Praying the Psalms

Orthodox Christians have a lot of standard prayers that we can use when we pray, and many of us use them. If we're not careful, we can let addressing God this way become something like a personalized but still impersonal prayer wheel, spinning off words yet feeling justified because we've "said our prayers." Having a relationship with the living God can be bypassed this way, exchanged for something like a business agreement with a heavenly accounting firm.

If I make this sound like written prayers are to be avoided, that's not my intent. Formal prayers are there to launch us into the life of prayer. If we stop and linger with them, then we have no one but ourselves to blame. What I want to share with you today is some reflections on the Psalms, God's own "prayer book" which He has given us to teach us how to pray, what to pray for, when to pray, and by which He speaks back to us when we pray them faithfully.

The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England established a very easy and consistent way to pray the Psalms. They arranged them in a 30 day cycle, dividing them up into morning and evening portions for each day. (I know some months have 31 days. See the note at the end of this post.) Rather than making things complicated by following the Lectionary or grouping psalms by content, they just started with Psalm 1 and divided them up as they come, ending with Psalm 150. No flipping back and forth of pages, that would only be a distraction. Just simple, Psalm 1, 2 and 3, and so on.

The first day of the month has eight psalms, but depending on length, some days have more or fewer. When you get to the longest psalm (and longest chapter of the Bible), we find that it takes two and a half days to pray it! But the first day has eight. Not too many, not too few.

To pray the Psalms, just make a point of going aside to a quiet and secluded place, your "prayer closet" as the Lord says, and that can be anywhere. Just don't take anything with you into that place but your Bible. Open it reverently. Kiss the Book if you dare and then, open it to the first psalm of the day. Today is November 1st, so it's Psalm 1. Read this psalm, standing before the Father and in His presence. Though it may not seem like you're praying or asking the Lord for anything, in fact you are. Your very act of standing in His presence and reading His Word is the fact of prayer.
Go ahead, read it…

PSALM 1
Happy the man
who never follows the advice of the wicked,
or loiters on the way that sinners take,
or sits about with scoffers,
but finds his pleasure in the Law of Yahweh,
and murmurs his law day and night!
He is like a tree that is planted
by water streams,
yielding its fruit in season,
its leaves never fading;
success attends all he does.
It is nothing like this with the wicked, nothing like this!
No, these are like chaff
blown away by the wind.
The wicked will not stand firm when Judgment comes,
nor sinners when the virtuous assemble.
For Yahweh takes care of the way the virtuous go,
but the way of the wicked is doomed.

Then, just say "Amen!" to seal the praying of this psalm with your will and testimony. And continue to the next one, Psalm 2. Read it the same way, clearly, and listening to the words with your heart as well as your inner ear. This too is a prayer. Do you sense His presence with you in the room? While you're reading, praying, don't pay attention to anything outside yourself or any mental distractions. Pause if you want to pause, reread a line if you want to reread it. Pray the psalm through more than once, if you need to, before going on to the next one. Most of all, don't rush, don't put a worry about finishing by a certain time on yourself. You're standing in His presence, you're in His kairós (acceptable time) and have, in act, left the world.
Go ahead, continue with Psalm 2…

PSALM 2
Why this uproar among the nations?
Why this impotent muttering of pagans—
kings on earth rising in revolt,
princes plotting against Yahweh and his Anointed,
‘Now let us break their fetters!
Now let us throw off their yoke!’
The One whose throne is in heaven
sits laughing, Yahweh derides them.
Then angrily he addresses them,
in a rage he strikes them with panic,
‘This is my king, installed by me
on Zion, my holy mountain.’
Let me proclaim Yahweh’s decree;
he has told me, ‘You are my son,
today I have become your father.
Ask and I will give you the nations for your heritage,
the ends of the earth for your domain.
With iron sceptre you will break them,
shatter them like potter’s ware.’
So now, you kings, learn wisdom,
earthly rulers be warned:
serve Yahweh, fear him,
tremble and kiss his feet,
or he will be angry and you will perish,
for his anger is very quick to blaze.
Happy all who take shelter in him.

Again, say "Amen!" at the end of this psalm. You have only six more to go. By the time to get to Psalm 8, you'll not want to leave. Also, beginning with Psalm 3, you will find yourself standing in King David's place, sharing his prayer, noticing little by little how you can pray these words as coming from your very self! The first time this happens isn't the last. If you persevere in praying the Psalms, you will enter into the Biblical world, being taught how to address the living God, understanding more and more of His will for your life.

Soon enough, between reading each psalm, your personal prayers will begin lodging themselves, at first by words maybe, but then gradually by spiritual groanings (I can't find a better word, but I don't mean something negative by "groan"). It's impossible to explain, but as you faithfully pray the Psalms, not only does your personal prayer and dialog with the Lord become more real, more lasting, but soon, you will find that the Lord has been speaking to you more constantly and clearly than you had ever realized. This is what the Orthodox mean by "practicing theology" rather than studying it. This is where a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ becomes more than just an expression.

Anyway, back to the Psalms.
I could copy the rest of the Psalms into this post, but instead, I am just going to list the numbers, and let you go and pray them yourself. For those who want to try praying the Psalms, I will provide a list of the 30 day cycle. The Book of Common Prayer lists them as "morning" and "evening" psalms, but I have never divided them this way, and so my list excludes this. The Bible version I use is the original (not the New) Jerusalem Bible, but you should use any version that works for you. In my Bible I have added the day numerals using some rub-on numbers that I got at an art supply store. The image above is the Bible I use when praying (the sprig of laurel is a bookmark, picked up from last year's Descent into Hades service). This is just to give you an idea.

