Palamas Institute

             for Orthodox Christian Pastoral Studies    

[frgregoryj]

Orthodoxy in the Marketplace: A Team Sport

A Team Sport

The psychological research on moral formation provides an interesting insight on this data. Jonathan Haidt argues that we develop our moral framework through, among other things, shared physical activity. Or, as he says, religion is a “team sport.” This means that

trying to understand the persistence and passion of religion by studying beliefs about God is like trying to understand the persistence and passion of college football by studying the movements of the ball. You’ve got to broaden the inquiry. You’ve got to look at the ways that religious beliefs work with religious practices to create a religious community.

While theology matters, it isn’t the whole of religious faith. “Believing, doing, and belonging are three complementary yet distinct aspects” of what it means to be a religious believer. It is “beliefs and practices” together that “create a community.” [1]  This is why believers, of any tradition, who don’t participate regularly in their tradition’s worship, tend to take their moral cues not from their own religious tradition but from some other source. In America, that source is typically the surrounding secular culture.[2]

If Haidt is correct then given the relatively low participation rate of Orthodox Christians in weekly worship we should expect to see a lack of theological orthodoxy that corresponds with a relatively low rate of moral orthopraxis. And, in fact, we do.

While there are no doubt many factors that contribute to these numbers, when asked about their understanding of God, Orthodox Christians prove themselves to be rather less than orthodox (much less, Orthodox). 32% think of God as an “impersonal force.” Another 6% say they believe in a god that may, or may not, be personal; an equal number don’t know what they believe about God. Atheists make up 4% of those who still call themselves Orthodox. Finally, 1% have some “other” notion of God than those offered in the PEW study.[3]

In other words, about half the Orthodox Christians in America, don’t believe in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Without prejudice to divine grace, this means that about half of all Orthodox Christians are predisposed to NOT experience God’s love for them. The god in which they believe is, at best, an impersonal force. And when asked if they are certain that personal relationship with God is even possible only 47% of American Orthodox Christians said yes—which isn’t to say they have a personal, much less loving, relationship with the Holy Trinity, only that they were certain such a relationship is possible.

Demographically, morally and spiritually, Orthodox Christians in America have taken a beating. That other Christian and non-Christian traditions are in similar situations is, at best, cold comfort. The condition of Orthodoxy in America raises a practical question. What is the Church to do? How are we to respond to the corrosive effects of the religious free market? And, since we’re asking hard questions, can we really lay the blame on the marketplace of ideas or might it be as well that Orthodox Christians have failed to use the freedoms America has afforded the Church?

As a first step in our working together to answer these question, let’s look at two different strategies for facing the challenge inherent in the free market of ideas: Withdrawal and Competition.

[1] Haidt, Jonathan, Haidt. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (p. 290). New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, p. 209.

[2] Pew Religious Landscape Survey: Practices and Social Attitude.

[3]

from Orthodoxy in the Marketplace: A Team Sport

[frgregoryj]

A Thought For Great Lnet

…we picture Jesus in such a way that He becomes a living reproach to humanity rather than an easily recognized expression. By thus elevating Him, we unprofitably abase ourselves and create a distance between us and Him that defeats the purpose of the Incarnation.

Michael Casey, Fully Human, Fully Divine: An Interactive Christology, p. 4

from A Thought For Great Lnet

[frgregoryj]

Prayer and Falling in Love with Jesus

Psychology and the other social sciences can be a great help for those who serve young people. For example, while we might think that parents don’t have much influence in their children’s decision to remain active in the Church, all the available evidence suggests otherwise. As they grow older, children model their religious life, as they do the other areas of their lives, based on their parents’ example.

Another misconception that psychological research has helped us clear away is the idea that teenagers aren’t interested in religion and even rebel against it. In fact, most teenagers (even those who don’t participate in organized religion) have a positive view of religion. Far from rejecting religion in general (or Christianity), they see it as a good thing even if it isn’t exactly their thing.

Helpful though the research is, we need to be careful that we don’t reduce youth ministry and the spiritual formation of young people to merely a psychological process. As a social scientist, I know about kids in general but as a priest (or youth minister) my vocation is to get to know this unique kid.  And while there are many, non-religious benefits to active participation in church (what psychologists call prosocial behaviors or outcomes), the purpose of youth ministry is to introduce young people to Jesus Christ and to help them grow in that relationship within the context of the Orthodox Church.

St Seraphim of Sarov says that Prayer, fasting, vigil and every Christian work, however good it is in itself, does not constitute the goal of our Christian life, but serves as a means for its attainment. The real goal of human life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.” The real threat to the spiritual health of young people (and to the family, the parish, the diocese, and the Church) comes when we confuse the means of the Christian life with the goal of the Christian life. When this happens we end up telling kids to pursue conformity, not holiness. We end up, however unintentionally, telling kids being an Orthodox Christian is about fitting in and getting along rather than communion with God and our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we confuse means and ends, we end up fostering pride and vainglory, not humility and charity.

So how to avoid this?

Well, it begins by remembering what I said a moment ago. Our task is to introduce young people to Jesus Christ. Or maybe better, God has called us to help young people fall in love with Christ.

So where to begin? With teaching young people to pray (here).

We have as Orthodox Christians a rich tradition of personal and liturgical prayer. Often though that tradition is unknown to the majority of adults and so most young people. For most of us (including young people), “prayer” only means attending Liturgy on Sunday. And even then, only about 30% of us are in Liturgy on a weekly basis.

As for personal prayer, I think most of us think personal prayer means reading out of a prayer book. While there’s nothing wrong with using prayer books, they formal prayers they contain are meant to teach us how to pray. For a Christian to only use a prayer book to pray to God is like a husband who only quotes poetry to his wife instead of actually talking to her about what’s on his heart and mind.

In the next few conversations, we’ll talk about how to teach and inspire young people to pray personally and liturgically so that, they too, can fall in love with Jesus Christ.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

  from Prayer and Falling in Love with Jesus

[frgregoryj]

Forgiveness Sunday

Sunday, February 26, 2017: Forgiveness Sunday; Porphyrius, Bishop of Gaza, The Holy Great Martyr Photine, the Samaritan Women, Holy Martyr Theocletus, John Claphas the new Martyr

Epistle: Romans 13:11-14; 14:1-4 Gospel: Matthew 6:14-21

Through the Apostle Paul, the Church reminds us that today, this morning, “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand.” There is, or should be, a sense of urgency in how I approach the Great Fast. It’s beginning signals the growing nearest of our victory in Christ.

