Forgiveness Sunday

Scripture:


Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Genesis 45:4-15

So Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me, please." And they came near. And he said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come, so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to poverty.' And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father of all my honor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here." Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them. After that his brothers talked with him.

History:

Alexander Schmemann, “Forgiveness Sunday”

Now, forgiveness stands at the very center of Christian faith and of Christian life because Christianity itself is, above all, the religion of forgiveness. God forgives us, and His forgiveness is in Christ, His Son, Whom He sends to us, so that by sharing in His humanity we may share in His love and be truly reconciled with God. Indeed, Christianity has no other content but love. And it is primarily the renewal of that love, a return to it, a growth in it, that we seek in Great Lent, in fasting and prayer, in the entire spirit and the entire effort of that season. Thus, truly forgiveness is both the beginning of, and the proper condition for the Lenten season.

One may ask, however: Why should I perform this rite when I have no "enemies"? Why should I ask forgiveness from people who have done nothing to me, and whom I hardly know? To ask these questions, is to misunderstand the Orthodox teaching concerning forgiveness. It is true, that open enmity, personal hatred, real animosity may be absent from our life, though if we experience them, it may be easier for us to repent, for these feelings openly contradict Divine commandments. But, the Church reveals to us that there are much subtler ways of offending Divine Love. These are indifference, selfishness, lack of interest in other people, of any real concern for them -- in short, that wall which we usually erect around ourselves, thinking that by being "polite" and "friendly" we fulfill God’s commandments. The rite of forgiveness is so important precisely because it makes us realize – be it only for one minute – that our entire relationship to other men is wrong, makes us experience that encounter of one child of God with another, of one person created by God with another, makes us feel that mutual "recognition" which is so terribly lacking in our cold and dehumanized world.

Reflection:

At one and the same time, Forgiveness Sunday and Judgment Sunday stand in stark contrast and harmonious unity. It is necessary that we should all first recognize that we stand under judgment before we can truly appreciate forgiveness. Because we so often live as if we have no sin, as if our “politeness” and “friendliness” satisfied God’s ethical demands, we often pay lip service to our need for forgiveness. We sing about it in our songs and preach about it from our pulpits, but we live our lives like people constantly wronged by everything from our government to the person in front of us in the express line at Wal*mart with twenty-two items. We are so busy feeling aggrieved that we forget to grieve for the sins that we commit against God and against one another.

It would seem that Fr. Schmemann and the Joseph cycle represent two ends of the full continuum of the human capacity both for evil and forgiveness. On the one hand, we have a conspiratorial plot to commit fratricide and a brother’s willingness to do better than to forgive and forget when the tables of power are turned. On the other hand there is the somewhat more frightening tendency that we all have to be self-involved and apathetic just beneath the surface. The difference between them is that we all recognize that the former is wrong and have been taught to forgive when we are wronged and (to a lesser to degree) to seek forgiveness when we have wronged another. What Schmemann points out is the pervasive kind of evil that has become so common place that we do not think to seek forgiveness for it anymore.

We’re under the mistaken impression in our society (and I realize that I am beginning to wax philosophic) that to behave rightly toward one another is to behave in such a way that you wish it would be universally mandated that everyone behaved thus. That moral imperative allows for me to be only insincerely polite to you because all I expect or want is your facile kindness in return. God demands more than our cultural expectations, and if we think critically enough about it, we will recognize that we owe more to one another than the kind of honey glazed apathy that we insulate ourselves with.

To recognize this, the Orthodox observe a rite of forgiveness in which they prostrate themselves before one another or before a priest and each asks forgiveness of the other. It is an important gesture performed with the right intention, as it reminds that in approaching Lent it is not only to God that we owe repentance nor only from Him that we seek forgiveness. Instead, it is to our brothers and sisters, our yokefellows, those who bear the image of God and who are being transformed into the image of the Son. We can rest assured, however, that in a community with the Redeemer as its head our forgiveness from other Christians is no less sure than our forgiveness from God.

