Leadership in the Church

Rod Dreher at Crunchy Con has an interesting post about leadership in the Orthodox Church. His post is based on a talk that Abbot Jonah of St. John of San Francisco Orthodox Monastery in California. Dreher publishes comments Fr Jonah, gave recently at St. Vladimir's Seminary, on the subject of the right role of bishops. In the talk Father begins "by quoting an Orthodox theologian who said recently that bishops have become 'useless'—a judgment Jonah does not dispute." Let me re-post some of Fr Jonah's comments and offer my own thoughts (I apologize in advance for the length).

After tracing out the way in which the episcopate has become modeled after secular (imperial) authority. And so "the patriarch is made analogous to an emperor, a bishop to a prince of the church, etc. They even dress up in church like Byzantine civil officials." As a result, the "real nature of ministry, of archpastorship, and of Christian leadership, is lost." Fr Jonah then asks rhetorically "What is the structure of leadership within the Church?"

On all levels, it is a structure of obedience. The presbyters are in a relationship of obedience to their bishop. The bishops are in a relationship of obedience to their primate. The primate is in the relationship of spiritual father to his bishops. Jurisdiction is about a relationship of obedience, which is precisely responsibility and accountability.

"Spiritual obedience" as Fr Jonah understands the term is a structure of mutual care. As he says, it "is not subjection and compliance. Rather, it is a hierarchy of love and shared responsibility, a hierarchy of discipleship." Such a relationship is characterized by accountability in a spirit of trust and cooperation, in mutual love and respect."As such it is necessarily, "a complex of very personal relationships." But none of this is possible when "these relationships become simply institutional and the personal becomes relativized." This has significant ecclesiological and soteriological implications since. The reduction of the life of the Church to the merely institutional, or I would say bureaucratic means that "the very nature of the church, which in its very essence is about the actualization of authentic personhood, is distorted."

This is all rooted in the "breakdown" in the "Church's structure" in "the centuries of imperial subjugation, by the corruption of authority into power, by the reduction of church leadership to an institutional model, and the reduction of membership in the church to civic duty." We find ourselves now in a situation in which suffer a distortion in how we live the Gospel.

The Faith itself was degraded from a personal commitment to Christ to a socio-political ideology. Nominal church membership and nominal orthodox identity are the foundations of secularization. This kind of corruption began in the fourth century. When the church was subjected to the Roman, then Ottoman, and then Russian Empires, then to the status of state church, it was effectively reduced to a department of state. The bishops and administration of the church assumed imperial roles, insignia, and rituals; and with them, the Christian vision of the leader as servant became a hypocritical parody. Of course, there have been notable exceptions.

Viewed theologically, this socio-historical situation has fostered a "separation of charismatic and institutional authority within the Church." In a manner that should give the anti-Catholic polemicists in the Orthodox Church pause, we find ourselves now facing a ecclesial environment in which we suffer from "the bureaucratization of church leadership: the reduction of the episcopacy to institutional administration, and the virtual elimination of its pastoral role."

If historically, "Charismatic authority within the church was tolerated among monastic elders,"
such authority and witness "had little . . . influence in the life of the Church from the late Byzantine period through the Turkokratia and the suppressions of monasticism in the Russian Empire."

All this bring us to our current circumstances in which we see "the suppression of creativity and initiative, theologically and organizationally, for fear of being disciplined and rejected." It is without a certain irony that this spirit suppression has now infected not only the Church generally, but even the very monastic witness that in an earlier age preserved the charismatic freedom that Fr Jonah highlights. In many areas of the Church's life, including I am afraid even monastic life "personal ambition and competition for position [have] became dominant." And what has happened to "charismatic leadership arising from spiritual vision, the fruit of asceticism?" Sadly, it seem to have little context to express itself, even being regarded as dangerous" not only "in the state-controlled institution of the Church," but even (I would argue) in our parishes and
dioceses.

This has lead us to a point where the bishops have come

to wield power over the lives of their clergy, and instead of being chief pastors, they became distant administrators feared by their clergy. Obedience became confused with compliance and submission. Authority came to be identified with power, humility with subjection, and respect with adulation and sycophancy.

We have lost the sense that accountability is mutual, that obedience means not simply my obedience to the authority above me, but the obedience of that authority to my good. This mutuality of obedience is impossible if we imagine that we are obedient to anything other than the will of Christ. Having lost the living sense of the charismatic nature of the Church in which each of us has access to the will of God and the responsibility to bear witness to that will, we instead re-enact the dysfunctional vision of an earlier age in which

Accountability was always referred "upwards:" the bishops to the patriarch and emperor or sultan; the priests to the bishops; while the people simply ignored the hierarchy. Even the monasteries, where the ancient vision of the apostolic church was most clearly maintained, were subjected to this secularization of power and office.

All of this is, Fr Jonah says, the "corrupting fruit of secularization is fear and the lack of trust." The consequence of this is "isolation, autonomy, self-will and the breakdown of the real authority of the episcopacy. . . [that] destroys souls and the institution of the Church." Why? Because "Secularization reduces the Body of Christ to a religious organization; it is the form of religion, deprived of its power."

While I am in fundamentally agreement with Fr Jonah's conclusion I think we need to keep in mind that, even given the historical circumstances he outlines, it is still concrete human beings by their lack of resistance, succumb to the "corrupting fruit of secularization."

The situation Fr Jonah outlines is not uncommon even in parishes composed exclusively of Americans who as adults joined Orthodox Church. While I don't dispute his analysis in any way, I would add to it the almost universal indifference, and at times active hostility, among Orthodox Christian for what in the Catholic Church is called "human formation." In my next post, I will explain more fully what I mean by human formation.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Divine Liturgy Wordle!!!!

Time for another Wrodle. This time based on the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.

H/T: Mark Olson.

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

“For I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6.6)

With this post, I am bringing to an end my thoughts on the psychology of polemics. You can find the other posts in this series here, here, here, here, here , here, here, and (finally!) here. As I mentioned, in these reflections I am writing as much, if not more, to myself than to anyone else. What little self-knowledge I have rather clear tells me that reconciliation and forgiveness are not necessarily what I desire. Power, authority, prestige, yes certainly. But humility and a life of being merciful and compassionate—being myself not simply an agent of reconciliation but a man of forgiveness—well this I don't desire nearly as I should.

