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Interview with Fr. Moses Berry: “The Church belongs to everyone” from OCA News

February 28, 2012

Fr. Moses Berry, an OCA priest ministering at Theotokos “Unexpected Joy” Orthodox Church in Ash Grove, Missouri, has an unusual story. In 1998, he moved with his family from St. Louis to his family’s farm in Ash Grove, near Springfield. Century Farm has been in the Berry family since 1872; on the property a cemetery dedicated to “Slaves, Paupers, and Indians” needed maintenance and oversight, and so Fr. Moses left a mission in the city to return to his rural boyhood home.

A small group of faithful collected around the new mission, Theotokos “Unexpected Joy.” The tiny cemetery chapel hosted the first services; in 2000 the mission was received into the Orthodox Church in America, and in 2003 parishioners erected a temple.

Fr. Moses travels widely to give talks on mission and also on local Afro-American history; folks who have met him elsewhere often stop by to worship when they pass through the area. In addition to leading the parish, Fr. Moses also heads up The Brotherhood of St Moses the Black, a pan-Orthodox nonprofit organization which presents an annual conference targeting those who have little exposure to Orthodoxy or its African roots.

Recently, oca.org interviewed Fr. Moses about his unique ministry.

You can read this article and the interview in its entirety here – OCA – OCA News – Interview with Fr. Moses Berry: “The Church belongs to everyone”.

Homily on the Gospel of The Prodigal Son by Archpriest Don Freude

February 12, 2012

A major league umpire was asked if he ever made mistakes in calling balls and strikes. He replied, “Of course, I make mistakes. My only trouble is I can’t admit it.”

Our hope in life as Christians is to have the humility to admit to ourselves and to God, that not being infallible or perfect, we have made mistakes – and do make them every day.

If you were asked what the hardest task in the world is, you might think of some muscular feat, some acrobatic challenge, or some act of bravery in a situation that might arise.

Actually, however, there is nothing harder, nothing more arduous than to say these three words: “I was wrong.”

It takes humility and self-effacement which too often we find that we are not capable of.

Yet no three words are more needed in our life than the words, “I was wrong.”

They are in a real sense magic words; words that reconcile; words that unite; words that heal wounds and bring peace.

We hear the call of Christ especially during this period of Pre-Lent and Lent: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” (Mt. 4:17)

We heard this call to us three weeks ago. But today the call is the same. The question is how we relate to it.

As to words alone?

Or as to the great call of Christ’s Church, our Mother, who knows what is awaiting us, and therefore appeals to us, “Repent.”

During the course of these three weeks, the Church has been convincing us that we must examine ourselves.

If you will remember three Sundays ago, the Church gave us the Gospel reading about Zacchaeus the tax collector who desired to see Jesus. He climbed the sycamore tree and looking through the leaves he saw the eyes of mercy looking at him.

Zachaeus repented paying back fourfold to anyone he had defrauded and half of what he owned he gave to the poor.

In the words of our Lord: “Today, salvation has come to this house.”

Through the grace of our Lord Jesus he was able to say “I was wrong.”

And the Church gave us the image of this publican so that we could check ourselves.

Then last Sunday, our holy mother, the Church, pulls back the curtain for us and allows us to listen in to the moment of prayer of the Pharisee who was boasting about how great he was and the Publican who was beating his breast and saying: “God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13).

A careless and sinful life was so enrooted in this publican’s consciousness that he did not know want to do. His desire was that from this moment on, his life would not be sinful. And he reached his state of despair and all he could say:

“God be merciful to me a sinner.

I can do nothing.

Thou art the Only Who by Thy divine strength and Thy Grace can help me get out of this difficult situation of a suffering conscience.” “I was wrong.”

The prodigal Son in today’s Gospel lesson was honest with himself with a frank and merciless honesty. When he admitted the wrong in himself and said: “I have sinned. I was wrong” then and only then he came to his true self.

A new chapter of his life began that very day.

A new chapter can begin for us if, bidding good-bye to self-excuse, self -pity, self-defense, we will face the facts about ourselves and say:

“Yes, that’s the kind of person I am;

that is the sort of thing I am capable of doing and have done,

but, by the grace of God, I can be different, and I will be different.”

