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Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Happy New Year!
Like the beginning of the school year, September marks the beginning of the ecclesiastical (Church) new year. Unlike the secular world, the Church has always followed the pattern of agrarian life, from end of harvest to end of harvest. With all of summer’s bounty collected and stored, the people of antiquity, replenished and replete, would prepare themselves for the beginning of a new growing cycle.
As modern folks, we have mostly lost touch with this natural pattern of time. Faint echoes of it remain to us if we grow gardens, but when it comes right down to it, our survival does not ultimately rest on the rhythm of planting, harvesting, and storing. After all, even if our garden fails to produce, there is always the local grocery store...
And yet some of that ancient rhythm is still very much present in our lives, at least psychologically. We may not harvest literal crops in summer, but we do go on vacations or take things a little easier, growing, gathering and storing our personal resources, so that (ideally), we can arrive at September with our mental and spiritual storehouses refilled to brimming, ready to face the coming months.
September is often a time of decisions. How will we use the resources we have regained and stored up during the summer? What activities will we embark on for the fall, winter and spring? For many, this is a time to sign the kids for soccer or piano lessons, or consider involvement in church or other community activities.
And of course, the temptation every year is to fill our calendar to overflowing. Having received another year of life, we want to use it to its fullest potential, which usually means making ourselves incredibly busy with this or that commitment. We not only “seize the day”; we cram with activity until it has no room left to breathe.
The Eastern Orthodox Church calendar offers an alternate vision to the frenetic pace we so often impose on our year. In the reading prescribed for this coming Sunday, for instance, a wealthy synagogue ruler comes to Jesus and asks, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response? “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Luke 18)
Like the rest of us approaching a new year with our stock of resources overflowing, the ruler wonders how can he invest and multiply his resources in a way that will benefit him the most. Jesus tells him to make do with less. He challenges him to use all his resources to show forth God’s love for the poor ones of the earth, and to foster a greater awareness of and dependence on the One who crowns the year with His bounty and sustains all things with His mighty hand. (see Psalm 65:11)
So perhaps the boldest and most significant decision we can make for the coming year is the decision to do a little less. Other than the absolute necessities, make one or two commitments to benefit people other than ourselves. Then leave lots of time for quiet and silence; for meditation and prayer; for walks after a fresh snowfall; for evenings with a nourishing book far from the “idiot box.” Time to savor everything we have been given, and praise the One who gave it. We come to September with an abundant harvest of time and energy. Let’s make the bounty count for something.
As modern folks, we have mostly lost touch with this natural pattern of time. Faint echoes of it remain to us if we grow gardens, but when it comes right down to it, our survival does not ultimately rest on the rhythm of planting, harvesting, and storing. After all, even if our garden fails to produce, there is always the local grocery store...
And yet some of that ancient rhythm is still very much present in our lives, at least psychologically. We may not harvest literal crops in summer, but we do go on vacations or take things a little easier, growing, gathering and storing our personal resources, so that (ideally), we can arrive at September with our mental and spiritual storehouses refilled to brimming, ready to face the coming months.
September is often a time of decisions. How will we use the resources we have regained and stored up during the summer? What activities will we embark on for the fall, winter and spring? For many, this is a time to sign the kids for soccer or piano lessons, or consider involvement in church or other community activities.
And of course, the temptation every year is to fill our calendar to overflowing. Having received another year of life, we want to use it to its fullest potential, which usually means making ourselves incredibly busy with this or that commitment. We not only “seize the day”; we cram with activity until it has no room left to breathe.
The Eastern Orthodox Church calendar offers an alternate vision to the frenetic pace we so often impose on our year. In the reading prescribed for this coming Sunday, for instance, a wealthy synagogue ruler comes to Jesus and asks, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response? “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Luke 18)
Like the rest of us approaching a new year with our stock of resources overflowing, the ruler wonders how can he invest and multiply his resources in a way that will benefit him the most. Jesus tells him to make do with less. He challenges him to use all his resources to show forth God’s love for the poor ones of the earth, and to foster a greater awareness of and dependence on the One who crowns the year with His bounty and sustains all things with His mighty hand. (see Psalm 65:11)
So perhaps the boldest and most significant decision we can make for the coming year is the decision to do a little less. Other than the absolute necessities, make one or two commitments to benefit people other than ourselves. Then leave lots of time for quiet and silence; for meditation and prayer; for walks after a fresh snowfall; for evenings with a nourishing book far from the “idiot box.” Time to savor everything we have been given, and praise the One who gave it. We come to September with an abundant harvest of time and energy. Let’s make the bounty count for something.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Encounter in the Wilderness
Have you ever felt as if you have lost something on which you most depend? Perhaps your health or your physical abilities have been compromised. Perhaps you have lost a job or financial security. Maybe you are disconnected from your spouse, friends or family. Or perhaps you just feel emotionally disconnected from God.
Regardless of what certain ‘prosperity Gospel’ preachers might tell you, there is nothing wrong with you. You aren’t being punished for some unspecified crime. You are not suffering because you are ‘unclean’ in some way. God is not shunning you. You have not taken a wrong turn in your spiritual journey.
On the contrary, such debilitating experiences are not only par for the course in our spiritual journey, they are the very conditions in which we grow and deepen our knowledge of God. If you are feeling deprived materially, physically, emotionally, psychologically or spiritually, you stand in good company.
Consider, for instance, the people of Israel. According to the Old Testament Scriptures, God took Israel out of Egypt, where they were enslaved but relatively comfortable, and brought them into the wilderness, where they wandered for forty years with no established dwelling place, with nothing to eat or drink, other than what God miraculously provided for them. In addition to these material deprivations, they suffered illness and death, saw friends and family perish, and endured God’s wrath at their faithlessness and disobedience.
In the Orthodox Christian interpretation, the Old Testament narratives are ultimately a prophecy of the Person of Jesus Christ. In a personal fulfillment of Israel’s collective exile, Jesus is taken as an infant into Egypt. Later, he enters the desert, where he is tempted and fed by angels. His ministry begins and is mostly directed at those who live “beyond the Jordan” (Matthew 4:25 and elsewhere), which in scriptural geography symbolizes the wilderness from which Israel came before it entered the Promised Land. Finally, Jesus is crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem, which the New Testament writer to the Hebrews likens to the wilderness “outside the camp” of Israel. (Hebrews 13:11-14)
Jesus’ experience of human life as a wilderness is crucial to the Christian confession that he “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:7-8) Only in the condition of utter humility, utter emptiness, utter brokenness, stripped of all human power and aid, could God’s power full shine forth in him. Only by being crucified as a criminal outside the camp could He be exalted on the third day and receive “the name which is above every name,” the Son of God to whom all authority in heaven and on earth is given. (See Phil. 2:9 and Matt. 28:18)
What does this mean for us? Simply that, for Christians at least, the wilderness experience is central to our encounter with God. When we are stripped of dependence on human aid, whether that involves losing our physical health or material resources, or being deprived of emotional or psychological or spiritual convictions in our hearts and minds, we are embarking on nothing less important and significant than the journey to the Cross of Christ, where the power and glory of God shines forth most brightly.
