Shamed No More: The Triumphant Entrance of Christ

Sunday, April 20, 2008: ENTRY OF OUR LORD INTO JERUSALEM (Palm Sunday). Ven. Theodore Trichinas ("the Hair-shirt Wearer"), Hermit, near Constantinople. Ven. Alexander, Abbot of Oshevensk (1479). Child Martyr Gabriel of Bialystok (1690). Ss. Gregory (593) and Anastasius the Sinaite (599), Patriarchs of Antioch. Ven. Anastasius, Abbot of Sinai (695).

Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray Him, said,Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it. But Jesus said, "Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. For the poor you have with you always, but Me you do not have always. Now a great many of the Jews knew that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus. The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out: Hosanna! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!' The King of Israel!" Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written:

Fear not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your King is coming, Sitting on a donkey's colt."

His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him. Therefore the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead, bore witness. For this reason the people also met Him, because they heard that He had done this sign.

John 12:1-18)

Reading the sermons of St John Chrysostom it is hard for understand why he seems to be so marginal to the theological life of the Church. His work us especially important for those of us who are interested in reflecting on the pastoral life of the Christian community. Chrysostom's sermon (Homily LXVI) on John 12 is a case in point.

St John begins with his usual forthrightness: "As wealth is wont to hurl into destruction those who are not heedful, so also is power; the first leads into covetousness, the second into pride." He then proceeds to examine the events recounted in the Gospel passage for Palm Sunday.

See, for instance, how the subject multitude of the Jews is sound, and their rulers corrupt; for that the first of these believed Christ, the Evangelists continually assert, saying, that "many of the multitude believed on Him" (Jn 7: 31, 48); but they who were of the rulers, believed not. And they themselves say, not the multitude, "Hath any of the rulers believed on Him?" But what saith one? "The multitude who know not God are accursed" (Jn 7: 49); the believers they call accursed, and themselves the slayers, wise.

The unwillingness of the rulers to accept the Christ reflects not such much a lack of faith, but the presence of pride and a desire to hold on to the power that they have acquired. Where the majority saw a reason for belief, for example, in the raising of Lazarus from the dead by Jesus, those who coveted power saw a pressing need to "kill Lazarus." By an act of human power these men hope to be able to overcome the power of God in their midst.

The rulers had Chrysostom says at least contrived grounds "to slay Christ." After all "He broke the Sabbath," and "He made Himself equal to the Father," and He represented a threat to Roman rule. But "what charge had they against Lazarus that they sought to kill him? Is the having received a benefit a crime? See thou how murderous is their will?" It is here that Chrysostom diagnosis the illness that afflicts many in the Church: I see God's bestow of blessing on my neighbor as somehow an affront to me.

And the greater the miracle, the greater seems to be my anger and jealousy.

Yet He had worked many miracles; but none exasperated them so much as this one, not the paralytic, not the blind. For this was more wonderful in its nature, and was wrought after many others, and it was a strange thing to see one, who had been dead four days, walking and speaking.

The malice I feel toward my neighbor reflects my deeper animosity toward God Himself. The great temptation of any who have power and authority is first to try and "to draw away the multitudes." And when I fail at this, when it is clear that I can find "no fault" with Christ, what choice do I have but to kill the one who Christ has blessed?

Since then the charge which they continually brought against Him was removed, and the miracle was evident, they hasten to murder. So that they would have done the same in the case of the blind man, had it not been in their power to find fault respecting the Sabbath. Besides, that man was of no note, and they cast him out of the temple; but Lazarus was a person of distinction, as is clear, since many came to comfort his sisters; and the miracle was done in the sight of all, and most marvelously. On which account all ran to see. This then stung them, that while the feast was going on, all should leave it and go to Bethany. They set their hand therefore to kill him, and thought they were not daring anything, so murderous were they. On this account the8 Law at its commencement opens with this, "Thou shall not kill" (Ex. xx. 13); and the Prophet brings this charge against them, "Their hands are full of blood." (Is 1,15).

And when even this fails? When I am unable to kill the one who Christ has blessed?

Murder to be murder need not slay the body. Jesus makes this clear in the Gospel when He tells us "do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Mt 10.28). Commenting on this passage St Augustine tells (LXV Ben) us that in saying this Jesus teaches us "in fearing not to fear, and in not fearing to fear. " He continues

See where He advised us not to fear. See now where He advised us to fear. "But," says he, "fear Him who has power to destroy both body and soul in hell." Let us fear therefore, that we may not fear. Fear seems to be allied to cowardice: seems to be the character of the weak, not the strong. But see what says the Scripture, "The fear of the Lord is the hope of strength." Let us then fear, that we may not fear; that is, let us fear prudently, that we may not fear vainly. The holy Martyrs on the occasion of whose solemnity this lesson was read out of the Gospel, in fearing, feared not; because in fearing God, they did not regard men.

As the events of Great and Holy Week make clear, what the rulers of the Jews feared was Roman power and authority. And what the rulers feared as well was the loss of their own power and authority if they lost Roman favor. Like all who acquisition of power has given birth to pride, what I fear is not God but human opinion.

This plays itself concretely in human communities through shaming.

We get an example of this is Judas' criticism of the woman who anointed Jesus' feet with myrrh; "Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" Here we can see the power of shame. Shame minimizing the good we have done by contrasting it negatively with the good that we do not do.

Human life being what it is, every good thing that we do necessarily leaves a myriad of other equally good, or even better, things undone. And how can it be otherwise? We are creatures, we are finite and so our power to do the good is always and everywhere limited. Shame exploits human finitude, human limitations. And it does so in such a way as to cause us to turn against our own humanity—the shameful of shame is that it cause us to reject our own humanity, to condemn ourselves not for our sinfulness, but our creatureliness. (As an aside, it is not unexpected that shame is often associated with sex. Our sex, our being male or female, is intrinsic to our identity. While sex does not exhaust human identity, it is still foundational to that identity.)

Like Judas, those who exercise power in a shaming fashion do so not simply for their own profit, but for a profit that comes at the expense of others. "This he [Judas] said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it." Shame is the consequence of those in power using their power to exploit us in our weakness. And again, because we are creatures, because we do not possess our one existence but receive it each moment as a free gift, we are all of us weak and so vulnerable to exploitation by others.

Given as well that to be human is to be a relational being our vulnerability is global. Because our absolute dependence upon God is incarnated as a relative dependence upon other human beings, shame remains a universal aberrant possibility in human relationships.

For many of us, sadly, the Christian life is often a life of shame, of turning toward the gift of our own life and humanity not with gratitude, but disdain or even despair. Like the woman in the Gospel, the gift we have received from God and which in gratitude we return to Him, is often greeted with self-serving contempt by those around us. Especially when that contempt comes from a Christian brother or sister, or worse still a father or mother in Christ, the wound is unimaginably deep and painful.

It is worth noting that the Gospel story of Christ's triumphal entrance into Jerusalem embraces not simply the political, but also the personal. Yes, Jesus challenges the authority, the power and the pride of the political and religious rulers of this world. But He also makes manifest that same challenge in the midst of the more ordinary, homey relationship that make up our everyday life. Jesus challenges not simply the powerful of this world, but the human heart out of which that attachment to power arises.

It is worth remembering that even as we are all vulnerable to shame, we are all of us also tempted to shame others. The vulnerability that shame exploits is shared—we are all of us able to wound as well as to be wounded. The Gospel that embraces says "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus," (Gal 3:27-28) finds its opposite number in our shared sinfulness. In sin there is also "Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female." But where in Christ this opens us the Infinite God and to each, sin closes us in on ourselves and so to God and to our neighbor.

The divine response to sin's toxic mixture power, pride, shame that exploits human ontological and psychological vulnerabilities is to come to us in humility, "Sitting on a donkey's colt." It is because of the humility of God that we are able to live without free. As Chrysostom reminds us, unlike kings of this world who are "the most part . . . unjust and covetous kind of men," our God is "meek and gentle."

The powerful of this world, and this includes at moments each of us, cannot see this. In my sinfulness, in my love of power, I am offended by, a King Who suffers and is betrayed. It simply cannot be this way for Him, but only because I do not wish it to be this way for me.

