Second Terrace

read Jayber Crow

My whole purpose here is to get you to read a book, and that book is Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.

It’s one of those rare books that when you read the last few words in the last sentence, you want to take a step back and take a new different look at things.

Recipient of the National Humanities Medal in 2010, Wendell Berry is the author of 25 books of poems, 16 volumes of essays, and 11 novels and short story collections. Since 1965 he has lived, worked, and farmed a plot of land on the Kentucky River with his wife and children. He and his family tried their utmost to subsist completely on what they harvested from their farm, going to the store only for the most necessary un-harvestable things.

As far as I know, Berry, who is all of 86 years of age, continues to till the fields with his horse and plow.

Wendell Berry’s main theme is that people change the land by living in it. And the land changes them. If the land is used well, and if other people are dealt with in a kindly fashion, then those changes will be good, or at least not so bad. He’s been a longtime critic of modern individualism, wasteful consumerism, self-aggrandizement, and conspicuous consumption.

He is a Christian writer who “tries to take the Gospel seriously,” but he makes partisans on both sides uncomfortable: no ideology can claim him. No one in the culture wars wants to hear, nowadays, words like these: “Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy” (from his essay “Economy and Pleasure” -- which is a very fine reflection on the great John Ruskin).

Rightwingers chafe at his pacifism and environmentalism. Leftwingers get hot and bothered by his lack of enthusiasm for abortion rights. Though most  contemporary conservatives (who are really libertarians) would not agree, I think Berry is very much an old-fashioned conservative -- so old that the moderns can't recognize him. But the same thing could be said of Christianity in general these days.

In this mean season of social media, techno-reality, and frenetic restlessness, Berry bucks the tide by his quiet insistence that there is no human life without community and nature. One’s life and work ought to be rooted in and responsive to one's place, and the people around him or her. 

Enter Jayber Crow, who did just that.

Wendell Berry is an acerbic critic in his essays. But in his novels, he’s a gentle artist. He portrays the citizens (or, what he calls the “membership”) of his fictional town of Port William with compassion. Even the villains, who betray human fellowship and violate land and nature, are still treated with humane-ness.

Port William is one of the most richly imagined communities in literature, certainly on par with Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County or Harper Lee’s Maycomb, Alabama. In every one of his novels and short stories (and a few of his poems to boot), Berry has populated this town with honest depictions of human nature, good and bad.

There are joys and there are sorrows. Jayber Crow, as the sole barber of Port William, has gotten to know these stories first-hand from the confessional that old-fashioned barbershops used to be. Jayber (whose name is really Jonah) was orphaned at the age of ten, and was moved to an orphanage in central Kentucky. From there he attended Bible college in Pigeonville, as he had felt, at the time, that he had received the call to become a preacher.

But in Bible college, he wrestled with too many hard questions to allow him to preach in good conscience. “You have been given questions,” his wizened NT Greek professor told him (whose nickname was “Old Grit”), “to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out -- perhaps a little at a time.” 

There’s more than a little of Berry himself here. He’s a Christian, yes, but certainly not what you’d call a “denominationalist.” He is one of many who has justifiably struggled with the organized church. Thusly, he had Jayber opine that “Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons.”

Jayber left Bible college and wended his way to Lexington. After a few adventures and misadventures, he ended up back in his hometown of Port William, and set up shop.

He became the oral historian of the town. Oral history is the best kind of history, as it proceeds from the deep collection of community memory. “Telling a story,” Jayber reminisces much later, as he’s retired and over seventy at the time of his narration, “is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told. As almost any barber can testify, there is also more than needs to be told, and more than anybody wants to hear.”

The thing I like best about Jayber Crow is his growing -- and glowing -- recognition of his community in Port William, and what that community means, and the beautiful, poignant thing that community can be. 

Despite his honest problems with religion, Jayber comes to his clearest vision of God and his community -- ironically for him -- in church. Uncle Stanley Gibbs was the church janitor and gravedigger, but had been lately getting himself into trouble with his questionable vocabulary and his being too open about his plans for becoming a tomcat again once his old wife passed on. 

Jayber became Uncle Stanley’s successor, and cleans the church each Friday evening in anticipation of Sunday morning worship. He had avoided attending church for years, but now he sits quietly in the back. He loves the singing (“In the sweet by and by” is his favorite) despite his withering critique of most of the sermons.

One night while cleaning the church, Jayber gets sleepy and lies down on the floor. He closes his eyes and sees all the people of his cherished Port William -- people he observes and loves. The chapter concludes, “They were just there. They said nothing, and I said nothing. I seemed to love them all with a love that was mine merely because it included me. When I came to myself again, my face was wet with tears.”

Now that’s community. That’s what a town can be and should be. Jayber’s best friend, Burley Coulter, says this of what being a “member” of Port William is all about: “The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't."

The "membership" of Port William consists of any person who recognizes his or her place among -- and responsibility for the well-being of -- all the land, animals, and all the people of the place. It’s being totally pro-life as in “all life.”

Port William is, or should be, your town and my town. Your family and my family. Your church and my church. Your neighborhood and mine.

signs of the times

Signs of the Times

by Fr Jonathan Tobias

About the Parousia

In the last post, we talked about the Parousia – that is, the “arrival” or Second Coming of the Lord. 

Recall that the Second Coming will differ from the First Coming. Then, the Lord came in obscurity. It was more than possible to ignore Him: in fact, not noticing the Lord was even more likely than not.

But the Second Coming will be unavoidable. There will be no way to miss Him or ignore Him: His Glory will be universally present to every human and every creature, living and departed, and to every angelic creature in the bodiless realm.

Everyone and everything will recognize Jesus as He really is: King of kings and Lord of lords, the Son of God. And they will bow down to Him and acknowledge His lordship, the only King Who has ever been and will always be.

Recall, too, that the Second Coming refers to Jesus’ return in physicality. Indeed, spiritually, He has never left us and the world. But when He returns, He will once again be physically perceivable, and that restored presence will be the greatest joy.

The Parousia is utterly unpredictable, and we are warned explicitly not to attempt to make predictions about when He will return. 

And surprisingly, we humans have a part to play in preparing for His coming. There are “greater works” that the Lord has appointed to us. These are works of prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5.16). 

And these are works, too, of ministry: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it also unto Me” (Matthew 25.40).

And works of glory: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3.17).

God always works synergistically, in which He invites and desires and wills the participation of His creatures in His care and healing of Creation. The Parousia is no exception to this providential rule.

And finally, we heard the emphasis that the early Christians read and heard the book of Revelation as an encouragement and reinforcement of hope. Which differs completely from the dread, gloom, and fear-mongering that is too often mistaken for eschatology nowadays.

Signs of the times

Let’s take a step backward from the Parousia, and take a look at what comes before.

While Jesus said that His Second Coming may not be known and predicted, He did call us to “discern the signs of the times” (Matthew 16.3). He criticized the religious leaders – the Sadducees and the Pharisees – for looking at weather signs (like “red at night, sailors’ delight”), but utterly failed at looking at the much more important historic signs happening right in front of their faces.

The Lord described these signs in a section of the Gospel known as the “Little Apocalypse” (as Revelation is the “Great Apocalypse”). It is also called the “Synoptic Apocalypse,” since it is recorded in the first three Gospels (i.e., Matthew 24.4-36, Mark 13.5-37, and Luke 21.8-36).

In speaking of these Signs, the Lord uses the language of prophecy. This is an important consideration because prophetic language differs from regular, fact-of-the-matter speech.

Prophetic speech addresses the higher spiritual realities. And these realities are not confined to calendars and literal, physical sensibilities. 

That said, the Signs that the Lord proclaims in the Synoptic Apocalypse are described in a prophetic speech that was more readily understood in the day and age of Jesus’ Gospel ministry, during the time of His Incarnation. In Palestine of the first century, under Roman occupation and Greek culture in the cities, and Hebrew traditional culture in the countryside, everyone knew that prophecy had its own vocabulary.