Prayer:

O Lord give me strength to refrain from the unkind silence that is born of hardness of heart; the unkind silence that clouds the serenity of understanding and is the enemy of peace.
-- Cecil Hunt

Patriarchal Homily for Lent

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has issued his 2011 Catechetical Homily on the opening of Holy and Great Lent. In it, he reminds us that while Lent may seem toilsome, the pursuit of God becomes a delight to those who undertake it wholeheartedly and persistently:

Of course, focusing the intellect on the work of knowing God, in order to return it from passionate dispersion, comprises a toilsome and time-consuming labor. However, it is necessary and definitive for our spiritual wellbeing and social life. The way of virtue appears difficult and extremely unpleasant to those who undertake the journey; yet, not because it is actually like this, but because human nature has become accustomed to the ease of pleasure. For those who have succeeded in reaching the middle of this journey, in fact it appears pleasant and effortless.

The whole homily is a quick and pleasant read. I encourage everyone to go look at it. If nothing else, however, you should take this exhortation--which the Patriarch closes with--to heart and share it with other Christians around you who you know are undertaking Lenten fasts:

Beloved children in the Lord, upon entering the arena of Holy and Great Lent, we paternally exhort you not to be afraid or lazy in assuming the most important task of your life, namely the spiritual arena of work. Instead, be courageous and strong, so that you may purify your souls and bodies of all sin in order to reach the Kingdom of God, which is granted already from this life to those who seek it with sincerity and with all their soul.

May the grace of God and His boundless mercy be with you all.

The Wisdom of John of Sinai: Pleasure vs. Joy

It is traditional to read St. John of Sinai's (known in the West primarily as John Climacus) The Ladder of Divine Ascent during Lent, and I can understand why. It was in researching this work for a class (selected with the highly scientific eeny-meeny-miny-moe method) that I first began to focus my academic and spiritual life on the mystical monastic traditions of Eastern Christianity. In addition to being a potent work of spirituality--for which it has been rightly recognized--it is often overlooked as a brilliant contribution to Christian ethics. It is this combination of spiritual nourishment and moral exhortation, along with John's pithy literary style, that makes the work a perfect companion to Lent. It meets us in our spiritual destitution and leads us step-by-step (literally) toward a glorious God who willingly takes each of us by the hand and leads us into His inexhaustible goodness.

While the Lenten fast has not yet begun, Cheesefare Week (or Maslenitsa) is very much a part of the season. In the East, and particularly in Russia, this week is a final period of feast and celebration before the somber weeks of the fast. While significantly tamer than the way we prepare for Lent in the West (with that time honored tradition of women exposing themselves for costume jewelry), it is still a time for indulging in as much pleasure as possible.

John of Sinai will contrast these illusory pleasures with joy, the true and enduring delight of the human heart. Of the former, he says:

The mother of all wickedness is pleasure and malice. If these are in a man, he will not see the Lord; and to abstain from the first without also giving up the second will not be of much use.

For John, as is the case with all vices, pleasure is a corruption of a virtue granted by God. Pleasure takes the delight which we ought to feel in God and transforms it so that instead we delight in sin. In a way typical of Eastern mystics, John sees the solution to this malformation of the good in prayer. He advises:

Rise from love of the world and love of pleasure. Put care aside, strip your mind, refuse your body. Prayer, after all, is a turning away from the world, visible and invisible. What have I in heaven? Nothing. What have I longed for on earth besides You? Nothing except simply to cling always to You in undistracted prayer. Wealth pleases some, glory others, possessions others, but what I want is to cling to God and to put the hopes of my dispassion in Him.

