Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Enacting the Kingdom

Words matter. Sometimes words fall short and they disappear in short order, yet when done right they make a profound impact and can be remembered and quoted decades and even centuries later (think Nostra Aetate, or the Creed).

In this episode, we take a look at the statements made by other Canadian churches in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the goals of taking the good, leaving the bad, and figuring out the proper response for our Canadian Orthodox Church. As we consider our own statement, Fr Geoffrey quotes from Samuel, that the Lord might also be with us and let none of our words fall to the ground!

It is important to recognize the strength and grace within our tradition to move this work forward. This is precisely in alignment with the Gospel and therefore with the Orthodox faith. It requires no change in practice, no rethinking of theology. Fr Yuri shares a beautiful analogy for the way different cultures and lands express Orthodoxy (don't miss this one!); as the Canadian Orthodox church we must learn how to express Orthodoxy in a Canadian/North American way.

In today's episode, we focus our discussion on Orthodoxy in relation to the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. As in the last episode when we spoke about St Stephen of Perm, there are many North American saints who "got it right" as well, recognizing the theological similarities and compatibility between various forms of indigenous spirituality and Orthodox Christianity. However, it is essential to ground this knowledge in the understanding that these best examples shine all the more brightly because of the darkness against which they were operating.

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey hold up to the light some of the stereotypical comments made by Orthodox Christians about this topic, with their blend of truth, myth, perspective and simplified history. "We weren't part of the residential school system or the sixties scoop. In fact, not only are we innocent of those charges, we should be praised for our part!" "For Orthodox, our first contact happened in Alaska. How is that relevant to the Canadian Orthodox Church?" "Won't a response at this point (so many years after the TRC) just be adding to so much noise?" "This isn't our cross to bear." "When does this end?!"

The truth is that we are coming rather late to the table - thank the Lord for welcoming those of us who come at the eleventh hour! - but the conversation is just beginning.

In this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey focus in on how Orthodoxy has historically approached its mission of bringing Christianity to other cultures, before coming to North America (don't worry, we'll get to North America soon!). 

If we look honestly at the history of how Orthodox Christians have shared the Good News, we didn't always get it right, however we do have some shining examples of missionary saints that can serve as models to us. Sts Cyril and Methodius, for example, fought against the trilingual heresy to bring Christianity to the Slavs. Centuries later, and very ironically, St Stephen of Perm fought a similar "quadrilingual heresy" - you'll have to listen in to hear what that was about! When done right, as Orthodoxy spread, it was received and then indigenized into the new lands, using their own culture and traditions in order to tell the story in a way that would touch the hearts of their people. 

St Stephen of Perm in particular shows us not only how to bring the gospel to a new people, interfering as little as possible with their culture, language and traditions, but also models how to stand with them against those that would do them harm. In modern terms, he shows us how to be a true "ally".

If we are truly to be the Canadian Orthodox Church, we need to be attuned to our people. Throughout this season, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri will explore ways that the Liturgy can (and should) reflect the place we're in, and specifically how we can effectively work with the efforts of Truth & Reconciliation with the indigenous peoples of Canada in an intentional and authentic way.

As a Church, our response to the TRC (Truth & Reconciliation Commission) is long overdue, but the work has now begun. We will be looking for a multi-layered response: individual, liturgical, parochial and institutional. And since we as Orthodox are not good at "trendy", this response must not merely be a reflection of the time we find ourselves in. Rather, it must be based on a deeply thought out, theologically sound reflection, that will serve us through the ages.

Truly, this is no small task! But here we begin.

It's time to wrap up our series on The Hours at Home!  We hope this has been as refreshing and freeing for you as it has been for us. So much of the emphasis in Orthodoxy can be on doing something "right" or "completely", but this series has been about how we can actually, in practical ways, engage in the daily prayer of the Church that makes sense of our experience of time and reconnects us to the natural cycle of the day, but also addresses how we live our life in the 21st century.

