Sermon for Sunday 7th March 2020: Romans 8, 18-25; Matthew 6, 25-34)
Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens
Greece has many wonderful traditions. Some are deeply connected to religious festivals; some are not, and some fall in between. All of them touch in one way or another on family celebration or community gathering, which is why a second year of denial because of the pandemic is particularly challenging. Government restrictions to fight the virus are the very antithesis of everything it means to be Greek or to be living alongside Greek social customs. This is no criticism of the Government by the way, as they seem left with precious few choices than to prevent us all gathering socially.
This annual round of family, community and religious observances create the very character, spirit and identity of Greeks. Such observances are particularly frequent as we approach Lent, Holy Week and Easter, and this year because of the pandemic, we as Anglicans are observing the Greek Orthodox dates for these, rather than the Western church dates.
Thursday (4th March) was tsiknopempti – which could be translated as ‘charcoal Thursday’. On this day there is a chance to celebrate meat – not a day aimed at vegetarians or vegans. Even in central Athens barbecue grills will appear by the roadside, various meats or souvlaki will be grilled and shared with those who pass by. In villages the whole community will gather around a huge spit roast, bringing whatever is needed to accompany the meat. It may be called ‘Charcoal Thursday’, but this is not to be confused in any way with what may know as Ash Wednesday.
Today, the 2nd Sunday before Lent is referred to as ‘Meat Fare Sunday’. This Sunday introduces a gradual approach to the rigours of Lent, for from today onwards there is an abstention from eating meat. It is a step of preparation, so that the full immersion into fasting is not too much of a shock. It is also known as ‘Judgement Sunday’.
Stage 2 in this process is next Sunday, ‘Cheese Fare Sunday’, also the Sunday named ‘Forgiveness Sunday’. During the week between these two Sundays there have been two full Lenten Fasting days, Wednesday and Friday, and on these days even the Eucharist is not celebrated, hinting at the personal denials that are just around the corner.
One of the Evening Prayer hymns on the Wednesday of this Meat and Cheese Week runs as follows;
The Lenten Spring has come!
The light of repentance:
Let us brothers, cleanse ourselves from all evil
Crying out to the Giver of Light:
Glory to Thee, O Lover of Man.
To those for whom fasting is not a common practice in Lent, as opposed to ‘giving up chocolate’ or ‘not taking sugar in my tea’, or who, as is now common, take on something for Lent, this fasting may seem very alien, or even pointless. What is achieved in religion by fasting, many of the Western mind-set might ask? However all the great world religions include fasting as a key feature of piety, whether it is called, for example, Lent, or Ramadan. In the Orthodox tradition nisteia or fasting is a common characteristic of personal piety. In Greece even Mc Donald’s serve up a ‘nisteia burger’, and pre-packaged food can be found with a large N printed on it, showing its contents can be consumed during Lent.
On this ‘Cheese Sunday’ the Orthodox give thanks for the great saints of the church, the woman and men whose faith shone through on account of their ascetic lives, their self-denial, and fasting. The day after ‘Cheese Sunday’ is perhaps the most notable of days. Called ‘Clean Monday’ it is the first day of Lent – the first day of full fasting. Well, I say that. Every cloud has a silver lining, for this is the day when the Orthodox must refrain from any meat, dairy products, fish or oil – but it makes shellfish rather popular!
Because we are observing the Orthodox date of Easter this year, 2 days after ‘Clean Monday’ we will celebrate Ash Wednesday, and begin our own identifiable Lenten observances, this year in line with the Orthodox and Catholic and Evangelical Greeks.
Focusing on these abstentions and pre-Lenten disciplines – by the way the traditional Greek Lent diet is almost identical to what we now would identify as vegan – could be seen to the mind of a Reformed Christian as un-enlightened, unnecessary, and a distraction from the essentials of faith . We even read a gospel reading on our Ash Wednesday that is critical of making any public show of your piety.
So maybe, as a Reformation counterpoint, I could quote a protestant source to commend fasting. You may have heard of him from the past. He goes by the name John Calvin. He says this ‘whenever men [I assume he means woman also] are to pray to God concerning any great matter, it would be expedient to appoint fasting along with prayer. Their sole purpose in this kind of fasting is to render themselves more eager and unencumbered for prayer…with a full stomach our mind is not so lifted up to God.’ (Institutes of the Christian Religion: Library of Christian Classics).
Well, there we have as bed-fellows ancient holy woman and men of the church illuminated by fasting rules, and none other than John Calvin.
Today Jesus himself is teaching us in the gospel reading of St. Matthew about this piety – though it is painted far more colourfully, poetically and imaginatively, because he is describing the Kingdom of God, not the rumblings of our stomachs!
‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air… consider the lilies of the field.’ (Matthew 6, 26-29).
We are accustomed to the idea of Lent as a preparation for Easter. I warm to the idea that some time is also needed to prepare for Lent. I find Meat Fare Sunday and Cheese Fare Sunday highly attractive. Alongside this I also hope and pray that this Lent (sarakosti) I will see much more beauty around me – beauty in people, places, and even things. By fasting, I might even feel more lifted up to God.’ I don’t like the idea of doing this by myself, which is why I take encouragement from knowing that so many others will be seeking the same – to be lifted up to God, as Calvin says. Pre-Lent, Lent, Holy Week and Easter are after all a shared, common experience of the household of faith.
I wish I could consult one of those ancient saints enlightened by fasting, Anthony the Great, Euphthymios the Great – or even John Calvin – for if I should fast before praying for any great matter, what could be of so great a matter to us than the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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