The house built on rock

As the ‘Great and Holy Council’ is about to begin, I could not help myself. I have to post this again, just to encourage myself that, whatever happens, Christ is still the Head of the Church, and she is His beloved Bride. Originally posted August 17, 2015.

The ‘Great and Holy Council of 2016’ is being prepared. Purposely I have not looked into it and know nothing about it, only the name, which I even had to research to make sure it was correct, and that it was really happening. I am not a seminary-trained theologian or a member of the ordained clergy, and what I am about to say is therefore at best my humble opinion, at worst maybe potential heresy. Until a great council is convened, many free thoughts remain free and their thinkers within the fold of Holy Church; afterwards, maybe not. Councils are convened as much to root out the unwanted as they are to plant anew what ‘the mind of the Church’ desires. That mind is also supposed to be at one with the mind of Christ, as it was at the first, ‘for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials’ (Acts 15:28). Unfortunately, history shows us that this is not always the case. The unity of the Church must remain either only a metaphor, or else, the church that holds itself to be ‘the only true’ must protect itself and God instead of following Christ.

Why the Council? My guess is, the Orthodox are thinking that they have been gradually growing apart from each other, as well as in relation to ‘the world,’ which cannot see us as a faith to be reckoned with, because visibly we seem fragmented and ineffectual. Myself, I feel that this apparent disunity is a symptom of our lack of heroic and decisive leadership, which produces a general confusion from the top down. In the 20th century we had such heroic, yes, even Christlike, leaders. The last of them are quickly dying off, and they seem to have few, if any, successors of like stature. Whatever they think the ‘Great and Holy Council of 2016’ will achieve, I hope (and yes, pray) that it will be commandeered not by political and religious interests, but by the Holy Spirit. How will we know the difference?

I have yet many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. But He will speak whatever He hears, and He will tell you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will receive from Me and will declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine. Therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and will declare it to you.
John 16:12-15

To call a Council at the threshold of the third millennium has to be the work, not of men, but of the Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholic pope, John XXIII, prophetically inaugurated this work at the end of the second millennium. For those who were not yet alive, the last pope John was very much like the current pope Francis. They both have a way of living, speaking, and acting as if they were ordinary humans, not wearers of infallible authority. This behavior generates both hope and fear in members of their Church, and in the world generally. I have a hunch that, had pope John lived to see the Vatican Council to its conclusion (instead of presiding only at the first session), he would have been the last Roman pope, and the herald of the end of the Great Schism. The non-Roman observers he had invited would have been accepted for who they were—hierarchs and leaders of the universal Church—and the course of the Church, and of all of human history, would have been radically altered.

What do I hope for in a ‘Great and Holy Council’? Notice, I did not call it ‘the’ nor did I append a year. Why not? Because I do not know that this Council will be anything but a further estrangement between Christians, and the perpetuation of a ‘religious’ Christianity. I can only hope that it will be the final Council, the one that establishes for all time, not only the truth as Christ, but the way and the life as well. What I mean is, seeing as how we have verified beyond all shadow of a doubt who Jesus Christ is, we can begin to follow Him for real, not for religion. The Church must finally decide what she is, now that she knows who He is.

There is only one controversy to be decided. It is not about jurisdictions, nor about primacy. It is not about devotional practices, worship and the like, nor about morality, rules and regulations. It is about the life or death of the Church. We already have Christ’s promise that ‘the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,’ and so we know the Church will survive, and not only survive but triumph, and continue till the Day of Christ’s return. The controversy is, is the Church a religious society dedicated to its own perpetuation, or is it the transfiguration of all of humankind by the promotion of life in Christ? We’ve been doing the first—by our own efforts ‘preserving and protecting’ the Church—for two thousand years. Isn’t it about time to ‘let God be God,’ to stand on His promise to preserve the Church till the end of time, while we follow Jesus, doing what He does, learning from Him, obeying Him?

Whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it did not fall, for it was founded on rock. And everyone who hears these sayings of Mine and does not do them will be likened to a foolish man who built his house on sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it fell. And its fall was great.
Matthew 7:24-27

Let me put it another way. The Church has spent a great deal of effort, all through history, of creating structures real and theoretical, to tabernacle God, letting ‘Lord, have mercy’ replace being merciful, building a religious edifice that Christ Himself does not want. He did not come to start another religion, but to be the end of religion. Christ is not a religious reformer. He is the re-creation of the perfect Man. We call Him the ‘new’ or the ‘second Adam.’ His resurrection from the dead is an absolute novelty in the history, not only of the earth, but possibly of the universe. He didn’t rise from the dead and then die again, like Lazarus. Religion pales into absurdity and insignificance when we consider these facts, yet we make Christ’s teachings a metaphor instead of following them. Is this the Church that the ‘Great and Holy Council’ is going to secure for us and for humanity in the third ‘Christian’ millennium?

No, the Council shall alone be ‘great and holy’ that enthrones Christ, the King of kings of kings, not as a religious idol, but as the God who lives among us, healing our infirmities, curing us of blindness, raising us from the tombs of our sinful nature, preparing us by His holy commandments, making us in spirit and in truth (that is, in reality) a holy nation of priests and kings, extending the borders of the Church to encompass all of humanity, welcoming all to the life of transformation, expecting not the end of the world, but the end of the world as we have known it, dissolving division, slaying slander, abolishing the darkness of earthly ignorance and overturning the poverty of the knowledge of God, preaching and pursuing peace, inaugurating the wedding feast of heaven and earth.

How can the Council that is being planned be that one which transforms the human race, and history, in the way I have so inadequately described? By letting go, perhaps, of all concern for self-preservation, by abandoning exclusiveness, by seeing the Church not as a subset of humanity that intellectually accepts a body of religious doctrines, but as all humankind waiting for illumination, and, most of all, by returning to the word of Jesus, for that is the house built on rock.

God loves us so much

‘God loves us so much, that He’s done everything He can do to save us, and He doesn’t want it all to be wasted.’

I was trapped in a very strange dream sequence, which I call the ‘church dream.’ This is a recurring dream which I’ve had for more than twenty years, which has as its location—church. Usually, it’s the church I once attended and ministered out of, St. Mark’s, what I consider my original family church, a miniature masterpiece, architecturally a basilica with Italianate bell tower, interior based on the famous church in Venice, replete with frescoes and icons. The first few scenes in this dream sequence were based on St. Mark’s and had the same themes, me trying to explain to visitors why the great church was no longer what it once was. The last thing I remember out of those scenes was taking an embroidered icon cloth out of the church, rescuing it from oblivion because the ‘remodel’ had no place for it, and unrolling the cloth on my bed, so I could look at it more closely…

Other scenes followed, now not directly connected to a specific church building. The one that I remember as I awoke this morning was something like this.

