The Prodigal God?

Minus the question mark, this is actually the title of a book by contemporary Christian author, Timothy Keller.
As many of my friends know, I read few books compared to most people, instead keeping my nose in the Book.
I know that I sometimes come across as rather hard on the prolific output of modern Christian authors to some people in Christian Blogoslavia, and I don't deny there will always be some good books "out there" for some people, but the fascination for these books is all out of proportion to their practical value, and just provide an opportunity to waste time like the ancient Athenians who "…would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new." (Acts 17:21) This text from Acts describes the Christian spiritual elite of today, always eager for "telling or hearing something new."

Back to The Prodigal God. Hmm, well, that's an interesting title, and the book (I gather) is about "attracting the irreligious," which is also the title of a blog where this book was discussed earlier this month. Now, not this book, but the ideas it talks about, interested me, and got me to thinking about them. Starting with a quote from this book, here are some of those thoughts…

"The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did."

—Tim Keller in The Prodigal God, pp. 14-15.

It's pretty easy to see that our Christian witness both as preachers and congregations doesn't have anything much to attract the world's attention, but I don't think that it necessarily means that we're not declaring the same message that Jesus did.

Though the Bible says that Jesus was followed around by multitudes of people, we don't know exactly how many in most cases, and the overall population of Palestine was probably what, three million or even more at the time of Christ, yet I doubt His audiences were anything as large as the following that most modern evangelists and church leaders have. On a percentage basis, Christ's message probably didn't attract more than 5 or 10 percent of the total population of Palestine. Most of Christ's authentic followers are even named in the New Testament. Just because Jesus was followed by "crowds" doesn't mean that they were even attracted to Him for the right reasons. Notice, there were only about 120 disciples immediately after Christ's ascension. It wasn't until the day of Pentecost that 3000 were added, all in a single day.

What we see in America and other modern cultures is a population that by and large functions out of religious habit, or out of irreligious habit. Most of us are educated enough to know who Jesus is and what the claims of Christianity are, and we just don't need it. I have known people who are very intelligent and yet joined groups like the Mormons because their system "works," that is, because it helps create successful (I won't say healthy) family life, even though they did not believe the mythology or any of the doctrines behind it! They just go thru the motions. Since it is impossible to know what is really true, they grabbed what simply "works." In the same way, our sophisticated but spiritually dead neighbors can afford to be indifferent, and actually slightly hostile or contemptuous, to Christ, because they've "made it." As an old issue of Zapped Comix (pictured above) put it, "Who needs God? I'm independently wealthy!"

Churches are stuck at all different places.

Some churches function as though they're still in a Christian world—in fact, whether or not they admit it, I think that's what most Christian churches do. They are usually houses of worship surrounded by unbelieving neighborhoods that they never even attempt to evangelize, and most of their members live elsewhere. This, I think, is a remnant of "Christian world" mentality. All the territory has been claimed, so there's no need to go out on forays into the hinterlands anymore. But the reality is, it just ain't so.

Still, can you imagine your church, pastor or preacher and congregation, engaging in the evangelization of the neighborhood around your house of worship? How would you do it? The neighbors aren't primitive barbarians living in the forest, to whom you can bring the light of the gospel to teach them not to keep killing each other and stealing each other's wives, or material improvements to alleviate their low standard of living. No, for most of us, the neighbors are pretty affluent and either belong to a church out of habit, or take Sunday morning walks with their significant others, their families, their pets—or just sit in the sun room with a cup of coffee, a sweet, and the newspaper, until they fall asleep. After all, Sunday is supposed to be a "day of rest"!

Even those of us whose house of worship is in a working class or poor neighborhood, what would it cost us as congregations and as individuals to evangelize our unsaved neighbors? Here, we really could do some good, we might find souls that need help, but the help might be too costly for us to deal with. And then, the resistance when it occurred might not be very polite.

Our world is in some ways very different from the world that Jesus and the first generation of disciples lived in. For one, they lived in an age when if you could convince a man of something, he would give in. Nowadays, you can convince a man, but he won't give in. If he loses the debate, he protects himself from being convinced by saying, "It's just your opinion." Our education system has failed us miserably, by taking away the certainty that there is a real right and real wrong, not only in morality, but in almost every other field, sometimes even in science.

I think the Church (now I'm using capital C, meaning all of us) has to realise that its responsibility is not to save the world, but to make disciples of all nations, starting with ourselves, and that making disciples cannot mean that we force our neighbors to be disciples. If it turns out that where we live, our honest efforts to share the good news with those around us is met with disinterest or hostility, so be it. But if it turns out that the good news is given a hearing and is accepted by some, but at a price, we have to be content to share what we have with them.

Finally, we have to realize that the populations around us are not static, but that there is a rate of turnover. That means, we don't just try to evangelize for a year and then give up. The work of sharing the good news goes on 24/7 because it is the responsibility of every member of the Body of Christ. There is no one who cannot share the good news with at least one person, acquaintance or stranger, every day. The sharing needn't be an overt or verbal testimony. It can be so much as a smile or a kind word outwardly, and a prayer "Lord, give the increase" inwardly. Since it is all the Lord's work, not ours, we needn't trouble ourselves either about the visible results. This is where, I think, we run into trouble the most, and to no avail.

With the Jews

I really miss the shabbat evening service at Ahavat Achim.
I wonder if I should start attending again, even though Rabbi isn’t there anymore. It really brought the Torah to life for me to be standing and praying with them, and to hear the Rabbi teach, and see how the God-fearers like Sam the hazzan would question him minutely. I really liked the give and take. Rabbi was rabbi, but no more, no less than Sam or any other one of us in the congregation, making up Am Yisra’el.

This morning I was reflecting on the fact that Yahweh the Holy One of Yisra’el, the Living God, chose His people out of all the nations and gave them Torah, much more than just what we call “the Law,” a complete revelation of everything that God wanted mankind to know. To Moses was given Torah, and then to the prophets, the Nevi’im, were given the oracles of Yahweh, the only true oracles ever given to mankind. Finally, to top it off and complete their understanding, the Lord revealed Himself to His people through the Ketuvim, the histories and wisdom writings.
Judaism, then, based on the Word of God, is the only divinely instituted religion ever given to mankind. Every other religion has arisen from mankind’s searching for a way to appease the gods or God (if they thought there was only one of Him). I have experienced many religions, not just Christian ones, and in comparing those experiences, I have to honestly say, though other religions may be more awesome and glorious in ceremonial worship, nowhere else did I find anything even remotely resembling the prayer to Yahweh the God of Yisra’el that I found among the Jews, nor anywhere so profound a respect for the Word of God as among them.

