January 7th, 2007
The Synaxis of St. John the Forerunner
Homily

This Sunday marks the feast day, the synaxis of St. John the Forerunner, the last of the Old Testament prophets and the bridge from the old covenant to the new.

For Orthodox Christians the word “synaxis” simply refers to a gathering together of a group of people or the people of God gathered for liturgy. Thus we will have a synaxis of saints where a group such as the Saints of America or a group of martyrs are venerated together or a special day, like today, when the people of God gather together to collectively venerate a Saint.

Today we call to mind St. John the Forerunner, popularly known in the west as John the Baptist although he has no specific connection as founder or theologian to the group of Christians who identify themselves as “Baptists”. He is also not to be confused with St. John the Apostle.

He was, instead, a prophet identified by Jesus in Matthew 11 as the greatest human born of woman and the person who embodied the spirit and ministry of St. Elias thus confirming the word of the angel recorded in Luke chapter 1 who appeared to Zacharias while he served in the temple and predicted the future ministry of his yet unborn son; the announcement of the arrival of the Messiah as predicted by the prophet Malachi.

St. John may have been a Nazarite all of his life. The first chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke records that the angel Gabriel who announced his mission also said he was not to touch anything made of grapes, which was one of the ascetic practices required of those took the vow of purity and dedication to God as found in the book of Numbers that identified one as a Nazarite. In addition Nazarites did not cut their hair or touch the dead. After St. John the most famous Nazarite of the Bible was Samson, the judge of Israel and legendary strongman.

St. John’s family was Priestly and his birth was, like Samuel’s, the product of a supernatural intervention by God as his mother Elizabeth was past the normal childbearing years. As the words used to identify family members in the New Testament do not have the same precision as those we use we are certain that St. John was related to Jesus through Zacharias and Elizabeth’s family ties to Mary but we are not sure of the precise details. It is likely that St. John and our Lord were cousins.

At some point in his life St. John left his family and went to the wilderness where he urged people to repent of their sins and be baptized to purify themselves in anticipation of Christ’s return. We know he had wide influence and was known not simply by the people but by the religious leaders of his time and the political rulers, especially Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great who feared his condemnation of his illegal marriage even as he respected his prophetic ministry. St. John also had disciples including St. Andrew and some even thought he was the Messiah although St. John vigorously denied it.

After the baptism of Christ, which we celebrated on Theophany, St. John’s ministry begins to fade away. Numbers of his disciples begin to follow Jesus and in the final year of Jesus ministry St. John is jailed and then executed. The man who was born six months before Jesus, his task being fulfilled, dies, according to some traditions, six months before our Lord’s crucifixion. His small group of disciples take away his remains and bury them. Various Christian groups and even followers of Islam claim to have relics of the Saint in their possession.

The details, though, of his life are significant only to the extent they capture the spirit and the life long focus of St. John. He himself understood his mission when he said of himself in respect to Jesus “He must increase and I must decrease…” In that he shows the deep desire of his heart for Christ and a profound sense of humility which allowed him to lay aside his own renown.

The life of St. John the Forerunner also reminds us of one of the central teachings of our Orthodox faith, namely that our lives are supposed to be in a continual process of being transformed with a goal of being so filled with Christ that the line of separation between Our Lord and us grows smaller with each passing day.

Like St. John the Forerunner we must decrease and Christ must increase. In an age where self-fulfillment is the be all and end all of existence this call to die to ourselves and live for God is starkly countercultural and often places us at a radical discontinuity with the world around us. Yet it’s also the source of human fulfillment at its deepest and most basic level.

Every day a new thing comes into our world promising to fulfill the need we have inside and very few of us ever get the irony that whatever else this new thing is it is most certainly the replacement for the last thing that made the same claim and failed, an endless line of broken whatevers extending back to the dawn of human history and the first piece of forbidden fruit which promised much but left the bitter taste of death in our mouths.

