill. – (Illustration)

Appl. – (Application)

T.S. – (Transitional Statement)

Conclusion Read more

by St. Athenagoras of Athens

A Plea For Chrisitans was written by Athenagoras (c. 176 A.D.) to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus as a philosophical appeal for justice on behalf of the Christians. In this work, Athenagoras endeavors to show the emperors that the ill-treatment of the Christians is entirely unreasonable. This is the first philosophical demonstration of the unity of God in Christian literature. He also sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity.

The reason for excerpting these chapters is the remarkable claim, and proofs, which are very similar to Robert Bowie Johnson’s thesis in The Parthenon Code: Mankind’s History in Marble. Johnson’s reasoning and conclusions are compelling, and I find that Athenagoras has already laid the clear groundwork for the very same idea: The pagan gods are simply the deified men and women of the past.  Johnson goes further, stating that they are, in fact, the Biblical characters of Genesis, but from the point of view of those who reject God and His Laws, and would make themselves “like God.” I don’t get anything for recommending The Parthenon Code, but I do suggest you read it.

THE HEATHEN GODS WERE SIMPLY MEN

But it is perhaps necessary, in accordance with what has already been adduced, to say a little about their names. Herodotus, then, and Alexander the son of Philip, in his letter to his mother (and each of them is said to have conversed with the priests at Heliopolis, and Memphis, and Thebes), affirm that they learnt from them that the gods had been men. Herodotus speaks thus:

“Of such a nature were, they said, the beings represented by these images, they were very far indeed from being gods. However, in the times anterior to them it was otherwise; then Egypt had gods for its rulers, who dwelt upon the earth with men, one being always supreme above the rest. The last of these was Horus the son of Osiris, called by the Greeks Apollo. He deposed Typhon, and ruled over Egypt as its last god- king. Osiris is named Dionysus (Bacchus) by the Greeks.”

“Almost all the names of the gods came into Greece from Egypt.”

Apollo was the son of Dionysus and Isis, as Herodotus likewise affirms:

“According to the Egyptians, Apollo and Diana are the children of Bacchus and Isis; while Latona is their nurse and their preserver.”

These beings of heavenly origin they had for their first kings: partly from ignorance of the true worship of the Deity, partly from gratitude for their government, they esteemed them as gods together with their wives.

“The male kine, if clean, and the male calves are used for sacrifice by the Egyptians universally; but the females, they are not allowed to sacrifice, since they are sacred to Isis. The statue of this goddess has the form of a woman but with horns like a cow, resembling those of the Greek representations of Io.”

And who can be more deserving of credit in making these statements, than those who in family succession son from father, received not only the priesthood, but also the history? For it is not likely that the priests, who make if their business to commend the idols to men’s reverence, would assert falsely that they were men. If Herodotus alone had said that the Egyptians spoke in their histories of the gods as of men, when he says,

“What they told me concerning their religion it is not my intention to repeat, except only the names of their deities, things of very trifling importance,”

it would behove us not to credit even Herodotus as being a fabulist. But as Alexander and Hermes surnamed Trismegistus, who shares with them in the attribute of eternity, and innumerable others, not to name them individually,[declare the same], no room is left even for doubt that they, being kings, were esteemed gods.

That they were men, the most learned of the Egyptians also testify, who, while saying that ether, earth, sun, moon, are gods, regard the rest as mortal men, and the temples as their sepulchres. Apollodorus, too, asserts the same thing in his treatise concerning the gods. But Herodotus calls even their sufferings mysteries.

“The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city of Busiris have been already spoken of. It is there that the whole multitude, both of men and women, many thousands in number, beat them selves at the close of the sacrifice in honour of a god whose name a religious scruple forbids me to mention.”

If they are gods, they are also immortal; but if people are beaten for them, and their sufferings are mysteries, they are men, as Herodotus himself says:

“Here, too, in this same precinct of Minerva at Sais, is the burial-place of one whom I think it not right to mention in such a connection. It stands behind the temple against the back wall, which it entirely covers. There are also some large stone obelisks in the enclosure, and there is a lake near them, adorned with an edging of stone. In form it is circular, and in size, as it seemed to me, about equal to the lake at Delos called the Hoop. On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and this representation they call their mysteries.”

And not only is the sepulchre of Osiris shown, but also his embalming:

“When a body is brought to them, they show the bearer various models of corpses made in wood, and painted so as to resemble nature. The most perfect is said to be after the manner of him whom I do not think it religious to name in connection with such a matter.”

