Fr.Vladimir's Sermon Delivered on the Christmas Eve - Badnje Vece, January 6th 9th, 2009:

U ime Oca I sina I Svetoga Duha. Amin. Draga braco I sestre, sa velikom radoscu zelim da pozdravim sve vas prisutne ovde veceras radosnim pozdravom MIR BOZIJI HRISTOS SE RODI! Danas, draga braco I sestre, proslavljamo jedan od najvecih I najradosniji praznika nase crkve, a to je Rodjenje Gospoda, Boga I Spasa nasega Isusa Hrista, drugog lica Svete Trojice, Sina Bozijeg, dakle silazak I rodjenje Boga. Kako nebismo zanemarili I nasu bracu I sestre koji ne govore srpski jezik I kako bismo im ponudili koju rec nade, utehe, ali i pouke u nasoj svetoj pravoslavnoj veri, a kako je Pravoslavlje jos uvek velika manjina u ovoj zemlji I kako nasa braca I sestre nemaju uvek priliku da slusaju poruku nase svete pravoslavne crkve, to cu onda ja veceras, moleci za vase razumevanje I strpljenje, da propovedam na engleskom jeziku.

My dearly beloved brothers and sisters, on this prayerfully joyous celebration of the Nativity of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, the Second person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Son of God Himself, it is fitting to remind ourselves of the day of our own death. Today, my dearly beloved brothers and sisters, I will preach as a dying man to dying men and women. Today, I will preach as though I will never preach again. There is so much going on which you do not understand, but I will tell you things that will make you angry. I will tell you things which you will deny. I will tell you things which you will say I do not have right to say to you. But you must understand I do not have the opportunity, such as this one, every Sunday so that I can tell you things which you can think about when you walk out from this place every time there is liturgy.

You must understand, I am not troubled in my heart about your self esteem. I am not troubled in my heart about your bank statement. None of these trouble me. What troubles me the most is HOW most of the people live in the world today. Many will go to hell. It seems that we would rather hold a false hope than accept the truth. Let me ask you a question: When is the last time you wept over your sins? Or your life is pretty comfortable, that you do not have time for that. Listen, here is God who at the first day of creation tells to the Universe, get in order and the whole universe obeys. Then he said to the stars, be the light to the universe, and stars obey. He turns to mountains and he says, be lifted up, and the mountains obey. He turns to the valleys and says, be cast down, and valleys obey. He turns to the seas and says go till this point and the sees obey. Then he turns to you and says COME, and you say NO. Does anyone see the problem, or am I the only one? It is most beautiful to see the Church embellished with her children today. Every mother is devastated when her children leave her and forget her, so also the Church, our mother, is devastated and troubled when left alone and abandoned by us, her children.

Wait a minute, father; how can you talk about hell and punishment when God is love. Well, my dear, that is true. But what I am saying is this, because God is love, He hates what is not of Him. You see, I love life and I love children, therefore I hate abortion. You, my dear, have to remember that God is also a just God, therefore he cannot forgive the wicked and those who refuse to hear His Word. Hell is not a terrible torture of the Deity, rather Hell is perfect justice for those who oppose goodness. Why is Hell eternal? First, because when you sin, you sin against the eternal God. Because He is an eternal God, He is able to give you eternal life. The good news is, after the resurrection you are granted eternal life and from now on, you live in eternity. However, the question is, what will be your eternity? How do you invest in your eternity? What eternity are you choosing here and now: WITH GOD, OR WITHOUT GOD? And secondly, Hell is eternal because there are those who never repent. Because, no matter what you do or what you say they do not repent. I say this because in less then three years of my service as parish priest I came to realize that as soon as people hear something that is not in accordance with their own view or their own image of God and His church, they simply leave and go to a place where everything is possible, everything is allowed, and where they will feel good about the sin in which they live. And they will say, I do not like what I hear or what I see here, I will go somewhere else where I can get what I THINK is the best.

But, I ask them, do you believe in God? Do you fear God? And they will easily say, YES, of course we believe in God and we fear God.

The truth is, brothers and sisters, they do not believe in God, rather they believe in their own image of God and they are pretty comfortable with it. But when they encounter the God of Scripture they simply cannot handle it, they say, no, that is not how my God acts. That is not acceptable for me. They will come and say they repent, and they are sorry, but they really are not; they do not really mean that. They close their ears and they do not want to hear the truth, just like a person dying of cancer lives in denial and does not want to hear the truth.

