Rebuking the Tempter, and Following Jesus

 

Christ being tempted by the devil

Dear Parish Faithful, On Monday, we made the "Lukan Jump" into the third canonical Gospel. It was just yesterday, then, that the assigned reading was from Lk. 4:1-15: The Temptation/Testing in the Wilderness (also Matt. 4:1-11; Mk. 1:12-13) The nuances of the Greek word behind this event allows us to think in terms of “temptation” or “testing.” Perhaps we could say that Christ was tested when God allowed Him to be tempted by the devil. Either way – or with a combination of both terms – the forty days spent by Jesus in the wilderness will shape Him and His ministry to Israel and to the world by defining an image of the Messiah that He will reject and one that He will embrace. It is highly significant that it is the Spirit who “led” Jesus “into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Lk. 4:1). Nothing in the life of Christ is accidental. In all things He is led by His heavenly Father acting through the Holy Spirit, including this “face-to-face” encounter with the evil one. The austere and unsettling figure of the Grand Inquisitor of Dostoevsky’s famous Legend embedded in his masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov, refers to the devil as “the dread and intelligent spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-being.” It is this dread spirit who will tempt Christ through the three questions that will test the fidelity of Christ to His unique messianic vocation as willed by His heavenly Father.  Dostoevsky, through the tragic figure of the Grand Inquisitor, further reveals the power and non-human source of these powerful temptations, when the Inquisitor says in his monologue: “By the questions alone, simply by the miracle of their appearance, on can see that one is dealing with a mind not human and transient but eternal and absolute. For in these three questions all of subsequent human history is as if brought together into a single whole and foretold; three images are revealed that will take in all the insoluble historical contradictions of human nature over all the earth.” In other words, these three temptations were not “invented” or “made up” by the evangelists for dramatic effect. The very “perfection” of the temptations posed by the devil reveal their veracity. And what are these three temptations? According to St. Matthew’s account (the account that we are probably more familiar with, at least in terms of the order of the temptations), they begin with the following as Jesus is fasting and experiencing hunger in the wilderness: “And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread’.” This was followed by the second temptation to test God’s fidelity to Him after the devil “took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will give his angels charge of you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, less you strike your foot against a stone’.” The final temptation was grandiose and sweeping in its scope: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’.”  In Dostoevsky’s particular and profound interpretation of Christ’s encounter with the tempter in the wilderness, Jesus refuses to receive obedience through miracle, mystery and authority as represented in these three tantalizing temptations. By compelling human beings to believe in Him by overwhelming them with the miraculous; by exploiting a sense of mystery to attract human beings to follow him; and by appealing to the human need for security through external authority; Christ would have accepted and approved of a distorted understanding of human nature. In Dostoevsky’s understanding of Christ, as attainable as these “powers” may be for the Son of God, each one in its own way violates the gift of human freedom given to us by God and appealed to by Christ. It is for this very reason that Christ did not come down from the Cross as He was “tempted” to do by those who mocked Him. Even if freedom is a burden as well as a gift, it is the true vision of humanity created “in the image and likeness of God.” We, in turn, freely choose to follow Christ, the crucified “Lord of glory.” Dostoevsky had his particular concerns when he resorted to the temptation in the wilderness to dramatize the dialectics of human freedom and coercion in an unforgettable manner in The Brothers Karamazov. Within the context of the Gospels, we can say that Christ had to overcome the temptation to be a particular kind of Messiah that was not in accord with the will of God. He was not declared to be His Father’s “beloved Son” at the Jordan River so as to be a militant Messiah who ruled through power. The words of God the Father at the Jordan were clear echoes from the Suffering Servant songs from the prophet Isaiah. And the Suffering Servant would heal us by His “stripes.” His very suffering would be redemptive. And therefore that suffering (on the Cross) was essential to the divine economy. To overcome such temptations as man, the Lord resorted to prayer and fasting in the wilderness – the spiritual weapons given to us all in the Church for precisely the same purpose in the “wilderness” of a fallen world: to strengthen the “inner man” against false and pretentious promises. We can accomplish this by relying on “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (DEUT. 8:3). We further heed the words, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (DEUT. 6:16). And we also follow Christ who reminded us:  “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (DEUT. 6:13).   Christ refuted the evil one’s false counsel by the power of the scriptural word. Another clear lesson for us in our relationship with the Holy Scriptures. Meaning that we, also, when tempted or tested need to turn to the Scriptures - the living Word of God, "active, sharper than any two-edged sword" - to rebuke the tempter as did Christ. Uttered with faith, the scriptural word has real power. As the “root” of a new humanity, Jesus re-enacts the history of Israel, but He “passes” the type of test that Israel “failed” to pass in its earlier forty-year wanderings in the wilderness. In fact, as the New and Last Adam He reverses the effects of Adam’s disobedience through His faithful obedience to the Father. It may sound startling to us today, but Jesus was “perfected” precisely through obedience!  Our human will was healed by the human will that the Son of God assumed and united to His divine will in the Incarnation. Before the Garden of Gethsemane, the perfect expression of that healing through obedience may just be the temptation/testing in the wilderness. As the final temptation was beaten back by Christ, He was able to say to the tempter: “Begone, Satan!” Our goal is to be able to rebuke the tempter with the same words when we are also tempted/tested – perhaps on a daily basis!

