Monday, December 14, 2015

Doing good in a bad world by Fr. Stephen Freeman

Doing Good in a Bad World

fix itA bad man cannot make a good world.
“Something must be done!” If there were a possible slogan for the modern world, this would be it. It’s power lies in its truth. Some things are tragic and unjust, broken and dysfunctional. Any analysis that suggested that nothing should be done will fall on deaf ears – and should. However, this is where the great temptation of modernity begins. Something must be done. But what?
Modernity is filled with solutions and America is the land of solutions. Every American is a mechanic at heart. Our fiercest and most enduring arguments are about how to fix things: more of this, less of that or less of this and more of that.
The first great temptation of modernity is the illusion of power, effective power. The power to do one thing is not the power to do everything. For every exercise of power towards a particular end, a host of unexpected and unplanned new problems arise. Many times, we fix things only to discover that the solution is worse than the disease. We’re our own worst enemies.
The lure of control is almost irresistible. Every anxiety begs for the means to control the object of its fear. And though we can do many things, we can never do everything. Most often, our failures and catastrophes operate beyond our intentions and just outside our reach.
Christ’s own example stands as a contradiction to our controlling urges. For though, as God, He clearly could have done all things, He does very little. His entire ministry takes place within a radius of 100 miles. At its completion, He had amassed only a few hundred disciples. He was largely silent on the topic of Roman power, and said little to nothing about social structures. Though He healed a few, most of the sick remained sick. We hear the cry of the New York Daily News, “God Isn’t Fixing This!”
Of course, the underlying assumption of the Daily News (and most of the world) is that someone should. If God’s not going to do it, then we will! Others conclude that God could do it but that for some reason He wants us to do it instead. And others still will say God doesn’t do it because there is no God.
All of these responses are predicated on the belief that something can be done and that therefore something must be done (I am not thinking specifically about the problem of terrorism – the “this” that God isn’t fixing could be almost anything). None of the responses considers the possibility that God is, in fact, doing something, but something quite unexpected and unlooked for.
The Christian faith teaches that man himself is the problem. It does not teach that human beings are evil, but that we are broken, flawed and misdirected in our lives. The human project has gone astray. Christ Himself is the first answer: He is the New Man.
St. Seraphim of Sarov famously said, “Acquire the Spirit of Peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.” He cannot be accused of doing nothing. He poured his life out in prayer and fasting and acquired the Spirit of Peace. As such, he became the salvation of thousands of souls.
Christ once said to His disciples, “The poor you have with you always.” He could be taken (incorrectly) to mean, “There is nothing you can do about the poor.” But it is the case that more has been done for the poor in His name than for any other reason. But the poor remain. They remain because they live in the midst of the problem: broken, flawed and misdirected humanity. Were poverty to disappear in an instant, it would return quite swiftly. Its causes are not primarily economic: they are existential.
Christian living in the modern world is an art. Its heart rightly cares for the world and even broods over its problems. But that art is no greater than Christ. We cannot achieve as bad men what Christ Himself did not seek as the Good Man. For, in the end, perfection through control can only work through control. Absolute perfection means absolute control. This becomes the very heart of the demonic. It is, of course, true, that we seek only a relative improvement and not absolute perfection. This is something that we can, from time to time, actually do. But the greater its vision, the greater the need for control. The art of doing good requires humility.
This is equally true of treating evil. We cannot rid the world of evil, no matter its form. We will not destroy terrorism. We can seek to limit its scope and its effects. The drive to eradicate it completely would inevitably create either more terror, or consequences still unforeseen (just as the present terrorism has itself been an unforeseen consequence).
This is especially true in our personal lives. Many people in the contemporary world substitute opinions and sentiments about problems elsewhere for actual action anywhere. This is an imaginary existence in which we give ourselves over to nothingness. It is primarily driven by political rhetoric of the right and the left and is of very little consequence.
But true action is deeply important. Faith without works is dead.
True action is begotten with integrity. Modernity wants to make the world a better place. Christian action recognizes that I, myself, am the first of all problems. If nothing changes about me, then nothing true has happened. It is this that St. Seraphim describes as “acquiring the Spirit of Peace.” Christ describes it in this manner:
And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother,`Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Mat 7:3-5)
Many treat this saying as an admonition to avoid judging others. But it is also a description of true action. I can aid my brother with the speck in his eye, but only if I have dealt with the larger problem of my own plank. Sin begets sin. Only righteousness heals. The world needs healing, not fixing.
“Making the world a better place” is deeply arrogant speech from the unrighteous. A righteous elder once said, “I need go no further than my own heart to find the source of all violence in the world.”
It is there, in my own heart, that something must be done.
http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/12/08/doing-good-in-a-bad-world/

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Getting to Know the Real St. Francis - Crisis Magazine

