What Must I Do To Be Saved?

A Protestant acquaintance of mine was able to hear Archbishop Joseph speak this past weekend.  He was impressed and (perhaps half jokingly) wrote to me referring to those who heard St. Peter's first sermon: "what must I do to be saved?"  He also wrote later, "what must I do to repent?"  Below is my response.  Perhaps others will find it interesting.

I'm glad you were able to be there.  Yes, His Eminence, Archbishop Joseph, is a godly man.  

You are asking the right questions—they are really the same question.  Sts. Paul and Silas said to the Philippian Jailer, "Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved and your household."  But what does that mean?  The western, particularly Protestant, tradition has reduced "believe" to an intellectual ascent to the verity of an assertion (the Wesleyans and their children [including Pentecostals] have added a feeling component]).  However the Greek concept of belief is much more along the lines of the old English meaning of faith or fealty, as in "faithfulness."  To believe is to be faithful.  It does not mean "believe or accept the correct propositions."  Neither does it mean "feel a warming in your heart" or "know in your knower" (as my beloved Baptist foster mother used to say).  Knowing, feeling and accepting are all part of it; but to believe in Jesus is to faithfully follow Jesus.  That is how the Church and the Bible understands believe.  

How do we follow Jesus?  We follow Jesus by following those who are following Jesus.  As St. Paul put it, follow me as I follow Christ (c.f. 1Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 1 Thes. 1:6; 2:14; 2 Thes. 3:7) and "hold fast to the traditions which you were taught by us" (2 Thes. 2:15).  The Way, the worship, life, and practice of the Christians is not something reinvented each generation, it is something passed on as a deposit received: it is a tradition.  See, for example,  1 Cor. 15: 3 "I delivered [paradidomi, literally, "I traditioned"] to you as of first importance what I received…" or 1 Cor. 11: 23 "I received from the Lord what I also delivered ["traditioned"] unto you…"

Because of the mess Scholastic thought made of the western Church in the late middle ages and the rampant corruption, several people sought to reform the Church.  But instead of reforming the Church, the Princes used the excuse of reformation for political ends.  And once the reforming movement left the Church, all kinds of extreme expressions manifested and, you might say, the baby of Tradition was thrown out with the bath water of corruption—only to be replace by new forms of corruption.

What I and others have found so appealing about Eastern Orthodox Christianity is that it has preserved, basically intact, the Tradition as it has been received and passed down through the ages.  The western experiences of Renaissance, Scholasticism, Reformation, Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Modernity were hardly felt in the areas of the Orthodox Christians since they were largely under the dominion of the Turks or in far-off Russia; or, in a few cases, because Orthodox leaders intentionally rejected as heretical the foundational premises of these western shifts in thought.  This is not to say that Orthodox Christians are backward—many famous contemporary scholars are Orthodox Christians.  Rather, it is to say that the Orthodox Church itself was not morphed and formed in the crucible of these major paradigm shifts as western Christian churches were.

When an Orthodox Christian speaks of being saved, he or she does not understand the term juridically.  That is, salvation is not a matter of being reprieved before the Judge of all.  Rather, to be saved is to renew the image of God in which we were created, an image that has been marred, but not destroyed, by sin.  To be saved is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, manifested by the fruit of the Spirit and the Life of Christ.  Salvation is a process, it is a transformation, a transfiguration—in and through time.  It requires on-goning repentance.  Repentance is not something we do once, it is our lifestyle: We are continually putting off our broken selves and putting on our new selves, being renewed in the image of Christ (c.f. Col. 3:10).

So, to be saved, you must follow Christ; and to follow Christ, you must follow those who are following Christ: those who have received and who are passing on the tradition delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).

My Friend, I hope you don't think I have been too bold writing to you so directly.  I respect your faith and your relationship with Jesus Christ.  I don't doubt that.  It's just that in Orthodox Christianity there is a whole Church, a whole Tradition of being a Christian that has been largely lost in the West.  And I and others have found Life and Peace and sanity here.

What Do You Want From Life?

Considering what they have done to their lives, if people lived eternally in this life, there would be no greater hell.

Elder Paisios

Back in the mid 70s, when I was a teenager, I had a foster brother who listened to a punk rock group called The Tubes. I never liked loud music, so didn't much know about contemporary pop music. However, my foster brother made me listen to The Tube's album over and over again. Soon I began to understand the words, and the words of two songs have stayed with me.

One song is entitled, "We're White Punks on Dope".

We're white punks on dope
Mom and Dad live in Hollywood
Hang myself when I get enough rope
Can't clean up though I know I should...

It was a song of despair, about having all the stuff, yet being so bored and lonely that the only apparent escape was drug induced highs followed eventually by suicide. Although this was not my experience as a teenager, I observed it all around me. It is exactly as Elder Paisios says, "Worldly stress is the result of worldly happiness."

The other song, the one that most comes to my mind even today is entitled, "What Do You Want From Life."  The refrain is repeated several times as the song proposes increasingly real desires. In the penultimate verse, we get to perhaps the deepest, most real, desire of the lyricist:


What do you want from life
Someone to love
and somebody that you can trust
What do you want from life
To try and be happy
while you do the nasty things you must


Then the very next line says, "Well, you can't have that; but if you're an American Citizen, you are entitled to..."  which is followed by an amazingly long list of consumer goods and pop culture trifle.

What do I want from life?

I often ask myself that question. It is so easy to be captivated by stuff. My spiritual father says that the Garden of Eden is not so much about something that happened in the past as it is the story of every human heart. Adam, Eve, the Garden, the serpent and God are all in the human heart. Every day we are reaching out for the forbidden fruit, ashamed of past failures, hiding from God, repenting and walking with God in the cool of the evening. What do I want from life? The serpent whispers constantly in my ear. Stuff looks so alluring. What everyone is talking about must be what is worthwhile, right? Yesterday I took the fruit and repented of it, yet today the fruit still has a pull on me. What do I want from life?

Courage is called for. "Wide is the path and easy is the way that leads to destruction." It takes courage to say no to the Stuff. It takes courage to say no to ourselves.

Heaven and hell begin for us in time and move into eternity. We choose heaven or hell, not in a moment, but throughout our lives. We repent. We learn. We grow. We even walk a little with God in the cool of the evening--if that is what we want, if that is what we long for.

What do you want from life?

An Arch-Surprise

Yesterday, His Eminence Archbishop Joseph, made a pastoral visit to Holy Nativity. As always, it was beautiful. It is a joy to get to spend a little time with His Eminence during his visit, for usually I only see him at seminars or conferences when he is surrounded by seventy or eighty priests and hundreds of parishioners. It is so nice to get him to myself every once in a while (well, almost to myself).  

