Sins and Debts

For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life?  (Mark 8:36-37)

The Bible, especially  the New Testament takes some of its imagery for the spiritual life from the business world – from bartering, selling, trading, profit making, an exchange of goods and services, commercial transactions.  But, at least according to some biblical scholars, the use of financial transactions as a metaphor for the spiritual life is something that develops over time in Israel eventually becoming common place by the time of the New Testament.

One area where the difference between Biblical and Second Temple Hebrew is rather dramatic is that of sin. During the Second Temple period (516BCE  to 70AD) it became common to refer to the sins of an individual or a nation as the accrual of a debt.  This explains the diction of the Our Father, “forgive us our debts” (Matt. 6:12). The metaphor of sin as a debt is rarely attested in the bulk of the Hebrew Bible. But as soon as it became a commonplace to view a sin as a debt—and this took place early in the Second Temple period—it became natural to conceive of virtuous activity as a merit or credit.   (Gary Anderson, Christian Doctrine and the Old Testament: Theology in the Service of Biblical Exegesis, Kindle Loc 3901-3907)

Indeed, numerous Church Fathers explain the value of giving in charity in terms of debt – our gifts to the poor and needed are “regifted” as a loan to God, and God will repay us in His Kingdom for all the charity we gave during our lifetime.  “He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed”  (Proverbs 19:17).  Giving in charity thus makes God indebted to us.  God will make good on this loan.  The imagery was used not rigidly to declare there is a Karma governing even God, but, rather to help us understand that our acts of charity, kindness, mercy, forgiveness are not our loss or to our detriment but ultimately benefit us in God’s Kingdom.  We are in charity not giving up things or giving away thing or impoverishing ourselves – we are providing for our future with God.  We are putting money in our retirement fund, saving up for that future.  “But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:3-4).

Scholar Gary Anderson notes in St Ephrem’s hymns, this language is common.  St Ephrem (d. 373AD) says:

He Who is Lord of all, gives us all, And He Who is Enricher of all, borrows from all. He is Giver of all as one without needs. Yet He borrows back again as one deprived. He gave cattle and sheep as Creator, But on the other hand, He sought sacrifices as one deprived.  (Christian Doctrine and the Old Testament: Theology in the Service of Biblical Exegesis, Kindle Loc 4322-4327)

God gives us everything – the entire cosmos.  We are stewards of His varied graces and as such we “owe” God all that we do in the world.  We are indebted to God because God has given us everything.  When we fail to recognize we are living on borrowed time, ‘renting” space on the planet, and using God’s resources, we become indebted to God because we are not giving God His due.  God allows us to use what God has given us, but we are obligated to give back to God from our blessings since we really are the stewards of these borrowed things, not the owner.  As St Basil the Great (d. 379AD) wrote,  the Lord “’did not instruct us to throw away possessions as evil and flee them, but to administer them‘ (Sh. Rul. 92; 323)”  (Stephen M. Hildebrand, Basil of Caesarea, Kindle Loc 3203-3205).   God trusts us and entrusts to us God’s creation to use to His glory.  To be fully human we have to see ourselves as thus being obligated to serving God.  We should treat as precious life and creation because they are God’s prized possessions.

What do we owe God?  Everything, though God in the Old Testament is willing to accept a tithe from what we produce.   The Lord Jesus in speaking about love seems to lift the 10% payback limit and says that we are to give in love for God and neighbor.  Love can’t be quantified.  Anderson points out that St Ephrem uses the imagery of commercial exchange and praises it.  As Ephrem says in one of his hymns:

Give thanks to him who brought the blessing and took from us the prayer.

For he made the one worthy of worship descend

And made our worship of him ascend.

For he gave us divinity

And we gave him humanity.

He brought us a promise

And we gave him the faith Of Abraham, his friend.

For we have given him our alms on loan

In turn, let us demand their repayment. (Hymns on Faith 5.17)

(Christian Doctrine and the Old Testament: Theology in the Service of Biblical Exegesis, Kindle Loc 4336-4344)

The good things we do are a spiritual exchange.  We are constantly doing these spiritual commercial transactions with God.  God gives us His blessings and we in turn offer God our prayer.  God sends His Son to become incarnate and we give to Him our humanity.  God gives us seed, sun and rain – we in turn grow wheat and grapes and offer to God bread and wine.  God accepts our offering and transfigures it into the Body and Blood of Christ.  We receive this Holy Communion as we offer thanksgiving to God.