The rewards--or perhaps more accurately, the consequences--of such a disposition are by no means meager. In fact, they are real in a way that the transient "joys" we strive for could never be. In God, who is the ground of all substance, is found the only substantial joy available to creation. John holds nothing back while describing the person who has found joy in God:

Holy love has a way of consuming some. This is what is meant by the one who said, "You have ravished our hearts, ravished them" (Song of Songs 4:9). And it makes other bright and overjoyed. In this regard it has been said: "My heart was full of trust and I was helped, and my flesh has revived" (Ps. 27:7). For when the heart is cheerful, the face beams, and a man flooded with the love of God reveals in his body, as if in a mirror, the splendor of his soul, a glory like that of Moses when he came face to face with God.

If you're getting your hedonism out of your system before Lent (or if you live everyday like it is Mardi Gras), just remember that it is during Lent that true joy is sought. Everything else is as grass.

Judgement Sunday

Scripture:


Matthew 25:31-46

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'”

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?”

And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”

Then they also will answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?”

Then he will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Amos 2:6-8, 3:1-2

Thus says the LORD:

"For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals—
those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
and turn aside the way of the afflicted;
a man and his father go in to the same girl,
so that my holy name is profaned;
they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge,
and in the house of their God they drink
the wine of those who have been fined…”

Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:
"You only have I known
of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities.

History:

Gregory of Sinai, On Stillness, 14

Many for long years may have been preoccupied with the spiritual life without exerting themselves, or may still be preoccupied with it in this way; but because they do not assiduously embrace hardship with heartfelt fervor and sense of purpose, and have repudiated the severity of bodily toil, they remain devoid of purity, without a share in the Holy Spirit…Instead all we have to boast about is the many profitless years we have spent in the wilderness, lazily cultivating stillness and imagining that we are somebody. At the moment of our death we will all know for certain what is the outcome of our life.

Reflection:

When I saw on the liturgical calendar that there was a Judgment Sunday, I admit that I was instantly thrown off balance. The idea of such a thing absolutely runs against my Protestant upbringing which focuses on unconditional forgiveness and an exceptionally soft view of love. Concepts like hell and judgment were sort of dirty little secrets, disciplinary switches that we tried to keep in our theological closet. We took them out only when necessary and never in front of company.

In reading about Judgment Sunday, however, I find that the idea is not nearly as ominous as the name makes it sound (especially not if you call it by its alternate name, "Meatfare Sunday"). Judgment is a prominent feature in the teaching of Christ, and hell is by no means absent either. Certainly the focus is on the coming of the kingdom, but judgment is an inexorable part of that coming. We profit nothing if we pretend it does not exist. It is no less perilous to ignore it than it is to overemphasize it.

St. John of Sinai speaks of three types of fear in his Ladder of Divine Ascent: fear for one's life otherwise known as cowardice, fear of hell, and the fear of God which is so pure as to be actually fearless. The first is meritless, the second has value, and the third is perfect. Like John, I see purpose in the fear of hell and of judgment. Reading Matthew 25 is a good reminder that salvation is not an invitation for us to rest on our laurels. However you want to explain it, Jesus is clear on more than one occasion that the way we act matters. Not only will our deeds come to light at judgment, but the principle expressed in Amos 3 suggests strongly to me that our lives will be judged by a harsher standard. To know God is to know the higher standard, and to know that standard is to be held to it.

In preparing for Lent it is important to realize three truths. First, our sins have always been inexcusable and our virtues equally insufficient. Second, God needed to offer himself on a cross in order to excuse those sins and to convey his all-sufficiency to us. Finally, neither the first truth nor the second absolve us of our responsibility to repent of our moral failures and to make efforts toward moral improvement.

Prayer:

When You, O God, shall come to earth with glory,
All things shall tremble
And the river of fire shall flow before Your judgment seat;
The books shall be opened and the hidden things disclosed!
Then deliver me from the unquenchable fire,
And make me worthy to stand at Your right hand, righteous Judge!
--Eastern Kontakion

*A note: I realize that Lent has not yet begun for either the Eastern or Western churches. Judgment Sunday, however, marks the beginning of the fast season for the Orthodox. This Sunday is the last when those observing the traditional Lenten fast can eat meat. It is followed by Cheesefare Week when dairy can still be eaten. The following Sunday, Cheesefare Sunday, is the last day when dairy is eaten. Clean Monday then begins the official Lent fast.

