Same Old Barns

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Before delivering the short Parable of the Foolish Landowner (LK. 12:16-21) the Lord first offers the following admonition by way of preface to the parable itself: "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness, for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (LK. 12:15) The parable gives story-form to the truth of that admonition. Yet, the timeless and universal truths revealed in this particular parable can have the unfortunate effect of blunting the depth of its inner meaning. As if the clarity and obviousness of the parable somehow removes its "sting." We then feel content with repeating the worn-out and cliched saying (accompanied by a pious sigh): "When you die, you can't take it all with you." Spoken in such a spirit, this becomes a form of lip-service to what Christ is getting at, while in reality we brush the parable aside as "not applicable." But the parable goes far beyond the banality of that cliche which, in itself, still contains more that a hidden hint of despair over the prospect of death and loss. The parable is compact enough to include in this meditation:

The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

The Parable of the Foolish Landowner is not only about the loss of material wealth due to our common human finitude, against which we have no real defense (though leaving it for our loved ones is something of a consolation); but more importantly about the loss of not being "rich toward God." Then the parable is not only about the inevitability/necessity of loss, but about the cost of a self-inflicted poverty and a freely-chosen path of neglecting God. In the post-Resurrection Church, the loss of such "riches" becomes even more acute, based on what the Apostle Paul so powerfully expressed:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. (II COR. 8:9)

The landowner is chastised in the end because he turned his new barns into the treasure that attracted his heart's desire, "for," as Christ taught: "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (MATT. 6:21) These "barns," in turn, represent whatever it is in our lives that becomes a treasure more valuable than God. It should be deeply sobering and convicting, indeed, when we think of how grossly materialistic some of these "treasures" actually are. It's the same old barns, but now with modern conveniences! "Nothing new under the sun ..." 

 

In the parable, the Lord has God call such a confusion of priorities "foolishness." Basically, this is misplaced spiritual energy. The "energies" of our human nature are so misplaced as to be considered wasted. Directed toward the self, they lack any root by which to be nurtured by divine grace, for the self cannot serve as a substitute for God. Since there is no indication that the rich landowner was a theoretical atheist, it appears that he, as countless others, may have been trying to manage a "balancing act" - if not "bargain" - of sorts: (outward?) piety toward God together with the heartfelt pursuit of building new barns and then eating, drinking and being merry to his heart's content. Very human desires, but draining enough to transform one into a practical atheist - believing in God's existence, but living as though God did not exist.

To be "rich toward God," is to put God first and foremost in our lives. To build up our relationship with God is infinitely greater than building up new barns. We do not know when our soul will be "required" of us. Even though we postpone thoughts of our mortality, or project them into a vague, indistinct and seemingly remote future, the reality could be different. Only God knows. To hear God pronounce "Fool!" in the end would be beyond tragic, especially if we are immersed in the life of the Church and its call to eternal fellowship with God. We have this life as a gift in order to become rich toward God. The Parable of the Foolish Landowner is a fair warning of what squandering that gift may ultimately mean.

Waiting in Faithful Expectation for the Fullness of Time

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

I have the feeling that we are never quite ready for the Forty-day Nativity/Advent Fast that prepares us for the Birth of Jesus Christ on December 25. And yet, it is fast approaching, as early as this coming Sunday, November 15. 

 

Trying to keep ahead of ourselves as much as possible, I have attached a pastoral meditation/reflection on this upcoming season for  you to hopefully read. The meditation stresses the need for patience. I do hope you take the time to read what I wrote.  

 

For the moment, I would yet again - as I have all during this pandemic - stress our need to make the home that "little church" that St. John Chrysostom spoke of. That becomes even more imperative when our access to the church as our place of gathering and worship remains restricted. It is all about connecting with the life of the Church that always presents to us Truth, Goodness and Beauty - all incarnate in Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man. 

We are getting ready to embark upon a journey. If we do this together it will prove all that more rewarding. Please address any questions you may have about the Nativity Fast to me.

In Christ,

Fr. Steven

 

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Waiting in Faithful Expectation for the Fullness of Time

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

We may indeed feel unprepared, but the forty-day fasting season in preparation for the Feast of the Incarnation is rapidly approaching. That being the case, I would like to develop a particular perspective concerning the nature of the approaching Nativity/Advent Fast.  And that would be about the necessary virtue of patience that accompanies any period of preparation in the life of the Church.  

