The Divine Energies and the coronavirus – Sermon on the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas 2020
Beloved in Christ,
We have just concluded the second week of the Great and Holy Lent and what a journey this has been so far! The looming shadow of the this new plague, the coronavirus, is spreading around the globe and makes the challenging time of lent even harder. But we are in the spiritual arena and, as good athletes, we have to face all the challenges ahead at us. We have to be prepared for everything, because we know that we are not alone. With God’s help, we are standing here today, offering ourselves to God in the gifts about to be set forth, expecting in return that the He will respond in kind by giving us back His Life, so that, even “in the shadow of the valley of death”, He will stand by our side as He promised.
God continues to work in the world despite the fact that the world is fallen, sickened and weak. By His providence, He continues to be the Good Shepherd Who gently directs His flock towards the all-good and ever-green pasture of His Kingdom. Every thing that God allows to happen will benefit us in a one way or another. The difficult thing is that we are not always in the know, that sometimes the reasons are impenetrable to our fallen rationality, which is delinked from the wisdom of God as a consequence of the fall.
God as an uncreated being is different than us. He is different in ways we cannot even fathom, and yet, His presence is strongly felt in the Creation. More over, our theology claims that we are actually made to become gods, that we are called to walk over the great divide betwen created and uncreated and become by grace what He is by nature? How is that even possible?
St Gregory Palamas comes to the rescue and explains it. This is why he gained a place of remembrance in the second Sunday of Lent, which is today. He comes with the bold revelation that God is unknowable in His essence, His inner core, but yet He is accessible through His divine energies… I probably lost you right here.
So, let me put it in terms you might grasp a little easier. I’ll use the coronavirus as an example, not a perfect one of course. With the naked eye (forget microscopes exist for a minute), no one has ever seen the coronavirus. It is just too small. In fact in the old times when infectious disease like the plague, leprosy, rubeola etc were striking, people had no ideas these diseases were coming from such tiny organisms. However what was very clear then and now, in these times of the coronavirus, is the effects the virus has on us. So, even though we cannot know the essence, the true nature of the coronavirus disease, we can see clearly what it does, all the ill effects it has: the physical symptoms, the deaths, the panic, the economic effects, all the way to the shortage of toilet paper. All is clearly visible and felt strongly by everyone.
The same is with God: He is unknown in His essence, which is known only to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but He is made known through His works in the world: what
St. Gregory calls the divine energies.
The way to commune with God, to cross the divide, is to participate in His energies, is to become a co-worker with Him. This is achieved through the work of askesis, what we try to work on during Lent, but first and foremost is achieved through prayer. This is what we do now, here, this is what the people who are sick or at risk are doing at home, also now. By praying we give ourselves to God and He, in return, comes and dwells in us, opening the gates to knowing Him; not through books and logic, but through direct and personal contact. This brings illumination of the nous and opens the way to understanding Gods holy wisdom, agia Sophia. Through prayer the illumined nous become, if you want a microscope that can give us a glimpse of Who God really is.
This experience of the contemplation of God is life changing. The illumined person is moved in new ways by the novel understanding of creation and starts a truly new life. Again I feel I lost you for a second. Let’s try this instead: it is difficult to understand what the people in China or Italy are going though right now, we can understand more by reading the news, seeing some videos etc, but when your own kids school is closed, when you church cancels all social activities or evening services, when your Kroger is out of basic necessities, when, God forbid you or someone in your family gets sick, then you do understand. This knowledge, this illuminating experience, will make you more understanding, more patient, more compassionate, more caring. Now you know, now you have your own experience of the coronavirus and you can be a shining beacon for the ones still in darkness.
Imagine this with God, imagine being illumined by the uncreated light, experiencing the bosom of God’s immeasurable love. This is the experience of the presence of God in our life. It can be yours. The saints have experienced it and left us the account of their lives. Let’s be moved by them and run to encounter God in prayer. Only prayer will ensure true Communion with Him and, through Him, with all of Creation. So if you are here with us, or at home, or in the hospital, pray, pray unceasingly, get to know God intentionally, intimately, personally, and all the cares and challenges of this life will make sense, because now you have a mind that is illumined by God’s uncreated light.
May the Lord our God, through the intercession a of the holy hierarch Gregory Palamas, keep you all safe, healthy and always close to God. Amen.