On first hearing, the Apostle Paul’s words might seem negative—“ cast off the works of darkness.” But this “no” to the “the flesh” is in the service of a greater, “yes.” We cast off the darkness of sin so we can “put on the armor of light.”  We have the strength to throw away “reveling and drunkenness, … debauchery and licentiousness, … quarreling and jealousy,” because we have experienced the mercy of God in our own lives and so long to live in charity with our neighbor, especially for the one “who is weak in faith.”

Just before today’s Gospel reading, the disciples ask Jesus how to prayer and so He teaches them the Lord’s Prayer. Reflecting on the prayers, St John Chrysostom says that “everywhere” Jesus “is teaching us to use this plural word that we might not retain so much as a vestige of resentment against our neighbor.”

Our willingness to forgive—to lay aside our resentment for the harm others have caused us—“makes us like God” Chrysostom says.  To be like God means to be like Him “Who has made ‘the sun to shine on the evil and on the good.’” This is why,

…Christ is seeking in every possible way to hinder our conflicts with one another. For since love is the root of all that is good, by removing from all quarters whatever mars it He brings us together and cements us to each other (“The Gospel of Matthew, Homily, 19.7,” in ACCS: NT vol Ia Matthew 1-13, p. 139).

Rooted in the grace of the sacraments—above all Holy Communion and Confession—we can summarize the of the acetical life and the life of virtue as nothing more or less than removing all that disfigures or impedes our love for one another.

We often hear people say so long as they don’t hurt anyone, they can do as they want. According to this standard, while quarreling and jealousy are wrong, reveling and drunkenness, and as long as they are consensual, debauchery and licentiousness are merely private choices, no better or worse than any other. Sadly, even Christians, who ought to know better, are liable to hold to this view of the moral life.

This, however, is to get Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel exactly backwards.

In the verses after those we’ve just heard Jesus tell us

The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23, NKJV)

A jealous and argumentative attitude toward my neighbor is the corrupted fruit of exactly those sins that St Paul tells us to lay aside. The more I give myself over to “the flesh,” the more I will come to “despise” my neighbor and to “pass judgment on him.”

This happens because just “as when the eyes are blinded, some of the ability of the other members is diminished, their light be quenched, so also when the mind is depraved, your life will be filled with countless evils” (St John Chrysostom, “The Gospel of Matthew, Homily, 20.3,” in ACCS: NT vol Ia Matthew 1-13, p. 142).  To root out the petty jealousy and arguments that ripe apart families and parishes and society I need to root out my own selfish tendencies. I need to fight against those very sins in my that I’m likely to overlook or indulge because they (seemingly) don’t hurt anyone else. But they do because they harm my ability to love my neighbor and so impede our shared restoration and journey to the life God created us to have.

  To root out from my heart the petty jealousy and arguments that rip humanity apart, I need to root out my own selfish tendencies. I need to fight against those very sins in me that I’m likely to overlook or indulge because they (seemingly) don’t hurt anyone else.

But they do harm you because they harm my ability to love you and so impede our shared journey to the life God created us to have.

Think with me for a moment about the Apostle Paul command that we welcome “the man who is weak in faith.”

For the Apostle, “the person in question is not healthy” and in need of the love and care of the whole Church. It isn’t just the priest who heals through the sacraments; all of us by virtue of our baptism and willingness to embrace the stranger as our friend also have a role to play in his salvation.

But some of us are “disconcerted by” their neighbor’s weakness. And even though “they do not share it,” their neighbor’s weakness makes them “liable to fall into uncertainty themselves” (St John Chrysostom, “Homilies on Romans,” 25, in ACCS: NT vol VI Romans, p. pp. 337-338).

My neighbor’s weakness reminds me of my own. My willingness to look away from him because there are sins that I have not yet laid aside. In his weakness, my neighbor reveals to me that I am an enemy of charity.

This is why Paul goes on to say that I am not to pass judgment on my neighbor in his weakness. It is in that moment when your weakness reminds me of my own, that I am most tempted to turn you away in the vain hope of finding some relief from my own failings.

I judge my neighbor, I engage in “quarreling and jealousy,” because he reminds me of what I would not see in myself, my own lack of repentance. And the “reveling and drunkenness” the “debauchery and licentiousness,” the petty arguments and jealousy? What are these but feckless attempts to dull the pain, to justify myself by denying my failings?

My brothers and sisters in Christ!

Today is the last Sunday before the beginning of the Great Fast. At Vespers and Matins, we recalled the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden. And on this day as well, we formally ask one another for forgiveness. We ask forgiveness even from those we don’t know and so couldn’t have offended. We ask forgiveness even from those we have never met because we know, I know, that my sin harms them.

Whether the harm is great or small, my sin has harmed you, it has exploited your weakness and impeded your reconciliation with the Father, with our Father. Because my sin harms you, the first step in casting “off the works of darkness,” and putting “on the armor of light,” is simply to acknowledge my failure to love you.

So, my brothers and sisters, forgive me a sinner!

May God grant us a blessed fast and a glorious celebration of His Son Holy and Life-giving Resurrection!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

from Forgiveness Sunday

[frgregoryj]

Orthodoxy in the Marketplace: Religion in General

Religion in General but Not In Particular

The Church finding herself in the midst of a free marketplace of ideas. Given the range of options available to people, it isn’t surprising that, like other Christian communities, the Orthodox Church has in recent years suffered significant, numerical losses. Thinking about why the Orthodox Church has lost so many of our faithful (both those baptized in infancy and those who joined the Church as adults), I am reminded of a conversation I’ve had several times with different priests and parish councils that were trying to establish a professional stewardship program. The conversation would begin with the kind of thought experiment economists love.

Let’s imagine, I’d begin, someone who has $50 and two free hours on Sunday morning. Why would that person want to spend those two hours at Liturgy in your parish and put his money in the basket rather than use his resources to go to brunch with his wife?

Pretty consistently, my question was met with incomprehension (and occasionally irritation). Probing a bit, it became clear that I was asking the community to do something they had never done before. I was asking them to think why—given all the options available to people—someone would want to participate, and financial support, their parish. Why was their parish the most desirable option for how someone could spend his time and money on Sunday morning?

At best, parish leaders would offer generic reasons for others (and by implication, themselves) to attend and support their community. Again, with just a bit of probing, it became clear that, at best, what people had were reasons why religion in general, was a good thing. What they didn’t have were reasons why people would want to invest in their particular community.