This time I was in an Orthodox environment, but in no particular church. I was just bidding farewell to an Eastern European new immigrant, a young man, a musician, who had just received some kind of blessing from the church. It seemed like he had been in need of a new musical instrument so he could support himself, and maybe the church had just helped him out in some way. He was beaming.

Then, he told me of his old dad, who was a farmer with one cow, who was not making it in life, but who thought that if he had two cows, things might go better for him. This problem was keeping him away from church, locked in a mental battle, because of a rule that they had in their church, that a man had the church’s blessing only to have one cow. The priest in his church would not give him a blessing to have two cows. So he was staying away from church. I decided to go and visit him.

I found the old farmer, sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor of a small, unfurnished room, literally a cubbyhole the size of a walk-in closet, drinking a bowl of soup. He was the image of poverty itself, clad in faded old work clothes. He didn’t speak to me at all. I stood in the doorway silently for a moment, as tears started welling up inside me, I’m not sure why. I leaned my head on the doorpost and said to him, ‘God loves us so much, that He’s done everything He can do to save us, and He doesn’t want it all to be wasted.

‘Don’t let this matter of having two cows get in the way of your salvation. If you want another cow and can buy it, go and buy it. Then, go to your priest and ask him for his blessing. If he refuses to give it, thank him, say “That’s alright, father, that’s alright,” pay your respects, and leave. Then, come to the Greek priest. He will give you the blessing, because we don’t have a ‘one cow’ rule.’

At that point, I woke up.

Though dreams can often be quite meaningless and usually are, this one has some meaning. Though in my dreams I often hear or speak verses from the Bible, in this dream it wasn’t an exact Bible verse I cited, but something like a conflation of maybe John 3:16 and Romans 8:32. And that was that. No wordy sermon, just an assurance of God’s love for us, and a practical work-around to get through the ‘toll-gates’ of the Church.

Yes, though the Kingdom of God is but one country, ‘on earth as it is in heaven,’ it seems that somebody thought this wasn’t good enough. The ‘inheritance of the saints’ has been divided and sub-divided, the ‘first and greatest commandment, and the second like unto it’ multiplied into hundreds of rules and regulations, and the ‘one Mediator between God and man’ replaced by a multitude of gate-keepers.

Dreams, I think, come from a combination of factors—what happened to you the day before, your mental or emotional state, what you’ve been reading or watching on television or PC, even the state of your digestion. This dream is no exception. But God can even use our dreams, sometimes, to speak something in our ears.

If He were speaking in this dream, what might He be saying?

Deliverance

When you hear the word ‘deliverance’ in the context of Christianity, what comes to mind is, deliverance from a destructive lifestyle or obsessions or habits that threaten to permanently (in this life and in the hereafter) disable, even annihilate, people—in brief, to send them ‘to hell.’ The irony is that often the form of Christianity that espouses this kind of ‘ministry’ is actually substituting one form of addiction or affliction for another, not really delivering anyone, just changing the symptoms. The following essay is excerpted from the blog If God Is Love, from the author’s notes to ‘How Ignorance Obscures the Sense of Christ’, Discourse XV.2, by St Symeon the New Theologian. Italics in the essay are mine.

Allow me to consider what might be a subcategory of ignorance. There are churches — often groups which separate from mainstream churches for motives of correctness, or outspoken individuals within a mainstream church — which advocate for a narrow interpretation of Bible and Church. In other words, they claim to have the right answers and that everyone else is wrong and condemned. The result seems to be an idiosyncratic and even bizarre religiosity — having just enough truth elements to maintain the appearance of a church but with emphases which also distort Bible, Church, and history.

Ignorance and Correctness

How do people become like this? How can people read the Bible and yet remain ignorant? It seems to me that there are some people who are driven by a need for security and authority. Correctness and isolationism fulfill these deep psychological deficits. I can imagine these people as children — living in fear of abandonment and disapproval from parents and teachers. All children have these fears to some extent (because young children want to please adults and receive affirmation), but most children mature while others become permanently scarred. My speculation is that, in some cases, the experiences of emotional abandonment and behavioral disapproval transmute into an extreme need to be correct. Ironically, these people then disapprove of and disown all others who might pose the uncertainties of relationship, interaction, and human weaknesses.

There was a time when I myself felt the emotional impact of hyper-correct individuals. I had acquaintances among such people. It caused me to feel frightened for my salvation and confused about Jesus Christ. These people can tap into our innermost psychological fears and spiritual doubts. You see, there are indeed correct ways to do things. There is a correct way to sew a dress, to cook a casserole, to play a game of baseball, and to drive down the road. Part of growing up is to be trained in these correct ways. Moreover, there are consequences for incorrectness — everything from a burnt dinner to a speeding ticket.

However, correctness does not extend neatly into religion because of the dynamics of love and mercy, and because of the sovereignty of God the Father. Please do not think that I am undermining the Ten Commandments, for example, or even liturgical rites and prayer books. I am stressing the cultural and nationalistic elements, the picking and choosing of Bible passages for a foundation, the elitist strictness of rites and rubrics which never existed in the earliest centuries of the Church, the obsessive devotional practices, the use of charismatic expressions as proof of holiness, the racist and ethnic preferences, the fear-mongering toward those who are not correct, and the use of doctrine to separate rather than to gather. This all adds up to ignorance or illiteracy of Bible and Church.

Ignorance and Deliverance

Are ignorant people malicious? Or are they just misguided? I do not have the answer, and I will try not to judge. It is possible that, in this subcategory, there are variations of conditions. Some are probably prideful and fraudulent, some are mistaken and unfortunate, and some are victims of overpowering personalities and harsh upbringing. The use of fear, especially panic, can be contagious. It can spread like a virus, afflicting many people. However, we do not really have to figure out other people’s intentions. Perhaps the key is this: if you feel frightened rather than repentant, if you feel dehumanized rather than forgiven, then you might consider evaluating your religion or church leaders. You might visit some other churches, try to read the Bible with a fresh mind, and pray for deliverance from anything nonsensical and unmerciful.

More powerful than fear of hell fire

Ask any religionist—that is, anyone who adheres to a religion—if they want others to be converted to their religion, and I think that most, some after a moment’s thought, would probably answer, Yes. Most people who belong to a religious faith believe that theirs is the best of any. If their religion is one of the Abrahamic faiths, they might consider that those who do not convert to their faith are doomed to an eternity of punishment. Almost any other non-Abrahamic faith might at best feel the smugness of ‘my God is better than your God,’ or at least think ‘the God I chose works best for me’ and not have an opinion about those who follow other faiths.

