Take Heed 3

Take heed how/what you hear (Mk. 4:24; Lk. 8:18).  

In both Mark and Luke's Gospel, after the parable of the sower and the seeds, Jesus says to his disciples, "take heed how/what you hear" ('what' in Mark; 'how' in Luke). St. Luke records it this way:

No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lamp stand, that those who enter may see the light.  For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, or anything hidden that will not be known and come to light. Therefore, take heed how you hear."

We must be careful how we hear because nothing hidden will remain hidden. What is hidden in our heart determines how we hear. Ungracious, arrogant and unrepentant attitudes in our hearts and minds keep us from hearing well. Some of these bad attitudes may be hidden not only from others but also from ourselves, but how we hear (or don't hear) the words of Jesus can reveal to us our weakness.  

I have always read these verses as a warning to listen to the Gospel with an attitude of obedience. That is, I have understood them to mean that when I listen to or read the Gospels, my "hearing" should be with a predisposition to obedience. I have understood it this way because the Greek word for obey is based on the word for hear. Hear is akouo and obey is hupakouo (to 'hear under' someone is to obey them). In Hebrew there is just one word that means both hear and obey—to hear is to obey, not to obey is not to have heard.  

St. Luke emphasizes this connection between hearing and obeying by moving the incident of Jesus' Mother and brothers coming to see Him from before the parable of the sower (where it is found in Matthew and Mark) to immediately after the warning about hearing. Who are Jesus' Mother and brothers? "Those who hear the Word of God and do it". To hear is to do; not to do is not to have heard.

St. Mark emphasizes the judgement that comes about because of what or how we hear. St. Mark says,

"Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be me measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him." 

Hearing is a measure. If we do not listen to the Gospel with an open heart and an attentive mind (or at least with as much openness and attention as we can muster), then the measure by which God measures out (grace? understanding? blessing? the fruit of the Spirit?—the text does not say exactly what) will be limited in the same way. On one level, this makes practical sense: how can you understand anything unless you pay attention? The less you pay attention, the less you understand. However, the judgement is not merely a matter of "getting out of it what you put into it." Rather, Jesus tells us that what we hear also determines whether or not we can keep what we have already received.  

St. Luke gives us a hint as to why this judgement of hearing is so important. Both Mark and Luke record Jesus saying, "Nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to the light," but St. Luke repeats this phrase several chapters later in a contexts that enlightens this one:

"Take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known" (Lk. 12:1, 2).

When we hear without openness and attention, it is possible merely to garner information to be used hypothetically, and thus hypocritically—for there is nothing hypothetical about the Gospel. When we hear only for someone else ("old Mrs. So and So sure needs to hear this) or as though the words did not apply to me ("that's a good word if someone has that problem), then I end up storing information to be used according to my own agenda, to support my opinions, and not to produce obedience and repentance. God's words are dangerous. "Sharper than a two edged sword," St. Paul says somewhere. Not to hear carefully brings about judgement; it may even lead to hypocrisy and the loss of what little genuine spiritual life one has. This is a serious matter. That's why Jesus said, "Take heed."

And I suspect that it is not only in hearing the Gospel that we should take heed. God has been known to speak through donkeys. It was the children, not the learned, who recognized the Messiah on Palm Sunday. How we listen, or better, how we are when we listen to anyone determines to a large extent what we hear. If we take heed, the voice of God calling us to repentance can be heard in the voice of a child, a loved one, a teacher, or even (or perhaps especially) in an enemy.  

Hearing well is not a matter of intellectual ability or even attention span or ability to focus. Hearing well is a matter of a broken and contrite heart, a heart ready to repent, a heart turned toward God, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. We hear well when we are humble, when we know that we do not know, when we know that there are many ways we sin that God has yet to reveal to us (plus the many sins we do see but can't seem to escape). Hearing with this attitude brings the Gospel to life and opens one's ears to hear in a way that brings more: more of all that God has for us.

Take Heed 2

Jesus warned us to take heed concerning covetousness. In the immediate biblical context (Luke 12:15), someone had just asked Jesus to command that his brother share his inheritance with him. Jesus responds first by saying, "who made me arbitrator over you?" But then He goes on to say, "take heed of covetousness, a person's life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions." St. Paul also tells Timothy that those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare of the devil (1 Tim. 6:9).

I think the reason why Jesus warned us particularly about covetousness is that covetousness seems so natural, so healthy (to want to get ahead, to do better, to prosper), and it doesn't seem to harm anyone. Yes, "Do not covet" is one of the Ten Commandments, but unlike murder, theft or adultery, coveting doesn't seem to hurt anyone else. But of course coveting does hurt others. When I covet something I start seeing people as means to an end.  A covetous person sees the people in their life as things to be manipulated to reach a goal.  

What makes Jesus' warning particularly poignant for us today is that we live in a consumer society that depends on covetousness to function. If everyone did not want bigger and better and newer things, the economy of much of the world would tank. Therefore, everything around us encourages us to want more. Not to covet is to go hard against the flow of our culture. No wonder Jesus tells us to take heed.

But aside from the fact that covetousness hurts other people, covetousness hurts the one who covets most of all.  It hurts us by pulling our attention away from what is eternal and important to what is temporal and unimportant—from what is inside us to what is outside us. I was speaking to someone recently who was telling me about their life. They were talking about how unhappy they were and made the following comment: "not that I think there is a secret to happiness or anything like that." I immediately said, "I do."  

As Jesus said, our life does not consist in the abundance of what we possess. So long as we are looking outside ourselves for happiness, we will never find it; we will always be disappointed. Happiness is not in possessions; it is not in vacations; it is not even in friends or family, especially if you are looking to them to make you happy. A better wife or husband or parent or child or friend (or priest or bishop, for that matter) will not make you happy.   Coveting such things only makes you miserable because it only adds bitterness to the already weak relationships you have.  