When Judas, for example, saw that the innocent Jesus was condemned, he brought the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders and said:

“I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood.” Then throwing the pieces of silver in the temple he went and hanged himself. Judas was remorseful enough to admit his sin to himself and to the chief priests, but he just could not bring himself to face Jesus and say: “I am sorry. Forgive me. I was wrong.”

Jesus, who forgave the penitent thief on the Cross, would have forgiven Judas, too, if he had come to the cross and confessed. If only he could have realized that the reward for apology and confession far outweighs the momentary embarrassment of saying: “I am sorry. I was wrong.”

When the Prodigal Son said, “I have sinned,” he did not stop there. To have stopped there could have meant only self-pity. He took then next step. He said “I will arise and go to my Father.”

And this is what Jesus urges on us. When we see ourselves for what we really are,

are ashamed of ourselves,

have difficulty accepting ourselves,

we can be sure of one thing – God will accept us in the same manner as the Prodigal Son was accepted today’s Gospel:

But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

But the father said to his servant, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry;

for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

This is the way God welcomes us when, with deep repentance in our hearts, we come to Him with those magic words: “I was wrong.” – Three of the most difficult words to say to yourself, to others and to God. But to the person who musters enough courage to say them, there comes forgiveness, peace, new strength, and a new lease on life.

The great days of the Christian spring are approaching – Great Lent – the days when the Church makes it possible for us to open ourselves up, to recognize our sinful condition, to cleanse ourselves with the Sacrament of Confession.

This Sunday of the Prodigal Son, the Holy Church once again gives us a lesson for our conscience in order to resurrect us so that we come closer to the Father, in order to heal our heart.

In our sinfulness:

We are not at home.

We are not where we belong.

We are alienated and estranged.

We are in exile.

This message is at the very center of Christ’s teaching.

Today the Church puts on our lips Psalm 137 which the Israelites prayed when they experienced exile from Jerusalem and were taking captive to Babylon:

1 By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.
3 For there our captors
required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget wither!
6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy!

Spiritually we are all by the waters of Babylon.

To forget God is the cause of all sin.

Our true home is the New Jerusalem, not a place on the map but a spiritual reality – the Kingdom of God.

“Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand” is our Lord’s admonition to us today and every day and if we are willing He will give us he grace to say:

“I was wrong.”

Sunday of Zacchaeus Sermon by Fr. Don Freude – Sunday, January 29, 2012

January 31, 2012

Fr. Don Freude’s Sermon from the Sunday of Zacchaeus – Annual Parish Meeting on Sunday, January 29, 2012

Today, January 29, 2012, is the Sunday of Zacchaeus, and the Sunday designated for our Annual Parish Meeting. Zacchaeus Sunday traditionally announces the coming of Great Lent. As we approach Great Lent, we are given an opportunity to reflect, to return as the Prodigal Son to the bosom of God our Father and in so doing become reconciled to one another.

This year the Christmas cycle overlaps this announcement of Great Lent with the Feast of the Meeting our Lord in the Temple 40 days after His birth celebrated this week on February 2.

The Sunday of our Annual Parish Meeting also gives us an opportunity to reflect on how well we have responded to the mission we have been given by our Lord: to establish the Kingdom of God on earth and to live out the words we repeat so often in the Lord’s Prayer – Thy will be done, Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven –

In the recent newscasts of this week, the name of the actress Demi More has been brought to our attention by her present health situation. What caught my ear was her statement about her life that “maybe in the end she will realize that she is unlovable.” What a tragic thought that the meaning of her life seemingly was rooted solely in her as she viewed her value and her worth!

But the truth of life and its meaning goes far beyond ourselves. We are born out of love and we will die into love, that every part of our being is deeply rooted in love, and that nothing can separate us from this love of God, as the apostle Paul stated so beautifully:

“I am certain of this (says Paul): neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence, and nothing still to come, nor any power, nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created

thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:38-39)

What does the Church continually and consistently bring before our minds, our hearts and our souls? It includes very often things that we do not like to deal with and we do not want to hear or put under the scrutiny of self-examination.

Often we go off on our own, following our own ideas, enacting our own plans. In short, in so doing, it is all about us and not about our Lord Jesus. And I submit to you that those uncomfortable situations within our families and our Parish Family are a result of it all being about us and not about our Lord, His love for us and our love for Him and our love for one another.

Zacchaeus, in today’s Gospel, was man of great internal conflicts. He knew that his own people did not like him. Maybe, like Demi More, he was thinking about himself as unlovable.