'Substance' and 'Evidence'

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

In session V of our Summer Bible Study yesterday evening, we focused on that great definition/description of faith found in Heb. 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I have deliberately modified the RSV translation. For the word "substance" above is a convincing translation of the Gk. hypostasis (it is substance in Heb. 1:3); and the word "evidence" is a convincing translation of the Gk. elenchos. Both "substance" and "evidence" indicate a more objective dimension to the sacred author's definition of faith (the words used in the KJV); though the fact that such words as "assurance" and "conviction" are used in the RSV, also indicates the wide-ranging intent of the author. It is the one great definition of faith found in the New Testament.

Be that as it may, we had a long discussion on this text, and many participants shared their own insights into the meaning and experience of "faith." I wanted to share one of those insights from the group. This one came over zoom chat from Kevin Rains:

"Faith = trust = confidence (in whom we place our confidence, and where we place our confidence, etc.) = allegiance." Kevin went on to qualify his use of "allegiance," by writing the following: "Allegiance obviously has some political overtones - as in 'I pledge allegiance ...' Yet we are reminded weekly in the Liturgy to "put not our trust in princes or sons of men"." 

All in all, that is a nice progression that steadily broadens our understanding and experience of faith. Too often "faith" is reduced to some kind of vague intuition, a highly subjective feeling; and perhaps worst of all, as a form of "wishful thinking" that someone may desperately cling to when "all else fails." Of course, our faith is so very much subject to change and fluctuation. We all empathize with the desperate father in Mk. 9:24, when he cried out to the Lord: "I believe, help my unbelief!" The words translated as "I believe" (pisteúo) and "unbelief" (apistia) in this passage both stem from the Gk. word that is used for faith: pistis.

Heb. 11:1 has given us a remarkable and encouraging insight into faith that, when truly manifested in our lives, is deeply convincing and stabilizing. We begin the Nicene Creed with the words: "I believe" (pisteúo). The Creed is therefore one of many confessions of faith as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We have faith in the "one God, maker of heaven and earth;" we trust in God; we place our confidence in God; and we proclaim our allegiance to God, an allegiance that far transcends any such allegiance to "princes and sons of men."

The 'Apostles to the Apostles'