Happiness, or to use more biblical terms, blessedness and contentment, come from within us. They come from doing to others what you would want them to do to you (whether or not they ever do what you want). Blessedness and contentment come from thinking of others as better than yourself, from taking the lower seat, going the extra mile, and giving without expecting anything in return. Basically, blessedness and contentment come from doing what Jesus said, or to use Jesus' metaphor, blessedness and contentment are the result of a house built on the rock foundation of Christ’s commandments rather than on the sandy foundation of what seems best to me, which washes quickly away.

However, I am the first to admit that actually doing what Jesus said is counter intuitive, counter cultural, and very hard. It is the narrow way. I completely understand why very few of us do, or even try very hard to do, what Jesus said. When I look in my own heart, I see that I am full of fear. I don't want to lose my stuff. I am full of fear also because I don't know how. I don't know how to do the things Jesus said. Certainly, how one should follow the words of Christ in any specific context is not at all self evident, as anyone who has seriously tried to do what Jesus said has found out. Like the Ethiopian Eunuch, one needs to be taught, discipled, and guided into the narrow way.

Immediately before Jesus was asked to divide the inheritance, Jesus said that we need not worry about what we will say when brought before magistrates because of our faith in Christ. "Don't plan beforehand," Jesus says, "for the Holy Spirit will give you the words." I think the same is true about following Christ in any situation. Don't worry, the Holy Spirit will help you. "How," you may ask, "will the Holy Spirit help me?"  

The Holy Spirit will help you the way It has always helped people--through other people. The Holy Spirit resides in the Church, but no one in the Church has all of the gifts, all of the ministries, all of the functions. If we want to follow what Jesus said, we need to be discipled, taught, and led by teachers, pastors, prophets (preachers) and elders (the English word 'priest' comes from the Greek word that is translated 'elder').

Unfortunately, if following Jesus is the narrow way, then finding a good spiritual father or mother to help you in the way is only slightly less narrow. It is narrow, but not impossible. You can even start where you are:  using common sense to weed out any obviously bad advice, treat whatever spiritual leader you currently have as though he or she were a godly, spirit-filled person. In my experience, in most cases, this is sufficient for the Holy Spirit to guide one in the fulfilling of Christ's commandments. (Yes, I know this can be dangerous, and common sense along with occasional second opinions are called for, but who ever said spiritual life was any less dangerous than all the rest of life?)

The truth is that we can covet even spiritual fathers. We can covet anything we don’t have, or don’t think we have.  But Jesus warns us, take heed! The answer is not outside you. The answer is not even a better spiritual father. The answer is contentment, trust in Christ, and obedience to what you already know to be true. (Honestly, I think if we all merely did what we already knew we should do, and just didn’t worry about the stuff we were unsure of, we would all probably make very rapid progress toward godliness.)

Christ warns us about covetousness, nevertheless, sometimes Christ also gives us things. Sometimes we have much more than we need and Christ lets us share in His ministry of generosity. Sometimes relationships are blessed and blossom. Sometimes we even stumble across a wise and loving person whose guidance and love amazes us.  Whenever this has happened to me I have felt profoundly lucky or amazed—“Why would God let me have such a friend?” But even in the midst of unimaginable blessing, sometimes, if I’m not careful, I find myself slipping into covetousness. I find myself thinking, “It would be nice to have a bigger, nicer, newer, shinier, kinder, more understanding ________ (fill in the blank). Often I find myself thinking, “If only it were different”; “If only they were different.” When I realize that I am thinking such thoughts, as soon as I come to my senses like the Prodigal Son, I am training myself to immediately give God thanks.

Thanksgiving is, in my experience, the best weapon against covetousness. To be thankful for what I have and for what God has done—this is what destroys covetousness.  Covetousness is a deadly vine. It can drive the root of bitterness deeply into our hearts if we let it have its way.  Covetousness is a deadly vine that grows in the darkness.  Thanksgiving is the light that withers away all covetousness and selfishness. When we thank God, we are already obeying Him and so we begin to be filled with light, the light that shifts our focus from outside to inside, from what should be different out there, to Christ dwelling in my heart and the difference Christ makes within me. 

Take Heed

Several times in the Gospels, Jesus warns us to take heed of or beware of something. It's a little tricky finding all of the instances of Jesus's warnings because there are three Greek words that are often, but not always, translated into English as 'take heed of' or 'beware of.' Following the New King James translation, there are seven things Jesus specifically tells us to beware of:

1. Doing righteous works in front of others in order to be seen by them (Matt. 6:1).
2. The leaven [teaching] of the Pharisees and of Herod (Matt. 16:6 and Mk. 8:15).
3. Despising or offending the little ones (Matt. 18:10 and Lk. 17:3).
4. That the light inside us not really be darkness (Lk. 11:35).
5. Of covetousness (Lk. 12:15).
6. Of what or how we hear (Mk. 4:24 and Lk. 8:18).
7. Regarding the End (Matt. 24:4; Mk. 13: 5, 23, 33; Lk. 21: 8, 34).

I'd like to look at Jesus' warning concerning the End.  

I got my start as a conscious follower of Christ in the 70s under the influence of a Charismatic Christian ministry in California called "Melodyland." At Melodyland, they talked a lot about the Second Coming of Christ. In fact, for the next twenty-five years in the various Charismatic churches I attended, I heard hundreds of sermons on the end times.  I knew the first half of Matthew 24 by heart. I knew all of the signs. I read the newspaper with the Bible in my hand seeing everywhere confirmation that Jesus' return was just around the corner.  

I was aware that Jesus warned against setting an exact date for his return, but I was certain that rough guesses were encouraged (at least that was implicit in my church culture). I knew from Matthew 24 that Jesus warned us to beware of those who claimed to be the Christ or who claimed to know where on earth one could find the already returned Christ (in the deserts or in the inner rooms). But somehow in all those years and in all of the fervour, I never noticed these lines from Luke's account of Jesus' warning regarding the last times:

"And He said: 'Take heed that you not be deceived.  For many will come in My name, saying "I am He,"  and, "The time has drawn near." Therefore, do not go after them.'"