While anecdotal, these conversations illustrate what we see in the data about the self-understanding of American Orthodox Christianity. As we see in other Christian communities, Orthodox Christians seem to be taking guidance for their moral and spiritual life not from the Christian tradition but the larger, secular, culture. This why the parish leaders (both lay and clergy) I spoke with couldn’t think of the unique reasons their community was valuable. Like the larger culture, they spontaneous thinking of religion only in general term. They resist any suggestion that one religion (even their own) might be better than another.[1] Even when asked about their own community—a community in which they had personally invested significant time, treasure and talent—was valuable all they had ready to hand were the generic answers that have to dominate how most Christians in America think about the Gospel and their own community’s contribution to the larger culture.[2]

To see how extensive is “The Triumph of the ‘Cult of Nice’”[3] and come to dominate how Orthodox Christians think about themselves and the world around them, we only need to look at the data.

[1] See, for example, Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 and Kendra Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling Us. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

[2] Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, pp. xx-xx.

[3] Dean, Almost Christian, pp. 25-42.

from Orthodoxy in the Marketplace: Religion in General

[frgregoryj]

Justice, Mercy and the Last Judgment

Sunday, February 19, 2017: Judgment Sunday (Meatfare Sunday); The Holy Apostles of the Seventy Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, and Onesimus, Philothei the Righteous Martyr of Athens, Niketas the Younger

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 8:8-13; 9:1-2 Gospel: Matthew 25:31-46

Icon of the Last Judgement provided by ΕΚΔΟΣΗ και ΕΠΙΣΚΟΠΟΥ, ΓΑΛΑΚΤΙΩΝΟΣ ΓΚΑΜΙΛΗ ΤΗΛ. 4971 882, ΕΚΤΥΠΟΣΗ Μ. ΤΟΥΜΠΗΣ Α.Ε.

St Paul asks the Corinthians: “Am I not free?  Am I not an apostle?” He answers the second question first by calling the Church at Corinth “my workmanship” and “the seal of my apostleship.” As for the first question, this is answered in the verses immediately following those we’ve just heard.

Do we have no right to eat and drink? Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? Whoever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock? (vv. 4-7, NJKV)

And, so there’s no mistake, he says his rights don’t reflect mere human desire, but God’s law (vv. 8-12).

We sometimes imagine that as Christians we have no rights. But as Paul makes clear, justice is not foreign to the Gospel or the life of the Church. That Paul, freely, chooses not to exercise his rights, doesn’t mean that he has no rights.

St Paul is willing to sacrifice many of the things to which he has a right (see, vv. 12-14). He does so, as he says at the beginning of today’s epistle, “lest … liberty …  somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”

What he doesn’t sacrifice, however, is his authority as an apostle and especially his role as father to the Church at Corinth (1 Corinthian 4:15). And, how could he? To surrender his authority would mean to forsake his obligations, his responsibility before Christ for the Church.

These verses are important not only for what they tell us about Paul and the Church at Corinth but for what they tell us more broadly about the internal life of the Church.

As we’ve already seen, any suggestion that justice is foreign to the life of the Church or that sacrifice can be compelled or coerced rather than freely offered is contrary to the Gospel. Taking the Apostle Paul at his word, the Church is built on—and so held together by—both divine grace and human freedom. To teach, or even suggest, otherwise is to give a stone for bread (see Matthew 7:9), a serpent for a fish, and a scorpion for an egg (see Luke 11:11-12).

Besides what it says about the internal life of the Church, Paul’s defense of his rights matters because it helps us understand this morning’s Gospel and so the Last Judgment.

Rightly, our Lord’s word that how I treat “the least of these my brethren” I do to Him are applied to my obligation to care for the poor and those on the margin of society. St John Chrysostom is clear here. He says the goats were condemned because they “failed in mercifulness, not in one or two respects only, but in all; not only did they not feed Him when He was hungry, but they did not even visit Him when He was sick, which was easier. And look how light things He enjoins; He said not, ‘I was in prison,’ and ye did not set me free, but, and ‘ye visited me not.’ Also, His hunger required no costly dainties, but necessary food.”

He goes on to say all Jesus asks of us is that we act on “the natural feelings of compassion” and, in this way, receive the “promised … kingdom.” That we don’t, that I don’t, reflects my own avarice, a vice that “blinds men to all these considerations.” Our obligation to care for the poor reflects our common humanity, a real communion to which avarice blinds us.

So Paul’s stern words to the Corinthians aren’t simply a reminder of what the Church owes him in justice and what, in love, he has sacrificed for them. Here, as he does in other places in the epistle, Paul is also calling the Corinthians to repent of a sin that has taken hold in members of the Church. Avarice, the love of money and all the things money can buy, has poisoned the community and Paul, the good and godly pastor that he is, works to root out the sin by reminding his spiritual children that they are called to be generous and sacrificial in their love for him and each other.

As I said a moment ago, we often apply this morning’s Gospel to those on the margin of society. While there is nothing wrong with this, and in fact, it is a very good and God-pleasing thing to care for the poor, the words of the Gospel must first be applied within the Church before they can be applied to those outside the Church.

Chrysostom ask “But if they are His brethren, why does He call them the least? Because they are lowly, poor, and outcast.” Who are these lowly ones?

They are first of all “the monks who have retired to the mountains.” Second, and given the bias of the age, surprisingly, they are “every believer” who is hungry and in need of whatever act of mercy we can provide.

And it is “we,” you and I, who must provide this mercy to them because, through “baptism and communication of the Divine mysteries,” the poor Christian—whatever might be his or her need—has become our responsibility. Without prejudice to those outside the Church, my first obligation after my own family is to my brothers and sisters in Christ and it is how I respond to them that will determine whether “go away into eternal punishment” or “into eternal life.”

My brothers and sisters in Christ!

Christ has called each of us personally into the Church and He has called the Church, corporately, by the integrity of our doctrine, the solemnity of our worship and our sincerity of our love for each other, to be the light of the world. No matter how lofty our teaching, or how beautiful our worship, if we fail to love one another, if we fail to care for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in need, we risk condemnation if we don’t repent.

