Things Unfinished and a Beginning

Tags

Christmas, fasting, heart, Psalm 130(131), St. Hilary

Well, here we are again at the Nativity Fast. As has been my habit, I plan on meditating on the writings of one of the Church Fathers; however, as has also been my habit, I tried and largely failed to blog outside of the Nativity Fast. Therefore, before beginning in earnest with St. Gregory the Theologian, I need to finish what I began with St. Hilary on Psalm 130 (131):

If I was not humble-minded but have lifted up my soul. What inconsistency on the Prophet’s part! He does not lift up his heart: he does lift up his soul. He does not walk amid things great and wonderful that are above him; yet his thoughts are not mean. He is exalted in mind and cast down in heart. He is humble in his own affairs: but he is not humble in his thought. For his thought reaches to heaven, his soul is lifted up on high. But his heart, out of which proceed, according to the Gospel, evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings, is humble, pressed down beneath the gentle yoke of meekness. We must strike a middle course, then, between humility and exaltation, so that we may be humble in heart but lifted up in soul and thought.

St. Hilary now charts our course: we must be both humble and exulted. We must not seek glory (the great and wonderful things of this world), but seek His glory (the uncreated light of the Transfigured Christ).

It should be noted that St. Hilary uses the term heart where the modern man might use the word mind. For the Orthodox Church, however, the mind is more than merely the intellect — the world is more than can be observed and understood through discursive logic. Human beings experience inspiration — “Aha!” moments where thoughts fully formed appear inside one’s understanding. These ideas are not arrived at by logic or reason. They are perceived by what St. Hilary calls the heart.

The heart is where we encounter what is beautiful. It is where art is not only created, but has meaning. The heart is where, ultimately, we are able to experience, encounter and begin to understand God.

The problem is that one of the consequences of the fall is that our hearts are all damaged by sin. It is far too easy to mistake “great and wonderful things” for the glory which rightly belongs to God and God alone.

By keeping our heart focused on our weaknesses (evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings, etc.) we embark upon a process which heals the heart. We make it, not only possible, but easier to perceive the working of God in our life. Thus, as St. Hilary puts it, we are able to be lifted up in soul and thought.

As happens when one is dealing with God, even failings can be turned into blessings. While I utterly failed in my own endeavor to blog on a consistent basis over the course of the whole year, this last installment on St. Hilary’s meditation on Psalm 130(131) is an excellent place to begin the Nativity Fast. It is a reminder that fasting is one of the tools that the Church gives us to keep the heart humble. By limiting what we eat (and what we read, watch and do), it becomes easier for us to be lifted in soul and thought.

May both St. Hilary and St. Gregory the Great help us to humble ourselves in the coming fast so that we might encounter the glory of the One who became incarnate for our salvation. Amen.

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Bible Study Notes: Sunday of St. John Climacus

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fasting, Ladder of Divine Ascent, prayer, St. John Climacus

Apologies for not posting anything last week. Medical emergencies on top of preparation for the Feast Day of our parish prevented us from having Bible Study and me from having any time to post my own thoughts.

The fourth Sunday of Lent is dedicated to St. John Climacus, author of the Divine Ladder of Ascent, an ascetical treatise that uses the image of a ladder to describe ways of avoiding vice and embracing virtue in order to obtain salvation. The icon of the Ladder of Divine Ascent depicts Christians climbing a ladder towards Christ while demons use various tools to try to pull them off.

It is in this context that we examined both the Epistle Reading (Hebrews 6:13-20) and Gospel Reading (Mark 9:17-31) for this coming Sunday. We began by struggling through the Hebrews pericope, trying to understand how it was related to St. John Climacus. The image around which we were able to do this was Christ as “a sure and steadfast anchor” (Hebrews 6:19):

• Anchors in the ancient world were made of stone.
• This brought forth the image of both the rock in the desert that gushed forth water (Exo 17:6) and that Jesus equates Himself with (John 7:37) as well as the rock of faith that Jesus built His Church upon (Matt. 16:18).
• One of the uses of anchors in times prior to engines was the help steer. By setting an anchor out away from the boat, one could pull themselves toward the position of the anchor.
• God does not change. When He makes a promise, that promise will be fulfilled because God does not change, therefore neither will that promise.
• Thus, we can safely place our hope and faith in Christ as an anchor because He will not change where He is — we always know that He is in the same place (seated at the right Hand of the Father with our humanity intact). Thus, we can pull ourselves toward where He is knowing with certainty where it is that we are going.
• This is similar to the image of the Ladder.
• Note that it was not we who placed the ladder nor the anchor — it was God.