How could I have missed that? The warning was not only to avoid those claiming to be Christ, but was also not to "go after" those who claim "the time has drawn near." Oops. I missed that one. 

Submitting myself to endless preaching that the End was near did significant damage to my spiritual life. End times preaching (at least as I experienced it) stirred up emotions ranging from fear to excitement, and from confident self-assurance that I was "saved" to anxious concern for those who were damned. (Although I must confess, that this anxious concern was not very altruistic because the version of end times preaching I was exposed to also posited that the sooner everyone "hears" the Gospel, the sooner Jesus would return and pull us saved ones out of this mess). For years I associated these feelings of fear, excitement, confident self-assurance, and anxious concern for others with the nearness of God.

Part of the spiritual damage caused by "going after" those who stir up emotion preaching that "the time has drawn near" is that it makes it difficult to learn how to be with God in silence. I'm not talking about mere outer silence, although that is often where the journey to inner silence begins. I am talking about the inner silence of a meek and gentle heart, the silence of a heart that does not think on things too high for herself, the silence of a heart that is both broken and contrite while remaining secure in the love of God.

At the end of the warnings about the last days in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus tells his disciples that the way they can be ready for the End is to watch, watch and pray. The word, 'watch,' literally means, 'stay awake' or 'stay alert' or 'pay attention.' In the Orthodox spiritual tradition, this watchfulness is specifically understood as guarding our mind/heart, or our nous. That is, the house that we are to watch so that it is not robbed (Matt. 24:43 ff) and the house that we are to manage until the Master returns (c.f. Mk. 13:34 ff) is our nous. 

We prepare for the Second Coming of Christ (and our own death—which is functionally the same thing) not by watching what is going on outside us. Jesus told us that these outer signs mean that "the end is not yet." We prepare for Christ's coming by attending to our nous. But learning to attend to the nous requires quiet, inner quiet; it requires that we learn to hear the voice of silence and to notice the movements of stillness. These are paradoxes, I know. But only by means of paradox can we talk about that which is beyond words.  

In the Divine Liturgy, we speak of the Second Coming of Christ as something to be remembered. All eternal realities exist right now, even those that have not yet taken place in time and space. Those who are ready for the Second Coming are those who have already come to remember it, not emotionally, but quietly in their nous. Getting ready for the coming of Christ has nothing to do with reading newspapers, but has everything to do with stilling our minds, watching and praying.

Holy Paradox!

About a year ago, I wrote a blog entry entitled "The Chief Hypocrite."  I feel like rehearsing that essay today.

We live in a culture that is so afraid of poor self image, that self boasting has become the norm not only in secular society but also in many church contexts. It is almost as if Jesus had never said, "take the lower seat," or St. Paul had never said, "esteem others as better than yourself." What would it look like if I really did esteem others as better than myself? How would I speak? How would I act?

When I read some of the Orthodox spiritual writers, I am often amazed at how aware of their weaknesses and shortcomings they are. Like St. Paul, they consider themselves the worst of sinners; and yet, the Grace of the Holy Spirit speaks through them to me. How can it be?

A monk once told me that each one of us stands before God and is judged alone, not in comparison to anyone else. This judgement is not some future experience; it is an eternal, eschatological experience that we can begin to experience (or experience by anticipation) now. When I stand before God, I am always the chief of sinners. Carrying with me this experience of judgement is, I think, part of the secret to living a transformed life. Seeing myself as last, seeing my self as weak and broken, allows me to experience the Grace of God in a way that would be impossible (and that might even destroy me) were I to imagine that I really had something to add to what God is doing.

When I am weak, then I am strong. When I focus on repentance, on seeing my weakness and on turning again, and again, and again to God, God somehow allows me to participate in some of what He is doing in the world. When I focus on what God is doing and how I can help, I almost always mess things up. And so, like St. Paul and thousands of thousands of holy men and women before me, I rather glory in my weakness (or at least I try to do this).

But sometimes this seems hypocritical. Sometimes it seems like I am just saying words or pretending, that something inside me is protesting: "I'm not that bad."  

I think it's insecurity speaking. I'm afraid that God and others will reject me and that I won't be loved and accepted if I am really that bad, that broken, that messed up.

However what saves me when I feel and think this is that the very same eschatological experience of judgement comes also with an eschatological experience of the love of God. God loves me. Yes, I am a mess, but I am God's mess. I am the chief of sinners, and I am beloved of God. Holy Paradox!

I have an excellent chiropractor. He studies my body, pushes things around a little, and then sends me home with exercises. These exercises often involve exaggerating movements, over compensating or pulling my body one way to train the muscles to find the harmonious middle. And his exercises have worked very well for both Bonnie and I.

Sometimes I think my spiritual life is a little like my chiropractor's exercises. The first sin, we are told, is pride. Perhaps it is necessary for each of us to see ourselves as the chief of sinners to be healed of pride—loved and accepted by God, but messed up, weak and sinful nonetheless. Perhaps this is how we are healed of the pride that has perverted and twisted our souls. We have to push ourselves, we have to "put on" humility, to exercise ourselves in lowliness, even when it doesn't feel quite natural. This is part of our therapy. This is how we are slowly being conformed to the Image of Christ.

The Rich Man And Lazarus: An Allegory Of The Soul

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   I am rich in passions; I am clothed in vile garments of hypocrisy. Through lack of abstinence, I delight in foul deeds, and show a boundless lack of tender-heartedness. Cast before the gates of repentance, I despise my mind, thirsting for every blessing, but ill from lack of concentration. Make me, O Lord, like Lazarus, who was poor in sin, lest I receive no answer when I pray for the finger dipped in water to relieve my burning tongue. Make me to dwell in the bosom of Abraham, as the lover of mankind.
   
   Verse 10 "Lord I Called" Wednesday Presanctified Liturgy, Week Six.
   
   Our Gospel reading this Sunday is the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus.  
   