Dear Parish Faithful, CHRIST IS RISEN!  INDEED HE IS RISEN! We are in the week of the Myrrh-bearing Women, as we extend Sunday's commemoration of these extraordinary women throughout the entirety of this week. At all the Vespers and Matins services for this week, the Church will sing and chant primarily about the myrrhbearing women and their role as apostolic witnesses, implying their role as "apostles to the apostles."  Their eyewitness testimony of both the empty tomb and the Risen Lord continues to amaze me, and I can only imagine the excitement and intense response with which this testimony must have been greeted when they shared their experience with the other members of the earliest Christian communities. Their timeless witness is with us until "the end of the world." As the New Testament scholar, Richard Baukham writes: "These women, I think we can say, acted as apostolic eyewitness guarantors of the traditions about Jesus, especially his resurrection but no doubt also in other respects. As we have seen, that their witness acquires textual form in the Gospels implies that it can never have been regarded as superseded or unimportant. For as long as these women were alive their witness, 'We have seen the Lord,' carried the authority of those the Lord himself commissioned to witness to his resurrection... "They were well-known figures and there were a large number of them. They surely continued to be active traditioners whose recognized eyewitness authority could act as a touchstone to guarantee the traditions as others relayed them and to protect the traditions from inauthentic developments." ( Gospel Women, p. 295) If "fear and trembling seized them" when they departed from the empty tomb (MK 16:8), perhaps in our more focused moments we, too, can experience that same "fear and trembling" when we again read or listen to St. Mark's account in the Gospel. There is something unforgettable and awe-inspiring about that ever-memorable morning when the sun was just rising and the stone to the tomb had been rolled away; followed then by the appearance of the "young man" dressed in "white robes" announcing: "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him" (MK. 16:8).  The angel understood their amazement, because the women sensed the numinous presence of God filling that empty tomb with an other-worldly reality. Their own disorientation at this unexpected turn of events when they left the tomb is probably behind their initial silence. (This does not mean that the women failed to fulfill the command of the angel to tell the disciples that they would see Jesus in Galilee. It probably means that they did not share this news with others until the time the risen Christ appeared to His disciples confirming the proclamation of the angel that He had indeed risen). We, in turn, have to always guard against over-familiarity dulling our response to the Good News of Christ's Resurrection from the dead. This is not a message to be nonchalant about! The Resurrection has changed the world and certainly change the lives of Christian believers. And we, too, are "witnesses of these things" (Lk 24:48).  The role of the Myrrh-bearing Women has always been treated with great respect and recognition within the Church. In one of our most beloved paschal hymns, "Let God Arise," two of the stanzas are dedicated to the myrrh-bearers and their witness. These hymns build upon the scriptural accounts of their visit to and discovery of the empty tomb, poetically developing those terse scriptural verses in a more embellished manner that weaves together a host of scriptural messianic images together with the Gospel accounts: Come from that scene, O women, bearers of glad tidings, And say to Zion: Receive from us the glad tidings of joy, of Christ's resurrection. Exult and be glad, And rejoice, O Jerusalem, Seeing Christ the King, Who comes forth from the tomb like a bridegroom in procession. The myrrh-bearing women, At the break of dawn, Drew near to the tomb of the Life-giver. There they found an angel sitting upon  the stone. He greeted them with these words: Why do you seek the living among the dead? Why do you mourn the incorrupt amid corruption? Go, proclaim the glad tidings to His disciples.  As an aside of sorts, when listening to Rimsky-Korsakov's "Russian Easter Overture," I always feel that he musically captures the excitement and energy of the myrrh-bearers discovering the empty tomb.  The myrrh-bearing women did not mysteriously disappear following the Resurrection of Christ.There were many of them, and we have the names or a reference to at least the following: Mary Magdalene Mary the mother of Joseph the Little and Jose,  Salome,  Mary of Clopas,  Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus,  Susanna,  and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.  And, of course, the "mother of Jesus," as she is referred to by the Evangelist John (19:25), was at the foot of the Cross. They must have shared their experience innumerable times, and their credibility is what lies behind their inclusion in the Gospels. They must have therefore been very prominent figures in the apostolic era of the Church. I would again stress their presence in the liturgical services of Pascha. Their presence permeates these services as the empty tomb is always an object of pious and reverential celebration: Before the dawn, Mary and the women came and found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They heard the angelic voice: "Why do you  seek among the dead as a man the one who is everlasting light? Behold the clothes in the grave. Go and proclaim to the world: The Lord is risen. He has slain death, as He is the Son of God, saving the race of men." (Hypakoe) To again include a fine summary by the New Testament scholar, Richard Baukham: "As prominent members of the early communities, probably traveling around the communities,        they were doubtless active in telling the stories themselves. They may not usually, like the male apostles, have done so in public contexts, because of the social restrictions on women in public space. But this is no reason to deny them the role of authoritative apostolic witnesses and shapers of Gospel traditions, since there need not have been such restrictions in Christian meetings and since they could witness even to outsiders in women-only contexts such as the women's quarters of houses." (Gospel Women, p. 302-303) Jesus turned things upside down by proclaiming joy to the world through the Cross. Overcoming social prejudices, He raised to great prominence these humble women who would otherwise be unknown to the world. He granted them an integral role in proclaiming the Good News to the world that the sting of death has been overcome through His rising from the dead. As long as the Gospel is proclaimed, we will venerate and celebrate the memory of the Myrrh-bearing Women and rejoice with them. Women have always been integral to witnessing to Christ and the truth of the Gospel. Over time, that witness has been diminished by "traditions" that can only be perceived as "the precepts of men." (Mk. 7:7) Their full voice and their role in the ministries of the Church need to be re-established for the very spiritual health of the Church and its witness to a world starving of divine presence.

The Thundering Message

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

We just heard yesterday at the Liturgy the powerful account of Jesus raising from the dead the widow's son at Nain (LK. 7:11-16). This particular event is unique to St. Luke's Gospel. In his Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Luke, the biblical scholar Carroll Stuhlmueller, summarized the over-all impression left by this extraordinary event in the following manner:

This incident, only in Luke, shows the Evangelist's special delight in portraying Jesus not only overwhelmed with pity at the sight of tragedy but also turning with kindly regard toward women (cf. 7:36-50; 10:38-42) ... This narrative possesses the charm, color, and pathos of an excellent story: two large crowds meet, approaching from different directions; the silence with which Jesus touches the bier and stops the funeral procession; the thundering message, calmly spoken, bringing the dead back to life. (The Jerome Biblical Commentary)

 

Truly, it is nothing less than a "thundering message" when Jesus said: "Young man, I say to you arise!" (LK. 7:14). And when the young man "sat up and began to speak" we should be able to understand, however dimly, the reaction of the crowd: "Fear seized them all; and they glorified God" (7:16). 

The pathos of this story is further increased by the fact that the young man was "the only son of his mother, and she was a widow" (7:12). There was no existing social safety net within first century Israel that would provide support for this woman. Without a son who could help provide for her, this widow would have been totally dependent upon the good will and the charity of her neighbors in the small village that Nain was known to have been. Hence, the power of the simple statement that accompanies the young man's restoration to life:  "And he gave him to his mother" (7:15). What a reunion that must have been! 