Of the Abrahamic faiths, I think that Judaism, being the original, is the most mature and introspective, and I have almost never met a Jew who, though believing their faith the best or even the only true, has tried to convert me to Judaism. Part of this reluctance to promote their faith comes from a pride of race; not just anyone can be a member of God’s people. Yes, the Jews believe that they are God’s hereditary people, a notch above everyone else, and they have all of history to prove it. What happens to people after they die, moreover, is hardly to be considered. As a matter of fact, the Jews just know that God is fair and just, so no one who does what is right has anything to fear.

If I were to ask a Jew the question often put to Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish rabbi of twenty centuries ago, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ their answer would probably be, ‘Go home and be a—what did you say you were? a Catholic? Go home and be a good Catholic.’ If they were a particularly fussy (what they might call devout) kind of Jew, and learned at that, they might start by explaining to me that, since I am not a born Jew, I can find favor in God’s eyes by keeping the seven laws of Noah. If I pressed them further, they might allow me to stand in their synagogue at the back and pray and witness their service, but I might never come near the Torah scrolls or be counted in a minyan.

So much for the Jews. Ask a Christian—and there are so many kinds—the same question ‘What must I do to be saved?’ and though you’d expect them to willingly share their faith with you—evangelize you, for Christianity is a missionary faith—a good many would not know what to answer and might even be shocked that you should ask at all. To them, it’s obvious. You join a church and do what they tell you. I remember when I moved from mainstream Protestantism into the Greek Orthodox Church just short of thirty years ago, a Greek co-worker asked me, when I told her I was Orthodox, ‘How were you able to find us?’ as if Orthodoxy were, as often boasted, ‘America’s best kept secret.’

Brought up a Catholic and later lapsed, through study of books and life experiences self-evangelized at twenty-four years into the Episcopal Church, I was from that point on, eager to share my faith in Jesus Christ, and even to promote my church, because ‘I found it’ and was certain that, ‘if it works for me, it will work for you.’ Convert’s zeal was quickly dampened in me by what actually goes on in the Christian community, but I never lost my zeal to share, not the church, but Christ. Joining the Orthodox Church was for me not a conversion, just a refinement: Now, having entered the ‘original’ form of Christian community, I could evangelize for Christ, and He would evangelize for the Church.

Or so I thought, because as I put myself into situations where evangelism might be possible, I began to see that this is not really how God works. How would I know? Well, looking at Jesus Christ as He is portrayed in the Bible, what He does and what He says, and especially hearing Him say, ‘If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father,’ I had to rethink the motive for evangelism. For Christianity, you see, is a derivative religion. It is really a refined form of Judaism, but still essentially Jewish. The main difference is that it has, in theory at least, expanded the borders of ‘the Chosen People’ to encompass all of humanity—all, that is, who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, as God.

Back to the topic of wanting to proselytize, make converts of others, to one’s religion, and why anyone would want to do it, and asking Christians again, starting with the Bible-believers, those who affirm that ‘the Bible is the inerrant Word of God,’ we find that honestly or doctrinally, they fear for the ‘salvation’ of unbelievers and sinners. God, according to them, is angry with mankind, with all of us, and nothing we do to try to appease Him can succeed. If we don’t accept His Son Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we will spend eternity roasting in the fires of hell. This is not a new or uncommon belief. In some form it is held by religionists of other faiths, particularly Islam, and once by all Christians.

Once by all Christians, meaning the ‘roasting in hell’ part, but a good many Christians today, of all church affiliations, still believe something quite like it. We want to evangelize because those whose sins are not forgiven and expunged will be separated forever from God, and this forgiveness and expurgation is possible only while we are alive on earth. After death, whatever we have decided in life—for Christ, or without Him—determines our fate in eternity. Given that God is a mechanical Being, that He is a Divine accountant, a supreme Lawgiver, Lawyer, and Judge, and since He generously sacrificed part of Himself, His Son Jesus Christ, to acquit us of our iniquities, He can be this kind of God.

But is He really? Is the only possible interpretation of the life, teachings, and death of Jesus Christ the ‘angry God requires appeasement’ one? One thing is for sure, the last—and they would say the final—revelation of the Abrahamic God, Islam, continues to hold to the view of a God who is demanding, can be angry, and most certainly consigns ‘the wicked’ and ‘the unbelievers’ to hell fire. This basic pattern for the ‘God versus man’ relationship is implicit in all three Abrahamic religions and gives their adherents the motivation at least to be ‘good’ people and to ‘believe,’ as well as to warn others to do likewise, so that everyone can make God happy and be made happy in return, forever.

Outside the pale of these three, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a different idea of what God is like and, consequently, how we relate to Him, removes the motivation for their adherents to proselytize. When they do, it’s often to deliver people from the ‘angry God’ of the Abrahamic faiths—especially young Westerners. In classical times, the motivation was to spread civilization, the religious faiths being the carriers of material as well as spiritual technologies. Reflecting back on Christianity’s vast nineteenth and twentieth century missionary exploits, the same might be true.

It seems that way, at least in modern America, and in fact, it was this way for the past three centuries until very recently, in the western and northern parts of Europe as well. Christianity, by individual, personal evangelism along with social activism, raised the moral and material level of the peoples it evangelized. In modern America, the sects go after, and are usually only successful in evangelizing, the lower classes, those whose lifestyle has degenerated over the course of a few generations, into severe familial and personal dysfunction. Once raised, people often ‘outgrow’ Christianity.

So why don’t we ‘go fishing’ as Jesus calls it ‘for men’ if we really believe in a dangerous universe, where God is angry with us and will certainly punish us forever, even if we’re ‘good,’ because we don’t care a ripe fig about Jesus or what He has done for us? You know, why don’t people want to play the church game of ‘pretend to be a sinner, then pretend to be saved’ with us? Is it because they really have better things to do than contemplate the niceties of God, Christ, and religion, if that’s what it’s all about? To those who believe in the ‘inerrant Word of God’ I say, you haven’t done enough, not for yourselves or for God; you’ve been lavishing grace on yourselves, while letting the world go to hell in a hand-basket.

To those, like myself, who believe that Christ Jesus, not the Bible, is the incarnate, not just the inerrant, Word of God, I say, we haven’t done enough, not for ourselves or for humanity; we’ve been keeping our light hidden under a bushel, we haven’t followed even the most basic commandments of Jesus, ‘Therefore go, make disciples of all nations, teaching them everything, baptizing them’ in the life of the Holy Trinity, restoring their freedom, their human-divine dignity, healing their sickness, and raising them to life, here in time on earth, so that there, in eternity, they can continue to live with God. We should know that we have a motivation, one more powerful than fear of hell fire.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because He first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

1 John 4:7-21 NIV

Knowing Jesus

I am not going to read the rabbi's book, but there is a meaning to ‘You don't have to be wrong for me to be right.’ That meaning, though, comes from a location where right and wrong in the usual human sense simply don't exist. That location is the presence of God, before whom all our ideas, even all our beliefs, simply pale into insignificance. Did we love the ones God sent to us? or did we pester them to death with our probings?