   Those of us familiar with this parable have probably only thought of applying it in a moral sense. That is, we see the parable teaching us that those who fail to care for the poor in this life will suffer fiery regret in the Age To Come. However, those who suffer poverty will be comforted in the next Age. Therefore, we deduce, the parable is teaching us to care for the poor.  
   
   This moral interpretation is useful. Yes, it is always good to care for the poor—especially the poor at your gate, the poor you see every day. But there is a downside to reading the parable only this way. The downside is that we tend to read the description of the afterlife too literally and atomize the judgment of the life to come. That is, we see all human beings in the Age to Come either burning in torment or comforted by Abraham.  
   
   However, the Church also reads this parable as an allegory, an allegory of the soul. My soul is the starving and wounded Lazarus, begging at the gate of my life. The sumptuous food and clothing of the parable refer to the way I pamper my appetites while refusing to give any notice to my soul, my spiritual life starving at the gate. Reading the parable this way, each of us seem to face both fire and comfort in the Age to Come—the burning up of the flesh and its passions and the comfort of the impoverished soul.  
   
   How this works out in the next age, we are not told. The Church only exhorts us to chose to be "poor in sin," like Lazarus while learning abstinence from foul deeds and nurturing tender-heartedness. This is how we prepare for the next life.  
   
   There is much in my life that will not survive the fire of the Age to Come. All of my sins are forgiven, yes; and the sins of the whole world are also forgiven, for that matter. Yet I have built on the foundation of Christ much that is wood, hay and stubble. These cannot survive in the Kingdom that tests everything by fire (1 Cor. 3:13). Nevertheless, Lazarus will be comforted. And in the Age to Come, I think (for I do not know for certain: "we see through a glass darkly") in as much as I have learned to be poor like Lazarus, that same comfort Lazarus experiences will sustain me as all that is not gold, silver and precious stones passes away.
   
   This is why we pray for one another, in this life and especially as we pass into the next. Through prayer we can be with each other, even those far away and those departed this life. Many a dying person wants someone just to hold his or her hand. Praying is another way we hold each others' hand.
   

Being Married to a Eunuch

I’m working on a project for a friend who is developing Sunday school curriculum. The project has required that I reread and paraphrase a lot of the Old Testament for reading out loud to children. It has been a good project for me, even if often I have had to make myself do it. It is not very intellectually stimulating.

However, reading through the life of Joseph this morning I saw something that arrested my attention. The translation of the Old Testament that I am relying on as my primary text is the English translation of the Septuagint found in the Orthodox Study Bible. In this text, Genesis 39: 1 tells us the following information about Potiphar, Joseph’s first master in Egypt: he was a eunuch and captain of the guard. A eunuch?  

As is my wont, whenever I encounter something in the Bible that startles me, I immediately checked the original languages. Yep, both in the Hebrew Masoretic text and in the Greek Septuagint text Genesis 39:1 says Potiphar was a eunuch. But Potiphar had a wife, a wife who tried to seduce Joseph.

In the Orthodox liturgical texts, Potiphar’s wife gets a very rough treatment. She is referred to as a new Eve found by the serpent to seduce Joseph--who is a type of Christ, for no sin is ever recorded concerning him. And while she did become a tool of the evil one to try to seduce Joseph into sin, I feel a little sorry for her.

I had always assumed that Potiphar’s wife was somehow just a wanton woman not satisfied with her husband; but realizing that her husband was a eunuch puts a new dimension on what was going on. It wasn’t that she wasn’t satisfied with her husband so much as it was her husband who couldn’t satisfy her, ever.

I find in myself a tendency to seek fault, to want to blame someone, to want to be able to show clearly who’s at fault, who erred, who made the mistake. But life is really much more messy than that. Certainly as Christians we can say Potiphar’s wife should not be seducing servants, regardless of her marital difficulties. Were she an Orthodox Christian, I would encourage her to look to God for help, to accept the cross she had been given. But she wasn’t an Orthodox Christian. She was an lonely, frustrated yet powerful Egyptian woman several thousand years before Christ. She lived in a culture in which there was no shame in seducing servants--in many such cultures, sex with slaves didn’t count.

Joseph did the right thing in fleeing from temptation. Today, in regard to sexual morality, we live in a culture that is more and more like the pre-Christian world Joseph experienced in Egypt: you are allowed to do what ever you lust to do, whatever you can imagine is acceptable, so long as it is with consenting adult partners. And so we Christians, like Joseph as a slave in Egypt, are tempted to give in to our carnal lusts just because it’s not a big deal culturally, everyone is doing it. Just like Joseph we must flee temptation--even if it means creating misunderstanding and angering those who don’t understand our Christ-like calling.

However, even as we flee the world, we must be careful not to judge the world. The serpent uses hurt and broken people to tempt us, people who don’t realize what they are doing. Aren’t these Jesus’ exact words from the cross: “Forgive them Father, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Like Jesus, we are crucified; but our crosses are often of the self-inflicted kind. We linger in passions until it feels like torment as we try to flee them.  

But let’s not blame the world or those in the world. Let’s blame ourselves and pray that God have mercy on us and on all His broken creatures.

Knowing God's Will

Recently, someone asked me about praying according to God's will. This person understood that it is appropriate to pray, "Lord have mercy," when you don't know what God's will is. But what if you think you do know what God's will is, or this person asks, "Can you ever know what God's will is in a specific situation?" The specific example of praying for someone dying of cancer was given.

Questions like these do not have easy answers. Questions like these reach to the core of who we are as human beings, who God is (as far as we can know Him) and what our relationship with God is. These are the kind of questions one spends a whole lifetime pondering because as our knowledge of God and ourselves increases so does our perception of  the depth and breadth these questions touch on.

Nevertheless, rushing in where Angels fear to tread, I tried to provide an initial response to these questions. Below is what I wrote.

