Originally published as Turning from God leads to eternity without life in the Charleston, SC, Post and Courier on Sunday, September 9, 2007.
By all reports, the recent heat wave was the most intense and prolonged in recent memory. Record highs prompted some churches in their roadside signage to post statements relating the temperature in Charleston to those of the infernal abyss. “You think it is hot here?” “Fire Insurance. Inquire within.” “Hell has no thermostat.” Clever—but even at the literal level, ‘thermostat’ means ‘keeps the temperature the same’. I guess the implied statement is, “in hell, one can’t change the temperature for the cooler.”
It is good that this heat prompts us to ask about hell. What is hell, though? And what is heaven?
Our Lord, Jesus Christ said, “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Heaven is begun. By our participation in the life of the Church—through baptism and receiving the Sacraments—by our co-laboring with God, we are welcomed more and more into the Kingdom as we are transformed from corrupt into incorrupt, from imperfect to perfect, from sinner to saint. Whenever we actually seek and accomplish the will of God (rooted in self-denial, taking up our cross, and following Jesus), we partake in the life of the Kingdom of God, life as it was intended, heaven—even here and now.
Hell is similar. To sin, to harm others, to deny God and his power, to turn from the will of God, to seek self over others, to worship anything or anyone above the One, True God, is to participate in hell. We even have a phrase in our every-day vocabulary which points to this: “living hell.” Precisely. Ask anyone who has or is going through divorce or abuse—no matter who is a fault, it is hell for everyone. Consider, honestly, the worst times in your own life: hell. In these and other areas, we can observe, or participate in, hell—living hell.
Hell, is not some geographical place—as heaven is not. These realities begin in time and space but have their conclusion outside of it, in God’s timelessness. Wherever they “are”, God is there. “If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there” (Psalm 139:8)! In fact, we would even dare to teach that hell is not a place where God sends anyone. The Prophet Ezekiel, for example, said that God desires not the death of a sinner, but that he should turn from his ways and live (Ezekiel 18:32).
Today, as in the days of Moses, we have two choices always set before us: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him…” (Deuteronomy 30:19ff). The choice, life or death—heaven or hell, is ours to make, in every living moment, and to our dying breath.
God never says, “Love me or I’ll kill you.” “Love me or you’ll burn in hell.” Rather, he describes the consequence of not choosing life: “you will surely die”. This already true in our daily lives—just look around.
Sadly, many choose such hell, and for two apparent reasons. First, the way to paradise, to heaven, to communion with God, is narrow, and few are they who find it. True life is work. It means crucifixion, forgiveness, and endurance. It is definitely not the path of least resistance!
Second, since the devil is so clever, we are often quite well-convinced that hell is actually paradise.
Consider this story: A man dies and is permitted to take a preview of both heaven and hell to choose his eternal lifestyle. First, heaven: a peaceful, bright place. The antiphonal singing of the angels is impressive; the landscape, lush and serene. “Not bad,” the fellow notes.
Next, hell: well-manicured golf courses; an open tiki bar on the nearby beach—and endless snorkeling over pristine coral reefs teeming with marine life. “Wow! I can’t believe it,” he thinks. “This is really great.”
Surprised even at himself, the man chooses hell. “It isn’t what I expected!”
The gates of Hell are opened to the fellow who is warmly welcomed in. With the gates barely closed behind him, he sees nothing but death and destruction, torment, grief, sadness. He can only hear wailing and weeping. His face shows his utter horror and surprise. “But, what about yesterday?” he manages to ask.
“Yesterday,” says the devil, “we were recruiting…”
In the midst of all of this is Jesus Christ, who loved and laid down his life for us all, even for his worst enemies, including those who crucified him. Our Lord even descended to hell for us and with us, to rescue us from eternal death and hell. This was his action on Holy Saturday, the day on which he “rested in the tomb”, and “rested from his work”—the true Sabbath. He lived, died, and rose again to show us and give us life, true life in his Kindgom.
Choose life and live!
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in the I’On community in Mt. Pleasant. He can be reached at fjohn@ocacharleston.org. Read more at www.holyascension.blogspot.com.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Monday, August 06, 2007
The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church
Originally published in the Charleston, SC, POST AND COURIER, on 8/7/07, as "What is the Church that Jesus left us?"
The recent release of the Vatican’s seven questions and answers entitled, “Responses To Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects Of The Doctrine On The Church” has raised much concern across the spectrum of self-professed Christians. Where is the Church? Does it matter?
I write from a unique position as an Orthodox priest, since, according to the document, the Orthodox Churches (unlike the Protestants) can properly be called Churches, yet we “lack something”, namely a supreme pontiff subsisting in the person of the Pope of Rome. I suspect we should be grateful that the Vatican recognizes us Orthodox as a church. At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t move us or flatter us. It neither enrages nor engages us, since we believe that the history of the Christian Church shows a different—though related—reality. The Orthodox Churches are as old as the Roman. After all, St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Philippians, and Thessalonians (to name a few), who are still Orthodox to this day.
The battle for “Church” is not a battle of “valid” versus “invalid”; “visible” versus “invisible”; “scriptural” versus “traditional”; “Protestant” versus “Roman Catholic”. These are the sixteenth century battles of western European Christianity, already 500 years removed from Orthodox Christianity. The real question is “what did Jesus actually leave with us?” More historically phrased, “what has always been believed?” Biblically stated, “what is the faith once for all delivered to the saints?” Theologically asked, “what does it mean to be ‘in communion’?”
As Father Kirby wrote in his irenic column a few weeks ago, our Lord Jesus Christ did found only one Church. Christ is not and cannot be divided; a head cannot have many bodies. Jesus is the head of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. The Church is holy in that she is divinely established and sustained. She is catholic in that she is whole and complete in every local church in every time and place, and faithfully teaches what all Christians have always believed. She is apostolic in that her bishops (episkopoi, over-seers), are ordained in the same line as the bishops first appointed by the apostles and teach the same doctrines as do the Twelve.
Reading the documents of the Church from the first century forward through the eleventh, laying aside our present day preconceptions about “church”, we will find this true Church. We will even find a great deal of honor paid to the Bishop of Rome, who from the beginning was considered to be primus-inter-pares (chief among equals) of all the Bishops. This cannot be denied historically.
However, through the history, we will not find the infallible, supreme pontiff the papal office has become. The pope was for a long time the honorable chairman of a group of bishops seated (figuratively) at a round table, around which the Orthodox Bishops are still sitting.
It is not until post-eleventh century western Christianity that the Pope sits (again, figuratively) at a rectangular table, he alone occupying the head. Don’t take my word for it; read the history! The Charleston County library holds a 38 volume collection entitled the Antenicene, Nicene, and Postnicene Fathers which contain, in English, the most significant writings of the first Christian millennium. It can also be read, in full, online at http://www.ccel.org/.
The history is critically important, but there is a deeper reality which must always remain intimately linked to the Church’s historical lineage: by our sins, every man, woman, and child is terminally ill and desperately needs spiritual medical attention. The Church is, theologically and historically, the hospital in which are found the doctors who can rightly identify the reality of the disease and who dispense the only tonics which can heal this infectious and vicious malady.
Jesus Christ instituted and entrusted his medicines (the Sacraments—baptism, Holy Communion, confession, unction, etc.) to his apostles and through them, to the Bishops. It is through this succession that the medicines can be both rightly administered and guaranteed. More directly put: the Church is the hospital which has board-certified physicians-of-the-soul and medicines which have been carefully preserved under the strictest supervision.
If you knew you were terminally ill, would you prefer to visit a true hospital or an individually and recently established clinic, run by a fellow who printed his MD on his laserjet? The gifted and well-studied clinician might save you. He might just be talented enough to pull it all together. But the hospital’s methods, medicines, and personnel are time-tested and sure. This is the case with the Church, only moreso, because it is also one, holy, catholic, and apostolic!
So, we dying men and women, if we hope to live, must seek and find Jesus Christ in his Church which has never been anything other than visible, living, and active. As the Vatican has rightly taught, the Church’s touchstones include bishops in apostolic order who, to quote St. Paul to Timothy, “rightly divide the word of truth”. These bishops, though, have never been subjected to the universal jurisdiction of an infallible Pope. As Jesus said of divorce, so too the Orthodox have always taught about this false teaching, “from the beginning it was not so.”
Rather, the bishops, as brothers in council, are the guardians of the medicines of the hospital for sinners, without which we die. (Our Lord did say, for example, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you.”) We can be confident of the medications, meals, and remedies here in the Church. God is certainly free to move outside the boundaries of his own creation, but why put him to the test?
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at 881-5010 or by email at frjohn@ocacharleston.org.
The recent release of the Vatican’s seven questions and answers entitled, “Responses To Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects Of The Doctrine On The Church” has raised much concern across the spectrum of self-professed Christians. Where is the Church? Does it matter?
I write from a unique position as an Orthodox priest, since, according to the document, the Orthodox Churches (unlike the Protestants) can properly be called Churches, yet we “lack something”, namely a supreme pontiff subsisting in the person of the Pope of Rome. I suspect we should be grateful that the Vatican recognizes us Orthodox as a church. At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t move us or flatter us. It neither enrages nor engages us, since we believe that the history of the Christian Church shows a different—though related—reality. The Orthodox Churches are as old as the Roman. After all, St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Philippians, and Thessalonians (to name a few), who are still Orthodox to this day.
The battle for “Church” is not a battle of “valid” versus “invalid”; “visible” versus “invisible”; “scriptural” versus “traditional”; “Protestant” versus “Roman Catholic”. These are the sixteenth century battles of western European Christianity, already 500 years removed from Orthodox Christianity. The real question is “what did Jesus actually leave with us?” More historically phrased, “what has always been believed?” Biblically stated, “what is the faith once for all delivered to the saints?” Theologically asked, “what does it mean to be ‘in communion’?”
As Father Kirby wrote in his irenic column a few weeks ago, our Lord Jesus Christ did found only one Church. Christ is not and cannot be divided; a head cannot have many bodies. Jesus is the head of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. The Church is holy in that she is divinely established and sustained. She is catholic in that she is whole and complete in every local church in every time and place, and faithfully teaches what all Christians have always believed. She is apostolic in that her bishops (episkopoi, over-seers), are ordained in the same line as the bishops first appointed by the apostles and teach the same doctrines as do the Twelve.
Reading the documents of the Church from the first century forward through the eleventh, laying aside our present day preconceptions about “church”, we will find this true Church. We will even find a great deal of honor paid to the Bishop of Rome, who from the beginning was considered to be primus-inter-pares (chief among equals) of all the Bishops. This cannot be denied historically.
However, through the history, we will not find the infallible, supreme pontiff the papal office has become. The pope was for a long time the honorable chairman of a group of bishops seated (figuratively) at a round table, around which the Orthodox Bishops are still sitting.
It is not until post-eleventh century western Christianity that the Pope sits (again, figuratively) at a rectangular table, he alone occupying the head. Don’t take my word for it; read the history! The Charleston County library holds a 38 volume collection entitled the Antenicene, Nicene, and Postnicene Fathers which contain, in English, the most significant writings of the first Christian millennium. It can also be read, in full, online at http://www.ccel.org/.
The history is critically important, but there is a deeper reality which must always remain intimately linked to the Church’s historical lineage: by our sins, every man, woman, and child is terminally ill and desperately needs spiritual medical attention. The Church is, theologically and historically, the hospital in which are found the doctors who can rightly identify the reality of the disease and who dispense the only tonics which can heal this infectious and vicious malady.
Jesus Christ instituted and entrusted his medicines (the Sacraments—baptism, Holy Communion, confession, unction, etc.) to his apostles and through them, to the Bishops. It is through this succession that the medicines can be both rightly administered and guaranteed. More directly put: the Church is the hospital which has board-certified physicians-of-the-soul and medicines which have been carefully preserved under the strictest supervision.
If you knew you were terminally ill, would you prefer to visit a true hospital or an individually and recently established clinic, run by a fellow who printed his MD on his laserjet? The gifted and well-studied clinician might save you. He might just be talented enough to pull it all together. But the hospital’s methods, medicines, and personnel are time-tested and sure. This is the case with the Church, only moreso, because it is also one, holy, catholic, and apostolic!
So, we dying men and women, if we hope to live, must seek and find Jesus Christ in his Church which has never been anything other than visible, living, and active. As the Vatican has rightly taught, the Church’s touchstones include bishops in apostolic order who, to quote St. Paul to Timothy, “rightly divide the word of truth”. These bishops, though, have never been subjected to the universal jurisdiction of an infallible Pope. As Jesus said of divorce, so too the Orthodox have always taught about this false teaching, “from the beginning it was not so.”