Ten considerations

Here are some general considerations drawn from the Lord’s “Signs of the Times”:

“Many will come in My Name”

1 One of the main reasons why it is important to “discern the signs of the times” was to prevent being led astray. “Many will come in My Name, saying ‘I am the Christ’” (Matthew 24.4). 

In times of trouble and distress, people become gullible. When Germany fell into economic depression after World War I, people were more than willing to follow fascism and communism, and they actually voted in Hitler as Chancellor in a democratic election.

It is important to do some thinking on this subject, as I'm convinced that bad eschatology leads to bad ideology. The harsh "othering" and alienation between groups, and the eruption of violence and extremism are due, in large part, to terrible imaginations about false millenniums, about life and perdition after death and the end of the world.

Wars and rumors of wars

2 Jesus said that there will always be distressing times until He returns. “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24.6). There will be famines and earthquakes, pestilences, “terrors and great signs from heaven” (Luke 21. 11).

This is prophetic speech that describes the frequent occurrence of cataclysms in human society and the natural world. It is always tempting for people, in those moments, to do the Chicken Little thing and say “the sky is falling!,” proclaiming the End of the World. But they will always be wrong, because the world will end, Jesus says, only at the “coming of the Son of Man.”

Opposition and persecution

3 There will also be times of persecution, and opposition against Christ and His Church. This opposition has spiritual roots, and is described apocalyptically in several ways. The Apostle John calls it “the spirit of antichrist.” The Apostle Paul calls it “the man of lawlessness.” 

Until the Parousia, there will always be spiritual opposition, and there will be distinct periods of outright persecution. This is an important difference. Here in secular America, it can be said that there is spiritual opposition, but certainly not persecution. Christians in Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and China know what persecution is: thankfully, we do not. And it is a terrible mistake to claim that American Christians are being persecuted by a secular “woke” culture. They certainly are not.

Persecution first broke out against Christians in their majority Jewish culture, especially when Christians refused to join in the Jewish revolt against Rome (from 70 to 135 AD). Christians were, just as Jesus prophesied, driven out of the synagogues and community life.

This short-lived persecution pales in comparison to the Christian centuries of anti-Semitism, Inquisition, actual persecution, and pogroms unleashed against Jewish communities -- even in the twentieth century.

Until Christianity was legalized by Constantine in 313 AD, Christians were sporadically persecuted by the Roman Empire. It is simply not the case that there was unbroken, empire-wide persecution. There were intervals, especially in the 200’s, when Christianity was tolerated. 

Cultural decay

4  Also during the long period between the Ascension and the Second Coming (which the Apostles and Fathers call “the Last Days”), there will be many times of the decline of community: “And because wickedness is multiplied most people’s love will grow cold” (Matthew 24.12). There will be broken relationships, betrayals, loss of respect, empathy, sympathy, and common pity.

St Basil the Great wrote that the Ten Commandments were the greatest expression of “Natural Law.” This is the common knowledge, shared by many and varied cultures all over the world, of basic standards of behavior. St Basil said that when this Natural Law is abandoned, then civilization will inevitably fall apart.

In times of stress, many false prophets, demagogues, and tyrannical leaders will attract crowds and mobs. People will fall for them because of high levels of hatred and anger. Again, all this is to be expected in a fallen world that is so strongly influenced by the “spirit of antichrist.” 

Preaching of the Kingdom

5 During this same period, however, there are good things happening. “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world,” Jesus prophesied (Matthew 24.14).

This gospel announces the very presence of the kingdom of God in the here-and-now. It is not just broadcasting information about Christianity, like handing out “Four Spiritual Laws” tracts (or any tract), or televising televangelists or doing big evangelistic crusades.

The actual New Testament Gospel and the fulfillment of the Great Commission means becoming the fellowship of the Body of Christ, living the actual life of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

And the character of the Body of Christ is exactly the opposite of the degraded society Jesus prophesied. Instead of “love going cold,” Jesus “returns the hearts of the fathers to the children” (Malachi 4.6; Luke 1.17). Instead of domination and oppression, there is humility and mutual submission (Ephesians 5.21; Philippians 2.4). Instead of violence and power-grabbing, there is servanthood and mercy. Instead of betrayal, there is loyalty and faithfulness (Romans 12.10; Philippians 2.3).

If ever there is power, wealth, and celebrity, there is not the Gospel being preached and lived out (same thing). Jesus never drives a Cadillac, flies a private jet, nor does He carry an AR-15. He never did. He never will. He does not now.

This “preaching of the Kingdom throughout the world” is also described as the “Millennial Thousand Year Reign” in Revelation 20, and the approaching descent of the New Jerusalem (but that discussion is for later).

The desolating sacrilege

6 Jesus told of “the Desolating Sacrilege” (in Matthew 24.15-22; Mark 13.14-20; and Luke 21.20-24). When that is seen, it is a sign of social and cultural collapse, a civilization crisis.

This was a well-known prophecy from the Old Testament book of Daniel (chapters 9, 11, and 12). That prophecy referred to Antiochus Ephiphanes, one of the inheritors of the empire of Alexander the Great. Antiochus turned Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem into a shrine to the Greek god Zeus in BC 167. 

Jesus’ prophecy of the Desolating Sacrilege (also called “the abomination of abominations”) was first fulfilled in the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in August, 70 AD. The furnishings of the Temple were looted, and a Temple to Jupiter was constructed on the the ruins of Herod’s Temple that had taken seventy years to build.

St Maximus the Confessor talks of the Sacrilege of Desolation in the spiritual sense, in which the soul is completely darkened by passion, conscience is deadened, and evil has become completely dominant.

Repeated signs

7 This brings up another important consideration. These prophetic signs will be fulfilled several times, in different places and in different ways. They reveal the character of a fallen age, and the tragedy of a humanity that turns away from God’s love into a prodigal existence.

It’s almost as though sin and evil fall further into predictability. There’s no creativity in fallen-ness, certainly no freedom. That is why these signs of apostasy and wickedness crop up in similarity again and again.

Don’t be fooled: be theological

8 In this whole period, there will always be those who say “this is the end,” and worse, “follow me, I will save you.” Jesus describes this dynamic vividly: “So if they say to you, ‘Lo, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; if they say, ‘Lo, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it” (Matthew 24.26).

This is a clear warning against cultic movements, especially those with new esoteric teachings and doctrines. 

Right now, a whole raft of this stuff infects the greater Christian community. Some examples are the “New Apostolic Reformation.” The “Seven Mountains of Influence” movement. Survivalists and enclave organizers. 

Jesus directs us to stay put in the secular world where we are, to devote ourselves to His and the Apostles’ teaching. He calls us to be Salt and Light in the world as it is – never should we want to run away into a world as we want it to be. “Endure to the end,” Jesus says (Matthew 24.13). “And having done all, keep standing,” says St Paul (Ephesians 6.13).

That is why Orthodox doctrine and theology are crucial. In the medieval Orthodox church in the Byzantine Empire (from AD 400-1300), it seems that catechism and exorcism were pretty much the same office. Learning theology and being theological were far and beyond the best ways of resisting spiritual decay and falling into deception.

The clarity of His Coming

9 Jesus says that there will be no mystery or hiddenness when He comes. There will be no need to say that He’s in the wilderness or in a secret room: “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24.27).

Jesus’ Second Coming will be unavoidable. Everyone will have to see it. Jesus will come to everyone and everything. 

Imagine that you were an inhabitant of the tiny moon of Europa that orbits the giant Jupiter. You lived on the opposite side, never seeing the planet. But one day you cross the horizon, and you faint at the immensity of Jupiter that completely fills the sky with its terrifying splendor.

That will be like the Parousia of the Son.