Of course, knowing that being “united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his,” (Romans 6:5) does not in any way alleviate the physical pain of an illness, the uncertainty of unemployment, or the agony of family division and conflict. Regardless of what we know to be true in our minds, when we find ourselves in the thick of our wilderness sufferings, we cannot help but cry out with the Psalmist, “O LORD, why do You cast me off? Why do You hide Your face from me?” (Psalm 88:14)
Faced with such circumstances, I have often recalled the words of the poet T.S. Eliot: “I have lost sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch; how can I use them for your closer contact?” Notice to whom the poet addresses his question. In the wilderness, I am stripped of every support and help, including my own ability to reason out and comprehend why this is happening to me. My only option is to throw myself outward to a Power greater than myself, who alone can show forth the light in my darkness, the resurrection in my crucifixion. All I can do is ask Him the questions, and wait for Him to show the answers.
Those answers may be slow in coming (often they come only years in retrospect) and are often couched in unexpected and surprising terms. For this wanderer in the spiritual wilderness, however, they have always come in the end.
If you stand in the wilderness of your life today, devoid of all other earthly help, you stand on the front line of the spiritual battle, for you have come the place where you can truly encounter the One who will lead you “through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there [is] no water… that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.” (Deut. 8:15-16)
Regardless of what certain ‘prosperity Gospel’ preachers might tell you, there is nothing wrong with you. You aren’t being punished for some unspecified crime. You are not suffering because you are ‘unclean’ in some way. God is not shunning you. You have not taken a wrong turn in your spiritual journey.
On the contrary, such debilitating experiences are not only par for the course in our spiritual journey, they are the very conditions in which we grow and deepen our knowledge of God. If you are feeling deprived materially, physically, emotionally, psychologically or spiritually, you stand in good company.
Consider, for instance, the people of Israel. According to the Old Testament Scriptures, God took Israel out of Egypt, where they were enslaved but relatively comfortable, and brought them into the wilderness, where they wandered for forty years with no established dwelling place, with nothing to eat or drink, other than what God miraculously provided for them. In addition to these material deprivations, they suffered illness and death, saw friends and family perish, and endured God’s wrath at their faithlessness and disobedience.
In the Orthodox Christian interpretation, the Old Testament narratives are ultimately a prophecy of the Person of Jesus Christ. In a personal fulfillment of Israel’s collective exile, Jesus is taken as an infant into Egypt. Later, he enters the desert, where he is tempted and fed by angels. His ministry begins and is mostly directed at those who live “beyond the Jordan” (Matthew 4:25 and elsewhere), which in scriptural geography symbolizes the wilderness from which Israel came before it entered the Promised Land. Finally, Jesus is crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem, which the New Testament writer to the Hebrews likens to the wilderness “outside the camp” of Israel. (Hebrews 13:11-14)
Jesus’ experience of human life as a wilderness is crucial to the Christian confession that he “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:7-8) Only in the condition of utter humility, utter emptiness, utter brokenness, stripped of all human power and aid, could God’s power full shine forth in him. Only by being crucified as a criminal outside the camp could He be exalted on the third day and receive “the name which is above every name,” the Son of God to whom all authority in heaven and on earth is given. (See Phil. 2:9 and Matt. 28:18)
What does this mean for us? Simply that, for Christians at least, the wilderness experience is central to our encounter with God. When we are stripped of dependence on human aid, whether that involves losing our physical health or material resources, or being deprived of emotional or psychological or spiritual convictions in our hearts and minds, we are embarking on nothing less important and significant than the journey to the Cross of Christ, where the power and glory of God shines forth most brightly.
Of course, knowing that being “united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his,” (Romans 6:5) does not in any way alleviate the physical pain of an illness, the uncertainty of unemployment, or the agony of family division and conflict. Regardless of what we know to be true in our minds, when we find ourselves in the thick of our wilderness sufferings, we cannot help but cry out with the Psalmist, “O LORD, why do You cast me off? Why do You hide Your face from me?” (Psalm 88:14)
Faced with such circumstances, I have often recalled the words of the poet T.S. Eliot: “I have lost sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch; how can I use them for your closer contact?” Notice to whom the poet addresses his question. In the wilderness, I am stripped of every support and help, including my own ability to reason out and comprehend why this is happening to me. My only option is to throw myself outward to a Power greater than myself, who alone can show forth the light in my darkness, the resurrection in my crucifixion. All I can do is ask Him the questions, and wait for Him to show the answers.
Those answers may be slow in coming (often they come only years in retrospect) and are often couched in unexpected and surprising terms. For this wanderer in the spiritual wilderness, however, they have always come in the end.
If you stand in the wilderness of your life today, devoid of all other earthly help, you stand on the front line of the spiritual battle, for you have come the place where you can truly encounter the One who will lead you “through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there [is] no water… that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.” (Deut. 8:15-16)
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Vacation
Vacation—it’s a common yearly reality. We pack up the luggage, load up the vehicle, and journey to some distant place to spend several days to be rejuvenated for the coming months.
Often, we think of a vacation as a more extravagant form of escape from the daily routines of ordinary life. Life at home is frustrating, tedious, and perhaps even painful. TV, video games, and fantasy novels no longer suffice. It’s time to run away before we collapse under the burden.
I recognize this temptation in myself, but my experience of vacation this year, more than affording me an escape from my life, has taught me some important and ultimately, refreshing spiritual lessons.
Firstly, I have learned the elementary lesson that people don’t really change from place to place. Traveling to England has been a significant shift in many respects. The geography and culture are different. And though the language is fundamentally similar, British usage is different enough to be awkward.
And yet, despite this strangeness, people here struggle with the same fundamental realities as they do in Canada. They live with economic uncertainty. They pay bills. They save money. They visit their elderly parents, or baby-sit their grandchildren. They take their siblings out for a birthday supper.
This fact of life would seem obvious, but I tend to be slow on the uptake. For some reason, I have tended to assume that people in different places and cultures really are different people, among whom I can find some kind of reprieve from the “normal” human beings back home.
This vacation, however, has shown me that if you spend any length of time in a foreign place, you will soon discover that people there are just as irritating and lovable, complicated and straightforward as they were where you came from. To put it simply, there are no greener pastures, no real escapes from the challenges of being part of the human race.
Secondly, I have learned that wherever you go, you always bring yourself. If you were discontented and unhappy in Cranbrook, chances are you will be discontented and unhappy in England (or wherever). Your exotic activities may conceal the fact for a while, and if you have enough money, you may well maintain the illusion for the entire vacation. However, in the quieter moments, you will soon discover that the person who goes about their daily business at, say, the Salvation Army every week, is still yearning for the same deeper fulfillment, even if he is thousands of miles away, watching a performance of Macbeth on the lawn of Bodiam Castle.
In other words, vacation cannot be an escape from ourselves any more than it can be an escape from other people. Rather than using time away as a psychological anaesthetic for our personal pains, we might perhaps use it as a magnifying lens through which we can see our hearts more clearly.
