that perhaps God is allowing the culture of the United States to become more and more like the worst aspects of the Roman Empire in the hope that His followers in this country may learn to become more and more like the best aspects of the early Christians?
The Problem is…
that I sin.
Now I wish that wasn’t the case. I wish I had whatever it takes to live in such a way that the crazy stuff of the world doesn’t bleed over into my life to the point where I become part of it myself. Despite what you may see on the television, doing anything you want any time you feel like it is a kind of slavery, a life spent being trapped by perpetually changing desires. Those desires, for the most part, are easily twisted into dark things, love turns to lust, sustenance to gluttony, security to hoarding, the list goes on ad nauseam and giving myself to them makes me vulnerable to their captivities. I wish I was immune. I wish my life was centered, whole, focused, and not so easily captivated by things that have the capability to enslave and destroy.
Holiness, in the best sense of the word, is a beautiful thing. True holiness, I think, is not so much about a list of do’s and don’ts as it is about a direction of the entirety of a person’s existence. I suppose that when a person’s life is directed towards God there will be things they will and will not do but the point behind it is not so much a list of laws as it is trading something less for something better. Purity is a better thing than giving in to every carnal temptation. Living a life not captured by the ever-changing demands of a consumerist culture is better than being a hamster in a wheel perpetually chasing whatever the world says is the next best thing. There is a witness inside all of us, I think, that affirms the beauty of this kind of holiness even if we ourselves see no way to achieve it. Sometimes, perhaps more often than not, this desire for the beauty of holiness is expressed in a deep discontent with the world as it has become. I share this discontent, this desire for something better, more true, more real, and more connected to the Source.
Yet I sin, I miss the mark. Sometimes its overt and I know exactly what I’m doing and how it will lessen and degrade me. Sometimes its something that catches me unaware, a fault so ingrained that it seems a normal part of my life. Regardless, each incident illustrates how far it is I am from being in the place I was designed to be, of being centered, whole, and focused in God. Each moment is a reminder that the pain of the world is my own personal pain as well. Each act or thought or desire that is less than holy is humbling and exposes me.
Now I suppose I could just give in and say the whole idea of being holy is impossible or perhaps even redefine my vices as virtues and my sins as simply “Who I am.” It’s been done before and if I decided to follow this path I wouldn’t be alone. I could simply take that wisdom over time, those guidelines, the light that has lived in history, and relegate them to a quaint section of the museum like a horse and buggy. Perhaps long ago those things had some meaning, but in the face of my new enlightenment I can simply decree them of no further use and go on my way.
I could also give in to despair and, seeing the multitude of my own failings, decide there is no hope and nothing worth the effort. After all the evidence is in and if I have chosen to believe in the existence of things like “sin” and “holiness” there is more than enough in my file to convict me of being a sinner. In the face of this evidence it would be easier to just give up and perhaps see life as just a few moments of fleeting happiness floating in an ocean of brokenness.
The truth is that I can’t do either. I’ve seen enough evidence in my own experience of the reality of sin and brokenness to know that simply denying or redefining it does nothing to change its reality. Sin, brokenness, human struggle, imperfection, all of it can be made legal, redefined, baptized, and turned into canon but the reality of it, and its consequences, will still be there. The degradation of it will occur even if we deny the existence of the cause and a lie often repeated remains a lie that will, in time, be exposed for what it is. I’ve also seen enough of holiness, small lights in the darkness, to know that it is a good and desirable thing even if I am so far away from it myself. Just as redefining my sins and struggles as “normal” does nothing to take away their reality or their consequences so, too, the reality of holiness and its value are not changed by the fact that I am often far from its essence.
I, then, have no choice but to struggle. The reality of my status as one who sins is clear and so is the eternal beauty of holiness. In my broken state I have an instinct for sin and yet, by the grace of God I also have an instinct for holiness. While I live I will struggle between the two, a sinner who desires to be something else. I will fall, often, and yet I also cannot give up on the idea that I could be something much more than I am at any given moment, something more like God. My hope is that God in His mercy sees me and understands this more than I can even imagine myself and in His goodness will lead me safely home.
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Kristo Azukkide…
And on this night
When hell is broken and withered
Where light ineffable pierces gloom of night
Angels sing, with choirs of saints beyond number
Those who wait in shadows
See sunlight with the break of morning
And on this night
I see Your grave, and mine to come
Without fear and without the eyes of shame
All things fade away and so will I
Yet Your grave is clean and bright and empty
and this will stay the same.
And on this night
I, dressed in joyful white and fatigued in grace
Sing Life at an altar made with mortal hands
My music awaits another place and time
A purer lyric, illumined words
At an altar transcending time itself.