Remember, even if you could only spend 30 seconds, eight times a day, doing a simple act (lighting a candle ((this may be a sore spot for Fr Yuri, listen in to find out)), setting aside your devices, saying a troparion, with a word of prayer and a remembrance of God), this will be transformative of your human experience. Far more transformative, even, than if you spent half an hour or an hour every day charging through a bunch of texts without intention. What's important is the recovery of the connection to God's creation and its inherent cycles, daily, weekly and seasonal, and building a remembrance of God and our vocation as image-bearers.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri also propose a new way to think of St Paul's call to "pray ceaselessly" that will take the world off your shoulders. You are not doing these prayers alone! In solitude, perhaps, but never alone.

"Eight Days a Week": a classic Beatles song, yes, but also the Orthodox approach to the weekly cycle of prayer!

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss the theme of each day of the week, how they relate to our human experience, and also offer practical advice on how to incorporate the themes into our home prayer life.

We come now to the Ninth Hour, the last service of the day, and the time to re-collect ourselves after being disoriented by our many worldly cares and concerns during the day. Fans of "The Office" might transition from work by playing "Closing Time" (if you know, you know), but the Ninth Hour encourages us instead to use this time to focus on the theme of "return" — the cycle of the day returning towards beginning again, returning to our homes, the return of humanity to God's purposes.

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey remind us that these hours of prayer, properly appropriated and used during our day are crucial for our spiritual, mental and bodily well-being. Whatever we can do, even it it's just one memorized verse, if we do it right and do it habitually until it becomes instinctive and a part of how we live, our lives will be so much the better for it. In essence, as Orthodox we need to become "old clockists".

Fr Yuri's book recommendation: "Deep Work" by Cal Newport.

In Psalm 54(55) we hear, "Evening, morning and at noon, will I tell of it and declare it  and He will hear my voice." We've already seen how Matins and Vespers are the bookends of the day, as dark transitions to light and light to dark. Now we see how when the sun is at its unrelenting peak, our daily rhythms also naturally lend themselves to prayer.  n fact, it has been a practice of Christians since the early Church, and of the Jews before them, to mark this time with prayer.

Fr Yuri speaks from personal experience how helpful incorporating the Sixth Hour into his day has been, from being the main liturgical gathering when St Maria's first became a mission, to today. Even in our modern world, the practice of setting aside ten minutes in the middle of your day to fully read the Sixth Hour is... dare we say... achievable, and encouraged!

The Third Hour is generally served between 9am and 12noon, which corresponds for many of us to the middle of our work morning. It's rather a rough time to stop for prayer, risking the interruption of our workflow. But what if — what if! — instead of seeing these services as being in competition with what we're doing in our day, we began to see them as a way of complementing and supporting our activities? Indeed, our activity will be informed and transformed by them. Even if you just have a moment while you get up from your desk and stretch, you can put it to good use.

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss the themes of this hour (the trial of Christ, the tasting of the forbidden fruit and the coming of the Holy Spirit), and how we can reflect on them to reorient and recalibrate ourselves that we might approach the busy-ness of our day in the right spirit (pun intended!). 

This is the hour in the daily cycle of prayer that doesn't have a high profile in the communal life of the church, often just tacked on to the beginning or end of another service, if it's celebrated at all.  In contrast to the other services, which have fuller expressions in the church and we are offering ways to do it more modestly at home, this particular service comes into its own when taken outside of the church. Here, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey propose ways of giving this hour more prominence in the daily rhythm of our life.

At that transition moment between our morning routine and the launch into our day, with all that it shall bring, this is the opportunity to stand before God, pledging watchfulness and heedfulness to His word, acknowledging Him as the proper authority in all things. This is our baptismal pledge, that we would live our lives recognizing the Lord as King and God, and it is meant to affect every moment of every day.

Remember, even if you have only thirty seconds to mark the first hour — it will be worth it!