In the meantime

10 So what do we do in the meantime, during the centuries of the Last Days?

Jesus calls us to always “watch and pray.” He repeated this frequently, like “verily, verily I say unto you.” When He repeats, we need to pay even more attention.

We need to “take heed,” so that our hearts are not weighed down by distractions and worldly entanglements (Luke 21.34-36).

We need to take care of each other with love and never be cruel (Matthew 24.49). The Lord gives dreadful warning to leadership that “beats his fellow servants.” There is simply no room for aristocratic domination in the Body of the Feetwashing King. Instead, we minister to our fellow man and to Creation, knowing that this ministry is ministry to Christ Himself (Matthew 25.31-46).

We need to stock up with extra oil for our lamps, like the faithful maidens – and that oil is prayer and virtue, wisdom and sacrament (Matthew 25.1-13). We need to be bold in using our Talents for the Kingdom, which is the life we have and the love that we’ve received from God. The Talents of the Parable are whatever we’ve received, which includes our human nature, our life, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that descended upon us at Pentecost.

Watching. Praying. Loving and Believing. That is what discerning the signs of the times is all about.

☙

the last things

The Last Things

By Fr Jonathan Tobias

I left the evangelical community well over thirty years ago to enter into the Orthodox Church. I was awestruck and thankful. So many things were new and wonderful: the Eucharist, Divine Liturgy, Icons, Incense, everything was sung, and plainchant. I went from one glorious discovery to another, one overwhelmingly beautiful experience to the next.

And there was relief. Though I’m grateful for my Christian upbringing, there were a few things I was more than happy to have abandoned. I had grown weary of going through one fad after another: this year’s evangelistic plan was replaced by next year’s youth movement, succeeded by the following year’s program for institutional development.

Chief among the things I left behind (pardon the pun) was the “eschatology” I grew up under. You cannot imagine the deep relief, even bliss, that I felt when I learned that the Orthodox Church does not believe in the Rapture, the Seven Year Tribulation, a literal Thousand Years that was followed by an Armageddon cataclysm.

I – and a zillion others like me – had grown up in sheer terror of the Lord “disappearing” – literally calling up to the sky – my parents and my siblings. From my eighth year onward, there wasn’t a night that went by without me checking on my little brother, just to make sure he was still there. 

Because I knew he was far more innocent than me, and surely the Lord would take him. But the Lord would in all likelihood leave me behind. Alone to face the Antichrist and the Beast.

The Orthodox Church has a far different attitude toward the End Times than what I was used to. For one thing, eschatology – that is, the doctrine of last things – is not “settled dogma” in Orthodoxy. 

“Settled dogma” is doctrine that is affirmed at the level of an ecumenical council. The highest example of this is the Nicene Creed. There can be no disagreement with the statements of the Creed or other Orthodox dogmas set forth by the Ecumenical Councils.

But that is not the case with teachings about the Last Things. About the only eschatological dogma is in the Creed: “And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and His Kingdom shall have no end.” 

So there are, in the vast array of Orthodox writings for over two thousand years, a variety of teachings on subjects like these: The identity of the Antichrist. The Millenium (i.e., the thousand-year period described in Revelation 20). The meaning of 666, the “mark of the beast.” The Tribulation period of persecution and calamities.

It is helpful to remember that writings on these issues are not at the authoritative level of the Creed. We have to allow for the fact that the Fathers have said different things about these issues. Take, for example, the identity of the Antichrist. Some Fathers, like St Hippolytus of Rome (and others), taught that the Antichrist will be a member of the Israelite tribe of Dan. Other Fathers, like St John the Theologian, the author of Revelation himself, said in his first Epistle that the Antichrist is not an individual, but the spirit of opposition against Christ and His Church.

This is important to remember because historically, the idea that the Antichrist would be Jewish has had disastrous effects. This notion became part of violent anti-Semitism, particularly in Russia. Thousands of Jews died in pogroms unleashed in 1903-1906. And this same idea made its way to Germany in the same period, and we all know what happened then.

Eschatology is dangerous business. Misused and abused, it can bind a child for years of dread. It can also lead to anger, persecution, and slaughter.

But eschatology must not be dismissed, even though it is difficult. The first generations of Christians were intensely interested in the Last Things. They wanted reassurance from the Apostles that history is “His Story.” They wanted to be reminded that Jesus Christ is even now the Ascended King at the right hand of God the Father, that He is the only King (all other kings are pretenders), and that His Kingdom is the only kingdom.

The early Christians wanted to hope. They lived in a pagan society and had to endure stigma and numerous bouts of persecution. They did not seek power or social control. Instead, they sought to understand the real meaning of time. They wanted to understand the working out of “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

They wanted, in Orthodox teaching, to have the curtain of historic events to be drawn back, and to gaze upon the mystery inside, the reality behind appearances. 

That right there is exactly what “Apocalypse” means, which is the actual title of the book of Revelation: the Apocalypse of John. “Apocalypse” means “that which is uncovered.” And that is how the book of Revelation, and all eschatological Scripture, should be read.

It isn’t easy. It takes hard work. It requires deep study of all apocalyptic Scripture, especially the prophetic book of Daniel in the Old Testament. It requires knowledge of how apocalyptic and prophetic language was heard and read in antiquity, which was certainly not in the literal sense.

It requires a firm grounding in the Orthodox “settled dogmas” about the Trinity and Christology. Most of where bad “end times” teachings (like Timothy LaHaye’s Left Behind series) go wrong is right at this level. If one fails to appreciate that God’s approach to the world is sacrificial Self-donation, then he will fantasize that the Last Things are an eruption of an angry omnipotent despot. 

One cannot love a despotic god, simply because a despotic god cannot love. The only response is despair. And then, of course, eschatology becomes a cult of dread.

How did the early Christians feel about the Last Things? Not avoidance. Not dread. And why? Because they knew that God is not a despot, but rather, God is the Loving Father. They knew that the Lord Jesus, Who will return at the Last Day, is the One Who calls us His friends, Who washed His disciples’ feet. 

The early Christians were waiting, with joyous anticipation, the physical return of their Lord and Friend. “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, and He will sit on His glorious throne” (Matthew 25.31) will still be the Good Shepherd Who continues to give His life for His sheep (John 10.11).

The book of Revelation was written by John the Beloved Disciple as a book of comfort and encouragement, not as a dark scroll of fearmongering. 

The Apostle Paul wrote, in his own shaky handwriting at the end of his letter to the Corinthians, “Maran'athah!” (1 Corinthians 16.22). Which means, “Our Lord, come!” This was a common exclamation in the early Church. It was an expression of certain hope, of longing desire for the One and Only King to bring His Kingdom in fullness and beauty.

How did the first Christians feel about the Last Day? How should Orthodox Christians think and feel about the End Times? How should they understand the book of Revelation, and all eschatology and the Last Things? 

How does the book of Revelation end?

“Surely,” Jesus says, “I am coming soon” (Revelation 22.20).

And then St John the Theologian, along with all of us, immediately responds:

“Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

on manhood

– Flight Into Egypt, by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1923

For Father's Day, it’s a good time to talk about manhood. Especially in a moment when the subject has been dominated by essayists like Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson, and the SBC's recent pronouncements.

Popular manhood theories

There’s been a goldrush on the subject of manhood as of late. Politicians have published a whole haywagon full of books and have appeared on talk shows opining on masculinity. Psychologists, cultural critics, and cable news hosts have also entered the fray. 

A few novel ideas have emerged, and they are interesting, to say the least. Many are sure that manhood hasn’t been appreciated enough, or that it is neglected or even undervalued.

Well, that’s probably true.

Then another idea is that young boys haven’t been allowed to misbehave enough. Men would be better off, so goes the theory, if in boyhood they would have been allowed to roll in the dirt, shoot starlings with their .22s, swim naked in the creek like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and yank on the braided pigtail of the girl sitting in front of them and shoving the hair’s end in the inkwell.