As we prepare to begin the Great Fast and make the journey to Pascha, each of us must ask, “Have I been a source of mercy for those in need?” Above all, “Have I cared been a source of mercy for my brothers and sisters in Christ?” Or have I, instead, neglected those who are closest to me by failing to do even the little that I have been asked by Christ to do?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

  from Justice, Mercy and the Last Judgment

[frgregoryj]

Not Just Kids, But Families Too

We ‘ve seen that teenagers, and indeed child much younger, will use the tools they’re given to understand themselves and their situation (here).

On a positive note, this means that what we take as rebellion or resistance isn’t necessarily a rejection of the Gospel. It is rather the young person’s attempt to understand, to make their own, the tradition they’ve been given.

This, however, assumes that they have been given the faith.

As we also saw, for most young people—even those raised in a religious family—they spend the majority of their time in an environment that is theologically neutral (at best). While sometimes they may encounter overt hostility to the Gospel, it is usually just the absence of a religious context that causes them to drift away from the faith (here).

In other words, it isn’t (for example) learning about evolution that causes young people to leave but learning about evolution in a context where adults never discuss Creation.

All this suggests that youth ministry needs to have a broader focus than simply someone in the parish working with young people. One of the great advantages churches have is that they are one of the few social institutions that aren’t rigidly segregated by age. This gives young people the opportunity to meet and interact with a wide range of people from different backgrounds and of different ages. We shouldn’t underestimate the importance in young people’s lives of adults who are mature, committed, thoughtful Orthodox Christians. The whole parish has a role to play in the spiritual formation of young people as they make the journey to an adult faith.

The other social institution, and our immediate concern in this post, that isn’t segregated by age is the family. What can the family teach us about forming young people so they grow to be emotionally mature, spiritually committed, Orthodox Christian adults?

As a college chaplain, parents often ask me how they can keep their children in the Church. This is a good and important question. The questions that really interests me though are the ones parents never ask.

“Father, how do I keep my children as part of my family? How do I get them to come home for Christmas? How do make sure, when the time comes, they’ll invite me to their wedding? And someday in the future, how will I be part of my grandchildren’s lives?”

Nobody ever asks me these questions. Why? Because they don’t need to ask them.

Except in the most unhappy and pathological of families (and even then, sometimes!), children want a lifelong relationship with their parents and siblings. These relationships might not be easy or everything they want the, to be but the relationships exist.

And again, except for the most broken of families, people work at creating and fostering those relationships over the whole life cycle and even after death. Rarely do we “excommunicate” our family or sever our relationship with parents or siblings.

In other words, what the Church is struggling to do, even broken, unhappy families manage on a regular basis.

The article I’ve asked you to read this week (Family Traditions Help Kids Make Sense of Life) makes suggests about what families can do to build strong ties among themselves. What ideas does it give you either for working with families or for helping youth ministry become a concern for the whole parish?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

  from Not Just Kids, But Families Too

[frgregoryj]

What Forgiveness Is And Isnt’t

Sunday, Feb 12, 2017: Sunday of the Prodigal Son; Meletius, Archbishop of Antioch, Antonius, Archbishop of Constantinople, Christos the New Martyr, Meletios of Ypseni

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 Gospel: Luke 15:11-32

We often associate forgiveness with a certain kind of response to injury. If I hurt your feelings, I am expected to apologize; to seek your forgiveness. You, for your part, are likewise expected to accept my apology; to forgive me.

Assumed in all of this is that forgiveness brings about the restoration of our relationship to what it was before the offense was give. Forgiveness means the bad thing between us never happened.

When we think like this we end up tying ourselves in knots.

Yes, I want to forgive those who harmed me. This is different from saying that the harm that was done doesn’t matter. I can’t ignore the past; it is unwise—and foolish—for me to try and create a new past out of whole cloth. I can’t create a past where we weren’t estranged, the past where I didn’t hurt you or you didn’t hurt me.

To go down this path isn’t to forgive but to lie. Or maybe more gently, to confuse forgiveness with wishful thinking.

What does the Gospel say about forgiveness?

The father joyfully welcomes his prodigal son back into the family. “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry”!

The father isn’t simply willing to forgive his son, he is eager to do so. Jesus paints a picture of a father going out, day after day, hoping that, today, will be the day that his son returns.

And when his son comes home?  Seeing while “he was yet at a distance” the father runs to meet him. The father is moved by “compassion” for his son and he embraces and kisses his formerly wayward child.

At no time, however, does the father minimize or ignore the past. He tells his servants “this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”

Some time after this, the father is confronted by his elder son. The older brother is angry and refuses to celebrate the return of his younger brother. He is indignant and says to his father, that though

…these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.  But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!’

What the brother can’t at that moment understand is how his father can welcome back his younger brother. He can’t even bring himself to call him brother, referring to him instead as “this son of yours”!

Implicit within the elder son’s words is the notion that forgiveness undoes the past. In effect, he says to his father, “Bad enough that you’ve never rewarded my loyalty, now you ignore my brother’s disloyalty! How can the past not matter to you?”

When I think that forgiveness means ignoring the past, it becomes hard—and depending on circumstances, impossible—for me to forgive.

Think about what we often say to others, or ourselves. “You just need to let go of the past.” Or we might ask ourselves, “Why can’t I just let things go?”

But ignoring the past—letting it go—isn’t what the father does. Nor is it what Jesus calls us to do in the parable.

Listen again to the father’s words.

Twice he says “this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” The son’s past, indeed the past of both sons, is very much alive for the father. But the past doesn’t obliterate hope.

And so he says to his eldest boy: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” At the same time, “It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”

Forgiveness isn’t a psychological trick for ignoring the past; much less is it a way to pretend that we don’t hurt each other.

Forgiveness isn’t about having warm feelings for those who hurt you. Nor is it is a decision to ignore the past. It is rather to imitate the God Who, as St John Chrysostom tells us, never acts out of a desire for vengeance but “with a view to our advantage, and to prevent our perverseness becoming worse by our making a practice of despising and neglecting Him” (“Theodore After His Fall,” Letter 1:4).

Despite the harm they cause me, to forgive someone means—again, like God for me—to will what is best for the other person so that his situation isn’t made worse.

Do you understand this?

Forgiveness means two things. First, to do no harm to the one who has harmed me. Second, to do what I can to prevent him from falling into even worse sin.

This is why the father welcomes back his prodigal son in the way he does.

Imagine the boy’s future if, instead of a warm welcome, he was received coldly, formally, and with the clear message that he had lost his father’s love forever? And imagine if, instead of being restored as his son, the father made him a hired hand?

How long would it be before the younger son’s repentance turned to bitterness?