I don't believe that all spiritual paths lead to God in an institutional sense. For example, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, even Judaism do not lead you to the living God, the only God there is, but then, neither does Christianity. All these ‘paths’ are only containers for our souls to keep us from spilling ourselves to death, but also from which we can offer ourselves as drink to others.

If that's not what we use our religion for, as Christians anyway, then we've got nothing to look forward to except staleness, and maybe evaporation. I believe what C. S. Lewis writes (quoting from memory), ‘All who persistently seek joy will find it,’ and that is what Christians mean by salvation, if they tear away all the fantasies they have about it. I also believe what he writes about knowing Jesus, that ‘no one can be saved without Him, but does one have to know Him to be saved by Him?’ (again, quoting from memory).

How many Christians really know Jesus? True, they may confess Him with their lips, even before men (I do the same), but do they, do I, really know Him? He’s not impressed even by the miracles we do in His name or by our calling to Him, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but He rewards those with ‘the joy of the Lord’, with salvation, if we have noticed Him walking among us, and done for Him what He does for us. Knowing about Jesus is not knowing Jesus.

Study and even confession is not doing what He does. To answer His call requires hands and feet, even if they must be pierced. The path of joy, of salvation, can only be walked. Heaven cannot be reached any other way. Yes, we must walk with Him, but like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we may not recognize who He is, yet we walk with Him just the same. The issue of who is right and wrong is meaningless in His presence.

The Lord is truly among us, alive, enlivening, walking with us, within us, among us, and we do not know Him, nor are we worthy to undo the straps of His sandals, but if He asks us, ‘Whom do you seek?’ let’s be bold enough to ask Him, ‘Rabbi, where do you live?’ and when He says, ‘Come and see,’ let’s not hesitate, but laying aside all earthly care, follow Him, so that He can teach us all things, how to do what He does, how to live the life of heaven on earth.

If we haven’t found the way here and now, we won’t find it anywhere or anywhen, because we will have let the Christ slip through our midst and disappear, because in truth we have sought to stone Him for His blasphemies. Sought to stone Him or throw Him off a cliff, the One who has come not to judge the world, but to offer the only life that is eternal to us, who can only receive it when we are willing to offer it to others, with whatever it takes.

It is love that heals

Over the course of my life this thought keeps coming to me,
“It is not medicine that heals, it is love.”

I’ve said it to people in conversation, even to my personal physician on my last visit. I’ve written it to my closest friends in messages and emails. I’ve thanked God for it, the healing that comes from love, not just from the feeling of love, but from the actions that love inspires. I’ve reminisced how I used to hold my sons when they were very young, and sick with fever, sitting on my lap facing me, bare chest to bare chest, rocking them gently to calm them and to absorb the fever from their hot bodies into my cool one, or how as a sick and frightened child, one of them would slip into papa’s bed, to sleep in safety. And I’ve thought about the strange sharing of others’ sicknesses and distress by holding them close to my heart, spiritually, by prayer, and how they have done the same for me. As holy apostle Paul writes, ‘If one part suffers, every part suffers with it’ (1 Corinthians 12:26), to which verse my experiences have given very personal meaning.

Elder Païsios, one of my teachers, describes this same idea, that it is love that heals. The elder writes,

“You must make the other person’s pain your own, and then pray from your heart. Love is a divine attribute, and informs the other person [that you are praying for him]. Even in hospitals, when doctors and nurses feel genuine compassion for their patients, this is the most effective of all the medications to give to them. The patients feel they are being cared for with love, and have a sense of certainty, security and consolation. You do not need to say much to someone who is suffering, or try to instruct him. He understands that you feel his pain and care about him, and he is helped by this. Feeling his pain is everything. If we feel compassion for others, we forget ourselves and our problems.”

— Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain (Athos)

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

The imprisoned lightning

America in the twenty-first century is turning out to be a very dangerous place to live. I grew up in the nineteen-fifties and -sixties, my childhood straddling the divide between innocent and cunning America on either side of President Kennedy’s assassination, just as my lifetime straddles the divide between millenniums. Born in 1951, I may live to see 2051. Well, maybe that’s a bit too optimistic.

In spite of the sense of impending doom which crops up when horrific acts are reported in the media, myself, I remain optimistic. Can it be because none of these acts have happened near me, or to me? Every day I thank the Lord for sparing me, and giving me one more day of life, literally. My optimism rests on two things: my trust in God, and my belief that most people really want what is good.

Notice, I didn’t say, my belief is that most people are good, just that they want what is good. That’s a big difference. I don’t believe in ‘original sin’ or that people are born sinful, that is, disposed to evil. I do believe, based on my experience, that people are born needy, and that in the pursuit of what they need they sometimes, at worst often, do things they know are wrong, and the effects are cumulative.

Yes, I believe in a real right and wrong. So when people are born as innocents into the world, they find themselves in a place with a heritage of bad choices resulting in an environment of bad conditions, and they are automatically infected. They still want what is good, but their conditioning distorts what is good, so that goodness comes to be attributed to things that are, in fact, not good. But enough philosophy.

America is turning out to be a very dangerous place. When I was a child, my world was still protected by three or more centuries of evolved social conscience, which prevented individuals and society at large from doing or permitting certain things. Gambling was illegal, for example, and so were what is today called ‘drugs.’ These were things that society in general believed were addictive, and led to disaster. They do.

I was born too late to have experienced Prohibition, which was an issue that loomed so large, that it had to be written into the United States Constitution as an amendment. A century of struggle against the use of alcohol had finally won, and the whole country went dry for thirteen years, but in the end it was too much. Prohibition was rescinded. The very next year the Gold Surrender order got even with us.

Since we were again going to be allowed to drink beer, wine, and hard liquor, at least we would have to surrender to the Treasury all gold coins and gold banknotes in our possession. One form of control over people was exchanged for another. Society’s conscience was hacked in the process, and that was the beginning of the devolution, the unraveling of the three centuries or more of advancing civilization.

That civilization was driven by the momentum of Christianity. Although the fire of the gospel had been maintained only as embers after the breakup of the Christian state in Europe, after the wars of religion, the ethics of the gospel began gradually to revive side by side with varieties of piety and religious revival. America was the first and possibly greatest experiment in Christian statehood without religious control.