In my last post, I suggested that hidden within our polemics is a desire for reconciliation. That desire is obscured, however, because we often live not by desire (as Levinas uses the term) but by need and need is grounded in our physical nature. David Joplin in his essay "Levinas on Desire, Dialogue and the Other" writes that because "needs are satiable, they mark out a kind of 'restricted economy,' or system seeking a homeostatic balance." While we always seek to satisfy our needs, our desires have a different focus, for desire "is an aspiration that the Desirable--the absolutely Other—animates." Need tends to be self-referential, desire, transcendent. Likewise, polemics tend to be restrictive, reconciliation expansive.

Bishop Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate in an insightful paper, "The Patristic Heritage and Modernity," asks "But why should faith be 'patristic'?" And having asked he proceeds to answer his own question. "Might this imply that Orthodoxy must be necessarily styled as in the 'patriarchal days of old'? Or is it that, as Christians, we should always be turned towards the past instead of living in the present or working for the future? Should perhaps some "golden age" in which the great Fathers of the church lived, the 4th century for instance, be our ideal, a bearing to guide us? Or, finally, could this imply that the formation of our theological and ecclesial tradition has been completed during the "patristic era", and that, subsequently, nothing new may take place in Orthodox theology and Orthodox church life in general?"

He continues by saying that "If this were so – there are many who think exactly this - it would mean that our principal task is to watch over what remains of the Byzantine and Russian heritage, and vigilantly guard Orthodoxy against the infectious trends of modern times. Some act in precisely this way: fearfully rejecting the challenges of modernity, they dedicate all their time to preserving what they perceive as the traditional teaching of the Orthodox Church, explaining that in the present times of 'universal apostasy' no creative understanding of Tradition is needed, since everything already has been understood and demonstrated by the fathers centuries earlier. Such supporters of "protective Orthodoxy" like, as a rule, to refer to the 'teachings of the holy fathers'. Yet in reality they do not know patristic doctrine: they make use of isolated patristic notions to justify their own theories and ideas without studying patristic theology in all its pluriformity and totality."

While his Grace argues for the need to preserve the inheritance of the fathers, he also argues for the need to "invest the talent of the patristic heritage." If we seek to invest the treasures of the fathers, "we find ourselves confronted by a tremendous task indeed, comprising not only the study of the works of the Fathers, but also their interpretation in the light of contemporary experience; it similarly requires an interpretation of our contemporary experience in the light of the teaching of the Fathers. This not only means studying the Fathers; the task before us is also to think patristically and to live patristically. For we will not be able to understand the fathers, if we have not shared their experience and endeavours, at least to a certain degree."

As a theological matter, at best polemics tend to be concerned with preservation, reconciliation (or so I would assert) with investment—in drawing new, as yet undisclosed, riches from our tradition. But as his Grace suggests, this is not an easy task and given the risk requires not only faith in God but also a fair amount of courage.

Where might we find that courage?

Earlier I argued that the intellect serves the heart as its guardian—the intellect is essential in helping keep from the heart images that would corrupt us from within. While guarding the heart is essential, it is insufficient, the heart must be purified by prayer and fasting so that, purified by grace and our own efforts, we can see God. Under no circumstances, however, can we allow the intellect to lead the heart.

Guarded by the intellect, and purified by pray and fasting, mercy emerges in the heart. Though I am far from it, my thinking on the psychology of polemics has reminded me that I need to have a merciful heart. As St Isaac the Syrian says.

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person's heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

What so concerns me about polemics is the ease with which even the very best of intentions are used to justify an indifference, and even hostility, to mercy.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Christianity and the History of Freedom - The Acton Institute

Our 4th of July message comes this year from the Acton Institute and Kevin E. Schmiesing, Ph.D., "Christianity and the History of Freedom" (Acton Commentary, July 2, 2008):

For Americans the Fourth of July marks national independence, but the holiday has become symbolic of a more universal cause: human liberty. The development of human freedom, in theory and in practice, is in large measure the story of Christianity.

How we understand the past influences how we live in the present, which is why debates about history can be so rancorous. Whether Christianity is a vehicle of oppression or a force for liberation is a question whose answer has remained contentious for two millennia.

For many, Christianity is oppressive. For them, the Christian religion is associated with the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Puritanical moralism. It conjures images of witch hunts, the scarlet letter, and “Hitler’s pope.”

Contemporary Christians cannot ignore these associations. What truth they contain must be acknowledged. But the critics of Christianity cannot have it both ways. If evil done in the name of Christ is to be highlighted, then so must the good. Antislavery crusades, orphanages and hospitals, protection of the weak and innocent—these too have marked the historical record of Christianity.

Christianity’s impact on civilization has occupied some of history’s greatest minds, who have both reflected and influenced their respective zeitgeists. Augustine defended the followers of Christ against the accusation that they were to blame for the decline of the Roman Empire; fourteen centuries later British historian Edward Gibbon revived the charge, giving voice to his age’s skepticism toward revealed religion.

Another and better informed English historian, Lord Acton, addressed the problem in the late nineteenth century. The result, The History of Freedom in Christianity, was a masterpiece of historical summary, distilling almost two thousand years into a single story of the gradual unfolding of human liberty. Acton reversed the Enlightenment narrative that he had inherited. The rise of Christianity did not smother the flame of liberty burning brightly in Greece and Rome only to be rekindled as medieval superstition gave way to the benevolent reason of Voltaire, Hume, and Kant. Instead, Christianity took the embers of freedom, flickering dimly in an ancient world characterized by the domination of the weak by the strong, and—slowly and haltingly—fanned it into a blaze that emancipated humanity from its bonds, internal and external.

Christianity’s confrontation with culture was not a matter of the truth about God and man transported whole into civilization via religion. Beginning in sources prior to Christianity—Judaism and classical Greece—and continuing in secular political, economic, and social movements, Christianity interacted with the world and honed its own understanding of human nature and God’s will for mankind on this earth.

Christianity’s signal achievement, as Acton recognized, was the creation of space for human freedom vis-à-vis the institution that has, in fact, been the gravest threat to liberty throughout history: the state. The story is admittedly complicated by Church officials’ sometime collaboration with state oppression. Yet a fair reading of history must credit the ideas as well as the institutions of the Christian faith with the leading role in curtailing the totalitarian tendency—government’s inclination to usurp ever greater power over an ever larger swath of human existence.

