The Commision Here

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Armodoxy for Today: The Commission Here

The “Great Commission” as it is called, is the direction Jesus gives to his Apostles just before he ascends to heaven.

Saint Matthew records the event, remembering that only eleven of the original twelve disciples (less Judas) made up the disciple’s group. We read:

“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)

Jesus commissions the eleven to continue his work, beyond the world they were accustomed to. Here, the Christian message is projected to the world, to all nations. There is no exception. There is no “favored nation status” for any one or any country. It is a command that his message is universal. Furthermore, he sets baptism as the entry point for the community and emphasizes that his commandments are the fuel of the Christianity. His commandments were summarized, “Love God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22:36-40) And finally, he gives his unfailing word that he is with us forever. His love and care is unwavering and is ours beyond time restrictions.

Yesterday we read the narrative of the Ascension, today we read the actions, the descriptor of what Jesus expected from his church. It is important to note that this commission is not given to all of the inhabitants of Jerusalem or anywhere else. He does not include the rest of the students, often referred to as the 72 disciples, in this group. No, it is directed to a very special group that will soon become the nucleus of the Christian Church.

When we refer to the Apostolic Church, we are talking about the Church that links itself to this event. Each of those eleven (and later 12 with the addition of Mathias) went to different areas in the world. Peter went to Rome, Thomas to India, Matthew to Ethiopia, Jude Thaddeus to Armenia, just to mention four of them. Each of carrying out the commission. They ended in hostile areas, and all of them, except for John, were martyred. John, ended up exiled on an Island.

We will explore their individual stories, but for our discussion today, it is important to note the Apostolic Commission. It is the foundation of the Christian Church. And as we approach the feast of Pentecost, we will see how this small band of diverse people, who were considered appalling by the system, whose leader was sentenced to death, became the ones who carried the most influential and important message of all human history.

The Ascension is Jesus ascending to heaven. Yesterday I asked you to look not up to heaven, but all around. Today, with Jesus’ message and commission to the disciples we start understanding that the  direction of life is in the here and now. The mission of the Apostolic Church was and is to bring people to the message of love that Jesus taught. And yes, in that love we find that Jesus is with us now and forever.

Cover: Hills surrounding Datev Monastery

Heaven Up?

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Today is Ascension Day. It is 40 days after Easter. In Armenian, it is called “hambartzoum.”

We read about the event in the first chapter of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. The author is the Evangelist, St. Luke, whose Gospel narrates Jesus’ earthly life from his Conception to his Resurrection. In the second “volume” he begins with the Ascension, and thus, he chronicles the development of the Christian Church.

St. Luke writes, “In my former book… I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.  On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

“…After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

And so begins the journey of the post-Resurrection community. It begins with them looking up! Up to the sky! And thus begins the notion that heaven is somewhere in the sky, in an upwardly direction, not necessarily North, but up.

Much of our concept of heaven comes from this particular passage. Most of us are familiar with a world map or a globe you find in geography classrooms. At the top is the Arctic circle and at the bottom is Antarctica. If you’ve even seen this map flipped, you know how odd it seems. Its oddity is in the fact that we are not familiar with the image.  Likewise, the concept of heaven is engrained in us from images that have been projected in movies, stories, and even in Scripture.

Heaven is not only up, it is also around, within and without. St. Luke marks this occasion, “When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation;  nor will they say, ’See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Today is Ascension. The disciples were looking up. Where are we looking?

Tomorrow we look further in that direction.

Anticipation

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Anticipation differs slightly from expectation. Yesterday we spoke about expectation and the disappointment that arise when expectations aren’t met.

The Disciples of Jesus and the early Christian community anticipated an imminent end to the world. In that anticipation they saw Jesus returning in full power to set things right and to restore “order.” The disappointment they felt when things didn’t turn out as they wanted was accented because their anticipation had moved to expectation.

You can anticipate as much as you want and will not be disappointed until you expect a result. You are watching a movie or reading a book, and as you are pass the midway point you anticipate the ending. If it turns out differently, “disappointment” is not the word to use to describe the twist. However, when you expect an ending, disappointment is what you feel when it turns out differently.