In foreign environments, we are likely to be more uncertain, less sure of ourselves, and more likely to resort to behaviour that is closer to our true nature. This is not a bad thing, and it can really help us refocus on those aspects of our personality that may need a little more work during the rest of the year.
This brings me to my final lesson: there is no vacation from the spiritual life. If you are a churchgoer like me, you may be tempted to think of vacation as an opportunity to sleep in on Sunday morning. This may work for you, but I have found it costs more than it is worth. In a new and strange place, I need God’s Presence more than ever if I am not to lose my sense of lasting peace and security.
Home has a way of diminishing our need for God. Driving our own vehicle (on the right side of the road), sleeping in our own bed, performing our familiar routines and rituals, we can easily forget that His hands uphold our world. In a faraway land, however, where nothing is quite so dependable, we have the opportunity to discover again what the Apostle Peter learned when he stood on the stormy seas and beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Far from being a time to set church and prayer aside, vacation is a way to refocus our spiritual lives and get a new grip on our relationship with God. As inconvenient or difficult as it may be to find a church to attend or pray in a strange context, the sacrifices we make in doing so will stretch and grow us in ways that are just not possible in the comforts of our home turf.
You may have heard of the Geographic Cure. I see it too frequently: a person moves to escape from whatever difficulties they may be facing in their current location. In some cases, a shift of geography can be helpful (for instance, when someone is fleeing an abusive relationship), but many other cases, the Geographic Cure is pure snake oil. In the end, people find that wherever they go, there they are and there is everyone else. Disillusion and despair soon follow.
If you are inclined to use your vacation this year as a temporary Geographic Cure, let me suggest that you instead use the time to revisit your life and revitalize it with a richer, deeper awareness of God, yourself, and others. The worst part of most vacations is coming home, but here is an alternative: coming home with joy, revitalized, refreshed, and ready for new adventures in the everyday.
Often, we think of a vacation as a more extravagant form of escape from the daily routines of ordinary life. Life at home is frustrating, tedious, and perhaps even painful. TV, video games, and fantasy novels no longer suffice. It’s time to run away before we collapse under the burden.
I recognize this temptation in myself, but my experience of vacation this year, more than affording me an escape from my life, has taught me some important and ultimately, refreshing spiritual lessons.
Firstly, I have learned the elementary lesson that people don’t really change from place to place. Traveling to England has been a significant shift in many respects. The geography and culture are different. And though the language is fundamentally similar, British usage is different enough to be awkward.
And yet, despite this strangeness, people here struggle with the same fundamental realities as they do in Canada. They live with economic uncertainty. They pay bills. They save money. They visit their elderly parents, or baby-sit their grandchildren. They take their siblings out for a birthday supper.
This fact of life would seem obvious, but I tend to be slow on the uptake. For some reason, I have tended to assume that people in different places and cultures really are different people, among whom I can find some kind of reprieve from the “normal” human beings back home.
This vacation, however, has shown me that if you spend any length of time in a foreign place, you will soon discover that people there are just as irritating and lovable, complicated and straightforward as they were where you came from. To put it simply, there are no greener pastures, no real escapes from the challenges of being part of the human race.
Secondly, I have learned that wherever you go, you always bring yourself. If you were discontented and unhappy in Cranbrook, chances are you will be discontented and unhappy in England (or wherever). Your exotic activities may conceal the fact for a while, and if you have enough money, you may well maintain the illusion for the entire vacation. However, in the quieter moments, you will soon discover that the person who goes about their daily business at, say, the Salvation Army every week, is still yearning for the same deeper fulfillment, even if he is thousands of miles away, watching a performance of Macbeth on the lawn of Bodiam Castle.
In other words, vacation cannot be an escape from ourselves any more than it can be an escape from other people. Rather than using time away as a psychological anaesthetic for our personal pains, we might perhaps use it as a magnifying lens through which we can see our hearts more clearly.
In foreign environments, we are likely to be more uncertain, less sure of ourselves, and more likely to resort to behaviour that is closer to our true nature. This is not a bad thing, and it can really help us refocus on those aspects of our personality that may need a little more work during the rest of the year.
This brings me to my final lesson: there is no vacation from the spiritual life. If you are a churchgoer like me, you may be tempted to think of vacation as an opportunity to sleep in on Sunday morning. This may work for you, but I have found it costs more than it is worth. In a new and strange place, I need God’s Presence more than ever if I am not to lose my sense of lasting peace and security.
Home has a way of diminishing our need for God. Driving our own vehicle (on the right side of the road), sleeping in our own bed, performing our familiar routines and rituals, we can easily forget that His hands uphold our world. In a faraway land, however, where nothing is quite so dependable, we have the opportunity to discover again what the Apostle Peter learned when he stood on the stormy seas and beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Far from being a time to set church and prayer aside, vacation is a way to refocus our spiritual lives and get a new grip on our relationship with God. As inconvenient or difficult as it may be to find a church to attend or pray in a strange context, the sacrifices we make in doing so will stretch and grow us in ways that are just not possible in the comforts of our home turf.
You may have heard of the Geographic Cure. I see it too frequently: a person moves to escape from whatever difficulties they may be facing in their current location. In some cases, a shift of geography can be helpful (for instance, when someone is fleeing an abusive relationship), but many other cases, the Geographic Cure is pure snake oil. In the end, people find that wherever they go, there they are and there is everyone else. Disillusion and despair soon follow.
If you are inclined to use your vacation this year as a temporary Geographic Cure, let me suggest that you instead use the time to revisit your life and revitalize it with a richer, deeper awareness of God, yourself, and others. The worst part of most vacations is coming home, but here is an alternative: coming home with joy, revitalized, refreshed, and ready for new adventures in the everyday.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Family vs. Church?
As every Christian family strives to live out its faith, it must face a fundamental choice: how to reconcile the demands family life and Church life, of work and play and education and social engagements, and commitment to worship, fellowship and the giving our time, talents and finances to the parish?
The problem lies in understanding what we mean by “church” and “family.” When we speak of “church,” we tend to think of parish-related activities: attending a service, going to a parish party, helping with a fundraiser. Because these events make demands on our time and personal resources, they often come into conflict with we think of as “non-Church” or “family” commitments: swimming lessons, supper with friends, an extra shift at work. As a result, church and family often become an either/or scenario, a choice in which one can be enjoyed only at the expense of the other.
I would suggest that this dilemma would not exist if we allowed ourselves a more meaningful definition of “church.” According to the Orthodox understanding, “church” does not refer only to events revolving around the parish, but rather to the continuing presence of Christ in all human life through the Holy Spirit.
The Incarnation was God’s entry into the world of first century Palestine. By sending His Holy Spirit—His breath, His divine life—upon His apostles and all those baptized in His Name, Jesus has made it possible for God’s Presence to penetrate every human life, in all places and throughout all time. Because of Pentecost, every sphere of human existence—working and playing, learning and growing, birth and dying, marrying and child-bearing—could become an ark in which God dwelt and make Himself known. In short, all human life acquired the potential to become Church.
