Reflecting on Hebrews 11:24-12:2

The Epistle reading for the 1st Sunday of Great Lent is Hebrews 11:24-26, 32-12:2.  The text gives us a lot to think about in terms of Great Lent but also our daily lives.

By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

The entire text is a challenge to anyone who wants to embrace the American prosperity gospel for its entire point is that though these people are the most faithful members of the household of God, none of them received the promised rewards in their lifetime, but all of them suffered.  They didn’t suffer because they were unfaithful, but precisely because they were faithful to God they suffered.  Thus Moses rejected the easy life and wealth that he shared as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.  All the wealth of Egypt he disdained, choosing rather to suffer poverty, exile and 40 years of testing and wandering in the harsh desert so that he could be with the people of God.  He didn’t receive wealth and prosperity by being faithful to God – rather he had to disown that wealth and privileged lifestyle so he could be faithful to God.

For those of us who like to revel that we live in the richest country in the world and the richest country in the history of the world, Moses would say to us, better to choose affliction and suffering “with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.”    All the wealth and prosperity of the richest country on earth cannot purchase life with God’s people.  Suffering and affliction are not signs that God has rejected you, but maybe signs that you are choosing God rather than the world, rather than mammon, rather than yourself.

Whatever sins the wealth of Egypt had to offer, America surpasses it in wealth and in sins.

And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented-of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

As the author of Hebrews already said, “what more can I say?”  This is not prosperity Gospel thinking.  All of these people are the heroes of the Scripture, all of them are saints and examples to God’s people.  Yet all of them suffered affliction, and none of them received the promises of God.

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for …

The people mentioned above all proved themselves faithful to God, proved themselves to be children of God, proved themselves to be saints, proved themselves worth of God’s blessings and rewards.   But now the text takes a surprising turn.   These folk above – God’s chosen, God’s saints, God’s heroes, God’s faithful did not receive the promise.  

Why?   Because God had provided something even better for them. . . Right?

NO.  The text doesn’t say God provided something even better for them.

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

God provided something better for us, not for them.   They remained faithful to God, did not receive the promise fulfilled, but suffered affliction so that we might benefit from their faithfulness.  They weren’t suffering to benefit themselves, but to benefit us.  Talk about unselfish and altruistic behavior!   Not only did they not receive the promise for their faithfulness and their suffering, but they weren’t even suffering for their own benefit.  They weren’t going to get the reward at the end of their suffering – we were.  They knew of God’s promised blessings, and never received the reward, because they were living, suffering, dying in order that our generation might partake of the blessings.

We are called to have just that attitude.  We aren’t faithful to God so that we might receive the rewards of prosperity and blessings – but so that our children and future generations might know of God and choose to follow Christ, just like we have chosen.  Perfection for us is not obtained in this world, but only in and with the future generations that will receive the Tradition from us and pass it on to their descendants and the next new generation of Christians.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

We are not to embrace the temptations and sins which prosperity provide to us, but to eschew them so that we can follow Christ.  We are to be with Christ wherever Christ is.  We are to live for the Kingdom and for all Christians yet to come, and not rely on prosperity today as a sign that we have obtained the promise.  For today’s prosperity can be a snare which entraps us and prevents not only us but future generations from obtaining the promised reward.

The Gospel Narrative and Us

The Epistle reading for the Sunday of All Saints is Hebrews 11:32-12:2.  In it we are being given a narrative in which to understand the heroic accomplishments as well as the suffering and martyrdoms of God’s chosen people.  The author of Hebrews is telling us that the Old Testament story is not complete – at least not apart from us!  Their story continues beyond their time and flows into our time and incorporates us into the narrative.

Here is the text of the Epistle for All Saints:

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.    

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

The text is presenting these men and women of Hebrew history in a very particular light – creating a narrative about them, their heroics, their hope and vision even in the face of suffering. AND by saying they were not made perfect apart from us, invites us to join that narrative, and make it our own and carry it forward.  We are woven into their story, and they become a living part of our lives.  This is of course important in helping us continue to be faithful in our day; for like these our spiritual ancestors we find that we too are looking forward to a future fulfillment of God’s plan.  The saints of the Old Testament were looking forward to the day of Christ’s coming, and we are awaiting the fulfillment of the kingdom of heaven, so we continue to look to an eschaton not yet realized.

