Citizen Columns
Question
If you had one message to impart throughout your ministry what would it be?
Answer
Most people are skeptical about "messages." We have been bombarded by too
much advertising. We are wary of propaganda, especially religious
propaganda. We want to see how religious messengers actually live, and if
their behaviour lives up to their message. And there's the rub. Every time I
think of a message, I think at the same time how I don't live up to it.
I'm the only hypocrite around. Most of us feel a great distance between our
ideals and our acts. I recall hearing someone who didn't go to church
explaining to the priest that he stayed away because "the church is so full
of hypocrites". And the priest replied, "There's always room for one more".
Perhaps that's the back door to a message. It was the sense of God's
forgiveness, acceptance and mercy that first brought me to committed
Christian life. The best message we can give is one that we have experienced
and can impart with conviction. Of course that's not the only message that
God gives. In the scriptures there's plenty about commandments and judgment.
Some people need to hear a word of mercy, but others need to hear John the
Baptist's preaching of repentance. But if you ask about the one message I
would give, then it is the message of God's mercy.
That sense of mercy should call out of us a deep love for God. But that too
is a struggle. The first Orthodox saint in North America, St Herman of
Alaska (+1837), was a simple Russian monk who spent decades living on tiny
Spruce Island off the coast of Kodiak. He earned the deep respect and
affection of the native people he served. He had dedicated his entire life
to God, but admitted that he still needed a daily decision. "From this day
forth, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all."
That's the message I would want to give as well.
Father John Jillions
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