This may seem like a minor or petty point but the difference between anticipation and expectation is not inconsequential. Expectation implies control. You may anticipate something or event, but when you expect that same event, you are expressing a wish that is connected to your own means.

This Thursday we celebrate the Ascension of Lord Jesus Christ. On the eve of the Ascension Jesus asks the Disciples anticipate the Promise of the Father, instead, they expect something else…

We read in the Acts of the Apostles, “Being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1)

Jesus calls us to a life of trusting God, trusting so much that we can anticipate being blessed in His presence. Trust God and anticipate His goodness. On this eve of Ascension, you have a chance to examine your feeling and if need be, catch yourself, to stay in the joy of anticipation. All things happen in God’s time. Listen to God talking and read not into it your desires.

Expectations

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Our biggest disappointments in life are because of our expectations. When an event goes the opposite as we planned, or when a person does an unexpected act, we are disappointed. If you take an inventory of the disappointments in your life, you’ll find that most, if not all, are because of the expectations you have held that things would turn out otherwise.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, in looking at the Christian Church and noting its lackadaisical attitude towards injustice and general apathy towards the struggling, pronounce, “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” As a minister of the Gospel, and as a student of Jesus, he had a certain expectation from the Church, that the Church would follow the work of Jesus. When it didn’t, he expressed his disappointment. And he added an additional element of love into the equation.

If we go to a restaurant, our expectation is to be served a decent meal in an efficient manner. When the food arrives cold after an hour’s wait, we are disappointed, and perhaps even angered, but the degree of disappointment is not the same as say, when a friend, child, a parent, a spouse, or a sibling acts against our expectations.

Interestingly enough, the Bible is written with many expectations built into the stories. A casual reading of the Old Testament gives you story after story, of God expecting one thing from His creation, and getting another. And so, often people walk away from religion, in particular Christianity, feeling rejected and hurt thinking that God is disappointed in them. Furthermore, the Bible is filled with the expectation of events. Prophets forecast events. Jesus’ birth was one of those events, so was his resurrection, and then his second coming.

Jesus spoke of a less stressful experience than the back-and-forth between expectations and disappointments. He said that God is in charge and so, let Him be in charge! Trust God, and deal with things that have been charged to you.

Following the Resurrection, the Disciples were excited and living with great expectations. Forty days afterwards they experienced the Ascension. They continued to speak about dates and times that were not in their purview.  In fact, up until the end of the first century, people were living with an expectation of an imminent end. And many sects of Christianity continue to forecast and predict dates and times of future events that Jesus has strictly forbidden.

We end today with a reading from the Sermon on the Mount,

“Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is life not more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

“…Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

“… But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:25-34)

Family, the Will

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Armodoxy for Today: Family

A beautiful tradition exists in America, a day to honor mothers and another day to honor fathers. Just before the Summer, on the second Sunday in May and on the third Sunday in June we celebrate Mother’s and Father’s Day.

Biological ties are the first indicators of parental designation. We each have a biological mother and a biological father. As we know, parents come in all forms and types and sometimes the biological connection takes a secondary position to someone who has nurtured, cared and loved an individual.

Jesus identified family not by biological links, but by the love and care we show towards him. In the Gospel of Matthew, we read that, as Jesus was teaching, someone approached and said, “’Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.’ But Jesus answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” (12:46-50) The other synoptic Gospels also record incidents such as this with the same definition of family tie.

For Jesus, its very clear, family is defined by ties that demonstrate our love. “Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Furthermore, as Armenians our names end in “ian” (or “yan”). The “ian” suffix means “the family of.” Petrosian is the family of Petros, or Peterson. Davidian is the family of David or Davidson. And it only follows that a “Christian” is a person who belongs to the family of Christ. Jesus spells it out very nicely, that to be a Christian means we accept the call, and we do the will of God.

We pray in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As children of God, we take it upon ourselves to do the will of God. We become the agents by which God’s will is done on earth.

Let us pray Psalm 40, “Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare. Sacrifice and offering you did not desire… I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.”

