Skribit Voting

Hi All,

I've gotten some good suggestions using Skribit--now how about some voting?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Athens and Jerusalem, part 2

I have received several emails regarding my interviews with the host of "Our Life in Christ," on Ancient Faith Radio ((you can download the interviews here
and here). Below is an edited version of the second email I wrote to one listener, T.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Dear T.,

Your comments about understanding the limits of science (in your case __________, in mine psychology) are right on target. Much of the resistance I think to psychology comes out of not simply a lack of awareness of what psychology does and doesn't offer, but a more fundamental lack of a sound philosophy of science. I hasten to add at this point, a deficient philosophy of science is not limited to non-scientists—very rarely do psychologists seem to understand the limits of our own discipline. Psychotherapy, to take but one example, does not deal in certainties, but probabilities that are always, and necessarily, subject to revision and even rejection. In this sense, my therapeutic work is rather limited in what it can accomplish.

But for all its limits, I think psychology offers us a useful anthropological vision. This is less so in particular and more in a general or foundational sense. When evaluating any psychological theory or practice I return again to the provisional nature of all science. To me at least this suggests that psychology offers us a dynamic view of the human person. So not only are our findings are always subject to revision, any psychological theory that neglects to take account of the dynamic character of human life is in need of correction.

Taken within its own limits as a science, psychology is a rather humble endeavor. We are not concerned with articulating a unified theory of life, the universe and everything. Or even for that matter of what it means to be human. Psychology is the science of human dynamism and as such a great partner to Christian anthropology's view of the inherent and transcendent openness of the human. It is interesting that when one reads personality theorists, they are generally rather dismissive of static thinking or rigid patterns of behavior. While this is often hinted at by the social and political liberalism of the psychologist, this is accidental to the science of psychology as such. In fact I would suggest that the liberalism of psychology—at least in an American context—reflects not simply the character of psychologists, but a certain tendency in some quarters of American society to a moralizing anthropological vision that is "allergic" to a dynamic and transcendent view of the person.

You observed, correctly I think, that many clergy adopt uncritically pop psychology. In recent weeks, for example, I have pointed out to clergy that the Myers-Briggs Personality Test is NOT a valid (in the sense of validated) psychological test. From the point of view of science, the Myers-Briggs tells us nothing about personality. Indeed personality theory is an area of great debate in psychology precisely because it does not lend itself to empirical verification. This does not mean we have to dismiss the Myers-Briggs or personality theory, but it does mean that we need to be clear that in using it we are in the realm not of quantitative but qualitative science.

Clergy, however, will often pick up pop psychology without every applying the same standards that they would apply to any other philosophical or theological vision. Or, and here my cynicism is clear for all to see, I suspect that they do evaluate pop psychology with the same rigor they apply to their philosophical and theological reflections—which is to say they aren't very rigorous at all. Observing over the years the use of psychology by clergy I have come to think that—for all the seriousness with which they may speak—there is often a rather painful lack of intellectual rigor in how most clergy approach their own theological and philosophical patrimony. Yes, certainly, they are very good about quoting Scripture or the Fathers. But for all their quotations and systems building, the intellectual rigor is simply not there. If it were, then I suspect they would not be so easily swayed by pop psychology.

In other words, psychology is in my view something of a test case. How rigorous and thoughtful are we about the content of the Christian tradition and its implications for the pastoral life of the Church? Too easily, and here I will conclude and invite your comments, we confuse anger with conviction, bullying with real authority and rigid and narrow thinking with fidelity to the living witness of the Holy Spirit not only in the past but in the present.

Again, thank you for your comments.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Athens and Jerusalem, part 1

Image via Wikipedia

I have received several emails regarding my interviews with the host of "Our Life in Christ," on Ancient Faith Radio (you can download the interviews here and here). Below is an edited version of an email I wrote in response to one such email.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Christ is Risen!

Dear T. and S.,

Thank you both for your very thoughtful comments and questions.

In response to T's question: "Is psychology necessary?" I would answer "No." But then, strictly speaking, anything that is other than God is also not necessary. This is not me language playing games. Rather it reflects what I think is the Christian faith that all that is not God is contingent upon Him and created by Him out of love and without compulsion. Creation does not add to God, but it does reflect His love.

Because everything created is, by definition, contingent, it is also unnecessary. But unnecessary does not mean unimportant or without value, though the value created being is always relative. This relative value is two-fold:

1. relative to God (as a gift and expression of His love) and
   
2. relative to its place in creation in general and the human community in particular.
   
   

Unlike the historical claims of Christian theology, modern psychology (and really it is more accurate to think in terms of a variety of schools of contemporary psychologies) does not claim to be universally applicable. Under the best of circumstances (as S. suggests) it is a tool. While it can be a helpful tool, its value depends on the skill of the craftsman using it and the needs of the person to whom s/he is responding.

Right up front, let me say that I am not convinced of the relative superiority in psychological matters of an earlier generation of Christians. How is one to evaluate the proposition that spiritual Fathers, directors or doctors of an earlier era were more effective than contemporary psychologists? First, we need to decide on the standard of comparison and then the measurement instrument. Simply put, even assuming we are comparing apples to apples, we have no way of actually making the determination that one group was more competent then the other.

Like it or not, we live in a world in which psychology has a large role to play. It seems to me that if earlier eras struggled with issues of Christology ours age seems to struggle with anthropological questions (and this includes the nature of the Church). While there are great anthropological insights to be found in the Fathers (and this is a central theme in my own writing and praxis as both a psychologist and a priest), these are not well developed or maybe as well developed systematically. Contemporary psychology, unlike the Fathers, is concerned with the systematic study of human behavior.