It is a yes and no sort of thing. Discovering the will of God is something that we spend our life doing and is seldom known in advance, and when it is known in advance, it is with a large amount of uncertainty (that is, you only realize that you knew it after the fact--and even then we don't know anything that we think we know as we ought to know it [cf 1 Cor. 8:1-2]). The best we can do is say something seems to be God's will. The problem is that we tend to think that something (some choice or circumstance of life) either is or isn't God's will. But I think God's will has to do much, much more with issues of character and spiritual growth than it has to do with whether A or B happens.  

Everyone dies. Much more important than when one dies (this year by cancer or a few years from now by a heart attack or car accident or thirty years from now with Alzheimer's) is one's state before God and with his or her fellow human beings when he or she dies. And this is something only God knows. We pray that God would have mercy. We pray for what we want to happen, too; but at the same time we know that we do not know what is best. We know that our own fears, doubts, cultural prejudices, and general selfishness and ignorance all play into what we want to happen--and even (maybe especially) into what we think God's will is.

Miraculous healing is a sign. It is a sign to strengthen the faith of the one healed and those nearby. But still, everyone miraculously healed still has to get sick and die again (or die one way or another). St. John Chrysostom said that when God heals someone (and this is not uncommon in the Orthodox Church), God removes one cross to give them a heavier cross. Suffering—of any kind--is part of our sharing in the sufferings of Christ (and thus sharing in His Resurrection), if we offer our suffering to God in faith.  

We are so blind and confused. We want certainty. We want to know whether A or B is God's will. But we are dealing with God here, not our limited perception of reality that reduces reality to concepts and categories that are easy for us to understand. God's will may have nothing (or very little) to do with A or B, but probably has everything to do with how you trust in God and grow into the likeness of Christ and love our sick friends regardless of whether A or B or C or D happens. 

The Delusion Of Balance

A small affliction born for God’s sake is better before God than a great work performed without tribulation.

St. Isaac the Syrian

Parishioners often ask me how they can find balance in their life.  I often don’t know what to say because the very notion of balance itself, in the actual living of the life in Christ, seems to me to be too self-directed to be very useful.  Balance assumes that ends can be held in tension, that burdens and cares can be shifted by some kind of intentional, rational manipulation so that the sail boat of our life does not capsize.  Balance is a kind of tyrant, a responsibility; it implies that one should be able to “hold everything together.”  Balance sees life as a kind of beam, a linear reality or set of linear realities that must be continually adjusted, tweaked and managed.  Balance never lets you give yourself completely to anything because it assumes a zero-sum reality: to give yourself more to one thing is to give yourself less to another.  It assumes that stasis in life is both good and possible.

When we think about how to live the life in Christ, balance is not a very useful image (and it is not at all a biblical image).  

How then should we think about our life in Christ?  One very biblical image and one I find useful is the way: walking the path of life.  Paths are not static.  They change, they turn, and they go somewhere.  Life is full of seasons, seasons are full of days, days are full of moments.  Each moment presents unique opportunities for communion and love, and unique temptations for selfishness; each day comes with its own set of resources and obligations (physical, psychological and circumstantial); and each season of life has its own limitations and opportunities.  We cannot manage life, we can only live it.  

If we want to give ourselves to prayer, for example, what that looks like on any given day, at any given moment, will differ.  We cannot balance our life as though we knew in advance what any given moment or day would hold and so that each experience of prayer is the same.  We can only live and offer our life to God.  We pray in whatever ways are possible given the limitations, opportunities and resources of that particular season and day and moment of our life.  

Consider this: we hear nothing of the life of Christ between the ages of twelve and thirty--a silence that shouts to us of hiddenness and prayer.  But when Jesus begins his public messianic ministry, He prays in the mountains, slips away at night, sleeps in the back of boats, and is continually (seemingly) interrupted by his disciples and the crowds.  Jesus doesn’t manage his life as Messiah, He lives it.  He drinks the cup His Father has given Him.  

Similarly, we must drink the cup the Father has given us.  

Some may say, “But Father Michael, I have made such a mess of my life.  I’m sure my life is very different now from what God would have wanted.  How can I say I am drinking the cup of the Father when I have made bad choices and I have made mistakes and done foolish things that have come to shape and limit my life as it is now?”  My answer is this: God is much bigger than you think.

Here is an image that I have found helpful.  Our life is like a line on a piece of paper.  Each sin and mistake we make in life bends and twists the line somewhat: sometimes curving it to the left, sometimes to the right.  We imagine that God’s will is a straight line.  We think in terms of lines, as though God were a line and God’s will could only be found on that ideal straight line.  But God is not a line on the paper, God is the paper.  God’s will encounters the squiggly line of our life no matter where on the paper we find ourselves.  A murderer in prison, a holy monk on a mountain, a mother with young children, a business person trying to make payroll: right now, you can drink the cup the Father is giving you.  You can offer your whole life to God.  You can pray and love in whatever ways are possible for you now, where you are.   

The ideal does not exist, not in this life.  There are only our lives, lives that are shaped outwardly by circumstances mostly out of our control, but shaped inwardly by the God who is everywhere present and filling all things.

Salt In Soup

I am often asked by devout parishioners why it is that many of their loved ones have so little interest in matters of faith. The most correct answer is, of course, I don't know; but a possible explanation has to do with the nature of salt.

Jesus says in Matthew 5 that his disciples are the salt of the earth. Then Jesus asks a question: if salt loses its saltiness, how will it be made salty? [the 'again' in many English translations is not in any Greek manuscripts]. Most English translations assume that the 'it' in the second clause is referring to the unsalty salt. This makes sense in English because 'it' appears in both clauses. In Greek, Jesus' question reads more like this: If the salt becomes insipid (literally, foolish), how will it be salted? Reading the sentence this way, the possibility becomes clear that Jesus may be speaking of the earth--how will the earth be salted?--rather than how will the insipid salt be salted (again), although that too is a possible reading.

However, since Jesus' salt metaphor is immediately followed by a light metaphor that focuses on the effect of the light on others (the light is seen, it enlightens), I think it is safe to say that in the salt metaphor, Jesus was focusing on the effect the salt has on others, on the earth: "you are the salt of the earth."

