Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Ruminations After a Dinner

This past weekend I learned a lesson that I must have forgotten.  There are numerous times in the scripture where the one asked a question chooses not to give a full answer, or  any answer at all.  Angels have done it, the Lord Jesus Christ did it, and others as well.  Over dinner, an elderly man who is trying to get a handle on Orthodoxy asked, "so, what does your church teach about the 'rapture'?"   I have thought that I  should not have opened my mouth about the subject, as nothing good came of the discussion at the time.    This person is a premillennial pretribulational dispensationalist.   I know the type.  I used to be one.  I explained that the doctrine of the "rapture" is a new doctrine (only a couple of hundred years old), and then I began to explain how it had been popularized over the years, including some mention of  the book written by John Walvoord   in the 1950's, Hal Lindsey's books and movie of the 1970's, and the "Left Behind"  book series of the 1990's.  He got more and more agitated, and every time someone else around the table got us on another subject for a few minutes he was bringing us right back to it.  


It is one thing to hold to an opinion about something as a matter of faith.  It is another thing to dispute facts that can be documented.  If you can't agree on the latter, you certainly can't get anywhere with the former, and this was the case that night.  The gentleman did  call me a few days later to say that he had looked it up, and that I was right, it really was a new doctrine.  It is not so much about me being right as it is that he might take the information and make some changes in his thinking that will draws him closer to the Triune God.   Even though he agreed that his doctrine was new,  will he abandon it?


It must be human nature to  want to follow whoever is most persuasive.  I think of the so called theologians who I have studied over the years.  What made them theologians?  What made them worthy of reading?  How do they stand up against the theology of the early church, and the early church fathers.  The trouble today is that most people in our society equate theology with the rationalism/scholasticism of  Western Europe.  In the west, people want to quote St. Augustine as if he was the only church father.  They don't know that he didn't even read Greek.  How could he have possibly been able to understand the nuances in understanding of the  early fathers who wrote in Greek?   The time honored understanding as found in the eastern church of Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Asia Minor, etc. is  unknown.  In this tradition, theology is direct personal knowledge acquired as one is exposed to the uncreated energies of the Triune God.  It is experiential understanding that only ones who live holy lives are privy to, because it is a gift of the grace of God.


There are so many things like the rapture, larger issues of eschatology, evolution, etc. that  would cease to be the issues that they are if people could only return to the early church fathers.  



Through the prayers of our holy fathers, may the Triune God bless those who  read these words.  

Short Thoughts on Holy Week 2009

It is now a week after Pascha and I am still in the afterglow of the Holy Week and that wonderful celebration.  As are most things that we experience  in life, what I came away  with  was not what I expected.  


1)  We will never plumb the deepest depths of what Christ's work on the Cross means to us.  Such love is so deep that it is not knowable.  As the blessed Apostle says, "we know in part".  Oh, to have  a deeper understanding of that love than I have now.


2)  Our own sinfulness is deeper and darker than we can admit.  As we come closer to Christ we  are confronted  with our own sin in a more real way.  And, at the same time we are confronted with the sin around us---sometimes in the very people who we love and respect the most.  It is a time of fleeing from being judgmental, grasping for the mercy of God, and bowing in thankfulness for the work of the God-Man on our behalf.


3)  Our enemy of old never rests.   He prowls about like a roaring lion.  He is at work even while we celebrate blessed Pascha.  He is tireless, but his end is secured by the great work of  the first Holy Week.


4)  The church in Acts was a mixed lot: Jews, Greeks, Hellenized Jews, Romans,  Ethiopians, rich, poor, uneducated, schooled, men, women, married, virgins,  revolutionaries, Pharisees, saints, outlaws, etc.  There was nothing homogenized about them---except for the work of the Holy Spirit as He worked amidst their ascesis to transform them into what they were meant to be from the Garden.  I am thankful for the diversity that I see in some of our Orthodox churches, especially the last two that I worshipped in.  There is much to be said about having  ten or fifteen (or more) ethnic groups being represented  under one roof, and being in harmony  despite all the potential divisiveness.  


5)  We are all worth everything to our Creator.  We all bear the image of God.   All of us, individually, are the one lamb that he would leave the  flock for, on a Sabbath or otherwise.  May the Triune God grant us the ability to see each other in that same light. 


6)  The Lenten fast is necessary for one to experience fully the Paschal celebration.  The more we give ourselves to the spirit  (vs. the letter) of the fast, the more we appropriate the grace that the Triune God has for us.  As St. Maximus has said, "Spiritual knowledge without ascetic practice is the theology of the demons".


Through the prayers of our holy fathers, may the Triune God bless those who  read these words.  

