Today we are remembering the Christian nation of Kyivan-Rus not just because they created a nation that built churches where they got baptized, married, and buried. We remember them because they accepted Christ and they filled their lives with him. Christianity didn’t just give them something new to do on Sundays – it brought the Savior into every part of ordinary life. It redeemed their lives by sacrilizing their activities through ritual.
These rituals comprised the infrastructure of their faith; this infrastructure – built on the solid rock that is Jesus Christ – sustained their faith and gave it form. Over time, it created a Christian culture. Every community, every nation, has a foundation, has an infrastructure of rituals that grow from that foundation, and has a culture that develops around these things. But not every culture creates saints. And not every family or nation that is comprised of Christians has a Christian culture.
Our culture has grown off a foundation of selfish-individualism. All of our rituals – even our so-called charity – reify this selfishness. The only saints we create are the counter-cultural ones that martyr themselves against our hegemonic worldly system.
That was a lot of words. The point is that our lives must be grounded on Christ, and everything we do must be done in and through him; “Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me.” (St. Patrick).
Baptizing the Mundane: rituals of eating, sleeping, & vacation.
The Rituals of Eating
Everyone has to eat and everyone creates rituals around eating; but what kind of attitudes do those rituals reinforce? Our activity surrounding the this morning’s meal, the Lord’s Supper – the Holy Eucharist – provide a sort of model of the kind of ritual that builds up gratitude to God and communion with him and one another. It cannot be just a personal meal we east so that we cannot get the necessary nutrients – in this case spiritual nutrients – into a body, but a fellowship. The world has no ritual of gratitude and those of fellowship are relegated for special events like Christmas and Thanksgiving. We must be different. Our homes have to be little churches; we have to bless our food and we have to eat together. Our faith also helps us decide what to eat. We should be even more willing to follow the dietary prescriptions of the Church – here I mean the rules of fasting –as we are to follow fads about losing weight, eating organic, and so on. I am distressed that so few of us fast; I am distressed that so few of us eat together regularly; I am distressed that so few of us bless our food – not even by making the sign of the cross – before we eat. The Church has given us taught us ways of eating that will build us into stronger Christians and create strong Christian cultures within our family and our community. But we prefer to build up our faith in world.
The Rituals of Sleeping
Everyone has to sleep, and we have rituals surrounding that, as well. For parents, that may involve enjoying a bit of quiet time after putting the kids into bed. For most, it involves watching some more television or checking Facebook one more time. The Christian pre-sleep ritual is to give thanks to God for the day, ask forgiveness for the mistakes we made during it, and to ask for his protection during the coming night and intercession for those in need. How many of us even cross ourselves and make a brief prayer of thanksgiving, repentance, and protection before we get into bed? How many even make the simple symbol of the cross over the bed (a wonderful and pious custom). It is the same for waking up; it’s all ritualized, and the point is that morning prayer should be as much a part of that ritual as drinking coffee and brushing our teeth. It’s not just that we are losing an opportunity to develop our faith when we ignore these rituals, we are actually developing and strengthening a different and corrupting faith in other gods.
The Rituals of Time-off
I am going to be even more offensive with my last example. Pretty much everyone takes time-off, and I love hearing about everyone’s great vacations. I myself am taking my family on vacation down South in a couple of weeks. There are rituals that surround our time off and our vacations. We dream about them, we save for them, and we enjoy them. This is as it should be. All of your are sacrilizing your time-off today in the most Godly fashion possible: you are in Church on Sunday morning. This is as it should be. Every Christian should be in Church every Sunday, period. This helps and I am proud of you for this. There are many other things you could be doing. But where is everyone on weekday Feasts? You know, the Twelve Great Feasts that don’t usually fall on Sunday: like the Transfiguration, the Falling-Asleep of the Birth-Giver of God, the Natitivy of the Birth-Giver of God, the Universal Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross, the Presentation of the Birth-Giver of God into the Temple, Theophany, the Meeting of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, the Annunciation of the Birth-Giver of God, and Ascension. You do it for Nativity, and God is glorified, but there is more time to redeem! Christians who would never dream of missing a birthday celebration of a grandchild cannot seem to find the time to attend any of these. Some of us work and would have to take vacation – why do we think God gave us vacations? It wasn’t just to see the world. And we can tell that this excuse is all smoke and no fire because when we are off, either because we have retired or because we have been given the time off for other reasons, we are no more likely to come to Church for these feasts than when we would’ve had to take time off.
[The Rituals of Spending – and Tithing]
Conclusion
Where are our priorities? We cannot say we love God and not act according to that love. We make time for the things we love and need; we certainly need and we should love God above all things; but if so, it doesn’t show up in how we live our lives. And as a result, our faith is lukewarm; the faith of our children wanes; and we drift further and further from God.
I know that it is difficult. It is hard to make room for such habits. I regret that we did not live this way from our youth; if we had, such things would be habitual; moreover they would have already begun to transform our minds, our families, and our communities.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
I have watched this parish grow in commitment over the last few years, and I am so proud to have been a part of that growth. But we cannot be a Sunday-only parish comprised of Sunday-only Christians. Our adherence to Orthodox ritual is not just a sign of our commitment to Christ and living the Gospel, but the life and commitment itself.
We may not have planted that tree twenty years ago, but we can surely plant it today.
