PODCAST · religion
Translating the Tradition
by Fr. Justin (Edward) Hewlett
Sermons and miscellaneous musings from St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Church in Vancouver, BC, Canada - mostly by Fr. Justin Hewlett. translatingthetradition.substack.com
Episodes
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The Diamond Rule: A Minecraft Story
In today’s Gospel reading, we have a principle, a command that we all know, and we all know it super well: “Do as you would be done by.” The Golden Rule, right? And so I want to use the classic fantasy technique of defamiliarization today, and tell you a story. More specifically, a Minecraft…
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Mawidge and True Love
In honour of my son Simon’s beautiful post “The Mistake of True Love”, which references another one of my recent wedding homilies, I’m re-issuing this, perhaps my all-time favourite wedding homily, releasing it for the first time here on Substack. Mawidge. Mawidge is what bwings us togever today....
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Spiritual Success
We are given, in the modern world, a great many different definitions of success. We might define success as getting straight A’s in high school and university. Or we might define success as getting a really good job by the age of 25. Or we might define success as having so many YouTube followers...
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It’s Not about the Theology
I want to do things a little differently today. Instead of a three-point sermon, I have three mini-sermons. They’re not exactly connected to each other, except by the day. But I want to preface my remarks by saying that I hope they are all genuinely practical — because one of the things that has...
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The Death-to-Self of the Theotokos
So we’re all gathered here for the great feast of the Dormition, which of course commemorates the falling asleep of the Mother of God. And I want to begin by looking today at the epistle reading that we just heard. The epistle reading is, of course, about Jesus. Let this mind be in you, which is...
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The Encouragement of the Transfiguration
When I think of the great feast of the Transfiguration, I always think about encouragement. This feast above all — well, I guess Pascha is the most encouraging; Pascha is off the charts — but this feast really seems to be focused on encouragement. You hear it even in the hymnography: one of the...
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The Foundation
More than 20 years ago now, in the summer of 2005, a young priest who was kind of wet behind the ears, fresh out of seminary, worked with his mentor to determine that they should probably have a new mission in the major city in the area. And so the beginning of that new mission was to establish…
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Spiritual Warfare
Today, as we got to induct a new catechumen, I got to say one of my favorite lines — addressed to Satan — saying: “Call to mind him who commanded you to enter into the herd of swine,” and “your power, which has not power even over swine.” And we got to hear the Gospel reading that talks about...
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Authority
Today we are celebrating the great feast of St. Peter and Paul in anticipation, since it’s actually tomorrow. Given that, and given the content of the daily Gospel we just heard, I want to speak to you about authority. Authority is not a particularly popular topic in our society. In fact, we’re...
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St. Cuthbert and Silence
We were blessed to have Reader James Mullin, our local expert in the Celtic saints, give the homily on the feast-day of All Saints of Britain and Ireland: The Scriptures say, “Be still and know that I am God.” The Scriptures also say, “In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and...
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Speaking the Truth Well, in Love
“Little children, love one another.” These were the words of the Apostle John when he was too feeble and old to say anything else to his flock. All he would say to them was, simply: “Little children, love one another.” Last night, as we were listening to the readings at Vespers, we read the…
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The Healing of the Paralytic
We were blessed, today, to have Fr. Nathanael, one of the founding members of St. John’s, with us. Here is his homily on the Gospel for today. Our Gospel reading today was a composite one. The first part is the commemoration of the paralytic, where Christ heals a paralyzed man at the pools of...
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Myrrh-bearers and the Body of Christ
It was finished. Or rather, Jesus’ work was finished — but his body was still hanging on the cross. His spirit had gone from it, but his body was still there. The body is something fundamentally important in our tradition. We often think of the Greeks as the ones who celebrated the human body —…
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Joseph and Lazarus and Injustice
So tonight, as we approach the end of Great Lent and move toward Lazarus Saturday, the story given to us from Genesis to meditate upon is the end of the story of Joseph. It’s an amazing story — it takes up a big chunk of Genesis, actually. And nothing in it is more amazing than this concluding...
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Our Desert Struggle
So we’re getting to the end of Great Lent, and the Church gives us, on this Sunday, St. Mary of Egypt to think about. I won’t go through the whole of the story of St. Mary of Egypt, but just very briefly, St. Mary was very much not a saint at the beginning of her life. But the story actually...