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

In the Midst of Holy Week 2009

We are now in the midst of this wondrous time that we call Holy Week. It began with Palm Sunday and it was preceded by Great and Holy Lent. I have a very hard time trying to explain Great and Holy Lent, or Holy Week. Both of these times are part of that process that we call life, or walking with Christ, or working out our salvation through faith and grace.

Great and Holy Lent is a wonderful walk. I appreciate that the Church, in its wisdom, tells us the things that we need to give up to have a productive Lenten season. It is not left up to us to figure out what we need to give up. We can't decide to "give up chocolate" or "give up TV", or "give up" whatever. What we give up is already defined by the Church. It is up to us, with the counsel of our spiritual father, to decide how strenuously we can follow the therapeutic direction of the Church.

And, if we take the medicine that is given to us, and we take it faithfully, wonderful things happen. It is akin to what happens to me when I am part of a Divine Liturgy. For that service, we also have to fast, at least from the midnight before, from all pleasures, food, and even water. When one does this, accompanied with prayer and faith, something beyond words takes place when the very Body and Blood of Christ are received from the priest. It is beyond anything that I have ever experienced before. Christ is experienced, beyond words, beyond emotions, beyond the flesh.

It has already happened multiple times to me this week, beginning with Palm Sunday, and continuing to now. There is an incredible anticipation that comes from fasting from the things that we are accustomed to. There is a hunger, there is a weakness, there is a hopefulness that comes, and that leads to Christ. There are moments during the services when I find myself meditating upon what is being chanted, or upon my own sinfulness, or upon how wondrous God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are. It is an out of the body experience, it is an in the Spirit of God experience. And, in that experience I have a better sense of how utterly sinful I am, of how utterly loving and transcendent God is, of how much He loves us, of how much we so fail to love Him as we were made to, and how He wants us to fall more in love with him.

And, this season is not about chasing these experiences, or comparing mine to someone else's. It is not about thinking myself more holy or more spiritual. This season is about clearing out the things of this world that are in the way of me walking in the Garden with God. It is about returning to where Adam was intended to go. It is about having a greater appreciation for the love of God as expressed on the Cross.

This year I have been able to participate in Holy Week in two different parishes, in two different states, with two different priests, one Greek, and one Carpatho-Russian. The beauty is that, even though the music is different, the voices are different, or the setting is different, the result is the same. And, this very fact is being celebrated all around the world as Christians come together after the preparation known as Lent, to celebrate that last week of Christ's earthly ministry in this time that we Holy Week.




Thursday, April 9, 2009

Smorgasbord Religion

I remember quite distinctly the first time that I  saw the word "smorgasbord".  I was on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland on a summer vacation.  Walking along on a hot, humid summer evening I glanced up at a long white sign with large red letters shadowed in black shiny paint.  I asked my mother what it meant, and she explained that it was a style of restaurant in which many different types of food are served together.  One might find hot or cold dishes, cheeses, salads, etc. all together.  Being from a small town in Virginia, this was indeed a foreign concept in the mid-1960's.

It was not until much later that I figured out that this very Swedish style of serving food is a very American style of serving up church.  When one has ultimate choice, and no ultimate guidance this is what happens.  We are free to choose what church we want to go to, and we are also free to choose what we will believe as we worship within that church as long as we don't press too severely against the outside theological barriers of that church.  Or, if we do, we just move on to another church.  In other words, left to ourselves, we are free to design a theological belief system that  suits our own temperament, expectation, and experience.

As an eighteen year old, the old institution that had nurtured me was not meeting my self-perceived needs.  I sought out those people who I believed were leading a more pious  (and certainly more interesting) life.  What these people believed was what I would believe.  What these people read I would read.  The litmus tests for true faith that they accepted I would accept.  

I was cautioned by fellow like-minded students against pursuing a degree in Religious Studies at the University because I would be "corrupted" by heretical views.  Curiously enough, some of the language study and historical background of the ancient near east and judaism has served me most well during the rest of my life.  Wen it came time to go to seminary I could not attend one of the Baptist seminaries because they had rejected the infallible, inerrant Bible, not to mention the fact that they didn't have the proper premillenial, pretribulational view of the end of the world.  In fact, I had seen one professor at Southern Seminary in Louisville hold up a dispensational chart and mock it openly before his class.

So, off to Dallas Theological Seminary I went.  Despite being in the epicenter of what I thought was proper theology, I remember being quite offended by Dr. Robert Lightner's comment that home Bible studies were  just places where people ignorant of the scripture spread their ignorance around.  It was his opinion that only a seminary educated minister (dispensationally minded, of course) could guide people away from their ignorance.  Ironically enough, to some degree I have come to appreciate Dr. Lightner's thoughts.

I am picking on what happened  in two seminaries where I experienced these things first  hand.  But,  these types of experiences can be found the world over.  The same thing  happens exponentially as individuals work at picking and choosing what they will believe (to suit themselves) from among those seminary educated  (or not) protestants who have adopted one school of thought or another.