But the Kingdom that Jesus comes to announce is not of this world. It is an eschatological Kingdom that, by its very natures, comes as gift and so confounds all human attempts at power and control. It is, humanly speaking, a powerless Kingdom. And paradoxically it is in its powerlessness that the true power of the Kingdom of God is revealed.

St. John Chrysostom says "I call Him King, because I see Him crucified: it belongs to the King to die for His subjects." On Palm Sunday, on His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Jesus reveals Himself as the King Who has come to die for His subjects. And in so doing He puts to death our sinfulness and liberates us from the grip of shame that gives pride its real authority in our life.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Shakespeare's Who's On First

An Elizabethan twist on Abbot and Costello's famous vaudeville routine. Performed by STNJ actors David Foubert and Jay Leibowitz on New Year's Eve of 2006 in Morristown, NJ. Written by Jay Leibowitz and directed by Jason King Jones. Material Copyright 2007 Jay Leibowitz - www.jayleibowitz.com.




hat tip: Dr Platypus

Reflections on St Isaac the Syrian-Part IV

Thinking about St Isaac the Syrian and having read his works to great personal, pastoral and professional profit, I tend to view his work much like I do the questions I ask in therapy or confession. Much like a Zen koan, St Isaac's work is given to the Church by God to provoke reflection on the Gospel and our own personal and communal stance relative to God. And so I find myself agree with BH when he says that "Isaac's teaching on universal salvation evokes the following questions: what is the sense of the whole drama of human history, if both good and evil are ultimately to be found on an equal footing in the face of God's mercifulness? What is the sense of sufferings, ascetic labour and prayer, if sinners will be sooner or later equated with the righteous? Besides, how far do Isaac's opinions correspond to the Christian tradition and to the teaching of the Gospel, in particular, to the Parable of the Last Judgment, where the question concerns the separation of the 'sheep' and the 'goats'?"

What self-knowledge I have suggests to me the truth that I need to believe in a Hell populated with other people. Even if I rarely will admit that to myself, much less others, I recognize in me the bitterness, the anger, the desire for revenge that resonates deeply with a populated Hell. One of the good reasons I am as attracted to psychoanalytic thought is that it serves to remind me of just how hard real healing is—and theologically it is hard because, as a sinner, wholeness does not naturally attract me.

This division within myself is one that I replicate in my view of humanity. But St Isaac "in speaking about the absence of any middle realm between Gehenna and the Kingdom of heaven" is not denying "the reality of the separation of the sheep from the goats, . . . he even explicitly refers to it." No he is concerned, I would suggest, in imitating the God Who does not separate Himself from either the sheep or the goats, the repentant or the unrepentant, the saint or the sinner, the virtuous or the vicious. We should is the saint's view ponder daily the reality of the Last Judgment. But I asking us to do so, is to make clear to us that "the present life is a time when the separation actually takes place, and the Last Judgment will only reveal that spiritual state which was reached by a person during his life." Isaac's teaching is not, BH argues, "a dogmatic statement concerning the final destiny of the righteous and sinners, but as a prophetic warning against not having and manifesting love for one's fellow humans during one's earthly life."

I can immediately hear the objections that are raised. Let me simply say for myself, it does not speak well of me that I need the threat of Hell to love, much less that I believe that I think you do and that I am the appointed agent to deliver that stern warning.

For Isaac, God is primarily a householder making those who worked only one hour equal to those who have borne the burden of the whole day (Matt.20:1-15). A place in the Kingdom of heaven is given to a person not on the basis of his worthiness or unworthiness, but rather on the basis of God's mercy and love towards humankind. The Kingdom of heaven is not a reward, and Gehenna is not a requital: both are gifts of the merciful God 'Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth' (1 Tim.2:4).

When I was in college one of the great Christological debates in academic theology centered on the self-awareness of Christ. What was it like for Jesus to be aware of Himself? Did He know Himself with His mind to be the Pre-Eternal Son of God? Oh how we all went round and round on these and other questions.

That is until the day we asked Fr Christopher Rabay, a pious Cistercian priest. After a moment's pause he said that having himself never been God become man, he had no frame of reference to even begin to answer the question. After all, he continued, he didn't even understand how the saints thought himself not being a saint. Likewise, I think it is good to keep in mind that "the theological system of Isaac the Syrian is based on the direct experience of the mystical union of an ascetic with the love of God." Whatever else this might mean existentially, St Isaac offers us an insight into an experience of God and His creation that "excludes any possibility of envy of other human beings, even to those who have reached a higher spiritual state and thus have a chance of receiving a higher place in the Kingdom of heaven." For the saint, and unlike me, the spiritual life bears fruit in an "experience of unity with God as love is so full of delight in itself that it is not for the sake of any future reward that a person prays, suffers and toils in ascetical labours: in this very suffering, in this very prayer and ascetical labour, the experience of encounter with God is concealed." For St Isaac, and unlike me, the "reason for prayer, bearing afflictions and keeping the commandments is, therefore, not one's striving to leave other human beings behind and to obtain a place in the age to come that is higher than theirs." Instead, he tells us that the only "reason for all ascetical toils is the experience of the grace of God which a person acquires through them. An encounter with God, a direct mystical experience of the divine love which one receives during one's lifetime is, for Isaac, the only justification for all struggles and efforts."

I would be the first to admit that, view from the vantage of systematic theology, St Isaac's teaching leaves something to be desired. But then view from the viewpoint of systematic theology, so does poetry and the text of Scripture. But this is not to pit systematic theology against mystical prayer any more that the deficiencies of physiology, psychology, sociology, to capture what it means for me to say to my wife, "I love you" means that these disciplines are of no value. What I am saying, I think, is this, let us be wary of St Isaac's teaching, but that wariness ought not to be born out of an indifference to the delight and joy his teaching can inspire in us.

St Isaac writes:

Be at peace with your own soul

then heaven & earth will be at peace with you.

Enter eagerly into the treasure

house that is within you,

And you will see the things that are in heaven,

for there is but one single entry to them both.

The ladder that leads to the Kingdom

is hidden within your soul...

Dive into yourself and in your soul

and you will discover the stairs

by which to ascend.

I cannot help but wonder how much of our concern about matters pertaining to the life to come reflect our being at peace within our own souls. Nor can I shake the feeling that, for all our theological erudition, if our objection to St Isaac of Syria and our defense of Hell and of divine justice trumping divine mercy, does not likewise reflect that lack of peace. Whatever else might be the case, if you are condemned for all eternity to Hell, I can easily think myself "absolved" of any responsibility for you. And yes I know, the universalist tendency allows for a similar neglect of my neighbor and of myself. But, again as St Isaac says:

Gratefulness on the part of the recipient spurs on the giver to bestow gifts larger than before. He who embezzles petty things is also false and fraudulent concerning things of importance.

The sick one who is acquainted with his sickness is easily to be cured; and he who confesses his pain is near to health. Many are the pains of the hard heart; and when the sick one resists the physician, his torments will be augmented.

There is no sin which cannot be pardoned except that one which lacks repentance, and there is no gift which is not augmented save that which remains without acknowledgement. For the portion of the fool is small in his eyes.

In my own experience, and again I am certainly no saint, generosity of spirit, a willingness to not reject or abandon another human being, is certainly harder, but eve so much more effective.

In Christ our True God, the Physician of our souls and body, the One heals our every disease and Who forgives us our every sin,

+Fr Gregory

Reflections on St Isaac the Syrian-Part III

For many where St Isaac's teaching becomes questionable is when the universal scope of God's love is extended beyond creation to embrace eschatology.

As BH writes:

According to Isaac, the final outcome of the history of the universe must correspond to the majesty of God, and that the final destiny of the humans should be worthy of God's mercifulness. 'I am of the opinion that He is going to manifest some wonderful outcome', Isaac claims, 'a matter of immense and ineffable compassion on the part of the glorious Creator, with respect to the ordering of this difficult matter of Gehenna's torment: out of it the wealth of His love and power and wisdom will become known all the more - and so will the insistent might of the waves of His goodness. It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them - and whom nonetheless He created' (II/39,6).