Rather, the bishops, as brothers in council, are the guardians of the medicines of the hospital for sinners, without which we die. (Our Lord did say, for example, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you.”) We can be confident of the medications, meals, and remedies here in the Church. God is certainly free to move outside the boundaries of his own creation, but why put him to the test?
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at 881-5010 or by email at frjohn@ocacharleston.org.
Pet Luxuries
Originally published in the Charleston, SC, POST and COURIER on July 22, 2007, as "Humanity can get lost in consumerism"
I recently saw a catalog advertising beautiful sterling-silver necklaces with interchangeable and engravable pendants. Their themes were among those we wouldn’t see on older women, but they might certainly be worn by young girls or boys. “Colorful necklaces feature Swarovski crystals.” But these were different.
In an online catalog, I read of a lavish, $4400 bed, described like this: a “formal Louis XVI four-poster [bed] … inspired by the classic designed by the King himself. Shown here in this traditional French plaid taffeta with coordinating trim and linings, the curtains and skirt are removable for dry-cleaning. All [beds] are custom designed with the…owner’s needs in mind. Clients may select from a range of fabrics, trims and finishes.”[1]
I saw regal beds like this one on a recent vacation to Williamsburg. I imagined what it must have been like to be the Governor of colonial Virginia. But the bed as described was different.
During that same trip to Williamsburg, we befriended the period-dressed chef of the Governor’s Palace, who worked in his colonial kitchen, preparing meals as if for the 17th century Governor. I was particularly intrigued to watch him with sew bacon fat into a rabbit, apparently a savory favorite of the ruler. Later, I saw a similarly lavish meal described in a magazine ad. “Restaurant-inspired…Angus beef…for the real meat lover in the family.” But this, too, was different.
On another occasion, I was reading of some beautiful condos. They featured both one and two bedroom suites, complete with television, a security system, indoor and outdoor play areas, and a nature trail. The description of these condos sounded just like the ones where we stayed in Williamsburg, but they also were different.
What was the common difference between all of these luxuries: the sterling jewelry, the regal bed, the high-end steak meal, and the condo? All of these items are for pets. For dogs and cats. There is now a market for $72 sterling jewelry for cats. $4000, four-poster beds for dogs. Steak dinners in a can for Fido. Kitty condos for a feline’s much-deserved vacation. And all this hardly to mention “pet insurance” which surely has developed to “save” people money when they opt for everything from ACL replacement surgery for their pet to animal organ transplants.
I feel somewhat strange writing about luxury pet boutiques and related animal consumerism. Why such a column—in the Faith and Values section? Because this is truly animal consumerism. Consumerism gone wild.
I am almost struck dumb with all of the above when I compare it all to a recent deeply-personal experience. A few weeks back, I met a fellow—let’s call him Xenon (Greek for ‘stranger’). Xenon was standing in a parking lot asking for assistance. He had no jewelry at all—not even a watch. And his reading glasses were held together by scotch tape. He was approachable, though something was clearly wrong—a combination sick and homeless. He’s spent over thirty years too disabled to hold a job. As he told me (which I verified by visiting him there), he sleeps on the floor of an abandoned house where he has no running water or electricity. He hadn’t had a hot meal in days. Occasionally, he said, he found help from kind people, but for the most part, “no one has the time”. Xenon lives (barely) day to day, and for him, to sit at a table and share a meal is like the kingdom of Heaven.
Now we can surely debate the merits of social medicine, and we can list the various social agencies which exist to help needy folks like Xenon. Or whether or not (Lord, have mercy!) Xenon “deserves” or “really needs” help. And if we’d like to debate this, let the debate begin!
But two questions arise in my own heart, and I hope in yours, as we compare the sad story of Xenon to the luxuries of pet condos, $4000 animal beds, and Angus-flavored Alpo—or any time or way we spend more on our pets than on needy human beings. When was the last time I even looked at someone like Xenon in the eyes and smiled (much less actually said hello and offered to help)? And when was the last time I took even one bag of groceries to a place like ECCO, the East Cooper Community Outreach, one local clearinghouse of help for the extremely needy among us? These are simple human behaviors to which Christians are called in the most profound ways.
For the love of God—literally—let’s treat animals like animals and human beings like human beings. Pets are important, but not more important than our human neighbors, known or unknown. We ought to treat animals humanely, but not humans like animals.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 881-5010.
[1] http://www.theritzyrover.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3928
I recently saw a catalog advertising beautiful sterling-silver necklaces with interchangeable and engravable pendants. Their themes were among those we wouldn’t see on older women, but they might certainly be worn by young girls or boys. “Colorful necklaces feature Swarovski crystals.” But these were different.
In an online catalog, I read of a lavish, $4400 bed, described like this: a “formal Louis XVI four-poster [bed] … inspired by the classic designed by the King himself. Shown here in this traditional French plaid taffeta with coordinating trim and linings, the curtains and skirt are removable for dry-cleaning. All [beds] are custom designed with the…owner’s needs in mind. Clients may select from a range of fabrics, trims and finishes.”[1]
I saw regal beds like this one on a recent vacation to Williamsburg. I imagined what it must have been like to be the Governor of colonial Virginia. But the bed as described was different.
During that same trip to Williamsburg, we befriended the period-dressed chef of the Governor’s Palace, who worked in his colonial kitchen, preparing meals as if for the 17th century Governor. I was particularly intrigued to watch him with sew bacon fat into a rabbit, apparently a savory favorite of the ruler. Later, I saw a similarly lavish meal described in a magazine ad. “Restaurant-inspired…Angus beef…for the real meat lover in the family.” But this, too, was different.
On another occasion, I was reading of some beautiful condos. They featured both one and two bedroom suites, complete with television, a security system, indoor and outdoor play areas, and a nature trail. The description of these condos sounded just like the ones where we stayed in Williamsburg, but they also were different.
What was the common difference between all of these luxuries: the sterling jewelry, the regal bed, the high-end steak meal, and the condo? All of these items are for pets. For dogs and cats. There is now a market for $72 sterling jewelry for cats. $4000, four-poster beds for dogs. Steak dinners in a can for Fido. Kitty condos for a feline’s much-deserved vacation. And all this hardly to mention “pet insurance” which surely has developed to “save” people money when they opt for everything from ACL replacement surgery for their pet to animal organ transplants.
I feel somewhat strange writing about luxury pet boutiques and related animal consumerism. Why such a column—in the Faith and Values section? Because this is truly animal consumerism. Consumerism gone wild.
I am almost struck dumb with all of the above when I compare it all to a recent deeply-personal experience. A few weeks back, I met a fellow—let’s call him Xenon (Greek for ‘stranger’). Xenon was standing in a parking lot asking for assistance. He had no jewelry at all—not even a watch. And his reading glasses were held together by scotch tape. He was approachable, though something was clearly wrong—a combination sick and homeless. He’s spent over thirty years too disabled to hold a job. As he told me (which I verified by visiting him there), he sleeps on the floor of an abandoned house where he has no running water or electricity. He hadn’t had a hot meal in days. Occasionally, he said, he found help from kind people, but for the most part, “no one has the time”. Xenon lives (barely) day to day, and for him, to sit at a table and share a meal is like the kingdom of Heaven.
Now we can surely debate the merits of social medicine, and we can list the various social agencies which exist to help needy folks like Xenon. Or whether or not (Lord, have mercy!) Xenon “deserves” or “really needs” help. And if we’d like to debate this, let the debate begin!
But two questions arise in my own heart, and I hope in yours, as we compare the sad story of Xenon to the luxuries of pet condos, $4000 animal beds, and Angus-flavored Alpo—or any time or way we spend more on our pets than on needy human beings. When was the last time I even looked at someone like Xenon in the eyes and smiled (much less actually said hello and offered to help)? And when was the last time I took even one bag of groceries to a place like ECCO, the East Cooper Community Outreach, one local clearinghouse of help for the extremely needy among us? These are simple human behaviors to which Christians are called in the most profound ways.
For the love of God—literally—let’s treat animals like animals and human beings like human beings. Pets are important, but not more important than our human neighbors, known or unknown. We ought to treat animals humanely, but not humans like animals.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 881-5010.
[1] http://www.theritzyrover.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3928
Scandal of the Cross
The Scandal of the Cross
By Fr. John Parker
Published in Touchstone Magazine, June 2007
The first time I visited the sacristy of the Wren Chapel at the College of William and Mary, where the chapel’s brass cross now resides out of sight of the visitor, I waited there, dressed in black, sweaty palmed, being reminded to breathe, sequestered till the arrival of my bride at the west end of the chapel. On cue, I departed the colonial room and followed the priest, along with my three groomsmen, to the small but unmistakably English altar, which still faces ad orientem, one reminder of the age of the chapel.
For the second visit, a few years later, I was also dressed in black, though this time under my festal white vestments. I was the celebrant of someone else’s wedding — my brother’s. On this occasion, I was the breathing coach. I remember moving the chalice and paten from this sacristy to the altar before the service. I remember celebrating the wedding and giving thanks where Anglican and Episcopal priests have served since the late 1700s.
The sacristy of any church is the guarded location of its sacred vessels. It is no surprise that we had to take the Eucharistic vessels out of the safe and put them on the altar, but it has come as an outrage to some and a surprise to a great many that the altar Cross, given in 1931 to the college by Bruton Parish — the oldest Episcopal parish in the United States — now has its home in the sacristy, except when the chapel is used for a specifically Christian event.
THE CROSS’S MESSAGE
Late last year (yes, October 2006), the President of the College unilaterally ordered its removal from the altar, saying the cross “sends a message that the Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others. That there are, at the College, insiders and outsiders.”
Apparently, it is thought that the architecture of the building sends no such message, despite the fact the chapel is a precise model of an English church: with its fixed altar, the altar rail complete with closing gate and kneelers, the pulpit, the chancel choir (with the pews facing one another), the choir loft, and the organ. It is hardly a generic chapel, like one might find in an airport or secular hospital.
It is not necessary to re-address what so many others have already capably investigated and reported: the balance of having an historic Christian Chapel in a public University, the question as to whether or not a cross on an altar in a building is offensive to non-Christians, the self-appointed decision by the College president to remove the cross, etc.
To be honest, I am not all that disturbed by the removal of the cross. In fact, I’d put it in the same category as public monuments listing the Ten Commandments which have been under similar scrutiny in recent years. The reality of the matter is that we are not a Christian nation.
As I wondered to the founder of www.savethewrencross.org, what true difference does it make whether or not the Cross adorns an empty chapel, when the following is true? Every single night, hundreds of students from the college stumble in drunken stupors back to their evening lodging, which often is not their own dorm room. Fornication is rampant. Since my day (1989-1993) the college has prided itself on its support for homosexuality.
From a Christian perspective, the history of the college and the chapel is, for all intents and purposes, immaterial today. St. John the Forerunner made it known that there is no sense in trying to claim and indeed no possibility of claiming any relation to salvation by citing the names of our ancestors. He cried out, “do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
And there is certainly no sense in guarding an historically Christian chapel when the fundamental activities just outside its frequently empty halls bear no resemblance to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
A REGULAR SCANDAL
It should not surprise Christians that the Cross is a scandal, at William and Mary or any place. It will always be “a scandal to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles” as St. Paul described Christ crucified.
By God’s grace, the only way fruit will be born at the College is by repentance. The Cross will be seen as the sign of Christ’s redemptive, self-sacrificial, and atoning embrace, the “weapon of peace” as it is called in the Orthodox tradition, only when self-professing Christians fully devote themselves to chastity, humility, patience, and love. When our chief foci are prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
There is, in fact, a very easy way for the Cross to be returned to the chapel: schedule the traditional hours of the Church in Wren Chapel daily. The method will also return the Cross to the lives of those related to the College, offering a two-fold metanoia.
Let groups of local students, faculty, staff, and alumni organize themselves into congregations of prayer. Offer the ancient daily services along with the biblical hours of prayer—the evening service (vespers), the service after supper (compline), midnight, the morning service (matins), 6 and 9 AM (1st and 3rd hours), and 12 and 3 PM (6th and 9th hours). This holy action would bring the cross out of the sacristy for a few hours every day and would change both the hearts and the minds of all those who take part in such ministrations.
And it would show the president as well as the world the true purpose of a Christian Chapel. Apart from such an effort, we will waste our days trying to prove the legitimacy of the Chapel on historical terms — an interesting question in our country’s oldest academic building, but of little use to our salvation in the present.
As a public university, William and Mary cannot require daily chapel services as it did in its early years. Yet there is no public crime in the gathering of two or three to pray at regular intervals around the clock in Wren Chapel, making an historic verity into a present reality.