Well, that last bit is a true story, but I’m honor-bound not to breathe a word as to who that boy was, seeing as it was about fourscore years ago.

What an interesting idea, that we’d all be better off if we just let boys be boys.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a shame that boys waste time and attention on cyberspace and videogames and TV and anything else that boys waste time on.

It’s true. We could do a lot better in boy-raising. And, for that matter, child-rearing in general. On one hand, many of them are too fearful of the modern secular world. On the other hand, they’re too wrapped up in the electronic world of social media and virtual reality. 

For the sake of their mental health, no child should be on social media until their later teenage years. I have the receipts. That is, there are reams and stacks of studies that prove, beyond any doubt, that social media is dangerous and toxic for kids.

Manhood gone awry

But back to Manhood 101 pop science. I have heard or read some disturbing ideas, like these:

That to be a man, a guy should be able to be as angry as he wants to be, to the point where he can engage in outrage and violence.

That to be a man, a guy should rule his marriage and family with an iron fist, in total domination.

That to be a man, a guy should be able to express himself with no guardrails, that his speech can be as vulgar, coarse, cruel, aggressive, and irrational as he wants.

I wish I were just making this up, or at least exaggerating. Alas, I am not. Just dip your toe in the twitterverse, and you’ll be immediately hit by a virulent fly-swarm of rage speech. A few weeks ago, I unwisely waded into the maelstrom. A bunch of young guys were yelling at each other about religion. One said something inaccurate (an understatement) about my Patriarch (i.e., Bartholomew) and Ukraine. I offered some corrective responses, for which I was met with a seething chorus of insults, denunciations, and calumnies. 

My young, opinionated (though miserably misinformed) interlocutor was fully aware that I am a priest. I fear that this fact only added to the panache of his derring-do. Sigh. My late good friend Fr Larry would have observed that this callow male was probably clad in his PJs, furiously typing on his keyboard, living out his angry cyberspace life while subsisting on a diet of Yoohoo and cheesepuffs in his grandmother’s basement.

He had mistaken certainty for faith, posturing for confidence, online conspiracy theories for truth.

We all failed to raise this boy right, mainly because we all adopted failed ideas as to what a man should be.

Biblical manhood

Scripture is always a good place to look to correct failed ideas.

All the way back to the beginning, Adam was the first gardener and provided for his family, despite the fact that he did the patently un-manly thing of blaming his wife for giving the forbidden fruit to him. Early every morning, the Righteous Job prayed fervently for his sons and daughters. 

In the Old Testament, the image of true Manhood was, at best, incomplete. There were many shortcomings, to say the least. Isaac’s preference of Esau over Jacob proved for all time that a father can’t play favorites. Jacob sent Joseph to spy on his own brothers. King David himself had to go to war against his own son, Absalom. 

Furthermore, a man could have more than one wife, and he could divorce with just a note. In addition, he could have concubines. He could own slaves. He could beat his children with a rod.

These things were at best temporary accommodations. They were never God’s Will. Jesus said as much when He told His disciples ““For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 9.8).

Only in the New Testament did true Christian Manhood emerge. The Righteous Joseph, Foster Father of the Lord, revealed piety, level-headedness, courage, faithfulness, protectiveness, gentleness. His guardianship of the Child Christ and the young Virgin Mary, especially portrayed in the Flight to Egypt as refugees from the monstrous tyrant Herod, corrects and improves upon the inadequate expressions of manhood in the Old Testament.

The Righteous Joseph is the image of manhood for us all.

Real fatherhood is God the Father

It took a long time, St Irenaeus of Lyons said, for the people of God to finally understand that God Himself is Father, but “Father” in a way that completely transcended all the failed images of manhood. God the Father is generous. He is patient and kind. He is joyful. He is the universal source and basis of love and goodness.

God the Father is forgiving. That is why Jesus revealed, at the climax of the long process of divine self-introduction to His people, God as the Father of the Prodigal Son. The Father waited for the Prodigal’s return, and when He saw the bedraggled boy approach, He ran, and embraced His undeserving son – though “son” nonetheless, because the Father, after all, is always Father and is so eternally.

That’s Fatherhood. That’s Manhood in fine.

God the Father is not wrath. He is not cruelty. He is not irrational. He does not do payback. His Will is only a Good Will.

Thus, a man is a real man insofar as he reflects the Fatherhood of God the Father.

You can take that one to the bank.

St Paul on fathers and families

This is the truth behind all St Paul’s instructions for family life, for boy-raising and manhood, among other things. In Romans, he told us all to “love one another with brotherly affection, to show preferential honor to each other” (12.9). He told the Galatians that as a spiritual father, he said “My little children, with whom I am in travail until Christ be formed in you!” (4.19). In our Epistle for the Sacrament of Matrimony, he told the Ephesian fathers to enter into mutual submission with their wives: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5.21) – a point that is sorely disregarded by the fundamentalist insistence on male power-mad domination. 

“Husbands,” St Paul goes on, “love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (5.25).

And we all know to what extent that love means. It means self-sacrifice, a giving away of one’s life, of one’s comfort, of one’s self-concern, for the sake of the other – the wife, the children, and everyone under one’s care.

Fathers are never to “provoke their children to anger” (6.4), but instead to lead them away from the way of anger. That is, to “bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.”

Similar instructions on manhood are found, too, in Colossians, 1 Timothy and 1 Peter. 

True manhood

How is manhood understood in the Christian tradition? That is, what is true manhood?

Manhood is humble, it is meek: “Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart,” said the Lord Himself (Matthew 11.29). It is not egotistical, not self-promoting. Manhood is rational, wise: it knows that the way of anger (and all the passions) makes for a stupid, foolish man-boy who never did grow up.

It is theological, never ideological. Manhood is never extreme, never wrathful or outrageous. It values education and training. It loves God’s beautiful creation and seeks to husband it in the way of Adam’s ancient vocation. Manhood is loving and generous, self-disciplined. It is courageous in the face of societal opposition, certainly – but if it comes to it, it is courageous even against adverse pressure from its friends.

Manhood prays without ceasing. True manhood repents, and lives and breathes, sacramentally, in the life of the Body of Christ. Manhood thinks theologically.

Real manhood neither draws attention to itself, nor does it complain about not getting enough attention from others.

Manhood, after all, will never run away from cross-bearing, as every real father and husband, and every real man already knows.

Pentecost: the Descent of the Spirit

-- Pentecost icon by Ivanka Demchuk

The new language

Thousands of years ago, toward the beginning of human history, things were different: “Now the whole earth had one language and few words” (Genesis 11.1).

Humanity consisted of one, single society, and they were congregated in the flat geography of Shinar.

In their pride, they decided to build a “tower to the heavens,” which would be an idol to their own arrogant attempt at making themselves like God.

In order to save humanity from sealing their fate to be like the devil’s own self-destruction, the Lord confused their language, dividing the one society into many ethnicities and languages, with now too many words instead of just a few.

They thus scattered north, east, south, and west “abroad over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11.9).

This was the story of the Tower of Babel.

But at the Feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ, the scattered of Babel was utterly reversed. Instead of confusing the languages of human arrogance, God sent down the Holy Spirit to unify all the nations into one humanity, and one language.

At nine o’clock in the morning on Pentecost, the Apostles, the Theotokos, and others (totaling about 120 people) who had been gathered in the Upper Room, came out into the streets of Jerusalem, speaking that supernatural language of unity.

It was the language of the New Jerusalem. It was not ecstatic glossolalia. They were describing the “mighty words of God” (Acts 2.11), speaking in that transcendent, heavenly language – and in that transcendent speech, everyone who heard could understand – no matter where they come from or what native language they spoke.

When St Luke listed, in the second chapter of Acts, all the nations – Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, residents of Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Libya, and Rome itself – he was showing that the dispersion and division at the Tower of Babel were now being reversed.

