Cost of Discipleship

Sinners

2012-01-28T03:51:00.000-08:00

I know that I’m a sinner and that I deserve to die for my sins, but what I find is that I have been given life, and life in abundance.

Every day I wake anew and realize that though I have been tried and convicted and am living on Death Row, I have been given yet another reprieve from my sentence, another day in which to serve that part of it, that must be served on earth.

But I am a very bad, a very unworthy servant. I spend my days in idle fantasy, conspiring to sin and to sin boldly whenever I have the chance, whenever the warden is looking the other way, like a pig loving to wallow in its filth. Yet when the Master calls, I am immediately straightened, and I run to Him to do His bidding.

If only He would call me every moment! or do I just pretend not to hear so that I can pursue my nature. Yes, when He calls I run to do His bidding, but in between those calls, I sink back into the darkness in which I was conceived and into which I was born.

Only death, it seems, will cleanse this criminal of the guilt of his crimes. That’s why he begs the governor not to write any further reprieves, though he knows it’s not the governor who writes them, but the King, the Master Himself.

O glorious God whose face is terrifying but whose back is mercy, You who come speaking Your Name to us while hiding us in the cleft of the Rock to shield our weakness from annihilation as You pass by! Why did You create us, knowing that we would instantly fall from Your obedience, drift away from Your love? The mystery of Your nature dwarfs the mystery of our own. How could a sinless God love us who are nothing but sin in the flesh? How could He that is pure Spirit desire us who are but spittle and clay? Yet You do love us, You do desire us, and for this we revere You.

Yes, Lord, Holy One who has descended lower than our fall, we revere You while we run away. Catch us, Lord, don’t let us escape, burn our scoundrel selves by Your divine Fire that purifies without destroying us who cannot in any world deserve such mercy. Yours is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory of utter humility, of unimaginable self-emptying. Join us with You in that Kingdom, share with us who hate You by our deeds but love You by our sorrows the Power, that the Glory that was Yours before the world ever was, O Christ, fell the forests of our sinful flesh, that we might finally cry out to You, Amen.

Amen, and again we cry, Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us, sinners.

Sorry

2012-01-28T03:18:00.001-08:00

When you can’t apologise, when you can’t ‘say sorry’—as we taught our boys when they were little—what a mess things become!

Were you the one in the wrong? You don’t think so. You think it was ‘the other guy’? And he’s not willing to apologise, and so you shouldn’t have to? He’s weird anyway, as he usually is. Not quite right in the head. That’s why it doesn’t bother you to talk about him behind his back. After all, who is he to you, really? Just a nobody and a nothing. You were just putting up with him, helping him out in bad times. Now it’s all over. Goodbye and good riddance!

I wonder how much of this kind of thing goes on inside us ‘behind our backs.’ I know that’s a funny way to put it, but I wonder just how much we let ourselves ‘off the hook’ when it comes to personal relationships. Perhaps this is where ‘the rubber meets the road’ in the life of a Christian. We think it's better to ‘just say nothing’ and maybe the problem—or the person—will just go away. Of all that can go wrong in our lives, this is about the worst.

When we know we're right, all that matters to us is who is wrong. We hold ourselves aloof from our neighbor as though from filth. And why? Because he deserves it! This happens between friends and neighbors, but worse yet, it happens between members of the same family. My only brother, for example, has cut off all contact with me for over thirty years, and without even letting me ask him why. This is not a complaint, but a lament. Yet, life goes on.

The way I was brought up, one didn't worry so much as to who was right or wrong in a situation. We were taught to apologise quickly, to restore peace between ourselves and another. We were expected to put the relationship above the reputation. But teaching and even personal example can't be passed on, despite all our best efforts. People seem to almost want to be offended so they can justify themselves in pursuing revenge, even if it is only to ostracise.

Lord, I do not understand it. I do not understand. How can anyone have such hatred for their neighbor? their brother? their parent? Who is the enemy here? Who has offended? Who has done harm? We say we walk in the footsteps of Jesus, but in truth we don His robe and want to snatch up the crown He did not want but traded for thorns, so that we can sit not at His right and left—no, it gets worse even than that!—so we can sit in the judgment seat.

We want what we want, and if we cannot have it, someone must be to blame, anyone, just as long as it is not ourselves. We put ourselves first at all costs, banishing fear of God and replacing it with our righteous rags, little realising that salvation or damnation lies with our fellow man. As the bible and the fathers teach, he who loves his fellow man, truly loves him, will be saved, but he who hates his neighbor has never seen life, and never will. He has killed himself.

Sorry is not just a word, but a condition, a state of soul. To be sorry is to seek peace with all men whom we may have offended without knowing it or intentionally. To apologise in words and actions is impossible unless we are sorry within. Of all the places where we can lose, we lose the most here, when we pretend to be sorry, but within reserve the right to murder our brother with everything that is in us. Who needs a knife? Even so soft a weapon as the tongue will do the trick.

Lord have mercy on us! Without our brother we are lost, and true are the words handed over to us by Holy Church, ‘You can be damned alone, but you cannot be saved alone.’ Teach us to count how few days we have left, Father, to love and serve You in humility, loving and serving the people around us, being sorry for ourselves and them, for our having offended You. Give us time to repent, so that in falling behind we can be found running ahead.

Running after You, running after Jesus.

Broken

2012-01-28T03:12:00.000-08:00

There’s something about Christianity that makes outsiders (if there is such a class of persons) think that it’s a crutch for the weak, a form of consolation for losers, a kind of drug, ‘an opiate for the masses,’ as Karl Marx put it. Well, there is some truth to this idea, but it’s not what Christianity’s detractors think. Moreover, so many Christians are afraid that this idea might be true, that they go to extremes to prove that it isn’t.

Orthodox Christianity says that what’s wrong with man is that the ikon of God is broken, and we’re that ikon. They say that Christ came to fix the ikon. Well, that’s one way to put it, and I want to get over that idea right away, not because I disbelieve it, but because as delicious as it sounds to those who want to creep away from the idea of an angry God who can only be appeased by the death of His Only Son, it can be misunderstood even more than some other theories of how salvation works.

The truth is, though, that man is broken, and some Christians are in such a hurry to fix him, that they actually shove God out of the way in the mad, and hopeless, attempt. Why mad and hopeless? We may be broken, but we can’t fix ourselves, no matter how hard we try.

Being broken is what we are, no matter how some of us try to cover it up. Admitting we are broken does not mean that we’re happy with it. It doesn’t mean that we don’t want to be made whole again. It’s our confession of being broken that places us in a position where God can work on us.

Some people think that Christianity is a kind of self-help and self-empowerment program. They start with the knowledge that man is broken, but then they take charge of the situation. Mining the Holy Scriptures for verses that they can claim as God’s promises and His spiritual principles for overcoming, sure enough, they put God to the test—the proof (of God) is in the putting (allusion intended).

Christian businesses with names like ‘Believer’s Voice of Victory’ or ‘This Is Your Day’ bombard the unchurched masses with slick entertainment and self-improvement promotions. These are not ministries and have nothing to do with Christ or Christianity, except that they draw on the Bible for their vocabulary. They know that man is broken. They know who’s in the audience. They offer to fix them, for a price of course. Yet it’s not their job, and in fact and act, they can do nothing.

I have a brother in Christ who repeatedly confesses that he is broken. Furthermore, he wants to remain broken. How can that be? Doesn’t he want to be whole? He lives a normal life, has a job, goes to church regularly, and he is living victoriously over his enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil. How do I know this? Because of the fruits of his life. But also, when he receives the praise of men, he somehow skillfully evades it, always turning it back immediately to God, and in such a way that you feel he didn't even notice what he was doing. Talk about playing a game of ‘hot potato’!

Broken, because that state is where we are just by being human, is what draws the love and help of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to us. Admitting it, confessing it always, and turning to Jesus, that’s what opens us to the merciful heart of our loving God. Yet, this is not how Christians are taught to be any longer.

Many churches set human standards before their members instead of the Word of God. The leaders of these churches preach themselves, not ‘Christ, and Him crucified.’ Go to almost any church web page and prepare yourself to hear about the virtues and accomplishments of their leaders. They set themselves up as examples of ‘successful’ Christians, again placing before you not Christ, but themselves. They hold out to you these images of a ‘happy life,’ while hiding the cross, except to wear it as jewelry. But the true cross is the happy life, because it is life with Jesus.

Not ‘success’ is ours for the taking, brethren, but being broken, like the flask of ointment was broken, that the feet of Jesus might be anointed.

Ours is to stay close to Jesus, hanging on to His precious words, not as magic promises that we can force Him to grant, but as they are, the living words of the living God, spoken to us for our hearing, that we may have faith. And what is this faith? It is trusting Christ and only Him to be our saviour, confessing no other, waiting on Him to make us whole, without looking, without measuring ourselves to see if we’ve grown, looking only to Jesus and not at ourselves.

Yes, brothers, let’s be broken for Jesus, who said…

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:1-11 NIV

Ahavat Achim

2012-01-27T20:21:00.003-08:00

Psalms for the 28th Day
132 133 134 135 136 137 138

Psalm 133

Brotherly Love

How good, how delightful it is,
for all to live together like brothers:

fine as oil on the head,
running down Aaron's beard,
running down Aaron's beard
to the collar of his robes;

copious as a Hermon dew
falling on the heights of Zion,
where Yahweh confers His blessing,
everlasting life.

שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת, לְדָוִד
הִנֵּה מַה-טּוֹב, וּמַה-נָּעִים
שֶׁבֶת אַחִים גַּם-יָחַד
כַּשֶּׁמֶן הַטּוֹב, עַל-הָרֹאשׁ
יֹרֵד, עַל-הַזָּקָן זְקַן-אַהֲרֹן
שֶׁיֹּרֵד, עַל-פִּי מִדּוֹתָיו
כְּטַל-חֶרְמוֹן
שֶׁיֹּרֵד, עַל-הַרְרֵי צִיּוֹן
כִּי שָׁם צִוָּה יְהוָה, אֶת-הַבְּרָכָה
חַיִּים, עַד-הָעוֹלָם

You keep me alive

2012-01-27T20:21:00.001-08:00

God desires and seeks the salvation of all. And He is always saving all who wish to be saved from drowning in the sea of life and sin. But He does not always save in a boat or a convenient, well-equipped harbor.

He promised to save the Holy Apostle Paul and all his fellow-travelers, and He did save them. But the Apostle and his fellow-passengers were not saved in the ship, which was wrecked; they were saved with great difficulty, some by swimming and others on boards and various bits of the ship's wreckage.

— Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov

Though I live surrounded by trouble,
You keep my alive—to my enemies’ fury!
You stretch Your hand out and save me,
Your right hand will do everything for me.
Yahweh, Your love is everlasting,
do not abandon us whom you gave made.
Psalm 138:7-8 Jerusalem Bible

Psalms for the 28th Day
132 133 134 135 136 137 138

Who She is

2012-01-27T17:55:00.000-08:00

For the most part, my experiences as a blog writer have been very positive. I have tried to stay away from topics that would incite controversy, but not always with complete success. Sometimes I've expressed ideas that I thought might draw down criticism or judgment, and I received none. Sometimes I've written what I thought could not possibly draw me into an argument, and yet it did. Even when countered, I've tried very hard not to let my blogs become arenas for verbal battles. I was not always this way.

I first started blogging as a parallel testimony to what I was doing 'on the street,' which was reading the Word of God aloud publicly. I wanted to document what happened when I did this. Surprisingly, I rarely encountered any opposition or aggression when reading the Bible publicly unlike others who, preaching their own message while waving around a black leather-bound book, often drew crowds of mockers. I tried to follow what Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, to be strong when the Word is strong, to be weak when it is weak.

What my experience taught me about this was, you can't force Jesus down people's throats, especially when you've got Him sandwiched between slices of your denominational philosophy. Though my 'mission' on the street was carried on in this pacific way, sometimes in the blog world I was not quite so harmless. Sometimes I criticised, even blasted, people and systems that I have a problem with. In my comments on the blogs of others, I also pressed what I thought was my advantage. This was, to be sure, quite wrong of me, if I were a follower of Jesus.

How little we see, sometimes, when we hide Him from view by our smoggy intentions. Smog, mind you, not smoke, not the smoke of the Presence, which surrounds Him alone, but smog, the unhealthy byproduct of our anxieties. Yet we mistake the one for the other. We hide ourselves from God when He comes calling, and then complain that He hides Himself from us, when we call. This is the ground floor of the human condition, which I share with everyone I meet, and our experience together is that only One can raise us from this degradation, yet we try to raise ourselves by lowering others.

My blog was visited just now by a woman who implies that she is the Woman mentioned in the book of Revelation. When I followed back the link to a web page that she provided in her comment, I couldn't believe my eyes. Rarely does one encounter another human being whose audacity is so glaring. Yes, I've labored under the delusion that something I might say or do could help save someone. This is a common delusion, especially of those who would 'teach' others. I know there is only One Teacher, the Messiah, and at my best I am only repeating what has been handed over to me.

I deleted her comment, which was harmless enough, though it carried a sectarian overtone and a premonition of higher knowledge, so that no one who came here might be confused or tantalised by the claims she makes in her web page. But it still astounds me, and startles me that such a person could exist. We hear of public figures like the Puerto Rican reincarnation of Paul the Apostle who later was divinely upgraded to being both the second coming of Jesus Christ, and the Antichrist, all at the same time. He tells us that sin is no more, and that he comes to rule the earth.

Such impositions on the mortal mind stagger my imagination. Again, because audacity seems to outdo itself with every new messiah, once only male but now female too. What Bible verse cannot be twisted by our imaginations to serve our glorification? I think back on my own life and shudder with shame, for I am no different in kind, only in degree. How simple the story is, that God has revealed through Jesus Christ His Son, and how believable it is, once we admit the truth about ourselves, which we must admit before we can ever admit the Truth about Him.

Enigma, that is what life is, and we ourselves, all enigmas awaiting resolution. Everything partial, all things opaque to us except ourselves, and yet we cannot even see ourselves clearly. My favorite poet writing his 'Song of Myself,' how luxuriant, how confident his pronouncements. I love his Leaves of Grass, not because they are true the same way that Christ is True, but because he reveals in them the truth about himself and about us, even about me, who for all our wonderful beauty, life, energy, darkness, pain, and weakness, remain asleep and dead, until He bids us, 'Rise!'

Evening confession. Outpourings of a blind old Greek with a Jew's heart, rich in his poverty, owning nothing but his own sinfulness, seeking no one but the Eternal, even knowing that finding Him is the losing of himself. The end of all things is nigh, but not as prophesied by bibliolators or boasted by Sabine women clothed in the sun who use the moon as a swing. The dragon that seeks to swallow the Man Child is not the same as the dragon whose year has just begun, that harmless creature who carries the Son of Heaven home when his mandate is foreclosed.

Infinite Mercy stands waiting, hidden behind our walls, to reveal Himself, at every moment knowing exactly where we need Him most, and why we are in need. He does not wait as we wait. He is ready when we call, echoing unknowingly His calling us. His forgiveness covers even our audacity in believing we are God, that we do not need Him, that our freedom originates in ourselves. His salvation in bathing us does not drown us in the process, but makes us clean again, forgetting our uncleanness forever.

Yes, and the Woman clothed with the sun, yes, we will find out exactly who She is.

Christ fulfills all

2012-01-27T13:17:00.000-08:00

More and more I say again and again to myself and to others, ‘Just follow Jesus. Do what you see Him doing. He is still doing it, even in today's world, not as a historical figure that you can read about and study, but as living people, men and women called to be saints today, alive not with their own life but with the life of Christ who personally lives in them today, living lives of grace, of peace, of healing, of forgiveness, of reconciliation, yes, following Jesus.

These words by a recent Church Father come from his writing called, The Agony of the Church, and continue the theme that I presented in the post Inclusive. Christ is the New Testament that completes the Old Testaments, not of the Jews only, but of all nations and cultures, and Holy Church, following her Master closely, deals with the peoples as He does, not as Caesar does, loving them, not lording over them, yes, following Jesus.

By His birth [Christ] included and bound together the lowest and the highest, the natural and the supernatural: stable, manger, straw, sheep and shepherds on the one hand; stars, angels, magi and Davidic royal origin on the other.

By His life He included the austerity of the Indian monks, of John the Baptist and the Nazarenes on the one hand; and on the other the Confucian moderate feasting, in the houses of friends, at the marriage feast and on other solemn occasions.

His life-drama was interwoven into the lives of all classes of people: men, women and children, Judaists and heathen, King Herod and the proconsul Pilate, priests and soldiers, merchants and beggars, learned sophists and ignorant fools, the sick and the healthy, the righteous and the sinful, Jews and Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and all others who could be met in Palestine, the very market of races and creeds.

He was by no means a party man like the Pharisees and the doctors of law. He called both the Pharisees and their enemies to follow Him. He went to the temple to pray, but He also prayed alone in the desert. He kept the Sabbath and He broke the Sabbath by healing the sick and doing good on this sacred day. He came not to destroy the Law, but He brought something which was higher than the Law and even included the Law itself, i.e., love and mercy.

He rebuked people who used to pray and say, ‘Lord, Lord!’ And yet He prayed very often Himself. He rebuked those who were fasting, and yet He used to fast Himself. What He really looked for was neither prayer nor fasting, but the spirit in which one prayed or fasted.

He commanded the people to give to Caesar things which were Caesar’s, and to God that which was God’s. He did not criticise this or that form of government, nor did He accentuate Monarchism, Republicanism, or Socialism as one form preferable to another. Under His scheme all forms of government were included as equally good or evil according to what place they reserved for God, what gifts they duly gave to God, and by what spirit they were inspired.

He followed the customs of His nation, and did not break them or evade them purposely. He took food according to the Law, and washed hands according to the Law, and went to the Holy City and took part in worship in the temple (though He was ‘greater than the temple’), according to the Law. It seems that He excluded no form of worship or social life, though He despised the unclean and petty spirit with which the hypocrites filled these forms. And when it came to a dispute He, the Messenger of a new spirit, naturally tried to save rather the pure spirit even without a form than a form filled with an impure spirit. Therefore He felt bound to say, ‘Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man,’ or ‘to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man,’ or ‘thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,’ etc.

Even so, too, He embraced all nationalities and races. Nothing was for Him unclean that God had created, nothing but unclean spirits. When the Roman centurion asked help from Him, He gave it. And when the people beyond the Israelitish boundaries, from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, cried after Him, He did not listen to the exclusivistic warnings of His disciples, but He distributed even there His divine mercy. He was mindful even of the people of Nineveh. And when He sent His disciples, He sent them to ‘all nations.’

Finally, He included the natural and the supernatural. He talked with spirits. He saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. He stood amongst Peter, John and James on one side, and Moses and Elias on the other. All the people saw lilies in the field and sparrows upon the roof, but He saw more, He saw how His Father clothed the lilies and how He fed the sparrows. He united the natural and the supernatural in His teaching.

‘Love those who love thee’ was a natural teaching, but He added, ‘and those who hate and persecute thee,’ which was supernatural.

‘Give to them who give to thee’ was a natural teaching, but He added, ‘and to them who do not give to thee,’ which was supernatural.

‘Bless those who bless thee,’ but He added, ‘and those who curse thee,’ which was supernatural.

And He united the natural and supernatural in His death. He suffered and died in agony. He rose from the dead, descended to Hell and ascended to Heaven. For Him there was as little boundary between heaven and earth, between nature and supernature, as between Israel and Canaan, or as between man and man, or form and form.

His wisdom was inclusive from the beginning to the end. What did He ever exclude—save unclean spirits? His disciples were as exclusive as anybody could be, exclusive when judging and acting according to natural wisdom. But when they looked at Him, they were reconciled. He was the Holy Wisdom, in which everyone could find a mansion for himself, every disciple, every nation, every form of worship, everything—but the unclean spirit.

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

Fellowship

2012-01-27T10:16:00.000-08:00

I just read a message which I regularly receive by email from Pastor Zac Poonen in Bangalore, India. He is a 'Protestant' pastor, in the sense that he does not 'belong' to either the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox 'church', but from my point of view he is simply a man of God, and I, as an Orthodox Christian, make no distinction between him and any other Christian or Church father who is gifted with wisdom and prophetic insight. All wisdom comes from the Divine Logos, the Word and Son of God, Jesus Christ, and all prophecy is 'seeing things as they are' without absolute reference to past, present or future. If these are bestowed on a believer, what does it matter what he is called or calls himself?

What Pastor Zac writes about in his messages is nothing sectarian or cultish, but the plain and simple truth. What he writes about in the message I am reproducing in full below is just another angle on a topic that I write about frequently. Why? Because it cries out to be heard, from the very pages of the holy Gospel. Reading what the pastor has written made me say to myself, 'Well, it's a pity that we Christians can't get along, that we can't follow Christ and imitate His love for us by loving each other, but we are just a tiny, faithful remnant living amidst an unholy, unrighteous, apostate and rebellious crowd of imposters who call themselves 'Christians' and falsely believe that they are 'the Church.' It's too bad that we can't love them and get along with them, but they're just so awful. Even Christ would understand, if only He knew what we have to put up with!'

Yes, this is the kind of inner dialog and self-justification that must be going on inside of us when we separate ourselves from each other, refusing to acknowledge Christ in each other, because of doctrinal differences. Does doctrine matter? Well, yes, it does. Does doctrine guarantee salvation or place us in peril of damnation? I'm not so sure. Does faith alone save? Well, yes and no. Faith without works—that is, without love—is dead, so let me ask, 'Does dead faith save?' I have no problem with 'salvation by faith alone,' as long as the rejoinder is, 'but only the obedient believe—that is, have saving faith.' Yes, we Orthodox 'possess' the living faith of the dead, not the dead faith of the living—or do we? How can we know for sure what kind of faith we 'possess'?

It all boils down to the nature of our loves and our hates. All and everything are worthy of our love—and love means genuine benevolence fully laden with fear of God, with faith and love—and only one object demands our hate—sin itself. Why? Because it is sin alone which murders our fellow men, and ourselves. Let us flee from the spiritual suicide of hating our brothers, by loving not only fellow believers in Christ, but loving all human beings for whom Christ came and gave His life—for Jews, for Muslims, for Hindus, for Buddhists, for the rich, for the poor, for the black, for the white, for the righteous, for the wicked, for our friends, for our enemies—in short, for our neighbor.

Brethren, now here is the message that Pastor Zac wrote this week. Without qualification, let's admit the Truth when we meet it, wherever we find it, and not only when it appears to come from sources we consider 'authorized.' Why? Because this is how the Lord Himself confounded the wise and authorized of this world, by pouring out His Spirit on all mankind, according to His generosity and our capacity. One is Holy, One is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father…

Valuing True Christian Fellowship

Zac Poonen

Despite man's advancement in many areas, human relationships continue to present problems all over the world. Business concerns and agencies spend huge sums employing personnel to promote harmony among workers. Well, one might think it is understandable that self-centred, unconverted people find it difficult to get along with each other, but surely when people are born-again and have become new creatures in Christ, such problems can never arise. For, after all, when God is the center of one's life and service, what possible room can there be for the petty problems that besiege others?

