Who She is

For the most part, my experiences as a blog writer have been very positive. I have tried to stay away from topics that would incite controversy, but not always with complete success. Sometimes I've expressed ideas that I thought might draw down criticism or judgment, and I received none. Sometimes I've written what I thought could not possibly draw me into an argument, and yet it did. Even when countered, I've tried very hard not to let my blogs become arenas for verbal battles. I was not always this way.

I first started blogging as a parallel testimony to what I was doing 'on the street,' which was reading the Word of God aloud publicly. I wanted to document what happened when I did this. Surprisingly, I rarely encountered any opposition or aggression when reading the Bible publicly unlike others who, preaching their own message while waving around a black leather-bound book, often drew crowds of mockers. I tried to follow what Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, to be strong when the Word is strong, to be weak when it is weak.

What my experience taught me about this was, you can't force Jesus down people's throats, especially when you've got Him sandwiched between slices of your denominational philosophy. Though my 'mission' on the street was carried on in this pacific way, sometimes in the blog world I was not quite so harmless. Sometimes I criticised, even blasted, people and systems that I have a problem with. In my comments on the blogs of others, I also pressed what I thought was my advantage. This was, to be sure, quite wrong of me, if I were a follower of Jesus.

How little we see, sometimes, when we hide Him from view by our smoggy intentions. Smog, mind you, not smoke, not the smoke of the Presence, which surrounds Him alone, but smog, the unhealthy byproduct of our anxieties. Yet we mistake the one for the other. We hide ourselves from God when He comes calling, and then complain that He hides Himself from us, when we call. This is the ground floor of the human condition, which I share with everyone I meet, and our experience together is that only One can raise us from this degradation, yet we try to raise ourselves by lowering others.

My blog was visited just now by a woman who implies that she is the Woman mentioned in the book of Revelation. When I followed back the link to a web page that she provided in her comment, I couldn't believe my eyes. Rarely does one encounter another human being whose audacity is so glaring. Yes, I've labored under the delusion that something I might say or do could help save someone. This is a common delusion, especially of those who would 'teach' others. I know there is only One Teacher, the Messiah, and at my best I am only repeating what has been handed over to me.

I deleted her comment, which was harmless enough, though it carried a sectarian overtone and a premonition of higher knowledge, so that no one who came here might be confused or tantalised by the claims she makes in her web page. But it still astounds me, and startles me that such a person could exist. We hear of public figures like the Puerto Rican reincarnation of Paul the Apostle who later was divinely upgraded to being both the second coming of Jesus Christ, and the Antichrist, all at the same time. He tells us that sin is no more, and that he comes to rule the earth.

Such impositions on the mortal mind stagger my imagination. Again, because audacity seems to outdo itself with every new messiah, once only male but now female too. What Bible verse cannot be twisted by our imaginations to serve our glorification? I think back on my own life and shudder with shame, for I am no different in kind, only in degree. How simple the story is, that God has revealed through Jesus Christ His Son, and how believable it is, once we admit the truth about ourselves, which we must admit before we can ever admit the Truth about Him.

Enigma, that is what life is, and we ourselves, all enigmas awaiting resolution. Everything partial, all things opaque to us except ourselves, and yet we cannot even see ourselves clearly. My favorite poet writing his 'Song of Myself,' how luxuriant, how confident his pronouncements. I love his Leaves of Grass, not because they are true the same way that Christ is True, but because he reveals in them the truth about himself and about us, even about me, who for all our wonderful beauty, life, energy, darkness, pain, and weakness, remain asleep and dead, until He bids us, 'Rise!'

Evening confession. Outpourings of a blind old Greek with a Jew's heart, rich in his poverty, owning nothing but his own sinfulness, seeking no one but the Eternal, even knowing that finding Him is the losing of himself. The end of all things is nigh, but not as prophesied by bibliolators or boasted by Sabine women clothed in the sun who use the moon as a swing. The dragon that seeks to swallow the Man Child is not the same as the dragon whose year has just begun, that harmless creature who carries the Son of Heaven home when his mandate is foreclosed.

Infinite Mercy stands waiting, hidden behind our walls, to reveal Himself, at every moment knowing exactly where we need Him most, and why we are in need. He does not wait as we wait. He is ready when we call, echoing unknowingly His calling us. His forgiveness covers even our audacity in believing we are God, that we do not need Him, that our freedom originates in ourselves. His salvation in bathing us does not drown us in the process, but makes us clean again, forgetting our uncleanness forever.

Yes, and the Woman clothed with the sun, yes, we will find out exactly who She is.

Christ fulfills all

More and more I say again and again to myself and to others, ‘Just follow Jesus. Do what you see Him doing. He is still doing it, even in today's world, not as a historical figure that you can read about and study, but as living people, men and women called to be saints today, alive not with their own life but with the life of Christ who personally lives in them today, living lives of grace, of peace, of healing, of forgiveness, of reconciliation, yes, following Jesus.

These words by a recent Church Father come from his writing called, The Agony of the Church, and continue the theme that I presented in the post Inclusive. Christ is the New Testament that completes the Old Testaments, not of the Jews only, but of all nations and cultures, and Holy Church, following her Master closely, deals with the peoples as He does, not as Caesar does, loving them, not lording over them, yes, following Jesus.

By His birth [Christ] included and bound together the lowest and the highest, the natural and the supernatural: stable, manger, straw, sheep and shepherds on the one hand; stars, angels, magi and Davidic royal origin on the other.

By His life He included the austerity of the Indian monks, of John the Baptist and the Nazarenes on the one hand; and on the other the Confucian moderate feasting, in the houses of friends, at the marriage feast and on other solemn occasions.

His life-drama was interwoven into the lives of all classes of people: men, women and children, Judaists and heathen, King Herod and the proconsul Pilate, priests and soldiers, merchants and beggars, learned sophists and ignorant fools, the sick and the healthy, the righteous and the sinful, Jews and Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and all others who could be met in Palestine, the very market of races and creeds.

He was by no means a party man like the Pharisees and the doctors of law. He called both the Pharisees and their enemies to follow Him. He went to the temple to pray, but He also prayed alone in the desert. He kept the Sabbath and He broke the Sabbath by healing the sick and doing good on this sacred day. He came not to destroy the Law, but He brought something which was higher than the Law and even included the Law itself, i.e., love and mercy.

He rebuked people who used to pray and say, ‘Lord, Lord!’ And yet He prayed very often Himself. He rebuked those who were fasting, and yet He used to fast Himself. What He really looked for was neither prayer nor fasting, but the spirit in which one prayed or fasted.

He commanded the people to give to Caesar things which were Caesar’s, and to God that which was God’s. He did not criticise this or that form of government, nor did He accentuate Monarchism, Republicanism, or Socialism as one form preferable to another. Under His scheme all forms of government were included as equally good or evil according to what place they reserved for God, what gifts they duly gave to God, and by what spirit they were inspired.