Expo Exploit

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Next Step #774 – May 11, 2023 – A young boy, age 20, dies as a “martyr” in Armenia and enters a news cycle with interest but no action. Armenia, more than a Jeopardy trivia question. Christian requirement to “do” by Jesus. Inhumanity to man, quickly forgotten as weapons of war are sold to those who continue genocide. News for what? Discovered: John 21:25 is not hyperbole! Exploiting in the Christian sense. AI in its earlier manifestations: Cheers and Archie Bunker paved the way?
Links:
Archbishop Bargev Martirosyan on “Unity”
Cheers Set for Auction
20 Years Ago Today series
Exponentially Explained
Donavan Jennifer Juniper
Produced by Suzie Shatarevyan for http://Epostle.net
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Epilogue

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Epilogue

The Gospel of St. John ends with the words, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.” (21:25)

I have always assumed that this was hyperbole, an exaggerated statement not meant to be taken literally. After all, the Gospel narrative accounts for three years of Jesus’ life, from baptism to resurrection. And technically, St. John’s account can be spread over a single year. Even if there was an event or miracle recorded every minute of his wake life, the recording process would not be prohibited by the amount of space on the planet.

St. John writes these words after his account of the Resurrection and during the time that the Christian community was organizing, and the Church was placing roots as it expanded. After the Resurrection of Christ, the message was spreading like wildfire, as more and more people were experiencing a new mindset, where death was no longer to be feared and God’s love was readily available to all.

Over the last several weeks (since Easter), I have presented the work of the Armenian Church Youth Ministries Center from 2003 on. The series, called “It was 20 years ago today,” chronicled miracles and events that took place from a small church which was built on a faith in the power of resurrection over crucifixion, light over darkness, love over hatred. As I wrote the last entry, I realized there was so much more that I could have recorded, so much more that should be shared, so much more, that perhaps there might not be enough space or time to write it down. No, these words are not hyperbole, rather they reflect a genuine understanding of the impact the Christian message has had on the lives of people. One person who moves from hurt to healing, is multiplied by the number of people he or she affects in and with his or her life.

Now, in the case of Christ, the Son of God, manifesting the Divine Spirit in our world, can we possibly even fathom the effect the Incarnation had on the world. The passage we read above is the epilogue to St. John’s Gospel. It is the ending to a Gospel that started off, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

The Light is all consuming, all revealing, and with the Light, there can be no darkness.

We pray the prayer of St. Nersess Shnorhali from the 21st hour.
O Christ, True Light, make my soul worthy to behold with joy the light of Your glory, in that day when You call me, to rest in the hope of good things in the mansions of the just until the day of Your glorious coming. Have mercy upon Your Creatures and upon me, a great sinner. 

Cover: Tech festival, Yerevan 2014, Fr. Vazken

On Earth as in Heaven

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Communications is the glue that holds society together ~Apple Computer, 1984 ad campaign.

Twenty Years Ago an experiment took place on the streets of Glendale. Since Easter I have shared with you stories from the Armenian Church Youth Ministry Center, nestled in an area that was ignored by Armenian organizations, a place where education, identity and prayer came together.

Today’s Episode: And then we rolled out our greatest weapon, communications. Epostle.net becomes real.

The Youth Ministries gave me an opportunity to explore and exploit the latest trends in technology, namely the blossoming self-broadcasting trends and podcasting. Enter Suzie Shatarevyan, a young lady with a passion for the ministry, computing and the remarkable innate talent to actually bring it all together.

The Church has always pioneered the use of technology. Think of the printing press, a means of sharing information on a mass scale and the printing of the Bible. In the Armenian world, the first prayer book to be printed was called “Oorbat” or “Friday” and rolled off the press to bring God’s presence in written form to the masses. Earlier, in art, from early tapestries, to the use of special dies in miniatures, to icons, to frescos, the Church has used the tools that have been at the cutting edge of the technology.

By the time we landed at the Youth Ministries’ Center we were already heavily using technology to promote our Armenian Christian faith. We were a regular feature on the Glendale TV show produced by Vatche Mangassarian. We originally came on as a guest and soon it was obvious that we needed our own platform. Vatche provided the technical side and I provided the content. We produced weekly shows promoting the Armenian Church, via the St. Gregory the Illuminator Church in Pasadena. Talin Kazanjian produced these shows and Tamar Papirian Khatchadourian was the commentator while I gave the spiritual message. Each show was presented in Armenian and English which was a novelty in the Glendale market, and arguable, still is.

