Just Who is the Real Rich Man?

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

"If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead."  (LK. 16:31)

The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man is the only parable that has a named character; and the only parable in which Jesus describes the "afterlife."  In these two instances it remains unique among the Lord's parables.  It is a parable extremely rich in content, with a rather complex structure based upon a "reversal of fortune,"and filled with multiple themes.  Yet, certainly one of those many themes is quite apparent and revealed with a stark directness:  the consequence of ignoring the poor and needy, embodied in Lazarus, the poor man at the gate. (Is he given a name to emphasize this point in a personal and less-forgettable manner, so that his character takes us beyond an anonymous example of the poor?). The rich man in hades (the biblical realm of the dead) bears the consequence of his indifference to Lazarus and his unwillingness to share.  St. John Chrysostom explored this theme of wealth and poverty with unrivaled insight and depth in his famous series of homilies on this parable (a collection of homilies that now exists in English and which every member of the Church should read). St. John would always challenge the conventional wisdom of his own age, by interpreting the Scriptures in such a way that would turn our accepted values upside down so that we would be able to look at things in a new and startling light.  In a famous passage from his homilies, he challenges our conventional notions of what true wealth and true poverty actually are.  He does this by asking just who is the real rich  man and who is the real poor man:

"Let us learn from this man not to call the rich lucky nor the poor unfortunate.  Rather, if we are to tell the truth, the rich man is not the one who has collected many possessions but the one who needs few possessions; and the poor man is not the one who has no possessions but the one who has many desires. We ought to consider this the definition of poverty and wealth.  So if you see someone greedy for many things, you should consider him the poorest of all, even if he has acquired everyone's money. If, on the other hand, you see someone with few needs, you should count him the richest of all, even if he has acquired nothing."

I rather doubt that this will change the minds of very many of us about the true nature of wealth and poverty.  Conventional wisdom - combined with observation and life experience - does tell us that wealth has to do with money, possessions, status and power; and that poverty has to do with lacking any and all of these things.  Many of us "deep down" crave to be wealthy, and we certainly fear the specter of poverty.  Yet, St. John was neither a simpleton nor a naïve dreamer.  He knows of the corrosive effect on the wealthy of a life primarily dedicated to more and more acquisition and how this becomes obsessive and compulsive; and he knew many Christians personally that sought a life of simplicity and through that pursuit discovered a different type of wealth that had the presence of God as its source.  St. John was also aware of the judgment of God which differs radically from our own limited understanding of the "bigger picture."

Many people are forced to struggle to makes ends meet - and perhaps dream of hitting the lottery - and can only watch with envy the lifestyles of "the rich and famous" that entice such dreams. Perhaps, then, St. John makes some sense about the obsessive "collection of many possessions," the fulfillment of "many desires" and the effect of being "greedy for many things;" and how a "successful" pursuit of this captivating dream can be more impoverishing than enriching.  And then St. John got the point of the parable: in some cases it can be too late to change.

Hearing, Living, and Bringing Forth Fruit

'Christ the Sower', by Fr Luke Dingman

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,


"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."  (LK. 8:8)

Intent on trying to practice what I preach, I spent some time this week thinking over the parable of the Sower and the Seed (LK. 8:5-15) that we all heard together at the Liturgy last Sunday.  To really "hear" what the Gospel proclaims in church is to concentrate on the words of the sacred text; to absorb what was heard as well as possible in the mind and heart; to reflect upon this "word" well beyond the limits of the Liturgy; and then, hopefully and by the grace of God, to put into practice in our own lives the living word of the Gospel. The parable of the Sower and the Seed is actually rather complicated and multi-layered in terms of its major theme(s).  I turned to a few commentaries, both from the Church Fathers and from contemporary biblical scholars for addition insight.  And here I discovered an interesting approach from a certain Klyne Snodgrass in an excellent study of the parables in a book entitled Stories With Intent - A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. I would like to share his concluding reflections on this parable, a reflection that has a definite pastoral dimension to it.  The over-all content and concerns that Snodgrass raises - together with its particular language and vocabulary - have a clearly Evangelical tone to them, but the point is well-made about "hearing" the word and then "living" the word.  That point seems to capture the true intent of this marvelous parable.

