At once

Και παραγων ειδεν Λευιν τον του Αλφαιου καθημενον επι το τελωνιον και λεγει αυτω, Ακολουθει μοι, και αναστας ηκολουθησεν αυτω.

And as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alphæus, sitting at the place of toll, and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him. Mark 2.14

The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience. The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus. The cause behind the immediate following of the call by response is Jesus Christ himself. It is Jesus who calls, and because it is Jesus, Levi follows at once.

This encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority of Jesus. Because Jesus is the Christ, he has the authority to call and to demand obedience to his word. Jesus summons men to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God. There is no road to faith or discipleship, no other road — only obedience to the call of Jesus.

What does the text inform us about the content of discipleship?

Follow me, run along behind me! That is all.

To follow in his steps is something which is void of all content. It gives us no intelligible program for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after.

At the call, Levi leaves all he has — but not because he thinks that he might be doing something worthwhile, but simply for the sake of the call. Otherwise he cannot follow in the steps of Jesus. The disciple simply burns his boats and goes ahead.

He is called out, and has to forsake his old life in order that he may ‘exist’ in the strictest sense of the word. The old life is left behind, and completely surrendered. The disciple is dragged out of his relative security into a life of absolute insecurity (that is, in truth, into the absolute security and safety of the fellowship of Jesus), from a life which is observable and calculable (it is, in fact, quite incalculable) into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuitous (that is, into one which is necessary and calculable), out of the realm of the finite (which is in truth the infinite) into the realm of infinite possibilities (which is the one liberating reality).

Again, it is no universal law. Rather is it the exact opposite of all legality. It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking every program, every ideal, every set of laws. No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Beside Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters.

When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person.

The grace of his call bursts all the bonds of legalism. It is a gracious call, a gracious commandment. It transcends the difference between the law and the gospel. Christ calls, the disciple follows; that is grace and commandment in one.

‘I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy commandments.’ (Psalm 119.45)

Discipleship without Jesus Christ is a way of our own choosing. It may be the ideal way, it may even lead to martyrdom, but it is devoid of all promise. Jesus will certainly reject it.

And they went to another village. And as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. And he said to another, Follow me.

But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But he said unto him, Leave the dead to bury their dead, but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God. And another said, I will follow thee, Lord; but suffer me first to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand unto the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Luke 9.57-62

The first disciple offers to follow Jesus without waiting to be called. Jesus damps his ardour by warning him that he does not know what he is doing. In fact, he is quite incapable of knowing.

That is the meaning of Jesus’ answer. No man can choose such a life for himself. No man can call himself to such a destiny, says Jesus, and his word stays unanswered. The gulf betwen a voluntary offer to follow and genuine discipleship is clear.

Where Jesus calls, he bridges the widest gulf.

The second would-be disciple wants to bury his father before he starts to follow. He is bound by the trammels of the law. He knows what he wants and what he must do. Let him first fulfill the law, and then let him follow. A definite legal ordinance acts as a barrier between Jesus and the man he has called. But the call of Jesus is stronger than the barrier.

Nothing on earth, however sacred, must be allowed to come between Jesus and the man he has called — not even the law itself.

Now, if never before, the law must be broken for the sake of Jesus. Therefore Jesus emerges at this point as the opponent of the law, and commands a man to follow him. Only Christ can speak in this fashion. He alone has the last word. This call, this grace, is irresistable.

The third would-be disciple, like the first, thinks that following Christ means that he must make the offer on his own initiative, as if it were a career he mapped out for himself, but the third is bold enough to stipulate his own terms.

He lands himself in a hopeless inconsistency, for although he is ready enough to throw in his lot with Jesus, he succeeds in putting up a barrier between himself and the Master. ‘Suffer me first.’ He wants to follow, but feels obliged to insist on his own terms. Discipleship to him is a possibility which can only be realized when certain conditions have been fulfilled.

This is to reduce discipleship to the level of human understanding. The trouble about this third would-be disciple is that at the very moment he expresses his willingness to follow, he ceases to want to follow at all. His desires conflict not only with what Jesus wants, but also with what he wants himself.

If we would follow Jesus we must take certain definite steps.

The first step, which follows the call, cuts the disciple off from his previous existence. Jesus makes it clear from the start that his word is not an abstract doctrine, but the re-creation of the whole life of man. The only right and proper way is quite literally to go with Jesus.

The call to follow implies that there is only one way of believing on Jesus Christ, and that is by leaving all and going with the incarnate Son of God. The first step places the disciple in the situation where faith is possible. If he refuses to follow and stays behind, he does not learn how to believe.

This step is not the first stage of a career. Its sole justification is that it brings the disciple into fellowship with Jesus, which will be victorious. The road to faith passes through obedience to the call of Jesus. If men imagine they can follow Jesus without taking this step, they are deluding themselves like fanatics.

Discipleship is not an offer man makes to Christ. It is only the call which creates the situation, and the situation in which faith is possible is itself only rendered possible through faith.

Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.

If we are to believe, we must obey a concrete command. Without this preliminary step of obedience, our faith will be only pious humbug, and lead us to the grace which is not costly. Everything depends on the first step. It has a unique quality of its own.

This first step starts as an external work, which effects the change from one existence to another. It is a step within everyone’s capacity, for it lies within the limits of human freedom. To take this step it is not necessary to surrender one’s freedom.

Come to church! You can do that of your own free will. You can leave your home on a Sunday morning and come to hear the sermon. If you will not, you are of your own free will excluding yourself from the place where faith is a possibility.

Once we are sure of this point, we must add at once that this step is, and can never be more than, a purely external act which can never of itself bring a man to Christ. Nevertheless the external work must be done, for we still have to find our way into the situation where faith is possible.

We can only take this step aright if we fix our eyes not on the work we do, but on the word with which Jesus calls us to do it. In the end, the first step of obedience proves to be an act of faith in the word of Christ.

