"Blown Away," by Winslow Homer
Some of you have wondered why I make such a big deal out of theology and doctrine. Here, I will tell you.
It’s safe to say that we live in a very “un-Orthodox” moment. Most people in America and Western Europe do not believe in the Nicene Creed, nor do they participate in Divine Liturgy and receive the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
Most people think that God “may or may not exist,” and that it is not important to be sure. More people believe that God is all about power and anger rather than love. Most people think that God is a “take it or leave it” proposition, and that they don’t have to be concerned with the wisdom or morality of their behavior.
And — I’ll say this mainly because I feel older right now, having gone to my 40th high school class reunion and not recognizing most of my old classmates — I think America's gotten nuttier than I’ve ever seen it before. And I blame neither the Democrats nor Republicans, President Trump nor Secretary Clinton, leftwing or right.
I blame doctrine. Bad doctrine, that is.
And doctrine is something that you cannot ever get away from, even if you’re a raging atheistic materialist (which you’re not). “You gotta believe in something,” Bob Dylan once sang, and that something is up to you.
* * * * * * *
For the twenty years I’ve been a priest (and twenty years before that in ministry), I have been deeply persuaded that at the root of all unhappiness and disorder is the presence of “various and strange doctrines” (Hebrews 13.9).
What should be there in the heart is the presence of the Jesus Christ Who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13.8).
He is the One Who brings the love and fellowship of the Divine Trinity to us, to all humanity: “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. 12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept … But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17.11-13).
It is too bad that usually, we pay attention to these words at the first and longest reading of the Twelve Passion Gospels on Holy Thursday. We are busy standing, perhaps shifting our weight in our shoes, worried that the children will stay calm, but we might not appreciate the fact that these very words establish the only hope for peace and joy in this world. Mental, emotional health is centered on these sentences. Spiritual health, most of all, depends radically upon John 17.11-13.
You can become truly human, perfected, only when you pray, believe and commune in the Body of the One Who is the same yesterday, today and forever … because, at the end of all things — even at the end of your earthly life — the Only One left standing is Christ: and we can be a part of His Body … if we truly want to.
All you have to do to have your “heart be established by grace” (Hebrews 13.9) is to stop being “carried about with various and strange doctrines." Look at your lifestyle, how you really live. What occupies most of your time? Where is your head? Where is your body? Do some “reverse engineering.” What opinions and beliefs are there that keep you thinking what you think? that keeping you doing what you do? that keep you feeling what you feel?
Because at the root of every human behavior (whether good or bad) is a doctrine, whatever it is. If you are not certain that God is real, or that He wants to rescue you, then there is no way you’re going to want to participate in Liturgy or desire the Eucharist more than any other thing. If you are not convinced that Jesus is your Good Shepherd, Who accompanies you through “the valley of the shadow of death,” then you will certainly “fear evil” (Psalm 22.4 LXX), then you will necessarily try to go your own way, through the soul-sucking lifestyle of anxiety and self-protection, through angry attacks at whoever you think is your enemy (and you'll always, always be dead wrong). If you do not know in your heart of hearts that God is “the God of all comfort,” (2 Corinthians 1.3), then you’ll be left to comfort yourself on your own, whether you’ll choose from the self-comforting array of any number of addictions (i.e., drug, alcohol, gambling, food, TV); or simply just running away to the self-isolation of despair.
I look at behavior and never once do I say “they cannot help it,” or “that's just the way I am.” Choices and thoughts, feelings and behavior -- all of them come from freely-chosen doctrine. The way we are is the result of what we freely believe. So when I see bad, destructive or just negligent behavior, I don’t judge or condemn. I look for the “strange doctrine" that is “carrying away" a human heart. Most of the time I feel sad, sometimes even distressed. And I pray.
Count on it. When someone has not shown up in the fellowship of the Church, I pray. Whenever — for four decades now — I have witnessed quarrels and distemper and weakness, I run to that Altar, “seeking the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13.14), and pray for the peace of the New Jerusalem.
* * * * * * *
Today, we celebrate the Holy Fathers of the First Six Ecumenical Councils. There are seven of these, I know. This feast that we celebrate today was established before the year 787, when the Seventh Council convened to uphold the piety and worship of the Orthodox tradition, especially the veneration of icons.
But the first six Ecumenical Councils (excepting maybe the Fifth) established for all time, at the center of history and human life, this central truth:
For a human to be human, he or she must believe in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and must know that they exist in the Trinity's Divine Being: “In Him we live and move and have our being," as St Paul said to the Areopagites (Acts 17.28).
And for a human to live forever, humans must join themselves to the Body of Christ, through Baptism, Eucharist, and full-fledged, no-holding-back belief and trust.
This is the Wisdom we seek, the “pearl of great price” (Matthew 13.45). Seek this wisdom. Learn from it. Make it and it alone your doctrine. “Do this and you shall live” (Luke 10.28 and Leviticus 18.5).
I strongly believe that it was for the work of the Seven Ecumenical Councils that the Byzantine Empire was ordained by God to exist. When its work was done, and when the tradition of prayer and hymnody was established by the fourteenth century, the Empire became a memory, and the Christian State was never to be again until the end of time.
* * * * * * *
Jesus once talked about this problem of "strange doctrines.” He described the human race as a herd of sheep that needed shepherding. Throughout time, unfortunately, many “thieves" have come in, sneaking in over the fence, and leading the sheep astray.
These “thieves” are the “strange doctrines.” And, as I’ve said, they’re not just other religions or heresies. They are mainly “bad opinions,” or just downright “foolishness.”
It turns out, for the Prophets and the Apostles and all the Holy Fathers, that the free moral choice between foolishness and wisdom is really a choice between life and death.
Bad opinions, foolishness and lazy thinking in general are all toxic. Strange doctrine is killer.
Only Truth, Who is Jesus Christ Himself, Who is the Word of Wisdom, is the only Shepherd Who comes to bring life that is abundant and freedom, and forever (John 10.10) — because, and only because -- the Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep.
Pay attention: “The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater One than Solomon is here” (Luke 11.31).
This is why my simple and central pray has always been that you will become wise in Him, to truly have "a heart established by grace.” If Orthodoxy is not in such a peacemaking and lifegiving business, establishing the heart by grace, then it is not Orthodoxy at all.
* * * * * * *
If Jesus is the Word of Wisdom, then Mary and the Church, whose Mother she is, is the receiver of Wisdom, the "becomer" of Sophia and the model and “true culture” of belief. It is hard to believe in Wisdom outside Holy Tradition. But it makes no sense to be part of Tradition, only to let yourself be carried away.
Orthodoxy cannot be Orthodoxy unless it is first a society of love, wisdom and peace.
Make yourself meek and kind like the Mother of God, the best receiver of Wisdom. Make yourself desire more than anything else the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. Make yourself become a peacemaker. Fix your heart on Jesus Who is Truth and thus become pure of heart.
Then you will have become a fulfillment of Jesus’ High Priestly prayer: “… that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.”
You'll be happy.
And so will I.
— Fr Jonathan Tobias
Comments