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The First Sin after the Flood
So on this Wednesday of Great Lent, we’re given the story of Noah just after the flood to meditate on. The story is about the first recorded sin after the flood. Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth come out of the ark, and God blesses them. It then notes that Ham was the father of Canaan…
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St. Gregory Palamas Sunday
There’s supposedly an ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” Well, apparently we’ve all been cursed. People are concerned. Some are worried that Islam is encroaching on our civilization. Some are concerned that with the continual elevation of the culture wars, civil war may…
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The Warning and the Nature of the Last Judgment
Those of you who have been coming to St. John’s for a while will know that the Sunday of the Last Judgment and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus are my two least favourite passages on which to preach. Because this is a warning. We are coming to the edge of Lent, and we are deliberately…
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Waiting
We spend a lot of our lives waiting. And it can be really tough. We’re waiting for justice. We’re waiting for, I don’t know, an appointment at ICBC or something like that. We’re waiting for the fruition of some sort of hope. And what we see in the Gospel reading today is, well, a lot of waiting.…
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Zacchaeus, the Publican and the Pharisee, and the Right Response to the Squandering of Our Talents
As an experiment, I thought I’d try getting Google’s NotebookLM AI to summarize my sermon, and I was rather impressed with the following (lightly edited) results: In his sermon for Zacchaeus Sunday, Fr. Justin explains that as Lent approaches, we must reflect on the “gifts galore” and spiritual...
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Pray and Do Not Lose Heart
So in today’s Gospel reading, our Lord is approaching Jericho, and there’s a blind man sitting by the side of the road. He’s begging, because if you’re blind in those days, they didn’t have a lot of alternative support for you. And so the basic way that you got by was you sat and you asked people...
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The Great Blessing of the Waters
As we’ve been going through Father Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World, one of the things that Father Schmemann is very careful to point out is this dichotomy that we human beings naturally fall into: we have the spiritual, which is up there, and then the physical, the ordinary, the...
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The Point of Prophecy
So today, as we get ready for the great Feast of Theophany, we begin with the beginning of the gospel of Mark. And the gospel of Mark begins with prophecy. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophets, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face,...
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Wisdom, Folly, Prophecy, and Free Will
Somewhat similar to the pattern that we see at Pascha (and, indeed, Christmas is for us in many respects a mini Pascha—you’ll notice I’m wearing white), the Sunday after the great feast, we have a bit of a downer in terms of the Gospel reading. After Pascha, of course, we have the great and...
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How Can We Refuse the Heavenly Banquet?
Today’s homily was (for me) relatively short, so, rather than posting the transcript here (the automated version of which is already readily available), I want instead to add an addendum: “the sermon after the sermon,” as I like to call it. In both this parable and in our Lord’s rejoinder...
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What Do We Do When the Days Are Evil?
[The how of all that follows here is outlined in the preceding parts of the homily, in the audio recording. What follows is the conclusion of the matter:] All things are exposed or made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. That’s what the light does. It shows things for…
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Adoration: The One Thing Needful
So on this joyous day of Raissa’s baptism, we have a fairly solemn Gospel reading, in which our Lord tells a parable of a certain rich man, who had lots of stuff—like too much stuff, so he didn’t have enough space for all his stuff. And he thought, “Okay, well, I need more space for all my stuff....
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Holiness and Joy
Sources cited: from II Samuel 6:14-22: Then David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of...
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Who Is This Man?
So in today’s gospel reading, we get two stories for the price of one. And these intertwined stories actually are the culmination of this particular section of the Gospel of Luke, which begins with the centurion asking Jesus to heal his servant. One of the things that runs throughout this section...
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Hellfire, Brimstone, and Sodom
So we come again to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and, since I don’t really want to talk about this story, I feel like that probably means that I should talk about this story. One of the reasons I am reluctant to talk about this story is probably my upbringing. I grew up in a very...
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Little Children, Love One Another
If our starting point for love as Christians is “love your enemies”, and if our ending point is “love one another as I have loved you”, and if this is supposed to be what characterizes us as Jesus followers, this love should be the defining feature of our church. Note: The inside joke at the...
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Broadening Our Understanding of Repentance
So today I want to draw our attention to one phrase from the Gospel reading, or at least focus in on that, and talk a little bit about repentance. Repentance is one of those words, of course, that we hear all the time within the church and almost never hear outside the church. And so its…
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Our Most Political Feast
Of all the 12 great feasts of the church—or 17 great feasts, or 17 ranked feasts if you’re following Father Alexander Rentel—this is probably one of the most political. This feast, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, commemorates the finding of the cross by the Empress Helen, mother of...