 

We are directed to observe a fast as we prepare for the advent of the Son of God in the flesh.  This is only for forty days, but that can seem like a very long period to make some alterations and adjustments in our lifestyles!  Clearly, it has its challenges, all of which we are very much aware of.  

 

We know that the “sacred” number of forty – years or days – is a very scriptural number, always implying a period of expectation and fulfillment, a movement begun and completed in accordance with the express will of God.  That could be the forty years of Israel’s wandering in the desert, or the Lord fasting for forty days in the wilderness.  Yet, less specifically, we need to understand the great length of time that Israel was forced to wait for its deliverance.  If we think in terms of Abraham to Christ, we become aware of the 3 x 14 generations that St. Matthew lists in the opening genealogy of his Gospel.  That is a long history indeed, filled with God’s providential care for His chosen people, but also filled with apostasy and betrayal on the part of Israel.  A history embracing Israel’s victories against its surrounding enemies, but also its subjugation and humiliation at the hands of other enemies.

While this tumultuous and even torturous history of Israel was unfolding, the prophets were both exhorting and chastising the people, but also speaking of deliverance.  Although this is a very complex development, there were clear indications among the prophets of a Messiah figure – sometimes very human, but at times a transcendent figure – around whom and in whom these longings for deliverance were concentrated.  He would be the Lord’s Anointed, and as such he would proclaim deliverance and salvation to Israel.  That profound and poignant sense of longing for deliverance is beautifully expressed in the two hymns found in the opening chapters of St. Luke’s Gospel, the first from St. Zechariah (LK. 1:67-79); and the other, the Magnificat of the Theotokos (LK. 1:46-55). 

 

One needs only to read the Book of Isaiah to get a sense of this messianic longing which took on universal dimensions, so that all the peoples of the earth would come to know the one true God and then come to Zion to worship Him.  We read of The Prophet, the Son of Man, the Suffering Servant of the Lord, and of the Messiah throughout the prophetic books of the Old Testament.  This basic human longing for regaining a “lost paradise” in one form or another was gathered around these mysterious figures “promised” by the prophets who, in turn, were those chosen by God to deliver God’s word to the people of Israel.  But many generations were disappointed that these prophetic promises were not fulfilled in their time.

If we can appreciate this sense of waiting and longing, we can understand better how we, as contemporary Christians, in a very modest sense, are re-living or actualizing the experience of Israel as we await the advent of our Lord in a specially-designated period known as the Nativity/Advent Fast.  This designated forty days serves as a microcosm of Israel’s testing and preparation. Waiting implies expectation, perhaps even a certain sense of excitement. (Ask your children about that!). But it also implies patience, stabilized and strengthened by trust and faith in God, especially when we encounter obstacles, temptations, doubts, diversions and distractions.  Therefore, if Israel waited for the Lord’s Anointed, so will we as the New Israel of God. 

Of course, we know and believe that the Messiah has come as Jesus of Nazareth, and our festal cycle again allows us to also re-live and actualize that advent on an annual basis, so as to renew our sense of fulfillment of the prophecies of old, and to again “greet” the newborn Christ Child with great joy and thanksgiving to God for working out our salvation “in the midst of the earth.”  All Christian believers of all ages can experience a child-like joy in the birth of Christ, the Son of God who became flesh.  We have the decided advantage of knowing all of this in advance, and this has been expressed very powerfully in the Epistle to the Hebrews, wherein the author, after reminding the early Christians of the great faith of the saints who lived before Christ, further reminds them of the great privilege of having lived in the time of fulfillment:  “And all these, though well-attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect”  (HEB. 11:39-40).

We cannot join “the world” in its indifference to Christ. And we cannot descend to the level of the crass commercialization of Christmas.  We are, after all, Christians!  Our goal is to fulfill the words of the Apostle Paul:  “I therefore … beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”  (EPH. 4:1-3).  This will test our patience, our trust in God, and our faith.  It has never been otherwise.

With the current pandemic and the unsettling political uncertainty around us - both of which are causes of extreme polarization and lack of trust in our institutions and in one another – we need to look inward very carefully in order to meet these challenges with the patience of the People of Israel and to simultaneously remain joyful as we await the birth of our Savior.

'All My angels praised Me!'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

"Uplifted Godwards, from their beginning it has been the angels' greatest joy to choose freely for God and to give him their undaunted flow of life in unending love and worship."  ~ Mother Alexandra

On November 8, just yesterday at the Liturgy this year, we commemorated The Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers. This gives us the opportunity to explore the Church's well-developed angelology. 