It is cockcrow, the time when light just begins to break through the darkness, and the time for Matins. But don't go out and buy your rooster just yet (Fr Yuri is still trying to return his!) — the goal of this series is to help you enact the services of the daily cycle at home in a practical and sustainable way.

Thematically, Matins is the mirror image of Vespers, straddling the transition now from dark to light. This transition is a sacramental moment, a transformational act we are all invited to be the priests of, offering up the darkness that God would be able to do something within and through it, and turn it again into light. In essence, this is the Christian life!

Regardless of the time you rise, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri offer practical advice for enacting this service, stilling ourselves in the midst of what is and what will come, turning to God and placing our trust utterly in Him.

Midnight Office is a service that Orthodox Christians rarely do, if ever. But don't worry, we are not going to ask you to set an alarm in the wee hours of the morning, disrupting your much-needed rest!  The question this series is attempting to answer is, "How do the Hours make sense in (and how do they help us make sense of) our lives?", and not, "How do we artificially liturgize throughout our day?".

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore the history of how the midnight office developed, discuss an ancient sleep pattern that fell into disuse (thanks, Thomas Edison!), and suggest opportunities we might have to re-incorporate these prayers and hymns of watchfulness, vigilance and protection. Perhaps we should not aim to serve the Midnight Office, the way our modern schedules work, but we should be prepared to serve it nonetheless. This practice might just bring purpose and peace to your middle of the night wakefulness!

The hymns and prayers of the Hours are intimately linked to the time of day, but also to our human experiences at that time of day. Compline is served in the evening, after supper, when the sun is fully set and our own biological rhythms are slowing down. The service invites us to silence, repentance and forgiveness - in fact, when done in the context of a parish or monastery, it concludes with a rite of forgiveness similar to that done as we enter into Lent on Forgiveness Sunday. After the Compline service, the monastics and faithful would retreat to their beds in the darkness and quiet.

Far from mandating NO tv, NO YouTube, NO electricity immediately following your evening meal, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey suggest reasonable ways to mark this threshold between the busy-ness of our lives (with its bright lights, both natural and artificial, activity, food and entertainment) and entering into a reflective and meditative mood, putting both ourselves and our devices and our homes to bed.  No doubt this will transform your spiritual life and relationship with God, but also... you'll get a better sleep!

In this series, we are encouraging you to bring the services of the hours into your home, as a natural extension of communal and liturgical church life. Today's episode will focus on Vespers, that service that straddles the transition from day to evening, from light to darkness. ETK's first public season was a (very thorough!) season on this service, so if you want a deep detailed dive into Vespers, please go check that out on your favourite podcast streaming platform, but today we will approach it in a different way.

Far from suggesting that you do Vespers in your prayer corner at home exactly as it would be done in the church, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri propose practical ways to take Vespers’ thematic psalm and hymn content and adapt it for home use. And please don't worry! If you're thinking that although you love the idea of doing the hours at home, the idea of carving out extra time is rather romantic but impractical, the trick is to take the things you're already doing throughout the day and turn it into prayer.    

It's in simplicity that this will find it's greatest impact and virtue in our lives. Start modestly, with a practice that you can keep habitually and faithfully, and it will become second nature — and transform you!

The average Orthodox Christian does not actually pray the services of the church at home, the continuing cycle of prayers that Christians have been praying since the early days of the church, but rather prays the morning and evening prayers prescribed in prayer books. This has created a disconnect between the individualized and privatized prayer life that we experience at home and the communal prayer we experience in the church.

In this new series, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri plan to confront this disconnect and encourage us to renew our participation in the cycle of prayer that is already present and ongoing within the church. The liturgy of the hours is a beautiful collection of hymnody and psalmody, containing a narrative deeply connected to the scriptures and the wider story of God, comprised of seven services within the day - but wait! Before you say, "Seven services a day?! Nope! Sorry!", the purpose of this series is NOT to insist on adherence to overwhelmingly impossible standards, but to equip our listeners with the tools to flexibly and joyfully immerse themselves into the various cycles (daily, weekly, eight-weekly, annual and festal).