Our discussion of the Gospel was a little less focused:

• We discussed possession by demons — whose fault is it? God said to Cain as he was contemplating the murder of Abel, “Sin is crouching at the door hungry to get you. You can still master him” (Gen. 4:7). We are not inherently evil, rather we choose evil.
• However, it was noted that the focus of Christ’s admonition “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?” (Mark 9:19) is not aimed at the possessed boy, but rather at the Disciples and the father of the boy.
• The Disciples were unable to cure the boy because they and the father had no faith. This is shown by the father’s request, “if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us” (Mark 9:22). Note where Christ takes the father: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
• Thus, the father has taken his first step upon the Ladder.
• It was noted that one can doubt and still have faith.
• This pericope shows us that our actions, whether we are sinning or working towards our salvation, affects those around us. The possessed boy was negatively impacted by his father’s disbelief and cured through his belief.
• If we accept that we are created in the image and likeness of God and that God is one in essence and three in persons, than humanity is also one in essence and many in persons. What one person does, then, can affect all of humanity.
• Thus, we come to the necessity of prayer and fasting — these are tools that we can use to help us climb the Ladder and bring us closer to Christ — and through us others.

Bible Study Notes: Forgiveness Sunday

Tags

fasting, forgiveness, Great Lent

This coming Sunday is the last Sunday before we begin Lent. It is called Forgiveness Sunday and we also commemorate Adam’s expulsion from Paradise. In other words we must have these things in mind when we read the Epistle (Romans 13:11-14; 141-4) and Gospel Readings (Matthew 6:14-21):

• All of the themes from the previous weeks since we’ve opened the Triodion: the humility of the Publican, the coming to oneself of the Prodigal Son, and the criteria that God will judge us at the Judgement Seat (“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” —Matthew 25:40)
• The casting out of Adam and Eve from paradise (the consequences of which we are still living with)
• Forgiveness
• The beginning of the Great Fast

The discussion on the Epistle this week centered around the fast and why we do it.

• It allows us to exercise our spiritual muscles by taking something very basic (food) and willingly choosing to deny ourselves those things which in the ancient world took a lot of time to prepare (meat, dairy, fish, oil and wine). By practicing saying “No” to these basic things, it makes us more able to deny ourselves with other aspects of our lives. Ultimately, it strengthens us for when we are tempted with our weaknesses.
• In modern times, the things that in the ancient world took so much time to prepare, take about the same amount of time (and in some cases less) than fast-friendly food. This extra time we are supposed to gain from fasting is to be used for prayer and reading Scripture. For us, this means that we need to find that time in other things than food preparation (TV, internet, etc.).
• Since everyone is on their own unique and unrepeatable path towards Christ, we cannot judge or condemn someone else’s path. For example, someone with diabetes is going to have to fast in a fundamentally different way than someone who is 100% healthy and a pregnant woman shouldn’t be fasting from food at all.
• Despite the fact fasting from meat etc. doesn’t have the same practical outcome that it did in the ancient world, we still maintain these as part of our fast. This is because we not only fast for ourselves, but we fast for others as well. When we choose to keep the fast, we are strengthening our fellow Orthodox Christians to do the same.
• In addition, we all get to practice obedience. We die to ourselves and place the wisdom of the Church (and thus Christ) above our own.

Our discussion of the Gospel Reading was more varied:

• It was pointed out that Christ’s lesson on forgiveness is in context of teaching the Lord’s Prayer. Indeed, the Gospel Reading for Cheesefare Saturday (the day prior to this Sunday) ends with the Lord’s Prayer.
• It was noted that the Gospel Reading teaches about the three basic aspects of our ascetic life during Great Lent: prayer (v. 14-15), fasting (v. 16-18) and almsgiving (v. 19-21).
• The root of the Greek word for “forgive” used by Christ (ἀφῆτε) means “to let go.” In other words, we have to let go of the past in order to move towards our future in the Kingdom of Heaven. If we do not let go of that past, we choose to live in that reality rather than the reality of the Kingdom. Thus,

If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

• A corollary of this is the ability to allow God to forgive us. We must let go of our own sins in order to move forward towards the Kingdom. We must acknowledge them, name them by confessing them, let them go and look forward to the chance to do better next time.
• Great Lent is a time for doing exactly this — it is an opportunity to turn towards God, letting go of sin, letting go of the past and looking forward to striving to better ourselves and get closer to God as Great Lent progresses. May we all take advantage of all our opportunities in this Lent. Amen.