Source

An Account of Celebrating Liturgy with St. John of Kronstadt

Every Orthodox Christian priest celebrates the Divine Liturgy at least weekly. The celebration of Liturgy is the supreme act of the Christian priesthood, and brings us closer to Christ, more grace and mercy, than any other act of the spiritual life on this earth. A good example of this reality – standing in the fire – is the celebration of liturgy by our father in the faith, St. John of Kronstadt.

The Proskomedia. St. John begins it with calm concentration. For freedom of movement he does not put on the chasuble. He always performs it himself, surrounded by clergy. He is full of triumphant joy. With what thoroughness, assiduity, loving attention does he prepare the Host — straightens and reverently places It, measures It a few times, making sure It stands well on the patten.

“Look,”

he would suddenly remark to his fellow priests… Read more

by Brad A. Greenberg

No one can make you feel guilty like a pastor. Or in this case a New York Times story about pastoral burnout that I’ve been meaning to write about for two weeks:

The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.

Public health experts who have led the studies caution that there is no simple explanation of why so many members of a profession once associated with rosy-cheeked longevity have become so unhealthy and unhappy.

But while research continues, a growing number of health care experts and religious leaders have settled on one simple remedy that has long been a touchy subject with many clerics: taking more time off.

This was, in fact, a story I added to my to-do list when I was at the LA Daily News. Three years ago. And clergy burnout was getting attention well before 2007.

Part of the problem, from my vantage point, stems from the fact that once a pastor has invested in his or her career, it’s exceptionally difficult to make a career change when burnout occurs. You don’t have to believe the law is just to be a high-earning attorney. But when a pastor’s faith slips, there really isn’t anywhere for them to turn.

This at least was the premise of the story I was researching. It was an idea, like my Muslim high school football player, that came out of the 2005 Religion Newswriters Association conference. It was hardly off everyone’s radar. Why I never completed the story I can’t recall. But I’m glad to see someone — and the NYT, of all places — got around to a fairly old but unreported challenge affecting Christianity.

This story doesn’t talk at all about spiritual burnout, which is something I’m more interested in than physical burnout, but it does a good job covering the physical consequences of pastors being overworked:

In May, the Clergy Health Initiative, a seven-year study that Duke University began in 2007, published the first results of a continuing survey of 1,726 Methodist ministers in North Carolina. Compared with neighbors in their census tracts, the ministers reported significantly higher rates of arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. Obesity was 10 percent more prevalent in the clergy group.

The results echoed recent internal surveys by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which found that 69 percent of its ministers reported being overweight, 64 percent having high blood pressure and 13 percent taking antidepressants.

A 2005 survey of clergy by the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church also took special note of a quadrupling in the number of people leaving the profession during the first five years of ministry, compared with the 1970s.

Paul Vitello’s article runs through a number of examples of how churches and synagogues and mosques are dealing with clergy burnout. Many now are trying to treat it before it goes full-blown by mandating vacations.

The big problem clergy have is the ability to say no. I’ve heard this from many friends in ministry. And the NYT suggests, quite logically, that it’s only gotten harder in a world where pastors friend their flock on Facebook and are always reachable by cell call or text.

Or in the comments on their blog.

Source

by St. Jerome of Stridonium

Our venerable and God-bearing father Jerome was noted as a scholar of Latin at the time when Greek was considered the language of scholarship. He was one of the most learned of the Fathers of the Western Church and is noted as the translator of the holy scriptures into Latin. This translation, the Vulgate, became the official biblical text of the Roman Catholic Church. A critic of secular excesses, he was a strong defender of the Orthodox faith against the heresies of his time.

This writing against Helvidius, is part one of a three part installment of this important teaching. This understanding of the Perpetual Virginity of the Theotokos is the Orthodox tradition, the Roman Catholic teaching, and until the advent of modernism, was the undisputed teaching of Luther, Calvin, and the entire Protestant tradition.

1. I was requested by certain of the brethren not long ago to reply to a pamphlet written by one Helvidius. I have deferred doing so, not because it is a difficult matter to maintain the truth and refute an ignorant boor who has scarce known the first glimmer of learning, but because I was afraid my reply might make him appear worth defeating. There was the further consideration that a turbulent fellow, the only individual in the world who thinks himself both priest and layman, one who, as has been said, thinks that eloquence consists in loquacity and considers speaking ill of anyone to be the witness of a good conscience, would begin to blaspheme worse than ever if opportunity of discussion were afforded him. Read more

by Fr. Hans Jacobse

Director of the American Orthodox Institute, and editor of OrthodoxyToday.org, Fr. Hans provides Orthodox Christians today with updated news and articles on social, cultural and political events from an Orthodox Christian moral tradition.  His editorials and essays have been published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Duluth News Tribune, International Herald Tribune, Hellenic Voice, Breakpoint website, Front Page Magazine website, Institute for Religion and Democracy website, Discover website, and more. He is also  a fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

I used to preach at the end of the Liturgy.