Getting to Know the Real St. Francis - Crisis Magazine

Getting to Know the Real St. Francis

St.-Francis-of-Assisi
Franciscan peace is not something saccharine. Hardly! That is not the real Saint Francis! Nor is it a kind of pantheistic harmony with forces of the cosmos. That is not Franciscan either! It is not Franciscan, but a notion that some people have invented!
These words were not articulated by a representative of the Texas oil industry. They were spoken in a homily given by Pope Francis himself during a much-publicized visit to Assisi in October 2013. Moreover, after emphasizing how Saint Francis underscored man’s need to respect the natural world and “help it grow, to become more beautiful and more like what God created it to be,” the Pope added: “above all, Saint Francis witnesses to respect for everyone, he testifies that each of us is called to protect our neighbor, that the human person is at the center of creation, at the place where God—our creator—willed that we should be.”
Such ideas about Saint Francis don’t fit well with some portrayals of the medieval hermit and friar that have emerged in recent decades. Many of these have been developed, as illustrated by the doyen of Italian historians of Francis and the Franciscan movement, Grado G. Merlo, to exploit Francis for numerous contemporary religious and political agendas, ranging from pacifism to radical environmentalism. Franco Zefferelli’s well-known 1972 film Brother Sun, Sister Moon presented the saint, for example, as a type of winsome eccentric who was all about shattering conventionality. In his 1982 book Francis of Assisi: A Model of Human Liberation, the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff portrayed Francis as one who, conceptually speaking, would help us move away from a world dominated by “the bourgeois class that has directed our history for the past five hundred years.”
Then there are the outright myths. Francis of Assisi didn’t author the famous 1967 hymn “Peace Prayer of Saint Francis.” It was written by Sebastian Temple, a twentieth century South African born composer. The prayer on which Temple based the hymn can’t be traced further back than a French magazine published in 1912.
The text to which I always turn whenever claims about Francis of Assisi are made is Augustine Thompson O.P’s meticulously researched Francis of Assisi: A New Biography (2012). The real strength of this biography is the way it rigorously analyzes the documentary record and sources and shifts out what is reliable from that which is hearsay and legend.
So what are some aspects of Saint Francis’s life detailed in Thompson’s book that will surprise many? One is that although he sought radical detachment from the world, Francis believed that he and his followers should engage in manual labor in order to procure necessities like food. Begging was always a secondary alternative (29). Another is that Francis thought that the Church’s sacramental life required careful preparation, use of the finest sacred vessels (32), and proper vestments (62). This is consistent with Francis’s conviction that one’s most direct contact with God was in the Mass, “not in nature or even in service to the poor” (61). While Francis is rightly called a peacemaker and one who loved the poor, Thompson stresses the saint’s “absolute lack of any program of legal or social reforms” (37). The word “poverty” itself appears rarely in Francis’s own writing (246). It seems Francis also thought that it was absolute rather than relative poverty which “always had a claim on compassion” (40).
When it came to Catholic dogma and doctrine, Francis was no proto-dissenter. He was, as Thompson puts it, “fiercely orthodox” (41), even insisting in later life that friars guilty of liturgical abuses or dogmatic deviations should be remanded to higher church authorities (135-136). Hence it shouldn’t surprise us that Francis’s famous conversation in Egypt in 1219 with Sultan al-Kamil and his advisors wasn’t an exercise in interfaith pleasantries. While Francis certainly did not mock Islam, the saint politely told his Muslim interlocutors that he was there to explicate the truth of the Christian faith and save the sultan’s soul (66-70). Nothing more, nothing less.
Francis is of course especially remembered by Christians and others for his love of nature, so much so that another saint, John Paul II, proclaimed him the patron saint of “those who promote ecology” in his 1979 Bula Inter sanctos. Francis’s deep affinity with nature and animals was underscored by those who knew him. The killing of animals or seeing them suffer upset him deeply (56). In this regard and many others, Francis didn’t see the natural world and animals as things to be feared or treated solely as resources for use (57).
Unlike many other medieval religious reformers, however, Francis rejected abstinence from meat and wasn’t a vegetarian. Nor was there a trace of pantheism in Francis’s conception of nature (56). Francis’s references and allusions to nature in his writings, preaching, and instruction were overwhelmingly drawn from the scriptures rather than the environment itself (55). More generally, Francis saw the beauty in nature and the animal world as something that should lead to worship and praise of God (58)—not things to be invested with god-like qualities. G.K. Chesterton’s 1923 popular biographyof Francis makes a similar point: though he loved nature, Francis never worshipped nature itself. Francis’s relationship to nature, Thompson observes, shouldn’t be romanticized. The saint even viewed vermin and mice, for example, as “agents of the devil” (225).
No-one should be stunned by any of this. Saint Francis of Assisi was, after all, a Catholic. He therefore accepted the Jewish and Christian insight that not only is the Creator the Lord of his creation, but that the summit of his created world is man. Awareness of this basic truth, according to Saint Ignatius of Loyola—the founder of the Jesuit order to which Pope Francis belongs—is central to growing closer to God. In hisSpiritual Exercises, Ignatius identifies the “fundamental principle” for overcoming self as knowing that
Man has been created to praise, reverence and serve our Lord God, thereby saving his soul. Everything else on earth has been created for man’s sake, to help him achieve the purpose for which he has been created. So it follows that man has to use them as far as they help and abstain from them where they hinder his purpose.
Neither Ignatius of Loyola nor Francis of Assisi treated the created world as a rosy abstraction. Appreciating and respecting the environment didn’t mean disdaining everything else—including human beings, human work, and human creativity—or forgetting that, as the Church Father, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, once wrote: “The glory of God is man fully alive.
However much legend and mythology has blurred the real Francis of Assisi over time, the genuine drama of his life and the forces he unleashed in medieval Europe mean that he’s perhaps fated to have any number of ideological programs thrust upon him. In the end, however, we should remember that while Francis of Assisi continues to have many things to say to everyone today, at the core of all those things is the Catholic vision of God, man and the world.
One can safely say that, for Saint Francis himself, any other interpretation would be impossible.