Enjoy it. Connect with it. It will be transformative!

View/download the PDF document that Fr Yuri prepared for catechumens interested in starting small with these services, which he wanted to share with our patrons. We hope that you will find it useful as you follow along through this series.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri wrap up our series on Narrative Theology and the discussion of Samuel Wells' book "Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics" with an overview of what we've learned and how we should move forward with this knowledge.

While we navigate and improvise the fourth act of this five act play, we must remain faithful to the first three acts as we move the story forward.  As the church we can find ourselves safeguarding what we have inherited, neither adding nor subtracting from it, so that when the fifth act comes, Christ will find His church preserved intact.  Yet are we not warned in the Parable of the Talents that this is not how we are meant to behave?

We need to be willing to "risk it", to act freely not through innovation but through a faithful renewal, anticipating already what God will reveal in the final act, to live and enact the Kingdom with confidence instead of fear.  Ultimately, living this way is not a risk at all, since our trust in God is complete, and the fifth act has already been secured.

Uniquely among the topics we've addressed so far in this series, wealth and accumulation has been an issue that humans have struggled with for all of history.  There's nothing new here.  There are many biblical examples of what it looks like to block, accept and over-accept into the wider story of God, throughout the Old Testament and also through the words of our Lord himself.

The fact that it is still considered an issue is suggestive of how pervasive and insidious this narrative and its givens are in our culture, and how incredibly difficult it is to separate ourselves from it.  We may think that we are not just accepting (prosperity gospel!) or blocking (all materialism is evil!), but how are we actually living our lives?  What daily habits are we participating in that are forming us and our actions in the world?

As Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey look at wealth through the lens of narrative theology, we see how if we move to over-accept in the way Christ teaches us, questioning the givens and re-defining wealth, we will transform our perspective and focus and ultimately orient ourselves according to the Kingdom.

And we're back!  We continue our series on Narrative Theology, looking at transgenderism within the improvisation model of Christian ethics.  There are again so many offers on the table, and many more nuanced ways of accepting and blocking these offers, but how do we move to over-accept, wrapping this story up within the greater story of God?  

In both accepting and blocking, it is taken as a given that one's biological sex predetermines what our gender role will be, and that in order to take on different gender roles, along with the accompanying psycho-social-cultural expectations, norms and behaviours, one must fight against nature.  It's time to question those givens!  

In fact, what we call gender, the church calls us to transcend.  As we hear from many of the Fathers, becoming properly human in the fullest sense means that we will no longer be male and female.  The challenge lies on us - we must question the ways we have essentialized sex and gender and return to the story we should have been telling all along.

In this episode, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri tackle the topic "Sex & Gender" as they continue to run the issues chosen by our patrons through the improvisation model we've explored in this series.  This method allows us to take on a certain way of being in which we faithfully, in every moment, live the fullness of the tradition we have received in the first three acts and which directs us towards the fifth and final act.

When it comes to sex and gender, there are so many offers on the table, with unclear and changing definitions, and no scientific or sociological consensus, never mind a theological one.  Ultimately, however, every single one of those offers should be capable of being received and framed in the story of God.

The offer on the table today is: "Men and women, although biologically different, should not be constrained by gendered roles in society or expectations of behaviour and personality."  Most today would accept and agree with this egalitarian view, although many Christians would block in favour of a complementarian view.  How then do we move to over-accept this offer in light of what we have received from the first three acts and with the knowledge of what is to come?

Over the next few episodes, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri will be addressing some of the thorny issues of our modern age, filtering them through the elements of narrative theology that we've been exploring over this series such as forming habits, assessing status, accepting, blocking, etc.

Our patrons chose transhumanism as the first topic: a vision of moving beyond the constraints of mortality, illness and suffering, eradicating poverty and scarcity, and enhancing our condition and current capabilities, through the use of science and technology.