In our own day, we find the Church again serving in this capacity. It is the foremost voice defending those whose rights are threatened by neglect or direct attack: religious minorities, vulnerable women and children trapped in slavery, the infirm and the unborn. In education, health care, and family life, religious individuals and organizations resist the tyranny of state aggrandizement.

The twenty-first century’s version of Enlightenment distortion has manifested itself in the tendentious arguments of the New Atheist movement, whose avatars Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins have declared Christianity to be, among other things, the enemy of human liberty. As is too often the case, these purported champions of freedom are the opposite of what they claim. Harris, for one, says religious beliefs of certain kinds should be capital crimes: “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them” (The End of Faith). Harris’s focus is on belief that promotes violence, but his concept of justice is itself dangerous, neglecting the conventional distinction between thought and act (the latter being punishable). It is not altogether clear, moreover, that in Harris’s reading of history and theology, orthodox Christianity does not qualify as “dangerous.”

New challenges to an accurate understanding of faith and freedom require new rejoinders. The Acton Institute’s striking film, The Birth of Freedom, is such a response. Like Lord Acton, it sweeps through history, revealing the contours of humanity’s struggle for freedom. “Christian Europe got rid of slavery,” says one of the documentary’s featured commentators, sociologist Rodney Stark. “That’s a story that’s seldom told, and it’s a shame.”

Christ came to set captives free, the scriptures say. The work is not yet complete, but the record of accomplishment is impressive.

Hat tip: Dr. Philip Blosser, at The Pertinacious Papist Musing on Catholicism.

An Anthropology of Reconciliation

In an earlier post ("Toward & Away; Against & With") I argued that, psychological, the reason I might find intolerable even insignificant theological differences with others is that I have come to identify my faith tradition ( be that as an Orthodox Christian or as a Roman Catholic) with my own preferred style of coping conflict. On this Horney is helpful because she points out to us that all of this my is ultimately ground in my own self-image. Given this, it is not unreasonable that often theological polemics become personal. Given the affirmation of self I find in my religious tradition I am likely to take any disagreement or divergence from my tradition as a personal attack and respond aggressively. While the movements toward, against and away are valuable they are insufficient. What is need is that we learn not simply to move toward, away and against, but also move with each other. It is this, I would suggest, is really the goal of any ecumenical dialog. The "movement with" is the movement of reconciliation and communion. It is also the movement that the one that is most often neglected. In what follows I seek to offer a possible explanation for this.

Psychoanalysis and patristic anthropologies agree at least on this: The lines of conflict runs not so much between people and traditions as it does within each human persons. Our conflicts, as Horney argues so convincingly, are in the final analysis "inner conflicts." Before "we" are in conflict with each other, "I" am in conflict with myself. "We" are not in communion with each other, because "I" am not in communion with myself. Whatever else they may have gotten wrong, what the late Pope John Paul II called the "philosophies of suspicion" got at least this much right, conflict arise out of the human quest for power and authority over others—and we will use economics, politics and even the Gospel as a means to acquire that power.

Practically speaking what does this mean? Well, it means this, while I think I've been writing to others—or more probably some imagined polemicist be he Catholic or Orthodox—I'm really writing to myself. Or maybe, I should say, while writing to "you" I had better also apply my observations and admonitions to "me." Because the problem isn't in "you" it is not "out there" or in Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church. The problem isn't even in me. I am the problem because the only thing I know for certain is that I am a sinner.

None of this is to suggest that argumentation, withdrawal, or the seeking of common ground is to be rejected. Far from it. But it is to suggest that, while not unrelated to these, reconciliation represents its own, unique movement and means of social encounter. Further because we are created in the image of the Triune God Who is Himself a community of persons, implicit within the three movements of from, toward and against, is a desire to move and be with—that is a desire for communion.

St Augustine makes an analogous point in a brief discussion on the psychology of suicide. He writes that "Every willful desire for death is directed toward peace, not toward nonexistence. Although a man erroneously believes that he will not exist after death, nevertheless by nature, he desires to be at peace; that is, he desires to be in a higher degree." In like fashion, polemics embody not simply a person's desire to form his/her life apart from others. Polemics reflect is not simply a desire "not to be" with others or "to cease to be" with others. Rather, this desire to be alone is also a search for a deeper and more profound way of being-with-others. This aspiration to be in a different way is a movement toward communion.

Ironically, when the heart's aspiration toward reconciliation is only given form as movements "toward," "away from" and "against," it remains wedded to the dissonance of the starting point. Only when it is given form "with" others does the movement toward communion become liberated from the conflict of the heart's starting point.

In his book Existence and Existents, Emmanuel Levinas offers a phenomenological analysis of fatigue that can help us understand this paradox. Of singular importance is the description of fatigue as a letting go that is also a holding on. For Levinas, "Fatigue is not just the case of this letting go, it is the slackening itself. It is so inasmuch as it does not occur simply in a hand that is letting slip the weight it finds tiring to lift, but in one that is holding on to what it is letting slip, even when it has let it drop it remains taut with effort. For there is fatigue only in effort and labor."

The is in our polemics a certain sense of fatigue as Levinas describes it. This fatigue "a peculiar form of forsakeness . . . of being forsaken by the world with which one is no longer in step." The person is no longer in step with the world because s/he is no longer in step with him/herself.

I would suggest that each of the three movements of the human heart (toward, from and against) can be understood as a mode of fatigue, of a "letting go" that is also a means of "holding on." Freedom from the dissonance of the starting point, of the inner conflict or passion that fuels our polemical engagement of each other, demands that we change our way of relating to God, humanity and the cosmos, that we move beyond fatigue and to a "movement with" (i.e., conformity) God, humanity and the cosmos. In his philosophical anthropology, Levinas offers us some insight into how it is that we can move beyond this initial dissonance to a life of consonance (of what van Kaam might call our "movement with" others). This insight is found in a recurring theme in Levinas's work: the distinction between "need" and "desire." And it is this distinction that I will take up in my next post.