The whole world has the jaded, tired, look of a race that’s “been there done that” and still finds itself hungry and thirsty and needy and broken at its very core. Yet as hard as it may be sometimes to swim against the current the secret is still the same “He must increase and I must decrease…”

We struggle with this, of course, because we fear the end of ourselves even as we wish for something better. But as in our prayers, our worship, our acts of mercy, love, and justice we take small steps towards the light we also begin to understand in some small way that the reality of Christ in us is what makes us most alive, most real, and most human in the best sense of the word.

The world has changed in many ways since St. John, looking rough, ready, and very prophetic wandered the hills of the Holy Land. But that truth remains. Jesus must increase. I must decrease. And as this happens I will know life beyond the illusions of this world.

Just a reminder.

Pat Robertson doesn’t speak for Orthodox Christians, in fact he doesn’t speak for the majority of Christians of any kind. Some in the media like him for the same reason they like car wrecks and so his public pronouncements on his alleged conversations with God about this and that make it into the news.

If they’d bothered to actually ply their craft and do a little leg work they would have discovered that Pat Robertson’s views reflect a tiny and shrinking sliver of Christian thought in this country and most of us just cringe when we hear him talk or take on the same attitude of polite understanding we’d use when granpa farts really loud in the living room.

Enough said.

On the other template there were what kind of looked like upside down crosses on the right side of the design.

I changed the template so people wouldn’t think I’m some secret member of the Illuminati.

Really, I’m not.

Like Groucho Marx once said “I’d never join a club that would accept me as a member.”

I think I was in bed around 10 pm on New Year’s Eve as is my tradition. A nice conversation with my mother at her house, a phone call from my sister freshly arrived in Italy, and then home, chips and dip, and bed.

New Year’s Day, or as we Orthodox call it the Feast of St. Basil, was a day of rest and more food although I do very much enjoy the Liturgy of St. Basil and wish there was a way to serve it in LaCrosse.

Regardless these past few days have been a time of discovery about myself. What a real piece of work I’ve turned into!

Case in point. I’ve purchased a comfortable car that we can afford with space to haul and upright seating that allows me to travel without the bursistis in my hip acting up. The car is even nice looking. The ABS stops it straight and true and the traction control makes it nearly impossible to slip on ice unless you actually try. But all I can do is obsessively stare at the gas guage. No use my wife telling me its okay and the financial work out. Even more useless is having a Priest friend of mine explain how cars are tools for Priests and a certain amount of comfort and safety is a good idea even if its doesn’t get Prius like numbers on the road. All I can do is stare at the gas guage and find the one questionable thing in the whole vehicle, and even that number 25-30 mpg is great for a small SUV.

I’m afraid I’ve lived so close to the bone, so tight, so much in fear that I have no way of accepting a blessing or enjoying a good thing without freaking out over some small detail. Thrift is a virtue but I’ve become so untrusting, so ungrateful, and so ascetic in the worst sense of the word that I’m beginning to become the worst kind of Scrooge, the one that thinks combining thrift, guilt, and morality is some kind of godly thing.

I always tell people every sin is a good thing twisted and yes its a good thing to live simply, and share your wealth but I feel like I’m turning into a joyless, compulsive, nag who can’t take a blessing without beating myself up or trust for the future when its out of my control anyway.

Just pray for me.

I noticed the other day I had a visitor to this blog from Iceland, a country, by the way, I really would like to visit.

I wonder what they, or the folks in Brazil, or the www surfer in Tasmania think about all of this.

I suspect they’re probably just surfers who hit the “next” button and arrived at my little soap box, but still all are welcome, even if they’re just passing through.

The DrudgeReport headline says “Saddam may hang in hours…” and I understand the judgement but still hope for his soul.

In our Liturgy we pray for captives and their salvation, first for those imprisoned for their faith in Christ, second for those wrongfully imprisoned, and third for those justly imprisoned in the hope they would come to repentance and salvation. Saddam Hussein is such a case yet in these final hours as he faces justice for his crimes against humanity I still wish that somehow, some way, he would come to see the light of Christ, repent, and be made a new creation.

