Greetings on this Sunday! Today, we recall Adam's expulsion from Eden. “Paradise, my Paradise,” sang Hieromonk Roman. But what is Paradise? Perhaps it resides within our hearts. The world has many sacred places, but none of them is Paradise. However, we can find paradise when God dwells within us. Paradise also resides around people with peaceful hearts. The sense of paradise may be fleeting and fragile, yet many are drawn to them because they find God's grace and His presence within.
In Paradise, we either feel content or wretched. If we are miserable, we will surely be hiding from God, as Adam and Eve did after their fall. And if we find Paradise unbearable, we will do anything to avoid it.
Could we be rejecting paradise right now? How many might be saying to themselves “I would not want to go to heaven even if I could: I like it on earth.” On earth, there is sin and the devil. With all his cunning and deceit, he implores us: “Look, you can build a heaven on earth with your own hands. A breakthrough invention, a grandiose project or a boom in the economy will get you there in no time. A few finishing touches here and there, and you have reached your goal. There, you will never have any need. Eat, drink and have fun to our heart’s content. The final day is imminent? Who said it? Why bother anyway? Live it right out while you are on earth, what eternal life are they talking about? Has anyone ever seen it?"
And the devil continues: “Could eternal life be some grand deception? Did the priests invent it to extort more money from the people? Or could it be some clever government ploy to keep the populace obedient and under control?” What a convenient way of thinking! And it leaves no room for any paradise. Where is it, anyway?
I know what hell is, and everybody else may know it, too. Hell is where we lose sight of God, cannot make sense of our lives and face overwhelming loneliness because we do not need another, and nobody needs us. That's why Great Lent is our soul’s return from captivity and hell. It is our journey from death to life! We are on our way to resurrection, and we have set out to travel this path this year.
People, it seems, have lost sight of some basic truths. Nobody needs God nowadays. True, some may need God within the boundaries of their domicile or some other limited space. In there, they may engage in prayer, or even build a church. But in the broader sense, at the scale of our lives, the world does not need God. It lives by a different set of rules, in which God does not participate. These laws distort human nature and drive people to madness. And so we are now living in dreadful times. The people are obsessed with a grand deception. They think they are defending values — intellectual values, or democratic ones. It is not clear what kind, but democracy is the battle cry... They all clamour for freedom. What kind of freedom? Where does it exist? And whose idea of liberty is it? They cannot imagine anyone living differently from them, and they want everyone to live as they do. That's what makes it even more frightening.
Despite the state of the world we are in, we have all come to church, and we are with God! “Those who come to partake in the goodness of the Lord will not leave hungry and rejected.” God accepts everyone. So today we are in paradise. Did you ever doubt that?
But what makes us turn our backs on Paradise and transition to a different state? Soon, we will leave the church and engage in our daily interactions with each other. We will enter arguments, or gossip about who loves whom and how much, debate who is more indebted, and to whom, and which is mine and yours. We’ll fall into envy and despair. And where does all of this take us? You guessed it: hell. Hell is the absence of God. No matter what decorations are put up, or what rewards are offered, they will be the same swine pods, if only with some new flavours or vitamins: “Have some pods, and you need nothing else. Eat, drink, have fun!”
My friends, all of you are Christ’s combat unit. There are not many people like you. The whole world has gone insane. Can't you see? A war is being waged against the Holy Church!
Let me tell you this: you are all God's special forces, consciously or unconsciously. You have people around you and Christ within you. The world of sin is Christ’s enemy. It crucified Him, would crucify Him now, and will do it in future. And it will do everything to deceive us and rest assured, it will spare no effort.
Why was the Internet invented? Was it for convenience? Was it to help us look for information or locate a book? Think again, friends. In my youth, I used to wonder: “How will the devil come and give his commands, and how would everyone know what he is saying?” Here is the tool: the Internet, the World Wide Web... Phones are now ubiquitous, even in Africa or the most remote islands. And who is using this tool? Good-natured men and women? Sadly, it is the devil. In his hands people become weapons for infecting and destroying the Christian race. He has already got his hands on our children!
Some parishioners are telling me that their four-year-olds never part with their phones. What is that? Poison! In spring, first-graders are walking home from school, phones in their hands. Around them, trees are budding, and green grass is sprouting. But they don't see any of this beauty, they are all immersed in games — the world of tanks, or what have you. Adults, too, are fascinated by the tanks, to the point of neglecting their families and paying no attention to anything else. They are all playing. But God is not for playing. He is for life!
We all need to wake up from our slumber, open our eyes, understand the meaning of our lives. We must all recognise God's presence, and strive to serve Him to the best of our ability. We may be limited in our abilities. However, those who are faithful over a few things will be faithful over many things (cf. Matthew 25:21).
Let us pray that the Lord may give us the chance to enter the Great Lent in dignity, for the salvation of ourselves, our loved ones, and the whole world. I am thinking in these broad terms, but I think I am right. Such is the extent of the responsibility borne by an Orthodox believer — no more, nor less. Of course, one might say, “This has nothing to do with me, what do you want from me anyway? I am weak, I am frail. Stop pestering me! What are you proclaiming, what are you advocating here?”
I am not proclaiming or advocating anything. I am only saying that God created us to inherit Paradise, but we have wasted this gift, exchanging it for a bunch of swine pods. The world has deceived us, but it should not be this way. Then Christ came to redeem sinners. And I am foremost among them. So let us strive to stand up to this world and the devil, and let us continue our struggle against the sin within us.
Lent is a time for heightened spiritual solidarity. We warmly invite you to share your prayer requests for yourself and your loved ones. Click on the link below to submit them under the “Great Lent commemoration” option inside the Prayer Request form. We will commemorate these names throughout Lent's solemn weeks.
https://obitel-minsk.org/prayer-request
Archpriest Andrey Lemeshonok
Preached after the Divine Liturgy on February 26, 2023, remembering Adam's expulsion from Eden