If God allows it, my intention is to continue this post on praying the psalms throughout the month, though I may not write something every day. I just wanted to share with you this ministry of God's Word to me, hoping that you too can be ministered to by the Word of God, for prayer, as I have been.

Praying the Psalms has been my main personal prayer life since I accepted the Lord at the age of 24. I have not been faithful or consistent with it, but it is the place I always return to whenever I notice I've been drifting. And why is this? Because the Lord is there, He's the faithful and the true, the only lover of mankind, the merciful Father, and I can always depend on Him to save me, and enfolded in His psalms I can come and stand before Him, with Jesus.

30 DAY CYCLE
Day 1 — Psalms 1-8
Day 2 — Psalms 9-14
Day 3— Psalms 15-18
Day 4 — Psalms 19-23
Day 5 — Psalms 24-29
Day 6 — Psalms 30-34
Day 7 — Psalms 35-37
Day 8 — Psalms 38-43
Day 9 — Psalms 44-49
Day 10 — Psalms 50-55
Day 11 — Psalms 56-61
Day 12 — Psalms 62-67
Day 13 — Psalms 68-70
Day 14 — Psalms 71-74
Day 15 — Psalms 75-78
Day 16 — Psalms 79-85
Day 17 — Psalms 86-89
Day 18 — Psalms 90-94
Day 19 — Psalms 95-101
Day 20 — Psalms 102-104
Day 21 — Psalms 105-106
Day 22 — Psalms 107-109
Day 23 — Psalms 110-115
Day 24 — Psalms 116-119:32
Day 25 — Psalm 119:33-104
Day 26 — Psalm 119:105-176
Day 27 — Psalms 120-131
Day 28 — Psalms 132-138
Day 29 — Psalms 139-143
Day 30 — Psalms 144-150
*Day 31 — Pray the psalms for the day of the month on which you were born.

The enemy's inroads

The enemy's inroads through the forests of my flesh
go deep.

He seeks not open country. See how he hides between
rows of manicured foliage where he works unseen
or by night, insinuating out of sight
subtle trappings, seductions, and thoughts unclean,
while watchmen and woodsman are away, or sleep.

Many they be who stand along the march and fend,
many on the roads aware, beating the bush to find

the fever feeding on the shadows there
— oh, and the woodsman,

helpless one brandishing one axe against the ambush,
— all on the Day depend.

Deep in the darkest and thickest ravine, or high
in the narrowest, windiest pass, where trees

rise so close beside the trail one can scarcely squeeze by,
there comes the enemy out from his covert nigh,
uncomfortable, mean — oh, how he taunts,
afraid of one woodsman's axe even then,
— by mere suggestion, how he plies his victories.

Hand-bound and toe-nailed in a death-dusty heap,
would man were not jailed so, in such misery weep,

— but oh, at the summit, skirting the tree line
the first whispering of warmth, rumor of radiance divine,
and in streams gravitating to the gullies below
the same lustre of healing in the animate flow,
— but watchmen and woodsman most certainly know

also hidden a ransoming fire does not sleep, though
the enemy's inroads through the forests of my flesh
go deep.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx—Romanós

Start with the recovery of the Gospel

This morning an interesting article was emailed to me by an old Portland friend, Presvytera Candace Schefe, of Holy Transfiguration church in Anchorage, the only Greek Orthodox church in Alaska.
The article is entitled Orthodox Leadership in a Brave New World, and you can read the whole article by clicking the link. Although written from an Orthodox viewpoint, I think Christians of all stripes can profit from what its author writes about witnessing in the world of today. Following are just a couple of points lifted from the article, which I found particularly apt.

If Orthodox Christians should understand anything, it is this: Salvation is a concrete, existential encounter with the living God.

Moreover, this Lord gives gifts, including wisdom, knowledge, insight, and courage—all the elements needed to confront the maelstrom of confusion in which our culture finds itself, and all meant to be applied in the work of daily life, whether as mother, researcher, mechanic, priest—whatever our vocation may be.

Salvation is not understanding the correct theological concepts;
it is not nostalgia for civilizations past;
it is not formal membership in a long-standing parish;
it is not social activism;
it is not morally appropriate behavior;
it is not mastery of the moral vocabulary.

Further, it is not enough to recall the certainty of the past.
Nostalgic impulses, as comforting as they may be (including the Orthodox variants, such as the longings for Hellenistic Greece or Holy Russia), simply won’t meet the challenge.

Orthodox leadership today requires great courage.
Courage, said Winston Churchill, is the one quality that lets all other virtues flourish.
When Solzhenitsyn delivered his address three decades ago, he spoke not as a philosopher, but as a voice crying in the wilderness. He cried out against the dehumanization of men he experienced in the East and saw advancing in the West. Only people with moral clarity and courage could successfully challenge it, he exhorted. What the world needs is not more philosophers, but moralists.
The exhortation drew from a supreme confidence in the power of truth. Solzhenitsyn believed that truth is self-verifying. When the truth is spoken, its veracity is self-evident to the hearer. This is a profoundly Christian notion rooted in the teaching of the apostle Paul: When the Gospel is preached, Christ (who is Truth) is revealed.