The Saints of the Old Testament are part of a narrative that stretches from their day right through our current century.  Their story makes no sense apart from our own.  Our current story is part of a narrative that stretches back to the beginning of humanity and reaches into the Kingdom of God which is to come.  Thus what we experience in a life time is but a portion of the much longer narrative of God’s creation.  Our experience is a glimpse of the narrative, but not the entire picture.  We always have to keep that in mind when we struggle with life in a given moment, on a given day, or through a lifetime.  As long as our life might be (even if we live to a Methuselahian age – nearly a millennium!), our life is but a small portion of the narrative of creation – a paragraph in a chapter in a book in a library.

There are always many narratives running through our our minds and hearts.  These narratives exist on different levels, with varying degrees of influence, which enter our thinking at different periods of our lives.  Some are meta-narratives, involving many people – being American for example is such a narrative which teaches us certain hopes and dreams and a way to interpret the world.   Some narratives are given to us through family or genetic identity – being Slavic-American or Latino, growing up on the wrong side of the tracks.  Other narratives are quite personal – I’m lovable, talented, or unwanted. Narratives may in fact not represent a true vision of reality, but they do shape our experience of reality and of how we constitute reality. We may come to believe along the way that “nobody likes me” – that may be far from reality, but it colors our experience of reality and does then come to effect how we constitute reality. Such narratives may be true or false, real or imagined, good or bad – and we are not always aware of them, nor of how they influence us.   It is possible to become aware of them (takes great mindfulness!) and we can reject some of them and replace them with other narratives – thus conversion, repentance, forgiveness are all possible. We can change the narratives guiding the way we see the world – the way we constitute reality.

While there are always several narratives running through our minds and hearts, we can also choose to embrace a meta-narrative which can come to override or interpret our many internal narratives. Or sometimes the competing narratives in our brains run into conflict and cause cognitive dissonance – which sometimes we choose to live with, and sometimes becomes so uncomfortable that we change narratives.

Sometimes we cannot find a meta-narrative which makes sense of all the other narratives or of a particular narrative. That can cause us to seek out that meta-narrative, to seek for some truth to help us deal with all else that we think, feel, believe, experience. The seeking itself can become the meta-narrative which guides us. We realize there is mystery, that searching and seeking may not find answers, but only help us frame questions.

Some meta-narratives help us gain insight into ourselves, and into reality itself.  How we understand ourselves as humans or as Christians are really meta-narratives which help us cope with life and constitute reality.

For me, the Orthodox Christian meta-narrative is very attractive, but I realize that it is sometimes in competition with other powerful narratives – the American meta-narrative for example which gives us certain myths about America which can be powerfully attractive and wonderful but which are in direct opposition to the Gospel narrative.  Some people even blend these competing narratives, blurring the distinctions and assuming they are the same narrative.

Meta-narratives in the world are always changing, but sometimes they change faster and we become more aware of the narratives or the changes that are occurring in them.  Right now in the world several meta-narratives are in the process of change.  Islam actually is constituted by several competing narratives that are literally at war with each other and the rest of the world.    America’s meta-narrative is in the process of changing as the world itself changes.  Brexit, terrorism, nationalism, exceptionalism, China, etc, are all changing the world’s narratives.  Some find these changes terrifying and they want to go back to a time when they felt safer – so they try to grasp onto a world that is passing away.  They are not really grasping reality, but just the meta-narrative they embraced as true or which comforted them and made sense of the world.  Politicians try to feed the meta-narratives they believe are most alluring to people.  Like the narratives themselves, what the politicians say may not be reality, but they resonate with the voice already at work in people’s minds.

The Apotheosis of George Washington

For us as Christians, we have a meta-narrative that is always focused to the eschaton – drawing us forward to the Kingdom of God.  The world’s meta-narratives are ever changing, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  This Gospel meta-narrative is supposed to simultaneously strengthen us, comfort us, inspire us, challenge us, give us hope and make sense of the world around us.