The parable emphasizes both receptivity and bearing fruit.  Two of the three sowings that fail describe people who respond positively to the message.  They even hear the message with joy, but their hearing is still superficial.  Receiving the kingdom with joy is not enough - a message the modern church desperately needs to hear.  Faith that is temporary and unproductive is not true faith.  Most pastors would be quite happy if people received the word with joy or made claims about faith, but this parable asserts that people can receive the word with joy and still be guilty of hardness of heart.  Any hearing that does not result in productive living in relation to the Father is not valid hearing. As C. Keener observes, "The only conversions that count in the kingdom are those confirmed by a life of discipleship."  Fear that a concern for productive living leads to legalism only shows how much people have misunderstood Jesus' message.  Does initially receptive hearing that eventually fails  raise the question of eternal security?  People are overly vexed with the question of eternal security because of inadequate understanding of faith.  This parable does not address the question of eternal security; it raises the question of inadequate and unproductive hearing.  Churches should not be complicit in allowing people to think an initial response unaccompanied by productive living is saving faith. 

 ... The parable is about hearing that leads to productive living, and adapting the parable will mean enabling people to move past merely hearing words - even with joy - to hearing that captures the whole person.  People think they can look like giant oaks without putting down deep roots.  When they realize how much effort it takes to put down deep roots, they too often settle for being bramble bushes.

— Stories of Intent, p. 176

Actually, it is within the Orthodox Church, and the ongoing Tradition of the Church that reveals the same Christ, "yesterday, today and forever" (HEB. 13:8), that we have the supreme capability of putting "down deep roots."  We also learn that we need not be obsessed with the question of "eternal security."  We place our lives in the hands of a loving and forgiving God and leave judgment to His wisdom and mercy. That process, however, is far from guaranteed by mere membership. It is more about hearing the word with a good and honest heart, and bringing forth fruit with patience. (LK. 8:15)  This is what the saints have taught us through example throughout the entire history of the Church.

The Thundering Message

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Christ raises the Son of the Widow of Nain

We recently heard 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 who 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 hers 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."

Struggling with the Scandal of the Cross

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Come, O People!  Let us fall down in worship before the blessed Tree.  (Vespers of the Exaltation/Elevation of the Cross)

On September 14, we began our festal celebration of the Feast of The Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross, to give the Feast its full title.  This feast has a full octave (Leavetaking on September 21), thus stressing the importance of the Cross in the life of the Church and in our personal lives.  It is up to us to maintain our concentration on the Cross throughout this week, and hopefully to remain vigilant in our approach to the Cross in our personal prayer life, including the veneration of the Cross within our households.  To further stress our attention toward the Cross, we recall the Third Sunday of Great Lent – the Adoration of the Cross – and the less well-observed Feast of the Procession of the Cross on August 1.  And, importantly, every Wednesday and Friday is a day of commemorating the Cross, one of the reasons that we fast on those two days on a weekly basis.

It was the Apostle Paul who already experienced the rejection of the Cross within his lifetime; and who thus anticipated this rejection throughout the centuries, when he very succinctly and profoundly captured the unbelieving world’s attitude toward the Cross in this well-known text:

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (I COR. 1:23-24)

This leads the Apostle to one of his most astonishing and paradoxical insights:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  (I COR. 1:26)

The “scandal” for the Jews who were contemporary with the Apostle Paul would be the claim that the Messiah was crucified.  The “folly” for the Greek/Gentile would be the claim that the divine would even enter the realm of flesh and blood and “become” human, for it was “the Lord of glory” who was crucified according to the Apostle Paul.  As the biblical scholar Richard Kugelman put it:

The gospel message shocks Jewish nationalism and Greek intellectualism.  The Jews expected and demanded signs, i.e. spectacular miracles that showed divine intervention.  They looked for a messiah who would inaugurate their nation’s sovereignty over the Gentiles by a display of miraculous power (Mt. 12:38; 16:4; Jn. 4:48; 6:30-31).  The Greeks searched for “wisdom,” i.e., philosophies that pretended to give a satisfactory explanation of man and the cosmos.

God, in and through Christ, transformed what was shameful, weak, lowly and despised – a crucified man – into “our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” (I COR. 1:30)  The entire passage of I COR. 1:18-31 deserves careful, close and constant study.  It remains fascinating, and highly instructive, that even non-Christians who profess to have a great respect for Jesus Christ, struggle terribly with the scandal of the Cross.  This is clearly the case with Islam.  Jesus is treated with great respect in many passages in the Qur’an – even to the point of acknowledging His virginal conception in a passage that clearly resembles the Annunciation from the Gospel According to St. Luke! (Qur’an, 3:45-47)  However, the crucifixion is treated in a way that bears no resemblance to the Gospel accounts:  “yet they did not slay him, neither crucify him, only a likeness of that was shown to them”  (4:156-159).