From there, we were approached by Japonica Partners in New York. They asked us to produce and broadcast the Divine Liturgy on the Internet. The first official Epostle broadcast took place on Easter Sunday, April 23, 2000. With the same team of Talin and Tamar. By today’s standards, our systems were primitive, we extended cables and couplers to modems and phone lines and simulcast the traditional Armenian Divine Liturgy with overdubbed English explanation. It worked!

I will never forget the note I received the day after Easter: Thank you for the Easter Broadcast. This was the first year that my father was going to miss Easter service because of his failing health. That morning, he wore his suit, cleaned up, shaved and sat in front of my computer and listened to the entire service, from end to end. He received the blessing. Christ is Risen!

The power afforded us by computer technology was a game changer. It moved us forward exponentially. Suzie came on board and offered her computer know-how and skills as a volunteer at the center. She maintained a full-time job at the Loyola Law School, and still managed to offer 30-40 hours a week to the ministry. It was the kind of dedication that was needed to become the foundation for Epostle.net. She put together the church’s website and the early social media pages (My Space, My Church et al). We began recording sermons in audio and visual formats and distributed them in hard-format, on CDs and DVDs. A parishioner donated a DVD/CD duplicator machine. During the week, volunteers duplicated sermons and educational programs from the Youth Ministries Center. Those CDs were then packaged and distributed Sunday mornings, on college campuses, local businesses and by mail.

By 2008 we were ready to make the plunge into podcasting. I was following a pioneer, Fr. Roderick on his podcasts and realized that the hardest part would be to start. Suzie took the edge off of that hardness and set up the entire production of what we named “The Next Step with Fr. Vazken.” It launched on June 18, 2008. We added the “dot net” to our Epostle brand and we moved from CDs to podcasting.

Steve Jobs had introduced the iPhone only a year earlier and podcasting was in its infancy. In November 2008, the Thanksgiving edition of the Next Step was featured on the cover page of Apple’s Music program iTunes, spiking our listener base by several thousand. Some call it luck, I called it a blessing, that is, luck without the element of chance.

Through the years we stirred the pot with special features such as “Ani Bubbles” a series of bright blessings produced by Ani Burr Simonoff. We pushed the limits in many ways by constantly exploring the edges of technology. At the time there were podcasting conventions, which we attended to learn and share. Once Suzie, my sister Anush and I took rented a blue convertible Mustang and drove out to Las Vegas for a day of meeting podcasters in what was a hobby burgeoning into an industry.

Suzie was and continues to be on the production end of Epostle.net.

In the “Our Father” prayer, Jesus instructs us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” To pray that prayer means that first we accept the responsibility of being the agent by which God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Often when we discuss the ministry and church, we forget that it all comes together because of very special people who accept that challenge. Some say we were lucky, others say it was good fortune, I name it blessed, luck without the element of chance to have the quality and caliber of volunteers who make the Ministry the miracle it was.

From this simple but sacred church on a corner across the cluster of schools, the Christian Gospel of light over darkness, life over death, love over hatred was preached and witnessed. The miracles were many and unforgettable by everyone who attended and called this church home. Sunday mornings we celebrated the Badarak, Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church, and that celebration continued throughout the week as we celebrated life and walked in the shoes of others.

Mindset Change-2

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Untold stories from the Armenian Church Youth Ministries Center

Today’s Episode: Changing Mindset 2

As we wind down this series “It was 20 years ago today” before the feast of Ascension (40 days after Easter), we’re taking a look at two of the biggest miracles we experienced changing the mindset of the community, and opening the doors for what is possible in and through the Armenian Church. Yesterday we looked at forgiveness within the community, today we look at the community itself. Both of these mindset changes have to do with the acceptance of reality.