For the form of this world is passing away. I want you to be free from anxieties. (1 Corinthians 7:31-32)

Yet I am writing you a new commandment, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.  (1 John 2:8)

The Ancestors of Christ (2014)

“… have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham…? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.”  (Matthew 22:31-32)

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”   (John 8:53)

Patriarch Abraham

On the Sunday before Christmas we read the Gospel lesson of the birth of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew.  That same Gospel lesson has St. Matthew’s recorded ancestry of Christ, tracing the Messiah’s ancestral roots back to the Patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarah.   It is with Abraham that God makes a covenant and a promise, giving both Abraham and Sarah new names reflecting their new relationship with God.

“Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.”   (Genesis 17:4-7)

Abraham and Sarah

And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her; I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”  (Genesis 17:15-16)

The Holy Apostle Paul connects God’s promise to Abraham to Jesus Christ, who fulfills the promise.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many; but, referring to one, “And to your offspring,” which is Christ.  (Galatians 3:16)

Abraham, Sarah, Moses and St. Paul

While Jesus Christ fulfills God’s promise to Abraham, St. Paul also points out that it is not to Abraham alone that God reckoned righteousness through faith, but to all of us who believe.  Thus from Abraham to the Church today there is a continuous and organic faith shared by all.

“… the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants—not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, “So shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness.”  But the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”  (Romans 4:16-25)

From the time of the Patriarch Abraham (about 2000BC) until now, 2000 years after the time of Christ, there have been a succession of men and women who shared Abraham’s faith in God.   On the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ, in the Orthodox Church we honor all of those faithful men and women who are in the ancestry of Christ.  They believed before the Messiah, remaining faithful to the prophecies and promises of God.  So we read in Hebrews 11:9-40:

By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mocking and scourging, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

The Hospitality of Abraham and Sarah

Abraham, the man whose faith is reckoned as righteousness, is thus connected to Jesus who brings righteousness to all the faithful.  The Nativity of Christ is the celebration of the fulfillment of the faith and righteousness of Father Abraham.  We proclaim in the Gospel of St. MATTHEW 1:1-25:

 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa, and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor,  and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud,  and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

At Christmas we celebrate the faith of Abraham, the birth of the Messiah, and life in the Kingdom which is to come.

Sunday of Orthodoxy (1995)

March 12, 1995                 1st Sunday of Lent

Sermon notes               Theme: FAITH

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter,  choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.  He considered abuse suffered for the Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger; for he persevered as though he saw him who is invisible. ….  And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions,  quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.  Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection.  Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented—  of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.  Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 11:24-12:2)

Faith =  I have confidence in…

Faith =    I trust…

To hope in God’s promises in a very trying and uncertain world (in this sense, in Hebrews, Christ is said to be the model of faith, his example give us hope in God’s promises even in the face of great adversity)

In response to God’s promise and against all tangible evidence (he & his wife are too old, and they are sterile), Abraham trust’s God when God says Abraham will have many off spring

For the Christian, faith is the conviction that is is better to suffer with God then to prosper with the world.

Promised to us is eternal life, but it is promised to the dead; we are assured of a happy resurrection, but we are as yet involved in corruption; we are pronounced just, as yet sin dwells in us; we hear that we are happy, but we are as yet in the midst of many miseries; an abundance of all good things is promised to us, but still we often hunger and thirst; God proclaims that he will come quickly, but he seems deaf when we cry to him. (John Calvin)

Faith is not audacity, risk taking, a brash disregard of the facts, nor a gamble with life. Faith rests on trusting God’s promises.

Hebrews 12:1 “run the race that is set before us” = We are to run it with perseverance, it is not a short dash to glory, but a distant run calling for endurance.

Jesus has already run that race, we are to run until the race is completed – as long as we are alive, as long as we have being.

As we sing at most every Divine Liturgy in the Antiphons:

“I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.”   (Psalms 104:33)

“I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have being.”  (Psalms 146:2)

 

Prophecy in the Ancient Church

This is the 10^th and final Blog in this series which began with Reading Scripture: the Old Testament, the Torah and Prophecy.   The immediate preceding blog is A Christian View of Prophecy.

This final blog in the series looks at how a few Christian writers from the Post-Apostolic and Patristic periods understood prophecy, especially that found in the Old Testament.  Because the ancients Christians tended to read the Old Testament as typology or a prefiguring of Christ, they actually read much of the Old Testament as prophecy.  They called Moses and King David prophets, and tended to view the importance of both Torah and Psalms as prophecies of Christ.  They got their cue from Jesus Himself who in his Post-Resurrectional appearance interpreted the Jewish Scriptures precisely in this way:   “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”  (Luke 24:27).    