His Grace continues:

All afflictions and sufferings which fall to everyone's lot are sent from God with the aim of bringing a person to an inner change. Isaac comes to an important conclusion: God never retaliates for the past, but always cares for our future. '...All kinds and manner of chastisements and punishments that come from Him', Isaac suggests, 'are not brought about in order to requite past actions, but for the sake of the subsequent gain to be gotten in them... This is what the Scriptures bring to our attention and remind us of.., that God is not one who requites evil, but He sets aright evil' (II/39,15-16).

Central to St Isaac's eschatological vision is the idea that "love contradicts the idea of requital." For Isaac, BH argues, "if we are to suppose that God will punish sinners eternally, this would mean that the creation of the world was a mistake, as God proved to be unable to oppose evil, which is not within His will. If we ascribe requital to God's actions, we apply weakness to God: 'So then, let us not attribute to God's actions and His dealings with us any idea of requital. Rather, we should speak of fatherly provision, a wise dispensation, a perfect will which is concerned with our good, and complete love. If it is a case of love, then it is not one of requital; and if it is a case of requital, then it is not one of love' (II/39,17).

At the core of what is being taught is the reality that we simply do not understand God. All we know of Him we know by way of His free revelation to us. This is simply to day that all "God's actions are mysteries that are inaccessible to human reasoning" and this includes the mystery of Hell or "Gehenna." Where many Christians, and not simply Western Christians, view hell as a place of torment and punishment, St Isaac sees it in more therapeutic terms as a place created by God "in order to bring to a state of perfection those who had not reached it during their lifetime" BH goes so far as to describe hell in St Isaac's teaching as "a sort of purgatory rather than hell" as that term is more generally understood. That Gehenna is a place of purification is something "hidden from those who are chastised in it." The true meaning if their confinement there is something that "will be revealed only after Gehenna is abolished" and when "All those who have fallen away from God will eventually return to Him [having been purified] through the fire of suffering and repentance."

Speaking personally for a moment, I find the teaching presented by St Isaac to be both attractive and troubling. Attractive because I find comfort in the idea that God will never abandon me, never cease to love me. I find it troubling—and here I must be honest with myself—because I think it lets OTHER people off the hook for their bad behavior. In my mind's eye I can see a parade of wicked, and not so wicked, people appealing to St Isaac to justify their own malfeasances.

Damn it all, I need bad people to be punished, or at least I need to be able to threaten them with punishment to keep them in line.

And there it is of course. God doesn't need hell, but I certainly do. I need to think that justice will be done and that the wrongs I suffered (though not the wrongs I committed) will be righted. And righted they will, Isaac suggests, but by divine love and mercy and not justice.

Isaac was quite resentful of the
widespread opinion that the majority of people will be punished in hell, and only a small group of the chosen will delight in Paradise. He is convinced that, quite the contrary, the majority of people will find themselves in the Kingdom of heaven, and only a few sinners will go to Gehenna, and even they only for the period of time which is necessary for their repentance and remission of sins: 'By the device of grace the majority of humankind will enter the Kingdom of heaven without the experience of Gehenna. But this is apart from those who, because of their hardness of heart and utter abandonment to wickedness and the lusts, fail to show remorse in suffering for their faults and their sins, and because these people have not been disciplined at all. For God's holy Nature is so good and compassionate that it is always seeking to find some small means of putting us in the right, how He can forgive human beings their sins - like the case of the tax collector who was put in the right by the intensity of his prayer (Luke 18:14), or like the case of a woman with two small coins (Mark 12:42-43; Luke 21:2-3), or the man who received forgiveness on the Cross (Luke 23:40-43). For God wishes for our salvation, and not for reasons to torment us' (II/40,12).

To repeat what I said at the beginning, Isaac the Syrian explicitly teaches universal salvation. But while the Orthodox Church rejected the teaching apokatastasis ton panton (restoration of all), in BH's view Isaac is teaching something different from "the universal salvation [inherent in an] Origenist 'restoration of all'. For

Origen, universal restoration is not the end of the world, but a passing phase from one created world to another, which will come into existence after the present world has come to its end. This idea is alien to Christian tradition and unknown to Isaac. The latter is more dependent on other ancient writers, notably Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus, who also developed the idea of universal salvation, yet in a way different from Origen's. On the other hand, it would not be fair to say that Isaac simply borrowed the ideas of his predecessors and inserted them into his own writings. Isaac's eschatological optimism and his belief in universal salvation are ultimate outcomes of his personal theological vision, whose central idea is that of God as love. Around this idea the whole of his theological system is shaped.

BH's distinction here is, I must admit, lost on me. As I get older I become ever more content to leave the heavy theological lifting to those with intellects, and prayer lives, better than my own. Again, the older I get the more I realize that I do not pray well enough to do theology as it ought to be done even as I pray to well to be happy doing theology the way that it is done. And so I find myself evermore content that God has made me a priest-psychologist rather than a priest-theologian.

To be continued…

In Christ our True God, the Physician of our souls and body, the One heals our every disease and Who forgives us our every sin,

+Fr Gregory

Reflections on St Isaac the Syrian-Part II

Reading what I've written, I am put in mind of the many people I serve in my own ministry that has me standing more often than not in that gray area between spiritual direction and psychotherapy. So many of the people I encounter live lives ruled by shame, guilt, fear, dread, doubt and even a quiet, though no less real, sense of despair. More often than not, this is ground the person's lack of a felt awareness that he or she "is a continuing realization of the creative potential of God, an endless revelation of the Divinity in His creative act." It is this love that is not only the foundation of the person's identity, it is also "at the foundation of the universe, it governs the world, and it will lead the world to that glorious outcome when the latter will be entirely 'consumed' by the Godhead: 'What profundity of richness, what mind and exalted wisdom is God's! What compassionate kindness and abundant goodness belong to the Creator! With what purpose and with what love did He create this world and bring it into existence! What a mystery does the coming into being of the creation look towards! To what a state is our common nature invited! What love served to initiate the creation of the world..! In love did He bring the world into existence; in love is He going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of Him who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised' (II/38,1-2)."

Unfortunately, it is not simply that we fail to understand our identity, but we often work against who we are and are called to be by God. The standard for human life is not my own good, much less my own desires, but rather that of God Whose "attitude to the created world is characterized by an unceasing providential care for all its inhabitants: for angels and demons, human beings and animals. God's providence is universal and embraces all (I/7, 65). None of His creatures is excluded from the scope of the loving providence of God, but the love of the Creator is bestowed equally upon all: '...There is not a single nature who is in the first place or last place in creation in the Creator's knowledge.., similarly there is no before or after in His love towards them: no greater or lesser amount of love is to be found with Him at all. Rather, just like the continual equality of His knowledge, so too is the continual equality of His love' (II/38,3).

St Isaac paints a picture of a God Who holds all creation in His "providential care." That this care extends to angels and demons, the human beings and the organic and inorganic world is itself a certain type of universalism to be sure, but this is a universalism that sees all creation in a "hierarchical structure" and in which each creature is given his or her own place in the universe and this is place that cannot be "taken away from anyone even if one falls away from God." As Isaac teaches: "Everyone has a single place in His purpose in the ranking of love, corresponding to the form He beheld in them before He created them and all the rest of created beings, that is, at the time before the eternal purpose for the delineation of the world was put into effect... He has a single ranking of complete and impassible love towards everyone, and He has a single caring concern for those who have fallen, just as much as for those who have not fallen" (II/40,3).

Scandalous no doubt to many—and not simply Western Christians—is St Isaac's unwillingness to allow God's justice to override His mercy.