God’s grace is that deep and wide and although few in this world will miss him in his death and many may rejoice the thought of even this soul being lost should give us pause and perhaps we should pray that even to the point when he takes his final walk to the gallows some part of his heart would leap from its captivity towards the only one who can save him, not from his execution, but from an eternity broken from God.

Lord have mercy on Saddam Hussein and we sinners too in the hours and days and years to come.

New Year’s Eve
Sunday, December 31, 2006

In just a few hours the frivolities will be beginning as we mark the passage of this year to the next. And it’s probably at this point we should engage in a little calendar trivia.

The Romans originally celebrated March 1st as New Year’s Day. With the arrival of the newer, more accurate Julian calendar the date was officially moved to January 1st, the beginning of the Roman Civil Year.

In the 6th century AD the practice of celebrating the New Year on January 1st was abolished in the West as being Pagan and various dates, including Easter, were celebrated as the first day of the year. By the middle of the 16th century the Gregorian calendar began to be established with January 1st as the beginning of the year and gradually became adopted throughout Europe. The last holdout was England, which, along with her territories, did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752 and continued until then to celebrate March 1st as New Year’s Day.

Now for Orthodox the actual new year starts on September 1st, the beginning of the Liturgical year. And January 1st for us is the Feast of St. Basil with today being not New Year’s Eve but rather the Sunday after the Nativity of Christ and commemorating St. Joseph the Betrothed, David the Prophet and King, and James the Brother of our Lord. Those of you who were here last year remember we celebrated Sunday, January 1st, as the Feast of St. Basil with the magnificent Liturgy of St. Basil.

All that is for your own insight, because we are creatures of our culture and today is the eve of the civil New Year and many of us will celebrate in some form to mark the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new with many of us having tomorrow off as a holiday.

So, first, just a reminder. When I was a health care Chaplain I served the residents of a nursing home populated largely by chronic alcoholics and they liked to call New Year’s Eve “Amateur Night” because people who normally didn’t drink to excess did and didn’t know how to handle themselves.

It seems every year in LaCrosse some sad person gets drunk and gets to meet God face down in the mighty Mississippi. Our faith allows us, at various times, to consume alcoholic beverages in moderation and by moderation we mean if you have any doubts about your ability to control your drinking you should not even start and if you choose to you do not have the moral right to endanger others. I don’t want to have to do your funeral knowing you were embalmed long before you were dead, so don’t be a statistic.

Second its part of the tradition surrounding this time of year to make resolutions. The truth is we Orthodox should always be resolved to be the best person, by the grace of God, we can and to always strive for that which is right, good, true, and faithful. In fact we have any number of fasting times during the year to help us lay aside ourselves, draw close to God, and in doing so become a better human being, but we’re creatures of our culture and resolutions will be made.

So consider making this year a year of growth in faith and Christ.

Believe me there’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight, get the finances in order, find that new job, or spend more time fishing. There are many good things that can be accomplished with the fresh start a new year brings.

But sometimes those worthy things overshadow the truly important things and there is nothing more important than having your life right with God, to be in relationship with Him, to enjoy His presence, and to worship. Jesus tells us it profits nothing to gain the whole world and lose our soul and again he says to us that when seek first the Kingdom of God all the other areas of our life will find their true meaning, their true value, and their true purpose.

Studies have even been undertaken and they show time and again that a deep and abiding faith helps people, on average, life longer, cope with stress and change better, be less prone to depression, recover from injury faster, and be far less likely to take our own lives in despair. Devout people even do better if they smoke, so if you can’t quit right now at least pray, read your Bible, and show up for Liturgy.

And while those results may surprise researchers we in the Orthodox Church have known this from day one. We understand that people were created by God to be in communion with Him and when we’re not we’re cut off from the very source of our life. We wander because we’ve lost our true home. We become disoriented because Truth is distant. We stumble in the dark because we cannot see the Light. The truth is we need God more than the air we breathe because long after breath has left our body God will still be the true life, light, hope, and salvation of the world.

Imagine something if you will.

Experts say it takes 21 days to establish a pattern of behavior as a habit. Now imagine what would happen if starting tomorrow as you clean up after the events and start getting things together you made the decision that for the next 21 days you will pray for at least 21 minutes per day and not miss a Liturgy.