We are constantly interacting with God and co-creating with God, turning the natural resources God has provided to us into means for our union with God, and for transfiguration by God into communion with God.  And note the audacious boldness of St Ephrem’s hymn: “In turn, let us demand their repayment.”  We don’t merely ask or beg God’s help, we can demand it!  If we have done our part, we can demand from God that God upholds His part of the promise, the bargain, the transaction.  “Lord have mercy!” is not a plaintive and helpless cry, but a command to God to do what you have promised because we have done what you asked of us. But, of course, we can only demand if we actually did what we were supposed to do.

And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.  (Matthew 6:12-15)

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”  (Luke 6:37-38)

[See also my post: The Wages of Sin is Death.  What are the Wages for Taking Up the Cross?}

Seeking the Mercy of God

 Jesus said  “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” (Matthew 18:21-35)

The parable challenges purely rationalistic logic by saying love is of extreme importance, far more important to Jesus than justice.

Note, the Master does not call the servant wicked for accruing a 10,000 talent debt (the amount of money is phenomenal, 10,000 years worth of wages), but calls him evil when he refuses to forgive his fellow servant. Think about that – what was really the great problem, the important problem, the insurmountable problem of the parable? The debt is far beyond anyone’s ability to repay, the servant had indebted himself beyond all reason, and just that foolishness deserved punishment, but the Master forgives.  Why?  Because he is of that up-side-down Kingdom of heaven, where love reigns supreme to such an extent that it is almost absurd.

The fellow servant uses exactly the same words the servant used in begging for mercy from the master, but the servant does not recognize himself or his own words!  What about u?  We hope for God’s mercy daily, yet do we show mercy to others in our daily transactions? How many times do we ask for God’s mercy in the Liturgy? Lord, have mercy! How many times do we have opportunity to show mercy to others each week?

Christ demands more from us, His disciples.  Even forgiving isn’t enough – we must forgive from out hearts. We are to drop all claims to those indebted to us.  This isn’t saying, “Forget about it.” Rather, it is acknowledging the debt, the loss and the pain but then still forgiving with that trespass.

We know how people can get under our skin and just irritate us.  Christ though says forget about them just getting under your skin –  instead allow them to get into your heart, where despite their foibles and failures you forgive them.  You turn your heart into the Kingdom of God.

If we cannot behave in a manner befitting the Kingdom of God right now in this life by practicing love and forgiveness, we will find no entrance into that Kingdom. We will not find the Kingdom either welcoming nor a place we want to be. We will find instead only that bitterness of exact justice that we demand in this world being given to us for all eternity.   That is unlike the Kingdom in which complete and undeserved and unearned love and forgiveness is how God runs His Kingdom.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  He didn’t say blessed are the peace lovers.   We have to take the action that brings about peace, not evade or avoid the problems of community.

How Can I Tell if I Have Forgiven Someone?

Remembrance of wrongs is consummation of anger, the keeper of sin, hatred of righteousness, ruin of virtues, poison of the soul, worm of the mind, shame of prayer…you will know that you have completely freed yourself of this rot, not when you pray for the person who has offended you, not when you exchange presents with him, not when you invite him to your table, but only when, on hearing that he has fallen into bodily or spiritual misfortune, you suffer and weep for him as for yourself. (St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent)

“But I say to you,” the Lord says, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you.” Why did he command these things? So that he might free you from hatred, sadness, anger and grudges, and might grant you the greatest possession of all, perfect love, which is impossible to possess except by the one who loves all equally in imitation of God. (St. Maximus the Confessor)

(from In Communion, Issue 42: Summer 2006)

Miracles: Shadows or Signs?

And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins” – He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”  (Mark 2:1-12)

Looking at Mark 2:1-12, one question that comes to mind as suggested by the text itself is “What was the purpose of Christ healing the paralytic?”

The answer is that Jesus wanted to prove he had the power to forgive sins.  The miraculous healing was completely secondary for Christ.  Jesus responds to the faith of these men by pronouncing forgiveness of sins to the paralytic.   Jesus only heals the paralytic to prove to the people that He really did have power to forgive sins.  While we often are so impressed with the miraculous and seek out miracles, Christ offers a deeper mystery – the forgiveness of sins so that we can be in union with God.

We find a similar idea in Exodus with why Moses before the Passover performed miracles both for the Egyptians and for the Jews in Egypt.  The goal was to bring people to faith, to recognize that God in fact had spoken to Moses.  The miracles of the plagues though spectacular for Hollywood were secondary to his goal.