Unless he obeys, a man cannot believe.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Knowing the Personal God

I don't usually copy someone's entire post and publish it here at Cost of Discipleship, but this time, the post is short enough, and it is so exceptional. This is taken from Fr Stephen's blog Glory to God for All Things. I have not even changed the title as I sometimes do. If you've never visited his blog, I simply recommend it. As for this post, it is a gem of evangelical truth…

The word personal has a commonplace meaning in English. If I have personal knowledge of an event, it means that I was actually there and saw what took place. Personal knowledge of another person, means that we have actually met, spent time together and shared information. Difficulty arises when this commonplace use of the phrase is mistaken for its theological meaning.

The word person, is pretty much a Christian invention, or certainly comes to a place of importance through its use in Christian theology. In Greek, it is the word prosopon, which originally meant the face, while in Latin the word was persona, which originally meant a mask. In both cases the words were taken up to do service in the efforts of early theologians’ to give expression to the Christian understanding of the Triune God. Person, in its various forms, came to be used for the more technical Greek term hypostasis, and referred to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in their unique aspects. Thus we had three persons in one being.

The word was also used as the Church sought to give expression to what it knew of Christ. Thus we learned to speak of the person of Christ who was both human and Divine: one person, two natures.

In all of these early uses, the term carried far more weight than its commonplace meaning today. Today we mean little more than individual when we say person. To apply that meaning to the persons of the Trinity would be to fall into serious heresy.

And to a degree, to apply that same commonplace meaning to human beings is at the very least a disservice, if not outright error. For there is something about our existence as persons that is precisely linked to our creation in the image of God and the truth of our existence of which the commonplace meaning knows nothing.

Fr. Sophrony Sakharov says that to be created as person is to be created potentially and not actually. That is to say, there is something very “open-ended” in our existence as persons. It is not a limiting term but a term which describes something of infinite capacity. We are created potentially, because we are not yet what we shall be. We are commanded to be conformed to the likeness of God – and this is our goal in Christ. This is far more than moral perfection, but has an ontological meaning as well. Indeed, when Scripture speaks of this aspect of our destiny it generally does not speak in moral terms, but in terms of knowledge and relationship.

“Then I shall know even as I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

“We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

That capacity of knowledge – which is another way of speaking about the fullness of our communion with God – is also a way of speaking of our capacity for love. It is the gift of personhood that we are (by grace) capable of loving everyone and everything. We would not be commanded to love even our enemies were it an impossible thing. Apart from Christ we cannot become what we were created to be – but we were created to love in just such a manner – for to love less is to be less than the image and likeness of Christ.

Our commonplace language, even in our faith, speaks of a personal relationship with Christ. It is correct to do so, and even to mean by it that you have “first-hand” knowledge of Christ. It also speaks of mutual obligation which is again correct in the covenantal relationship that God has given us. But it is also true in a less commonplace sense that we have a personal relationship with Christ – in that the nature of our relationship is that between persons. As such it has an infinite capacity and is open-ended. It will grow and become far more later than it is now. It will also mean a participation and a communion, a knowledge that is inherent to personal existence, even though we frequently are not aware of this capacity that is ours.

It is only in knowing the Triune God that we become what we are meant to be – that what it means to exist personally is fully revealed in us. A short quote from Fr. Sophrony:

The Person is He Who alone and genuinely lives. Aside from this vital principle nothing can exist: ‘In him was life; and the life was the light of men’ [John 1:4]. The fundamental content of this life is love: ‘God is love’ [1 John 4:8]. the personal being realizes himself through loving contact with another person or persons.

Come, labor on!

Come, labor on.

Who dares stand idle on the harvest plain

while all around us waves the golden grain?

And to each servant does the Master say,

"Go work today."

Come, labor on.

The enemy is watching night and day,

to sow the tares, to snatch the seed away;

while we in sleep our duty have forgot,

he slumbers not.

Come, labor on.

Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear!

No arm so weak but may do service here:

by feeblest agents may our God fulfill

His righteous will.

Come, labor on.

Claim the high calling angels cannot share:

to young and old the gospel gladness bear.

Redeem the time its hours so swiftly fly

the night draws nigh.

Come, labor on.

No time for rest, till glows the western sky,

till the long shadows o'er our pathway lie

and a glad sound comes with the setting sun:

"Servants, well done."

Jane L. Borthwick (b. Edinburgh, Scotland, 1813; d. Edinburgh, 1897) wrote this text and published it in her Thoughts for Thoughtful Hours (1859) in seven, six-line stanzas. Borthwick revised the text into its present five-line form and published that version in her Thoughts for Thoughtful Hours of 1863.

One Sunday morning in the first years of my Christian life, this hymn, sung to the tune called Ora Labora, moved me very deeply, to tears actually, as I sang it with the congregation in the small neighborhood Episcopal church of Saint Andrew in North Portland. It was possibly around this time of the year, late summer. I have never forgotten that day, nor this hymn which I have memorised. I still quietly sing it whenever I remember that experience, which confirmed the call that God has on my life. Today I remember both, as I meditate on the word, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) and gratefully reflect that I feel that call no less now than when I first received it. God is faithful.

Λαζαρε δευρο εξω!

Lazarus, come forth!

Don't you just hate it when someone who doesn’t even have a college diploma challenges trained seminary graduates “who has letters after their names” (as Spyros ‘Amerikano’ Chalkiopoulos asked Mrs. Durrell in the film My Family and Other Animals) on points biblical or theological? I know I do, because it really shouldn’t be necessary.
Why don’t the seminaries teach them these things?

There is no Catholic way of salvation, there is no Protestant way. There are only explanations and interpretations, and these are undoubtedly human. These are not what is meant by the concept of παράδοσις, parádhosis, ‘the handing over’ of the truth of the Gospel.

The παράδοσις is what was handed over verbally and practically by Christ and His holy apostles to the believers. Most of what is meant by this term has ended up in the New Testament. In fact, if you believe in the divine economy, all of what was handed over by the apostles is in the New Testament. The problem seems to be all about interpretation. It is this human failing, the desire to ‘be right,’ that has tried to rip asunder the seamless robe that clothes the Body of Christ.

Staying in the Word, reading, hearing and living it as it is, we will have returned to that place where we again put on that seamless robe. There is one faith, one Lord, one baptism, as we know. It is mankind in its argumentative and speculative vanity that has tried to tear the robe to shreds, while all think that they have gambled for the entire robe, and won it. The seamless robe is intact, but only for those who really want to wear it, and who want to share it with Christ's holy and pure Body.