Now St. Luke makes it clear just who it was who encountered this funeral procession and dramatically brought it to a halt:  "And when the Lord saw her he had compassion on her" (7:13). It was "the Lord." This was the first of many times throughout his Gospel that the Evangelist Luke will use this exalted title for Jesus. The Greek ho Kyrios — the Lord — is the translation found in the Septuagint of the divine name Yahweh. Ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament, this title reveals that as the Lord, Jesus has power over both life and death. Anticipating his own resurrection from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ brings this young man back to life, revealing that even death is not beyond His authority and capacity to give life.

We are not told how this young man died. In our contemporary world, death can be more-or-less defined in a clinical manner. The shift in this clinical definition has moved toward a final determination of "brain death." Be it the cessation of breath, permanent "cardiac arrest," or the brain death just mentioned, we can identify death and its effect on our biological organism. And so could anyone in the ancient world, where death was such a more immediate and "up close" reality compared to the rather antiseptic experience of death that we promote today in a attempt to distance the living from the dying as well as that is possible. But as Christians, we certainly understand death in a way that moves far beyond its current clinical definition and determination. That is because we understand life in such a way that the clinical is transcended by the mysterious:  "What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" (PS. 8:4). Conversant with a biblical anthropology that refuses to limit a human person to his or her biological functions, we perceive ourselves in a more complex and meaningful manner.

There are many ways over the centuries that within our theological tradition we have elaborated on that inexhaustible biblical affirmation that we are created "according to the image and likeness of God." The Church Fathers will speak of the human person as a psychosomatic union of soul and body. Or, following the Apostle Paul of a union of spirit, soul and body. (I THESS. 5:23) Because of some of the Greek philosophical connotations - primarily dualism - of using the terminology of soul and body, there has been a concerted movement within theological circles today to use the more biblically-based terms of "spirit and flesh" to describe the mystery of human personhood. Whatever the exact terminology employed to describe the fullness of human existence, the essential point being made is that the human person is more - much more - than "what meets the eye." We are even greater than the angels according to some of the Fathers, because we unite in our person the "spiritual" and the "material" as the pinnacle of God's creative acts. We have our biological limitations, but we can still know the living God! Even though we are so frail in our humanity, the psalmist can still exclaim in wonder:  "Yet you have made him little less than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honor" (PS. 8:5).

In describing the mystery of death as it pertains to all creatures, including human beings, the psalmist says (and we hear this at every Vespers service):  "When you take away their spirit, they die and return to their dust" (Ps. 104:29). This is what happened to the young man from Nain regardless of whatever may have been the immediate cause of his death. Something had happened that could not be fully described as merely brain death. His "spirit" had been taken away and his flesh was destined to return to the dust. Another expression that became almost classical as a theological description of death - and which essentially means the same thing - is that of the "separation of soul and body." Either way, the wholeness and integrity of the human person is lost in death. This is what renders death a tragedy and why the Apostle Paul can refer to death as "the last enemy."

When the Lord brought this only son of his mother to life again, the spirit of the young man returned to his flesh - or the soul to his body - and he began to live again in the full meaning of that word. Yet, this is not resurrection in the fullness of that word's meaning as we apply it to Christ:  "For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him" (ROM. 6:9). The young man was resuscitated to life. He lived — and died — again, to then await the resurrection of the dead at the end of time, a resurrection prefigured and promised by the Lord's resurrection and victory over death. The same can be said of the synagogue elder Jairus' daughter and, of course Lazarus, the friend of Christ who had been dead for four days.

We are told today that we are essentially a walking bag of chemicals with an evolved consciousness. This further implies that at death this biological organism collapses, all consciousness is irreversibly lost, and that final oblivion is our common fate. The Scripture revelation that we accept as coming from God tells us something radically different. To hear the Gospel is to fill us with the faith, hope and love that can only come from the living God. It is to hear of a different destiny and one that makes life infinitely more meaningful and hopeful. We too can cry out together with the crowd at Nain: "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and"God has visited his people!"(LK. 7:16). And living within the Church we know that this is the Lord who "shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end."

 

The Nativity of St. John the Forerunner

Dear Parish Faithful,

"Now the time came for Elizabeth to be delivered, and she gave birth to a son ... What then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him." (Lk. 1:57, 66)

 

 

 

Today, June 24, is the commemoration of the Nativity of St. John the Forerunner/Baptist. Besides Christ, the only other biblical figure whose nativity is celebrated is the Mother of God. But of the two, only St. John's conception and nativity are recorded in the Scriptures, and in some detail: Lk. 1:5-25; 57-66.  I have included a link to the scriptural texts, and to the OCA page on St. John's nativity.