The language of Pentecost was a Sign of the Comforter, making real in this life, and in this world, the Body of Christ, and the new culture of the New Jerusalem.

Pentecost is the reason

Pentecost is the reason why everything in the Gospel happened. In fact, you could say that Pentecost is the goal of the entire Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New. And you can go even further: Pentecost is the destiny for all Creation, all time and space – reality itself.

Pentecost is more than “the birthday of the Church.” It is the beginning of the transfiguration of humanity and all Creation, which will finally be fulfilled when “God will be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15.20).

“The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory … raised Him from the dead and made Him sit at His Right Hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and He has put all things under His feet and has made Him the head over all things for the Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him Who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1.17, 20-22).

At Pentecost, we celebrate the Descent of the Holy Spirit in power, as the dawning of a new age of God’s work in the world. This Descent, at the Third Hour in the Upper Room and then spreading out into the streets of Jerusalem and from there to the whole world, depended utterly upon our Jesus accomplishing the Will of the Father.

This is the remarkable theme of Jesus’ talk with His disciples right after He washed their feet, just as a servant would do. In that talk, He let them in on the reality of what God the Father was doing – there was no deeper truth than what Jesus was telling them in that moment. 

That is why we reverently listen, in silent awe, to the long first reading of the Twelve Gospels appointed for Holy Friday Matins (which is usually done in the evening of Holy Thursday). In John 13:31-18:1, Jesus mentions Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, four times. 

In the fourth mention, Jesus makes clear that Pentecost was His Gospel Purpose: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16.7).

So Jesus did, in fact, “go away.” He did so at the Ascension, when “He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight” (Acts 1.9). There are ten mysterious days of silence between Ascension and Pentecost. The disciples remained in the Upper Room in constant prayer, just as Jesus told them to.

The prayer of the Ascended King

Meanwhile, Jesus has ascended to the Right Hand of God the Father. It is at this moment that “He entered into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but His own Blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9.12). “For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, which is a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9.24).

The Lord completely achieved the Father’s Will and utterly offered Himself as a sacrifice without reserve. He poured out His Life in the entire Incarnation (Philippians 2.7) and most climactically at Gethsemane and Golgotha.

So Christ united Himself with the world, in a union that cannot be broken. That is why John 19.34 (which the priest quotes at the piercing of the Lamb in the proskomedia) is so very, very important: “One of the soldiers pierced His Side with a lance, and there came forth blood and water.” At that critical moment, the earth became the Holy Grail, touched forever, prepared for eventual and total transfiguration at the Last Day.

And because of that union, Jesus was then able to ask for and to send the Holy Spirit to His disciples and to the world. “I will pray the Father,” the Lord had promised in the Upper Room, “and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever” (John 14.16).

And that is exactly what He did in those ten days between Ascension and Pentecost.

The Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was the answer to that prayer. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that is good happens outside of prayer. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1.17).

And no good gift is better than the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

The marks of the Spirit

The Holy Spirit’s coming to us, the Spirit’s descent upon us, brings about the reality of belief and prayer and love. The Spirit in us is the actual principal of new life itself, which is our participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1.4). The Spirit folds us into the Life of Christ Himself and changes us into a New Creation (2 Corinthians 5.17), according to the image now of the Second Adam.

The Spirit transforms us into the Body of Christ. We are literally the abiding Body of Christ that persists in the world after His Ascension.

What is that New Creation like? What is a person like who has said yes to the Descent of the Holy Spirit? Who has said, like the Theotokos, “Be it unto me according to Thy Word?”

The Theotokos herself is the one who is the perfect image of a Spirit-filled Christian. 

“By their fruits ye shall know them,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7.16). The fruits of the Spirit are not dramatic or spectacular. They are not weird or strange. They are, however, Salt and Light:  “The fruit of the Spirit,” says the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5.22-23, “is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.”

Notice what is not on the list of the fruits of the Spirit: power, influence, wealth, fame, brashness, even speaking in tongues and miracle-working and signs and wonders are not on the list.

This should not be surprising. How could the marks of the Spirit be anything like the arrogance of the Tower of Babel? How could the Spirit of Christ – Who came as a meek servant – be at all associated with lust for power, wealth, and prestige? 

The fruits of the Spirit, the real Signs of the Spirit’s presence, are like the Beatitudes: they are mysterious, quiet, almost hidden: “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth” (Matthew 6.3).

What being Spirit-filled looks like

What does a Spirit-filled Christian look like? Look no further than the Theotokos herself. And bear in mind that after Pentecost, except for a symbolic reference to her in Revelation 12.1-6), the Bible never mentions her again. Why the obscurity? Why wasn’t she at the forefront of visible history?

Because she is meek. Because she is gentle and kind. Because she is living and breathing in the fullness of love, joy, and peace  Because even then she was interceding in fervent supplication for the Church and the world.

Nothing good ever happens unless it was prayed for. And because of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, an ocean of good things – many of which are never noticed – have been requested and bestowed. Many requested for you by the Theotokos herself. And by your Guardian Angel, by your patron saint. By your departed loved ones. And by your friends here in this life.

And every time you ask for mercy in Jesus’ Name, which is exactly what the Jesus Prayer is, when Jesus takes up your prayer in the Spirit and enfolds it into His own prayer from Himself to the Father.

We ought to get to the point where we pray the Jesus Prayer with every breath. And, as Fr Sergius Bulgakov (and others) pointed out, so should we pray to the Spirit, “O heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who are in all places and fill all things; Treasurer of blessings and Giver of life, come and dwell within us and cleanse us from every blemish and save our souls, O blessed One.”

And these requests are always answered, with the present and the presence of the Spirit Himself. Every time you pray for mercy, you re-visit Pentecost.

This is exactly why “God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son” (John 3.16), just so you may be “born of water and of the Spirit” and enter the Kingdom of God (John 3.5).

“The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or wither it goes: so it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3.8).

You belong in Pentecost. Pentecost is destiny and goal. It is life itself. 

Celebrating Pentecost

Pentecost is the beginning of “the Last Days.” It is the beginning of the transfiguration of humanity and all Creation, leading up to the very Last Day when the Son will subject all things to the Father, and God “will be all in all.”

Pentecost is the “revolution of Eden” and its restoration. It begins the descent of the New Jerusalem and the overturning of the Fall of Man.

This descent, this revolution, this ongoing restoration is what is really meant by the words “renewal” and “revival” – two words that are over-used and in their over-familiarity have lost their meaning.

For these are utterly eschatological terms.

This is why so many of our people, in more classically Christian times and places, decorate their churches and homes with as much greenery (in tree branches and herbs) as possible.

This is why in the old days, when Pentecost was called “Whitsunday,” that young women dressed in white (which is probably where “Whitsunday” comes from), and in the following week, everyone would be on holiday from work and take long walks in the woods and the pastures. 

They did this because Adam and Eve would walk with God under the boughs of the trees.

Churches would have proper festivals with picnics, dances, plays, and games. In England these festivals would be called “Whit-ales,” as the church would have brewed its own ale for the occasion.

Just think. The Church, back then, authentically led not through governmental power, but by joyful moral influence, through not only fasting but feasting. 

What a surprising idea: that these common village festivals – even these “Whit-ales” – were such an immediate, vivid Sign and language of the true Pentecost, the New Jerusalem.

☙

christian politics

I wasn’t sure whether the title should be “Christian Politics” or “Political Christians.” I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is better.

The question of how faith should be applied to politics is a tricky one, especially since it is possible to turn that statement around. Politics, indeed, has been and is being applied to – or rather imposed upon – faith. More than a few surveys report that there are quite a few people who use their religious label as a partisan identifier. 