As Orthodox Christians, therefore, we cannot separate “church life” from “family life,” because everything we are and do is called to shine with the life of the Church, which is the continuing Presence of God in history. The formal dimension to the Church—its tradition of worship, fellowship and stewardship—cannot be disconnected from, let alone opposed to, everything else we do. Rather, we must learn to see Church tradition as a spiritual framework within which God reveals the potential for all our activities to become Church: repositories of God’s Presence, daily icons of the Incarnation.
What does this mean for us? Firstly, any family that is dedicated to serving Christ in the Orthodox Church must strive to conduct its activities within a framework of Church tradition. On a basic level, these means planning our professional, social and educational events around the cycle of the Church year, including daily services and weekly reception of the Eucharist, the twelve Great Feasts, Lent and Pascha. Times of fellowship and stewardship commitments should stand on at least an equal footing with other financial and time commitments. Fasting periods should become a regular part of our family menu-planning, as much as we are able. Reading Scripture and spiritual literature, along with personal prayer, should find a regular place in our daily routines. Only with this framework in place can our lives begin to fulfill their God-bearing potential to become Church.
While tradition is a framework for our lives, it alone cannot form the whole picture. At its heart, the liturgy calls us to “commend ourselves, each other and all our lives unto Christ our God.” While we need to sing those words on a weekly basis, we also need daily opportunities outside of liturgy to accomplish the challenge of our song. We need to establish and cherish those informal, non-liturgical times as God-given arenas in which service to our family can itself become a churchly act, our personal liturgy.
How then can we strike a balance between participating the formal dimension of the Church—its tradition—and serving the liturgy of our lives? In a monastery, the schedule of monks and nuns is determined for each member by the common rule. This rule allows both for liturgical activity and for intervening times when monks can simply live out their vocation of brotherly love in work and quiet solitude.
In a parish, by contrast, the schedule will vary depending on the needs of each family, which must evolve its own “rule” within the larger boundaries of Church tradition. A good starting-point is to consult with your parish priest to determine what level of formal Church commitment will realistically and reasonably work in your own situation, depending on your circumstances and your stage of life.
In the end, the path of the spiritual life is a matter of balance, of all things finding their proper place in their proper proportions. The debate between family and church is not really a debate at all, a question of either/or. Rather, it is like the relationship of the flower to the soil. Without the rich soil of tradition, the flower of family will wither into worldliness. But if the flower of family is somehow unable to grow, then we must conclude that the soil of tradition is barren, religion for the sake of religion. In isolation, the frame of prayer, fasting and asceticism is empty, but without that framework we can have no real sense that our life is more than end in itself, an image of God’s life, an icon of His Kingdom.
The problem lies in understanding what we mean by “church” and “family.” When we speak of “church,” we tend to think of parish-related activities: attending a service, going to a parish party, helping with a fundraiser. Because these events make demands on our time and personal resources, they often come into conflict with we think of as “non-Church” or “family” commitments: swimming lessons, supper with friends, an extra shift at work. As a result, church and family often become an either/or scenario, a choice in which one can be enjoyed only at the expense of the other.
I would suggest that this dilemma would not exist if we allowed ourselves a more meaningful definition of “church.” According to the Orthodox understanding, “church” does not refer only to events revolving around the parish, but rather to the continuing presence of Christ in all human life through the Holy Spirit.
The Incarnation was God’s entry into the world of first century Palestine. By sending His Holy Spirit—His breath, His divine life—upon His apostles and all those baptized in His Name, Jesus has made it possible for God’s Presence to penetrate every human life, in all places and throughout all time. Because of Pentecost, every sphere of human existence—working and playing, learning and growing, birth and dying, marrying and child-bearing—could become an ark in which God dwelt and make Himself known. In short, all human life acquired the potential to become Church.
As Orthodox Christians, therefore, we cannot separate “church life” from “family life,” because everything we are and do is called to shine with the life of the Church, which is the continuing Presence of God in history. The formal dimension to the Church—its tradition of worship, fellowship and stewardship—cannot be disconnected from, let alone opposed to, everything else we do. Rather, we must learn to see Church tradition as a spiritual framework within which God reveals the potential for all our activities to become Church: repositories of God’s Presence, daily icons of the Incarnation.
What does this mean for us? Firstly, any family that is dedicated to serving Christ in the Orthodox Church must strive to conduct its activities within a framework of Church tradition. On a basic level, these means planning our professional, social and educational events around the cycle of the Church year, including daily services and weekly reception of the Eucharist, the twelve Great Feasts, Lent and Pascha. Times of fellowship and stewardship commitments should stand on at least an equal footing with other financial and time commitments. Fasting periods should become a regular part of our family menu-planning, as much as we are able. Reading Scripture and spiritual literature, along with personal prayer, should find a regular place in our daily routines. Only with this framework in place can our lives begin to fulfill their God-bearing potential to become Church.
While tradition is a framework for our lives, it alone cannot form the whole picture. At its heart, the liturgy calls us to “commend ourselves, each other and all our lives unto Christ our God.” While we need to sing those words on a weekly basis, we also need daily opportunities outside of liturgy to accomplish the challenge of our song. We need to establish and cherish those informal, non-liturgical times as God-given arenas in which service to our family can itself become a churchly act, our personal liturgy.
How then can we strike a balance between participating the formal dimension of the Church—its tradition—and serving the liturgy of our lives? In a monastery, the schedule of monks and nuns is determined for each member by the common rule. This rule allows both for liturgical activity and for intervening times when monks can simply live out their vocation of brotherly love in work and quiet solitude.
In a parish, by contrast, the schedule will vary depending on the needs of each family, which must evolve its own “rule” within the larger boundaries of Church tradition. A good starting-point is to consult with your parish priest to determine what level of formal Church commitment will realistically and reasonably work in your own situation, depending on your circumstances and your stage of life.
In the end, the path of the spiritual life is a matter of balance, of all things finding their proper place in their proper proportions. The debate between family and church is not really a debate at all, a question of either/or. Rather, it is like the relationship of the flower to the soil. Without the rich soil of tradition, the flower of family will wither into worldliness. But if the flower of family is somehow unable to grow, then we must conclude that the soil of tradition is barren, religion for the sake of religion. In isolation, the frame of prayer, fasting and asceticism is empty, but without that framework we can have no real sense that our life is more than end in itself, an image of God’s life, an icon of His Kingdom.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The Ministry of Suffering
I was speaking recently to a colleague of mine who for the past several months has been suffering from a series of unexplained migraine headaches. At some point in the course of our conversation, he exclaimed, “How can people live this way?” It’s a good question. How do we deal with the phenomenon of chronic suffering, both as sufferers and healthy loved ones who care for the afflicted?
Chronic illness and disability are a common reality. Millions of people continue to endure diabetes, MS, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, depression, back pain—to mention just a few. Pain, debilitating weakness, the inability to think or speak clearly are a daily, continuing fact of life that many must negotiate.
And with no end in sight. When I get the flu, I can expect to recover. I have been forced to take a detour from the highway, but I fully anticipate rejoining the main flow in the foreseeable future. I can hardly imagine having the flu and knowing with all certainty that I will never recover from it. I won’t die, but I won’t get better either.
