Orthodixie

Wow. Just read ALL the comments to your post about evangelism. No easy topic. I fall into the “unchurched” category and I hadn’t ever thought about anyone being worried about me like that. I’ve never been able to shake my selfishness, but you all really highlight it.

Thoughts I can’t organize well, and are only one “unchurched” person’s opinion: I don’t go to a Divine Liturgy because I’m terrified. I’ve listened to them on AFR and we’ve got a Greek Orthodox church in town with new clergy who finally set up a good website with information about “all welcome, 10:00 services” kinds of things and contact information… but it’s wildly intimidating.

Anyone who knows me would laugh if someone called me “shy,” but even just driving by that church gets me. When you’re this ignorant, it’s hard to imagine anyone in that church taking you seriously. I can float around the internet and stumble across some very good information (12 Things — Frederica is such an evangelist in that way) but there is also the hyperbole and propaganda you’ve got to avoid. (Some of it, pretty dangerous.) I can read Kyriacos Markides and Killistos Ware, look into the Orthodox Bible and follow up with more research… I can devour the official websites for churches and learn about your calendar, fasting, discipline and traditions…

But still I look at the beatitudes and wonder with a horrible shame what on earth someone would /think/ if they had to listen to my first confession. Not that I’m a criminal or anything, no, just regular even if I’ve never been baptized. Flip side, I’ve never been angry about God or rebelled either. Benign atheist is hardly benign — I can only console myself with the idea I’ve been basically decent in such a secular life. I don’t even have a tattoo. But that’s not the point anyway.

I wager that if I’m in this little bubble, there have got to be others like me. It’s not doing anyone any good, it can’t be your fault for saying “all welcome” and putting your email address up (the churches, too, are that open) so where’s the disconnect? For the unchurched, it has to be the intimidation (we don’t even know what it feels like to be in a congregation at all) along with a kind of solipsism or, certainly, a fear of commitment. If we get involved with something like “a church,” what if it doesn’t work out? Will I just crawl back to my study and keep knowing what I “know” despite having messed up being a catechumen too? Should there be some less formal first step like a personal tour of the parish? How much time would that cost, you know? You can’t treat all of us with kid gloves. You also can’t pay so much time and effort to the curious few when you’ve already got your entire congregation to work with… and houses to bless.

Anyway, there it is. I really hope I haven’t offended anyone but I do know I’m a toddler ’round these parts. You’re very kind to read this.

— Anonymous, via email

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A counselor at a rescue mission once told me of their intake interview wherein they asked each man about his history. The stories, with little variation, involved mostly drinking and drugging, coupled with promiscuity. Later, when asked, “How’s your relationship with God?” almost 100% of the interviewees answered along the lines of, “Oh! Me and God are tight! Yep. God and I are close.”

It happens to all of us: our “old man” (Ephesians 4:22) plays tricks on us, leading us to neglect the one thing needful. Though we long for God, we fill up our lives with that which leads us far from Him.

Elder Paisios of Mount Athos writes:

The one who neglects his prayer and duties unjustifyably and works all the time building pyramids for Pharaoh) is estranged from God, becomes wild, constantly and cruelly hitting his guardian angel with kicks and disorder, until he finally drives him away. Then, he accepts the devil as his ruler, who immediately makes the following changes: 1) abolishes the prayer rope, replacing it with worldly worry beads and 2) does away with spiritual study completely, replacing it with worldly magazines and newspapers. In the end, the devil conquers him and he suffers internally and seeks amusement as Saul did, when he was alienated from God and demon possessed (Epistles, p.218) .

The temptations of contemporary society, not to mention the destructive forces of addiction, seduce us into believing them to be necessary to the point of excluding that which is necessary for our salvation (prayer, fasting, alms giving).

Truthfully, brothers and sisters, we’ve only got one chore: “The thing that will move God more on the Day of Judgment is the work each one of us has done on his old man.”

God created Man in His image and likeness to be in communion with Him. Man has free will to respond to this relationship. Although created in the image and after the likeness of God, he does not sustain communion with God. Though fashioned in God’s image, the likeness has been lost and, through sin, the image tarnished.

Understanding the image as residing in the intellect and reflecting on the parable of the Prodigal Son and how he came to himself, Georgios Mantzaridis writes:

Developing the parable of the prodigal son, and speaking of the dissipation of the father’s fortune by the younger son, [St Gregory] Palamas gives the following allegorical interpretation: man’s chief wealth is his inborn intellect. While he keeps to the path of salvation, he keeps his intellect concentrated in itself and on the first and highest Intellect, God. If, however, he is led astray into misuse, then his intellect is dispersed and adheres to earthly things, and to the pleasures of the flesh. Man is required to fight against this pathological deviation through his return to himself and elevation towards God [The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (TDOM)p.82].

Mantzaridis continues: “If there exists something that man can and must seek and find within himself, it is not the self which deviated but the new man in Christ, born through baptismal grace and the other church sacraments” (TDOM, p.83).

Thus, we do not come to our base nature — the old man — which is corrupted by sin. Rather, we come to that which is good, beautiful and true. We come to that which Adam was before the Fall; we come to the New Man, Christ, Who is within us.

We are called to “put on Christ.” We are to become like God, thereby regaining the “likeness” that we have lost by transgression. The first step in this process is that we “come to ourselves.” This coming to oneself is the first step toward repentance and reconciliation that leads to communion with God and neighbor. This is true when “man, ‘having entered wholly within himself’, becomes aware of himself and awaits within himself the coming of God and the divine transformation” (TDOM, p.85) .

Certainly, we all have some discernment. Let us not kid ourselves that we are in good standing with God even though we neglect our neighbor and we are living the life of the “old man.” Let us put on the New Man and “resolve to struggle fervently, cut off our passions, liberate our soul, and fly into Heaven” (Epistles, pp.150-151).