In an earlier post, I struggled again with trust, as in “whom do you trust?” What spiritual authority is really trustworthy, which one has the words of eternal life that really can be trusted?

Taking the point of view that all religious teachers and philosophers, being human beings like myself, can have no “inside information” that I don’t have, I have come to the conclusion that only one Teacher can be trusted, the only One who shattered history and the physical laws by rising from the dead. Not just because He was someone who died and came back to life again, no, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, who have done that, especially in today’s world where people routinely die on the operating table and come back to life, many of them bearing tales of “the other side.”
No, I have decided that I can trust Jesus because He actually rose from the dead, to die no more. I notice that He didn’t tell any of His disciples the details of “the other side” that they wrote down, but what He must have told them, His descent to She’ol and the smashing of its gates, how He singlehandedly defeated satan and delivered more than just Adam with a mighty “Come forth!” taking him and all humankind with Him (and the good thief) into Paradise—all this passed on to them orally while He sojourned with them for the forty days before He was taken up to the right hand of the Father.

And I think back to the Jews, those who are still behind the veil, in a mystery remaining witnesses by their unbelief in Y’shua ha-Mashiach. These are truly faithful ones, the believing Jews I mean, for their trust in Moses seems to me to be at least as great as my trust in Jesus, who was dead and is alive.

Without having seen the risen Christ physically, I trust in Him, and through Him the whole of divine scripture, the Old Testament and the New. But these Jews, without having seen Moses or the Exodus from Egypt and all its attendant miracles, still trust in Moses and in the Tanakh, the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim. And when I am with them, in prayer, praise and the study of God’s Word, I feel myself completely among brethren.
Then I remember the teaching of Christ, not a parable as it is often called, about Lazarus and the Rich Man. If it were only a parable, perhaps we could read into it other details. But no, it’s not a parable. What it is, perhaps, is God’s only intrusion into our lives of “the other side,” spoken with perfect certainty by the only One who would be able to tell.

The rich man, in agony in She’ol, sees across the unbridgeable abyss, the “citizens of Paradise,” particularly Lazarus, like him recently deceased, who is in the company of “our first father Abraham.” The rich man is nameless, for all his wealth while he lived on earth, yet a poor man, once a nameless beggar on earth, has a name, Lazarus. He asks, not Lazarus, but Abraham, to send the poor man over the abyss to put a dash of water on his tongue. Abraham says, “Impossible! Even if we wanted to, we can’t.”

Then the rich man implores, “At least send Lazarus back from the dead to warn my brothers about this place!” (Notice how even in She’ol the rich man thinks he can command others.) It’s tempting to make the connexion between the poor man Lazarus and the rich friend of Jesus, Lazarus, whom Christ brought back to life after four days in the tomb. Could even His telling of this “after death experience” contain a germ of prophecy that would come to pass before His own death and resurrection?

Abraham’s response is, “Your brothers have Moses and the prophets, so let them believe them!” Still, the rich man argues, “No they won’t, but if someone comes to them from the dead, they’ll repent!” But Abraham has the last word, “If they won’t listen to either Moses or the prophets, they won’t be convinced, even if someone were to rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:19-31)

I think back to the faithful Jews. They’re not the ones that Abraham is talking about when he says, “If they won’t listen to either Moses or the Prophets, they won’t be convinced…” They are still trusting in Moses, but they are trusting like Martha trusted when she responded to Jesus’ words, “Your brother will rise again” with “I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.”

It still remains for their trust to be perfected, but only He can speak these words into their hearts, “I am the resurrection. If anyone believes in Me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:24-26 JB)
And I, who love the people of God, Am Yisra’el, confess my trust with holy apostle Paul, who writes, “Since their rejection meant the reconciliation of the world, do you know what their admission will mean? Nothing less than a resurrection from the dead!”
(Romans 11:15 JB)

Sorting out the past

Today I am engaged in one of those infrequent but periodic “sorts” of the material evidences of my life. Every time I try to sort, I am overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of things and quickly become impatient, while these questions continually assail my mind, “Why are you doing this? Who are you saving this stuff for?” It makes me understand why so much has been lost to “history”—more has been lost through giving in to those questions than has disappeared through deliberate destruction. That’s what I think, anyway. I’ve seen it happen in families, my own and others I have known. People just get tired of moving around and storing all this “junk.” I wonder if our word “sort” is related to a French word of totally different meaning, sortir, “to depart.” And I wish my leaving were able to be more like the leaving of Almustafa in Kahlil Gibran’s book, The Prophet. His sorting was of a different kind, and when he took ship, he took nothing with him but himself. But as for me, I must sort out the past.

I’m taking pause now, because I came across something I thought I had lost many years ago, accidentally tossed perhaps, but it’s turned up. A packet of written materials for my mother’s and my wife’s father’s memorial services. We wrote special ones for them, but it’s been years since we sang the services. Yet, there they were, in a metallic gold peechee, hiding out in another box of memorabilia.

What I also found was handwritten excerpts I made from letters my late mother wrote me, in which she gave her testimony, little by little, as her life was ebbing away. We thought she would have died sooner because of her many ailments, but she had a massive stroke which left her half-paralysed and unable to speak or write, and in that condition she lived another ten years, finally succumbing to complications arising from pneumonia. Before her stroke, though, she had the chance to write down her faith, and knowing what her inner thoughts and beliefs were helped me to hope for her “having made it.”
My mother was raised a Roman Catholic, but for various reasons abandoned church worship. The content of her faith, and even her vocabulary, comes from an injured Catholic soul who struggled to get into a right relationship to the Living Christ, apart from formal dogma. This month is the 22nd anniversary of her repose on November 25th. She was born on Christmas Day, 1919, and reposed three days before Thanksgiving Day, 1986. I want to share a few of her words of testimony in honor of her difficult life. The old photos scattered about were taken at about age 8 when she made her first holy communion, and then in her mid-twenties or a bit later. She rarely let us photograph her, and so I have only memories of how she looked in old age.

From a letter dated January 4, 1974…

I’m always and forever thinking about God, and never—not once—have I blamed God for my unlucky life. Just knowing that God and I know this to be true is what’s keeping me on till God wants me. Even if everyone on the face of the earth ignores me or is angry at me, I don’t care. I have God if no one else, and I’m happy. I can pray and talk to God and I know He hears me. I’m always praying for everyone, but I don’t go telling them, and I ask God to forgive them, because they don’t know any better.

I do not demand from God. I only feel I got what I had coming, and I will get what I deserve. There is only One God, and He only knows. I even thank God for all the bad luck I’ve had. Hard to believe, but it’s the honest truth. And again I say, God and I only know this. I expect to be punished by God, if I need it, but also forgiven, if I deserve it.

