Guest Sermon by Bishop Vsevold Lytkin - St. Titus, 2020

26 January 2020

Text: Titus 1:1-9

You know, I remember, one of my older colleagues told me that during his childhood his greatest fear was ordination. At the same time, he really wanted to become a priest.

He grew up in a free country where religion was not prohibited, but, on the contrary, every Sunday the churches were filled with Christian people.  The boy tried to get as close to the altar as possible to observe how the priests are moving in there.  Instinctively, he even tried to repeat their motions, as if brandishing a censer or lifting up a chalice and a paten with holy gifts.

And only one thing bothered him a lot.  The fact was that one day a bishop came to their parish for ordination, and when the priests surrounded the candidate on all sides, the boy asked his father what they are doing there. “They pulled his spine out of him,” his father replied.

After that, for many years the boy stopped wanting to become a priest, and even approached the altar not to observe how the priest was “turning” bread and wine into the body and blood, but to understand how he does that without a spine.

Nevertheless, the desire to become a clergyman did not pass, and once, having already finished seminary, he knelt down with feet bending in holy fear to receive the sacrament of ordination.  His spine remained with him.

Well...  Let’s read now from the beginning of the epistle of Saint Paul to Titus:

To Titus, my true child in a common faith:

Grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Savior.  This is why I left you in Crete, so that you complete the unfinished, and appoint presbyters in every town as I directed you.

Today the Church celebrates the Festival of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus. As the Holy Scriptures speaks of them, Timothy was a native of the Asia Minor town of Lystra, the son of a Greek man and a Jewish woman. He was a Christian from childhood and became a companion of Saint Paul in his missionary travels, and then became a bishop of the Church in Ephesus.

Titus was a Greek convert to Christianity; he also accompanied Saint Paul on his travels, carried out his instructions; and then Saint Paul consecrated him to be a bishop of Crete.

Paul treated both of them not only as his beloved disciples, but even as his beloved children, calling them “sons” in his epistles:

Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ...

to Timothy, my true child in the faith...  

Paul, the servant of God and the apostle of Jesus Christ... to Titus, my true child in a common faith.

The apostle dedicated the epistles to both of them, which are often called “pastoral” epistles, that means, addressed not to the churches, but personally to the bishops.  In these letters, much is said about the Church hierarchy, about its three steps: bishops, priests and deacons:

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task.

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you complete the unfinished, and appoint presbyters in every town. 

Deacons... must be... honest. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

According to the Church calendar, the Feast of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus immediately follows the Day of conversion of the Apostle Paul, and this is not by accident. This is because the today’s festival is a continuation of the previous one, but not only in the sense of the calendar, that is, not only because Jesus first converted Paul, and then Paul called his faithful helpers Timothy and Titus.

This, of course, is right.  But the Feast of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus is celebrated after the feast of Saint Paul, primarily because exactly in this sequence Christianity increased.

You know, if you ask a common person, an ordinary Christian, about how, in his opinion, Christianity increased, he is unlikely answer about the clergy, in other words, about the priests.

It happens because of the post-Protestant influence on our brains; sometimes it seems to us that the increase of the Church was very “laymen”: somebody went to someplace, said something to someone and called somewhere.

We, too, are often captives of this error.  But now think about this: is Christianity possible without the Church?  Now, people who went to someplace and said something, where did they call those who listened to them? To their home?

They called them to the church.  Because only in the church you can be baptized, only in the church you can hear the word of forgiveness spoken with Divine authority, and only in the church you can taste of the salvific Eucharist.

And without what the Eucharist is impossible? Without what absolution of sins is impossible? Or, better, I will ask in a different way: without whom?  Without whom are the sacraments impossible?  Without priests, of course.

You know, a several years ago in one of our eastern parishes, two parishioners had a great conflict with a priest, and then, they left slamming the door, and organized their own “church.”

Before joining Lutheranism, they were Pentecostals, but I think that they remained Pentecostals: they left us because they never became ours.

They declared themselves as the priests, created an “altar” and began to serve “liturgy.”  And they tried to explain to me their “right” to serve the Eucharist using this “argument”: well, they said, really, if we take bread and wine and pray how we should from all our heart, they will for sure become the Body and Blood of Christ!

No, they will not, I answered them, of course.  You can yell as much as you can with a loud voice, and even, like those prophets of Baal, stab yourself with swords and lances until the night time, but the bread will remain ordinary bread and the wine remains ordinary wine.

And the words of forgiveness that you say to your “parishioners” will remain nothing more than a good wish.

The Augsburg Confession says this, “We teach about the church ministry that no one in the Church should publicly teach or preach or conduct the sacraments without being legally ordained” (Art. XIV).