 

Orthodox theology reveals to us the fulness of all created reality, beginning with the realm of the bodiless powers: "When the stars were made, all my angels praised me with a loud voice." (Job 38:7) When we remove the angelic orders from our account of reality, we diminish our sense of wonder and our sense of "mystery" in the best sense of that word. I recall once, speaking with one of our parish’s Church School teachers about the nature of angels and how we convey this to our children.  One of our first tasks, I believe, is to overcome the caricature that has developed over the centuries concerning  the appearance and role of angels.  (Do adults also need to be liberated from this same caricature?).

That caricature imagines angels to be puffy and fluffy “cherubs” that are basically rosy-cheeked floating babies.  Cupid-like, they carry bows and arrows that appear harmless enough.  They are often naked, but at times they appear to be covered in what can only be described as a celestial diaper.  How these Hallmark card fantasies, based on Renaissance and Baroque-era deviations from the sacred and profound iconography of the earlier centuries both West and East, can be associated with the “Lord of Sabaoth” and the celestial hierarchy of angels that surround the throne of God with their unceasing chant of “Holy, Holy, Holy!” is something of an unfortunate mystery. In the words of Lev Gillette, a Monk of the Eastern Church: "There is nothing rosy or weakly poetical in the Angels of the Bible: they are flashes of the light and strength of the Almighty Lord"  And in her wonderful book The Holy Angels, Mother Alexandra writes:  "In a certain sense, if it can be so expressed, they are the individualized  selfness of God's own attributes."

The Scriptures and the Holy Fathers only describe powerful celestial beings that serve God and fulfill His will for the well-being of the human race and our salvation.  Angels are not eternal or immortal by nature.  They are creatures, coming forth from the creative Word of God perfected by His Spirit.  It was Saint Basil the Great, based on Job 38:7, as quoted above, who taught that angels were created even before the cosmos. These genderless beings are described by Saint Gregory the Theologian as “a second light, an effusion or participation in God, in the primal light.”  And whenever a human being is visited by an angel and receives this heavenly messenger’s revelation, his or her first impulse is to bow down and worship this celestial visitor as a divine being!  Warm and fuzzy feelings with any impulse toward cuddling and kissing are hardly implied in the biblical texts. It is again, Mother Alexandra who reinforces this: "Angels are of a superiority all but incomprehensible to us, but they are a part of our lives. By God's boundless mercy, they are destined, in the great moments of history, to be the heralds of the Most High to man below; they are, as well, our guides, guardians, mentor, protectors, and comforters from birth to the grave." Actually, our use of the term “angel” – based on the Greek angelos or “messenger”—is a generic term used to describe all of the many kinds of heavenly hosts described and named in the Scriptures.  In fact, this celestial hierarchy, according to Saint Dionysios the Areopagite,  is comprised of a triad of ranks, three angelic orders in each rank.  The names are scriptural, but the triads have been conceived of by Saint Dionysios:

 

• First Rank:  Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones (Is. 6:2; Ezek. 10:1; Col. 1:16)
• Second Rank:  Authorities, Dominions, Powers (Col. 1:16; I Pet. 3:22; Eph. 3:10)
• Third Rank:  Principalities, Angels, Archangels (Col. 1:16; I Thes. 4:15)

 

This structuring of the celestial hierarchy has had an enormous influence on the angelology of the Church.

Actually, Saint John Chrysostom tells us that even these names and “classes” do not exhaust the heavenly ranks of angelic beings: “There are innumerable other kinds and an unimaginable multitude of classes, for which no words can be adequate to express.” he writes.  “From this we see that there are certain names which will be known then, but are now unknown.”

With his great ability to summarize and synthesize the Church’s living Tradition, Saint John of Damascus (+749) gives us this description of what an angel actually is in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.  “An angel, then, is a noetical essence, perpetually in motion, with a free will, incorporeal, subject to God, having obtained by grace an immortal nature.  The Creator alone knows the form and limitation of its essence.”

Admittedly, this is a very brief description of the true nature of the bodiless hosts of heaven, based on the Scriptures and the Fathers. Hopefully it will restore a genuine sense of awe and veneration before these incredible beings that only further amaze us with the creative power, energy and will of God. 