I really wish I could be a nun, even at this late age. By God’s standards I am a sinner, but God understands and forgives me, I know. All I ask God is to help me do the right things, to be with me always, there to help me in this way, and to forgive me and give me another chance. All I can do in return is live a life like God wants us to. I never ask God to give me something, only to help me and show me the way to do my best, and never to give up.

You see, I’m not without sin, but I don’t blame God. I ask Him to stand by me and never lose faith in me. I can’t help myself, and maybe I’m taking longer [than I should], but I’ll always keep on trying, because I know God is with me.

I could say more, but I’ll close on this note. We’re all sinners. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

And from another letter, written September 2, 1974, these words about her repentance…

I sit and think all the time, how we only have one life, and how people can really waste it, like I did. The only time I feel so good is when I’m trying to go to sleep. I talk to God, and I just can’t explain how I feel and what I see, how it will be when I’m gone. You know, I feel so very happy, and I’m not afraid. God will remember me and forgive me, because I never blamed God for my bad life. I only remember what was good, and how happy I was. The rest that happened was only when I went off [on] the side road, and it took me longer to get back. Remember, it was [when we lived] on Ross Street, you were telling and showing us about that road, and how one can stray. It took me longer [to get back] because the devil was stronger than me. I feel I could have done something sooner and will never forgive myself for straying that long, but I know God will forgive me. So now, all there is for me is the straight ahead road, and I’m sure not turning either way. It’s too close to the end to let the devil win again.

If you’ve read this far, I thank you, brethren, for helping me stop and remember the soul of this dear sister, my mother.

Αιωνια σου η μνημη, αξιομακαριστος και αειμνηστος αδελφη ημων.
May your memory be eternal, dear sister, for you are worthy of blessedness and everlasting memory.

Now, as for us who are still here, time to sort!

Even struggling

Even struggling to have an encounter with the Living Christ makes you feel like you’re in a world of sleep-walkers, or even in a world where everyone is already dead.

That’s how the presence of the Living One changes all our senses as He draws near, letting us experience the world as it really is, letting us recognize Him as He really is.

“Do not be afraid, it is I, the First and the Last; I am the Living One, I was dead and now I am to live for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and of Hades.”
Revelation 1:17-18 JB

We can know so little

“All those things which can be thought with the heart, or spoken with the tongue, or seen with the eyes, or felt with the hands, are as nothing in comparison with those which we can neither think, nor see, nor touch. All the saints and wise men who have passed away, and all those who are now in this present life, and all those who shall come after us—all those who have spoken or written, or shall speak or write of God—shall never be able to show forth so much of Him as a grain of millet in comparison with the whole extent of heaven and earth; nay, a thousand thousand times less.”
—The Sayings of Brother Giles of Assisi, Ch. 2

“I went up to space, but I didn’t encounter God.”
—Attributed to Yuri Gagarin, the first man to go into space, but now known to have been fabricated and used as propaganda by Nikita Khrushchev. Gagarin was a faithful, baptised Orthodox Christian.

“The visualization of the cosmos presented from the center outward is:
The Isle of Paradise — the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe.
The Sacred Spheres of Paradise — twenty-one enormous worlds, three circuits of seven worlds each — the Worlds of the Father, the Worlds of the Son, and the Worlds of the Spirit orbiting in three processions on the inner margin of space.
Havona — one billion (1,000,000,000) perfect worlds across seven circuits, with upwards of thirty-five million worlds in the first or inner circuit, over two hundred and forty-five million worlds in the seventh or outermost circuit, and proportional numbers of worlds in the intervening circuits.”
—The Urantia Book

The three quotes above are about "what we can know" about reality, about God (if there is one), about our place in the universe. Most of the indifference of modern man to God and specifically to the claims of Jesus Christ hinges on the idea that it is impossible to know for certain anything at all about these things, and therefore they can have no application or relevance to modern life. What we cannot know for sure can't help us or, in existential terms, can't save us.

Philosophers and theologians, what do they say? Is there anything that can guarantee for us that the teachings, the theories, the speculations of such historical figures as Moses, Plato, Gautama, Jesus, Augustine, Muhammad, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Blaise Pascal, Dietrich Bonhoeffer or C. S. Lewis are true in any real sense? Aren't they, after all, just words that you can read, think about, try to practice, or even just decorate your mind with? Sure, some of these people lived exemplary lives. Some are said to have performed miracles, well… hmph, who can know if they really did? Aren't we still just reduced to sorting out opinions about reality? Where are the irrefutable proofs?

Like the cosmonaut who was supposed to have said, “I went up to space, but I didn’t encounter God,” we want to be able to see and experience, empirically, the reality, the ultimate reality, God or whatever, that is supposed to be there. Or like the mysterious author of The Urantia Book, do we want to simply skip over the existential encounter, since it is probably not possible anyway, and just dream up something so intricate, so detailed, that entering into it we need never come out again to answer the question?

The easy answers, atheism—“I didn’t encounter God”—and fantasy—“The Isle of Paradise — the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality…” turn out, of course, not to be answers at all. Only the realist, the honest philosopher who like Brother Giles says, “All those things which can be thought with the heart… are as nothing in comparison with those which we can neither think, nor see, nor touch,” only that man stands at the threshhold of knowing the Truth. Why? Because he has honestly realised the only thing anyone can, that we are in fact unable to know the ultimate Reality in a human way, from our end of the range of being.

Who, then, can help us? Who can we trust, since it seems we can't trust ourselves?
So now it comes to this, that we want to know the truth, and we're told to trust?

Knowing that I can know so little, knowing that in an everyday manner I do actually trust more than I know, even that doesn't help me. The teachings and even the example of Jesus Christ, transmitted to me after two thousand years, in themselves these cannot assure me that His claims are true. If I am honest and not trying to protect my "religious" heritage, I have to say, though the Christian faith in content is the best I can find, it still contains no guarantees. I have to trust more than I can know.

And that trust devolves to a single thing being literally true, without which nothing else can be certain—Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.

This is something that has to have happened about two thousand years ago, if it happened at all. The event is very poorly attested in writing, just whatever has survived in a few passages in the New Testament. It is on something of such scant witness and reliability that I am reduced to wagering my life.

Yes, I wager my life.
I didn't see it happen, and I'm just taking it on trust.

The only proof I have now is, not scientific, not philosophical, not speculative, but historical.
I didn't see the resurrection with my own eyes, but not many have.
The honest ones have said over and over again, "We can know so little…"
But almost from the very moment of that supposed event, the rising of Jesus from the dead, we find men and women willing to wager their lives, their physical, earthly lives, their livelihoods, their reputations, their families, all that they were, all that they possessed, to attest the truth of it. And though they may have known so little, they received so much.