In my previous post, I wrote that I used to think that to be elect was synonymous with to be saved. I used to see salvation as an individual matter. You were either in or out, saved or damned, missionary or mission field. However, I have come to see that salvation is much more nuanced. It is more like a body (to use one of St. Paul's favourite images). Some parts are strong, some are weak; some parts are public, some are hidden; but no part is unnecessary, and what any part does affects the whole.  

To go back to the image of salt, perhaps what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5 is that the earth is like a pot of soup. Jesus says to his disciples that they are like salt to that soup; but, He asks, if salt loses its saltiness (becomes insipid or foolish), how will the soup (the earth) be salted?

Salt is very salty. It takes very little salt to bring out the best flavours in a pot of soup. Perhaps Jesus' point here has to do with the whole and not just the part. Perhaps His point is not that the salt has to stay salty for its own sake, for its own salvation. Perhaps what Jesus is saying is that His disciples, like salt, exist not for their own sake, but to bring out the flavour of the soup of the earth, to shine in the darkness.

Just about every devout person I know has loved ones who don't seem to get religion, who don't seem to feel or see the importance of spiritual things. Perhaps that is the way it is supposed to be. Perhaps those of us who are devout and serious about spiritual things need merely to be the salt in the soup and stop worrying that the carrots are not as salty as we are. They will become salty enough just by marinating with us in the soup of life. A little salt is all it takes to bring out their flavour, for them to be their best selves, who God made them to be. Maybe if we salty ones are just ourselves, God will see to it that the others get just the right amount of saltiness that they need.

Of course, just being our salty selves is not so easy. Jesus outlines in the Beatitudes that precede the salt metaphor that misunderstanding, false accusation, mourning, hunger, thirst, poverty, and persecution are indeed the evidence, the blessing, that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, being salt in a world of carrots, potatoes and beets.  

Thinking about things this way gives me peace and purpose. My spiritual life is not for me alone. I am salt in the soup. My prayers, my sufferings, my tears, my struggles--these are not for my individual salvation. These are the salt of the soup. These are for the salvation of the world, for the carrots, potatoes and beets, for my friends and enemies, my loved ones and my not-so-loved ones.  

I am not a universalist, at least not in the sense that I think God is bound by some logical, legal or moral imperative to save everyone, nor do I think that any human being ever loses freedom so that he or she is forced to be saved. However, I do think that atomized concepts of salvation, as if God were picking red buttons from blue buttons, are even further off the mark.  

I don't think there is a line one must cross in this life in order to be saved. Salt permeates the whole soup--even if there may be some small bits that refuse to soften and absorb the brine (perhaps that's what the image of heat in the afterlife is all about--softening up the hard bits). In as much as some of us seem to be salt and light and in as much as we manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives, our loved ones are being saved.  They are soaking in the same soup we are, in the same world. Salvation may not be immediately manifest. Who knows but God how long the soup needs to simmer? Who knows but God what will soften the tough bits (both in ourselves and in our neighbours)?  

On Being The Elect

Many are called, but few are chosen.

Who are the elect? Throughout the Bible the term "the elect" is used to refer to "God's chosen people," and I had always assumed, influenced by culture and my Protestant background, that the elect were synonymous with the saved. However I read an article lately that has challenged this unexamined assumption.

The article was written by a Russian Orthodox priest, R. P, Alexander Turincev, in France in 1966. The article is now being translated into English, and I have been privileged to see a pre-publication version of the translation. I imagine that I will be speaking much more about this article once it is published, but for right now I would like to consider with you just one idea, an idea Turincev mentions in passing.  

Turincev says that the elect are not synonymous with the saved, but that the elect are those who are called to be the light and salt in the world. And just as salt saves (preserves) meat (the body), so the elect work with and by the Grace of the Holy Spirit to save the whole world.

Such a thought had never occurred to me before.  ut as I think about it, Turincev's interpretation makes much more sense than what I had thought before. Salt preserves something else. Light illuminates something else. Israel, the Old Testament type of the Church (or even the Church of the Old Testament), was called God's elect so as to be a light to the gentiles. "Through you," God says to Abraham, "all the the nations of the earth will be blessed."

That such a thing as God's elect, or chosen, exists, does not necessarily mean that the non-elect (if we could even identify who those are) are damned. It seems more likely to me that Turincev is right, that like Israel of old, election has to do with our calling to participate in the work of the Holy Spirit to save the whole, to transfigure the universe, to be salt and light in the world.

Great Oaks Grow Slowly

Abbess Victoria is on the right

Below is the cover article by Mother Victoria from the latest St. Barbara Monastery news letter.  In the article Mother Victoria reminds us of just how new Orthodox Christianity is to English-speaking North America.

This is needed perspective and a needed reminder.  At least it is needed by me.  I am impatient.  I want the infant English-speaking Orthodox Church in Canada to look and act like the thousand year old Orthodox Church in Russia, or the nearly two thousand year old Orthodox Church in Greece and the Middle East.  Great oaks grow slowly.

