Remembering Sin as the Path to Humility

Generally, when it comes to the New Year, we like to forget the bad things that happened in the past year and look forward to positive things in the New.  Or sometimes people take this time of year to remember the best of the previous year.  Orthodox spiritual writers, however, think there is good reason to remember past sins – not to feed shame and self-loathing, but to help us repent.  Repentance means change – to move in a new direction.  Remembering our past sins, reminds us not to be so quick to judge others in their sins and failures.  Rather, remembering our past failures can help us sustain a healthy humility in our selves as well as patience, empathy and mercy for others as we see them wrestle with their own sins and temptations.  We can learn how to bear with one another as well as how to bear one another’s burdens (Romans 15:1; Galatians 6:2).  New Year’s resolutions can include remembering our past sins so that we don’t repeat them but rather learn from them so that we will be the better person from now on.

But, my brethren, let us not forget our offences, even if we wrongly think that they have been forgiven through repentance; let us always remember our sinful acts and never cease to mourn over them, so that we may acquire humility as our constant companion, and thus escape the snares of self-esteem and pride.   (St Theodoros the Great Ascetic, The Philokalia, Kindle Loc. 11216-24)

The Body and Christmas: Coming in the Flesh

There has been a great deal written in recent years about ancient Syrian Christianity as a form of the Church distinct from the Greek or Latin Churches.  Syrian Christianity had its own language and thus a different way to frame theological ideas while participating in the controversies and councils of the early Church.   Even Orthodox scholars today believe that Syriac Christianity preserved some ancient ideas and expressions that would disappear from Greek/Hellenistic Orthodoxy; the rediscovery of  Syrian Christian tradition enriches our understanding of the theology of the early Church.  Byzantine scholar Hannah Hunt writes about the Syrian Christian understanding of the human body:

“Whatever variations there are in the Syrian understanding of the integrity of the human person, underlying them is the Semitic concept of the heart as the centre of the human person: ‘the heart of the inner man is also the heart of the outer man; neither heart can function properly without the other’.  This is rooted in a biblical rather than a Hellenistic concept, in which the heart ‘denotes the seat, not just of the emotions, but also of the intellectual faculties as well’. Because of this integration of feelings and thoughts, seeing the heart as the spiritual centre of the human person means that there is ‘no dichotomy between the heart and the mind’.

Over-simplistic antithesis between heart and mind, affective and noetic spirituality, may be something which is erroneously read back into the early Syrian context through the lens of the later Hesychast movement, which also insisted on the prayer of the heart as a key mode of spiritual practise.  As we have seen, the early Syrian context is affirming of the integrity of all parts of the human person, as a mirror of the perfect unity of two natures in Christ. Human salvation is shown by Syrian writers to depend on Christ’s salvific death on the one hand and on human integrity on the other. Adam can only re-enter Paradise when he is complete and whole.  Redemption cannot exclude the bodily; it has to embrace it to bring the whole person before God.”  (Clothed in the Body: Asceticism, the Body and the Spiritual in the Late Antique Era, Kindle Loc Location 3081-3094)

Christmas is the Orthodox Feast of God in the flesh – God became human to unite humanity to God.  The body, flesh, is not evil but all is being saved by God in and through the incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.  Hunt points out that Hellenistic Orthodoxy in its hesychast expression sometimes denies the body or acts as if the body has to be overcome through prayer.  Prayer and fasting are emphasized suggesting one is to minimize the body in order to be spiritual.   Syrian Christianity can help remind us of the true nature of the incarnation and salvation.  The human body is essential to salvation which is why Christ became incarnate.  A spirituality which denies the body also forgets St John’s admonition:  “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist”  (2 John 7).

Today, there is a popular idea that hesychasm was the only form of monasticism in Orthodoxy, but this is simply false.  Many monks in Orthodoxy were not hesychasts, and not because they failed in their efforts.  One can see in Orthodox history whole monasteries and some saints challenged and even opposed hesychasm – even monks from Mt Athos.  There were centuries in which one could hardly find any hesychasts among Orthodox monks.  Syrian Christianity is a form of ancient Eastern Christian monasticism which held to theological and anthropological ideas that hesychasm does not accept.  But it is true that hesychast writers often adopted Syrian Christian writers, reinterpreting their ideas from a hesychast point of view.

Holy Patience in the Holidays

The hustle and bustle of the Holiday Season can test the patience of the best of us.  But as Vincent Pizzuto notes, it also is a chance for us to practice being patient!