Of course, since I don't get to serve Hierarchical Divine Liturgy very often any more, I made several small mistakes in serving. When I was deacon, I served often with His Eminence; so after a rough start, I finally became comfortable not only with the rubrics of the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy, but also with serving with Bishop Joseph. Although the Liturgy is always the same, every Bishop or Priest has idiosyncrasies, and these effect the rhythm of the service. The more you can pray the Liturgy, the more prayerful it becomes. When you don't have to think "What do I have to do next?" you can let your mind focus more on the Presence of God. However, since I became a priest, I don't serve regularly with His Eminence, so I am anxious that I will forget something--which, of course, is 80% of the reason why I mixed a few things up.

As we came to the Gospel reading, instead of asking the deacon to read the Gospel, His Eminence asked me to read it. Then the real surprise came, His Eminence told me to kneel down: He elevated me to Archpriest. It seems my sly wife and a few of the parishioners had known for months that this would happen, but no one told me.  

Our parish council Chair had commissioned a woodworker, Jerome Beley, to carve a pectoral cross. It is amazing work. I think it is yellow cedar--I will ask him.  

It is an honour to be made an archpriest. "Arch" means something like "original pattern" or "leading," but not necessarily leading in the sense of going first, but in the sense of setting the example. May God grant that I would show forth somewhat of the original pattern--Who is Jesus Christ. He is our Archpriest and Archpastor. For the Christian, the only true Arch-anything is Jesus Christ. Those whom we call Archpriest we only do so in as much as they show forth--at least in some small ways--the Archpriesthood of Jesus Christ.

But What Does the Bible Say?

In one of his mini-talks about the history of Anglicanism, Professor Ron Dart speaks of Erasmus and the the Church Fathers.  In that talk, Professor Dart relates a bit of correspondence between St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Jerome, translator of the Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible that was used by western Christianity for almost 1500 years).

In this correspondence Augustine asks Jerome how to translate a particular passage from a letter of St. Paul.  Jerome responds by citing several different Church Fathers saying this one says one thing, that one says another and a third says something else.  Augustine writes back, "But what does the Bible say?"  Jerome responds, that the very reason why we read the Holy Fathers is that the Bible is not clear.   Many passages can and have been read one way by one holy Father and differently by another holy Father.

When I was a young Protestant, I was told that the Bible is God's handbook.  It is the guide to Christian life.  Certainly this is true, but a problem lies in what we think a handbook is.  If we think that the Bible is a handbook like the Betty Crocker Cookbook, then we cannot help twisting and perverting what the Bible says to fit our expectations and then denouncing as fools or demoniacs those who twist the Bible differently to meet their expectations.  And that, pretty much, was my Protestant experience.  People read the Bible and get something from it that is different from what their neighbor is getting and end up condemning their neighbor because they read some biblical passages differently.  This is where the thousands of different Protestant denominations have come from.

But what if we understand "guidebook" differently?   What if the Bible is a guide book like the diary of pioneer might be considered a guide book for those who follow.  Such a diary would certainly be a valuable guide to those who plan to follow the pioneer, even though the diary was not written to be a guide.  It was written as a diary.  And certainly, letters written by other pioneers would also be useful to help guide those who follow.  But again, as useful as these letters might be as a guide, they were not written as a guidebook, but as letters to specific people about specific matters at a specific time.  And what if we were to add to this guidebook poetry, historical records, songs, records of dire warnings of historic events now long past and other writings--all written over a 1500 year period in three languages.  Certainly, all of this would be useful, but it would not be easy to interpret, understand and apply.

And yes, even with the Holy Spirit breathing through the pages of such a guidebook, still it would not be easy to interpret, understand, and apply.  All we have to do is look at the evidence.  Holy people who have spent most of their lives reading and studying the Bible still do not agree on everything. 

And I think that was St. Jerome's point.  

We want so much to have something firm to base our syllogisms on.  We want to remove mystery from our foundations so that we can rely on our speculations, on our logical extrapolations of first principles. We much prefer being philosophers to being theologians.  Philosophy extrapolates from firm givens, theology (in the Eastern Orthodox sense) only knows, knows from experience of God.  Very little can be proven, yet much is known.  And much is messy.

I think that may have been what bothered St. Augustine about St. Jerome's response.  St. Jerome acknowledged the messiness of theology.  St. Jerome could be at peace with three holy Fathers each interpreting a passage differently; perhaps St. Augustine couldn't.  And perhaps all of us (especially in the West) struggle at times with the messiness of Orthodox Christian theology.  We want to know the answer, as though the answer were a statement and not a Person.  We want to know the right position on some matter, a matter that perhaps even the Holy Fathers have seen differently.  We want to know which ones are right.

But Christ is the only sinless One.  Our righteousness and rightness is in Christ alone--not in being correct over against someone else.  The Orthodox Church puts a great deal of emphasis on right believing.  But the actual dogma that the Orthodox Church demands us to rightly believe is not very large--it is all found in the Creed of Nicaea.  And as important as it is to believe the right doctrines, the Orthodox Church teaches us that in the Last Judgement before God, no one will be questioned about what they did or did not believe.  In the end, what will matter is how we have loved, how we have cared for "the least of these, and how what we have believed has helped us enter the Mystery of Life in the Incarnate God.  

The prophets of the Old Testament warned God's people in the past that right belief, as important as it is, is not enough.  In fact, even those without right faith--Ninivites, Moabites, Samaritains and others--found salvation from God through repentance and trust in God.  How easily we forget the teaching of Jesus: Judgement is not based on what we believe but on whom we believe.

Perhaps that's why God has allowed Orthodox theology to be so messy: to remind us that Transfiguration comes through communion with God, love of neighbor and humility (knowledge of self), not through being right.

With Pain and Love, Elder Paisios, and What Makes All The Difference

I'm reading With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man, volume one of the five volume "Spiritual Counsels" of Elder Paisios of Mount Athos (it is a collection of his sayings recorded by his spiritual children). I'm finding myself blessed reading it. There is much, however, that doesn't directly apply to a Canadian context--his counsels on curses and the evil eye, for example do not directly apply to the contemporary Canadian context. I'm not saying that these things don't exist in contemporary Canada, but we generally understand such phenomena in a  different paradigm--not necessarily a better or more accurate paradigm, just a different paradigm.