Dear Friends of St. Barbara Monastery,
One of our Friends happened to react with astonishment overhearing someone at the monastery remark that the Presanctified Liturgy was restored to general use in America in the early 1960’s, that is, about fifty years ago. This is, indeed, a fact, and one that is testimony to a theme we reflect on often: Despite all the deficiencies of the Orthodox Church in this country that we might lament (some of them, yes, quite legitimate and quite serious), things really are better than they were—and getting even better.
Fifty years ago, it was possible to have read just about every book that had been published in English on the Orthodox Church. Today, one can’t keep up with the wealth of Orthodox literature of every kind coming off the presses, even if one were to do nothing else but read. As few as twenty years ago, no complete collection of the lives of saints (Menaion) had been published and neither had a complete liturgical Menaion. St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, when he was the presiding bishop in North America at the turn of the 20th century, attempted to address this problem and patronized the translation of certain service books—notably Isabel Hapgood’s famous volume of Divine Services that everyone relied upon for years and years for texts of the Divine Liturgy, Sacraments, and other services such as the funeral. People might lament the heavy use of foreign languages in their churches, but for complete church services the texts simply had not yet been translated! Now the tables have somewhat turned, and we have the happy task of translating services originally composed in English for saints like Herman of Alaska and Raphael of Brooklyn, that is, our American saints, into foreign languages for the use of our Orthodox brothers and sisters who live in other countries.
Last, but not least, we cannot fail to mention how fifty years ago there were almost no monasteries in the United States. Throughout the centuries, monasteries have been integral to Orthodox Church life; but in this country in 1960 there were only two monasteries for men and only two or three for women (our own Holy Assumption Monastery in Calistoga being one of these). Now, glory to God, monasteries can almost be said to dot the landscape from coast to coast. In California alone, we have something like six or seven (depending on how one counts them).
All that we have mentioned constitutes only the foundation, or one might say the foundation and the tools, for the growth of Orthodox Church life in this country. The years ahead are ripe with possibility, and we look forward to seeing what the Lord will bless.
Abbess Victoria and the community of St. Barbara Monastery 

Loving God With All Our Strength

I don’t usually talk much about money, especially money as it relates to Church giving. I don’t want to seem to be “always” talking about money, so I very seldom talk about it. Nevertheless, today I am going to talk about it.  

To gain some perspective on our financial offerings, let’s look at the example of the widow whom Jesus praises for giving her “two mites,” all she had to live on. Two mites translates often into English as two pennies because these mites were apparently made of copper. However, to get an idea of how much these two mites were worth in today’s economy, we need to understand that two mites, St. Mark’s Gospel tells us, was worth a quadrans, which is a quarter of a denarius, or a quarter of a day’s wage.

Now when I have to hire people to dig trenches or pound fence posts around our little farm, I pay them $20 per hour, which a contractor told me is the going rate for day laborers. Eight hours of labor at $20 per hour works out to $160 dollars a day. So if we want to update the story of the widow’s mites to make sense in our current economy, we would have to say that the widow gave $40, “all that she had to live on.”  

And this makes sense. You can’t live today on 2 cents, but you can buy a week’s worth of beans and rice and a few veggies for $40.

I am very careful at Holy Nativity never to inquire into who gives what--only the treasurer knows that, and then only for those who want a tax receipt. I never want what I say or how I treat people to be influenced (even subconsciously) by what they do or don’t give to the Church. So if what I am about to say hits anyone close to home, it is not because I am thinking about you specifically. I have no idea what any particular person at Holy Nativity gives.  

Back to the $40. Could it be that some of us are not even contributing the widow’s mite to the upkeep and functioning of Holy Nativity Church? I know it is true that, with one or two possible exceptions, every household in the community of Holy Nativity has a lot more than $40 a week to live on. The “great faith” of the widow was that she gave all she had. I certainly do not have such great faith, and I do not expect of the parishioners of Holy Nativity to have such great faith. However, I do expect something, an offering, an offering of yourself to God.

What are we saying to God when we toss a couple of toonies into the offering box? Are we saying, “I entrust to You, Oh God, all that I have?"  Are we offering our selves to God?

When the scripture says, love the Lord with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength, the word “strength” does not mean mere physical ability--as in your ability to lift heavy things.  The actual word, ischus, means ability or resources. Your strength is all of the might or resources or ability to do things (i.e. money nowadays) that you control.  What would it mean to us if the Bible said, “love the Lord your God with all of your...money” or “all of your resources”--both of which would be perfectly legitimate translations? Would that make a difference?  

Of course we all have responsibilities. Of course we all have to manage our resources, our money, so as to care for our needs and the needs of those around us, so that we do not become a burden to others. Nevertheless, offering, the offering of our “whole lives unto Christ our God,” is central to what it means to be an Orthodox Christian. Can we really pray this? Can we really offer our whole life to Christ, but not our finances, or at least not more than occasional pocket change? What would it look like to really commit our whole life to Christ our God?

The Church has an answer, and it’s called a tithe: 10%. Ten percent, that’s how you entrust your whole life to Christ--or at least the financial aspect of your whole life. Ten percent, that’s how the early Church was able to care for the widows and orphans and pay “double honor” to the elders (priests) “who labor in the word and doctrine. For,” St. Paul continues, “‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain’ and ‘the laborer is worthy of his wages.’” I think St. Paul adds these last two quotes from the Old Testament just in case anyone might think that he wasn’t actually talking about money.

Ten percent is a lot of money, if you make a lot of money.  And then again, it’s not so much. It's not so much that with a small adjustment of our lifestyle we could not offer 10% of our income. After all, 10% is merely an icon of the whole, a sign that our whole life is God’s. But it would require an slight downsizing of our lifestyle, and I guess that’s the issue. Are we willing to adjust our lifestyle for Christ’s sake? Are we willing to live smaller as a means of entrusting our whole life to Christ?

In Canada today it is up to us. There is no government tax for Churches (as there still is in some European countries).  No one will make you give. At Holy Nativity we do not even “take offerings” so as not to pressure people into giving. We want it to be an offering. We want giving to be prayer. We want the parishioners of Holy Nativity to freely give their whole lives to Christ our God. It’s up to us, its up to you. Only God will know. And He's the only One who matters.

And The Last First

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells Peter (at the end of chapter 19) of the blessings and glory that His followers will receive “in the regeneration” because they have left behind this-worldly security (wealth and family) to follow Christ.  However, He warns that “many who are first will be last, and the last first.”  The next verse (beginning chapter 20) begins with the word for, “For the Kingdom of Heaven is like….”