Yet, sadly, no proof is needed of the fact that Christians fight and quarrel with each other, all over the world. Many are not even on speaking terms with some of their fellow-Christians; some cannot even stand the sight of certain other Christians. The Name of God continues to be disgraced in the world by the behaviour of professing believers. Jesus said that the world would identify His disciples by their intense love for one another. This was - generally speaking - literally fulfilled in the first two centuries of the Christian era. The world looked at the Christians with amazement then, and exclaimed, "Behold how these Christians love one another!" Today, the story is different and the world often says, "Behold how these Christians hate one another!"

Relationships are indeed most important. Gifts, talents, methods, techniques, programmes and finances are all secondary to people and to inter-personal relationships. The church can fulfill her God-ordained function as the light of the world only when there is true Christian fellowship among her members. Likewise, an individual believer can become a minister of life to others only when he himself has learned to live according to the law of love with his fellow-Christians.

The Bible plainly and repeatedly teaches that no Christian can have fellowship with God without fellowshipping with other believers. You cannot walk with God if you do not walk in love with your fellow-believer. The cross on which Jesus died had two planks - a vertical one and a horizontal one: Jesus came to bring peace not only between man and God (vertically) but also between man and man (horizontally). The vertical and the horizontal relationships go hand in hand. You cannot have the former if you ignore the latter.

John, the apostle of love, has some very strong words to say on this matter. One of the evidences, he says, of genuine conversion is that a man begins to love his fellow-Christians. If a man does not have this love, it is a sure indication that his conversion is spurious and that he is heading for eternal death (1 John 3:14). Doctrinal correctness was not the only test that the apostles applied to ascertain where a man stood in relation to God. Later on in the same letter, John says that if a man claims that he loves God while hating his brother, he is a liar. Mark that! The proper name for such a man is not "believer", but rather, "liar"! And John's logic is irresistible. He says a brother is visible whereas God is invisible. If you cannot love the visible, it is impossible to love the invisible. (1 John 4:20).

Now compare this with the experience of most "believers." Love for God is usually assessed in terms of busy activity in Christian work or in terms of rapturous feelings of delight experienced in a meeting. These can be most deceptive. I have come across believers who are out of fellowship with other Christians, who testify nevertheless to "wonderful times of prayer" and to "amazing results in service." How could they possibly be walking with God when they have not even made an effort to settle matters with other members of God's family against whom they have a grudge? Surely Satan has blinded their minds to the truth of Scripture!

Often, we do not realise what we deprive ourselves of, when fellowship is broken with other believers. The Bible tells us that we can discover the breadth, length, depth and height of Christ's love and be filled with all the fullness of God only along "with all the saints" (Ephesians 3:17-19). It is only as we know the reality of fellowship with the believers God places us with, that we shall be able to enter into an experiential understanding of the love of Christ and of the fullness of God.

The one who cuts himself off from any fellow-Christian, thereby deprives himself of the experience of Christ's love and grace which could have been his through that person. When we fail to live by the law of love, we rob ourselves of some of Christ's riches and some of God's fulness.

After a dream

2012-01-25T06:17:00.001-08:00

I awakened in the dark, the last scenes of a strange dream still ebbing through my mind. I was traveling, and at a stopping point had gone to a temple to worship at vespers. I returned to where I had left my belongings. Where were they? Where was my coat, my blanket? Where was my satchel full of tools? The blanket, I found. The jacket and the satchel were gone and the tools scattered all over the room, tiny nails that I used in my work, strewn in their hundreds all over the floor. Who would help me gather them up, and where would I put them, since my bag was gone?

In my room with uncovered windows, not a hint of light—it was still pre-dawn. I lay there as always when He awakens me, and I began to talk to Him, to thank Him for all that He has done for me. I stopped almost before I began. Something was different. The darkness was warm and calm, His presence filled every minute of space and time. I was enfolded, and it was my turn to listen, His to speak. “My will is your certainty. My good will your protection.” Nothing is more certain than the future, nothing more certain than the past. “I was there at your beginning. I am here with you now. I will be there at your end.”

I started again to thank Him and praise Him, but the smoke of His presence filled the temple, and I was driven back. In the silence He spoke what words cannot repeat. I listened while I recalled the days of old. How I wanted to find Him but did not know what He would be for me when I found Him. How I did not find Him, but He found me. How I wanted to choose Him, how I wanted to dedicate my life to Him. How I did not choose Him, but He chose me. How He said to me, “Not this offering,” pointing at my vegetables, “but This,” pointing at His Lamb.

“You were with Me when I laid the earth’s foundations, and you will be with Me when I close the door on this icy age.” Did I do something to deserve this? Was it my choice, my free will that did this? How was it that in the flow of time I appeared and did something that could raise me out of that flow? “You would not have called to Me, if I had not been calling to you. You will never understand this, never grasp this, until you shed the skin from your eye and see Me as I see you. It is enough that your eye should be single and your body full of light.”

I took pause, selah. The darkness surrounded me, and the silence. My thoughts and deeds, apt for their time, my friends and loved ones I will never see again on earth, my current circumstances provided for, what will happen, who will yet come, all unknown to me but as certain, as apt, as providential as the past, as this moment. He set me on my feet and bade me walk in His ways, shielding me from harm, entrusting me to His commandments. Nothing different will ever happen to me, because on me His day has already dawned, the day without end. Rest in that, my soul, selah.

Grave light began to mix with the darkness. I could see my hand before my face. I reached over and took up my psalm book, opened it randomly to the 57th psalm. Lamenatzéach al tashchét, leDavíd mikhtám, kevarchó mipnéy Sha’úl bam‘aráh… “For the Conductor, a plea to be spared from destruction, by David, a Michtam, when he fled from Saul, in the cave…” Chanéyni, Elohím, chanéyni… “Favor me, O God, favor me…” My eyes could barely make out the letters on the page, and they closed by themselves, my spirit contemplating the rest of the psalm without reading it. Then I rested, and fell back to speaking to the Lord.

So it was He that chose me of His free will, just as He chose to ascend the Cross of His free will, for me. So it was He from the beginning who had me in His sights, not I who was looking for Him. So it was He saved me and called me ‘Brother’ before I came to the place of meeting He had arranged for me, to that holy rendezvous.
“I waited until you noticed the signs I had been sending, and then by the signs I sent you, you understood that I was standing behind your wall. I spoke to you when you believed not in Me, but in the signs. When you believed in the signs, you were ready to hear My voice.”

So it was He who kept me from wandering in the past to the lands from which there is no escape. It was He who kept me out of the prison from which there is no release. When I asked Him to keep me from the sin that kills eternally, because in me is no strength to resist it, He had already placed His seal on my heart, on my arm, to prevent me, and I, not noticing, asked Him for what He already bestowed. “Glory to You, O God. Glory to You, O God. Glory to You, O God.” And the hymn of the 1st Tone started up in my mind,
“Though the tomb was sealed by a stone and soldiers guarded Your pure body, You arose, O Savior, on the third day, giving life unto the world…”

The morning is now full. When dawn really came, and the sun rose a little to the southeast of the mountain and started pouring its light into my room, I took up my psalm book, which I had been clasping to my chest, and prayed parts of several psalms, whatever verses my eyes fell on. I was still held in suspense by what I heard in the pre-dawn darkness, even as I am now. So the future is as certain as the past. It is finished. The words I use to say these things, though, I have said, read or heard before, without knowing what they meant.

I bless Yahweh, who is my counselor,
and in the night my inmost self instructs me…
Psalm 16:7 Jerusalem Bible

Psalms for the 3rd Day
15 16 17 18 (English)
18 19 20 21 22 (Hebrew)

Who pleads for you?

2012-01-22T06:47:00.001-08:00

My hope is the Father,
my refuge is the Son,
my protection is the Holy Spirit:
O Holy Trinity, glory to Thee.
from the service of Compline

One is Holy,
One is Lord,
Jesus Christ
to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
from the Divine Liturgy

Lord, God Almighty, You alone are holy. You accept a sacrifice of praise from those who call upon You with their whole heart. Receive also the prayer of us sinners and let it reach Your holy altar. Enable us to bring before You gifts and spiritual sacrifices for our sins and for the transgressions of the people. Make us worthy to find grace in Your presence so that our sacrifice may be pleasing to You and that Your good and gracious Spirit may abide with us, with the gifts here presented, and with all Your people. Through the mercies of Your only begotten Son with whom You are blessed, together with Your all holy, good, and life giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages.
from the Divine Liturgy, prayer of the Proskomidí

With God on our side, who can be against us? Since God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to benefit us all, we may be certain, after such a gift, that He will not refuse anything He can give. Could anyone accuse those that God has chosen? When God acquits, could anyone condemn? Could Christ Jesus? No! He not only died for us—He rose from the dead, and there at God’s right hand He stands and pleads for us.
Romans 8:31-34 Jerusalem Bible

He… has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken His place for ever, at the right hand of God, where He is now waiting until His enemies are made into a footstool for Him. By virtue of that one single offering, He has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom He is sanctifying.
Hebrews 10:12-14 JB

In a new love

2012-01-21T03:37:00.000-08:00

Dietrich Bonhoeffer with students, Spring 1932

A true Christian is made by faith and love toward Christ.
Our sins do not in the least hinder our Christianity
according to the word of the Savior Himself. He deigned to say,
‘Not the righteous have I come to call, but sinners to salvation;
there is more joy in heaven over one who repents
than over ninety righteous ones.’

Likewise, concerning the sinful woman who touched His feet,
He deigned to say to the Pharisee, Simon,
‘To one who has love, a great debt is forgiven,
but from one who has no love,
even a small debt will be demanded.’
From these judgments
a Christian should bring himself to hope and joy,
and not in the least accept an inflicted despair.
Here one needs the shield of faith.

Sin, to one who loves God,
is nothing other than an arrow from the enemy in battle.
The true Christian is a warrior
fighting his way through the regiments of the unseen enemy
to his heavenly homeland.

According to the word of the Apostle,
our homeland is in heaven,
and about the warrior he says,
‘our warfare is not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities and powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this age,
against the spirits of wickedness under heaven.’

The vain desires of this world separate us from our homeland;
love of them, and habit, clothes our soul
as if in a hideous garment.
This is called by the Apostles, ‘the outward man.’

We, traveling on the journey of this life and calling on God to help us,
ought to be divesting ourselves of this hideous garment
and clothing ourselves in new desires,
in a new love of the age to come,
and thereby to receive knowledge of how near or how far we are
from our heavenly homeland.

But it is not possible to do this quickly;
rather one must follow the example of sick people, who,
wishing the desired health,
do not leave off seeking means to cure themselves.

Herman of Alaska

No one can hurt you…

2012-01-21T03:10:00.001-08:00

…if you are determined to do only what is right; if you do have to suffer for being good, you will count it a blessing. There is no need to be afraid or to worry about them. Simply reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have. But give it with courtesy and respect and a clear conscience, so that those who slander you when you are living a good life in Christ may be proved wrong in the accusations that they bring. And if it is the will of God that you should suffer, it is better to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong.

1 Peter 3:13-17 Jerusalem Bible

The good life

2012-01-20T05:59:00.000-08:00

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed,
to bring you to full knowledge of Him.

May He enlighten the eyes of your mind
so that you can see what hope His call holds for you,
what rich glories He has promised the saints will inherit
and how infinitely great is the power
that He has exercised for us believers.

This you can tell from the strength of His power at work in Christ,
when He used it to raise Him from the dead
and to make Him sit at His right hand, in heaven,
far above every Sovereignty, Authority, Power, or Domination,
or any other name that can be named,
not only in this age but also in the age to come.

He has put all things under His feet,
and made Him, as the Ruler of everything,
the Head of the Church, which is His Body,
the fullness of Him who fills the whole creation.

And you were dead,
through the crimes and sins in which you used to live
when you were following the way of this world,
obeying the ruler who governs the air,
the spirit who is at work in the rebellious.

We all were among them too in the past,
living sensual lives, ruled entirely by our own physical desires
and our own ideas, so that by nature
we were as much under God's anger as the rest of the world.

But God loved us with so much love
that He was generous with His mercy:
When we were dead through our sins,
He brought us to life with Christ—
it is through grace that you have been saved—
and raised us up with Him and gave us a place with Him
in heaven, in Christ Jesus.

This was to show for all ages to come,
through His goodness to us in Christ Jesus,
how infinitely rich He is in grace.

Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith;
not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God;
not by anything that you have done,
so that nobody can claim the credit.

We are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus
to live the good life as from the beginning
He had meant us to live it.

Ephesians 1:17 - 2:10 Jerusalem Bible

Orthodoxy on trial

2012-01-20T00:48:00.000-08:00

The triumph of Orthodoxy is not what we so boldly play it up to be on the Sunday dedicated to this name. Yes, they fought hard battles and long, the victors now becoming the victims later, then exchanging places as readily as dancers, as imperial and sacerdotal whims gave way to one another, and crowds of old men, some saints and others mere savants, dissecting each other's brains to an atomic level, and straining each other's syllables spoken, sung or scribed through sieves of partiality so clogged with flesh and blood, that it's a wonder anything came through.

It's not really about whether we make ikons or break them, whether we fellowship with saints above or only with those below. Nor is it about whether we can name a faithful virgin of Israel the mother of the ineffable God or only of the God-Man she bore, or whether Himself He had at all times an unobstructed and single will, nature, and being, or only appeared so.

It's not really about whether the Spirit can come on whomsoever He wishes with the anointing that teaches everything infallibly, or on all who call upon Him, or only on those upon whom human hands have been laid, over whom human tongues have prayed, generation after generation, unbroken, from the beginning.

The triumph of Orthodoxy is to be put on trial, tested by every antagonist, human and inhuman, visible and invisible, rational and irrational, using every temptation, to glory, to humiliation, to wealth, to poverty, to power, to weakness, to joy, to sorrow, to health, to sickness, to life, and to death, and thus tried, to come forth as a bride made beautiful for her Bridegroom, without any flaw, dressed in spotless white, with a heart purged of all malice, forgetful of all injury, seeking only to love, to love all without measure, without exception, unaware of her exaltation, her eyes fixed forever on her Beloved.

Unless we are put on trial in this way, we will never triumph.
Today we are one day closer to it than we were yesterday.
Are we ready?

How much lower

2012-01-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

There are two attitudes one will have in life, and all of us alternate between them. They are real opposites, unwilling of any mixing of themselves, except when we move from one to the other, and then it only appears that they merge. I call these attitudes ‘high’ and ‘low.’ Not only are they attitudes, they are states, but being expressed they can be called attitudes. ‘High’ has nothing low about it, and ‘low’ has nothing high. They are not each other and cannot be, nor can they meet, nor merge, nor integrate. High is high, and low is low. This is the nature of being itself. Well, until Jesus Christ came, that’s how it was. There was no room for anything else.

In Jesus Christ, the ‘high’ was made ‘low’ and in a manner that no human explanation has ever adequately described. We never saw it coming. We couldn’t have. We still can’t understand how it’s possible. All our thinking is based on slides, on gradual shift, on evolution, on observable metamorphosis. We think we can understand how humanity might have evolved from lower life forms, and we fantasize about what lies ahead on our evolutionary path. It is still inconceivable that the ‘high’—or whatever it is that created and governs what exists—can enter, or manifest as, or simply be, the ‘low’—for in spite of ourselves, most of us think that’s what mankind is, ‘dust in the wind.’

We read, ‘His state was divine, yet He did not cling to His equality with God but emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave’ (Philippians 2:6-7), and we ask ourselves, ‘How much lower can you get?’ In our modern world slavery is not even supposed to exist, but we all seem to know what it means. Perhaps slavery isn’t as dead as we thought. Perhaps it’s still happening among us under a different name. ‘At any rate,’ we say to ourselves, ‘I won’t let that happen to me.’ This speaker has the ‘high’ attitude. He won’t do something for nothing. He won’t go out of his way to help a stranger or friend. He’s out for number one—himself. His first question is always, ‘What’s in it for me?’

If we believe what the Bible says about Christ, do we also believe what it says about us? Or do we shrug that part off—sin—with an innocent sounding, ‘What sin? I haven’t done anything wrong,’ and then go our merry way, doing what seems good in our own eyes? After all, we’re all good people, really, very, very good. We can have the ‘high’ attitude without even realizing it, talking to ourselves like this. We may even think we have the ‘low’ attitude because of our occasional ‘good deed.’ But only if we don’t read the Bible. That horrible book—though we love to praise it, talk about it, even worship its syllables—can luckily have no effect on us if we don’t read it, and so we don’t. There! That was easy!

It tells us of a ‘high’ God who became ‘low’ and that’s fine. Let’s stop reading there, because if we read a little more it might tell us something about us, how much lower we might have to go ourselves. No, that wouldn’t do. We’re satisfied to be ‘high’ while pretending to be ‘low’ just as we’ve learned to parrot our sinfulness so we can pretend to be saved. But what does the apostle say? ‘Though I am not a slave of any man I have made myself a slave to everyone so as to win as many as I could. I made myself a Jew to the Jews, to win the Jews; that is, I who am not a subject of the Law made myself a subject of the Law to those who are subjects of the Law, to win those who are subject to the Law.

‘To those who have no Law, I was free of the Law myself (though not free from God’s law, being under the law of Christ) to win those who have no Law. For the weak, I made myself weak. I made myself all things to all men in order to save some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a share in its blessings’
(1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Who but an apostle could say such things about himself? How much lower could a person sink than to say things like that, let alone do them? That is really having a ‘low’ attitude. Aside from being too impractical, who has time for such things? And what’s in it for me? This is why I wrote at the outset, ‘high’ and ‘low’ have nothing to do with each other.

A better way to put it is in the words of Jesus, ‘No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other’ (Matthew 6:24). Yes, He is speaking about God versus money, but what is money, or mammon in the original text, but that which can keep us propped up on our ‘high’ chair, our throne? And what happens when we intend to serve God and carry out our intention? Who sits on the throne, and who serves, and who is served? ‘A man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen’ (John 4:20). Yes, how much lower can you get?

Today the Uncreated

2012-01-19T19:40:00.000-08:00

Ποίημα Σωφρονίου Πατριάρχου Ιεροσολύμων
(Poem of Sophronios, patriarch of Jerusalem)

The full original Greek text is HERE.

Τριάς υπερούσιε, υπεραγαθε, υπέρθεε, παντοδύναμε, παντεπίσκοπε, αόρατε, ακατάληπτε…

Triad beyond all being, beyond all goodness, beyond all godhead,
all-powerful, all-vigilant, invisible, incomprehensible;
Creator of the spiritual beings and rational natures,
innate goodness, unapproachable Light
that enlightens everyone coming into the world,
shine also in me your unworthy servant.

Enlighten the eyes of my mind that I may dare to sing
the praise of your measureless benevolence and power.
May my supplication for the people here present be acceptable,
so that my offences may not prevent the Holy Spirit
from being present here; but permit me now
without condemnation to cry out to you and say,

Master, lover of mankind, beyond all goodness,
Almighty, eternal King:
We glorify you, the Creator and Fashioner of the universe.
We glorify you, only-begotten Son of God,
without father from your Mother, without mother from your Father.
For in the preceding feast we saw you as a babe,
but in the present one we see you full and perfect man,
our God, made manifest as perfect God from perfect God.

For today
the moment of the feast is here for us
and the choir of saints assembles here with us,
and Angels keep festival with mortals.
Today the grace of the Holy Spirit
in the form of a dove dwelt upon the waters.
Today the Sun that never sets has dawned
and the world is made radiant with the light of the Lord.
Today the Moon with its radiant beams
sheds light on the world.
Today the stars formed of light make the inhabited world lovely
with the brightness of their splendour.
Today the clouds rain down from heaven
the shower of justice for mankind.

Today the Uncreated by his own will
accepts the laying on of hands by his own creature.

Today the Prophet and Forerunner draws near,
but stands by with fear seeing God’s condescension towards us.
Today the streams of Jordan are changed into healing
by the presence of the Lord.
Today all creation is watered by mystical streams.
Today the failings of mankind are being washed away
by the waters of Jordan.
Today Paradise is opened for mortals
and the Sun of justice shines down on us.
Today the bitter water as once for Moses’ people
is changed to sweetness by the presence of the Lord.
Today we have been delivered from the ancient grief,
and saved as the new Israel.
Today we have been redeemed from darkness
and are filled with radiance
by the light of the knowledge of God.
Today the gloomy fog of the world is cleansed
by the manifestation of our God.
Today all creation shines with light from on high.
Today error has been destroyed
and the coming of the Master makes for us
a way of salvation.
Today things on high keep festival with those below,
and those below commune with those on high.
Today the sacred and triumphant
festal assembly of the Orthodox exults.
Today the Master hastens towards baptism,
that he may lead humanity to the heights.
Today the One who does not bow
bows down to his own servant,
that he may free us from servitude.
Today we have purchased the Kingdom of heaven,
for the Kingdom of the Lord will have no end.
Today earth and sea share the joy of the world,
and the world has been filled with gladness.

The waters saw you, O God,
the waters saw you and were afraid.
The Jordan turned back
when it saw the fire of the godhead
descending in bodily form and entering it.
The Jordan turned back
as it contemplated the Holy Spirit
in the form of a dove,
descending and flying about you.
The Jordan turned back
as it saw the Invisible made visible,
the Creator made flesh,
the Master in the form of a servant.
The Jordan turned back
and the mountains leapt
as they saw God in the flesh,
and the clouds uttered their voice,
marvelling at what had come to pass,
seeing Light from Light,
true God from true God,
the Master’s festival today in Jordan;
seeing him drowning the death from disobedience,
the goad of error and the bond of Hell in Jordan
and granting the Baptism of salvation to the world.

Therefore I too, a sinner and your unworthy servant,
recount the greatness of your wonders
and, seized with fear, in compunction cry out to you:

Great are you, O Lord, and wonderful your works,
and no word is adequate to sing the praise of your wonders.
Glory to you, O Lord, glory to you!
Μέγας ει Κύριε, και θαυμαστά τα έργα σου…

Today is Theophany, the 6th of January on the ‘Old Calendar’ (Julian calendar, still used liturgically by a majority of Orthodox Christians worldwide), arguably the third most important Feast Day after Pascha (Easter) and Nativity (Christmas), and in ancient times the second. The Feast of Christ's Nativity was originally celebrated together with His Theophany. Later, the Church separated the two, in order to emphasize the different aspects of Christ's first coming. The pagan holiday of Sol Invictus was replaced by Christmas.