So in Exodus 4:1-9, the miracles God commands Moses to do are not the main point at all. The miracles are to get the Jews to believe Moses really is sent by God and to get Pharaoh’s attention so he will let the Israelites leave Egypt.   Moses did not go to Egypt to be a miracle worker but to be a prophet.  He would use the miracles to accomplish his real goal.   So we read in Exodus 4, Moses pleading with God that he doesn’t want to go to Egypt because he doubts the Jews will believe him anyway.

Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you.'” The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A rod.” And he said, “Cast it on the ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.

But the LORD said to Moses, “Put out your hand, and take it by the tail” —so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand— “that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” Again, the LORD said to him, “Put your hand into your bosom.” And he put his hand into his bosom; and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, as white as snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back into your bosom.” So he put his hand back into his bosom; and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or heed the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or heed your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it upon the dry ground; and the water which you shall take from the Nile will become blood upon the dry ground.”

At first the miracles had the effect on the people God wanted:

Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. And Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped .    (Exodus 4:29-31)

At least at first they believed in  Moses and the Lord, but when things started to get rougher for the Jews in Egypt, they quickly turned against the miracle worker Moses.   Note: God wasn’t telling the people to start chasing miracles.  The miracles were to lead them to believe Moses was sent by God.  But as soon as the people began to suffer they immediately abandoned the miracle worker.  So God tells Moses:

Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment, and I will take you for my people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.'” Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel; but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel bondage.   (Exodus 6:6-9)

Moses performed his miracles so that the people might believe that He actually was sent by God.  Jesus does miracles for the same reason, and the people turned against Jesus just like they turned against Moses.     And, often we act like we are only interested in more miracles, not really interested in being disciples of Jesus because that is too demanding and hard.  We behave just like Israel.  We want the miracles but don’t want to follow God if it means life might be difficult.

Jesus comes and asks us to follow Him, and He shows us miracles as a sign to follow Him as He is leading us to God’s Kingdom.  But so often we are more interested in the miracles than in following Christ.   Christ opens the kingdom of heaven to us and we don’t care as long as we have some miracles and magic in our life.   Christ’s miracles however are meant as signs pointing to the important reality which is God’s Kingdom.

Just as Moses would lead Israel out of Egypt into the desert on the way to the promised land, so Jesus calls us to follow Him, and to turn away from all of the allurements and attractions and pleasures of the world in order to find our way to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus offers us the forgiveness of our sins as a sign to follow Him in a new direction, to become the human beings God has created us to be.

When we come to confession, Christ asks each of us:  “what do you want me to do for you?”   This is a question He asked several people before healing them.  Ask yourself: What do I need from Christ?   What do I want from Christ as I confess my sins?    If the answer is “nothing, I’m just fulfilling my obligation”, then we will receive nothing for sure.   Do we want forgiveness of our sins?  Do we want healing of our souls?  Do we want to be cleansed of our sins?  Do we want Christ to abide in our hearts?  Do we want  to be able to forgive others?   Do we want to move in a new direction in life?  Do we want to move toward the Kingdom of God?  Do we want to be able to love others as Christ loves us?

St Gregory Palamas taught that our heart is a mirror, but a very special and unusual mirror for if we look into the mirror of our heart it is possible to see God.  Partially it is possible since each of us is created in God’s image and likeness.

The search for God thus begins in our own heart  we don’t have to go somewhere to see God, not to Jerusalem or Mecca or  Kathmandu or Mt Athos.  The journey to God is accessible to each of us because as it turns out being created in God’s image means we carry God within ourselves.  We actually also carry the journey to God in our own hearts.

In this thinking,  sin is our ceasing to look for God in the inner mirror of our heart.  When we cease looking into the mirror of our heart to see God,  what do we see?  We gaze upon our self.  We find a selfish joy of making our self the object of our spiritual search, our vision, our dream.  We become self-centered narcissists.  What’s good for me?  What’s in it for me?  What do I get out of it?  What do I want?  How will this affect me?

I remember a number of years ago reading the story of a student whose best friend had died.  And what question did this young man ask?  . . . . . . .  – how could God let this happen to me?    He wasn’t even concerned how the death affected his best friend, he was only concerned about how his friend’s death affected himself.   That is certainly what happens when we cease to carry God in our hearts.

As we continue our sojourn through Great Lent, we are to remember our search is for God.  We began Great Lent forgiving each other so that God would forgive us our sins.  And then we realize that the forgiveness of our sins is a sign that Jesus Christ is Lord and He has opened the Kingdom of Heaven to us, so we should follow Him.  Miracles are given to us as a sign pointing to the kingdom of God.  We aren’t seeking signs, we are seeking the Kingdom.