Any Orthodox response to the cultural challenge must first presume a recovery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The wisdom of the Fathers, the artistry of the poets, the healings of the miracle workers, the courage of the martyrs, the knowledge of the scholars, the patience of the teachers, the foresight of the bishops, the faithfulness of the priests—all the elements that shaped and forged the moral tradition that founded Western civilization and must renew it today—start with the recovery of the Gospel.

As Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Christianity as religious artifact

The Portland Greek Festival is happening right now. It started yesterday at 10 a.m. and will continue today and right up through the end of Sunday evening. This is an annual event at Aghía Triás (Holy Trinity) Church in Portland, Oregon, that began the year I was born. It's been going on for fifty-six years. I've heard that it was the first of its kind in America, and that all other Greek Festivals stem from ours. Who knows if that's true, or just part of tradition. I've been "working" at the festival every year since I was thirty-eight years old. I put "working" in quotes, because what I do is not considered work by some of the Greeks around here. Why is that? Because I am an usher or guide in the sanctuary—I stay in the church and assist visitors in understanding what they are seeing there, and I also witness for Christ, without Whom there would be no sanctuary, and no festival.

I could write a book about the encounters I've had in the eighteen years I've been doing this ministry, but I won't. Just one example, though.

Yesterday I helped a woman who wanted a copy of a prayer that was printed inside the back cover of our service book, "O God, who accepted the gifts of Abel, the sacrifice of Noah and of Abram, the incense of Aaron and of Zachariah, accept also from the hand of us sinners these gifts…" (a prayer based on one in the Liturgy of James, the brother of Jesus). She asked if the prayer was printed anywhere, in a pamphlet or tract, that she could have a copy of. I didn't think so, but I told her I'd copy it out longhand on the back of a tract and give it to her. While I was doing this she told me about herself.

Thelma is sixty-five years old. Her husband is deceased. She does street ministry, on her own, without church endorsement, but also works with churches in various ministries, as the Lord directs. Since her husband died, she has been a missionary, having gone to China twelve times, and many other countries. She was with another elderly lady. She had just made a decision to accept an invitation to join some missionaries going to Mozambique, and will be leaving soon. Besides telling me about herself, she also told me about many things she had encountered in her ministry. It was hard for me to stay concentrated copying this long prayer while listening to her, and my back was starting to ache because I was bent over a low table.

She startled me when she asked, "Have you ever been to the Throne Room?"
I responded, "No, how do you get there?" and she told me, "When you go to your private room to speak to the Father, become as a little child, and ask Him!"
At another point she asked me if I knew that Paradise (the Garden of Eden) was still in existence? I said, the Bible doesn't say it is not, and the Orthodox Church says it is, so "Yes," I told her, "I know it still exists." She asked if I'd ever been there, and I said, "No," but I told her I'd read of someone who had, the monk Euphrósynos, and asked her if she'd ever heard of him. Her eyes just lit up, she smiled and nodded, "Yes!" That really startled me. A non-Orthodox Christian elderly woman missionary knows about an obscure ancient father who was allowed to enter Paradise while still alive! And she also claims that if one becomes as a little child and asks the heavenly Father, He would do even that, and He has done that for her! This may all sound like hysteria, but I was with the woman, and it really wasn't. I don't know what it was, but the Lord wanted me to meet this woman to know that she exists, and I've just shared the story with you.

So, I'm going back to the festival in about forty-five minutes, and what I wanted to write in this post still hasn't been written yet. Here it is.

The Greek Festival is successful for many reasons and in many ways. To some, it's the money that matters. For others, it's the whole community pulling together, each according to his or her ability, to roll out a huge welcome mat for others to see what the Greek culture is about, to practice "philoxenía" (hospitality, literally "love of strangers"), the most highly valued of virtues to the Greek mind. These people really do live up to this ideal, they are willing to help and to accept others, even incorporating them into the Greek kinonía if they want to be. But sometimes I wonder if they are too welcoming, too accepting.
I wonder if they are susceptible to a kind of Trojan Horse in reverse. They know that the world is patronizing them as a cultural and religious relic, a beautiful anomaly in today's world, a kind of harmless entertainment. It doesn't seem to bother them.

The sanctuary being open to the public has been a part of the Festival as long as I've been in this community. It symbolizes what is at the heart of any of the goodness we are perceived by others to have. The church tours we have are informative, and delivered in a spirit of modesty, tailored to the audience's background whenever possible. But to witness to our guests about Jesus Christ is left to the laypeople who man the sanctuary. The clergy will tell you everything about the church, its history, its culture, its tradition, even its understanding of scripture and theology, but that's the extent of it. People can listen and even ask questions and carry away just a little bit more knowledge about something beautiful and arcane, but what of Jesus Christ? Did anything they heard produce faith in them? Was the seed of the Word planted in them? Let's hope that it was and is, and may God give the increase.

But are we just playing into the world's matrix, letting it turn our faith into a commodity, Christianity as religious artifact?
Take Jesus out of the equation, and that's what you have, whether we're talking about Orthodox Christianity, or any other. Our form of church just has more tools than some of the others, but without Christ, those tools become mere toys, something for the world, or for us, to play with.

For us, the "game of church." For the others, just more interesting artifacts to decorate their drawing room.

