Sermon for the 10th Sunday after Trinity – 8th August 2021: 1 Kings 19, 4-8; Eph 4, 25-5,2; John 6 35, 41-51.

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

We continue to reflect on the Letter to the Ephesians. Today we are urged in that letter, ‘to be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God’. (Eph 5, 2)

Marcel Marceau, born in 1923 and died in 2007, was a famous French actor and mime artist. Some of his greatest artistic achievements were without words, simply mime. He called mime the ‘art of silence’.

When St. Paul urges us to be ‘imitators of God’ the word used for ‘imitator’ in the NT Greek is μιμητής. In the light of God’s glory we should be ‘shadowing’ God, miming his love shown in Jesus Christ – this fragrant offering of sacrifice. Of course we are led yet again to the cross.

In one of the Eucharistic Prayers of the Liturgy (Prayer G) we use the words, ‘form us into the likeness of Christ’ – at this point we should be thinking of the mystery of the cross and how we can ‘mimic’ that cross-shaped life in our own witness and in our own spiritual development.

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Sermon for the 9th Sunday after Trinity – 1st August 2021: Ex 16, 2-4, 9-15; Eph 4, 1-16; John 6, 24-35.

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

One of the books I read on holiday referred to a kaleidoscope – made up of three Greek words, of course, that means looking at beautiful shapes. Mention of a kaleidoscope took me back to my childhood. By the way, I had my 64^th birthday 4 days ago, so my childhood is now so far away that you need a telescope to look back to it. Anyway, as a child I used to be fascinated by the magical formations that the kaleidoscope was capable of creating. I guess I would have the same reaction even now, despite being red-green colour blind.

This is how the author of that book I was reading described it. ‘At the bottom of a kaleidoscope’s cylinder lie shards of coloured glass in random arrangement; but thanks to a glint of sunlight, the interplay of mirrors, and the magic of symmetry, when one peers inside what one finds is a pattern so colourful, so perfectly intricate, it seems certain to have been designed with the utmost care. Then by the slightest turn of the wrist, the shards begin to shift and settle into a new configuration – a configuration with its own symmetry of shapes, its own intricacy of colours, its own hints of design.’ (A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles, Penguin Publications p 174) We will return to this image of the kaleidoscope.

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Sermon for 7th Sunday after Trinity (18th July 2021). Readings: Jeremiah 23, 1-6; Ephesians 2 11-22; Mark 6, 30-24, 53-end)

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

Due to holidays there will be no pre-recorded or printed sermon issued for the following two Sundays (25^th July and 1^st August)

Through the prophecy of Jeremiah God has a sound and stern warning about shepherds who scatter the flock. In real life, of course, it is the shepherd’s primary role to gather, to protect, and to care for the flock. In this prophecy there is a direct attack on those spiritual leaders who scatter God’s flock instead of fulfilling the proper functions of the shepherd, the pastor of God’s people.

Division versus unity – a real challenge for humans and for spiritual leaders. Religion so often divides people, nations, families.

This is tackled head on by Paul in the letter to the Ephesians, a city with its temple to the goddess Artemis, and the whole pantheon of gods and goddesses that abounded in the Graeco-Roman world. This contrasts sharply with the monotheism of the religion that had nurtured and formed St. Paul’s life. Judaism stood out as distinctive in the ancient world because of its claims that there is one God, and that the commonwealth of Israel should ‘Love the Lord your God with all your hearts, with all your mind and with all your strength.’

But something has changed in Paul. The focus of his faith in God is now centred on the cross of Jesus Christ, and though not departing from his monotheism, his God is fully revealed in and through Jesus.

This revelation has also revealed what Paul sees as a fault in what he previously believed. Division, not unity, was promoted by his religion. He tackles this eloquently in the passage we have heard this morning, and his language is interesting. We might call his language ‘Paul’s polity through the cross’ or who we are as a people together because Jesus died for us.

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Audio Sermon preached at St Paul’s Athens for the 7th Sunday after Trinity – 18th July 2021

Fr Leonard Doolan

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity – 11 July 2021: Ephesians 1, 3-14; Mark 6, 14-29

Fr Leonard Doolan, St Paul’s Athens

Last Sunday we read from St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in nearby Corinth. This morning we have travelled North East, to the capitol of the Roman Province of Asia, Ephesus. The two cities are connected, as it is known that Paul wrote to the Corinthians from Ephesus.

Ephesus was not only the centre of Roman Administration of the province, it was also home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient world the Temple of the Goddess Artemis who was worshipped by a cult of wealthy noble women who were her priestesses and acolytes.

While in Ephesus St. Paul caused a great stir among the silversmith workers, headed up by one Demetrios. He gathered his fellow craftsmen together, and the artisans and sellers of the little silver replicas of the temple, and, no doubt, silver images of the goddess, maybe earrings, brooches, bracelets and fascinators.

The accusation is that St. Paul has been preaching against the main source of their trade and livelihood, maintaining that gods made with hands are not gods at all. (Acts 19 26). Demetrios was concerned that their temple and its cult would be discredited across Asia – but I guess his main concern was loss of income.

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Audio sermon for the 6th Sunday after Trinity – 11th July 2021: Ephesians 1, 3-14

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

Audio Sermon for the 5th Sunday after Trinity – 4 July 2021

Fr Leonard Doolan -St Paul’s Athens

Sermon preached at St Paul’s Athens on the 5th Sunday after Trinity – 4th July 2021: : Ezek 2, 1-5; 2 Cor 12, 2-10; Mark 6, 1-13.

Fr Leonard Doolan

What happened to the persecutor of the new sect that would soon be known as Christians? I am referring of course to Saul, or Paul, who would later be known as ‘the Apostle’ and who along with St. Peter had his annual feast day earlier this week.

Breathing fire against these wacky new ‘Way’ followers of a crucified man called Jesus, Paul was travelling to Damascus. We all know that something happened to him as he travelled. We are not so clear about ‘what it was’ in any detail, though we know Paul experiences in some way an extraordinary ‘repentance’ or conversion.

When he writes to the church in Corinth, there are moments in the correspondence when the Apostle is surprisingly personal, humble, and quite intimate, in the way he shares details about himself.  This is not always the Paul we have in our minds.

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Sermon preached at St Paul’s Athens for the 4th Sunday after Trinity – 27th June 2021: 2 Cor 8, 7-15

Fr Leonard Doolan

Today we are resuming our alignment with the rest of the Anglican Church calendar, having been out of step with it since the beginning of Lent. The decision, with episcopal support, to follow the Orthodox date for Easter, in this year alone, was a bit of a gamble, but one that paid off. The relaxation of COVID regulations in Greece favoured only the Orthodox Easter date. Had we celebrated Easter according to the Latin (western) date, we would have had almost no liturgy in our church. That four-week difference in dates was significant, and in fact there was a freshness to our Sundays this year because we were in Lent, Holy Week, Easter through to Pentecost with the majority of Greek people.

But from today we ‘catch up’ and already it is the 4^th Sunday after Trinity.

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Audio Sermon for Pentecost Sunday – 20th June 2021

Fr Leonard Doolan