If this or that Father was a better natural psychologist then say a given contemporary psychologist, well thank God, but (absent written records) so what? While I can easily imagine, for example, St Basil or St John Chrysostom or St Augustine, as extraordinarily gifted confessors and spiritual directors, they did not leave us the kinds of records that help us understand how they heard confessions. It is a bit like asking if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound. Yes, and while we know this theoretically, even if we do not know it experientially. And in the spiritual life, experience counts as much, if not more than, theory.

So yes, Chrysostom may very well have been an extraordinary psychologist (and certainly his sermons suggest this), but the Church today does not much profit from his skill. Contemporary psychology, to the degree that the psychologist (be he a researcher or a therapist) is honest can help the Church fill in the lack of anthropological data rooted in experience. In my work, I find a new depth of understanding of Chrysostom's sermons is possible precisely because--as a psychologist--I have some insight into human behavior that remains only implicit in his sermons.

As I think I alluded to in the interview, I did not come to psychology as an Orthodox Christian, much less a priest. Rather it was the other way around, I came as a psychologist to the Orthodox Church and eventually, and again as a psychologist, to the priesthood. This is to say I came looking for something to make up what I found lacking in my experience as a therapist and theoretician (and these days I am more interested in ideas about psychology and psychological theorists more than I am in actually doing therapy--though God knows I do a fair amount of that every week!). A therapist who is honest and committed to really working with and for clients will say that this work is invariably a confrontation with the fact of human contingency—that nothing in the client's life is necessary or of lasting value.

This is grim I realize—but this awareness is where faith begins.

I must first grasp that I do not possess my own life—that autonomy in the radical sense of the word, is not possible. This is so because I live in midst of a web of relationships that are given to me prior to any decision that I make. And, more painful still, it is precisely this web of relationships that exist prior to my free decision that in fact makes my subsequent freedom possible. I am free only to the degree that I first embrace the manifold limitations that make my life possible.

Tracing out the particular limits of a particular human life is what psychology excels at doing. In this sense then, psychology is the science, or maybe better art, that (like philosophy) is concerned with the pre-evangelism stage of human life. Psychology and especially psychotherapy (can) prepare us to receive the Gospel. How? By returning us to an appreciative consideration of our own limits, our own contingency in its ontological and empirical modes (what medieval philosophy refers to as primary and secondary causalities; I am absolutely dependent on God for my existence and relatively dependent upon my patents). Psychology, the other social and human sciences (sociology, anthropology especially) as well as the natural sciences (especially the biological sciences, but also the physical sciences and physics), are concerned with articulated the structures and dynamics of this secondary causality.

In this regard theology and the Church need modern psychology. Not need in an absolute sense to be sure, but certainly in a relative sense. For this reason I would assert that especially for pastors to ignore contemporary psychology is not only harmful but irresponsible. For all its shortcoming and limitations (and I am intimately familiar with these), modern psychology add insights about the human condition that the Fathers did not, at least not explicitly, have.

Implicit within the question of the use of modern psychology is a certain forgetfulness of the importance of our attending to the particular human person and the concrete community. Answering the questions "What use is contemporary psychology for Christians?" is not possible theoretically, but only personally. I think the examples that S. raises are good ones—I know as a priest that I have often encountered situations in the life of the Church in which my background as a psychologist has been extremely helpful. But, as I often tell my brother priests, being a psychologist doesn't make me more objective or a better priest, but simply a priest who has a different bias and a different set of skills. There are situations where an appeal to the Fathers will simply not move us forward. Granted those situations may very well be in the minority, but well, those are the situations within which God seems to call me to minister.

Finally, what I have found to be the best approach to the questions you raise T. is to seek not integration or hegemony, but reconciliation between the insights of the Fathers and contemporary psychology. As I said above, your questions do not admit to easy theoretical answers—but they can be answered personally.

In all humility I think that the work I do is consonant with the work the Fathers did in their time. These men and women of Christ, committed as they were to Him, the Gospel, and the life of the Church, entered into a conversation with Greek philosophy. At times they embraced pagan philosophy as a manifestation of divine wisdom. At other times they rejected it as demonic. It is as a result of that conversation however, that we have the great theological works of the first centuries.

In a similar fashion, and with the hope that I too will grow in holiness as a result, I have my conversation with contemporary psychology. Some of what I find is life giving and some is death dealing. But what is most important is not how this or that conversation or debate is resolved, but how struggle with the issues raised by the conversation between the two parts of my life transforms me. The questions you raised are important one, but their answer is given vocationally and not theoretically. In this, I would suggest, the questions you raise about contemporary psychology's relationship to the Church are no different the questions raised in an earlier age about the role that pagan philosophy and literature ought to play in the life of the Church.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

More Thoughts On Orthodoxy in America

An interesting comment from Blogger Audra Wooten that many readers might have missed while I was trying to clean up the stray code on my blog.

Audra writes in response to my earlier post "American Orthodoxy?":

Father Gregory,

I had been pondering both the Ocholophibst post you reference and your comments on it, when today I opened the copy of The Word (publication of the Antiochian Archdiocese) and saw a related article: "Orthodox & American Ideals in Foundational Texts." I wonder if something like this is what you had in mind. At any rate, I thought you might enjoy reading it and might not have seen it if you don't subscribe to The Word.

Thank you Audra for your comment, I value them greatly. Thank you as well for bringing the essay by Gregory Cook to my attention. I took you advice and read Cook's essay in the May 2008 issue of The Word.

To answer your question, I would say that the article both was and wasn't what I had in mind.