That was the original meaning of ‘separation of Church and State.’ We are still living in that experiment, but there were interests that wanted the experiment to fail, and they have gotten us very close to failing. They have done that by severing the connexion between citizens and civilization, by interjecting themselves between the man on the street, and the source of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’

That’s how they did it, they interjected themselves, eclipsing the source, convincing people that they were the source, and therefore could legislate anything they desired, they could engineer the kind of society that would be least likely to revolt against their control. Removing a little at a time our real ‘safety net’ and substituting their own, they have created the dangerous environment we now inhabit.

Removing the real, and replacing it with toys, they have corrupted all sense of value. We notice this not only when shopping for food which no longer nourishes but fattens and decays us, but when we go to buy a house and find it consumes half our income, and even if and when we have paid off our loans and credit cards, we find we have spent ourselves in the pursuit, not of happiness, but of nothing.

These things are the real dangers of living in America in the twenty-first century, but we are diverted from attending to them by the more horrific dangers, the massacres of innocent people by shoot-em-ups of every description, home-made criminals the by-products of the decay of our national knowledge of right and wrong. This week it was a gunner with an Islamic name, last week a deranged white boy.

The atheist probing the causes behind this decay often blames religion, and hurls insults at the God he doesn’t believe in, ‘If there is a god, and he’s so merciful, why doesn’t he step in and prevent hate crimes and other disasters?’ Himself another by-product of the crash landing of the social conscience, he couldn’t ask such a question, if he had the slightest notion of how the universe, and God, really work.

What we once had that made America a safe place to live in, that made it possible to know our neighbors and to trust strangers, what enabled us to have freedom of speech, and the right to bear arms, and all the other rights that we were once taught are inalienable, was a single, corporate, national conscience. That conscience was as close to what scripture calls ‘the mind of Christ’ as we could come.

It wasn’t perfect, because it wasn’t finished. That conscience was evolving. It was more than three hundred years old, beginning in the British Isles, in the Netherlands, in France. It was still living and growing here, even when at times, it was being stamped out in other places, even in the lands of its birth. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t finished, and it isn’t finished. It’s still alive, though weakened, dulled.

The imprisoned lightning, that is what this social conscience in all humankind is called in the inscription engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: ‘Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.’ There is something greater than mere idealism here, Someone greater.

‘Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’—or else not,’ wrote C.S. Lewis in his short allegory, The Great Divorce. It is not too late for us, but what took centuries to build and decades to pull down is not, even in this age of immediate gratification, going to be rebuilt in the blink of an eye.

America in the twenty-first century can return to being a very safe place to live. Night doesn’t have to be inhabited by terrors. Strangers needn’t be approached as potential enemies. Neighbors can talk to each other, can collaborate on making the neighborhoods communities again instead of prison colonies. This can be a country where the imprisoned lightning in each person can be let free, but we must pick up the torch.

Only what is

It’s strange how often reality presents itself to us not in an either-or dualism, but in some kind of unforeseen manner that defies all our attempts to categorize and define—unless we are willing to, consciously or subconsciously, settle for mental compromises that allow us to work within an environment we have created, no matter how imaginary, or worse, foist them on others, excusing ourselves because we are ‘experts.’

We see this readily in the realm of natural science if we view it in historical perspective. Though the logical guesses of the ancients—the atomism of Democritus, for example—were initially proven nearly correct, with modern researches into subatomic nature a new structure of the universe is being uncovered. No serious atomic scientist would dream of clinging to earlier models, even though for ‘household’ applications they still work.

In politics, because we’re now moving into a social sphere, it’s more difficult to give up old models of political organization that simply don’t work and maybe never did, and it’s also easier to pretend to expertise—now called ‘legitimate authority’—to perpetuate social and political pathologies, often at immense cost, especially in human lives. The either-or predisposition of the human mind draws imaginary lines that cannot, or must not, be crossed.

In religion, or that which is, as Paul Tillich calls it, the ‘ultimate concern,’ we move to an even deeper, more personal level of reality-evaluation, in which our critical faculties, if we try to use them to bend reality to fit our rational or irrational prejudices, can cause the greatest historical, cultural, and social dysfunctions. This is also where the greatest compromises with truth—that which is—are easiest to make, and hardest to abandon.

History, though, is as merciless as Darwinian evolution is, in weeding out the unsurvivables of our world views in every category of experience. It works, however, just as slowly, and so mistakes stubbornly believed in, implemented, or imposed, can take generations to finally fail and be discarded. In the political sphere, not imperialism, not fascism, not communism, are really dead yet, but neither has true monarchy been eradicated forever.

In the religious sphere—and we must confine ourselves for brevity of example, to Christianity—eighteen centuries of spent experiments with theology and ecclesiology, and five or six with scriptural exegesis, have resulted at present in a faith community strategically crippled by attachment to and promotion of ideologies that are as far removed from reality as we can make them, and history’s winnowing fork is already at work as we, helpless, look on.

A case in point is the famous assertion of ‘sola scriptura’ that arose at the time of the Protestant reformation. The reality is that this cannot be an either-or proposition, no matter how much we argue for or against it. It simply doesn’t yield to our manipulations or our attempts to turn theology into a one-dimensional process. Real theology, as multi-dimensional as the ‘real world’ is, is open only to those who experience first and humbly articulate later.

Without institutions or ‘experts’ to certify it, truth, reality, only what is, is notoriously vital and, though susceptible to dichotomy and dissimulation, lives on, survives and propagates itself in freedom as wild and undetected as nature’s. As Archimandrite Vasileios writes, ‘Heresy, by contrast, has in it that which is self-destructive. Its self-assurance—its attachment to human reasoning and sanctity which are its idols—leads it to a state of internal crisis’ (Hymn of Entry, p. 100).

Heresy—yes, it need not mean ‘religious’ heresy, but any compromise we make with reality—as all other elements of the physical universe and all living creatures appearing at intervals and being perfected by evolution—God’s instantaneous creation being experienced as ‘time’ and all events that fill it by creatures such as us—yes, heresy, wanting to believe that which can never be, leads always, by the mercy of God, to crisis—κρίσις, judgment.

For Christian and non-Christian alike, to be faithful and not infidel, is to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33), and Reality, now not just what or even whom we rationalise, but the Uncreated in whom ‘we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28), is available to everyone without exception, the ‘true Light that enlightens everyone who comes into the world’ (John 1:9), who has trampled death by death, and bestows life to those in the tombs.

Χριστός Ανέστη! Αληθώς Ανέστη!

Τετέλεσται

Tomorrow is the Sunday between Ascension Day and the Sunday of Pentecost. Several years ago Fr John, who was pastoring our congregation temporarily while we were ‘between priests’ preached a homily that was very significant on this Sunday, and I want to bring it again to mind.