Could it be us?

2012-01-19T17:42:00.000-08:00

We are amazed at the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees when they heard Christ's teachings. 'We would never be like that! What hypocrites they were, teaching one thing and practicing another, using their religion to protect their own interests! No wonder Christ said, Listen to their teachings but don't do what they do!'

What if the teaching of Christ makes us blinder than we were before, deafer, more unfeeling? What if knowing Him makes us feel superior to those who don't? What if we feel privileged to 'plunder the Egyptians' and claim for ourselves what we deny them? What if we no longer can tell our right hand from our left?

'In Your Light we see the light,' chants the psalmist, but what if our eye is not single? What if our whole body is full of darkness? As the Lord says, 'What darkness that will be!' For the Light has come, 'the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned' (Isaiah 9:2).

And who is that people? Could it be us?

For we are Yours

2012-01-19T17:35:00.000-08:00

So much of what passes for inspirational or devotional literature in Orthodoxy is simply sweetly stereotyped platitudes. 'The saints are grieved when we sin, and they rejoice when we are good...' and things like that. Of course, if we source such religious verbiage to a well-known saint, ancient or modern, that makes it authoritative, and we feel pleasantly edified. It doesn't matter if it adds absolutely nothing to our real life, whether in the world or in our inner life—that is, if we have one!

Mutual admiration societies can enslave whole nations for centuries, feeding generations of sleeping souls with the regurgitated porridge of piety. Christ comes into the room saying, 'Behold! I make all things new!' and is met by deaf ears. Having forgotten our first love, we languish in self-pity and paint ourselves poorer than we were yesterday, while pedestalizing the saints as rich and meritorious. We cannot climb up to their level. They've retreated to their pillars and yanked up the ropes!

O Christ, what a wasteland we have made the fertile fields Your blood has watered! You would walk in us, dispensing blessing, loving all comers, healing all and raising every creature to immortality, yet we bind our own feet, we willingly cripple ourselves like vain concubines of a fickle master. But You, O Christ, are the Lord, our God, the Bridegroom of the Bride, the Faithful and True, You who make her, who make us, spotless, secure, radiant, fruitful, who call us, 'Beloved, My one and only.'

O holy, divine Triad, You have said of us, 'We have a little sister, and her breasts are not yet grown. What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver on her. If she is a door, we will enclose her with panels of cedar' (Song of Songs 8:8-9).

Remove from us our limpid, wavering love, and bestow on us the love that lasts, the faith that moves mountains, for our breasts are not yet grown. Build towers of silver on us, gleaming with the reflection of Your Light, that we no longer hide ourselves, for the City set on a hill cannot be hid. Open our door, that the cedars Your hand has planted may finally flourish, that we may know and be known. Yes, Lord, save us from ourselves, for we are Yours.

Waiting is

2012-01-19T12:08:00.001-08:00

The phrase “waiting is” is about the only thing that has stayed with me all these years from my reading of the science fiction cult novel Stranger in a Strange Land, by Heinlein. It was a favorite saying of Valentine Michael Smith, the main character in that book, a human who had been raised as an orphaned child on Mars by the inhabitants of that planet. When he is returned to earth, he causes a sensation because his mindset is totally Martian in every respect, as are all of his habits. He ends up becoming a messiah figure who starts a new religion, the Church of All Worlds. I dug up these details from the internet because, as I admit, the only thing that stuck in my mind was the phrase, “waiting is.”

Why did the phrase stick? Well, to be blunt, I have spent most of my life waiting for something or someone. Was my intrinsic attitude somehow an unconscious result of reading the novel, or just my heredity expressing itself, the last in a long line of men who have been very, very patient with everyone?

I have had a good apprenticeship at waiting most of my life, but only in these last years has the object of my waiting shifted. Before, I waited only on human beings and their needs; now I wait primarily for Christ. He is the only one worth waiting for, because He brings not only His gifts, He brings Himself.

Books of science fiction, especially from the 1960’s and ’70’s, tend to wander into fantasy about alternative religions, as they are mirrors of the real world in which they arise, where any religion is superior to the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why is that? Because mankind is a religious animal, and we are by nature shocked and offended by a God who becomes one of us precisely to put religion to death.

And so, these novels tend to promote religions, many of which resemble those we already know on earth, especially Buddhism, which seems to be a favorite. But religion is always only man’s best shot at escaping the horrible mess we find ourselves in, because we can’t accept that to escape our predicament—sin—means death to us, death to the world as we know it. So we take our best shot at whatever it is we’re searching for.

Buddhism is man’s best shot at achieving some kind of personal inner peace, if not salvation, given that there is either no God, or He is far too big and busy to deal with us.

Hinduism is man’s best shot at achieving some kind of personal safety, now and possibly in future lives, by satisfying the need for worship of the myriad hypersomatic beings, devas, that invisibly infest the human world.

Islam is man’s best shot at achieving some level of moralistic order in society for the masses, and justification for the immoral excesses of a select few, at the cost of a total denial of human freedom, while promising an otherworldly reward for the surrendered, and threatening thisworldly punishment for the unsurrendered.

Judaism is man’s best shot at achieving some kind of personal salvation, and a sense of righteousness, given that the only God has chosen the people of a certain lineage, to which they belong, to bring everyone to a knowledge of Him, while remaining outside His promises.

Christianity is man’s best shot at achieving some kind of personal salvation, with the least possible commitment to righteous living or self-sacrifice, by formal adherence to or membership in religious associations, while trampling on the call of the one they call Lord.

In the wasteland that is this world, I have waited, and been fortunate to have met two or three followers of Jesus who stand firmly on the Word of God, keep their lamps lit, remain vigilant, wait on the voice of Jesus at every moment and desire to do what He commands, and are willing to suffer for the sake of His name.

I didn’t look for them.
I waited, and He sent them.

And I too can only hope to be one of them, by continuing to open my door when He knocks and to welcome Him into my house, which I want to be His.

Help me, Lord, to seek not my own, but Your will alone, and to be willing to accept everything that happens to me at Your hands, for You alone are the lover of mankind, and Your Word is truth.

I bless You, Lord, at the assemblies.
Psalm 26:12

Psalm for the 18th Day

2012-01-18T00:50:00.000-08:00

PSALM 90

The human condition

Prayer of Moses, man of God.

Lord, You have been our refuge age after age.

Before the mountains were born,

before the earth or the world came to birth,

You were God from all eternity and for ever.

You can turn man back into dust

by saying, ‘Back to what you were, you sons of men!’

To You, a thousand years are a single day,

a yesterday now over, an hour of the night.

You brush men away like waking dreams,

they are like grass

sprouting and flowering in the morning,

withered and dry before dusk.

We too are burned up by Your anger

and terrified by Your fury;

having summoned up our sins

You inspect our secrets by Your own light.

Our days dwindle under Your wrath,

our lives are over in a breath

—our life lasts for seventy years,

eighty with good health,

but they all add up to anxiety and trouble—

over in a trice, and then we are gone.

Who yet has felt the full force of Your fury,

or learned to fear the violence of Your rage?

Teach us to count how few days we have

and so gain wisdom of heart.

Relent, Yahweh! How much longer do we have?

Take pity on Your servants!

Let us wake in the morning filled with Your love

and sing and be happy all our days;

make our future as happy as our past was sad,

those years when You were punishing us.

Let Your servants see what You can do for them,

let their children see Your glory.

May the sweetness of the Lord be on us!

Make all we do succeed.

Next… Psalm 91

Fearless love

2012-01-17T03:59:00.001-08:00

We shall not care what people think of us, or how they treat us. We shall cease to be afraid of falling out of favor. We shall love our fellow men without thought of whether they love us.

Christ gave us the commandment to love others but did not make it a condition of salvation that they should love us. Indeed, we may positively be disliked for independence of spirit. It is essential in these days to be able to protect ourselves from the influence of those with whom we come in contact. Otherwise we risk losing both faith and prayer.

Let the whole world dismiss us as unworthy of attention, trust or respect—it will not matter provided that the Lord accept us. And vice versa: it will profit us nothing if the whole world thinks well of us and sings our praises, if the Lord declines to abide with us. This is only a fragment of the freedom Christ meant when He said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8.32).

Our sole care will be to continue in the word of Christ, to become His disciples and cease to be servants of sin.

— Elder Sophrony [1896-1993]

Preparers of the way

2012-01-16T13:56:00.001-08:00

Everyone exists to prepare the way for someone. And everyone who lives has been waited for, even longed for, and the way for them has been prepared. There have been for everyone, for you, for me, preparers of the way.

First, there were our parents, who wanted us. That is too obvious, yet for many that is also not true. They may have been ‘an accident,’ an unwanted, but mercy intervened somehow, or fear, but for whatever reason, their lives were allowed to continue. They escaped being aborted. Yet, though their mother or father didn’t really want them, someone else did, and that person was waiting for them, preparing the way even before knowing why.

This is no speculation, nor even a solid guess, this is a certainty.
It is written all over the facts of life, on both sides,
and in the acts of God. Do we see it?

Everyone is preparing the way for someone, usually for many, and in general, and once we think about it, it’s obvious. But we also are preparers of the way for another individual, not all of us are, but some are. It is a type of call. We see this in holy and divine scripture. Every prophet, in fact, is qualified by this call to prepare the way for ‘One who is coming who is mightier than I.’

We know the name of the last of these special preparers of the way. It is the holy, honorable prophet and forerunner, John the Baptist, the one who said, ‘a man can lay claim only to what is given him from heaven.’ Ruthlessly honest.

We don’t have to be prophets to be preparers of the way,
but what if we are?

In most cases we are preparers of the way for others just as ordinary as ourselves. We think us and them so ordinary that we don’t give it much thought. Why make a big deal out of nothing?
But is it, are we, really nothing?
I don’t think so.

Again, back to the premise, whether you think it true or false, that we are wanted, which means that there is a preparer of the way for each one of us, and the more we listen up, the more we’ll hear,
and the more we hear, the more we will believe,
since faith comes by hearing.

One day, doing your ordinary job, whatever God called you to do, it could be working in a factory or behind your teacher’s desk at school, or sorting the vegetables if you happen to be a green grocer; you could be driving your cab or bus, working a booth at the farmer’s market, or cutting hair in a styling salon; you could be on an Alaskan fishing boat, or working the oil rigs, or any number of jobs that you think are just ordinary, even demeaning or boring; and suddenly, someone crosses your path, and something inside says, ‘that’s the one.’ Not talking romance, not talking fantasy, not talking at all.

Remember John? He baptised Jesus, and then let Him go. Only later, when he saw Jesus walking by, he pointed Him out to his disciples and said, ‘That’s the One. That’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’

We’ve grown so used to this story and seeing this pattern of preparers of the way in relation to religion that it never occurs to us that the same pattern is happening all the time, around us, and to us. Sometimes we are the preparers of the way, sometimes we are the one who is prepared for. This pattern is part of the drive train of the universe, and we know Who the Force behind it all really is.

We prepare the way for one another.
‘He must become greater,
I must become less.’

This is the way it works, this is how to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, to undergo a contraction within us, so that another real person can be born into the world.

To make room for the ones that are sent to you.
Yes, ‘every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain,’
this is the work of the preparers of the way.

Religious animals

2012-01-16T13:47:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it seems to me that modern man, modern Christian man, is no better off with regard to God than were his ancient pagan ancestors. The gods of the nations, our old gods, were very mysterious, very enigmatic, hiding themselves from us by day, revealing themselves to us in fleeting, dreamlike encounters by night, fostering an ever-increasing legacy of mythology that, poetic though it was, offered no real clues that could be followed to their source. As C. S. Lewis mused in his greatest novel Till We Have Faces, “why must holy places be dark places?”

So the modern Christian often complains of finding God, his God, mysterious, elusive, unresponsive, disprovidential, and even absent. It makes good subject matter for book writers, both for those who lodge the complaint and for those who seek to defend God against it, as well as for those who try to lay down some method to track and trap God, so that the believer can finally pin Him down and make Him own up to His responsibilities.

All this comes from a pre-existing religious condition in mankind. This is something that, like original sin, seems to be universal. Every race of mankind has it, something like a spiritual birth defect, a built-in compensation for original sin. It makes mankind a species of religious animals, always trying to cover up their nakedness before God, while simultaneously shifting the blame elsewhere, and hoping to gain God’s approval somehow.

Religious animals is what we became after the fall of Adam. Before that fall, there was no such thing as religion. Man walked with God, and God walked with man. Our mutual familiarity and intimate friendship left no room for religious exercises. We walked with God, He walked with us. That was all the exercise we had need of.

But after the fall, what do we find?
Starting with Adam’s grandson Enosh the son of Seth, scripture says, “At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD” (Genesis 4:26 NIV). Now it’s not a bad thing to call upon the name of the Lord, but it shows perhaps that we believe that God is somewhere else, or that we are, and He has to be called. Hence, religion came into being as a channel of communication with Him with whom we used to talk face to face.

Now, this is where we find ourselves in the natural man. An opaque veil shrouds us from the Divine Nature, to protect us, in the same way that the Ark of the Covenant is shrouded when carried among the people, not to hide the Ark from their eyes, but to protect them from it. The natural man follows after the First Adam, no longer able to walk with God because of sin, or to see Him and speak to Him face to face.

There has come a Second Adam, however, who like the first is called “the Son of God” but who, unlike the first, has not disobeyed and fallen. He still walks with the Lord and speaks to Him face to face, and this ability to speak to the Father and to walk with Him side by side, as in the Garden, He has given “to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name.” To them, to us, “He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13 NIV). This is something that appears quite incredible to the world, and to the natural man, but to the spiritual man, the man of faith, this is an open door. The Second Adam has opened the gates of Paradise to us, starting with the repentant thief who, not being able to steal the things of this world anymore because he was nailed like Jesus to a cross, stole something immeasurably greater, re-admittance to the Garden, going in as thoroughly naked as an infant enters into this world.

What happened to the religious animal that is the natural man? Walking in the Garden with Jesus, side by side with His Father and our Father, speaking to Them both face to face as one speaks to his friend, religion like the skins of animals has been left behind without being replaced by fig leaves.

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
Luke 2:14 NIV

Our Father

2012-01-15T19:48:00.001-08:00

πατερ ημων ο εν τοις ουρανοις
αγιασθητω το ονομα σου
ελθετω η βασιλεια σου
γενηθητω το θελημα σου
ως εν ουρανω και επι της γης
τον αρτον ημων τον επιουσιον δος ημιν σημερον
και αφες ημιν τα οφειληματα ημων
ως και ημεις αφιεμεν τοις οφειλεταις ημων
και μη εισενεγκης ημας εις πειρασμον
αλλα ρυσαι ημας απο του πονηρου
οτι σου εστιν η βασιλεια
και η δυναμις και η δοξα
εις τους αιωνας αμην

Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, for ever. Amen.
Matthew 6:9-13

The Lord's prayer is both bottomless and has no lid. Its depth transcends even the deepest pit of our sorrows and humiliations, yet it exceeds the highest of our expectations. It reveals the Father who is there, who is ours, who loves us, who answers us before we ask, who is faithful, in whom we live and move and have our being. Praying it puts us in the shoes of His Son, and when He looks at His Son standing in humble petition before Him, what will He not grant, what will He not supply?

Commandments

2012-01-15T19:47:00.001-08:00

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Here are a few passages from the booklet “Spiritual Economy” by Father Matta el-Meskeen, spiritual father of the monastery of St Macarius, the Desert of Scete, Egypt...

…the power of faith in God is greatly strengthened when we believe in our hearts that the works that God performs with us surpass all our estimations, so much so that He can create a new creation from nothingness: “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matthew 3:9).

How much more then will He give us what we need when necessary, and grant us all power and help in fulfilling His commandments, be it in fasting, vigil, prayer, voluntary poverty, sacrificial love, or any sort of service that is within His commandments.

Shall we then shrink from fulfilling His commandments for fear of falling ill or becoming weak? To St Paul the Apostle He has said, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). To this St Paul himself also testifies, “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Shall we then be afraid to apply His commandments lest we or our children should hunger, thirst, go naked, or become destitute? The Lord Himself has said, “Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26).

Shall we fear confessing Him lest we should be persecuted? Has He not said, “Blessed are you when men revile and persecute you and utter all manner of evil against you falsely on My account” (Matthew 5:11)?

And when relying upon Him alone with no power, no artifice or weapon, shall we then fear death? For He has said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28).

Therefore it should be firmly established in our minds that the One who has laid down the commandments for us has done so simply and solely for our gain; He has guaranteed the success of everyone who fulfills them with good intentions. The loss in the commandments, which appears frightful to the ego and the body, is in fact the touchstone of faith; latent in the loss is testimony for which is offered the reward.

The soundness of one's spiritual economy is the measure of one's faith. The strength, fervor and soundness of faith can neither be judged by a man's professed creed, nor by his thoughts, nor his writings, but rather by his works and behavior: “…and I by my works will show you my faith” (James 2:18).

Correct theoretical faith in accordance with the foundation of sound beliefs as handed down by the Church is, in effect, the general foundation laid down for all who wish to build upon it their house of faith. But if a man builds nothing upon it, how can he claim that it is his faith?

As James the Apostle puts it, whoever is contented with the universal truth that “God exists,” that person has no merit; for demons also believe the same, even confessing Him and trembling at His existence. In other words, man must prove his faith in the existence of God by his prayer, as well as by his behavior among people in accordance with God's directives and commandments.

His behavior in the midst of hardships and tribulations should clearly proclaim his personal trust in and practical reliance on God…

How then can you love God except by fulfilling His commandments? Or how can you grow in His love except by growth in devotion, and by precisely fulfilling even the smallest of His commandments?

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me” (John 15:14). “If a man loves Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23). “He who does not love Me does not keep My words” (John 14:24).

The question that everybody then asks is, “How can I grow and be strong?” This question is the same as, “How can my love in Christ grow and be strong?” The answer is provided by the verses cited above. In other words, how do you propose to keep the words of Christ? By what sort of zeal, love and ardency will you persist in scrupulously, faithfully, and sincerely fulfilling His commandments?

When one first begins to manage one's spiritual life, it clearly appears how faith conflicts with man's comfort, how the commandments of Christ stand against human honor, and how the sayings of Christ taste bitter on the palate of the ego which seeks to be glorified by people, and which seeks to change all opportunities of the spirit into opportunities for personal fame.

The gauge of faith's exactitude, appropriateness, and even its orthodoxy, is manifest in man's readiness to reject the whole of earthly life, and with that to relinquish all its comfort and false glory, if it conflicts with even the least of Christ's commandments.

Ever and always your whole life long, the devil will pressure you with all possible guile, to ease up in your adherence to the Truth in order to maintain your worldly or social status. He will alarm you and confuse you, so that you might relinquish Christ's commandments in order to attain an opportunity for pomp, authority and outward glory.

Thus the Gospel, and along with it Christ, become victims along the path of your utilization and exploitation of chances for gain, comfort, and transient glory…

This is the measure of free faith, and blessed is he who chooses loss, weariness, contempt, illness, or even death instead of relinquishing his fidelity to God. For if he dares to choose this, then he will receive strength that will compensate all loss—a strength he had never known of or expected, that strength which we call grace, which means “the gratuitous omnipotence of God,” and which is so tightly bound to faith:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).
It is not just any faith, but rather the faith of one who is bold and defiant of death.

This omnipotence makes hard things easy for you and elevates your flesh and senses above the needs of nature. Thus it is that man prays without fatigue, fasts without wasting away, serves without flagging, loves without ceasing—all this with fervor in asceticism and spiritual economy that never grows cold.

— Abba Matta al-Meskeen (1919-2006)

Son, I have posted these words for you, to help you right now. These words I took to myself as a young man only a little older than you are now, and I believed them, and I began to live by them, and now that I am old, I continue in them, for they are the words of Jesus, spoken by His beloved servant, my spiritual father, Matta el-Meskeen.

Of course, I never met the elder in person, but by living in the words of Jesus, as he also did, I have come safely to this moment, just as he promised, when he writes, ‘He has guaranteed the success of everyone who fulfills them with good intentions.’

Trust me, Son, and let's serve Christ this way together. He has called us, and He will not fail us.
He makes us fearless. He makes us true men.

If we dare

2012-01-15T15:39:00.001-08:00

It’s a funny thing, but in the last few years it has become clearer than ever to me that the doctrinal issues really don’t matter at all. It doesn’t even really matter what we believe about the nature of Christ. What matters is that we believe He is the Savior of the world, and that He is the Truth, the Way and the Life. How can a man be the Truth? I don’t know, but He is. Before you decide to stone me, try to hear what it is I am saying, and not jump to conclusions.

That Truth is a Man, and not a doctrine, fits in so well with God’s very nature.

Notice, in the Old Testament there is no doctrine at all except, ‘I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods but Me.’ Nothing else. How simple! And look what happened. The rabbis turned that into a vast theological system.

And into that system comes a man who is Who He is, who does not argue, who does not teach doctrine. Do you ever hear Jesus teaching doctrine? or religion? No, He just speaks the Truth, and that Truth is Himself, that He is sent by the Father to do His will, and to speak what the Father tells Him to speak. Nothing else.

And look what the fathers have done to that. We have had councils and even wars over questions that not Christ, not the apostles, were ever concerned about. We have disputes over the oneness of God, and about the Trinity not being written up in the bible. Of course it’s not written up! It doesn’t have to be!

That the Divine Nature is a triad is not a doctrine to be believed—
what good does it do if we believe it, what evil if we don’t?—
but a reality to be lived, to be lived, really and truly, the pattern of all being: three are one, not two, not one, but three.
It’s just how things are.

Jesus came to demonstrate that and to invite us to join in that threesome by sending us the Holy Spirit who incorporates us into the Body of God, making us ‘one of the Family.’ It is so awesome!
How petty we are to nitpick each other and tear each other’s flesh over trifles!

I have no problem with Orthodoxy and with its Christological dogma, because I really believe it is an expression in human thinking of the livable reality that I have just been describing, otherwise I would not be an Orthodox Christian.

And even though the Orthodox Church is responsible for a lot of the turmoil in the early Church, defining what’s what and who’s who, and even though it has canons and rules and jurisdictions and squabbles enough to tear the heads off many chickens, the Orthodox life is really quite simple, just as simple as the life of any Christian of any denomination or lack of one.

As simple as the life of any lover and disciple of Jesus.
I know, because I have met them there, as everywhere,
and I hope I am one of them.

I have declared many times, not to contradict, but simply to state a fact about myself: I am not an ecumenist. Ecumenism is for those who think the Church is divided and so they take pains to reunite it. But if we know it as one, we just live in that knowledge.

That is, if we dare.

You may stone me now.

Keep my commandments

2012-01-13T21:20:00.001-08:00

I wouldn’t call them beautiful exactly,
  but these few lines inscribe my life,
  a life that it’s easy to hate;
  but then I heard it said to me,
  ‘the man who hates his life in this world
  will keep it for eternal life.’

