Anthony Quinn and Keith Green Agree...

Revelation 3:1-6, 14-22
Luke 19:1-10

I know your works, that you have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead... I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Revelation 3:1b, 15-17

Did you ever see The Shoes of the Fisherman? It was released in 1968 and has a marked note of 60s hippiness about it. However it well lays out the internal Christian debate between having stuff and not having stuff; stuff which tends, as we know, to weigh us down, no matter how we intended to use it, hopefully, to God's greater glory. At the end of the movie, the new Pope solves a spot of world poverty by selling off the stuff of the church. It's an interesting idea...

There's that scary passage in the Gospel, right? Where Jesus says he will cut the sheep off from the goats. (That's scary to me - is it so to you?) Anyway, today's readings remind me of that passage, when Jesus is like, "You know, you never gave a cup of water to a thirsty person, or even a crust of bread to a hungry person. Bye." And then everyone is all "But Lord, we did all this cool religious stuff!" and he is like, "Nope. Bye." That's scary to me because I know my works. I know my total lack of anything remotely resembling charity.

"I know your works", says Jesus. He says it to all the churches in the open letters that begin the Apocalypse. Some Churches are good and some are bad. Today the reading skips over a good Church, located in between Sardis and Laodicea. That Church, the Church of Brotherly Love (in Philadelphia) is known for her good works. I think maybe the name tells us more about what we need to know... but we've skipped it in the reading today, rightly I think. The fact is, most American Christians are on a scale someplace between Sardis and Laodicea.

Sardis says "People say I'm all kinds of awesome" when, in fact, she's dead.
Laodicea says, "I say I'm all kinda of awesome" and yet, again, she's dead.

Most of our churches, I think, bask in either a self-created glow or else a world-created glow. We are not, however, awesome: we are dead. I know your works.

It's curious that Jesus, speaking through the Evangelist John, doesn't seem to really care about their "faith" as such. (He does and I'll get to that in a moment.) Jesus does not talk about their doctrines, which I think are different from Faith: by doctrine, let's be anachronistic about it, we mean the fullness of the Scriptural Canon and the whole, unadulterated Nicene Creed. (I am speaking anachronistically.) One puts one's faith (trust) in the doctrine, see? The doctrine may be poetically called "our faith" but I think that's only poetic license. We put our faith (in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin that means "trust") in the Doctrine which is, as it were, the type and Jesus, himself, is the antitype for it is his person, action, and teaching that are revealed in the Doctrine.

Jesus says "I know your works". Works are the the manifestation of faith in the same way that rustling leaves are the manifestation of wind. If we do not see or hear the leaves moving, we know it's not windy. Jesus, in saying he knows their works is saying "Your faith ain't up to snuff. It's like snuff that fell out of the box a week ago and you're finding it as you sweep up and you just throw it away, because it's all on the floor and it's not so much 'snuff' now as 'stuff and things I'm not putting in my nose.'". For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. (James 2:26)

The Zacchaeus story in the Gospel makes this point amply, I think: he's sees Jesus and says "Behold I'm giving away half of what I have, and if I have extorted anything I will give back four times as much - which may have eaten up most of the remaining half. And what does Jesus say? "Behold, wholeness has come to this house today."

Our Doctrine - all the things God has revealed to us about himself in Christ Jesus that has been taught to us by Holy Mother Church - if we actually trusted it, if we actually believed it would be the wind that rustles our leaves branches and shakes all of our stuff out onto the poor. We say we are rich - and yet we are not. People look at us and say we're amazing, but we're not. Jesus knows our works.

We have all kinds of beautiful liturgies. We've built very beautiful churches. We may keep our priests well paid. Or maybe, we have a well-paid pastor and we have awesome singing and really amazing overhead projectors with flashy lights. Our offering plates are full. But Jesus knows our works. We are dead. We are not whole. We are not saved. What are the works that show a living faith? James tells us:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. James 2:14-17

Nothing there about big churches, gold cups, or jeweled rings. Nothing there about filioques or communion for the divorced. Nothing there about sinners' prayers, sola scriptura, or evangelism, even. It's straight up mercy. Don't get me wrong: all that stuff is important - yet only so far as it supports the works that manifest our faith in the risen Lord. If we don't have that... it's bye bye goats.