Human Tradition in a Modern World by Fr. Stephen Freeman

Human Tradition in a Modern World

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.  – Monty Python and the Holy Grail
excaliburThe comic genius of Monty Python often shows it face when interjecting the present into the past. The charming Arthurian legend of the transmission of Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake is demolished with the prosaic treatment of modern rationalism. It is easy to imagine what they might do in the midst of the medieval pomp of the Queen’s Address to Parliament. Of course, the Queen’s address has itself become farcical in that she reads a policy statement written by whatever party is in power. Thus the Labor party can make her sound like a raging Leftist revolutionary. It is Monty Python in reality.
But the point raised by the quote is, strangely, quite germane. Where does executive power come from? Is there nothing higher than the “mandate of the masses?” It is a question that sheds much light on the nature of our modern world and the assumptions by which we live. I am part of a hierarchical Church. The “mandate of the masses” is ritualized in a ceremonial cry of “Axios” [“He is worthy”], sung at an ordination. But executive power itself is vested in the hierarchy who serve the Tradition. In point of fact, the Tradition has executive power, and the Tradition is from God.
This contrast between the modern concept of governing and the traditional concept represents a deep division in the understanding of human life. With the rise of modernity, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the desire to “rationalize” all authority came to the forefront. “Reason” replaced tradition and was expected to yield the fruit of continual improvement. Reason allowed for standardization. Standardization allowed for greater central control. Life was transformed into an engine of prosperity and efficiency. Tradition became an obstacle to be removed.
Traditional societies are extremely messy. They do things in a manner that evolved for a great variety of reasons. An “inch,” a “foot” and a “yard” varied over a single Kingdom. A “foot” was, literally, more or less the length of a man’s foot. A traditional society was quite comfortable with measurements that were “more or less.” Efficiency and accuracy were not paramount. But just as measurements varied even within a single country, so institutions varied. Local courts and customs, even local laws might vary. The effect was a deep decentralization of life. To live in a village was quite distinctly to live in a particular village and not in a village in general. Place mattered. People mattered. History mattered.
Obviously such complete decentralization made efficiencies impossible. The great exemplar of modernity in the 18th century was the state of Prussia (in modern Germany). It was the first state to successfully make centralization and standardization a dominant feature in its life. It became the ideal of every monarch. Even in Russia, the Tsar began to envy the Germans. Various Tsars introduced rationalizations into the highly traditional Russian life. To this day, the strict regime within the Church of “awards,” consisting in various hats, crosses and liturgical items, reflects the Tsar’s rationalizing of Church affairs. Each award or rank was the equivalent of a civil servant’s rank. Everyone knew where they stood. The goal, of course, wasn’t to make the Church rational, but to make more of society serve the goal of efficiency and productivity. And those goals were directed towards war. Historically, the Tsars imported Germans to help with this project. It is how you find Russians with names like “Schmemann” and “Meyendorff.”
Of course, rationality brings tremendous benefits. Imagine how efficient it would be if the size and shape of people could be standardized. Clothes would not need to come in various sizes. The price of clothing would drop and no one would need be naked. One size fits all! But actual human beings are not “rational” in such a manner. They differ widely and dramatically; we treasure that difference. The rationality of the Prussian state produced an extremely powerful war machine. It eventually made possible the military success of Germany and Hitler. When Germany was developing a ruthlessly efficient army in preparation for the First World War, Generals in France were still insisting that their soldiers wear their traditional bright red pants. In 1913, the French Minister of War, Eugene Etienne, responding to the suggestion that the red pants should go, replied, “Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!”
The rationality of the modern project did not stop with armies. It gradually came into almost every area of life, including the Churches. One manifestation of this standardization was the production of catechisms. The Reformers wrote small tracts with detailed organization of doctrine, capable of memorization and rapid reproduction. They were extremely effective and efficient tools for the instruction of the population. The Catholic Church responded with its first Catechism after the Council of Trent. The Orthodox eventually developed one of their own as well. (I personally feel that the Catechisms represent a low-point in the “Western Captivity” of Orthodoxy).
These developments might seem to be innocuous or even as real improvements. But they represent a shift in the center of gravity for human life. Traditional ways of thinking, living and interacting are organic rather than purely rational. Just as the standardization of human size and shape would actually diminish humanity and human experience, so the rationalization of every area of life does the same. A catechism tends to state succinctly things that should be stated at great length, or not even stated at all. They produce a form of knowledge, but not the form that is called Tradition. We do not learn Tradition; we areformed in Tradition. In the West, generations of children were drilled in their catechisms. Completion of the catechism was then greeted with the sacrament of Confirmation. The result was a rational Christian. The unintended result was a dull, moralistic, overly rational Church (sermons became dry treatises that often lasted two hours). A predictable reaction occurred. Deeply emotional revivals such as the First and Second Great Awakenings in America, the Methodist movement, and various Pietist groups on the Continent, all sought a return to something that was actually felt and not simply thought. There is no catechism that could capture or communicate the fervor of a Methodist brush arbor revival. Of course, those emotional reactions (precursors of modern Evangelicalism) were often accompanied with a decline in doctrinal instruction. Western Christianity was fractured.
Traditional forms of living are simply human forms of living. We are capable of assimilating highly rationalized life-styles and customs. But we love what is truly human. Who hasn’t quietly rejoiced when a bureaucrat at a counter bends a rule for their convenience and simply makes something work? Or who hasn’t cursed when greeted by a computer-generated list of choices and responses in a service call and simply begged for a human being at the other end of the line? These are components of our lives that indicate that, though we are capable of the rational, we transcend it and prefer to live above it.
We are several hundred years into the Modern Project. Much that was once traditional has been erased and replaced by rationalized structures. The pendulum has swung many times, with rationalization and reaction producing wave after wave of change and disruption. One result of this process is the disruption of childhood and adolescence. Human beings actually learn by tradition. There is no other way. Rationalized traditions have the inherent weakness of theory. On paper, this new math ought to be a great improvement. Of course, only a generation of children can actually prove whether it is so. And, modernity being what it is, another change will have been set in place before that generation has passed. Our rationalizations fail repeatedly, only to be corrected by new rationalizations and Johnny still can’t read.
The Church is similar. Almost no modern Christian worships in a manner similar to his grandparents (unless he is Orthodox). Does your grandmother actually like rock ‘n roll in Church? Years back, as an Anglican priest, I favored a High Church version of the Mass. We chanted and had bells, etc. One Sunday, a young Catholic couple visited, looking to explore a bit. After the service they told me that they preferred a more “traditional” service. I was dismayed, wondering what more I could do. When I questioned them more closely, they told me that they preferred a service with guitars. Post-Vatican II. Guitars are Tradition.
The presence and life of Tradition are essential to humanity. We are an adaptable species, meaning we can tolerate a tremendous amount of nonsense. But there is a reason why there is a Christianity that has remained largely unchanged, or, at most, has evolved rather than having been reformed. It is simply the continuation of a very human way of believing. I contend that this is God’s will. Human beings live best and become more fully what they are meant to be when they are actually allowed to be human. The march of modernity continues apace. It is increasingly sweeping traditions aside. Even restrooms are no longer safe from some “rational” regulation.
God deliver us from the rationalizers.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

The Priest’s Wife

The Priest’s Wife
Fr. Stephen Freeman

It is hard to explain to the non-Orthodox the position and role of a priest’s wife. As a convert priest, my family life extends to both Protestant and Orthodox experience.  I have been married for 40 years and ordained for 35 of those years. I cannot imagine my life or my ministry without my wife.

Despite the experience of married priests, the canons of the Church in the West began to insist on priestly celibacy. The matter of married priests in the East was settled firmly by the seventh century. Priestly celibacy was a continual debate in the West and only came to be insisted upon around the 11th century. Priests in England, for example, were married until the Norman invasion in 1066 when the canonical rule of celibacy began to be enforced.

One of the first things that occurred in the Reformation was the abolition of priestly celibacy. Martin Luther had been a Catholic priest and a monk. He married a former nun and had a family and children. His example was quite common. Thomas Cranmer secretly smuggled his wife into England even before the Reformation. I have great sympathies with the Reformers in this matter. However, when you read about this return of married clergy you get the distinct impression that it was about the question of sex (it’s ok, even for clergy). But you do not get any clear sense that the Church now knew what to make of his wife. And here, Orthodox experience is different.