May it shock my readers to view the image below, from Phoenix Home & Garden magazine (July 2001 issue).
Here is a room decorated with a collection of authentic icons, on the wall arranged in a cross-like pattern.
Notice the icon of the Resurrection is at the very bottom, near the floor. On the coffee table lie five icons just as artifacts to be handled (one of them in a glass frame). Let's hope they're not being used as coasters! (Of course not, that'd ruin the finish!)
To the right of the arranged wall icons is an art piece of what looks like a male nude, and there are other objets d'art all over the room.
Brothers, this is where we are headed, if we don't reveal to the world the One in whom we live and move and have our being (cf. Acts 17:28), not just at the festival, but every day, wherever we are sent. The world will love us if we make it feel better, on its terms, but like the icons in an Arizona businessman's great room we may find ourselves hung, arranged in a cross, and ignored.

Without Jesus, welcome to the world "as it is."

The study of inspired Scripture…

…is the chief way of finding our duty, for in it we find both instruction about conduct and the lives of blessed men, delivered in writing, as some breathing images of godly living, for the imitation of their good works. Hence, in whatever respect each one feels himself deficient, devoting himself to this imitation, he finds, as from some dispensary, the due medicine for his ailment.

St. Basil the Great

Let's pray now!

I don't have very much to say these days that's bloggable. A drowning man doesn't talk much. Well, not drowning exactly… I'm exaggerating. But learning to walk on water is tough, and I can't even swim!
I found this cartoon on the OrthoDixie blog, and it shows visually something that I practice and sometimes preach, "Let's pray now!"

Early in my life as a Christian I'd meet people who'd say things like, "I'll pray for you," or "Please pray for me."

I thought the first was a kind of pious ‘put on’, and I'd say "Thanks!" and I always felt very uncomfortable with the second and hastily responded, "Of course, I will!" and then I'd just forget about it, like the guy in the cartoon. Clergy and pious old ladies usually said the first, and ‘humbler than thou’ wannabees usually said the second. Occasionally both the offer and the request were genuine, but rarely.

One day, I just sat up and decided to do what the Word of God says, "Pray all the time, asking for what you need, praying in the Spirit on every possible occasion" (Ephesians 6:18 Jerusalem Bible).

One thing that meant to me was this, I never again (or almost never again) told someone I'd pray for them. If someone needed to be prayed for, I'd just drop everything, including the pretense, and say, "Okay, let's pray now!" and start praying right then and there.

This readiness came with not a few surprises. Some people actually wanted to pray and wanted to be prayed for. Others simply excused themselves and so much as said, "Don't bother!" with an embarassed grin.

Being ready to pray at the drop of a hat (or yarmulke) is a very good way to increase your faith, because you have to rely on God to give you the words—and that's how prayer is supposed to be. If you haven't thought about this before, try it out. It has the same wonderful and incredible results as wearing a smile does. It catches people off guard and disarms them, and you too, and puts you in a place where, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, faith becomes possible.

The only time I express something like "I'm praying for you" is in a letter or email, and I am doing just that while I am writing it. Never the future tense, not even in a letter. Always the present. Always in His presence. He's with us here, with me while I type these words, with you as you read them. And in this written tabernacle I can ask your prayers for Romanós the sinner, and I can know that if only for a moment you're now bringing my cause before the Father, because that's all it takes, and that's all that's possible.

Your cross isn't meant to be a burden

In the process of looking for images to use in my previous post, I ran across a blog called Sisters' Weblog: It Bloggles the Mind, and also this short post by one of the sisters, Susan Price. I'm using the title of her post as the title for mine, and I want to start off by quoting her words, which I found strangely meaningful:

Christians often assume that to "take up our cross" means simply to carry a burden. When we run into a life trouble, we will say things like "oh, this is just my cross to bear". We basically shrug it off, totally missing the significance of the cross.

Ever consider that the cross is not meant to be a burden? It is meant to cause death.

The cross is meant to kill us! It is an instrument of death! Oh that wonderful cross!

Change of scene:
The tail end of a baptism service at Aghía Triás.

My son Andrew is a Byzantine cantor, trained in Greece, and is often asked to chant at family services, such as baptisms. This past Sunday he chanted at a baptism and asked me to pick him up afterwards so he could get to sleep right away. (He is also a virtuoso guitarist and probably was going to be playing at a club that evening, so he needed to pre-rest.) He gave me a time to return for him, but when I arrived, the service was still going on. The actual anointing and baptism by triple immersion (of an infant) in the silver goblet-shaped font had already occurred, and what met my eyes as I entered the temple was a procession of Fr Paul, the godparents with the newly illuminated infant, and an entourage of small children from toddlers to maybe 4 or 5 years, around the font, some holding candles.
It was like suddenly coming upon a secret ceremony in the depths of the forest, like the marriage procession of the foxes in Akira Kurosawa's film Dreams).

It was all at once mysterious, solemn, joyful and bright.

I watched it for some minutes, and then it broke up and gradually resolved itself into other arrangements of grownups and small children.

Orthodoxy is, above all, a childlike religion.