Modern suburban life presents any number of interactions or situations that may be interpreted either as roadblocks or as invitations to love, depending on our ascetical posture. Commonplace experiences we have come to accept as necessary evils of modern-day life are in fact schools of love: long lines, crowded subways, heavy traffic, fractured families, hostile neighbors, dysfunctional work places, and so on. If we perpetually experience these things as personal assaults or affronts to our inner peace, then we will never find the interior stillness we seek.  ( Contemplating Christ: The Gospels and the Interior Life, Kindle Loc 2241-2244)

If we change our way of looking at the world around us, and stop seeing it as an attack on our inner peace, and rather see it as an opportunity to practice inner peace in the midst of a challenging or broken world, they we might find the peace we want because we will put forth the necessary effort to have it.  Reminds me of a comment by chess master Jonathan Rowson who writes:

“You may have already figured out that our inalienable right to pursue happiness is self-defeating. Happiness may be with us, baked into our present moment, eagerly awaiting our grateful acknowledgment, but nothing is less likely to make us happy than trying to pursue it. On this analysis, we are right to desire happiness; it’s just that the predatory process of chasing it drives what we apparently want out of reach.”

We can’t pursue our inner peace, but we can realize it in any given moment if we choose to do so.  Every moment is the right time to practice inner peace.  Inner peace is not “out there” somewhere, it is within us!   We can’t pursue it outside of our self.  We have to create inner peace no matter what is happening around us. As we create inner peace, we find externals become less significant.  We can’t rely on them for inner peace, rather we have to learn how to establish peace within our hearts and minds and then we can approach the outside world with this attitude.  If we manage some success in this, then we can graduate to what St. Mark the Ascetic  describes:

“Real knowledge is patiently to accept affliction and not to blame others for our own misfortunes.”  (The Philokalia, Kindle Loc. 3627-28)

Judas betrays Christ with a kiss

Not only can we be at peace when there is trouble around us, we can even be at peace when trouble finds us.

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?}

It’s Not All or Nothing

For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a man has, not according to what he has not.   (2 Corinthians 8:12)

One temptation in the spiritual life is to understand perfection to mean you do everything perfectly right and then to decide that anything less than perfect is utter failure.  This “all or nothing” spirituality shows itself in people who start out to keep Great Lent perfectly, but then falter along the way and give up on the whole enterprise thinking if I can’t keep it all, why try to do anything?  The same thing happens with people who set up for themselves a demanding spiritual discipline or prayer life and soon cannot keep to their high standards and so decide to abandon the spiritual life altogether.

Additionally, it is not the one who begins the race but who never finishes it who wins the prize.  So beginning any spiritual endeavor with zeal and the mind toward perfection but then abandoning the effort  because of a failure along the way is worse than beginning the race with only moderate effort but then persevering to the end.

Between everything and nothing there is a lot of middle ground, and there are many stories and lessons in the lives of the Fathers to support that point.  The desert fathers knew that Jesus commanded us to practice charity and hospitality.  Yet some of the monks struggled in subsistence level conditions and had little to give to others.   Rather than advocating all or nothing, the spiritual advice is to keep at the spiritual life and do the best you can, fulfilling as much of the Gospel as you can, but not worrying about what you can’t do.  Here are two from monastic fathers, adpated from The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers (Volume 2) :

“And if you art unable to give alms of your work at least supply all your needs by your own hands.”  (Kindle Loc. 3156-57)

If you can’t earn enough to be able to give charity, at least earn enough so you don’t have to beg from others.  There is a wisdom here to help the struggling Christian who may feel the demands of the Faith are more than he or she can do daily.  The wisdom response is do what you can.  A second example on the same theme of charity:

A brother asked Abba Joseph, saying, “What shall I do? For I cannot be disgraced, and I cannot work, and I have nothing from which to give alms.”  The old man said unto him, ” If you can not do these things, keep your conscience from your neighbor, and guard yourself carefully against evil of every kind, and you shall live; for God desires that the soul shall be without sin.”   (Kindle Loc. 1465-68)

As with many of the desert father stories, they are short and so leave out some details.  In the story above it appears that the one monk is ill or injured and so cannot work and thus cannot give alms.  Should he quit being a monk?  No, he is advised to continue on doing the things he can do – be a good neighbor, not nosey, not a gossip, and don’t do any evil yourself.   Even if you cannot practice charity because you haven’t anything to give, you can still be a Christian by following other teachings of Christ.  All or nothing doesn’t work.  There is no one shoe size for all.  Each of us has to work out our own salvation.  Do you know how Christ loves you?  Then love others as you have been loved.

… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.  Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life…  (Philippians 2:12-16)

What Does God Ask of us?

This is the 6^th and final post in this blog series meditating on Psalm 51 and the nature of repentance.  The previous post is The Prayer of Manasseh .

So, what repentance looks like is for humans to be what God intended for us from the beginning.  It is not so much remorse and contrition or thinking of one’s self as a worm wallowing in mire.   Rather, it is recognizing God as Lord, and giving thanks for that truth to God.  The change of heart and mind in repentance is making the effort to be the human that God wants us to be.  We are to accept that God is the Lord, which means I am not.  It means accepting my role and place in God’s creation, rather than trying to establish my role as I see fit.  It means being a creature of thanksgiving for blessings received.

There is another prayer of repentance frequently used in Orthodoxy which expresses this same sense that what is asked of us is to stand before God and acknowledge who God and who we are.  That prayer begins:

Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us;
for laying aside all excuse, we sinners offer to You,
as to our Master, this supplication: have mercy on us.

It is a prayer which makes it clear that we understand God is merciful and for this reason alone we approach God in prayer seeking God’s mercy.  We acknowledge our sins and sinfulness and take full responsibility for them.  We don’t give excuse for our sinfulness – bad genes, bad parents, poverty, the fallen world, suffering, lack of education, poor opportunities, fears, peers, enemies, abuse, mistakes, misfortune.  We lay all that aside and admit we do sin.  And we own our sin because we also know God is love, God is merciful, and we trust God to be God.  The prayer then goes on:

O Lord, have mercy on us, for in You have we put our trust.
Do not be angry with us, nor remember our iniquities,
but look down on us even now, since You are compassionate,
and deliver us from our enemies. For You are our God,
and we are Your people; we are all the work of Your hands,
and we call upon Your Name.

It is much in the spirit of Psalm 51.  We recognize we need God to be God for that is our only hope in God’s creation.  It is a mystical vision which all humans are capable of having.

In this mystical vision of humanity, it turns out we humans are the place where God dwells on earth.  The mystical vision is not looking for heaven out there or trying to figure out how to get to heaven.   We ourselves are to be the “holy of holies” for God to dwell in so that the rest of the cosmos can also have its proper relationship to God.  God created the cosmos to be God’s temple, but created humans to be the place within the temple where God completely interfaces with creation.  God became human so that we humans might become god.   God’s plan is and always was to abide in us.  God is not trying to establish something outside the human to dwell in – a temple, a bible, a shrine.  Those things are merely shadows of God’s intention which is to dwell in us.   We are the ones who create all these religious sites to keep God at a distance.

And this vision of being human is for everyone, not just for monks, mystics or ascetics.  It is for moms and dads and grandparents and children, friends and neighbors.  No need to go to a monastery to find it, nor on a pilgrimage to a holy place, for the Kingdom of heaven is within each of us.  The Lord Jesus said: “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Lo, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you”  (Luke 17:20-21).

We all are to live up to our God-given potential as beings created by God to be in God’s image and likeness.  We do find this simple vision in the Bible, for example in Deuteronomy 10:12-22, which some consider a summary of Torah –

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I command you this day for your good?”

Repentance means getting back to doing this very thing that God commanded.  It requires humility – recognition that God is the Lord and we are God’s creatures and servants.  Repentance isn’t sorrowing for our failures, but deciding to live up to what God wants for us and from us.  It is the way that Christ describes to us:  “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”  (Matthew 11:28-30).   We can uncomplicate our lives by following the way of repentance.   It is the notion of “what you see is what you get” – no lies, deception, hiding, excuses, blaming.  It is the freedom of being able to stand in God’s presence knowing who I am and who God is.  The Deuteronomist continues:

“Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it; yet the LORD set his heart in love upon your fathers and chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as at this day.”

However vast and grand heaven is, God still sets His heart upon people.  Heaven may be where God’s will is done, yet God still favors human beings and God’s intent is to dwell in humanity.  We are to become God’s heaven and we see this already accomplished in the Theotokos who is more glorious than heaven.  Heaven is where God dwells and God desires to dwell in us.  God created us to be heaven.

Repentance is thus nothing  more than our being human:

“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him and cleave to him, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven for multitude.”

