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Homily - Evangelism is Messy (in a messy world)

OrthoAnalytika

Release Date: 01/28/2024

Homily - You are Safe show art Homily - You are Safe

OrthoAnalytika

In today's homily, Fr. Anthony reflects on our tendency to fear. He encourages us to remember that we are safe, and to not be anxious about anything but our sin. Enjoy the show!

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Homily - Unless the Lord Builds the House show art Homily - Unless the Lord Builds the House

OrthoAnalytika

St. Luke 5:1-11. In today's homily, Fr Anthony stresses the importance of building in God's name.  Using marriage as an example, he speaks on how we must strive to have Christ as the foundation for all we do; and we must build marriages that produce joy, not just endure to the end. He reminds us that we should never think we could build anything worthwhile without Christ. Enjoy the show!

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Lecture - Solzhenitsyn's Lecture - Solzhenitsyn's "Beauty Will Save The World"

OrthoAnalytika

In this lecture, Fr Anthony reviews Nobel Prize Winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn's . He shares how this concept of beauty fits into the Orthodox world and briefly touches on how today's culture has undermined the traditional values rooted in beauty, truth and goodness. Enjoy the show!

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Bible Study - Revelation Session 2 show art Bible Study - Revelation Session 2

OrthoAnalytika

Revelation, Session Two Christ the Savior, Anderson SC Fr. Anthony Perkins Sources: The translation of the Apocalypse is from the Orthodox Study Bible. Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011), Bishop Averky, The Epistles and the Apocalypse (Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, Volume III. (Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2018). Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123,...

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Homily - Don't Recreate the Law show art Homily - Don't Recreate the Law

OrthoAnalytika

(Galatians 2:16-20) Fr. Anthony kept close to his notes this week so as to avoid last week’s “hostage situation.” He addressed the temptation to recreate the Old Testament Law using The Way of Orthodoxy. This would be similar to the Judaizing and Babelizing temptation he warned against last week. Enjoy the show!

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Bible Study - Introduction to Revelation show art Bible Study - Introduction to Revelation

OrthoAnalytika

Sources:  Andrew of Ceasarea: Commentary on the Apocalypse Bishop Averky, The Epistles and the Apocalypse, Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament (Volume III) Fr. Lawrence R. Farley. The Apocalypse of St. John; A Revelation of Love and Power St. Bede.  Explanation of the Apocalypse; Letter of Bede to Eusebius Fr. Thomas Hopko: AFR podcast - A Walk Through the Apocalypse (three parts) Dr. Jeanie Constantinau: Search the Scriptures Live – Series Fr. Stephen De Young; The Whole Counsel of God; Series on Revolution   Oca.org (Rainbow Series) There was a certain...

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Homily - Judaizing Circumcision & Babelizing Nationalism show art Homily - Judaizing Circumcision & Babelizing Nationalism

OrthoAnalytika

Galatians 6:11-18. In today's episode, Fr. Anthony jokes that this homily might get him fired. He drew on St. John Chrysostom’s homily on these verses to make the case that what Circumcision is to Judaizing, Nationalism is to Babel. Both the Jewish law AND the division of people into nations have lost their justification thanks to the Incarnation and Pentecost. (Note: both Judaizing and ethnophylatism are heresies). Even though his point could have been made in half the time, and he gets lost in the weeds a few times, he made some important points, glory to God!  Enjoy the show!

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Homily - Teaching Liturgy (Full Length) show art Homily - Teaching Liturgy (Full Length)

OrthoAnalytika

In this episode, we are taken through a teaching liturgy in its full length. Enjoy the show!

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Homily - Teaching Liturgy show art Homily - Teaching Liturgy

OrthoAnalytika

Before the service. After attending the Divine Liturgy at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, emissaries of St. Volodymyr, the King of Kyivan-Rus’ reported: “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. One thing we understood, was that God was in our midst!”  This is the experience that is available to all of us when we come to Divine Liturgy; but as with all things, this experience will be greater the more we prepare for it and the more we understand and open ourselves up to it.  The time of preparation is over – now is the time to grow in our understanding of...