οτε ουν ελαβε το οξος ο Ιησους ειπε• Τετέλεσται, και κλινας την κεφαλην παρέδωκε το πνευμα.

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
John 19:30 NIV

‘It is finished,’ or as Fr John, our beloved pastor paraphrased it in his sermon, ‘Mission accomplished.’

The word ‘mission’ reminded me of an incident early in my working career.

My first reliable job in Portland’s woodworking industry (I was trained as a furniture-maker, my family trade) was in a European-style frameless cabinet shop. I did double duty as the night shift lead man supervising a crew of mostly teenage boys assembling carcasses, and was also the panel saw operator, with an off-bearer assisting me. Larry was 19 and I was 29 years old. He was a tousle-haired artist, and two of his younger brothers worked the assembly crew as well.

One night, when we were filling out tracking tickets (this was before the days of computer generated labels), Larry started thinking out loud to me. ‘I wonder what Spencer meant when he told me to watch out for you.’

‘Huh?’ I said. ‘Yeah, he said, Watch out for Norman. He’s on a mission,’ responded Larry. (Norman is my English name, the only one I had at the time.) So, I guess my reputation as an evangelical criminal started early and had already attracted the attention of my new boss. I never thought of my life as a mission, but since giving my life to Christ at the age of twenty-four years, it hadn’t occurred to me to leave Him out of my daily conversation and activities. He was and is always there, with me. What could I say?


Back to Fr John’s sermon.

It was the Sunday between Análypsis (Ascension Day) and Pendikostí (Pentecost). Of all the priests I’ve ever known, Fr John is closest to the evangelical simplicity of the apostles and early Christian fathers. He always starts out by addressing us, ‘Fellow Christians and friends,’ and continues speaking, never above our heads nor below what the Word has spoken, never watering down or gussying up. This Sunday was no different. His theme and message was simply, Jesus Christ came of His own free will to earth, to live among us, to tell us and show us what the Father is like, to teach us how to live according to what is right in God’s eyes, and finally, to do what no one else had the power to do, to die for us as one of us, and to descend into Hades and empty it of its captives, taking them as tribute to His Father. Only He could do these things, because He is the Only-Begotten Son and Word of God, ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός (John 1:18) και λόγος του θεού (John 1:1).

Jesus Christ had a goal, a mission, that which He voluntarily undertook for the salvation of mankind. Ordinary human beings, but particularly Christians, used to have goals, used to have a mission in life, but now, this is largely a thing of the past. Instead, the world harnesses us into worldly schemes denominated by what it calls ‘mission statements,’ but which are usually just jargon covering up nothing or worse, camouflaging dangerous and dehumanizing goals. After all, the enemies of man are still there: the world, the flesh, and the devil, in no particular order. The world has robbed us, he said, of our goals, our mission in life, leaving us our freedom to do little more than run around in circles.

What the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, does with us is much different. He reveals to us, brings to our minds, all that Jesus said, all that the scriptures hold out for us, so that we can have goals, so that we too can have a mission. How else can we expect to hear the words, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant,’ if we had no mission in life, but wandered and meandered, circling like an airplane trying to land where there is no airfield... or simply nothing?


And what of my mission? What do I have to present to the Lord when I come to face Him? Will He forgive my failed life, even though I tried to make up for it in my later years? Will I be one of those who say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but don’t do and didn’t do what He commands? I know that I am unworthy of salvation and have been an unprofitable servant, but I still trust Him, saying, ‘Jesus, I am Yours. Save me,’ (cf. Psalm 119:94 Jerusalem Bible) and, ‘I have faith, even when I say, I am completely crushed’ (Psalm 116:10 JB).

Is my mission accomplished, or is there still more that I have to do before I too can say, ‘Tetélestai’?

Till that day

The world keeps evolving. The natural world, yes, but even more so, and more importantly for us, the human world. That means politics, and society, and yes, even religion. All religions want us to believe that they are changeless, have possession of eternal values, but yes, they do change, and they must, if they are to survive.

But what of the Message? Well, if you mean the good news, the Gospel, of course, that doesn’t change, ever. It has a definite value and meaning. It is a concrete event in space and time that has affected and continues to affect everyone and everything it comes in contact with. Though religions have been erected around it, it doesn’t need them.

Well, that isn’t exactly true. Religion is what happens when the Message is impressed into human society. It forfeits part of its glory and its power, in exchange for leaving its footprints in culture. The sad thing is, that the footprints it leaves become an object of worship for the masses, and only for a few become the path of salvation.

Because you have to fit your feet into the footprints, and keep walking in them till they end. What you do when you reach the end is something unknown and unknowable till you get there. But that is not what I want to talk about, which is change. Though the Message doesn’t change, we do. We have to change in order to keep up with it.

Keep up with the Message? How is that possible, if it doesn’t change? Well, I said it doesn’t change, but it keeps running, running ahead of us. That metaphor about running the race that we read in Paul’s epistles is more than symbolic, even more than literal. It can only be grasped when we have committed ourselves to that divine marathon.

Religions create cultures of remembrance. This isn’t bad in itself. We need to remember, because we are who we were and who we will always be, patterned after the great ‘I am’ who says the same of Himself, ‘who is, who was, who is to come.’ But cultures of remembrance maintain and continue in the tradition of what transcends them.

What is that? We’re back to the Message again, that unchangeable good news which nevertheless keeps running ahead of us, which needs to be chased and, if possible, caught, or at least caught up with. What can it mean to be caught up with the Message? Can we ever catch up with Him who was dead, who rose from the dead, and who is alive forever?

Nothing is more certain! Nothing is more unchanging than the fact of the Resurrection. If nothing else were accepted of Christian doctrines, this fact alone, if ‘caught up with’ would utterly transform, not only the individual, but once the fire escaped the kindling, the whole world. Beyond religion, which would pale into insignificance, is the culture of resurrection.

And this is what we have to deal with. ‘Christ is risen from the dead, by death trampling down death, and to those in the tombs, bestowing life.’ All in the present tense, always happening, all around us, happening for all without exception, all the time, yesterday, today and forever, emptying the tombs even of the dead who have not yet been born.

Can we wait? Why do we wait? ‘Christ is in our midst,’ we say, and ‘He is and ever shall be,’ we respond, and then return to our humble state, glad we haven’t been called to martyrdom, glorying in our self-abasement and obedience to the Law, letting God be God, so that we can worship at His footstool. After all, that’s where we belong. The Message? Yes, ‘Christ is risen from the dead…’ and we will never tire of singing that song till the end of the world.

Yes, till that Day when we hear His fateful words, ‘Enter into the joy of your Lord…’

Running

Bearing both mixed and shifting metaphors,
let us outrun those devils pretending to be Marathon champions.