Married priests are normative in Orthodox parishes. The canons governing marriage and priesthood simply state that a man must be married before he is ordained and that the woman he marries cannot have been married before. And this marriage is the only marriage for the priest. If his priest’s wife dies, he does not remarry. It is an extremely literal interpretation of “the husband of one wife” (Titus 1:6). There are celibate priests and monks, of course, who serve in parishes, but they are relatively rare.

Orthodoxy thus has an experience of priest wives that is 2,000 years old. It is not a novelty or an
mrOlgainnovation nor is it seen as an accommodation to human needs. I found after my conversion, that the wife of a priest was herself surrounded by custom and tradition and held a place unlike any I had seen before. Those traditions and customs are simply the expression of the Church’s inner life. For example, the wife of a priest has a title. In Greek, she is called, “Presvytera” (the feminine form of “presbyter” or “elder”). In Russian she is called, “Matushka,” which is a diminutive of the word for mother. She is thus, “Our beloved mother.” Other Orthodox languages have similar titles that have evolved.

The fact that there is a title points to a role and an honor that surrounds the role. A priest’s wife is not ordained and does not carry out liturgical functions, but she is considered deeply important in a parish’s life. Different women have different gifts and they get expressed in various ways. But just as in a household with two parents, the Presvytera is not just a “companion.” To a degree, as the priest is a spiritual father in a congregation, so his wife is a spiritual mother. And like mothers and fathers elsewhere, those roles get expressed in different ways. But rarely is the Presvytera absent in the life of the parish. She is important and normative.

Over the years of my ministry, I have made very few decisions (especially important ones) that were not a product of much thought and conversation with my wife. After all, the consequences of my ministry are consequences in her life as well. Her wisdom is essential. She not only knows the parish, but knows me, and can point out my errors far more effectively and accurately than anyone else.

I have often thought that the lack of veneration for the Mother of God in Protestantism contributes to their confusion regarding the role of women and of women who are married to ministers. In my Anglican years there was an increasing tendency to professionalize the priesthood, in which my wife was just a “corporate spouse,” someone for whom the Church was “none of her business.” I did not like it. But the veneration of the Mother of God opens the heart to something that gets neglected otherwise. I see it in my parish though I have a hard time putting it into words.

There is a priest wife in Alaska, Matushka Olga, who is venerated as a saint. Her case has not been brought before the Holy Synod, as of yet, but will undoubtedly move forward. She was a midwife within the nearby villages, well-known for her radical generosity and even for miracles associated with her prayers. The miracles continue. I eagerly await her canonization.

This week I received the news of the falling asleep of Matushka Sissy Yerger, whose husband is the priest of the OCA parish in Clinton, Mississippi. My wife and I met her several years before we became Orthodox. Together with her husband, she was a living example of a gentle, Southern Orthodoxy that we had not imagined to exist. The soft drawl of her dialect and the warmth of her hospitality made Orthodoxy native to this part of the world. She was beloved by all who knew her and will be deeply missed. I too often think in terms of doctrine and speak of “my journey” into Orthodoxy. But the truth of it is that, like all things in my life, my conversion was “our conversion.” The witness of women like Matushka Sissy was essential in knowing that we were headed towards greater sanity.

All across the world of Orthodoxy there are such women who bring a wholeness to the life of a parish. We often speak of the “parish family.” The role of mother is certainly as essential as the role of father. I have realized, with reflection, that I have never thought of my brother priest, Fr. Paul Yerger, without his wife. I will not begin to do so now. I mourn for my brothers and sisters in Clinton. They have lost a dear friend and a true mother. May the Lord comfort them!

May her memory be eternal.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

A Dog’s Best Friend
Fr. Stephen Freeman -
I would like to suggest that dogs are perhaps the greatest
things humans have ever accomplished. If my
understanding is correct, dogs are essentially gray wolves,
or directly descended from a wolf species, beginning
somewhere between 60,000 to 100,000 years ago. At some
point they were domesticated by us and used as aids to
hunting. It has even been suggested that the
domestication of dogs gave us an edge in our competition
with Neanderthals. Human beings have domesticated any
number of animals, generally for purposes of food. But
dogs are another matter (I’ll ignore what they do in Korea).
And it is this process and its result that I mean to laud as
among our finest hours.
We long ago ceased to be serious hunters, but we kept our dogs. The breeding and
development of dogs for companionship seems to be a fairly recent thing. Dogs have gone
from a wolf-like appearance to the myriad of shapes and sizes we now know. But it is the
inner reality of this that interests me: the personality of dogs.
Animals are without sin. Creation, St. Paul says, has been made “subject to futility” on
account of our Fall (Romans 8:20), and notes that this was not done “willingly.” Their state is
not their fault. God has made Creation subject to death and dissolution for our sake (it
directs us towards repentance). But creation itself has no sin – it has not broken its essential
relationship with God. The bread that becomes the Body of Christ does not need to first
repent of its sins. Repentance belongs to humans alone.
Another way of saying this is that various animal species always act in accordance with their
nature (one of the meanings of sin is to act contrary to our nature). Dogs do dog things. Cats
do cat things. Squirrels do squirrel things. Dogs do not gather nuts and climb in trees. When
human beings domesticate an animal, they do not give them a new nature. At most, we
breed and train in a way to accentuate certain aspects of their nature. The instinct of a dog
not to soil its own nest or bed is extended by a human being such that we say a dog is
“house-trained.” The whole house becomes its bed.
But, my marveling and praise is over what we generally like in dogs. They are wolves and
could be made to behave like wolves and be quite dangerous. In some cases, they are stilltrained for aggressive behavior. But, on the whole, we have chosen very affable traits for development. Dogs are kind, grateful, loyal – all of the things that we celebrate about them.

When we survey the world and creation, there are many things that stand as shameful signs of human occupation. This is particularly the case where the civilizational collapse that we call modernity has had the upper hand. The charm of an English village is the product of a different age. The mind-numbing banality of an American suburb and its strip malls is the mark of modernity. But then there are dogs.

Dogs seem to be an island that reflects not only their own natural goodness, but human goodness as well.

factory-farming-chickensOf course, there is a darker side. I am not alone in writing about animals and men. George MacDonald, perhaps one of the most profound theological minds in British history, was deeply opposed to then growing practice of experimentation on animals. CS Lewis shared his convictions and often wrote in opposition to “vivisection.” Lewis also pondered freely the meaning of human relationships with animals and suggested that we perhaps had a calling to raise animals towards a more complete and full personal existence. The talking animals in his children’s stories are not cartoon characters – they are a meditation on what Lewis saw as a uniquely human mission. He is very clear that in Narnia, the “Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve,” rule over the animals, but in a manner that transcends our present domestication. The animals of Narnia are not pets: they are friends. I have always been taken with Lewis’ thoughts in this direction, and have found them fulfilled most nearly in our relationship with dogs (my wife keeps cats).