Popi, have you seen Dash?

Revelation 1:1-4; 2:1-5
Luke 18:35-43

Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight and followed him, giving glory to God.
Luke 18:40c-43a

This blind man, asking for pity. Jesus says, "What?" The man (called Bartimaeus by St Mark) says, "Let me see." Done. Jesus said, "Your faith has saved you." At no place was the man asking for to be saved. We know the Greek word here, σῴζω - sozo, can mean "made whole" or "healed", it gets rendered "saved" so many times it's worth talking about.

What does it mean to be Saved? What is it when one is sozoed?

Unfortunately, for all most all Americans, Christian or not, to be saved means "going to heaven." There is no scriptural reason to hold that meaning. None. At all. Period. Nothing in the Bible makes any sense at all if that's what sozo means. It is pointless and imaginary. It's nearly demonic. It is NOT WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS (for you Sola-protestants out there). Nor is it what the Church says. It is not what Protestant Christians of even 200 years ago would have meant by the word.

If you died today, asks this demonic temptation, do you know where you'd spend eternity?

I can answer that question in two words - equally true for me, for you, for Ivan the Terrible, for Adolf Hitler, for Mother Theresa, and for your great grandma Mae. The answer is totally the same for everyone:

With God.

We will all spend Eternity with God. Eternity is that omega point where our human, fear-based self-shielding mechanisms of time, space, sin, self-interest, ignorance, and doubt all collapse into the event horizon of God's very beingness, from whom nothing can escape, by whom all things are known, and in whom all things live and move and have their fullest being. There is no place else to go, nowhere to run in eternity where God is not. There is no place to run here in Space-Time, either, if you really want to know. It is our delusions that allow us to think that we're safe from him. We can ignore him for a few minutes, hiding behind fig leaves, as he walks in the evening crying out, "Earthling, where are you?"

Eternity with God is not "salvation" though, except in the abstract: certainly Jesus didn't send Bartimaeus there when he said "you've been σῴζωed - sozoed." Nor did he send anyone else to "the Gold Streets of Glory, halleluia!" when he said to the woman at his feet, the lepers, the bleeding woman, the Syrophoenician woman, the Centurion, "Your faith has sozoed you." Neither is it what St Paul and the other Apostles mean when they say, preaching, "You and your whole household can be sozoed this night..."

In the LXX, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, σῴζω - sozo is used for the word הושִׁיעַ, hoshia which is related to Jesus' own name, Yeshua. There is our clue, really: think of it that way for just a moment and it will make sense:

Being "saved" means being "made more like Jesus".

No one will be excluded from God's presence - but to see God is to be be plunged into what? "Our God is a Consuming Fire." The only Human who can be there is Jesus, who is God, himself. To be saved... to be brought into communion-via-likeness with Jesus... is to stand alive in the Fountain of Life itself, to be made like the Burning Bush: raised to a fullness of Beauty unimagined, burning and yet not consumed.

Dante takes us so close to heaven:

This heaven has no other where than this:
the mind of God, in which are kindled both
the love that turns it and the force it rains. 

As in a circle, light and love enclose it,
as it surrounds the rest and that enclosing,
only He who encloses understands.
...
Like sudden lightning scattering the spirits
of sight so that the eye is then too weak
to act on other things it would perceive, 

such was the living light encircling me,
leaving me so enveloped by its veil
of radiance that I could see no thing.

As he is ending his glorious quest Dante links heaven with us here, on earth: we are being made ready, turned...

