It’s hard to imagine that in every situation in life, God is there. Seeing God in everything seems like a good catch phrase or a good quote on a coffee mug; and we are far from that reality when we face extreme challenges in life. We may be Orthodox Christian, prayerful, diligent in fasting, regularly attending Qurbana, and having a good relationship with God, but when life doesn’t go the way that we expected, it’s hard to see God in it. We might not be experiencing anything dramatic in life at present. In fact, we might be enjoying life right now. That is, having good moments with our family, enjoying our career, and being happy about our established life-style. Some of us are experiencing moments in life where it is not too dramatic, not too physically or emotionally exhausting, but at the same time there is worry, a concern that that persists. On the other hand, we might not be experiencing anything at all - just life in general - job, work, family, nothing extraordinary. Whatever our situation may be, or whatever we are experiencing--God is there. Even if we don’t see Him, he is there. From the greatest of trials to the daily mundane experiences, God is there. St. Paul talks about this in his epistle today.

In our present society, because of everything that has occurred within the past two years, a person’s silence on an issue is also considered his or her allegiance to what might be deemed racist, prejudice or hateful. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end we will not remember the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.” He was saying the silence is equal to the words of the enemies of justice. I would say in effect what he also means is that we need to vocalize our denouncement of a wrong that is occurring in our society; and furthermore, we should involve ourselves in the work of justice in our society. My main point in bringing this up is to show us that vocalizing what we believe matters. But that also should be backed-up by doing the work, that is, putting our words into tangible form so that we work with others in the community to bring about positive change in our society. If we believe something we should work toward what we believe.

Reputation is the belief or opinion that are generally held about someone or something. In our present context it’s how people see others, through the various mediums of society such as, work, career, family life, social influence, economic strata and even the type of house that we live in or the car that we drive. It’s a broad spectrum that shapes the narrative of a person or a group of peoples’ reputations.

In the Pauline Epistle today, taken from Hebrews chapter 4, the Apostle talks to us about how Jesus is the high priest, who once and for all died for our sins because he being man and God at the same time was able to experience our weakness; and therefore, he can sympathize with our weaknesses. Like us, He was able to experience temptation, but would not fall into it because he was without sin. Because since he is God, he cannot sin. Again, in chapter 5 of Hebrews, which was read today as well, the Apostle speaks to us about how the high priest offers sacrifices in the Altar as a propitiation for sins, for those of the Jewish community and for himself. The high priest does this because he demonstrates that he also bears the same weaknesses as his countrymen. Specific mention is made of Aaron, who was the first high priest of Israel. St. Paul is demonstrating that Christ is ultimately the great high priest, who like the other priests of Israel offers sacrifice, not as something tangible, like that of animals, but through prayer in the heavens to God the Father.

After the Hebrews were delivered from the hands of the Pharaoh of Egypt by God through the prophet Moses, they passed through the Red Sea by the parting of the waters and ended up on the base of Mt. Sinai. There Moses went up to the mountain and received the 10 Commandments. The second commandment is, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Ex. 20:4) Often, this is taken as a prohibition on having statues in the church. Though in general, this is true, there are instances in the Bible, particularly in the OT, that state there were graven images and paintings, or as the Orthodox would call it--icons. What God meant was a prohibition on “worshiping” created creatures or things; not a prohibition for us to use the material of the world to remind us of saints, or of course, Jesus Christ.