Animal cruelty is revealed as true evil when we think in this manner. When animals are objectified (the opposite of personified), we turn our minds and hearts away from them and subject them to unspeakable treatment. This is itself part of the depersonalization of the world that often marks our modern lives.

My maternal grandfather was a farmer. In the years that I remember best, his farm was given primarily to the raising of cows. It was a modest farm, with a dog or two and always a bevy of cats who lived by catching mice. But I always remember my grandfather walking slowly among his cows, like a shepherd (or cowherd). Christ Himself exalted the role of shepherd, even noting that a good shepherd “calls his sheep by name” and even “gives his life for the sheep.” David himself served such a role, killing both a lion and a bear in protection of his flock. These are images that go far beyond a mere utilitarian relationship with animals. These animals have names. Interestingly, one of the primary and early uses of dogs was the sharing of this shepherd role.

It is interesting that Christ Himself offered no better image of His relationship with people than to compare Himself to a shepherd. There is something godlike in a proper relationship with animals.

Several yeamonk with bearrs back I chose to take all of this seriously. My family had once had a dog, but it was the children’s dog, something I tolerated in the house. But during a time of reflection I declared that “I want to be the kind of man who has a dog.” I got a small puppy and began to learn the ways of the wolf. I read books (isn’t everything you need to know in a book?). I googled “house-training” (with every failure). I realized that whatever I did with this animal, the results would be there to praise me or accuse me. I wanted to be a man with a dog. I also wanted to become “the kind of man my dog thinks I am.” (I have not managed that yet).

It has been an intense experience. He is a companion. After my heart attack I had to develop a routine of long walks. His needs forced me to take care of myself.

Human beings, at our best, are capable of pets. At our worst, we are capable of cock-fights and faceless, nameless exploitation. God has clearly given animals to us for food, but He has not given them to us for abuse.

It is said that a society can be judged by how it treats its weakest members. I would add to that the treatment of animals. Pets are not necessarily an indulgence in sentiment. They are a movement towards something right and good. We would do well to think often about this and what it means for living rightly in God’s good world.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Called to account: The importance of pastoral evaluations | The Christian Century

Called to account: The importance of pastoral evaluations | The Christian Century

Tuesday to go

New Zealand, March 2015

New Zealand, March 2015

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement.
Get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, From Jewish Mindfulness, January 1, 12015


Letting go-from Godspace

A couple of weeks ago I shared the Welcoming prayer by Thomas Keating. One of the lines in that prayer is I let go of my desire for power and control. These are hard words for all of us to adhere to as we love to be in control, even in the small things.

We want to control what the day holds, stick to our schedules and not allow anything to disrupt our well thought out plans. We want to control relationships, often attempting to manipulate friends and family so that we get what we want from them. When people don’t respond in the expected way we often get angry because we have lost control.

We want to control ourselves too. We exercise, eat, pray and work so that life can be good and follow certain patterns. Losing control is scary for us because it pushes us into the unknown, but it here that we come to know the unknowable God.

What if we allowed ourselves to let go and trusted in God instead? What if we admitted that we don’t know the answers and that we don’t always know what is best? What if we let go and let God? That is the path to freedom.

1. It frees us of unnecessary worries. The desire for control adds so many worries to our lives – worries about how we look, how people perceive us, what we should accomplish in a day. Many of us are driven to accomplish far more than we should because we are afraid of the consequences of losing control.

2. It frees us to be seen as we really are. We sometimes try to control a situation by telling people what we think they want to hear rather than what we really believe. We want them to like us, or think us important, or knowledgeable. To be ourselves we must be willing to lose control of what people think of us. Yet to honest people are more likely to like us when we are honest even when they don’t agree with what we say.

3. It frees you to live in the present moment rather than in the past or the future. Being in control blinds us to the beauty around us because we think we know what is going to happen. It proscribes our choices and limits our options. Letting go relaxes us, gives more space to the moment and allows us to see the world around us clearly.

4. It frees us to listen to the spirit of God. The moment we let go of our desire for control, we can allow the spirit to guide us but that is indeed a journey into the unknown.

5. It frees us to enjoy the unexpected surprises and spontaneity of life. When we let go, we are liberated from the rigidity of life as we think it should be and freed to experience life as it can be. It is like taking off a constricting corset and allowing ourselves to breathe deeply.

 


Smile


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The Hidden Soul and the Weight of Glory Fr. Stephen Freeman

The Hidden Soul and the Weight of Glory
Fr. Stephen Freeman

hidden soul
From a Facebook conversation:

Though I wish I believed otherwise, in the depths of my being, I do not believe any part of us survives death. I am, at the center of my consciousness, a materialist, and a reluctant atheist still. I fight this disposition daily, and it is becoming an enormous burden that I wish I could throw off. There are days where my doubt and despair far eclipse my hope that someday, God will really let me know it’s “not all in my head”, or that He will somehow bless me with a profound Athonite experience to solidify and settle my gnawing pessimism, and to extinguish the flames of absurdity and unbelief that engulf my existence. I am really trying to believe. I desperately want to truly believe. I want it more than anything. I desire an authentic faith. I do not however, want to believe something just so I can sleep at night. This struggle is not unique to myself, I realize that, and I take comfort in knowing many a person, way more intelligent than I, has also struggled profoundly with nihilism, and come out from under the weight of it to become a saint.

This is a quote from a Facebook friend, and I deeply admire the honesty and anguish in his statement. It was occasioned by some questioning that I posted myself. And so I take it upon myself to offer some reflections. I hope they are of help to him and others.

The first observation I want to make is on the assurance with which we experience the materialist option. I never seem to encounter anyone who doubts the materiality of their existence. Some will doubt that there is anything other than a material existence – but they always seem certain of that much. I would add that we seem to think we know what a material existence is, and that its existence is rather obvious and its persistence guaranteed.

In point of fact, although materiality is easily observed, it is not easily explained, nor is its persistence guaranteed. Everything about the universe we inhabit is strikingly precise in the most delicate balance imaginable – far beyond random chance. Any variation in the most primitive forces (those that came about in the first moments of the “big bang”) would have resulted in no universe rather than some other universe. There are compelling reasons to say that we are “meant” to be here.