To be continued…

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

John Couretas of AOI: Independence Day

From American Orthodox Institute:

From the beginning the Creator allowed human beings their freedom and a free will; they were bound only by the law of his commandment. St. Gregory the Theologian (Orations 14.25 ["On Caring for the Poor"], PG 35:892A)

Freedom means being one's own master and ruling oneself; this is the gift that God granted to us from the beginning. St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Soul and Resurrection, PG 46:101CD) Man is made in the image of God, Who is humble but at the same time free. Therefore it is normal and natural that he should be after the likeness of his Creator — that he should recoil from exercising control over others while himself being free and independent by virtue of the presence of the Holy Spirit within him. Those who are possessed by the lust for power cloud the image of God in themselves. Archimandrite Sophrony (His Life is Mine, Chapter 9; St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 73) The idea of freedom is one of the leading ideas of Christianity. Without it the creation of the world, the Fall, and Redemption are incomprehensible, and the phenomenon of faith remains inexplicable. Without freedom there can be no theodicy and the whole world-process becomes nonsense. Nicholas Berdyaev, Freedom and the Spirit (Russian title Dukh i realnost, 1927), 9th ed. (London, 1948), 119.

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

Orthodoxy: A Fertile Faith?

Image via WikipediaJohn Couretas at the American Orthodox Institute blog (a most excellent blog, might I add--do take a look at it!) raises the question of Orthodox Christian witness in the political realm:

When a recent coffee hour conversation turned, unexpectedly, to politics and what if anything the Church has to say about public issues and then all of the “God talk” in the current presidential contest, a friend said, “Oh, that’s politics. The Orthodox Church shouldn’t get involved in politics. Nothing good can come of it.”

Well, yes and no.

He continues by explaining that "If we’re talking about partisan politics then yes, of course, the Church must stay out of it. The Church was not founded to endorse candidates for office or advance a political ideology. But if we’re talking about the political dimensions of important moral issues, then yes, of course, the Church may quite properly speak to these."While I agree with the basic thrust behind his comments, I think the example he offers, the 2003 "Statement on Moral Crisis on Our Nation" issued by Standing Conference Orthodox Bishops of America is an unfortunate one.I read the statement by SCOBA, both when it came out and again in response to the post on AOI. Both the first time and now again, I found it lacking in how well in responded to the actual argument made by the proponents of same sex marriage.Yes certainly, "Moral Crisis," accurately summarized the Orthodox understanding of marriage but it fails to address the central question: Should the state sanction same sex marriages or not? As written the statement is not even clear as to the answer to this most fundamental question.

Yes the bishops express their "deep concern over recent developments." And yes, they tell us that they "pray fervently that the traditional form of marriage, as an enduring and committed union only between a man and a woman, will be honored." But they fail to say what the state should do in response to the desire for some to extend marriage to same sex couples. Given that the recent Pew Charitable Trust survey suggest, many Orthodox Christians do not think with the Church on this question, it becomes not only politically, but pastorally imperative, that the Church respond more clearly to those who would challenge and even reject, the "divine purpose" of marriage.

The statement also fails in my reading of it to respond to the fact that in the eyes of many, the "normalize, legalize and even sanctify same-sex unions" is no way a betrayal of marriage as either a religious or civil institution. The rhetoric is quite the opposite; for those who advocate same sex marriage,extending marriage to a new class of citizens through its legalization is presented as a strengthening of marriage as a cultural, and indeed religious and specifically Christian, institution.Appealing to the Constitutional separation of church and state, advocates of smae-sex marriage argue that (as with abortion rights) changes in the law will in no way infringe on either the rights of those who oppose same-sex marriage or represents an assault on the traditional understanding of marriage. They simply wish to extend a legal right to the disenfranchised. The bishops' statement, appealing as it does simply to Orthodox faith and practice, fails to respond to the actually argument that the legalization of same-sex marriage is matter of social justice.In failing to respond, the statement concedes the issue and leaves the reader with the impression that the Church has nothing to contribute to the debate past that which pertains to our own narrowly defined interests.The bishops' statement leaves a number of issues unaddressed, it is in it conclusion that it fails most. By not engaging the arguments made by the advocates of same-sex, the statement does nothing to change the terms of the debate.While there is a laudable attempt to reach out pastorally to homosexuals ("persons with a homosexual orientation are to be cared for with the same mercy and love that is bestowed by our Lord Jesus Christ upon all of humanity. All persons are called by God to grow spiritually and morally toward holiness.) it does so in language that it could used, and in fact is often used, by any advocate of same sex marriage.I agree with your thesis that Orthodox social witness is lacking.

But when, as with the SOCBA statement you referenced, we do make a statement it is hard for me to shake the thought that (however inadvertently) we are presenting ourselves as merely one pressure among others. While there is nothing dogmatically or ethically unsound in the statement, as a whole it reads (to me at least) more as a pro forma sectarian statement then a prophetic witness to the Gospel.Save for the fact that I am an Orthodox Christian who takes his faith and the teaching office of the bishops seriously–the statement offers me no reason to take seriously the teaching it is putting forward.If we are to speak to the ethical concerns of the day, we must learn to do so in a idiom that can touch the hearts and minds of men and women of good will. Truth be told, we probably would do well to begin with making sure that our own faithful, and especially our lay leaders and clergy are themselves committed to the Church's moral witness. We have not done the former, and I suspect we have also left undone the latter.In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Related articles

• Marriage Equality and Religious Freedom [via Zemanta]
• Behind masks or out and loud: gay marchers break new ground [via Zemanta]
• Religious Intent [via Zemanta]
• The Last Loophole [via Zemanta]
• Michael Huffington: For What Profits A Man If He Gains The Whole World But Loses His Own Soul [via Zemanta]

Fidelity to Our Calling: The Example of SS Peter & Paul

Sunday, June 29, 2008, 2nd SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST —All Saints of America (All Saints of Russia). THE HOLY GLORIOUS AND ALL-PRAISED LEADERS OF THE APOSTLES, PETER AND PAUL (ca. 67 A.D.).

And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." They immediately left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

(Matthew 4:18-23)

At the first moment of our life, in fact before that first moment, there is divine grace and the call of Christ to us. I am because I am called.

The Gospel for the feast of SS Peter and Paul offers us a glimpse, a brief account, of the call of not only the Apostle Peter, but also his brother Andrew. Thinking about this the thought that comes to mind is that while we are all of us called personally and to a unique ministry within the Body of Christ, we are not any of us called individually, in isolation or apart from others. Yes, we are each of us called, but we are called as part of a community that existed before us and that will continue after us—and so Christ calls not simply Peter but his brother Andrew as well.