When it comes to Christians and politics, there is a substantial problem. The early Christians – from the very first ones in the book of Acts through the persecution and illegality of Christianity in the Roman Empire up until its legalization by Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 AD – simply did not like politics. 

At all.

Don’t get me wrong. They lived happily with their fellow citizens. They didn’t withdraw into enclaves or separated communities. They didn’t look weird or act weird, as the delightful “Letter to Diognetus” (from 130 AD) makes clear.

And, contrary to general opinion, the early Christians were not standoffish. They weren’t sniffy about their non-Christian friends. They didn’t act as though everyone else had cooties.

Their problem was with politics and government. They did not hate it. They prayed intensely for civil authorities. But they harbored many doubts about the necessities of the State.

The State in a fallen world simply has to use force and the threat of death in order to suppress evil, as St Paul makes clear in Romans chapter 13. In a world that had fallen contrary to the Creation God had intended it to be – which was the Garden of Eden – the State inevitably deployed force, domination, coercion, even violence, destruction and death.

The early Christians saw themselves as the continuation of the Christ Who is Peace Himself. When they became Christians, accepting Jesus into their heart as personal Lord and Saviour, they tried their level best to act just like Him. 

So they took the Beatitudes as their personality test. They became aware of their own utter dependence upon the generosity of the Father. They mourned for those who suffered, for the victims of a fallen and cruel world. They became meek, gentle, and kind. They desired righteousness and social justice. They gave out mercy and forgiveness and grace. They were “pure in heart” – that is, they recognized the face of Jesus in their neighbor, and knew in their hearts that how they treated the “least of these” was ultimately and immediately how they treated Jesus Himself. 

They made peace wherever they lived, whether they were welcomed in society or were denounced and persecuted.

The early Christians were pretty, let’s say, “radical.” They really did hold “all things in common” (Acts 4.32).

Everyone shared their substance with each other and the poor around them. They shared their goods freely and “without measure.” Every Saturday night at Vespers they liberally distributed bread, oil, and wine – much like the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

They established the first one-stop welfare offices, the first hospitals. They collected money for famine relief and the freeing of slaves. They regularly saved unwanted babies who had been abandoned in infanticide by exposure, which was common in the Roman Empire. Peace and justice, gentleness and mercy, and generosity, comprised the character of early Christianity. 

It follows then that the Christians of the first three centuries refused to participate in violence and death. Consequently, the church discouraged Christians from participating in government and the armed forces.

And to complicate things further: the early Christians did not seek to impose their radically new character on society and the state. How could they? Having “all things in common” could never work in the “real world.” The high morality of the Beatitudes could never be legislated. 

How could early Christians ever get involved in the politics of the world? Especially when you have Jesus, the Son of God, Who utterly, totally “took upon Him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross” (Philippians 2.7-8).

How can you square this radical humility, this fellowship of the Sermon on the Mount, with the scrum of self-promotion, the homo homini rattus, the violence of realpolitik in the world?

Emperor Constantine changed all this in 313 AD, when the Christian church became an imperial institution. Then it became possible for Christians to apply their faith to politics.

It also became just as possible for powerful and wealthy interests to impose their politics onto the Christian religion. 

Both possibilities have gone on ever since, especially right now.

Which is exactly why I left the title up to you.

peter missed

Today is Holy Thursday for us Orthodox, and tonight we think deeply on the betrayal of Christ and HIs arrest in Gethsemane.

Peter, attempting to defend his Friend and Teacher, famously sliced off the ear of Malchus, servant to the High Priest of the Temple.

Peter missed

Think about it. There is no way that the ear was Peter's intended target. It is impossible to aim with such precision as to slice off an ear.

Violent homicide was the aim. The neck maybe, certainly the head. Malchus should not have survived. The severed ear was but an "accident."

"No more of this," Jesus said, and He restored Malchus' ear to its rightful place (Luke 22.51).

"Put your sword back into its place," Jesus told Peter, and turning to the militia that the authorities had sent to arrest Him, He proclaimed a challenge to all who put their trust in mortal princes, wealth, and power (and all these potentialities for violence): "For all who take up the sword will die by the sword,. Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?"

"How else," He continued, should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" (Matthew 26.52-54).

How else could Jesus proceed to wage the true and only real struggle against the only real enemy: sin, death, and hell itself. There was only ever one way, and that was for the Son of Man to be lifted up so that He might go down.

The only way for Jesus to lead us free to heaven was for Him to go down and find us where we were, on Holy Saturday. The only way for Jesus to find us there was by His totally kenotic, Self-sacrificial pouring out of His Life on the Cross.

His way. Not the way of Peter's sword. 

 

bread from heaven, thunder and judgment

Bread from Heaven, Thunder and Judgment

The Gospel of Luke says that during Holy Week, Jesus “was teaching in the temple, but at night He went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet. And early in the morning all the people came to Him in the temple to hear Him” (Luke 21.37-38).

His teachings during this week are narrated in a large part of the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 21-25; Mark 11-13; and Luke 19-21. The Gospel readings appointed by the Orthodox Church for Holy Monday through Wednesday are Matthew 24.3-26.16.

It is interesting that the Gospel of John devotes only the remainder of the twelfth chapter after telling of His Entrance into the city. This Gospel pays crucial attention to what the Lord had to say in at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday (John 13-17). But the comparatively small space given to His public address in Jerusalem (maybe in the Temple precincts), should invite special notice.

The Passover was coming soon, and the city was filled with pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean world. They were Jews, of course, along with many Greeks who were interested in Judaism. Some of these (i.e., “proselytes”) were even in the procession of conversion.

At one point, some of these Greek inquirers contacted Philip, one of the Apostles. They said “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12.21). This was the critical moment that set the final movements of the Gospel into action, and what Jesus said next made plain how significant the moment was: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12.23-24).

Again, and most poetically, we hear Christ speaking of the pouring out of His own life in sacrificial death for the sake of the entire world – the cosmos, all of humanity and creation.

This all-important theme of Jesus giving His life for the life of the world was always the main theme of His entire ministry – His teaching in words, His actions in drama, His entire life in the Divine poetry that overcame the corruption of darkness. Earlier on in John, after the Eucharistic and stupendous Feeding of the Five Thousand, Jesus spoke openly about this very theme:

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died But this is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the breach which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6.49-51).

It turns out that this Divine Self-sacrifice, this willingness to become the grain of wheat that dies to bear much fruit, was always God’s Will:

“It is too light a thing that You should be My Servant,” said God the Father to His Son in the prophecy of Isaiah, seven centuries before, “to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will give You as a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49.6).

Now in Holy Week, that universal salvation was soon to be accomplished. The Greeks – whom Jesus recognized as a symbol of the nations at the ends of the earth, just because they were Gentiles, uncircumcised, outside the written Law – had come, wanting to see this “light to the nations.”

Thus Jesus knew that the Cross was coming, that Golgotha loomed on the near horizon:

“‘Now My soul is troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save Me from this hour”? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glory Thy Name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again’” (John 12.27-28).

There had been a crowd around Jesus when He was told (by Philip and Andrew) of the Greeks’ request. The words from heaven were beyond their comprehension. Some thought it was thunder. Others thought that it must have been an angel speaking to Jesus. 

I can’t help but think of the seven thunders that John heard in his first book (Revelation 10.3-4). There were words indeed that he was not even permitted to write down. Of course this thunder was the voice of God in apocalyptic judgment in response to the cry of the Son, Who had voluntarily immersed Himself in the dark tide of the fallen world:

“Afflicted, I called upon the Lord, I cried out to My God: He heard My voice from His holy temple … The Lord thundered in the heavens, the Most High gave forth His voice … For Thou wilt save a humble people and Thou wilt humble the eyes of the arrogant. For Thou wilt light My lamp, O Lord, O My God, Thou wilt light My darkness” (Psalm 17,6,13,27-28 LXX).