He followed the customs of His nation, and did not break them or evade them purposely. He took food according to the Law, and washed hands according to the Law, and went to the Holy City and took part in worship in the temple (though He was ‘greater than the temple’), according to the Law. It seems that He excluded no form of worship or social life, though He despised the unclean and petty spirit with which the hypocrites filled these forms. And when it came to a dispute He, the Messenger of a new spirit, naturally tried to save rather the pure spirit even without a form than a form filled with an impure spirit. Therefore He felt bound to say, ‘Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man,’ or ‘to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man,’ or ‘thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,’ etc.

Even so, too, He embraced all nationalities and races. Nothing was for Him unclean that God had created, nothing but unclean spirits. When the Roman centurion asked help from Him, He gave it. And when the people beyond the Israelitish boundaries, from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, cried after Him, He did not listen to the exclusivistic warnings of His disciples, but He distributed even there His divine mercy. He was mindful even of the people of Nineveh. And when He sent His disciples, He sent them to ‘all nations.’

Finally, He included the natural and the supernatural. He talked with spirits. He saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. He stood amongst Peter, John and James on one side, and Moses and Elias on the other. All the people saw lilies in the field and sparrows upon the roof, but He saw more, He saw how His Father clothed the lilies and how He fed the sparrows. He united the natural and the supernatural in His teaching.

‘Love those who love thee’ was a natural teaching, but He added, ‘and those who hate and persecute thee,’ which was supernatural.

‘Give to them who give to thee’ was a natural teaching, but He added, ‘and to them who do not give to thee,’ which was supernatural.

‘Bless those who bless thee,’ but He added, ‘and those who curse thee,’ which was supernatural.

And He united the natural and supernatural in His death. He suffered and died in agony. He rose from the dead, descended to Hell and ascended to Heaven. For Him there was as little boundary between heaven and earth, between nature and supernature, as between Israel and Canaan, or as between man and man, or form and form.

His wisdom was inclusive from the beginning to the end. What did He ever exclude—save unclean spirits? His disciples were as exclusive as anybody could be, exclusive when judging and acting according to natural wisdom. But when they looked at Him, they were reconciled. He was the Holy Wisdom, in which everyone could find a mansion for himself, every disciple, every nation, every form of worship, everything—but the unclean spirit.

— Nikolaj Velimirović, Bishop of Ohrid and Žiča

Fellowship

I just read a message which I regularly receive by email from Pastor Zac Poonen in Bangalore, India. He is a 'Protestant' pastor, in the sense that he does not 'belong' to either the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox 'church', but from my point of view he is simply a man of God, and I, as an Orthodox Christian, make no distinction between him and any other Christian or Church father who is gifted with wisdom and prophetic insight. All wisdom comes from the Divine Logos, the Word and Son of God, Jesus Christ, and all prophecy is 'seeing things as they are' without absolute reference to past, present or future. If these are bestowed on a believer, what does it matter what he is called or calls himself?

What Pastor Zac writes about in his messages is nothing sectarian or cultish, but the plain and simple truth. What he writes about in the message I am reproducing in full below is just another angle on a topic that I write about frequently. Why? Because it cries out to be heard, from the very pages of the holy Gospel. Reading what the pastor has written made me say to myself, 'Well, it's a pity that we Christians can't get along, that we can't follow Christ and imitate His love for us by loving each other, but we are just a tiny, faithful remnant living amidst an unholy, unrighteous, apostate and rebellious crowd of imposters who call themselves 'Christians' and falsely believe that they are 'the Church.' It's too bad that we can't love them and get along with them, but they're just so awful. Even Christ would understand, if only He knew what we have to put up with!'

Yes, this is the kind of inner dialog and self-justification that must be going on inside of us when we separate ourselves from each other, refusing to acknowledge Christ in each other, because of doctrinal differences. Does doctrine matter? Well, yes, it does. Does doctrine guarantee salvation or place us in peril of damnation? I'm not so sure. Does faith alone save? Well, yes and no. Faith without works—that is, without love—is dead, so let me ask, 'Does dead faith save?' I have no problem with 'salvation by faith alone,' as long as the rejoinder is, 'but only the obedient believe—that is, have saving faith.' Yes, we Orthodox 'possess' the living faith of the dead, not the dead faith of the living—or do we? How can we know for sure what kind of faith we 'possess'?

It all boils down to the nature of our loves and our hates. All and everything are worthy of our love—and love means genuine benevolence fully laden with fear of God, with faith and love—and only one object demands our hate—sin itself. Why? Because it is sin alone which murders our fellow men, and ourselves. Let us flee from the spiritual suicide of hating our brothers, by loving not only fellow believers in Christ, but loving all human beings for whom Christ came and gave His life—for Jews, for Muslims, for Hindus, for Buddhists, for the rich, for the poor, for the black, for the white, for the righteous, for the wicked, for our friends, for our enemies—in short, for our neighbor.

Brethren, now here is the message that Pastor Zac wrote this week. Without qualification, let's admit the Truth when we meet it, wherever we find it, and not only when it appears to come from sources we consider 'authorized.' Why? Because this is how the Lord Himself confounded the wise and authorized of this world, by pouring out His Spirit on all mankind, according to His generosity and our capacity. One is Holy, One is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father…

Valuing True Christian Fellowship

Zac Poonen

Despite man's advancement in many areas, human relationships continue to present problems all over the world. Business concerns and agencies spend huge sums employing personnel to promote harmony among workers. Well, one might think it is understandable that self-centred, unconverted people find it difficult to get along with each other, but surely when people are born-again and have become new creatures in Christ, such problems can never arise. For, after all, when God is the center of one's life and service, what possible room can there be for the petty problems that besiege others?

Yet, sadly, no proof is needed of the fact that Christians fight and quarrel with each other, all over the world. Many are not even on speaking terms with some of their fellow-Christians; some cannot even stand the sight of certain other Christians. The Name of God continues to be disgraced in the world by the behaviour of professing believers.   Jesus said that the world would identify His disciples by their intense love for one another. This was - generally speaking - literally fulfilled in the first two centuries of the Christian era. The world looked at the Christians with amazement then, and exclaimed, "Behold how these Christians love one another!" Today, the story is different and the world often says, "Behold how these Christians hate one another!"

Relationships are indeed most important. Gifts, talents, methods, techniques, programmes and finances are all secondary to people and to inter-personal relationships. The church can fulfill her God-ordained function as the light of the world only when there is true Christian fellowship among her members. Likewise, an individual believer can become a minister of life to others only when he himself has learned to live according to the law of love with his fellow-Christians.

The Bible plainly and repeatedly teaches that no Christian can have fellowship with God without fellowshipping with other believers. You cannot walk with God if you do not walk in love with your fellow-believer. The cross on which Jesus died had two planks - a vertical one and a horizontal one: Jesus came to bring peace not only between man and God (vertically) but also between man and man (horizontally). The vertical and the horizontal relationships go hand in hand. You cannot have the former if you ignore the latter.