Still, as I am reading I experience a certain joy, an imparting of Life, Insight and Truth. I felt this way reading Father Arseny: 1893-1973 Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father; Mother Gavrila: Ascetic of Love; and Saint Nektarios: The Saint of our Century by Sotos Chondropoulos. However, this is not what I experience when I read many other contemporary elders. With some I experience a kind of heaviness. I read some of these books with the sense that I should be getting life from the book: others say they have, but I don't. I push myself, but seldom get more than halfway through. It's not that I disagree with anything particular that the elder says, nor that I don't see the truth of what he or she is saying. It's just that the book does not overflow with Life for me.

Recently, I spoke with and older priest in a neighbouring parish, an archimandrite (celibate priest), about this. He said that this is exactly the reason why we need to be guided in what we read. There are all sorts of Orthodox literature out there--especially on the internet. And those on the margins seem to shout the loudest. And even the material of unquestioned quality may be written for an audience very different from the typical western-educated Canadian. Literature written to speak to the spiritual needs of peasants in the Balkans a hundred ago, or written for highly educated monks in the fifteenth century may be exactly the wrong literature to bring Life to a Protestant convert mom struggling to raise three children in suburban Vancouver. And it may also be that the book or article is just not very full of Grace. There may be nothing particularly wrong with it, with the facts or the statements. It just doesn't overflow with Life.

Even as a priest sometimes I struggle, wondering if it's "just me," or if there is something not quite right with the material I am reading or it's fit for my life. As I was discussing this with my archimandrite friend, I mentioned that I was reading With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man, and what a feeling of Life I am getting from the book. My friend told me that he had not read the book, but he had known Elder Paisios himself.

My friend had visited Elder Paisios twice on Mount Athos about thirty years ago. The second time he waited several hours outside his cell (the elder had gone for a walk) for Elder Paisios to return so that he could hear his confession. As soon as my friend began speaking about Elder Paisios, his face lit up--really lit up. He said that you can always tell a holy elder by the way he deals with confession: "Does he make you heavy or make a way for you to go forward? " 

"The thing about Elder Paisios," my friend said, "was that he lived it. He did not write about how to live or go about telling others how to live, he just lived the life with God himself. That makes all of the difference."  

Yes, that does make all of the difference.  

Receiving the Bishop

The bishop will be visiting Holy Nativity next weekend. This is a huge event in the life of our community. In an iconic way, it is Christ, the Head of our community, coming to be with us. How we receive the bishop is an icon of our receiving Christ. And yet, the bishop is but a man--a good man, a holy man--but only a man.

Throughout scripture and Christian history, God has chosen to use the material realities of our existence to manifest the spiritual realities. Bread, wine, oil and water, these bring the presence of God to us. But not only inert objects, but also certain people are chosen and set apart to serve as icons within the community of the Church, to stand as priests offering to God the gifts of the people (and through the gifts the people themselves) and bringing to the people the Gifts of God (and through them God Himself). However, there is nothing automatic about our participation in or even awareness of this Spirit bearing matter.

How we prepare ourselves spiritually makes a huge difference in how we experience the material sacraments, icons and symbols. As we nurture the quiet, inner life with God, the impact and meaning of the outer, sacramental life takes on more significance to us. Preparing to meet the bishop is similar to preparing to venerate an icon. Ideally, when we venerate an icon, we stand before it a moment in prayer. We stand with attention: outwardly standing respectfully and inwardly attending to God in prayer. When we greet the bishop we come to him respectfully asking his blessing ("master bless") and kissing his hand. Inwardly, we are looking to Christ, in our minds bowing before Christ and receiving His blessing in the bishop's blessing.

For Orthodox Christians, all of the material world and every human relationship has the potential of being an encounter with God. What each encounter is to us, however, depends a great deal on how our hearts and minds are spiritually prepared. We prepare spiritually through repentance (changing our minds) which is both facilitated and manifested through ascetic effort. Ascetic effort is the name given to the disciplines Jesus exhorts us to in the Sermon On The Mountain: prayer, fasting, alms giving and forgiveness--all done in secret. "In secret" has at least two meanings. Outwardly, in secret refers to ascetic effort not done to be seen by others. However, in secret also refers to the hidden place of our heart. "Go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your Father in secret." This has been interpreted by the Church Fathers to refer to the inner room of our heart.

When fasting, prayer, alms giving and forgiveness are matters of the heart, repentance is both brought about and manifest. The repentance of changing our minds, or renewing our minds to use St. Paul's phrase, helps change the way we see and encounter the world. Eventually, we are told by the saints and in the scripture, all physical reality is the Word of God. Every human being is Christ coming to us. However, in the beginning we learn to encounter the world as Christians in the "hospital" that God has provided: the Church. The sacraments, icons and symbols of the Church teach us how to encounter physical reality as Spirit bearing and how to relate to other human beings. We need the Church, this school of spiritual sight, because seeing with spiritual insight requires that we learn discernment.

Discernment is the ability to separate what is good, true and eternal from what is broken, false and passing away. And in the world in which we live, the good, true and eternal is bound up with what is broken, false and passing away: "We have this treasure in earthen vessels." God has given us the Church as a school, as a hospital, as a kind of spiritual therapy centre where we are told in advance what the spiritual meanings of things are, told in words, signs, rituals and traditions; but at the same time we must encounter these spiritual realities in their fully material form. The bread and wine are Christ--even if the bread needs more salt and the wine is too sweet. Water is the tomb of Christ and we enter this water to die with Christ and rise with Him in a new life--even if the water is too cold. And the bishop is Christ in the community; his blessing is Christ's blessing; his words are Christ's words, even if the bishop as a man makes mistakes, forgets your name or is distracted by pain or cares or any of the hundreds of other possible distractions that human beings must endure. What is whole is hidden in what is broken.

Discernment allows us to see what is whole. And not only see it, but when we discern what is good and true and eternal, we experience the good and true and eternal despite whatever failings and weakness may be bearing it. We can experience Christ coming to us as a man by discerning what is good, true and eternal in all of the words, rites and traditions that surround our bishop's visit to us. And as we learn to discern Christ in the coming of the bishop, we become more able to discern Christ in every person.

Is Religion the Root of War?

It is an interesting irony that people who generally have very little regard for power of any religion can have an extremely high regard for a religion's power to cause people to go to war.

It seems to me that people use all sorts of reasons to justify war. Nowadays, religion is actually not a very common reason. People nowadays mostly justify wars for reasons of National Security, or for freedom, or to topple a dictator. Really, religion is only seldom mentioned any more. However, several hundred years ago in Europe, much like in the Middle East today, religion was pervasive. People not only went to war for religious reasons, they milked the cow for religious reasons, they raised their children for religious reasons, they cleaned the house for religious reasons, everything they did was for religious reasons: religion pervaded their whole life.  