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."
1 Corinthians 2:9 KJV

War and peace

The OrthoDixie blog posted a comment from a certain Muhammad, in which he patiently lectures us on the errors of our belief in the Jesus of the Bible. Muhammad (not the prophet of Allah) wrote…

For the sake of peace and tolerance we should read books of other faiths. Quran is the only book with its original text intact. It is the only book that confirms and respects Jesus and Moses (and other biblical prophets as well). Knowledge never hurts. Intolerance does, and it comes from lack of knowledge. God bless all my Christian brothers and sisters. There is Old testament, there is New testament and there is Final testament, and just as Jesus said, I have come to revive the law. The book given to Jesus was Injeel, in Aramaic. Unfortunately, it is not available anywhere. Oldest bible is in ancient Greek, in museum. Present bible is according to Mark, Matthew, John and Luke, but not according to Jesus. Quran is that revival of law that Jesus refers to. Muhammad was last prophet sent to do the work that was left incomplete.

My response follows…

Muhammad, my friend, your comments are a concise summary of the classic Islamic defense of their claims. If the 1400 years of your religion's existence hasn't been able to prove its truth either doctrinally or historically against Christianity, perhaps it's time to give up.

We can live with you in peace, even while you tell us that your prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is better than our Jesus Christ, and that everything we believe about Him is a distortion, if you can renounce your religion's violence and aggression against other faith communities. Though Christians have waged religious wars at times, it was against the explicit words of our Bible, and based on human misapplication of those words. How will you, or can you, spiritualise the explicit injunctions to violence that are in your Qur'an, and reduce them to allegories of internal struggles of the soul with sin? Because if you cannot, then we cannot live with you in peace.

This is the difference between Christ and al-Islam: Christians break the commandments of the Bible when they try to dominate others in the name of God, because our God only wants people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Muslims fulfill the commands in the Qur'an when they try to dominate others in the name of Allah, and they must entirely subjugate all humans, by force if necessary, and incorporate them into the Islamic state.

Jesus Christ died for men, to open to them a heavenly kingdom.

Muhammad (pbuh) killed men, to establish an earthly kingdom.

The thieves were stealers, but reason condemned Him, and the grave was empty where they had laid Him. Why was the grave empty? Jesus Himself says, “Do not be afraid, it is I, the First and the Last; I am the Living One, I was dead and now I am to live for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and of Hades.”
Revelation 1:17-18 JB

We would like to see Jesus

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request.
“Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”
John 12:20 NIV

For most church-going Christians, the main service on a Sunday is usually our only opportunity to hear the Word of God in the context of worship. This is a matter of the highest importance for the Orthodox Christian, because according to our belief, the Word of God can only be fully and correctly understood in the context of worship. That’s why Orthodoxy has two primary meanings to us, right-thinking, and right-worshipping.

For any Christian who goes to church, the main service is where you go “to see Jesus,” or as Bonhoeffer puts it, to bring yourself to a place “where faith is possible.” In many churches, the proclamation of the good news, the gospel, consists either in a combination of bible readings and a sermon, or a sermon alone containing a series of bible texts along with their explanation. In either case, the preacher must realize what great responsibility he has to show the people Jesus, and how brief a time he has to do that.

This morning at Aghía Triás, where I go to church, the scripture texts were Galatians 2:16-20 and Luke 8:41-56. As an added bonus, we were commemorating Nektarios of Ægina, a recent “canonized” saint famous for his gift of healing, especially cancer. The message of the Galatians portion can be summed up in verse 21 which was not read, “If the law can justify us, there is no point in the death of Christ.” The gospel reading was the story of the woman with the hemorrhage, and the raising to life of the dead daughter of Jairus, a Jewish synagogue official. The final verse of the Luke portion was “Her parents were astonished, but He ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.”

Well, as it turns out, our preacher this morning listened to Jesus’ instructions, and didn’t tell us anything about the raising of Jairus’ daughter, or even enlighten us further on what holy apostle Paul wrote about the place of the law in a Christian’s life. No, he didn’t preach anything as homely as that. Instead, we were treated to a session on self-realization, finding out who we really are, and then sticking to our guns through thick and thin, no matter what people might think of us.

What did I learn from the sermon? A lot of things, actually.
Our preacher has been to Greece, where he tried to buy an iced coffee milk at a kiosk, but ended up asking the woman if he could sell her a cup of coffee. Bad Greek!
He also was at the school in Athens that Nektarios, the saint of the day, had once directed. While there, he was attacked by a giant cockroach just as we was beginning to pray at a proskynitárion (prayer station). Bad bug!

When he finally finished his stories and started preaching, we were treated to a profound verse from the poet Hafiz, “of the Muslim tradition,” who wrote that we should have our chairs pulled out from under us, so that we could fall on God, and find out who we really are. Amazing!
I didn’t know that Islam had so much to offer us Christian Orthodox.

From there, the sermon led us onwards and upwards to the feet of Nektarios the saint. Not mentioning anything, really, about the saint’s life of intercession for the sick, our preacher told the story of Nektarios from a political angle, how he was the promising successor to Patriarch Sophronios II of Alexandria but through court gossip and slander was demoted and exiled, even though “the people of Alexandria loved him.” Nektarios showed his mettle, though, in being himself, knowing who he really was, and wasn’t bothered in the least by his wrongful dumping by the patriarch. He went to head the school in Athens. Later, he quietly ordained the first two Greek Orthodox deaconesses in modern times, an abbess and a nun from a convent that he was in charge of. He actually took them “into the altar,” where women must not go according to church rules, and ordained them, putting the deacon’s vestments on them and everything. Of course, that got him in trouble, but he didn’t care, and he didn’t back down. He was right, and the church of those days was wrong. This happened long before any other churches were ordaining women to the ministry.

As far as I could tell—and I was listening to the preacher while praying the psalms as I often do during sermons—the message our preacher decided to use his precious twenty minutes with us per week on, was that (1) we should discover who we really are, (2) follow whatever we know is right, (3) stand our ground and (4) not back down in the face of opposition from the world. Nektarios was an example of that. Hafiz demonstrates that even the Muslims do as much. Did I get the message right? I hope so.

But what I really wanted to hear was Jesus’ word to me today.
And maybe I did!

Towards the end of his sermon, the preacher took us back to the gospel account. He encouraged us with the words that Jesus spoke to Jairus, “Do not be afraid, only trust…” So that’s what it all boils down to, trust. And I thought to myself, and asked again my old question, “But whom do you trust?”

Who needs eternal life?