And this means that if a person is not ordained, then all his “sacred actions” will be just a beautiful (if you look positively) performance.  But if you look realistically, this performance is deadly: because in fact, it brings death to its participants: after all, some of them sincerely trust the actors who illegally put on the clothes of priests. Can you imagine what that means?  This means that sins are not forgiven.

It often happens that some people like to steal what they have no right to, but God does not play such games.  He will never contradict Himself.  Because in order to save His people, He created the Church, and granted her a succession of ordinations of priests.

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you complete the unfinished, and appoint presbyters in every town as I directed you.

Yes.  The Epistles of Saint Paul to Timothy and Titus are very, so to speak, hierarchical.  They emphasize the special importance of the clergy in the Church.  “Special” does not mean “privileged.”  You know, sometimes we hear that priests have seized authority in the Church and are doing what they want.  I have heard this -- also from our two former parishioners about whom I just have told you.

Well...  Priests, of course, are different, some of them are intolerant and inattentive. I myself am also one of those.  But we did not seize any authority.  Because apart from the clergy, no one in the Church has ever had any authority.  And this is God who gave us authority - the authority to forgive your sins, to baptize your children, to conduct Holy Communion, the authority to serve you and care for you.

And it was so from the beginning.  In the Old Testament, God chose certain people to stand at the altar and conduct the sacrifices.  The Old Testament hierarchy was genetic: of the twelve tribes of Israel, God chose the descendants of Levi, whom God ordered to serve at the altar.

No one else could stand near the altar, God would not accept the sacrifice from anyone else.  Although already in the Old Testament we repeatedly encounter rebellions against the hierarchy.  One of these rebellions is described in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers. Do you remember that story?

They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, ”You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” 

The idea of ​​the so-called “universal priesthood” is often attributed to us Lutherans, even in some dictionaries and encyclopedias you can read that everyone in our Church may celebrate the liturgy and that a person becomes a pastor as a result of voting.  But it is nowhere in our confessions.  There has never been universal equality in the Church. And those who want to argue with this will have to argue not with humans, but with God - because it was God Who was the author, the Creator of the holy hierarchy.

The New Testament priesthood is different from the Old Testament. Because it is not genetic.  Christ called the twelve apostles and gave them authority to forgive sins and to conduct the sacraments.

And the feast of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus follows immediately the feast of Saint Paul because it was from the Apostle Paul that his disciples Timothy and Titus received ordinations and became priests and later the bishops. This is exactly how the Church extends:

• The Lord gave the authority to forgive sins to His apostles;

• The apostles transferred this authority to the first generation of bishops;

• Bishops transferred this authority to the next generation of bishops,

• and so it has reached our days.

The Church is continuous.  This her continuity is commonly called as “apostolic succession.”  It is about this continuity and this succession that we speak every liturgy when we pronounce the Creed: “I believe ... in ... one holy Christian and apostolic Church.”

And today’s festival is a feast of the apostolic, in other words: a continuous Church. It is very important for us that the Church did not stop, that her tree, even it was divided into several branches (denominations), still grows and stands on the foundation of the apostles.

That is why we can be sure that our sins are forgiven and that the church tradition is not interrupted, because the hierarchy is continuous and modern clergymen have the same authority to forgive sins, which Christ gave to His apostles.

So Saint Paul gave the direction to bishop Titus,

complete the unfinished, and appoint presbyters in every town.  

And on the Feast of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus it is customary to preach about holy ministry. And during the liturgy, we read the prayers about holy ministry, include preface prayer from the order of ordination:

“It is truly good, right and salutary, always and everywhere to thank You, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty eternal God. By the anointing of the Holy Spirit, You have made Your only begotten Son High Priest of the new and eternal Testament, and by the indescribable authority You have honored the Church with the consecration, granting her the continuous priesthood of Christ. For He not only crowned His people with the dignity of the royal priesthood, but also, by His grace, He chose the people who, through the laying of hands, partake in His priesthood. Therefore with the angels and archangels...” (end of quote).

Complete the unfinished, and appoint presbyters in every town.  

And so it continues to this day. Until now, the bishops complete the unfinished of the apostles when we ordain new priests and deacons in every town around the world.

This is how the ministry of the apostles continues, and this is how the Christian Church grows and increases and the word and sacraments are given to the people.  And so it will be until the end of this world.

Brothers and sisters!  Through the succession of ordinations, God continues to give His priests authority to forgive sins and to conduct the sacraments. To forgive your sins and to conduct the sacraments for you.  So you and your children will be saved.  

(And by the way, nobody pulled out the priests’ spines when the bishops ordain them -- you should trust me!) 

So always rush to the church and receive here the gifts that the Lord offers to you here.

I congratulate you with this festival, dear father Larry and my dear brothers and sisters, with the festival of the Saint bishop Timothy and Saint bishop Titus! Amen!