So today when we hear Middle Easterners and others who have an all-prevading religious culture talk about holy war, they are not speaking of anything particularly holy--at least not any more or less holy than a holy bath or a holy meal or a holy trip. "Holy" as an adjective can be and often is attached to just about anything in life when one lives in a culture pervaded by religion.  

I think those who blame war on religion are really just looking for a soft target, a scape goat (which, again ironically, is a religious concept). Life is complicated. In my lifetime I have heard compelling arguments claiming that the primary cause of war is class struggle, poverty, race inequality, communist ideology, and totalitarian governments. Is there a box for "any of the above"?  

St. James says that wars come from our desires, that it is the lusting for pleasures and the lack of self control that lead to war.  

The world is full of unfairness and inequalities. And to make matters worse, every human being has an insatiable desire for more of something: more money, more authority, more freedom, more whatever. To be clear, I'm all for doing what can be done in love to remove inequalities; but St. Paul teaches us that contentment is not a matter of what we have or don't have. Contentment is a matter of heart, and inequalities are only overcome through humility and love, not through taking and hating. No one likes this message though, the message of the Cross. It's just foolishness to the world.

Jesus said that until the end of the world there would be wars and talk of wars. After all, it is so much easier to take from and hate the other, than to humble myself and love. And so wars are inevitable. God calls us to humility and love despite inequalities. But humility and love do not mean silence. It is loving to tell the truth. We must speak the truth in love. But to reach out our hand and take--like Adam and Eve in the Garden--is only to perpetuate the suffering: To replace the socialist oppressor with a republican oppressor, to replace a communist inequality with a capitalist inequality, or even to replace a repressive Muslim regime with a repressive Christian regime--and to kill and destroy the lives of millions in the process. As an African proverb says, "When the elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers."

The Resurrection is Never Separated From the Cross

Easter visits us now while our concerns increase, our fears grow greater, destruction expands, evil intensifies and killing is everywhere and at all times. How can we celebrate the resurrection while our country is doomed, the number of hungry and displaced people is increasing? How can we live the resurrection when the cross is always present?

This is the mystery of Christ: “Through the cross joy came to the whole world.” There, where the Cross is, true resurrection is found too. Otherwise Pascha would only be mere poetry and chanting. The world does not like the cross. It seeks to abolish it, while it is surrounded by crosses on all sides. True believers would never have these crosses out of sight; they face them with the spirit of resurrection...
2013 Paschal Letter of His Beatitude, John X Patriarch of Antioch

In liturgical time, it is Pascha, it is Bright Week and "All is filled with Joy: heaven and earth and the deepest parts of the sea."  Yet the cross is not far away.  In the time of our everyday lives, crosses are all around us.  We ourselves, even as we liturgically celebrate Resurrection, may be suffering in a Garden of Gethsemane or even on a cross.  Or if not ourselves, we may be standing--like the Myrrh Bearing women and Beloved John--at the foot of the cross of another.  With them, we may be shedding tears and asking God, Why?  

This is the mystery of Christ, our Patriarch tells us.  The mystery of Christ is that through the Cross, joy came to the whole world....Otherwise Pascha would be mere poetry and chanting.  And this is, perhaps, why we have liturgical time.  We celebrate liturgically all of the events and aspects of our salvation because--were it merely up to our own experience in time--we might never remember Pascha and fall into despair; or we might in good times forget the cross, forgetting how God has loved us and how we ought to love our neighbor.  

There are times when I am tempted to anger.  I am tempted to be angry at God that the cross is necessary, that the Mystery of Resurrection is hidden in the cross.  But this happens less and less these days.  How can I be angry at God for what I myself have caused, for what I continue to promote through selfishness, willful ignorance and pride?  No, the cross and death, confusion and stupidity, pride and ignorance, all of these are my doing--my doing and the doing of all of humanity.  

But we have not been left alone.  God has come to us.  God has made a way out for us, a way that transforms what was merely death.  What was once merely the unavoidable end is now the doorway to a new and eternal life.  And the Good News doesn't stop there.  We don't have to wait until we die.  We don't have to wait until the next life to begin living the new eternal life.  Even as we die, yet we live!

This is a large part of what the liturgy of the Church is about.  Through the liturgical cycle of the year, through the prayers and the disciplines, through the incense and icons and candles and services in the middle of the night: through all of these the Church trains us to attend.  The Church helps us know and experience the new eternal life that is already ours even as we live and love and struggle in these bodies of death.  

"Christ is Risen" is no mere poetic wish.  "Christ is Risen" is the experience of the Church.  Yes, it is a mystical and paradoxical experience, but it is an experience that grows and removes from death its sting and from the grave its victory.

Thus the Christian mourns death--but not as one without hope.  Thus we die daily, but as often as we fall we rise again.  Thus we affirm what we know, even as we weep, even as we doubt, even as we wonder why: Christ is Risen.  Truly He is Risen!

Good Friday and Barbecue?

It's Good Friday.  The services don't begin until 3:00.  A holy person would probably spend the first part of the day in stillness.  I spend it cleaning my barbecue.  Yes, it is my annual pre-Pascha barbecue scrub and meditation.  

Beginners at prayer can seldom spend more than a little while at a time just sitting or standing in prayer.  We get fidgety.  When there is a lot of time that should be spent in quiet prayer, there is nothing so useful as a really messy job to keep people away, to keep my hands busy and to keep my mind from wandering (too much).  True, I don't say many prayers, per se, while I scrape and scrub; but it is a rather peaceful and very messy hour or two.  

Every year at the Pascha party, I get to run the barbecue.  Others offer to do it for me, but I fend them off.  I actually look forward to it every year.  We do the party potluck style, so I never know what kind of meat, fish, fowl or veggie to expect.  It's a fun challenge for me to get everything on and off and cooked to order.  I have to be mindful of what kind of heat and how much time each kind of food requires.  I get to chat with everyone, but I don't get drawn into any deep conversations: "Oops! Got a flare up to deal with!  Quick, go get me a cup of water!" 

And I love that we get lots of visitors, friends of friends, reluctant family members and neighbours.  It's a great mix.  This year my atheist French teacher is coming.  Even an atheist can enjoy the Light of Pascha.  She's a wonderful person (my atheist French teacher).  She's not the angry kind of atheist.  If I had to guess, I'd say she is the disappointed kind.  She doesn't mind "religious" people (though she does jab a little now and then for fun--just to see if we will squirm); she just hasn't herself found any reality in religion, only bad experiences with religious people.  I hope she has a great time and the Light of Pascha gently touches her heart.

