So today is 6/06/06, you know the day of the 666 of legend and lore and the book of Revelation and all that.

I grew up with the people who invented that most tiresome of heresies “dispensationalism” and although there were, and are, many admirable qualities of the Plymouth Brethren that was not one of them.

Utterly unhinged from anything like the historic faith of the Church “dispensationalism” has been the bane of modern Evangelical Protestant life, its proponents doing more damage to the life and faith of Christians than any secular conspiracy could have ever accomplished.

Some of it is bizarre like the obsession with 666 and the identity of the “beast” the “anti-christ” mentioned in a single verse of Revelation. Who is he? What is he? The theories abound and ranged from the reasonable, like Adolph Hitler, to the absolutely wierd like Ronald Wilson Reagan (notice the six letters in each of his names?).

But the worst damage is this.By getting Christians to focus so intently on eschatology (the study of the end of history) they fail to take care of the here and now and miss innumberable opportunities to make the world better and minister to humanity in the name of Christ. Suffering in the world? Hooray it must be the time of tribulations before the “rapture”! Stewardship of the earth? Who cares it’s all gonna burn anyway. The needs of souls? Not important because I’m going to hunker down and keep what I have for me and mine and you’re on your own. Besides come the “rapture” I’m out of here.

Dispensationalism doesn’t edify Christians, it panics them. It doesn’t make them mature but rather focuses them on endless speculations while they ignore the very real things outside their own front door. It makes Christians fearful of what should be the most glorious time of the world, the return of Christ, and worst of all it divides Christians from each other through quarrels started about things that even the Apostles did not know.

On this 6/06/06 day it needs to be restated loudly and clearly that the book of Revelation is about hope and triumph and the Lordship of Christ even in the darkest of times. It starts with admonitions to faithfulness and ends with the vision of the glorious city, the way the world will one day be when evil is vanquished and God once again dwells, like in Eden, with His people. As terrible as the beast or the antichrist or whatever or whoever he or it may be it will not stand in the light of the glory of the One who sits on the throne and in the end is as meaningless as the hysteria about this date and that number.

A lot of cranky people say “The church is full of hypocrites…”

Mostly they’re just being juvenile but there is a kind of truth in what they say.

All Christians are hypocrites, that is we fall short in our real lives of the ideals we believe and express in our faith. The question is what we are doing about it.

In a certain way the journey of faith is a journey from hypocrisy to genuineness, that is we are always seeking to become the kind of people whose faith and life are in agreement.

So if you ask me “Are you a hypocrite?” my honest answer needs to be “Yes”. But the difference is that I should be a recovering hypocrite, that is I see my life as sometimes very far away from my faith and ideals but I’m doing what I can, God giving me the strength, to change that.

There’s a word for that in Orthodoxy. Repentance. Not just a one time thing but a continual way of life where we are challenged to move from brokenness to health, from the hypocritical to the genuine, from death to life.

If you understand that we can gather next Sunday at the Recovering Hypocrites meeting. In Orthodoxy we call it the Divine Liturgy and you can check in the Yellow Pages for time and place.

When I was young there was a song with words that went…

Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning, burning, burning,
Give me oil in my lamp I pray.

One of the funny verses we made up was…

Give me gas in my Ford as I travel for the Lord…

One week, three states, over 1100 miles.

I get it.

An interesting post from the “Butally Honest” blog.

These are quotes from the Dalai Lama, arguably the most public presence of Buddhism in the world, regarding sexuality and they are
in remarkable agreement with traditional Christianity on these
topics.

There is a deep wisdom in what we claim about sexuality, a wisdom that we share with virtually all faith traditions, a wisdom rooted deeply in the human conciousness. Forms may differ but the basic concept is the same and it suggests something primeval, something pre-religious or prehistorical about our wisdom. That Muslims and Buddhists and Jews and Christians and Animists who differ on so many things agree on the sacred nature and normativity of heterosexual marriage speaks to this primal sensibility.

This is why we can approach these issues with pastoral care and confidence. We have no need to be afraid either of what we believe or those who would differ from us. Time, and the wisdom of humanity over the ages expressed in the precepts of faith, is on our side.

In a few days people from all over the country will gather at St. George Church in West St. Paul to say goodbye to the Very Rev. John Khoury.

His passing was a shock to us, although we knew his health was sometimes frail, and a double blow to his family and friends who had walked through the passing of his daughter just over two months ago.

It is the lot of Priests to work in obscurity, unless of course something goes wrong. So television will not cover the funeral and only an obituary will mark his life for the public. It is the way of things when a life is given to service. Had he been a mediocre movie star things would have been different but he was a great Priest and he, and we, understand this when we circle the altar.