Forgiveness and Friendship

What exactly does forgiveness look like?  There is no doubt that a lot depends on the people involved both the one forgiving and for the one being forgiven.  I don’t think there is any one result that happens.  A friend recently told me this story:

He had done something that deeply offended a dear friend, making a serious accusation against his friend that turned out not to be true.  His friend walked away from him in disgust and anger.

When he realized that he had been wrong in what he had thought and said, he went to his friend and admitted he was wrong, asking for forgiveness.  His friend told him that he forgave him, but never renewed the friendship.  This man told me he pondered that for years thinking his friend never really forgave him, for if he had really forgiven him, the friendship would have continued on as before.

After many years, he said he came to realize that though his friend had forgiven him, his friend still held him accountable for what he had done.  He said he had imagined wrongly that forgiveness was like a free pass – if you forgive me, you can’t hold me accountable for what I’ve done.  But he said he realized his friend held him to a high standard of friendship – as friends we are accountable to one another, and we should not let friends off the hook too easily if we really value the other person and want them also to learn and grow in wisdom.   We should never let someone off the hook if that only will enable them to continue to commit the same fault – for if they are really a friend they will want to learn and change.

He said he came to realize that in fact in his lifetime he had several times been let off the hook when he had done something that hurt another.   He came to realize his friend  wanted him to be the best person he possibly could be and that meant he had to learn accountability.    A really profound lesson in forgiveness and friendship.  He said he came to understand that his own apology was probably more self seeking – he didn’t want to lose his friend – whereas his apology really needed to include taking full responsibility for what he had done.

He had damaged the friendship irreparably and he had to take full responsibility for  that.  His friend may indeed have forgiven him but that meant he had to share in carrying the burden of the damage.  His friend carried his share of the damage and he had to own up to carrying his own share of the damage done.

An Adventure, Great Lent, the Desert and the Heart

How many of you like to travel?  How many of you find the thought of a great voyage or adventure to be exciting?

How many of you find that however wonderful travel can be it is always great to be back home?

Whether you like to travel, like an adventure, or whether you like getting home, Great Lent is for you.  Great Lent is a great spiritual sojourn, a great adventure to the kingdom of heaven, and as it turns out, this heaven to which we are sojourning is also our home!

The Christian sojourn is not traveling to a far-off foreign country, but instead it is a journey to the home God created for us from the beginning.  Today in the Church we also remember the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.  Paradise was the place God created to be our home, but we no longer live in Paradise.   This is reality.  The Scriptures tell us of why Adam and Eve had to leave their home in Paradise, they were expelled from the home God made for them and us because of their own rebellious sin.

At Vespers on the eve of Forgiveness Sunday one of the hymns says:

Adam ate the forbidden fruit and was driven from Paradise.

He sat outside, weeping bitterly:

“Woe to me! What will become of me, a worthless man?

I disobeyed one command of my Master and lost every good thing!

O holy Paradise, planted for me by God, and closed by the weakness of

Eve,

grant that I may once again gaze on the flowers of your gardens!”

The Savior said to him:

“I do not wish the death of my creation!

I desire that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth,

for him who comes to me I shall never cast out!”

Adam and Eve lost not only their home but also lost their way home.  And in them, so did we all.   They couldn’t get back to that home they had lost.  But Christianity says there is a way home.  So in another hymn from Vespers we sing:

O Paradise, garden of delight and beauty,

dwelling-place made perfect by God,

unending gladness and eternal joy,

the hope of the prophets and the home of the saints,

by the music of your rustling leaves beseech the Creator of all

to open the gates which my sins have closed,

that I may partake of the Tree of Life and Grace

which was given to me in the beginning!

Even the leaves in paradise when they rustle create music which calls to us to return.   And when we think about this beautiful paradise we should feel homesick because this world is full of problems – violence, disease, war, pain, sorrow, addiction, emotional illness, shattered marriages, dysfunctional families.  Something is wrong in this world and with this world.  Sin has shattered our lives.  We have lost touch with God.

Yet, the fact that we can recognize there is a problem gives us hope.  We don’t find ultimate purpose of life in this world, but it is available to us in the life in the world to come.  We can believe there is purpose and meaning to life despite the  sorrows and problems of this world because we understand this world is only a small part of the totality of creation, and life here is a tiny portion of the big history or creation.  We can believe that there is a better way, and trust that there is a God to help us.  Thus we can be full of hope.