Let me ask you on this day when we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, a valid question: Do you know what the sign that you are a genuine Christian is today? It is this: That you pray every now and than, but God bless us we pray. You approach now and then the Body and Blood of God Himself, given to you freely and openly, but God bless us, we are Christians. Is not that interesting? But, you know father, I am not worthy to receive Communion every time I go to Church. How do you know? Well, I know that I am not worthy. Fine, than when and how exactly does it occur to you that you ARE worthy of the Body and Blood of God? When can you say that you are worthy of the Body and Blood of God? Well, I have to prepare myself by fasting, praying and a thorough examination of my life followed by Confession. And I say, well then, why don't you do that? Well, you know father, it is hard to do it all the time, and who does that anyway? And I say, thank you. I have no more questions.

Don't you realize, my dear brothers and sisters, to be prepared for Christ's Body and Blood at all times IS the very point of Communion. That is the very point of Christianity. The more you partake of the Body and Blood of God, all the more ready you ought to be. We must be prepared at all times. The Apostle Paul talks about dying to sin minute by minute. Otherwise we tend to be lazy and forget God and holy things. Our eyes become mesmerized by the things of the world, and our heart hardened for the holy things. How many times Jesus said those who have eyes to see and those who have ears to hear? HE IS TALKING ABOUT US! Test yourselves in light of the Scriptures, and holy fathers of our holy Orthodox Church. Most of today's Christianity is based upon a song, or T-shirt inscription, or a movie, or what a friend told you, or what you imagine Christianity is, because you have to fit in the world and the culture that surrounds you. And not only they create their own image of God and His Church, but they are ready to fight for it. We live in a day when we think that in order to be relevant in our culture we must be like our culture. And we think, in order the Gospel to be preached we must somehow adopt it to today's culture. But nothing can be further from the truth. Remember, my dearly beloved, the world and the culture that you worry so much about, that same world has crucified the Lord. The world crucified God in whose name we are gathered this evening. Test yourselves in light of the Scriptures and the holy fathers of our holy Orthodox Church.

Let me ask you a question: Do you love God? Do you desire Him? Do your hearts burn for Him? Yes, we all go through times when our hearts are dull, and yes we all need encouragement, and yes, from time to time our eyes become destructed by the things they should not be, but if someone was to look at your life, would they say this person loves God and His Church? Is this reality in your life?

One of the things you have to realize is this: A wise man once told me, your best friend is the one who tells you the most truth. In America, we have become so thin skinned, that no one can rebuke us. No one can tell us we are wrong. And even priests, and leaders are very much affected by this cultural phenomenon. We do not want to offend. You have to realize that there is only One whom we should seek when we come to the Church and that is God, and if you want to be friendly to someone in the Church, the only One you need to be friendly to is God. You should be concerned about God and not about people. You go to church because of God, and not because of Mr. and Mrs. Smith are your friends and they are there; and only if both, you and them feel good in church you will stay, otherwise you will leave to a different place where you will get to do what you want. That work, my dearly beloved brothers and sisters, is straight from the devil, and I fear those who teach differently. I fear you, if you as Christians go along with the same. AND I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT? But, another thing you need to realize is this, the person who loves you the most is the person who will tell you the truth. One of the greatest distinguishing false Christian teachers is that they will tell you always what you want to hear. They will make fun around you, they will entertain you, they will make you laugh, they will wrap the Word of God in a way in which you will not be able to see your illness, how ill you actually are, and they will try to make the Church look like Six Flags over our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ. And they will keep you busy with so many other things in the Church that you will be too busy to think about things such as these: am I truly walking with God? Am I truly following the Saints? Do I examine myself every day, so that I may be ready for the King of Kings, God Himself. Am I growing in holiness? Now, apply that to the Christianity today and our churches here in the United States and all over the World, and be honest with yourselves.

You will not always like what you will hear from people who truly love you and care for you and your relationship with God. You must realize, brothers and sisters, the problem is not that someone will offend you, but the problem is that YOU are offended by truth. That is the problem. You are offended by truth. Does anyone see the problem in that, or am I the only one?