To paraphrase Lincoln, historically we American have always seen ourselves as an "almost chosen people," committed fundamentally to an idea: "that all men are created equal." As Lincoln suggests both at Gettysburg and in his second inaugural address, this is an idea that will continually be tested even as it was tested by the Civil War.

The heart of this test, and the question that faces all American, including Orthodox Christians, is found in the last paragraph of the Gettysburg Address:

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln's words are pointed challenge to not only his contemporaries, but to us as Orthodox Christians. America, for better and worse, is a work that we are invited to participate in. As Orthodox Christians we are no more called to consecrate or hallow this work this work today, then were Christians of Lincoln's era called to consecrate or hallow the battlefield at Gettysburg. This has been done by those "brave men, living and dead who struggled," not only during the Civil War, but in the wars that both proceeded and followed.

If America is an idea, it is also a gift and a responsibility.

Lincoln is squarely within the tradition of American political philosophy when he says that it is our task to dedicate ourselves "to the unfinished work" of "a new birth of freedom," a form of "government of the people, by the people, for the people." The American experiment is both a challenge and an invitation. The questions for us as Orthodox Christians is this: Are we willing to participate, personally and as a Church, in that common task of civil self-government? And what, if anything, do we as Orthodox Christians contribute to this common task?

It seems to me that many in the Orthodox Church have succumbed to what I see as a growing problem in many segments of American society. Whether we see ourselves as politically liberal or conservative, many in American society, and in the Orthodox Church, seem more inclined to use America, then to contribute to America and to the American Experiment.

Allow me to borrow from another inaugural address, this time from President Kennedy: "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." Just prior to making this oft quoted challenge Kennedy recounts the global social and scientific changes since World War II. He then says "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

He tells both sides of the differences that divide the human family that they all should "heed . . . the command of Isaiah—to 'undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free.'" This can, however, only be accomplished Kennedy tells us through "cooperation." It is only by our willingness to cooperate with one another that we "may push back the jungle of suspicion." The American project, the American invitation, to all people of good will including Orthodox Christians, is that we "join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved."

For all his optimism, Kennedy is also a realist. He knows that this endeavor "will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet." But even if we are being invited to something that necessarily awaits an eschatological fulfillment, he says nevertheless "let us begin."

There is a certain humility that is as deeply engrained in the American character as is our optimism. If we go wrong, either on the world stage or as Orthodox Christians it is when we forget the humility and wisdom embodied in Kennedy's speech if not always his life:

In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

American culture is deeply collaborative—from barn raisings onward, ours is a culture that fosters all sorts of voluntary associations. Working together to face a common challenge is part of our character. And so Kennedy says, "the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, 'rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation'—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."

An effective Orthodox witness to America, I would suggest, requires that we surrender our tendency to use America, and instead demonstrate by our actions our willingness to contribute to the great American project of promoting liberty in all facets of human life, physical, moral, political and cultural, both here and abroad. This might mean an explicit proclamation of the Gospel; but regardless of its theological and historical integrity our proclamation will be ignored by all but the most base in American society if it is not embodied in an active philanthropy which demonstrate to others that we hold ourselves (and to borrow from Kennedy's speech) to "the same high standards of strength and sacrifice" that we ask of them.

It is not sufficient, I think, for Orthodox Christians merely to be residences of America. We must be good citizens, even exemplary citizens, who are committed to bringing to bear all our resources, both personal and as a tradition, to the project of human freedom in all its many dimensions. In a word, our must be a witness not of judgment, but of cooperation and collaboration, "remembering" as Kennedy said, "that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof."

For all our theological erudition, as a Church we have failed in the most basic task of our witness to America. We have failed to be exemplary, or even, I fear, good citizens.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Everybody's A Critic

Everybody's a critic!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Skribit

On the right hand side you may have noticed I've added a new widget, Skribit. This allows you as the reader to offer suggestions for future topics on Koinonia. Alternatively, Skribit allows other readers to vote on topics of interest. So if there's something you would like me to address, or there's a topic listed you think I ought to write on, please feel free to make your views know via Skribit.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Related articles

• Startup Weekend's Most Recent Startup: Skribit [via Zemanta]

Apologizes To All

Image via WikipediaDear Friends,

Please forgive me for not posting much of late. As you may have noticed there was some overlays on my blog that made reading most challenging. But after several weeks of fiddling I finally gave up and asked the good people at Zemanta and Google Blogger Help Group for help.

To make a long story short, there was a stray bit of code left over from a Firfox add-on that got inserted into my blog posts. The code is now gone and my blog is again legible (though whether it is worth reading is another question!).

In the next few days I hope to post some thoughts that arose answer from questions on interview on psychology and the spiritual life over at Ancient Faith Radio.

Again, sorry for the lack of posts and thank you to all of you for patience and assistance in fixing the problem.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Related articles

• What's new in Zemanta [via Zemanta]
• Zemanta Update [via Zemanta]

Church Unity and Legitimate Variance, Part II: Two Other Voices

Some thought provoking reflections on Church unity from Wei-Hsein Wan at his blog Torn Notebook. This is the second in what I hope will be a series of essays. The first can be found here: "Church Unity and Legitimate Variance: A Lesson from St. Basil the Great." I am most impressed that in the essay below is based on the work of Bishop Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Well do read and let me know what you think.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Church Unity and Legitimate Variance, Part II: Two Other Voices

First, St. Gregory the Theologian. In one of his orations, he remembers the endeavors of St. Athanasius of Alexandria to hold together the Greek East and the Latin West despite their different approaches to Trinitarian theology:

For as, in the case of one and the same quantity of water, there is separated from it, not only the residue which is left behind by the hand when drawing it, but also those drops, once contained in the hand, which trickle out through the fingers; so also there is a separation between us and, not only those who hold aloof in their impiety, but also those who are most pious, and that both in regard to dogmas of small importance (peri dogmaton mikron), which can be disregarded (parorasthai axion), and also in regard to expressions intended to bear the same meaning.