First, we can consider the view of the Second Century Christian apologist St. Justin the Martyr (d. ca 166AD).

 “One will remark the complexity of the very notion of prophecy in St. Justin’s  view:  it is the eternal Word himself who, through his Spirit and through a human instrument, announces in advance the mystery which he will himself accomplish later in time.  Christ is at once both the supreme Prophet and the reality prophesied: the supreme Prophet as eternal Logos, the reality prophesied as incarnate Logos.  He gives in prophecy a sign that makes it possible for one to recognize him when the prophecy is fulfilled.”  (Bertrand de Margerie, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF EXEGESIS V 1, p 37)

St. Justin holds to a very sophisticated view of prophecy:  it is God’s Word who speaks to the prophets through the Holy Spirit.   The prophets are thus giving form, though in shadow and foretype, to the Word.  This was done so that when God’s Word became incarnate in Jesus Christ, He (His voice – that of the Good Shepherd) would be recognizable.   Many of the Fathers believed that the Old Testament descriptions of the saints and prophets encountering God were actually encounters with the pre-incarnate Word, namely, the Son of God.  God used this method of revelation to help the people of God recognize the incarnate Word when the fullness of time had come.

“Justin also uses Scripture differently in his two works.  As the APOLOGY is written for pagans, he does not appeal in it to the Scriptures as an authoritative source of truth.  Rather he appeals to them to provide evidence that the Gospel believed in by Christians is not simply the latest claims, but ancient prophecies, written in publicly available books, which have now been fulfilled in Christ.” (John Behr, THE WAY TO NICEA, p 94)

Thus prophecies show that God’s plan of salvation was being revealed throughout the history of the Jews.  Jesus claiming to be God incarnate was thus not unexpected but had been revealed through the prophets.   St. Irenaeus (d. 202AD), a generation after Justin, acknowledges God was revealing his plan through the prophets, yet before its fulfillment a prophecy remains in the shadows, not fully understood until the revelation comes to light when it happens.

“For any prophecy, before it is fulfilled, is nothing but enigmas and ambiguities.  But from the moment that the prediction is fulfilled, it finds its proper interpretation.”  (St. Irenaeus  quoted in BEGINNINGS: ANCIENT CHRISTIAN READINGS OF THE BIBLICAL CREATION NARRATIVES, Peter Bouteneff, p 74)

Two Centuries later, the archbishop of Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom (d. 407AD), offered some thoughts on his own understanding of prophecy and inspiration.

“St. John Chrysostom (d. 407AD) says: ‘a thinker speculates on the future out of his great wisdom and personal experience.’  And he goes on to say that speculation is one thing and prophesy is another.  The prophet speaks in the Holy Spirit ‘contributing nothing of his own’; whereas the thinker employs his own understanding.  Thus there is a great difference between the Prophet and the thinker, ‘as much difference there is between human wisdom and divine grace.’”  (Archimandrite Hierotheos Vlachos,  THE ILLNESS AND CURE OF THE SOUL IN THE ORTHODOX TRADITION, p 43)

A contemporary and antagonist of Chrysostom’s, St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444AD) understood Christian prophecy to be one who properly interprets the Old Testament in the light of Christ.

 “Prophecy means for Cyril the divinely given capacity to interpret the Old Testament. Indeed the Christian prophet is one who has received the charism of recognizing the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies in the New.”  (Brevard Childs, THE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND ISAIAH AS CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE, p 125)

The ancient Christian theologians saw Old Testament prophecy as a foretelling of Christ.  But not all prophecies predicted future events; many prophecies occur in the form of typology, prefiguring, or foreshadowing the coming of Christ.  So the Old Testament as a whole is largely prophecy, even though many of the Old Testament authors were not aware that they were being prophets.  As the author of Hebrews says of the saints of the Old Covenant:   “These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth”  (11:13).   They could not see Christ clearly, He was distant and they were in shadow, but they remained faithful to the hope.   This is the sense of  prophecy held by the ancient Christians.   As St. Peter writes: 

“The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation; they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory.  It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.”  (1 Peter 1:10-12)

Prophecy, forth telling God’s Word, has to do with Christ, God’s Word become flesh.   Thus the Old Testament, whether Law or history or Psalm, is prophecy.  It all points to Christ, was all written by those inspired by God to be prophets.  The faithful reader of the Old Testament is also a prophet whenever he or she recognizes Christ in the words of the Old Testament.   Thus the Old Testament is inspired by God in order to reveal Christ, and it inspires those who read it in Christ to recognize God’s Word.