This reflection, a combination of two previous posts (and currently in the St George MESSENGER), is based on: Epistles, Greece: Holy Monastery of the Evangelist John the Theologian, 2002; and, The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition by Georgios Mantzaridis, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997.

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In a sermon on the First Sunday of Lent, I asked a rhetorical question: “So, one week into it, how’d y’all do?” Now, St George is a far cry from a “shouting church” but, several people yelled out:
Good! or Not bad!

I didn’t feel the need to ask the same question on the Fourth Sunday. I knew You know the answer. So, it seems, does the Church.

Our Boy Scout Troop used to play “Kick the Can” — a suped up version of hide-n-seek which involves prisoners, boredom etc. My friends Jimmy, Scott and I weren’t interested in the game as much as we were in the hiding — as in getting lost and exploring — part. In other words, as soon the activity began, we usually headed down to the railroad tracks to walk, talk, and sing.

(We figured they’d let us know when the game was over.)

One day, we must have had a lot to talk about, we walked a long, long way down the railroad tracks till we discovered a very steep embankment …

But of course. We had to climb it.

Did I mention the steep part?

We scrambled up the precipice at first, unhindered by fear. A little further and it got really terrifying exciting. Higher still and …

Uh oh.

We looked down. Way down. Then we looked up. Straight up.

We were stuck; afraid. We couldn’t go back down (and we saw no possibility of moving upward).

So there we sat. For a long. Long. Time.

We talked about our fears, possible strategies, worst case scenarios … our dads. We pretty much freaked ourselves out. Truth be known, although we were 12 or so, we may have even cried (in a manly Boy Scout fashion, mind you).

We sat there for all eternity a long time. We were so far from HQ that there was no way we could hear the adult yell that would signify time’s up. It didn’t matter anyhow. (Did I mention we were stuck?)

Suddenly, Jimmy found some deep seated courage and took off scrambling to the top of the small mountain. It was precarious … but he made it. We were happy for him. No way we were going to emulate him, though. We were fine right where we were, thank you: stuck, scared, and miserable.

That is … until we saw, way off in the distance, two figures making their way down the tracks in our direction.

Oh my Guh …

We looked up: Jimmy yelling encouragement. We also heard, faintly due to distance, voices encouraging us to come down.

Y’all? There was no way we were going back down. We’d made it this far …

So we did what any 12 year old male does in a jam … we sat there breaking twigs and throwing pebbles and waiting for courage.

The two shapes in the distance? Yup. Scout Masters.

Courage was slow in coming; in other words, the adults got there before it kicked in. And, it seemed to our adolescent minds that one of the men — in his 40’s with quite a mid-life paunch — was headed up the hill. (I can still see him flapping his arms and wiggling the invisible Hula Hoop as he meandered baby steps. Now, myself his age, I know better. He had no intention hope of actually arriving — he just wanted to scare us into thinking he was coming up the cliff!)

Jimmy yelling … old man coming … stuck on the side of Mt Kilimanjaro.

Suddenly, without a word, Scott and I turned our faces upward and scrambled toward the top as if our life depended on it. Our fear was transformed into life-saving (if not fool-hearted) energy and … well, We did it!

Which brings me round to this point — where you and I are right now — over the half-way mark in the Great Fast.

The Church knows our struggle, our weaknesses and shortcomings. For this reason, She not only appoints Sunday’s Gospel passage … but commemorates St John of the Ladder.

About the Ladder of Divine Ascent, St John says (and I’m paraphrasing here): Do not despair at all the hesychasts and anchorites who have made it before you … You are following the First Martyr! Do not grow faint hearted from your falls, for they only show how much you are in need of the Physician.

In a way, we’re all sittin’ there on that hill. Our struggles have caused us discomfort, doubt, wounds and discouragement. The thought may even have occurred: “Why bother?”

But, brothers and sisters, we’ve made it this far. We have a great cloud of witnesses who’ve gone before us, cheering us on — not only toward our present Pascha, but to the Eternal Banquet.

And that lion that pretends to be ascending the hill after us? Have no fear; our Lord has defanged him. He just wants us to lose heart.

Let us, having passed the midpoint of the Great Fast, persevere in faith — not being discouraged by our falls and illnesses, but with encouragement and healing offered by the Physician of our souls!

Through the prayers of St John of the Ladder, and all the Saints, O Lord be merciful to us and save us!

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For those of you who are penny-pinchers (not that you’re any less important that those wonderful wonderful people who paid the full full price) …

One Flew Over the Onion Dome is now available on Amazon.com

Whoever you are.

THANKS.

Having been granted to stand in Thy holy place, O Lord our God, we Thine unworthy servants, having no good works to bring before Thee, offer up to Thee a contrite heart and an humble spirit, to Thee Who hast no need of our goods; and we ask from Thy bounty, the pardon of our sins.

Hearken unto our meager supplications, O Thou Who didst not despise the Publican when he humbled himself before Thee,

but didst shew him more justified than the self-righteous Pharisee,

whose boasting and vain, empty talk, do Thou root out from our hearts;

but grant us the Publican’s repentance and the humility that brings us closer to Thee,

Who liftest up the humble, and dost humiliate the exalted; and make us worthy of that bliss which is stored up for the poor in heart, in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Through the mercies of Thy Christ, with Whom Thou art blessed, together with Thine All-Holy, and Good, and Life-creating Spirit, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

— From an ancient Ambon Prayer. (Orlov, Prayer No. 57, p. 336-7.) Provided by Fr John Shaw, who writes: “Note that in this prayer as in the one for the 1st Sunday of Lent, the theme of the Publican and Pharisee is again returned to.” Source

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