By Fr. John Parker
Published in Touchstone Magazine, June 2007
The first time I visited the sacristy of the Wren Chapel at the College of William and Mary, where the chapel’s brass cross now resides out of sight of the visitor, I waited there, dressed in black, sweaty palmed, being reminded to breathe, sequestered till the arrival of my bride at the west end of the chapel. On cue, I departed the colonial room and followed the priest, along with my three groomsmen, to the small but unmistakably English altar, which still faces ad orientem, one reminder of the age of the chapel.
For the second visit, a few years later, I was also dressed in black, though this time under my festal white vestments. I was the celebrant of someone else’s wedding — my brother’s. On this occasion, I was the breathing coach. I remember moving the chalice and paten from this sacristy to the altar before the service. I remember celebrating the wedding and giving thanks where Anglican and Episcopal priests have served since the late 1700s.
The sacristy of any church is the guarded location of its sacred vessels. It is no surprise that we had to take the Eucharistic vessels out of the safe and put them on the altar, but it has come as an outrage to some and a surprise to a great many that the altar Cross, given in 1931 to the college by Bruton Parish — the oldest Episcopal parish in the United States — now has its home in the sacristy, except when the chapel is used for a specifically Christian event.
THE CROSS’S MESSAGE
Late last year (yes, October 2006), the President of the College unilaterally ordered its removal from the altar, saying the cross “sends a message that the Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others. That there are, at the College, insiders and outsiders.”
Apparently, it is thought that the architecture of the building sends no such message, despite the fact the chapel is a precise model of an English church: with its fixed altar, the altar rail complete with closing gate and kneelers, the pulpit, the chancel choir (with the pews facing one another), the choir loft, and the organ. It is hardly a generic chapel, like one might find in an airport or secular hospital.
It is not necessary to re-address what so many others have already capably investigated and reported: the balance of having an historic Christian Chapel in a public University, the question as to whether or not a cross on an altar in a building is offensive to non-Christians, the self-appointed decision by the College president to remove the cross, etc.
To be honest, I am not all that disturbed by the removal of the cross. In fact, I’d put it in the same category as public monuments listing the Ten Commandments which have been under similar scrutiny in recent years. The reality of the matter is that we are not a Christian nation.
As I wondered to the founder of www.savethewrencross.org, what true difference does it make whether or not the Cross adorns an empty chapel, when the following is true? Every single night, hundreds of students from the college stumble in drunken stupors back to their evening lodging, which often is not their own dorm room. Fornication is rampant. Since my day (1989-1993) the college has prided itself on its support for homosexuality.
From a Christian perspective, the history of the college and the chapel is, for all intents and purposes, immaterial today. St. John the Forerunner made it known that there is no sense in trying to claim and indeed no possibility of claiming any relation to salvation by citing the names of our ancestors. He cried out, “do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
And there is certainly no sense in guarding an historically Christian chapel when the fundamental activities just outside its frequently empty halls bear no resemblance to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
A REGULAR SCANDAL
It should not surprise Christians that the Cross is a scandal, at William and Mary or any place. It will always be “a scandal to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles” as St. Paul described Christ crucified.
By God’s grace, the only way fruit will be born at the College is by repentance. The Cross will be seen as the sign of Christ’s redemptive, self-sacrificial, and atoning embrace, the “weapon of peace” as it is called in the Orthodox tradition, only when self-professing Christians fully devote themselves to chastity, humility, patience, and love. When our chief foci are prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
There is, in fact, a very easy way for the Cross to be returned to the chapel: schedule the traditional hours of the Church in Wren Chapel daily. The method will also return the Cross to the lives of those related to the College, offering a two-fold metanoia.
Let groups of local students, faculty, staff, and alumni organize themselves into congregations of prayer. Offer the ancient daily services along with the biblical hours of prayer—the evening service (vespers), the service after supper (compline), midnight, the morning service (matins), 6 and 9 AM (1st and 3rd hours), and 12 and 3 PM (6th and 9th hours). This holy action would bring the cross out of the sacristy for a few hours every day and would change both the hearts and the minds of all those who take part in such ministrations.
And it would show the president as well as the world the true purpose of a Christian Chapel. Apart from such an effort, we will waste our days trying to prove the legitimacy of the Chapel on historical terms — an interesting question in our country’s oldest academic building, but of little use to our salvation in the present.
As a public university, William and Mary cannot require daily chapel services as it did in its early years. Yet there is no public crime in the gathering of two or three to pray at regular intervals around the clock in Wren Chapel, making an historic verity into a present reality.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Holy Pentecost
Holy Spirit sanctifies Languages and Inspires Daily Life
Published in the Post and Courier, Charleston, SC, May 2007
By Fr. John Parker
“What does it fulfill?” This was the question I was asked by an Orthodox priest when I had called him to find out what the Church has always taught about Pentecost, the 50th day after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the day on which the Holy Spirit descended upon those gathered in that upper room in Jerusalem, the ‘birthday’ of the church.
I was familiar with the western Christian tradition of wearing red on Pentecost, a liturgical reminder of the tongues of fire which lighted upon the heads of the disciples; though I learned that green is the liturgical color of the Christian East, a sign of Life. I was accustomed to birthday cakes for the Church and missions fairs—since it was from the day of Pentecost that the Apostles went out from Jerusalem proclaiming the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, repentance and forgiveness of sins, with boldness and without fear.
But Fr. John Abdallah’s question stumped me. I knew ‘of course’ the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of Joel, since it is included in Luke’s account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles. “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…” Fr. John charged me to think harder about it. “What does Pentecost reverse?” “Reverse?” I reflected, “What on earth are you talking about?”
Then He told me, and it was as if all the lights went on in my darkened stadium. If the Holy Scriptures are indeed one full story of creation, fall, and redemption, here is one beautiful demonstration of this truth!
Generations ago, “the whole earth had but one language and few words” (Genesis 11:1ff). And in those days, man decided to build for himself “a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for [himself]”. This prideful act was gazed upon by God himself, and judged to be only the beginning of the selfish pride of humanity. So, God confused their tongue and scattered the people across the face of the earth, so that they could not understand one another. The building they attempted to build is well known as the Tower of Babel. Pentecost is the divine reversal, the healing of this unholy effort. This is what Fr. John was trying to teach me.
If Babel was the scattering of languages, Pentecost is the gathering and sanctifying of them. If Babel was communal death by language, Pentecost is salvation through language. If Babel was the division of the world into language groups, and ultimately giving people what they wanted (a name for themselves—the development of nationalism), Pentecost is the crushing of nationalistic boundaries—the Gospel heard in all languages. If Babel was the sizeable expulsion of the world from near Eden, Pentecost is the gathering of the world at Jerusalem. Language, once a curse and separation, is now sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel in all the languages of the known world.
This sanctification of language is critically important, yet most of us take it for granted. Are we not accustomed to hearing the Gospel and praying in our native tongue? This is one significant gift with Pentecost. There is no longer any sacred language in-and-of itself. Not Hebrew, not Greek, not Latin, not Slavonic, not English. The Gospel is to be proclaimed and understood in the language of the people, whoever they may be. Any ‘theological’ defense of one particular language is nothing more than a continuation of the pride of Babel.
And what about the acquisition of the Holy Spirit? How does it happen? Having the Holy Spirit in my life is a daily event, yet many people mystify such an experience, and seek from the Holy Spirit lavish gifts: speaking in tongues, miracles, visions, dreams, etc, and even go away on retreat weekends to obtain them. Often missing in all of this is an understanding of what the saints teach about the routine existence of life: to know myself as I truly am is a greater miracle than raising the dead. Have I been granted this great miracle, realized by the Holy Spirit in worship, love, and forgiveness in light of the Resurrection? It is by the Holy Spirit that we are each convicted of sin and brought to holiness, a daily task even for the greatest living saint.
Ultimately, then, although we each have a personal Pentecost at our Baptism, when we receive the Holy Spirit as did our Lord at his, we are called to a daily Pentecost in the “routine drudgery of everyday existence in this fallen world.” For this reason, and beginning with today’s Holy Feast, Orthodox Christians bookend each day with an ancient prayer to the Holy Spirit. God grant us the same, and save us!
“O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art everywhere present and fillest all things, treasury of blessings and giver of life: come and abide in us and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One!”
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843.881.5010.
Published in the Post and Courier, Charleston, SC, May 2007
By Fr. John Parker
“What does it fulfill?” This was the question I was asked by an Orthodox priest when I had called him to find out what the Church has always taught about Pentecost, the 50th day after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the day on which the Holy Spirit descended upon those gathered in that upper room in Jerusalem, the ‘birthday’ of the church.
I was familiar with the western Christian tradition of wearing red on Pentecost, a liturgical reminder of the tongues of fire which lighted upon the heads of the disciples; though I learned that green is the liturgical color of the Christian East, a sign of Life. I was accustomed to birthday cakes for the Church and missions fairs—since it was from the day of Pentecost that the Apostles went out from Jerusalem proclaiming the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, repentance and forgiveness of sins, with boldness and without fear.
But Fr. John Abdallah’s question stumped me. I knew ‘of course’ the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of Joel, since it is included in Luke’s account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles. “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…” Fr. John charged me to think harder about it. “What does Pentecost reverse?” “Reverse?” I reflected, “What on earth are you talking about?”
Then He told me, and it was as if all the lights went on in my darkened stadium. If the Holy Scriptures are indeed one full story of creation, fall, and redemption, here is one beautiful demonstration of this truth!
Generations ago, “the whole earth had but one language and few words” (Genesis 11:1ff). And in those days, man decided to build for himself “a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for [himself]”. This prideful act was gazed upon by God himself, and judged to be only the beginning of the selfish pride of humanity. So, God confused their tongue and scattered the people across the face of the earth, so that they could not understand one another. The building they attempted to build is well known as the Tower of Babel. Pentecost is the divine reversal, the healing of this unholy effort. This is what Fr. John was trying to teach me.
If Babel was the scattering of languages, Pentecost is the gathering and sanctifying of them. If Babel was communal death by language, Pentecost is salvation through language. If Babel was the division of the world into language groups, and ultimately giving people what they wanted (a name for themselves—the development of nationalism), Pentecost is the crushing of nationalistic boundaries—the Gospel heard in all languages. If Babel was the sizeable expulsion of the world from near Eden, Pentecost is the gathering of the world at Jerusalem. Language, once a curse and separation, is now sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel in all the languages of the known world.
This sanctification of language is critically important, yet most of us take it for granted. Are we not accustomed to hearing the Gospel and praying in our native tongue? This is one significant gift with Pentecost. There is no longer any sacred language in-and-of itself. Not Hebrew, not Greek, not Latin, not Slavonic, not English. The Gospel is to be proclaimed and understood in the language of the people, whoever they may be. Any ‘theological’ defense of one particular language is nothing more than a continuation of the pride of Babel.
And what about the acquisition of the Holy Spirit? How does it happen? Having the Holy Spirit in my life is a daily event, yet many people mystify such an experience, and seek from the Holy Spirit lavish gifts: speaking in tongues, miracles, visions, dreams, etc, and even go away on retreat weekends to obtain them. Often missing in all of this is an understanding of what the saints teach about the routine existence of life: to know myself as I truly am is a greater miracle than raising the dead. Have I been granted this great miracle, realized by the Holy Spirit in worship, love, and forgiveness in light of the Resurrection? It is by the Holy Spirit that we are each convicted of sin and brought to holiness, a daily task even for the greatest living saint.
Ultimately, then, although we each have a personal Pentecost at our Baptism, when we receive the Holy Spirit as did our Lord at his, we are called to a daily Pentecost in the “routine drudgery of everyday existence in this fallen world.” For this reason, and beginning with today’s Holy Feast, Orthodox Christians bookend each day with an ancient prayer to the Holy Spirit. God grant us the same, and save us!
“O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art everywhere present and fillest all things, treasury of blessings and giver of life: come and abide in us and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One!”
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843.881.5010.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Blessing of Fleet a return to Paradise
By Fr. John Parker
Originally published in the Post and Courier on Sunday, April 29, 2007 and online at
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=141291
I had heard of supersized but never supercharged. The young man meant well, though he was making a serious request by means of some sort of slang. He had bought a beautiful sterling silver baptismal cross and wanted to have it blessed. So he came into my study that day and asked, "Father, would you supercharge my cross for me?" I knew what he wanted, but the request came out so strangely. Not wanting to shame him by a direct correction, I said, "I'll be glad to bless your cross, Matthew." (Name changed.)
The Orthodox Christian tradition has a blessing for nearly everything good. Among the contents of a wonderful book titled "The Abridged Book of Needs," one finds, for example, prayers for blessing all of the following: water, bees, boats, fire engines, homes, wells, airplanes, meat and cheese, fragrant herbs and fishnets. And the list goes on. Each blessing is typically a prayer, completed with the trinitarian sprinkling of holy water on the object being blessed.
But what is blessing? Why would we, to make the connection present and local, bless the shrimp boats and their captains and crews? Does blessing supercharge?
