St. Basil Prison Ministry Pancake Breakfast - September 25

What is Christian Fellowship

(Part 3)

In the past two articles, we’ve looked at what makes Christian fellowship unique.  We’ve done this by looking at two goals within Christian fellowship that make it different from secular fellowship – that fellowship in the church is driven by gratitude for what Jesus Christ has done for us, and that Christian fellowship is worried primarily about the salvation of our neighbor – obviously, neither of which would be present in fellowship that isn’t God-centered.  We also looked at Holy Communion as the center of all fellowship – the event on which all fellowship is established for us.

Today, in our last look at fellowship in this series, we will look at something the scriptures tell us needs to exist for true fellowship to flourish within the church – that being transparency.  True Christian fellowship assumes that our community knows who we really are and not just a façade that we put forward.

1. You can’t pray for needs you aren’t aware of

If the church is a community centered on and always directed towards Jesus Christ, which means that pray is the heart of the church.  If all that people at church know about us is how great our life is (when it is (perhaps?) behind the scenes not as clean and tidy) how can our fellow Christians pray for the real needs that we have.

2. “Confess your sins to one another…”

St. James, in his epistle, writes the following to the early Christian Church:

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (5:16).

In the early church the sacrament of confession was not with the priest alone, but before the whole congregation – because all sin is a sin against all of creation – and so the church understood that we needed forgiveness from the whole community.  Even today when the priest hears confession, he hears it not as an isolated individual, but as the person assigned by the church to represent the church in offering forgiveness and absolution.

3. Even AA admits that without transparency there’s never a healthy community.

It’s noteworthy that even not self-consciously Christian organizations, like Alcoholics Anonymous affirm the need for transparency in healing and community.  Step number five in the 12-step program reads, “Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”  Without community we can never be healthy – and the ultimate source of both healing and community is Jesus Christ and His church.

And, in the end, isn’t true community at the core of what we all long for?  May today be the day we begin, as a congregation to consciously struggle to make our parish a beacon of this self-sacrificing, other-center, sacramentally-focused, transparent love that Jesus Christ has called us to be, for our own health and salvation, and as a witness to the love of God for the world around us.

- Offered by Fr. Panteleimon Dalianis

What is Christian Fellowship?

(Part 2)

Last week we looked at Christian fellowship from two perspectives: (1) fellowship in the church is driven by gratitude for what Jesus Christ has done for us, and (2) Christian fellowship is motivated primarily by the desire to save the soul of our neighbor.

This week we will examine fellowship in the church through the central event in the life of the church that is Holy Communion, and we’ll do this by looking at three points of connection between Holy Communion and fellowship.

                                                                                                                                   

1. Holy Communion connects us with God – the source of all real unity

 The gospel of St. John makes, perhaps, the strongest statement in the whole of scripture about what Holy Communion does for us:

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” – John 6:53-54

                                                                                                                               

St. Cyril of Jerusalem says the same thing in the reverse:

Without the Lord’s flesh [Holy Communion], it is impossible to live.

A Christian community can never have genuinely strong and healthy fellowship unless the foundation of that strength and health is unity in Jesus Christ – which can only be had through unity in Holy Communion.

2. The word “Liturgy” means “work of the people”

St. Ambrose of Milan explains that the central act of the church is Holy Communion:

                                 

The word “Liturgy” means “the work of the people” and this serves to underscore the corporate character of the Divine Liturgy….  The Eucharist is truly the center of the life of the Church and the way we nourish ourselves on our journey through life.

Our fellowship as a community must be defined by this central work (to put it differently, we need be seen by the world around us as a group of people who are united, first and foremost, in Christ).  Nothing can ever be more important than being at the Liturgy and receiving the Eucharist.  To the degree that anything else does define our fellowship, to that same degree our fellowship is not truly in Christ.

3. Holy Communion is the goal and end point of all Christian life

Many of you may not know this, but all of the sacraments have Holy Communion as their goal.  In the early church, weddings, baptisms, holy unction and confession, were all done in the Liturgy.  And today, Holy Communion (of course) and ordinations are still done in the Liturgy.  This points to the fact that Holy Communion is central to all that we are as a church.

In the Orthodox Church all roads lead to the chalice and Holy Communion.  The goal of the church needs to be to put this theory into practice – to truly have our fellowship grounded in the body and blood of Jesus Christ. 