An interesting feature of the liturgical commemoration of St. John's Nativity is the choice of verses used for the prokeimenon of the Feast and for the appointed Alleluia verses. The prokeimena are always chosen verses from the Psalms. These verses are never chosen arbitrarily, but they are meant to highlight one aspect or another of a given commemoration. For St. John, the two verses are:

The righteous one shall rejoice in the Lord and shall set his hope on Him. (Ps. 63:11)

vs, Hear my voice, O God, when I pray unto Thee! (63:1)

The main verse, which is repeated three times in preparation for the reading of the Epistle, is clearly chosen because St. John was such a "righteous" person who proclaimed the coming of Christ. As the angel prophecies to Zachariah, the father of the forerunner:

 

And you will have joy 

  and gladness,

and many will rejoice in his birth;

for he will be great before the Lord ...

and he will be filled with

  the Holy Spirit,

even from his mother's 

  womb. (Lk. 1:14-15)

 

However, even though the Alleluia verses before the Gospel are also overwhelmingly chosen from the Psalms, in this case, the two verses are taken from the Gospel of St. Luke:

Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people. (Lk. 1:68)

vs. And thou, child, shall be called the Prophet of the Most-High. (Lk. 1:68)

 

This is also the case when we celebrate both the Nativity of the Mother of God and her Entrance Into the Temple - the appointed prokeimenon verses for both feasts are taken directly from the text of St. Luke's Gospel. I will assume that in these two cases, this is because we have direct scriptural authority for the given feast, and not simply verses that are applied prophetically or typologically. Be that as it may, I highly encourage everyone to read the appointed texts chosen for the Nativity of St. John the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord.

For those who observe the Apostles Fast, fish is allowed on this day in honor of St. John.

 

 

 

Upholding the 'Fundamentals', versus being 'Fundamentalists'

Dear Parish Faithful,

"Scientism on the one hand and well-meaning but naive religious fundamentalism on the other have hardened in recent years so as to widen the gap that exists between the two domains."

- Fr. John Breck, Beyond These Horizons - Quantum Theory and Christian Faith

 

During the post-Liturgy discussion on Sunday, when presenting a brief description of Fr. John Breck's new book from which the quotation above is taken, I was emphatic in saying that we Orthodox are not fundamentalists. I hold that position very strongly. However, I would like to just briefly discuss the terminology that we use today so as to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding as to what I was trying to get at. And this confusion can arise when we use, rather interchangeably, such words as "fundamental," "fundamentalist," and "fundamentalism." 

 

The word "fundamentalism" refers to a strong reaction and rejection, usually in consistently black and white terms, of any contemporary movements that challenge a received tradition, or simply a long-standing understanding of a faith's core beliefs/doctrines. This strong reaction is against what is loosely called "modernism," which usually stands for a critique or challenge to traditional teaching. 

 

Protestant fundamentalism arose in the early 20th c. precisely against "modernist" trends - often based on new scientific evidence or new critical apparatus that challenged the veracity or claims of what was believed to be the correct interpretation of the Bible (as mainline Protestantism understood it).  Science and the the emerging popularization of the "theory of evolution" were clearly, but not exclusively, a part of this dispute, captured above in the words of Fr. John. What seemed to be at stake was the "literal" truth of biblical revelation.  Avoiding that difficult topic for the moment, I am simply pointing out that the movement we now call Protestant fundamentalism arose as a protest against modernism. In other words, these Protestants wanted to affirm the "fundamental" doctrines of the Bible which they were certain were being challenged, if not dismantled. However, this also led to what is now a more-or-less exclusively "literal" understanding of Scripture from "in the beginning" to the end.

As Orthodox Christians, no matter how we may differ from Protestant fundamentalists, we too affirm the basic or "fundamental" doctrines of the Christian revelation - the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Christ, God as Creator, the deifying energy of the Holy Spirit, the Mysteries/Sacraments of the Church, to name perhaps the most core doctrines. (The Church knew, taught and proclaimed these "fundamental"doctrines well before Protestantism began to exist!). So, we can certainly employ the term "fundamental(s)" on that level.  

 

However, as Orthodox, we do not have a "fundamentalist" mindset, characterized by an almost slavish commitment to the "literal" meaning of the Scriptures. That is far too narrow and lacking in insight and inspired creativity. Though the Fathers accepted the "literal" meaning of a given biblical text, their simultaneous use of biblical typology and allegory point way beyond the approach of "fundamentalism." With the ongoing discovery of new "facts," be it from the discipline of biblical scholarship or science, the literalist approach keeps being driven into a corner from which it cannot honestly emerge intact. This type of fundamentalism severely undermines the credibility of Christianity. 

 

Of course, regardless of any attacks on the "fundamental" doctrines of our Faith as listed above, we steadfastly defend those doctrines with all our intellectual and spiritual energy, often quite brilliantly. But we cannot do that if we escape into a literalist fantasy imposed upon the Bible that fears any new discoveries. I do believe that there is an element of fear that drives fundamentalism: If the biblical text is not "literally" true in just about any instance, then it simply loses it claim to reveal Truth.

Thus, when I emphatically insisted that we, as Orthodox, are not fundamentalists, I was referring to the spirit of the reactionary movement that we now call Protestant fundamentalism dating back to the early 20th c. If that type of fundamentalism enters into the Orthodox Church from outside it will undermine our credibility and stifle our longstanding and profound theological legacy. I do affirm that we uphold the "fundamental" doctrines of the Church "fearlessly," if I may put it that way. Perhaps clarifying such words as "fundamental," "fundamentalist," and "fundamentalism" can be helpful for our own self-understanding as Orthodox Christians.