First, let me give the short answers to these important questions. Blessing is a liturgical and prayerful act by which we, as we say in the Orthodox Churches, "commend ourselves, each other, and all our life unto Christ our God." And rather than supercharging shrimp trawlers, we are actually asking God to return them, by our synergy (working together with him), to their actual use and purpose.
Allow me to explain. When God created the world and all that is in it, and crowned his creation with man and woman, calling this "very good," everything was in order and communion with God. But when we, by our disobedience and self-interest, took matters into our own hands (read sinned), the whole world fell. That is, every part of existence was tainted, touched, affected by the sins of Adam and Eve - and today, by ours. Eating, for example, which was created to be our form of nourishment and communion with God, becomes gluttony: eating for the sake of eating. Drinking, offered to us for hydration and sober merriment, becomes drunkenness, and drunkenness for its own purpose. A home in the fallen world, originally intended for shelter, comfort, hospitality and the making of family, becomes a place where secret sins are hidden: illicit sexual relationships, abuse, rage, etc.
Realizing that we are now a part of the fallen world, and not the world as it was created to be, we have the holy task of offering the fallen world back to God, asking him to make it right and/or to help us to make it so. As one of the greatest and most famous Orthodox priests of the 20th century described it, we have the task of transforming "the smallest, seemingly most insignificant detail of the routine drudgery of everyday existence in this fallen world into paradise." This we do routinely at meals, saying grace or asking the blessing. We certainly take part in this critical vocation each time we celebrate the marriage of a woman to a man. In the Orthodox Churches, this we also do annually (during the season of the feast of the Theophany, our Lord's baptism, Jan. 6) by the blessing of the homes of our parishioners. For house blessings, we say, in short, "Lord, make this house a holy home." For marriages, "Lord, make this couple king and queen of their Christian household, married forever." At meals, "Nourish us with the gifts of thy bounty on this table, O Lord."
And this is what we take part in at the Blessing of the Fleet in Mount Pleasant. We gather to ask God to grant safety and success to each shrimper, and to assist each one to accomplish his or her vocation as a good steward of God's creation. Ultimately, every boat, every net, every engine, every deck and flag, along with every breath we breathe, belong to God and are on loan to us, given to us as gifts as a trust is given into the hands of trustees.
Certainly, a part of such a blessing is our intention to cooperate with God in its fulfillment. I'd damn myself by blessing a bottle of wine (intended for sober fellowship and enjoyment) and then drinking it all by myself in one sitting. And it would be to our condemnation and judgment to ask God's blessing on a fleet of shrimping vessels whose captains intend only to wreak havoc on the local seas and the inhabitants thereof, and to scam the local community. We must remember that our aim is a return to paradise.
Today, we ask God's blessing on the fleet, on those who operate the boats and on all of us who shall partake of their bounteous catch, remembering that our Lord Jesus Christ called his first disciples from among fishermen, and asking the heavenly protection of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, the patron of seafarers, in this new season.
This article was printed via the web on 4/30/2007 7:14:29 PM . This articleappeared in The Post and Courier and updated online at Charleston.net on Sunday, April 29, 2007.
Originally published in the Post and Courier on Sunday, April 29, 2007 and online at
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=141291
I had heard of supersized but never supercharged. The young man meant well, though he was making a serious request by means of some sort of slang. He had bought a beautiful sterling silver baptismal cross and wanted to have it blessed. So he came into my study that day and asked, "Father, would you supercharge my cross for me?" I knew what he wanted, but the request came out so strangely. Not wanting to shame him by a direct correction, I said, "I'll be glad to bless your cross, Matthew." (Name changed.)
The Orthodox Christian tradition has a blessing for nearly everything good. Among the contents of a wonderful book titled "The Abridged Book of Needs," one finds, for example, prayers for blessing all of the following: water, bees, boats, fire engines, homes, wells, airplanes, meat and cheese, fragrant herbs and fishnets. And the list goes on. Each blessing is typically a prayer, completed with the trinitarian sprinkling of holy water on the object being blessed.
But what is blessing? Why would we, to make the connection present and local, bless the shrimp boats and their captains and crews? Does blessing supercharge?
First, let me give the short answers to these important questions. Blessing is a liturgical and prayerful act by which we, as we say in the Orthodox Churches, "commend ourselves, each other, and all our life unto Christ our God." And rather than supercharging shrimp trawlers, we are actually asking God to return them, by our synergy (working together with him), to their actual use and purpose.
Allow me to explain. When God created the world and all that is in it, and crowned his creation with man and woman, calling this "very good," everything was in order and communion with God. But when we, by our disobedience and self-interest, took matters into our own hands (read sinned), the whole world fell. That is, every part of existence was tainted, touched, affected by the sins of Adam and Eve - and today, by ours. Eating, for example, which was created to be our form of nourishment and communion with God, becomes gluttony: eating for the sake of eating. Drinking, offered to us for hydration and sober merriment, becomes drunkenness, and drunkenness for its own purpose. A home in the fallen world, originally intended for shelter, comfort, hospitality and the making of family, becomes a place where secret sins are hidden: illicit sexual relationships, abuse, rage, etc.
Realizing that we are now a part of the fallen world, and not the world as it was created to be, we have the holy task of offering the fallen world back to God, asking him to make it right and/or to help us to make it so. As one of the greatest and most famous Orthodox priests of the 20th century described it, we have the task of transforming "the smallest, seemingly most insignificant detail of the routine drudgery of everyday existence in this fallen world into paradise." This we do routinely at meals, saying grace or asking the blessing. We certainly take part in this critical vocation each time we celebrate the marriage of a woman to a man. In the Orthodox Churches, this we also do annually (during the season of the feast of the Theophany, our Lord's baptism, Jan. 6) by the blessing of the homes of our parishioners. For house blessings, we say, in short, "Lord, make this house a holy home." For marriages, "Lord, make this couple king and queen of their Christian household, married forever." At meals, "Nourish us with the gifts of thy bounty on this table, O Lord."
And this is what we take part in at the Blessing of the Fleet in Mount Pleasant. We gather to ask God to grant safety and success to each shrimper, and to assist each one to accomplish his or her vocation as a good steward of God's creation. Ultimately, every boat, every net, every engine, every deck and flag, along with every breath we breathe, belong to God and are on loan to us, given to us as gifts as a trust is given into the hands of trustees.
Certainly, a part of such a blessing is our intention to cooperate with God in its fulfillment. I'd damn myself by blessing a bottle of wine (intended for sober fellowship and enjoyment) and then drinking it all by myself in one sitting. And it would be to our condemnation and judgment to ask God's blessing on a fleet of shrimping vessels whose captains intend only to wreak havoc on the local seas and the inhabitants thereof, and to scam the local community. We must remember that our aim is a return to paradise.
Today, we ask God's blessing on the fleet, on those who operate the boats and on all of us who shall partake of their bounteous catch, remembering that our Lord Jesus Christ called his first disciples from among fishermen, and asking the heavenly protection of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, the patron of seafarers, in this new season.
This article was printed via the web on 4/30/2007 7:14:29 PM . This articleappeared in The Post and Courier and updated online at Charleston.net on Sunday, April 29, 2007.
Benediction Fiction
By Fr. John Parker
Published in Touchstone Magazine in May 2007 and online at
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-04-014-v
John Parker on the Dishonesty of Inclusive Prayers
Once I accepted an invitation to give the benediction at the graduation of the Medical University of South Carolina. I was delighted that a school like MUSC was still willing to invoke the Name of God and ask his blessings on those who are to be sent out into the world to practice the work that the school has trained them to do.
Having driven past the university’s beautiful St. Luke’s Chapel (named after St. Luke, the evangelist and physician) hundreds of times, I began to consider what words might be fitting for these medical students. I sat at my desk, reviewing ancient books of Christian prayers, to write the most appropriate one for those commencing the next step of their professional medical lives.
Parochial Names
Two days later, I received by mail a delightful letter, thanking me for agreeing to deliver the benediction and inviting me to a number of related festivities. Included with the letter, though, was a memorandum from the Office of the President of the Medical University: “Guidelines for Invocation and Benediction at Public Functions,” guidelines to which I would be required to conform in order to bless the graduates.
The first was a reasonable request for any public speaker: “Appeal to the larger spiritual virtues that all faiths have in common: love, faith, hope . . . peace, goodness.” The second was acceptable, although dripping with political correctness: “Use inclusive language: forbears rather than fathers, . . .” etc.
The third was a problem. Here is the text (the boldface appears in the original):
Steer clear of parochial, exclusively defining religious names, concepts, practices, and metaphors. A good rule of thumb to remember is that you come representing the entire faith community, not just your own group. The prayer should therefore not be offensive to anyone, whether Catholic, Baptist, Jewish, Muslim, etc. For example, when opening or closing, an inclusive choice would be “Holy God, Holy One, Creator, Sustainer,” rather than “Allah, Jesus, Holy Trinity,” etc.
In four sentences, the Medical University of South Carolina, in its effort to “set a tone of reverence at our public assemblies” and “bear testimony to [our] richly diverse religious and cultural heritage” and somehow to make generic and inoffensive any public benediction or invocation, sanctioned officially one religion over all others: American pop-religion—a tray full of cafeteria-style faith, which takes nice-sounding “religious” words from this group and that, pleasing to the ear but without real content.
I sent my prepared benediction to the Office of the President, wanting to embarrass neither myself nor the staff of the Medical University at graduation. I soon received a polite call from the same office, during which I was un-invited to bless the graduates.
The truly Christian benediction (the only type of benediction I am authorized by my archbishop and my ordination to give) is not permitted. Thus, the university, hoping to display its “religious heritage” and seeking to demonstrate its “pride in . . . diversity,” actually shows itself to be selectively inclusive. Inclusion in the Medical University’s public religious expression is limited to those who will show no conviction at all.
No Good Word
The heritage of the Medical University is, to some degree, Christian. Its chapel is not “generic” by any stretch—it is named for a Christian saint, adorned with his stained-glass image, and topped with the Cross of Christ. These have been the marks of a certain faith. Not a generic faith.
Only a certain faith offers what people truly want and need, while a generic faith cannot—which we often see, ironically enough, in the world into which these graduates are being sent. Someone suffering from a third heart attack doesn’t want to hear about spirits that sustain us or a “god” who is with us in our suffering. He wants—even needs and expects—the blessing and grace of God in that moment.
His heart longs for some assurance that even if his body won’t be okay (sometimes it won’t), Someone is reminding him, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” This is the very same assurance and grace this Orthodox priest hoped—and was invited—to offer to the graduates who will care for such a soul.
To require a Christian priest to say little more at a benediction than “the Sustainer bids you to peacefully love your neighbor” or “May the Holy One be with you always” is effectively the same as asking a surgeon to say to a man dying on the operating table, “Don’t worry, everything is all right.” It is not a truthful word, and the dying man (and we are all dying men) needs the truthful word.
Doctors, nurses, indeed all hospital personnel and those for whom they care need, like all the rest of us who are struggling to live in this dying world, a true, good word—a real benediction in the fullest sense of the term. Why can we no longer give it to them?
Within the walls of a hospital, a sterile, antiseptic environment is critical for the care and recovery of patients. But the sterile, antiseptic “benediction” the guidelines require is a “good word” to no one, blesses no one, offers no promise of divine aid and comfort to men and women who will need it desperately. Such selective inclusivity removes every particular faith to a space well off to the side, where it can do no harm to the secular ideal of “inclusivity,” but can do no good either.
In the end, to ask a Christian pastor to bless a gathering in this way is little more than having some person in religious clothing stand in front of a crowd to say a few generically religious words, hoping to give some religious legitimacy to a public gathering. Not only is there no power or grace in it, it is devoid of any essential meaning.
A True Prayer
That May, I did offer my prayer for the graduates of the Medical University of South Carolina, though not in their presence. I prayed:
“O Lord Jesus Christ our God, Lover of Mankind, Physician of our souls and bodies, who in pain bore our infirmities, and by whose wounds we are healed:
“Who gave sight to the man born blind, who straightened the woman who was bent over for eighteen years, who gave speech and sight to the mute demoniac, who not only forgave the paralytic his sins, but healed him to walk, who restored the withered hand of a troubled man, who stopped the flow of blood of her who bled for twelve years, who raised Jairus’s daughter to life, who brought the four-days-dead Lazarus to life, and who heals every infirmity under the sun,
“Do now, O Lord, give your grace to all those here gathered who have labored and studied hour upon hour, to go into all the world, and also to heal by the talent you have given to each of them. Strengthen them, by your strength, to fear no evil or disease; enlighten them to do no evil by the works of their hands, and preserve them and those they serve in peace.