The temptation in this line of thinking, of course, is to conceive of chronic suffering as a permanent detour from normalcy. “Real life” is somewhere else, and other people are living it. The experience of the chronic sufferer, because it is not “normal,” is somehow inadequate when compared to the experience of others.
According to the Gospel, however, this is just not so. Through the Incarnation, God entered the world to do away will all illness and ultimately, end all suffering: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)
God’s ultimate purpose, then, is the end of chronic suffering, including death itself. But how does He achieve that goal? He enters into suffering, fills it with Himself. He makes suffering itself the medium in which freedom is to be found.
In other words, according to the Gospel, chronic pain and illness and weakness are not a detour from real life; they are the very path leading to Real Life, which is nothing less than an encounter with the living God whose very purpose is to dwell with His people: “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.” (Rev. 21:3)
For those of us who are generally physically healthy, it is easy to assume that the real spiritual life consists of such activities as prayer, preaching, reading the Bible, going to Church. Real ministry is overtly spiritual or religious.
If we consider the deeper implications of the Christian Gospel, however, we must realize that while some are called to obvious expressions of faith—preaching and teaching, missionary work, faithful attendance and support of their communities—many others are called simply to suffer with chronic illness and disability. In short, chronic suffering itself is a ministry, and no less so than anything else in the spiritual life.
Indeed, I would be so bold as to say that chronic suffering is the most important of all ministries. Someone who endures daily pain and weakness while trusting in the love of God, speaks far more eloquently of His power than a healthy person who, say, writes a regular article for the local newspaper…
It’s one thing for a person to talk about the death and resurrection of Christ; it’s another thing for him or her to live the Cross in the form of MS or cancer, while demonstrating Jesus’ resurrection in his or her ongoing love for neighbour.
I would therefore urge those of us who are “healthy” to be patient with those who suffer chronically. Don’t expect them to participate in obvious expressions of faith, because the fact is, they don’t really need to. They are living the spiritual life more fully and really than we are, and if they even learn to endure their condition without bitterness, they will have achieved a far higher goal than we ever could.
For those who endure chronic suffering, I would say: this is your ministry. Your victory in the smallest of things—getting out of bed, being gentle with a loved one in the midst of the pain—can and will change the lives of those around you more powerfully than the most talented of writers or preachers or missionaries. It was for you above all that God entered His creation. He came to suffer not just for you, but with you and beside you. He came to go through what you are going through, so that He might see you all the way through, into a place where all sickness, sorrow and sighing will finally flee away.
Chronic illness and disability are a common reality. Millions of people continue to endure diabetes, MS, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, depression, back pain—to mention just a few. Pain, debilitating weakness, the inability to think or speak clearly are a daily, continuing fact of life that many must negotiate.
And with no end in sight. When I get the flu, I can expect to recover. I have been forced to take a detour from the highway, but I fully anticipate rejoining the main flow in the foreseeable future. I can hardly imagine having the flu and knowing with all certainty that I will never recover from it. I won’t die, but I won’t get better either.
The temptation in this line of thinking, of course, is to conceive of chronic suffering as a permanent detour from normalcy. “Real life” is somewhere else, and other people are living it. The experience of the chronic sufferer, because it is not “normal,” is somehow inadequate when compared to the experience of others.
According to the Gospel, however, this is just not so. Through the Incarnation, God entered the world to do away will all illness and ultimately, end all suffering: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)
God’s ultimate purpose, then, is the end of chronic suffering, including death itself. But how does He achieve that goal? He enters into suffering, fills it with Himself. He makes suffering itself the medium in which freedom is to be found.
In other words, according to the Gospel, chronic pain and illness and weakness are not a detour from real life; they are the very path leading to Real Life, which is nothing less than an encounter with the living God whose very purpose is to dwell with His people: “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.” (Rev. 21:3)
For those of us who are generally physically healthy, it is easy to assume that the real spiritual life consists of such activities as prayer, preaching, reading the Bible, going to Church. Real ministry is overtly spiritual or religious.
If we consider the deeper implications of the Christian Gospel, however, we must realize that while some are called to obvious expressions of faith—preaching and teaching, missionary work, faithful attendance and support of their communities—many others are called simply to suffer with chronic illness and disability. In short, chronic suffering itself is a ministry, and no less so than anything else in the spiritual life.
Indeed, I would be so bold as to say that chronic suffering is the most important of all ministries. Someone who endures daily pain and weakness while trusting in the love of God, speaks far more eloquently of His power than a healthy person who, say, writes a regular article for the local newspaper…
It’s one thing for a person to talk about the death and resurrection of Christ; it’s another thing for him or her to live the Cross in the form of MS or cancer, while demonstrating Jesus’ resurrection in his or her ongoing love for neighbour.
I would therefore urge those of us who are “healthy” to be patient with those who suffer chronically. Don’t expect them to participate in obvious expressions of faith, because the fact is, they don’t really need to. They are living the spiritual life more fully and really than we are, and if they even learn to endure their condition without bitterness, they will have achieved a far higher goal than we ever could.
For those who endure chronic suffering, I would say: this is your ministry. Your victory in the smallest of things—getting out of bed, being gentle with a loved one in the midst of the pain—can and will change the lives of those around you more powerfully than the most talented of writers or preachers or missionaries. It was for you above all that God entered His creation. He came to suffer not just for you, but with you and beside you. He came to go through what you are going through, so that He might see you all the way through, into a place where all sickness, sorrow and sighing will finally flee away.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Anatomy of Fear
Chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis illustrates a telling moment in the spiritual history of the human race. Adam and Eve have disobeyed God’s commandment and eaten the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. By doing so, they have effectively declared themselves to “like God,” (Gen. 3:5) which is to say, His equals.
In that moment, Adam and Eve discover that they are in fact naked: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” (Gen. 3:7)
The nakedness of Adam and Eve is more than just physical nudity. It also represents their spiritual intimacy with each other, the world, and ultimately, God Himself. Nakedness means they are open, transparent, and vulnerable. Nothing is hidden, nothing concealed. They are fully exposed to and therefore known by God.
By discovering their nakedness and sewing fig leaves into aprons, our spiritual ancestors demonstrate that they can no longer live in this exposed state. As God’s would-be equals they cannot allow Him to have direct access their souls. As rivals for His godhood, they must separate themselves from Him and define themselves against Him.
Of course, there is a problem: they are not the real God and never will be. And when the real God shows up, their first instinct is to avoid Him:
“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”” (Gen. 3:8-10)
We are witnessing here the anatomy of fear. Adam and Eve’s claim to be God’s equals lead them to separate themselves from Him by covering themselves up. They realize that their claim to godhood is false, but they are not willing to repent of it, so they would rather run away from the real God, in the forlorn hope that they can continue nurturing the illusion that they are “like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:5)
What then is fear? It is simply the refusal to look at ourselves honestly, to take responsibility for who we really are. We persist in believing that we are the masters of our own destinies, even as we realize that we are living a lie. Fear is the attitude of running and hiding from the truth that we are not God.