The continued existence of our world (its persistence) is equally astounding. The world to which we awaken everyday is not a testimony to its inherent stability, but to an inherent providence that sustains us in existence. We should wonder not only that the universe exists, but that it continues to exist.

It is possible (of course) to view the material universe as a sort of given, something that can be taken for granted, but doing so is neither philosophically nor scientifically sound. “It is only wonder that understands anything,” in the words of St. Gregory.

“I do not believe any part of us survives death.”

Though death is a great test and visits destruction on our material form, yet it is no greater test of faith than our present existence in a material form. For our very nature is nothingness, and that nothingness should speak and think and long and pray at any given moment is truly a wonder. And it is no greater wonder or test of faith to believe that existence might be given us beyond the nothingness of death itself.

I will press this a bit further. Much that we take to be our “selves” in our material experience shows itself to be quite ephemeral and illusory when it’s examined more closely. And, on the other hand, there is something that has a dogged persistence regardless of how closely it is scrutinized. Observing this yields something of a glimpse of the “soul,” and directs our attention to its proper place.

What do we mean when we speak of the personality? Do we mean a certain set of memories? A collection of experiences and preferences? Is it our set of skills and techniques? How many of these would we have to lose for the personality and personhood to disappear? As a man in his early 60’s, I have already forgotten more than I can remember. Names escape me. I notice that my memory of things is quite selective, and that some of my stories have become suspect (even to myself). My skills are diminished. My hands struggle to find their place on a keyboard and my fingers move ever more slowly. And though I once gloried in my children, they are now adults. I love them, of course, but the children whom I knew are now disappearing within the mists of my mind. The social relations that so often define us are constantly changing. People who once mattered in my life are now dead, while others live at a distance and probably never give me a thought. Our tastes and proclivities shift constantly. Cigarettes, once a constant presence in my life, have been missing for nearly 30 years.

But there is something that remains and seems to have changed in no way whatsoever. That something is not the object of my consideration, but the subject who considers. The old man who now thinks and writes and groans in the morning, is identical with the child who ran with ease and played his games. That subject is the one who remembers, who experiences, who thinks, who decides. But that subject is not itself the memory, the experience, the thought or the decision. Indeed, it would be possible to imagine that subject with a completely different set of memories, etc., yet still being the same subject!

When we do indeed turn our attention directly to that subject, and away from experiences, memories, etc., we come to a very different place. It is quite possible to simply be aware, to be present with no regard to memory, etc. Indeed, such present awareness is often describe as a “higher” state of consciousness. Prayer, in its most mature forms, has this form of awareness as an almost inherent characteristic.

What is the relationship between this subject, this awareness, and our material existence? Again, its persistence argues for some separation from a purely material account. For, as noted, the subject of a five-year-old is the same subject when it is sixty-years-old, while the material reality will have completely changed many times over. This doesn’t suggest that our material existence is merely a vehicle, but it certainly suggests that the subject that we call the ‘self’ transcends our materiality in some manner.

There is a link. On the whole, the awareness we have as subject is centered in our materiality. We may even think of ourselves, miraculously, as matter that has become aware. When the Church speaks of the soul, we must remember that it does not mean something that is utterly separate from the body:

Spirit and matter are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are interdependent; they interpenetrate and interact. When speaking, therefore, of the human person, we are not to think of the soul and the body as two separable «parts» which together comprise a greater whole. The soul, so far from being a «part» of the person, is an expression and manifestation of the totality of our human personhood, when viewed from a particular point of view. The body is likewise an expression of our total personhood, viewed from another point of view – from a point of view that, although different from the first, is complementary to it and in no respect contrary. «Body» and «soul» are thus two ways of describing the energies of a single and undivided whole. A truly Christian view of human nature needs always to be unitary and holistic. (from a 2002 publication by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece)

So, when we think of many things that make up our experience, and certainly things that color and shape our experiences, we must consider many known aspects of the body, particularly the brain. Our present science makes us increasingly aware of various conditions that are rooted in the brain and its neurochemistry. Anyone with knowledge of these things who is also a pastor/confessor cannot help but ponder their relationship to the soul. A very helpful image is found in a conversation with the Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos:

The image which we can use to describe the relationship of soul and brain is the violin with the violinist. Just as even the best musician cannot make good music if the violin is broken or unstrung, in the same manner a man’s behavior will not be whole (see 2 Tim 3:17) if his brain presents a certain disturbance, in which case the soul cannot be expressed correctly. It is precisely this disturbance of the brain that certain medicines help correct and so aid the soul in expressing itself correctly.

My own take in this is to reflect on the hidden struggle of the soul, often masked by the brain and its disorders. For a person who is biologically prone to depression or any number of problems (for which the Elder strongly recommended medication) there can be a daily, even a moment-by-moment struggle, unseen by the surrounding world – even largely hidden from the individual himself. St. Paul reminds us:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, (2Co 4:16-17)

I can only add to this, that, for some, the affliction is far from light and can last a life time. But the weight of glory remains eternal.

The soul (when viewed rightly), represents “an expression of the totality of our human personhood” (as is the body). But the soul frequently remains hidden. Prayer, repentance, silence, stillness and many other spiritual disciplines can help reveal the soul to the subject (the true self) of our life.

So, the end of the matter is a certain attentiveness. We should pay attention to the true nature of the material world in which we live – it is a shimmering moment on the razor’s edge of existence, an enduring testimony to its Creator. At the same time we should pay attention to the true character of our own existence and aspects that clearly reach beyond pure materiality. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and, if we can be still and listen, we will hear the sound of an eternal weight of glory singing deeply in the heart of all things. It says, “Glory to God for all things.”