Do you know how much love it requires to say these things? Do you realize how much love it takes to put in danger everything I have just to share these with you. Do you know how much love it requires to tell you what I am telling you compromising even my relationship with some of you, because you may choose not come back again? Do you know how much love it takes to be unpopular and take all the false accusations by people who disagree with me or they simply dislike what I tell them based on the Scriptures because what I tell them has nothing to do with their own images of God and His Church? But, my dearly beloved brothers and sisters, you do not say these things because people love you, but because you love people, and most importantly, you love God.

Let me ask you something. If the majority in this country believes they are saved, and we know that is not true because the Bible says that only few will be saved, and certainly not everybody who says Lord, Lord will be saved, than how do you know YOU are saved? Is it because you once prayed, like the rest of "Christians"? Is it because you once received Communion? Is it because you once came for Confession? Is it because you believe? Well, how do you know you believe? 99% of people in this country say they believe; how do you know you are not like them? And if you ask the majority of people in the whole world do you want to go to Heaven; virtually everybody would like to go to Heaven. THEY JUST DO NOT WANT GOD TO BE THERE WHEN THEY GET THERE. Do you know how the Bible teaches you how you know that you truly believe? Do you know how our Holy Orthodox Church teaches you that you truly believe? You know that you believe because your life has been in a process of being changed, and your style of life is one of walking in God's truth. Do you do the very things that the rest of the world is doing, or do you make the difference in the World by walking by the Word of God given to you through His Church. Go back to the Scriptures and the holy fathers and test yourselves. Listen, take a look at the icons around you and tell me what you see. Do you see sensuality, or do you see purity and holiness? Test yourselves Examine yourselves. Scripture calls you to be an icon, then let us make every effort all together to be like one. Some people come to me and they say, you know father, this or that is not Orthodox practice. In my town, where I come from, we did not do it that way. And they are very adamant about what THEY know. However, I always ask them. Fine, my brother, or sister. You are quick to accuse your brothers and sisters of not being Orthodox, just because they happened to be from a different town and have different customs than those you used to, however, you seem to be very comfortable with gossiping, spreading mistakes of your brothers and sisters, and sadly, quarrels take place almost in every church. And I am asking you: Is gossiping in the Orthodox Tradition? Is spreading mistakes, even lies about your brothers and sisters, is that in the Orthodox Tradition? Does our Church teach that in every parish have to be quarrels? And I am asking because, indeed, what I am saying to you is what takes place in most of our parishes, if not all, and people seem to be very comfortable with the situation. No one wants to encounter, and if necessary, even lose a "friend" for God's sake. But be it known, if gossiping, judging and lying against our brothers and sisters, if quarrels are indeed in the Tradition of our Church, than I am the biggest heretic, because, as a priest of God in His Church, I am against that with my entire being.

Listen to me very carefully, if I was able to pluck out your every thought from your childhood to this day, and if I was able to put it on a projector and show it here in front of everybody, you would have been ashamed of your thoughts so much, that you would run out and would never come back. You would be so ashamed that you would not be able to look again even at your best friend. In fact, you would have lost even your best friends; that is how your thoughts are evil. Yet, there are some who come for Confession and they tell me that they do not have anything to confess?

Let me ask you something, and let's be honest, because you know that I am telling you the truth, how many times you have to rededicate your life to the Church. How many times you have been in the situation where you were saying, o it was very nice to finally find time for church on big Feast Day, I felt so good, and then after a week or two you go back to your worldly life as though you never new about the church and Christ. Well, that was nothing more than a motion. It was so many things, but it was not a move toward God, and certainly not the one that has power to save you. Or even worse, you felt as though it was a burden that you have been in church, and now you can live for the rest of the year in peace, because you have visited church once.

Listen to me! Everybody wants to talk about priests, but no one wants to listen to one. I AM TALKING ABOUT CHRISTIANITY!!! Is your life in process of change? Does your heart desire God? Is your entire being filled with the fear and trembling and awe when you think about God? Can you miss a Liturgy? Can you go a week without partaking of the Holy Mysteries? Test yourselves on the basis of the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers of our Holy Orthodox Church who kept the Tradition for a reason. Today's joyous Feast Day, as we welcome the Newborn Christ-Child is a reminder that Christ is coming indeed, and we ought to be ready, just as we are ready for him at the Divine Liturgy. I leave you with these words of love and care, my dearly beloved brothers and sisters. May the Divine Peace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ be with all of you during these Holy Days and throughout the coming year. MIR BOZIJI HRISTOS SE RODI! DIVINE PEACE! CHRIST IS BORN!

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