It made me ponder once again the mystery of the cross. Little did these babies following the priest in a primitive procession around a sacred font know, let alone understand, that what they had just performed and witnessed was the death of the old man in a small child and the birth of the new. Easily described on paper and challenged by many different points of view, this mystery would, if God has His way, usher that newly illuminated child, at some future time, into the mystery of the cross. The cross that Jesus was nailed too, yes, and from which His body was taken down, and which was the implement by which, through His death upon it, paradise was opened, first to the good thief, and then to everyone who had ever lived from Adam and Eve onwards. Yet also, the cross that she (I believe the infant was a baby girl) would have to bear, if she would, and upon which she would someday also die, if she let God have his way with her. These are the thoughts that passed through my mind as I witnessed the innocents processing around the mystery that they knew not yet.

Christianity can be many things to many people, but unless it is first and foremost the cross, it can devolve into ritual, culture, or magic. Not that everyone will have the same cross to bear and to die on, not that what it looks like or feels like will be the same for all, not that those who follow Christ to Calvary will all understand what is happening to them the same way, but nonetheless the cross awaits us all, at least all of us who seek to follow Jesus.

Mother Gavrilía recommended after the Bible itself, the book The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis. Except for the fourth book of this work, which deals with medieval Roman Catholic worship of "the blessed sacrament," the Imitation is good reading for the disciple of Jesus. Here are some passages from book 2, chapters 11 and 12, that I'd like to share in concluding this entry:

Jesus has many who love His Kingdom in Heaven, but few who bear His Cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share His feast, but few His fasting. Many follow Jesus to the Breaking of Bread, but few to the drinking of the Cup of His Passion.

At this point I want to interject an observation from my own Orthodox Church. During Great and Holy Week, it's strange how the Wednesday evening service is packed to the doors (it is the Maundy Thursday morning service, held in the Greek tradition the evening before) when everyone comes to receive the blanket absolution and anointing with holy chrism for healing of soul and body. Absolution without personal confession! And the very next evening, the longest service of the week except for the Pascha (Easter) services themselves, the Passion of Christ service, also called the 12 Gospels service, in which the entire passion is read aloud and visually enacted with icons and ceremonies, the church has ample room for more. Probably a third of those who came the night before come to this service. Why? It's about 4 hours long! The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Many follow Jesus to the Breaking of Bread, but few to the drinking of the Cup of His Passion.

Again, from the Imitation:

Why, then, do you fear to take up the Cross, which is the road to the Kingdom? In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is life; in the Cross is protection against our enemies; in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind; in the Cross is joy of spirit; in the Cross is excellence of virtue; in the Cross is perfection of holiness. There is no salvation of soul, nor hope of eternal life, save in the Cross. Take up the Cross, therefore, and follow Jesus. Christ has gone before you, bearing His Cross; He died for you on the Cross, that you also may bear your cross, and desire to die on the cross with Him. For if you die with Him, you will also live with Him. And if you share His sufferings, you will also share His glory.

See how in the Cross all things consist, and in dying on it all things depend. There is no other way to life and to true inner peace, than the way of the Cross, and of daily self-denial.

Go where you will, seek what you will; you will find no higher way above nor safer way below than the road of the Holy Cross.

Thomas à Kempis is not talking about making up some masochistic religious routine to follow to buy your way into heaven by your own blood, sweat and tears. Don't kid yourself or waste God's time. If pain and suffering in themselves were good, we would be right to wear hair shirts and beat ourselves bloody with cat-o'-nine-tails like some misguided medieval "saints" did. But no. The way is simple. Follow Jesus, and the world itself will supply every obstacle it can find to trip you up, keep you down, sadden and discourage you, trample your joy (if it could, if you let it), but in the following of Jesus, real following (not lip-service), you can laugh at "the world, the flesh, and the devil." The martyrs, it is written, often went to their deaths, singing. This is history, not some fairy tale. His story, as the pun goes, and it can be ours too, if we follow "the Royal Road of the Holy Cross" as Thomas à Kempis entitled chapter 12 of book 2 of his Imitation of Christ.

If you've patiently read this far, brethren, only three more words from me:

Just follow Jesus.

Where are the Radically Changed Lives?

This is the title of a blog post by a local Baptist pastor. You can read his original post here. Although I read his post and left a short comment, I want to share the second comment left there with anyone who visits my blog. The comment which follows was written by pilgrim, and is as well-written an apologia as I've ever read for why a follower of Jesus might refrain from "going to church." As one who still attends church services, I nonetheless agree with and endorse the statements he makes here. In my humble opinion, what the holy apostles were talking about when they said "don't stay away from meetings of the believers, as some do" (cf. Hebrews 10:25) is precisely NOT what goes on in most churches today. I know for a fact that he who wrote the following DOES fulfill the commandment to fellowship and worship—it's just not "in church."

Asking "Where are all the radically changed lives?" actually reveals why I and many others have stopped spending their energies on an institutional church and their services. Why bother going to church when all you ever hear is,"We don't have it right yet," or "How do we follow Christ--now"?
What impedes people from following Christ is often the institutional church and Christian culture, of any sect or denomination. We are told that they have the answers, yet, when we get there, they seem just as confused as the world. All we see is a Christian bubble that mimics the trends of the world. The world does this, the church follows, trying to outrun and draw off clients. The world has YouTube, the "church" has GodTube. The world has DirectTV, the "church" has SkyAngel.

This is just a part of the problem. The problem is simple. People are just professing Christians, people have been "Christianized", they are in a state of "Christianosis". These are the lukewarm ones whom Christ will spit out of His mouth. Either you are born from above, or you are still a fetus, waiting to be born by the Spirit, which gives life. You cannot be in the womb and yet claim to be born.