John, the apostle of love, has some very strong words to say on this matter. One of the evidences, he says, of genuine conversion is that a man begins to love his fellow-Christians. If a man does not have this love, it is a sure indication that his conversion is spurious and that he is heading for eternal death (1 John 3:14). Doctrinal correctness was not the only test that the apostles applied to ascertain where a man stood in relation to God. Later on in the same letter, John says that if a man claims that he loves God while hating his brother, he is a liar. Mark that! The proper name for such a man is not "believer", but rather, "liar"! And John's logic is irresistible. He says a brother is visible whereas God is invisible. If you cannot love the visible, it is impossible to love the invisible. (1 John 4:20).

Now compare this with the experience of most "believers." Love for God is usually assessed in terms of busy activity in Christian work or in terms of rapturous feelings of delight experienced in a meeting. These can be most deceptive. I have come across believers who are out of fellowship with other Christians, who testify nevertheless to "wonderful times of prayer" and to "amazing results in service." How could they possibly be walking with God when they have not even made an effort to settle matters with other members of God's family against whom they have a grudge? Surely Satan has blinded their minds to the truth of Scripture!

Often, we do not realise what we deprive ourselves of, when fellowship is broken with other believers. The Bible tells us that we can discover the breadth, length, depth and height of Christ's love and be filled with all the fullness of God only along "with all the saints" (Ephesians 3:17-19). It is only as we know the reality of fellowship with the believers God places us with, that we shall be able to enter into an experiential understanding of the love of Christ and of the fullness of God.

The one who cuts himself off from any fellow-Christian, thereby deprives himself of the experience of Christ's love and grace which could have been his through that person. When we fail to live by the law of love, we rob ourselves of some of Christ's riches and some of God's fulness.

After a dream

I awakened in the dark, the last scenes of a strange dream still ebbing through my mind. I was traveling, and at a stopping point had gone to a temple to worship at vespers. I returned to where I had left my belongings. Where were they? Where was my coat, my blanket? Where was my satchel full of tools? The blanket, I found. The jacket and the satchel were gone and the tools scattered all over the room, tiny nails that I used in my work, strewn in their hundreds all over the floor. Who would help me gather them up, and where would I put them, since my bag was gone?

In my room with uncovered windows, not a hint of light—it was still pre-dawn. I lay there as always when He awakens me, and I began to talk to Him, to thank Him for all that He has done for me. I stopped almost before I began. Something was different. The darkness was warm and calm, His presence filled every minute of space and time. I was enfolded, and it was my turn to listen, His to speak. “My will is your certainty. My good will your protection.” Nothing is more certain than the future, nothing more certain than the past. “I was there at your beginning. I am here with you now. I will be there at your end.”

I started again to thank Him and praise Him, but the smoke of His presence filled the temple, and I was driven back. In the silence He spoke what words cannot repeat. I listened while I recalled the days of old. How I wanted to find Him but did not know what He would be for me when I found Him. How I did not find Him, but He found me. How I wanted to choose Him, how I wanted to dedicate my life to Him. How I did not choose Him, but He chose me. How He said to me, “Not this offering,” pointing at my vegetables, “but This,” pointing at His Lamb.

“You were with Me when I laid the earth’s foundations, and you will be with Me when I close the door on this icy age.” Did I do something to deserve this? Was it my choice, my free will that did this? How was it that in the flow of time I appeared and did something that could raise me out of that flow? “You would not have called to Me, if I had not been calling to you. You will never understand this, never grasp this, until you shed the skin from your eye and see Me as I see you. It is enough that your eye should be single and your body full of light.”

I took pause, selah. The darkness surrounded me, and the silence. My thoughts and deeds, apt for their time, my friends and loved ones I will never see again on earth, my current circumstances provided for, what will happen, who will yet come, all unknown to me but as certain, as apt, as providential as the past, as this moment. He set me on my feet and bade me walk in His ways, shielding me from harm, entrusting me to His commandments. Nothing different will ever happen to me, because on me His day has already dawned, the day without end. Rest in that, my soul, selah.

Grave light began to mix with the darkness. I could see my hand before my face. I reached over and took up my psalm book, opened it randomly to the 57th psalm. Lamenatzéach al tashchét, leDavíd mikhtám, kevarchó mipnéy Sha’úl bam‘aráh… “For the Conductor, a plea to be spared from destruction, by David, a Michtam, when he fled from Saul, in the cave…” Chanéyni, Elohím, chanéyni… “Favor me, O God, favor me…” My eyes could barely make out the letters on the page, and they closed by themselves, my spirit contemplating the rest of the psalm without reading it. Then I rested, and fell back to speaking to the Lord.

So it was He that chose me of His free will, just as He chose to ascend the Cross of His free will, for me. So it was He from the beginning who had me in His sights, not I who was looking for Him. So it was He saved me and called me ‘Brother’ before I came to the place of meeting He had arranged for me, to that holy rendezvous.
“I waited until you noticed the signs I had been sending, and then by the signs I sent you, you understood that I was standing behind your wall. I spoke to you when you believed not in Me, but in the signs. When you believed in the signs, you were ready to hear My voice.”

So it was He who kept me from wandering in the past to the lands from which there is no escape. It was He who kept me out of the prison from which there is no release. When I asked Him to keep me from the sin that kills eternally, because in me is no strength to resist it, He had already placed His seal on my heart, on my arm, to prevent me, and I, not noticing, asked Him for what He already bestowed. “Glory to You, O God. Glory to You, O God. Glory to You, O God.” And the hymn of the 1st Tone started up in my mind,
“Though the tomb was sealed by a stone and soldiers guarded Your pure body, You arose, O Savior, on the third day, giving life unto the world…”

The morning is now full. When dawn really came, and the sun rose a little to the southeast of the mountain and started pouring its light into my room, I took up my psalm book, which I had been clasping to my chest, and prayed parts of several psalms, whatever verses my eyes fell on. I was still held in suspense by what I heard in the pre-dawn darkness, even as I am now. So the future is as certain as the past. It is finished. The words I use to say these things, though, I have said, read or heard before, without knowing what they meant.

I bless Yahweh, who is my counselor,
and in the night my inmost self instructs me…
Psalm 16:7 Jerusalem Bible

Psalms for the 3rd Day
15 16 17 18 (English)
18 19 20 21 22 (Hebrew)

Who pleads for you?