Appendix

Fr. John and I have been corresponding about this issue. In a recent email he offered a fine summary of how we approach biblical exegesis, respecting the "literal" meaning - i.e. "history" - but also going beyond it.  He offers some important insights beyond which I wrote about above. I am therefore sharing what he wrote as an appendix to my own reflections:

Allegory and typology began with the "literal" sense of the Scriptures ("what the biblical author intended").  But those methodologies presupposed that there is a "higher" meaning than the literal.  The "symbolic" or "spiritual" aspect of biblical writings leads above and beyond the literal, as much as prayer leads us beyond self-centered "reflection."  A basic patristic hermeneutic principle states that "the spiritual sense flows forth from the literal sense."  We need to begin with the literal sense — i.e., with *history.  

 

* But history is merely a framework in which God works out the divine "economy" which by its very nature leads us beyond the empirical and draws us into the transcendent.  If this were not the case, Scripture would be nothing more than an outdated history book, and thus a dead letter.

I tried to deal with this in several places, the most accessible being, I suppose, the first section of the book Longing for God.  If any parishioners are really interested in the layers of meaning in the Bible, that might be a helpful place to begin.

 

 

 

The Great Canon - Leading us towards Repentance, Nourishing us through the Scriptures

Dear Parish Faithful,

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware wrote the following about the role of the Holy Scriptures in the life of an Orthodox Christian:

We are to see Scripture as a personal letter addressed specifically to each one of us by God.We are each of us to see Scripture reading as a direct, individual dialogue between Christ and ourselves.

In writing this, he may perhaps have had in mind an image used by St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (an eighteenth c. Russian Orthodox bishop), who wrote the following:

If an earthly king, our emperor, wrote you a letter, would you not read it with joy? Certainly, with great rejoicing and careful attention. You have been sent a letter, not by any earthly emperor, but by the King of Heaven. And yet you almost despise such a gift, so priceless a treasure.

During Great Lent we seek to intensify our prayer life, almsgiving and fasting. Usually, in order to recover or rediscover the purpose and meaning of these essential Christian practices, since we may have neglected them in the course of the year. And we also intensify our reading of the Holy Scriptures.

During the weekdays of Great Lent - non-Eucharistic days - the Books of Genesis (historical writing), Proverbs (Wisdom literature), and Isaiah (prophetic writing) are prescribed. These will change to Exodus, Job and Ezekiel during Holy Week. On Saturdays and Sundays - Eucharistic days - we turn to the New Testament and read the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel According to St. Mark. And during Great Lent The Psalter is prescribed to be read through twice each week. We therefore return to the Scriptural roots of the Church so as to hear and read the living Word of God with attentiveness and the awareness of how this Word "judges" us: "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Heb 4:12).

In addition to the prescribed readings which are appointed in all liturgical services, it is fascinating to hear how the various texts and hymns of the liturgical services are thoroughly imbued with passages - directly quoted or paraphrased - from the Scriptures. If I recall correctly, it was Met. Kallistos who once wrote that a careful study of the Divine Liturgy will reveal that there are one hundred such direct passages and paraphrases each from both the Old and New Testaments. The Liturgy is thus a mosaic of Scriptural truths that come alive, so to speak, through prayer and glorification directed to God. The long anaphora prayers of St. Basil's Liturgy that we will begin on Sunday, bear this out with great depth and beauty. 

In other words, the more we know and understand the Holy Scriptures, the more alive the Liturgy is for us.

Another astonishing example of how the Holy Scriptures will be masterfully woven into the texts of our liturgical services is found in the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. In the First Week of Great Lent, the Canon is divided into four parts and chanted on the first four evenings of the week. It is then chanted in its entirety on Thursday of the Fifth Week of Great Lent. 

We have so far gone through the first three parts of the Canon during this First Week of Great Lent, and the fourth and final part is scheduled for this evening. In this heartfelt plea of repentance to the merciful Lord, St. Andrew constantly alludes to the Scriptures, even explicitly telling us that he has presented images of both the righteous and unrighteous before our gaze in some of the troparia - examples either to emulate or avoid. But any attentive concentration to the Canon amazes us with the uninterrupted flow of both the Old and New Testament images that inform so many of these inspiring troparia.

To make this point statistically, I will point out those biblical books that appear the most throughout the Canon. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but one that will hopefully reveal the "scriptural mind" of one of the Fathers of the Church. In fact, it has been said - very perceptively, in my opinion - that in all the great writings of the Church Fathers, what we have before us as a feast for the mind and heart, are profound commentaries on the Holy Scriptures.

Following are the Books I have chosen to highlight, with the number of direct or indirect quotations taken from that respective Book:

Old Testament

Genesis - 44(!)
Numbers - 5
Deuteronomy - 3
The Psalms - 12
Exodus - 14
I Samuel - 2
II Samuel - 7
I Kings - 6
II Kings - 8
Isaiah - 4


New Testament (the Gospels)

Matthew - 31
Mark - 2
Luke - 28
John - 8

That is 174 scriptural passages and, again, that list is not exhaustive. The purpose of the Great Canon of St. Andrew is to lead us toward the desire and intention to truly repent of our sins and thus receive the saving grace of God. Yet, we are simultaneously nourished by the Holy Scriptures that reveal the "mind of the Church."