The Muslims believe that someone else – a figure unidentified by the Qur’an – was crucified in the plance of Christ, but not Jesus Himself. The Muslim scholar Dr. Maneh Al-Johani wrote:  “The Qur’an does not elaborate on this point, nor does it give any answer to this question.”  Clearly, the “scandal” of the Cross is too much for Muslim sensibilities, since Jesus is for them a great prophet sent by God.  Muslims further believe that Jesus was raised to Heaven, yet before He died, clearly an odd teaching that again is meant to completely distance Jesus from His crucifixion.  If there is anything agreed upon today among New Testament scholars — believers and skeptics alike — it is that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by crucifixion by orders of Pontius Pilate in the early 30’s of the Christian era.  This lends a certain fantastic quality to these claims of the Qur’an.

There is more than a passing resemblance here with an early Christian heresy known as docetism from the Gk. word meaning “to appear.”  In other words, it only “appeared” that Christ was actually crucified and died on the Cross.  St. Ignatius of Antioch (+c. 110) vehemently rejected this heresy in its initial inception, early in the 2^nd century:

Be deaf, then, when anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the family of David, who was of Mary, who was truly born, ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died … He was truly raised from the dead, when His Father raised Him up … (Epistle to the Trallians, 9)

St. Ignatius very poignantly asks:  what is the purpose of suffering martyrdom for the Lord (as he did in the Roman arena) if the sufferings of Christ were an illusion?  Should a Christian suffer in the flesh if his Lord did not?

But if, as some godless men – that is, unbelievers – say, his suffering was only apparent (they are the apparent ones), why am I in bonds, why do I pray to fight with wild beasts?  Then I die in vain.  Then I lie about the Lord.  (Trallians, 10)

Although, as Christians, we “venerate” the Cross, we do not “worship” the Cross.  We worship the One Who was crucified upon the Cross for our salvation. Indeed, with the Apostle Paul we call Him the “Lord of glory.”  Jesus Christ was not merely a prophet in a chain of prophets sent by God.  He is the fulfillment of the prophetic testimony to His coming, as He is the fulfillment of the Law. (MATT. 5:17)  We believe, as we chant in the Second Antiphon of the Liturgy, that He is the “Only-Begotten Son and Immortal Word of God … Who without change didst become man and was crucified.”  The Cross remains “an unconquerable token of victory,” an “invincible shield.”  In fact, it is for this reason that in our practice, we

Kiss with joy the Wood of salvation, on which was stretched Christ the Redeemer.  (Small Vespers)

Christianity does not exist because of what it holds in common with other great world religions, but because of what is unique and distinctive about it, primarily the Incarnation, redemptive Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is because of our love for Christ that beginning on the personal level, we must promote respect, tolerance, and peaceful co-existence with sincerely believing people of other religions.  I see no other way for those who claim to follow the crucified Lord of glory.  This should in no way undermine our sense of Christian distinctiveness – “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (ACTS. 4:12) – but actually demonstrates our loyalty to Christ who never compels but invites with outstretched arms upon the Cross.

The Nativity of the Theotokos

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

The church was quite filled – and the “Communion line” was quite long – yesterday morning for the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos.  And Great Vespers on Saturday evening was also well-attended and therefore “festal” in nature.  Coming as it does right after the beginning of the Church New Year, this Feast allows us a good start that we further hope we can sustain as the liturgical year unfolds before us.  As a straightforward and joyous feast of commemorating the birth of the Virgin Mary, we receive a “taste” of the joyousness of life from within the Church that is often obscured by life’s challenges, difficulties and tragedies.  Fr. Alexander Schmemann puts it like this:  

In and through this newborn girl, Christ – our gift from God, our meeting and encounter with Him – comes to embrace the world.  Thus, in celebrating Mary’s birth we find ourselves already on the road to Bethlehem, moving toward to the joyful mystery of Mary as the Mother of God.

