If anyone would come after Me…

The feast-day of the Holy Cross was last Friday, September 14. Today, the Sunday following, had some reminders of the Cross in the hymns sung and in the scriptures read, Galatians 2:16-20 and Mark 8:34-9:1. "What a great theme to preach on," thought I to myself. So at sermon time, I decided I would give listening a try.

Fr. Paul started his sermon by recounting an incident from the life of neo-martyr Father Dmitri Klepnin who along with Mother Maria Skobtsova and her son Yuri were martyred by the Nazis during WWII. Father Dmitri was questioned by an officer named Hoffman, who said he’d let them all go if only they promised to stop helping the Jews. Fr Dmitri said, how could they? It was their ministry. Hoffman slapped him, "How dare you equate being a Jew-lover with ministry?" At that point, Fr Dmitri took hold of his pectoral cross and pushed it close into Hoffman’s face saying, "Do you know, do you know this Jew?" He suffered a beating for that, and soon afterwards he and Yuri were sent to Aushwitz to die.

After telling us the story, Fr. Paul moved on to preach a story (oops! I meant sermon) based not on Christ's words or on the teaching of holy Apostle Paul, but intead on his meditations on some of the words read in the service of Proskomidí (the preparation of the eucharistic gifts). To put what he preached in perspective, let me quote a little from the service book. Rubrics are like stage directions, and are printed in red, hence the name rubric (red letters):

Rubric: Putting on the pectoral cross, if he has the right to wear one, the Priest says:
Whoever would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)
…
Rubric: Then the Priest, taking a prosphora (the Eucharistic loaf) in his left hand and the Lance in his right, makes the sign of the Cross three times over the seal with the Lance, saying each time:
In remembrance of our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Rubric: Then the Priest thrusts the Lance into the right-hand side of the seal, beside the letters IC NI, and says:
Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter. (Isaiah 53:7)

Rubric: As he cuts along the left side, that is, beside the letters XC KA:
And as an unblemished lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he does not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)

Rubric: As he cuts along the upper side:
In his humiliation judgement was denied him. (Isaiah 53:8)

Rubric: As he cuts along the lower side:
Who will declare his generation? (Isaiah 53:8)

I have witnessed this service myself, but it is not normally in view of the congregation, especially since it takes place before most of the people arrive, and behind the iconostasis. It is a very moving service.

What Fr. Paul made of all this was a four-point program for imitating Christ in His humiliation, as a way of dealing with evil in the world. The four cuts made in the eucharistic loaf and the scriptures cited at each cut, he said, can represent, resist not evil, protest not evil, expect not justice, care not for reputation. Then, he explained his ideas a bit further, and related them to the sayings of Jesus, regarding going the extra mile, turning the other cheek and, of course, Jesus' very words, "Offer the wicked man no resistance." (Matthew 5:39) Then, he quoted himself from a sermon he delivered earlier in the year, "Evil cannot be defeated. Evil can only be transformed." He taught us, moreover, about Mahatma Gandhi's wonderful concept of satyagraha, active non-resistance, and how we can practice this for the good of the world.

If only I had paid more attention to his sermon, I'd be able to report it a little more faithfully. But my mind kept drifting back to the words of Jesus, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34 NIV)