Imagine how your life would be different. How would you grow? How would you be challenged? Where would you have peace? What joy would you have? What struggle could you better endure? What new life would stir? What old fear would die away?

You could use the forms in your Orthodox Study Bible. You could take home one of the service books. You could simply sit quietly in front of an icon of Christ or his Mother and pour out your heart. Eloquence is not what matters, commitment does, a heart that desires God is the sacrifice that God accepts.

And by the end of those 21 days would this seeking God for even a short time every day become a practice, a holy habit, an essential part of the day like taking a shower or brushing your teeth, or having breakfast? Would a day without it seem unnatural? It very well may be, because a heart that truly touches the face of God will soon desire nothing less and rejoice in every moment when God is near.

There’s nothing wrong with losing weight, exercising more, or stopping smoking. They, with any number of others, are very good things to do and worthy of increased effort in a new year. But don’t forget the things of the spirit as you look towards the New Year. In an instant any good thing we strive for on earth can be changed, even undone, but those who keep their treasure and their heart in heaven have the good which can never be taken away even if the diet doesn’t last until next week’s slice of cheesecake.

I’ll be on the road just before the main frivolities of New Year’s Eve get underway and with any luck at all I’ll be safe in home and bed before the year changes.

I’ve never been much of a New Year’s Eve person. I don’t know why for sure, maybe its because when I was growing up we usually spent at least part of the evening in church. Perhaps it’s just an act of self preservation. The chronic alcoholics I used to work with as a Chaplain often called New Year’s Eve “Amateur Night” and I’m not sure I want to be out and about with folks who have no idea how to really drink. It’s one of those things I’ve noticed that really old drunks know how to handle themselves in ways that Joe Accountant on his one big night has no clue. Of course being an old drunk requires a certain savvy for survival just to get “old” in the first place. Alcohol has this way of thinning out the herd.

And home and bed seems to be the best place for me to be this New Year’s Eve. There’s a part of me that wishes this year was a bad dream and if I could just wake up and everything would be okay. Too much loss, too many sharp edges, too many gray areas, too much staring at the sky and asking unanswerable questions. It’s been a year when I’ve often felt like I was at the wrong end of a bowling alley so why celebrate it’s passing. Just to sleep, and perchance to dream, and then buoyed by an artificially constructed date left to us by our Roman overlords by magic the past goes away.

I’m a creature of my culture so I have resolutions. Lose weight, exercise more, lose anger, pray more, be healthier, hope we all stay as intact as possible, world peace, the usual. I’ll write about this time next year and tell you how it all came out. I hope your resolutions work out as well. I’ve learned, though, not to hold my breath. Slow and steady usually wins the race.

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned in this past year is how precious life is, and how we musn’t dawdle when it comes to the important things because things change, sometimes literally in a heartbeat.
Little by little time, life, and the grace of God are burning away the unimportant, the chaff, the temporary. I’m probably more prepared to die now then I’ve ever been because there is less to cling to but I’m also more preapred to live because the important stuff has become more precious. I’m older now and so I get to see the doctor more often but that is an inconvenience. When my soul isn’t right is when I really start to hurt and in whatever time is left I’ll care for the physical stuff for maintenance but the spiritual stuff for the long haul, actually the longest haul.

In that light there seems to be just one piece of priestly advice for the new year that comes to mind. Pray for the peace of the world. We see all the darkness of the world and it’s overwhelming sometimes but it also calls us to lift this tired old world up to God in prayer. We’re not perfect, the world’s a far ways away from perfect, but beyond the fear, paralysis, and frustration lies prayer and we always and everywhere need to lift up holy, and not so holy, hands for the sake of this world. It matters.

That all being said I wish you the deepest presence of Christ in this year, all the years to come, and as we Orthodox like to say “unto ages of ages”. Amen.

Happy New Year.

One thing people have to remember is that for a Priest a car is a tool, part office, part transport, part hauler. In the course of a week a Priest may put a whole lot of road under their wheels and there are times when those wheels can’t fail, say two o’clock in the morning for that emergency baptism in the neonatal intensive care unit.