Some Christians accept this without reservation as a rather hopeful vision of what's possible for humanity and other Christians move to block transhumanism immediately as incompatible and even Satanic.  What does it look like to over-accept instead, re-framing it within the fuller story of God?

Whether through improv, songs or stories, audiences are delighted when the narrative draws to an end and elements that had been seemingly discarded are brought back into play. In fact, "Reincorporating the Lost" is necessary to bring a fulfilling conclusion to any story (just ask a child whose parent has attempted to summarize the ending to a plot!).

As those lost things that we thought had been written out of the story start to re-appear, we must be aware of the final act drawing nearer, and as a church and as individuals joyfully incorporate those things back into the story. Are we listening to those once-silenced voices?  Are we befriending the lost? Are we changing our habits based on the full story instead of just the part of the story we have inherited?

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey reflect on this and discuss ways of practicing "reincorporating the lost" so that it becomes a habit in our lives.

Instead of a binary decision between accepting gifts without discernment, or blocking them without engagement (neither of which would make for good improv theatre), there is also a third option, that of over-accepting, which focuses on the way we receive the gift.  

Rather than focus on what the gift IS, or what the gift is FOR, or even whether it is good or bad, we can focus on what the gift COULD BE.  In the context of narrative theology, how can this gift be understood in a faithful way?  What does the way we accept the gift say about the kind of people that we are and want to be?  What can this gift become in the larger story of God as we move the narrative forward towards the final and fifth act?

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss the idea of "over-accepting", an active way of receiving that allows us to keep our identity and our relevance in the story, while being faithful to the story that has already unfolded and the story that is yet to come. 

In the previous episode "Accepting & Blocking", we discussed the importance in improv of using the strategy of "Yes, and..." to further the narrative.  Of course, there are multiple ways of saying yes, and often this requires us to question givens.  The givens we assume can imprison the way we think and act, but when we question those givens we can receive them as gifts and re-connect to the wider narrative.

There is ultimately only one unquestionable given: God and His story.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss another maxim of improv theatre, "Don't be bound by your format", and reflect on the current debate in Canada about assisted suicide to illustrate why questioning givens is so vital.

"I'm not your mom, and you're actually a dog".

A ridiculous reply, without a doubt (especially taken out of context, but you'll have to listen to the podcast for that).  Tragically, the Church sounds precisely like this most of the time.  

A blocking response like this one is based on fear.  Fear that we cannot let go of control of the narrative, fear that the story will not unfold in the right way.  And what does that say about our ultimate trust in God?  

Accepting an offer, and moving the narrative forward, requires a "Yes, and..." response.  Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss how to say "Yes, and..." and also whether there is a place for "no" within the model of accepting offers.

"Assessing Status" is a game that improv actors use to develop their skills, and it's also a game that we play daily as we interact with other people.  It's part of the context of every relationship, every encounter.

High and low status are neither good nor bad in and of themselves, but both are assumed as roles and can be used to move the narrative forward.  Status is also complex and is hardly fixed — it shifts backwards and forwards between high and low as we interact with others.

Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore examples of this status narrative in the Scriptures and in church history. As we continue on in the fourth act of this five act play, how do we assess and work out what role we as Christians have to address the world and the issues of the day? Spoiler: we don't always have to assume high status!

In this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey reflect on a chapter in Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics by Samuel Wells... well, Fr Yuri improvises his part in the reflection (and a good job he does, indeed!).

We make a mistake when we think of ethics as only being issues and struggles that interrupt our "normal life".  In fact, this view is entirely unbiblical and untraditional. We need to think of ethics as the ongoing practice of the Good, so that we have the instincts and habits in order so that we are always acting in accordance with our second nature, a second nature that has been formed by "doing all the drills", living the right way, as children of God being formed increasingly in His likeness.

