July 19th, 2014: St Seraphim Day Bp Alexander

Today we celebrate a great and wonderful saint.

So allow me to begin my reflections with something,

to all appearances, completely unrelated. 20

years trying to teach Bible to 18 -year -olds

who would rather be anywhere else. I came to

reflect on how happy I was in my Southern California

background, approaching at least some elements

of the Holy Scripture. If you're brought up in

Wisconsin, references to water and green and

pleasant places don't really have a lot of resonance.

Well, they might in January, but not in July.

There's water everywhere, and everything's green.

But as we know in parched California, water springing

from the hills, water coming forth from the earth,

is a kind of... Well, it's not a kind of. It's

an exceedingly precious miracle. A wonder that

obviously gives life. And this is the language

the Holy Scripture uses time and again for the

world to come. Our Lord. at the well in Samaria,

speaks to the woman of the water that he will

give her that will well up into everlasting life.

And at the Feast of Tabernacles, a few chapters

later in the same Gospel, he says, whoever believes

in me, rivers of water shall flow from his belly.

a rather odd image if you come to think of it,

but the evangelist states then in the very next

line, but he was speaking of the Spirit. Now

this describes that last verse, whoever believes

in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of

living water. This describes the saint. Every

saint. The idea of saint. A spring. A welling

up of that which gives life in an unexpected

place. Look at today's saint. You might not know,

his patrons were Emperor Nicholas and Tsarina

Alexandra, which made his case rather unpopular

in much of the Russian Empire, since anything

that the Tsar wanted by that point, we're talking

just after the turn of the century, anything

the Tsar wanted certainly couldn't be good. the

Russian Empire was already headed toward its

catastrophic end. And Seraphim was canonized,

or recognized. Now there must have been providence

in that. To go back to the image of the spring

welling up in a parched and dead place. How parched,

how covered with death was the land of Rus in

the decades that followed the saint's consecration.

Millions upon tens of millions would die. And

the church be reduced to a ghost of its presence.

And the memory of Seraphim flamed in that dark,

and not just in Russia, but throughout the Orthodox

world. Greece, they love him. Images and books.

The fathers of Athens know him and call him.

So what is the saint? Well, you heard in the

hymns last night, healings, instructor of monks,

converser with angels. But let me go back to

that idea of miracle. Like I felt as a seven

-year -old the first time we went up to the Sierra.

And in July, I saw water coming from the earth

that wasn't coming from a pipe. Unthinkable.

And there it was, miracle. Well, so is the saint,

miracle. Because the saint is the evidence of

God. More than the evidence. The saint is the

visibility of God among us. And this is simply

the fulfillment of our calling, in the saint's

case, of our calling as human beings. Since we're

made indeed in the image and likeness, since

our Lord Jesus is called the image, and the visibility

of the invisible God. And so the saint, in generation

after generation, this is a very great one whom

we commemorate today, but he is part of a multitude

of what St. Simeon, of a succession of what St.

Simeon the theologian calls the golden chain.

that unbroken continuity of miracles, of appearances

of God among his people from the very beginnings

of Israel to the present, from Abraham to now.

Finally then, this miracle, the saint, This one

who, this particular one, who gave life to a

women's monastery, to the people round about

in his lifetime, and after his lifetime to a

nation and a world. This saint is exemplary beloved

of what we are all called to be. Each of us.

The visibility of God in a perishing world. The

brightness of God in a dark place. The love and

humility of God in a hateful and prideful world.

The sweet water of God in a dry and parched and

thirsty world. Let us venerate his relics in

the Eichel. giving thanks for him and asking

his prayers, especially that we ourselves may

be to some small, some small itty -bitty reflection

like him in bringing the presence of God to God's

world power and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

who is glorified with the Father and the Spirit

forever. Amen.