My hope is the Father,
my refuge is the Son,
my protection is the Holy Spirit:
O Holy Trinity, glory to Thee.
from the service of Compline

One is Holy,
One is Lord,
Jesus Christ
to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
from the Divine Liturgy

Lord, God Almighty, You alone are holy. You accept a sacrifice of praise from those who call upon You with their whole heart. Receive also the prayer of us sinners and let it reach Your holy altar. Enable us to bring before You gifts and spiritual sacrifices for our sins and for the transgressions of the people. Make us worthy to find grace in Your presence so that our sacrifice may be pleasing to You and that Your good and gracious Spirit may abide with us, with the gifts here presented, and with all Your people. Through the mercies of Your only begotten Son with whom You are blessed, together with Your all holy, good, and life giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages.
from the Divine Liturgy, prayer of the Proskomidí

With God on our side, who can be against us? Since God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to benefit us all, we may be certain, after such a gift, that He will not refuse anything He can give. Could anyone accuse those that God has chosen? When God acquits, could anyone condemn? Could Christ Jesus? No! He not only died for us—He rose from the dead, and there at God’s right hand He stands and pleads for us.
Romans 8:31-34 Jerusalem Bible

He… has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken His place for ever, at the right hand of God, where He is now waiting until His enemies are made into a footstool for Him. By virtue of that one single offering, He has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom He is sanctifying.
Hebrews 10:12-14 JB

In a new love

Dietrich Bonhoeffer with students, Spring 1932

A true Christian is made by faith and love toward Christ.
Our sins do not in the least hinder our Christianity
according to the word of the Savior Himself. He deigned to say,
‘Not the righteous have I come to call, but sinners to salvation; 
there is more joy in heaven over one who repents 
than over ninety righteous ones.’

Likewise, concerning the sinful woman who touched His feet,
He deigned to say to the Pharisee, Simon,
‘To one who has love, a great debt is forgiven, 
but from one who has no love, 
even a small debt will be demanded.’
From these judgments
a Christian should bring himself to hope and joy,
and not in the least accept an inflicted despair.
Here one needs the shield of faith.

Sin, to one who loves God,
is nothing other than an arrow from the enemy in battle.
The true Christian is a warrior
fighting his way through the regiments of the unseen enemy
to his heavenly homeland.

According to the word of the Apostle,
our homeland is in heaven,
and about the warrior he says, 
‘our warfare is not against flesh and blood, 
but against principalities and powers, 
against the rulers of the darkness of this age, 
against the spirits of wickedness under heaven.’

The vain desires of this world separate us from our homeland;
love of them, and habit, clothes our soul
as if in a hideous garment.
This is called by the Apostles, ‘the outward man.’

We, traveling on the journey of this life and calling on God to help us,
ought to be divesting ourselves of this hideous garment
and clothing ourselves in new desires,
in a new love of the age to come,
and thereby to receive knowledge of how near or how far we are
from our heavenly homeland.

But it is not possible to do this quickly;
rather one must follow the example of sick people, who,
wishing the desired health,
do not leave off seeking means to cure themselves.

Herman of Alaska

No one can hurt you…

…if you are determined to do only what is right; if you do have to suffer for being good, you will count it a blessing. There is no need to be afraid or to worry about them. Simply reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have. But give it with courtesy and respect and a clear conscience, so that those who slander you when you are living a good life in Christ may be proved wrong in the accusations that they bring. And if it is the will of God that you should suffer, it is better to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong.

1 Peter 3:13-17 Jerusalem Bible

The good life

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 to 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.

And you were dead,
through the crimes and sins in which you used to live
when you were following the way of this world,
obeying the ruler who governs the air,
the spirit who is at work in the rebellious.

We all were among them too in the past,
living sensual lives, ruled entirely by our own physical desires
and our own ideas, so that by nature
we were as much under God's anger as the rest of the world.

But God loved us with so much love
that He was generous with His mercy:
When we were dead through our sins,
He brought us to life with Christ—
it is through grace that you have been saved—
and raised us up with Him and gave us a place with Him
in heaven, in Christ Jesus.

This was to show for all ages to come,
through His goodness to us in Christ Jesus,
how infinitely rich He is in grace.

Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith;
not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God;
not by anything that you have done,
so that nobody can claim the credit.

We are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus
to live the good life as from the beginning
He had meant us to live it.

Ephesians 1:17 - 2:10 Jerusalem Bible

Orthodoxy on trial

The triumph of Orthodoxy is not what we so boldly play it up to be on the Sunday dedicated to this name. Yes, they fought hard battles and long, the victors now becoming the victims later, then exchanging places as readily as dancers, as imperial and sacerdotal whims gave way to one another, and crowds of old men, some saints and others mere savants, dissecting each other's brains to an atomic level, and straining each other's syllables spoken, sung or scribed through sieves of partiality so clogged with flesh and blood, that it's a wonder anything came through.

It's not really about whether we make ikons or break them, whether we fellowship with saints above or only with those below. Nor is it about whether we can name a faithful virgin of Israel the mother of the ineffable God or only of the God-Man she bore, or whether Himself He had at all times an unobstructed and single will, nature, and being, or only appeared so.

It's not really about whether the Spirit can come on whomsoever He wishes with the anointing that teaches everything infallibly, or on all who call upon Him, or only on those upon whom human hands have been laid, over whom human tongues have prayed, generation after generation, unbroken, from the beginning.

The triumph of Orthodoxy is to be put on trial, tested by every antagonist, human and inhuman, visible and invisible, rational and irrational, using every temptation, to glory, to humiliation, to wealth, to poverty, to power, to weakness, to joy, to sorrow, to health, to sickness, to life, and to death, and thus tried, to come forth as a bride made beautiful for her Bridegroom, without any flaw, dressed in spotless white, with a heart purged of all malice, forgetful of all injury, seeking only to love, to love all without measure, without exception, unaware of her exaltation, her eyes fixed forever on her Beloved.

Unless we are put on trial in this way, we will never triumph.
Today we are one day closer to it than we were yesterday.
Are we ready?

How much lower

There are two attitudes one will have in life, and all of us alternate between them. They are real opposites, unwilling of any mixing of themselves, except when we move from one to the other, and then it only appears that they merge. I call these attitudes ‘high’ and ‘low.’ Not only are they attitudes, they are states, but being expressed they can be called attitudes. ‘High’ has nothing low about it, and ‘low’ has nothing high. They are not each other and cannot be, nor can they meet, nor merge, nor integrate. High is high, and low is low. This is the nature of being itself. Well, until Jesus Christ came, that’s how it was. There was no room for anything else.

In Jesus Christ, the ‘high’ was made ‘low’ and in a manner that no human explanation has ever adequately described. We never saw it coming. We couldn’t have. We still can’t understand how it’s possible. All our thinking is based on slides, on gradual shift, on evolution, on observable metamorphosis. We think we can understand how humanity might have evolved from lower life forms, and we fantasize about what lies ahead on our evolutionary path. It is still inconceivable that the ‘high’—or whatever it is that created and governs what exists—can enter, or manifest as, or simply be, the ‘low’—for in spite of ourselves, most of us think that’s what mankind is, ‘dust in the wind.’