We use in an orthodox sense the terms "one Essence and three Hypostases", the one to denote the nature of the Godhead, the other the properties of the Three; the Italians [i.e. Latins] mean the same, but, owing to the scantiness of their vocabulary, and its poverty of terms, they are unable to distinguish between Essence and Hypostases, and therefore introduce the term "Persons", to avoid being understood to assert three Essences.

The result would be laughable, were it not lamentable. This slight difference of sound was taken to indicate a difference of faith. Then, Sabellianism was suspected in the doctrine of Three Persons, Arianism in that of Three Hypostases, both being the offspring of a contentious spirit. And then, from the gradual but constant growth of irritation—the unfailing result of contentiousness—there was a danger of the whole world being torn asunder in the strife about syllables.

Seeing and hearing this, our blessed one [i.e. St. Athanasius], true man of God and great steward of souls as he was, felt it inconsistent with his duty to overlook so absurd and unreasonable a rending of the word, and applied his medicine to the disease. In what manner? He conferred in his gentle and sympathetic way with both parties, and after he had carefully weighed the meaning of their expressions, and found that they had the same sense, and were in no way different in doctrine, by permitting each party to use its own terms, he bound them together in unity of action. (Oration 21, 35-36; emphasis added)

Of course I haven't studied the Fathers enough to discover a text like this on my own. Rather, I came across it (together with yesterday's letter by St. Basil) in Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev's wonderful book, The Mystery of Faith: An Introduction to the Teaching and Spirituality of the Orthodox Church. Here is Bishop Hilarion's commentary on the words of St. Gregory:

In the text quoted above, St. Gregory advances several important ideas. First, differences in dogmatic terminology do not necessarily presuppose disagreement in understanding the dogmas themselves. Not all arguments about dogmatic questions reflect differences in faith: many are simply "strife about syllables". The history of the Church sees many cases where the confession of faith of a certain local Church, translated into a different language or understood in the context of a different theological tradition, was misconstrued, considered heretical, and was rejected by another Church. In this way, many schisms and divisions arose: some of them were later remedied, but some have remained unhealed to the present.

St. Gregory's second thesis is no less significant: there are "dogmas (teachings) of small importance" about which disagreements are to be tolerated. These are the dogmas that can simply be "disregarded" for the sake of the unity of the Church.

The third point is that not only the "impious" but also the "most pious" separate themselves from the Church for various reasons; for example, in their different understanding of a dogma "of small significance". These people, one may consider, somehow remain within the Church while being formally separated from it. Thus, not all Christians who are separated from the Church are to be treated as heretics: a schism can often be a result of a mere misunderstanding. Any contemporary theologian who compares the dogmatic traditions of two Churches which are separated from each other must be able to distinguish between what is a heresy, incompatible with the Church's teaching, what is a disagreement on a "dogma of small significance" that can be "disregarded", and what is simply "strife about syllables" resulting from misinterpretation or misconception.

If we apply to our present situation what St. Gregory and St. Basil [see Letter 113 in yesterday's post] have said about their own age, we will see that they were in fact much more "liberal" than the most advanced "ecumenists" of today. Neither Gregory nor Basil regarded the disagreement on the question of the divinity of the Holy Spirit as an obstacle for reconciliation among the Churches; nor did they claim that those who did not confess the Spirit as God were outside the Church. Moreover, it was a common practice in the fourth century—indeed, approved by St. Basil—to accept Arians into the Church through repentance, not requiring baptism or chrismation. In our own times some Orthodox say that Roman Catholics, being "heretics", are outside the Church, and should be rebaptised when received into Orthodoxy. Yet neither Catholics nor Protestants would deny the divinity of the Son of God, as did the Arians, not would they deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit, as did most fourth-century theologians and bishops. And surely the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit is less significant than the question of his divinity. To regard today's Catholics and Protestants as "pseudo-churches" is totally alien to the spirit of the ancient Church Fathers such as Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian. Their understanding of the divisions among the Churches was much more dynamic and multi-dimensional, and much less rigid. Many divisions between the Churches could be healed if contemporary theologians used the methodology advanced by St. Gregory.

When dealing with the difficult question of Christian divisions, we must also bear in mind that God alone knows where the limits of the Church are. As St. Augustine said, "Many of those who on earth considered themselves to be alien to the Church will find on the Day of Judgement that they are her citizens; and many of those who thought themselves to be members of the Church will, alas, be found to be alien to her". To declare that outside the Orthodox Church there is not and cannot be the grace of God would be to limit God's omnipotence and to confine him to a framework outside which he has no right to act. Hence faithfulness to the Orthodox Church and her dogmatic teaching should never become naked triumphalism by which other Christian Churches are regarded as created by the "cunning devices" of people, while the whole world and ninety-nine percent of humankind is doomed to destruction. (The Mystery of Faith, pp. 125-127; emphasis added)

How we need more bishops like these!

Any "Star Wars" Fans Out There?

Not taking sides, just love "Star Wars."

