I went to visit my brother-in-law Fr Nicholas and his family in Philadelphia this weekend, and of course went to liturgy at his parish, Sts Peter and Paul Albanian Orthodox.
Our home parish choir has a bunch of people who can't read music well, and some others who can and aren't great singers, but we make up for it in preparation... his choir has some great singers who can read music, and the director passes out the Troparion music directly before we're singing it and we just sight read it.
So since I can sight read, I get on just fine with them whenever I visit.
His sermon tied together the Sundays of Lent so far. The first Sunday of Lent is the Triumph of Orthodoxy, commemorating the end of the iconoclast controversy, and the final agreement that the icons are staying from now on. The point of that Sunday is to remember that the theology of icons is that Christ is true man, and was incarnate. By veneration of physical objects, we remember and meditate on the incarnation.
The second Sunday of Lent is the Sunday of St Gregory Palamas, who showed that through physical actions - fasting and prayer - we can become participants in God's glory.
The third Sunday of Lent is the veneration of the Cross, where we remember that physical object by which Christ effected his redemption, but also to remember our part is to live out our faith.
This last Sunday, the fourth Sunday, was dedicated to St John Climacus, the author of the Ladder of Divine Ascent. Fr Nicholas' sermon was pointing out that our Lenten experience so far has been to remind us that we are on this ladder, but that the icon depicts people at ALL stages of ascent being dragged down by demons. We need always to remember that no matter how far we get up the ladder, we always have farther to go, and can always be pulled down.
On the drive back home to Virginia, I was telling my wife (who had child issues and couldn't hear the sermon) what it was about, and at that point I realized that there is a reason why Orthodox sermons don't go on and on and on and on for 45 minutes like so many others I've sat through in my former life. We are surrounded by teaching aids, and our year is organized pretty strictly to teach the faith, in its fullness. Teaching happens throughout the entire service, not just the sermon, and takes the form of imagery as well as word. There isn't just no need to go on for such a length - it's to a certain extent not even possible, not without harping on something that has already been said or done multiple times already.
A few months ago my BiL let slip to me that his preaching (which I consider stellar) doesn't take him hours of preparation - in fact, at the moment where he let it slip, he demonstrated that he could produce a ten minute sermon for any particular Sunday within seconds if required. All he needed to do is know where he was in the year.
This is how I know I'm in the right place - it's the Church, big-C, where there are bigger things going on, and external forces to help us work out our salvation.
<3