We read, ‘His state was divine, yet He did not cling to His equality with God but emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave’ (Philippians 2:6-7), and we ask ourselves, ‘How much lower can you get?’ In our modern world slavery is not even supposed to exist, but we all seem to know what it means. Perhaps slavery isn’t as dead as we thought. Perhaps it’s still happening among us under a different name. ‘At any rate,’ we say to ourselves, ‘I won’t let that happen to me.’ This speaker has the ‘high’ attitude. He won’t do something for nothing. He won’t go out of his way to help a stranger or friend. He’s out for number one—himself. His first question is always, ‘What’s in it for me?’

If we believe what the Bible says about Christ, do we also believe what it says about us? Or do we shrug that part off—sin—with an innocent sounding, ‘What sin? I haven’t done anything wrong,’ and then go our merry way, doing what seems good in our own eyes? After all, we’re all good people, really, very, very good. We can have the ‘high’ attitude without even realizing it, talking to ourselves like this. We may even think we have the ‘low’ attitude because of our occasional ‘good deed.’ But only if we don’t read the Bible. That horrible book—though we love to praise it, talk about it, even worship its syllables—can luckily have no effect on us if we don’t read it, and so we don’t. There! That was easy!

It tells us of a ‘high’ God who became ‘low’ and that’s fine. Let’s stop reading there, because if we read a little more it might tell us something about us, how much lower we might have to go ourselves. No, that wouldn’t do. We’re satisfied to be ‘high’ while pretending to be ‘low’ just as we’ve learned to parrot our sinfulness so we can pretend to be saved. But what does the apostle say? ‘Though I am not a slave of any man I have made myself a slave to everyone so as to win as many as I could. I made myself a Jew to the Jews, to win the Jews; that is, I who am not a subject of the Law made myself a subject of the Law to those who are subjects of the Law, to win those who are subject to the Law.

‘To those who have no Law, I was free of the Law myself (though not free from God’s law, being under the law of Christ) to win those who have no Law. For the weak, I made myself weak. I made myself all things to all men in order to save some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a share in its blessings’
(1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Who but an apostle could say such things about himself? How much lower could a person sink than to say things like that, let alone do them? That is really having a ‘low’ attitude. Aside from being too impractical, who has time for such things? And what’s in it for me? This is why I wrote at the outset, ‘high’ and ‘low’ have nothing to do with each other.

A better way to put it is in the words of Jesus, ‘No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other’ (Matthew 6:24). Yes, He is speaking about God versus money, but what is money, or mammon in the original text, but that which can keep us propped up on our ‘high’ chair, our throne? And what happens when we intend to serve God and carry out our intention? Who sits on the throne, and who serves, and who is served? ‘A man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen’ (John 4:20). Yes, how much lower can you get?

Today the Uncreated

Ποίημα Σωφρονίου Πατριάρχου Ιεροσολύμων
(Poem of Sophronios, patriarch of Jerusalem)

The full original Greek text is HERE.

Τριάς υπερούσιε, υπεραγαθε, υπέρθεε, παντοδύναμε, παντεπίσκοπε, αόρατε, ακατάληπτε…

Triad beyond all being, beyond all goodness, beyond all godhead,
all-powerful, all-vigilant, invisible, incomprehensible;
Creator of the spiritual beings and rational natures,
innate goodness, unapproachable Light
that enlightens everyone coming into the world,
shine also in me your unworthy servant.

Enlighten the eyes of my mind that I may dare to sing
the praise of your measureless benevolence and power.
May my supplication for the people here present be acceptable,
so that my offences may not prevent the Holy Spirit
from being present here; but permit me now
without condemnation to cry out to you and say,

Master, lover of mankind, beyond all goodness,
Almighty, eternal King:
We glorify you, the Creator and Fashioner of the universe.
We glorify you, only-begotten Son of God,
without father from your Mother, without mother from your Father.
For in the preceding feast we saw you as a babe,
but in the present one we see you full and perfect man,
our God, made manifest as perfect God from perfect God.

For today
the moment of the feast is here for us
and the choir of saints assembles here with us,
and Angels keep festival with mortals.
Today the grace of the Holy Spirit
in the form of a dove dwelt upon the waters.
Today the Sun that never sets has dawned
and the world is made radiant with the light of the Lord.
Today the Moon with its radiant beams
sheds light on the world.
Today the stars formed of light make the inhabited world lovely
with the brightness of their splendour.
Today the clouds rain down from heaven
the shower of justice for mankind.

Today the Uncreated by his own will
accepts the laying on of hands by his own creature.

Today the Prophet and Forerunner draws near,
but stands by with fear seeing God’s condescension towards us.
Today the streams of Jordan are changed into healing
by the presence of the Lord.
Today all creation is watered by mystical streams.
Today the failings of mankind are being washed away
by the waters of Jordan.
Today Paradise is opened for mortals
and the Sun of justice shines down on us.
Today the bitter water as once for Moses’ people
is changed to sweetness by the presence of the Lord.
Today we have been delivered from the ancient grief,
and saved as the new Israel.
Today we have been redeemed from darkness
and are filled with radiance
by the light of the knowledge of God.
Today the gloomy fog of the world is cleansed
by the manifestation of our God.
Today all creation shines with light from on high.
Today error has been destroyed
and the coming of the Master makes for us
a way of salvation.
Today things on high keep festival with those below,
and those below commune with those on high.
Today the sacred and triumphant
festal assembly of the Orthodox exults.
Today the Master hastens towards baptism,
that he may lead humanity to the heights.
Today the One who does not bow
bows down to his own servant,
that he may free us from servitude.
Today we have purchased the Kingdom of heaven,
for the Kingdom of the Lord will have no end.
Today earth and sea share the joy of the world,
and the world has been filled with gladness.

The waters saw you, O God,
the waters saw you and were afraid.
The Jordan turned back
when it saw the fire of the godhead
descending in bodily form and entering it.
The Jordan turned back
as it contemplated the Holy Spirit
in the form of a dove,
descending and flying about you.
The Jordan turned back
as it saw the Invisible made visible,
the Creator made flesh,
the Master in the form of a servant.
The Jordan turned back
and the mountains leapt
as they saw God in the flesh,
and the clouds uttered their voice,
marvelling at what had come to pass,
seeing Light from Light,
true God from true God,
the Master’s festival today in Jordan;
seeing him drowning the death from disobedience,
the goad of error and the bond of Hell in Jordan
and granting the Baptism of salvation to the world.

Therefore I too, a sinner and your unworthy servant,
recount the greatness of your wonders
and, seized with fear, in compunction cry out to you:

Great are you, O Lord, and wonderful your works,
and no word is adequate to sing the praise of your wonders.
Glory to you, O Lord, glory to you!
Μέγας ει Κύριε, και θαυμαστά τα έργα σου…

Today is Theophany, the 6th of January on the ‘Old Calendar’ (Julian calendar, still used liturgically by a majority of Orthodox Christians worldwide), arguably the third most important Feast Day after Pascha (Easter) and Nativity (Christmas), and in ancient times the second. The Feast of Christ's Nativity was originally celebrated together with His Theophany. Later, the Church separated the two, in order to emphasize the different aspects of Christ's first coming. The pagan holiday of Sol Invictus was replaced by Christmas.