Like Lazarus, we are still tangled in our strips of mortuary linen like dead men. Jesus still calls out to us, “Come forth!” We don't have to remain dead, unless we want to. Like Lazarus, once you know for sure that it is the voice of Jesus calling you out, who would want to stay in that tomb?

Wake up from your sleep,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.
Ephesians 5:14 Jerusalem Bible

There is only one way of salvation, and it is simply but amply testified throughout the scriptures. We need to really believe that the Word of God, not our interpretations of it, is what constitutes the Truth. That is the παράδοσις. That is what the apostles handed over to us. That is what makes our faith, if we believe their testimony, apostolic.

I am for tearing off the costumes we wear in front of each other as we go into battle. Why? Because our battle is not with each other, but against the powers of wickedness in the heavens. If we really want to fight each other, let’s strip ourselves, and see—we're all the same! Then, let’s put on the only garment worth having, because He gives it to all who believe in Him, His own skin! All who have been baptized have put on Christ, as the scriptures say. And what baptism is that? Being buried with Christ in His death, so as to rise with Him in His glorious resurrection.

I’m trying to move beyond thinking about God, to just living in Him. I’m trying to cut through the knots of tangled lore that have kept us encamped on the devil’s playground so long, fighting each other.

What would happen, if suddenly the various Christian missions and denominations in a majority Muslim country like Indonesia or Malaysia (which still allow the existence of Christianity) suddenly were seen to absolutely and without reserve support each other in everything, even without coalescing into one uniform institution? Everything that they disagree about, they would agree to just pray and ask the Lord to intercede for each other’s folly, and then, with that out of the way, just “go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.”

Hey! What if we can’t agree on how and whom to baptize, and when? Well, that’s just some more folly that we have to ask the Lord to forgive and correct. Meanwhile, let’s all just go in to the harvest field, and work, because night is coming when no one can work, and because “the time is close.”

But what about groups like the Mormons, who say they are Christians, but really aren’t?

I’ve thought about groups like the Mormons, and of course, there are others besides them who straddle a ‘gray area.’ I think the fearful divide is the question whether one accepts the Holy Bible as the only divinely revealed scripture on earth. If the answer is ‘yes,’ then we start from there, if we must, to peel people ‘off the salvation list’ by testing them on other things.

But do you see what that makes us? Judges, and corrupt judges at that, because we can only see as through a glass darkly and have no view at all of what is happening in a person's soul, where they meet God face to face.

We have to learn to trust more in God and in the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and simply follow His directions and instructions without adding to them. Look where we have ended up by adding to the παράδοσις: ‘The world’ drives by mega-churches and through intersections (in Kansas and elsewhere) where there’s a different church on each of the four corners. Shameful, and blasphemous, that we who say we believe in Jesus Christ trash His words and His prayer so boldly, thinking it will not bite us in the end.

One more time—what would happen if we all supported each other (barring those groups, I suppose who deny the Word of God is the sole divine scripture on earth) and defended each other to every attack from the outside?

Overnight, the non-Christian world would be astonished and possibly fall like a house of cards, because at last, they have seen what Jesus said, “They will know you are Mine because you love one another.”

This is not a plug for the ‘ecumenical movement’ which I do not believe in. This is a plea for obedience to the word of Jesus.

Except that moment

I don’t believe one has to understand or even know all that can be understood and known about the Godhead, even such essential doctrines as the Trinity, to be saved. Salvation happens when any soul turns sincerely and uniquely to Jesus as its Savior, and that is the core out of which all other experience, knowledge and understanding spring.

The thief on the cross beside Jesus knew only one thing, Jesus is the Messiah, the King of Israel. He didn’t even understand salvation apart from being merely remembered by Jesus. He hadn’t been instructed. He hadn’t been confessed of his sins. He hadn’t been baptized. He hadn’t received the Holy Eucharist. He hadn’t read the bible. He knew no other fact, other than the fact that the Man who hung beside him had ultimate and perfect power to save.

What astonishing faith! Knowing they were all going to be dead very soon, he asks the Man beside him who likewise would be dead, to remember him in His kingdom. For me, what’s happening when a person is joined to Jesus unto the kingdom and life eternal, is exactly the same as what happened with the thief. Everything else that engulfs that moment of saving recognition can be dispensed with, when necessary. Everything can be dispensed with, except that moment.

Thank you, Father, I didn't know

This morning, a wonderful snippet from Fr Milovan's blog Again and Again, shows us how great is the mercy of God, of Christ, who accepts us, as we come to Him, sins and all…

…after the Great Entrance I can’t confess anymore, not because I’m physically tired or something is preventing me, but because there is no sense in confessing anymore. We’ve entered into the mystery, what are we going to confess now? If you have something, if something is bothering you, come earlier. If not – and there is always something for us to confess: if you put on the cleanest suit, how much dust is on you! – approach with boldness, even if you are a sinner, but also a son of God, adopted through Christ, and say: “I am, Lord, that which I am and, behold, I sinful and unworthy, but I am not at peace with this, I do not identify with this. I desire to identify with You. Take my sins and destroy them, as You destroyed the sins of the world.” … Therefore, all the Holy Mysteries are completed before, until the Great Entrance.

Today a sister brought two children after Liturgy and said: “If you could read a prayer, Father.” I said, “I saw the children took communion.” She said, “They did.” “Then, what do you want now, after a rich meal do you want a snack? Don’t, please, the Liturgy is the greatest prayer.” And the woman, thankful, said: “Thank you, Father. I didn’t know.”

— Bishop Atanasije Jevtić

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Grace

A baby is born. If all goes well, it is born with no serious danger to mother or child. Though we know what pains the mother endures in giving birth, no one has yet told us of the labor of being born. No one remembers, unless they are hints of it, those odd, terrifying dreams we sometimes are plagued with as children, of darkness, of our extreme smallness, of the threatening largeness of our room, of the strange terror of seeing light through our slightly open nursery door, those strange dreams that bridge our sleeping and our waking.