Thus the image of God as Judge is completely overshadowed in Isaac by the image of God as Love (hubba) and Mercy (rahme). According to him, mercifulness (mrahmanuta) is incompatible with justice (k'inuta): 'Mercy is opposed to justice. Justice is equality of the even scale, for it gives to each as he deserves... Mercy, on the other hand, is a sorrow and pity stirred up by goodness, and it compassionately inclines a man in the direction of all; it does not requite a man who is deserving of evil, and to him who is deserving of good it gives a double portion. If, therefore, it is evident that mercy belongs to the portion of righteousness, then justice belongs to the portion of wickedness. As grass and fire cannot coexist in one place, so justice and mercy cannot abide in one soul'. Thus one cannot speak at all of God's justice, but rather of mercy that surpasses all justice: 'As a grain of sand cannot counterbalance a great quantity of gold, so in comparison God's use of justice cannot counterbalance His mercy. As a handful of sand thrown into the great sea, so are the sins of the flesh in comparison with the mind of God. And just as a strongly flowing spring is not obscured by a handful of dust, so the mercy of the Creator is not stemmed by the vices of His creatures' (I/51, 244).

The goal here is not, as it might be a different context, to articulate divine justice, but rather any appeal to divine justice that has as its call the "decisiveness . . . of requital." Rather, Isaac wants to make clear that

God loves equally the righteous and sinners, making no distinction between them. God knew man's future sinful life before the latter's creation, yet He created him (II/5,11). God knew all people before their becoming righteous or sinners, and in His love He did not change because of the fact that they underwent change (II/38,3). Even many blameworthy deeds are accepted by God with mercy, 'and are forgiven their authors, without any blame, by the omniscient God to whom all things are revealed before they happen, and who was aware of the constraints of our nature before He created us. For God, who is good and compassionate, is not in the habit of judging the infirmities of human nature or actions brought about by necessity, even though they may be reprehensible (II/14,15).

For this reason, BH points out that even "when God chastises one, He does this out of love and for the sake of one's salvation rather than for the sake of retribution." There is in God, unlike fallen human beings, an absence of coercion. Rather, and somewhat scandalously to the mindset of the ancient world, "God respects human free will and does not want to do anything against it: 'God chastises with love, not for the sake of revenge… Far be it that vengeance could ever be found in that Fountain of love and Ocean brimming with goodness!' (I/48, 230).

To be continued…

In Christ our True God, the Physician of our souls and body, the One heals our every disease and Who forgives us our every sin,

+Fr Gregory

Eastern Christian Blog Awards

Josephus Flavius is hosting a new site Eastern Christian Blog Awards which he describes as "the initial website for the inaugural (often erroneously called "first annual" tsk tsk) Eastern Christian Blog Awards. Please click on the links below to submit names for submission in their respective fields. Feel free to submit more than one entry per category. Based on the number of submissions the voting will begin in 1 to 3 weeks."

The contest is straight forward and "open to all Eastern Christian blogs regardless of affiliation. Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, Assyrian Church of the East et al. are welcome and encouraged to be submitted for voting." The categories for the award are:

• Best Blog on the Domestic Church: Blogging about everyday life informed by faith - family, home, work-life, and everything in between.
• Best Individual Blog: Preeminent blog written by an individual.
• Best Group Blog: Premier blog worked on by a group of people.
• Best Church News Blog: Best blog at keeping up with current events and providing insightful commentary.
• Best Theology Blog: Most well regarded blog on matters theological. This doesn't require lofty examinations of arcane topics, but perspicacity that enlightens and provokes thoughtful discussion.
• Funniest Blog: A blog that is simply, unequivocally funny.
• Most Visually Attractive Blog: A blog that either presents beautiful images on a regular basis, has a well designed blog format, or in some other way is pleasing to the eye.

You can contact Josephus Flavius either by following the link in the title or by emailing him ecawards at gmail dot com.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Reflections on St Isaac the Syrian, Part I

Image via Wikipedia

Recently His Grace, Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev) of the Moscow Patriarchate delivered a paper at the World Congress on Divine Mercy, that meet at Lateran Basilica, Rome, 4 April 2008. While the paper, "St Isaac the Syrian, a theologian of love and mercy," received a good response in the media, as I mentioned to a Roman Catholic friend who emailed me, the report was less than accurate in its summary of His Grace's argument. Contrary to what the report suggests, neither Bishop Hilarion, much less the Orthodox Church as a whole holds to a universalist view of salvation.

This is not to say, I hasten to add, that we ought not to hope that all will be saved. We should devotedly hope that such is the case.

Nor do I mean it to deny that there is certainly a tendency among Orthodox Christians that lends itself to a universalist view (for example, the writings of St Isaac the Syrian that formed the substance of Bishop Hilarion's remarks). But to say this is our hope and even this our tendency, is very different from saying this we believe.

I thought that I would reflect on some of what I see as the more interesting points of Bishop Hilarion's talk. These reflections, like my blog as a whole, reflect my own admittedly eccentric interests and ought not to be taken as the dogma of the Church.

So, let us begin.

His Grace begins his talk by saying that he is presenting "the teaching of St Isaac the Syrian, one of the greatest theologians of the Orthodox tradition, on love and mercy." After a brief biographical sketch of this 7^th century hermit, Bishop Hilarion (hereafter BH), summarizes the major points of St Isaac's teaching on love and mercy. Specifically BH address the St Isaac's teaching on the created and eschatological manifestation of love and mercy. Both of these are ground is Isaac's understanding of God.

Regarding the first, he writes that "first of all immeasurable and boundless love. The idea of God as love is central and dominant in Isaac's thought: it is the main source of his theological opinions, ascetical recommendations and mystical insights. His theological system cannot be comprehended apart from this fundamental idea." BH continues with an explication on creation as a manifestation of God's "immeasurable and boundless love."

On the one hand, "Divine love is beyond human understanding and above all description in words." Nevertheless, and at "the same time it is reflected in God's actions with respect to the created world and humankind: 'Among all His actions there is none which is not entirely a matter of mercy, love and compassion: this constitutes the beginning and the end of His dealings with us' (II/39,22). (Here and below the figure 'II' refers to Part II of Isaac's writings: Isaac of Nineveh, 'The Second Part', chapters IV-XLI, translated by Sebastian Brock, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 555, Scriptores syri 225, Louvain, 1995). Both the creation of the world and God's coming on earth in flesh had the only aim, 'to reveal His boundless love to the world' (Chapters on Knowledge IV,79)."

For St Isaac, and the main thrust of the Christian tradition East and West with him, creation (and this includes the human person, body, soul and spirit; you, me and everybody) is not morally neutral. Nor is it "good" in a narrow moral or ontological sense. No for Isaac creation is fundamentally sacramental, it makes manifest and tangible divine love. BH quotes St Isaac to the effect that it is in and through the creation of the world that "divine love revealed itself in all its fullness." And so, in the words of St Isaac:

What that invisible Being is like, who is without any beginning in His nature, unique in Himself, who is by nature beyond the knowledge, intellect and feel of created beings, who is beyond time and space, being the Creator of these, who… made a beginning of time, bringing the worlds and created beings into existence. Let us consider then, how rich in its wealth is the ocean of His creative act, and how many created things belong to God, and how in His compassion He carries everything, acting providentially as He guides creation, and how with a love that cannot be measured He arrived at the establishment of the world and the beginning of creation; and how compassionate God is, and how patient; and how He loves creation, and how He carries it, gently enduring its importunity, the various sins and wickednesses, the terrible blasphemies of demons and evil men (II/10,18-19).

To be continued…

In Christ our True God, the Physician of our souls and body, the One heals our every disease and Who forgives us our every sin,

+Fr Gregory

Thoughts on that “Other” Mary: Mary of Egypt

The Scripture Readings for Sunday, April 13, 2008: Today's commemorated feasts and saints... FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT — Tone 5. St. Mary of Egypt. Hieromartyr Artemon, Presbyter, of Laodicea in Syria (303). Martyr Crescens, of Myra in Lycia. Woman Martyr Thomais, of Alexandria (5th c.).

Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee's house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, "This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner." And Jesus answered and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." So he said, "Teacher, say it." There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more? Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And He said to him, "You have rightly judged." Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. Then He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" Then He said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

(Luke 7:36-50)

At the risk of identify myself as ever so "post-modern," there is in the Christian tradition a certain irony surrounding the name "Mary." Let me explain.