The Faith of Abraham

 Hebrews 11:9-10

Patriarch Abraham

By faith Abraham dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.  By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.  By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. 

The faith and faithfulness of Abraham was noted by ancient Jews and Christians alike.

“Third century Christian writer Origin, commenting on Abraham’s faith which caused him to obey to the extreme, noted that remaining faithful to God is easier for Christians than for Abraham—we have knowledge of Christ and the resurrection.

Origin aligns Abraham’s temptation with that of the Christian facing possible martyrdom.  The Christian has faith not only in the future resurrection of Isaac but also in the (past) resurrection of Christ; he or she should have it easier than Abraham did.  Is it possible, Origin implies, that Abraham’s faith is greater than our own, for we (he notes later in the homily) not only are reluctant to follow Christ’s injunction not to value family ties over the gospel, but also grieve when our children die, despite our faith?  Origin the homilist brilliantly evokes the Christian hearer’s own experience as a locus for understanding the text, and for letting the text, in the person of Abraham’s faith, challenge the hearer.  He will later note, commenting on God’s concluding words in the story (For now I know you fear God, “ Gen 22”12):  ‘But these things are written on account of you, because you too indeed have believed in God, but unless you shall fulfill “the works of faith” (2Thess 1:11)you will not know that you fear God nor will it be said of you:  “Now I know that you fear God.”‘”     (Blowes, P M, Christman, A R, Hunter, D G, Young, R D, IN DOMINICO ELOQUIO/IN LORDLY ELOQUENCE, p 41)

God Questions His Creation: Genesis 9:8- 17 (a)

See:   God Questions His Creation:  Genesis 9:5-7

Genesis 9:8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will look upon it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.”

In 9:8 God is speaking to Noah AND to his sons which is the first time they too are included in “hearing” the invisible God; so however Noah was able to hear and understand God, now too His sons hear God speaking to them.  In 9:17 God appears to be speaking to Noah alone, if the text is to be read literally. 

This is the first explicit covenant between God and Noah.   A covenant is an agreement that binds together two parties that otherwise would be separated.   As a result of the Fall humans had become not only separated from God, but even alienated from Him and had become at enmity with Him.  The covenant endeavors to heal the division and to bind God to humanity again specifically through His chosen servant Noah and Noah’s descendents. In this sense the covenant is with Noahian humanity, not just with the man Noah alone. (Because a covenant “binds together” two parties who might not share a natural union, we can understand how the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is then a New Covenant).  The Genesis 9 covenant asks nothing of the humans and is extended to all of creation (though in the earlier verses :1-7, God promised a blessing to humanity and laid down specific laws regarding not eating the blood of animals and demanding societal punishment upon any who kill other humans).  God promises never to destroy humanity or the earth again, no matter what.  In Isaiah 54:9, God promises to remember His covenant with Noah and not to entirely annihilate faithless Israel.  Noah is the prototype of the faithful remnant who exist in every generation and whom God will remember.    “Noah was found perfect and righteous; in the time of wrath he was taken in exchange; therefore a remnant was left to the earth when the flood came. Everlasting covenants were made with him that all flesh should not be blotted out by a flood” (Sirach 44:17-18).    As stated in the text, this covenant is also a covenant of hope because it makes certain promises about God’s future relationship with all humans.  Hope for the humans is also a trust in the unseen future.  We will not know if God will stay faithful to His promise to “never again” destroy the earth until time has come to an end.   The Covenant for us is thus an agreement of faith.   As Hebrews 11:13, 39-40 attests: “These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. … And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”   We await the fulfillment of God’s eternal promise.