Thunder in the heavens is the echo of judgment, and judgment indeed is what Jesus speaks of next immediately:

“This voice has come for your sake, not for Mine,” Jesus says. “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the Archon (i.e., ruler) of the world cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Myself” (John 12.30-32). The Lord made clear to the disciples, on a number of occasions, “by what death He was to die” (12.33).

Early on, when Jesus spoke with Nicodemus way back in the third chapter of John, He told the “ruler of the Jews,” after He spoke of being “born from above,” that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosever believes in Him may have eternal life” (John 3.15).

And this was all for the sake of divine love, as is clearly said in the next verse. We know it well: “For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3.16).

We are too familiar with this verse. We do not appreciate it for the profound revolution that it is. All Scriptural interpretation rests on this verse. All theology, indeed, all philosophy is determined by the truth of John 3.16. Yes, it is the reason for why Jesus died on the Cross and rose again. It is the reason why He came and was incarnate.

It is also the reason why anything exists in the first place.

It is also the standard of judgment. “Now is the judgment of this world,” Jesus said as Golgotha came within His sight. The chief function of archons, or rulers, is judgment – which is much more than determining the rightness or wrongness of an issue. Judgment is the establishment of righteousness, a culture that reflects divine love.

The Archon of this fallen world not only failed at establishing a culture of love: he rebelled against love. And since the Holy Spirit is the Actualizer of Divine Love both within the Trinitarian community and in Creation, then the Spirit’s descent – which was made possible by the Crucifixion and Resurrection and Ascension – would “convince and convict the world … concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged” (John 16.8,11).

“Judged” as in condemned and replaced. Why? Because the ruler of this world ruled by hatred, violence, domination, lies, corruption, and oppression. He sought and aggrandized self. He aggregated to himself power, wielding hurt, pain, and death. 

That is why Jesus told His disciples, right before His Palm Sunday Triumphal Entry, that His own “culture,” His Body, His church, was to be completely different from the world-historic ways of the Archon of the age:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20.25-28).

The “culture” of Christ, the communion realized by the Holy Spirit, would be “self-outpouring” just like Jesus.

In other words, the Body of Christ, His continued presence in every Christian, is itself the judgment. The Body of Christ that was made possible by His death and Resurrection, and His request for the Spirit to be sent, was now to be extended to all the world, not just one nation.

That is why when the Greeks told Philip “We would see Jesus,” Jesus knew His time had come.

the sharp cross

Today is Cross Veneration Sunday, the Third of Lent.

The Cross is not a symbol of worldly power or political triumph. 

Today, we sing this first hymn (i.e., tropar or apolotikion): "O Lord, save Your people, and bless Your inheritance. Grant Orthodox Christians victory over their enemies, and protect Your people with Your Cross."

The "enemies" are not other nations or people at all, despite that often being said. The true and only enemy is death and corruption.

"My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight," Jesus said to Pilate (John 18.36). "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26.53).

When Constantine saw his vision of the Cross in the sky, he mistook it as an insignia for imperial power. If what he saw in his vision before his military victory at the Milvian Bridge (312 AD) "In hoc signo vince" [i.e., “in this sign conquer”] has any meaning at all, it means to conquer the very same enemy that Jesus did on the original Cross.

The Cross has nothing to do with violence. Nothing to do with domination, coercion, self-aggrandizement, wealth expansion, or any venue of worldly power. The Lord makes this very clear:

"Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20.25-28).

The Cross should not be thought of as a sword, and it never ever should have been thought so.

The Cross is, rather, like a “sharp” -- a syringe and hypodermic needle.

Surprised? But think about it. The Cross really is an injection of divine eternal life into the soil of decay, the earth of corruption, the base of death.

Where humanity (and all creation) was languishing in death, by the Cross – by Jesus suffering and dying – God’s divinity destroyed death in His humanity.

That is why there is no Cross without the Resurrection, no Good Friday without Easter. Just because of that “injection” of divinity into our humanity, we are no longer destroyed by sin and death: we will live forever in His fellowship.

Our second hymn (i.e., kondak) for this Sunday of Cross Veneration insists on this point – that just because of the Crucifixion we are saved, because God is destroying sin and death:

“Now the flaming sword no longer guards the gates of Paradise; has been mysteriously quenched by the wood of the Cross! The sting of death and the victory of hell have been vanquished; for You, O my Saviour, did come and cry to those in hell: ‘Enter again into Paradise.’”

Look at what this hymn says:

1. The flaming sword of the cherubim no longer prevents humanity from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3.24)
2. The power of death and hell have been destroyed (Revelations 20.14)
3. Jesus invited everyone in hell to enter into Paradise – exactly what He said to the Good Thief on the Cross (Luke 23.43)

This goal was what God had been planning and working for all along: “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13.8).

And this: “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2.9-11).

Jesus was exalted at the Resurrection only because He was humiliated on the Cross.

The Cross cannot be and should never have been exploited for the use of force, coercion, or political opportunism, which is happening today – which is totally un-Biblical and actually anti-Christ.

Instead the opposite is true. The Cross is all about kenosis, all about Jesus pouring out His divine life for the sake of us.  The Cross is the Self-denial of the Son of God, the voluntary suffering of the Son of Man. 

And that is exactly why Jesus said "He that would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me" (Mark 8.34).

Then, and only then, will that person "not taste death" and "see the kingdom of God come with power" (Mark 9.1).

Enter the self-denial, humility and meekness of taking up your own cross, and then you can enter Jesus’ Paradise.

This is the "foolishness of God" (1 Corinthians 1.23), which is contrary to the worldly wisdom of wealth and power: "We preach Christ crucified … “

what the last judgment judges by

 

 

In the Parable of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25.31-46), the shepherd's dividing of the sheep and the goats, the Lord identifies who is being judged:

 

"Before him (i.e., the Son of Man) will be gathered all the nations" (Matthew 25.32).

 

The object of judgment is "all the nations" -- πάντα τὰ ἔθνη -- i.e., all societies, all ethnicities, all cultures and civilizations.

 

It is not self-evident that the object of judgment is each individual.

 

What is the criteria for judgment? The Parable states this clearly. It is how "the nations" treated "the least of these My brethren," whether they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, visited the sick and imprisoned.

 

Clearly, the criterion has to do with benevolence and justice. It is the exact opposite of the aristocratic madness of Nietzsche (and his modern disciple "Bronze Age Pervert," aka Costin Alamariu) and libertarianism.

 

What is missing from many interpretations of the Parable of the Last Judgement, and its related depiction in the Great White Throne of Revelation 20.11-15), is its clear antecedent of "God as Judge" in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms.

 

In Psalm 49 LXX, the "God of gods, the Lord" commands us to "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise and pay to the Most High thy vows" (49.14). In Psalm 57 LXX, God the Righteous Judge exorcises "bad judgment" that is oppressive and corrupt from the earth. In Psalm 71 LXX, God calls the King to "judge the poor of the people," and to "serve the sons of the poor," and to "humble the false accuser" (71.4) -- judgment here is seen as deliverance and vindication of those who have been excluded from the divine providence of creation.: no one should be poor and hungry, naked and oppressed on God's holy earth.

 

The preeminent Psalm of Judgment is probably Psalm 81 LXX (82 English numeration). It is interesting that in several Patristic texts, the Fathers interpret this to anticipate the Ascension of Christ and His establishment as warrior King and final Judge at the Judgment, to which I heartily agree.

 

But what is missing in some recent literature on this Psalm and its eschatological portent is the Judge's criteria. Here, as in the Judgment of Matthew 25 and Revelation 20, there is no mention of religious affiliation, or even of State friendship to and support of the Church:

 

God has stood in the mighty assembly,

and in their very midst He judged among the judges.

'How long will you judge unjustly

and favor persons who are wicked?

'Defend the poor and the orphaned,

be just to the oppressed and needy;

'Rescue the poor and needy,

deliver them from the sinner's hand.'