Looking backwards to the Old Testament, we encounter Miriam, the older sister of Moses. It is Miriam who placed the infant Moses in the basket and floating him down the river to be found and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter and raised as a prince of Egypt. And it is Miriam who, at the request of Pharaoh's daughter, arranges for Moses' own mother to be his wet nurse. Later when they are all adults and newly liberated from slavery, it is Miriam who leads the Hebrew woman in song:

Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them:

"Sing to the LORD,

For He has triumphed gloriously!

The horse and its rider

He has thrown into the sea!" (Ex 15:20-21)

Biblical, the first "Mary" of salvation history is a warrior, one who even as a child uses the resources at hand to fight against the oppression of her people. And she does so unapologetically.

Another "Mary," is Mary of Bethany the sister of Martha. It is she who, according to the words of Jesus, "has chosen the better part." (See Lk 10:41) After being careful to not denigrate the service of either women, in his sermon on this section of the Gospel, St Cyril of Jerusalem tells us that "let those who open to them their house, meet them cheerfully, and with alacrity, and as their fellows: and not so much as those who give, but as those who receive: as those who gain, and not as those who expend." He continues by saying that, those who practice hospitality

profit doubly; for in the first place they enjoy the instruction of those whom they hospitably entertain: and secondly, they also win the reward of hospitality. Every way therefore they are profited. When however they receive the brethren into their house, let them not be distracted with much service. Let them not seek anything beyond their means, or more than sufficient. For everywhere and in everything excess is injurious. For often it produces hesitation in those who otherwise would be glad to receive strangers, and causes but few [houses] to be found fit for the purpose: while it proves a cause of annoyance to those who are entertained. For the rich in this world delight in costly banquets; and in many kinds of viands, prepared curiously often with sauces and flavors; a mere sufficiency is utterly scorned, while that which is extravagant is praised, and a profusion beyond all satiety is admired, and crowned with words of flattery. The drinkings and revellings are excessive; and the draining of cups, and courses of wines, the means of intoxication and gluttony. But when holy men are assembled at the house of one who fears God, let the table be plain and temperate, the viands simple, and free from superfluities: but little to eat, and that meager and scant: and a limited sufficiency of drink. In everything a small supply of such necessaries as will allay the bodily appetite with simple fare. So must men receive strangers. So too Abraham by the oak at Mamre, received those three men, and won as the reward of his carefulness, the promise of his beloved son Isaac. So Lot in Sodom honored the angels, and for so doing, was not destroyed by fire with the rest; nor became the prey of the inextinguishable flame.

Very great therefore is the virtue of hospitality, and especially worthy of the saints: let us therefore also practice it, for so will the heavenly Teacher lodge and rest in our hearts, even Christ; by Whom and with Whom, to God the Father be praise and dominion, with the Holy Ghost, forever and ever, Amen.

For the saint, the service of Martha, the contemplation of Mary, are not opposed but meant to work together (synergia). It is Mary who keeps Martha from being overwhelmed, but it is Martha that allows Mary to receive a double blessing of instruction and of offering hospitality.

There is Mary Magdalene, one of the band of women who ministered to Jesus and the woman out of whom Jesus cast seven demons. (Luke 8:2-3) It is this Mary, together with the other women and Joseph of Arimathea who will prepare Jesus' body for burial. Come that first Sunday after the crucifixion it is to this Mary, distraught and mourning that Jesus appears. It is this Mary who is the apostle to the apostles, who announces to the Apostles the joyful message of the resurrection.

And of course, there is the most holy Theotokos and ever Virgin Mary who will give birth to Christ our Lord.

All of these Mary are in the background when on the fifth Sunday of Great and Holy Lent we commemorate St Mary of Egypt. This former prostitute who becomes a desert dwelling ascetic is in her own way a reflection of the other women named Mary that came before her. Warrior, Contemplative, Hospitable, Handmaiden of Christ, and the one in whom Christ the Word comes to dwell.

Reading the story of her life in Lenten Synaxarion, I am struck by the fact that it begins not with her manifold sins, but on the pride of Zosimas the monk who

a certain Palestinian monastery on the outskirts of Caesarea. Having dwelt at the monastery since his childhood, he lived there in asceticism until he reached the age of fifty-three. Then he was disturbed by the thought that he had attained perfection, and needed no one to instruct him. "Is there a monk anywhere who can show me some form of asceticism that I have not attained? Is there anyone who has surpassed me in spiritual sobriety and deeds?"

As the story unfolds, Zosimas is lead to a monastery where it is the practice for the brothers to spend the Great Fast alone in the desert returning only to the monastery on Palm Sunday. While in the desert Zosimas meets Mary and learns of her life. In quick order he also learns that Mary is not only an ascetic, but a clairvoyant and miracle worker. When he asks her blessing she at first refuses, but then, out of obedience, relents.

And then she relates the story of her life.

Beginning in Egypt we hear briefly of her life of sin. Then we hear of her journey to Jerusalem and of her conversion to Christ.

She tells Zosimas of her life in the desert. The first 17 years are life of constant struggle: "But from that time until the present day, the power of God has guarded my sinful soul and humble body. I was fed and clothed by the all-powerful word of God, since man does not live by bread alone, but by every word proceeding from the mouth of God (Dt 8:3, Mt.4:4, Luke 4:4), and those who have put off the old man (Col 3:9) have no refuge, hiding themselves in the clefts of the rocks (Job 24:8, Heb 11:38). When I remember from what evil and from what sins the Lord delivered me, I have imperishible food for salvation." And from "that time until the present day" when she meets Zosimas is a period of 30 years. For 47 years after her conversion (at about 30 years of age) Mary lives as an ascetic in the desert.

During this time she sees no one, she has no books to read. She is taught simply, directly, by the Holy Spirit Who enlivens the Word of God in her heart.

Eventually the monk must leave, but before he does Mary asks him to return to her the next year on Holy Thursday and to bring her Holy Communion. A year passes and Zosmias returns to Mary. Like Moses, Mary parts the Jordan for Zosmias to cross over to her and give her Holy Communion.

A year later the monk returns again to the desert to speak with Mary but when he finds her she is dead. Preparing her body for burial he discovers a note written by the saint. In the note she tells him that she died soon after receiving Holy Communion. And so the monk, with the help of a friendly lion, digs a grave for Mary and returns to the monastery to tell the story of her life.

Like the other Mary's of the Old and New Testament, Mary of Egypt calls in to question our vision of what it means to be not only a Christian, but also a woman and thus a man. But where contemporary anthropological visions tend to be reductionist and subversive, the life of St Mary of Egypt is different; it points beyond itself and directs us to fix our gaze on ourselves but on the Kingdom of God. It is in this way that the life of Mary of Egypt, along with those other Mary's who precede her in salvation history, reveals itself to be truly radical and revolutionary.

What this "other" Mary challenges is not simply social and culture structures of power, but the human hearts out of which those structures grow. She is a woman of great obedience who has learned to love much because she was forgiven much. It is easy to look at her life, and the life of the woman in the Gospel read on the Fifth Sunday of the Great Fast and think, "Well, I'm not that bad." And, in one sense, I'm not.

But in another sense, and here is the great surprise of this "other" Mary, how much of the sin in her life was made possible by those who weren't all that bad? And as I think about this other Mary, I begin to wonder how was it that Jesus was crucified except through the passive collusion of those of us who weren't all that bad? Looking back at the Mary's who proceed Mary of Egypt, which of these women didn't suffer at the hands of those who weren't all that bad, whose sins weren't all that serious, and who were respected by their contemporaries?

There is something helpful about the extreme example for my spiritual life. Whether it is an extreme in virtue or vice, reflecting on the extreme can help me see myself a bit more clearly. I am not a great sinner, but neither am I a great saint. I tend to want to be respectable in my vices and my virtues. And whatever else one might say about Mary of Egypt and the other Mary's of salvation history, they challenge me in my respectability.

In the final analysis the challenge the issue is this: Will I accept responsibility before Christ for my own life and actions? Or will I rather flee into a "respectability" grounded in fear and my own secret lack of thankfulness of God for the gift of my own life?

Like the other Mary's, Mary of Egypt accepted the gift of her own life and allowed nothing to stand in the way of her obedience to what God called her to do with that gift. Can I do any less.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Confessionz (St. Augustine Rap Remixed)

I am currently at the CAPS conference in Mesa, Arizona (where it was 80 this afternoon!).