Yet the parking lot of the church will certainly overflow on to the street for some blocks and the pages of the guest book will burst with names. People will arrive from all over the country and Bishops will preside. Arrive early to the service or you will have to walk a ways and then find yourself unable to sit within the nave.

You see, the true monuments of a faithful Priest are not structures but people. True enough Priests do help parishes build buildings but that is an ongoing thing, one Priest after another because Orthodox buildings are never completed. People are where the heart and soul of a Priest resides, their souls, their welfare, their hopes, their dreams, their moments of tragedy, their times of joy, and we build our lives in to and around them. Sometimes they hate us for it but more often they tolerate it only to see at some future time how precious the gift given was to them.

That is why there will be people at the funeral of Fr. John Khoury. People with stories. People with tears. People who are different now because somehow he touched their lives. Decades of his life poured into others and only now that he is gone do people see the full extent of the gift that was given, a gift made more precious by its new scarcity at his death.

One can only imagine what it must be like for this man who had given his aspirations and work for the cause of Christ to see Him in all His reality, His presence, and His glory. How quickly the thought of this transcends language! To hear our Lord’s “Well done..” and to know that all that vexed and harrassed is now passed never to return again. It tempers our pain and allows us to rejoice through the tears.

And now we, the people who in ways large or small have been blessed by Fr. John, are left behind for a little while with the memory of this Priest blessing us still after his passing. For the sake of it we are called to prayer for his family and for him as well. In a few days vested in the garments of his service and his resuurection we will carry him in procession around the parish one last time and release him, in hope, to the arms of his Redeemer.

Memory eternal Father John, and may angels guide you to your rest!

A thought for your consideration from Mark Shea

Consider, in a *single year* 1998, the Dept of Justice listed 103,600 cases of sexual abuse in public schools. From 1950 to 2003, there were 10,667 reported cases of clergy sexual abuse. That’s 10 times as much in one year as there were in 53 years in the Church…

Now the article was about special laws directed only to the Catholic Church but it does give one some sense of perspective.There is never a good excuse for clergy sexually abusing the faithful but the bottom line is that your children and loved ones are very much safer from sexual predators in church then they are at school.

Sad, though, that we even have to play this kind of numbers game.

Holy Week is a few short hours away and the most glorious night of the world awaits.

For a week the hearts of the faithful and even of some of the faithless will be touched by the drama as it unfolds. We will walk in sign and symbol, liturgy and sacrament, with Jesus towards the cross and empty tomb; a global event, a movement of the hearts of people expressed in rituals that cross the centuries expressed in a chorus of human languages. And yet each one who observes this week is touched in their own unique way. The sights, the smells, the words, and the swirl of events express both the way this Jesus has touched the world and the souls of those who encounter him.

Into this sacred intensity the faithful now begin to draw in body and soul, heart and intellect. For a small moment we who can appreciate it see time in some sense suspended and the long ago made present. We are here but not here, there but present in the world we know. In a profound way the upper room, the garden, the betrayal, and the suffering reach out from their place in history and join our brief moments.

In the end there is Pascha, late into the evening, moving towards the dawn. We stand in sacred vigil and share in holy light. All that has come before is part of us now and the future is as well.
Because in the hope of that glorious night we see ourselves one day freed from death and everything becomes different, holy, and new.

To be Christian is to struggle with the reality of sin, the knowledge that somewhere deep inside of us there is a profound disconnect between the way we ought to be and the way we are that manifests itself as a kind of murder against ourselves, each other, the structures we live in, and the very creation itself.

I am no master at dealing with sin, my life is more a testimony to surviving it through grace over and above vanquishing it, but there is a little wisdom acquired in pain that may be worth sharing.

They say we must wrestle against sin but in truth it may be more like judo. Let me explain. Part of the genius of judo and other martial arts is the ability to turn the force of an opponent against them. The force of an opponent’s actions, when properly handled, can actually magnify the strength and impact of the person defending against it.

Temptation and sin are often effective because they touch something inside of us, a place where we are vulnerable and needy, and therefore it has impact and can induce us to actions that would even repulse us were all things the way they should be. These needy and vulnerable spots are unique to us reflecting our life experiences, our psychology, and perhaps even our genetics to some extent. Regardless, they exist and Satan, through trial and error, is aware of them like any good enemy knows a combatant’s weak spots.

But there lies the potential solution and its about a simple question people don’t often ask. Why is this temptation, this sin so powerful for me? What does it reveal about me and where I need to grow and change and work to eliminate its strength? Why is it that say, bank robbery has very little power over me as a temptation but lust is strong? Why do I find myself doing almost anything to get approval but could care little for doing someone personal harm?

