Sermon on Sunday after Epiphany by His Eminence Archbishop Seraphim Kykkotis, Metropolitan of Zimbabwe and Angola
Today’s gospel extract refers to the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus Christ. The basic content of Jesus Christ’s preaching refers to the Kingdom of Heaven. In reality, the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, which always begins the Divine Liturgy – is that state which refers to the eternal life, which all people, who live according to the will of God in this life, will live after the Second Coming of Christ.
The preaching of the Kingdom of Heaven can be linked simultaneously with the preaching of Repentance, in the sense that in order for man to give himself the possibility in his life to live according to the Will of God, the Divine Commandments of Christ, he would have to reject everything that he has done or is doing which is in opposition to the will of God and the good of humanity. It is necessary therefore, in order for sinful man to progress towards the stage of sainthood, to take cognisance of his errors, to be ready to ask for forgiveness and to come to the Holy Sacrament of Confession, in order to confess his sins and his faults and with the pastoral guidance of his Spiritual Father, to try, with the grace of God, to rectify himself either by redressing some of his faults, wherever this is possible, or by trying not to repeat the same errors again.
After the stage of Repentance and Confession, the faithful, with the spiritual guidance of his spiritual doctor, that is of our clergy, avails himself now the second stage, the ascetic one, which is characterised by the struggle for the casting off of our passions, victory over our imperfections, envy, covetousness, materialism, hatred, evils, fault-finding, selfishness and many other soul-destroying evil habits, which keep us far from the pure and unadulterated love, which lead us to the next stage of our spiritual life.
The following stage is the saintly one, where with our worthy participation in the holy sacraments of our Church and especially in the Sacrament of the Holy Communion, we prepare ourselves, again with the guidance of our spiritual clergy and especially of our Bishop, to transform the Hell of the World into the Kingdom of Heaven.
In reality it is our effort to emulate the salvific example of Jesus Christ. To feel like Him, that the problems of our fellow human beings are also our problems and to try to contribute with our prayer and our participation to face them and to find solutions.
That is, to participate in the life of Christ. Thus, precisely because we labour with humble efforts for the improvement of the world in which we live, there comes as a blessing, the grace and God among us and we have a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven, in which our saints will live, that is those people who try to live according to the will of God.
I this way, each one of us engaging in our own personal struggle, with the possibility of free choice which we can make in our live, can have this possibility of salvation, to become a shareholder in the Kingdom of Heaven.
In the end, our salvation in Christ begins with our effort to contribute to the salvation of our neighbour. And this can be attained from the positive use of the divine talents, which each one of us acquires on the day of his Baptism. In this way, Saint Paul in today’s Epistle extract points out that grace has been given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s mercy, by showing forth Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers.
The social problems of our society, like the problem of the global financial crisis, insecurity, poverty, aids, drugs, racial discrimination and unemployment will find their solution, with the help of God, when all of us work with a realization of responsibility for the dominion of the Kingdom of God among us with our participation in and our contribution to a peaceful and just solution to the enormous problems of our modern world.
The pandemic of Coronavirus is an opportunity for all of us to co-operate and supporting each other with the help of God and social solidarity to protect the local community. We pray to God, the Scientific Medical Community and all the Governments to work together with the help of God to protect all of us in the best way.
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