And what of the older son? How long before his resentment of his younger brother turned to open contempt and even violence?

Instead and wisely, the father does what is needed to encourage the repentance of both his sons to prevent them from falling into even greater sin.

My brothers and sisters in Christ! This is what forgiveness means! To do what I can, little though it may be, to keep those who have harmed us from falling into even greater sin.

Forgiveness doesn’t forget past injuries, it wisely discerns how we can help those who harmed us from falling into the same, or worse, sin again.

Forgiveness is how we come to share in God’s merciful redemption of those who have harmed us.

And we do this because this is what God in Jesus Christ has done for each of us. He has freed us from our sin and gives us the grace to avoid even greater sin.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

from What Forgiveness Is And Isnt’t

[frgregoryj]

Helping Kids Find Their Way in Faith

A colleague and I would set up a table in the student union of the university where we were chaplains and offer to answer religious questions for a dime (the money would go to charity). Often before we could answer the student’s question we asked if he or she was raised in a religious tradition. We did this because we wanted to know the student’s theological starting point. Or more accurately, what in their tradition the student likely misunderstood that lead to their question.

Often the way in which the questions were asked was pointed and even disrespectful. It was a challenge for me to learn that the students’ tone wasn’t the result of malice. Rather it was an awkward attempt to ask a question that outstripped their abilities to formulate. I had to learn, in other words, to hear the concern underneath the tone.

The work of the development psychologist Sharon Parks (see below) has been extraordinarily valuable in helping me coming to an appreciative understanding of how a young person learns to make sense of his or her situation using the tools we provide them (we’ll look more at these tools next week). Parks’s work also has help me understand that what often seems like rebellion or a rejection of the faith, is actually a young person awkward attempt to use the physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual tools they’ve been given as they struggle to understand themselves and the world around them.

In other words, I’ve had to come to appreciate the struggle young people have with “adulating.” This understanding is important. Without it, I can’t respond with compassion to what are frequently annoying and irritating questions and comments.

(So there’s no mistake, I am unashamed to confess, that after 25+ years of working with middle school, high school and college students, sometimes young people can still get on my nerves!)

Parks has also help me remember me that I’m still learning. Each young person I met represents a new challenge, a new invitation from Christ to understand someone’s situation and to learn more fully what it means to respond with His compassion.

I travel a fair amount for work. This means I’m frequently arriving in a new city with no idea where I am. Thank God, for my GPS! Without it, I’d always be lost!

Being in a place we’ve never been before can be confusing and even frightening. And being in a new place requires that we make an effort to get our bearings.

This isn’t only true geographically. It’s also true for young people as they grow physically, emotionally, cognitively, socially, and spiritually.

Working with young people means working with individuals who are often more or less lost. They’re lost because they are in a place they’ve never been before. And they do what all of us do in similar situations. They look around, they explore, they try to find the boundaries of the situation so they can find their way.

To do all this, they use the tools they’ve been given by their family, the Church and society. Some of these tools are better than others at helping young people find their way in life. But however good the tools are, especially early on, the young person just doesn’t know how to use them!

It’s our calling to help them.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

from Helping Kids Find Their Way in Faith

[frgregoryj]

Homily: From Guilty Sorrow to Cheerful Fidelity

Sunday, Feb 5, 2017: Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee; Triodion Begins Today; Agatha the Martyr, Polyeuktos, Partriarch Of Constantinople, Antonios the New Martyr of Athens, Theodosios, Archbishop of Chernigov, Afterfeast of the Presentation of Our Lord and Savior in the Temple, Theodosios of Antioch

Epistle: 2 Timothy 3:10-15 Gospel: Luke 18:10-14

We misunderstand the relationship between the Church and the world if we assume that it is simply one of contention and conflict. Yes, the world frequently sets itself against the Gospel—this, in fact, is what the Scriptures mean by the phrase “the world.” More specifically, “the world” refers to the creation, under the guidance of human beings, in rebellion against God.

We shouldn’t make any mistake here.

Creation’s rebellion against the Creator is led not the air or water, by seed-bearing plants or animals, but by us. This is why St Paul’s says that “the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19, NKJV). Sin has not only corrupted the human heart but, working through our hearts, corrupted creation as well.

This corruption, this state of rebellion, isn’t the whole story, however.

Sin’s power over creation isn’t absolute because it’s reign over the human heart isn’t absolute. Sin corrupts but it doesn’t destroy; it obscures but it doesn’t obliterate the image of God in us.

No matter how powerful the grip of sin, divine grace, mercy, and love still attracts us. If this weren’t the case then, then Paul couldn’t say that “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3; see also Genesis 15:6).

And, as we will celebrate on Pascha, whatever hold sin and death had over the heart is now broken. Simply put, Christ’s Resurrection has destroyed the power of sin and death.

Because sin’s reign is not absolute, there are moments when the world makes common cause with the Church. The parable of the publican and the Pharisee is one of these moments. Or at least, part of the parable is.

The one sin that our culture seems willing to name and condemn is hypocrisy. That this sin would be the worst sin make sense in a culture that has largely dispensed with objective moral standards. What offends us so about the hypocrite, is that he pretends to hold to moral standards the rest of the culture rejects.

In other words, the hypocrite pretends to be better than me.

I know he’s pretending because, if I’m following along with the culture’s thinking, morality is subjective. There is no right or wrong. The hypocrite is a liar; he pretends to hold to standards he, and I, know don’t really exist.

Basically, he’s lying to me.

Our cultural condemnation of hypocrisy is why at least part of this morning parable resonates with many. We recoil when the Pharisee and say: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.”

Hearing this, many see the Pharisee as stuck up. We condemn him because he thinks he’s better than everyone else. He is, in a word, “judgey.”

And all this is said without a hint of irony or self-knowledge.

So hated is this one sin that pointing it out in others exempts me from any self-reflection. In the face of hypocrisy, I’m exempt from self-examination. The sin must be condemned and its condemnation overrides any other considerations.

And yet, what actually happens in the Gospel? Jesus doesn’t condemn the Pharisee. If anyone does, it’s me. And that’s my sin.

What Jesus does instead is commend the publican for his humility.

For the fathers of the Church, the sin of pride—which is the sin that parable condemns—is only cured by humility. The “tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’”

Yes, the sinful human heart is drawn by grace and the world’s rebellion is always only partial. But for all this, sin still holds us, holds me, in its grip. Reflecting on the parable, St Gregory the Great warns us that pride takes many forms. And whatever its form, humility is the only cure.