  ‘Remember to breathe,’
  I tell myself each morning;
  ‘Cast your eyes ahead,’
  that voice within me calls,
  and like you, brother,
  though I light no candles,
  my vigils take the place of sleep.

  Lying flat on my face,
  no pillow drenched with tears,
  I watch for dawn’s hint of light,
  and then pray I expire
  before the sun rises;
  no other answer to despair,
  except a kiss whispered in my ear,
  ‘keep my commandments.’

— Romanós

Do not stay away

2012-01-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

Church is a dynamic environment. It is not one in which everything is governable by rules and protocols. Yes, there are such things as ‘the commandments of the Church’ though not every community has them or, if they do, makes them known. As I child I remember reading these ‘commandments’ in my prayer book. One of them was ‘to be present at mass on Sundays and all holy days of obligation.’ Perhaps Roman Catholics are familiar with this commandment. ‘Holy days of obligation’ for me has particularly the taste of Catholicism in the West. That was my childhood. Now, as an adult Christian in the Orthodox East, the phrase doesn’t come up, but sometimes the meaning is pushed just the same, only more subtly.

We know that there were saints who did not follow this prescripted pattern, their entire lives in regular orbit around the cycle of church services, fasts and feasts, yet the Church declares them saints anyway. People are tempted, I am tempted, to excuse myself, let myself ‘off the hook,’ sometimes too leniently, from attending divine services, not just on feast days (which often are at inconvenient hours) but even on Sundays. ‘I just want to stay at home today and read psalms and pray, and take selah.’ I am not ashamed to say this, because usually it’s true, but not always. Sometimes I just feel lazy. I’m getting old. Church services and activities are the social aspect of the Church, true, but not entirely dispensible.

For the Word of God declares, ‘Do not stay away from the meetings of the community, as some do, but encourage each other to go; the more so as you see the Day drawing near’ (Hebrews 10:25).

Notice, the apostle doesn’t say ‘Don’t miss a single divine service,’ but only ‘Do not stay away.’ There’s a gentleness in the way the Lord persuades us to stay connected. Of course, He shouldn’t have to persuade us at all, but He knows all men, He knows what we have to face in the world, and so He gently reasons with us, by the word of the holy apostles in scripture, and by the same gentle love of His ministers today.

Though we may be sheep that sometimes stray, if we know the Lord, we know His voice no matter who is speaking.

Seeking

2012-01-13T20:28:00.000-08:00

Brethren, what is true of you is also true of me—we seek.

I ask myself, ‘Who is it, or even what is it, I am seeking? Is it the Lord, or have I been talking to, listening to, following, preaching and promoting, living and loving only myself?’

Imaginary lines are what we make, but fine lines there are unmade by us but drawn by the finger of Christ God as He squats and scribes the sand walked by our accusing feet.

Whoever and whatever it is that we really seek, even in our blindness we are not deaf to His gentle, persistent words, ‘How blessed are the merciful, for mercy shall be shown them!’

These words are for us who say we believe and hope we are saved, but also for those who do not believe, if they do them.

Again we see the Divine Nature at work in us, defying our religion and our irreligion, delivering us from our isolation, from ourselves, making room for us based not on what we do but on Whom we seek, whether we know Him or not.

As the desert father replied when asked who might be the sheep and who the goats, ‘Who the sheep be, God knows, but the goats are such as I.’

And yet He accepts even goats’ hair as an offering.

A ramble on esoterics

2012-01-13T20:09:00.000-08:00

There are no hidden meanings in our letters besides what you can read for yourselves and understand.
2 Corinthians 1:13

I have always been amazed whenever I read this line at the beginning of the apostle Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth. Right here and in no uncertain terms we have a declaration by one of the writers included in the New Testament that the ordinary Christian can be confident of understanding the simple, saving message of the Word of God. Am I not stretching things a bit? After all, maybe the apostle was only talking about his writings, his letters. Maybe he was even talking only about this particular letter. No, he uses the plural, so that means all of his letters. Too bad we don’t have all of them, but what the Lord wanted us to have, we have.

And he says ‘our letters,’ as well. Doesn’t that mean letters written by the other apostles? And if that is true of the letters, might it not be true of the gospels? Well, they hadn’t been put down in writing yet: they were still being lived. Even so, I get the impression that it was a priority for the first generation of the Church to make sure that whatever was written down was written clearly, concisely, truthfully, simply and directly, in an idiom that the audience would have no trouble understanding. It was, I believe, the same spirit that imbued the reformers of the Church of England to provide scriptures and liturgies in a tongue ‘understanded by the people.’

This primitive protocol of the first generations of the Church was, I think, preserved for many centuries, but as society underwent decay and suffered the barbarian invasions, language changed, native intelligence was stifled, yet for those who could still read and think for themselves the same clear, clean light of the Word of God was still accessible and proved that ‘there are no hidden meanings in [the New Testament scriptures] besides what you can read for yourselves and understand.’

This precious deposit was guarded zealously by the early Church, and what escaped, or was expelled, from the community of faith was taken up and further mutilated by those who had religious principalities to build and fake mysteries to hawk, like frontier potion peddlers. All of this was so obvious even in the days of the holy apostles that they were warning us about people like this right from the beginning. Human nature will always produce spiritual counterfeits. Anything is preferable to the Truth, because Truth is not for sale, it’s free. But lies command a high price: they’re always in demand.

As it was in former times, so it is still today. Just as the attack was pressed home against the Church of the holy apostles, so it is directed against the Church of Christ today.

Be careful, brethren, of objectifying the Church as the ‘organized church’ and looking for esoteric truths. There are no esoteric truths in Christ that can be passed down from master to disciple as in the non-Christian religions, or even as in some forms of Judaism. Whatever makes the claim to be that is patently false. But I didn't say there are no esoteric truths in Christ, just none that can be passed down or handed over: that is what tradition is, and tradition is only the form that can be filled with faith, our personal faith, and through which we can commingle with other disciples of Christ.

Yes, esoteric truths there are, actually, not plural, truths, but only singular, Truth. Esoteric, hidden Truth in Christ there is, but it cannot be described or handed over to anyone, so you will not find authentic esoteric teachings among the church fathers. You may find one or two here or there who have come down to us through the memory of the Church because of their holding some idea that earned them notoriety. But these thoughts will not prove to be fertile soil for the life of the Spirit, only various kinds of poorly drained swampland for the delectation of the superstitious, or else hard, unwaterable clay from which a new man cannot be made, but only slept on by the tough-minded.

Stay close, always, to the words of holy and divine scripture, and follow behind the fathers and mothers of antiquity who followed Christ not with their heads alone but with their feet. There is no ‘formal church’ that became irreversibly corrupt most likely in the first century, either discovered by historical scholarship, or speculated into existence by idle and curious intellects. The very word of Jesus prevents this, for He said that the very gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, and who can imagine either, that the divine Bridegroom, the Nymphios, would hand over his turtledove to the Beast. Whatever the institutional Church looks like outwardly through its activities, the true Church still lives within that structure.

Back to the esoteric. I said there is esoteric Truth, and that there is only One. And I want to qualify that statement just once by telling you that it is the Cross.

One thing that a Christian, that is, a follower of Jesus, can always rely on, no matter what church he belongs to or attends. You cannot go wrong, ever, if you imitate Christ, and do only those things you see Him doing in the gospels. The visible and institutional Church can be falling away around you, but with your eyes fast focused on Jesus, you would scarcely notice. What you would see, however, is what Jesus is doing right now to remedy the situation, and you, if you are following Him, are privileged to share with Him the work that He, not you, sets yourself to do.

Thinking His thoughts, loving as He loves, redeeming the time, welcoming the stranger, overlooking offenses, healing the sick, seeing clearly so that the blind around you may also see, suffering the humiliation of your own human weaknesses without abandoning the work or the discipline of the Son of God, keeping your heart free from malice: These are the worthy tasks, the fulfilling of the only commandment, that erases sin in both the Church and in yourself, because it is letting the fire of Christ burn all unrighteousness from the inside out, leaving only what He has recreated in you and in the Church—that is as close as I can get to pointing to what you will never learn from books, only from following the Son of God, walking with Him the way of the Cross.

So, brethren, as I always say, ‘Go with God.’

It is for the Lord to call us

2012-01-13T19:41:00.000-08:00

Though I never use the animal terms ‘dogs’ or ‘pigs’ with regard to humans to whom the gospel is addressed, I know from tradition that ‘dogs’ refers to male homosexuals and ‘pigs’ to people who have no understanding of, or use for, the gospel—pigs can’t wear pearl jewelry, nor would they want to. I encounter these kinds of people everywhere, and how to deal with them as with ‘those for whom Christ died’ is something that I struggle with every day.

Our society seems to have become post-Christian, people from complete atheists to church-going types can all fall into this category, which seems to me to be the ‘pigs’ scripture is talking about. What? Church-goers can be post-Christian? They can be the pigs before whom one must not throw pearls, lest they turn on us and trample us underfoot? Well, sorry, but yes.

To receive Christ and the good news is precisely as the Lord says in the letters to the churches in Revelation: ‘I stand at the door and knock...’ Everyone, from atheists, to agnostics, to the christianised masses who may be quite religious but are blind to Jesus Christ as He really is, can be so inclined that they either will not open the door, or can not, for they no longer hear Him knocking, if they ever did.

This poses the question, for me at least, of evangelism in the lands of ‘christianosis,’
is it worth it?

Well, of course it is, because even one soul that is led to salvation through mine or anyone's witness—I am not here speaking about just talking, but about one's whole Christian life as a visible witness—is worth it. But it still is very discouraging to be placed in an environment where everyone around you has already chosen, and chosen wrong. It's like working in a pigsty, so to speak.

On good days, I still love the pigs and try to let that love alone be the witness, even though they see me coming and run. On bad days, when I am weak and am crying out for mercy for even my own life, being surrounded by pigs is almost more than I can bear. Almost more? Yes, because if I give in to the old man, I too become a pig, and that herd is headed for a lake, and it's not the sea of Galilee.
Christ have mercy!

Fortunately for us, babies are still being born who turn into youths and then young adults. That cream of the crop of humanity is still there, white for harvest, and it is primarily for them that we hang on to a life that otherwise would be almost unbearable, living as we do among people who hate, lie and slander at every opportunity. But it is for the Lord to call us to follow Him into that harvest field, and I hope He calls us there every day.

Therein is life, and without end.

The fall of the Republic

2012-01-13T18:42:00.000-08:00

And why must the Republic fall?
For the very same reasons that the original Republic, Rome, fell.

We were founded on virtuous principles, and we flounder on virtual laurels. Rome did the same. Before her, Athens did the same, and ancient Israel, and countless other civilisations known and unknown.

Yet why?
You and I know the answer due to the mercy of our man-loving God, who doesn't hang for long on a cross or sleep long in a tomb, but who once dead lives now and forever.

And we, without the solace of mere myths, do indeed live in our testimony, surrounded by walls the enemy cannot scale or breach; and that City not made with hands cannot fall, now or ever; and that heritage is what was handed over to us, and what we will hand over when our time comes, to our children, yes, but to the King, to whom our Republic and all true cities pointed.

What an honor, indeed, what a blessing, to live in these times, and to share with even one other, and to witness, the end of all things.

For the perfection of humanity is nothing else but to end, end so that it can finally begin. Our Republic existed to await the true King, so that it could die in the establishment of His Kingdom.

Faithfully He brings true justice; He will neither waver, nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth, for the islands are awaiting His law.
Isaiah 42:4 Jerusalem Bible

Let Him train you

2012-01-13T11:54:00.000-08:00

We find Orthodoxy and Orthodox teachings in many places, not always within the Church enclosure. This proves that there is, as the Bible teaches, only one gospel, only one church, an unchangeable gospel, an indivisible church. Long before words like 'orthodox' came into use to distinguish the stale from the fresh—heresy is stale, always a recycling of outdated, unworkable ideas, orthodoxy is fresh, always a treasury of supple, living words to feed every hunger—long before, and long after, there was, is, and will be self-evident truth issuing from the servants of God, who not knowing themselves but only their Lord, speak His words, do His actions, speak the facts of His reality. None but the Most-High, the Triad Holy, is infallible, yet He unweaves our human minds from mere earth to knit them into the fringes of His seamless Spirit, making us one in Him as is the Father, the Son, and the Life-Creator, One without second, to Whom is no partner, only We, in whose Divine image man was made, and Man is remade. Such truth as this, is a refreshment to the soul, to the world when it seeks it, but only those with ears, as the Lord says, shall hear. As for the others, they hear and hear but do not understand. Let's keep seeking the truth, and live it, wherever we find it, wherever we hear the Shepherd's voice, as we follow Him, the sheep of His pasture, the flock that He guides.

Submit to God’s Training

by Pastor Zac Poonen
of Christian Fellowship Church, Bangalore, India

Whenever God wants to do something for His people, He always begins with a man. He had to find a suitable man before He could deliver the Israelites. The training of Moses took 80 years—and it wasn’t academic training alone. Moses was trained in the best academies of Egypt, but that did not qualify him for God’s work. In Acts 7, Stephen says that Moses was mighty in both word and deed. He was a strong man, and an eloquent speaker at the age of 40. He was a great military leader, a very rich person, and had been educated with the best education that the most advanced country in the world could give—for Egypt was the world’s only superpower in those days. At the end of it all, he was unfit to serve God. Stephen says that Moses thought that the Israelites would recognise that God had raised him up to deliver them. But they did not recognise him as their leader. All his earthly fame and abilities could not prepare him for the task God had prepared for him.

Today, many Christians imagine that they can serve God just because they have Bible knowledge, musical ability and plenty of money. But they’re mistaken. They need to learn a lesson from Moses’ life: 40 years of the best that this world could give him could not prepare him for God’s service. God had to take him through another 40 years in the wilderness, in a totally different environment from the palace, in order to equip him. He had to be broken of his human strength. And God accomplished this by making him look after sheep, and by allowing him to live with his father-in-law and work for him—for 40 long years. Living with one’s father-in-law for even one year can be quite humiliating for a man! I know that many married women in India live with their fathers-in-law all their lives. But it’s different when a man has to live with his wife’s father and work for him as well. That can be quite a humbling experience for a man. But that’s how God broke Moses. That was how God broke Jacob too. He too had to live with his father-in-law for 20 years. God uses fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law to break His children.

What all the universities in Egypt could not teach Moses, he learnt in the wilderness, looking after sheep and working for his father-in-law. At the end of those 40 years, Moses is so broken that he who was once so eloquent and who thought he could deliver Israel, now says, “Lord, I am unfit. I cannot speak properly. Please send somebody else to lead your people.” It was then that God said, “At last you are ready. I will send you to Pharaoh now” (Exodus 4:10-17).

What is the lesson we learn from Jacob and Moses? Just this: When you think you are ready, you are not. When you think you are capable, that you are strong, that you have knowledge, that you can speak and sing and play musical instruments, and do wonderful things for God, God says, “You are unfit. I have to wait until you are broken.” With Jacob that process took 20 years, with Moses it took 40 years, with Peter it took 3 years, and with Paul at least 3 years. How long will it take with us? That depends on how quickly we learn to submit under God’s mighty hand.

How long does it take to go through school from First Standard (Grade) to Twelfth Standard (Grade) ? 12 years? Yes, if you pass each year. But I know children who have taken 16 years to complete 12 classes in school. I know medical students who have taken up to 15 years to complete a 5-year medical course!! How long anyone takes to finish school depends on how quickly he learns his lessons. It is the same in the Christian life too.

All power and authority

2012-01-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

All power and authority given to man on earth by God is given to him when he prays.

‘How can this be? I pray all the time and I don’t have any power, I have no authority. What are you talking about? But I do see power and authority given to people who have status, who have money, who are educated, who know how to pull the strings. As for the rest of us, right, we pray, but we pray because there’s nothing else we can do.’

With a sigh of resignation the words of barely hidden contempt are mouthed. Men for whom Christ died and who say they believe in Him, men on whom ‘all authority in heaven and on earth,’ given to Christ by His Father has been bestowed, men who can read the words for themselves, ‘anything you ask for in My name,’ are reduced to practicing magic they don’t even believe in.

‘Glory to You, O Lord, glory to You!’ I hear muttered constantly under his breath, and ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!’ cried out in lonely and forsaken places, moaned even, mingled with sobs of sorrow for his sins. Of little account, the world passes the saint and thinks him mad, yet his prayer is genuine and not for show or for sale.

The religious are even baffled. ‘We do more than he does, keep the fasts, drink tea without sugar, never touch flesh or oil or cheese during the prohibited times, never miss a service, and we greet each other nicely. Why does everybody go running to him? He scares us. He doesn’t follow the rules. He’s proud and wants his own way. Why does God answer his prayers and not ours?’

He can battle the devil, he can even drive him out, because he knows him personally. He has locked himself in battle with him in an invisible ring many times. His weapons? The words of holy and divine scripture, outbursts of mighty psalms, supplications to God Himself and his shameless asking for what he doesn’t deserve, his confession of his own sins, his laying all at the feet of Jesus.

The irreligious, bent as they are on what profits them, can come closer to the Truth than those who were suckled by it, who feel so sure that they know what works and what doesn’t, that they do neither. Seeking himself the worldly man can stumble upon his own corpse and asking, rise from the dead. The religious polish their coffins, but the saints lie down in theirs in peace, expecting life.

‘In peace I lie down, and fall asleep at once, since You alone, Yahweh, make me rest secure. (Psalm 4)
For me the reward of virtue is to see Your face, and, on waking, to gaze my fill on Your likeness.’ (Psalm 17)

Even now

2012-01-12T23:18:00.000-08:00

All of your efforts will come to nothing in the end, unless you submit yourselves to the truth of God’s Word, who says, ‘What comes out of a man is taken from what he puts inside himself.’

The practical application?

Rather than try to focus on and ‘cure’ the symptoms, go for the root, and axe it.

How do you do that?

By filling up on the Word of God, not on television;
on the Word of God, not on the internet;
on the Word of God, not on computer games;
on the Word of God, not on newspapers and magazines;
on the Word of God, not on the contents of your iPod;
on the Word of God, not on the latest Christian books;
on the Word of God, not on rumors;
on the Word of God, not on hanging out with your friends.

Can you see the connecting idea from the practical application above?

The downfall of the churches as assemblies of God’s people, and of people themselves as individuals, comes from the utter lack of respect for and immersion in the Word of God, i.e., the Holy Bible.

Read the Word of God every day, throughout the day, fill yourselves with it, rather than filling yourselves up on that which cannot last and which divides and slays the spirit.

Remember, it is not just money that Jesus is talking about when He says, ‘You cannot serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or love the one and treat the other with scorn. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.’ The bottom line on Mammon is that it is anything that diverts your attention, unlawfully, from the Word of God.

Again I say, don’t just try to cure the symptoms, strike at the root of worldly attitudes in yourselves by using the axe of the Word of God. Christ has already used it to fell the world tree of death. Now He has given it to us to do the same in ourselves. It’s never too soon, but it could be too late.

‘Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees…’

What would happen?

2012-01-12T22:48:00.000-08:00

Why must we always be checking and examining each other, to make sure that we are all ‘on the same page’ and believing everything in exactly the same way, so that we can feel safe, so that things seem to be ‘in control’?

When encountering another Christian who does not confess the ‘Orthodox faith’ it doesn’t really matter if I agree or disagree with him. It isn’t like I am calling him forth into a new ‘nameless non-denomination’ if I try to share some fellowship with him ‘outside of’ confessional boundaries. He can stay whatever he is, and I will remain Greek Orthodox, but in Christ our unity goes beyond labels or concepts like ‘catholic’ or ‘orthodox’ which were never spoken by the Word Himself.

Our unity in Christ isn’t affected by our formal theologies, which can do nothing, nothing! Salvation is through knowing only Christ, not by what we believe about Him, all of which pales when compared to our knowing Him and His knowing us. That is ‘the one thing needful.’

Let a man say Christ is not con-substantial with the Father, and ‘I don't believe in the Trinity.’ Let him even say that Jesus is a man.
He is ignorant, that’s all. But if he confesses Christ as Lord, believes in His resurrection as the Bible plainly describes, and fulfills His commandments, is an ignorant man to be denied salvation in Christ? And who would keep him out? You and me, who know so much about Him? Everything we know about Christ, think about Christ, believe about Christ is nothing compared to what He is, and what He does for us, here and now, and in the world to come.

Let’s tear off the costumes we wear in front of each other as we go into battle. Why? Because our battle has thus far been against each other, and not against ‘the powers of wickedness in the heavens,’ as it should be. If we want to fight each other, let’s strip ourselves of our defenses and see what is under them—Look! We’re all the same after all!

Then, let’s put on the only garment worth having, because He gives it to all who believe in Him, His own skin! ‘All who have been baptized have put on Christ,’ as the scriptures say. And what baptism is that? Being buried with Christ in His death, so as to rise with Him in His glorious resurrection.

As for me, I’m trying to move beyond thinking about God, so I can just live in Him. I’m trying to untie for me, and maybe for you, the knots of tangled lore that have kept us encamped on the devil’s playground so long, fighting each other.
Just imagine the following scenario…

What would happen if, suddenly, the various Christian missions and denominations in a majority Muslim country like Indonesia or Malaysia—which still allow the existence of Christianity—suddenly were seen to absolutely and without reserve support each other in everything, and without coalescing into one uniform institution?

Everything that they disagreed about, they would agree to just pray and ask the Lord to intercede for each other’s folly, and then, with that out of the way, they would just ‘go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.’

Hey! But what if they can’t agree on how and whom to baptize, and when? Well, that’s just some more pieces of folly, to ask the Lord to forgive and correct. Meanwhile...

Let’s all just go into the harvest field, and work, because ‘night is coming when no one can work,’ and because ‘the time is close.’

Yes, what would happen?

The work of an historian

2012-01-12T07:32:00.000-08:00

Since when is the Gospel a guardian of the one true faith, the opponent of all false religions, the tool of God’s vengeance and wrath on the pagans? Yet in the historical record, we find that Christianity, which owes its very existence to the Gospel, is often found ‘beating… plowshares into swords and… pruning hooks into spears,’ and ‘weaklings’ saying ‘that they are warriors’ (Joel 3:10). While it aggresses, it seems to forget that the Gospel is ‘good news’ and that Jesus came ‘to seek and save those who are lost’ (Luke 19:10). This happens not only on a grand scale, nation against nation (Christians against Jews or Muslims), even confession against confession (Christians ‘crusading’ against each other) under institutional direction, but even more often on a small scale, man against man, under no leadership at all.