Being a disciple of Mashiach has always been simple. Hold to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus and witness for His name sake in all areas of life. Love one another and in loving one another, abide in the light. Look for the Parousia of Christ and hope in the resurrection and αλλαγησομεθα (the change or transformation) of the saints when He comes. And forsake the world and its corruption and pollution, living as if you are looking for the heavenly city, the one made by God, prepared by Christ.

This is the will of God, revealed in the Scriptures, by the apostles and prophets. Again, Christ has words for the churches, if they would look to His Apocalypse and have ears to hear, but I think for the majority, they are scared of doing this and will not choose to hear. As Messiah spoke to the church of Laodicea, so He speaks now to many churches: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me."

Seeing that Christ is outside the door, shows that He is not present inside. That He knocks, shows that He is a stranger, for only strangers knock for entrance; those who are known freely come in. His call is to anyone, which shows that it is always an individual call. Anyone who chooses to, can go to the door and let Mashiach in. Thus they will have fellowship and break bread together.
At the Parousía of Messiah, will the church inhabitants shrink away, or will the morning star rise in their hearts as they go to stand before the Son of Man? This a question we should each ask of ourselves.

The true transformation will come then, when the sons of God are revealed to all creation.

Martyrdom

Martyrdom—this is a word we’ve heard a lot lately, especially on the news. Muslim fundamentalists commit martyrdom. Christians suffer martyrdom. But what is martyrdom, really?

It comes from the Greek word μαρτυρια, meaning “witness”. It’s one of the four characteristics of Orthodox Christianity: liturgía “worship” literally “the people’s work”, dhiakonía “servanthood”, martyría “witness”, and kinonía “fellowship”.
A modern addition to this foursquare scheme is paidheía “instruction”.
It used to be considered sufficient that the idhiótes, that is, the laity, were educated and edified by the original four. But the modernist Orthodox wants to make sure the world understands that we are “educated” too. “Nobody who speaks only Greeks is anybody!” as Spiro exclaimed in the film My Family and Other Animals.

Back to martyrdom.
Muslims commit it,
Christians suffer it.

A Muslim terrorist firmly believes in the reward of paradise and seventy-two black-eyed virgins if he commits martyrdom by, for example, strapping a bomb to himself, walking into a crowd of “enemies of Allah”,
and blowing himself and them up.

A Christian who suffers martyrdom
at the hands of unbelievers
because of his testimony,
his witness to Jesus as Lord and Savior, firmly believes that Christ will stand up for him, based on His word of promise, “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32 NASB)

The Christian doesn’t know the particulars or details of the reward, if you can call it such (though Jesus does, cf. Matthew 10:42), but he believes in it just as firmly, and with good reason.
“The Word of God says so.”

So, martyrdom means “witness”.
It seems strange that witness can be committed as an act of violence towards oneself and others by the followers of Muhammad, and at the same time suffered as violence committed against oneself by others. But that’s how it is. Has it always been this way?

Have there been Muslim martyrs who suffered rather than committed martyrdom?
Well, yes, of course there have. Think of the Crusades, when Roman Catholic armies attacked the Muslim states of the Near East. Of course, they were only trying to win back what the Muslims had conquered in the first place. Maybe that’s not a good example.

How about the case of Mansur al-Hallaj (AD 858-922), who was martyred for his faith? Well, yes, it was by his fellow Muslims. He wanted to testify of his relationship with God to others, even at the price of his own life. He also referred to the martyrdom of Christ, saying he also wanted to die ‘in the supreme confession of the cross’. Many Muslims of his time criticized him as a crypto-Christian for distorting the monotheistic revelation in a Christian way. Well, maybe that’s not a good example either.

Have there ever been Christians who committed martyrdom?
Well, again I think you could cite the Crusaders, though reliable contemporary sources, Francesco of Assisi for example, expressed the opinion that the Crusaders needed Christ more than the Saracens did, so that’s probably not a good example.

I think the closest I can come to finding a Christian equivalent to ‘committing martyrdom’ is the acts of the Greek neo-martyrs during the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. These were (usually) men who had gotten into trouble with the Turks, but who escaped punishment, fled and lived in hiding. Later, after repenting for their apostasy (most of them had been forced to become Muslims, and then had backslid), they would return to the places where they had denied Christ and ‘commit martyrdom’ by boldly confessing Christ and denouncing Muhammad in front of Turkish authorities, who then had them executed (not without trying to induce them to recant, rejoin the Muslim fold, and be pardoned). They could have stayed in hiding (and most former apostates did), but something inside these men couldn’t be silenced. Perhaps they read the passage in Matthew, “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men…”


Are we any closer to defining martyrdom?
I think not. What martyrdom really is can be learned only by following Jesus, going where He goes, doing what He does. Here’s what martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about some aspects of martyrdom:

Neither failure nor hostility can weaken the messenger’s conviction that he has been sent by Jesus. That his word may be their strength, their stay and their comfort, Jesus repeats it. ‘Behold, I send you.’ For this is no way they have chosen themselves, no undertaking of their own. It is, in the strict sense of the word, a mission. With this the Lord promises them his abiding presence, even when they find themselves as sheep among wolves, defenceless, powerless, sore pressed and beset with great danger. Nothing can happen to them without Jesus knowing of it. ‘Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.’