Armenians rightfully take pride in the historic reality that Armenia was the first Christian nation. The operative word for us today is was. The first Christian nation belongs to the 4th Century, while the decedents of that nations, well, ideally, belong to the 21st century, removed by over 1700 years since that nation-changing event. To take claim to that Light of Life that Illuminated Armenia in 301 A.D., the connection has to be justified. The Jews of Jesus’ time tried to justify themselves before him by claiming to be heirs of Abraham, to which Christ responds, “And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”

We can hear the same voice asking Armenians, “And you not suppose that God can create the children of the Armenian nation out of these stones?” In other words, the past is gone, what are you doing to justify your position as children/heirs of the first Christian nation? The challenge we had before ourselves was to change the mindset of pride to a mindset of responsibility.

In 2005, when His Holiness Karekin II, the Catholicos of All Armenians made his pontifical visit to the United States, two of us from the Armenian Church Youth Ministry Center were asked to participate in a symposium held at the University of Southern California. Dr. Dekmejian spoke about the a plan for growth in the Armenian Church utilizing basic ideas of faith-building. My topic was “Globalization and the Armenian Church.” At the end of the conference, His Holiness took both of these plans back to Armenia as a game-plan for the Armenian Church in the 21st century. The idea was simple: we in the Armenian Church have much to offer the world in terms of the being the oldest Christian tradition on earth. At the same time, we have a lot to learn from communities that have adapted to the realities of the day.

One of those communities we looked at was the African American community in the United States. Often we Armenians are compared to the Jewish community primarily because of the connection of Genocide. But a comparison to the African American community has many more parallels. Unlike the Jews who were in Europe leading to the Holocaust, Armenians were residing in their historic homeland. The Nuremberg Trials were held in the 1940s, an international war crimes tribunal which revealed the true extent of German atrocities and held some of the most prominent Nazis accountable for their crimes. Germany accepted responsibility and reparations were made.

Through the years I had read and heard (in recordings) the great Civil Rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His words moved and inspired me. In particular his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” I found to be one of the most eloquent pieces of Christian writing, in any age, and one that reverberated in my heart. It spoke to the plight of the Armenian people and Armenian Church, as much as it did to that of the African American population and the Black church. I must say here, that King would go out of his way to emphasize that in light of all of the accolades, degrees and titles that could be used to identify him, first and foremost he was a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Beginning on the first year at the Youth Ministries Center and continuing every year thereafter, we organized Martin Luther King “Retreats” where we would take away groups, mostly young in age/young at heart, to study the works of King, side-by-side to the writings and teachings of Armenian Church leaders such as Khirimian Hayrig, St. Nersess Shnorhali, St. Gregory of Narek and St. Gregory of Datev. We studied and then challenged participants to walk the path forged by Jesus and followed by these most incredible leaders and students of Christianity.

The mindset began to change, ever so slowly, but it did. The majority of our congregation at the church and center were immigrants. They started understanding the huge responsibility they had as children of the Armenian Church. They were hurting from their experiences and were empathetic to others in pain. They would attend rallies in support of Domestic Violence, walking hand-in-hand with survivors, in marches organized on the streets of Glendale and Burbank. They produced a video “Greetings of Hope” as a message to refugees of the Genocide in Darfur. They extended themselves to the poor and the needy. The miracle happened, they saw themselves as representatives of the Resurrection, not as victims of a crucifixion.

The waves of change are not easy to land. There was opposition to these altruistic efforts from Armenian American leadership who could not see beyond their noses. But we were persistent. I used every opportunity that I could to get the message out. From the pulpit, of course, but I also spoke on college campuses, at High School Baccalaureates, at retreats and seminar, and on television and radio interviews. There is a song that the freedom fighters during the Armenian Genocide would sing, Միայն զէնքով կայ հայոց փրկութիւն = Armenian’s salvation is only through the gun. I had the audacity to quote this in interviews and then add that the greatest gun or weapon that we have is our capacity to love and to give. Interviewers didn’t know whether to censor me or pretend I didn’t say it so that it could be dismissed. But we continued. And then we rolled out our greatest weapon, the electronic forum = Epostle dot net.

Join me tomorrow as we tie up “20 Years ago today” with the miracle of apostolic evangelism for an electronic world.