Monday, April 6, 2015

The Mystical Reality of Holy Week by Fr. Stephen Freeman

The Mystical Reality of Holy Week

As we journey through Holy Weekbridegroom
For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1Co 15:16-19 NKJ)
Earlier this Spring, two Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door. They were pleasant as always and as always had literature to offer. A sweet lady extended a brochure to me with the words, “This year we are having a world-wide day in honor of Jesus’ death.” I was taken aback. My mind immediately raced to the notion of a memorial service for our poor friend Jesus who died so long ago and so tragically. The rest of the conversation will not be repeated here. But the thought is germane. Why do Orthodox Christians keep Holy Week? Are we engaging in services to “honor” Christ’s death and resurrection? Is Holy Week an annual memorial? Or is there something deeper involved?
The answer can be found by thinking of the mystery of Holy Baptism, for in many respects, Holy Week and Pascha are the great feast of Christian Baptism.
Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection (Rom 6:3-5 NKJ).
We are not Baptized into the “memory” of Christ’s death. Baptism is not a mere “act of obedience,” an “ordinance,” as some call it. Such a notion is the weakest possible reading of St. Paul, one of the worst examples of the psychologization of the Christian mystery.
For St. Paul, and the Christian faith, we are truly and mystically united with Christ’s death in our Baptism as we are equally united with His resurrection: this nothing less than our salvation. This mystical union is not magic – its effectual working in us requires our cooperation. The choices we make, the prayers we offer, our engagement with sin and the powers of evil, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, works in us the increasing image of Christ, “from glory to glory.”
The liturgical work of Holy Week (and I emphasize work!) is an extended practice of the Baptismal union. In Baptism we are crucified with Christ. In Holy Week, the drama of that crucifixion and the events that lead up to it are engaged in the labor of worship, anamnesis – effective remembrance. We see ourselves in the person of Christ as He enters Jerusalem and in the persons of the people who welcome Him. We also see within ourselves those who judge Him, plot to kill Him and casually betray Him (for this is the inner war that rages within). We not only see these things so that we can meditate on them – they become true within us, in the same manner as the truth of our Baptism. With Christ we truly die and lie in the tomb. In many congregations, people keep watch before the tomb of Christ, praying the Psalms, even as we do over the bodies of the faithful who die. With growing joy and anticipation we mark Christ’s descent into Hades and His trampling down death by death. And with shout of festal joy we greet His resurrection, for it is our resurrection as well. The life to come becomes the life we live.
The words of the services are always expressed in this mystical realism. We do not sing about the past.
Today Judas watches to betray the Lord, the Saviour of the world before the ages, who satisfied multitudes from five loaves. Today the transgressor denies the Teacher; though a disciple he betrayed the Master; for silver he sold the One who satisfied humankind with manna.
Today the Jews nailed to the Cross the Lord who parted the sea with a staff and led them through the desert. Today with a lance they pierced the side of the One who scourged Egypt with plagues for their sake, and they gave vinegar as drink to the One who rained down the manna as nourishment.
And in perhaps one of the most exquisite hymns of the week:
Today he who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon a Tree, He who is King of the Angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heaven in clouds is wrapped in mocking purple. He who freed Adam in the Jordan receives a blow on the face. The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails. The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a lance. We worship your Sufferings, O Christ. Show us also your glorious Resurrection.
From the antiphons of the Matins of Holy Friday
Everything is “today.” We do not sing at Pascha, “Christ has risen from the dead.” For Christ is risen from the dead. That day, the day of days, is the last day, the eternal day, the day in which all time is ended (just as death is destroyed). The Church enters that “Eighth Day,” and in it forgives all by the resurrection. In the resurrection, debts and grievances become absurd. Pascha swallows up all that is not good and holy.
Learning to live in the eternal day is the life of mystical union with Christ. It is the meaning of St. Paul’s confession that he “is crucified with Christ.” Holy Week is not an exercise in sentimentality, a memorial service for things that are past. It is the joyful celebration and mystical participation in that which alone is real, and by its presence grants reality to everything that participates in it.
St. John offers this:
If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have participation in one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1Jo 1:7 NKJ)
May God grant us to to walk together in love in union with Christ as we mark our way to Golgotha, the Tomb and Paradise! Glory to God for all things!

Saturday, February 28, 2015


The Icon of Music

Fr. Stephen Freeman
logoThis Sunday, the First Sunday of Great Lent, marks the return of the holy icons to the Churches in 843 A.D.  It is celebrated as the “Sundayof Orthodoxy.” This article offers a reflection on a different form of the icon – of equal importance – and equally worth protection and care.
Orthodox theology is a “seamless garment”: no part of Orthodox doctrine, worship, prayer or life stands in a category of its own. Everything refers and reveals the one thing in Christ – our salvation. Even the doctrine of the Trinity, as utterly sublime as it is, remains a matter revealed for our salvation. Because this inter-relatedness is true, it is possible to speak of Scripture as a “verbal icon” (Florovsky), or to say that “icons do with color what Scripture does with words” (Seventh Council), or that “one who prays is a theologian and a theologian is one who prays.” In my limited reading I have never read any particular commentary that spoke of the music of the Church as an icon, but I feel confident in describing it in that manner. It is possible to say this, at the very least, because all of creation can properly be seen as icon – a window to heaven.
To say that music is an icon is not to have said all there is to say about music. But it does say something about the proper place of music in the Church. Music is not about us. Music in the Church does not exist for our enjoyment or entertainment, even though the joy associated with it may at times be exquisite.
Archimandrite Zacharias (of St. John’s Monastery in Essex) describes the heart of worship as “exchange.” It is not an exchange in the sense that we offer something in “trade” with God. Rather, it is an exchange that is also named “communion” and “participation.” God becomes what we are and in and through Him (by grace) we become what He is. This “exchange” isour salvation. In the mystery of Holy Baptism the candidate is asked, “Do you unite yourself to Christ?” The union which is brought about in Holy Baptism (Romans 6:3-4) is our salvation, “newness of life.” All that takes place within the Christian life is union and exchange – it is the means and manner of our salvation.
Music exists for exchange and union. It is the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving in which we unite ourselves in offering our bodies (the voice) as a living sacrifice to God.
Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim,
And who sing the thrice holy hymn
to the life-creating Trinity,
now lay aside all earthly cares.
That we may receive the King of All,
Who comes invisibly upborne
by the angelic hosts,
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
(Cherubic Hymn from the Divine Liturgy)
Not all paintings are icons. Not all music is iconic. Not every voice is raised in union with the heavenly hosts. To write a true icon is a great and holy thing. To sing in a manner that reveals heaven and unites us with the heavenly hosts is a great thing indeed. We were created to sing in just such a manner.
Lest I be misunderstood, I do not claim that all music in Orthodox Churches is iconic in character. Many Churches are decorated with religious art, which, though beautiful, is not iconic. Some music falls short of its intent within the Tradition. By the same token, there is music outside of the Orthodox Church that is iconic – both by accident and by intention.
Music that renders heaven opaque – particularly music presented as Christian – is tragic. We were meant to sing with angels – just as they delight in singing with us.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Abraham at the End of the World