The 'Big Picture'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

As we continue to wait as a nation for a winner in the ongoing presidential election, I would imagine that some persons are agonizing, others are deeply interested, and others may be indifferent. Whatever the case may be, perhaps we all need to put everything in context and see the "big picture" of life all around us, especially as Christians. For that reason, I am sending out an older meditation that is based on a Feast Day that we already celebrated this year. It may be chronologically "out of turn," but I was looking for something that raises enduring themes that will draw out minds elsewhere - in case they are overly-preoccupied with politics, itself a relative dimension of life. So, if you may feel the need for a (meaningful) "distraction" that will take our minds elsewhere, this meditation is for you.

Fr. Steven

_____

God's Love - Shown Through the Cross

Dear Parish Faithful,

In preparation for the upcoming Feast of the Elevation/Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross on September 14, the Sunday preceding the Feast is designated simply as the “Sunday before the Cross.” This anticipatory focus on the Feast of the Cross alerts us to its importance in the consciousness of the Church. If we have the “mind of the Church,” then our own minds and hearts can be elevated and exalted upward toward the Son of Man who will be “lifted up” on the Cross for our salvation. This is precisely where the Church directs our attention with the upcoming Feast in mind. For in addition to the appointed Gospel reading at yesterday’s Liturgy, this second reading was taken from the Gospel According to St. John:

No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (JN. 3:13-17)

It is this passage, of course, that contains the well-known and magnificent text referred to simply as “John 3:16.” (Even those who never read the Gospels have either heard this verse somewhere or seen it displayed on a billboard, on a side of a barn along the highway, or even overhead on the tail of a helicopter as I once saw it at a baseball game). God (the Father) will “send” His Son – clearly the pre-existent Son – into the world (kosmos in the Gk.) that God loved into existence, and continued to love even though the world had fallen from its initial purpose and destiny. That “fall,” however conceived, meant that all was perishing. For human beings created for a relationship with God, this resulted not only in a death attended by guilt, regret, anxiety and fear; but also in the loss of life’s meaning and purpose. The biblical concept and reality of sheol/hades was no real consolation. A good deal of idolatry – the worship of “false gods” - is generated by a desperate search for some meaning in life; for something to attach to that will lift us up beyond the mundane and material aspects of existence. To believe in nothing is to be predisposed to believe in anything.

The expression that God “gave” us His Son is to point to the ultimate purpose of the Incarnation, which is the Cross, where again, the Son of man will be “lifted up.” And it is Jesus who is the Son of man. Behind the historical commemoration of this Feast, which is the discovery of the “true Cross” in the fourth c., we discover the Cross as the “place” where God wiped away our sin in and through the death of the Crucified Lord. In this way the “world” is “saved” through Christ, and we need no longer “perish” if we believe in Him. The “eternal life” of this salvation process is not an endless extension of time, nor is it the extension of biological existence (bios in Gk.) but something all together qualitatively different, as in true or abundant life (zoe in the Gk.) with and in God beyond the vicissitudes of time.

“Money makes the world "go 'round" is a cliché that many think and believe is true. Perhaps it seems most true to the very rich or the very poor. (As Hazel Motes of Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood said: A man with a new car don’t need redemption). The very rich may believe that they have discovered the secret to life’s meaning in the accumulation of great wealth; and the very poor may be convinced that a good life has been denied to them because they have been left out of the distribution of the world’s wealth One attitude can easily lead to arrogance, and the other to despair. But anyone struggling with economic distress, financial instability or making ends meet, may either willingly or reluctantly ascribe – to one degree or another – to the cliché that money is the energy and power that drives life and the “world.” Others, of course, may think that it is politics and politicians that make the world "go 'round." That may be the case, regardless of any given person's "party."

However, if we ascribe to the Gospel as revealing not only relative truths, but Truth itself in all of its majesty and glory; then we will realize that it is ultimately love that makes the world "go ‘round." This is not a sentimental counter-cliché. It is the love of God that is the “energy” that created the cosmos “in the beginning.” This love is the pouring forth of the eternal love that dwells within the Trinity and which as an “uncreated energy” gives, sustains, and redeems human life made “in the image and likeness of God.” Because of God’s steadfast love, the world which was created is now also saved by that same love. This love has no limit, because God is the source of an infinite love that we hardly comprehend. For God does want to condemn the world but precisely to save it. 

When we “bow down” before the decorated Cross during the Feast of the Elevation/Exaltation of the Cross, it is this Truth that we acknowledge and rejoice in.