A baby being born, first the head emerges, again, if all is as it should be, with foamy hair and then suddenly, there is an absolute urgency for the rest of the body to follow. Everyone is tense, and the labor of birth is one that cannot be stopped, it must press on till completion—Push!—till the babe is out. There is the struggle for air, to clear the passages of fluid so the little creature can draw in its first breath, and exhale it as a cry. When it does, everyone exhales too a massive sigh of relief, and then the cord must be clamped and cut. For a moment all attention has focused on the child, but very quickly returns to the mother. The midwives attend her and the child, for it seems both are totally helpless.

This is how it is with us. We come into the world unasked but welcomed as Job says, “Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed?” (3:12). We come into the world totally helpless. Everything must be done for us. Not only do we not know where we are, but we cannot even see clearly. If we see at all, what is that sensation? What are those movements in that brightness, those shapes what are they? And now, what is that vibration? It’s different from the smooth, dark and rumbling sounds we thought were our world. Then something pops, and we hear the new sounds even more loudly and clearly. But where are we? What are we? Totally helpless.

Being born is not much different than being born again, that is, from above, as Jesus tells us, “unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). He is just as helpless to do anything for himself as that newborn babe. Everything has to be done for him. Everything is pure gift, even the fact of his birth is pure gift, and all is due to a sacrifice that he is totally unaware of, by a being, his mother, whom he doesn’t even know yet, but begins to know, as his lips feel her soft nipples nudging his unknowing mouth. This is how it is with us in being born again. Everything is gift, all is grace and love and generosity, and we little know at first, and even for long afterwards, how great the sacrifice was offered on our behalf. But we feel the Spirit nudging us, coaxing us to feed and, in feeding on the pure milk of the Word, to drink, be filled, and grow.

We are totally helpless in our new birth. Who can deny that all is grace, that everything offered to us has been given for free, that Someone chose us to be born, not we ourselves? And how can we overlook this miracle? And why would we want to? We all have been born into the most beautiful of all worlds, even though the devil’s envy has defiled it with the spectre of physical death. We all can be born again into a world even more beautiful, that cannot be deformed by the destroyer of souls, because he cannot even see it.

Totally helpless in our birth, we grow by love into the image of our earthly parents and our heavenly Father, until we too conceive, and bear, and love, all for free, until our lives become grace itself.

Indeed, from His fullness we have, all of us, received—
yes, grace in return for grace,
since, though the Law was given through Moses,
grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.
John 1:16-17

To be His presence among men

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Mother Maria [Skobtsova] is remembered in the context of the Russian Emigration [after the victory of communism there], the French Resistance [during World War II] or Ravensbrück concentration camp [where she died]. But her achievement extends beyond the circumstances of her life, and it outlives them. For above all, by way of her Christian dedication and in her own distinctive style, she demonstrated what it means to be human.

In the process she sacrificed her personal serenity. Since her life was completely interwoven with the destiny of her contemporaries, their turmoil was hers, their tragedy was hers. And yet she was not swept away by it. She was anchored in God and her feet rested on the Rock.

Infinite pity and compassion possessed her; there was no suffering to which she was a stranger; there were no difficulties which could cause her to turn aside. She could not tolerate hypocrisy, cruelty or injustice. The Spirit of Truth which dwelt in her led her to criticize sharply all that is deficient, all that is dead in Christianity and, particularly, in what she mistakenly conceived to be classical monasticism.

Mistakenly, for what she was attacking was an empty shell, a petrified form. At the same time, with the perception of a seer, she saw the hidden, glorious content of the monastic life in the fulfillment of the gospel, in the realization of divine love, a love which has room to be active and creative in and through people who have turned away from all things and, above all, from themselves in order to live God's life and to be His presence among men, His compassion, His love.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

This she understood, this she lived for. This is also what she died for.

—Anthony Bloom, Metropolitan of Sourozh

Παντα τα εθνη

Today the people featured in Unreached People of the Day in my sidebar are the Malays, and the pictured shows a pretty and happy-looking young woman in a tightly arranged yellow head covering. The statistics show a population of 286,000, their religion as Islam, and the percentage of evangelical Christians among them as 0.00%. There are actually far more Malays in Malaysia than this, but most of them live in Malaya proper, which is on the Asian mainland, right below Thailand. The other statistics are likely to be almost the same.

Why would there be so few Malays who are Christians?

Well, in Malaysia, you can only claim Malay nationality if you are a Muslim. If a Malay converts to Christianity or any other religion, that poses a significant problem: he or she is no longer a Malay and therefore has lost almost all human rights. And if forcibly converted to Islam, a person of another religion is not allowed to go back.

Because I have strong ties with Indonesia, I also keep my eye on Malaysia, where there are also Christians, especially on the island of Borneo in the Malaysian state of Sabah. I have had internet exchanges with some there who are Roman Catholics. I have also had internet exchanges with Muslim Malay youth over the internet, through blogging. When I encountered Malay Muslim youth, it was the first time since my college days that I had met any young Muslims who really seemed happy, normal and balanced people. It was almost as if the universal Islamic jihad weren’t happening for them. They looked happy and they talked happy. They were of the educated class, students, etc., and some of them were positively in love with Islam. I had never seen that, especially after 9/11—Muslims who were actually devoutly Islamic and didn’t want to kill me!

Back to the topic, unreached people, and why they are unreached.

Although Malaysia inherited a lot of good things from the British who colonized and organized these two dozen or so sultanates into a single entity that could later become a nation state, it is still a country where Islam is eroding the Western concepts of personal liberty and human rights.

It must be a very courageous missionary, whether native Malaysian (not Malay, of course) or foreigner (and I’m not sure they are allowed), to “go, make disciples, and baptize” the Malays, because to do that is almost the same as spreading the “bad news” to a people who are so locked into a politico-religious system that they cannot even imagine escape.

The bad news should be, “you realise you are sinners, and you don’t know what to do about it, or how to get right with God, other than to hope that Allah will forgive you,” so that the good news can be, “there is a way of escape from death and judgment: it is the Son of God, whose death on the cross has paid all of the price for your transgressions, and whose rising from the dead has guaranteed salvation and eternal life to you who believe in Him.” Instead, the bad news is, “If you accept Christ and become a Christian, you will be considered fair game for anyone who wants to harm you in any way, and you may even find it impossible to continue living here.”