What do I mean by this? What I mean is, Christianity is whatever people call Christianity. Sometimes it has little or nothing to do with the Gospel or with Jesus Christ at all. Often it is just a cover for other motives, none of them honest, though usually hidden from their owners by what can be called ‘invincible ignorance.’

Ironically this ignorance comes from people reading the Bible and fitting its contents to what they already have in mind, whether doctrines only or actions as well, since the one often leads to the other. How is this possible? The Bible is supposed to be the source of all wisdom, knowledge and blessing. How can reading the Bible result in the kind of ignorance that produces fanaticism? Easy, ‘the Bible says what I want it to say,’ and it’s infallible, so if you disagree, you’re wrong.

The historian, especially the Christian historian, has his work cut out for him. If there is a Christianity different from the one that writes big in the world, where is it? How do you find it? Is it documented? ‘Because, if it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.’ No, not really. This popular but cynical saying is absolutely false. Lots of things happen that are never documented. In fact, most things aren’t, yet they happen anyway. The historian, though, does have a real job to do, if he is honest. To collect the facts and interpret them in a constructive and honest way.

This is how it is

2012-01-12T00:04:00.000-08:00

I have never heard anything but the truth about baptism or any of the other ‘mysteries’ of the Christian faith from an Orthodox priest. Maybe that’s why, in spite of any of its flaws, I cannot get away from the Orthodox Church. Just when you think they’re going to pull some magical nonsense about the Church or the sacraments (I use this word here, though I really prefer to call them ‘mysteries’) out of their hat, behold! What they pull out is what you’ve felt deep inside you was right all along, yet never, or almost never, heard come out of a clergyman’s mouth.

I may as well tell you up front, if you hadn’t noticed this before. Orthodoxy does not accept the doctrine of original sin in the sense of us being guilty of Adam and Eve’s sins, even if we aren’t guilty of anything of our own. This doctrine comes from a mistranslation into Latin of Psalm 51. The Western Church reads, ‘and in sin my mother conceived me.’ The Eastern Church, following the Greek, reads, ‘and in sins my mother conceived me.’ This has been taken to mean that, though the divine image in man was broken, and continues to be broken, by Adam and Eve, and by their descendants imitating their disobedience, man is not utterly and totally depraved, by nature, only by will. A very subtle difference? Yes, but it matters.

‘But the Bible clearly says that anyone who isn’t baptized can’t be saved.’ Well, yes and no. In ordinary circumstances, when baptism means repentance, conversion, and the subsequent ceremonial acts that confirm it for the individual and the community, yes. But even in the gospels we have the example of the good thief who was saved without baptism, without righteousness, without belief in any particular doctrines, saved by only one thing, ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.’ He had personal trust (the word in Greek we usually translate as ‘faith’) in Jesus as who He said He was. If anyone could tell us whether or not we would be saved, it would be Christ, and if there were stipulations, He would have spelled them out clearly. Was He too busy to do that on the Cross? Wasn’t there enough time for Him to go over the points He talked to Nicodemus about? No, it’s not that at all. Salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone, and it is appropriated by our personal faith in Him, and if nothing else is possible, that faith alone, without works, without knowledge, without self-sacrifice, without membership in a religious body, that faith alone is enough.

When Christ goes to raise Lazarus from his four-day burial, He meets the sister of the dead man, and He tells her the astounding fact that He Himself is the Resurrection and the Life, and He asks her whether she believes that or not. She doesn’t answer with a straight yes or no, but rather declares her faith in an almost dogmatic utterance, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the One who was to come into this world.’ In this encounter, Christ states first of all, that anyone who believes in Him, even though he dies, will live, and then repeats Himself in slightly more detail, ‘whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.’

What is this ‘never die’ business He’s talking about? Can it be something other than being saved? What was that paradise He promised the good thief when He said, ‘this day you will be with Me in paradise’? Is this different than being saved? Though He says things like, ‘unless a man is born again, of water and the Spirit,’ is He revealing a new legislation, a new Torah, for His would-be followers?

Christ is Himself eternal life, He is Himself paradise, there is no other ‘place’ to go to be considered ‘saved.’ What I am writing here is not my personal philosophy, but what has been handed over to me by the Church fathers among whom I was brought up, in the environment of the Orthodox Church, which I was already beginning to enter long before I walked through the doors of an Orthodox temple or was chrismated.

Why baptise infants? If they die unbaptised, there is no punishment for them, there is no isolation in a place called limbo, which has now been emptied by proclamation of the pope, and there is no hell for them either, because they have not rejected Christ, the Light of the world, through whose name alone under heaven mankind can be saved. So in this the Orthodox would agree with many Protestants, maybe even with some Baptists, though I wonder if sometimes the agreement is flakey, based on the similarity of conclusions reached by quite different logic.

The Orthodox know that a real God does not make impossible demands and is not looking for a reason to condemn us: hence, babies, children, imbeciles, the insane, even the suicides are in no danger of divine wrath. Some of the others may come to this conclusion because they think God is really just a big softy, and His scary pronouncements are only there to trick us into being good. No, God means what He says, the terrible as well as the awesome things He tells us, but in no case is He a heavenly policeman, judge, torturer and executioner all rolled into one.

His revelation is given only to tell us, ‘this is how it is’ and ‘you can’t come Home until you come Home.’

The purpose of Christianity

2012-01-11T23:22:00.000-08:00

Tokyo, 20 December, 2011

What is the purpose of Christianity, the transformation of society, or to save souls? If it is the former, then there are societies that have been transformed without it, or with very little reference to it.

I am sitting alone in a hotel room in Tokyo, Japan, as I ponder and write. A large window beside me faces the eastern horizon where the sun will soon reveal itself. I’ve opened the window to refresh myself by the cool winter air and to hear the sounds of the wakening city. The morning crescent moon, hanging above all at sixty degrees above the horizon, awaits the sun. I am back in this land of a childlike people who know nothing of Christ, only of Christianity. Their ancient traditions still their anchors, they do not fear to join the world of men, helping to make the modern world. Why? Because beyond all religion or religious feelings, they seem happy to live in a world of uncertainty and paradox, knowing that a Mystery at the heart of their race still guides them, covers them, provides for them, even loves them.

Is it Amaterasu quietly secluded in her sacred house in the forests of Ise? Is it her beautiful, silent protector, mighty Fujiyama rising from the sea? These two ancient ancestors of the Japanese race, because of them ‘the only divine race on earth,’ the goddess of the sun and the mountain who is a god, will never fear being abandoned by their people as long as they exist on earth. Why? Because they live in them, the people in the kami, the kami in their children. Yes, a childlike people carried in the arms of childlike gods.

The sun is still resting below the horizon, now a rose-red rind to an aquamarine sky. Will she arise and shine as I first saw her in Nagoya, a deep red orb against a pale white silk curtain? I continue to ponder. Who is this Jesus who walks in Japan? I saw Him here before, though I encountered very few churches. Christians in Japan—I know they are here. I worshiped with the Orthodox Christians of Nagoya one Sunday three years ago at Pascha.

They now have a new temple in the city center, built to resemble an ancient Russian church. I questioned then, and I question now, is this who or what Christ is or must be for the Japanese people? Why would this childlike people want a new god tabernacled like a stranger in a strange house? Again, what is the purpose of Christianity, to transform society or to save souls?

Of course, the question is really not about the purpose of Christianity at all, but about the purpose of Christ. And He does both: transforms society and saves souls. It isn’t as though these are two separate ends. They can only happen together. But without an answer forthcoming, just as the sun delays her rising—and I must now leave this room and soon this pleasant land—I still believe, I know, that Jesus Christ walks these islands. He is seeking His lost sheep even though they do not know they are lost, even though their ancient guardians have kept them safe and united for millennia. For a new millennium is coming for the Japanese people, and for all peoples.

It is only waiting for us who know Him, to follow Him.

The return of Holy Wisdom

2012-01-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

Often the sentiment is expressed, that Justinian's great edifice, the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople—Istanbul—should be returned to its original purpose. It was not erected to be a museum, nor a mosque—though it has been the inspiration to mosque-builders over the centuries. It was built to be a temple of the Lord, the Holy Triad, Father, Son and Spirit. Miracles used to occur within these ancient walls.

I can understand why many hope for the restoration of the great church to Christian use. We recall time-hallowed traditions like the story of the priests disappearing into the walls of the edifice when the Turks broke in to take it during their conquest of Byzantium, as well as the legend that they will reemerge when the church is restored. I've heard this story, and once upon a time I too was charmed by it.

Though casting a warm glow, quite honestly, the story is nonsense. This is not how God works. If priests were slaughtered during the taking of the church, they will emerge from their graves with all the rest of the blessed dead at the end of the world. Perhaps on that Day the great church will be restored—except we won't need it then, because scripture says, 'I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple' (Revelation 21:22).

I don't believe in the priority of Christian 'real estate.' I know it's great to have big, beautiful church buildings, 'built to the glory of God,' as emperor Justinian intended Hagia Sophia to be, but such things are not what is important in Christianity. In fact, vast real estate holdings should be an embarrassment to the Church, unless we are in the business of property management.

The rationale for wanting the great church back is understandable. It is an historic landmark, and many momentous events happened there, even holy, even miraculous events. But this whole world has been host to great events and miraculous happenings, and yet it too will one day disappear and be forgotten. 'The world of the past is gone' (Revelation 21:4).

And if Hagia Sophia were given back to the Orthodox patriarchate of Constantinople, what then? What will they do with it? Will it be filled with hundreds and even thousands of people in joyous and lengthy worship? Where would they come from? Almost all the Greek Orthodox are gone from the City.

The great church is what it is only when it is the main temple of the Orthodox Christian Empire, the godly jewel set in the crown of Constantinople, the City of New Rome. As it is, Istanbul is a large, sprawling and dirty city, ruinous at worst, secular and unspiritual at best. And this is where the Ecumenical Patriarch should reside? In my humble opinion, not.

Following Jesus, let him either submit to the cross and martyrdom in a final appeal to the Turkish people to accept their Savior—for they would certainly kill him—or let him be realistic, and follow Jesus where He is walking today. That might make him patriarch of no city at all, except the City of God, which exists everywhere, anywhere there are faithful people of God. Like Moses, journeying through the wilderness with his pilgrim people, the Ecumenical Patriarch will have demonstrated what 'ecumenical' signifies.

I am not a romantic when it comes to Christian heritage. I have seen and experienced too much to believe that the Church can be entrusted with riches and power. The psalmist says—and you must know this is one of my favorite verses—'man in his prosperity forfeits intelligence. He is one with the cattle doomed to slaughter' (Psalm 49:20). It is the suffering Church that has the hope of following Jesus, and the only Church among whom real miracles can be expected.

Not the showy and ludicrous miracles of priests disappearing into church walls, or statues weeping tears of saltwater or blood, or ikons or bodies of saints gushing forth fragrant myrrh. Yes, such things do, in fact, happen, but to what purpose? That the great church of Hagia Sophia will one day be handed over by the Turks to his all-holiness Bartholomaios or one of his successors would be just such a miracle. Perhaps it will be the bride price of Turkey being allowed to join the European Union.

In the end, will it really bring the joy and the blessing people expect? And will those vanished priests come tumbling out of the walls fully vested and ready to serve the holy mysteries? If they did, they might be in for a surprise.

I hope I haven't upset you by writing down these contrary thoughts, but I am very tender right now, and sensitive to the intrusion of fantasy into my world, whether it is romantic, religious, or whatever. I actually am and can be a romantic person, but for me romance has more to do with a merciful appreciation of all things beautiful trying to exist in a world made ugly by prevailing sin.

As usual, I am going to keep harping on the idea that we must 'do what we see Jesus doing in the scriptures,' down to His very thinking where it is apparent, but at least what is clear from His words and his actions. When we try to do this, we begin to notice gradually how much of our Christian and religious ideology seems to have nothing in common at all with Him.

That, by itself, is a very scary thought—or it would be, if we didn't already know how merciful God is. You should know me well enough to know that I am not here saying the Church is wrong about anything, nor will I ever be found opposing her 'to her face.' It isn't that the Church is wrong. It's just that often the Church stops too soon. But like myself, with whom I am infinitely patient, the Church deserves our patience and our hope, that sooner or later, she will emerge fully awake and ready to present herself to her Lord.

Finally, brethren, pray for me, Romanós the sinner.

The work of epiphany

2012-01-10T15:30:00.001-08:00

What is the work of epiphany, and who does this work, and when?

Holy Epiphany is the name we give to that moment in salvation history when ‘the Lamb of God’ is identified, is pointed out, ‘who takes away the sin of the world’:

Τη επαύριον βλέπει ο Ιωάννης τον Ιησουν ερχόμενον προς αυτόν, και λέγει • Ιδε ο αμνος του Θεου ο αιρων την αμαρτίαν του κόσμου.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ John 1:29

The world, ho kósmos, ‘the ordered [of God]’. The sin, hi hamartía, ‘the not a part of’. Takes away, airo, ‘to lift off’.

We associate the work of epiphany with John the Baptist. The scripture is quite blunt. John was sent, given a concrete command, told to baptise. That was his part of the work. It didn’t matter that he himself wasn’t given all the details ahead of time. ‘I myself did not know Him’ (John 1:30). But he did know, he did have to trust, the One who gave him the commandment, keep doing what he was told. The work of epiphany could only be done with his cooperation, with his faith, with his obedience.

When the work of epiphany was actually accomplished, nothing could have been less conspicuous. ‘At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him’ (Matthew 3:16). Not many others were standing by to see this, or to hear the words, ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’ (Mark 1:11). John was doing his work, and the work of epiphany happened, yet John seeing the work completed did not stop working.

Whatever it is we do, whatever work has been assigned us, it is the work of epiphany, yet it is not we who do the work, nor is it ourselves that we point to. We have our instructions, and we know what to respond to askers and trippers, ‘A man can receive only what is given him from heaven’ (John 3:27). It is always ours to begin the work, to trust the Word, to be obedient, even when we don’t have all the answers, even when we don’t know what it will look like—it is His to finish the work—when He appears.

The work of epiphany is for us what it was for John the Baptist. Each of us does what he is commanded by God, trustingly, obediently, so ‘that He might be revealed to Israel,’ (John 1:31) to our own people, to those around us. Our work is lighter than John’s because we have seen the end as well as the beginning in Christ, and following Him we can truly say, ‘we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen’ (John 3:11). We know what the work of epiphany is, we know Who does the work, but we don’t always know when, because in weakness we try too hard to watch it happening.

We know the heavens will open, and so we watch for it, forgetting not ourselves in the process, but ironically forgetting Him. Straining so hard to see what cannot be seen, to hear what cannot be heard, we too can miss Him standing before us, speaking in our faces, ‘among you stands One whom you do not know’ (John 1:26). The timing of the epiphany, when it will happen, is now. It is every moment that grace has given to us, because ‘it is the day of Resurrection’ which is ‘the Day without end.’ That which was hidden from the world has, in a paradox, become what will in the end be seen by all.

Meanwhile, we have our work to do, and He has His, the work of epiphany, yes, each of us doing the work given to us by heaven, because soon, very soon now, we will see it open one more time, ‘And I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and one sitting on it, called Faithful and True, and he judges and makes war in righteousness’ (Revelation 19:11). Brethren, let us work, and trust Him in whom we have believed, and be obedient, that the work of epiphany be done in us, that we may soon hear, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’ (Matthew 25:23).

Wild rock honey

2012-01-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

Aunt Melanie, in her blog Old Pages – New Life, shares a wonderful passage from The Conquest of Fear by Basil King (1921). The following central paragraphs touch upon the importance of using the original languages to frame our Christian thinking…

While turning these things over in my mind I got some help from two of the words most currently in Christian use. I had long known that the English equivalents of the Latin equivalents of the terms the New Testament writers used gave but a distorted idea of the original sense; but I had let that knowledge lie fallow.

The first of these words was Repentance. In these syllables there is almost no hint of the idea which fell from the evangelistic pen, while the word has been soaked in emotional and sentimental associations it was never intended to be mixed with. The Metanoia, which painted a sober, reflective turning of the mind, had been so overcharged with the dramatic that sober, reflective people could hardly use the expression any more. Repentance had come to have so strong a gloss of the hysterical as to be almost discredited by men of common sense. It was a relief, therefore, to remember that it implied no more than a turning to God by a process of thought; and that a process of thought would find Him.

The other word was Salvation. Here again our term of Latin derivation gives no more than the faintest impression of the beauty beyond beauty in that which the sacred writer used. Soteria—a Safe Return! That is all. Nothing complicated; nothing high-strung; nothing casuistical. Only—a Safe Return! Yet all human experience can be read into the little phrase, with all human liberty to wander—and come back. True, one son may never leave the Father’s home, so that all that it contains is his; but there is no restraint on the other son from getting his knowledge as he will, even to the extent of becoming a prodigal. The essential is in the Safe Return, the Soteria, when the harlots and the husks have been tried and found wanting.

This excellent article is the first time I have ever heard anyone else (besides myself) explain why it is preferable, even imperative, to retreat from the Latin equivalents of biblical Greek salvation words (and their translations into English, and other languages), and use only the original Greek terms.

This is why I prefer to say and write ‘Holy Triad’ or even ‘unearthly Triad’ based on the Greek ‘Aghia Trias’ (literally: holy triad; ‘unearthly’ is a free translation based on a false etymology that still fulfills the purpose of amplification: a-ghis = not-earth = unearthly), instead of ‘Holy Trinity.’

This is why I prefer to use ‘mystery’ from Greek ‘mystirion’ instead of ‘sacrament,’ and the original Greek without English translation ‘sotiria’ instead of ‘salvation,’ and ‘metanoia’ instead of ‘repentance,’ and even ‘metamorphosis’ instead of ‘transfiguration.’

‘Presbyter’ instead of ‘priest’ follows the same pattern: it reintroduces both the humility and the true authority of the ordained minister of Christ without conjuring up false images of hocus-pocus men, white lace clerical garb and all the guilt-ridden false authority that accompanies painful memories.

Using the Latin-based ‘religion’ words stultifies and even petrifies one in a circumscription of the liberty of Christ, perpetuating imaginary lines, erecting a false religion of dogma without mercy, prepayment for future grace with forced obligation, negating both the free gift of God and the love gifts of men.

The Word of God written in two tongues, Hebrew and Greek, two languages couldn’t be more different from each other, the one grounded in bedrock, the other rushing ahead of the irresistible wind that sends men to seek life on the high ‘seas of leaving,’ yes, leaving all behind, yet losing nothing.

Christ the divine Man and the human God, mortised in the granite of eternity, yet supple to bear the only nourishing fruit that can make us immortal: He is what all religion that is true leads us into. Everything else is mere barbaric yawp. Holy Triad the mystery, Sotiría the progression, Théosis the perfection.

How can we ascend by our own wings? Only as the angels, whose wings are ‘not made by human hands,’ but by the Most-High, only as the angels can we approach the Son without melting. Yes, ‘we can know God easily so long as we do not feel it necessary to define Him.’

Lord, help us to learn to speak Your language, Your words, and purify us thereby, by the Spirit in whom we live and move and have our being. Teach us, only Rabbi of mankind, the meaning of Your words we utter. Satisfy us with the wild rock honey, let our crowns burst into flower.

The cost of discipleship

2012-01-09T06:42:00.000-08:00

Like the apostle Paul, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is so right on about grace and its relationship to the following of Jesus, that it's scary. Sometimes his initial impact on the Protestant mind feels like a threat to the sovereignty of God, just as the same impact on an Orthodox mind seems a threat to the protocols of worship of the divine splendor.

When I first encountered the book Cost of Discipleship the intensity of its light and heat was too much for me: I wanted to crawl back into my Christian cave and hole up there, happy to be enlightened by the little fragments of sparkly truth I had cherry-picked from the eternal fire. But little by little, pretending to follow Jesus, I got braver, and cautiously emerged from my cozy Christianity with all its doctrinal and dogmatic assurances, until I was fully exposed to what Bonhoeffer was pointing out to me.

It takes real guts to stand beside, and then to follow behind, the Son of God, and, asking no more questions of Him, to just do what you see Him doing, to let Him lead you in the dance to Calvary, for all the world, then, becomes for you what it was and is for Him: infinite hunger and thirst for salvation crying out, inexhaustible holy and divine bread and wine of sacrifice raining down as manna first, then as quails, and you partitioned between earth and heaven, but not divided.

You realise that following Him, you too can be Christ. No, that you must be. There is no higher way above, nor safer road below, than that of the holy cross: this is the cost of discipleship.

The Border

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Originally, the border between the Church and the world was put up, not by the Church, but by the world, which could find no use for, and would not tolerate, this indigestible people. The Church constituted something like an Indian reservation or a ghetto, or even worse, a leper colony within society, a social entity which should not be, but nonetheless was. It was an embarrassment for and accusation against the classes that ruled the world.

Among those untouchable and unmentionable people, leaders arose, chosen not for their excellence or eminence in any worldly endeavor, but for their abject surrender to the service of the others. The world looked on in wonder at these hopeless imbeciles following a crucified criminal, surprised that they could have so much love for one another, but even more stupefied at their lack of survival instinct—they didn’t fight back when attacked by the world, they prayed for, and even more incomprehensibly, thanked those who injured and killed them!

They would not contribute any more than was exacted from them for the maintenance of the world system. They didn’t stand up for their own rights. They didn’t agitate for social reforms or strive for the betterment of any society except their own. Only among themselves, by common and unwritten consent, did they abolish customs that the world regarded normal, but which they abhorred—infanticide, sexual license, slavery, the “festivals.” In this regard, the world felt justified in labeling them “haters of humanity,” in segregating and controlling them by an elaborate system of “tests,” such as the performance of acts of public worship to the state deities.

The charge of atheism brought against them was designed to infuriate the working masses of the world, which by and large were “religious,” and which could be depended upon to punish the Church at the slightest provocation, thereby freeing the world rulers from overt responsibility for the persecution of these deranged trouble makers, undeserving of the name “human.”

No, the world had no use for, and would not tolerate, this indigestible people. It would give them no avenue for worldly success or security—economic, educational, social—not unless they, individually, renounced their allegiance to their pathetic God by publicly conforming to the world system and taking what they called among themselves “the mark of the beast.” If they did that, they were allowed the cross the border. They were free at last from the unreasonable restrictions placed upon them by their crazy beliefs.

After some time had passed, the Church, to the astonishment and discomfort of the world and its rulers, had grown much larger than had been anticipated. The elaborate system of tests and containment strategies that they devised could not keep the borders of this neglected area from expanding. The Church even crept into places it had never been seen before. It was to be expected that among the unschooled rabble, some would defect to this weird cult, lured by the rumors of “brotherly love” and other such nonsense. Everyone knew that these were just cover-ups for their unnatural practices, hypocrites all of them.