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory



HT: Mirror of Justice

My Interview on "Our Life In Christ" (Ancient Faith Radio)

Above: Our Life in Christ, program hosts Steven Robinson and Bill Gould,

Interview with Fr. Gregory Jensen on Psychology, Part One
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

From the program web page:

Steve interviews Fr. Gregory Jensen, an Orthodox priest and psychologist. Fr. Gregory discusses the place of clinical psychology within Orthodox spirituality, particularly as it relates to pastoral care and confession.

You download the interview as an mp3 by clicking here: Our Life in Christ.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

American Orthodoxy?

 An interesting post from The Ochlophobist in which he reflects on the difficulties of embodying the Orthodox faith in American culture.  He offers five comments that are worth reflecting on:

1. What authentic human culture existed in American locals in prior generations is now dead, even if it remains in caricature form. Thus Orthodoxy is not to "incarnate" into American culture, or to save or baptize American culture. There is no authentic American culture anymore. Orthodoxy in America must seek to create an American culture. There are certain local cultural "ingredients" which might be used, but what needs to be sought is a new cultural creation.

2. This can only be done by coming to terms with the secularism that rules American life and disabuses what would otherwise be authentic American cultural forms. Until we acknowledge the pervasiveness of secularism and its dreadful hold on virtually all aspects of our lives, we are simply playing the games of boutique religion.

3. The fundamental problem - if one seeks for Orthodoxy to become fully fleshed and blooded in America, completely embedded in the existential ethos of this place and people, how does one go about it in a pluralist society in which all things are sought (usually with success) to be commodified and delegated to a percentage of market share? How does one avoid, on the one hand, becoming a particularly placed fleshed and blooded micro-culture that is separationist (the Amish), or, on the other hand, how does one avoid becoming a religious movement which fully collaborates with secular materialist culture (Evangelicalism)? Assuming that we do not want to run to the hills, how do we fully confront and transform an ever morphing ethereal pluralist materialist übercommodified anti-culture?

4. Should we even be seeking the transformation of America at large? America is colossal, too big in any number of ways. Would it not be more modest, and might it not be more appropriate with regard to discernable human culture, to seek rather a Delta Orthodoxy, an Upper-Midwestern Orthodoxy, a New England Orthodoxy, an Appalachian Orthodoxy, a Pacific Northwestern Orthodoxy, a Canadian plains Orthodoxy, and so forth?

5. There must be no agenda. As soon as we have as our agenda to “win America for Christ” Orthodoxy style, we have become one agenda competing in a saturated market of agendas, and we have then condemned ourselves to petty market share. The American Orthodoxy of mission statements and evangelism strategies is simply more of the Evangelicalish-materialist banality. If there is to be a full existentially realized Orthodox culture in America, it must come to be because this is what Orthodoxy is, how she realizes herself in a place. There is a charismatic and fragile human element to this. Such will not be brought about because Orthodoxy has been marketed well. Ironically, those most concerned with religious market success doom Orthodoxy to cultural failure, precisely because they do not understand their own commitments to secularist materialism, and the fact that there can be no Orthodox-secularist culture that is truly a culture. Not to mention the pragmatically obvious – that in a pluralist-materialist setting, Orthodoxy will never rise above the fray of constant competition (a competition which assumes and implicitly teaches a fundamental relativism among competing truth claims) and the trite mechanisms associated with such an environment.

American Orthodoxy?
The Ochlophobist
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:49:00 GMT

My thoughts on the Ochlophobist's comments:

Thinking about my own experience of the Orthodox Church both in the "rust belt" and the West Coast, I think Ochlophobist is on to something in point 4.  The Orthodox Church on the West coast, and for that matter in much of the Pacific Northwest and old West, is relatively wealthy.  Unlike the midwest and middle Atlantic regions, small economically and demographically struggling parishes are relatively (though of course not absolutely) unknown on the West coast (and the Pacific Northwest and Old West).  Ethnic identity is also less intense in the western United States.

Point 5, the necessary of not having an agenda, is also on target, though I would prefer the notion of detachment to the phrase "no agenda."  For better and worse, the large number of ex-Evangelical Christians has set the tone for Orthodox witness here in America.  Again, while there has been some good from this, for exactly the reasons outlined by Ochlophobist,  I would be hard press to say that this infusion of Evangelical Christian sensibilities is a good thing. 

While yes, we must take Evangelical Christianity seriously as the religious language of American society, it often seems that it embodies a religious world view that as commodified as the wider American milieu.  And then there is the toxic convergence of  phyletism and Evangelical sectarianism that especially, though not exclusively, on the West coast takes the form of 19th century Russian peasant chic (i.e., let's all dress as we imagine the dressed and spoke in Holy Russian in the golden age of the 19th Century--think a rather distressing tendency of some converts to dress like Fundamentalist  Later Day Saints.)

Where I might disagree (and his and your comments are welcome on this point) from the Ochlophobist is with his assessment of American culture--or rather the absence of an American culture.  Here I think I would say that yes, on a popular level at least, American society is increasingly less humane--less humanistic in the best sense of the term.  But there is underneath this popular culture, a deeper, more humane, more humanistic culture grounded not simply in the Enlightenment, but also in some of the best of western culture (in is hard for me to read Thomas Jefferson and NOT hear echoes of Aquinas).  We see this deeper culture evident not simply in the classical works of American political philosophy (e.g., the Declaration of Independence and the supporting literature, but also the US Constitution and its apology in the The Federalist Papers,  and before that the writings of de Tocqueville) and contemporary thinkers in that tradition (for example, John Courtney Murray).  And then there is the range of American literature, novelists, short story writers and essays, as well as the arts, musicals and films to which we can appeal to as embodying the best of American culture as such.