In one of the presentations I heard this afternoon, the presenter showed a rap video based on The Confessions by St. Augustine. It is no secret that I am a HUGE admirer of Augustine and so I thought I would share the video here. I have included the lyrics below the video.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory




A Rap about the Confessions of St. Augustine. Writen and performed by Christ "MCG" Gehrz...with some help from puppets.

Lyrics:

Now Augustine of Hippo dropped in three and fitty-four
Constantine had gone Nicene almost thirty years before
But Auggie grew up hatin' on the prayin'
See his momma was a Christian, but his daddy was a pagan

On the mean streets of Thagaste, A-Dawg's on a tear
They call him Del Monte 'cause he's gotta have the pear
Didn't even taste it but he's grinnin'
See, it's not about the Benjamins; it's all about the sinnin'

Yeah, and playa had his way wit all da ladies
Until the girl said, "Boo, chill - we're gonna have a baby"

CHORUS:
Oh, Augustine!
(Or Augustine, Augustine)
Augustine!
(Yeah, he's lustin', he's lustin')
Augustine!
(But he's trustin', he's trustin')
God made us for himself
And our hearts'll find their rest in him

Went back to school in Carthage (the town the Romans flattened)
And holla! He's a scholah at philosophy and Latin
Told 'em all that "Cicero's da illest!"
Some Manicheans told him, "Son, you don't know what ill is!"

"What's goin' down's a battle, good and evil warrin'
The spiritual is admirable, the physical's abhorrent"
He thought they'd give him answers that were hidden
But when they said to give up sex, he said, "Oh no, you di'n't!"

Still, playa became a praya when he said
"Give me chastity and continence, Lord... but not yet!"

CHORUS: (repeat)

Took a job in It'ly and read up on the Plat'nists
Learned that evil's just the lack of good, and only good exists
A man in Milan named Ambrose tried to reach him
A. said, "I don't believe his words, but bro's da bomb at preachin'!"

Still he read the Holy Scripture and the picture started shiftin'
He prayed to God to save him from himself but he kept driftin'
Until he fell down weepin' at his knees
He heard the voice of children singin' "Take up and read"

And playa read Paul's playa-hatin' epistle
"Clothe yourself in Jesus Christ" hit him like a missile!

CHORUS: (repeat, x2)

Guest Post: In Christ?

My earlier posts on the controversy surroundings sermons by Sen. Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has resulted in several comments—both on this blog and to me privately. One frequent commentator here, Chrys, work an extensive response that I thought worthy of inclusion on the front page. The title, "In Christ?" is my editorial addition.

As always, your comments and questions are not only welcomed, but encouraged.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

 

In light of recent events, many have described the often harsh judgments of preachers on both the left and right as prophetic. I am not so sure. They do not appear to resemble the spirit or character of Christ – and we know that however their words may appear to us, the prophets were moved by that same spirit. If anything, the proclamations of most popular preachers are of a piece with the imprecations of the "sons of Boanerges":

When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." And they went on to another village. (Luke 9:54-56)

That we so readily support or at least defend preachers who say such things says a great deal about us. That we can not see the difference between their proclamations – which often express our own sentiments – and those of Christ says even more. I believe that the saints, knowing the Spirit of Christ, would know the difference. I suspect that this is because they know the words of Christ "from the inside." That is, the saints can say "amen" to the words of Christ – above all in their lives. I have begun to realize that perhaps we really do not understand His words as we claim we do. More often than not, it seems that we seek to use them for our own ends or try to tame them by turning them into interesting concepts rather than simply following them. If this is so, it must call into question whether we can really call ourselves Christian.

Consider: Jesus said "Blessed are the poor . . . those who mourn . . . the meek . . . those who hunger and thirst . . . the persecuted." The apostles and saints agreed with His words and showed it in their lives. They honored His words by following them. By contrast, I cannot really claim to understand what He means. In moments of honest reflection, I recognize that I do not really agree with them in principle and am not even close to following them in practice. For example, I view poverty of every kind is an unmitigated evil. Mourning, persecution, hunger, thirst – these are to be resolved as soon as possible. Problems, yes - evils even. Blessings? No. Though I have heard interpretations that seem to make sense, the muted notes that these trumpets sound could not summon me to enjoin the battle in even my most amenable moments. Supposing they could, I am far from clear how I would put these revised notions into practice. Most often, the bright and untamed words of Christ are reduced to the shadow of a preschool maxim: be nice, don't hit, be patient. It leads me to wonder, then, if the preachers peddling this weak brew understand the transforming words of Christ any better than I do.

If we do not follow the way of Christ and cannot understand the words of Christ, let us acknowledge that His way and His words – and the Spirit that informs them – remain largely alien to us. You may disagree with this assessment and claim to understand what He meant. To me, this is more frightening still (if that is possible). If we dare to say that we do indeed understand them, then we have left ourselves no excuse and must be prepared to explain why we have not begun to follow them.

Our behavior would seem to leave us only two options – we either do not agree with what Jesus said or we do not understand what He said. Either way, we need to be honest about where we stand: we are not following Him and we do not understand what He meant because we do not yet share His mind nor His Spirit. Like James and John, we "do not even know what kind of spirit (we) are of." This is certainly cause for fear. At the same time it may be cause for hope, for the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom which may, if we follow it, lead to life.

An Orthodox Limerick

One of the students (Nick Jones who is not only a talented musician, but also is pursuing his Ph.D. in material science at Carnegie Mellon University) in the college group I served while Mary and I lived in Pittsburgh sent me a limerick in honor of my patron saint, Gregory Palamas (that's his icon on the left). Forgive my vanity and "paternal" pride, but I thought it might be something others would enjoy.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory





There once was a bishop named Gregory.
He taught of God's essence and energies.
As a pillar of faith,
He defended God's grace.
And, therefore we honor his memory.

Our OCF priest is named Gregory.
Together we sang morning Liturgy.
At the panel discussion,
He, more fierce than a Russian,
Laid the smack down on all sundry heresy.

Today is the day of your patron.
Through his prayers may you overcome Satan.
We miss you a lot,
For through you we've been taught
Of the joy of God's love, our vocation.

Race, Politics, Power and the Gospel

A friend of mine recently asked me my thoughts on "the myriad recent news clips about Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright." Rev. Wright, for those of you who don't know, is pastor of the largely black Trinity United Church of Christ in the South Side of Chicago and a man that Sen. Obama credits as having played a central role in his own Christian faith.

I have posted below my response in an edited and expanded form.

+FrG

While I try and avoid partisan politics, even with my friends, I found Rev. Jeremiah Wright's position as reported in the press and defended, or at least excused, by his supporters to be troubling.

On the one hand, the positions that he seems to advance are more than intemperate, they appear to be the paranoid ravings of a very angry, and even racist, man. An interviewer on NPR, hardly a John Birch Society stronghold, asked the Rev. Otis Moss, who replaced Wright as pastor of Trinity, if similar intemperate and racial charged language would be acceptable from a white American (or for that matter, and Asian-, Mexican-, or other hyphenated American)? Even granting the centuries long history of gross injustice against African-Americans, and laying aside both the Civil War in the 19th century and the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th, Wright's position is unacceptable.

Theologically I think you have put your finger on the key point. No matter how angry, and not matter how real the offense, Wright's language is not the language of the Gospel. Nor is it the language of the Prophets of the Old Testament. The biblical witness is clear, and even harsh, in its condemnation of injustice and those who commit it. At the same time, every prophetic denouncement is followed by a call to repentance ground not in human failure or anger, but God's mercy and willingness to restore us to communion with Him and each other. At least in what I have heard, and this has only been snippets and second hand accounts, Wright emphasizes condemnation, and even a kind of repentance, but the mercy and forgiveness that leads to reconciliation seems wholly absent.