Repentance leads us to giving thanks to God and praising God, because in repentance we recognize God’s lordship in our life and what we are to be.  We realize God’s will.  Repentance leads us to the Liturgy where we give thanksgiving to God for all that God intends for us, does for us, gives to us, and accomplishes with, in and for us.  Repentance leads to our showing mercy to all those around us including the stranger.  Repentance means we:

Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.   (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

David the Image of Repentance

This is the 4^th post in this blog series meditating on Psalm 51.  The previous post is Psalm 51: What Do “I” Do?

The inscription at the beginning of Psalm 51 gives us a solid clue about the context in which Psalm 51 was written.  It reads: “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”

One can read the account of David’s sin with Bathsheba and the aftermath in 2 Samuel 11-12.  King David lusted after Bathsheba, wife of the faithful soldier Uriah.  David commits adultery with Bathsheba resulting in her being pregnant  while her husband is off to war.  Trying to cover up his sin, the King gives orders for a troop withdrawal during a battle that ensures that Uriah is killed in battle.  Then King David feels he can legitimately claim Bathsheba as his wife.  The Prophet Nathan, knowing David’s sin and God’s judgment of David, confronts the King by telling him a parable of injustice.  David is outraged by the evil man in the parable but then realizes the parable is about himself and that he is guilty of grievous sin.   We read in 2 Samuel 12:11-14, Nathan pronouncing judgment on King David:

Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.'” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die.”

This is the moment to which the inscription of Psalm 51 refers.  All David says is, “I have sinned against the LORD.”  No remorse is expressed, no promise of reformation or change or improvement, no excuse is offered, no attempt to justify what he did.   David simply acknowledges “God is right, I am wrong.”  David’s reaction to knowing he has sinned is very much reflected in Psalm 51.  David knows both he needs God and that God is right in judging him; whatever  God is now going to do is going to be right, just, the right and needed thing.  David accepts the consequences of his own behavior and of God’s judgment.  David believes that his duty is to own his sin and then turn the whole ‘affair’ over to God for God to deal with.  David recognizes God is legitimately the judge in his case but tells God to take into account that he is now owning his sin and asking God to do away with his guilt.  David is relying on what God said after the Great Flood:

… 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.”    (Genesis 8:21)

 

David knows the merciful nature of God, but also knows that his own sin is deserving of death.  He asks God instead to be merciful, even though he showed no mercy to Uriah.

As the story unfolds David does fast and weep and pray when he realizes that the illegitimate, yet innocent child produced by his adultery was going to die.  But when he learns that the baby of Uriah’s wife has died, David stops his lamentation. Note in 2 Samuel 12:15 the child is not called David’s baby, but the child of Uriah’s wife, even Bathsheba is not mentioned by name.  The biblical author wants us to be clear about how egregious this sin is.  Neither the baby nor Bathsheba belong to David, yet he greedily acted as if they were his.   Then in 2 Samuel 12:21-23, we read:

Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while it was alive; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.” He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”

We see in the narrative exactly the idea of “repentance” expressed in the Psalm.  We need to allow God to be God, and to ask God to do things according to God’s own nature.  We need to learn what it is to be human – created in God’s image and likeness, created to have dominion over all creatures, but still subject to the Lordship of God.  We need God to do all the things necessary to make us human despite our inclination to sin: show us mercy, cleanse us, teach us, deliver us, fill us with Himself.  That happens only if we agree to it.  David realizes that he has sinned, he can’t now walk that one back or change it.  The deed is done and now the consequences must be accepted as well.  David knows God is right in what God does.  David owns the fact that his own behavior has terrible consequences for some innocent people.   David is not bargaining with God but does put his hope in God.  He hopes God’s mercy will include the child of Uriah’s wife not dying, but he recognizes his own deed has consequences and God is good and right in what God does.

Of course, with our modern sensibilities, we still wonder, why did the baby have to die?  What did the baby do?  The story is not about a judgment on the child.  We could also ask, why did Uriah have to die?  Because David willed it.  David willed Uriah’s death so he could have Bathseba.  But the other price paid is a second innocent victim, the child of Uriah’s wife dies as well.  In every sense of the word, David is guilty of a double homicide in order to get his way.  That is what he recognizes.  Sin is not private but affects others as well.