“For you are our God, and we know no other. And to you we send up glory together with your Father who is from everlasting, and your most Holy, Good, and Life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.”
John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church, a mission parish of the Orthodox Church in America, in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. He earned his MDiv (2001) at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, and his MTh (2004) at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, New York. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org.
Copyright © 2007 the Fellowship of St. James. All rights reserved.
Published in Touchstone Magazine in May 2007 and online at
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-04-014-v
John Parker on the Dishonesty of Inclusive Prayers
Once I accepted an invitation to give the benediction at the graduation of the Medical University of South Carolina. I was delighted that a school like MUSC was still willing to invoke the Name of God and ask his blessings on those who are to be sent out into the world to practice the work that the school has trained them to do.
Having driven past the university’s beautiful St. Luke’s Chapel (named after St. Luke, the evangelist and physician) hundreds of times, I began to consider what words might be fitting for these medical students. I sat at my desk, reviewing ancient books of Christian prayers, to write the most appropriate one for those commencing the next step of their professional medical lives.
Parochial Names
Two days later, I received by mail a delightful letter, thanking me for agreeing to deliver the benediction and inviting me to a number of related festivities. Included with the letter, though, was a memorandum from the Office of the President of the Medical University: “Guidelines for Invocation and Benediction at Public Functions,” guidelines to which I would be required to conform in order to bless the graduates.
The first was a reasonable request for any public speaker: “Appeal to the larger spiritual virtues that all faiths have in common: love, faith, hope . . . peace, goodness.” The second was acceptable, although dripping with political correctness: “Use inclusive language: forbears rather than fathers, . . .” etc.
The third was a problem. Here is the text (the boldface appears in the original):
Steer clear of parochial, exclusively defining religious names, concepts, practices, and metaphors. A good rule of thumb to remember is that you come representing the entire faith community, not just your own group. The prayer should therefore not be offensive to anyone, whether Catholic, Baptist, Jewish, Muslim, etc. For example, when opening or closing, an inclusive choice would be “Holy God, Holy One, Creator, Sustainer,” rather than “Allah, Jesus, Holy Trinity,” etc.
In four sentences, the Medical University of South Carolina, in its effort to “set a tone of reverence at our public assemblies” and “bear testimony to [our] richly diverse religious and cultural heritage” and somehow to make generic and inoffensive any public benediction or invocation, sanctioned officially one religion over all others: American pop-religion—a tray full of cafeteria-style faith, which takes nice-sounding “religious” words from this group and that, pleasing to the ear but without real content.
I sent my prepared benediction to the Office of the President, wanting to embarrass neither myself nor the staff of the Medical University at graduation. I soon received a polite call from the same office, during which I was un-invited to bless the graduates.
The truly Christian benediction (the only type of benediction I am authorized by my archbishop and my ordination to give) is not permitted. Thus, the university, hoping to display its “religious heritage” and seeking to demonstrate its “pride in . . . diversity,” actually shows itself to be selectively inclusive. Inclusion in the Medical University’s public religious expression is limited to those who will show no conviction at all.
No Good Word
The heritage of the Medical University is, to some degree, Christian. Its chapel is not “generic” by any stretch—it is named for a Christian saint, adorned with his stained-glass image, and topped with the Cross of Christ. These have been the marks of a certain faith. Not a generic faith.
Only a certain faith offers what people truly want and need, while a generic faith cannot—which we often see, ironically enough, in the world into which these graduates are being sent. Someone suffering from a third heart attack doesn’t want to hear about spirits that sustain us or a “god” who is with us in our suffering. He wants—even needs and expects—the blessing and grace of God in that moment.
His heart longs for some assurance that even if his body won’t be okay (sometimes it won’t), Someone is reminding him, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” This is the very same assurance and grace this Orthodox priest hoped—and was invited—to offer to the graduates who will care for such a soul.
To require a Christian priest to say little more at a benediction than “the Sustainer bids you to peacefully love your neighbor” or “May the Holy One be with you always” is effectively the same as asking a surgeon to say to a man dying on the operating table, “Don’t worry, everything is all right.” It is not a truthful word, and the dying man (and we are all dying men) needs the truthful word.
Doctors, nurses, indeed all hospital personnel and those for whom they care need, like all the rest of us who are struggling to live in this dying world, a true, good word—a real benediction in the fullest sense of the term. Why can we no longer give it to them?
Within the walls of a hospital, a sterile, antiseptic environment is critical for the care and recovery of patients. But the sterile, antiseptic “benediction” the guidelines require is a “good word” to no one, blesses no one, offers no promise of divine aid and comfort to men and women who will need it desperately. Such selective inclusivity removes every particular faith to a space well off to the side, where it can do no harm to the secular ideal of “inclusivity,” but can do no good either.
In the end, to ask a Christian pastor to bless a gathering in this way is little more than having some person in religious clothing stand in front of a crowd to say a few generically religious words, hoping to give some religious legitimacy to a public gathering. Not only is there no power or grace in it, it is devoid of any essential meaning.
A True Prayer
That May, I did offer my prayer for the graduates of the Medical University of South Carolina, though not in their presence. I prayed:
“O Lord Jesus Christ our God, Lover of Mankind, Physician of our souls and bodies, who in pain bore our infirmities, and by whose wounds we are healed:
“Who gave sight to the man born blind, who straightened the woman who was bent over for eighteen years, who gave speech and sight to the mute demoniac, who not only forgave the paralytic his sins, but healed him to walk, who restored the withered hand of a troubled man, who stopped the flow of blood of her who bled for twelve years, who raised Jairus’s daughter to life, who brought the four-days-dead Lazarus to life, and who heals every infirmity under the sun,
“Do now, O Lord, give your grace to all those here gathered who have labored and studied hour upon hour, to go into all the world, and also to heal by the talent you have given to each of them. Strengthen them, by your strength, to fear no evil or disease; enlighten them to do no evil by the works of their hands, and preserve them and those they serve in peace.
“For you are our God, and we know no other. And to you we send up glory together with your Father who is from everlasting, and your most Holy, Good, and Life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.”
John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church, a mission parish of the Orthodox Church in America, in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. He earned his MDiv (2001) at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, and his MTh (2004) at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, New York. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org.
Copyright © 2007 the Fellowship of St. James. All rights reserved.
Monday, April 09, 2007
O Hell, Where is thy Victory? O Death, where is thy sting?
By Fr. John Parker
Published as "Easter Seen as Victory over Death" in the Post and Courier, Pascha 2007
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=137843
We stood for days by his bed, a small offering by comparison to that of his wife Sarah (names are changed), who barely left his side in the last four years. Timothy had struggled with Alzheimer’s for some time, but following his most recent bout with pneumonia, there was “nothing further the doctors could do”. Though ravaged by a deteriorating mind in the last several years, Timothy lived a full life. His children drove great distances to be with him—a son from Atlanta, a daughter who raced from York, Pennsylvania.
We encircled Timothy in his room at the beautiful new Hospice of Charleston, just up from the Port off Long Point Road. We prayed. We cried. We laughed. We commended Timothy to his Maker, our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Orthodox ritual included long and beautiful hymns, as well as an anointing with holy oil—in this case, myrrh which had been wept miraculous by the eyes of St. Nicholas in an icon from Michigan. The heavenly fragrance filled the air.
To some, this is absolute madness. A vain effort to console ourselves and the one who is dying. What silly humans do when “the doctors can do no more”. Prayers uttered into the deaf ears of the air. The oil has no beauty, no power—just superstition. A ritual whose end it to make sense of a senseless existence and a more meaningless departure. Voodoo.
One could come to such a conclusion if facing death only through the lens of science. Chemistry in the brain affects the body. The heart stops working. Oxygen depletion then shuts down organs. Breathing ceases. Life ends. Words don’t change science; oil doesn’t add oxygen to the brain.
But Christians do not view life strictly this way. It is impossible! Life is so much more than biology. Of course, there is the science of it all. But what of beauty, love, tears, fear, and joy? And Timothy, like all of us, is a human being with a name. He is a unique, unrepeatable individual. He was married. Had Children. And Timothy’s life—and death (as slow and agonizing as it was)—make sense precisely for one reason, and one reason alone: Because God became man, died to conquer death, and He is Risen! Truly He is Risen! In time and space.
Jesus Christ lived and died as God-made-man. His life and work, his death and resurrection, are documented by Jew and Gentile alike—believer and unbeliever. After his brutal crucifixion and death at our hands, after his tomb was sealed and guarded by an extra regiment of soldiers—to be *sure* that no one would steal his body and then *claim* he was raised from the dead—He did this very thing. He conquered death and was raised from the dead, appearing to countless scores of people, beginning with his closest friends and disciples—who then went out to announce joyfully, if not with bewilderment, “Christ is Risen!”
We prayed at Timothy’s bedside precisely in light of this great gift to humankind by God Himself—the conquering of death by his death. The prayers prayed at Timothy’s funeral were prayed precisely because it is what we pray on Holy Friday as Jesus hung on the cross and died, fulfilling the law. “Tetelestai”—“it is finished”, “it is accomplished”, “it is fulfilled.” A portion of the hymns sung at Timothy’s funeral were sung precisely because they are sung for our Lord on Holy Saturday, when, fulfilling the story of the Three Holy Youths (Daniel 3) Jesus descended to the dead, and raised those bound by death, breaking their chains and releasing them from ‘fire eternal’. The whole context of Timothy’s funeral—and every Orthodox Christian funeral—is the Resurrection. No, there’s no superstition here—just the celebration of an eternal and timeless victory. A victory won within time and space by the Creator of all who condescended to become created; a victory the effects of which ripple both forwards and backward in time.
Words from the greatest homily ever preached on Pascha (proclaimed by St. John Chrysostom, the 4th century Patriarch of Constantinople) echo still in our ears reminding us of this great wonder, this great miracle, this great gift:
“Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it. He destroyed Hades when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said, "You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below." Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated. It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see. O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory? Christ is risen, and you, O death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and life is liberated! Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be Glory and Dominion unto ages of ages. Amen!”
For this we gathered to pray for Timothy in his death. For this reason, our sadness is joyful—for death has not had the final word. For this we have hope, not in vain, since God Himself was dead but is risen. Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
Fr. John Parker is Priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at 843.881-5010 or at frjohn@ocacharleston.org.
Published as "Easter Seen as Victory over Death" in the Post and Courier, Pascha 2007
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=137843
We stood for days by his bed, a small offering by comparison to that of his wife Sarah (names are changed), who barely left his side in the last four years. Timothy had struggled with Alzheimer’s for some time, but following his most recent bout with pneumonia, there was “nothing further the doctors could do”. Though ravaged by a deteriorating mind in the last several years, Timothy lived a full life. His children drove great distances to be with him—a son from Atlanta, a daughter who raced from York, Pennsylvania.
We encircled Timothy in his room at the beautiful new Hospice of Charleston, just up from the Port off Long Point Road. We prayed. We cried. We laughed. We commended Timothy to his Maker, our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Orthodox ritual included long and beautiful hymns, as well as an anointing with holy oil—in this case, myrrh which had been wept miraculous by the eyes of St. Nicholas in an icon from Michigan. The heavenly fragrance filled the air.
To some, this is absolute madness. A vain effort to console ourselves and the one who is dying. What silly humans do when “the doctors can do no more”. Prayers uttered into the deaf ears of the air. The oil has no beauty, no power—just superstition. A ritual whose end it to make sense of a senseless existence and a more meaningless departure. Voodoo.
One could come to such a conclusion if facing death only through the lens of science. Chemistry in the brain affects the body. The heart stops working. Oxygen depletion then shuts down organs. Breathing ceases. Life ends. Words don’t change science; oil doesn’t add oxygen to the brain.
But Christians do not view life strictly this way. It is impossible! Life is so much more than biology. Of course, there is the science of it all. But what of beauty, love, tears, fear, and joy? And Timothy, like all of us, is a human being with a name. He is a unique, unrepeatable individual. He was married. Had Children. And Timothy’s life—and death (as slow and agonizing as it was)—make sense precisely for one reason, and one reason alone: Because God became man, died to conquer death, and He is Risen! Truly He is Risen! In time and space.
Jesus Christ lived and died as God-made-man. His life and work, his death and resurrection, are documented by Jew and Gentile alike—believer and unbeliever. After his brutal crucifixion and death at our hands, after his tomb was sealed and guarded by an extra regiment of soldiers—to be *sure* that no one would steal his body and then *claim* he was raised from the dead—He did this very thing. He conquered death and was raised from the dead, appearing to countless scores of people, beginning with his closest friends and disciples—who then went out to announce joyfully, if not with bewilderment, “Christ is Risen!”