This is probably why there are 0.00% evangelical Christians, or Christians of any kind, among the Malays. The situation is similar to that in the first centuries under the pagan Roman Empire, only actually it is much worse. Technology has provided tools for extending modern tyranny deeper into the peoples that are captured. This is true not only in Malaysia, but even in Indonesia to a lesser extent, and then throughout the ‘Muslim’ world, in countries that have fallen under Islam yet contain significant crowds of Christians, Egypt for example.

Missionaries in lands under Islam run a very high risk of suffering martyrdom, as we have seen, even when the martyrs were not engaged in any direct proselytism. On the other hand, proponents (they could be called missionaries) of Islam in countries that are predominantly Christian have absolutely nothing to fear. This double standard is possible only with the collaboration of governments that in theory favor no religion yet in practice provide ample safeguards for the establishment of Islamic footholds. These governments are headed by men and women who are fools, walking right into the jaws of lions with their eyes wide open. There are enough blogs to demonstrate what I am saying, so I need not elaborate. My focus is on the people in Islamic bondage, like the young woman in the picture.

Humanists, even some who claim to be Christians, take the side of those who believe that the missionary movement has done more evil than good, and that we should leave the peoples as they are. I don’t buy this, but neither do I debate. Some things are beyond debate, especially when the opponent has jettisoned reason in favor of entrenchment in his own views no matter what is presented to him. Jesus’ word is the reason for missions. If He had not spoken thus, we need not bother to liberate the peoples with the gospel, but He has said,

πορευθεντες μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα του πατρος και του υιου και του αγιου πνευματος

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28:19

That is what we do, wherever God sends us.
Yes, pray for the Malays and all nations under the sword of Islam.
They too are the sheep of Christ’s pasture,
and are waiting for His salvation.

Alexander Men’, the Jewish Orthodox priest-martyr

…I was told over and over, “But the deeper I went into the Church, the more deeply I felt myself as belonging to the people of Israel,” and, “The more I am Christian, the more I feel myself a Jew.” What is more, this Jewish identity had become positive and internal, rather than the negative, externally reinforced anti-Semitism that was their basic identification with Jewishness before entering the Church. They did not become ‘Russian’ in the Russian Church, but ‘Jewish.’

Father Alexander Men' probably needs no introduction to many of you. He is the late priest in the Russian Orthodox Church who was found murdered by an axe in September 1990, and whom the late academic Sergei Averintsev called "The man sent from God to be missionary to the wild tribe of the Soviet intelligentsia."

…

This post about hieromartyr Alexander Men' consists entirely of quotes from an online article sent me this morning by a dear sister in the Lord. To read the entire article, click HERE. Father Michael is an Orthodox priest of Russian Jewish origin. Photo is of Alexander Men' as a youth.

It was an issue of how to maintain your difference. ... To stay a spiritual personality. Not to be completely engulfed. In this sense, the Church helped to support the human personality, the personality of the intelligentsia, for whom personhood is extremely important. Not to be completely dissolved into the aggressive Soviet mass. … It was the power that I found to stay myself. (Father Michael)

For another Russian-Jewish intellectual affected by the wave of baptisms in the late sixties:

… Living in the Soviet Union, and always being bothered by the constant lie, you had the sensation that there must be a great deal that they are simply hiding. I was led to a sense of readiness, readiness to believe in something else. I didn't know what that something was, but the readiness was there. ("Osip")

There were and are, of course, many ways to respond to such inner "readiness." They could have sought out Judaism, to the extent that was feasible in the Soviet Union of the time. They could have become Zionists, and tried to go to Israel. Or they could have followed the secular dissident pattern of, say, Sakharov. Indeed, in the sixties, these paths did not seem so disparate, as one interviewee acknowledged:

From the same underground came the dissident movement and the Zionist movement. Discussions would take place in the same house… I didn't hide the fact that I went to church. For those Jews in those days the fact that we were Christians was not an issue. Most of them had been in Stalin's camps. Christians were not enemies. They were all allies. In those days we were a minority of outcasts. (Father Michael)

For many of these "outcasts," as I have said, it was Father Alexander Men', by both example and word, who showed them the way out of what has been variously called the ideological lie, the vacuum, the cellar, or the prison of Soviet culture. Born a Jew, thus an outsider, a "dissident" by birth, trained as a scientist in a Soviet institute, Men' came to represent for these intellectuals the best of all worlds.

Men' clearly had charisma. But he also had a message that appealed to a generation straitjacketed in their institutes for Historical Materialism and Marxism-Leninism. The way out of the cellar that he showed them celebrated the highly sensual ritual, the materiality of Russian Orthodoxy not as a utilitarian end, but as the incarnation of mystical Truth and as a sign of the possible deification of creation. Spirit and matter, religion and secular knowledge were not so far apart, after all. Engineers, historians, and mathematicians were attracted by Men's readiness to build a bridge between the Church and secular society, between science and religion: "This idea of dialogue with the world has stuck with me all my life," wrote the Jewish priest [Fr Michael].

…

…perhaps the most radical, and controversial of the followers of Men' now gather to pray in the basement of the building housing the Center for Human Rights, near the Nikitskie Gates [in Moscow]. To be clear, this small community is not part of the Patriarchate of Moscow. It belongs to the so-called Apostolic Orthodox Church, founded in May of 2000 through the authority of the True-Orthodox (Catacomb) Church, a body that never reunited with the Moscow Patriarchate since the 1920s. It is sometimes called Gleb Iakunin's Church, for its founder, the famous dissident from the 60s. At the recommendation of Iakunin, this dissident Church's synod canonized Father Aleksandr on September 8, 2000.

The canonization of Men' was, and still is, highly controversial. Many followers of Men' with whom I spoke agreed that the canonization was perhaps deserved, but nonetheless, in this form and by this splinter Church, nothing more, and nothing less than an unnecessary provocation: We split with them over this, Men's brother explained. I understand their views, but it was all done on their own, which only disturbs the situation. Men's son, Mikhail, currently the deputy major of Moscow and a controversial figure in his own right, wrote: "I look on this as a provocation directed against all my family. ... by an organized group of people having no relationship to the Russian Orthodox Church."

