Sermons, teachings, discussions, and other messages from our Pastoral Assistant and Youth Director Christo Pappademos!
Background
Christos Pappademos joined the Cathedral as Pastoral Assistant and Youth Director in 2019. As a 2018 graduate of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Christo will help us continue to grow our youth programs, as our GOYA, JOY, Young Adults, Sunday School, and Acolytes. He will also help to develop our Stewardship, adult religious education and other programs. Christo is known to be a dynamic young man, a person of deep faith. Christo is the son of Father Dino and Presbytera Chrisoula Pappademos of St. Katherine's Greek Orthodox Church in Elk Grove. His sister, Katy, and her husband, Andrew, live in the City and are members of the Cathedral. (Incidentally, they met at a Young Adult gathering!) Christo also has a younger brother, Dimitri, who is completing his residency at UCSF East Bay. May God bless your ministry among us Christo!
Websites, links, and articles
- Check out the new podcast I'm hosting "Path To The Priesthood", sponsored by the Orthodox Christian Network (OCN). You can also to listen to all of the other wonderful podcasts the OCN produces by clicking here.
- Now that we can resume traveling to our homeland of Greece, check out this article that caught my eye. It was thorough and had good pictures to go along with its top-notch recommendations!
- Christo's Favorite pandemic busters! Check out these blog posts, TV series, and readings to help take our minds off the current state of our surroundings. I certainly enjoyed them and hope you will too!
- TV series recommendation: "My Greek Odyssey" on Amazon Prime- "Being travel restricted in 2020 gave me the blues. But with a click of my remote I was able to trade my blues for the blues of the Aegean Ocean in an excellent show about many different regions and islands of Greece! The series host, Greek Australian Peter Maneas, does an excellent job presenting the viewer with authentic and genuine experiences in Greece. His enthusiasm makes the show appealing to both those who have little-to-no traveling in Greece, as well as those who are very well-traveled in Greece. Check out an episode or two at https://www.mygreekodyssey.com/about/."
- Blog recommendation: www.elenisaltas.com or on Instagram- @eleni_saltas: "Eleni Saltas and I were camp counselors together at Ionian Village in Greece. A Salt Lake City native, Eleni is well known nationwide for her blog which features great recipes and renditions of classic Greek cuisine! In addition to her recipes, she also provides many fun travel trips such as 'Top Beaches in Greece' and workout tips as well! If you are looking to add some new dishes to your repertoire, get some tips for your next trip, or learn a few new exercises, check out her blog and Instagram!".
- Inspirational Story: Greek Paralympic Swimmer- "Our Faith tells us no matter what difficulties we face in life, we must move forward with a spirit of optimism and hope. This is often easier said than done. However this story of Greek Paralympic Swimmer Antonios Tsapatakis is a perfect example of overcoming adversity and being an inspiration to others! https://www.paralympic.org/news/antonios-tsapatakis-soul-searching-paralympic-gold.
- I recently participated in a Zoom interview for the non-profit organization known as Orthodox Christian Network. The goal of this agency is to keep Orthodox Christians connected around the world through faith-related programming, podcasts, interviews, blog posts etc. This group was founded by the priest who was President of the Seminary while I was studying there. He invited Yianni Magoulias, the pastoral assistant from the Annunciation Church in Sacramento, and myself to speak with him on his program.
- Here is the link to the topic page on OCN's website that should also contain the YouTube video of the recorded interview.
- Here is the article I referenced in my sermon, the first-person story of Archimandrite Ioustinos, the guardian of Jacob's Well in the West Bank. This is the very site where Jesus spoke with the Samaritan Woman. This article serves as a reminder that the sites in the Gospel stories are real places, and many holy people risk their lives to defend and preserve them to this day
- I came across this interesting article for dealing with the corona virus. It's written as a continuation of The Screwtape Letters, a novel by C.S. Lewis that addresses Christian Theological issues. The letters are "written" by an elder demon to a young demon. The elder demon is giving the young demon advice on how to sabotage a person's life. So too, this article is written from the perspective of the elder demon and how he would want us to deal with the current corona virus situation.
It's an interesting mind-trip and the reverse-psychology helps us maintain proper perspective when we hear that some of the traps we might be slipping into are exactly what a demon would want to see happen to us.
- In this article and video from Greek Reporter we hear about Giannis' reaction to the death of Kobe Bryant and how important Kobe was in mentoring Giannis. In the video you hear Giannis respond when asked "What did you learn from [Kobe]?"
Giannis states that he learned that "you gotta be simple, and to work on your craft again, again, and again." These are very Orthodox concepts. As Orthodox Christians we are taught to focus on simplicity and persistence when having a prayer life or focusing on coming closer to God.
- Click here to watch a sermon by a priest in Greece who is known for his applicable topics that speak directly to people's experiences in life. His sermons are all in Greek, so for our Greek-speaking parishioners this would be a worthwhile watch. And for our non-Greek-speaking parishioners, this may be an opportunity to try your hand and see how much of what he is saying you understand.