The institutional manifestation of the Church that pretty much all Christians experience is essentially stuck in a world view that is completely anachronistic; hence, rendering their witness to the world of marginal effect.

We have all inherited a form of church that comes from a world where everyone was "Christian" except the Jews and a few marginal unbelieving types or groups. That world has completely vanished, yet we cling to church structures (forms of ministry and real estate), activities (worship services and other programs), and modes of belief (religiosity, denominationalism) that allow the world of the present to marginalize us; hence, the supposition that we are in a post-Christian age.

None of this is to say that there are not churches or ministries that are alive in Christ and effective vehicles of the good news, but unless you set your expectations very low, such churches are few and far between. The majority of churches maintain their congregations and next to nothing in terms of the commission to "make disciples of all nations." They just don't know how to do it, as institutions.

In my experience, it continues to be the individual Christian who is following the call of Jesus on a daily basis who is the primary witness for Christ. In the Orthodox Church, that is more or less how it is expected to be, but there is still a disconnect that often undercuts our personal evangelism: the growing attitude of clergy professionalism.

Once upon a time, and in some place even today, the thing that distinguished Orthodox clergy from those of other churches was their complete abandonment to Christ. This gave them the power and effectiveness to really anchor their churches, corporately and individually, in the Lord. Now, in the Greek church anyway, it is vanishing.

The Christian world has disappeared, and the world that has replaced it seems indifferent to the call of Christ, the need for salvation, and the claims of the institutional Church.

Just as modern man cannot face the fact of death but disguises it and distances himself from it as much as he can, he does the same with Christ, whom he knows about, sometimes knows a great deal about, and with the Church, which he cannot possibly understand from the outside. Yet human beings continue to be the same, in spite of their higher educational and cultural levels, their various attainments, and so on.

And while we debate, discuss and develop "new" and "relevant" ways to reach the lost of the new world, they are slipping away into the abyss, rejecting what or rather Who will give them eternal life, because they no longer even want it.

A nomad like all my ancestors

Psalms for the 8th Day
38 39 40 41 42 43

Psalm 39
The insignificance of man before God

I said, “I will watch how I behave,
and not let my tongue lead me into sin;
I will keep a muzzle on my mouth
as long as the wicked man is near me.”
I stayed dumb, silent, speechless,
though the sight of him thriving
made torment increase.

My heart had been smoldering inside me,
but it flared up at the thought of this
and the words burst out,
“Tell me, Yahweh, when my end will be,
how many days are allowed me,
show me how frail I am.

“Look, You have given me an inch or two of life,
my life-span is nothing to You;
each man that stands on earth is only a puff of wind,
every man that walks, only a shadow,
and the wealth he amasses is only a puff of wind—
he does not know who will take it next.”

So tell me, Lord, what can I expect?
My hope is in You.
Free me from all my sins,
do not make me the butt of idiots.
I am dumb, I speak no more,
since You Yourself have been at work.

Lay Your scourge aside,
I am worn out with the blows You deal me.
You punish man with the penalties of sin,
like a moth You eat away all that gives him pleasure—
man is indeed only a puff of wind!

Yahweh, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for help,
do not stay deaf to my crying.

I am Your guest, and only for a time,
a nomad like all my ancestors.
Look away, let me draw breath,
before I go away and am no more!

Nicolaitans

I have had a new blog waiting in reserve for about a year, waiting for a sense of direction from the Lord on when to make it public. There is nothing really in it yet, just a placeholder, though I have several potential posts scattered among my unpublished writings. The blog Nicolaitans is different in purpose and content than this one, Cost of Discipleship, and I've sometimes published things in CoD that really belong to Nicolaitans. The post I am publishing here could very well be its first chapter, but I still don't have the direction to open it. I apologize in advance to any visitor to Cost of Discipleship for this departure from its mission, which is simply to encourage others to follow the call of Jesus in daily life.

No one knows for sure who the Nicolaitans were, or where they went, or what they morphed into, because history loses track of them early on. Probably they evolved into something we are very familiar with from early times till today, only we just don't recognize them because they've changed names. We do know some things about them that are recorded in holy apostle John the Revelator's transmission of the risen Christ's letters to the seven churches of Asia. We know that Christ loathes what the Nicolaitans are doing (Rev 2:6), and He considers those who accept what the Nicolaitans teach to be as bad as idolators (Rev 2:14-16). It does seem rather odd that of all the books of the Bible, only the book of Revelation is not read in any services of the Orthodox Church, even though it is the only book that contains the explicit promise, "Blessed is the man who reads [aloud] this prophecy, and blessed are those who listen to him, if they keep what it says." (Revelation 1:3)

In the November issue of Ðýnamis, our parish newsletter, there is a message from Fr. Paul Schroeder, entitled "Frankness" and Inclusive Language. This is how it starts out…

Recently, I have been reading a beautiful book that was recommended to me by my spiritual director entitled Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, by Fr. Richard Rohr. Fr. Rohr says something very interesting about the language we use for God, specifically with regard to the use of gender-specific pronouns for God (i.e., He, Him, His, etc.). "We must recognize our extreme overreliance upon masculine images and words. God is clearly beyond gender. For the sake of many people who have been wounded by the masculine, and many who can only trust the feminine because of these wounds, we must also use feminine images for God—or many will never have access to the Divine."

Further on in his message, Fr. Schroeder tames down a bit after making references to "some of the great saints and teachers of our Church" who (he says) taught that it doesn't matter whether we call God "Father" or "Mother" because "every name equally indicates God's ineffable nature." He goes on to discuss the concept of boldness in prayer which no one can find fault with. Then he closes his message with this pious wish. "May God bring each one of us this encounter which is beyond words, beyond images whether masculine or feminine. to that place where there is only my "I" and God's "you." Mystical. Almost something a Sufi would say.

I want to address a few things in Fr. Schroeder's message publicly, to bring them to the attention of my fellow Orthodox and any other faithful Christians who may visit my blog.

Does Fr. Schroeder agree with what this Fr. Rohr writes? "We must recognize our extreme overreliance upon masculine images and words…" We are people of the Bible, the only Divine scriptures on earth, in which the Godhead is addressed as He, as Father, as Lord, as Messiah, as King, as Holy One, all masculine terms. Does Fr. Rohr think to correct God Himself, because maybe "many will never have access to the Divine"? Doesn't he believe that God already knew what ravages sin would cause in our human nature, and so the Word that He sent us was the best and most truthful saving Word for the healing of all nations, in all times?

