St. Tikhon’s Seminary
South Canaan, Pennsylvania
August 26, 1997
St. Tikhon Monastery
South Canaan, Pennsylvania
We have heard this morning in the epistle reading of St. Paul to the Corinthians the following quote:
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and throughus spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aromaof Christ [and] we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word; but as menof sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ” (2Corinthians 2:14-15, 17).
What purer words could we expect to hear to describe the life and work of Saint Innocent Veniaminov. What greater praise can be made to characterize the deeds and efforts of this man of God than to say he was the aroma of Christ. What greater glory can be attained that surpasses the triumph of one whose labors and intercessions seek to bring the proclamation of the life-giving and life saving Gospel to all people.
Within the context of this Eucharist—within the context of celebrating the memory of Saint Innocent—we are compelled to save the words of Saint Paul from empty glory and blind pride. This indeed is our challenge. This indeed requires the most serious reflection if our gathering in this sacred place is to stand above the tedium of routine formality.
One way we can avoid the seductive trap of empty glory and blind pride is to ponder the relationship between Saint Paul and the Corinthian Church. The Book of Acts informs us that it was Paul who brought the Gospel to Corinth (cf. Acts 18:1-11). The one who is an apostle—the one who is sent by God to preach the Good News—brings Christ to Corinth.
We are familiar with the trouble confronting the Corinthian Church. Elitist spiritually, partisan politics, and class segregation contribute to an internal division within this local Church. Yet, in spite of this internal strife or, to be more precise, within this strife, Saint Paul expresses the undeniable fact that the Church in Corinth has its existence from Christ. Through the labors of the Apostle the Lord establishes the Church which is his living body; “...and you Corinthians show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor. 3:3).
The Church is the living body of Christ because it is the Spirit of the living God who has inscribed on the human heart the new and everlasting covenant of Christ. It is this new Covenant and not the covenant of the law that endows humanity and all creation with new and eternal life. And it is the Church that reveals and offers this new and eternal life to all the world.
Saint Paul rejoices in this, and at the same time he is well aware of the dangers that impede the work of the Spirit and therefore the ministry of Christ. Where do these dangers come from? In what we have heard this morning it is clear that what hinders the Gospel comes from within the Church itself; “for we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word” (2:17). Let us be wary of these peddlers. These peddlers pervert the Gospel. They adulterate it—they twist it—forming it into a spirituality that culminates in division and ultimately hypocrisy.
Given this relationship of Saint Paul and the Corinthian Church, we can begin to see a similarity in the relationship of Saint Innocent and the Church sojourning in America. As an apostle to America, Saint Innocent delivers the Gospel of Christ. From this Gospel written by the Holy Spirit on the human heart emerges a new local Church that is commissioned to unite all in the Kingdom of the Triune and Tripersonal God.
The Gospel has been delivered to this land. And yet we must sadly confess that after more than 200 years of Orthodoxy in America the body of Christ is being divided from within. Peddlers of the gospel continue to polarize Orthodox Christians with self righteous claims to true spirituality, unwavering fidelity to the Scriptures and the Fathers and unquestionable canonicity. As in Corinth, we hear the corresponding rallying cries to “I belong to Paul, I belong to Apollos or I belong to Peter” (1 Cor. l:11). Here within this eucharistic celebration we must discover that first and foremost we belong to Christ. To belong to anyone else divides the Church and veils the Gospel that is to be proclaimed with one mouth and one heart.
As the Church sojourning in America, we are called to spread the fragrance of the true and living Gospel. Though all of us are not apostles, each of us has been called to exude the aroma of Christ to all who embrace the gospel as well as to those who reject the Word of Life. Together we must always strive to convince the world in word and deed that Christ is not divided—that his Church is one as he and the Father and the Spirit are one. Together we must show the world that we belong to Christ who desires all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4).
Amen!