David realizes he needs God to be God and to act toward himself as only God can do.  The price David paid to experience God’s mercy is two innocent people died.  Why did it take such a heavy price before David realized God’s nature?  Why are we humans the way we are?  Why do we keep putting God to the test?  How many more sins will we commit, how many more innocent people will die before we accept the Lordship of God?  That is why we should be broken-hearted when we think about our own sins, or the brokenness of the world around us.    What all has to happen before we stop sinning and turn to God to receive His mercy freely without any more cost to anyone?  The world pays a heavy price for our self-willfulness.  While there are many more violent examples, we only have to think about our own addiction to consumption and creating waste to see how “I” impact the world.  Someone, somewhere pays the price for my wastefulness.

Psalm 51 shows us that repentance brings us to the mercy of God.  And then we realize where the Liturgy fits in for it shows us a different way to come to the mercy of God.  We don’t need to sin to experience God’s forgiveness and mercy.  We can approach God with thanksgiving for God’s goodness, and totally freely enter into the mercy and love of God in thanksgiving.

King David in repentance promises God three things in verses 51:12-15 – to teach transgressors God’s way, to sing aloud of God’s salvation and to praise God.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise.

A life of repentance, or spending the remaining time of our life in repentance (as we pray at the Liturgy) means being a witness to others about God’s ways and also of singing of God’s salvation and praising God in one’s life.  Here we see the full connection between repentance and thanksgiving, between Psalm 51 and the Divine Liturgy.

In the Liturgy’s prayers we also tell God all the things God is to do for us, just like we do in Psalm 51.  But in the Liturgy the context is thanksgiving, not penance.  We pray that God’s will be done which includes our becoming the people that God created us to be to carry out His will.   In repentance we can experience the mercy of God even though others and us might experience the negative consequence of our sins.  In the Liturgy on the other hand, we all experience the mercy of God while giving thanks for all the blessings that others and we have received.  Thus we even give thanks for the Liturgy as being the best way for the world which God loves and for us to experience the mercy of God.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will return to you.

(Psalm 51)

Next:  The Prayer of Manasseh

Repentance: Telling God What to Do

This is the second post in his blog series exploring Psalm 51.  The first post is Repentance: Being Washed By God.

In Orthodoxy when we think about repentance, probably the Psalm that comes most to mind is Psalm 51, which is prayed in many of our services, especially those with a penitential theme.  When we think about repentance, we think about the things that are required of us – to change, metanoia, compunction, conscience, morality, tears, confessing sins, judging one’s self, contrition, self-reproach, remorse, self-denial, bearing the fruit of repentance, returning to the father, begging mercy, self-blame, self-examination, humbling one’s self, promising never to repeat the sin.

Yet when we read Psalm 51, we see repentance in a different way, for this Psalm, like many Orthodox prayers, is not about us, but about God.   Most of Psalm 51 tells God what to do rather than focusing on what I am now going to do to show that I have truly repented.   We are indeed telling God what to do – and specifically what we need God to do for us.  Theophan Whitfield says in the Jewish Masoretic Text of Psalm 51, “it is possible to find further evidence that the psalmist is not simply pleading for mercy, he is actually arguing for mercy.”    (“Hearing Psalm 51: Masoretic Hebrew vs. LXX Greek”, FESTSCHRIFT IN HONOR OF PROFESSOR PAUL NADIM TARAZI, p 43)

As the prayer “Lord, have mercy” is a command to God, not woefully and helplessly begging a reprieve from an abusive tyrant, but rather telling God what to do for us, so too Psalm 51 is our giving direction to God as to the things we need from God.  As other Orthodox writers have noted, we spend a lot of time in our prayers and liturgical services telling God to be God:  Be Yourself, God!   You are love, You are merciful, You are forgiving, You are kind, You are tenderhearted, You are compassionate.  So be Yourself and do divine love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, and compassion for us.  In Psalm 51 we acknowledge we need God to be God and we are telling God to be God because we are suffering in this world -the world of the Fall in which we are alienated from God often by circumstances not of our making and/or under God’s judgment for things we actually did and/or because we have forgotten God or disobeyed God whether knowingly or because of ignorance.

When we understand this nature of Psalm 51, we come to understand how it reflects the prayers of the Liturgy and how the Liturgy really is praying this Psalm.  The Liturgy is our experience of the Kingdom of God – on earth as it is in heaven.  It is our experience of being the lost sheep hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd and following Him.  As such, it is the Good Shepherd who does the things necessary to restore us to God’s flock – He is the one who seeks us, forgives us, heals us, cleanses us, teaches us, wipes away our tears, and brings us to our heavenly Father interceding for us that we might be forever in God’s presence.