Could it be us?

We are amazed at the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees when they heard Christ's teachings. 'We would never be like that! What hypocrites they were, teaching one thing and practicing another, using their religion to protect their own interests! No wonder Christ said, Listen to their teachings but don't do what they do!'

What if the teaching of Christ makes us blinder than we were before, deafer, more unfeeling? What if knowing Him makes us feel superior to those who don't? What if we feel privileged to 'plunder the Egyptians' and claim for ourselves what we deny them? What if we no longer can tell our right hand from our left?

'In Your Light we see the light,' chants the psalmist, but what if our eye is not single? What if our whole body is full of darkness? As the Lord says, 'What darkness that will be!' For the Light has come, 'the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned' (Isaiah 9:2).

And who is that people? Could it be us?

For we are Yours

So much of what passes for inspirational or devotional literature in Orthodoxy is simply sweetly stereotyped platitudes. 'The saints are grieved when we sin, and they rejoice when we are good...' and things like that. Of course, if we source such religious verbiage to a well-known saint, ancient or modern, that makes it authoritative, and we feel pleasantly edified. It doesn't matter if it adds absolutely nothing to our real life, whether in the world or in our inner life—that is, if we have one!

Mutual admiration societies can enslave whole nations for centuries, feeding generations of sleeping souls with the regurgitated porridge of piety. Christ comes into the room saying, 'Behold! I make all things new!' and is met by deaf ears. Having forgotten our first love, we languish in self-pity and paint ourselves poorer than we were yesterday, while pedestalizing the saints as rich and meritorious. We cannot climb up to their level. They've retreated to their pillars and yanked up the ropes!

O Christ, what a wasteland we have made the fertile fields Your blood has watered! You would walk in us, dispensing blessing, loving all comers, healing all and raising every creature to immortality, yet we bind our own feet, we willingly cripple ourselves like vain concubines of a fickle master. But You, O Christ, are the Lord, our God, the Bridegroom of the Bride, the Faithful and True, You who make her, who make us, spotless, secure, radiant, fruitful, who call us, 'Beloved, My one and only.'

O holy, divine Triad, You have said of us, 'We have a little sister, and her breasts are not yet grown. What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver on her. If she is a door, we will enclose her with panels of cedar' (Song of Songs 8:8-9).

Remove from us our limpid, wavering love, and bestow on us the love that lasts, the faith that moves mountains, for our breasts are not yet grown. Build towers of silver on us, gleaming with the reflection of Your Light, that we no longer hide ourselves, for the City set on a hill cannot be hid. Open our door, that the cedars Your hand has planted may finally flourish, that we may know and be known. Yes, Lord, save us from ourselves, for we are Yours.

Waiting is

The phrase “waiting is” is about the only thing that has stayed with me all these years from my reading of the science fiction cult novel Stranger in a Strange Land, by Heinlein. It was a favorite saying of Valentine Michael Smith, the main character in that book, a human who had been raised as an orphaned child on Mars by the inhabitants of that planet. When he is returned to earth, he causes a sensation because his mindset is totally Martian in every respect, as are all of his habits. He ends up becoming a messiah figure who starts a new religion, the Church of All Worlds. I dug up these details from the internet because, as I admit, the only thing that stuck in my mind was the phrase, “waiting is.”

Why did the phrase stick? Well, to be blunt, I have spent most of my life waiting for something or someone. Was my intrinsic attitude somehow an unconscious result of reading the novel, or just my heredity expressing itself, the last in a long line of men who have been very, very patient with everyone?

I have had a good apprenticeship at waiting most of my life, but only in these last years has the object of my waiting shifted. Before, I waited only on human beings and their needs; now I wait primarily for Christ. He is the only one worth waiting for, because He brings not only His gifts, He brings Himself.

Books of science fiction, especially from the 1960’s and ’70’s, tend to wander into fantasy about alternative religions, as they are mirrors of the real world in which they arise, where any religion is superior to the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why is that? Because mankind is a religious animal, and we are by nature shocked and offended by a God who becomes one of us precisely to put religion to death.

And so, these novels tend to promote religions, many of which resemble those we already know on earth, especially Buddhism, which seems to be a favorite. But religion is always only man’s best shot at escaping the horrible mess we find ourselves in, because we can’t accept that to escape our predicament—sin—means death to us, death to the world as we know it. So we take our best shot at whatever it is we’re searching for.

Buddhism is man’s best shot at achieving some kind of personal inner peace, if not salvation, given that there is either no God, or He is far too big and busy to deal with us.

Hinduism is man’s best shot at achieving some kind of personal safety, now and possibly in future lives, by satisfying the need for worship of the myriad hypersomatic beings, devas, that invisibly infest the human world.

Islam is man’s best shot at achieving some level of moralistic order in society for the masses, and justification for the immoral excesses of a select few, at the cost of a total denial of human freedom, while promising an otherworldly reward for the surrendered, and threatening thisworldly punishment for the unsurrendered.

Judaism is man’s best shot at achieving some kind of personal salvation, and a sense of righteousness, given that the only God has chosen the people of a certain lineage, to which they belong, to bring everyone to a knowledge of Him, while remaining outside His promises.

Christianity is man’s best shot at achieving some kind of personal salvation, with the least possible commitment to righteous living or self-sacrifice, by formal adherence to or membership in religious associations, while trampling on the call of the one they call Lord.

In the wasteland that is this world, I have waited, and been fortunate to have met two or three followers of Jesus who stand firmly on the Word of God, keep their lamps lit, remain vigilant, wait on the voice of Jesus at every moment and desire to do what He commands, and are willing to suffer for the sake of His name.

I didn’t look for them.
I waited, and He sent them.

And I too can only hope to be one of them, by continuing to open my door when He knocks and to welcome Him into my house, which I want to be His.

Help me, Lord, to seek not my own, but Your will alone, and to be willing to accept everything that happens to me at Your hands, for You alone are the lover of mankind, and Your Word is truth.

I bless You, Lord, at the assemblies.
Psalm 26:12

Psalm for the 18th Day

PSALM 90

The human condition

Prayer of Moses, man of God.

Lord, You have been our refuge age after age.

Before the mountains were born,

before the earth or the world came to birth,

You were God from all eternity and for ever.

You can turn man back into dust

by saying, ‘Back to what you were, you sons of men!’

To You, a thousand years are a single day,

a yesterday now over, an hour of the night.

You brush men away like waking dreams,

they are like grass

sprouting and flowering in the morning,

withered and dry before dusk.