Then, depending upon which group, or which book, or which internet site suits you fancy, you can develop your own theological/spiritual position from the smorgasbord that you have drawn from.  You can even make your own smorgasbord and invite others to partake of it.  From there it is only a matter of picking which church suits you.  Or, you can start your own church.  This is why we have,  at last count, something like 23,000 denominations to choose from.

When people hear that I am Orthodox they immediately want to ask me about one of their hot button, litmus test topics--maybe it's Mary, or icons, or works versus faith.  Then they weigh what I have been taught in church against what they believe to be true.   Forget the fact that, in many cases, there is no basis in Biblical fact or church tradition for what they  believe.  Yet, they walk away justified in believing that they are right and I am wrong.

In reality, it is not winning an argument, nor is it about whether I am right and they are wrong.  It is more a matter of what is true, based on what the church has always believed and taught, and whether or not one will accept these things.  The eternal state of our souls is at stake.

I would propose that there is a better way.  It really doesn't matter what I think is right or wrong.  It's doesn't matter how persuasive I can be in convincing another person to believe one way or another.  The history of the Orthodox Church documents how God has worked in the last twenty centuries within  His Church.  Godly men, illumined by the Holy Spirit spoke, wrote,  and lived what was revealed to them. Other less holy men espoused other teachings.  When there was a dispute councils were held.  The first great council is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.  Many others followed, including some great ecumenical councils.  All sides were given a chance to speak.  Prayerful consideration was given.  Godly pronouncements were expressed.  The church continued on.  

The beauty of this system is that no one person, nor one group can ultimately impose its will on the entire church.  Even if for a time something false is endured, in the end it is found out and exposed.  This process has allowed the Orthodox Church to maintain consistent theology despite the passing of two millennium, spatially separated congregations, diverse cultures and languages, and political contexts.  It is a quite remarkable story.

So, leave the smorgasbord to the restaurants.  Come for spiritual nourishment to the great feast of Orthodoxy.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Praying to the Saints

In my previous life, it was quite common to ask people to pray for me. The degree of the importance of the request varied, as did its specificity.  But, in the asking was the implication that I believed that their praying on my behalf would have some effect before God, and that something would happen as a result of the prayer.  And, there was some  belief that the more people were praying, the better off one would be.  Why else would the pastor stand in the pulpit and ask people to pray for dear Aunt Lilly who had fallen and broken her hip?

This is exactly the concept behind praying to the saints.  In the Orthodox Church there is no real distinction made between the saints who are alive on the earth, and the saints who have fallen asleep in the Lord.  Does not Paul, in Hebrews, talk about that "great cloud of witnesses" who are cheering us on as e run the race?  And, does not John, in Revelation, talk about the prayers of the saints before the throne of God "rising like incense"?  And, not only are we putting out a blanket request for people to pray, but we are  targeting our requests to those people who demonstrated, till the end of their earthly life, that they were Christlike people.  After all, "the prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much".

There is a marked appreciation for those people who forged the way for those of us who are on earth, and in the church today.  Each day of the year commemorates many saints, some more "famous" than others.  They are commemorated in a special way during Divine Liturgies that are celebrated on their day.  One's "Name Day", the day that is commemorated for the saint one is named after, is a special day of prayer to that saint--to intercede on our behalf.

Just like in the Acts of the Apostles, proximity to a saint, or the things of a saint, are considered to have sacramental value.  This is why prayer, in faith, in the presence of the relics of a saint are considered particularly efficacious.  I have a particularly amazing personal testimony to this fact.  Last June my wife and I were in Israel.  I made a point of  getting to the town of Lud,  a few miles from Tel Aviv, to the relics of St. George.  His relics are housed in a lower level below the altar in a heavily fortified church in a predominantly Moslem area, in fact, next to a mosque.  After banging on a large metal door, we were greeted by a monastic who very graciously granted us access to the church.  We lit a candle, prayed, and visited St. George's relics.  I remember quite well descending the stone steps to where his relics lay.  I put my hand upon the stones that covered his body and I made a simple request, my first prayer to a saint in the presence of his relics.  My son had not spoken to me in three years.  I prayed that St. George would intercede on my behalf, so that God would soften his heart, and bring him back to  me.

A couple of months later I was sitting with my wife and  parents watching a video.  The video was a thirty minute biography of the life of St. George.  My son had not spoken to me in three years,  yet during the thirty minutes that we watched the video of the life of the saint that I had prayed to, my phone rang.  My son was calling to tell me that he needed to see me.  Don't ever tell me that we should not pray to the saints.  Oh, I met my son  shortly thereafter, and it is as if we did not miss a beat.  I have him back.  Glory be to God.  Thanks, to St. George for his intercessions.  The prayer of a righteous man does accomplish much.