- This is an article about a priest who is a friend of mine. Father Dimitri Lee started his own company with which he creates awesome koboskinia made of high-quality stones. A portion of the proceeds and profits generated by his company go directly to Orthodox Charities around the world.
Christo's Homilies - Click here for audio recordings of Christo's sermons on the Cathedral's YouTube channel
- Parable of the Rich Fool
The Gospel According to Luke: Chapter 12, Verses 16-21
The Lord said this parable: "The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this:I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." As he said these things, he cried out: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
As a kid I made many trips to the beach with my family. On one of our beach days I remember playing all afternoon under the sun and as a result I became very thirsty. I looked all around for a bottle of water, but my family and all of our beach paraphernalia was very far away. So, I being a young kid, looked at the ocean water I was splashing in, and decided to dip down and take a big gulp of salt water.
I immediately regretted my decision as my entire throat and chest began to burn. I ran all the way from the water to where my family was to wash out the salt water from my mouth with clean drinking water from one of our bottles.
Now I’ll bet my decision to drink salt water to quench my thirst sounds foolish to you, but this is exactly what the rich man in today’s Gospel does. The rich man in today’s gospel looks for more riches to satisfy him, and this decision is as foolish as a thirsty man looking to quench his thirst with salt water. The more salt water one drinks, the thirstier he becomes and if he drinks too much, it can kill him.
So too are our material possessions. We all need “things”, there is no denying it. But to obsess over our “things” is to die spiritually.
In fact there is really only one problem with what the man did in today’s Gospel. His problem was not that he was rich, it was how he reacted to his riches. Here is the turning point in today’s Gospel. Let’s take a look:
The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, *stop*
So far so good! The rich man is perfectly OK at this point. If this was a success story, this is what the rich man would have said at this point:
The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, “Bless the Lord O my soul! May all that is within me Bless His Holy Name!”
We may recognize these words from psalm 102, which is often beautifully chanted, “Ευλόγει η ψυχή μου τον Κύριον, και πάντα τα εντός μου το όνομα τον άγιον αυτού!” It is the ultimate prayer of thanks to God.
So we see at this point, the rich man is perfectly fine with having his riches, as long as he glorifies God and gives thanks for what he has.
But our rich man does the opposite. The rich man in today’s Gospel essentially lived as a practicing atheist. He lived as if God did not exist at all. When he steps back and looks at all the riches he has, instead of giving thanks to God, he immediately thinks of how he can keep getting even more and more riches. He wants to build even bigger barns to store more and more! Here he is, drinking his salt water gulp by gulp.
There are many references in our church to Christ as water, or living water. We even hear Christ refer to Himself as “living water” when he talks to the Samaritan woman at the well. He tells her “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
So instead of turning to Christ and God as the living water to sustain him, the rich man turns to more riches to sustain him. In fact he thinks he is so well sustained by the idea of more riches that he actually speaks to himself as if he will live forever!
Listen to this, he says: I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.'
And it is at this turning point where we here a wake-up call to this man from God. God speaks to him by saying “You fool!” Whenever we hear God or Jesus refer to someone as “Fool!” in the Gospels, He is doing it not to insult someone, but to wake them up!
The people being called fools are not intellectually dense, but they are spiritually asleep. So Jesus gets them to up wake up by saying to them “Fool!”
Jesus flips the script on the rich man in this parable. The rich man who behaves as if he will live forever finds out from God that he dies tonight. God says to the man, “This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
Now if you found out you were going to die tonight, how would that change the rest of your day? Would you be thinking about your car? Your house? Your bank account? Or would you be thinking of your loved ones and about preparing yourself to meet God?
I knew a very good man once. He lived well into his 90’s. One day I was walking with him after church to the hall for coffee hour. He walked very slowly so we had plenty of time to chat. I asked him how he was doing. He had deteriorated greatly at this point in his life and he said to me, “Well it won’t be much longer now.”
He was talking about dying. I assured him, “No no, you have a lot of time left! What are you talking about?” (What can you say when someone is talking about their own death?)
But the old man assured me “Nooo that’s alright, I’m ready to go. I wanna see what’s going on up there after all these years anyway.” he said has he motioned towards the Heavens.
I had been dreading the day of this man’s death for a long time. He was a very sweet man. It turns out that that time was actually the last time I saw him. Yet when he did pass away I was strangely at peace with it. I was at peace when I heard he had died because I knew that when that old man came to the end of his life, he was prepared to meet God. God was on his mind, unlike the rich man in today’s Gospel.
The final point in today’s Gospel I’d like to draw our attention to is this particular last line when Jesus cries out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” This is Jesus’ way of saying that this message applies to all of us. Rich, poor, young, and old. We all have ears. To not have ears would be an unnatural thing. So Jesus is telling all of us to “Listen up! And pay attention!”
He is telling us to pay attention because He Himself knows it is not always easy to follow Him. Seeking God takes energy and focus, the path towards Him is not always the most fun or appealing, but is always the best one for us, so he bids us to come.
As I close I would like you to keep this passage from Isaiah in mind:
“Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money come buy and eat. Why spend money on what is not bread? And you labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me, listen that you may live.”
Amen