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Recognizing Reality in Retrospect
It is the way that things transpire afterwards that reveals the true significance of events; it is in retrospect that we see the hand of God. And where we see the hand of God and how we understand it is often in and through ordinary things: the birth of a baby girl, stepping across a threshold…
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Forgiveness Is Hard
Forgiveness is hard. It’s not just hard for us—it has been a human problem all the way back. Today’s gospel reading was occasioned by a conversation about forgiveness. Peter says to Jesus just before he tells this parable, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother? Seven times?” Wow, he’s...
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Fasting and Praying for God’s Presence
A baptismal homily after Transfiguration Our Lord, as he comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John, comes face to face with his disciples’ failure. He heals the epileptic boy by casting out the demon they could not, then explains to them that “this kind does not go...
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The Feast of the Dormition and Our Destiny
Mary, the Theotokos, represents, for us, who we are called to be, in Christ, and the feast of her “falling asleep”, in which we commemorate her death and her physical resurrection from the dead and her exaltation by her son, shows us our own corporate destiny in Christ. Mary is, for us, the new...
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What Did They Go Up to See?
The disciples, like Moses, went up the mountain and saw the glory of God, as far as they could bear it. Like Elijah, they went up the mountain and heard God in His divine humility. They saw the new Adam, shining with uncreated light in His unfallen glory, and they heard Him preparing to enter His...
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An Abundance of Love
We tend towards a perception of scarcity and competition—and scarcity is indeed a part of our human experience, as Jesus Himself experienced upon the death of His cousin, John the Baptist. But, even in that condition, Jesus acted out of an abundance of compassion. And He heals and teaches the…
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Misjudgement and Our Response
Jesus was misjudged as he healed the mute man and just went on healing. He told his disciples that if the world misjudged and treated him as terribly as it was about to, that they (and, by extension, we) should expect even worse. Jesus’ injunctions not to judge imply that what he said to his...
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How to Hear the Word of the Prophet
We tend to forget that, if we are the people of God, the prophets are speaking to—and generally correcting—us. This is why Jesus reminds his hometown hearers, at the beginning of his public ministry, that the ones who received the word of the prophet and were fed and healed were not the people of...
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Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul: Alternate Lectionary
The Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, very different people, set an example for us, in their disagreement, on the importance of and how we ought to respond to speaking the truth in love: Saint Paul illustrates for us the importance of speaking the truth, while Saint Peter illustrates for us the...
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Holiness Is Attainable
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. (Philippians 3:17) The glorification of Righteous Mother Olga of Kwethluk, Alaska, reveals to us (as do the lives of all the saints) that holiness is attainable through the simple acts of...
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Prioritizing Holiness
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set...
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Pentecost: Back to the Beginning
We were a few more at that first liturgy than just the fourteen from St. Herman’s who were sent out to start St. John’s because of the love and support of others who joined us for that first Pentecostal celebration. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other…
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The First Ecumenical Council as Fulfillment of Tradition
A look at how the Mosaic tradition of appointing elders to judge the people found its fulfillment in the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea Note: I mention the Donatists, but, while I may have implied that the Church ultimately ruled that they were in the wrong, I’m not sure I made it explicit...
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How the Blind Man Saw Things
In which we review the story of the man born blind from the blind man’s perspective as a way into the experience of God on which true philosophy is founded References: John 9:1-38 Acts 16:16-34 Matthew 11:2-15 II Corinthians 4:6-15, 12:7-10 … Read on This is a public episode. If you would like to...
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Our Choice
We have betrayed the Image of God. Our only choice is whether we will be Judas or the sinful woman.… Read on This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com
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The Story of St. Mary of Egypt
We need stories, and the story we need right now is that of St. Mary of Egypt.… Read on This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit translatingthetradition.substack.com
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St. Gregory Palamas and the Knowability of God
St. Gregory demonstrates that we can know God, and that the pursuit of this knowledge is worth defending and dedicating our lives to.… Read on This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Sermons and miscellaneous musings from St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Church in Vancouver, BC, Canada - mostly by Fr. Justin Hewlett.
translatingthetradition.substack.com
HOSTED BY
Fr. Justin (Edward) Hewlett
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Translating the Tradition currently has 96 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
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Sermons and miscellaneous musings from St. John of Shanghai Orthodox Church in Vancouver, BC, Canada - mostly by Fr. Justin Hewlett. translatingthetradition.substack.com
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