The Love that calms this heaven always welcomes
into Itself with such a salutation,
to make the candle ready for its flame
...
But already my desire and my will
were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed,
by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

We want seriously to think that "I've found the only way into heaven". We want to think "We can keep out the wrong sort of people." I know one pastor who keeps a gun in his pulpit because he thinks the wrong sort of people will try to stop him from getting into heaven. Even Dante put the wrong sort of people in other places. But that was humorous and educational. We need to stop imagining heaven like an old Simpsons Episode:

Oh, my friends, I have no doubt that God will call all men to himself - he is doing so now. Not everyone will want to be there. We have to be saved - to be made as much like Jesus as possible. We are working out our salvation here, now - working out our transformation into Jesus. When the opening of our presence to God's Being is at the fullest, some of us will have been prepared and some will fight it off. In that Divine Light our only defence will be to self-destruct as we burn. Or we can live there forever - only if we, even now, are being turned like a wheel, being brought up to speed, by the Love which moved the Sun and other stars.

If You Don't Work, You Don't Eat.

Malachi 3:19-20a
II Thessalonians 3:7-12
Luke 21:5-19

Jesus said, “All that you see here-- the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.”
Luke 21:6

In the weeks leading up to Advent the western Lectionary gets apocalyptic. Today it comes out in full swing! The collection of readings emphasises the Christian apocalyptic dynamic in which we always live: already here/not yet.

Jesus is prophesying about the destruction of the temple - which has nothing, really, to do with the end of the world. The Apostles (quite logically) imagine such a threat as only possible in an end-of-the-world context. So Jesus points out all the other things that will happen before the End of the World. But, first, everything's going to get torn down: in a matter of 40 years or so, really. But, even without all that stuff happening, Jesus' warnings were needed: don't let people tell you "There he is" or "Look it's happening now!"

In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat. We hear that some are conducting themselves among you in a disorderly way, by not keeping busy but minding the business of others.
II Thessalonians 3:10-11

Paul was talking about people who had decided the world was about to end so they were just sitting around waiting. Meanwhile the Christians were being charitable, taking care of them. That charity drew in more freeloaders... It's almost a cynic's reversal of our note yesterday about Orthodox Monastics. But as far as Apocalypse goes, I think, even though the Temple was still around, the discovery that God had come among us and died and rose again was pretty scary stuff. Neighbors looked over and thought this new community was scary, even the ones who did work!We're not that scary any more - although the recent elections reminded us that we can be... but let's remember who we really are.

One day in 2010 Cam Miller, then Rector of Trinity ECUSA in Buffalo, NY, teaching an adult ed class on the Gospels, asked us to list "classes of people" in the Gospel stories and, as we were confused, he started a list on the board with 1, 2 and 3. Then we figured out the pattern and got the rest of it:

1. Jesus
2. The Apostles
3. The Women
4. Jews
5. Jesus family
6. Samaritans
7. Pharisees
8. Tax Collectors
9. Sadducees
10. The Scribes
11. Clergy
12. Lepers
13. Sinners
14. The Army

We came up with a few more as well. Then Cam asked us "Who are we?" The Apostles was a logical choice. But Cam pointed out that's who we would want to be, but, as far as the story goes... "Sinners!" Yes, that's true, but I mean, in terms of current parallels none of these categories fit. Who are we, in terms of history as we sit here in Buffalo, NY, in the middle of winter?

All of these people, in the Gospel story, live in Judea (he used the Anachronism of "Palestine" but set that aside for this post). Judea is an outlier provence in the Roman World where taxes are collected and olives are harvested. It is not, however, a place where olives are eaten - they are sent away. It is a place where bad politicians get sent by the Emperor for "special assignments". It is a place where "Keeping the Peace" is a imperial command that is impossible to keep and one's own death sentence.

Do we live in 1st Century Judea? (NO!)
Ok, then where are we?

Americans, in terms of the Gospels, are none of the people in Judea. We're not in the story at all except as an "unseen hand". We are most closely paralleled to Rome, to which all taxes go, all goods are sent, and from whom no secrets are hid. We are the gobblers and thieves who send out armies to "keep the peace" only so much as it benefits us (where "us" is defined as the bankers and companies that keep Americans shopping). We are Rome. What little good others get from our benignity is because we get a greater good from it. We do not send Charity so much as we send blood money. We speak of the Law of Supply and Demand as if we had not imposed it on the world with our guns.