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner hiring laborers to work in his vineyard, Jesus tells us.  The landowner goes out and finds laborers early in the morning, agrees to pay them a denarius (a day’s wages) to work in His vineyard.  Throughout the day, the landowner finds more laborers and sends them too out to work in the vineyard, agreeing to pay them “whatever is right.”  Then “at the eleventh hour,” at the very end of the day, he finds more laborers and sends them out into the vineyard.  Then when the work is done, the landowner pays the laborers, beginning with those hired last, giving them each a denarius.  Those hired first (and paid last) thought that they would receive more because they worked longer, but they were paid the same.  When they grumbled, the landowner points out to them that they were paid what they had agreed to receive, and then he asks them if their "eye is evil” (are they envious) “because I am good.”

And immediately Jesus reiterates, “so the last will be first, and the first last.”

When we hear this story, I think we forget that it is a parable of the Kingdom of Heaven.  We tend to hear it not as a parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, but rather as a morality tale presenting God (the landowner) as generous with his money (blessings), so we should be generous too.  And while we should be generous because God is generous, that is not what this parable is about.  It’s about the last being first and the first last.  To see this more clearly, it may help us to reflect on the fact that the denarius each laborer receives is not merely a unit of money, it is the image of the King.

The pay, the reward, the blessing and glory of the age to come is just that: we receive the clear image of the King.  Or to put it another way, "in the regeneration," the image of God that has been tarnished and spoiled by sin (the old Adam) will be replaced by the renewed Image (the new Adam).  Or as St. John says, “When He appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is” (1John 3:2).

It seems to me that for all but the very holiest saints, this transformation (regeneration) will be quite a shock.  But for those of us who have labored in the vineyard for a while, who have in this life (and in some small ways) left houses and family and lands to follow Christ, the transformation will be much less of a shock than it could be.  Those who have shared even in the smallest ways in the sufferings of Christ in this life, will have already tasted in some small ways of the Glory, the Comfort, the Light and the Consolation of the age to come.  I don’t mean by this that all or even most of those already laboring in Christ’s vineyard have experienced the Glory, Comfort, Light and Consolation of the age to come in a way that they can point to and identify: “Ah, yes, this bit here and that bit there are instances of God’s Light and Consolation in my life.”  I don't mean that at all.

Most of us are so sick and distracted by the diseases of this world, that even the Glory and Light of God shining brilliantly around us goes unnoticed.  We are truly blind.  But even as a blind man may not see the light of the sun, but nonetheless experience the blessings of its warmth, so we too, the spiritually blind, experience the warmth of God’s Grace in our lives, even if we are not able to identify it exactly.  But in the age to come, when all is Light and Grace, when our blindness is healed, then we will know.  Then we will say, “Aha, that’s what that is.  God has been so near to me all along.”  This is the joy of those who spend the day working in the vineyard.  They are with the Master, they are not experiencing the torment of those loitering on the streets, waiting because no one has hired them.  

The workers in the vineyard, because they are with the landowner, already know to some degree the joy of their Master, His kindness, His generosity--or at least they can know it, they can come to know it.  But sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes, like the workers in the parable, instead of rejoicing in their labor, in their nearness to the heavenly Landowner, in the love of the Master who has already promised them a denarius (His Image), they judge and evaluate others.  Instead of attending to their labor, the salvation of their own soul, they are attending to what others are or aren’t doing, how long or how hard others seem to be working.  Jesus tells us that these long-term laborers, those who appear to have been working for a long time but who are really not, these are the first that will be last.

The last who are first are those who are surprised, consumed, by the Master’s love and generosity.  They do not see what others do or don’t receive; they do not attend to what others have done or should do or might get: this is the attitude of the workers of the eleventh hour.  And I think that this attitude of the eleventh-hour workers is the attitude Jesus invites all His workers to embrace, regardless of how long they have been in the vineyard.  

St. Paul never stopped viewing himself as the least of the Apostles, as the chief of sinners.  The Apostle to the Gentiles had the attitude of an eleventh-hour laborer.  Regardless of our position in the Church or the number of years we have been laboring in the vineyard of Christ, it is, I think, possible to nurture the mindset, the attitude, of the last who will be first, of the eleventh-hour worker.  

May God help us to have the attitude of eleventh-hour workers even if we have “borne the burden and heat of the day.”  For this is our joy, to bear somewhat the burden and heat of the day, to get to be with the Master and share in His sufferings.  That God would include me, that God would invite me to share in what He is doing, this must always surprise and consume me, because as far as I am concerned, there is no greater love, no greater condescension, no greater miracle.

Rachel Weeping For Her Children

A Voice Was Heard In Rama, Rachel Weeping For Her Children

This is an Icon of “Rachel Weeping For Her Children.” It refers specifically to the slaughter of the innocents. That was the murder of thousands of young children (males under the age of two) who lived in and around Bethlehem just after the birth of Christ. King Herod had heard about the birth of Christ from the Wise Men from the east, and in an attempt to kill Jesus, kills all of the male children in the area.

Generally, however, this icon refers to all of the people, children or adults, who are killed and abused through the fear and selfishness of the powerful. This includes both victims of abortion and victims of “collateral damage” as powerful nations seek to kill those they perceive as threats. It includes those who suffer from economic oppression and those who die or kill themselves because they have been starved of love and care. Rachel weeps for them all.  Rachel, here, is a reference to the women of Israel, specifically, but generally to the whole Church. The whole church weeps for the innocent ones who are so easily trampled on and counted as nothing by the powerful.  

And like most revelations of the truth, there is a profound irony here. In some ways we all participate in and experience life as powerful oppressors, as weeping mothers, and as murdered and abused innocents. We are all victims, and we are all guilty, thus we all weep.

And yet, weeping is not the end. Every tear is carried to heaven by our angel; ever tear is a prayer. Those who have fallen asleep are now safe in God’s hands. We are the ones who mourn. We mourn because of our sins, the sins of the whole world; but we do not mourn (as St. Paul says) “as the gentiles do, who have no hope.” We mourn in the hope of the resurrection. We mourn in the hope that the Holy Spirit will guide us into repentance. We mourn in the hope that God will soften the hearts even of the powerful, even of us, the blind and foolish ones. Tears are a gift from God to those who begin to see.