Well I'd better get cleaned up and ready.  Good Friday services are always a powerful mix of sadness and expectation.

On Giving Our Lives To God

What does it mean to give our weaknesses to God? 

On a certain level, I don't know if I can explain what I mean by giving our weakness to God. I think it is something that one has to experience. The words point to something in one's relationship with God that others might explain differently. Nonetheless, let me try.

Since I was a teenager, I have wanted to be God's. I have wanted to follow God wholeheartedly. (If He is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all--I used to say.) Over the years, my understanding of what it means to follow God has changed, but a metaphor that has been perennially useful for me has been to give my life to God. It seems that at some important level there is an act of volition, an act of choosing, an act of offering. But even my understanding of what this means has become quite nuanced over the past fifteen or twenty years. Still I find the concept of giving my life to God a useful one. It helps me pray. It helps me find peace not only with God, but also with myself and the circumstances of my life (and I'm pretty sure all three are closely connected, for they meet in my heart).

For the sake of discussion, let me talk about three kinds of giving to God. These three roughly follow the line of my spiritual development. I say roughly because like the Ladder of Virtues or any other metaphor for growth, you never really leave one level for the next, but your understanding and experience of each level grows to include other levels.

When I was young, I understood giving to God in terms of "giving God your best." As an athlete, I imagined myself as an Olympian for Jesus--this was in the late 70s and the Jesus People movement was rampant. My goal was to use my talents for the Kingdom. I wanted to love God with all my strength (literally, my strengths). Weakness was to be strengthened, so that I would be more than a conquerer in Christ Jesus (c.f. Heb. 12:12 and Rom. 8:37).  

Such a view of giving one's life to God certainly keeps one busy, but inner quiet is hard to find. Prayer for me was a matter of leveraging "God's Will" as I thought I understood it against the circumstances of my life. There were, certainly, moments of Grace--sometimes amazing--but overall there was not much difference between giving my all for the team and giving my all to God. And then there were the huge personal failures of various kinds. Moral failures, failures of physical or mental weakness, failures of courage, and the general inability to reign in selfishness. And in addition my personal failures (as I saw them at the time) there was the unavoidable reality of circumstance. I began to realize (thank God) that to be faithful to God in any specific circumstance meant that I would also in one way or another end up being unfaithful.  

Let me explain. To marry a wife and be a faithful husband limits the level of faithfulness one can show to the homeless, for example. To be a faithful parent limits the extent to which one can be faithful to friends. Every specific circumstance of life calls for a faithfulness to God that limits one's ability to fulfill any kind of idealized faithfulness to God. This realization led me to a second kind of giving my life to God. That is, I came to give the circumstances of my life to God; or to put it differently, I came to accept that the circumstances of my life were from God's hand. I came to accept that I had to follow God and be faithful to God in the specific circumstances of my life, not in some other circumstance that I thought I should be in, that I imagined was "really" God's will for my life. This is what I mean by giving my circumstances to God. 

Giving my circumstances to God meant trusting that no matter how I got into the fix I was in, it was now God's will for me to be faithful to Him (and to the people around me) in that circumstance. I often struggled with God in prayer. I felt such a failure. So many of the strengths I had imagined that I would or should give to God were now seemingly impossible to give. It was impossible for me, for example, to spend much time in spiritual reading when to do so meant I had to keep telling my children to be quiet. Somehow, I knew it was right to love the people who were actually in my life even if that meant failing in my idealized personal disciplines, failing in my idealized way of serving God with my strengths. This failure caused inner pain; and this pain I learned to offer to God.  Literally, I said to God something like this: "You see how sad I am about this, but I don't know what else to do." The pain itself became a kind of prayer. This also is what I mean be giving my circumstances to God.

But then there were the failures, moral and otherwise. I knew that a big part of the reason why the circumstances of my life were as they were was because I had screwed up: I had not given my best to God (though at times I had so meant to), I had strayed from my first love, my courage or faith or love had failed. I didn't know what to do with these failures. Yes, I knew that God forgave me. But still, my weaknesses and the failures (what seemed to me to be failures) that came from my weaknesses overwhelmed me. I was stuck. I was broken. I had nothing to offer God, nothing that was not broken, no strength that was not tied to sin and weakness. However somewhere along the line, I think it was something my spiritual father said to me, I came to realize that my deep brokenness was no surprise to God.  

When I first heard of offering my weaknesses to God, I had no idea what it meant--well, actually, I thought I knew exactly what it meant and filed it away in my mind. I didn't know myself very well. But as I went through a season of my life that can, I think, best be described as a time of drowning in the awareness of my weaknesses, out of despair I could only pray, "You see who and what I am. Have mercy!" During that time (and now and again since) instead of saying the Jesus Prayer, I repeated the words of the Psalm, "Let none who wait on Thee be ashamed because of me" (Psalm 69:6). It was enough that I had screwed up my own life and relationship with God. I didn't want to mess up anyone else's. The feeling of weakness and failure was freezing me. I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning.

But gradually, a Light began to dawn. If my weaknesses are no surprise to God, then in God's Providence, even these are used by God. The words of St. Paul about glorying in weakness began to make sense to me. I began to become aware of the profound humility of God. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels" (2 Cor. 4:7). This is exactly God's plan: to take a murder and persecutor like Saul and make him St. Paul. It is exactly God's plan to take a loose woman like the Samaritan woman at the well and turn her into St. Photini. God came to save sinners, not the righteous. It is our brokenness that enables us to carry the Treasure without it destroying us. Only as we are aware of and grieve our deep brokenness can "the exceeding glory be of God and not of man."

And so this has become a third way for me to understand giving my life to God. I give to God my weakness, my failures, my brokenness. When I feel profoundly my limitations and my failures to live up to even my own standards (much less anyone else's), when I see how poorly I do what others expect me to do well and how unmotivated I am most of the time, and when I'm flooded with the awareness of my spiritual sicknesses and the mess I have made out of my life: then I say to God the little prayer He seems to have given me: God I am a mess, but I am your mess.

You can't give part of your life to God. He is Lord of all, or not Lord at all. He is Lord of the mess, for God is Lord of me. I give him everything--the whole meal deal. The seemingly good parts, the obviously rotten parts. And He takes me. That is the Love of God. He takes all of me, even the yucky parts. God sees what I don't see. He sees through the yucky to something real, a spark, a sliver of His Image in me. But it's a package deal. He knows that, I'm the one who has had a hard time accepting it.

The Day will come when sin is washed away. The Day will come when everything will be made right. For now however, God has chosen to put His Spirit in broken people like us. Offering our weakness to God means accepting this.