And on this night
The dark has lost its peril
Across the world the voices call Your praise
In hope and knowing Life itself prevails
Accept this gift of mortals who see in You their hope
and grant us Light which never fades away.
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I Was Hoping…
for a perfect Lent, you know, the kind where everything lined up just as it was supposed to be, the food, the services, the plans for doing this and that.
Then life intervened.
There was family to take care of, extra hours at work, health issues of my own, snow storms, the list goes on. In the face of it all it wasn’t long before my well thought out plans to make all the services, read all the ingredients on the food boxes, and spend hours in spiritual reading sort of fell away. Whatever it is I thought I was going to accomplish came with a big stamp on the box that now reads “Not This Year”.
In looking back at it, as I try to make of Lent what I can in the swirl of things, the operative thing seems to be “My” plans. Now I’m not saying that it’s not good to plan for Lent. One of the great gifts of our Faith is the two Sundays prior to Lent when we can ponder the time to come and ease into its life. What I have discovered, again, is, however, that if it’s about “My” plans then it’s probably not going to work out so well.
There are two errors, perhaps, in observing Lent. The first is to simply ignore it as some kind of anachronistic ritual with little meaning in the real world. The reality is our American culture is a gluttonous culture, gluttonous for everything, and we and I need the spirit and reality of Lent now more than ever. The second trap may be just the opposite, that is to make Lent an end in itself, to keep its technicalities and miss the larger picture.
In my case I wanted a Lent with no “mistakes” where all the required observances were met with precision and I could look back on things with a sense of accomplishment. What I got was a busy, crazy, world of people who just needed someone to help them, tired days and nights, swirls of events beyond my control, and the reality that I’m going to be one of those “11th hour” people mentioned in the Paschal Homily.
What I had hoped for, the “ideal” Lent, isn’t going to happen. What I didn’t want to happen, namely that I would fall into Pascha all banged up, tired, and in tatters, seems to be the current trajectory. Yet since God’s power is manifest in my time of weakness and His grace is sufficient for me I still long for the banquet to come and the joy of saying, as frazzled as I am, “Christ is Risen”.
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Among the Challenges…
we face in Orthodoxy here in the United States is the idea that infrastructure is the goal and end of the mission of the church and not the servant of that mission. We pride ourselves on beautiful temples that are used a few times a week at best and spacious offices, halls, and classrooms, that mostly sit empty. That we possess such things is too often considered a sign of the health and wealth of a parish and often the clergy of a parish are judged by their skill in growing and maintaining infrastructure.
The problem with this is that we are not called by Christ to build infrastructure so much as we are called to build a Kingdom. How many of our parishes are actually hobbled in the building of this Kingdom because time, money, and resources are expended in the care and feeding of infrastructure over and against doing the things that Christ actually asks us to do? How many poor are not fed? How many prisoners remain unvisited? How many sick are not tended to? How many places is the good news of Christ not heard? All because we’re so busy keep largely empty spaces funded and intact?
One of the ways a parish can measure its actual, as against perceived, impact in a community is to ask a simple question. “If our parish were to close tomorrow who, besides the members, would miss it?” In answering that question a parish can discover whether they are simply a group of people with nice facilities or a meaningful part of the movement that is the Kingdom of God, active and alive in the world around them. This can also be sobering because for many of our parishes the unclouded, truthful, answer will be “We’ve got a lot of nice things but we really don’t mean much to anyone outside our doors.”
The hard truth, though, can be very liberating as well. When parishes see themselves not as institutions whose energy is directed towards maintaining that institution’s infrastructure but rather as a mission station of the larger movement that is the Kingdom of God they can see all they have, and there’s nothing wrong with having resources per se, in its proper context. Crucial, powerful, dynamic, and wonderful changes can happen when a parish says “How do we use what we have to reach out to the world? How do we channel our resources to do what God wants us to do?”
In the case of buildings we need to ask “How can we sanctify all this space for the advancement of the Kingdom of God and the blessing of the world around us?” In the case of programs and resources we need to shift them away from maintenance for its own sake into growth, charity, and the advancement of the Gospel. In doing this our infrastructure becomes not an end in itself but a powerful tool for the glory of God and a servant of the actual mission of the Church. And as we do this we may discover a joy, passion, meaning, and life in our Faith that we thought had long disappeared.
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A Prayer…
Eternal King without beginning, You who are before all worlds, my Maker, Who have summoned all things from non-being into this life: bless this day that You, in Your inscrutable goodness, give to me. By the power of Your blessing enable me at all times in this coming day to speak and act for You, to Your glory, in Your fear, according to Your will, with a pure spirit, with humility, patience, love, gentleness, peace, courage, wisdom and prayer, aware everywhere of Your presence.