He who paces us has also cut the cords
that bound us to false followers, to tempters,
half-created archon remnants of a lost, unfinished universe
who lurk to frighten children
and hope to halt heart beats by hollow threats.

We run, we think, from destruction and danger,
but it is not so.

We run because that is our nature.
We run because we are both image and likeness
of One whose name is ‘He that runs.’

We run because we know He wants us.
He wants us to catch up to Him.
Yes, even to catch Him.

He paces us.
Always only a step or two ahead, He is not far.

He stays close, but He doesn’t relent, or slow, or stop.
Running is His nature,
and running is why He made us.

— Romanós

-NOTE-

Greek θεός, Theós, is usually translated ‘God’ in English. Though it resembles Latin based words for God such as Deus (Latin) and Diós (Spanish), it has a very different origin. It is connected with Greek θέω, théo, ‘to run,’ and θεωρέω, theoréo, ‘to look at, to see, to observe’ with the implication of ‘to perceive’ or even ‘to see with the eye of the heart.’

The Church, what is it?

Five short answers, from Sergei Fudel's book, Light in the Darkness…

We experience a sense of ‘life incorruptible’ when we find ourselves close to the real holiness of the Church. Such moments do not last long, and when we experience them we can never be sure whether we ourselves are actually within this holiness. For a short and joyous instant we can feel that we stand at the blessed walls of the Church. Our existence within the Church is not our right, it is always a miracle of unexpected joy.

The Church is a mystery of overcoming lonely solitude. Overcoming solitude must be experienced realistically. Attending a church service, you come close to the wall of God's Church only when a ray of love slowly but inexorably melts the ice of your loneliness. Then you stop noticing that which seemed to build a barbed wire fence around you, the real or imaginary lack of faith of the priest, the viciousness of the old women on the watch for proper church behavior, the barbaric curiosity of two gaping youths who happened to drop in, the commercial arguments around the sale of candles. Then, through all of this you reach out to the blind soul of people, to the human being who in a minute may hear better and more clearly than you the voice of Jesus Christ, Man and God.

Quite often we come to realize very unexpectedly that the Church is an all-human reality. One day, riding on the subway, I saw a woman sitting with a little girl of about two in her lap. Over the mother's shoulder the child stretched her blue-mittened hand to the brake handle, almost, but not quite, reaching it. Suddenly I noticed a well-dressed young man watching her too. Our eyes met and we both smiled. We both sensed that the little mitten was a pure treasure of our common humanity. The brake handle was a symbol of some outside power, a key to the cold knowledge of good and evil, but the blue mitten stood for warmth, for the mysterious, unselfconscious innocence of childhood. We smiled to each other as if we were not strangers; for a moment, we were of one warm, innocent heart. This is what the Church is.

‘You are God's temple,’ says Apostle Paul. There is a special prayer in our prayerbook that speaks of our own self as a temple: ‘Let Thy power come down on me, Thy sinful and unworthy servant, and let it fortify my temple through the gospel of The holy teaching… In Thine unfathomable graciousness preserve my body and soul, my mind and my thoughts, as a temple withstanding all enemy snares’ (Prayer of the 12th Kathisma).

Two little boys enter a church; one is about six, the other, younger. The little one has probably never been inside a church before and the older one is guiding him around. They stop at the image of Christ crucified. ‘What's that?’ breathlessly asks the little one, his eyes wide open. The older answers confidently, ‘That's for truth!’

In the hymns to Saint Sergius of Radonezh we say that ‘he lived his bodily life spiritually, spent his days on earth as if it were heaven, communed with people as if they were angels, and his own world was otherworldly.’ Perhaps we do not want to live like this, but each one of us must try, within the measure of his strength, to live on earth in this heavenly way.

The Father seeks

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
John 4:23

It is the ‘seeks’ in the verse that bothers me. It makes it seem as though God somehow needs our worship, like some kind of megalo-maniacal egotist of the universe. Rock stars seek fans. That's what makes them do some very wild things. That's how they grab people. But how does God grab us? What wild things does He do to catch our attention? The matter of God ‘seeking’ worshippers, has to be put into perspective somehow. I even checked the Greek to make sure the word was in fact ζητεi, and it was. Yes, He ‘seeks’ us, but this is how.

God is looking down from heaven
at the sons of men,
to see if a single one is wise,
if a single one is seeking God.

Psalm 53

When I think of His seeking us this way, it all makes sense. He already knows we want to worship. Why? Because He made us that way. In fact, as I wrote in a recent testimony, we are nothing but praise. That is an old teaching within Judaism and Christianity. ‘Face desired to look upon face,’ is how the Jews put it. Existence itself is the antithesis of what God is, beyond existence and its source. This is the deepest longing of mankind, even deeper than love, even deeper than erotic love which, as the Greek Church points out, is merely love of God as reflected in our physical natures.

The three loves, αγαπη, φιλια, ερος, agápi, phília, éros. Disinterested, brotherly love, the love between friends and comrades, and the love of the Beloved. It is very easy to see why idolatry from ancient times right up to the present always includes a dimension of sexual fantasy. Moderns don't call their idols ‘gods’ except in metaphor, but that's what they are. Yet worship is reserved to God alone. In Greek, it is λατρεια, latreía. So we see the source of the suffix added to so many false gods: idol-latry, biblio-latry, even Mario-latry. Worship, latreía, is reserved for God alone.

Strange, then, that when Christ reveals to the Samaritan woman the mystery of worship in spirit and truth, He doesn't use this word to refer to the worshippers. Instead, He calls them προσκυνουντες, proskynoúndes, ‘those who bend the knee in front of’. He could have called them λατρευοντες, latrévondes, ‘worshippers’, but He didn’t. Of course I understand that though Christ spoke Greek as well as Aramaic and Hebrew, He wouldn’t have been speaking Greek to the Samaritan woman, at least I don’t think so. It would’ve been Aramaic. John, however, who writes in very easy and basic Greek, was still careful to choose the right words.

The detail difference between latreía and prosk‎‎‏ýnisis may not be significant in this passage, may not be intended to show a contrast. I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean I’m right. Prosk‎‎ýnisis, by the way, is the word usually translated ‘veneration’ but sometimes as ‘worship’, which greatly scandalises Protestants, especially when applied to our veneration of ikons and of the saints, especially Mary. Some Orthodox publications translate prosk‎‎‏ýnisis as ‘worship’. Alas! We Orthodox are just closet idolators as bad as the Roman Catholics to some people, even worse, according to a former best friend, because we ‘pretend’ to be evangelical.