But now, and with more and more regularity every day, it seemed that once responsible citizens of the world were becoming uncooperative and difficult, excusing themselves from participating in the rites and rituals, even refusing the world’s most reasonable demands. The infection had spread, from the mere denizens even to the rulers of the world order. What was to be done? How was the world to maintain the border between itself and the Church?

There was nothing else to do but, swallowing its pride (just for a moment), the world would have to “become” the Church. It would have to get inside (disgusting!) the barricade where all that refuse and filth calling itself “human” was holed up, and somehow harness that teeming multitude to a new “world machine” under its benign and rational management.

Since the other side of the border was now larger than the world, there was nothing to do but jump the fence. Soon, “under new management” the Church, having become the world, would be so universal, so thoroughly ecumenical, that to be a leader of it would be an even greater honor than it once was to be a world ruler in former times.

It didn’t matter, not really, that the world would have to let go its old props and proof texts and principles. The Church had a Book that it had gathered together from one of those barbaric, backward tribes, adding to it a few chapters of its own. These could be imbued with new meanings, this Book could be used as a kind of Trojan horse by the world rulers to bring their powerful premises into play, first blocking, then replacing the so-called “promises” in that stupid Book.

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” See? Their own Book is talking about us! Now, no one can oppose us! To make sure of this, all we have to do is establish “tests” to qualify only those who agree with us, send them to school, and teach them to parrot our plans. As for those who won’t…

So a new border had to be put up.
Again, it was put up by the world, not by the Church.

It became difficult, sometimes and in some places, to distinguish just who was on this side of the border, and who was on the other. The world had learned how to juggle names, titles and powers in such a way that sometimes even it got confused about who was who and which was which. The new border, though, did work. The Church was contained, even though imperfectly. The world now had a free hand to save itself, to save the planet, to liberate all humanity from the darkness of ancient superstition—Imagine that! A dying and resurrecting God!—and from the “haters of humanity” who think that they alone possess the truth, and that there is only one way!

“The nerve of that bunch of fanatics who call themselves ‘the Church’—why, we can’t even see them! But we can hear them, and they trouble us still, even to this day.”

But, my brothers, let me remind you of these things…

There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the Kingdom.
Luke 12:32

You must not love this passing world
or anything that is in the world.
The love of the Father cannot be
in any man who loves the world.
1 John 2:15

If the world hates you,
remember that it hated Me before you.
If you belonged to the world,
the world would love you as its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
because My choice withdrew you from the world,
therefore the world hates you.
Remember the words I said to you:
A servant is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted Me,
they will persecute you too;
if they kept My word,
they will keep yours as well.
But it will be on My account that they will do all this,
because they do not know the One who sent Me.
John 15:18-21

I have told you all this
so that your faith may not be shaken.
They will expel you from the synagogues,
and indeed the hour is coming
when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy duty for God.
John 16:1-2

I have told you all this
so that you may find peace in Me.
In the world you will have trouble,
but be brave:
I have conquered the world.
John 16:33

If He was not flesh

2011-12-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

Jesus, our Saviour, the God-Man…

We confess one and the same individual as perfect God and perfect Man.
He is God the Word Which was flesh.

For if He was not flesh, why was Mary chosen?
And if He is not God, whom does Gabriel call Lord?

If He was not flesh, who was laid in a manger?
And if He is not God, whom did the angels who came down from heaven glorify?

If He was not flesh, who was wrapped in swaddling clothes?
And if He is not God, in whose honor did the star appear?

If He was not flesh, whom did Simeon hold in his arms?
And if He is not God, to whom did Simeon say, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace”?

If He was not flesh, whom did Joseph take when he fled into Egypt?
And if He is not God, who fulfilled the prophecy,
“Out of Egypt have I called my Son”?

If He was not flesh, whom did John baptize?
And if He is not God, to whom did the Father say, “This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased”?

If He was not flesh, who hungered in the desert?
And if He is not God, unto whom did the angels come and minister?

If He was not flesh, who was invited to the marriage in Cana of Galilee?
And if He is not God, who turned the water into wine?

If He was not flesh, who took the loaves in the desert?
And if He is not God, who fed the five thousand men and their women and children with five loaves and two fish?

If He was not flesh, who slept in the ship?
And if He is not God, who rebuked the waves and the sea?

If He was not flesh, with whom did Simon the Pharisee sit at dinner?
And if He is not God, who forgave the sins of the harlot?

If He was not flesh, who wore a man's garment?
And if He is not God, who healed the woman with an issue of blood when she touched His garment?

If He was not flesh, who spat on the ground and made clay?
And if He is not God, who gave sight to the eyes of the blind man with that clay?

If He was not flesh, who wept at Lazarus’ tomb?
And if He is not God, who commanded him to come forth out of the grave four days after his death?

If He was not flesh, whom did the Jews arrest in the garden?
And if He is not God, who cast them to the ground with the words, “I am He”?

If He was not flesh, who was judged before Pilate? And if He is not God, who frightened Pilate's wife in a dream?

If He was not flesh, whose garments were stripped from Him and parted by the soldiers? And if He is not God, why was the sun darkened upon His crucifixion?

If He was not flesh, who was crucified on the cross? And if He is not God, who shook the foundations of the earth?

If He was not flesh, whose hands and feet were nailed to the cross?
And if He is not God, how did it happen that the veil of the temple was rent in twain, the rocks were rent and the graves were opened?

If He was not flesh, who hung on the cross between two thieves?
And if He is not God, how could He say to the thief, “Today thou shalt be with me in paradise”?

If He was not flesh, who cried out and gave up the ghost?
And if He is not God, whose cry caused many bodies of the saints who slept to arise?

If He was not flesh, whom did the women see laid in the grave?
And if He is not God, about whom did the angel say to them, “He has arisen, He is not here”?

If He was not flesh, whom did Thomas touch when he put his hands into the prints of the nails?
And if He is not God, who entered through the doors that were shut?

If He was not flesh, who ate at the Sea of Tiberias?
And if He is not God, on whose orders were the nets filled with fish?

If He was not flesh, whom did the apostles see carried up into heaven?
And if He is not God, who ascended to the joyful cries of the angels, and to whom did the Father proclaim:
“Sit at My right hand”?

If He is not God and man, then, indeed, our salvation is false, and false are the pronouncements of the prophets.

From A Spiritual Psalter or Reflections on God
(from the works of our Holy Father, Ephraim the Syrian)
Click on the images to see an enlarged version.

η γενεσις του Ιησου Χριστου

2011-12-24T23:11:00.000-08:00

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)

Her husband Joseph, being a man of honor and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:19-21)

Some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east. "Where is the infant king of the Jews?" they asked. "We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage."
(Matthew 2:1b-2)

And there in front of them was the star they had seen rising; it went forward and halted over the place where the child was. (Matthew 2:9b)

Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee and traveled up to Judaea, to the town of David called Bethlehem, since he was of David's house and line, in order to be registered together with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first-born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger. (Luke 2:4-7)

In the countryside close by there were shepherds who lived in the fields and took it in turns to watch their flocks during the night. (Luke 2:8)

The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them. They were terrified, but the angel said, "Do not be afraid! Listen! I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you: he is Christ the Lord. And here is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." And suddenly with the angel there was a great throng of the heavenly host, praising God and singing, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace to men who enjoy his favor." (Luke 2:9-14)

Listen, you heavens; earth attend for Yahweh is speaking, "I reared sons, I brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner and the ass its master's crib, Israel knows nothing, my people understands nothing." (Isaiah 1:2-3)

A shoot springs from the stock of Jesse, a scion thrusts from his roots: on him the spirit of Yahweh rests, a spirit of wisdom and insight, a spirit of counsel and power, a spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh. (Isaiah 11:1-2)

His state was divine, yet he did not cling
to his equality with God but emptied himself
to assume the condition of a slave,
and became as all men are.
(Philippians 2:6-7)

The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father's heart, who has made him known. (John 1:18)

Giftless

2011-12-23T08:00:00.001-08:00

Brethren, as you know, I am just an ordinary Christian, a simple follower of Jesus, with no formal education in ‘theology’ or in ‘biblical criticism.’ I’ve said it often enough, and so I believe, that theology isn’t learned in schools, nor is it possible to criticize the Bible. Sometimes I write things, just like the foregoing, that make me sound very dogmatic, very doctrinaire—some of you even think that I am denominationally biased, favoring one church over another, as if there were such a thing as ‘churches.’

If you know me well, as some of you do, you know very well that I am not being dogmatic or even denominational, that my words may seem pontificating, but I laugh at them, knowing they are the ravings of a fool who knows only the words of Jesus and is merely trying to accept them, accept Him, fully, letting you see his folly meanwhile, to elicit your prayers. But I don’t laugh only at myself. I laugh at you too, and often I seem to laugh all of us to scorn, nonetheless writing what I believe is true.

I really do believe that the Bible cannot be understood outside the Church, nor dogma grasped outside of worship, yet I write on subjects as if I knew something. As I’ve said often enough, I don’t witness for the Church, I witness for Christ, and He witnesses for the Church. I assume that anyone who studies the Bible wants to have faith, wants to hear the call of Jesus Christ, wants to be inside the Church, just as I do. As for dogma, well, I have done nothing if not invited everyone I meet repeatedly to worship.

What happens, though, when confronted with people who think they know the Bible and can use it as a weapon against others, even as a weapon against the Church? Personally, I am used to being attacked, used to being used and pillaged, used to being doubted, used to being suspected and slandered, used to being mocked, scorned, and discarded, used to finding myself having to start over from scratch, used to being eliminated from society.

Do you think I am speaking of Romanós? I am not; I am speaking of the Church. But then again, what does it mean if one’s life follows closely on the heels of these complaints? Could it mean that one is perhaps a member of the Church after all? Yet, we go to church and see all the marvelous things, the worship, the social and religious activity, the wonderful camaraderie of, well, some of the people there. Not everyone, it seems, fits in, but the Church makes room for us all, even us misfits.

We see the world around us with a sort of double vision—what it looks like, and what it really is. This double vision applies to how we see other people, and it even applies to how we see the Church. This is where faith either kicks in, or fails us—or should I say, where our faith fails us? Who can be strong enough to live in a world where, though the Truth be known, those who say they know the Truth cannot even be relied on to love those they see, as proof that they love Him who is Unseen?

How brittle are our lives to be so easily shattered! As I come to the end of all things—yes, the end of all that is merely human, all that is breakable, all that fails, yes, especially me—before I can welcome the One who makes all things new, who rewrites the broken ikons, refashions the fallen Adam in the image of the Eternal Man, even in His birth defeating hell and death because He fills all things—before I can welcome Him and hear the Message, ‘and on earth peace, and to humanity the favor of God’…

What must I do but confess that I am a failed human and deserve the rebuke of all, that I have not kept up my end of the bargain—yes, the bargain, for what better buy was there ever to be had than the one whereby the Son of Man purchased me for myself with His own Blood, to set me free? All my ravings and babble, worthless, all my thoughts, nothingness, and yet I stand as one who thinks himself sane in a world that has gone mad, but nothing and no one is sane in this mad world, only He.

Giftless in a Christmasless land, I approach this bright feast of the Church—yes, only the Church celebrates it, while the world indulges itself in it—as one who has not even begun making an effort to live the good life, the only life worth living, as one who knows he doesn’t deserve to draw near.

Today the Virgin gives birth to Him who is above all being, and the earth offers a cave to Him whom no one can approach. Angels with shepherds give glory, and magi migrate with a star. For to us there is born a little Child who is God before the ages.

Shameless I come before Him empty-handed. Lord, have mercy on your servants who do not know You, who do Your will in spite of themselves, and on my enemy, on my worst enemy of all, on myself. In Your mercy make me worthy to say with the saints, ‘Christ is born! Glorify Him!’

What shall we offer Him?

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Every year I am deeply moved by the hymns of Christ’s Nativity composed by my name day saint, Romanós the Melodist. Somehow in their simplicity of lyric and melody they capture a side of Christmas that escapes the notice of our culture. In the Western world, the famous short hymn Silent Night has a similar effect of reducing everyone who hears it to the level of the simple awe of the shepherds of Bethlehem. Yet, Today the Virgin, maybe because of its poetry and the details so carefully woven together with tender irony, surpasses all other hymns in conveying both what it was like in time, and what it is like in eternity—the Word became man and dwelt among us… full of grace and truth.

Η Παρθένος σήμερον, τον προαιώνιον Λόγον,
εν σπηλαίω έρχεται, αποτεκείν απορρήτως.
Χόρευε, η οικουμένη ακουτισθείσα,
δόξασον, μετά Αγγέλων και των ποιμένων,
βουληθέντα εποφθήναι, Παιδίον νέον,
τον προ αιώνων Θεόν.

Today the Virgin comes to the cave
to ineffably give birth to the Word before all worlds.
Dance, O universe, upon hearing this,
and with the angels and the shepherds glorify Him
who freely willed to become a new Child,
the God before all ages.

Η παρθένος σήμερον, τον υπερούσιον τίκτει
και η γη το σπήλαιον τω απροσίτω προσάγει,
Άγγελοι μετά ποιμένων δοξολογούσι
Μάγοι δε μετά αστέρων οδοιπορούσι,
δι’ ημάς γαρ εγεννήθη Παιδίον νέον
ο προ αιώνων Θεός. [AUDIO]

Today, the Virgin bears the One beyond being,
and the earth offers the cave
to the Unapproachable.
Angels with shepherds glorify Him.
Magi migrate to Him by a star.
For unto us is born a new Child,
the God before all ages.

(Sigh!) The English translations, no matter which ones you look at, don’t really convey the sense of the original, though they come close. Especially the “Dance, O universe” which translates, Χόρευε, η οικουμένη, Chóreve i ikouméni. That’s what it means!

I’ve been thinking about these hymns, and also this prayer which follows, for the last few days…

What shall we offer You, O Christ,
Who for our sakes have appeared on earth as a man?
Every creature made by You offers You thanks:
the Angels offer a hymn; the heavens, a star;
the Wise Men, gifts; the shepherds, their wonder;
the earth, its cave; the wilderness, a manger,
and we offer You a virgin Mother!
O Pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!

And I’ve been thinking about the ikons. We know that we’re the living ikons of the Lord Jesus Christ, made in His image, broken by sin but restored by His saving grace. We know that He says things to us like, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes Me,” and “Whatsoever you do to the least of My brethren, that you do unto Me.” So, the meaning of ikons is far more than just the religious pictures you see in an Orthodox home or church. Abba Anthony (one of the Desert Fathers) says, “Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother we have gained God, but if we scandalise our brother, we have sinned against Christ.”

We know that the Bible is the greatest ikon of all, in that it is the verbal ikon of the Word of God, and that it should be treated with all reverence—venerated, honored, read and obeyed as the Source of everything we can possibly know about God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and about His ikonomía, His “plan of salvation,” as the only divine scripture on earth. Just as we don’t casually throw it around, or use it as a place mat or door stop, but rather always give it the place of honor, kissing it and holding it respectfully and lovingly, for His sake Whose Gospel it contains, so we also treat our fellow man. We don’t treat him casually, or as a means to an end, but respect him as one to whom Christ comes, for whom Christ died, and through whom Christ comes to us.

Back to the prayer quoted above, “What shall we offer You, O Christ,
Who for our sakes have appeared on earth as a man?”

Since Christ is now among us, in us as His living ikons, how can we offer, not only what shall we offer, to Him?

This question posed itself to me, as I was thinking of Christmas gifts. The hymns and prayers of Christmas describe various beings (not just humans, but beings) offering gifts to Christ at His becoming a “new Child.” Hypersomatic beings (angels) offered “hymns.” Outer space (the heavens) offered “a star,” (quite possibly a supernova). The educated (wise men) offered “gifts,” (we know what they were—gold, frankincense, and myrrh). The working class (shepherds) offered “wonder”—what else did they have? The planet earth offered a cave (and as at the beginning, so at the end, in a rich man’s unused tomb). The wilderness offered a manger (so that the animals, too, could get a good look at their Creator). And finally, the human race, in the shape of her own willingness to risk everything she had ever known and every happiness she ever hoped for, a young virgin as His Mother.

Where does that leave us, who have come two thousand years too late?

No, it’s never too late. We can give to each other everything that we would give to Christ personally. He is here with us, after all! Yes, it’s presents at Christmas. The more of ourselves, the better. It’s a smile and a hug in loneliness, a kind word in sorrow. It’s a helping hand to one who needs it, to one who needs what you have but don’t need. “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry” (Luke 3:11 NIV). This is another facet of the theology of ikons. This is why ikons have come into existence—because the invisible, incomprehensible, eternal God has freely willed to become… one of us.

Do we sit out on a country hillside at night, enjoying the canopy of stars, looking for and trying to commune with the God of all? Wait! Perhaps He is there, sitting beside us, looking up at the stars too, that He created, because they are beautiful, and waiting…
for us to notice Him.

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Always seeing Him

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

"…in the midst of the cloudy stormy morning—Bright Day…"

How wonderful it is when our eyes always set on Him
and closely follow behind Him!
and by...

always seeing Him,
we see the assurance of our faith
and the radiant hope glows so brightly,
always seeing Him,
we are transformed to be like Himself,
always seeing Him,
we are realizing the vanity of earthly wealth and glory,
always seeing Him,
we are convinced that there is no power
nor anything can separate Him from us,
always seeing Him,
we come to know that no other Beauty and Power can compare to His,
always seeing Him,
we then be enabled to chant
in the midst of the cloudy, stormy morning—Bright Day,
always seeing Him,
we have the courage to cross the river in the darkest night,
always seeing Him,
we are cheerful sheep among the foxes
’cause we trust and know Who is guarding us,
always seeing Him,
we come healed, saved and alive, because He is Risen,
always seeing Him,
we encounter Most High God and our beloved neighbor
since He is perfect Man and Perfect God,
always seeing Him,
we joyfully follow Him through the narrow way
and bearing our lovely crosses go up to Golgotha…

— Yudi Kristanto

You love me beyond me

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

The crown of meaning and beauty is You, O my Joy!

my Lord and Savior
how beautiful it is to pause and remember
How You love me beyond me

That Your heart rejoices upon everything good that You set on me
You gave that trust, that love, that joy
so pure as the glimmering stream of fountain
'Cling on me! Feed on me. I am Good Shepherd'
You call gently
Your embrace warms my soul, the sweetest of all
Everything is on Your mighty hands O Lord
Everything good is from You

Lord, it is trembling for me to draw so close to You
because Your beauty is so splendorous
You are the source of all
of all beauty and joy
Holy are You O God!

Lord, have mercy on Your little servant
which You have created from dust
and that You have given life and gift of being
I am sinful, full of disgrace
but Your mercy I plea and Your love I trust...
that You love me beyond me

May my life be totally for You and for Your Joy O Lord, nothing else
because I find nothing outside You
I can do nothing if not from Your mercy
There's no meaning but in Your bountiful blossom

Lead me, O Lord...
Save me, I am Yours
may I live for You and You alone, O Lord
in loving whom You love, the mankind and my neighbors
in rejoicing in Your joy
in weeping and caring for those who are in need
in taking care and being mindful of Your creation

in each step
in each breath
I am Yours

Bless, O Lord! Ameyn!

— Yudi Kristanto

One only is worthy

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

One only is worthy,

and we know it,

and we know Him.

So as we go suffering as He suffers,

rejoicing as He rejoices,

let's keep following Him,

and decide to do now and always

exactly what He asks,

no matter what it looks like,

no matter whom it may offend,

no matter what it feels like,

but without malice,

without superiority,

without resentment.

This way is the hardest

because it is the Cross,

and it is the lightest

because it is Jesus.

And to be at His side,

no matter what happens to us by day or night,

is why we live.

— Romanós

Joy, joy

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

Joy, joy, amidst suffering,

blending what cannot be with what is,
and all held in fragile friendship in the hands of God,

who for the love of His suffering siblings
joined them to prove on the battlefield of His body
that victory is at the bottom of defeat,
and that redemption can be purchased
only at a price beyond our paying,

and that of all worlds this one is the best and only,
because our Beloved has pierced our defenses
and shown us the way out,
to perfect freedom,
fearless, radiant, unfleshly
and immortal.

He is glorified by the piping of a solitary bird
that now sings, again and again, the threefold call,
‘Holy, Holy, Holy,’
out of the wooded depths.

Your day, O Lord,
Your day that You have bestowed on us,
grant us to behold Your face in every moment,
and feel Your touch.

Savior, come, and do not delay.

— Romanós

Jalan-jalan ke Taman Ayu

2011-12-17T16:21:00.001-08:00

Street scene in Taman Ayu, Tangerang, Banten, western Java

Yes, it’s true. I am going to Indonesia for three weeks. God willing, I will be on board a flight from Portland to Tokyo sometime after twelve noon on Sunday, December 18. The title of this post, I hope, means something like ‘a trip to Taman Ayu.’ I am still at the beginning of learning to speak bahasa Indonesia. It’s the easiest language I’ve ever tried learning as far as structure, but if it weren’t for the frequent intrusions of Arabic and Sanskrit—languages I am familiar with—acquiring vocabulary would be daunting. Not a single word in the blog title traces back to anywhere outside the East Indies.

I will be staying with Yudi Kristanto at his place in the Taman Ayu (Park Beautiful) housing project. He shares an apartment with two sisters, teachers at Christian schools just as he is. The two girls share the larger bedroom, he the smaller. It is a good arrangement for all of them. They are doing what young people just starting out in life do all over the world, share an apartment or house so they can make ends meet. They are all Christians, a minority faith in this largest Muslim country on earth. I am going to see for myself what life is like in this kind of environment. Fortunately, religious conflict is uncommon in Indonesia. Nevertheless, it does happen.

In Tokyo I won’t probably leave the airport during my eighteen hour layover, but I have plenty to keep me busy and I’m looking forward to being in Japan again. It will be cool there if I get to go outside. The weather is similar to the Pacific Northwest. When I get to Jakarta the afternoon of December 20, the temperature will be tropical. That’s another part of my ‘experiment’—will I wilt under the hot, humid conditions? This is not going to be like Florida, I don’t think, but we’ll see. Visiting my Dad every year in Sarasota has gotten me somewhat acclimatised. My northern rainforest blood will probably be crying out for mercy after a few days.

But I don’t care. This is my planet. I used to say that, ‘this is my planet,’ to justify my enjoyment of being out in nature, especially in the winter, here in Oregon wearing just my trousers, bare-chested, with unsocked sandaled feet, as I walk through the forests near my home. Pretending to be a Native American, I still look forward to living here someday, out in the wilds, like an ‘Indian.’ But that may just be the private dream of a person who never was. In the real world, aside from my leisure hours at home, I dress and conform to mainstream culture like everyone else. No, I don’t wear Birkenstocks.