We need to be careful here that we don’t mistake the publican’s repentance for the virtue of humility. St Basil the Great says that when the “soul is lifted up towards virtue” we experience “cheerfulness” even in the midst of sorrow. Repentance is the door to humility.

St Basil says humility allows us to remain faithful to Christ and our vocation even when we are troubled by events or the opposition of others. Humility fosters in us a “loftiness of mind” that differs from “the elevation” which comes from pride. The latter, he says, is like “the swelling flesh which proceeds from dropsy.” But humility of soul is like the “well-regulated” and healthy body of an athlete.

Pride casts us down “even from heaven,” St John Chrysostom says, but “humility can raise a man up from the lowest depth of guilt.” This is precisely what we see in the parable. Jesus shows us the opening moments of the publican’s transformation, of his journey from guilty sorrow to cheerful fidelity to Christ. Having laid aside his sin, he is now on the path to spiritual health.

If I condemn the Pharisee, I remain enslaved to sin. If I am unrepentant, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are of no more value to me that they were to Pharisee. Instead, these works—good as they are in themselves—will stand in witness against me in the life to come because they were done without repentance, without humility.

My brothers and sisters in Christ!

We shouldn’t be quick to condemn anyone’s sin but our own. We must make our own the words of today’s Kontakion:

Let us flee the proud speaking of the Pharisee and learn the humility of the Publican, and with groaning let us cry unto the Savior: Be merciful to us, for Thou alone art ready to forgive.

To acquire humility, as we hear throughout at Matins through Great Lent, we must pass through the “door to repentance.” It is when we pass through this door that we learn to walk in cheerfulness, live in fidelity to our vocation, and to love one and other.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

from Homily: From Guilty Sorrow to Cheerful Fidelity

[frgregoryj]

On Vocation 

A young man crossed the desert and finally came to the monastery of Scete. There, he asked to hear one of the abbot’s lectures and was granted permission. 

That afternoon, the abbot’s discourse was about the importance of work in the field. 

After the lecture, the young man said to one of the monks, “That was amazing. I thought I would hear a fine sermon about virtues and sins, and the abbot spoke only of tomatoes, irrigation and so forth. Where I come from, all believe that God is merciful: all one must do is pray.” 

The monk smiled and replied, “Here we believe that God has already done God’s part; now it is up to us to continue the process.”

Israel Galina of, Stories of the Desert Fathers (Translated): Ancient Wit and Wisdom for Today’s Bewildering Times. 

from On Vocation 

[frgregoryj]

A Response to No Spam

I got this note from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous:

I don’t have accounts with any of the services required to leave a comment, so I submit here on the recent post, “American Orthodox Church by the Numbers.” On what basis do you conclude that converts depart “when the first flush of faith fades”? Have they truly lost their Christian faith? Have you data on the denominations-of-origin of converts, the average duration of their identification with Orthodoxy, or the destination denominations? Is there any sort of exit interview attempted by parish, deanery, or diocese representatives when someone departs? There are several publicly declared ex-Orthodox maintaining presence on the internet. Might interviewing them shed light on these questions? Thank you.

Over the years, I have spoken with those who have stopped attending the Orthodox Church. I’m more than happy to talk with anyone who wants to talk with me. However, I can’t respond meaningfully to someone who neglects (as in this case) to leave me a valid email address or some other contact information.Unfortunately, the data the questioner asks about doesn’t exist.

As for the data about why people leave the Church, it doesn’t exist. For my part, I’m happy to work to collect that data but that means a relatively large number of people need to speak with me about their experiences. Until then, the best I have in anecdotal information about what motivates someone to leave. More importantly, without at least a significant body of first-hand accounts, we not only can’t fix any problems, we can’t even identify problems in any meaningful fashion

More importantly, for the Church without a significant body of first-hand accounts, we not only can’t fix any problems, we can’t even identify problems in any meaningful fashion

As for the phrase “when the first flush of faith fades,” while the phrase is sharp, in context I’m talking about someone’s faith in the Orthodox Church, not Jesus Christ. Losing one’s faith in the Church doesn’t necessarily mean losing one’s faith in Christ. Neither, however, does losing one’s faith in the Church preclude an immature Chrisitan faith or indeed a loss of faith in Christ. Again, without talking to the person and without a broader context within which to interpret someone’s story, it’s hard to say why someone leaves (or indeed for that matter, stays).

In any case, No Spam if you, or anyone else, wants to talk about why you are no longer active in the Orthodox Church, I’m more than willing to listen to your story.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

    from A Response to No Spam

[frgregoryj]

Living In A Secular Culture

We live in a secular culture.  As Fr Alexander Schmemann describes it our culture isn’t “necessarily anti-religious.” In fact, American culture is “both deeply religious and deeply secularistic.” But instead of being the over-arching framework that also permeates the whole of life (what the sociologist Peter Berger called a “sacred canopy), religion is seen as merely a part of life.

We are often quite sincere in our affirmation, Schmemann says, of “the need for religion” and we even “give it a place of honor and cover it with many privileges.” But while we look to religion (including the Gospel) to “supply life with ethical standards, with help and comfort, we often fail to expect the Gospel to “transform life” to transform us and those we love.

As a practical matter, this means that as an Orthodox Christian I can believe “in God and in the immortality of the soul” even pray daily “and find great help in prayer.” But when I go to work (or in the case of Orthodox young people, school), everything that I do, is done without any reference or discussion of “the fundamental religious realities of Creation, Fall and Redemption” (you can read the whole essay here).

And not only are we all generally accepting of this state of affairs, many of us even advocate for it because we live in a “pluralistic” society.

For our young people, school, extra-curricular activities, social media, and the entertainment they seek out, almost the whole of how they spend their day, happens without reference to the Gospel. This leads to the situation in which they don’t so much reject Christ and the Gospel as they simply drift away.

Spiritually, it’s like what happens when children are raised only playing video games and never going outside to play. To a large degree, we are seeing the fruit of young people being raised to be spiritual couch potatoes. Or what the fathers call the sin of sloth (acedia)

In Liturgy and Life: Christian Development through Liturgical Experience, Schmemann touches on a theme we have seen before. Orthodox Christians, like our Roman Catholics (here), Evangelical Christians and Mainline Protestants brothers and sisters, are struggling with forming young people as disciples of Christ. We know that telling young people about God isn’t enough. They too need to meet, know and love God.