We too are burned up by Your anger

and terrified by Your fury;

having summoned up our sins

You inspect our secrets by Your own light.

Our days dwindle under Your wrath,

our lives are over in a breath

—our life lasts for seventy years,

eighty with good health,

but they all add up to anxiety and trouble—

over in a trice, and then we are gone.

Who yet has felt the full force of Your fury,

or learned to fear the violence of Your rage?

Teach us to count how few days we have

and so gain wisdom of heart.

Relent, Yahweh! How much longer do we have?

Take pity on Your servants!

Let us wake in the morning filled with Your love

and sing and be happy all our days;

make our future as happy as our past was sad,

those years when You were punishing us.

Let Your servants see what You can do for them,

let their children see Your glory.

May the sweetness of the Lord be on us!

Make all we do succeed.

Next… Psalm 91

Fearless love

We shall not care what people think of us, or how they treat us. We shall cease to be afraid of falling out of favor. We shall love our fellow men without thought of whether they love us.

Christ gave us the commandment to love others but did not make it a condition of salvation that they should love us. Indeed, we may positively be disliked for independence of spirit. It is essential in these days to be able to protect ourselves from the influence of those with whom we come in contact. Otherwise we risk losing both faith and prayer.

Let the whole world dismiss us as unworthy of attention, trust or respect—it will not matter provided that the Lord accept us. And vice versa: it will profit us nothing if the whole world thinks well of us and sings our praises, if the Lord declines to abide with us. This is only a fragment of the freedom Christ meant when He said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8.32).

Our sole care will be to continue in the word of Christ, to become His disciples and cease to be servants of sin.

— Elder Sophrony [1896-1993]

Preparers of the way

Everyone exists to prepare the way for someone. And everyone who lives has been waited for, even longed for, and the way for them has been prepared. There have been for everyone, for you, for me, preparers of the way.

First, there were our parents, who wanted us. That is too obvious, yet for many that is also not true. They may have been ‘an accident,’ an unwanted, but mercy intervened somehow, or fear, but for whatever reason, their lives were allowed to continue. They escaped being aborted. Yet, though their mother or father didn’t really want them, someone else did, and that person was waiting for them, preparing the way even before knowing why.

This is no speculation, nor even a solid guess, this is a certainty.
It is written all over the facts of life, on both sides,
and in the acts of God. Do we see it?

Everyone is preparing the way for someone, usually for many, and in general, and once we think about it, it’s obvious. But we also are preparers of the way for another individual, not all of us are, but some are. It is a type of call. We see this in holy and divine scripture. Every prophet, in fact, is qualified by this call to prepare the way for ‘One who is coming who is mightier than I.’

We know the name of the last of these special preparers of the way. It is the holy, honorable prophet and forerunner, John the Baptist, the one who said, ‘a man can lay claim only to what is given him from heaven.’ Ruthlessly honest.

We don’t have to be prophets to be preparers of the way,
but what if we are?

In most cases we are preparers of the way for others just as ordinary as ourselves. We think us and them so ordinary that we don’t give it much thought. Why make a big deal out of nothing?
But is it, are we, really nothing?
I don’t think so.

Again, back to the premise, whether you think it true or false, that we are wanted, which means that there is a preparer of the way for each one of us, and the more we listen up, the more we’ll hear,
and the more we hear, the more we will believe,
since faith comes by hearing.

One day, doing your ordinary job, whatever God called you to do, it could be working in a factory or behind your teacher’s desk at school, or sorting the vegetables if you happen to be a green grocer; you could be driving your cab or bus, working a booth at the farmer’s market, or cutting hair in a styling salon; you could be on an Alaskan fishing boat, or working the oil rigs, or any number of jobs that you think are just ordinary, even demeaning or boring; and suddenly, someone crosses your path, and something inside says, ‘that’s the one.’ Not talking romance, not talking fantasy, not talking at all.

Remember John? He baptised Jesus, and then let Him go. Only later, when he saw Jesus walking by, he pointed Him out to his disciples and said, ‘That’s the One. That’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’

We’ve grown so used to this story and seeing this pattern of preparers of the way in relation to religion that it never occurs to us that the same pattern is happening all the time, around us, and to us. Sometimes we are the preparers of the way, sometimes we are the one who is prepared for. This pattern is part of the drive train of the universe, and we know Who the Force behind it all really is.

We prepare the way for one another.
‘He must become greater,
I must become less.’

This is the way it works, this is how to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, to undergo a contraction within us, so that another real person can be born into the world.

To make room for the ones that are sent to you.
Yes, ‘every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain,’
this is the work of the preparers of the way.

Religious animals

Sometimes it seems to me that modern man, modern Christian man, is no better off with regard to God than were his ancient pagan ancestors. The gods of the nations, our old gods, were very mysterious, very enigmatic, hiding themselves from us by day, revealing themselves to us in fleeting, dreamlike encounters by night, fostering an ever-increasing legacy of mythology that, poetic though it was, offered no real clues that could be followed to their source. As C. S. Lewis mused in his greatest novel Till We Have Faces, “why must holy places be dark places?”

So the modern Christian often complains of finding God, his God, mysterious, elusive, unresponsive, disprovidential, and even absent. It makes good subject matter for book writers, both for those who lodge the complaint and for those who seek to defend God against it, as well as for those who try to lay down some method to track and trap God, so that the believer can finally pin Him down and make Him own up to His responsibilities.

All this comes from a pre-existing religious condition in mankind. This is something that, like original sin, seems to be universal. Every race of mankind has it, something like a spiritual birth defect, a built-in compensation for original sin. It makes mankind a species of religious animals, always trying to cover up their nakedness before God, while simultaneously shifting the blame elsewhere, and hoping to gain God’s approval somehow.

Religious animals is what we became after the fall of Adam. Before that fall, there was no such thing as religion. Man walked with God, and God walked with man. Our mutual familiarity and intimate friendship left no room for religious exercises. We walked with God, He walked with us. That was all the exercise we had need of.

But after the fall, what do we find?
Starting with Adam’s grandson Enosh the son of Seth, scripture says, “At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD” (Genesis 4:26 NIV). Now it’s not a bad thing to call upon the name of the Lord, but it shows perhaps that we believe that God is somewhere else, or that we are, and He has to be called. Hence, religion came into being as a channel of communication with Him with whom we used to talk face to face.

Now, this is where we find ourselves in the natural man. An opaque veil shrouds us from the Divine Nature, to protect us, in the same way that the Ark of the Covenant is shrouded when carried among the people, not to hide the Ark from their eyes, but to protect them from it. The natural man follows after the First Adam, no longer able to walk with God because of sin, or to see Him and speak to Him face to face.