As the story in Gospel unfolds—and it unfolds quickly, almost too quickly—we discover that not only are Peter and Andrew called together, but that (as I said a moment ago) they are called to a specific ministry or life of service in the Body of Christ. These two men are told by Jesus that they are to follow Him and become "fishers of men." It is worth noting that they will become evangelists not primarily through their own efforts.  Rather this is something in to which Jesus will make them. Fishermen will be made into fisher of men in much the same way that bread and wine are made into the Body and Blood of Christ--at the command of the Father, through Jesus Christ, and by the power and operation of the Holy Spirit.

We get a sense of the importance of the office to which Peter and Andrew are called in a sermon attributed to St John Chrysostom: "Before He spoke or did anything, Christ called Apostles." Why did Jesus do this? So "that neither word nor deed of His should be hid from their knowledge, so that they may afterwards say with confidence, 'What we have seen and heard, that we cannot but speak.'" (Ac 4,20) While there are different ways in which this is accomplished, while each person does so in his or her own way and in the unique circumstances of their daily life, we are all of us called—like the first apostles—to first witness and the bear witness to the words and deeds of Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is before all else to be a witness to Jesus Christ in all that I say and do.  And I do so not only for my salvation, but for yours and for the life of the world.

One of the great obstacles to fulfilling our vocation to witness to Jesus Christ is simply this: So many of us do not know that we have been to be a witness. And in the main we do not know because, as the other apostle who we remember today said (Rom 10:14-15):

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written:

"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,

Who bring glad tidings of good things!" (compare, Isaiah 52:7; Nahum 1:15)

While on the one hand the whole of the tradition of the Church, Scripture, the sacraments, the Councils, the fathers and the lives and teaching of the saints, all point to our personal call toof often the clergy fail in our obligation to help the laity (and I dare say our brother clergy) first hear their own unique call and the act on that call within the circumstances of their daily life. If, as a recent survey, suggests, the vast majority of the Orthodox faithful live lives that while morally sound are only marginally related to Christ and His Church it is the clergy who must bear the first measure of responsibility. Again, as the Apostle Paul writes, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?"

As I said a moment ago, while we are each called personally, we are none of us called alone. Rather we are called as a member of a community. And this is where maybe we encounter the second obstacle to fulfilling our vocation: We are often prone to deny that our vocation is always fulfilled communally. We deny this by trying artificially to limit our Christian life to only one area of our life. I am always tempted to narrow the focus of my Christian life to an area I designate "religious" or "spiritual."

Looking back at the call of Simon-Peter and Andrew we see that trying to divide up my life in separate and unrelated compartments is simply the wrong way to go. Again in a sermon attributed to St John Chrysostom we read that for Peter and Andrew, "The operations of their secular craft were a prophecy of their future dignity. As he who casts his net into the water knows not what fishes he shall take, so the teacher casts the net of the divine word upon the people, not knowing who among them will come to God. Those whom God shall stir abide in his doctrine."

Yes, they were apostles and witnesses because they were called and formed by Christ. But they are such not simply because of God's election. They were also called and formed by their father whose nets they abandoned to follow Jesus Christ.

And it is not only their father who prepared them to be apostles.

There were the other men and boys with whom they fished. There were their teachers who instructed them in the Law. And of course, their mother who bore them, nursed and feed them, and one day watched as their boys became men and, now as men, left their father and his nets to follow an itinerate preacher.

What the apostles did, they did by divine grace and their own effort. While these are not the same, neither is unnecessary and neither undoes they need and contribution of all those other men and women who helped Peter and Andrew along the way.

Though we looked at all this through the lives of Peter and Andrew all of this is just as true of the other disciple of Christ we remember today, the Apostle Paul. Of himself he says (Acts 22.3), "I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers' law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today." But unlike Peter, Paul began his relationship with Christ as His persecutor: "I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished." (vv. 4-5)

But like Peter, there comes a moment when his self-imposed isolation, and the violent hatred and anger it fostered in him, comes to an end:

Now it happened, as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" So I answered, "Who are You, Lord?" And He said to me, "I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting." (vv. 6-8)

If the end of Saul's isolation is announced more dramatically than Peter's, end it does for both men. And as Peter joins with Andrew to follow Christ, Paul begins his own discipleship with Ananias, by whose hand he is baptized and healed of his physical and spiritual blindness (Acts 9:17-18):

And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized.

Again like Peter, following Christ means for Paul that he travels not alone, but in the company of the Church: "So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus." (v. 19)

Peter and Paul were different men—they were in many ways very different kinds of men. One, Peter, was a fisherman, poorly educated, and was no one of consequence in the Jewish community in which he lived. Paul, though a tent maker by trade, was also a scholar, an educated man, a Pharisee and the intimate of scholars and a trusted agent of those among the Jews who had power.

Peter found Paul's words "hard to understand," and, in the hands of "untaught and unstable people" liable to be "twist[ed] to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures." (2 Peter 3:15) As Peter had his reservations (however charitably worded) about Paul, he was also not exempt from an even harsher criticism by Paul (Gal 2:11-21):

Now when Peter[a] had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, "If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. "But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."

Yet for all their differences and criticisms of each other, both men were disciples of Jesus Christ and faithful to the point of death in their commitment to Christ, His Church and each other.

It is this respect and support of the vocation of others that, I think, is at the heart of fidelity to our own vocation. Just as none of us is called alone or can live the Christian life alone, so to can none of us live that vocation faithfully, authentically, for ourselves alone. Just as Christ is "God With Us" (Mt 1:23) and even God for us (Jn 1:1-18), so too fidelity to our own vocation—in whatever form it takes—means that we must live lives with and for others. First this means with and for our brothers and sisters in Christ—beginning with our families and the parish, and moving outward in ever larger concentric circles. And second this means we must live with and for the whole human—again beginning with those who are closest to us and moving ever outward to the limits of our own unique calling.

If we do this, if we are faithful to our own vocation, our own calling with all that it entails in its preparation and enactment, then the angels together with the saints in heaven and on earth will sing of us the words the sing of Peter and Paul:

Thou hast taken the firm and divinely inspired Preachers, O Lord, the leading Apostles, for the enjoyment of Thy blessings and for repose. For Thou hast accepted their labours and death as above every burnt offering, O Thou Who alone knowest the secrets of our hearts.