We prayed at Timothy’s bedside precisely in light of this great gift to humankind by God Himself—the conquering of death by his death. The prayers prayed at Timothy’s funeral were prayed precisely because it is what we pray on Holy Friday as Jesus hung on the cross and died, fulfilling the law. “Tetelestai”—“it is finished”, “it is accomplished”, “it is fulfilled.” A portion of the hymns sung at Timothy’s funeral were sung precisely because they are sung for our Lord on Holy Saturday, when, fulfilling the story of the Three Holy Youths (Daniel 3) Jesus descended to the dead, and raised those bound by death, breaking their chains and releasing them from ‘fire eternal’. The whole context of Timothy’s funeral—and every Orthodox Christian funeral—is the Resurrection. No, there’s no superstition here—just the celebration of an eternal and timeless victory. A victory won within time and space by the Creator of all who condescended to become created; a victory the effects of which ripple both forwards and backward in time.
Words from the greatest homily ever preached on Pascha (proclaimed by St. John Chrysostom, the 4th century Patriarch of Constantinople) echo still in our ears reminding us of this great wonder, this great miracle, this great gift:
“Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it. He destroyed Hades when He descended into it. He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said, "You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below." Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with. It was in an uproar because it is mocked. It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed. It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated. It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see. O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory? Christ is risen, and you, O death, are annihilated! Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down! Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and life is liberated! Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead; for Christ having risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be Glory and Dominion unto ages of ages. Amen!”
For this we gathered to pray for Timothy in his death. For this reason, our sadness is joyful—for death has not had the final word. For this we have hope, not in vain, since God Himself was dead but is risen. Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
Fr. John Parker is Priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at 843.881-5010 or at frjohn@ocacharleston.org.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Extreme Humility is the Path to Salvation
Published in the Post and Courier on 3.25.2007 as Extreme humility path to salvationBy Fr John Parker
His appearance: peaceful, serene. Jesus Christ stands in his tomb, in front of the cross, already having been crucified. His hands are crossed, as if bound, but there is no rope holding them together (His self-offering is voluntary). His eyes are closed. Other implements of the crucifixion are evident: the sponge by which he was offered wine-vinegar to drink when he cried out, “I thirst”; the spear which pierced his side, releasing both blood and water, showing him to be truly dead on the cross.
Crucified. Silent. Entombed. This is “extreme humility.”
In His last hours, our Lord Jesus Christ showed this extreme humility in many ways, mostly, though, by his silence. His wordlessness was a silent echo of the prophecy of Isaiah, “As a sheep led to the slaughter, or a spotless lamb before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth…” Our Lord accepted His brutal scourging, crucifixion and death, in almost total silence, with unwavering faith and confidence in the love and will of his Father.
His actions on the Cross, like the example of every moment of his life, were a living out of the very Gospel he incarnated, made flesh. If someone asks you to walk one mile, walk two. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer them the other. If someone takes your cloak, give him your robe as well. All of this recorded, of course in the Gospel accounts of the Passion of Christ. The arduous journey to Golgotha; the offering not just of the other cheek, but of his whole body for beating—and not just for beating, but for death; the stripping of his garments and the lots cast for them. This is extreme humility.
This is the royal road to salvation. By the power of the precious and life-giving Cross—through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—we are invited onto this holy path, the way to healing, wholeness, salvation.
Extreme humility takes many forms which all have similar characteristics. One is drawing little attention to one’s own self and accomplishments while giving credit to God alone for whatever good we appear to have done. God alone is good, and to quote St. Basil the Great’s liturgy from the fourth century “we have done nothing good upon the earth.”
Another is constant self-denial, which even includes denying special ‘spiritual gifts’—visions, tongues, dreams, prophecies, etc—which seem to come from God himself. Why? Because the Christian leading the life of extreme humility, witnessed in the lives of countless saints through the ages, stands with—and perhaps, dare I say, in front of St. Paul—claiming to be the chief of sinners (“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the foremost [literally ‘first’] of sinners” 1 Timothy 1:15.) True humility says, “I am worthy of neither visions nor tongues, nor dreams, nor prophecies. Surely the Lord would choose to give such gifts to others much more faithful than I.” The saints teach, in fact, that it is better to seek the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness) than the gifts of the Spirit, since the former contribute to humility and holiness, while the latter often leads to spiritual pride, the most dangerous of sins. In short, if someone sets up a sign that says, “I’m a healer!” or “I am a prophet!” beware; the true saint not only wouldn’t announce it, he or she would likely deny it if asked.
The royal road to salvation is this: deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow me (says Jesus Christ). The self denial is not for its own purpose, but rather to take up solely the will of the God who is Love. The Cross is not my own, but joining my burdens, trials, and struggles to the Cross of Christ, which has trampled down death and sin, and has broken the chains which bind us. And to follow Christ in the fullest sense, is to stand, even in the face of the gravest persecutions and tortures, in silence, trusting in the might and mercy and righteousness of God, in extreme humility.
Fr. John Parker is the priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843.881.5010.
On the Paralytic
Homily on Mark 2:1-12
By Fr. John Parker
Today I proclaim to you the joyous news of two Prosphora—two gifts, two offerings. The first is a paralytic, lifted up. A man so paralyzed that, according to St. Mark’s accounting, he does not or cannot even offer his own faith. According to the Scriptures, four men came to Jesus (pherontes pros avton paralutikon) bearing up, offering up, gifting Him a paralytic. Borne up by the four, unable to approach directly because of the crowd, the paralytic is lowered into the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in the presence of the Word, and by His word, and through the faith of the four friends that the paralytic’s sins are forgiven, that the broken man is made whole, raised up, and that the man goes out—goes home, to show by his walking and skipping and jumping that Jesus Christ is the One who is, and who was, and who is to come.
This is the first prosphora, the first offering, the first gift.
The second prosphora, the second offering, the second gift, is also a broken man. And yet, not only a man, but God-made-man. It is our Lord Jesus Christ, also lifted up, and because of the crowd. Not causally in the sense that there were too many people, but causally in that we, the crowe, shouted out for Him to be lifted up: Crucify Him, Crucify Him! Raised up not onto a rooftop, but onto the cross. Broken not by sin, but by us sinners, and so providentially, for us sinners.
And once raised up, broken, dead, also lowered. Not only lowered from the tree, dead, but also descending Himself, as God, into another crowd: the Dead. And there, not for the forgiveness of His sins (He was and is sinless), not for His healing (He is the Great physician of our souls and bodies, indeed the healer of the paralytic), but for the forgiveness of our sins, for the healing and salvation of us who crucified Him in the first place.
And this One, also not left in the midst of the crowd, unable to move or help Himself; this one also raised up, on the third day. Raised from the dead; Resurrected. Trampling down death by death. And this one also showing Himself to many—many of whom, like the first man’s friends, glorified God (amazed), saying, “We never saw anything like this!” (Though some doubted.)
And it is this prosphora, this offering, this Man, Jesus Christ, whose Gospel is up borne likewise by four men, four pillars, whose names we know: the Evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
It is by their testimony that we know these two prosphora, these to gifts, these two offerings. The first a shadow of the second, the paralytic fortelling and proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us paralytics also, broken and helpless, call on the Lord who is quick to save. And though we cannot lift ourselves, we can lift up those around us, by faith, with the sure hope of the Gospel, knowing the Almighty and Merciful God. And let us, like the four Evangelists, recount the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, not with parchment and pen, but with the love of God written by our deeds every moment of our lives. Amen.
By Fr. John Parker
Today I proclaim to you the joyous news of two Prosphora—two gifts, two offerings. The first is a paralytic, lifted up. A man so paralyzed that, according to St. Mark’s accounting, he does not or cannot even offer his own faith. According to the Scriptures, four men came to Jesus (pherontes pros avton paralutikon) bearing up, offering up, gifting Him a paralytic. Borne up by the four, unable to approach directly because of the crowd, the paralytic is lowered into the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in the presence of the Word, and by His word, and through the faith of the four friends that the paralytic’s sins are forgiven, that the broken man is made whole, raised up, and that the man goes out—goes home, to show by his walking and skipping and jumping that Jesus Christ is the One who is, and who was, and who is to come.
This is the first prosphora, the first offering, the first gift.
The second prosphora, the second offering, the second gift, is also a broken man. And yet, not only a man, but God-made-man. It is our Lord Jesus Christ, also lifted up, and because of the crowd. Not causally in the sense that there were too many people, but causally in that we, the crowe, shouted out for Him to be lifted up: Crucify Him, Crucify Him! Raised up not onto a rooftop, but onto the cross. Broken not by sin, but by us sinners, and so providentially, for us sinners.
And once raised up, broken, dead, also lowered. Not only lowered from the tree, dead, but also descending Himself, as God, into another crowd: the Dead. And there, not for the forgiveness of His sins (He was and is sinless), not for His healing (He is the Great physician of our souls and bodies, indeed the healer of the paralytic), but for the forgiveness of our sins, for the healing and salvation of us who crucified Him in the first place.
And this One, also not left in the midst of the crowd, unable to move or help Himself; this one also raised up, on the third day. Raised from the dead; Resurrected. Trampling down death by death. And this one also showing Himself to many—many of whom, like the first man’s friends, glorified God (amazed), saying, “We never saw anything like this!” (Though some doubted.)
And it is this prosphora, this offering, this Man, Jesus Christ, whose Gospel is up borne likewise by four men, four pillars, whose names we know: the Evangelists—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
It is by their testimony that we know these two prosphora, these to gifts, these two offerings. The first a shadow of the second, the paralytic fortelling and proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us paralytics also, broken and helpless, call on the Lord who is quick to save. And though we cannot lift ourselves, we can lift up those around us, by faith, with the sure hope of the Gospel, knowing the Almighty and Merciful God. And let us, like the four Evangelists, recount the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, not with parchment and pen, but with the love of God written by our deeds every moment of our lives. Amen.
Repentance is the Royal Path to Life
Published in the Post and Courier on 2/25/07, there entitled: Repentance a renewal, not doom and gloom
By Fr. John Parker
The vast majority of Christians on our planet began, this past week, to celebrate Lent, also known as the Great Fast in the Orthodox Christian tradition. The Fast owes its existence, in part, to the 40 days in which Jesus went into the desert to be tempted by the devil following His baptism by St. John the Forerunner. The Great Fast is, for us in the world, our annual pilgrimage to the inner desert, wherein we seek to join ourselves most fully to God by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, in anticipation of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here we struggle to learn and to live: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” And, “you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”
This voluntary sojourn in the inner-desert is book-ended in Matthew’s Gospel by a command given on the one end by St. John the Baptist (3:2), and on the other, echoed by our Lord Jesus Christ (4:17), “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” By “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” Jesus indicates that He himself is inaugurating the re-creation of the world. His life, death, resurrection, and ascension are as God incarnate who has come to save the world. And by ‘world’, He does not mean just “people”. The Holy Scriptures teach that “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son…”. He so loved the ‘cosmos’, as it says in Greek. God’s renewal of the fallen cosmos is now underway, and will be completed, we believe, with Jesus’ second coming to judge the world.
But what does it mean, “Repent?” The word itself strikes fear in the hearts of some, occasionally brow-beaten by self-appointed prophets of doom who announce, “Turn or burn!” by their placards and angry voices. For many others, “repent” is some old-fashioned concept rooted in a time from which we have now been liberated—a time when somebody besides myself had the authority to tell me what is right and wrong—mostly what is wrong. In this view, repentance is what fools do who don’t yet understand that what’s right in my eyes is right for me, and what is right for you is right for you.
Neither of these is Christian, so what does a Christian understand when he reads “Repent!”? Repent means this: change your mind. Change your heart. Change your direction. But this change presumes that there is a revealed standard. There is a ‘right mind’; there is a ‘right heart’; there is a ‘right direction’. We are not turning around for the sake of going in another, random direction. We do not change our hearts to match that of some Hollywood star. We do not change our mind in order simply to have a new perspective—in order to get out of a rut.
When a Christian observes what we call daily life, we don’t see life—we see remnants of life, and a lot of death. We know what life is because God has revealed what life is—or more precisely, because in Jesus Christ, God has revealed himself as life. Through the lens of Jesus, we see ourselves as seriously lacking, and only remotely human. We recognize our need to turn back to Him.
The beauty of it all, though, is that because of God’s love and mercy for the whole cosmos, death does not reign permanently. Jesus has conquered sin and death, and we can make this return to Him. In fact, it is He Himself who calls us home—to change our minds, hearts, and directions. To return to the narrow, straight path. To return to chastity, humility, patience, and love, not as defined by the world, but as revealed in Christ. To return to God.
Repentance is not a threat (or else!), it is a gift. It is the return flight of what we thought was a one-way ticket to destruction and death. Repentance is not out-moded and old-fashioned. Rather, it is a moment-by-moment renewal, and in fact, it is evidence of the truly open mind, especially when one recognizes that his own is not right.