All that said, I think Ochlophobist is on to something--we are not as a Church prepared to actually incarnate the faith in an American context.  This is not, I hasten to add, primary a matter of a deficient theological education.  No, it is not that we do not understand the Fathers (though there is much work that needs to be done there for sure), but that we do not understand the foundations of the very society in which we live.

As I have alluded to at other times, putting aside for the moment our interest in Orthodox theology, there is to my view of things, a very disturbing anti-Western, and really anti-intellectual, trend in the Church.  As a quick example, more often than I care to recount, I have sat with Greek immigrants and Greek-Americans who were quite proud of the Greek language, but woefully ignorant of classical Greek philosophy and literature.  More than once, I have found that I was the only one at the table who had read Aristotle or Homer.

What I'm getting at is this, to embody the faith in American means that we need to not only be well grounded in that faith, but also the deep cultural roots of America.  Sadly, and this is significantly weaker a word that I would like to use, for many Orthodox Christians the point of being in the Church (and this includes not only "converts" but also "cradle" Orthodox) is to NOT have to wrestle with the culture. 

In a word, for all our newly found evangelical enthusiasm, we remain sectarian.  We are more interested in  the "low hanging fruit" of unhappy Evangelical Christians, mainline Protestants and disappointed Catholic and Episcopalians then we are in really doing the work required to present ourselves as a credible alternative to secular culture.  To use a phrase I heard recently, we are concerned more with "nickels and noses" than in doing the hard work of transfiguring American culture.

So thanks to the Ochlophobist for his usual insightful and provocative obsevations.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Related articles

• Unpacking Fundamentalism [via Zemanta]
• Kremlin Rules: Russia Embraces Its Church, Leaving Western Faiths in the Cold [via Zemanta]
• To the Middle East of Europe [via Zemanta]

In the Last Hours Before Pascha

Resurrection Icon

A few hours from now, I will serve my 14^th celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ as an Orthodox clergyman.

The first four of those celebrations was a deacon, the last nine, and this evening's, as a priest. One year, my last year as a deacon as it happened, I actually served two Pascha liturgies—after distrubtuing Holy Communion in one parish, I throw off my vestments, jumped into the car, and was driven to a second parish that also need my help that Sunday.

For the next six celebration of the Lord's Pascha I served as a mission priest. And it was during Holy Week of that proceeded the last of those celebration that my little mission parish collapsed for reasons that are still not clear to me.

But this year, thank, I am looking to the celebration of the Anastasis without anxiety, without the dread that has until this year been my companion in years gone by. The music is different, the rubrics for the service (always a challenge in the Orthodox Church) are mostly the same as what I'm familiar with, except of course where they are different. As for the music—well, I don't know the music the community sings—and I will have to struggle to remember to sing in English (instead of my usual, and rather bad, liturgical Greek).

This evening at Liturgy we'll hear again the words that St Luke uses to begin the Acts of the Apostles:

The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (1.1-8).

And then, immediately following the reading from Acts, the Prologue from the Gospel of St John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.' " And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (1.1-17).

Thinking about my past, anxious celebrations, I realize that while I was quite taken by the majesty, the cosmological and the eschatological grandeur of Pascha, I lost sight of the homey, the common, ordinary and familiar face, of the celebration. How easily I allowed the weight of Pascha to overwhelm the lightness and joy of the feast.

What, after all, does it matter if the cosmos is redeemed and I lose sight of the human face of that redemption? Christ is Risen, not for angels, but for humanity. He triumphs over death for no other reason than His love for humanity. He contests with death out of His love for my neighbor and yours. It is for your sake and mine that He lay three days in the tomb and descended into Hell.

Lose sight of the human reason for Pascha, and you lose sight of the very story that St Luke offers as the second chapter to the Gospel. If we lose sight of the human reason, the human face of Pascha and how can we stand in the Presence of the Risen Christ with anything other than anxiety and worse, the sick dread that has been so often my companion on past Pascha?

The great and surpassing joy of Pascha is that Christ's resurrection embraces not some abstraction called "humanity," but rather the lives of the ordinary men and women we meet, I meet, everyday. If I cannot see with joy the faces of these people, how can I hope to see Divine Joy in the icons and music of Holy Pascha? To borrow from the Paschal Sermon of St John Chrysostom—that like every other Orthodox priest I will read tonight:

Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;

Receive your reward,

Both the first, and likewise the second.

You rich and poor together, hold high festival!

You sober and you heedless, honour the day!

Rejoice today, both you who have fasted

And you who have disregarded the fast.

The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.

The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.

Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:

Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

Tonight,

Christ is risen, and Death is overthrown!

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life reigns!

Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.

For Christ, being risen from the dead,

Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

In the Risen Lord Jesus Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Eschatologically Thinking

Pastoral obligations as well as travel for family events and conferences have caused me to neglect posting here with my usually regularity. So, while I had a moment, I thought I would offer some thoughts based on an excellent essay by S.M. Hutchens on Mere Comments. Wring about his attendance some years ago at a gathering of political conservatives he reflects on the difference between his own understanding of conservatism and what he appeared to be the understanding of conservatism that he saw reflected in the words and actions of some in attendance. He writes that

The principal lesson the experience drove home to me, early in adult life, was that while Christianity and "conservatism" have certain agreements, they have very different roots and very different ends. The majority of those present at this meeting would probably be called "country club Republicans" today, although I don't think the term was in use then. All signs pointed to the likelihood that this group was comprised almost exclusively of political conservatives, with whom I was used to identifying. I refused to go to subsequent meetings, and was told that I had insulted both the organization and my host by failing to avail myself of the opportunity. Regretting having disobliged the very decent man who had attempted to sponsor me, I nevertheless made it clear I had no interest in giving religious sanction to whatever game that bunch was playing--and so remained, to the chagrin of certain members of my church board, down among the immobile and shaken, joining, without knowing it, the local liberals, Catholics, and shabbier brands of Protestant in the estimation of the People Who Counted. In their minds I was not a conservative, and, given their lights, they were right.