Cover: At the House of Blues – Mike Geragos leads the singing at the IHS MLK Retreat, circa 2010

Below: Pictures from various MLK Retreats

Mindset change

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Untold stories from the Armenian Church Youth Ministries Center

Today’s Episode: Changing Mindset

Miracles are transformational. On the surface, they seem to change the appearance or the make up of an entity. Water becomes solid and Jesus walks on it and we say that it is a miracle. Two fish and five loaves feed thousands, that too is a miracle of form.

Immediately after the first Easter, the Christian Church went through a major transformational period, trying to deal with the Miracle of miracles, namely that Jesus had resurrected from the dead. The first gospel message, “Christ has risen” shook the foundation of humanity. No longer was death to be feared. The door to eternity was open and even more, the Kingdom of God was accessible to everyone.

The early Church, what we refer to as the Apostolic Church, was defining the new reality, a reality which donned the name Christian. It was changing the mindset of the people. No longer were they confined to the rules and regulations of old but were empowered to maximize the life God had given them. When Jesus offers the parable of the talents, he is breaking the limits we impose on ourselves, and presents humanity with courage to multiply God’s goodness many times over by living the blessing of life.

As we wind down this series “It was 20 years ago today” before the feast of Ascension (40 days after Easter), I’d like to look at two of the biggest miracles we experienced which changed the mindset of the community, and opened the door for what is possible in and through the Armenian Church. Both mindset changes have to do with the acceptance of reality.

The year 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Armenians had it on their radar just as they had the 97th, 98th and 99th year. It was an opportunity to remind the world of the atrocities committed against the Armenian people in their ancestral homeland by the Ottoman Turks. Over the last several weeks you’ve heard the stories that came from the corner. It was about resurrection, it was about renew and it was about living our Christian faith, not as a slogan (“First Christian Nation”) but as a way of life. The challenge we had at the 100th anniversary, how do we present the Armenian Genocide in such away to prevent anyone walking away with even more hatred? Think of our dilemma, how do we present the slaughter of 1.5 million people so that the listener will not be fueled with hatred and animosity against another group of people? In other words, it would be hypocritical to talk about love and peace while inciting hatred and/or war?

We began with a project on April 24, 2005, on the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. We took young Armenians to the desert, and we made a human chain of “sevens.” We dressed up in the t-shirts that had the formula “7×77” on the front, and on the back, the question that incited the answer: “Lord, how many times must I forgive someone who has hurt me.” (Matthew 18:21-22) Watch video

By positioning our palms, one up and the other down, we formed a human chain. Artist Gregory Beylerian photographed this event. Ninety years earlier, our grandparents had been exiled to the desert and now the grandkids were in the desert embodying the “Jesus formula.”

That event got us talking where we had dropped off with John Lennon’s death, “Imagine there is no country… living life in peace.”  Our conversations manifested an event on July 7, 2007. It was the first conference on forgiveness. It was sponsored by In His Shoes, We Care for Youth and held at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. It received incredible media coverage throughout Southern California. We had speakers who had survived the Genocide in Rwanda, as well as Leticia Aguirre who had found the courage to forgive her son’s killers. This time, the artist constructed a “Universal Wheel of Peace” again using the participants to embody the sevens. (www.7×77.org)

The conversation about forgiveness grew on that corner in Glendale. From domestic violence, to gang wars, to articulating a identity void of hatred and evil, we arrived at the 100th anniversary. With Gregory Beylerian we constructed a portal, where visitors could come and experience the Armenian reality of resurrection. We engaged the students of the Armenian day schools in the challenge of talking about Genocide without anger, but with respect and dignity. Armenians, for the first time since the Genocide of their ancestors, were commemorating with a focus on the Resurrection of a people. That year, the Armenian Church proclaimed the Martyrs of 1915 as saints of the Church. Armenians were no longer victims, but victors in Christ. This is the Faith of the Church. Of course, the secular community had difficulty grasping this, but in small doses, the mindset changes.

As I said, changing a mindset is a major miracle. We prayed and focused on the Resurrection of Christ. It is what led the early Church and today that message, as applied to the Armenian people, is just as powerful. It can change the way we understand ourselves, our world and our relationship with God.

Cover Photo: Gregory Beylerian, 2005

My beautiful picture