Going to Indonesia is for me another following of the call. I have no idea of what I will do there, or of why I am being sent. I have no delusions of ‘being on a mission’ any more than the next guy. My whole life is a mission, and I am not in charge of it. Like a poor beast of burden, but one lavishly loved by its owner, I just keep moving in a direction He only knows. Beast of burden? Well, no, that was a very poor choice of words. Our good and gracious Lord treats no one, absolutely no one, that way. Not as a dumb beast, not even as a servant, not even as a son, but as an only son and a firstborn: that’s how He treats us, all of us.

It is a beautiful, sunny day here in Oregon, on my last day ‘at home’ for awhile. I love my homeland and country so much, but strangely, I love even more wherever and among whom the Lord sends me. Fr Louis Evely writes, somewhere in his book That Man Is You—I can’t find the exact place—it’s because the saints have no home anywhere that they can feel at home everywhere. By saints, of course, he means you and me. (Sometimes I forget just how much I owe to this Belgian Roman Catholic priest who finished his course outside the institutional priesthood, and with a good conscience.) Where I’m headed, always seems home.

A final greeting for the year to all my friends, and to my enemies too, if I have any. What would life be without your friendship? What would life be if I were not wearing these chains? The way of Christ is perfect, because it is a life of mercy, of forgiveness, of affirmation, of freedom, of love. It is being transformed beyond all that you once could recognize. It is being poured out and yet never emptied. One blood, one body, one heart, the human race redeemed and ransomed by the head sorely wounded, to be part of that, to be knitted into the seamless robe of Jesus Christ, what is called ‘the Church,’ who is called ‘the Bride.’ Yes, always, not ‘what,’ but ‘who.’

Once we were lumps of clay, but the Threefold Radiance breathed soul into us. Once we stumbled and broke ourselves, but the Only-Begotten fell with us into that deepest of all pits, and then stood up, taller than the sky, and raised us on high with Him. To free us from our passions, yes, the Merciful Lord, having done all that He was sent to do, releases us now in Himself to do even greater works, because the Divine Nature before all ages, has come among us as a newborn Child, and invites us also to appear before the world. The First-Born from the dead, first-born in every way, invites us to become as He is in the world. ‘You are the Light of the world…’

Christ is born! Let us glorify! Χριστός γεννάται δοξάσατε

The way of innocence

2011-12-16T22:30:00.001-08:00

This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see—brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians—and I am one of them.
…

If you keep the way of innocence, the way of righteousness,
if you walk with a firm and steady step,
if, depending on God with your whole strength
and with your whole heart,
you only ‘be’ what you have begun to be,
then liberty and power to do is given you
in proportion to the increase of your spiritual grace.

For there is not, as in the case with earthly benefits,
any measure of stint in the dispensing of the heavenly gift.

The Spirit freely flowing forth is restrained by no limits,
is checked by no closed barriers within certain bounded spaces,
He flows perpetually, He is exuberant in His affluence.

Let our hearts only be athirst, and be ready to receive:
in the degree in which we bring to Him a capacious faith,
in that measure we draw from Him an overflowing grace.

— Cyprian of Carthage (AD 208~258)

Sol Invictus

2011-12-16T04:14:00.001-08:00

Sol Invictus, ‘the unconquered Sun,’ was a Greco-Roman deity popular especially in the later Empire, beginning with the era of the military emperors, particularly among the soldiers.
A syncretistic deity, connected to the observable phenomena of nature, his cult was a conscious replication in the human world of the sun’s movement through the heavens. His feast day, the 25th of December, relating to the winter solstice, celebrated the turning point from the shortest day, longest night, towards the lengthening of days, the time of increasing light. He was a favorite god of the emperors themselves, including Constantine, who exchanged his worship for that of the true and living God.

It’s amazing, how similar the truth can be to our not quite correct guesses about it. Among the episodes of man’s search for God, we are not surprised to find how universal is the attraction of man for the sun and how frequently the solar disk has become the object of our veneration in place of the Divine Being. From ancient Egypt’s first stab at monotheism, the pharaoh Ikhnaton’s cult of Aton, the sun, with which he tried to overthrow the worship of Amon-Re and the pantheon, to the solar cults of ancient Peru, and China, Greece and India. Even among the pagans of today, the sun worshippers who bathe practically naked in its light on the beaches without giving theology a thought, he reigns.

The ancient Church immediately incorporated feast days of the Christ into its calendar, imitating the biblical festivals of Judaism which it early discarded, and emulating in some respects the pagan feasts it was replacing. In the law codes of the first Christian emperors are edicts allowing the observance of the old pagan holidays as to the festivities while banning the religious offerings to the false gods that were the reason for them. This they did, the laws explicitly state (Code of Justinian, Book 1, Title 11, Paragraph 4), so as not to eliminate occasions of joy and revelry for the people. Even in those days, politicians, Christian though they might be, knew better than to suppress all at once what little fun the common folk enjoyed.

The commemoration of the birth of the Christ, of Jesus of Nazareth, was celebrated by the early Church on the same day as was His epiphany, the manifestation of Himself to the world at His baptism in the waters of the Jordan River by holy prophet and forerunner John, that is, on the 6th of January. Only later, after the Church had been incorporated into the Empire’s plans for world domination, was the commemoration of the actual birth, the incarnation, of the Christ separated from that of His epiphany.

The date chosen for this separate commemoration? In step with their program of supplanting the native paganism throughout the Empire with Christianity as the national cult, the feast day of Sol Invictus, the unconquered Sun, was chosen. After all, wasn’t the coming of Jesus Christ the turning point in human history, just as the winter solstice was the turning point in nature, from the time of growing gloom to increasing light? It all made sense to the ancient mind; it still does, even to us today, when we think.

So much for the history of the feast day we shall soon be celebrating—yes, celebrating in the Church, which celebrates for twelve days, not one—which we call ‘the Nativity of Christ,’ revealing in the name a somewhat better reason for it than does the common English expression ‘Christmas,’ which has taken on other meanings for the world. Yet there is more to this connexion between Christian beliefs and the pre-Christian speculations about the sun in relation to God, to the Divine Nature.

In the ethos of the ancient Church, there is this notion of God’s revelation of Himself being accomplished only through the Divine Logos, through His Word. We would never have been able to have any real contact with the Being—Yod-he-vav-he, Yahweh in Hebrew, Ho Ôn, ‘the Being,’ in Greek—had He not sent forth His Word into our midst. That Word was recognized as being Jesus Christ, as He is announced in the first chapter of the holy gospel according to John.

This notion was translated into an attitude that the Word of God, the self-revelation of God, was available in two books—the greater book, and the smaller book. What were these two ‘books’? The greater book was the book of nature. The smaller book was the written scriptures, the Holy Bible. The greater book was called ‘greater’ because it was greater, larger. It was God’s nature revealed, written very, very large, in His physical poem, the heavens and the earth.

The smaller book was called ‘smaller’ because we could ‘hold it in our hands’ as the apostle writes. It was God’s nature revealed in human language, a human literature taken up to become the vehicle of God’s most sure and complete revelation of Himself, everything that He wants us to know about ourselves and Him in one handy, little volume, and in a dialect—human speech—that we could understand. Hence, the two books, one Truth revealed in both, never in opposition to each other.

That being true, it follows that what is written small for us in the Bible is also written large for us—if we are wise—in the greater book of the heavens and the earth. This is where the wisdom of the Church in supplanting Sol Invictus with the truly ‘unconquered Son’ enters. In English and other Germanic languages we are favored to have a similarity in the sound of two words, ‘sun’ and ‘son’, that is not present in most other tongues. Sometimes this confusion works well, other times not.

Herein is found one of the most excellent examples of the wisdom of God imparted to the Church in the idea of the book of nature and the book of scripture revealing Him and confirming each other. The Holy Triad, the Trinity, a doctrine much misunderstood and maligned by those who want to believe in a single Divine Being, is revealed in the Bible but not all in one place and never by name. In the book of Nature, however, we have been given a sign that is both simple and unique. It is the sun.

The sun is one thing, it is one being. Yet there never was a sun without light, but light is not the sun. There never was light without heat, and heat is neither the sun nor is it light. Though the sun is the source of both light and heat, and there never was the sun without either, in the same way light and heat could not be without the sun. Moreover light, though it is one thing, has two ‘natures’. It exists both as waves of pure energy, and as photons, particles like matter.

Do you see where ancient man in knowing that the sun had some wisdom to offer about the Divine Nature was not entirely wrong? But the mystic key was missing until the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so that we could hear from His lips, see with our eyes and touch with our hands, His holy, otherwise hidden, Divine Nature.

Just as there was never a time that the sun existed without light or heat, so never was there a time that there existed the Father without Son or Spirit. Just as light and heat are not the sun, in the same way the Son and the Spirit are not the Father. Just as the sun is their source, so is the Father Their Source. Just as light exists as waves and photons but is one thing, so does the Son exist as divine and human but is one Person. Just as the sun, light and heat are one, so are the Father, Son and Spirit only One. The sun in physical nature reveals the Triune God of Divine Nature. The greater book and the smaller book agree.

Sol Invictus, the unconquered Sun, was yet another form of that ‘unknown God’ to whom the altar was raised in the agora of ancient Athens, and we are not surprised when we discover that the God of nature is the God who created nature, and the God of scripture is the ‘Poet of heaven and earth,’ and that they are not two different Gods, but One and the Same. C. S. Lewis writes,

God sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again, and by his death, has somehow given new life to men. (Mere Christianity, Book 2, Chapter 3)

What Lewis has tapped is the deepest well that was ever drilled by God for man, proving that preparation was made for us to know Him long before any man had become fully conscious, had become fully human, had been changed from soil to soul by the inbreathed life of the living God.

The waters from that wondrous well

That made my eyes to see
And made my mind to ever show
My greatest friend to me.

— from Greatest Friend, by Mike Heron, Incredible String Band

The great inversion

2011-12-15T20:10:00.001-08:00

You know that among the pagans the rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No; anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Matthew 20:25-28

It's curious how we have found so many ways to get around this saying of Jesus. One hierarch who otherwise declares himself the bridge-builder and the vicar of Christ on earth, humbly adds the epithet servant of the servants of God to the other titles by which he is known, and though protocol demands he be referred to as ‘his Holiness,’ we are advised that this form of address pertains not to him personally, but to what Christ has made him. That may be so; I don't know. But I ask myself, how does this differ from referring to the Queen as ‘her Majesty’?

Like all other human societies, the Church organizes itself in tiers according to rules of order. Is this not to be avoided? After all, even Christ had His inner ring of disciples, Peter, James and John, and even there we find an ambition for preeminence among its members which gave Him occasion to speak the words cited above, ‘anyone who wants to be great…’

Though Holy Church has institutions like the offices of bishop, presbyter and deacon, and has even added more classifications to these simple New Testament ones, the fact remains that within her we find strange inversions happening, even from the earliest times, that prove the saying of Jesus fulfilled and write a spiritual history of mankind that remains almost impossible of documentation.

In the ancient Church, we have figures like elders Barsanouphios and John in Gaza, simple men who from their desert cells guided countless lives both during their time and up to the present day. Bishops even feared them for their God-bestowed authority, and heeded their instructions, yet they considered themselves the worst of sinners.

In the film Ostrov, the simple, half-mad Fr Anatoly, after burning his abbot's best boots, nearly suffocating him in a smoke-filled boiler room, and then casting his precious down-filled comforter into the sea, sits side by side with him, both of them covered with soot and smoke, and talks to himself or them both, complaining that God has made him the leader of the monastery, and he simply can't understand why, since of all men he is the most sinful. You can tell that he's not just saying this out of humility; he really believes it. This is Fr Anatoly speaking, now, not the abbot. The abbot just sits there beside him silently and with a look of abject relief, thanking God for delivering him, at the hands of this madman, from his earthly crutches.

It is strange, too, how our perceptions of others can be so different, one person viewing another as a great saint, another criticizing him harshly. As C. S. Lewis writes, ‘What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.’ I have known bishops who, I think, were great saints and men of God, yet I still hear them being traduced even after they have been reposed, and called bad men. Conversely, I am sure there are others whom I blame and others praise. So much for our private judgments. Why judge at all? But as Jesus says, ‘Wisdom is vindicated by all her children’ (Luke 7:35).

Holy Church is both the most merciful refuge for the afflicted and at the same time the most dangerous place for souls who still seek the world. Her structures and order can both relieve the afflicted and afflict the pious. The lowlier you are in spirit, the less you are jolted by the cataracts in the flow of churchly life, whether you are positioned at the top, as a chief shepherd, or just one of the lesser sheep. The stronger is your hold on the control of life, your own or that of others, the greater is your danger, to yourself and to others. A ride over the cataracts might throw you out of the boat, your stiff stance working ironically against you.

Spiritual freedom—ultimately, this is what it all boils down to. As the apostle writes, ‘When Christ freed us, He meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery’ (Galatians 5:1). All worldly systems of social organization lead to slavery and preserve it among men. Only Christ Jesus, in His divine teaching and holy example, has set us free from this when He turned the world upside down, as His disciples continue to do, for which the world blames them.

These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. They are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.
Acts 17:6-7

Only Christ saves

2011-12-14T22:34:00.000-08:00

Here is a brief account taken from the life of Elder Ieronymos of Ægina (+1966), which I'd like to share…

One time a Turk visited the Elder in his humble cell. He said that his master, a judge, invited him to his house. The Elder was somewhat worried. He was not used to invitations for social visits, and he thought that something bad must have happened, a new test. He prayed to God however, and then he followed the servant.

When they arrived at the Turkish Judge’s mansion, the judge himself received him with great cordiality. They sat in the living room and the judge began the conversation:

‘Your Reverence, I am a Turk, a Moslem. But from the salary I take, I keep what is necessary for me and my family, and the rest I spend in charities. I help widows, orphans and the poor, I give dowries to destitute girls who are ready to get married, I assist the sick. I keep strictly the fasts, I pray, and generally I try to be conscientious in my faith. Also when I judge, I try to be impartial. I am not bought by anyone, no matter how high of a position one might have. Do you think that these things that I do, are sufficient to gain for me paradise, as you Christians call it?’

Fr. Vasilios was impressed by what the Turkish judge had told him, and his mind went immediately to the Centurion Cornelius (Acts 10). He discerned in them both parallel lives. He understood that he had before him a righteous and good-willing man, and perhaps his mission was the same with that of the Apostle Peter toward the Centurion. He therefore decided to give testimony to his faith.

‘Tell me, your Honor, do you have children?’
‘Yes I do.’
‘Do you have servants?’
‘Yes, I have servants also.’
‘Who obeys better your commands, your children or your servants?’
‘For sure my servants, because my children sometimes, with the confidence they have, disobey me and do whatever they want, but my servants do always whatever I tell them.’
‘Tell me, your Honor, when you will die, who is going to inherit you: Your servants, who obey faithfully your commands, or your children, who disobey you?’
‘My children of course. Only they have inheritance rights, not my servants.’
‘Well then, whatever you do, your Honor, is good, but it only puts you into the category of the good servant. If you want to inherit paradise, the kingdom of heaven, you must become a son. And this is accomplished only through baptism.’

The Turkish judge was impressed by the example that Fr. Vasilios related to him. They talked about many other things, and in the end he asked him to instruct him in the faith and to baptize him. Some time later the Turkish judge was baptized and became a Christian.

How God uses madmen

2011-12-14T22:26:00.000-08:00

A true story, retold. What would you do if faced with this situation?

Sergios was a madman. One would like to be able to say that he was a fool for Christ, but there were just too many things that made one uncomfortable about him, things he did and said, to classify him as one of God’s special lambs. Yet, as we shall see, by those same signs he could be called a fool for Christ, or a madman—one could just never be sure, and that always unhinged us when having to deal with him one on one.

Sergios always lived a few miles outside the village. In his youth he had been a concrete worker, but after four years of marriage, his wife suddenly left him, taking their two young children, for a succession of lovers. Whenever she found someone who didn’t want the children, she would bring them back to Sergios. When she changed lovers, or was alone, she would return and take them back. Perhaps it was this that drove him mad, or made him a fool, for he never divorced her and was always there for them.

Nobody knew how Sergios lived, for he rarely worked. He had a bicycle that got him where he wanted to go, though with the state of the country roads, he had to carry a hand-pump with him at all times, because he was always getting flats. His almost daily routine was to ride his bicycle into the village to assist at daily liturgies. He was usually so regular that the father just expected him, and whenever he attended, he was to be found in the altar, helping by making sure the details behind the ikonostasis were carried out.

The villagers got used to Sergios and his strange ways, seeing him ride his rickety old bike down the road, dressed immaculately, even down to wearing a jacket, waistcoat and tie, on hot days, or in the rain, on his way to serve at church, sometimes stopping every half mile to pump up his tires. When we didn’t see him for awhile, we would get worried about him, because even at a young age, he had been diagnosed with some kind of heart problem, though due to his poverty, he never did anything about it.

When we hadn’t seen him for a few days, one of us would drive out to where he was living, and knock on his door to make sure he was well. Sometimes there was no answer and the lights were out, so we were sure he was away on one of his mysterious errands perhaps to another village. Other times, we would find him asleep on an old sofa at a time of day when most people are up and about. Once or twice I myself found that I was interrupting him at a very special moment.

Sergios came to the door with his large black bible open in his hands and welcomed me into his hovel. ‘I was just praying and having communion. Would you like to join me?’ The first time that happened, I was taken aback, but then remembering his ways, I responded, ‘Can I just come in and pray quietly?’ because on that occasion I had come with a specific purpose in mind, though I can’t remember what it was. Perhaps I was bringing him something—he was always reluctant to receive ‘charity’ and we usually had to trick him into receiving it.

On the top of a wobbly old bookcase full of Greek bibles and prayer books mingled with small packing boxes and stacks of magazines, Sergios had set up a likeness to the altar at church, with a plate with some chunks of bread and a cup with some kind of dark juice, a ceramic pot in which incense was burning, and a few glass lampadas burning votive candles. He went back to standing in front of this and continued, mingling prayers from the liturgy with his own prayers, switching between church Greek and the vernacular.

Finally, he turned to me and asked, ‘Are you sure you won’t break bread with me?’ And I said, ‘No, not this time. Maybe when I visit you next time,’ lying to him and humoring him, not knowing what else to do. So he concluded his prayers, and then we talked and I accomplished whatever it was I came for that time. As usual, before I left, we prayed together for each other’s welfare and health and the mercy of God on our sins, and I left.

It was obvious to anyone who engaged in conversation with Sergios, even after five minutes of talk, that there was something not quite right with him. After fifteen minutes, if the talk were on a religious topic, it was obvious that he was ignorant of the teachings of the Church and possibly a heretic. After half an hour, if we had the patience to learn how to dialog with him, we were certain that he wasn’t a heretic, only unlearned and simple, but very stubborn, creating for himself a whole series of taboos based on his reading of a bible verse.

For example, for years he would not eat or drink anything containing grapes or raisins. This was from something he read about Nazirites. Another taboo he had was not calling the priest ‘Father,’ because of Christ’s saying ‘Call no man on earth father…’ These taboos, however, were not permanent. Sometimes he would hear something in the liturgy, or read a bible verse in another frame of mind, and he would get it right. We knew it was pointless to argue with him.

One year during Holy Week, Sergios was having a horrible time with his bicycle—both tires continually going flat, then some mechanical part broke—and so we made a point of stopping at his place to bring him with us to the services. Then, on Holy Saturday, one of the wealthy villagers presented him with a new bicycle—not brand new, but as good as new—and he accepted it, just as he accepted our offers to bring him to church that week. He seemed to be softening towards our desire to help him.

Not knowing about the new bike, I went over to fetch him to the vigil of Pascha, as we had arranged that, because it was a very late service lasting till 3 in the morning, he would accept a ride there and back. He was, however, not feeling well, and decided not to go. He had already received the communion at the Holy Saturday morning liturgy, as to the rule to receive communion during Pascha, so to miss the Resurrection service was not a serious matter.

The service was very long, and I remember that I was very, very tired. Coming home that night just before dawn, I was in no mood to break the fast but went straight to bed. At about 9 in the morning, I heard a persistent knocking at my door, and so I threw on my work pants and went to the door bare-chested. It was a very bright, sunny morning of Pascha, and standing there at my door, one hand steadying his new bicycle, the other clutching a small sack, was Sergios. My eyes were hardly able to open. I felt like an old bear awakened from hibernation a month early.

Opening the door, I came out to greet Sergios, and asked him how he was feeling today—though I needn’t have asked: He was as beaming and bright as the morning. He said he was well, and showed me his new bicycle. He was dressed in his best, and I asked him if he was on his way to church, and what time it was, because I knew that the Agapé vespers was not going to start for another two hours. He said he was going to church, but that he wanted to stop and have communion with an Orthodox brother before going to the service, because it was only a vespers. In the sack was a bagel and a small bottle of grape juice.

What to do? The fathers and the bible both teach that whenever two brethren break bread together, Christ is in their midst. I know that this is true and have done the same many times. Then, there is the word of Christ in His institution of the Eucharist, which we follow when we gather at the church, and only the priest prays for us all the prayers that call down the Holy Spirit ‘on these gifts here presented’ so that we can break the bread and drink the cup that memorializes Christ’s sacrifice till He comes again, and in so doing, partake of holy communion.

Here was this man full of joy and in simplicity coming to my door and inviting me to break bread and receive the risen Christ. Would he simply sit down with me at table, say a prayer or two as before meals, and then share some food and drink? Or would he assume the role of a priest and consecrate a bagel and some grape juice under my roof, as I’d seen him do at home? In my suddenly awakened state, I felt lost in a forest of conflicting dreams, all of which were true, yet none of which could co-exist in a mind not given over to madness.

Sergios sensed in my hesitation my reluctance to fulfill his request and covered it over with, ‘It’s too early for you, I can see that!’ and got himself ready to mount his bicycle.

‘If you want to break bread with an Orthodox brother, there will be many at the church this morning, but oh, my head hurts! I’m going back to bed, if you’ll excuse me.’

‘Christos anesti!’ I said, as Sergios rode off towards the church, casting an ‘Alithos anesti’ over his shoulder at me with a smile.

At once

2011-12-14T22:07:00.001-08:00

Και παραγων ειδεν Λευιν τον του Αλφαιου καθημενον επι το τελωνιον και λεγει αυτω, Ακολουθει μοι, και αναστας ηκολουθησεν αυτω.

And as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alphæus, sitting at the place of toll, and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. Mark 2.14

The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus. The cause behind the immediate following of the call by response is Jesus Christ himself. It is Jesus who calls, and because it is Jesus, Levi follows at once.

This encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority of Jesus. Because Jesus is the Christ, he has the authority to call and to demand obedience to his word. Jesus summons men to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God. There is no road to faith or discipleship, no other road — only obedience to the call of Jesus.

What does the text inform us about the content of discipleship?

Follow me, run along behind me! That is all.

To follow in his steps is something which is void of all content. It gives us no intelligible program for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after.