hospitalityThis is an exercise in the Orthodox reading of the Scriptures. My thoughts frequently return to this story and this line of thought. This article is greatly expanded from an earlier version.
The habits of modern Christians run towards history: it is a lens through which we see the world. We see a world of cause and effect, and, because the past is older than the present, we look to the past to find the source of our present. Some cultures have longer memories than others (America’s memory usually extends only to the beginning of the present news cycle). This same habit of mind governs the reading of Scripture. For many, the Scriptures are a divinely inspired account of the history of God’s people. That history is read as history, believed as history, and applied to the present by drawing out the lessons of history. Any challenge to the historical character of an account is seen, therefore, as an assault on the authority and integrity of the Scriptures themselves. But this radicalhistoricization of the Scriptures is relatively new: there are other ways of reading that often reveal far more content of the mystery of God. There is an excellent example in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He establishes a point of doctrine through an allegorical or typological reading of the story of Sarah and Hagar. We might ask, “How can you say that Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia? Where did you get all this?”
His points are clearly not found within the historical account. Their meaning lies in theshape of the story itself, Christ’s Pascha being the primary interpretative element. Christ is the Child of Promise, the first-born son who is offered, and the ram who replaced him. Abraham’s efforts to create his own version of a fulfilled covenant (having a child by Hagar), is thus seen as unfaithfulness, the rejection of Christ.
I am here offering a similar meditation on the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah – a non-historical reading that offers insight into the mystery of Christ and the way of salvation.
Remove Sodom and Gomorrah from the realm of historical speculation. Instead see with me, Genesis 18 as a parable of the end of the age (which includes our time as well). For, as Christ Himself notes, the end of the age will be “like the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.”  God appears to Abraham as three angels (the account moves strangely between singular and plural references – the Fathers saw this as a foreshadowing of the Trinity). In the course of His visit God speaks:
“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.” And the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.” Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD.
Abraham’s intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah begins:
And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? So the LORD said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.” Then Abraham answered and said, “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?” So He said, “If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it.” (Gen 18:17-28)
The conversation continues until the Lord promises to spare the cities even if only ten righteous are found.
The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are the world in which we live. They are very similar to the description of the world in the Genesis account of Noah:
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Gen 6:5-7)
Just as Christ compares the world of Noah to the world at the end of the age (Luke 17), so he also compares the end of the age to the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. But in the story of this Divine visitation we not only see the Trinity pre-figured, but the Church as well. There are the Oaks at Mamre, always understood as a type of the Cross. There is a Eucharistic meal, in which three loaves of bread and a calf (cf. the “fatted calf”) are prepared and set before these Divine visitors. There is also the Mother of God, prefigured in Sarah, who will bear a child even though she is beyond the years for such a thing. So, gathered there beneath the Tree, God sits down with man and sups with him (Rev. 3:20).
As the mystery continues to unfold, two of the three strangers go on towards Sodom (which represents the world in its fallen state). Historical interpreters laugh at the “primitive” character of the story when they hear God saying that He is going to Sodom to see for Himself whether what He has heard is true. But we see a deeper mystery. The Father sends the Son and the Spirit into the world for judgment:
And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: (John 16:8)
Modern critics see this visit as primitive. It is more accurately seen as an expression of the inherently personal work of God. He does not see and judge us from afar, but comes among us as His own.
And we see the nature of the Church in its relationship with God. For the Lord says to Himself:
Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation…
The Church is not ignorant of God’s work in the world and His hidden purposes. Rather, He leads us into all truth (John 16:13).
But the greatest mystery in this story unfolds as Abraham takes up the priestly ministry of the Church and intercedes before God. This is by far the most astounding manifestation of the righteousness of the great Patriarch.
Though two of the angels have turned away, Abraham “stands before the Lord” (the essential work of the priesthood). And there he begins his prayers. While he prays, the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah waits – it hangs in a balance. Will the Lord spare the cities for the sake of 50 righteous? 45? 40? 30? 20? 10? It is with fear and trembling that Abraham is bold to bargain with God. It is with fear and trembling that he asks, “Will the Lord destroy the righteous with the wicked?” In this intercession, Abraham takes up the role of mediator, something that Job longed to see as recorded in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX):
‘Would that our mediator were present, and a reprover, and one who should hear the cause between both.’ (Job 9:33)
The Elder Sophrony saw in this verse the description of the essential work of the priestly Christ, the very work that is given to us in our priesthood.
Abraham’s intercession reveals the very heart of the Church’s prayer. The righteous man lives side-by-side with the wicked, but he doesn’t despise them or pray for their destruction. Instead, he recognizes the coinherence and communion of all humanity – “Will the Lord destroy the righteous with the wicked?” We are with the wicked. We do not have a life apart from them, for we are with them. And this presence becomes the fulcrum for the salvation of the world. “I will be with you,” Christ promises (Matt. 28:20). Or as we remember in the services of the Church:
God is with us! Understand you nations and submit yourselves for God is with us!
It is interesting in our day and time that many Christians number themselves among those who call for the destruction of the wicked. Surrounded by evil, our fears lash out with violent thoughts. We refuse to be with the wicked. And though Abraham and Lot had gone their separate ways, Abraham didn’t set himself as being above him – nor even above the wicked who dwelt in the cities. For though his prayer is for the righteous – he pleadsthrough them for the wicked.
This is not only the prayer of the Church, it is the ministry of the Church as well. We are called to be the righteous-with-the-wicked. Our lives in their midst are for their salvation. This principle can be extended. For the wicked is something of a relative category. Even within the Church, some of us must always admit that our lives are more like those of the wicked than the righteous. But the principle is that the wicked are always being saved by the righteous. This “pyramid of salvation” extends throughout the world up to the supreme and primary example in which Christ, the only righteous One, saves the wicked, which is us all. We are taught to pray for our enemies not as a moral requirement, but so that we might be like our heavenly Father, or in this case, like our father Abraham, who was like our heavenly Father
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: (Luke 6:35)
This patterned principle is essential to a right understanding of the faith and our life in the world. Like the account of Abraham and God in Genesis 18, the Church is a Eucharistic Community. Gathered under the healing shadow of the Cross, in union with the most Holy Mother of God, the Church shares in the banquet that is our very life. And there we learn God’s most intimate plans, and by union with His compassion, we learn to pray for the whole world and share in the mediating priesthood of Christ. This is what love looks like.
Many Orthodox services conclude with the petition: O Lord, through the prayers of our holy fathers, have mercy on us, and save us! May God number us among such holy fathers!