He continues by observing that, unlike political conservatives, "The social and political operation of Christians is not based upon theorizing about what works best for the ordering of the world, but belief about what pleases the living God." Christians therefore embody, or at least should embody, "a way of thinking and acting that may or may not be agreeable to those whose understanding of the ordering of state and economy is based on a realistic appraisal of human nature coupled with an ideals of moderation and resistance to earthly utopias--that is, the classical tradition usually identified as 'conservatism.'" While there is, or ought to be at least, an affinity of Christians for "political, economic, and social conservatism" as this movement responds to the problems seen "in societies suffering from moral breakdowns" and the subsequent adverse effect that breakdown has on "all areas of life," for Christians "the difference between 'conservative' and 'liberal' theory is still only a difference between theories, one more reasonable and more in agreement with Christianity about the nature of man than the other, but still based on a theory about human good that deals only with the achievement of happiness in this world."

To be sure, not all policy decisions are compatible with the Gospel. But putting those aside for the moment, there is a more, fundamental point of disagreement between the Christian church and political conservatives (and liberals for that matter): the Gospel is necessarily eschatological. No matter what might be the content of Christian social involvement, our "ultimate desire is not the good of the world in its present form, or the comfort of human life here, but an Ultimate Good that involves giving up this world for the Life that lies beyond it. To the pure conservative this giving up is a giving over, and the Christian who does it a traditor."

In the face of the eschatological focus, of the commitment of the Christian to an "end outside the world, and its beginning in the same Place," we might find something to admire in both conservatism and liberalism, but in the end, both will "find an enemy in Christianity when the ethics of the faith overrides" the pragmatism that guides their policies. Unlike much contemporary political theory, Christians are not utopians, our commitment is not to the belief "that life on earth can be more happy and comfortable for its inhabitants" in any absolute sense. Rather, we remind the world that, for all the real joys of this life, this life is not the ultimate good.

While the Gospel blesses the good things of this life, but it reminds us that these goods are secondary and that the Kingdom of God, which is to come, is the ultimate good—or rather Good, since the Kingdom is Jesus Christ. Remembering this is important at all times, but especially during Holy Week. If from the Gospel we do not get a lasting home in this life, we do get the grace to endure our exile. The blessings of the Christian life come, at least in part, from this willingness to endure our "cosmic" homelessness. Like the Son of Man Who has no place to lay His Head, we ought ignore this world, the world for which Christ suffered His own Exile from the Throne of Glory, but neither should we lose sight of the Kingdom of God which is to come. It is only in the light of this coming glory that we can see properly the things of this life.

Kalo Pascha! (Good Pascha!)

+Fr Gregory

This Ain't God

I remind my own people, the Church is, or at least should be, a "NO SHAME" zone. God does not become incarnate to shame us, but rather (as I recently pointed out) to lift us out of our shame.

He does through the Cross, by willingly and without reservation entering into our shame, taking it upon Himself and not turning back even at the cost of His Own Life.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Hat tip: Orrologion

Joy, Love and Our Common Good

Image via WikipediaContinuing yesterday's post Institutional Problems, Personal Solutions:

In moments of transition, there is a need to acknowledge, to affirm, what is going on in the community. Especially when that transition is associated with powerful feelings, be they positive or (as is more likely) negative, these need to be acknowledge and given a place within the life of the community. Practically this means helping people listen to and identify their feelings. More important still, people often need help in situated their feelings within the larger process of the community's transition, even as the community's transition needs itself to be situated within the larger story of the Gospel (i.e., oriented).

As I think about things, it seems to me that helping and compassion are fundamentally about orientation and acknowledgment. This doesn't mean I ought not to offer practical solutions where that is possible. But these solutions to actually be practical, to really be helpful and compassionate, must grow out of orientation and acknowledgement. At a minimum, if I don't know where the community is going (orientation), or if I don't know what people are struggle with (acknowledgment), then my help and compassion is likely to be ineffective. Worse, I may be serving my own needs rather than the community's.

Finally, playfulness.

Playfulness is not a value we usually associate with the Orthodox Church. And yet, in every traditional Orthodox culture there is a tradition of feasting, of music and dance. Pastorally I have found that one the best ways to unite an ethnically mixed community is to encourage people to eat each other's foods, sample each other's alcohols, and to encourage and welcome everyone's music, language and customs.

None of this can be done if the leadership—clerical or lay—or overly serious. There is a place, a valuable and important place, in our spiritual lives for frivolity, for fun.

If I were to make any critical comment about the way in which the Orthodox Church response pastorally to transitions, it is that we are often not very playful. Sometimes we are so deadly serious. But playfulness admits a bit of space, it allows us some room to move without being self-conscious or anxious. This all to say, that we must cultivate in our communities, a real sense of joy.

This is hard to cultivate of we are unwilling to look at ourselves honestly. It is hard to cultivate joy if we either take our eyes off the Kingdom of God, or the practical steps along the way. And apart from our willing to bear each other's burdens there can be no joy.

But while all this is true, without joy these other things are likewise impossible.

In a 1983 homily for Forgiveness Sunday, Fr Alexander Schmemann says:

As once more we are
about to enter the Great Lent, I would like to remind us – myself first of all, and all of you my fathers, brothers, and sisters – of the verse that we just sang, one of the stichera, and that verse says: "Let us begin Lent, the Fast, with joy."