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Homily - Building Relationships show art Homily - Building Relationships

OrthoAnalytika

In today's epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 3:9-17, St. Paul instructs us to build carefully upon our foundation - Jesus Christ. Wrapping up on his series on relationships, Fr. Anthony expounds upon St. Paul's lesson. He reminds us that all work we put in to build relationship will become manifest daily in the face of temptation. Fr. Anthony tells us how we must build every relationship upon Christ if it is to endure that tempation. Enjoy the show!

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Homily – Bringing Grace to a Messy World
St Luke 18:35-43.  The healing of the blind beggar.

Three points:

Jesus did not stay in one place.

Jesus Christ is and was God.  It is fitting that He reside in the throne room of God, surrounded by the cherubim and seraphim, with His holiness reflecting off all the angels and archangels around Him.  But as the being of perfect love, He had to act on behalf of his beloved children (US!).  So He took flesh and became man.

Some would have expected Him to take up residence in the Temple or in the Governor’s House.  But instead He lived among common men and women and, for the last three years of His life, went from town to town so that everyone would know the Good News of salvation.  His body was the temple and He took His holiness, His healing love, and the truth of the Gospel everywhere He went.

We must do the same.  God resides within us.  We are called to love others as God loves us.  We are more than just disciples, we are Christ to the world– we are members of His body, the Church.  Others expect us to keep the reason for our joy and hope here in this building, but that is not how to love!  Yes, we invite the world to be transformed by joining us here, but love requires that we share the reason for joy and hope in the world.  We don’t hide it under a bushel (no!) we let it shine!

The Lord was traveling in today’s lesson, and we give a glimpse at what happened as He did.  We see that it isn’t always neat.  

Jesus – and his disciples – encountered the messiness of the world.

The world is a messy place.  Look what happened in today’s lesson: Christ and His entourage are almost to Jericho, and a beggar disrupts their travel.  This comes on the heels of other messy encounters: people having the nerve to bring their children up to Him to be blessed … a Rich Young Man questioning Jesus, and now this beggar!  I am willing to guess that, in their weaker moments, the disciples would have preferred Jesus stay in a place where they could control Him.  Then He could teach them – and anyone else who knew how to behave and knew what kind of questions were appropriate. 

But that would have been a different God, the God of Ivan Karamazov’s “Grand Inquisitor”.  Life is messy.  People have real problems, questions, and needs that do not fit into neat little categories.  And God goes out to meet them where they are.  As with the Rich Man, He may not always tell them what they want to hear, but there is the real sense that love required meeting people where they are (out in the world)… and then leading them to the cross and, through that, to the Resurrection and life eternal. 

We have to recognize the way our desire to control and mediate grace is more often a result of our own totalitarian pathology than a genuine desire to do God’s will.  Yes, grace leads to harmony; but demanding harmony before offering grace is like withholding medicine until a patient is well enough to deserve it.   

Everyone glorified God.

My final point may seem obvious, but it demands attention.  How did the people respond to the blind man’s healing?  Did they attack Jesus (they did in other places, as when He healed on the Sabbath)?  Were they upset that He wasted His time and power on a simple beggar when He could have done something more important?  Were they upset that they did not get their fair share of Jesus’ miracles on their own body (I bet all of them suffered from something!)?

No,  the Gospel says; “And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.” 

This is the proper response to God’s love and power no matter how it matches our desires or expectations: glorification!  When we glorify God, we become more human, more happy, more resilient.  And when others see us glorifying God, not just here in the temple, but everywhere we see Him and His miraculous action in this world, they are naturally drawn to worship Him as well.

Yes, let’s continue to praise God and enjoy His miracles here within these walls, but let’s be like Jesus Himself and take the Good News out into the world and let our friends and neighbors – even our enemies – feel the healing grace that flows through our love for them.  Yes, it’s going to be messy and it may well mean that more unworthy beggars than kings feel the benefit of this grace; and it may end up meaning that we bring more grace to the lives of the people in communities of the upstate than to those in the great halls of Washington D.C. (that may seem to need it more).

But Christ cured the blindness of the beggar on the way to Jericho despite the all terrible things the powerful were doing in Rome.  Evangelism is local; it begins with the transformation of our hearts into overflowing fountains of grace that pour out to bless everyone we meet. May the Lord strengthen us as we spread His grace in a messy world.