The Covenant.       God makes a covenantal promise to never again destroy the earth and all humans by another flood – the rainbow becomes the sign of that covenant.   But did God leave Himself a loophole?   He won’t destroy the world with a flood, but might He use something else – say fire – to destroy the earth?     In Genesis 8:21, “the LORD said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.’”   God seems to rule out ever again destroying all humankind.  He recognizes the human heart is full of evil from the time we are children.  But His covenantal promise to never totally destroy the earth again would also seem to apply to whatever God plans for His final Judgment Day.    Of course in Genesis 8:22, God may have made conditional this promise when He said, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”    The condition being that as long as the earth exists God will not destroy it.  He doesn’t promise that the earth will always exist, but certainly in the New Testament there is much indication that God plans to transfigure the earth at the end of time, not destroy it.  In the Beatitudes for example we read that the meek will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5) – what kind of blessing is that if the earth is to be destroyed anyway?   And how is the rainbow an everlasting covenant if “everlasting” means only for a time?    Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, Jesus answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed … for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.  … As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of man.  They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:20-21,26-27).  The Kingdom of God is in our midst – it is not far away “in heaven” nor does it require the annihilation of the earth for it to be established.  The promise of God in Genesis never to destroy all life again is everlasting. And while God explicitly promises never to destroy all of life again, He never denies the possibility of someday glorifying humanity.

Next:  God Questions His Creation:  Genesis 9:8- 17 (b)

God Questions His Creation: Genesis 6:17-18 (b)

See:  God Questions His Creation: Genesis 6:17-18 (a)

Genesis 6:17 For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

Apostle Peter

In the New Testament, St. Peter uses the story of the flood and Noah’s ark as a prototypical story proving God does separate the good from the wicked, saving the good from a world awash in sin, and punishing the wicked for the sinfulness.  “For if God … did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; … then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority” (2 Peter 2:4,5,9-10) .  For St. Peter the story of the flood is not as important as a record of past history, its full meaning is found in God’s Judgment Day at the end of the world.

“a flood of waters upon the earth…”   God does not threaten the earth and its people with total annihilation – a return to absolute nothingness – rather God threatens the world with a return to chaos, the waters returning to the cover the earth and to bring an end to the order He had willed for creation.  And He promises an ark of salvation for the faithful, righteous remnant.  He is destroying wickedness in order to protect and preserve His chosen ones.

The ark.   In Wisdom 10:4, it is Wisdom herself who guides Noah to build the ark.  “When the earth was flooded because of him, wisdom again saved it, steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood.”  The comparison of the ark to a piece of wood will also connect it to the wood of the Lord’s Cross in Christian poetic imagery.

“…destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die.”   Everything may be an exaggeration for later fish and sea animals do not seem to be included in the list of all that dies.   Perhaps the ancients did not think of fish/sea creatures as having the breath of life since they lived under water.  St. Basil the Great noted that “A fish does not resist God’s law, and we men cannot endure His precepts of salvation!  Do not despise fish because they are dumb and quite unreasoning; rather, fear, lest, in your resistance to the disposition of the Creator, you have even less reason than they.”

The ark.   St. Symeon the New Theologian interprets the ark using an allegorical typology, as a way for us to understand the New Testament.  “Again, the ark was a type of the Theotokos and Noah of Christ and the men with Noah were a first-fruit of the portion of the Jews, of those who would believe  in Christ, while the wild beasts … constituted a type of the gentiles.”  St. Symeon tempers the analogy a bit noting that the ark saved those who were in it, while Christ saved both his ark (Mary) and all the world from the flood of sin.

In the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, Noah is upheld as a man of faith – he begins building the ark one hundred years before the flood comes.  But Hebrews also uses the story to contrast Noah with the wicked people who no longer believed in God.  Noah alone may have kept faith in God, but by remaining faithful to the Lord he was also calling into judgment all who had forgotten God.   There was no excuse for their forgetting God – Noah was able to remember and so should have they.  “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7).

Covenant.   This is the first time the word covenant is used in the Bible.  A covenant is an agreement “legally” binding two parties together.  God is promising to bind Himself to a particular people on earth – not necessarily to all people but perhaps to all people through this chosen people.