Bible Study Notes: Judgement Sunday

Tags

fasting, Icons, Image and Likeness, judgement, monasteries

Let me open this post the same way I opened this week’s Bible Study: it is a pet peeve of mine that this Sunday is called Meatfare. Nowhere in the hymns of the Church nor in the readings is there anything about fasting from meat. That is not what this Sunday is about. Rather, this Sunday is more properly called Judgement Sunday.

The hymns are filled with images of the Judgement Seat with its river of fire and the opening of all the books:

When You come down to the earth, O God, in Your glory, all things will cower tremulous, and a river of fire will draw before Your Judgment Seat; the books shall be opened up, and public knowledge will things hidden be. Rescue me, then, I pray, from unquenchable fire, and count me worthy to stand at Your right hand, O You, the most righteous Judge. — Kontakion of Judgement Sunday

These images come from the seventh chapter of Daniel, verses nine and ten:

I watched till thrones were put in place, And the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, Its wheels a burning fire; a fiery stream issued And came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, and the books were opened.

While reading the Epistle (1 Cor. 8:18; 9:1-2), one might be tempted to claim that it is about fasting; however note what St. Paul says about fasting from food:

We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. (1 Cor. 8:8)

The focus of this pericope, rather, is serving our weaker brethren. We need to know each other well enough and find value enough in each other to bear one another’s burdens. Part of why we fast is so that those who are weak are not tempted into further weakness.

This seeing value in others is also a very large part of the Gospel Reading (Matthew 25:31-46) on which we spent most of our time discussing. The key verse is Matthew 25:40:

Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.

Every human being is made in the image and likeness of God. Every human being is the icon of Christ. Therefore, the criteria for being a goat or a sheep is going to be how we see and treat our fellow human beings.

Some of our other observations:

• Orthodox monasteries are a wonderful image of Judgement and of our participation in it. The outside of the chapels are almost always covered in images from the Judgment — the images found in Daniel. Inside the chapel, the walls are covered in icons of the saints. This passively asks the question, Are you in or are you out of the Kingdom of Heaven? The choice is ours.
• Note the progression of how Christ describes treating our fellow human beings: feeding & giving drink; welcoming the stranger; clothing; visiting; going to. Our relationships begin with an external encounter of good will (food & drink). Then the Other comes to us (welcoming). Then we get to know them by allowing them into our lives (clothing). At this point the relationship begins to shift because we visit them (visiting). Finally, we go to where they are. This is where our relationships ought to be. It isn’t enough to give money so that others are fed and clothed. We must be willing to get out of our comfort zones and love one another enough to go where others are. Remember, this is the criteria by which we will be judged.
• Finally, it was asked what the word “punishment” in Greek meant. The word is κόλασιν, the root of which means maimed, or more literally, cut off. In other words, if we refuse to see the image of God and the icon of Christ in others, we cut ourselves off from our fellow human beings. We maim ourselves. In turn, this will become the standard by which we are judged. Because we have cut ourselves off from the image and icon, we will have cut ourselves off from God.

A Man Once Gave a Great Banquet

Tags

almsgiving, Christmas, fasting, Old Testament, prayer

Today we are two Sundays out from Christmas. Every year on this Sunday, the Church remembers the Forefathers of Christ — all the people from the OT that God worked through in order to prepare for His Incarnation. This is beautifully expressed in the Doxological Hymn From the Lauds of Orthros:

Come now, one and all, in faith let us celebrate the annual memorial of the Fathers before the Law, Abraham and those with him. Let us honor as is right the tribe of Judah, and let us extol the Children in Babylon, the Trinity’s image, who extinguished the furnace fire, and also Daniel. As we unerringly cling to the predictions of the Prophets, together with Isaiah we cry out in a loud voice, Behold the Virgin will conceive in the womb, and she will bear a Son, Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

This vision of preparation actually helps us to interpret and understand the parable from todays Gospel: Luke 14:16-24; Matthew 22:24. It is the parable of the man who prepares a banquet. Upon having his invitations rejected, he sends his servant out into the streets to bring the poor, the lame and the blind. When his table still has room, he sends his servant out to the open roads and the hedges to compel more, so that his table might be full. If we understand the preparation of the banquet to be a metaphor for God’s preparation for the coming of Christ, than we can see the man in this parable as God and the banquet as the Eucharist. Please note: the place where we set and prepare the gifts during the liturgy is called the Table (Tραπέζῃ).