Orthodox Christians exhort one another to “enter the Fast with joy”. Repent with joy? Yes! And we can do so precisely because we understand that repentance brings healing and union with God, and not a judicial acquittal from an angry judge on the last day. Repentance is God’s grace returning life to a dying world. Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church on the Square in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
By Fr. John Parker
The vast majority of Christians on our planet began, this past week, to celebrate Lent, also known as the Great Fast in the Orthodox Christian tradition. The Fast owes its existence, in part, to the 40 days in which Jesus went into the desert to be tempted by the devil following His baptism by St. John the Forerunner. The Great Fast is, for us in the world, our annual pilgrimage to the inner desert, wherein we seek to join ourselves most fully to God by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, in anticipation of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here we struggle to learn and to live: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” And, “you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”
This voluntary sojourn in the inner-desert is book-ended in Matthew’s Gospel by a command given on the one end by St. John the Baptist (3:2), and on the other, echoed by our Lord Jesus Christ (4:17), “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” By “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” Jesus indicates that He himself is inaugurating the re-creation of the world. His life, death, resurrection, and ascension are as God incarnate who has come to save the world. And by ‘world’, He does not mean just “people”. The Holy Scriptures teach that “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son…”. He so loved the ‘cosmos’, as it says in Greek. God’s renewal of the fallen cosmos is now underway, and will be completed, we believe, with Jesus’ second coming to judge the world.
But what does it mean, “Repent?” The word itself strikes fear in the hearts of some, occasionally brow-beaten by self-appointed prophets of doom who announce, “Turn or burn!” by their placards and angry voices. For many others, “repent” is some old-fashioned concept rooted in a time from which we have now been liberated—a time when somebody besides myself had the authority to tell me what is right and wrong—mostly what is wrong. In this view, repentance is what fools do who don’t yet understand that what’s right in my eyes is right for me, and what is right for you is right for you.
Neither of these is Christian, so what does a Christian understand when he reads “Repent!”? Repent means this: change your mind. Change your heart. Change your direction. But this change presumes that there is a revealed standard. There is a ‘right mind’; there is a ‘right heart’; there is a ‘right direction’. We are not turning around for the sake of going in another, random direction. We do not change our hearts to match that of some Hollywood star. We do not change our mind in order simply to have a new perspective—in order to get out of a rut.
When a Christian observes what we call daily life, we don’t see life—we see remnants of life, and a lot of death. We know what life is because God has revealed what life is—or more precisely, because in Jesus Christ, God has revealed himself as life. Through the lens of Jesus, we see ourselves as seriously lacking, and only remotely human. We recognize our need to turn back to Him.
The beauty of it all, though, is that because of God’s love and mercy for the whole cosmos, death does not reign permanently. Jesus has conquered sin and death, and we can make this return to Him. In fact, it is He Himself who calls us home—to change our minds, hearts, and directions. To return to the narrow, straight path. To return to chastity, humility, patience, and love, not as defined by the world, but as revealed in Christ. To return to God.
Repentance is not a threat (or else!), it is a gift. It is the return flight of what we thought was a one-way ticket to destruction and death. Repentance is not out-moded and old-fashioned. Rather, it is a moment-by-moment renewal, and in fact, it is evidence of the truly open mind, especially when one recognizes that his own is not right.
Orthodox Christians exhort one another to “enter the Fast with joy”. Repent with joy? Yes! And we can do so precisely because we understand that repentance brings healing and union with God, and not a judicial acquittal from an angry judge on the last day. Repentance is God’s grace returning life to a dying world. Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church on the Square in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
Faith of our Fathers: A Colloquium on Orthodoxy for Anglicans
By Fr. John Parker
Published in the Post and Courier, Sunday, February 4, 2007
Nineteen degrees and snowing. An ecumenical affair: Orthodox Christians addressing curious Anglicans and Episcopalians in a Roman Catholic retreat center which shares a parking lot with an Orthodox Monastery of Romanian and American monks. Inside the retreat, a bustle of 50 or so attendees who traveled to Detroit from warmer climes, Florida included. Others from South Carolina, Maryland, and Illinois. A few came to warm up in Detroit, having crossed their southern border from Toronto. The most amazing of the attendees, in my opinion, was a former Episcopal priest—a woman—who has come to understand the way of the Ancient Church and renounced her ordination in order to enter the Orthodox faith.
On Monday and Tuesday, January 29-30, I had the privilege of taking part in this fascinating conference. “Faith of our Fathers: a Colloquium on Orthodoxy for Anglicans” was organized with the blessing and encouragement of His Eminence, the Most Reverend Nathaniel, Archbishop of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate of the Orthodox Church in America.
Archbishop Nathaniel had been approached by several local Episcopalians and neighboring Canadian Anglicans who asked, “How can you help us?” a question rooted in both the recent and centuries-old scandals and struggles which are plaguing the Anglican Communion worldwide.
His Eminence made it very clear in his keynote address on Monday that the conference was not intended or organized in any way to solicit Episcopalians to the Orthodox Church, but rather was an answer to a profound request for guidance and assistance. The Archbishop’s biblical foundation for the conference, he elaborated, was the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He noted that the traveler did not cry out for help, but rather lay beaten on the roadside. It was the Samaritan who took note of the bloodied man, had compassion on him, and made arrangements for his recovery.
The conference was structured around four basic lectures: “Theology”, “Liturgy”, “Culture and Tradition”, and “Practical Considerations”. Each was preceded by a brief account of a personal journey to Orthodoxy. The speakers were predominantly former Episcopalians, most of them now Orthodox Priests. The lineup included Charleston native, Fr. Gregory Mathewes-Green (who—along with the present Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul, the Very Rev. William McKeachie—coauthored the Baltimore Declaration); his wife Frederica, also a native Charlestonian and well-known columnist, speaker, and author of books like Facing East and The Illumined Heart; Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon—one time professor at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, and present lecturer at Nashotah House Seminary; and others.
His Grace, the Rt. Rev. Mark, Bishop of Toledo and the Midwest of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, shared with the conference participants his engaging arrival to the Orthodox Church. Bishop Mark found his way from his native Roman Catholicism to charismatic Christianity, finally studying at and then teaching at Oral Roberts University. His ever-deepening studies of the Old Testament, along with engaging conversations with an Orthodox professor at ORU led him to embrace the Ancient Church, in which he now serves as a hierarch.
A third bishop, His Grace, the Rt. Rev. Tikhon, Bishop of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania of the Orthodox Church in America, shared briefly about how is life is “made very interesting” by the fact that his mother serves as an Episcopal priest.
I believe it is safe to say that very few of the conference attendees came to hear about the Orthodox Church and faith for the first time. Many appeared to know a significant amount already, and have developed friendships with Orthodox clergy and lay people in their respective hometowns. There were, however, a few difficult questions, which required a delicate response—though the answers remain unchanging.
One fellow from Canada asked, for example, why the Orthodox Church practices what many call “closed communion”, allowing only those members of the Orthodox Church to receive communion in their services. Several speakers explained this commonly misunderstood and challenging pastoral matter. In fact, in the Orthodox Church, not even all Orthodox can/ought to receive communion at any given service. Our discipline is to serve those who have prepared themselves by prayer, fasting, and recent confession, taking very seriously St. Paul’s exhortation to the Church in Corinth (1 Cor. 11:27ff).
The grounds for so-called “closed communion” are ancient and simple. First (also a practice abandoned by many non-Orthodox Christians today), one must be baptized to receive. Baptism is open to all repentant sinners, in the Christian view, and is the doorway into the life of the Church. Second, the Church has always believed that Communion is the sign of the shared fullness of faith, and not the maker of it. In other words, it makes no sense for a group of people to “have communion together” who don’t believe the same things about who Jesus is, why he lived and died, how we are called—voluntarily—to change for and be changed by God, and what the bread and wine become in the liturgy. In short, in this scenario, there is no “common union” (the meaning of “communion”) except the action of eating and drinking something together at the same time.
The inquirer was also somewhat surprised to hear that this was the universal practice and belief of all Christians for 1500+ years, and for Anglicans until the 1950s or 1960s. It has always been and remains the practice in the Orthodox Church (as well as the Roman Catholic Church, I believe) to this day.
“Faith of our Fathers” was a conference rooted, at least generally speaking, in Acts 2:42. We shared the teachings of the Apostles, we sat at table together, we enjoyed one another’s company in fellowship, and sang a beautiful Vespers (evening prayer) service on the occasion of the Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom, fourth-century luminaries universally remembered for their essential contributions to Christian theology and preaching.
The talks from this conference will all be available for download at http://www.ancientfaithradio.org/, a 24-hour Orthodox internet Radio station.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church located on the Square in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 881-5010.
Published in the Post and Courier, Sunday, February 4, 2007
Nineteen degrees and snowing. An ecumenical affair: Orthodox Christians addressing curious Anglicans and Episcopalians in a Roman Catholic retreat center which shares a parking lot with an Orthodox Monastery of Romanian and American monks. Inside the retreat, a bustle of 50 or so attendees who traveled to Detroit from warmer climes, Florida included. Others from South Carolina, Maryland, and Illinois. A few came to warm up in Detroit, having crossed their southern border from Toronto. The most amazing of the attendees, in my opinion, was a former Episcopal priest—a woman—who has come to understand the way of the Ancient Church and renounced her ordination in order to enter the Orthodox faith.
On Monday and Tuesday, January 29-30, I had the privilege of taking part in this fascinating conference. “Faith of our Fathers: a Colloquium on Orthodoxy for Anglicans” was organized with the blessing and encouragement of His Eminence, the Most Reverend Nathaniel, Archbishop of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate of the Orthodox Church in America.
Archbishop Nathaniel had been approached by several local Episcopalians and neighboring Canadian Anglicans who asked, “How can you help us?” a question rooted in both the recent and centuries-old scandals and struggles which are plaguing the Anglican Communion worldwide.
His Eminence made it very clear in his keynote address on Monday that the conference was not intended or organized in any way to solicit Episcopalians to the Orthodox Church, but rather was an answer to a profound request for guidance and assistance. The Archbishop’s biblical foundation for the conference, he elaborated, was the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He noted that the traveler did not cry out for help, but rather lay beaten on the roadside. It was the Samaritan who took note of the bloodied man, had compassion on him, and made arrangements for his recovery.
The conference was structured around four basic lectures: “Theology”, “Liturgy”, “Culture and Tradition”, and “Practical Considerations”. Each was preceded by a brief account of a personal journey to Orthodoxy. The speakers were predominantly former Episcopalians, most of them now Orthodox Priests. The lineup included Charleston native, Fr. Gregory Mathewes-Green (who—along with the present Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul, the Very Rev. William McKeachie—coauthored the Baltimore Declaration); his wife Frederica, also a native Charlestonian and well-known columnist, speaker, and author of books like Facing East and The Illumined Heart; Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon—one time professor at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, and present lecturer at Nashotah House Seminary; and others.
His Grace, the Rt. Rev. Mark, Bishop of Toledo and the Midwest of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, shared with the conference participants his engaging arrival to the Orthodox Church. Bishop Mark found his way from his native Roman Catholicism to charismatic Christianity, finally studying at and then teaching at Oral Roberts University. His ever-deepening studies of the Old Testament, along with engaging conversations with an Orthodox professor at ORU led him to embrace the Ancient Church, in which he now serves as a hierarch.
A third bishop, His Grace, the Rt. Rev. Tikhon, Bishop of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania of the Orthodox Church in America, shared briefly about how is life is “made very interesting” by the fact that his mother serves as an Episcopal priest.
I believe it is safe to say that very few of the conference attendees came to hear about the Orthodox Church and faith for the first time. Many appeared to know a significant amount already, and have developed friendships with Orthodox clergy and lay people in their respective hometowns. There were, however, a few difficult questions, which required a delicate response—though the answers remain unchanging.
One fellow from Canada asked, for example, why the Orthodox Church practices what many call “closed communion”, allowing only those members of the Orthodox Church to receive communion in their services. Several speakers explained this commonly misunderstood and challenging pastoral matter. In fact, in the Orthodox Church, not even all Orthodox can/ought to receive communion at any given service. Our discipline is to serve those who have prepared themselves by prayer, fasting, and recent confession, taking very seriously St. Paul’s exhortation to the Church in Corinth (1 Cor. 11:27ff).
The grounds for so-called “closed communion” are ancient and simple. First (also a practice abandoned by many non-Orthodox Christians today), one must be baptized to receive. Baptism is open to all repentant sinners, in the Christian view, and is the doorway into the life of the Church. Second, the Church has always believed that Communion is the sign of the shared fullness of faith, and not the maker of it. In other words, it makes no sense for a group of people to “have communion together” who don’t believe the same things about who Jesus is, why he lived and died, how we are called—voluntarily—to change for and be changed by God, and what the bread and wine become in the liturgy. In short, in this scenario, there is no “common union” (the meaning of “communion”) except the action of eating and drinking something together at the same time.