All our fears have this common spiritual root. Consider, for instance, fear of economic insecurity—a common one these days. If I am constantly worried about my family’s material wellbeing, is it not because I refuse to accept that I am not ultimately in control of the larger economic forces of the world? Isn’t my fear just a stubborn insistence that I am playing god in my life, in spite of all evidence that it’s just a game?
If this is indeed so, then the antidote to fear is two-fold. First, it is a courageous confrontation with the truth. We need to look squarely at the ways in which self-reliance has failed us, the ways in which we are really not “like God,” the ways in which we are really powerless over our emotional, psychological, and material lives.
Secondly, the antidote to fear is a life lived in trust. We must stop running, turn and surrender ourselves to the real God. If there is any fear in our life at all, the chances are we worshiping the wrong God—an angry and judging and punishing and vengeful deity, an idol who keeps keep us running, enslaved to our fear.
And if we want to be free from fear, perhaps we should consider the possibility that another God might in fact exist, a God who wants to embrace us and care for us and who provide everything we need to live and thrive as His children.
The good news is that we do not need to believe wholeheartedly in such a God. We need only acknowledge the possibility that might He be real. That acknowledgement is alone enough to open the door through which His love can flood in upon us, casting out all fear and filling us with our lives with real and lasting joy.
In that moment, Adam and Eve discover that they are in fact naked: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” (Gen. 3:7)
The nakedness of Adam and Eve is more than just physical nudity. It also represents their spiritual intimacy with each other, the world, and ultimately, God Himself. Nakedness means they are open, transparent, and vulnerable. Nothing is hidden, nothing concealed. They are fully exposed to and therefore known by God.
By discovering their nakedness and sewing fig leaves into aprons, our spiritual ancestors demonstrate that they can no longer live in this exposed state. As God’s would-be equals they cannot allow Him to have direct access their souls. As rivals for His godhood, they must separate themselves from Him and define themselves against Him.
Of course, there is a problem: they are not the real God and never will be. And when the real God shows up, their first instinct is to avoid Him:
“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”” (Gen. 3:8-10)
We are witnessing here the anatomy of fear. Adam and Eve’s claim to be God’s equals lead them to separate themselves from Him by covering themselves up. They realize that their claim to godhood is false, but they are not willing to repent of it, so they would rather run away from the real God, in the forlorn hope that they can continue nurturing the illusion that they are “like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:5)
What then is fear? It is simply the refusal to look at ourselves honestly, to take responsibility for who we really are. We persist in believing that we are the masters of our own destinies, even as we realize that we are living a lie. Fear is the attitude of running and hiding from the truth that we are not God.
All our fears have this common spiritual root. Consider, for instance, fear of economic insecurity—a common one these days. If I am constantly worried about my family’s material wellbeing, is it not because I refuse to accept that I am not ultimately in control of the larger economic forces of the world? Isn’t my fear just a stubborn insistence that I am playing god in my life, in spite of all evidence that it’s just a game?
If this is indeed so, then the antidote to fear is two-fold. First, it is a courageous confrontation with the truth. We need to look squarely at the ways in which self-reliance has failed us, the ways in which we are really not “like God,” the ways in which we are really powerless over our emotional, psychological, and material lives.
Secondly, the antidote to fear is a life lived in trust. We must stop running, turn and surrender ourselves to the real God. If there is any fear in our life at all, the chances are we worshiping the wrong God—an angry and judging and punishing and vengeful deity, an idol who keeps keep us running, enslaved to our fear.
And if we want to be free from fear, perhaps we should consider the possibility that another God might in fact exist, a God who wants to embrace us and care for us and who provide everything we need to live and thrive as His children.
The good news is that we do not need to believe wholeheartedly in such a God. We need only acknowledge the possibility that might He be real. That acknowledgement is alone enough to open the door through which His love can flood in upon us, casting out all fear and filling us with our lives with real and lasting joy.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
More on Abuse and Healing in the Church
In my previous article, I reflected on the issue of forgiveness and healing for clerical abuse in the Church, whether it was financial (as in the case of recent issues within my own jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church) or sexual (as in the current scandal that is rocking the Roman Catholic Church).
Today, I would like to examine the second issue, namely, what changes need to be made within contemporary Church culture to curb such abuses in the future.
The root issue behind the current scandals, I believe, lies in a faulty belief that the clergy are a kind of religious caste, much like the Levitical priesthood of ancient Israel. Many priests and bishops think of the clergy as a closed corporation of clerics, apart from and different than the laity. We are even tempted to think of ourselves as a higher level of Christian, somehow closer to God than non-ordained people, a sacred brotherhood that we must uphold, preserve and defend against outsiders.
It doesn’t take a genius to see how this understanding—or rather, misunderstanding—of the clergy could lead to hierarchical abuse. If I consider myself a member of superior and distinct group and already have tendencies to be controlling or abusive, then I will be tempted to use my power to satisfy myself at the expense of those who are “less” than I am. And when one of my brother clerics does something wrong, my first impulse will be to protect the brotherhood, rather than to defend those he has hurt...
Some would suggest that the answer to this problem is simple: down with the clergy! The whole hierarchical structure, they would say, needs to be torn down, and either reconstructed or discarded forever.
I cannot agree with this point of view, partly because it is too simplistic, but mostly because clerical hierarchy has been an integral part of Christian Church government since the time of the Apostles. The failures that we see in the financial and sexual scandals of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches are not an indication that an ordained clergy is an innately corrupt idea. Rather, the current clerical culture reflects a dysfunctional understanding of what the clergy is supposed to be, according to the New Testament. What we need is not revolution or reform. What we need is restoration.
What does the New Testament teach about the clergy? Perhaps the most fundamental and important metaphor for the Church government throughout the New Testament is that of a Roman household in antiquity. At the top of this institution stood someone who is known in the New Testament variously as “the householder,” “the lord,” “the master” or even “the king.” (I don’t really have the space for all the scriptural references; go look them up for yourselves!)
In antiquity, this paterfamilias (literally, “father of the family”) was the supreme authority in his household, possessing the literal legal power of life and death over his wife, children, slaves, and animals.
Taking up this metaphor, the Apostle Paul taught that all the members of the Church are “members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19) with Jesus Christ Himself as the first-born son who has inherited lordship and authority over the household from His Father (see, for example, “the parable of the wicked tenants” in chapter 20 of Luke’s Gospel).
What place is there for an ordained clergy in the household metaphor? Since the paterfamilias in antiquity was often absent from his estate, he would frequently appoint a trusted slave as a steward, acting on his behalf to administer his affairs and keep accounts. Again, Jesus makes numerous references to stewards in His parables.
The technical term for the senior steward on a Roman estate was episkopos, or “overseer.” It is the word from which we get the words “Episcopal” and ultimately, “Bishop.” If the estate was large, the episkopos would appoint assistants, known as presbuteros, from which we derive “Presbyter” and its misleading synonym, “Priest.”