So some Priests have some pretty nice cars. But there’s a secret you should know. A lot of clergy need nice cars for work but can’t afford them fresh off the lot. The secret? Buy a nice car a few years old and still get value without all that depreciation.

I knew a Lutheran pastor who really liked Volvos but could only afford them when they got in the neighborhood of 100,000 miles. Fortunately Volvo’s routinely leave 100K in the rear view mirror and the people who own them aren’t prone to taking them out boondocking. Same goes for Lincoln Town Cars, which a close Priest friend of mine enjoys (they’re literally a traveling living room) but never buys new. Recently I met the former Priest of St. Elias Church and his wife while he was visiting family in the Twin Cities. They were in thier Audi station wagon purchased the same way. All it takes to turn an out of reach Mercedes into an affordable pastormobile is a few years.

So if you see your Priest, Pastor, or Minister scooting by in, say, a Cadillac it isn’t because your paying them too much or they’re on the take. Just like you learn in seminary to stretch noodles for a few meals it doesn’t take long in parish life to figure out how to get a good car cheap and make it last.

You might even want to try it yourself sometime.

Perhaps hate is too strong a word but “loathe” seems just about right. That is, when the topic is buying cars, which I did yesterday.

First there’s some of the folks who sell cars and seem to be inspired by a primal masochism. I believe there are people who would choose a simultaneous root canal and prostate exam without benefit of anesthesia or glove over the process of stepping in to a car dealer.

Second, there is my own baggage in all of this. I despise debt and have a tendency to second, third, and fourth guess myself which, added to the original pain of just doing this whole thing, makes for a mad, mad tilt a whirl of the weeks surrounding this process. And believe me it takes weeks for me to do the painful and minute research to feed my obsessive approach to all of this. That my wife has stayed married to me through the purchase of roughly a half a dozen cars is a testament to true love.

But facts are facts and my venerable Suzuki, she of good speed, pleasant seat height, and satisfactory mileage, was beginning to show her age and my own body began to ask, in various aches and pains, for more comfort and a few extra conveniences.

Of course there was nothing that was perfect. Perfect would be a car that gets above 30 mpg on the highway, has the performance of a sports car, the reliability of the sunrise, and enough space to haul a lot of suitcases. There are cars with great gas mileage but they force one into yogic poses. There are sports cars that have two doors and an open top but I need four and convertibles and kayak transport don’t mix. There are cars that are big on storage but drink gasoline by the bucket.

I ended up with a 2004 Saturn VUE, red, with a five speed manual transmission and 2.2 liter four cylinder motor. It won’t win any races but the seats are comfortable, the amenities good (cruise control and ABS), the carrying space large enough and some, and the highway mileage is close at 29. Gently used at less than 30 thousand miles it’s a little of most, none of all, and did I say it was red?

Being a Saturn dealer there wasn’t the feeding frenzy about buying that usually accompanies these rites. It was actually quite serene and if anything I was getting tired of them taking up time trying to make sure I understood everything and had every question answered. Washed up and ready I took her home with that funny fake new car smell stuck in my sinuses.

Now the fun part comes. After every car purchase I’ve ever made comes the sleepless night. Did I do the right thing? What happens if it breaks down? How about a crisis in the Middle East and here I am stuck without a Prius? What if I lose my job? Didn’t I hear that an asteroid could hit earth? Lots of late night television.

And this morning thoughts of taking it back, running away, selling off a few guitars to pay for the car, blah, blah blah. This too shall pass, they say, but this stuff always passes like a baseball size kidney stone. Two months from now when I’m driving through the snow to LaCrosse and I can see down the road because of the good driver’s seat height, am able to stretch my legs and actually immediately walk away from a car after getting out, and feeling safe with ABS and traction control none of this will matter. Right now it’s just a tired unfocused hell.

You’d think that a person in the faith business would be better at this. I’m not, and I’d better snap out of it quickly. If this continues for too much longer my wife will kill me and there won’t be a jury anywhere that would convict her.