But a saint he is, say some. The makeshift Church of the New Martyrs, led by Father Yakov Krotov [photo right], is divided by an iconostasis with only three icons: the Mother of God, Christ, and one of Father Aleksandr. The wall is punctuated by wide arches in place of the closed royal doors of a traditional icon stand, thus making the altar fully visible, and accessible, to the congregation. The services are conducted in Russian, rather than the Church Slavonic recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church, and, thus, also easily accessible to the worshippers. There is no choir; the congregants themselves are expected to chant the entire service, and Father Iakov recites all prayers aloud, rather than mumbled as is usually done in the Orthodox Church. All of these innovations, Krotov believes, make his service more democratic, more inclusive, and more in the spirit of Father Aleksandr Men's own teachings.

…

Does he deserve sainthood for this legacy, as those in Gleb Iakunin and Iakov Krotov's Church believe?

According to one of Men's Russian Jewish Christians:

I do think that according to the Orthodox definition of a saint, Fr. Alexander is a saint. There are a few different types of saints. One of these types is a person who lived a great life, was extremely important for his time and people around him, bravely preached about faith in the time of danger, wrote beautiful books about faith, and died as a martyr. Who will fit this definition better then Father Alexander Men?

The OCA [Orthodox Church of America] website gives the following definition:

It means only that, within the context of his age, he manifested the image of God in himself in some way — that he was an ikon, an original creation, a new creature in Christ.

Canonization does not make a man a saint. Rather, it establishes the fact, publicly and for all to see, that the man is already a saint…

Was Father Alexander Men' such a man? I don't know. I never met him. I don't believe in saints. I don't even believe in Jesus Christ. And I'm crazy about Jews converting to Christianity. I do know, however, that his ministry, and, even more, the presence of his spiritual children, grandchildren, cousins, and fellow travelers, especially among the Jews, continue to press the case of his significance, and in so doing, to test the saintliness of the contemporary Church itself. "In his day," in the "cellar" of the Soviet Union, he did something unusual. He was an "original creation" as an intellectual in the Church.

"Pasha," a Russian Jewish Christian now living in New York suggested the following:

To show you are a Jew in Orthodoxy is a kind of litmus paper. Jewry is the verification of faith for a Christian. Why? If you take this paper, Jewry, and you immerse it in someone's faith, and the paper changes color, even just a little, then that is a marker that something is not right in his faith. True Orthodoxy, the Orthodoxy his followers believe was preached by Men', is thus associated with tolerance and ecumenism, with what they see as the true message of the gospels. And any Orthodoxy that does not accept Jews, that flunks the litmus test, must have abandoned its true ecumenical form and become intent only on its own ritualistic laws. Did Men' revolutionize the Russian Orthodox Church? By no means. Was he a messiah? Absolutely not. Does his legacy point out to the Church how it might "heal itself"? In a quiet, sometimes defeatist and always paradoxical way: Yes.

He is eternal Life, and we are His

Like Mary of Nazareth, the Theotokos, we should live our lives in such a way that when they look into our tomb, they will find nothing, not a trace, nothing even to show that we passed this way. Like her, we have found the greatest Treasure, the Son and Word of God, whose friendship is the greatest wealth, who clothes us with His righteousness so that we can claim absolutely nothing as our own. Like her, we “have left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land” for His sake. Repaid a hundred times over? And also inherit eternal life? How can we not?

For He is eternal Life, and we are His.

Psalms for the 14th Day

It is impossible to read the Psalms and not come away with more than you have given. The Lord speaks to us through them to the very details of our lives, answering all our concerns, all our prayers even before we ask Him. He is a good and loving God.

Psalm 71, one of the Psalms appointed for the fourteenth day of the month, always stops me in my tracks, especially when I read the words, “To many I have seemed an enigma…” How true, Lord, how true! This was true when I used to pray this Psalm thirty-five years ago, and it’s still true today, but so is the second half of that verse, “but You are my firm refuge.”

God is faithful. He maintains us in our first call, and in our first love. All we have to do is stay close to Him. Here I share with you, brethren, a psalm of a man in his age, and a psalm of the same man in his youth, the sinner but servant of God, Romanós.

Psalms for the 14th Day
71 72 73 74

Psalm 71

An old man's prayer

In You, Yahweh, I take shelter;

never let me be disgraced.

In Your righteousness rescue me, deliver me,

turn Your ear to me and save me!

Be a sheltering rock for me,

a walled fortress to save me!

For You are my rock, my fortress.

My God, rescue me from the hands of the wicked,

from the clutches of rogue and tyrant!

For You alone are my hope, Lord,

Yahweh, I have trusted You since my youth,

I have relied on You since I was born,

You have been my portion from my mother's womb,

and the constant theme of my praise.

To many I have seemed an enigma,

but You are my firm refuge.

My mouth is full of Your praises,

filled with Your splendour all day long.

Do not reject me, now I am old,

nor desert me, now my strength is failing,

for my enemies are uttering threats,

spies hatching their conspiracy:

‘Hound him down now that God has deserted him,

seize him, there is no one to rescue him!’

God, do not stand aside,

my God, come quickly and help me!

Shame and ruin on those

who attack me;

may insult and disgrace cover those

whose aim is to hurt me!

I promise that, ever hopeful,

I will praise You more and more,

my lips shall proclaim Your righteousness

and power to save, all day long.

I will come in the power of Yahweh

to commemorate Your righteousness, Yours alone.

God, You taught me when I was young,

and I am still proclaiming Your marvels.

Now that I am old and grey,

God, do not desert me;

let me live to tell the rising generation

about Your strength and power,

about Your heavenly righteousness, God.

You have done great things;

who, God, is comparable to You?

You have sent me misery and hardship,

but You will give me life again,

You will pull me up again from the depths of the earth,

prolong my old age, and once more comfort me.

I promise I will thank You on the lyre,

my ever-faithful God,

I will play the harp in Your honour,

Holy One of Israel.

My lips shall sing for joy as I play to You,

and this soul of mine which You have redeemed.

All day long, my tongue

shall be talking of Your righteousness.

Shame and disgrace on those

whose aim is to hurt me!

[Amín!]

Psalm 73

The triumph of justice

God is indeed good to Israel,

the Lord is good to pure hearts.