What we are talking about is broader and deeper than religious education; we’re concerned with the spiritual formation of young people.

This is a task that belongs to the whole Church. This is why we need to look not only at young people but also ourselves. Why? Because “We cannot teach what we do not practice ourselves” (Life and Liturgy, p. 14).

Even when they rebel (and this is next week’s topic), young people do so using the emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual toolkit adults gave them. This raises three fundamental questions for us as youth ministers.

How are we failing to provide young people with the tools they need to discern and live out their vocations? In other words, how are we failing to help them rebel against the world by following Christ?

How are we succeeding? What are we doing well to help young people to live out who they are in Christ? Or, how are we helping them rebel against the world by following Christ?

Mindful of our weakness, how can we build on our strengths to help young people live life as disciples of Jesus Christ within the context of the Orthodox Church and their daily lives?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

from Living In A Secular Culture

[frgregoryj]

American Orthodox Church by the Numbers

Looking at the data, America has been a social and economic blessing for Orthodox Christians. We are, on average, younger[1] and better educated[2] than most other religious traditions. We are also fairly well-off economically.[3] Finally, Orthodox Christians tend to be racially and ethnically monolithic.[4]

So, Orthodoxy in America is (largely) white, college educated and middle to upper middle-class.

But this doesn’t exhaust the data on the Church in America. Yes, by some metrics, Eastern Orthodox Christians have done well in America. But this isn’t the whole story. Other metrics suggest that not all is well.

While we have more clergy, more parishes/missions and more monasteries,[5] as we’ll see in a moment we have fewer faithful; we have lost both those who were baptized as infants AND those who became Orthodox as adults.For example, in 2007 .6% of the adult population (1,363,271) were baptized in childhood as Orthodox Christians. Unfortunately, 368,083 (or 27% of those baptized in infancy) identified themselves as former Orthodox Christians.

What about converts in 2007?

Well, to the 995,188 adults who were baptized as infants who still identified themselves as practicing Orthodox Christians, were added, 297,264 adults. This means that as of 2007 there were 1,279,452 Orthodox Christians (cradle and convert) in America. But the Church in America still lost almost 1.2 adults for every 1 adult who entered the Church.[6]

The PEW Charitable Trust re-visited the state of religion in America in 2014 and the change in the Church’s situation is dramatic. In 2014, there was a drop in both the percentage and the actual number of adult Orthodox Christians who were baptized in infancy.   As of 2014, .5% of the adult population were baptized in childhood as Orthodox Christians (1,126,541). Of these, 576,474 (or 47% of those baptized in infancy) identified themselves as former Orthodox Christians. So the total number of practicing Orthodox Christian baptized as such as infants dropped to 650,067 for a loss of 222,709 or approximately 25% since 2007.

And converts in 2014?

In absolute numbers, the Church had fewer converts (222,709[7]) in absolute numbers even while converts made up a larger percentage of the total number of practicing Orthodox Christians.[8] In absolute numbers, we seem to have lost 74,555 converts between 2007 and 2014. We also lost slightly more than 2.5 adults baptized as infants for every 1 Orthodox Christian who joined as an adult.

2007 2014 Change Change Number of adults baptized as infants 1,363,271 1,226,541 -136,730 -10% Number of adults baptized as infants who have lapsed -381,008 -576,474 +208,391 +56% Number of adult converts +297,264 +222,709 -74,555 -25% TOTAL PRACTICING ORTHODOX 1,279,452 872,776 -419,676 -32%

Keep in mind that what we are seeing likely reflects several factors.

Historically, the Church in America has done a poor job of gathering census data. We’ve never really had, at least until very recently, anything that approaches accurate data.

The dramatic increase in lapsed cradle Orthodox Christians likely reflects not a decrease in active Church members but rather a better count of those who have always been inactive.

The drop in the number of converts is frankly sobering. But it reflects the fact that converts will, when the first flush of faith fades, leave the Church even if they don’t (necessarily) leave in as great a percentage of those baptized as infants

The news is sobering in other areas as well.

In 2007, some 758,000 Orthodox Christians (55% of all Orthodox Christians baptized as infants) were born outside the US. But in 2014, 490,616 (40% of all Orthodox Christians in America) were born overseas. This “20% who were born in Europe, 7% who were born in sub-Saharan Africa and 7% who are from the Asia-Pacific region); 23% of Orthodox Christians are the children of immigrants” (Pew, 2015).

Other statistics from 2015, include

36% are third generation (both parents born here)

23% are second generation (at least one parent born overseas)

40% are first generation (born overseas)

Given that over 60% of all Orthodox Christians are either first or second generation, it is hard to see how the Orthodox Church can claim to be an American Church in anything other than the most general of terms. For the foreseeable future, Orthodoxy in America will be an immigrant Church.

[1] With a median age of 40 years old, Orthodox Christians are the youngest Christian tradition in America, see “Which U.S. religious groups are oldest and youngest?” available here http://ift.tt/29yTifp, accessed 1/27/17.

[2] Together with Muslims and Buddhists, some 40% of Orthodox Christians in the US have at least a college degree. PEW (2015), p. 55.

[3] While 20% of Orthodox Christians have a total family income of less than $30,00/year, 28% have an annual income above $100,000. 24% make $30,000 to $49,000/year while 29% make between $50,000 and $99,999/year. See “America’s Changing Religious Landscape,” p. 58, available online http://ift.tt/1EyMFzD, accessed. 1/27/17.

[4] http://ift.tt/1D2cHBi, accessed 1/20/2017. For more on the pastoral and political implications of this, see Georgia Kasamias “Orthodoxy and Race in Light of Trump’s Inauguration,” http://ift.tt/2kj6L1M, accessed 1/20/2017. See as well Albert J. Raboteau, “ Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.” http://ift.tt/2jX0bPg accessed 1/20/2017.

[5] See the research sponsored by the Assembly of Orthodox Bishops in America: http://ift.tt/2kj2cVi, accessed 1/27/17. The practical effect of this is while “liabilities” increase in terms of clergy compensation, mortgages and upkeep for churches and monasteries, “assets” in term of the number of faithful to support financially the Church are diminishing.

[6] Pew US Religious Landscape Survey (2007), available here: http://ift.tt/1BgrYh7, accessed 1/27/17.

[7] It is important to keep in mind that the PEW data tells us the number of Orthodox Christians who self-identify as converts in 2014 and NOT the number of adults who converted to Orthodoxy in that years.