… Jesus never called his disciples into a state of uncertainty, but to one of supreme certainty. That is why his warning can only summon them to abide by the Word. Where the Word is, there shall the disciple be. Therein lies his true wisdom and his true simplicity. If it is obvious that the Word is being rejected, if it is forced to yield its ground, the disciple must yield with it. But if the Word carries on the battle, the disciple must also stand his ground. In each case he will be combining wisdom with simplicity. But wisdom, however spiritual it may be, must never lead the disciple along a path which cannot stand the test of the word of Jesus.

… It is not our judgment of the situation which can show us what is wise, but only the truth of the Word of God. Here alone lies the promise of God’s faithfulness and help. It will always be true that the wisest course for the disciple is always to abide solely by the Word of God in all simplicity.

… The return of Jesus will take place suddenly. That fact is more certain than that we shall be able to finish our work in his service, more certain than our own death. This assurance that in their suffering they will be as their Master is the greatest consolation the messengers of Jesus have. As is the Master, so shall the disciple be, and as the Lord, so the servant. If they called Jesus a devil, how much more shall they call the servants of his household devils. Thus Jesus will be with them, and they will be in all things like unto him.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer (martyr, 1945)
The Cost of Discipleship,
Ch. 24 The Suffering of the Messengers

Modern Martyrs Website

Everyone knows it

An emissary of the King, wrongly accused of cloaked aggression by the one he was sent to, exiled to a trackless waste, attacked by enemies, tries to return Home while protecting the one that is the reason he is being attacked, succeeds in making his way to the house of mud, where the ship he expected is not to be seen, and perishes in a final combat, knowing that he lives forever.

Deep down inside every human being the Truth that God placed there, the true Light that enlightens everyone who comes into the world (John 1:9), remains for each one to discover. It shines in the darkness of human ignorance, and though that darkness cannot comprehend it, it also cannot extinguish it. (cf. John 1:5).

The Truth revealed openly and fully only by Jesus Christ in His person, His teachings, His ministry, His miracles and His victory over death, that Truth being instilled in the depths of every human being, still shines through, shedding Light in every culture, even in those ignorant of Christ.

Yet the Truth does shine in the non-Christian world, in every culture. That's the way God is. He's faithful. He wants everyone to be saved, though only if they want it too. The challenge of the true missionary to the non-Christian world is to be able to find those sparks of God's Truth in their pagan traditions and, without admitting anything unchangeable by grace, to build on these native "old testaments" wherever they turn up.

As an Orientalist by training and inclination, I watch a lot of East Asian films. Recently I bought a copy of the Korean film Musa the Warrior. After viewing it for the first time, I waited a couple of weeks and watched it again this weekend. It is a very good film, historically, a realistic portrayal of a violent time in the history of China, the period when the Ming dynasty was liberating the country from Mongol control, around AD 1375. It's about a Korean delegation that was wrongly accused of spying by the Ming and exiled to the Gobi Desert. Their adventure in escaping, trying to return to Korea, and helping to rescue a Ming princess from the Mongols, is the subject of the film. It may not sound interesting, but it is.

Watching it a second time, I got a lot more into the details and my understanding was deepened. My favorite character is the young General Choi Jung (pictured above), and I was startled by one scene near the end of the movie. Something that Choi Jung said to his men, just before their last battle, really hit me, went through me like a lance.

If the soldier attempts to live, he'll die.
but if he attempts to die, he'll survive.

The film is in Korean with English subtitles, and the translation is awkward. But the way Choi Jung looked when he said this, somehow brought the whole meaning of the film, for me, into sharp, burning focus.

In the pre-Christian Korean culture, here was a man shedding the true Light on his fellow men. They all had this Light in them, otherwise his words could not have had the effect they did. Without knowing it, he almost quoted Luke 17:33:

Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

This is the Truth speaking.
Everyone knows it.

It always encourages me to see this kind of thing in a movie because, whether people realize it or not, the seeds are there to be planted in the good soil. Let's hope that we're part of that good soil, to hear the Word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown. (Mark 4:20)

If anyone would come after Me…

The feast-day of the Holy Cross was last Friday, September 14. Today, the Sunday following, had some reminders of the Cross in the hymns sung and in the scriptures read, Galatians 2:16-20 and Mark 8:34-9:1. "What a great theme to preach on," thought I to myself. So at sermon time, I decided I would give listening a try.

Fr. Paul started his sermon by recounting an incident from the life of neo-martyr Father Dmitri Klepnin who along with Mother Maria Skobtsova and her son Yuri were martyred by the Nazis during WWII. Father Dmitri was questioned by an officer named Hoffman, who said he’d let them all go if only they promised to stop helping the Jews. Fr Dmitri said, how could they? It was their ministry. Hoffman slapped him, "How dare you equate being a Jew-lover with ministry?" At that point, Fr Dmitri took hold of his pectoral cross and pushed it close into Hoffman’s face saying, "Do you know, do you know this Jew?" He suffered a beating for that, and soon afterwards he and Yuri were sent to Aushwitz to die.