"For the sake of many people who have been wounded by the masculine, and many who can only trust the feminine…" I ask, what is this supposed to mean? Even at the most basic level of discussion, what of the many people who have been wounded by the feminine? And do we have the right to tell God under what form we will trust Him? Christ, the God-Man, invites us to come to Him, to lay down our burdens at His feet, to trust Him, who is the Second Adam. What application can it have to say that God is beyond gender? I reiterate, we are people of the Bible, the only Divine scriptures on earth, in which the Godhead is addressed as He…"

Well, nevermind, it's rather useless to contradict people who know they're right, regardless of what the Bible says, because only the ignorant believe it and think it can be believed "as it is." I admit, I am one of those. But in case you don't know or haven't noticed, we are being infiltrated at every level by those who assume our outward forms, expressing their alien ideology in Orthodox sounding language, to pursue their agenda to conquer the people of God. This is what Nicolaitans do. This is what they are doing.

One more thing. We read Fr. Schroeder's words, and we hear his homilies every chance he gets to "preach" to us, and what he expresses is sometimes quite right, but at other times quite wrong. Do we ever wonder where he gets his ideas? It's easy to assume that a seminary graduate just knows his stuff. "Father says it, so it must be right." That's the usual Orthodox attitude, but I tell you, brethren, this is not what the Word of God, and even the Church fathers tell us. They warn us to check everything, to show ourselves rightly believing in the Truth that leads to salvation.

The verse that has always spoken to me is what holy apostle Paul writes to his co-laborer Timothy, and to us: "Remember who your teachers were." (2 Timothy 3:14) Actually, let's quote the passage in full. "You must keep to what you have been taught and know to be true; remember who your teachers were, and how, ever since you were a child, you have known the Holy Scriptures—from these you can learn the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 3:14-15)

So, I ask again, where does Fr. Schroeder get his ideas?
For example, just who is this Fr. Richard Rohr, who Fr. Schroeder says was "recommended" to him by his "spiritual director?" Is he even Orthodox? As it turns out, he is not Orthodox, but Roman Catholic. "So what?" might be your response. Roman Catholics can write good spiritual books, and I agree, there have been some.
But what about Fr. Rohr?

I just typed "Fr. Richard Rohr" into Google, and the first reference that came up was this one: Priest: 'The boy always gets naked...' You can read for yourself this article written by a Roman Catholic journalist, but here is as much of an excerpt as I am willing to post…

Father Rohr is founder of New Mexico's new age facility 'Center for Action and Contemplation' which is most popular among Catholics promoting the homosexual lifestyle. At Father Rohr's center, retreatants are fed unorthodox instruction and false teachings. Father Rohr has been a dissenter of Humanae Vitae since its infallible promulgation by Pope Paul VI in 1968. The website of Soulforce, a homosexual advocacy group, carries a letter written by Father Rohr (dated 2000) supporting their mission. Father Bryce Sibley, S.T.L, a priest of the diocese of Lafayette, La., recently wrote a column refuting Father Rohr's dissent from magisterial teachings. Father Rohr is well known for his 'Wild Man Retreats' where men sometimes take their clothes off and touch each other in certain parts of their bodies — to release the demons.

To quote any more would verge on the obscene, but this is an author and authority that Fr. Schroeder is reading and presumably following, and passing on to us. As I said at the beginning of this long post, "we are being infiltrated at every level," and what else can I think, if an Orthodox spiritual director (or is he Orthodox? maybe not) recommends this to an Orthodox priest, who was appointed to our parish by an Orthodox bishop?

You know, though, what I have taught, how I have lived, what I have aimed at; you know my faith, my patience, and my love; my constancy and the persecutions and hardships that came to me in places like Antioch, Iconium and Lystra—all the persecutions I have endured; and the Lord has rescued me from every one of them. You are well aware, then. that anybody who tries to live in devotion to Christ is certain to be attacked; while these wicked imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and deceived themselves. (2 Timothy 3:10-13)

Nicolaitans.

Man in his prosperity

As a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, life on earth has taught me one consistent lesson which I have turned into a saying in my mind, "It's not when I find myself in trouble, but when I find everything going my way, that I feel afraid." This saying, of course, is just how Romanós expresses what he has ingested and internalized from the Word of God. "Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets." (Luke 6:26) "If the world hates you, remember that it hated Me before you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you do not belong to the world, because My choice withdrew you from the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the words I said to you: If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you too…" (John 15:18-20)

Elder Ephrem, a contemporary Greek monastic from Mount Athos, has written…

God loves us and through involuntary pain seeks to count us worthy to participate in His most perfect blessings. Unfortunately, we do not love our soul in a spiritual way. If we loved it we would endure trials of both soul and body without complaining, in order to attain the eternal blessings.

Pain softens the heart and removes its hardness. As the heart is softened in this manner, the ground is prepared for the sowing of genuine repentance and correction. We who are cowardly in every affliction chase away, so to speak, the grace of God.

When man is prospering, he cannot remember God, and if he remembers Him, it is only faintly. When affliction or pain approaches, he remembers Him vividly and with fervor, then he prays most ardently. And our holy God is pleased with this, just as a mother is pleased when her child seeks her with heartfelt pain, for in this she discerns love.

No matter how man is tried, he always benefits when he shows the corresponding patience and gratitude during the trial. This is revealed at the end of the trial, when he sees the lightness of his soul, the clarity of his mind, and the sweetness that comes to his inner self.

Man in his prosperity forfeits intelligence:

he is one with the cattle doomed to slaughter.

Psalm 49:20

Jerusalem Bible

Marketing religion

At Pilgrimage of the Heart blog,
commenting on Everyone Is A Marketer, Even Obama,
I wrote…

It's precisely the use of marketing tactics instead of evangelism that has emptied the gospel of Jesus Christ of its power, substituting instead spiritual gimmickry and holiday magic. It's really no different today than it was in the Middle Ages, just the details are different.

Now, we try to wow the world and make converts with the tactics and technology we have today. In the 600's through the 900's, the Orthodox Church (Byzantium) wowed the barbarians with a magical and high tech display in worship, enchanting them into becoming Christians by the bundle. The Catholics did similar things with the native Americans. The churches and ministries of today are just doing what has always been done, just in a different way. Marketing we call it, or gospeltainment, or whatever, but it's always the same.

Not following Jesus, not standing aside to let the Holy Spirit convict hearts, even if they are only one by one, we blunder and bustle our way through, or try to, into the killing fields of religious experience. Bonhoeffer was right. We bore the world to disgust by our trafficking in cheap grace. May God have mercy on us now as always.

Christ, how long must we wait?

Worth more than medals

An old man sitting in his tiny room on a day bed.
On the wall behind the bed are two glazed picture frames, the one on the left full of awards and ribbons from his American Legion days, the one on the right displays an arrangement of military decorations, bars and medals hanging from ribbons, with a sepia tone photo of a young soldier in his early twenties. He has company with him in his room, a rare event.