While I am sympathetic with, and even in admiration of, the willingness of liberation theologians such as Wright to condemn injustice, these condemnations typically only mimic the biblical witness. At its core liberation theology is not theology, but political philosophy, specifically Marxist political philosophy. It is not founded on the mercy of God, however much it appeals to that mercy, but on class hatred and warfare. Again, I am very sympathetic with the anger expressed by Wright (and others who have suffered great injustices for that matter). Only willful blindness keeps us from seeing how that the poor and weak among us are exploited economically, politically and socially by people of greater means.

Having said this, I think we need to be careful that we not understand "the weak" or "the poor" in purely or even primarily political or economic terms.

It is not a social class per se that is exploited, but rather the weakness of individuals. This weakness is often physical, social or economic. But it can also be moral and personal. Precisely because they focus on the former and typically overlook the later, much liberationist theologizing is a romantic and sentimentality about the moral qualities about they identified as "the poor." This romanticism is troubling to me not only because it is untrue, but because it is degrading to the very individuals that the liberation theologian is trying to help. To be clear here, I am not saying this out of any theoretical view of the human condition, but as someone who grew up poor and who has ministered for over 25 years as a layman and then a priest in impoverished communities.

Yes, there is much that those of us with relative wealth and social privilege can do for our neighbor that we do not do. But if we have learned anything from the Gospel and the failures of the Great Society, while it is true that there is always more we can do (since the poor will always be with us), it is also true that there is only so much we can do, at least without the cooperation of those who we would serve.

Toward the end of his book, The Physician's Covenant: Images of the Healer in Medical Ethics, William F. May argues that medical ethicists cannot be concerned solely with the ethics of health care providers. If there are ethics for the healer, there must necessarily also be ethics for the patient. Failure to articulate the moral obligations of the patient to care for his or her own health is to neglect the full moral implications of illness and our care of the sick.

In a similar fashion, I think we need to be careful that—in our own areas of moral concern and care for our neighbor—we not neglect either our own moral obligations, or the moral obligations of those we serve. Speaking personally for a moment, it is here that I experience my greatest frustration as a priest with the general pattern of pastoral life in the Orthodox Church. Too often priest and parishioner collude to exempt each other from their respective moral obligations under the Gospel. Our appeals to economia no more exempt Orthodox Christian laity and clergy from our obligations then do Wright's catalogues of the real and substantial injustice committed against African Americans exempt him from using a temperate rhetoric that follows more closely the very biblical witness he invokes.

That said, I am concerned that there are many, and not only in the Black Church, who either support, or at least excuse, Wright's rhetoric.

My concern is not only that which I outlined above. However uncomfortable it may make us, it seems that for many of us, the American Experiment (of which I am a most enthusiastic supporter by the way) is a failure or at least not working as well as others of us might imagine. I am at a loss as to how to understand this in way that would lead us to the very reconciliation I find lacking in Wright's sermons. Wright's failures on these issues are his own, but my own certainly share a family resemblance.

What I am saying is this: While I disagree with his rhetoric, I think that Wright and his supporters are giving voice to something that is very real and which cannot be dismissed simply because of its (objectively) poor theological articulation. The fact of the matter is that my intellectual and theological precision and erudition tends to suffer most when my physical, psychic or spiritual pains are greatest.

How much more is this likely to be the case when I am giving voice not simply to my personal suffering, but the suffering of my people?

I agree with Wright on this, the questions about race that he and other are asking are important ones. At the same time though, and mindful of my own failures, questions of race, class, culture and sex, are always and everywhere questions of power and as have no other answer other than that given by Christ in His Body the Church. I can't help but wonder if "the myriad recent news clips about Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Wright," aren't a call to the Church to take on more fully and intentionally our obligation to save, renew and unite all things in Jesus Christ.

Well, anyway these are my thoughts on the matter.

Thanks for the question.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

A Repulsive Truth

From The Habit of Being, by Flannery O'Connor:

I am mighty tired of reading reviews that call A Good Man Is Hard to Find brutal and sarcastic. These stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing larder or less sentimental than Christian realism. I believe that there are many rough beasts now slouching toward Bethlehem to be born and that I have reported on the progress of a few of them, and when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror.

(Quoted in Paul Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, pp. 267-68)

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally . . . there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive.

(Elie, The Life You Save, p. 269)

Recently, when I came across these words by Flannery O'Connor, my mind turned spontaneously to the not only recent scandals in the Orthodox Church, but also my own failures and the trails I have undergone as an Orthodox priest.

We, alright, I, easily fall into a pattern of thinking about the Church and the Christian life that is sentimental and thus untrue. There is something about the Gospel that lends itself with surprising ease to being twisted into a sentimental fantasy. I say this not to implicate the Gospel, but simply to establish the human fact that we, that is to say, I, prefer warm feelings about Christ and the Gospel to the hard truth of Christ and the Gospel. As O'Connor says it so directly, because I am a sinner, and more often than not an unrepentant sinner, I at times find the Gospel hideous, disturbing and "downright repulsive." And in finding the Gospel like this I do implicate not Christ in wrongdoing, but myself.

The response that many of us make in this situation is to try and soften, sentimentalize, the Gospel. Think for example of how Christian iconography of angels as sword wielding warriors has been transformed into something all together different. Our cultural images of angels are no longer that of heavenly warriors, but of plump, toe-headed, apple checked children. Popular and precious though these new angels are, they are not the angels of the Old Testament or of classical Christian hymnography and iconography.

They are, in a word, sentimental.

While there is much to criticize in Luther's famous, or maybe infamous, characterization of the Christian as manure covered by snow, there is no denying the psychological fitness of his words. If I do not at times see myself as "manure covered by snow," or a rough beast "slouching toward Bethlehem to be born," I am just not paying attention.

The fact that there are scandals in the Church, while always unacceptable, ought never to be surprising. Whether we like it or not (and quite frequently our irritation suggests, we do not like it) the treasure of the Gospel has been entrusted to earthen vessels (as the Apostle Paul reminds us). The life of the Church, the life of the Christian, my life, is the work of God's grace transforming, sinful, and morally and emotionally frail humanity, evermore into the likeness of the Trice Holy God.

And while this work goes on around us and in us all the time, I easily can lose sight of it because I have chosen not to look at myself with the hard eyes of Christian realism.

Recounting her habit of reading the Summa Theologica by St Thomas Aquinas before bed, O'Connor writes that "if my mother were to come in during the process and say 'Turn off that light. It's late,' I with lifted finger and broad bland beatific expression would reply, 'On the contrary, I answer that the light, being eternal and limitless, cannot be turn off. Shut your eyes." (Elie, p. 268) Sentimentality, romanticism, these are the ways in which I close my eyes to the eternal and limitless divine light.

Refusing however to close my eyes to the light of the Gospel means that I cannot help but see the real imperfections and limitations that afflict not only Church leaders, but each human being, and (most uncomfortably of all), myself. As I said at the beginning of this essay, O'Connor's words cause me to think about the scandals in the Church and my own failures and trails as a priest. While not universal in its explanatory power, sentimentality seems to be a common theme throughout.

There are times when the Gospel and a life committed to following Christ will have the feeling of being brutal and sarcastic. It may be how I feel about myself or other people or my situation. Or, and just as likely, it may be how others perceive me. And yes, to follow Christ might very well mean I find myself in situations that I find "hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive." But how could it be otherwise? Christ is Divine Light in the darkness of human sinfulness.

Christ pours out His grace, and life, and love, and light, into lives that are marred darkness, indifference and decay. If it were otherwise, it would not be redemption that we received. And so we might ask ourselves as we encounter the sinfulness of others, and for that matter our own, of what use is a god who almost, but never quite, redeems us? Of what use is a church is almost, but not quite, filled sinners? Of what use is a believer who almost, but not quite, believes and is faithful to Christ in the face of his own and other people's sinfulness?

O'Conner has expressed well the real and only scandal in the Church: the Gospel. For all that in my better moments, the Gospel attracts me, in my weaker moments, this same Gospel is a repulsive truth. But it is precisely to me in my weaker moments that the Gospel call is spoken:

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation (Rm 8:6-11).

The real scandal in the Church is not that bishops and priests fail. We all of us fail.

Nor is it a scandal that we are surprised when they, and we, fail.