What are these drills?  What habits do we need to work on?  How do we attain the disponibilité or relaxed awareness, that Sam Wells writes of? Listen in!

If life is a play, indeed a drama, what are our lines?

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore the analogy of God's story as a five act play, where we have intimate knowledge of the three acts that have come before, book-ended by intimate knowledge of the final act, while in the midst of act four.  

As Christians we often look for a script, or mistakenly think we already have and know the script, when in reality this is an unscripted act.  We have to improvise.  With utter fidelity, we must receive the tradition that has been given us (acts 1-3), and honour the telos we are headed towards (act 5).  We must train, so that we instinctively react in the right way when faced with any given situation, to properly enact God's story in the world.

We enter into our new series, Narrative Theology, by considering what it means to do the right thing, and by what methods we should discern what the right thing is anyway. Ethics are based on stories such as what a human person is, what the goal of our being is, and what constitutes a good life. As Christians, our ethics are based on the greatest story of all: the story of God.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss the different branches of ethics that many modern-day Christians subscribe to, and the ecclesial ethic that early Christians followed, an ethic which we should strive to return to. It is an ethic that is practiced, like one perfects their craft, until it becomes a habit, and habit becomes character, and character forms us to be people who will respond in any given situation by enacting the Kingdom, God’s shalom, God’s peace, for all of creation.

This series on Narrative Theology will centre around internalizing this ethic so that as the Church we can faithfully encounter every situation, including the situations that we never anticipated, without fear, because we’ll have become the right kind of people. God’s people.

We come to the final episode of our series on Your Liturgical Bible, which has been focused on the pillars of the bible and its narrative themes, connecting what's written in the bible with what we do through ritual. 

We have seen that in the Orthodox church, liturgical worship is the primary way we experience the Scriptures, express our faith and experience our relationship with God.  There is a dynamic relationship between the old and new covenant and our own participation in the Liturgy, a continuous interplay, an eternal present in which God acts.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri draw on a number of themes today, including the prophets Habbakuk and Jonah, comic-con, compost and gardening - it all comes together, trust me!  They also discuss the beauty of reclaiming narrative theology, and whether or not bible study has a place in Orthodoxy.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

The core theme of the Scriptures could be considered to be the theme of monarchy.  Initially the biblical narrative seems to imply that having a king would be desirable, despite prophetic warnings against, and then we see the kings of Israel fail again and again.  So is it a good idea to have a king, or not?  The fact is, our human expectations of kingship result in kings that fail.  All kings will fall short because our king is meant to be God himself.

As we sing at Saturday vespers, "The Lord is King; He is robed in majesty"!

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

The imagery of land and promised land in the Scriptures can be lost on those of us who live in lands of abundance.  But we must also be careful to understand that the promised land is not merely imagery.  It is a very real parcel of territory from which God's promises are shown to move out into the world.  

There can be a tendency amongst Christian to universalize everything, insisting on symbolism and downplaying the very concrete reality of the promises that were made to Israel.  However, as St Augustine tells us, in order for Christ to be the fulfillment of these promises, it is necessary that they were real in the first place.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

As we see in the Scriptures, the Israelites had a very mature, deep and rich understanding of what it means to be an image of God.  Interestingly, the word used for being an image of God is also the same word that is used for an idol, showing a duality we need to be cautious of, and the importance of ordering ourselves according to the divine and not according to our own flesh.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri flesh out this idea (please forgive the pun!), as well as show how this biblical imagery is expressed liturgically and enacted in our day to day lives.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Christians like to tout that the Bible is all about family values, but what do we really mean by that?  In fact, the very first thing that happens in God's plan of salvation is that Abram is told to abandon his family and nation in order to form a new family by which, God promises, all families will be blessed.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss this ambiguity around family that runs right through the Scriptures, the meaning and beauty of being adopted into God's family, and the family values that the Scriptures truly stand behind.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

What did Second Temple Jews believe about Sheol, the realm of the dead, and resurrection?  There are resurrection - or bodily resuscitation - accounts throughout the scriptures, so how did the various sects interpret those accounts?  Were they considered symbolic, historic or prophetic, personal or communal?