His visitor asks him about the medals, “What was this one for? And what about that other one?” The old man’s eyes get a far away look in them when asked about a medal for his service in Korea during the war almost sixty years ago. “What did you do when you were in Korea to earn that? Were you in combat?”

“No, not exactly what you’d call combat, but I was surrounded by it. Me and another soldier, we were assigned to carry mail between Pusan and the front lines. When we landed in Pusan, that’s about all there was of Korea, the Chinese had overrun everything. My original army unit was almost completely wiped out. I got placed in a different unit, and we took the mail back and forth.

“We lived in the railway car that carried the mail, like a postal unit on wheels, it got hauled from the base at Pusan to wherever we had to get the mail to and from our troops. We took in a Korean boy, must’ve been twelve years old or so, named Kim Mun Heup. He spoke good English, he was from a rich family in Seoul, but both his parents were killed in the fighting. We took him in as our house boy. He cooked, washed our stuff, helped us buy food and supplies in the towns wherever we went. He lived with us in the railway car.

“We paid him, of course, but I got a hold of a Sears Roebuck catalog, and we let him look through it and pick out clothes and other things. We sent away for them, and when they finally got here, boy, was he ever happy! He had a baseball cap and real American clothes, tee-shirts and blue jeans, and shoes. Boy, was he ever proud! Kim found about six other boys, all orphans like himself, but younger, and became their manager. He got his orders from us, and gave them their work. He paid them, and shared with them, of course.

“I was proud of him, too, and I wanted to adopt him and bring him back to America, but I knew that wouldn’t go over well. I’d just gotten married before being shipped off, and I had a baby on the way. I knew my wife wouldn’t want to see me bring home a kid just ten years younger than me, and not ‘one of us,’ if you get my meaning.

“When we were in the north, at the front, refugees would come to me and my buddy, maybe Kim told them about us, and we’d give them a place to stay and a ride in our mail car back to the south. We’d drop them off at various places along the way, where they had friends or relatives to take them in. Times were pretty rough, and they’d lost a lot. Once we even hid a bunch of Catholic nuns who escaped from the north and dropped them off in a safe area. They were Koreans, of course, but spoke good English, as did most of the people that came to us for help.

“Boy, would we ever have gotten in trouble for hiding these people, if the base commander had found out! But he never did. That’s because we always dropped them off before the train got back to Pusan. We didn’t see any harm in it, helping those folks. What else could we have done?

“I didn’t stay right to the end of the war. Our replacements arrived, and me and my buddy returned to the States. Like I said, I really wanted to adopt Kim and bring him home, but it just couldn’t happen. So before we left, we gave him a couple of thousand dollars and dropped him off in a small town where he had some relatives. The money was for his education. I hope he made it. We didn’t stay in touch after the war. Life had just changed too much for all of us.”

The visitor listened to the old man release his secret story and wondered, had anyone else heard this told in many a year? Was the buddy still alive, staying alone in some cottage like this old soldier? And where was Kim? Three whole lifetimes were lived completely apart, that once for a year or a little more had been more closely knit than family, two young men and a boy riding the rails together in a war-torn land, carrying messages between danger and safety, carrying souls secretly from oppression to freedom.

That’s worth more than medals.

The union of a kneeling with a sceptred love

Left as a comment on a brother's blog…

…the Word of God teaches the man, the stronger partner, to protect the woman, the weaker partner, and to lay down his life for her. The Word does not say anything like this to the woman, only to the man. Where does this put the equality of the sexes? Nowhere, actually. The sexes are not equal or even equivalent in any sense except being equal heirs to the life of salvation. The original order is not thereby set aside, as the world has done, and as even the churches of today are wont to do. No, man was created first, woman after. Woman was taken out of man, not man out of woman. Woman is enclosed in man, her whole function is to be man’s help, to bear the offspring of his seed, to care for it, and to create and keep the inner world. Man is the covering of woman, his whole function is to shelter and provide for all needs, including safety and even salvation, and together with his brothers to create and keep the outer world.

A newly wed Orthodox couple is crowned with literal crowns, blessed with all the scriptural blessings from Adam and Eve down through all the patriarchs and matriarchs, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel. Later, they are presented with gold- and silver-covered icons of Christ in His first and second comings. The woman receives the icon of His first coming, it portrays Mary with the infant Jesus in her bosom. The man receives the icon of Christ’s second coming, Jesus holding the Book of the Gospels. The meaning is this: Woman conceives and bears what man begets—children. Man conceives and bears what woman begets—wisdom. In each case there is seed, and the seed is of God, planted paradoxically. The man who is the more spiritual plants a carnal seed to beget offspring according to the flesh. The woman who is the more material plants a spiritual seed to beget offspring according to the spirit. These are the gates into the mysterion of marriage, according to the Word of God. It is by the devil’s envy, that woman now seeks to be as man, and man surrenders his headship to woman.

The truths of scripture are so plain that we in the pride of our false knowledge exchange the fruit for leaves, the silver for dross, and our wine is watered.

Go back and learn what the Word teaches, and be bearers of the Word, and to one another submit as it was written in the beginning, in the Garden, while you wait for readmittance to partake forever of the Bread of Life, lovely Jesus nailed to the Tree.

Vox populi vox Dei

Election Day in one of the world’s oldest republics, and the spectre of democracy is allowed to raise its head for one intense and momentous day. The Revolution swept away the bulwarks of monarchy with all its powerful magic, never to let it again steal the voice of the people, but perpetuating and extending that voice from sea to shining sea and to the ends of the earth till the end of time. Glorious in aspect, and fearful, now the will of the people would be the same as the will of God—as long as the people were under God, who alone is their King. This was the vision, a first enfleshening of the promise that God will live among men.
“And the Word became flesh, and pitched His tent among us.”
(John 1:14)

The powerful magic of monarchs, which let one rule in the name of God to the good or ill of the people, is gone. Now we have no one but ourselves to praise or to blame if we set up princes to rule us in their own names, who give not the honor and glory back to the One who alone sits on the Throne. Democracy, even for a moment, can be a dreadful thing, or a blessing. Pray, brethren, that what our people conceive this night is not the child of lawlessness, born of adultery. Pray that the fruit of our tree will be good fruit, because a tree can be known by its fruit. Pray that we are still found to be a good tree bearing good fruit.
“Yes, even now the ax is laid to the roots of the trees, so that any tree which fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire.” (Luke 3:9)

Rise and shine

Wake up from your sleep,

rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.