(Kontakion for the feast of SS Peter & Paul)

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Leonard Cohen Singing "Hallelujah"

Having not head his music for, well a very long time, I thought I would post a video of Leonard Cohen singing "Hallelujah."

Psychology Crossroads

As I have mentioned here before, I am a member of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS). Affiliated with CAPS is Psychology Crossroads "a community for those interested in the integration of Christianity and psychology and related mental health disciplines." I think Orthodox Christians, and really anyone else, who is interested in not only issues of psychology and Christianity but also spiritual formation and pastoral care would find both groups interesting and a good resource. Why not take a look at one or both?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory


View my page on Psychology Crossroads

Iconography Workshop, Canton OH: 3-10 August 2008

There are still openings for the fifth annual iconography workshop, to be held at St George Romanian Catholic Cathedral in Canton, Ohio, August 3-10. This is an intensive class in icon painting/writing for beginners. The instructor, Daniel Nicholas, will teach, step by step, the process for creating a hand-painted icon, and supply all materials.

It is a great time; part retreat, part art class, and part summer camp.

The cost is $250, with $50 due with registration.

If you are interested, please call the instructor, Daniel Nichols: 330 837 0534.

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

St Augustine: “Of the Co-Existence of Good and Evil in the Church

Image via Wikipedia

One of the most vexing problems in our spiritual lives is the moral failings, and even outright wickedness, of our fellow Christians. This is especially painful when it is our fathers in Christ who fail or worse betray us.

We are all of us prone in our pain to think that ours is the first generation to suffer this but we are not. Precisely because of the damage it can do, St Augustine address this issue in his treatise On the Catechising of the Uninstructed, [De Catechizandis Rudibus]. So, I offer for your reflection and comment Augustine's reflections of the presence of good and evil individuals in the Church.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

From St Augustine, On the Catechising of the Uninstructed, [De Catechizandis Rudibus], Chapter 19, "Of the Co-Existence of Good and Evil in the Church, and Their Final Separation."

31. Neither ought we to be moved by the consideration that many consent unto the devil, and few follow God; for the grain, too, in comparison with the chaff, has greatly the defect in number. But even as the husbandman knows what to do with the mighty heap of chaff, so the multitude of sinners is nothing to God, who knows what to do with them, so as not to let the administration of His kingdom be disordered and dishonored in any part. Nor is the devil to be supposed to have proved victorious for the mere reason of his drawing away with him more than the few by whom he may be overcome. In this way there are two communities— one of the ungodly, and another of the holy— which are carried down from the beginning of the human race even to the end of the world, which are at present commingled in respect of bodies, but separated in respect of wills, and which, moreover, are destined to be separated also in respect of bodily presence in the day of judgment. For all men who love pride and temporal power with vain elation and pomp of arrogance, and all spirits who set their affections on such things and seek their own glory in the subjection of men, are bound fast together in one association; nay, even although they frequently fight against each other on account of these things, they are nevertheless precipitated by the like weight of lust into the same abyss, and are united with each other by similarity of manners and merits. And, again, all men and all spirits who humbly seek the glory of God and not their own, and who follow Him in piety, belong to one fellowship. And, notwithstanding this, God is most merciful and patient with ungodly men, and offers them a place for penitence and amendment.

Read the rest here: Of the Co-Existence of Good and Evil in the Church, and Their Final Separation

Related articles

• Divine divisions [via Zemanta]
• Westboro Baptists: Still Crazy After All These Years [via Zemanta]

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Mark Twain in "Chapters from My Autobiography," popularized the saying that serves as the title for this post: "Figures often beguile me particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'" Twain's comments come to my mind as I thought about the recent report on religious observance in America published by the Pew Charitable Trust, The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey.

Let me first say that I think that statistical studies can be of great value in helping researchers see patterns in human behavior, for example, that are not immediately apparent. As with ever tool, however, statistical research can only do what it can do. One of the limitations of something like the recent Pew Charitable Trust survey (PCTS) is that while it allows us to compare different religious groups in some areas (specifically behavioral), it does a rather spotty job in helping us understand the thinking that may, or may not, underlie and motivate that behavior.

So, for example, according to the PCTS roughly one third (34%) of Orthodox Christians report attend church on an at least weekly basis. Looking at the survey this is less than the national average of all religions (39%) and indeed less than Evangelical Christians (58%), members of historic black churches (59%), Catholics (42%), Jehovah Witnesses (82%) and Mormons (75%). At least in terms of weekly church attendance Orthodox Christians are on a par with mainline Protestants (also 34%). The only people less active on a weekly basis in their religious tradition are "Other Christians" (27%), Jews (16%), Buddhist (17%), Hindus (24%), Other Faiths (14%) and the religious unaffiliated (5%).

To understand what these statistics mean for the pastoral life of the Orthodox Church we would need to know whether or not Orthodox weekly participation in services has increased or decreased over long term. Given the similarity between Orthodox Christian and Mainline Protestant attendance, I would suspect that our attendance rates have in fact gone done as they have for most Mainline Protestant communities.

Even with historical information we would next have to ask why Orthodox Christians participate at the levels that they do.

The survey question that sought to determine the importance of religion in a person's life tells us that 87% of Orthodox Christians surveyed report that religion (and here I am assuming this means the Orthodox faith) is very important (56%) or somewhat important (31%) in their lives. There first thing that should be apparent is the huge gap between the percentage of Orthodox Christians who say that their faith is important to them (87%) and the number of Orthodox Christians who attend Liturgy on at least a weekly basis (34%). Whatever else their faith might mean to them, it does not necessarily embrace the regular participation in the liturgical life of the Church.

Based on my own pastoral experience (which until fairly recently was primarily within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America) I would be hesitant to conclude that for most, or even many, Orthodox Christians religion is a private or individual matter. Rather I would wonder if the locus of religious life rather than being the Church's liturgical worship is not rather the nuclear and extended families and culture. In such a social context, a context I hasten to add the PCTS does not explore, religious commitment is less a matter of What I Do and more Who We Are. My own pastoral experience seems to bear this out. Based on my admittedly more limited experience with non-Greek Orthodox Christians as well as my conversations with Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic clergy and faithful, what I would term a familial/cultural orientation is more common in Eastern Christianity than among most Evangelical Christians.