Gearing up for Lent

I enjoy Lent, an ironic fact that I have agonized over and apologized for in the past. I will not rehash entirely why Lent fills my heart with joy in much the same way that Christmas fills my mouth with bile. Instead, I intend to bask unashamedly in my overwhelming good fortune that, for the second year running now, the Eastern and Western churches will celebrate Easter on the same day.

Why does it matter? Because when we celebrate Easter together, then we observe (for the most part) Lent together. Approximately 1.8 of the 2 billion souls that call on the name of Christ worldwide observe the Lenten season. The rites are different, the mood is different, and certainly the degree of importance is different, but like a giddy child on Christmas morning nothing matters to me except the almost magical wonder of it all. All I see is a time when Christians everywhere cry out in one voice, lamenting their sins and begging for salvation to come. (The best part of all, of course, is that we've all peeked at how the story ends. Salvation comes...spread the word.) The whole body of Christ, the church universal, undergoes a collective cleansing--be it moral, ritual, or merely metaphorical. It is like the Christian version of a New Year's resolution, only instead of resolving to do right for only one day, the Christian struggles with that resolve for forty days participating spiritually in the forty days of struggle that Christ underwent in the wilderness. Even though, as with New Year's resolutions, we know that all our finite efforts will inevitably fail, we know with equal certainty that our union with Christ and his wilderness struggles will unite us mystical to his equally inevitable and gloriously infinite victory. In a single and singular period of mystical penance, we all set our eyes on our inescapable need for redemption, on the certainty of that redemption, and on our own inadequacy in light of that redemption. We shun all frivolity that we have foolishly embraced as joy and elect to sustain ourselves with nothing more than the thirst for the true and pure joy which awaits us as the Son rises on Easter.

If you are not part of a tradition that observes Lent--or if you are and you simply elect not to observe it--I would like to humbly suggest that you find a way to observe it anyway. You may elect to undertake a traditional fast with all its rigorous and "legalistic" requirements. You may embrace the more modern tradition of setting aside for forty days some sin or even some pleasure as an act of devotion to God. You may simply choose to remember the season and the hundreds of millions who will be observing it with you, to intercede for them and for yourself in your prayers. Whatever it is, I have never dedicated anything to God and regretted having given it up. I have only regretted failing to do so or not doing more. "Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up" (Jas 4:10).

However else I choose to observe Lent (and I believe you should "wash your face" when you fast), I will try to make this place a venue for reflection on the season, particularly as it is observed by the Orthodox Church. Beginning tomorrow, I hope to post a quotation from scripture, a quotation from church history, my own reflections, and a prayer on each major holy day in order to give clarity to my own thoughts and hopefully to facilitate the devotions of others.

May God bless you and keep you as you toil for Him, and may He find our living sacrifices pleasing, meager though they are.

The Lion in Winter

Katharine Hepburn says this in the 1968 film The Lion in Winter. (I don't know if the same line is in the play on which it was based.)

How clear we make it. Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war. Not history's forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars. We carry it, like syphilis, inside. Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten. For the love of God, can't we love one another just a little? That's how peace begins.

CO Follows Conscience

Stories like this are always nice to read:

A junior officer at a Connecticut submarine base has received an honorable discharge after suing the U.S. Navy, saying his religious beliefs prevent him from participating in the military.

Michael Izbicki, an ensign formerly stationed at the Naval Submarine School in Groton, was discharged Feb. 16 as a conscientious objector...

"I believe that Jesus Christ calls all men to love each other, under all circumstances. I believe his teaching forbids the use of violence. I take the Sermon on the Mount literally," Izbicki wrote in his application for conscientious objector status.

Izbicki, 25, a native of San Clemente, Calif., has said he was following his family tradition by enlisting in the military and entered the Naval Academy in 2004 with plans of becoming an officer. He began to question his goals after graduating from the academy and beginning submarine training.