St. Botolph’s Parish, 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, 6 June 2010
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4.19)
‘You have your own church. Why are you interested in ours?’ Those were the words of an Orthodox priest to a prospective convert. ‘You have your own church’. In brief, you’re not welcome here. The young woman, the prospective convert, was raised nominally in the Church of England: ‘C. of E.’ was what she has filled in on forms. Eventually, she starts coming to the Divine Liturgy. She comes mournfully, full of regret of what the West has become. Meekly, ready to receive whatever the True Church teaches her. Hungry and thirsty for the truth that only the Church, which has stood the test of two thousand years, can offer her. Finally, she works up the courage to ask to be received. But, instead of a welcome home, what does she hear? ‘You have a church, go home to it’. It is the sound of a door slammed in her face. This time, it is not racism. It is not those bitter words: ‘If you’re not Greek, or marrying a Greek, you’re not welcome here’. The priest whose parish she has been attending is no racist. Instead, he is typical of his immigrant generation. When he first stepped off the boat, some indigenous people told him: ‘Know your place. Never forget, you are a foreigner. You are our guest, in our house. This territory belongs to the Church of England. You may minister to your people, not to ours’. It was not exactly the ideal mission field! So, for decades, this priest hid away in his little ghetto. He knew his place. At last, when a hungry, thirsty soul, meek and mournful and persecuted by all the bigotry and neglect that folk religion could sling at her, comes to his doorstep, all that he can say is: ‘The Orthodox Church does not proselytise. Go home!’
Orthodox mission in this Christian land? No such thing! What, then, is our mission field? A few tribal elders in Siberia, or maybe the jungles of Borneo? A few ex-Communists in China? Scraps left from a table, after the Jesuits and Methodists have had their fill? For years, I have heard every excuse why Orthodox do not have missions. I have held a candle for a newly-illumined Orthodox soul at the sacred moment of communion, while unconscious, ‘folk’ Orthodox shoved in front in the queue. I have listened to Orthodox clergy fretting: ‘We can’t improve our website, send out information to the public. What will the Established Church think?’ An Orthodox professor once told me solemnly: ‘There are Anglican clergy present. We must watch what we say: we don’t want to be accused of proselytising’. ‘Then go accuse Christ!’ I shouted. ‘Accuse all his apostles!’ We have plenty of good Anglican, Roman Catholic, or Methodist friends: we don’t ‘invade’ them but receiving them into the Church. ‘Why do you take it?’ I have asked the Orthodox clergy. ‘Why hide in the shadows? This is your native land, not mine. Why do you creep up the back staircase, like a tenant who owes rent? Why act as though the Orthodox faith were treason?’ I know why. Our clergy look out on a society that grows more desperately secular by the hour and see only signs saying: ‘Off limits’, ‘No mission here’. Go convert the cannibals, not the agnostics.
So when our disillusioned convert manages to sneak past these border guards into the Church, these priests abandon her. Leave her Orthodox in body, Protestant in soul. ‘You can’t really convert’, they think, ‘so stay just as you are. You’re not one of us and you can never be’. For generations, this was ‘the way’ of our Orthodox people. We kept our place, locked in our ghetto. Inoffensive – and unknown. This is the way of every timid minority.
This is not the way of Christ.
As Christ walks by the Sea of Galilee, whom does he see? Two pagans? No, two pious Jews – Simon and Andrew – casting a net. Does he say ‘Shalom! Keep the faith of your fathers, stay where you are’? No! No greeting, but a command: ‘Follow me, and be fishers of men’. Catch the whole world in your net. Your fellow Jews, heirs of the Covenant; worshippers of Ba’al, Dagon, or Zeus; pious Pharisees, like Nicodemus and Saul of Tarsus – no one, I repeat, no one is ‘off limits’. You shall not minister to ‘your people’ alone; you shall not leave my flock scattered over a hundred separate churches. You shall gather them all into one: one visible Church, one divine Shepherd. All the mournful, the meek, the persecuted, all who hunger and thirst after truth shall be ‘your people’ if they leave everything and follow. See what happens! Immediately, the fishermen drop everything and become disciples. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, leave their own father to follow the Master of all. No easy transitions, no long good-byes. When Truth calls, you follow. So it is with the very first members of the Orthodox Church who walked the shores of Galilee. So it is with us. No human soul is ever off limits; no one who comes to us with a humble heart will we ever send away. We will transform you in the truth, until you are flesh of our flesh – one of us, and will always be.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ: we do not coerce anyone into the Orthodox Church. We do not deceive. We do not wander from door to door, handling out pamphlets and taking up time. We say, as the Apostles said, ‘Come and see’. But we say it to all – without exception! We do what earlier generations did not dare. We cast our net over the whole world and draw in living souls. The poor in spirit, those who know that they are poor; the mournful, the meek, persecuted for seeking truth in an age without it. The peacemakers, the merciful in our age of merciless unbelief. The hungry, the thirsty. The pure in heart, whose only desire is to see the face of God. We dare to receive them all, as Father Michael, the founder of this parish, dared; like every pioneer who dared to obey the apostolic command, ‘Make disciples of all the nations’. We dare, as the Holy Apostles dared – to go into all corners of this land and of the globe, proclaiming: ‘If you will leave your old life – your boat, your nets, even your father – you will become one of us, bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh, no matter who you are’. We dare because God dared to become man and forge on earth the one visible Church that we call Orthodox. All this – because we obey the voice of Christ … and refuse to ‘know our place’.
Where, then, is our mission field? Wherever we happen to be. Who, then, are the souls that we strive to convert? Every single human soul that is not yet a member of the Holy Orthodox Church. How do we convert them? By the word of truth, by the example of the true worship, and by the invincible power of prayer and love.
A true fisher of men will do nothing less.