This evening, we will chant the fourth and final part of the Canon beginning at 7:00 p.m.

Let Us Attend! - The Divine Liturgy and the Scripture Readings

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

"Take heed then to how you hear."  (LK. 18:18)  

Make sure that you never refuse to listen when He speaks."  (HEB. 12:25)

We are blessed with hearing the Scriptures at every Divine Liturgy, be it the Lord's Day or any other day on which the Liturgy is celebrated. Therefore, we will hear at least one reading from an Epistle and one from a Gospel.  When the calendar so designates it, there may be two readings.  When there exists a complicated convergence of feast days and commemorations, there are even Liturgies at which there may be as many as three prescribed readings!

The readings from the Scriptures are the culminating moments of the first part of the Liturgy, referred to as the "Liturgy of the Word," or "The Liturgy of the Catechumens."  Before we commune with Christ in the Eucharist, we commune with Him through the inspired words of the Holy Scriptures - the words of the Word.  This is the public proclamation of the Word of God, meant to complement each believer's personal or "domestic" reading of the Scriptures.

Just as we pray both liturgically and personally; so we hear/read the Scriptures both liturgically and personally.  Each is essential to support and make the other meaningful.  To ignore one or the other is to impoverish our relationship with Christ.

By the presence of the Spirit, our minds are open to the full meaning of the sacred texts that we hear. This was revealed to all Christians of all generations on the Road to Emmaus, when the Risen Lord encountered Cleopas and an unknown disciple:  "And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (LK. 24:27).

Following this encounter and the "breaking of the bread," during which these disciples recognized the Risen Lord, "They said to each other, 'Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures'?"  (LK. 24:32).

Christ speaks to us today through the reading of the Scriptures, thus making it possible for us today to experience the identical "burning of heart" when we, too, make the time to read the Scriptures. As Fr. John Behr succinctly said: "In the Church, we are still on the road to Emmaus."

Due to the great importance of the liturgical proclamation of the Scriptures, these readings are prefaced by a dialogue between the celebrant, the designated reader and the gathered faithful.  I will concentrate here on the liturgical reading from the Gospel, aware that the preparation for the Epistle also has its own solemn and very similar introduction.  Before the reading from the Gospel, we thus always hear:

Priest or Deacon:  Wisdom! Let us stand aright.  Let us listen to the Holy Gospel.

Bishop or Priest:  Peace be unto all.

Choir:  And to your spirit.

Priest or Deacon:  The reading from the Holy Gospel according to Saint _____.

Choir:  Glory to Thee, O Lord, glory to Thee.

Priest:  Let us attend!

This solemn dialogue both reveals to us that we are about to do something of great importance:  proclaim the living Word of God amidst the assembled believers - clergy and laity alike. And this prefatory dialogue is therefore meant to get our attention. In fact, the final words before the actual reading are:  "Let us attend!"  In some translations, it may be:  "Let us be attentive!"  In simple English it could be:  "Pay attention!"

Right before this we are first directed to "stand aright."  This is lost in some translations, which twice read "Let us attend," as a translation of two different Gk. words in this dialogue. When we hear "Let us attend" for the first time, this is actually "Let us stand aright," based on the Gk. command "Orthi" which means more-or-less literally "stand aright."  The second "Let us attend!" is based on the Gk. word proskhomen.

The point is that standing at attention is a potentially better bodily posture than sitting for the gathering of our (scattered?) thoughts, as well as simply a bodily posture that expresses greater respect for listening to the Lord teaching us through the words of the Gospel. Strange as it may sound to us, there is something of the soldier standing at solemn attention as he is about to hear his "orders" that must be faithfully fulfilled.  This is an image that is found often in Christian antiquity.

In our Liturgy today, it is a time when there should be no movement in the church, and nothing to distract us from hearing the Gospel with an attentiveness that expresses our love of the Gospel as the "precious pearl" worth more than anything else. An outer silence in the church will hopefully facilitate an inner stillness within our minds and hearts that honors the Gospel reading as the sharing of the "words of eternal life" on our behalf.

As a possible "test" to measure our actual attentiveness at a given Liturgy, we can ask ourselves later in the day - or perhaps even during the week! - what was the Gospel reading that I heard earlier in the Liturgy? An attentive listening of the Gospel would mean that we can identify the evangelist and, even more importantly, the prescribed text for the day.  And the same should hold true for the Epistle reading.  "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

If our ultimate goal is to live out the teachings of the Gospel beyond the initial hearing of the Gospel, then our awareness of the text, accompanied by a "burning of heart" will allow us to meditate upon a given passage with the goal in mind of actualizing the teaching heard in our daily lives.  How would any of this be possible if we forget the Gospel reading once we leave the church? (The homily is meant to support that process - but that may or may not happen!). If we forget the Gospel reading, that means that we may have "attended" church, but that we were not "attentive" in church. To "be" there cannot be reduced to our bodily presence.