Only yesterday we were commemorating Adam crying, lamenting at the gates of Paradise, and now every second line of the Triodion and the liturgical books of Great Lent will speak of repentance, acknowledging what dark and helpless lives we live, in which we sometimes are immersed. And yet, no one will prove to me that the general tonality of Great Lent is not that of a tremendous joy! Not what we call "joy" in this world – not just something entertaining, interesting, or amusing – but the deepest definition of joy, that joy of which Christ says: "no one will take away from you" (Jn. 16:22). Why joy? What is that joy?

Fr Alexander answers his own question by saying that Lent is a gift. And while this gift has many facets, is the gift that makes possible our

return to each other: this is where we begin tonight. This is what we are doing right now. For if we would think of the real sins we have committed, we would say that one of the most important is exactly the style and tonality which we maintain with each other: our complaining and criticizing. I don't think that there are cases of great and destructive hatred or assassination, or something similar. It is just that we exist as if we are completely out of each other's life, out of each other's interests, out of each other's love. Without having repaired this relationship, there is no possibility of entering into Lent. Sin – whether we call it "original" sin or "primordial" sin – has broken the unity of life in this world, it has broken time, and time has become that fragmented current which takes us into old age and death. It has broken our social relations, it has broken families. Everything is diabolos – divided and destroyed. But Christ has come into the world and said: "... and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself" (Jn. 12:32).

In the final analysis, all communities are, in one form or another, in transition because all human beings are in transition. What we learn from those communities that are suffering because of a trauma is that our love for one another is maybe not as deeply rooted and firmly held as we might like to think. I am not as loving as I imagine I am—the sign of that is my lack of joy.

In helping communities and individuals negotiate transitions, I must first and foremost love them. This love is not by any means sentimental. It is rather the willingness on my part to bring to place all that God has given me personally, professionally and as a priest of the Orthodox, at the service of the person in front of me. Reflecting both as a social scientist, and more importantly as a Christian, I have come to realize that it is only in my willingness to serve the good of this unique person that I am able as well to serve the common good of the institution, of the parish or diocese that is also my concern.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Institutional Problems, Personal Solutions

Dysfunction in the context of a religious community is one of my areas of research interest. As an Orthodox Christian who is also a social scientist, I am more than a little distressed at the lack of good research that examines how as a community the Orthodox Church responds to the different kinds of trauma that can happen in a parish or diocese. Absent this research, we might find ourselves, for example, at a loss as to how to respond pastorally to the unexpected death of a child in the parish, or some kind of misconduct on the part of a trusted lay or clerical leaders, or any of a myriad other more or less predictable events.

Recently Emory University's business school published an interesting article entitled "When Supporting Employees Enhances a Company's Competitive Advantage" on their blog Knowledge@Emory. The article summarizes the contribution on this issue made by panelists during the fourth annual Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference (ACAC) held at Emory University's Goizueta Business School.

One comment that stood out for me was that made by Margaret Cording, assistant professor of management, Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University. She said that during times of change, employees actually "go out there looking for signs of fair treatment" by those in management. In other words, as Cording and her co-author D. Brent Smith, associate professor at the London Business School, argued during times of key change, a firm's performance is increased when the firm demonstrates fairness and care for the employees' emotional well being. According to the article, Goizueta's Russell Coff argues that "the link between employee satisfaction and performance indicates . . . that a problem at the macro level might best be solved at the micro level."

What does this mean for the life of the local parish in times of transition?

In simple terms it means that the resources of the parish, and by extension the diocese, need to be intentionally at the service of the good of individual parishioners and clergy. Monica Worline, assistant professor of organization and management at Goizueta Business School, in her paper, "Organizing Resilience by Cultivating Resources: A Practice Perspective," argued that five practices:

• Orienting
  
• Acknowledging
  
• Playing
  
• Helping
  
• Acting with Compassion
  

were important in the cultivation of personal and share resources—knowledge, positive emotion and high quality connection—that were important in foster resilience in response to the stress associated with change. As the article notes that in the hospital billing unit that the study examined there was a

tendency to "celebrate everything," she says. "From most manager's perspectives, 'playing' is a waste of time. But doing fun things, [the billing department] cultivated this positive emotion, this ability to tackle challenges. And that helped them adapt at a collective level." Additionally, when one employee faced a personal financial crisis, fellow employees left an envelope with cash on her desk. "These things go on all the time [in the unit]," says Worline. The practice of "noticing suffering," adds Worline, cultivates relational knowledge and attention—resources that also help employees be more adept in their work.

Looking at the list, I wonder how these might be applied to a parish in transition?

In my ministry I have found that the last two practices, "helping," and "acting with compassion" are not effective and rarely raise above the level of the sentimental apart from the first two practices, "orienting" and "acknowledging." Pastorally this means making clear not simply the ultimate goal of the parish (the Kingdom of God) but also the more proximate and immediate goals of the community. These goals, even if they are rather prosaic, are important as steps along the way to the Kingdom of God.

Often we fail to realize that while these proximate and immediately goals are secondary and contingent, they are still important. There importance comes not only from the fact that they are steps along the way, but because the make concrete in our everyday experience our own journey to the Kingdom of God. Our experience of the Kingdom cannot be divorced from our daily experience. Why? Because while we are not "of this world," we are certainly "in this world" and this cannot be forgotten. This, or so it seems to me, is one major themes of the Epistle of St James, faith and works are not divorced (2.13-26).

But being right practical and eschatological orientation is not sufficient.

To be continued…

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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