In this episode of Your Liturgical Bible, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri search the scriptures to better understand how Christ's resurrection is set apart, and how we as Christians are called to proclaim and to live according to this truth - a sign of the new age, a permanent new way of being in creation.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Typically, and sadly, when we hear the words "life after death", we think of what happens to our soul after our body dies.  Maybe it even spurs us to make sure that we are doing the proper things, thinking the proper way, checking the right boxes, achieving a spiritual condition that will assure we are on the right side of that equation.

The scriptural narrative of life after death shares a much deeper understanding, one of creation and new creation.  This is not an individual story, but a communal one, and what we do in this world matters.  Everything matters.  As Fr Geoffrey shares from a beautiful Rabbinic tradition, planting a tree matters.  As Fr Yuri shares from personal experience, cleaning the house for your wife matters.  You'll have to listen to see how profound that analogy is. :)

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri also speak about baptism, when we learn to "walk in newness of life", and to participate daily in God's renewal of creation.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

When we hear the word "ark", many of us think of Noah or Moses (...or perhaps Indiana Jones).  What is an ark?  What are we meant to call to mind when we read about arks in the scriptures, and how does this biblical imagery express itself in our liturgical worship?

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore these questions, and caution that we are not meant to be stuck within an Old Testament understanding of the ark, but rather we are meant to acknowledge its fulfillment in Christ.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Time to get uncomfortable!  Instead of trying to explain away the "lowercase g" gods, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey define what is meant by the "Divine Council", both in common parlance and also within the Orthodox context and understanding.  As we read the scriptures and participate in the liturgy, it's important to understand what monotheism is, and what it isn't, so that we can engage in theosis and answer the invitation to the heavenly realm.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Wind, breath and spirit.  In English we have these three words, but there is just one word in the Hebrew (ruach) and the Greek (pneuma).  In fact, there are many more metaphorical applications of this word, such as air, anger, blast, courage, despondency, quick-tempered, inspired, trustworthy and wrath.

This spirit, breath and wind portrays God's action in the world - from the life-giving and animating spirit within all human beings, to the powerful blast that forcefully brings order to chaos.  Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore this scriptural theme and how substituting some of these other words for ruach and pneuma can help us comprehend what it truly means when we pray for the in-dwelling of the Spirit.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

When we think of fire in the Bible, we may come up with images of hellfire, the judgement of God and a casting away from His presence.  In actuality, fire is used in scripture as a way of God revealing Himself and His holiness.  Fire is God's presence which humans encounter, which refines and purifies - and in this way, it's not wrong to think of fire as being God's judgement.  Could it be that those fires of hell are not a sign of God's absence, but rather of His presence?  In the Orthodox tradition, we reframe our understanding of all fire in light of this.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss this pattern that we see in the Scriptures, and how it is also found within our liturgical services.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

People are trees!  Except it's a bit more nuanced than that because you need to also keep in mind... trees are people!

Right from the Genesis story, we see that trees (and seeds) feature prominently in the scriptural narrative, and often mirror the human story.  Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri offer tools for your "biblical literacy toolbelt" to help you unpack the full meaning when you come across trees in the liturgy and the bible.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

To be human is to experience times of wilderness.  That is, wilderness the way Israelites understood and lived it.  In modern times we tend to think of wilderness as a lush getaway, a place of refuge from our urban environment, but in the Scriptural context it is a place of desolation and lack and need, a place of testing, and a time of drawing nearer to God, learning to be completely and utterly dependent on Him.  