The work of sociologist Peter Berger offers us some insight here to what this data might mean for the pastoral life of the Orthodox Church. Berger argues that society—be it a religious society such as the Church, or a secular society, such as US culture, is both an objective and a subjective reality. Together with Brigitte Berger and Hansfried Kellner The Homeless Mind, Berger is interested in the explication of "the relationships between certain institutional processes . . . and certain constellations of consciousness" (p. 97). To accomplish this task they introduce two constructs, package and carrier. A "package" is a specific mode of consciousness. For example, "it is probably safe to assume that people working on complicated machinery in a factory should not go into trances." Consequently, training people to work in a factory demands that one cultivate in them "an anti-trance attitude [while] on the job." To do this, one must structure the work situation so that not going into a trance is both possible and desirable. For this to happen one needs a very specific "carrier," of consciousness; carriers lend credibility to various "packages" of consciousness. "Put differently, any kind of consciousness is plausible only in particular social circumstances." (pp. 16, 17)

Looked at in terms of packages and carriers, I would suggest that, at least in America, many Orthodox Christians are more similar to mainline Protestants than Evangelical Christians in their approach to religion. It is not liturgy, and the participation in liturgy, that lends credibility to one's identity or self-awareness as an Orthodox Christian. Rather, for many, indeed most, it is family and culture that lends credibility to one's identity as an Orthodox Christian.

In my next few posts I want to draw out more fully the implications of family and culture rather than liturgy as the carrier of a person's self-image as an Orthodox Christian.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Related articles

• Religious Americans: My Faith Isn't The Only Way [via Zemanta]
• Americans: My Religion Isn't The Only Way [via Zemanta]
• Americans: My faith isn't the only way [via Zemanta]

Urgent Prayer Request

His Grace Bishop MAXIM of the Western American Diocese urges all of our Orthodox faithful to offer prayers for the protection of the St. Herman of Alaska Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Platina, California. Wild fires are quickly approaching the Monastery grounds and the Monastery is in great danger of being burned down. The Monastic Community has been evacuated and are seeking refuge in the neighboring parish of Redding, California.

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

In 1930 I was quite the catch

130 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

I'm BAAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!

After a brief outage, I'm back. Sorry for the lack of posts and the broken URL--everything is working again and I hope to have the new URL up and running soon.

So in honor my blog's return, I offer the following for your consideration and comment:




H/T Rachel Lucas.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory







Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

Thoughts In A Coffee Shop on Sunday Afternoon

While the post title is at least a bit poetic, the same cannot be said for my thoughts.

Today will be a very long day for me. I left the house at 7 this morning and hope to be home by midnight tonight. Some days are just like that I guess.

I've spent the last hour or so catching up on the emails that have stacked up on me this week.

This is a good thing I think.

My wife Mary tells me that correspondence is a very valuable part of my work as a priest. At first I wasn't certain I agreed with her—but I've come to see more and more the value of correspondence, and really writing in general, in my own ministry and for me personally.

While I haven't always been the smartest kid in the room, I have usually have been able to think faster than the smartest kid in the room could. Actually, I could usually even talk faster than the smartest kid could think. And while I'm better, I think I'm better anyway, I can be intellectually just this side of aggressive.

Writing is good because it slows me down—it helps me become more deliberate. And because I put my thoughts down on "paper" (okay, a computer screen) it's easier for me to see my msitkese, I mean my mistakes.

It's odd really, but though the Orthodox Church has an amazing tradition of what in the West is called contemplative prayer, we often seem to value the business of the intellect more than the inner stillness of the Hesychast. Speaking with two inquirers this morning I mentioned that the intellect, reason in both its practical and speculative modes, is given to us to guard the heart. Too often I think I have allowed instead the intellect to lead my heart.

This isn't a good thing at all.

Allowing being lead by my intellect is like letting a junkyard dog slip his leash or jump the fence. A guard dog is only useful when it is properly limited and even restrained. So too the intellect needs to be kept within its proper limits as the guardian of the heart.

Left unguarded, the heart will embrace anything, it will allow anything, any notion no matter how aberrant to take root and grow. When this happens then I am deformed not simply in the core of my being, but from the core of my being. This illness is profoundly crippling. Untreated, it becomes increasingly more difficult to heal, worse still even then a life lived from the intellect.

Princess Illeana (later, Mother Alexandria) writes:

And Jesus taught that all impetus, good and bad, originates in men's hearts. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh" (Luke 6:45).

The intellect serves to keep sinful images from being planted in the heart. But to abstain from sin, while good, isn't enough.

I need to cry out to God in prayer. One way to do this is by reciting the Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner"). St. Hesychois the Priest says that "'The more rain falls on the earth, the softer it makes it; similarly, Christ's holy name gladdens the earth of our heart the more we call upon it." In the oldest traditions of the Church what is important are not the words of the prayer, but that we cry out frequently, in good times and bad, to Christ and ask for mercy.

It is somewhat ironic that, in some circles at least, the Jesus Prayer and the trappings of what people imagine to be monasticism, have become less a living experience and more a mere idea. For many, a life of inner quiet has become an ideology, one rich with trappings and affectations to be sure, but one without existential, personal, substance.

What does it say about my commitment to Christ and the Gospel if I can't find inner quiet and stillness in the coffee shop in the middle of a busy Sunday? Not that I won't have busy, stressful days, I will. But if being busy and being stressed become the whole story of my life, or even my day or hour, well then I think I have to say I've fallen rather short of the ideal.

Liturgy, personal prayer, asceticism, all of these we do to soften the heart as St Hesychois says.

And the sign of a softened heart? St Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part.

But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Cor 13).

The true test of my inner stillness, my commitment to Christ and the Gospel, is found in charity.

And if I cannot still my own anxious strivings and intellectual speculations on a busy Sunday afternoon in a coffee shop, so that I can practice charity, or at least not offend against it, can I really say that I have even begun to live the life of faith?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

July Meeting of the Society of St John Chrysostom

THE SOCIETY OF SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN CHAPTER

PRESENTS

"Current Possibilities (and Drawbacks) of Online Ecumenism:

Relations between East and West."