Moving From Guilt to Humility

Sometimes I confuse guilt and humility. When I become aware of a particular weakness or failing, when the sadness of my failure seems to overwhelm me, my first response can sometimes be to try harder. And while sustained effort is an important part of attaining anything valuable--from Christian virtue to proficiency in algebra--trying harder often makes matters worse rather than better.  

When I fail in Christian virtue, it is usually not because I don't care. That is, most of the time I am already trying to be disciplined or self controlled or consistent in the area that I find myself failing in. I feel guilt. I feel guilty not merely that I have broken a rule, law or guideline; but I feel guilty that I do not love God enough to change. I feel that my inability to do better is a kind of ingratitude towards God who has given everything for me and who has been so good to me. This guilt becomes a driver in me, a driver compelling me to try harder.

However, I have found that when I try harder, the results are terrible. I may force myself for a little while to do (or not do) what I think I should be doing (or not doing), but I usually end up developing tunnel vision, becoming exhausted and grumpy, and alienating those around me. My extra effort in a particular area ends up blinding me to other areas.  

For example, when I have forced myself to rise early to pray as much as I think I should, I sacrifice attention to others. Once, several years ago when I was pushing hard to be a kind-of monk in the world, I actually fell asleep before a class of 25 graduate students. I had asked a student a question, and before she could respond, I fell asleep in a chair and only awoke as I heard the students getting up to leave the room. Another time I was trying to read only spiritually edifying books--as I defined them at the time--and I became so obsessed that I couldn't have a normal conversation without referring to the Dark Night of the Soul or Cloud of Unknowing. My good friends (who functioned much like a spiritual father to me in those days) forbid me to read any more spiritual books until I had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings just for fun.

Trying harder does not work. It does not bring life. And worse, trying harder and seeming to succeed only brings arrogance. When I was an athlete in college running twice a day, over a hundred miles a week, I used to think that it was nothing but sheer laziness that everyone didn't begin the day with a ten kilometre run. I was doing much more than that, I reasoned, why couldn't everyone do a mere 10K in the morning? Today, I'm lucky if I can get out for a three to five kilometre walk a few times a week. In fact, for all of lent this year, I think I have only gotten out for four walks total. Do you see what I mean. I get focusing too much on one thing and forget others.  

But I don't feel guilty. I feel weak. I feel like the earthen vessel St. Paul talks about--the pot of clay holding the treasure. And this feeling of weakness is often the content of my prayer to God. I offer God my weakness. Why, you may ask, would you offer weakness to God? Why would God accept it? The answer is that weakness is a perfect offering to God because it is what I am, what I really am. All I have to offer God is what and who I am. And standing before God as who and what I am (instead of as who or what I think I should be) is the only way I can really change, really grow, really participate in the deifying Grace of God. 

Guilt is not the way. Trying harder is not the way. Humbling ourselves before the mighty hand of God--that's the way.

On Taming The Donkey

In the hymns of Palm Sunday, we are told that Jesus' riding on a young donkey is prophetic. It speaks of the untamed and unclean gentiles whom Christ would tame.  

With the kidnapping of two bishops, and continued violence and (un)civil strife in Syria, we are reminded that Christ's taming of the gentiles was through the Cross. Simply riding the young donkey praised by the crowd--the same crowd that would five days later be crying out "crucify Him!"--this was only the prophecy. The realization was, and still is, worked out through the Cross.

During Holy Week, we walk with Jesus to and beyond the Cross. We experience the beauty of faith and love with the woman who "wastes" her riches bathing Jesus' feet. We experience the pain and deep disappointment of betrayal as Judas "stretches out his hand for the silver." We are present at the mocking, the beating, and the spitting. We wonder with the Mother of God why they are doing this to Her Son. Hadn't Jesus healed their sick and fed them miraculous bread? Hadn't He opened the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf and driven out the demons? Why are they doing this? And Jesus' only response is, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own will."

There is always a paradox in martyrdom. Life is taken on the one hand and given on the other. Those who take life do not realize what they are doing for the one who gives his or her life is not afraid of death. Death is a door, a door to Resurrection.  

Every year we prepare for our own martyrdoms. We all die: some suddenly, and some slowly over seven or eight decades. Holy Week helps us prepare for this death. Walking with Jesus through his humiliation, death and rising, we are prepared to walk through our own humiliation, death and rising. His becomes ours and ours becomes His. This is the Christian life: a paradox, our life is taken yet we give our life. Suddenly or slowly, dying daily to die in a moment--to rise with Christ never to die again!

Behold The Bridegroom Comes...Late

Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching, and again unworthy is that servant whom He shall find heedless.  Beware therefore O my soul, lest you be weighed down with sleep and lest you be given up to death and the door of the kingdom be shut against you; but rouse yourself crying: Holy, Holy, Holy are you O our God, through the intercessions of the Theotokos have mercy on us.

Troparion for Bridegroom Matins

Several of the parables of Jesus deal with the topic of a Master or a Bridegroom delayed in His coming. Those who are waiting, these parables teach us, must stay alert while they wait. The worthy servants are the ones who are awake to receive the Master when He comes. The Psalmist expresses very well the attitude of alert ones: "My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen wait for the morning."

This attitude of alert waiting is liturgically expressed in the prayers of Matins, said traditionally very early in the morning. Matins, in its fuller form, is a one-and-a-half to two-hour (sometimes longer) prayer service that ideally ends just as the sun is rising. Like the watchmen waiting for the morning, the prayer of the monastics and others who rise early to pray liturgically manifests the inner attention and longing for the coming of the Master--even though those who are waiting are sometimes more than a little groggy. They are rousing themselves and crying to God, "Holy, Holy, Holy." And they are begging the Theotokos and all of the Holy Ones to intercede for them.

Most of us in the world, however, do not keep watch in a liturgical way. The responsibilities of our life and the weakness of our faith is such that we struggle to rise two hours after dawn and only with great effort manage to pray the Our Father or some other small prayer rule. We are weak, but we are not abandoned. We can still keep vigil in our hearts.  

How is this? How can we pray with attention when we don't actually say many prayers? What is our prayer if it is not our prayers? Are we the ones weighed down with sleep because we struggle to pray, because we are not satisfied with the level of our prayer life and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it--much that actually makes a lasting change? Is the Door of the Kingdom still open for us?

Yes.

Actually, it is a terrible thing to be satisfied with your prayer life. Only those in delusion think they pray as much as they should. Jesus saves the sinners, not the satisfied. When we suffer pain because we are acutely aware of our failure in prayer, then that pain itself becomes our prayer. That pain is our longing. That pain is our vigil. That pain is our attention as we await the coming of our Master who will save us from ourselves.