- Offered by Fr. Panteleimon Dalianis

Monday

II Cor. 2:4-15; Matt. 23:13-22

Woe unto you..for ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men (Matt. 23:13). This can be said to hierarchs who neither teach the people the saving path themselves nor compel the priests to teach them. This can also be said to priests who leave the people in neglect, not taking care to explain to them what is necessary for the salvation of the soul. Due to this, the people remain in blindness. Some remain in the certainty that they are proceeding properly; others, although they notice that things are not going the right way, do not go where they should, because they do not know how and where to go. This causes various silly ideas to spread among the people; this is why schismatics, Molokans, and Khlysts find acceptance among them, and this is how every evil teaching finds convenient access to them. A priest usually thinks that everything is fine in his parish, and rushes into action only when this evil has already spread and exposed itself. But then nothing can be done about it. A priest must consider it the first priority of his conscience to continually instruct the adults in the knowledge of the Christian Faith, and to prepare the young generation from their first conscious years, explaining to them what they can and must know. There is no need to wait for school. This must be done orally, gathering the children in the church and at home on Sunday evenings, or whenever and however it is convenient. 

-From St. Theophan the Recluse

Monday

1 Cor. 15:12-19; Matt. 21:18-22

The Lord condemned the fig tree to fruitlessness because in appearance it was so covered with leaves that there ought to have been fruit on it, but none could be found. In applying this to the Christian life, the leaves represent outward words of piety and outward spiritual asceticism, while the fruits represent inner dispositions. According to the law, the former should proceed from the latter. However, out of condescension to our infirmity, the latter should at least develop together with the former. When the former are strong but the latter are not even budding, a false life results, which expresses itself like this: to seem, but not to be. At first, perhaps this unfortunate state is not in one's thoughts, but then it appears unnoticeably and establishes itself as a way of life. When one applies himself excessively to externals and becomes passionately attached to them, his attention toward his heart is suppressed, his spiritual feelings die away, and coldness settles in. At this stage, spiritual life freezes, and there remains only an appearance of piety, but no piety. One's behavior is proper on the outside, but inwardly everything is wrong. The consequence of this is spiritual fruitlessness-works are done, but they are all dead. 

-From St. Theophan the Recluse

What is Fellowship? - an article by Fr. Panteleimon

What is Fellowship?

As we discuss the definition of what a church is called to do and be (see last week’s article, Highest and Best Use (of the Church?) at http://stbasilchicago.blogspot.com), allow me to break down each of the six points I made in my last article to better define what each one of these parts looks like.  I’ll begin with fellowship.

St. Paul is very clear that fellowship is not just “friendship” as we define it in the world, but something that has to do with God and being heirs of His kingdom.  He tells the church in Ephesus to walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Eph. 5:2).  Fellowship has something to do with what Jesus Christ has done to save our souls. 

Because of this, fellowship in the church has two components that fellowship in the world would never have.  First, fellowship in the church is driven by gratitude for what Jesus Christ has done for us – and an acknowledgment that nothing we can do can pay back God for what he has done for us in Jesus Christ.

At the core of any effort to love our neighbor is always the passage from the gospel of St. Luke which reads:

So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, “We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10).

Secondly, Christian fellowship is worried primarily about the salvation of our neighbor.  And that salvation can only be found in the truth that is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For this reason, St. James explains in his epistle:

Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins (James 5:19-20).

What greater thing can a friend do than save us from eternal separation from God?  Fellowship in the church is about helping those around us get into heaven.

So as we reflect on the content of fellowship at St. Basil, we can ask two questions: (1) is our own motive for fellowship one of gratitude and indebtedness to God?  And (2) is the end-goal of our fellowship the kingdom of heaven for both us and our neighbor?

May St. Basil become a parish where these two motives are the central motives for all of the fellowship that we have.

- Offered by Fr. Panteleimon Dalianis

Monday

1 Cor. 11:31-12:6; Matt. 18: 1-11

Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 18:3). The structure of a child's heart is a model for all. Children, before egotistical strivings have arisen in them, are a model for imitation. What do we see in children? Complete faith which does not reason, undebating obedience, sincere love, peace and lack of worry under their parents' roof, and liveliness and freshness of life, with agility and a desire to learn and become more perfect. But the Savior particularly emphasizes one of their virtues-humility: Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 18:4). For as soon as there is true humility, all of the virtues are there. It is revealed perfectly when the other virtues have already blossomed in the heart and reach maturity it is their crown and protection. This is the mystery of spiritual life in our Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever is higher is more humble, because he more clearly and tangibly sees that it is not he who labors successfully, but the grace which is in him (cf. 1 Cor. 5:10); and this is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). For an essential aspect of Christ Jesus is that He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death (Phil. 2:8).

-From St. Theophan the Recluse