To further emphasize the great significance of the Gospel reading at the Liturgy, there is a wonderful prayer said by the celebrant before we actually get to the dialogue outlined and commented on above.  This prayer is placed immediately after the final alleluia verse following the Epistle reading.  And it prepares us for the ensuing dialogue. For this reason alone it is my humble opinion that this "prayer before the Gospel" must be chanted/read aloud by the celebrant of the Liturgy - the bishop or priest. That is the practice in our parish. Why should a prayer that embraces everyone present be read "silently" by the clergy alone?  Though we have heard this prayer countless times, perhaps bringing it to mind here will be helpful.  For the attentive reader of the Scriptures, there are various scriptural passages that are gathered together, alluded to, or paraphrased in this prayer, a few of which will be pointed out:

Illumine our hearts (II COR. 4:6), O Master who lovest mankind, with the pure light (REV. 21:23-25) of Thy divine knowledge. Open the eyes of our mind (EPH. 1:18; LK. 24:45) to the understanding of Thy gospel teachings. Implant also in us the fear of Thy blessed commandments, that trampling down carnal desires (II PET. 2:10), we may enter upon a spiritual manner of living (I COR. 2:12), both thinking and doing such things as are well-pleasing unto Thee (PHIL. 2:13). For Thou art the illumination of our souls and bodies, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, who is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Obviously, a good deal is made of the Gospel Reading at each and every Liturgy. This is because the Gospel is "Good News" to be attentively listened to and obeyed. Familiarity may dull our appreciation of this, but we must always struggle against familiarity leading to spiritual laziness or inattentiveness.  When (over-) familiarity turns to boredom then we are facing a spiritual crisis of sorts.

Putting aside any such temptation, let us acknowledge how privileged and blessed we are to "stand aright" in church at the Liturgy and to hear the Holy Gospel.  "Let us attend!"

The Divine Liturgy - 'The Liturgy of the Word'

Dear Parish Faithful,

"We need to take refuge with the Church, to drink milk at her breast, to be fed with the Scriptures of the Lord. For the Church  has been planted in the world as a paradise."

- St. Irenaeus of Lyons

"We are said to drink the blood of Christ not only when we receive it according to the rite of the mysteries, but also when we receive his words, in which life dwells, as he said himself: 'The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life'."

- Origen

At yesterday's Liturgy I delivered a second homily about the meaning and practice of the Liturgy. Here is the briefest of outlines:

+ I began by sharing a passage from Fr. John Meyendorff, a great Orthodox historian and theologian, on the paschal nature of the Liturgy. This passage from darkness to light; and from death to life is the basic and most fundamental truth of the Liturgy. It is the crucified, risen and glorified Lord who is in our midst.

+ When we come to the reading of the Scriptures and the ensuing homily, we have reached the culminating point of the first half of the Liturgy - the Liturgy of the Word or of the Catechumens, as it is usually called. The two texts cited above already reveal to us the great power of the Scriptures. We are proclaiming the "words of the Word" (of God) at every Liturgy. That is why we first hear: "Let us Attend" before the actual reading. It is one thing to hear the Gospel; and another to listen with attention. In a very real sense, we commune with Christ in and through his living word, before we commune with him in the Eucharist. There is this "double Communion" at every Liturgy which we need to be mindful and respectful of. Therefore, arriving at the Liturgy after the Gospel means that one is not properly prepared to receive the Eucharist and should refrain from doing so.

+ The first part of the Liturgy is filled with litanies, antiphons and prayers. The first two antiphons are based on psalmody. The hymn attached to the second homily, "Only begotten Son of God," is thoroughly paschal in nature and is one example of how the paschal mystery permeates the Liturgy.

+ There is the immovable structure of the Liturgy - what remains unchanging; but every Sunday we sing and chant the various troparia and kontakia which change from Sunday to Sunday. The resurrectional troparia and kontakia rotate in an eight-week cycle according to the appointed tone of the week. The number eight is chosen for its symbolic value: the Liturgy is celebrated on the "eighth day" of the week - the day of the Kingdom which takes us beyond the time of this world signified by our seven-day week. We also sing troparia and kontakia commemorating the particular saints or events which fall on a given Sunday. Yesterday, we commemorated St. Romanos the Melode, the very creator of the kontakion, whose icon is on one of our deacon's doors.

+ In the Gospel yesterday, we heard from Jesus to "love our enemies." This does not mean to be emotionally attached to them. It means to treat them in a certain way. If our enemy "hates" us and treats us accordingly, and if we then "hate the hater" -  and treat them accordingly - then we are no different and the cycle of hostility and perhaps violence simply perpetuates itself. And there is a lot of hate going around these days. To follow Christ and the Gospel means we need to rise above it as well as possible. Very difficult and very challenging. But it is an effort we need to make if we come to the Liturgy and hear the Gospel.