After telling us the story, Fr. Paul moved on to preach a story (oops! I meant sermon) based not on Christ's words or on the teaching of holy Apostle Paul, but intead on his meditations on some of the words read in the service of Proskomidí (the preparation of the eucharistic gifts). To put what he preached in perspective, let me quote a little from the service book. Rubrics are like stage directions, and are printed in red, hence the name rubric (red letters):

Rubric: Putting on the pectoral cross, if he has the right to wear one, the Priest says:
Whoever would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)
…
Rubric: Then the Priest, taking a prosphora (the Eucharistic loaf) in his left hand and the Lance in his right, makes the sign of the Cross three times over the seal with the Lance, saying each time:
In remembrance of our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Rubric: Then the Priest thrusts the Lance into the right-hand side of the seal, beside the letters IC NI, and says:
Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter. (Isaiah 53:7)

Rubric: As he cuts along the left side, that is, beside the letters XC KA:
And as an unblemished lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he does not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)

Rubric: As he cuts along the upper side:
In his humiliation judgement was denied him. (Isaiah 53:8)

Rubric: As he cuts along the lower side:
Who will declare his generation? (Isaiah 53:8)

I have witnessed this service myself, but it is not normally in view of the congregation, especially since it takes place before most of the people arrive, and behind the iconostasis. It is a very moving service.

What Fr. Paul made of all this was a four-point program for imitating Christ in His humiliation, as a way of dealing with evil in the world. The four cuts made in the eucharistic loaf and the scriptures cited at each cut, he said, can represent, resist not evil, protest not evil, expect not justice, care not for reputation. Then, he explained his ideas a bit further, and related them to the sayings of Jesus, regarding going the extra mile, turning the other cheek and, of course, Jesus' very words, "Offer the wicked man no resistance." (Matthew 5:39) Then, he quoted himself from a sermon he delivered earlier in the year, "Evil cannot be defeated. Evil can only be transformed." He taught us, moreover, about Mahatma Gandhi's wonderful concept of satyagraha, active non-resistance, and how we can practice this for the good of the world.

If only I had paid more attention to his sermon, I'd be able to report it a little more faithfully. But my mind kept drifting back to the words of Jesus, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34 NIV)

Cheap grace versus costly grace

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has.
It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.
It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.
It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.
It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.

Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer (martyr, 1945)
The Cost of Discipleship, Ch. 1 Costly Grace

Don't interpret, just listen

When you forget your religious ideas—what you have heard, what you have been taught by preachers, religions, and denominations—and let the Word of God speak; when you listen instead of interpreting, you will have no trouble understanding Revelation.

—Oliver B. Greene, The Revelation, Verse by Verse Study

© 1963 by O. B. Greene, published by The Gospel Hour, Inc., Greenville, SC

The faith of the Apostles

There's a lot going on in "church" in America these days, and even in the rest of the "first world" (is there such a place, the "developed" countries?). From inside the doors of Orthodoxy, the outer courts are looking pretty chaotic, buying and selling, of religion, of blessing, of comfort, of self-realization, of culture, of anything that the world sells, only dressed up in a "Christian" cover.

Sadly, even holy Orthodoxy is being slowly but subtly lifted onto the bandwagon of "successful" programs and outreach "strategies," hoping to become as "relevant" as everybody else. Convert priests are foisted on kindly, welcoming and naïve congregations, convert priests who have no Orthodox root, no understanding of what a priest is. Do the hierarchs do this to test us, or do they hope we'll train these enthusiasts?

Orthodoxy fights back without striking a blow, the sheer intransigence of the flock, and the unchangeable liturgical forms, adding drag to the hasty, impatient boys. But they still have their way with us, for the time being.

Vespers is now vestiges of the evening service. Why?
So that neophytes can have more time to enlighten us with their worldly learning? Why pray, when prayer can be talked about, instead of just doing it? So, little by little these axeheads try to chip away at the Tree of faith.
What's happening, from another perspective, is the transformation of the Bride of Christ into a mystical business, of priests into businessmen in black, of pastors into administrators, of preachers into entertainers. This has been rampant outside of Orthodoxy; now it's seeping in. The words of holy Apostle John ring true now as always, "Children, be on your guard against false gods." (1 John 5:21 JB)

If the church where you live is experiencing any of these things, here's some good words written not long ago (1983) by Fr. George Papademetriou, a Greek Orthodox theologian, that I hope will encourage you to remember that the truth of Orthodoxy is the Truth of the Word of God, which Christ has told us "will never pass away" (Matthew 24:35). Even when the local church, for a time, is ravaged by wolves in sheep's clothing, we have to remember, THAT is not the Church; THIS is…

Today, especially when great confusion exists about the ministry of the Church in the world, Orthodoxy must reinforce age-long values and the faith of the Apostles.
"And His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ." (Ephesians 4:11)

This verse gives the true objective of the clergy; that is, the ordained priests have the unique function to equip all members for the apostolate or ministry.

The apostolate is not the monopoly of the clergy, it is the responsibility of all, and the role of the clergy is to help all to fulfill it.

There is always a danger of clericalism, and this we ought to avoid. Since the time of Saint Paul, the Church avoided clericalism with its emphasis on defining the Church as the Body of Christ.

In the Church the promised unity of all things in Christ is foreshadowed (Ephesians 2:1-22), and for this reason the Church must be the place where God's plan is made known to the whole kósmos (Ephesians 3:7-10). In the Church the people of God must grow up into full maturity as the embodiment of the love of God for His whole creation (Ephesians 3:14-21). Within this context we can understand the task of training the whole membership of the Church to share in God's purpose for the whole creation. Only then will we be doing Christ's work as the people of God—both clergy and laity.