Many years ago I read a book called Emotions Anonymous In which a physician wrote these words:

“As a doctor it took me a long time to find that actually relieving pain is not my goal.  I found that behind all the suffering, pain, diseases, and all the conditions that cause dis-ease, lie the thirst and the hunger of the human being for spirituality.

This hunger and thirst is the aspiration of a human being to be a whole again.”  (p 18)

This physician was describing what we Orthodox have known for centuries.  He went on to say about this world:

“I believe

We want to have no conflict, but we still have conflict.

We want life to be perfect here and now but it is far from perfect.

We want to have constant pleasure but we have pain.

We so want to succeed in every effort we make that when we fail in one area we reject not only our actions but ourselves as well.

We become very fearful.

We try to impress other people by being something we are not, by being phony.

We find ourselves being resentful toward people and life.

We become experts as manipulating people.

We become very self-centered.”  (Emotions Anonymous, p 29)

In so many ways he is describing the same things we read in the Scriptures about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise and why we struggle on earth with pain and sorrow.  He is describing the descent into sin and a world which is broken.

And when we allow ourselves to truly look at this world, we realize all of the things of this earth not only are intermixed with pain and sorrow but they also are transient, all is passing away.

And so we can think about Christ’s words:  “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.”   Our treasure should be our true home that Kingdom of God which is  true, permanent and eternal, rather than being the things of this world which are intermixed with grief and pain.  We should prefer the eternal and everlasting Kingdom to the temporary and transient things of this world which in any case will all pass away.

Great Lent calls us to look for the eternal even though we live in the temporal world.   Great Lent reminds us that we really do love these temporary things of this world – our favorite foods, the comforts of home, being entertained, the abundance of the earth.  But all we need to do is look around and realize we continue to age, we really are sojourners on this planet and are here only a short time.  Not only are our lives on earth temporary, but everything we so love on earth will pass away as well.

And as we think about all of this we come to the words of the Prophet Hosea in which God himself musing about his own love for Israel  says:  “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.”  (Hosea 2:14)

God in His love for His people calls us into the wilderness, into the desert to find Him and to find our way home.  Great Lent is a sojourn, it is the journey into the desert where we find God’s love and  our way home to God.    We experience in Lent some discomfort, some self-denial, to awaken in ourselves the knowledge that we are not in our permanent home but are just passing through this life on the way to our home.  Fasting is a spiritual discipline to help us put this world and our lives into a proper framework so that we can seek that which is eternal as well as that which is our true home.

When we think about fasting, we also have to consider that before teaching us about fasting, Jesus spoke first about forgiveness as we see in today’s Gospel.

 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  (Matthew 6:14-21)

In the Gospel, Christ teaches us first about forgiving and then fasting.  Before we begin the fast we are to forgive.  We cannot pursue the heights of spirituality without first ridding ourselves of the depth of anger and resentment by forgiving one another.

St Gregory the Great said even sinners and demons can perform spectacular miracles (Pharaoh’s magicians for example did).  St Gregory says forgiving is an even a greater miracle than healing the sick, and every Christian is capable of performing the miracle of forgiveness.   Demons and sinners are not able to perform the miracle of forgiveness.  Perform a miracle today, forgive someone who has offended you or who owes you or against whom you have a grudge.

You are God’s servant, does it serve God for you to hold on to a grudge, a hurt, the anger, the resentment?

The journey we are about to undertake is a spiritual sojourn, and the desert through which we must traverse turns out to be our own hearts which have become hardened, barren and arid by our experiences in this world.  But now we are being called by God to turn away from the world and to come into the desert to meet Him, to turn our hearts into the very place where we will meet God face to face.  The experience of God awaits us if we will undertake the journey.

We are preparing ourselves to commemorate the Resurrection of our Lord, not as past history, but as our own experience, our history, Christ is risen from the dead, not Christ was risen.  We celebrate this yearly because it is our personal experience, and our community’s experience, not just something that happened to people long ago.  We are to enter into that experience and make it our own.  I do this because of what the Lord has done for me.  God has blessed us in this world and invites us into that blessed life in the world to come.  Are you ready to make this sojourn home?

For the Peace from Above

For the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.