[8] In 2007, PEW reported that 23% of the Church in America were converts. In 2014, that number had jumped to 27% even though the TOTAL number of converts had dropped by approximately 25% (from 297,264 in 07 to 222,709 in 14).

from American Orthodox Church by the Numbers

[frgregoryj]

Homily: Called to Heal Others

Sunday, January 29, 2017: Sunday of the Canaanite Woman; Removal of the Relics of Ignatius the God-bearer, Laurence the Recluse of the Kiev Caves, Ignatius and Nicandrus of Sinai

Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:16-18; 7:1 Gospel: Matthew 15:21-28

The word for church in Greek is ecclesia. It means the gathered. From before the last words of the New Testament were written, this idea of the Church as those called out from the world and gathered together into Christ, had a Eucharistic meaning. We read, for example, in the Didache, “…as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom” (¶ 9; compare, Romans 12:3-8, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Ephesians 4:4-6).

Thank about this for a moment. How do we get bread?

Wheat is planted and cultivated, it harvested and threshed, it made into flour, then mixed with water and yeast and finally baked. From the scattering of the seed to the breaking of the bread, there is a multi-step process. And of course, before all this, the ground needs to be prepared.

The point is that wheat doesn’t just become bread any more than grapes just become wine. Both require that human labor and ingenuity be mixed with divine grace. It only then that bread and wine can become through prayer and the invocation of the Holy Spirit the Body and Blood of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ.  While there are differences to be sure, the bread and wine on our tables and the Body and Blood of Christ on the Altar, are both the fruit of human labor and divine grace.

And the Church is like this as well.

The Church is the fruit of divine grace mixed with human labor and ingenuity. This is why the fathers call the Church a theandric community. Like our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church is both divine and human. Divorce one from the other and whatever you have, it isn’t the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Seeing the evidence of human labor and ingenuity in the Church is easy. Walk into almost any Orthodox church and you are overwhelmed by its beauty. Icons, vestments, incense and singing all combine to glorify God.

If we take a step back, we realize that the church we are standing in was designed and built by human hands even as it was financed and paid for by human labor.

All of this testifies not only to the potential of human labor but also to the heights of human dignity. We are created in God’s image and called to glorify Him in our lives. The latter is done as much in the myriad actions that make up our everyday lives as in the liturgical worship of the Church. Both are needed.

But why, if what we do every day is so important, are we called out of the world? Shouldn’t we be called to the world? No. We are called out because the world is fallen, marred by human sin. It has become, in Paul’s phrase “unclean.”

The uncleanness of the world is this: through human sinfulness, through my sinfulness, creation is deformed and is an instrument of human rebellion. King David says in the Psalms of our tendency to sin: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands (115:4, NKJV). The Prophet Isaiah makes the same diagnosis. Reflecting on Israel when it abandoned God he says that “Their land is also full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made” (2:8, NKJV).

Christ calls us out from the world—and to purified—because we have fallen horribly in love with our own abilities.

Tragically, we hear the echo of this even among Orthodox Christians. How easily we fall in love with “our church,” or our position in the parish, or even the pew in which we sit or the place where we stand. This why St Paul tells that, having received the promise of salvation through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.”

We can find no better example of what this means than the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel.

One of the fathers said that in coming to Tyre and Sidon, Jesus left the unbelief of the Jews in search of faith among the Gentiles. In like fashion, the Canaanite woman “left behind idolatry and an impious life” in search of Jesus (Epiphanius the Latin, “Interpretation of the Gospel,” 58 in ACCS, NT vol Ib: Matthew 14-28, p. 27). St Augustine says this woman is “a figure of the Church” and an icon of humility. “The more humble a person,” he says, the more “receptive and full he becomes” of divine grace, mercy and love (“Sermon,” 77.11-12, in ACCS, NT vol Ib: Matthew 14-28, p. 31).

St John Chrysostom goes right to the heart of the matter. So deep is her humility and faith that when Jesus calls the Jews “children,” she calls them “master.” Such is her wisdom, the saint says, that she doesn’t say “a word against anyone else. She was not stung to see others praised, nor was she indignant to be reproached.” All she wants is for her daughter to be “made whole.”

It is because of her faith, humility and wisdom that the woman “contributed not a little to the healing of her daughter” (“The Gospel of Matthew,” Homily 52.3 in ACCS, NT vol Ib: Matthew 14-28, p. 30).

All that we do in the Church, the whole of our labor and creativity, has the same goal as the Canaanite woman. We are called aside by God and purified by His grace, in order that—with Him—we can “contribute not a little” to the healing of others.

Our task is first and foremost to stand before the Altar of God and intercede on behalf of not only the Church but the whole world. This is why, in the Great Litany and again in the Anaphora, we pray for bishops, priests, deacons, monastic and indeed to all the faithful in all the Churches of God. In these prayers, we also pray for the President of the United States, all civil authorities and the armed forces.

And our prayer isn’t a vague, humanistic sentiment; we don’t just wish people well or have good thoughts for them or send them good energy. No, we prayer that all the members of the Church grow in their faith and come to love Jesus Christ and their neighbor more fully.

And to this prayer, we add our fervent request that the whole world—including the civil authorities—come to that same great faith in Jesus Christ that we saw in the Canaanite woman.

My brothers and sisters in Christ!

We have been called by God to imitate the example of the Canaanite woman. Everything we do in the service of the Gospel begins here, in our fidelity to the example this unnamed woman. We are called, like her, to contribute “not a little” to the healing of others.

Let us begin!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

from Homily: Called to Heal Others

[frgregoryj]

The Moral and Spiritual Blessings of Trade Among All Nations 

St John Chrysostom (c.349—407) Archbishop of Constantinople (398—404) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Sarah Skwire, Literary Editor of FEE.org and a senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc., writes:

Free trade doesn’t just make us better off.

It makes us better people.

Donald Trump claims that raising barriers to trade is one of the things it will take to “Make America Great Again,” but he is wrong. Greatness—both of wealth and of moral character—comes from trade. And we have known this for a very long time.

She goes on to quote St John Chrysostom’s argument “that God had arranged the geography of the world in such a way that humans would be required to trade with one another to meet their needs.”

Read the rest: here.

from The Moral and Spiritual Blessings of Trade Among All Nations 

[frgregoryj]

A King Needs A Palace 

​Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you know that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of-throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself!

George MacDonald in C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Walker and Co., 1987), 205.

from A King Needs A Palace