 

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at St. Nicholas Catholic Church,

764 Fifth Street, Struthers, Ohio

7 P.M.

 

(Twins: Saints Cosmas and Damian)

Speakers: David and Jonathan Bennett, Teachers and Writers

(Twin Brothers)

FREE AND PUBLIC WELCOME

THE SOCIETY OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM IS AN ECUMENICAL ORGANIZATION OF CATHOLIC AND ORTHODOX CLERGY AND LAITY, WORKING TO MAKE KNOWN THE HISTORY, WORSHIP, SPIRITUALITY, DISCIPLINE AND THEOLOGY OF EASTERN CHRISTENDOM, AND FOR THE FULLNESS OF UNITY DESIRED BY JESUS CHRIST.

(FOR INFORMATION CALL: 330-755-5635)

Let Not My Love Be Small

Sunday, June 22, 2008: Today's commemorated feasts and saints... 1st SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST — Tone 8. All Saints. Hieromartyr Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata (380). Martyrs Zeno and his servant, Zenas, of Philadelphia (304). Martyrs Galacteon, Juliana, and Saturninus, of Constantinople. St. Alban, Protomartyr of Britain (ca. 287). Hieromartyr Nicetas of Remesiana (414-420). Martyr Nicetas the Dacian (370-372). St. Grigorie Dascalu, Metropolitan of Walachia (Romania).

Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. Then Peter answered and said to Him, "See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?" So Jesus said to them, "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

(Mt `10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30)

For St John Chrysostom (Homily XXXV) Jesus' command to us that we not love our family more than Him, are first and foremost words of great kindness. They speak to us "just at the point [in our life] where love is most tempted to hinder" us. For this reason Jesus counsels fathers "to greater gentleness and children greater freedom." For parents, and really anyone in authority, this gentleness of spirit is essential lest they "attempt what is impossible" by their unwise assumption "that their love of their children can be rightly compared with their [children's] love of God." Likewise, children (and all those under obedience) must take care lest they give to parents (or those in authority over them) the love that should be given to God alone. Again, as St John says, Jesus "instructs the children not to attempt what is impossible by seeking to make their love of parents greater than their love of God."

For children to love their parents as if they were God, or for parents to ask their children to love us as if they were God is more than simply offensive to God. In both cases, we desire either is to desire something that will frustrate us and will lead to the degradation of us and those we so imprudently love. Or, to use Chrysostom's word, it is to desire something which is simply "impossible." Contrary to what we might think it is impossible not because we cannot love each other rightly. No the real impossibility is our attempt to turn love against itself. To attempt this is to ruin "both the beloved himself, and the lover."

The thing about love is that it is not only an expression of my heart, love changes my heart. Simply put, I become like what I love AND I become how I love. Both the object of my love and the way in which I express my love shapes my character. For this reason is always tempting to love in small measures, to love in such a way that my heart is never change. It is always tempting for me to love today within the limits of how I loved yesterday, to keep my love small.

But a small love is a dying love. If I limit my love, I limit myself. In the final analysis, love that does not give everything, gives nothing. And so Jesus tells His disciples, "he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me." And so, Chrysostom tells us in the sermon quoted above, Jesus tells us "not even simply to hate" our life. No He commands us "to expose it to war, and to battles, and to slaughters, and blood." In saying this Jesus tells us that discipleship requires from us "not merely that we must stand against death, but also against a violent death; and not violent only, but ignominious too."

Speaking of Peter's challenge to Jesus, Chrysostom (Homily LXIV) says Jesus "seems to me here to intimate also the persecutions. For since there were many instances both of fathers urging their sons to ungodliness, and wives their husbands; when they command these things, saith He, let them be neither wives nor parents, even as Paul likewise said, 'But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.'" ( 1 Cor. 7. 15) This theme of self-sacrifice and martyrdom is precisely what the Church puts before us in the hymnography for today's celebration of the Feast of All Saints. For example, we have the troparion for the day:

Clothed as in purple and fine linen with the blood of your Martyrs throughout the world, your Church cries out to you through them, Christ God: Send down your pity on your people; give peace to your commonwealth, and to our souls your great mercy.

The fact of the matter is, love will always require of me a willingness to embrace martyrdom. Why? While it is always I who love, while love is always a personal act, always really and truly mine, love is not mine alone. To love is not only bear witness to God, it is also to participate in the life of God. In human words and deeds, our love makes manifest the divine life and this always requires from me that I subordinate my life to God.

Among the fathers no one is more aware of what it means to love rightly than as St Augustine of Hippo. And there is no one among the fathers who is as aware of the harm of done by a disordered love. In one of his sermons (Sermon 65A.5), Augustine imagines the following bit of dialog:

Let a father say, "Love me." Let a mother say, "Love me." To these words I will say, "Be silent." But isn't what they are asking for just? Shouldn't I give back what I have received? The father says, "I fathered you." The mother says, "I bore you." The father says, "I educated you." The mother says. "I fed you." . . . Let us answer our father and mother when they justly say "love us." Let us answer, "I will love you in Christ, not instead of Christ. You will be with me in Him, but I will not be with you without Him." "But we don't care for Christ," they say. "And I care for Christ more than you. Should I obey the ones who raised me and lose the One Who created me?"

The challenge before us is to not without hold our love from others, but to learn to love one another rightly. This will, necessarily it seems, put us in conflict not only with the powerful in this life, but also with those with whom we are most intimate, and (in the final analysis) ourselves.

And yet there is no other way to love. To love someone simply according to my own desires or theirs, is to love not the person, but my own fantasy of the person. It is, in other words, to worship an idol of my own creation.

Their idols are silver and gold,

The work of men's hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak;

Eyes they have, but they do not see;

They have ears, but they do not hear;

Noses they have, but they do not smell;

They have hands, but they do not handle;

Feet they have, but they do not walk;

Nor do they mutter through their throat.

Those who make them are like them;

So is everyone who trusts in them. (Psalm 115:4-8)

I said a moment ago, love is not only self-expressive, it forms us after the image of what we love. As David reminds us in the Psalms, if we love an idol, if we love the works of our own hands, then we will become dead things like them. Our love, if it is to be true and life giving, cannot be small in either its object or our commitment. And isn't this what Christ tells us is the greatest commandments of the Law: "So he answered and said, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and 'your neighbor as yourself.'" (Luke 10:27)

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

New URL

Koinonia as its own url: palamas.info. It should be all up and running by Monday. I apologize for any outages.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.