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss how the theme of wilderness appears both in Scriptures and in our liturgical life.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Symbolically, to be on a high place is to be on secure dry land, where creation flourishes and where God dwells among His people in an awesome and awful (or rather awe-full) way.  In this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss the ways mountains appear in the Scriptures, how we understand the meaning of mountains throughout the scriptural story and how they come up in our liturgical life.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

Continuing on with the theme of water, in this episode Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri plunge into the Waters of Death - the chaotic, deadly, stagnant waters that are the counterpoint to the lifegiving waters that were explored last episode. 

Throughout the bible, in Genesis, Exodus, the prophets and the gospel accounts, the power of water is revealed.  More than that, the power of the one true God is revealed as the One who can calm the waters, the One who can enter in to the destructive waters and emerge not only unharmed, but having also transformed them into healing waters.

In this seventh public season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Your Liturgical Bible that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

While the themes of the waters of life and death are intertwined in the Scriptures, in this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore the aspect of water that is life-giving and fruitful.

From the creation account, through the prophets and into the New Testament, the Scriptures are woven through with experiences of living water.  As Orthodox Christians, we enact this story in our liturgies, recalling the creational and healing purposes of water, and understanding that living water is intimately connected with those who are living according to God's purpose and totally dependent on His grace.

 We have now gone through the seven pillars of biblical literacy as outlined by the Bible Project podcast, but there is a pillar that was missed.  This forgotten pillar, or perhaps better called the Pillar of Pillars, is the bible as Liturgical Literature.  

Of course the bible precedes our Divine Liturgy, yet if the Liturgy is understood as the experience of who God is, of being with God and God with us, then we see that it is the very origin of the bible.  Liturgy is the natural home of the bible.  Liturgy is where we go when we want to understand what the bible is all about.  Liturgy is the wrapping around the whole of the Scriptures.

In this episode, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss how the bible requires full and intentional liturgical participation,  exploring a variety of fun metaphors such as Hamlet, car mechanics, Comic-Con and map-reading. 

"Your Liturgical Bible" is our new series created just for our patrons.  We will be exploring what the bible is - and what it's not.  We will discuss how we're meant to read Scripture, how it connects with Liturgy and our life, and how we can use it to enact the Kingdom.

In this second of half of our series introduction, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore the remaining pillars of biblical literacy which will help us approach Scripture properly: Communal Literature, Ancient Literature, Meditation Literature and Wisdom Literature.

Please reference the Paradigm series by the Bible Project here, to learn more about these pillars: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/paradigm/

 We are so excited to begin our new series created just for our patrons, Your Liturgical Bible.  The Scriptures are the source material for our liturgical services, either directly or indirectly.  The goal is to provide our listeners with the tools to read the Scriptures in a way that informs how we experience Liturgy, and then ultimately allows us to bring that Liturgy into our everyday life.

There is another podcast, Bible Project, that does an excellent job of describing certain pillars of biblical literacy that help us approach Scripture properly.   Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey take a look at these pillars from an Orthodox perspective, beginning with Divine and Human Literature, Unified Literature and Messianic Literature.

Check out the Paradigm series here: https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/paradigm/ 

In our final episode on the sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey reflect on the impact these words can have on our modern lives.  Even those sayings that deal with becoming a monastic (which at first may seem too far out of reach) can apply to us who live in the world, as we share a common call to asceticism.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

There are many sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that mention "three essential things" of the spiritual life, and they are incredibly varied and often paradoxical.  Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey discuss these as well as sayings that involve prayer, and the differing gifts of Christians.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!

As we continue our series on the desert sayings, Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore the themes of virtues, charity and services of love, as well as solitude, silence and hesychia.

Today's sayings prove to us again the true meaning of monasticism, which is rooted in monachos - singular focus - which is not the same as being by oneself.  It is rather about the release of all things that get in the way of our capacity to show love.  The singular aim of all that we do is God.

In this sixth season of Enacting the Kingdom, we are releasing a series on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that was previously only available to our patrons.  If you like what you hear, and would like access to much more, please consider supporting our project by heading to patreon.com/enactingthekingdom and choosing a tier of support.  We would love to have you join our growing community!