Following through with this metaphor of the Table as the banquet and God as the men giving out invitations, this leaves us with three people that we might be in this metaphor. One: we have the men who refuse the invitation. Two: we have the poor, the blind and the lame. Three: we have the servant who has gone out to the open roads and the hedges.

Before you assume which one of these three you are, listen to the invitation of God spoken through his priests at every liturgy:

With the fear of God, with faith and love draw near!

If you are an Orthodox Christian, this means you. Period. If you are in Church during a liturgy, you have the fear of God, you have faith and you have love. Beyond that, there are no qualifications. Certainly, we are expected to be walking a Christian life of prayer, fasting and almsgiving but how are we supposed to do that on our own without God’s help? That is what we are trying to do, if we don’t approach the cup at liturgy — we are trying to be Christians on our own and by our regulations and judgement, not God’s. Refusing to come to the cup is akin to the lame excuses that the men in the parable give for not coming to the banquet. The land and oxen will be there tomorrow to examine. This is a hospital, where the Body and Blood are not just the richest food available to humanity, but it is also medicine for the greatest diseases that afflict us: death and sin.

This brings us to the second group of people in the parable: the poor, the blind and the lame. This is where most of us are. We are sinners. We are in desperate need of spiritual food and healing. We come to the cup knowing that we are being given Christ Himself — the one who forgives sin, who heals the blind and the lame. When we accept this reality and walk a life that expects to return to this banquet every week miracles happen because God is with us! The fullness of Christ gives us the time for prayer, the strength for fasting and the abundance for almsgiving. We cannot do these things on our own.

This brings us to the last person in this parable that we can aspire to be: the servant. Note what the servant says to his master when he has scoured the streets and the lanes of the city to bring the poor, the blind and the lame:

Sir, what you have commanded has been done and there is still room.

Look around you at the empty seats in church. There is still room. We are now called to get out of our comfort zone and go to the open roads and to the hedges — places where robbers and highwaymen frequent — in order to bring more to the table. As any one who has gone to the Clergy Laity conference of our Metropolis can tell you, one of the best ways we can do this is ministry. The only way this can happen, however, is if we are willing to give of our time, our treasure and our talents.

A ministry can only happen if we make a commitment to make time for it. We all have extremely busy lives, especially those of us who have children. Here in Decatur we are blessed with a plethora of opportunities and activities for children. The only way that we are going to compete with these things is if we choose to. That means our time.

If we are willing to make time for these ministries, we must also be willing to pay for them. We need to know what we can expect to get from our stewards so that we can set a budget. That budget must then include money set aside specifically for ministry. Materials, food, personnel all need to be paid for in order to make ministry happen.

Finally, the priest cannot be expected to do every single ministry the Church does. He is not superman. God has given him certain skills — skills that allow him to be a priest — but that doesn’t necessarily make him the best person to run a nursing program, for example. Every single one of us has talents that need to be brought to bear to make ministry happen. That means volunteering that talent, and possible taking over and doing the entire ministry, reporting to the priest as to how things are going.

Today’s Gospel Reading isn’t entirely from Luke. The Church has made an addendum with Matthew 22:24 which reads:

For many are called, but few are chosen.

There is great irony in this verse. God is doing the calling, but He isn’t doing the choosing. We are. We choose whether or not to come to the banquet. We choose whether or not we will depend upon the Body and Blood to help us heal. We are the one who chose whether or not to go out into the open roads and hedges to bring more to the table.

As we continue to approach the Nativity of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, let us review our choices. Let us respond to the greatest gift evergiven to humanity by choosing to be a servant — by giving back our time, our treasure and our talents. With the help of God and the prayers of the saints may we see the table full. Amen.

Sunday of the Prodigal Son

Tags

almsgiving, fasting, prayer, Prodigal Son

Luke15:11-32

Today is the second Sunday of the Triodion — the liturgical book the Church uses in the weeks leading up to and during Great Lent. Today, we hear our Lord, God and Saviour tell us the parable of the Prodigal Son. This is one of the most beloved of all the parables in the Bible, partly because its metaphor is so rich and so deep. There is so much that can be said about this parable, that it poses a major challenge for priests all around the world today — which diamond to I mine today?

The diamond that I want to highlight today are three words — “ἑαυτὸν δὲ ἐλθὼν” (Luke 15:17) — and how they fit into the greater narrative of the Triodion and our own preparation for Great Lent. In English, ἑαυτὸν δὲ ἐλθὼν sounds a bit strange: “he came to himself.” We could imagine the Prodigal Son walking down the street and happening upon himself working away in the pig sty. As weird as this sounds, if we add one more element to this story, it begins to make sense. The Prodigal then asks, “Who is this guy starving as he feeds the pigs?”