It was a pragmatic decision. A good portion of my congregation didn’t arrive until after the Gospel reading. The sloppy behavior was ingrained in parish life for decades and wasn’t likely to change soon no matter how strongly I exhorted them to arrive on time. Better to hear the teaching later then never at all I reasoned.

Did some people benefit from the arrangement? Probably. Did it implicitly encourage the sloppy behavior? Most likely. But short of a full-blown renewal in the parish, the late-comers were likely to keep on coming in late. What would they remember if I preached earlier? The announcements?

Read more

by St. John of Damascus

Our venerable and God-bearing Father John of Damascus was also known as John Damascene, Chrysorrhoas, “streaming with gold,” (i.e., the golden speaker). He was born and raised in Damascus, in all probability at the Monastery of Saint Sabbas (Mar Saba), South East of Jerusalem. He is also recognized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

Lovers are wont to speak of what they love, and to let their fancy run on it by day and night. Let no one therefore blame me, if I add a third tribute to the Mother of God, on her triumphant departure. I am not profiting her, but myself and you who are here present, putting before you a spiritual seasoning and refreshment in keeping with this holy night.

We are suffering, as you see, from scarcity of eatables.

Therefore I am extemporizing a repast, which, if not very costly nor worthy of the occasion, will certainly be sufficient to still hunger.

She does not need our praise.

It is we who need her glory. Read more

by St. John of Damascus

Our venerable and God-bearing Father John of Damascus was also known as John Damascene, Chrysorrhoas, “streaming with gold,” (i.e., the golden speaker). He was born and raised in Damascus, in all probability at the Monastery of Saint Sabbas (Mar Saba), South East of Jerusalem. He is also recognized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

There is no one in existence who is able to praise worthily the holy death of God’s Mother, even if he should have a thousand tongues and a thousand mouths. Not if all the most eloquent tongues could be united would their praises be sufficient. She is greater than all praise.

Since, however, God is pleased with the efforts of a loving zeal, and the Mother of God with what concerns the service of her Son, suffer me now to revert again to her praises. This is in obedience to your orders, most excellent pastors, so dear to God, and we call upon the Word made flesh of her to come to our assistance. He gives speech to every mouth which is opened for Him. He is her sole pleasure and adornment. Read more

by St. John Damascus

Our venerable and God-bearing Father John of Damascus was also known as John Damascene, Chrysorrhoas, “streaming with gold,” (i.e., the golden speaker). He was born and raised in Damascus, in all probability at the Monastery of Saint Sabbas (Mar Saba), South East of Jerusalem. He is also recognized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

The memory of the just takes place with rejoicing,

said Solomon, the wisest of men; for precious in God’s sight is the death of His saints, according to the royal David. If, then, the memory of all the just is a subject of rejoicing, who will not offer praise to justice in its source, and holiness in its treasure-house? It is not mere praise; it is praising with the intention of gaining eternal glory. God’s dwelling-place does not need our praise, that city of God, concerning which great things were spoken, as holy. David addresses it in these words:

“Glorious things are said of thee, thou city of God.”

What sort of city shall we choose for the invisible and uncircumscribed God, who holds all things in His hand, if not that city which alone is above nature, giving shelter without circumscription* to the supersubstantial Word of God? Glorious things have been spoken of that city by God himself. For what is more exalted than being made the recipient of God’s counsel, which is from all eternity? Read more

by St. Gregory Palamas

Our father among the saints Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), Archbishop of Thessalonica, was a monk of Mount Athos in Greece (at Vatopedi  and Esphigmenou Monasteries), and later became Archbishop of Thessalonica. His feast days in the Church are Nov. 14 and the 2nd Sunday of Great Lent. In anticipation of the feast of Transfiguration this homily of St. Gregory for your homiletic preparations.

For an explanation of the present Feast and understanding of its truth,it is necessary for us to turn to the very start of today’s reading from the Gospel:

“Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James and John his brother, and led them up onto a high mountain by themselves” (Mt 17:1).

First of all we must ask, from whence does the Evangelist Matthew begin to reckon with six days? From what sort of day be it? What does the preceding turn of speech indicate, where the Savior, in teaching His disciples, said to them: Read more