In the end, Christian morals and ideas about purity, morality, equality, justice, and the Kingdom of God undercut the Roman Empire so much she had to start killing the followers of this new cult.

Please, God, it were so now.

In a fit of realism, as I type this on a cheap computer, sitting under lights lit by energy paid for by farmers in Kansas, sipping coffee made by underpaid farm workers in various parts of the world, wearing clothes sewn by hands well sweated in Target and Kmart, I wonder what can ever be done. I have a lot of stuff I didn't work for. I have a lot of stuff paid for by the blood of others. Even the foods I eat are harvested by the hands of wage slaves who come to our country because we have ruined theirs with our our politics and trade agreements. St Paul says to all of us, "Such people we instruct and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and to eat their own food." Yet we have, instead, become Rome. We are the rulers of the world, the exporters of the violence that moved west with a Young America. We are the killers and the spoilers. What Marshal will stop us?

I know that some part of the world thinks we may have elected our own Nero or Caligula. Although either would be disastrous, neither were anywhere near the end of the Empire. In fact, they were the beginning of the seriously bad part. But I do fear the wrath when it comes. And it won't be God, as such (although by his will): it will be by the hands of those we've chained to the machines that make our stuff.

Since August

A friend asked why I've not blogged about my experience at the Monastery. My reply is that you only meet the good side of a divorce. To be clear, I don't think anything bad happened, and as Fr Prior noted in his recent newsletter it was a peaceable departure. The final date was suggested by me as it would give me the chance to prepare food for the annual pilgrimage. I stayed, planned menus, cooked, and served rather a lot of food for several meals and it was a good thing. Those of you who know that I cook to relax will be amused at this story. I closed out my time at the monastery joyfully making an offering of my few gifts to people I love.

What started the departure was a conversation with a guest visiting from Texas, as we sat and watched the Bighorn Sheep on the mountain side. (The Date was 23 June - when I took the above photo.) I will not go into the conversation, but the end result was a few follow-up conversations with my parents and the discernment that I needed to be in the world working out my salvation. It was "taking care of my parents" and it was "doing community justice work" and it was not sitting in the mountains and enjoying the silence. That discernment was confirmed in the positive by a conversation with one of my Oblate Brothers, and in the negative by a conversation with a visiting priest. It was this priest that said, first, to me "Be the hands and feet of Christ in the world".  That phrase was repeated several times (as is their homiletical style) in a sermon by the preacher at the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, GA (photo below, with my parents and President and Mrs Carter). When we got home, with me deep in thought from the coincidence, Mom said, "I hope you realized he was preaching to you."  Yeah, Mom. I got that.

Then I had to think long and hard. Because, let's face it, Orthodoxy, in America at least, just doesn't do much community justice work. There are a couple of places that do it, I know: One major one in Kansas City (Reconciliation Services), one in Toronto. Also I know that the Orthodox Peace Fellowship is cataloguing all the places, big and small, they can find. Yet with a number of good reasons - and a few bad excuses - many parishes do nothing like this. I think this is a reaction formation that may go away in a generation or two: many Orthodox are converts. Many converts are coming from mainline prot land where theology, Bible, and tradition were essentially replaced by social justice work which, devoid of Christian theology, became radically progressive. In time it diverged heavily from orthodox, historical Christian moral teachings especially in the areas of sex, marriage, and the dignity of the human person from conception to natural death. My own experience in ECUSA was like this, it is a reaction I well understand.

As an adult, wanting to dedicate the rest of my life to Christ in his Church, working out my salvation, however, I need all three gears of the faith to be in place: Teaching, Tradition, and Action. This is what drove me bonkers in Buffalo: it seemed as if I could get right teaching or right work. Why do I need to choose?