Yes, Lord, in Your immense mercy, lead me by Your Holy Spirit into every good work and word, and grant me to walk all my life long in Your sight without stumbling, according to Your righteousness that You have revealed to us, that I may not add to my transgressions.
O Lord, great in mercy, spare me who am perishing in wickedness; do not hide Your face from me. And when my perverted will would lead me down other paths, do not forsake me, my Savior, but force me back to Your holy path.
O You Who are good, to Whom all hearts are open, You know my poverty and my foolishness, my blindness and my uselessness, but the sufferings of my soul are also before You. Wherefore I beseech You: hear me in my affliction and fill me with Your strength from above. Raise me up who am paralyzed with sin, and deliver me who am enslaved to the passions. Heal me from every hidden wound. Purify me from all taint of flesh and spirit. Preserve me from every inward and outward impulse that is unpleasing in Your sight and hurtful to my brother.
I beseech You: establish me in the path of Your commandments and to my last breath do not let me stray from the light of Your ordinances, so that Your commandments may become the sole law of my being in this life and in all eternity.
O God, my God, I plead with You for many and great things: do not disregard me. Do not cast me away from Your presence because of my presumption and boldness, but by the power of Your love lead me in the path of Your will. Grant me to love You as You have commanded, with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind, and with all my strength: with my whole being. For You alone are the holy protection and all-powerful defender of my life, and to You I ascribe glory and offer my prayer.
Grant me to know Your truth before I depart this life. Maintain my life in this world until I may offer You true repentance. Do not take me away in the midst of my days, and when You are pleased to bring my life to an end, forewarn me of my death, so that I may prepare my soul to come before You.
Be with me then, O Lord, on my great and sacred day, and grant me the joy of Your salvation. Cleanse me from manifest and secret sins, from all iniquity hidden in me; and give me a right answer before Your dread judgment-seat.
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Indeed…
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The World We Live In…
is not the real world. Don’t get me wrong, its not an illusion its just not the world as God intends it. There is a brokenness in it that has distorted it from its original design, purpose, and reality and so there is a kind of unreality, a sense of it being skewed, that permeates it. There are markers of the real world in this world but the fullness seems always just out of our grasp.
The Kingdom of God is the real world, the world as it should be, a world restored to its design, purpose, and destiny by the One who created it in the first place. It is also real and can be experienced in time. The difference between the Kingdom of God and the world we experience is that the Kingdom of God, its values, its Faith, its vision, embody the fullness of what God intends and the fullness of what it means to be a human.
This creates a tension for the observant Christian. We live in a world that has an unreality to it because it is good, because it was created by God, but broken because it is tarnished by human sin and mortality. We experience this brokenness in so many ways and the power of it can often be overwhelming. Even if we are truly convinced there is more and better that more and better can seem far away and extraordinarily difficult to achieve. We also live in a another world, as it is, a world we call the Kingdom of God the reality of which sometimes intersects the world we experience every day but also has the potential to alienate us from it as well.
The result is that we are travelers in time. We live in places and share the common lot of those who share this time and place with us yet we also know that even in its best moments our experience is touched with the sadness, sin, and death that has been horribly inserted into this realm. And its hard to live that way, caught between two worlds, the world we were born into and the world we called to. Choices have to be made. Loyalties need to be discerned. Where, in the end, do we belong? To what world will our final allegiance be given? Jesus was so right when He said our heart would be where our treasure is.
In these times, when the veneer of respect for our Faith is rapidly wearing off in the public arena, where the times are growing dark as people in greater numbers seem to have cast their lot with this world, and where even people who were entered the Kingdom are now looking over their shoulders at the world they left behind, we will all be tested. What realm can lay claim to our true citizenship? What storehouse holds our true treasure? Which world’s thoughts will become our thoughts? And the stakes may be eternal.
The answer? All I know to do is to stay as close as possible to Jesus and together we’ll ride out the storm and make it safely home.
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Orthodox Christian Network on YouTube
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10 Things Orthodox Christians Would Like You to Know
10 Things Orthodox Christians Would Like You to Know by Dn. Charles Joiner
1) We don’t worship Mary. We hold her in a place of esteem because of her singularly unique role as the birthgiver of Jesus Christ. Orthodox Christians state and affirm over and over again throughout the worship services that God alone is the only One to Whom worship is due.
2) We don’t worship icons. Icons are like a family photo album. Just as in our own families, where we keep the pictures of our loved ones who have departed this life on shelves and hanging on walls, we also keep the pictures of the members of our larger Christian family around, particularly those members of our Christian family who have led exempliary lives. The word icon only means “image” or “picture”.
