It is always “Today” in the Liturgy

From Father Alexander Schmemann’s Journals:

I am convinced that I am quite alienated from Byzantium, and even hostile to it. In the Bible, there is space and air; in Byzantium the air is always stuffy. All is heavy, static, petrified. What is surprising is that the Byzantine Liturgy basically withstood and endured this stuffiness and did not let it into the “Holy of holies.”

I love what he wrote here. I also feel the stuffiness of Byzantium and much of church tradition. Today is one of the two feasts dedicated to St. John Chrysostom that great preacher who also spoke out against Byzantine stuffiness 1,600 years ago, and for that the Byzantine empire exiled him to a remote place where he died. Chrysostom is the man who gave us the Liturgy we celebrate today. This Liturgy that Father Schmemann said withstood the stuffiness of Byzantium. How true. Where people see sameness I see light and elevation. Liturgy is not the same Sunday after Sunday. It is more likely we who are the same Sunday after Sunday, who do not allow Liturgy to transform us. The Liturgy is light and should not be weighed down by excessive slowness, solemnity and incomprehensible language. The Liturgy is Byzantium’s most perfect gift to us.

Look at today’s Gospel reading. It is a story full of light – not just light, but light-heartedness. You can’t help but smile at Zach’s impetuous climb to a tree and Jesus calling him down because he has invited himself to dinner at Zach’s house! And yet in this light-hearted story the profound message of the gospel, God’s good news shines through and through. Liturgy is like that. We come here, many of us impetuous, not quite knowing why we are here but here nevertheless. And then Christ calls us to eat with him, to share communion with him. He invites himself into our lives. And that’s part of the miracle of Liturgy.

Schmemann continues:

My intuition remains the same: the transposition of the experience of the Church from an eschatological to a mysteriological key. Here Plato turns out to be stronger than the Bible; Plato and the Christian empire, the Christian world. People do not understand that eschatology is interest in the world, whereas mysteriology is indifference to the world. Byzantium’s complete indifference to the world is astounding The drama of Orthodoxy: we did not have a Renaissance, sinful but liberating from the sacred. So we live in nonexistent worlds: in Byzantium, in Rus, wherever, but not in our own time.

This second paragraph stopped me in my tracks. The whole eschatological business is one of the preoccupations of Christians; especially in this country, among Christians whose whole idea of eschatology revolves around the ridiculous fantasies of ‘Rapture’, ‘Tribulation’ and ‘Millennium’. The Second Coming is an article of our faith, but Schmemann here reminds us that the end of times is only part of eschatology, it is only the end of eschatology. Because eschatology is not only about the end times; it is also about the ultimate times, the times of God’s presence. It is about the meaning and purpose of time! That is why we say “Today….” in the Liturgy, as most powerfully in the feast of Theophany:

Today the grace of the Holy Spirit descended upon the waters. 

Today the Sun that never sets has risen and the world is filled with splendor by the light of the Lord. 

Today the waters of the Jordan are transformed into healing by the coming of the Lord. 

Today the whole creation is watered by mystical streams. 

Today Paradise has been opened for us and the Sun of Righteousness shines down on us. 

Today we have been delivered from darkness and illumined with the light of the knowledge of God. 

Today the whole creation shines with light from on high. 

Today error is laid low and the coming of the Master has made for us a way of salvation. 

Today the Master hurries toward baptism so that He may lift us up to the heights. 

Today we have received the Kingdom of heaven, and the Lord’s Kingdom shall have no end. 

Today earth and sea share the joy of the world, and the world is filled with gladness…..

That is eschatology: When ‘Today’ is the crucial time, when today is the purpose of time. That is eschatological time – time with purpose, time with meaning. Every day is the end for a Christian – not in  the sense that we might die any day, but in the sense that every day is a day of purpose and meaning, and every day is the day in which the encounter with God will take place. 

Today salvation has come to this house – Zacchaios’ house! It is always ‘today’ – in the Bible, in the Liturgy. And if it is always today, we cannot be indifferent to the world around us – to the people around us, to life around us, to the planet itself. May today be a day of meaning and purpose for all of us.

Father Konstantinos Sarantidis – Sermon, 27 January 2019