There has come a Second Adam, however, who like the first is called “the Son of God” but who, unlike the first, has not disobeyed and fallen. He still walks with the Lord and speaks to Him face to face, and this ability to speak to the Father and to walk with Him side by side, as in the Garden, He has given “to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name.” To them, to us, “He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13 NIV). This is something that appears quite incredible to the world, and to the natural man, but to the spiritual man, the man of faith, this is an open door. The Second Adam has opened the gates of Paradise to us, starting with the repentant thief who, not being able to steal the things of this world anymore because he was nailed like Jesus to a cross, stole something immeasurably greater, re-admittance to the Garden, going in as thoroughly naked as an infant enters into this world.

What happened to the religious animal that is the natural man? Walking in the Garden with Jesus, side by side with His Father and our Father, speaking to Them both face to face as one speaks to his friend, religion like the skins of animals has been left behind without being replaced by fig leaves.

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
Luke 2:14 NIV

Our Father

πατερ ημων ο εν τοις ουρανοις
αγιασθητω το ονομα σου
ελθετω η βασιλεια σου
γενηθητω το θελημα σου
ως εν ουρανω και επι της γης
τον αρτον ημων τον επιουσιον δος ημιν σημερον
και αφες ημιν τα οφειληματα ημων
ως και ημεις αφιεμεν τοις οφειλεταις ημων
και μη εισενεγκης ημας εις πειρασμον
αλλα ρυσαι ημας απο του πονηρου
οτι σου εστιν η βασιλεια
και η δυναμις και η δοξα
εις τους αιωνας αμην

Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, for ever. Amen.
Matthew 6:9-13

The Lord's prayer is both bottomless and has no lid. Its depth transcends even the deepest pit of our sorrows and humiliations, yet it exceeds the highest of our expectations. It reveals the Father who is there, who is ours, who loves us, who answers us before we ask, who is faithful, in whom we live and move and have our being. Praying it puts us in the shoes of His Son, and when He looks at His Son standing in humble petition before Him, what will He not grant, what will He not supply?

Commandments

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

Here are a few passages from the booklet “Spiritual Economy” by Father Matta el-Meskeen, spiritual father of the monastery of St Macarius, the Desert of Scete, Egypt...

…the power of faith in God is greatly strengthened when we believe in our hearts that the works that God performs with us surpass all our estimations, so much so that He can create a new creation from nothingness: “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matthew 3:9).

How much more then will He give us what we need when necessary, and grant us all power and help in fulfilling His commandments, be it in fasting, vigil, prayer, voluntary poverty, sacrificial love, or any sort of service that is within His commandments.

Shall we then shrink from fulfilling His commandments for fear of falling ill or becoming weak? To St Paul the Apostle He has said, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). To this St Paul himself also testifies, “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Shall we then be afraid to apply His commandments lest we or our children should hunger, thirst, go naked, or become destitute? The Lord Himself has said, “Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26).

Shall we fear confessing Him lest we should be persecuted? Has He not said, “Blessed are you when men revile and persecute you and utter all manner of evil against you falsely on My account” (Matthew 5:11)?

And when relying upon Him alone with no power, no artifice or weapon, shall we then fear death? For He has said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28).

Therefore it should be firmly established in our minds that the One who has laid down the commandments for us has done so simply and solely for our gain; He has guaranteed the success of everyone who fulfills them with good intentions. The loss in the commandments, which appears frightful to the ego and the body, is in fact the touchstone of faith; latent in the loss is testimony for which is offered the reward.

The soundness of one's spiritual economy is the measure of one's faith. The strength, fervor and soundness of faith can neither be judged by a man's professed creed, nor by his thoughts, nor his writings, but rather by his works and behavior: “…and I by my works will show you my faith” (James 2:18).

Correct theoretical faith in accordance with the foundation of sound beliefs as handed down by the Church is, in effect, the general foundation laid down for all who wish to build upon it their house of faith. But if a man builds nothing upon it, how can he claim that it is his faith?

As James the Apostle puts it, whoever is contented with the universal truth that “God exists,” that person has no merit; for demons also believe the same, even confessing Him and trembling at His existence. In other words, man must prove his faith in the existence of God by his prayer, as well as by his behavior among people in accordance with God's directives and commandments.

His behavior in the midst of hardships and tribulations should clearly proclaim his personal trust in and practical reliance on God…

How then can you love God except by fulfilling His commandments? Or how can you grow in His love except by growth in devotion, and by precisely fulfilling even the smallest of His commandments?

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me” (John 15:14). “If a man loves Me, he will keep My word” (John 14:23). “He who does not love Me does not keep My words” (John 14:24).

The question that everybody then asks is, “How can I grow and be strong?” This question is the same as, “How can my love in Christ grow and be strong?” The answer is provided by the verses cited above. In other words, how do you propose to keep the words of Christ? By what sort of zeal, love and ardency will you persist in scrupulously, faithfully, and sincerely fulfilling His commandments?

When one first begins to manage one's spiritual life, it clearly appears how faith conflicts with man's comfort, how the commandments of Christ stand against human honor, and how the sayings of Christ taste bitter on the palate of the ego which seeks to be glorified by people, and which seeks to change all opportunities of the spirit into opportunities for personal fame.

The gauge of faith's exactitude, appropriateness, and even its orthodoxy, is manifest in man's readiness to reject the whole of earthly life, and with that to relinquish all its comfort and false glory, if it conflicts with even the least of Christ's commandments.

Ever and always your whole life long, the devil will pressure you with all possible guile, to ease up in your adherence to the Truth in order to maintain your worldly or social status. He will alarm you and confuse you, so that you might relinquish Christ's commandments in order to attain an opportunity for pomp, authority and outward glory.

Thus the Gospel, and along with it Christ, become victims along the path of your utilization and exploitation of chances for gain, comfort, and transient glory…

This is the measure of free faith, and blessed is he who chooses loss, weariness, contempt, illness, or even death instead of relinquishing his fidelity to God. For if he dares to choose this, then he will receive strength that will compensate all loss—a strength he had never known of or expected, that strength which we call grace, which means “the gratuitous omnipotence of God,” and which is so tightly bound to faith:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).
It is not just any faith, but rather the faith of one who is bold and defiant of death.

This omnipotence makes hard things easy for you and elevates your flesh and senses above the needs of nature. Thus it is that man prays without fatigue, fasts without wasting away, serves without flagging, loves without ceasing—all this with fervor in asceticism and spiritual economy that never grows cold.

— Abba Matta al-Meskeen (1919-2006)

Son, I have posted these words for you, to help you right now. These words I took to myself as a young man only a little older than you are now, and I believed them, and I began to live by them, and now that I am old, I continue in them, for they are the words of Jesus, spoken by His beloved servant, my spiritual father, Matta el-Meskeen.

Of course, I never met the elder in person, but by living in the words of Jesus, as he also did, I have come safely to this moment, just as he promised, when he writes, ‘He has guaranteed the success of everyone who fulfills them with good intentions.’

Trust me, Son, and let's serve Christ this way together. He has called us, and He will not fail us.
He makes us fearless. He makes us true men.