In Psalm 51, “I” tell God to:

Have mercy on me
blot out my transgressions.  Wash me 
cleanse me from my sin!
teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop
wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
Fill me with joy and gladness;
let the bones which you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart
put a new and right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence
take not your holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
uphold me with a willing spirit.
Deliver me from blood-guiltiness,
open my lips
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem

The way the Psalm is written I don’t ask God to do these things for me, I tell God to do these things for me.

What is listed above is all the things we tell God to do in this one Psalm which is supposedly about repentance.  It is not God who is repenting, but it is God who does all the work of the Good Shepherd to bring the lost sheep safely home, to heal the wounds, and to wipe away our sins.  We are commanding God to do all the things necessary for our salvation.  The same imperative attitude is found in the Divine Liturgy where in our prayers we repeatedly tell God what to do for us.  Just pay attention at any divine liturgy, especially to the priestly prayers and see how many things we tell God to do for us.

Conversely, just think about “me” in this Psalm –  Have mercy on me, wash me, cleanse me, teach me, purge me, fill me, create in me, put a new and right spirit within me, cast me not, take not your holy Spirit from me, restore to me, uphold me, deliver me.  Quite the laundry list we give to God!  And “me” turns out to be the subject upon which God acts.   In this Psalm, repentance means submitting oneself to God’s saving actions.  Repentance is not so much something I do, but more is my commanding God what to and, therefore,  accepting what God does both to and  for me to restore me, make me whole and safely bring me back to the flock.  In the words of St John the Forerunner, “He must increase, I must decrease” (John 3:30).  That is the real nature of repentance – not everything I must do, but realizing how much I need from God to correct me.  Psalm 51 is my agreeing to submit myself to everything God does by God’s own nature.  God has a lot of work to do to make us into the human beings He wants us to be.

Repentance as is turns out is not so much what I do for myself, but my inviting God into my life, allowing God to be Lord in my life.  What does God want to do with me?  Remove all obstacles to salvation, restore me to the right relationship with God, and to unite Himself to me, to fulfill what God intends for humanity in the incarnation:  God becomes human so that we humans might become god.  It is only in this exchange that we become fully human.  Psalm 51 really is the pot telling the Potter, “You created us humans in your image and likeness, but I have distorted and misshapen that image, so now resume your artistry and craft me into the beautiful and good creation which you intended every human being to be.”

Next: Psalm 51: What Do “I” Do?

Prayer: The Journey to the Kingdom

Prayer is the journey to the kingdom: the arrival is union with God. The kingdom is not far from us, but is within us. The union with God that the saintly fathers experienced is the end of all endeavours: corporal acts of mercy, the labor of the soul, or perseverance in spiritual contemplation. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid for me a crown of righteousness” (2 Tim 4.7).   

(Matthew the Poor, Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way, p. 113)

Cleanse the Eyes of Your Heart

“And as St. Augustine reminds us in the following reflections, sand is thrown in the eyes of the heart not only by a multiplicity of images, not only by association of ideas, but also by the refusal to serve one’s neighbor in practical ways. To be too busy filling the coffers prevents one from emptying one’s heart so as to make it attentive to the ‘interior Master’. For ‘where your treasure is,’ says Jesus, ‘there will your heart be also.’

To purify yourself, have faith. You would like to see God. That desire is good, it is noble, and I challenge you to make trial of it. You would like to see him? ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ (Matthew 5.8). Think first of all about purifying your heart…You believe that God is evident to the eyes like a light…But if your eyes were clogged with sand, would you not have to wash them out before you could see the light?

Your heart is defiled also. And avarice spreads its murkiness there…Do you not realize that by hoarding in this way you are covering your heart with mud? How then will you see him whom you desire? 

You say to me, ‘Show me your God.’…

I answer you, ‘Take a look at your heart. Everything you see in it that might sadden God, remove. God wants to come to you. Listen to Christ your Lord: “My Father and I will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14.23). That is God’s promise. If I were to tell you I was coming to stay with you, you would clean your house. Now it is God who wants to come into your heart. Do you not hasten to purify it? How could he dwell with avarice? God has commanded you to clothe the naked. But avarice induces you to strip the one who is clothed…I am looking at your heart. What do you have in it? Have you filled your coffers but thrown away your conscience?…Purify your heart.’ (Augustine of Hippo)”

(quoted in Roots of Christian Mysticism, p. 166-167)