The reading today from the second and third chapters of St Paul’s Epistle to Titus begins with St Paul urging the newly appointed bishop Titus that “the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all [people] training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright and godly lives in this world.” Writing of this Biblical text, St John Chrysostom has pointed out that with the coming of Jesus Christ, people “[were] no longer bound to come from all over the earth to offer sacrifice in one city or in one place.” In other words, people were no longer required to go to Jerusalem, as the Jews of the first century did on regular annual pilgrimages. So where should people go to worship God and to grow as persons? St John Chrysostom gives a quite profound answer: “Each [of us can] sit in [our] own home[s] and pay service and honour to God.” Today that is still true: it is good to travel, to visit holy places—as we shall see in a moment—but our primary relationship to the Lord God and to others is in our own homes within our own families.



On Friday, we commemorated a British saint who did indeed receive the grace of God—the love from God—that taught him to live an “upright and godly [life].” His name was Biscop [b-i-s-c-o-p], later to become a monk known as Benedict Biscop, He was born in Northumbria in 628 and died there in 689.  This morning let’s try to understand the changes that took place in his life here in the British Isles so long ago.

Initially, Biscop was concerned with his own advancement through his work as an aristocratic servant in the court of King Oswy. He was respected, with great prospects. But, as explained in the online Encyclopaedia Britannia (http://www.britannia.com/bios/saints/benedictbiscop.html), at the age of 25 “to the astonishment of king and courtiers alike, when he was only 25 [Biscop] travelled to Rome because he wanted “to visit and worship at the places [where] the bodies of the blessed apostles [Saints Peter and Paul were buried]…. After [a short] time, Biscop returned to his own country full of fervour and enthusiasm, inspired by all he had heard and seen in his travels.” In other words, Biscop left his comfort zone and sought the Lord and sought to find out more about those who had served the Lord as His early apostles. If we wish to know the Lord better, we too—whether we are lay people or priests, young or old, will need to leave our comfort zones, to seek new experiences. Learning how to face challenges can draw us closer to the Lord, whether or not we travel to distant places.

I left the United States in 1960 because I felt the country was too materialistic and too racist; and I wanted to get out. It was right that I left when I did, otherwise I would have joined Martin Luther King and taken considerable risks with thousands of others, some of whom were seriously injured or died,  during the March for Freedom from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in March 1965. [See: ]http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/selma-montgomery-march] Initially, I was on a one-year scholarship to the London School of Economics; and I was planning to return to law school in the States. Instead, I met and married Sylvia, became a Christian and stayed here in my new country, the United Kingdom. That move made possible the life I have today as a father of five children, a grandfather of 14 children, and as an Antiochian Orthodox priest, serving the Lord and His Church and you as a local Orthodox community.

St John Chrysostom preached about “the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit” in this text from the third chapter of St Paul’s Epistle to Titus that we have just heard. His advice in the fourth century still applies to us today. He reflected that we all need, and I quote, “a new birth! For this is implied by ‘regeneration.’ For as when a house is in a ruinous state no one places props under it nor makes any addition to the old building, but [instead they] pull it down to its foundations and rebuild it anew. So in our case,” preached St John to his congregation, “God has not repaired us but made us anew.” I think that happens to each of us in this congregation and many other Orthodox congregations throughout the world as we are regenerated through living out our baptisms and “renewal in the Holy Spirit.” To be regenerated and renewed in the Holy Spirit is to gain new life and new energy in the midst of facing new challenges and new experiences.



I have become rather fond of St Benedict Biscop, although I only learned about him in preparing this sermon. For many decades, Biscop was a bibliophile—a lover and collector of books. Actually, it was essentially handwritten manuscripts that he collected, because the printing press with moveable type was not invented until 1440. Benedict became a monk and founded and led a monastery at Wearmouth, where St Bede had been placed at the age of seven by his parents. Then in 682, when Bede was nine years old, he was transferred to a new, nearby monastery in Jarrow in which St Benedict placed his magnificent collection of manuscripts, icons and holy relics. So precisely because St Benedict Biscop travelled and collected so many resources St Bede could stay at home and gain a deep understanding of Orthodox Christianity from the material that St Benedict had collected all over Europe. St Benedict Biscop and St Bede shared a love of learning in which all of us in this parish can participate by borrowing and reading books from the extensive library that is already here in our parish.

I think that the best idea on which to close this sermon comes from St John Chrysostom. Reflecting on this Biblical text from St Paul’s Epistle to Titus, St John preached, “Beloved, do not pass this mystery by without a thought.” The mystery to which St John is referring is: How can we understand and draw closer to Christ, as we live out our baptisms? That drawing closer to Christ can happen to each of us, just as it did to Biscop. However, it is important to remember, as Father Gregory has at times reminded us: “God does not micromanage our lives.” That is, the Lord does not make every little decision for us. The Lord often guides us in the big decisions in our lives, but He gives us free will and the freedom to live with purpose. Let us pray that the life of St Benedict Biscop will inspire each of us to draw closer to Christ.