With longing we wait for the Lord. Prayers help us express this longing, but it is the longing itself that the Lord is looking for. 

Official Statement on Kidnapping of Metropolitans Paul and John

An Official Statement
April 25, 2013

His Beatitude JOHN X (Yazigi), Greek Orthodox Patriarch, paid a fraternal visit today, April 25, 2013, to His Holiness Mor IGNATIUS ZAKKA I (Iwas), Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, at the Syriac Patriarchal Residence in the village of Atchaneh, Lebanon. Their Beatitudes discussed the latest information concerning the abduction of bishops Paul Yazigi and John Ibrahim. They again denounced the continuous kidnapping of both hierarchs till today, despite all efforts that have been made. On this occasion, Their Beatitudes renewed their call to release both Bishops, and appeal to the International Community to exert all efforts in support of their release, and for the cessation of all kinds of violence in Syria, so that peace prevails through dialogue and a political solution. They both stressed the values of peaceful co-existence, tolerance, and national unity. Finally, Their Beatitudes agreed on taking appropriate steps, in case both hierarchs are not released in the next few hours, hoping that both bishops will be in their respective archdioceses in the coming Palm Sunday, so that we may rejoice with our people in celebrating the feast with them.

The Rich Man and the Lazaruses

The sixth week of Lent is a week of anticipation.  The hymns of this week anticipate Lazarus' death and rising.  Yesterday we read, "Today Lazarus lies sick..." and today we read, "Lazarus has died and is laid in a tomb."  Several of the hymns end with the prayer, "Make us worthy to offer you palms of virtue."  The focus of the prayers is shifting from our sin and repentance to Jesus and the events leading to His saving passion.

Another interesting aspect of the hymnology this week is that Luke's parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is elided with John's historical account of the death and rising of Lazarus of Bethany.  Elements from both are referred to as though they were referring to the same Lazarus, or at least pointing to the same spiritual meaning or lesson.

Now from a scholarly perspective, the two are not related in any way except the name of the central character in both the parable and the historical account is the same: Lazarus.  In the parable, Lazarus is a beggar who longs to be fed from the crumbs that fall from the table of an unnamed rich man.  Both die.  Lazarus finds himself being comforted in the Bosom of Abraham, while the Rich Man finds himself in flames of torment longing for a drop of water.  Abraham, in the parable, tells the Rich Man that during his life he had his good things, but Lazarus suffered; now Lazarus is being comforted while he suffers.  However, in the historical account, Lazarus is not a beggar.  He has a house and is able to support his two sisters, Mary and Martha.  On the surface, the parable and the historical account are not related.

They are certainly not related if you read the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus as a mere morality tale.  If the purpose of this parable is merely to teach us to care for beggars, then it is impossible to see any connection to the historical Lazarus.  But what if the parable is about more than morality?  What if, in addition to material poverty, the parable can be read as referring to spiritual poverty?  If read this way, then connections with the historical Lazarus become possible.  And this is how the Church reads the parable: spiritually, as a lesson in attending to our own spiritual poverty.

In the hymns leading up to the rising of the historical Lazarus, the Church spiritually interprets the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in two ways.  One way the Church interprets the parable is that I am the rich man, and my mind (nous, soul, or spirit) is Lazarus.  The spiritual aspect of me is starving and laying at the gates of my life begging that I give it a little attention.  I, however, am consumed with food and clothing and riches (intellectual pursuits of all sorts).  I don't care that my mind (nous, soul, or spirit) is starving.  Eventually, I will die and to the extent that I have ignored the spiritual aspect of my being, I will be in torment; but if have cared for my spiritual life (at least in some small ways), I will be comforted.

The other way the Church interprets this parable is that the Rich Man refers to Israel, or the religious leaders of Israel.  Clothed in the Law and the Prophets, Israel feasted sumptuously on the revelation and religious tradition that it had been given.  Jesus is Lazarus, the One who emptied Himself and in humility was crucified "out side the gate."  Having rejected Christ's life and teaching, Israel now is in torment, thirsting for a drop of Truth.

These spiritual readings of the parable, I think, help us see how both Lazaruses can be elided. The historical Lazarus was a Son of Abraham, and Israelite, who believed in Jesus; thus he is identified with Jesus in the spiritualized reading of the parable.  By embracing Jesus in friendship (Lazarus is called Christ's friend), Lazarus is identified with the rejected Christ.  Historical Lazarus becomes the spiritual Lazarus.  

So what's the point?  Aside from the spiritualized exegesis, what is the Church trying to teach us?

I think one thing we need to learn from this last week of Lent is that attending to our soul is worth it.  We will all die.  Even if we do not invest as much care as we should in attending to our soul, at least we must not let it starve.  Crumbs from the table.  A few minutes to say prayers.  A little spiritual reading each day.  A couple hours on Sunday.  It's not much--but it can keep from starving our hungry souls begging at the gate of our lives.

Metropolitan Paul Apparently Released!

Al Jazeera is reporting that Metropolitan Paul has been released.  See the article here.

Thank God.  Please pray for peace in Syria!

Pray for Metropolitan Paul

His Eminence, Metropolitan PAUL (Yazigi) Kidnapped Outside Aleppo

Your fervent prayers are requested for His Eminence, Metropolitan PAUL (Yazigi) of the Antiochian Archdiocese of Aleppo, Syria, who was kidnapped by armed men. Metropolitan PAUL is the brother of our Father in Christ, His Beatitude, Patriarch JOHN X.

According to information we received, Metropolitan PAUL was on the Turkish side of his archdiocese, which extends from Aleppo to Antioch (in Turkey). Along the road on their return to Aleppo, an armed group stopped them before they could arrive to the city, kidnapping the metropolitan. Metropolitan PAUL's office relates that he was not injured.

The photo shown above is His Eminence, Archbishop JOSEPH with His Eminence, Metropolitan PAUL on November 13, 2010 in Aleppo, Syria, when the Diocesan Delegation to Syria, Lebanon and Antioch visited the Archdiocese of Aleppo.

His Eminence, Archbishop JOSEPH has asked all the clergy and faithful of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the West to pray fervently for the safe release of His Eminence, Metropolitan PAUL.

Busy Saints

It was revealed to Abba Anthony in the desert: "In the city there is one like you, a doctor by profession, who gives to those in need whatever he can spare; and throughout the whole day he sings the Thrice-Holy hymn of the angels."