 

Image of a True Disciple: The Gadarene Demoniac

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

 

One of the most challenging narratives in the Gospels has to be the healing of the Gadarene demoniac (Mk. 5:1-20; MATT. 8:28-34; LK. 8:26-39). This dramatic event which reveals the power of Christ over the demons will appear to the 21st c. mind as either archaic or even primitive. We may listen with respect and sing "Glory to Thee, O Lord, glory to Thee!" upon the completion of the reading, but "wrapping our minds" around such a narrative may leave us baffled if not shaking our heads.

 

The spectacle of a man possessed by many demons, homeless and naked, living among the tombs, chained so as to contain his self-destructive behavior is, to state the obvious, not exactly a sight that we encounter with any regularity. (Although we should acknowledge that behind the walls of certain institutions, we could witness to this day some horrible scenes of irrational and frightening behavior from profoundly troubled and suffering human beings). Add to this a herd of swine blindly rushing over a steep bank and into a lake to be drowned, and we must further recognize the strangeness of this event. This is all-together not a part of our world!

Yet, there is no reason to doubt the veracity of the narrated event, which does appear in three of the Gospels, though with different emphases and details - in fact there are two demoniacs in St. Matthew's telling of the story! It is always instructive to compare the written account of a particular event or body of teaching when found in more than one Gospel. This will cure us of the illusion of a wooden literalism as we will discover how the four evangelists will present their gathered material from the ministry of Jesus in somewhat different forms. 

As to the Gadarene demoniac, here was an event within the ministry of Christ that must have left a very strong impression upon the early Church as it was shaping its oral traditions into written traditions that would eventually come together in the canonical Gospels. This event was a powerful confirmation of the Lord's encounter and conflict with, and victory over, the "evil one." The final and ultimate consequence of that victory will be revealed in the Cross and Resurrection.

Whatever our immediate reaction to this passage - proclaimed yesterday during the Liturgy from the Gospel According to St. Luke (8:26-39) - I believe that we can recognize behind the dramatic details the disintegration of a human personality under the influence of the evil one, and the reintegration of the same man's personhood when healed by Christ. Here was a man that was losing his identity to a process that was undermining the integrity of his humanity and leading to physical harm and psychic fragmentation. 

 

I am not in the process of offering a psychological analysis of the Gadarene demoniac because, 1) I am ill-equipped to do so; and 2) I do not believe that we can "reduce" his horrible condition to psychological analysis. We are dealing with the mysterious presence of personified evil and the horrific effects of that demonic presence which we accept as an essential element of the authentic Gospel Tradition. 

The final detail that indicates this possessed man's loss of personhood is revealed in the dialogue between himself and Jesus:

Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. (8:30)

To be named in the Bible is to receive a definite and irreducible identity as a person. It is to be "someone" created in the "image and likeness of God." It is the role of the evil one to be a force of disintegration. The "legion" inhabiting the man reveals the loss of his uniqueness, and the fragmentation of his personality. Such a distorted personality can no longer have a "home," which is indicative of our relational capacity as human beings, as it is indicative of stability and a "groundedness" in everyday reality. The poor man is driven into the desert, biblically the abode of demons. 

Once again, we may stress the dramatic quality of this presentation of a person driven to such a state, but would we argue against this very presentation as false when we think of the level of distortion that accompanies any form of an "alliance" with evil -whether "voluntary or involuntary?" Does anyone remain whole and well-balanced under the influence of evil? Or do we rather not experience or witness a drift toward the "abyss"?

Then we hear a splendid description of the man when he is healed by Christ! For we hear the following once the demons left him and entered into the herd of swine and self-destructed (the ultimate end of all personal manifestations of evil?):

Then the people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. (8:35)

"Sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind." This is clearly one of the most beautiful descriptions of a Christian who remains as a true disciple of the Master. This is the baptized person who is clothed in a "garment of salvation" and who is reoriented toward Christ, the "Sun of Righteousness." 

The image here is of total reintegration, of the establishment of a relationship with Christ that restores integrity and wholeness to human life. Also an image of peacefulness and contentment. Our goal in life is to "get our mind right" which describes repentance or that "change of mind" that heals all internal divisions of the mind and heart as it restores our relationship with others. 

Jesus commands the man "to return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you" (8:39). We, too, have been freed from the evil one "and all his angels and all his pride" in baptism. In our own way, perhaps we too can also proclaim just how much Jesus has done for us (cf. 8:39).