But there are only two responses we can have to God, as human beings: either we worship Him, or we don’t. Worship means to ‘consider worthy’ and of anything or anyone we can come into contact with ever, God is, arguably, the Most Worthy. The question is, what does ‘worship’ look like? That is what I think the Lord was getting at in His talk with the Samaritan woman. Just because we appear to be worshipping God, even building great temples and shrines to glorify Him, what is it we are actually doing? Factually, yes, we go to church, we go through the motions of worship. But what is it we are actually doing? Christ tells us, ‘in spirit and in truth’, that’s the kind of venerators the Father is looking for. It is really all or nothing. This thought, if nothing else, should make us stand up in church.

No other name

The image above and all the images used in this post are psalm paintings by Christa Rozier, and can be viewed at Psalm Paintings. Prints are also available at this site.

Years ago, when you wanted to buy a copy of the New Testament, not the whole Bible, especially in a pocket-sized edition, what you would get was usually The New Testament with Psalms, Authorized King James Version. As I remember it, I don’t believe I ever saw a New Testament ‘by itself’ until I bought my first copy of Good News for Modern Man, possibly the first colloquial English version, now available as the Good News Bible, even with Apocrypha!

It’s a good thing to have the New Testament by itself for portability. I have an NIV version that I carry in the cigarette pocket on the left sleeve of my hoody, and I read it whenever I’m caught somewhere with time on my hands. I still wish it had the Psalms in it, though. That wouldn’t really make it much bigger.

Publishing the New Testament alone without the Psalms makes it possible to just read the Bible for knowledge without being put in a position where an encounter with God is not only possible, but probable. Sure, most people who have a pocket NT probably are already committed Christians, but this isn’t about one’s ‘status’ as a Christian; it’s about the Reality to which the scriptures point, and that is God Himself.

Of all the books of the Bible, the Psalms are most full of the ‘worship in spirit and truth’ that our Lord spoke to the woman of Samaria about. The Old Testament division called the Torah, or the Pentateuch, has books detailing the ceremony of worship and the layout of ancient Israel’s sacrifice-based religious system. In the division called the Nevi’im, or the Prophets, we see glimpses of the worship that ‘the Father wants,’ and this carries us back again to the Psalms, many of which were already in existence at that time.

The Psalms are the heart of the ceremonial worship of both Judaism and historic Christianity, and in the personal worship of Judaism and ancient Christianity represented today by Orthodox, Roman Catholic and ‘high church’ Protestantism. Among some of the modern forms of Christianity, the Psalms are just another book of the Bible to be mined for props to their ever-redundant ‘pop worship.’ If a text can’t be made to fit what the band is playing up there, they just change or replace it. The Psalms are a timeless melody from God’s heart that the world wants to fit into its concept of ‘praise.’

The first psalm appointed for the 29th day of the month, is Psalm 139. Can anyone find a passage in the Bible to rival this psalm in both revealing the secret door of the soul that leads to the Father, and then take them through it?

Yahweh, You examine me and know me,
You know if I am standing or sitting,
You read my thoughts from far away,
whether I walk or lie down, you are watching,
You know every detail of my conduct.

The word is not even on my tongue,
Yahweh, before You know all about it;
close behind and close in front You fence me round,
shielding me with Your hand.
Such knowledge is beyond my understanding,
a height to which my mind cannot attain.

Where could I go to escape Your Spirit?
Where could I flee from Your Presence?
If I climb the heavens, You are there,
there too, if I lie in She’ol.

If I flew to the point of sunrise,
or westward across the sea,
Your hand would still be guiding me,
Your right hand holding me.

If I asked darkness to cover me,
and light to become night around me,
that darkness would not be dark to You,
night would be as light as day.

It was You who created my inmost self,
and put me together in my mother’s womb;
for all these mysteries I thank You:
for the wonder of myself, for the wonder of Your works.

You know me through and through,
from having watched my bones takes shape
when I was being formed in secret
in the limbo of the womb.

You had scrutinised my every action,
all were recorded in Your book,
my days listed and determined,
even before the first of them occurred.

God, how hard it is to grasp Your thoughts!
How impossible to count them!
I could no more count them than I could the sand,
and suppose I could, You would still be with me...

Psalm 139:1-18 Jerusalem Bible

Compare the experience of this psalm in praying it with what goes on typically in a worship service. There really is no comparison, is there? The intimacy that indwells this psalm is absent from most church services. In my experience, though, it can be found in the public worship of synagogues, churches and assemblies in proportion to how much of the Bible, in particular the Psalms, are in those services. It would be difficult to imagine Christ being very impressed with many of the things we do in our public worship. This isn’t a matter of ‘what would Jesus do (or think)?’ but rather, ‘what does Jesus do?’ for you see, He is present at those worship services, at least at those where He is welcome. As for those where He is unwelcome, He comes anyway still looking for His sheep. Christ can and does go anywhere.

When I have worshiped with the Jews at their synagogue, I noticed immediately how often I heard the name ‘Jesus’ recited or sung in their congregation. Being able to read Hebrew, I would hurriedly try to find the place in their siddur or prayer book where the name occurred, so I could see the context. The prayer books are Hebrew on one page and English on the facing page.

What I discovered was that it wasn’t the name ‘Jesus’ they were singing—after all, how could they? They’re Jews!—but the word ‘salvation.’ When they were singing ‘yeshu’ató’ they were saying ‘His salvation’ and so on. What were they reciting and singing? The psalms, of course! The word ‘salvation’ and its verbal counterparts occur many times in the Psalms. That is in fact what the psalms are concerned about more than anything—salvation.

The original meaning of salvation wasn’t as we now mostly think, ‘dying and going to heaven,’ but rather being saved from the life of bondage in Egypt. In this sense, Moses was both liberator and savior of Israel. In this sense Joshua was a savior. After Israel came into the land of Canaan, the judges were there to lead Israel and save them from the assaults of their heathen neighbors. As such there were many saviors in Israel, some of them women, like Esther and Judith, who saved their people Israel from grave danger.

The entire Old Testament is actually a record of God’s saving acts on behalf of His hereditary people Israel, to bring them from bondage to freedom. At the end of the long line of saviors in Israel appears the One who is the Savior, the one who is Salvation, so much so that the Most-High sends His angel to impart the name to this Child—Yeshua, Salvation. He saves His people from bondage, but not just from bondage to an earthly tyrant, but from death itself, from She’ol. For what worse tyrant can there be than death?

In the same way that Jesus Christ does not point to the truth but Himself is the Truth, so does Jesus not lay out a religious system to dispense salvation but Himself is Salvation. This is why true Christianity, if we can even use the word ‘Christianity’ to describe it at all, is emphatically not a religion, but a personal encounter with the crucified and resurrected Living God, the God-Man Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and who by His very name Jesus, is the Salvation of the world.

The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand. The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest’s family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Acts 4:1-13 NIV