He was a troubled man, spiritually. Despite his wealth and station in life, he felt an emptiness in his soul, and he may have felt the pangs of conscience for his sins. There was a deep desire in him to make right all his wrongs.

The people saw his sins and condemned him; the Lord Jesus saw beyond the sins, He saw the deep hunger of his heart, and He consoled him. Jesus saw him with the eyes of compassion and His Great Mercy. We can picture Zacchaeus looking down from the tree and seeing the eyes of Jesus – the eyes of Mercy looking back at him.

Imagine his surprise when Jesus stopped right under the sycamore tree where probably he was hiding under the leaves. But there is no hiding from God. “Zacchaeus!” Jesus called. The publican was amazed to learn that Jesus knew his name. Yes, Christ knew all about him, as He knows all about us. What a lesson it is to realize that our Savior and our God is a Lord Who knows us by our names! What a comfort this is. The theme song of the TV show “Cheers” ( now re-runs) calls the bar named “Cheers” a place where everybody knows your name.

With God, he knew us before we were born while we were being knitted in our mother’s womb. He knows us at every moment of our life, every time He forgives us, every time we partake of His Body and Blood, He knows the number of hairs on our head, and He knows us by name when He calls us into Paradise.

“Zacchaeus,” Jesus said as He look up into the tree, “hurry up and come down, for today I must abide in your house.”

Opportunity was knocking at Zacchaeus’ door. The chance had come. He came down quickly and joyfully welcomed Christ into his home and given the opportunity in Christ’s Presence, he came to grips about himself and how he too was a son of Abraham – a beloved son of God.

Each of us at any given moment can claim the deeper spiritual truth of who we are, even while everything around us suggests otherwise

In moments of crisis, it is not ideologies or theories that guide us, but our primary stories. True stories help make us capable of love and sacrifice and light up the path to the Kingdom of God. False stories condemn us to nothingness and disconnection. Much depends on our story foundation.

If the stories we live by are false – such as we are unlovable – our foundations rot and we sink. Jesus is the true story for each of us – that we are beloved sons and daughters – we are loveable; and as a Parish Family that we are the beloved Body of Christ that gathers at St. Elia

We must be storytellers. By telling and living the true story of our Lord, we can prepare the rich soil for God so that He can send others to us to love and become sojourners with us to the Kingdom of God.

God the Father gave us the best He had – He gave His Beloved Son, Jesus our Lord.

If we believe that we are beloved before we were born, and will be beloved after we die, we can realize our mission in life. We are sent into this world to be a people of reconciliation. We are sent to teach and to heal, to break down the walls that divide people into different categories of value. Out of that essential unity we can live and proclaim the truth that every human being belongs to God’s heart, which beats from eternity to eternity.The mystery of God’s love is that when you know in your heart that you are chosen and blessed, you also know that others are chosen and blessed, and you cannot do other than embrace all humanity as God’s beloved.

We see at times the bumper sticker that says: “I am spending my children’s inheritance.” We too have an inheritance that we are here and now the beloved sons and daughters of God. We need to spend our inheritance NOW. We need to live life acknowledging and recognizing at every moment that we are loveable. Love is the most important and only treasure that we take with us from this world. Precisely as we confront life and death in all its many facets, we can finally say to God: “I love, you, too.”

There is a tradition in the Church that Zacchaeus, after his conversion, became a bishop and served the Lord faithfully in the Holy Land. Another story speaks of his tender care for that sycamore tree where he first met Christ. He loved that place that brought him salvation.

May we today dedicate ourselves to keep God’s blessings upon this Church. May we love this place where many, children and adults, will be brought to be born again in the waters of Baptism and sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit through the Oil of Chrism, where we shall be fed the Bread of Life, where we shall hear Jesus teach us from the pages of the Holy Gospel, where couples love will be brought into the Kingdom Crowned in Holy Matrimony, where we will be absolved of our sins in Holy Confession and thereby be reconciled to the Church and to God, and through whose doors we, God’s beloved, shall one day be carried and led by the angels to the portals of eternity – into Paradise. Amen

Interview with Fr. Moses Berry: “The Church belongs to everyone” from OCA News

Homily on the Gospel of The Prodigal Son by Archpriest Don Freude

Sunday of Zacchaeus Sermon by Fr. Don Freude – Sunday, January 29, 2012

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