No the real scandal in the Church is the Gospel. The real scandal, a scandal we seem to work to keep at arm's length, is that Jesus Christ, has by His own death on the Cross has reconciled His enemies, His killers, to Himself and entrusted His Gospel to us who are only newly reconciled and only weakly established in grace.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Suffering of Self-Creation

Maximos' notion of the gnomic will points us to one of the greatest, and most bitter, ironies of human sinfulness. My self-referential turn leads me not to myself, but to a life of ever increasing estrangement from self. This comes about because this turn to the self comes at the expense of my relationship with God in Whose image and likeness I have been created.

As a consequence of my estrangement with God and self, there arise in me as well an estrangement from my neighbor—who now becomes for me, and I for him, my enemy—and the created world. Think of events that follows immediately after he and the Woman have eaten of fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. What has happened to me as a consequence of my inward turn? I no longer seek out God. And creation is no longer for the arena of my encounter with God, it is rather where I try, futile, to hid myself from God. I find myself now lamenting with Adam:

Woe is me! The Serpent and the Woman have deprived me of my boldness before God, and I have become an exile from the Joy of Paradise through eating from the Tree. Woe is me! I can no more endure the shame! I once was king of all God's creatures on earth; now I have become a prisoner, led astray by evil counsel. I was once clothed in the glory of immortality, now I must wrap myself in the skins of mortality, as one miserable and condemned to die. Woe is me! Who will share my sorrow with me? But, Lord and lover of mankind, You have fashioned me from the earth and are clothed in compassion: Call me back from the bondage to the Enemy and save me! (First Sticherion at Lauds, Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam from Paradise)

Like Adam, my life, my will, is not obedient, not loving. I have become a self-referential being and become a slave to my own finitude and mutability. The very dynamism that ought to open me evermore to divine glory, instead now drags me down evermore into a life of shame and degradation. It is this life of self-perpetuating and deepening humiliation is a result not of any withdrawal of divine grace. It is rather a consequence of my withdrawing from divine grace and more and more into myself.

I am forever constructing and reconstructing my view of reality. And with each construction, with each reconstruction, I deviate further from God, my neighbor, creation, and self. It is this that, in the Christian East, that is the real consequence of sin. Death of the body and physical illness are only the symptoms of my spiritual death. And it is from this living death that Christ's comes to save me.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Expecting More Than Creation Can Give

When we try and acquire things through the exercise of our will it is as if we are trying to see with our ear, or hear with our eyes. The "carnal will" is the human will that loves something other than God. It is not even necessarily that we love the gift more than the Giver. The simple fact that we loving something other than God is sufficient to undo us and cause our downward spiral into grief and our subsequent neurotic flight from our own life. Once we exercise our will in the service of our desire for people, things, wealth, possessions, we kill off by little steps any gratitude to the Creator.

Centered as it is on the self and the desires of the self, the gnomic will is a stranger to gratitude and blinds us to the reality that creation is gift to be received from God. And as our lack of gratitude grows creation, and eventually even God Himself, become merely instruments in the service of my own self-satisfaction. Creation, the things of creation, and even my understanding of God, all become substitutes for God. Or, to use Augustine more economical mode of expression, lusts.

If these lusts are not resisted, they eventually become habits; without even thinking about it, I begin to relate spontaneously to people, events and things in terms of how they can please me, gratify me, promote my agenda and me. Eventually, I become enslaved to the habit of my lust. I can no longer live, except that I exploit the world around me for my own selfish ends. Ironically, the very things that—at first anyway—brought me pleasure and even happiness become my master and I become their slave.

The problem then, for Augustine, is not (as it is for the Manicheans) the body, but the will. Sin arises not out of the body, but out of the will's attachment to the body rather than to God. In effect, I sin because I prefer the body and the things of the body (for example, sense knowledge, emotion, food, drink, pleasure, status, etc.) to God. And so Augustine says:

Thus with the baggage of this present world was I held down pleasantly, as in sleep: and the thoughts wherein I meditated on Thee were like the efforts of such as would awake, who yet overcome with a heavy drowsiness, are again drenched therein. And as no one would sleep for ever, and in all men's sober judgment waking is better, yet a man for the most part, feeling a heavy lethargy in all his limbs, defers to shake off sleep, and though half displeased, yet, even after it is time to rise, with pleasure yields to it, so was I assured that much better were it for me to give myself up to Thy charity, than to give myself over to mine own cupidity; but though the former course satisfied me and gained the mastery, the latter pleased me and held me mastered (VII.5.12).

But again, the real perversion, the real corruption of the human, is not desire as such. It is rather that, as Augustine says in Book IV of his deceased friend, that we expect from creation what we can only reasonably, truly, expect from God: To be a worthy object of the human will.

For Augustine, unlike Horney, the will is not the vehicle of human desire, but the faculty that attaches us to God. And it is from that attachment that our identity arises. It is less that our will is damaged, and more that our will is attached not only to the Eternal God Who does not change, nor even to temporal, created realities that are in constant flux. No the "problem" of the will is that it is attached also, and even primarily, to itself.

Grief & the Gnomic Will

Stepping back and with the advantage of age and spiritual maturity, Augustine comes to the self-realization that his sorrow, for all its unique features, was not his alone. Augustine's grief is the grief of the Old Adam. "I was miserable, and miserable too is everyone whose mind is chained by friendship with mortal things, and is torn apart by their loss, and then becomes aware of the misery that it was in even before it lost them" (Bk IV.6.11). It is for Augustine this chaining of the will through our attachment to the created rather than the Uncreated, that is the true human misery: "Woe to the madness," he writes, "which thinks to cherish human beings as though more than human!" (Bk IV.6.11) Possessed by this madness, we find ourselves in a place of inconsolable grief and sorrow. And in this state we can make Augustine's words our own:

Within in me I was carrying a tattered, bleeding soul that did not want me to carry it, yet I could find no place to lay it down. Not in pleasant countryside did it find rest, nor in shows and songs, nor in sweet-scented gardens, nor in elaborate feasts, nor in the pleasures of the couch or bed, nor even in books or incantations. . . . [E]verything that was not what he was seemed to me offensive and hateful (Bk IV.7.12)

We are now in a position to say that what Horney identifies as neurosis is really something much more profound then we might have at first imagined. The grief, frustration, anxiety, and aggression that Horney describes as symptomatic of the neurotic, is the psychological manifestation of a life that has lost its transcendent focus. To be human is to be a self-transcendent being. This self-transcendence is not part of human nature, as is for example, the will. We are not by nature transcend. It is rather that the human person is called by God to a transcendent way of life.

Yes, the transcendent, or the spiritual dimension, I would hold, is the distinctive quality of the human person. But we, I, am only a spiritual being, a self-transcendent being, in response to a call that comes to me from outside the created dimension. To lose sight of this, is not simply to misunderstand the spiritual aspirations of the human person. It is rather is to reduce our highest aspirations to merely a subjective choice, a fleeting desire (and all desires are fleeting) and rob the person of the very gift of a transcendent life that we would foster.

Again, Augustine is remarkably helpful here. In Book VIII he addresses the question of the human will. Contrary to what we sometimes imagine, Augustine's besetting sin is not sex, but ambition. On the one hand he wants to pursue Truth—he wants to devote himself to the contemplation of God. On the other hand, he has worldly ambitions. In a moment of blinding clarity about himself (and the human condition) he says that

[It] was no iron chain imposed by anyone else that fettered me, but the iron of my own will. The enemy had my power of willing in his clutches, and from it had forged a chain to bind me. The truth is that disordered lust springs from a perverted will; when lust is pandered to, a habit is formed; when habit is not checked, it hardens into compulsion. These were like interlinking rings forming what I have described as a chain, and my harsh servitude used it to keep me under duress. . . . And so the two wills fought it out—the old and the new, the one carnal, the other spiritual—and in their struggle tore my soul apart (Bk VIII.5.10).

Augustine would agree with Horney that there is something wrong in human willing. But where Horney tends to see the will as damage, like a broken bone, Augustine sees the will more as misdirected. Our frustration comes from a will that is not damaged, but misused, turned to things in addition to God.

In the next installment, we will look more fully at the effects our turning will to things other than God.