Again, the New Testament writings often use the terms “overseer” (episkopoi) and “elder” (prebuteroi) synonymously to describe leaders in early Christian communities who taught, ordained others, presided over worship, exhorted, corrected and disciplined.
Here’s the crucial point though: while overseers and elders had real and distinct authority in the Roman household, they were just slaves, no more or less so than any other slave. Applying this metaphor to the New Testament understanding of the Church, then, it becomes clear that the clergy have never been conceived as a separate caste, a closed brotherhood apart from the people of God. In the end, they were just “slaves” who were appointed to the task of eldership and oversight by the Lord of the household.
If the segregation of the clergy from the laity is the poisonous wellspring of the scandals in the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches, then the antidote lies in restoring an authentic New Testament vision in which the clergy are fellow members of God’s household—distinct yes, authoritative yes, but not separate, and by no means exalted and idolized as a superior caste.
Concretely, this restoration means building a culture of transparency and accountability, in which clergy work in a spirit of full disclosure and consensus with lay-persons to make decisions for the good of all. It means revisiting the issue of enforced clerical celibacy (both of priest and of bishops), which in my opinion has exacerbated the segregation of ordained and non-ordained, especially when it is applied as a rule and not an option.
The ongoing task, then, belongs to you and me. We cannot change the current state of the Church as a whole, but we can go back the New Testament (as it has always been interpreted and understood); we can discover there the truly original vision of the Church; and we can implement that vision here and now in our relations with one another—clergy and laity alike—as fellow citizens, saints and members of God’s family.
Today, I would like to examine the second issue, namely, what changes need to be made within contemporary Church culture to curb such abuses in the future.
The root issue behind the current scandals, I believe, lies in a faulty belief that the clergy are a kind of religious caste, much like the Levitical priesthood of ancient Israel. Many priests and bishops think of the clergy as a closed corporation of clerics, apart from and different than the laity. We are even tempted to think of ourselves as a higher level of Christian, somehow closer to God than non-ordained people, a sacred brotherhood that we must uphold, preserve and defend against outsiders.
It doesn’t take a genius to see how this understanding—or rather, misunderstanding—of the clergy could lead to hierarchical abuse. If I consider myself a member of superior and distinct group and already have tendencies to be controlling or abusive, then I will be tempted to use my power to satisfy myself at the expense of those who are “less” than I am. And when one of my brother clerics does something wrong, my first impulse will be to protect the brotherhood, rather than to defend those he has hurt...
Some would suggest that the answer to this problem is simple: down with the clergy! The whole hierarchical structure, they would say, needs to be torn down, and either reconstructed or discarded forever.
I cannot agree with this point of view, partly because it is too simplistic, but mostly because clerical hierarchy has been an integral part of Christian Church government since the time of the Apostles. The failures that we see in the financial and sexual scandals of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches are not an indication that an ordained clergy is an innately corrupt idea. Rather, the current clerical culture reflects a dysfunctional understanding of what the clergy is supposed to be, according to the New Testament. What we need is not revolution or reform. What we need is restoration.
What does the New Testament teach about the clergy? Perhaps the most fundamental and important metaphor for the Church government throughout the New Testament is that of a Roman household in antiquity. At the top of this institution stood someone who is known in the New Testament variously as “the householder,” “the lord,” “the master” or even “the king.” (I don’t really have the space for all the scriptural references; go look them up for yourselves!)
In antiquity, this paterfamilias (literally, “father of the family”) was the supreme authority in his household, possessing the literal legal power of life and death over his wife, children, slaves, and animals.
Taking up this metaphor, the Apostle Paul taught that all the members of the Church are “members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19) with Jesus Christ Himself as the first-born son who has inherited lordship and authority over the household from His Father (see, for example, “the parable of the wicked tenants” in chapter 20 of Luke’s Gospel).
What place is there for an ordained clergy in the household metaphor? Since the paterfamilias in antiquity was often absent from his estate, he would frequently appoint a trusted slave as a steward, acting on his behalf to administer his affairs and keep accounts. Again, Jesus makes numerous references to stewards in His parables.
The technical term for the senior steward on a Roman estate was episkopos, or “overseer.” It is the word from which we get the words “Episcopal” and ultimately, “Bishop.” If the estate was large, the episkopos would appoint assistants, known as presbuteros, from which we derive “Presbyter” and its misleading synonym, “Priest.”
Again, the New Testament writings often use the terms “overseer” (episkopoi) and “elder” (prebuteroi) synonymously to describe leaders in early Christian communities who taught, ordained others, presided over worship, exhorted, corrected and disciplined.
Here’s the crucial point though: while overseers and elders had real and distinct authority in the Roman household, they were just slaves, no more or less so than any other slave. Applying this metaphor to the New Testament understanding of the Church, then, it becomes clear that the clergy have never been conceived as a separate caste, a closed brotherhood apart from the people of God. In the end, they were just “slaves” who were appointed to the task of eldership and oversight by the Lord of the household.
If the segregation of the clergy from the laity is the poisonous wellspring of the scandals in the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches, then the antidote lies in restoring an authentic New Testament vision in which the clergy are fellow members of God’s household—distinct yes, authoritative yes, but not separate, and by no means exalted and idolized as a superior caste.
Concretely, this restoration means building a culture of transparency and accountability, in which clergy work in a spirit of full disclosure and consensus with lay-persons to make decisions for the good of all. It means revisiting the issue of enforced clerical celibacy (both of priest and of bishops), which in my opinion has exacerbated the segregation of ordained and non-ordained, especially when it is applied as a rule and not an option.
The ongoing task, then, belongs to you and me. We cannot change the current state of the Church as a whole, but we can go back the New Testament (as it has always been interpreted and understood); we can discover there the truly original vision of the Church; and we can implement that vision here and now in our relations with one another—clergy and laity alike—as fellow citizens, saints and members of God’s family.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Abuse and Healing in the Church
In November of 2008, newly-elected Bishop Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) addressed a general assembly of clergy and laity with the words, “We have been raped.”
He was speaking in reference to a scandal that spanned over thirty years, involving financial corruption, from misappropriation of funds to shady loan schemes to plain old thievery. The persons involved were highly-ranked: the Chancellor himself was defrocked and two leading Bishops were forcibly retired as a result.
One of the questions we asked was, how could the misconduct have flourished for so long without being noticed? The answer was painfully simple. People knew of the abuses, but chose to maintain and even uphold a culture of silence and denial, in which absolute obedience to the ecclesiastical authorities was upheld as paramount, and anything like dissension was suppressed with guilt and threats.
In many ways, our Church was like a dysfunctional family in which one or both of the parents are abusive and everyone else is forced to toe the standard party line that “what happens in the family, stays in the family.”
What changed in the OCA? Much to the chagrin of those who wanted to keep everything “in the family,” a few individuals spoke out and refused to be silenced. The Internet acted as a powerful tool by which the curtains of secrecy were thrown open, allowing the light of honesty and truth to finally shine through.
Once the word was out, the demands for obedience, the accusations of disloyalty and threats of exclusion could no longer contain it. The people of God kept on demanding the truth until newly-elected Bishop Jonah spoke those words that we so desperately needed to hear before we could heal: “We have been raped.”