At the call, Levi leaves all he has — but not because he thinks that he might be doing something worthwhile, but simply for the sake of the call. Otherwise he cannot follow in the steps of Jesus. The disciple simply burns his boats and goes ahead.

He is called out, and has to forsake his old life in order that he may ‘exist’ in the strictest sense of the word. The old life is left behind, and completely surrendered. The disciple is dragged out of his relative security into a life of absolute insecurity (that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus), from a life which is observable and calculable (it is, in fact, quite incalculable) into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuitous (that is, into one which is necessary and calculable), out of the realm of the finite (which is in truth the infinite) into the realm of infinite possibilities (which is the one liberating reality).

Again, it is no universal law. Rather is it the exact opposite of all legality. It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking every program, every ideal, every set of laws. No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.

When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person.

The grace of his call bursts all the bonds of legalism. It is a gracious call, a gracious commandment. It transcends the difference between the law and the gospel. Christ calls, the disciple follows; that is grace and commandment in one.

‘I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy commandments.’ (Psalm 119.45)

Discipleship without Jesus Christ is a way of our own choosing. It may be the ideal way, it may even lead to martyrdom, but it is devoid of all promise. Jesus will certainly reject it.

And they went to another village. And as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. And he said to another, Follow me.

But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But he said unto him, Leave the dead to bury their dead, but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God. And another said, I will follow thee, Lord; but suffer me first to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand unto the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Luke 9.57-62

The first disciple offers to follow Jesus without waiting to be called. Jesus damps his ardour by warning him that he does not know what he is doing. In fact, he is quite incapable of knowing.

That is the meaning of Jesus’ answer. No man can choose such a life for himself. No man can call himself to such a destiny, says Jesus, and his word stays unanswered. The gulf betwen a voluntary offer to follow and genuine discipleship is clear.

Where Jesus calls, he bridges the widest gulf.

The second would-be disciple wants to bury his father before he starts to follow. He is bound by the trammels of the law. He knows what he wants and what he must do. Let him first fulfill the law, and then let him follow. A definite legal ordinance acts as a barrier between Jesus and the man he has called. But the call of Jesus is stronger than the barrier.

Nothing on earth, however sacred, must be allowed to come between Jesus and the man he has called — not even the law itself.

Now, if never before, the law must be broken for the sake of Jesus. Therefore Jesus emerges at this point as the opponent of the law, and commands a man to follow him. Only Christ can speak in this fashion. He alone has the last word. This call, this grace, is irresistable.

The third would-be disciple, like the first, thinks that following Christ means that he must make the offer on his own initiative, as if it were a career he mapped out for himself, but the third is bold enough to stipulate his own terms.

He lands himself in a hopeless inconsistency, for although he is ready enough to throw in his lot with Jesus, he succeeds in putting up a barrier between himself and the Master. ‘Suffer me first.’ He wants to follow, but feels obliged to insist on his own terms. Discipleship to him is a possibility which can only be realized when certain conditions have been fulfilled.

This is to reduce discipleship to the level of human understanding. The trouble about this third would-be disciple is that at the very moment he expresses his willingness to follow, he ceases to want to follow at all. His desires conflict not only with what Jesus wants, but also with what he wants himself.

If we would follow Jesus we must take certain definite steps.

The first step, which follows the call, cuts the disciple off from his previous existence. Jesus makes it clear from the start that his word is not an abstract doctrine, but the re-creation of the whole life of man. The only right and proper way is quite literally to go with Jesus.

The call to follow implies that there is only one way of believing on Jesus Christ, and that is by leaving all and going with the incarnate Son of God. The first step places the disciple in the situation where faith is possible. If he refuses to follow and stays behind, he does not learn how to believe.

This step is not the first stage of a career. Its sole justification is that it brings the disciple into fellowship with Jesus, which will be victorious. The road to faith passes through obedience to the call of Jesus. If men imagine they can follow Jesus without taking this step, they are deluding themselves like fanatics.

Discipleship is not an offer man makes to Christ. It is only the call which creates the situation, and the situation in which faith is possible is itself only rendered possible through faith.

Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.

If we are to believe, we must obey a concrete command. Without this preliminary step of obedience, our faith will be only pious humbug, and lead us to the grace which is not costly. Everything depends on the first step. It has a unique quality of its own.

This first step starts as an external work, which effects the change from one existence to another. It is a step within everyone’s capacity, for it lies within the limits of human freedom. To take this step it is not necessary to surrender one’s freedom.

Come to church! You can do that of your own free will. You can leave your home on a Sunday morning and come to hear the sermon. If you will not, you are of your own free will excluding yourself from the place where faith is a possibility.

Once we are sure of this point, we must add at once that this step is, and can never be more than, a purely external act which can never of itself bring a man to Christ. Nevertheless the external work must be done, for we still have to find our way into the situation where faith is possible.

We can only take this step aright if we fix our eyes not on the work we do, but on the word with which Jesus calls us to do it. In the end, the first step of obedience proves to be an act of faith in the word of Christ.

Unless he obeys, a man cannot believe.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Running along behind you

2011-12-14T19:43:00.001-08:00

Running along behind Your followers
  I dare call myself Your disciple.

  Hiding among the baggage
  of Your Prophets and Holy Ones
  I dare say I am a pilgrim.

  Of all that is best in me, Lord,
  I am ashamed, and I am hushed
  In Your Presence.

  My thoughts, words and deeds
  Condemn me for my inaction,
  For only Your thoughts, Your words,
  Are worthy, and Your deeds.

  Look for me, Mother of Christ,
  Among the pilgrim host,
  And finding me not there,
  Seek me again in Jerusalem.

  Even if only in the shadows
  Of the Temple’s copper gates,
  I want to be found hanging
  On your Son’s fruitful words.

  Found hanging, Saints of God,
  With you who hear the call and run
  To the place of your crowning
  And your everlasting new birth.

  To steal the word of your call
  I have been brazen,
  But once stolen, let me keep it.
  Forgive me, commend me to your Lord.

  Running along behind you,
  I dare call myself His disciple.

  Lord, I trust in Your mercy.
  I am Yours, so save me.

— Romanós
Version française par Claude Lopez-Ginisty

To become theology

2011-12-14T00:13:00.000-08:00

True theology is not about doctrines, but doctrines can be a by-product of true theology. Doctrines can also be the product of human thinking, of philosophical speculation. But theology is not about doctrines. Theology is about struggle. It is the result of man struggling with God.

And what of ikons? For those unacquainted with struggle, they are merely pictures to be venerated, doctrinal statements in paint to be affirmed with a kiss. ‘The Bible says this and this, and we’ve painted a picture of it. Here it is. Prove you believe it, and kiss the picture.’

But ikons are images of true theology. They are images of struggle, of man’s encounter with the living God, of what happens when the finite meets the Infinite, the mortal meets the Immortal, the created meets the Uncreated. There is always struggle. There can be nothing else.

‘The hospitality of Abram’ is an example of this. Those depicted do not seem to be struggling, but the formula is there: Man woman and unearthly Triad, two serving Three as One. Where is the struggle? Invisible but not inaudible.
She laughed, He heard.
Doubt bears faith, but not without a fight.

An event so completely ikonic as the wrestling of Jacob with the angel of Yahweh, yet we rarely see it. And why not? Can theology so immediate be depicted visually? And if it could be, could we venerate the image without being drawn into its fiery heart? That would be a miraculous ikon.

There is always struggle. There can be nothing else. This is the meaning of our entire existence as humans, else there is no meaning. The very thought only hints at the reality, but if we run from it, we voluntarily commit ourselves to annihilation. We either face Him—look Him in the eyes—or vanish into His shadow.

A poem I once had memorized but after many years have mostly forgotten ended with the line, ‘for I am man so I must fight, but You are God so You must win.’ The author of this poem, Orthodox presbyter Ihor Kutash, a few years my senior, was the first priest I ever met. I am sure that He wrote what he knew.

There is a single purpose for every man and woman ever created, and that is to become theology. No, I did not say ‘to become a theologian.’ Nobody becomes that, except in name. Go to school and study theology, add letters after your names, and you are no wiser unto God than you were before.

To become theology, to struggle, to fight as befits your nature, to observe the Passover not in word only but in complete and perfect act, to expend yourself, to be consumed in the heat of battle, to be crushed and buried deep underground, to be sacrificed: that is what man is, else he is nothing at all.

‘For I am man so I must fight, but You are God so You must win.’

Glory to Jesus Christ!

To receive the Holy Spirit

2011-12-13T19:49:00.000-08:00

Innocent of Alaska, called the ‘Enlightener of America,’ brought Orthodox Christianity to North America by evangelising the native peoples, especially the Aleuts. This is what he writes in his book Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven about the Holy Scriptures, and how anyone can understand them.

The Holy Spirit may be received by piously reading and listening to the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures are one of God’s greatest blessings, which can be used by anyone wishing to do so. In them, the divine wisdom is presented in such an easy, approachable manner that even the simplest and most uneducated person can understand it. Many cases are recorded throughout Church history and in the lives of the saints, in which the simplest of people, while studying Holy Scripture, were enlightened, became pious, and received abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit even while some scholars and intelligentsia read the Holy Scripture and became confused and fell into heresy.

Click HERE to download a printable PDF file of the entire booklet Indication of the Way Into the Kingdom of Heaven, by St Innocent of Alaska

Love gives birth to prayer

2011-12-13T19:27:00.001-08:00

Myself, I have little to say right now, but to pass on to others the words of the saints I am privileged to know. I cannot stay away from Sergei Fudel, and once again I turn to him by reading his short book Light in the Darkness. Sergei is "one in a million," a man in whose eyes I see the light of Jesus. Just to be near him is a healing, because he never leaves Jesus' side. Here's what Sergei says about prayer…

Prayer is born of love.
Is it not the same as to say, "Prayer is born of tears?" I realized this quite recently when I heard a young girl answer a question addressed to her. "How can I learn to pray?" The question did not puzzle her, and she said unhesitatingly, "Go and learn to weep and you'll learn to pray." She completed the words of the Fathers.

Bishop Theophan the Recluse used to say that praying only with words written by another is like trying to talk in a foreign language using only textbook dialogues. Like many other Church Fathers, he said that we must look for our own words in order to pray. I suppose that this is truly possible for us only in moments of desperate need, real anguish, either for ourselves or for others. In such moments we do not "recite" prayers, we simply cry out to God, "Lord, please come to him and comfort him!" The audacity of prayer is born only in the audacity of love. Saint Macarius [Abba Makarios] said, "Love gives birth to prayer."

"Love gives birth to prayer," therein lies the mystery and the meaning of prayer. We can recite endless litanies, we can endlessly finger our prayer beads, but unless we have love, unless we have learned to grieve for others, we have not even begun to pray. We can thus go through all our life without having begun to pray.

Unless we are truly sympathetic to human suffering, we are merely carrying out a "prayer rule," not really praying.

"Pray constantly!" is a direct admonition of the Apostle.
There is a logic, a spiritual kind of logic, to constant prayer.
Constant prayer serves to establish in us an absolutely sincere humility. I cannot not pray constantly, because I constantly need divine help. Why should I be proud of constantly calling for help?
We do not feel pride because we breathe without interruption, we do not even notice it! We should not evaluate the process, we must just pray. Our prayer must acquire the unwitting simplicity of constant breathing.

Yearning to pray is what a simple heart needs more than anything else.

I sleep, but my heart is awake.
I hear my Beloved knocking.
"Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my perfect one,
for my head is covered with dew,
my locks with the drops of night."

—The Song of Songs 5:2 Jerusalem Bible

New ikon of Chiune Sugihara 杉原千畝

2011-12-13T15:59:00.000-08:00

Newly written ikon of Japanese ‘Righteous among the nations’
Chiune Sugihara 杉原千畝
The verse reads: Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD and take refuge in him.

I just received the link to this ikon from my Serbian brother Bojan. He says it will likely be displayed in the chapel of St. John Chrysostom in Belgrade's Student City. For the story of this ‘righteous among the nations’ uncanonised saint, see 杉原千畝 Chiune Sugihara. Thank you sincerely, Bojan, and to Svetlana, the ikonographer, a sincere thanks.

The Blind Man

2011-12-13T01:33:00.000-08:00

The following was posted by Aunt Melanie at Old Pages - New Life, just one of many thoughtful and inspirational gleanings from her spiritual reading…

Let us imagine to ourselves the mental state of this blind from birth. He cried out, called. They pushed him, maybe even forced him to be silent, but he still cried out, begged. Speaking in our terms, he was praying. Finally, that Miracle-Worker Who was invisible to him approached. But He did not perform an immediate miracle. On the contrary. He did something which according to human understanding might appear humiliating, unpleasant. He spat and made clay from the saliva and earth, and smeared the eyes of the blind man. But this wasn’t enough; He sent him with this clay on his eyes to go wash in the pool of Siloam (which means “sent”). But the blind man didn’t object, he went feeling his way, stumbling, exposed to the mockery of the passersby. Finally he reached the pool and washed. And here, fulfilling all this, enduring all this, he finally recovered his sight and returned seeing.

This is a model of prayer for you and me. After all, we too are spiritually blind and cannot see the Lord. But we know that He exists. Let us call to Him, cry out to Him, begging for help. And let us not despond if this help is not immediately given to us. Maybe we still have to go a long way, not an easy way, like the way for the blind man to the pool of Siloam. On this path we might meet unpleasant things, humiliations, like the clay for the blind man. Let us endure everything. Let us be obedient. Let us do what He orders us to do; let us go the way He showed us, like the blind man’s way to the pool of Siloam. And here, when we have fulfilled all this, then the Lord will answer our prayer, and if it pleases Him, will fulfill it. And the same will happen to us that happened to the blind man. When, through the circumstances of our life, the Lord asks us, “Dost Thou believe on the Son of God?” (Jn. 9: 35), we will answer: We believe Lord! and we will worship Him.

Only let us avoid all images during the time of prayer. We must not imagine anything to ourselves; but like the blind man, let us just know that the Lord is near and that He can do anything. And if things seem to turn out opposite to our prayers, let us not despond. But let us hope, hope against hope. And He will do what is beneficial for us. Let us keep the state of mind of the blind man—this is the best form of prayer.

— Archbishop Andrei Rymarenko (1893-1978),
The One Thing Needful

No matter what it takes

2011-12-13T00:58:00.000-08:00

This is the project of the rest of my life…

If Jesus meant it when He said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ and if He was serious when He said, ‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the Age,’ then why would He send us up a blind alley by saying, ‘I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. If you love me, you will obey what I command’ ?

I am always on the lookout for anyone and anything
that can open the door to this kind of faith for me.
I believe it's possible.
I keep asking the Lord to lead me out of my unbelief,
no matter what it takes.

It is for God to be strong

2011-12-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

The human condition, my condition… When I can forget myself, all is well, I live for the Other, grace has blinded me to my failures and to my accomplish- ments, to my sins and to my virtues, to my weakness and to my strength. When I look at myself, all is lost, as I find myself either skillfully descending into sin, or painfully arising from having committed it. I say to myself, ‘I am so small, so weak, one among so many, with nothing and no one to save me except God, but He is so great, so beyond me, perfect and righteous, maintaining all, why should He even notice me? I am nothing.’ Whether slipping into sin or climbing out of it, or even while committing it, thinking of and looking at myself, I say these things, a sick man, paralysed and blind, naked before myself, before all, and like many others I cry ‘Have mercy on me, a sinner!’

I detest myself, I loathe myself. My only hope, my only desire, is in God, but He is far off, or He looks that way when I am looking at myself, I loom so large in my own eyes, great and sinful, and He appears so small, though my mind shows me that only my distance from Him makes Him appear so, like a distant star. I see myself, and my thoughts of God magnify Him and tear my own flesh in self-deprecation. Even that, I see, is sinful. It seems to me that the problem, the gigantic disconnect with what I know is right and righteous, is that I exist at all. Therefore, I repeat again and again, ‘I do not exist, I am nothing,’ desiring annihilation to end my misery. Just knowing that there is a perfect God seems to be enough, if only I could disappear forever.

The solution to all this is salvation: To look up, to receive my sight, to forget myself, to remember God, to turn away from the wrath that I know I am, to turn to the voice I hear roaring from somewhere behind my back like many waters, to fall down before His feet as though dead, to listen to the First and the Last speaking to me, like waves, like breakers rolling over me, till I am no more, only He, only He is, only Him see, only Him know, only He the I am, and no more ‘I, me and mine.’The psalms for the 12th Day speak as they always have, the words of the King that only kings can pray, no one else. We have been recreated a nation of kings and priests to the Most-High, the Only God, and so we are beckoned to enter in. The words envelope us as water envelopes us as we enter, as with trepidation the diseased would enter the healing waters of Bethesda, seeking the angel’s touch, changing us utterly, and arising no longer we look the same, no longer we see the same, anymore unto the ages.

Psalms for the 12th Day
62 63 64 65 66 67

In God alone there is rest for my soul,
from Him comes my safety,
with Him alone for my Rock, my Safety,
my Fortress, I cannot fall.
Psalm 62:1-2

God has spoken once,
twice I have heard this:
It is for God to be strong,
for You, Lord, to be loving;
and You Yourself repay
man as His works deserve.
Psalm 62:11-12

God, You are my God, I am seeking You,
my soul is thirsting for You,
my flesh is longing for You,
a land parched, weary and waterless;
I long to gaze on You in the Sanctuary,
and to see Your power and glory.
Your love is better than life itself,
my lips will recite your praise;
all my life I will bless You,
in Your Name lift up my hands;
my soul will feast most richly,
on my lips a song of joy and, in my mouth, praise.
On my bed I think of You,
I meditate on You all night long,
for You have always helped me.
I sing for joy in the shadow of Your wings;
my soul clings close to You,
Your right hand supports me.
Psalm 63:1-8

All flesh must come to You
with all its sins;
though our faults overpower us,
You blot them out.
Happy the man You choose,
whom You invite to live in Your courts.
Fill us with the good things of Your House,
of Your holy Temple.
Your righteousness repays us with marvels,
God our Saviour,
Hope of all the ends of the earth
and the distant islands.
Psalm 65:3-5

Come and listen, all you who fear God,
while I tell you what He has done for me:
when I uttered my cry to Him
and high praise was on my tongue,
had I been guilty in my heart,
the Lord would never have heard me.
But God not only heard me,
He listened to my prayer.
Psalm 66:16-19

The soil has given its harvest,
God, our God, has blessed us.
May God bless us, and let Him be feared
to the very ends of the earth.
Psalm 67:6-7

The recovery of the Gospel

2011-12-12T03:06:00.000-08:00

If Orthodox Christians should understand anything, it is this: Salvation is a concrete, existential encounter with the living God.

Moreover, this Lord gives gifts, including wisdom, knowledge, insight, and courage—all the elements needed to confront the maelstrom of confusion in which our culture finds itself, and all meant to be applied
in the work of daily life, whether as mother, researcher, mechanic, priest—whatever our vocation
may be.

Salvation is not understanding the correct theological concepts;
it is not nostalgia for civilizations past;
it is not formal membership in a long-standing parish;
it is not social activism;
it is not morally appropriate behavior;
it is not mastery of the moral vocabulary.

Further, it is not enough to recall the certainty of the past.
Nostalgic impulses, as comforting as they may be (including the Orthodox variants, such as the longings for Hellenistic Greece or Holy Russia), simply won’t meet the challenge.

Orthodox leadership today requires great courage.
Courage, said Winston Churchill, is the one quality that lets all other virtues flourish.

When Solzhenitsyn delivered his address three decades ago, he spoke not as a philosopher, but as a voice crying in the wilderness. He cried out against the dehumanization of men he experienced in the East and saw advancing in the West. Only people with moral clarity and courage could successfully challenge it, he exhorted. What the world needs is not more philosophers, but moralists.

The exhortation drew from a supreme confidence in the power of truth. Solzhenitsyn believed that truth is self-verifying. When the truth is spoken, its veracity is self-evident to the hearer. This is a profoundly Christian notion rooted in the teaching of the apostle Paul: When the Gospel is preached, Christ (who is Truth) is revealed.

Any Orthodox response to the cultural challenge must first presume a recovery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The wisdom of the Fathers, the artistry of the poets, the healings of the miracle workers, the courage of the martyrs, the knowledge of the scholars, the patience of the teachers, the foresight of the bishops, the faithfulness of the priests—all the elements that shaped and forged the moral tradition that founded Western civilization and must renew it today—start with the recovery of the Gospel.

As Jesus said, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing’ (John 15:5).

— Orthodox Leadership in a Brave New World

Against the spirit of every age

2011-12-12T02:58:00.000-08:00

Christian compromise in thought and word
and negligence in deed
have opened the way to the triumph
of the forces of the absurd,
of Satan, of Antichrist.
The present age of absurdity
is the just reward
of Christians
who have failed to be Christians.

As to the fatalism
of those who believe that man must be a slave to the ‘spirit of the age,’ it is disproved by the experience of every Christian worthy of the name, for the Christian life is nothing if it is not a struggle against the spirit of every age for the sake of eternity.

— Fr Seraphim Rose (1934-82)

Made ready and fitted

2011-12-12T02:51:00.000-08:00

If the whole of your life has passed smoothly and without care,
weep for yourself.
For both the Gospel and human experience
assert with one voice that no one has,
without great sufferings and trials,
left behind him any great work on earth
or been glorified in heaven.
If your earthly road has been bathed in sweat and tears
for the attaining of righteousness and truth,
rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will indeed be great in heaven.

Never entertain the foolish thought
that God has forsaken you.
God knows exactly how much you can bear,
and measures your sufferings and trials accordingly.
‘When men know,’ says St. Nil Sorsky,
‘how much weight a horse can carry, or a donkey or a camel,
and load them according to their strength;
when a potter knows how long to leave the clay in the kiln
for it to be neither shattered nor under-cooked,
how could God not know
how much temptation a soul can bear
to make it ready and fitted
for the Kingdom of Heaven?’

— Prologue from Ochrid, July 4

If we abandon our own desires and opinions,

and endeavor to fulfill God's wishes and understanding,
we will save ourselves,
no matter what our position,
no matter what our circumstance.
But, if we cling to our own desires and opinions,
neither position nor circumstance will be of help.

Even in Paradise, Eve transgressed God's commandment,
and life with the Savior Himself
brought the unfortunate Judas no good.
As we read in the Holy Gospels,
we require patience and an inclination to pious living.

— Fr Ambrose of Optina monastery, Russia

What could be simpler?

2011-12-12T02:41:00.001-08:00

Blessed is he who, with a hunger that is never satisfied,
day and night throughout this present life
makes prayer and the psalms his food and drink,
and strengthens himself by reading of God’s glory in Scripture.
Such communion will lead the soul
to ever-increasing joy in the age to come.

— John of Karpathos