Sayings of the Desert Fathers

One of the difficulties I constantly run across when I read the Holy Fathers of the Church is that I have no idea what they are talking about. There are at least two senses in which I don't understand what they are talking about. In the first sense, it seems that I don't understand because I lack the background or experience in the ideas or way of life that the Holy Father assumes the reader has. I have never lived in near abject poverty in a Middle Eastern desert, nor have I studied the Greek secular philosophers, neither have I been a slave (much less in the fifth century), nor do I know anything about the practice of the Byzantine royal court. Depending on the Father and depending on his intended audience, intimate knowledge of such things was assumed.

On a deeper level, however, I am often left wondering at what I read because it seems to me that the Holy Father is speaking of a spiritual condition or experience that I have not experienced--and often cannot even imagine experiencing. Most of the Holy Fathers of the Church were monastics--sometimes solitary, hermit monastics. And their writings that have survived to today have done so primarily because their writings have been found helpful in the spiritual life of other monastics--men and women who have renounced the cares of this world to devote themselves to prayer. And though as a busy (married) priest in a parish I do my best to take my personal spiritual life seriously, my devotion to God is expressed primarily in study and care for others, not in stillness, quietness and prayer--not at least as it is described by many of the Holy Fathers.

I think the same could be said for most people who read this blog. Whether priest or baker or Mom or teacher or police officer or accountant or farmer: we all have busy lives caring for those God has given us and just doing the business (and busyness) that is necessary to pay the bills and to love practically those in our care. And while none of us in the busy world can do what Abba Anthony the Great did--and what today a handful of holy men and women "in the deserts and on the mountains and in the caverns and pits of the earth" strive to do--yet we can all be like Abba Anthony. We can all be like the doctor in the city whom God reveals is like Abba Anthony.

This doctor in the city is like Abba Anthony not because he does what Abba Anthony does. Abba Anthony does what Abba Anthony does. Think about it. Abba Anthony does what Abba Anthony does; the doctor in the city does what the doctor in the city does. And yet the doctor in the city is like Abba Anthony. What makes this doctor in the city like Abba Anthony? We are told only two things about this doctor. First, we are told that he gives what he can spare to those in deed. Second, we are told that he sings all day long: Holy, Holy, Holy....

I've got a long way to go before I am someone who sees the needs of others and gives all I can spare, and truly a longer way to go before I have a continual song of praise and worship in my heart. Nevertheless, it is something I can imagine for myself. It is a possibility that I can conceive and work toward--even if I may spend my whole life just beginning.  

May God help all of us in the world to see and care and give what we can spare. And may God help us to pray or sing always as we are about our various busynesses. And may this unnamed doctor in the city who was like Abba Anthony and all of the unnamed saints who struggled to be like Jesus where they were in the world, may all of these busy unnamed saints who are now at rest pray for us who are not yet. Amen.

Praying the Parables

In my wretchedness, I have fallen among the thieves of my own thoughts. My mind has been despoiled, and cruelly I have been beaten; all my soul is wounded, and stripped of the virtues I lie naked upon the highway of life. Seeing me in bitter pain and thinking that my wounds could not be healed, the priest neglected me and would not look at me. Unable to endure my soul- destroying agony, the Levite when he saw me passed me by on the other side. But Thou, O Christ my God, wast pleased to come, not from Samaria but incarnate from Mary; in Thy love for mankind, grant me healing and pour upon me Thy Great Mercy.

First verse of the "Lord I have Called" for Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesday of the Fifth week of Lent.

In the Orthodox Church we often pray the Parables of Christ.  Here's another example from the 24 verses of repentance written by St. Symeon the Translator and read also at the Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesday of the Fifth week of Lent:


Like the foolish servant, I have hidden the talent that was given to me and buried it in the ground. I have been condemned as useless, and I no longer dare to ask Thee for forgiveness. But in Thy forbearance take pity on me that I too may cry unto Thee: before I perish utterly, save me, O Lord.

For the Orthodox Christian who prays with the services of the Church, the parables are not merely lessons in moral theology.  They are also, and in many ways more importantly, windows into the experience of the soul before God.  Through the prayers of the Church the parables become beacons enlightening our inner experience.  The parable of the Good Samaritan, for example, is much more than a mere moral exhortation (though it is that too).  The parable is a paradigm by which I understand my relationship with God and my inner struggles to repent.

When I see myself as someone who has been beaten up by "thieves of my own thoughts," someone who isn't helped by the religious leaders or cliches in my community, someone whose "soul is wounded and stripped of virtues...naked upon the highway of life," when I see myself this way, then I can see Jesus as the One who comes and binds up my wounds.  I can see Jesus coming, "not from Samaria but incarnate from Mary."  I can allow myself to be carried on His beast (which some Fathers have interpreted as the suffering humanity of Jesus) and be taken to and cared for at the Inn (interpreted at the Church with the spiritual fathers and mothers as the innkeepers).

Prayer is an offering, an offering most often of one's self to God.  But this is not nearly as easy as it sounds.  There is no dotted line to sign and thus seal the deal.  Every day we see a bit more of ourselves.  Every day we see a bit more of the wretchedness that yesterday we didn't see.  This is why the Saints, the holy men and women who are closest to God can write such profound prayers of repentance.  Where the light is brightest, the mess is most clear.  You don't see the dirt or disheveled condition of a dark room with only a small night-light in the corner, but as you open the curtains and let in the light, you see the mess.  So too in our spiritual life, as we pray and learn to pray with the Church, the light gets a little brighter.  Then we see a little more.  

Often we see what we don't want to see; We see what we don't want to be true about our selves.  We don't want to be stripped of virtue, and wounded and naked on the highway of life.  We don't want to be wounded by our thoughts and actually unhelped by the very people and systems and cliches we thought would help us.  We don't want to come to Jesus with nothing, and worse than nothing: with the very dirty and messy rooms of our lives.  

Sometimes we would rather not see.  Sometimes we would rather continue wallowing in a dark mess--sometimes because we secretly like it, and sometimes because we think we can clean it up a bit so that we have something nice to offer Jesus, as though God would not love us, would not come to us unless we had something nicer, better, more virtuous to offer Him.  

However, that is the point: Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am chief.  It's the sick who need the physician.  The Good Samaritan comes to the wounded, naked, helpless man--not to the priest or levite.  If we could only see ourselves as the saints see themselves, as the worst of sinners.  If we could only accept the reality of our utter dependence, that we are the servant who wasted his talent, the publican who is not worthy to lift up his eyes in the Temple but beats his chest: "have mercy on me O God!"  Then our offering will be accepted, our plea for mercy.  Then the Good One incarnate of Mary will come and pour oil and wine onto our wounds.