3) When we talk about tradition, we don’t mean the traditions of men, we mean Holy Tradition. The traditions that the Church has taught have always been those that have been led by the Spirit. It was the tradition of the Church that gave us the New Testament and, the New Testament also continues to inform that traditon. It is cyclical and not mutually exclusive.
4) Orthodox Christianity is not “works” based. It always takes the grace and will of God to bring about our salvation. We do good works because it is the outpouring of the joy that we experience through living Christ-centered lives and because it is an expression of righteous living and of love for God and neighbor. There are no “points” earned by doing good works.
5) There’s no such thing as the Byzantine Empire. This was a term invented by French scholars retroactively during the rennaisance. Constantine moved the capital of the empire to the east and Constantinople became known as New Rome. Though portions of the Western half of the Roman Empire fell, the Eastern half continued for over a thousand years after the Goths sacked Rome. Those living in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire did not think of themselves as “Byzantines” or even Greeks. They were Romans. Even today, the Turks still refer to Orthodox Christians living in Turkey as “Roman”.
6) “True” Christianity did not disappear when the Church received legal recognition from the Roman Government. Faithful, pious and righteous Christians continued to live in faith and suffer martyrdom and persecution. The Church thatwas founded by Jesus Christ, and its theology, remained intact. Those who became frustrated with government intervention in Church life struggled to maintain the purity of the church’sdoctrine and life. However, since the Church continued to adhere to its basic teachings without dilution, it was necessary for pious believers to continue their struggle within the church. It was believed that no person had the right to create or invent his or her own church. It is also significant to mention that the Orthodox Church continues to bear much fruit. If losing one’s life, or martyrdom, is the ultimate expression of one’s devotion to Christ, there has never been a more fruitful time within the Church. There were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than all previous centuries of Christian history combined. Most of these martyrs were Orthodox Christians who refused to renounce their faith.
7) The Orthodox Church is not a denomination nor is it “non-denominational”. It is pre-denominational. The Church was without break or separation for more than 1,000 years. The Orthodox Church did not break away from any other group. The Orthodox Church continued right along up to this day. In fact,groups that refer to themselves as “non-denominational” because they are free standing churches, not connected with any larger mainline protestant confessions, are, in fact, denominations. Since a denomination means a breaking down of the whole or a separation, they are simply denominations consisting of one parish.
8) Yes, the Orthodox are “Bible believing” Christians. Almost everything within Orthodox worship comes directly from the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. There is probably more Bible read on a single Sunday Morning in Orthodox Worship than in an entire year in most other churches. (Editor’s note: This may be an exaggeration but the point is still valid, there is a lot of Bible in Orthodox worship)
9) Orthodox Christianity is not an exotic form of Roman Catholicism. While both Churches have organized worship, the life, practice and doctrine of the Roman Catholics and The Orthodox are quite different. The Orthodox view the Pope as the bishop of Rome, not a supreme leader of the entire Church. And, because, in the eyes of the Orthodox, the Pope has stated that his authority is over the entire Church, The Orthodox are not currently in communion with Rome. Roman Catholic doctrinal principles such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Papal Infallibility, Transubstantiation of Holy Communion, and Original Sin are absent from the Orthodox Church. These perspectives took root in the Roman Catholic Church after East and West went their separate ways.
10) Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, is the head of the Orthodox Church: not Luther, not Calvin, not Wesley. The Orthodox Church can trace the lineage of the ordinations of its clergy all the way back to Christ Himself with unbroken continuity. Orthodox Christianity has remained faithful to Christ not only doctrinally but also historically.
With these things said, The Orthodox are not trying to convert you. (Editor’s note: We do believe in conversion and mission and engage in ongoing efforts but the 20th century Protestant programs of mass evangelism may not be suitable for Orthodox Faith which is more of a lived experience than a single moment of decision.) We believe in tolerance (respect) of other faiths, and this has been written so that those of you who may come from other backgrounds might be more tolerant of us. Please don’t write us off. Learn what we really think, do and believe before deciding without sufficient knowledge. We’re believers. We don’t preach false doctrine. We accept the Bible as the Word of God. Simply put, we struggle within the boundaries of the church to always be as good of an expression of the Kingdom of God on earth as possible. This is because Christ created one Church and prayed that It would remain one. We believe it is our sacred duty to preserve this oneness. We are not allowed to whimsically create a new church whenever we are upset. If we don’t like what’s happening in our Church, we don’t leave. We risk persecution, even to death, to protect the faith because that’s what Christ did when He created The Church.
The Beautiful Path 