Neither knowing nor comprehending,

they have gone on in darkness;

all the foundations of the earth shall be shaken.

'I said: You are gods, you are all sons of the Most High.

'But you shall die as men die,

you shall fall like any earthly prince.'

(Psalm 81.2-7)

 

Whether these "judges of the mighty assembly" are angels, archons, kings or actual judges, the rich or the powerful, what is crucial is the divine demand for justice, and relief of the poor, the orphaned (i.e., those without household and connections), the oppressed, the needy (i.e., those who are denied the fruits of Providence).

If it is claimed that Jesus is the Savior precisely because He is supplanting (or has supplanted) the demonic structures of the world, then one must also claim that Jesus will restore a sort of righteousness that would probably discomfit some recent writers and podcasters.

 

Who are the "wicked" in Psalm 82.2 LXX? In Psalm 13 LXX, God the Judge states exactly what that wickedness is:

 

The Lord looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there be any that understand and seek God.

They have all turned aside, altogether corrupted; there is none, not even one, who does good.

Do all the workers of wickedness know nothing at all? They eat up My people as they eat bread and do not call on the Lord.

Thus they were in great fear where no was, for God is in the generation of the righteous.

You treat with contempt the poor man's desire, as the Lord is his only hope. 

(Psalm 13.2-6 LXX).

 

The implication for Lent is clear:

 

By all means, confess the individual, internal passions and sins: rage and lust, gluttony and greed, pride and despair, luxury and laxity.

 

But confess more self-centeredness, especially complicity in injustice, oppression, and the deprivation of rights and providence to the poor and the alien, all the excluded from the Table of the Lord that is Creation, even in the fallen world.

 

For what is the Garden of Eden but the primordial provision of humanity by the Hand of the Lord Himself?

 

Man's self-chosen exile from Eden is not just the alienation of the individual soul, but the alienation and fracturing of human society. The corruption of sin and death is not comprised only of individual sins of concupiscence and irascibility, but more emphatically from Scripture "iniquity and strife in the city ... unrequited toil and unrighteousness ... usury and deceit" (Psalm 54.9-10 LXX).

 

How long has it been since anyone has confessed usury?

 

When it comes to the division of the sheep from the goats, "goat-ness," at least in Scripture and the early Fathers, is a lot more social than individual. So is "sheep-ness."

 

If we want to be as eschatological as the first Christians undoubtedly were, we should start by at least dismissing the false contemptuous individualism as practiced in the libertarian "nation."

 

 

voyage of the prodigal

Voyage of the Prodigal:
from Solitary Confinement
to the Father's House

 

Repentance is not individualism

The Lenten call to repentance is often mistaken for an urge to descend into subjectivity, where the awareness of sin is confined to the indefinite reaches of the self and the psychic potential for an endless discovery of sinfulness.

But repentance in the Bible is not “navel-gazing.” It is not limited to introspection or what turns out to be “psychic self-prosecution.” Morality is both personal and social.

The righteousness of the Kingdom of God is not individualism -- despite the often popular urge to do so. Such individualized and subjectivized introspection turns out to be complicit in avoiding the obligations of "religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1.27).

The Prodigal Son is too often narrated as the descent into the disconnected soul, looking for a "nous" that is an island unto itself. But nature abhors not a vacuum but rather isolation -- and human nature is no different. “No man is an island,” so says the great English poet John Donne, “entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

It is impossible to “find yourself” as a disconnected, independent being. The sin of the Prodigal Son is not only his acts of excess – “there he squandered his property in loose living.” When the Prodigal Son “took his journey into a far country,” the real far country is precisely the ego descending into total self-centeredness. It was a rejection of the Father’s beautiful Creation, a turning away from the community of the Father’s House, and getting utterly lost and hopeless in the darkness of self-alienation.

The Father’s gifts of restoration

When the Prodigal finally “came to his senses” in the pig pen (Luke 15.17), he was changing from being self-absorbed (which always tends toward psychotic pathology) to waking up to reality – which is the divine community of his Father’s house.

The Prodigal Son is better told -- following the original Narrator's script -- as a restoration to the community of Eden – that is, humanity as it was created to be. After having squandered the inheritance of human nature, the restored prodigal regains the marks of communion with humanity and all Creation.

The Father clothes His returning child with a robe that hearkens back to the innocence and openness, the transparency and lissomeness of Adam and Eve before the Fall. It is the baptismal robe of holiness regained. 

The shoes that were put on the feet of the Prodigal are tokens of being firmly established in the Father’s house: “having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6.15).

And the ring is the sign of sonship and daughterhood, of having been brought back into the household of the Father not as a hired hand, but as a son or daughter fully restored. The ring is a badge of primordial human royalty. Humanity – the image of the Son of the Father – was always the center and meaning of Creation.

All three of these graces, these undeserved and utterly surprising festival gifts, speak emphatically of a repentant sinner being welcomed back and repositioned at the head of Creation, once again occupying the divine call in Eden:

“Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion … Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1.26,28). This is a “happy dominion,” a husbandry over Creation that mediates divine grace through man to all other creatures. This central role was abdicated by the First Adam at the Fall: this role is taken up again by the Second Adam, and in Him every prodigal is “re-invested” with royalty restored.

False way of salvation

Obviously, these gifts of the Father – the ring, the shoes, the robe – are NOT tokens of a hermeticized individual, separated from the rest of humanity and the world. Such individualism -- even dressed in Pharisaical complacency -- is a false way of theosis, i.e., salvation. Righteousness is only community: it cannot be egotistical.

Jesus warns against the temptations of false theosis, of a Pharisaical individualism that calls attention to itself:

“And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6.16-18).

The dangers of show religion

The Lord says many withering things about making a show of austere religion and publicized penance. Orthodox Christians should not be identified by what they wear, how they look, especially by how miserable they act.

The early Christians readily adopted this ethic. This can be seen in the Letter to Diognetus, written in 130 AD by an anonymous author: “Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.”

The selfish older son

Nothing demonstrates the peril of “individualized false theosis” than the character of the Older Brother of the Prodigal Son. His is the self-isolating religiosity of the separated individual, offended that the undeserving is welcomed back home.

Who is the Older Son? Anyone who would rather eat mutton with just a few other miserable colleagues (like Job's “friends” who blamed Job’s suffering on God) than join in with the angelic assembly who all rejoice over one sinner who repents:

“ … yet you never gave me a kid goat that I might make merry with my friends” (Luke 15.29).

The Lord points to this theme in the verse that immediately precedes the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

“Just so, I tell you that there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15.10).

True Lent cannot be undertaken without a clear idea of the destination. The Father's House with "bread enough and to spare" is the House of the Greening of Spring. It is the community of Eden that is the descending New Jerusalem. It is the Upper Room of God washing human feet.

One wonders whether the Lenten journey can go anywhere if one starts out with the notion that heaven is sparse, peopled by only a few mutton-eaters. It is a terrible thing to claim – as some have done – that only a few people will end up in heaven. To say so is to misrepresent the Father, Who is “prodigal” in His desire that “no one should perish” (2 Peter 3.9 and 1 Timothy 2.4), that His marriage feast at the Last Day should be completely full (Luke 14.23).

The destination of Lent: the way home

Lent wends its way, of course, to the Edenic Tree of the Fatted Calf, the place where God pours out His life to become the Eucharist in the House of Bread, Bread broken for the Life of the World. In which life there is no individuality, only personhood and the beloved community.

The Older Son then is the one who is offended at the “music and dancing” (Luke 15.25) of homecoming, who thinks it unfair that he is paid the same after working a whole day as the one who worked only one hour. He is the one who cannot tolerate the possibility, let alone the likelihood (Matthew 21.31), that the unshriven and unclean might end up saved, just because the Father will wait as long as it takes. 

❦