This may sound like a radical thing but perhaps we should, with good help, not just drown out our temptations and sins but listen to what they reveal about us and then in coming to that knowledge use it to correct the part of us that makes us vulnerable to its charm.

Some studies, for example, show that for the most part men do not commit adultery purely for the sake of sex but rather because there is a lack of intimacy or depth in their marriage. A man seriously tempted towards this sin has two choices. Either he gives in or for a brief moment he asks “Why do I feel like I want to do this?” If he probes just a little, especially with Godly counsel, these underlying vulnerabilities and needs will quickly surface and if he wishes he can address them and fix the real problem without devastating himself or his family. The temptation reveals a place in his life where grace and healing need to be and thus lays the basis for its own mangement and eventual demise.

Now there is no quick fix in any of this. Our wounds are often deep and our vulnerabilities complex but somewhere between rashly acting out or killing ourselves with guilt over the dark and weak spots in our lives that are so vulnerable to attack there is a place where we can learn to hear what they say to us and by grace take steps to shore up the levee and weather the storm.

I admit to a certain amount of fatigue at the behavior of some of our politicians and the way they conduct the important business of state. And increasingly I believe I’m not alone.

There seems to be too few genuine practioners of statecraft and way too many selfish, ambitious, shallow, and deviant personalities in the realms of power. Perhaps they reflect who we’ve become. Perhaps they are the emanations of the perpetual adolescence of the 60’s brought to the halls of power. Perhaps power drives even the best of us to a certain madness.

Regardless, can anyone really say they are passionate about the affairs of state in a good and wholesome way, a way empowered by nobility of cause and desire for the common good? When is the last time anyone in public office inspired our highest ideals rather than catered to our basest fears?

All we have are sound bites, inflammatory words designed not to better the body politic but rather inflame our basic and dark passions. There is no sense of nation, only of power. There is no call to higher things, only the desire to rule others and enrich personal fortunes. Politics has become the end, not the means, the goal, not the process, and common sense and the general welfare have become the victims of it all.

This crisis in our politics is often portrayed by the partisans as a crisis of ideology. Elect us, they say, and all will be better because we have better ideas, a better plan, better goals. The true nature of the crisis, though, is personal and moral and spiritual.

No structure of government can rise above the quality of the character of the people within it. Good civil order can only come from people who are capable of transcending themselves, their times, and their baser instincts for the sake of the common good.Lacking that they will poison whatever institutions they inhabit and their brokenness will infect the culture as well.

I believe this is why St. Paul asks us to pray for the civil authorities and why we who are Orthodox still do every time we celebrate our Liturgy. Everything flows from the heart and unless the heart is committed to perpetual change towards the good all else is futile. Everything flows from the building not of better forms and structures but from the construction, by the grace of God, of a better person.

This is the unique role and calling of the Church. We are called not so much to be a political entity as we are called to enable the betterment of the human person who then touches everything in their lives, including politics, with the grace they have been given.

There is no argument for quietude in this, we must profess and be what our faith tells us to be. But without transformed lives making a real difference in the real world all we have are claims, ideas, propositions, and in one way we are no better than any interest group already competing for a snout at the public trough.

A changed heart remains the greatest political force of all. Perhaps its time to think about that again.

We’re in the home stretch of Lent now, the final weeks before the last push of Holy Week and the dawn of Pascha.

A certain amount of the novelty and energy of the season has worn off and the askesis of the time becomes more like work. At the same time a certain sense of peace and purpose emerges. It doesn’t take long, some experts says 21 days, to establish a habit and its amazing how a person can adjust to new ways of eating and carrying on with life in a short time.

Perhaps that is one of the wisdoms of Lent, the understanding that we can and do adjust and we’re not doomed to continue to live as the world demands. In a few short dedicated weeks we can start to be something different, to see the world differently, and to live differently and our system actually reacts quite nicely.

In fact some people have a certain kind of let down after Pascha when the fasting is done and life returns to its old paces. The sense of closeness with God can disappear and the peaceful flow that comes with a life directed towards the things of the spirit and the good of others fades away. The hope is that Lent gives us a sample of what can be and that having once tasted this goodness we would continue on.

I try to imagine such a world, a world where the pace of things was set by the richness of faith. Not some rigind theocratic thing where the call to prayer goes out and all are commanded to obey but rather a world where people choose to reorient their existence towards the presence of God. A world where the taste of joy and holiness that come with a good Lent flow in and through all that is like a melody of unearthly beauty. A world where the Cherubic Hymn describes, in one way or another, all of life.

Realistically this will not be our lot, even in our own lives, until Christ returns but such a hope helps us through as we come into the home stretch of Lent, and always.