This is a very important question, “who is the Prodigal Son?” Poetically, the Church answers this question for us this morning through her hymns. At Orthros we hear over and over again that we are the Prodigal:

And therefore as the Prodigal, I am returning. Receive me, O loving Father, and save me. — Exaposteilarion

The cry of the Prodigal I offer to You, O Lord — Lauds

Like the Prodigal Son, I too, have come, O compassionate one — Lauds

I return, and cry to You the compassionate Father, “I have sinned against heaven and before You, and I am not worthy to be called Your son. Treat me as one of Your hirelings, O God, and have mercy on me.” — Lauds

The gifts of my soul I have squandered with abandon. So, having arisen, once again I return to You and cry, “Treat me as one of Your hirelings.” — Lauds

So the Church turns this question around: who are we? On one hand, we are the sons and daughters of God, made in the image and likeness of God. On the other, we are sinners living, working and starving in the pig sty of our own sins. Today we are called to come to ourselves and come face to face with the reality of sin — how far we have removed ourselves from God our Father. We are to see the reality of how we have squandered the gifts that He has given us. We are to come to the realization that our soul is starving. Most importantly, however, we are to understand that this is not who we are meant to be. We are to come to ourselves — the person that God created us to be.

God did not create us only to see us suffer and die in sin. We are the sons and daughters of God. We are made in the image and likeness of God, and He cannot abide the sight of His creation dying. Already our Father is running from His house to gather us up in His arms to kiss us and welcome us home with a feast. All we need to do is come to ourselves and see our sin, see the image and likeness of God, fall down upon our knees as did the Publican last week and cry out, “Lord have mercy upon me a sinner!”

This action may very well bring to mind the scene from the movie the Godfather where Michael Corleone is at church baptizing his godson while his goons are out murdering his rivals. The idea being that we can go to the confessional, tell the priest all of our sins and go back to being our sinful selves. Michael Corleone is exactly like the Pharisee from last week. He is using God as a tool to advance his own status — to give himself that alibi so that when the police try to find out who is responsible for all these hits, he can say, “I was at church baptizing my godson.” He is still in the pig sty. If we don’t change the way we behave — if we don’t remove those things in our lives that separate us from God — we will remain in the pig sty. We will not even know that we are still there. This is why we are called to come to ourselves. We must see the reality of where we are in our lives and in our relationship with God. The reason that year after year the Church gives us the Triodion and the Great Fast is to allow us to come face to face with where we are in our relationship with sin and God.

During the fast we attempt to fast, give alms to the poor and pray. These are spiritual exercises. These are tools that the Church gives us to use in the battle against sin — those things in our lives that pull us away from God. Each tool can be used to combat different kinds of sin. When we read the Fathers, we find that they have classified three types of sin:

• Irascible (wrath, despair)
• Concupisent (lust, greed)
• Intellectual (vainglory, pride)

Fasting combats irascible sins. By denying ourselves food and taking control of hunger, we not only train ourselves self-control, but we can more easily sympathize with others who are also suffering. Almsgiving combats consupisent sins. When we freely give to others, we shift the focus from our own selfish needs and despires to the real needs of others. Prayer combats intellectual sins. The very act of praying admits that we cannot do this by ourselves. We pray to God knowing that without him we can do nothing.

So every year we set off on this journey towards Pascha — towards the Resurrection. Upon this journey we fast, we give alms and we pray. We exercise spiritually. We use these tools that the Church has given us to come to ourselves — to realize where we are in our lives and in relationship with God. We work our way back towards Him — into the loving embrace of the Father who is waiting with open arms to kiss us, to clothe us and welcome us back into His household.

Let me leave you with another hymn that we sing at the Vespers of the Prodigal Son:

Brethren, let us learn the meaning of this mystery. For when the Prodigal Son ran back from sin to his Father’s house, his loving Father came out to meet him and kissed him. He restored to the Prodigal the tokens of his proper glory, and mystically He made glad on high, sacrificing the fatted calf. Let our lives, then, be worthy of the loving Father who has offered sacrifice, and of the glorious Victim who is the Saviour of our souls. — Stichera of Vespers for the Prodigal Son

Remember, that Christ went to the Cross for us, for exactly this purpose: so that we might come into our Father’s house, that we may partake of His meal and enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.