My feet were on the point of stumbling,

a little further and I should have slipped,

envying the arrogant as I did,

and watching the wicked get rich.

For them, no such thing as pain,

their bodies are healthy and strong,

they do not suffer as other men do,

no human afflictions for them!

So pride is their chain of honour,

violence the garment that covers them;

their spite oozes like fat,

their hearts drop with slyness.

Cynical advocates of evil,

lofty advocates of force,

they think their mouth is heaven

and their tongue can dictate on earth.

This is why my people turn to them

and lap up all they say,

asking, 'How will God find out?

Does the Most High know everything?

Look at them: these are the wicked,

well-off and still getting richer!'

After all, why should I keep my own heart pure,

and wash my hands in innocence,

if You plague me all day long

and discipline me every morning?

Had I said, 'That talk appeals to me',

I should have betrayed your children's race.

Instead, I tried to analyse the problem,

hard though I found it—

until the day I pierced the mystery

and saw the end in store for them:

they are on a slippery slope, You put them there,

You urge them on to ruin,

until suddenly they fall,

done for, terrified to death.

When You wake up, Lord, You shrug them off

like the phantoms of a waking dream.

When my heart had been growing sourer

with pains shooting through my loins,

I had simply failed to understand,

my stupid attitude to You was brutish.

Even so, I stayed in Your presence,

You held my right hand;

now guide me with advice

and in the end receive me into glory.

I look to no one else in heaven,

I delight in nothing else on earth.

My flesh and my heart are pining with love,

my heart's Rock, my own, God for ever!

So then: those who abandon You are doomed,

You destroy the adulterous deserter;

whereas my joy lies in being close to God.

I have taken shelter in the Lord,

continually to proclaim what You have done.

[Amín!]

Hymns on Paradise

Some stanzas from St Ephrem of Syria's Hymns on Paradise…

Hymn VI

1

The keys of doctrine

which unlock all of Scripture's books,

have opened up before my eyes

the book of creation,

the treasure house of the Ark,

the crown of the Law.

This is a book which, above its companions,

has in its narrative

made the Creator perceptible

and transmitted His actions;

it has envisioned all His craftsmanship,

made manifest His works of art.

Response

Blessed is He who through His Cross

has flung open Paradise.

2

Scripture brought me

to the gate of Paradise,

and the mind, which is spiritual,

stood in amazement and wonder as it entered,

the intellect grew dizzy and weak

as the senses were no longer able

to contain its treasures—

so magnificent they were—

or to discern its savors

and find any comparison for its colors,

or take in its beauties

so as to describe them in words.

4

Paradise raised me up as I perceived it,

it enriched me as I meditated upon it;

I forgot my poor estate,

for it had made me drunk with its fragrance.

I became as though no longer my old self,

for it renewed me with all its varied nature.

I swam around in its magnificent waves;

and in the place that, burning like a furnace,

had made Adam naked,

I became so inebriated

that I forgot all my sins there.

5

Although I was not sufficient

for all the waves of its beauty,

Paradise took me up and cast me

into a sea still greater;

in its fair beauty I beheld

those who are far more beautiful than it,

and I reflected:

if Paradise be so glorious,

how much more glorious should Adam be,

who is in the image of its Planter,

and how much fairer the Cross

upon which the Son of its Lord rode.

7

God planted the fair Garden,

He built the pure Church;

upon the Tree of Knowledge

He established the injunction.

He gave joy, but they took no delight,

He gave admonition, but they were unafraid.

In the Church He implanted

the Word

which causes rejoicing with its promises,

which causes fear with its warnings:

he who despises the Word, perishes,

he who takes warning, lives.

8

The assembly of saints

bears resemblance to Paradise:

in each day is plucked

the fruit of Him who gives life to all;

in it, my brethren, is trodden

the cluster of grapes, to be the Medicine of Life.

The serpent is crippled and bound

by the curse,

while Eve's mouth is sealed

with a silence that is beneficial

—but it also serves once again

as a harp to sing the praises of her Creator.

9

Among the saints none is naked,

for they have put on glory,

nor is any clad in those leaves

or standing in shame,

for they have found, through our Lord,

the robe that belongs to Adam and Eve.

As the Church

purges her ears

of the serpent's poison,

those who had lost their garments,

having listened to it and become diseased,

have now been renewed and whitened.

22

The East has grown luminous with the saints,

with them the West has become brilliant,

the North is raised up by them,

from them the South has learned.

They have ascended to the firmament and opened it,

they have gone down to the sea and explored it;

the mystery that the apostle revealed

in a parable

have they extended to all humankind,

reaching every corner;

all creation has embraced it

to draw strength from it.

23

One of them cleft

the air with his chariot;

the Watchers rejoiced as they met him,

seeing that a body

had lately taken up its abode among them;

and just as an earthly being

ascended in a chariot

and put on splendor,

so did the Lord, in His grace,

descend and put on a body;

He then mounted a cloud and ascended

to reign over high and low.

25

With love and instruction,

commingled with truth,

the intellect can grow

and become rich with new things,

as it meditates with discernment

on the treasure store of hidden mysteries.

For my part, I have loved, and so learned,

and become assured

that Paradise possesses

the haven of the victorious.

As I have been held worthy to perceive it,

so make me worthy to enter it!

Response

Blessed is He who through His Cross

has flung open Paradise.

And you too

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.

Before the world was made, He chose us, chose us in Christ,
to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in His presence,
determining that we should become His adopted sons,
through Jesus Christ, for His kind purposes,
to make us praise the glory of His grace,
His free gift to us in the Beloved,
in whom, through His blood, we gain our freedom,
the forgiveness of our sins.

Such is the richness of the grace
which He has showered on us
in all wisdom and insight.
He has let us know the mystery of His purpose,
the hidden plan He so kindly made in Christ from the beginning
to act upon when the times had run their course to the end:
that He would bring everything together under Christ, as Head,
everything in the heavens and everything on earth.

And it is in Him that we were claimed as God's own,
chosen from the beginning,
under the predetermined plan of the One who guides all things
as He decides by His own will;
chosen to be,
for His greater glory,
the people who would put their hopes in Christ before He came.