Next:   God Questions His Creation: Genesis 6:17-18 (c)

Great Lent is about Christ

Great Lent as is well known served at one time in the church as the special season for preparing catechumens for entrance into the church through baptism.  There are a few remnants of this early catechectical effort still visible in our liturgical readings during the time of the Great Fast.  The week day readings of Genesis and Proverbs were used to instruct the initiates in the basics of the faith and in how to live a godly life.  On weekends the lessons from the Gospel of Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews are also from this catechetical period.   There are secondary epistle and Gospel lessons listed for Great Lent  which reflect the post-15^th Century monastic influence on the Church’s liturgical life (as can be seen in the Lenten themes of Sts. Gregory Palamas, John Climacus and Mary of Egypt). 

I want to draw attention to the themes of the more ancient catechetical Epistle readings from Hebrews for the Sundays of Great Lent and briefly point out a theme in each one:

Hebrews 11:24-12:2  –  “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising  the shame, and  is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 1:10-2:3  –   Speaking of His Son, God says, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands … and your years will have no end.”

Hebrews 4:14-5:6   –    “Since then we have  a great high priest  who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”

Hebrews 6:13-20   –    “Jesus has gone  as a forerunner on our behalf,  having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek”

Hebrews 9:11-14  –  “Christ appeared as a high priest”

What I want to note is that each of these Great Lent Sunday Epistle readings have as their focus Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Great Lent is about Christ.  It is not about me, about my fasting, my sacrifice, my prayer life, my confession.  The goal of Lent is not to focus on the self, but to unite one’s self to Christ. 

As one of the great examples of ascetic self denial, St. John the Forerunner and Baptist, said in reference to Christ, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).  Our goal in Lent is not to inflate the self and spend more time thinking about the self.  Great Lent is the time of self denial, not self love.  Our focus is to God and neighbor, not our self.  We are to deny self love and self centeredness in order to love God and neighbor.   Fasting from food is a form of self denial, not a way to focus on what my SELF is being denied. 

The only self centeredness of Great Lent is in repentance:  Grant me to see my own sins and not to judge my brother (or another).   Looking at one’s own sins is the only aspect of self consideration that is appropriate to Lent.  Otherwise we are to look to the good of others and to their needs (see 1 Corinthians 8:8-13, the Epistle for Forgiveness Sunday). 

Focusing too narrowly on “my” Lenten discipline, “my” fasting, or even “my” salvation can end up with way too much focus on “me.”  In this Christian spiritual life it is not all about “me.”  Christ showed us to be servants of one another, to love one another, to work for the good of others.  Great Lent is to help us to make Jesus Christ be the focus of our lives, so that we can indeed love one another as He loved us (John 15:12).

As Fr. Schmemann wrote in GREAT LENT:

“In other words, what is virtually absent from the lenten experience is that physical and spiritual effort aimed at our participation in the today of Christ’s resurrection, not abstract morality, not moral improvement, not greater control of passions, not even personal self-perfecting, but partaking of the ultimate and all-embracing today of Christ.  Christian spirituality not aimed at this is in danger of becoming pseudo-Christian, for in the last analysis it is motivated by the ‘self’ and not by Christ.”

The Christian Witness B.C.

On the Sunday before Christmas the epistle reading takes excerpts from Hebrews 11:9-40, the great crowd of witnesses whose faith through adversity is testimony to their hope in God.  In a previous blog, The Heroes of Hebrews 11, I commented on this Epistle Lesson.   As Orthodoxy understands the Old Testament, even before Christ came to earth, the saints who encountered God’s Word and the prophets speaking God’s Word, had already encountered Christ and spoke about Him.  Christ is the key to understanding the Old Testament.  We honor in our Church those who witnessed to Christ before He became flesh.

St. Silouan the Athonite writes of this great cloud of witnesses which we learn about on the Sunday before the Nativity, all of those chosen people of God who worked for Christ, long before he came to earth:

“O how infirm is my spirit. A little wind can blow it out like a candle; but the spirit of the saints glowed with fire like the burning bush, fearless of the wind. Who will give me such fire that I know rest neither by day nor by night from love of God? The love of God is a consuming fire. For the love of God the saints bore every affliction – it was love of God gave them the power to work miracles. They healed the sick, restored the dead to life. They walked upon the waters, were lifted into the air during prayer, and by their prayers they brought rain down from heaven. But all my desire is to learn humility and the love of Christ, that I may offend no man but pray for all as I pray for myself.”