I recount these events because they are awfully reminiscent of the current explosion of sexual scandal throughout the Roman Catholic Church. Being unaffiliated with Rome, I cannot and will not presume to judge their situation. What I can do is share my own experience with analogical situations in our Church—the lessons we have learned, the struggles we continue to face as we deal with the fallout—and leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to how they might apply to the Roman Catholic situation today.
Reflection on the situation of the OCA, I see two larger questions. Firstly and most immediately, there is the question of how to reconcile the abusers and their victims. Second, there is the question of what changes need to be made in a corrupt ecclesiastical culture to ensure that such abuses will never again be tolerated.
Regarding the first question, my personal experience of the OCA scandal has convinced me that there can be no active forgiveness for those who raped the Church unless they repent, by which I mean, offer a genuine apology, and demonstrate the intention to make real and concrete amends to those they hurt. In my opinion, it also means a willingness to face civil justice, and whatever consequences that may involve...
But aren’t we supposed to forgive, regardless of the other person’s attitude? Our leaders sometimes fall prey to the temptation of calling us to excuse crimes without any initiative for repentance from the criminals involved. In response, I ask you to consider the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23-35.
A master forgives his servant an impossible fortune. This same servant then refuses to forgive a fellow servant a paltry debt. Jesus condemns his refusal to forgive and enjoins us to forgive each other from the heart. He only does so, however, on the assumption that someone is saying, “Have patience with me...” In the parable, the master actually repeals his original forgiveness, because he sees that his servant could not have repented of his own immense indiscretion if he could not forgive another who owed far less.
Simply put, you cannot forgive an abuser who does not want to be forgiven. Have you tried hugging someone who doesn’t want to hug you back? It’s a cold and uncomfortable experience. Have you ever said to someone, “I forgive you,” only to have them look at you defiantly and reply, “Forgive me for what?”
Forgiveness is the embrace of reconciliation of God to humanity, and one person to another. For this reason, it is not possible to forgive those offenders who beg for a simple transfer, a retirement without consequences, who say that they “regret what happened” without actually saying, “I’m sorry that I did this.” Why? Because they either don’t know they need embracing, or simply don’t want to be embraced, period.
This being said, we as victims still need to be willing to forgive. After we have grieved for the crimes committed against us—a process which naturally includes denial and anger and depression—we need to come to the place where we are willing to see within ourselves the capacity for the evil actions we see at work in others. We need to seek for others the embrace that we would have for ourselves, even if they will not embrace us. The words that Jesus spoke on the Cross--"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)--must become our words, even if our forgiveness is not reciprocated.
Whether or not the financial, moral or sexual abusers in our churches repent, we must engage in this process of becoming willing to forgive, individually and communally, if we are going to find true healing. Even if we cannot embrace those who have raped us (because they won’t), we must work to let go of their psychic grip on us, or their rape will continue in our souls until there is nothing left but a hollow shell where a human being used to be.
More next time.
He was speaking in reference to a scandal that spanned over thirty years, involving financial corruption, from misappropriation of funds to shady loan schemes to plain old thievery. The persons involved were highly-ranked: the Chancellor himself was defrocked and two leading Bishops were forcibly retired as a result.
One of the questions we asked was, how could the misconduct have flourished for so long without being noticed? The answer was painfully simple. People knew of the abuses, but chose to maintain and even uphold a culture of silence and denial, in which absolute obedience to the ecclesiastical authorities was upheld as paramount, and anything like dissension was suppressed with guilt and threats.
In many ways, our Church was like a dysfunctional family in which one or both of the parents are abusive and everyone else is forced to toe the standard party line that “what happens in the family, stays in the family.”
What changed in the OCA? Much to the chagrin of those who wanted to keep everything “in the family,” a few individuals spoke out and refused to be silenced. The Internet acted as a powerful tool by which the curtains of secrecy were thrown open, allowing the light of honesty and truth to finally shine through.
Once the word was out, the demands for obedience, the accusations of disloyalty and threats of exclusion could no longer contain it. The people of God kept on demanding the truth until newly-elected Bishop Jonah spoke those words that we so desperately needed to hear before we could heal: “We have been raped.”
I recount these events because they are awfully reminiscent of the current explosion of sexual scandal throughout the Roman Catholic Church. Being unaffiliated with Rome, I cannot and will not presume to judge their situation. What I can do is share my own experience with analogical situations in our Church—the lessons we have learned, the struggles we continue to face as we deal with the fallout—and leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to how they might apply to the Roman Catholic situation today.
Reflection on the situation of the OCA, I see two larger questions. Firstly and most immediately, there is the question of how to reconcile the abusers and their victims. Second, there is the question of what changes need to be made in a corrupt ecclesiastical culture to ensure that such abuses will never again be tolerated.
Regarding the first question, my personal experience of the OCA scandal has convinced me that there can be no active forgiveness for those who raped the Church unless they repent, by which I mean, offer a genuine apology, and demonstrate the intention to make real and concrete amends to those they hurt. In my opinion, it also means a willingness to face civil justice, and whatever consequences that may involve...
But aren’t we supposed to forgive, regardless of the other person’s attitude? Our leaders sometimes fall prey to the temptation of calling us to excuse crimes without any initiative for repentance from the criminals involved. In response, I ask you to consider the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23-35.
A master forgives his servant an impossible fortune. This same servant then refuses to forgive a fellow servant a paltry debt. Jesus condemns his refusal to forgive and enjoins us to forgive each other from the heart. He only does so, however, on the assumption that someone is saying, “Have patience with me...” In the parable, the master actually repeals his original forgiveness, because he sees that his servant could not have repented of his own immense indiscretion if he could not forgive another who owed far less.
Simply put, you cannot forgive an abuser who does not want to be forgiven. Have you tried hugging someone who doesn’t want to hug you back? It’s a cold and uncomfortable experience. Have you ever said to someone, “I forgive you,” only to have them look at you defiantly and reply, “Forgive me for what?”
Forgiveness is the embrace of reconciliation of God to humanity, and one person to another. For this reason, it is not possible to forgive those offenders who beg for a simple transfer, a retirement without consequences, who say that they “regret what happened” without actually saying, “I’m sorry that I did this.” Why? Because they either don’t know they need embracing, or simply don’t want to be embraced, period.
This being said, we as victims still need to be willing to forgive. After we have grieved for the crimes committed against us—a process which naturally includes denial and anger and depression—we need to come to the place where we are willing to see within ourselves the capacity for the evil actions we see at work in others. We need to seek for others the embrace that we would have for ourselves, even if they will not embrace us. The words that Jesus spoke on the Cross--"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)--must become our words, even if our forgiveness is not reciprocated.
Whether or not the financial, moral or sexual abusers in our churches repent, we must engage in this process of becoming willing to forgive, individually and communally, if we are going to find true healing. Even if we cannot embrace those who have raped us (because they won’t), we must work to let go of their psychic grip on us, or their rape will continue in our souls until there is nothing left but a hollow shell where a human being used to be.
More next time.
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