Ephesians 5:14

Jerusalem Bible

Sometimes when I venture into Orthodox Christian forums or blogs and leave a comment I unhappily uncover what one Russian priest called "the sect of the rubricists," that is, people whose Orthodoxy is letter- and picture-perfect, whose qualifications are so much better than mine that I am put in my place as a crypto-Protestant, because I witness for Jesus, and leave the rest to God, and because I exalt the Bible and do all I can to promote it, trusting God to lead people, even those outside the Church, into "rightly dividing it" and in so doing come to a saving knowledge of the Truth. As a matter of fact, I am just an ordinary layman in the Greek Orthodox Church, and if anyone wants to know what I believe, they can read the Symbol of Nicaea (the Nicene Creed), or the text of the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom. Yet I still occasionally draw the attacks of the more perfect brethren. I thank the Lord that He has sent me true friends, like Presvytera Candace, who regularly prays for me and shares various sayings of the fathers with me, to bolster my faith. Here are a couple of texts she recently sent me, both from John Chrysostom, that I'd like to share with you…

The sun gives forth light; it cannot help doing so. Animals breathe in and out; they cannot help doing so. Fish swim in rivers and the seas; they cannot help doing so. What, then, are the things which a Christian cannot help doing?

First of all, a Christian cannot help praying. To be a Christian is to regard God as a loving Father; and it is natural to talk and listen to one's parents.

Second, a Christian cannot help praising God and giving praise to Him. To be a Christian is to affirm God as Creator of the universe; and when a Christian looks at the beauty and glory of what God has made, praise and thanksgiving pour from the lips.

Third, a Christian cannot help being generous. To be a Christian is to acknowledge that everything belongs to God, and the human beings are merely stewards of what they possess; so they naturally want to share their possessions with those in need.

Fourth, a Christian cannot help reading the Scripture and also studying the insights of other Christians. To be a Christian is to rejoice in the power of the Holy Spirit; and the Spirit speaks to us through the Scriptures and through the insights of our spiritual brothers and sisters.

+ + +

Let me describe to you five ways of repentance; each is different, but all point toward heaven.

The first road is the acknowledgment of sins. If you acknowledge your sins to God, He will forgive you; and this act of acknowledgment will help you stop sinning. Let your conscience be your accuser, so that you will not have to face a far different accuser at the Lord's tribunal.

The second road of repentance is the forgetting of the wrongs of others. This requires you to control your temper and to forgive the sins that others have committed against you. If you forgive others, the Lord will forgive you.

The third road is prayer: not perfunctory routine prayer, but fervent, passionate prayer in which you lay yourself wholly before God.

The fourth road is generosity, in which by acts of thoughtful love you make amends for the sins you have committed.

And the fifth road is humility, whereby you regard yourself as having no virtue, but only sins to offer to God; He will then take the burden of sin from your back.

At times it will be right to travel on one of these roads, at other times to travel on another. But ensure that every day you walk along at least one of them.

The Mediator

On Sunday night I am leaving with my son John to visit my father who lives in retirement in Florida. We haven’t seen him in about twenty years, maybe a little less. This means I won’t be blogging for awhile. I have a lot on my heart that I wanted to express in this my last post of October, but I have found much of what I wanted to write in the fifth chapter of martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship. If you, dear reader, find what I’ve quoted here at length compelling, then get yourself a copy of this book and read more. But if what is written below makes no sense to you at all, then just leave it alone, and go, pray and read the Bible; that’s the best of all possible reads anyway. But I send this post out as a testimony of my life in Christ, especially to my koumbáro, my synergós (co-laborer) in the Lord, who will understand it with me, and remember the kairós we have shared together in and through Christ, the Mediator. May these words strengthen you, my brother, and remind you of our many hours of work and prayer together, which have not come to their end yet. And to all the brethren, I add, go with Jesus.
At the very moment of their call, men find that they have already broken with all the natural ties of life. This is not their own doing, but His who calls them. For Christ has delivered them from immediacy with the world, and brought them into immediacy with Himself. We cannot follow Christ unless we are prepared to accept and affirm that breach as a fait accompli. It is no arbitrary choice on the disciple’s part, but Christ Himself, who compels him thus to break with his past.

We must face up to the truth that the call of Christ does set up a barrier between man and his natural life. But this barrier is no surly contempt for life, no legalistic piety, it is the life which is life indeed, the gospel, the person of Jesus Christ. By virtue of His incarnation He has come between man and his natural life. There can be no turning back, for Christ bars the way.

He stands between us and God, and for that very reason He stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality.

The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion. All the time we thought we had enjoyed a direct relationship with men and things. This is what had hindered us from faith and obedience. Now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life, in our kinship with father and mother, brothers and sisters, in married love, and in our duty to the community, direct relationships are impossible.

Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation, stands Christ the Mediator, whether they are able to recognize Him or not. We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through Him, through His word, and through our following of Him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves.

Wherever a group, be it large or small, prevents us from standing alone before Christ, wherever such a group raises a claim of immediacy it must be hated for the sake of Christ. For every immediacy, whether we realize it or not, means hatred of Christ, and this is especially true where such relationships claim the sanction of Christian principles.

For the Christian the only God-given realities are those he receives from Christ. What is not given us through the incarnate Son is not given us by God.

Anything I cannot thank God for, for the sake of Christ, I may not thank God for at all; to do so would be sin.

The path, too, to the ‘God-given reality’ of my fellow man or woman with whom I have to live leads through Christ, or it is a blind alley. We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology, however frank and open our behaviour, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get in touch with our neighbours through Him. That is why intercession is the most promising way to reach our neighbours, and corporate prayer, offered in the name of Christ, the purest form of fellowship.

This breach with all our immediate relationships is inescapable. It may take the form of an external breach with family or nation; in that case we shall be called upon to bear visibly the reproach of Christ… Or it may be a hidden and a secret breach. But even then we must always be ready to come out into the open.

Though we all have to enter upon discipleship alone, we do not remain alone. If we take Him at His word and dare to become individuals, our reward is the fellowship of the Church. Here is a visible brotherhood to compensate a hundredfold for all we have lost. A hundredfold? Yes, for we now have everything through the Mediator, but with this proviso—‘with persecutions’. A hundredfold with persecutions—such is the grace which is granted to the Church which follows its Lord beneath the cross.

And they were in the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going before them: and they were amazed; and they that followed were afraid. And He took again the Twelve, and began to tell them the things that were to happen to Him. (Mark 10:32)

As if to bring home to them how serious was his call, to show them how impossible it was to follow in their own strength, and to emphasize that adherence to Him means persecutions, Jesus goes on before to Jerusalem and to the cross, and they are filled with fear and amazement at the road He calls them to follow.