When Do We Need God?
2nd Sunday of Great Lent
Hebrews 1:10-14; 2:1-3; Mark 2:1-12
"And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was…" (Mark 2:4)
It would seem that the four people who carried the paralytic had a justifiable reason to break through the roof - there was no way to get to Jesus and bring him home in the same helpless state. But those people were not looking for a way to justify their actions; they were looking for a way to get to Jesus, because only He could heal such a paralyzed man. They wanted to ask for God's mercy for that man, because they likely loved him, and he was probably close and dear to them.
Faith and love can overcome many obstacles, and they won in this case. But, one time as it happened, I came to visit an older woman, we talked about various things, and towards the end of our conversation, I mentioned that somehow, I hadn't seen her in church at the service. - "I don't have any way of making it to church on Sunday..."
During the week, she managed to get to various shops and institutions, yet she could not make it to church. There were several families of our ethnic group in the neighbourhood, but the woman does not want to bother them, and so she never attends services, and has grown accustomed to this for several years.
I remember the years 1949-50 in Toronto. One family lived in the eastern part of the city, where almost none of our people lived at that time. My acquaintance’s wife could not ride the tram because this made her nauseated and throw up. Later, there were pills that made it possible for such people to ride streetcars and cars, but we hadn't heard of them then. The husband could get to church by tram in 15 minutes, but since the woman could not travel, the two of them walked every Sunday - an hour one way, an hour the other, and so on every Sunday. Yet, in the case I cited earlier, the woman lived about a 15-20-minute walk from the church. And she was not disabled.
There are all kinds of obstacles in life, but people can overcome them - with more or less effort. Where people are driven by faith and love for God's work, they can always overcome and find a way through.
We are convinced from the short history of the development of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that many church communities in western Canada, in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, were founded when our priests were very rarely there, when there were great material shortages, when there were no good roads. But they were successful because the souls of the pioneers were filled with a strong faith in Christ the Saviour, in the need to have their own native Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and a sincere conviction that all our people should be united in love for God and their people.
The same faith and love made it possible to provide the neighbourhoods of our settlers not only with churches, but also with reading rooms and cultural gathering places, so that people could be united in the manifestation of the multifaceted culture of our people - religious and secular, in the practice and development of the artistic life of our people.
There is a common proverb in our nation: "In a healthy body, a healthy soul," but this proverb can also be expressed in the opposite way, because when the human soul is healthy, not burdened by sins, when the human conscience is clear, all the organs of our body function better. But when the human soul is burdened with sins and a person is mentally oppressed, various bodily infirmities and diseases arise.
The Lord Jesus Christ was aware of this interconnection between the bodily and spiritual state of a person, so although a man was brought to Him who was physically weak and asked to heal him, Jesus first healed him spiritually, forgiving his sins (Mark 2:5).
Many people turn to God, to Christ, when they are seriously ill; even the atheists become believers to some extent. Again, we have a proverb: "If you are ready for sorrow, you are ready for God, and if you are not ready for sorrow, you have forgotten about God." It is a human weakness and tragedy that some people want to have and know God only in times of trouble and misfortune. Such people would like to call God only when they are in pain... Something like when we all call for an electrician or a plumber ("plumber").
This is certainly not the way children of God should behave: we must always remember God, every day, and live, do and act, feeling His presence at all times. In short: we need to know God at all times as our Father and Creator, including when we are well and healthy; then in time of need, when we ask Him, the Lord will hear our prayer and grant us His mercy.
There is a spiritual weakness among Christians that is worth mentioning and reminding us of during Lent, the time set aside for spiritual fulfillment. People learn to behave decently and piously in the temple of God, especially during the services - this is good. But it is not good when outside the church some people behave as if God did not exist.
Once upon a time, Orthodox Christian homes were full of icons, there was an icon case (“kyvot”) with icons, and parents or grandparents would tell children to be polite, because, they said, "God is watching and seeing" what you do. This was certainly simple, but we all need to act as if God were watching all our actions everywhere. For it is so: God is an all-seeing and all-embracing being. God sees regardless of whether there are icons or not - God is Omnipresent.
I have read that certain Indians of central America, when they would go on a trip, a journey, would come to their church and say: "Goodbye, God!" - and when they returned home, they would come and say: "Hello, God! I'm back!" In that simple understanding, God is within the walls of the temple, just as the ancient Jews believed that God was within their portable sanctuary or tabernacle.
When we are children of God through Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26), when we feel ourselves as such, we can call on our Father in heaven everywhere and at all times, and He will listen to us (Psalm 140:1). But let us not make the mistake of addressing Him as meritorious righteous people, but as the tax collector:
"God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:13).
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