In an age of cynicism and unbelief, to encounter the purity of Mariam of Nazareth – the Virgin Mary and Theotokos – is to see life with a restored vision that, again, is only possible from within the Church.  Goodness, purity of heart and faithfulness to God are embodied realities lived by real human persons.  Such a restored vision of life will strengthen our sense of the inherent goodness of life that sin may obscure, but never obliterate.  Yet,  if  we can no longer “see” that, then we have lost something absolutely vital to our humanity, and we need to repent and embrace that “change of mind” that will restore our own humanity. 

Some will undoubtedly see nothing but a stereotype of the “feminine” here, but perhaps Fr. Schmemann has something worthwhile to say his approach to the “image of woman” as manifested in the Virgin Mary:

The Virgin Mary, the All-Pure Mother demands nothing and receives everything.  She pursues nothing, and possesses all. In the image of the Virgin Mary we find what has almost completely been lost in our proud, aggressive, male world:  compassion, tender-heartedness, care, trust, humility.  We call her our Lady and the Queen of heaven and earth, and yet she calls herself “the handmaid of the Lord.”  She is not out to teach or prove anything, yet her presence alone, in its light and joy, takes away the anxiety of our imagined problems.  It is as if we have been out on a long, weary, unsuccessful day of work and have finally come home, and once again all becomes clear and filled with that happiness beyond words which is the only true happiness.  Christ said, “Do not be anxious … Seek first the Kingdom of God” (see Mt. 6:33).  Beholding this woman – Virgin, Mother, Intercessor – we begin to sense, to know not with our mind but with our heart, what it means to seek the Kingdom, to find it, and to live by it.  —Celebration of Faith, Vol. 3

On the day following the Feast – in this case today, September 9 – we commemorate the “ancestors of God,” Joachim and Anna, the father and mother of the Virgin Mary according to the Tradition of the Church.  This is a consistent pattern within our festal and liturgical commemorations:  On the day after a particular feast, we commemorate the persons who are an integral part of that feast day’s events.  For example, the day after Theophany we commemorate St. John the Baptist; and on the day after Nativity, we commemorate the Theotokos.  Therefore, because of the essential role of Joachim and Anna in the current Feast of the Virgin Mary’s Nativity, today is the “synaxis of Joachim and Anna”  and we thus bring them to mind in an effort to  discern and meditate upon their important place in this festal commemoration.

The source of their respective roles is the Protoevangelion of James, a mid 2^nd c. document.  As Archbishop Ware has written:  

The Orthodox Church does not place the Protoevangelion of James on the same level as Holy Scripture:  it is possible, then, to accept the spiritual truth which underlies this narrative, without necessarily attributing a literal and historical exactness to every detail. 

One of those “spiritual truths” alluded to by Archbishop Ware is the account of both Joachim and Anna continuing to pray with faith and trust in God’s providence even though they were greatly discouraged over the “barrenness” of Anna.  A lack of children in ancient Israel could easily be taken for a sign of God’s displeasure, thus hinting at hidden sins that deserve rebuke. Though disheartened, they continued to place their trust in God, refusing to turn away from God though thoroughly tested as to their patience.  Perseverance in prayer in the face of discouragement is a real spiritual feat that reveals genuine faith.  The conception and then birth of the Virgin Mary reveals to joyous outcome of their faith and trust in God.  Perhaps this is why we commemorate Joachim and Anna as the “ancestors of God” at the end of every Dismissal in our major liturgical services, including the Divine Liturgy:  We seek their prayers as icons of an everyday faith that is expressed as fidelity, faith and trust in God’s Law and providential care.

Joachim and Anna could also be witnesses to a genuine conjugal love that manifests itself in the conception and birth of a new child.  Their union is an image of a “chaste” sexual love that is devoid of lust and self-seeking pleasure.  The strong ascetical emphases of many of our celibate saints may serve to undermine or obscure the blessings of conjugal love is envisaged in the Sacrament of Marriage.  In fact, through its canonical legislation going back to early centuries, the Church has struggled against a distorted asceticism that denigrates sexual love even within the bonds of marriage as a concession to uncontrollable passions.  The Church is not “anti-sex.”  But the Church always challenges us to discern the qualitative distinction between love and lust.  The icon of the embrace of Joachim and Anna outside the gates of their home as they both rush to embrace each other following the exciting news that they would indeed be given a child, is the image of  this purified conjugal love that will result in the conception of Mary, their child conceived as all other children are conceived.

The Feast of the Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos has four days of Afterfeast, thus ending with the Leavetaking on September 12.  That allows us to then prepare for the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross on September 14!