Now you too, in Him,
have heard the message of the truth and the good news
of your salvation,
and have believed it;
and you too have been stamped
with the seal of the Holy Spirit of the Promise,
the pledge of our inheritance
which brings freedom for those whom God has taken for His own,
to make His glory praised.

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of Him. May He enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope His call holds for you, what rich glories He has promised the saints will inherit and how infinitely great is the power that He has exercised for us believers.

This you can tell from the strength of His power at work in Christ, when He used it to raise Him from the dead and make Him sit at His right hand, in heaven, far above every sovereignty, authority, power, or domination, or any other name that can be named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. He has put all things under His feet, and made Him, as the ruler of everything, the Head of the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills the whole creation.

This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name:

Out of His infinite glory, may He give you the power through His Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.

Glory to Him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; glory be to Him from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 1:3-14, 17-23; 3:14-21 Jerusalem Bible

Why the Lord came

The Lord came, not to do something easy, but to do something true. He came to bring truth and life. By His obedience unto death, He rent from top to bottom the veil of corruption and rebellion that separated us from God, and He opened to us the entrance to the Holy of Holies of freedom and unity. He did not come to unite men among themselves by making light of their differences. He did not come to exhort us to mere "peaceful coexistence." He came to unite us, through Himself, with His Father and our Father. "For through Him we have access in one Spirit to the Father" (Ephesians 2:18).

He did not aim to leave behind Him a group of individuals working well together, for even sinners do this: they cooperate with sinners (cf. Matthew 5:47). He came to give us rebirth and to bring a new unity, one which is trinitarian; to bring a peace which passes all understanding, His own: "My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you" (John 14:27).

…He came to give Himself, to distribute His flesh: "Take, eat My Body which is broken." He came to give His Spirit: "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). So He created the little flock of the twelve, the Church. He brought to the world the dynamic force and health of the Trinity, the leaven of the Kingdom which will leaven the three measures which represent the whole of creation (cf. Luke 13:21).

What the world needs is the trinitarian flock, regardless of whether it is small or large. Its greatness is to be found in its trinitarian nature. What man thirsts for is eternity, "even a little part of eternity"; and this is what we have here. To have the character of the Trinity is to be eternal. "This is eternal life, that they know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3).

— Archimandrite Vasileios

Lowly love

This my 888th post… Ιησους Χριστος… εις αγιος, εις Κυριος εις δοξαν Θεου Πατρος, αμην!

If we see all others, Christian or not, as persons to whom Christ comes, without judging them by denominational labels—in this I am following Mother Gavrilía Papayánni who in turn is following Christ—then our appearance to them will be the same welcoming smile that Christ flashed at us when we drew near to Him.

If the Church is to be true, then no one of its adherents should ever close the door on anyone. As for making a mockery of sinners, why cast challenges in their faces? We cannot do that to others, and I confess I have done the same many times in my life, but I repent, I repent, and if I fall into it again, I repent again. We can't do that to others, because that puts them on the defensive, and makes them shut their doors and windows a little tighter to us and, if we are really following Jesus, to the Truth.

We dissuade our children from destructive or nonsensical preoccupations by showing them better things to do with their time, not just superior in some moral sense, but truly better, something that even they can see is more worthwhile. Flaunting the superiority of Orthodoxy or any faith in the face of another is counterproductive and demeaning. If something is obviously true, everyone knows it, even those who don't like it. For example, no need to tell homosexuals that their lifestyle based on perverted sexual acts is wrong. They know it already. They want to try to convince us that it is right and even a moral equivalent of normal sexuality. This will never happen, because there is a fundamental goodness and desire for things "as they must be" inside of everyone, even homosexually practicing persons. If they could be normal, they would be, but they find themselves faced with an impediment they cannot get over, so they give in. This is an extreme example, but I am giving it for this reason…

I used to work in a company full of lesbians. They knew I was an Orthodox Christian. They knew I believed homosexuality is wrong. They also knew they could come to me for comfort and healing when they had run themselves ragged, or were crushed by a broken love affair. They knew I wouldn't judge them. They knew I would just calmly and gently ask them to confess to me, and then pray for them to be delivered from what was hurting and defeating them. I didn't need to spell it out. They just felt my arm around their shoulders as we sat together on the loading dock (it was a cabinet shop), and heard my voice and saw my smile and my eyes peering at them to see if they were recovering. They knew I loved them whatever they did, and that I wanted the best for them. Did any of them ever give their lives to Christ and seek release? I didn't see it happen, but it is only my privilege to love a soul into healing, not to deliver it from death. That is between the Lord and that soul. But what if I simply stood apart from them as from filth and did nothing, or worse yet, laughed at their sin, and mocked them? What then?

If I can do this with a gay or lesbian person, I can do it with anyone.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy might, all thy mind, all thy heart and all thy soul, and thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Let your words ring true…

…and do not let them appear to create a divide between the systematic and holistic aspects inherent in Orthodox Christianity and all other Christianities.

We can be thankful for what we have accepted from our holy and pious ancestors in the faith and from the saints with whom we are living and working out our salvation today, and we can also praise them.

The opportunity lies in our invitation extended to those who haven’t yet “seen the true Light… received the heavenly Spirit… found the true faith.” This is no scolding, but an invitation to greater love,

that greater love which causes us to lay down our lives for our brothers. And who are our brothers? People even closer to us than our neighbors, and yet even between them we draw no distinction.

We are all met by Christ Himself, regardless of whether we are Orthodox or not, even Christians or not. We are all met by Him and offered eternal life, by the Savior of the world who did not let His divinity overwhelm His humanity.

In the same way, let’s walk together in the seamless faith which confesses no tear, moving through the world as the One Body of Christ wearing His undivided garment, that which soldiers wagered to win.

“He who does not gather with Me, scatters,” says the Lord Jesus Christ, who does not notice anything about us other than our need. Just as holy apostle Paul says, we are unspiritual. The Spirit in us must take us to Himself.

The sheep who were wandering aimlessly without a shepherd have been gathered and are being gathered by the Shepherd of souls, who is presenting us to His Father, the heavenly King.

Come let us worship, and fall down before Yahweh our Maker, for we are the people He pastures, the flock that He guides. Keeping our eyes on Jesus, following Him closely, other sheep follow, if only we give them room.