What I experience is that there is one place that does all three very well, manifested in nearly every Roman Catholic parish and institution. I know Orthodoxy has some theological issues with the Roman Church. However, I come from the Russian Tradition of Orthodoxy which is quite different from the Greek trad in this respect: the Roman Church is simply another Church, not a bunch of heretics. A Roman priest becoming Orthodox is simply vested in Byzantine Vestments, "Welcome to the club...." Coming into other branches of Orthodoxy as a priest is not so easy. Russia's big issue with Rome is Territory - be that in the Ukraine or Moscow. Perhaps, that attitude softens my approach to the whole Roman tradition. This is one place where my theology becomes less Orthodox, I confess: I'm quite willing to buy into the "two lungs" idea. We have never officially declared them to be "without grace". If that were so there would be an Orthodox Bishop of Rome. We've never gone there: that lack of action is a huge doctrinal statement. We in the OCA don't fully Chrismate their converts to Orthodoxy (just anoint them once, on the head, with oil after saying the Creed without the filioque). They are, essentially, the Separated Brethren. What Rome most looks like to me is ROCOR, back in the days when the latter were "non-canonical". Again, that's not an official position or anything, but that's how my vision has been formed coming in to Orthodoxy where I did. Yet, history backs me up: even intercommunion happened until rather recently. Among the Laity it ossified into the current practice only in the last 200-300 years depending on where you were. Intercommunion continues today in the Muslim lands where any Christian priest shows up and serves liturgy for everyone.

Since my parents moved here, I've visited the local Orthodox parish, which has Sunday liturgies, only. Nothing else happens save for a vespers service once a month for confession. The priest doesn't live here. It's a small parish, I get that. But visiting my parents from time to time, I've always been thankful that this was not my regular parish. So, when I got here for full-time living, I was really worried about what would become of me. I visited my parent's UMC, and then I discovered St Anne's Roman Catholic Church. After going for a while, sneaking in and listening to sermons and then sneaking out without shaking hands... I was impressed with the, forgive me, Orthodoxy, of the place as well as the social life, the justice activity, the spiritual life of the parish. While I have not been received into the Roman Church nor partaken of Sacraments, I have been "getting fed" at Holy Mass, adult ed, weekly Rosary, Bible study, and RCIA class.  As an Orthodox Christian, I don't need to do any of that stuff: Roman teaching is that I could take communion without "switching". But I do not.

Being back in SF will mean I could go back to my beloved OCA Cathedral Parish for six months. But right now I'm feeling ambivalent about that: being in SF also means that I could attend a daily Latin mass or, at least, a weekly one at Star of the Sea Parish.

So, that's where I am now. Right now what weighs on me most heavily is the fact that in 6 months at the monastery, I've only been to confession once - and not at all since leaving. I miss communion. I miss the sacraments.

I have not felt able to commit to social justice work either because all my energy has been devoted to the Job Search and I never knew where I would be in all that time, from week to week. It has been depressing, the only light being multiple weekly visits to St Anne's. Now, thanks be to God, I shall spend 6 Months in San Francisco on assignment before coming back here. At which time I will make room in my life - as my Dad does - for homeless outreach and other things, being the hands and feet of Christ in the world.
.
Asking your prayers.

Entertaining Angels in the Flesh

III John 5-8
Luke 18:1-8


Beloved, you are faithful in all you do for the brothers and sisters, especially for strangers; they have testified to your love before the Church. Please help them in a way worthy of God to continue their journey. For they have set out for the sake of the Name and are accepting nothing from the pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such persons, so that we may be co-workers in the truth.
III John 5-8

St John the Evangelist and Apostle is reminding his readers that missionaries and traveling clergy were relying on the gifts of the faithful so as not to be begging from the pagans. It makes us look bad when we can't take care of our own.

So let me tell you about two Orthodox monasteries to which I have been (emotionally) attached - as well as two more I am familiar with. I don't know what it's like in other churches, but at least in the OCA & AOCANA there seems to be no support system. Both monasteries relied on the state for medical care and one, at least, relied on the state for food assistance as well. To varying degrees, I have heard this is true of at least two more Orthodox monasteries.

This is also true of some clergy in parishes: in addition to being underpaid they have to rely on federal or state aid for some portion of their support.