Jesus answered:  “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”   (John 3:3)

Jesus speaks to us about being ‘born again’ or ‘born from above’ – which Orthodoxy has understood as the spiritual and heavenly birth given us in baptism.  The phrase “from above” does occur at various times in Orthodox liturgical prayers as in the petition of the litany listed above.  We come to experience the forgiveness we offer to others as the peace from above.  St. Isaac of Nineveh writes:

Consider the forgiveness of your debtors in these things as a work of righteousness.  Then you will see peace exult in your mind from two sides: namely when you are above propriety and justice in your way, and you yield to freedom in all things. (On Ascetical Life, p. 65)

For St Isaac  when someone decides to forgive, they decide that mercy trumps judgment (James 2:13).  In forgiveness, we decide to forego retribution, justice or even validation for one’s hurt because of the offense.  You choose freedom from the demands of justice.

Forgiveness Sunday is our time to choose the peace from above, to let go the demands of justice and validation and to love another as God loves us.  We enter into Great Lent with the intention to live the Gospel.  “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14).  We offer to others what we want from God.

The second theme, that of forgiveness, is emphasized in the Gospel reading for this Sunday (Matthew 6:14-21) and in the special ceremony of mutual forgiveness at the end of Vespers on Sunday evening. Before we enter the Lenten fast, we are reminded that there can be no true fast, no genuine repentance, no reconciliation with God, unless we are at the same time reconciled with one another. A fast without mutual love is the fast of demons. As the commemoration of the ascetic saints on the previous Saturday has just made clear to us, we do not travel the road of Lent as isolated individuals but as members of a family. Our asceticism and fasting should not separate us from our fellow men but link us to them with ever stronger bonds. The Lenten ascetic is called to be a man for others. (The Lenten Triodion, p. 47)

 

God be Merciful to Me

“But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again.”  (Luke 6:27-30)

St John Chrysostom, once asked about what kind of people would ask God to do something that goes against God’s own commandments.  He was thinking it is you and I!

“Those that make requests it is fitting for God to grant, not beseeching him for what is opposed to his laws.  And who is so bold, you ask, as to make God grant what is opposed to his laws?  Those who intercede with him against their enemies; this, of course, is at variance with the law decreed by him.  He says, remember, ‘forgive your debtors.’ (Matthew 6:12).   But do you call on him against your enemies when he has bidden you pardon them?  What could be worse than this absurdity?  In prayer you should have the appearance, attitude and approach of a suppliant; so why do you adopt another guise, that of accusation?  I mean, how would you succeed in gaining pardon of your own faults when you expect God to be the punisher of other’s crimes?”  (COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS Vol 1, p 52)

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  (Colossians 3:12-13)

Empathy for the Sinner

If, during service, your brother does anything irregularly, or somewhat negligently, do not become irritated, either inwardly or outwardly with him, but be generously indulgent to his fault, remembering that during your life you yourself commit many, many faults, that you yourself are a man with all infirmities, that God is longsuffering and most merciful, and that he forgives you and all of us our iniquities an innumerable multitude of times. Remember the words of the Lord’s prayer: “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us..”

These words should always remind us that we ourselves at all times are great trespassers, great sinners before God, and that, remembering this, we should be humble in the depths of our hearts, and not be very severe to the faults of our brethren, weak like ourselves; that as we do not judge ourselves severely, we must not judge others severely, for our brethren are – our members just like ourselves. Irritability of temper proceeds from want of self-knowledge, from pride, and also from fact that we do not consider the great corruption of our nature, and know but little the meek and humble Jesus.

(St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ, p. 118)

The Sins I Cannot See

We usually think of sins as actions intentionally or purposefully done, sometimes even done with malice.  But there are also sins and offenses which people commit with no malice because they are unaware of how their behavior affects others.  In this story from the desert fathers, we see exactly this latter case, two monks who are endlessly irritated by the wrong behavior of a third monk.  The third monk’s behavior is so offensive that the two monks decide the most loving thing is simply to move away from him.  But as often is the case, we have to think about what Christian love demands of us and what constraints it puts on us.

They used to say of Abba Poemen that he was staying at Scete with two of his brothers and the younger one was troubling them. He said to the other brother: “This young fellow is our undoing; get up and let us be gone from here.” Out they went and left him. Realizing that they were a long time gone he saw them in the distance. He started to run after them, crying out. Abba Poemen said “Let us wait for the brother, for he is in adversity.” When he caught up with them [the brother] prostrated himself, saying: “Where are you going and [why are you] leaving me alone?” The elder said to him: “Because you trouble us; that is why we are going away.” He said to them: “Yes, yes, let us go together wherever you like.” When the elder saw that there was no guile in him, he said to his brother: “Let us go back brother, for he does not want to do these things; it is the devil that does them to him.” They turned round and came [back] to their place.   (Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers, pp. 256-257)