My brothers and sisters, this must not be.

Are there no Orthodox Doctors who can help - by which I mean for free? Does no one living near a monastery assist with food? Is there no one who can make sure your priest is not relying on Medicaid?

Yes: I know those programs are there and we all pay for them. That's not the point. A) We should be taking care of our own. B) One day our clergy and monastics will (very rightly) be compared to welfare leeches and our churches compared (very rightly) to Walmart sending their employees to the state for benefits they, themselves, are too cheap to buy.

If you're near a monastery find out what you can do. If you're not near a monastery, find one online! Call your Bishop. Ask your priest. Yes, this will be a financial commitment. But, not to put too fine a point on it, WTF is it happening like this? WTF are we not taking care of our own?

I suggest setting up a managed fund for American Clergy & Monastics, that would include providing healthcare and other support to monastics.

I'll stop there.

Flashback Friday Playlist

Flashback to a happier, simpler time, with a VJ and Public Television.

Really, You're Not Half This Good

II John 1:4-9
Luke 17:26-37

Remember the wife of Lot. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.
Luke 17:32-33

For some time there has been a growing fear that "some Christians supporting Trump" will get turned into "all Christians". Most secularists can't tell the difference between a Charismatic and a Carpatho Rus Orthodox, or between a Russian Molokan and a Mormon. We're all the same lunatics to them. The ones who can tell the differences know that the only thing dividing the good, secularized Christians from the bad, religious ones is a deeply felt, mystical experience. They keep an eye out for anyone that might show signs of "conversion". Right now and for a long while, really, the secular world has some Christians hating on other Christians, but the world knows we're all rather dangerous. Some of us just happen to be close friends with the firing squads and so imagine "I'm safe".

Remember Lot's wife... I have written elsewhere how I'm sure Mrs Lot wasn't turning around to remember the town where people were abused, where her own daughter was murdered for feeding a beggar. I'm sure she has no fond memories of her husband offering her youngest children to be raped by a mob of neighbors.

No. Mrs Lot is nostalgic for the cafes where only the rich could go. She's fondly remembering the cool evenings with slaves fanning off the flies as one eats a light meal with one's husband and talks over plans for the summer hols. She's lamenting all their stuff and things lost in the anschluss of God's righteous anger. Sure, the people could be a bit snobby, and yeah they really didn't like her husband's piety, but they really did make a nice latte. And her family was living quite comfortably, Baruch Ha-Shem, and all that other stuff could be kept outside by just closing the door. Unless one wanted a latte.

The election has played out the way it has and many of us still live in the outer burbs of Gomorrah. We like the lattes and the opera. We love the mass transit and the awesome foods. But how like Mrs Lot are we being? At the Monastery, Fr Prior felt we were coming to a fulcrum point. Something would snap and we would find ourselves unable to function. We would be in a world where we no longer wanted to play the game because to do so would be to deny Jesus. Some people would play on willingly, to keep their lattes. Some would not. These latter would lose their jobs and other things; but they would keep their souls. The NABRE has it put wonderfully well:  Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God. But the same is true this way: Anyone who is so anything as to not remain... You can leave the narrow way to the heights or depths, like Icarus, or to the right or left, like a drunken driver on a mountain roadway.

I don't know that we are there yet, but I think we're close. So my question is: what would it be like to live in that space, not like Lot's wife, guiltily taking in as much pleasure as possible whilst staying technically free from impurity, but rather to be the person who gives up their life to save it? What would it be like to live in that space humbly submitting to all the crap, forgiving all the calumny, praying every night for the coworkers who make it a "hostile work environment" but never filing a lawsuit? What would it be like to be Jesus, going to martyrdom fearfully, but wonderfully made to do so?

We want to imagine we can play by the rules enough to keep our lattes. We can pretend to be someone we're not, just to keep our happy life intact: dysfunctionally so, but intact. Mrs Doubtfire is wonderfully charming, but Mrs Lot is who we are. In fact, to avoid being Mrs Lot, we have to be Jesus. And that story only has one ending.