The inquirer was also somewhat surprised to hear that this was the universal practice and belief of all Christians for 1500+ years, and for Anglicans until the 1950s or 1960s. It has always been and remains the practice in the Orthodox Church (as well as the Roman Catholic Church, I believe) to this day.
“Faith of our Fathers” was a conference rooted, at least generally speaking, in Acts 2:42. We shared the teachings of the Apostles, we sat at table together, we enjoyed one another’s company in fellowship, and sang a beautiful Vespers (evening prayer) service on the occasion of the Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom, fourth-century luminaries universally remembered for their essential contributions to Christian theology and preaching.
The talks from this conference will all be available for download at http://www.ancientfaithradio.org/, a 24-hour Orthodox internet Radio station.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church located on the Square in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 881-5010.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
Published in the Post and Courier on 12.24.06 originally as The Nativity has two focuses
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
(Part IV of IV)
Our journey to Bethlehem through the images in St. Andrei Rublev’s Nativity finishes at the center—a center which has two foci: Mary, the Virgin Mother, and the somewhat less obvious (because of his size) newborn Christ (who, biblically speaking, is not “Jesus” until he is named on the 8th day—see Luke 2:21.)
Mary—the Theotokos, or God-bearer, as she is known in the Church—is the most noticeable figure in the icon. One’s eyes are immediately drawn to her, not only by her central location, but by her relative size and the bright red color of the bed on which she lays. The ever-virgin Mother’s body faces our Lord, yet her eyes gaze into the distance, as she keeps all that which the Shepherds told her, “pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Mary’s geometrically central position in this icon points to the reality that she herself is the gift which we human beings offer for this redemptive event. Recall the hymn we’ve been singing:
What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man? Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks, The angels offer a hymn; The heavens a star; The wisemen gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; The earth, its cave; the wilderness, a manger. And we offer Thee a virgin mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!
“We offer Thee a virgin mother…” Mary is the pure offering of humanity, known in the Church by many of the names given to the instruments of worship in the Old Testament, and supremely, “the Temple” itself—Her womb being the actual dwelling place of God-made-man. The Theotokos is not for us the great exception, but rather, the great example. She was chosen and prepared by God, and by her consent—her ‘fiat’, bore Emmanuel, God-with-us.
The Church chants this beautiful hymn as from the lips of the Mother of God:
‘Thou, O my Son, art the all-perfect God, Yet Thou didst accept the form of Adam! In my hands I hold Thee, yet Thou dost hold all creation! How shall I wrap Thee in swaddling clothes? How shall I nourish Thee, O Food of Life? How shall I wonder at Thine ineffable poverty? How shall I name Thee, since I am Thy servant?’ Thy mother cried: ‘I can only sing and bless Thee, For Thou dost grant the world great mercy!
Indeed, as evidenced here at the Nativity, Mary is the first and most important Christian, as described in a beautiful hymn we sing of her. She is “more honorable than the Cherubim, more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim.” As we contemplate the Nativity of Christ, we can hardly overlook her who gave birth to God the Word. We are obliged by gratitude and joy to fulfill her prophetic hymn, “all generations shall call me blessed.” Indeed, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, for you have borne the Savior of our souls!”
Now, in the silence of the black cave, at the tips of the noses of the curious ox and ass (who recognized their maker), and resting gently no longer in, but just outside the womb of his most-pure mother, we find our Lord, according to the Scriptures, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. What are these swaddling clothes? Much more than just some rags that happened to be at hand! Those familiar with the icon of the raising of Lazarus from the dead will recognize that the infant Christ is wrapped, more specifically, in a burial shroud. Even in his nativity, hinted at also with the gift of myrrh, the purpose for his incarnation is made manifest: born to die for the sins of the whole world.
In the icon, as in life, our Lord is ‘findable’ but must be sought out. Have I looked? Have I found the One whom the angels today hymn? Have I found the One, worshiped by the Magi who learned of Him from the stars? If we don’t know where to look by ourselves, we can follow the star, the magi, the shepherds, the animals. They all know where to point us. “Seek and you shall find.”
Once having found and recognized Him as the Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Holy One, Emmanuel, have I asked the resounding question, “What shall I offer Thee, O Christ, who hast appeared on Earth as Man?” What can we offer him besides true worship and obedience? “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us!”
Especially for Nativity of Christ, Orthodox Christians have a special “call and response” greeting. Beginning this evening, one joy-filled Christian greets another, “Christ is born!” and the other responds, “Glorify Him!” Such a greeting is exchanged during the many days of this feast which commences, not ends, at the Vigil of the Nativity.
With the angels, I greet you, and bring you “good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). And with jubilation, I salute you with the blessings of the feast. Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
(Part IV of IV)
Our journey to Bethlehem through the images in St. Andrei Rublev’s Nativity finishes at the center—a center which has two foci: Mary, the Virgin Mother, and the somewhat less obvious (because of his size) newborn Christ (who, biblically speaking, is not “Jesus” until he is named on the 8th day—see Luke 2:21.)
Mary—the Theotokos, or God-bearer, as she is known in the Church—is the most noticeable figure in the icon. One’s eyes are immediately drawn to her, not only by her central location, but by her relative size and the bright red color of the bed on which she lays. The ever-virgin Mother’s body faces our Lord, yet her eyes gaze into the distance, as she keeps all that which the Shepherds told her, “pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Mary’s geometrically central position in this icon points to the reality that she herself is the gift which we human beings offer for this redemptive event. Recall the hymn we’ve been singing:
What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man? Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks, The angels offer a hymn; The heavens a star; The wisemen gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; The earth, its cave; the wilderness, a manger. And we offer Thee a virgin mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!
“We offer Thee a virgin mother…” Mary is the pure offering of humanity, known in the Church by many of the names given to the instruments of worship in the Old Testament, and supremely, “the Temple” itself—Her womb being the actual dwelling place of God-made-man. The Theotokos is not for us the great exception, but rather, the great example. She was chosen and prepared by God, and by her consent—her ‘fiat’, bore Emmanuel, God-with-us.
The Church chants this beautiful hymn as from the lips of the Mother of God:
‘Thou, O my Son, art the all-perfect God, Yet Thou didst accept the form of Adam! In my hands I hold Thee, yet Thou dost hold all creation! How shall I wrap Thee in swaddling clothes? How shall I nourish Thee, O Food of Life? How shall I wonder at Thine ineffable poverty? How shall I name Thee, since I am Thy servant?’ Thy mother cried: ‘I can only sing and bless Thee, For Thou dost grant the world great mercy!
Indeed, as evidenced here at the Nativity, Mary is the first and most important Christian, as described in a beautiful hymn we sing of her. She is “more honorable than the Cherubim, more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim.” As we contemplate the Nativity of Christ, we can hardly overlook her who gave birth to God the Word. We are obliged by gratitude and joy to fulfill her prophetic hymn, “all generations shall call me blessed.” Indeed, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, for you have borne the Savior of our souls!”
Now, in the silence of the black cave, at the tips of the noses of the curious ox and ass (who recognized their maker), and resting gently no longer in, but just outside the womb of his most-pure mother, we find our Lord, according to the Scriptures, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. What are these swaddling clothes? Much more than just some rags that happened to be at hand! Those familiar with the icon of the raising of Lazarus from the dead will recognize that the infant Christ is wrapped, more specifically, in a burial shroud. Even in his nativity, hinted at also with the gift of myrrh, the purpose for his incarnation is made manifest: born to die for the sins of the whole world.
In the icon, as in life, our Lord is ‘findable’ but must be sought out. Have I looked? Have I found the One whom the angels today hymn? Have I found the One, worshiped by the Magi who learned of Him from the stars? If we don’t know where to look by ourselves, we can follow the star, the magi, the shepherds, the animals. They all know where to point us. “Seek and you shall find.”
Once having found and recognized Him as the Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Holy One, Emmanuel, have I asked the resounding question, “What shall I offer Thee, O Christ, who hast appeared on Earth as Man?” What can we offer him besides true worship and obedience? “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us!”
Especially for Nativity of Christ, Orthodox Christians have a special “call and response” greeting. Beginning this evening, one joy-filled Christian greets another, “Christ is born!” and the other responds, “Glorify Him!” Such a greeting is exchanged during the many days of this feast which commences, not ends, at the Vigil of the Nativity.
With the angels, I greet you, and bring you “good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). And with jubilation, I salute you with the blessings of the feast. Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
Monday, December 18, 2006
A Strange Pair draws near to the Newborn Christ (Part III of IV)
By Fr. John Parker
The Angels are rejoicing and proclaiming the Good News. The Magi, journeying from afar, bear their gifts foreshadowing the divinity, sovereignty, and humanity of Christ. The shepherds, the first Jews to believe, explain what they have seen and heard, leading others, too, to wonder!
As we make our way, as if in a spiral towards the center of Rublev’s Nativity, we are greeted by a strange pair. A couple we wouldn’t expect to find so attentively gazing on our Lord. Two that are as close to Christ in proximity as the Virgin Mother.
Two well-known carols in the Western Christian tradition reference these two animals who by their eyes direct ours to our infant Lord in the manger. Perhaps you remember the tunes:
Why lies He in such mean estate / Where ox and ass are feeding? / Good Christian, fear: for sinners here, / The silent Word is pleading. (“What Child is This?”)
Ox and ass before him bow / And He is in the manger now. / Christ is born today! / Christ is born today! (“Good Christian Men, Rejoice!”)
But where do this ox and this ass appear in the Gospel accounts of the Nativity? Every crèche displays them. We sing about them. Christians paint them into the Nativity. And yet searching high and low through the Nativity accounts in Matthew and Luke, we don’t encounter them. Why? Because they are not found in the New Testament! The ox and ass put us humans to shame, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, nearly 800 years before the Holy Advent of our Lord:
“The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand” (Isaiah 1:3).
The birth of the Messiah, Emmanuel: God with us, Jesus the Christ, is truly an awesome event—in the classical sense of “awesome”. So marvelous is it, so utterly extraordinary—the heavens and the stars recognize Him. The earth itself recognizes him. “Foreigners” recognize him. Even “dumb” animals worship Him! Once again, we return to the Orthodox Christian hymn:
What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man? Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks, The angels offer a hymn; The heavens a star; The wisemen gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; The earth, its cave; the wilderness, a manger. And we offer Thee a virgin mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!
In fact, one of the theological reasons we celebrate Christmas at the Winter Solstice (just a few days later on our present calendar…) is because of the point made by the universe at this time. What is that point?
The Solstice is the shortest day of the year. Each day thereafter, light increases on the Earth. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). The true light, Jesus Christ, has come into the world, and the darkness has not overcome him. For Christians, Christmas is a festival of the Light, Jesus Christ who announced, “I am the light of the world.”
The heavens demonstrate it; the stars point to Him; the ox and the ass gaze upon Him, showing us with their devotion what they cannot tell us with words. And we are left with the question Jesus later asks Peter and his followers, “Who do you say that I am?”
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
Originally printed in Charleston's Post and Courier on Sunday, December 17, 2006 and online at
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=122794
The Angels are rejoicing and proclaiming the Good News. The Magi, journeying from afar, bear their gifts foreshadowing the divinity, sovereignty, and humanity of Christ. The shepherds, the first Jews to believe, explain what they have seen and heard, leading others, too, to wonder!
As we make our way, as if in a spiral towards the center of Rublev’s Nativity, we are greeted by a strange pair. A couple we wouldn’t expect to find so attentively gazing on our Lord. Two that are as close to Christ in proximity as the Virgin Mother.
Two well-known carols in the Western Christian tradition reference these two animals who by their eyes direct ours to our infant Lord in the manger. Perhaps you remember the tunes:
Why lies He in such mean estate / Where ox and ass are feeding? / Good Christian, fear: for sinners here, / The silent Word is pleading. (“What Child is This?”)
Ox and ass before him bow / And He is in the manger now. / Christ is born today! / Christ is born today! (“Good Christian Men, Rejoice!”)
But where do this ox and this ass appear in the Gospel accounts of the Nativity? Every crèche displays them. We sing about them. Christians paint them into the Nativity. And yet searching high and low through the Nativity accounts in Matthew and Luke, we don’t encounter them. Why? Because they are not found in the New Testament! The ox and ass put us humans to shame, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, nearly 800 years before the Holy Advent of our Lord:
“The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand” (Isaiah 1:3).
The birth of the Messiah, Emmanuel: God with us, Jesus the Christ, is truly an awesome event—in the classical sense of “awesome”. So marvelous is it, so utterly extraordinary—the heavens and the stars recognize Him. The earth itself recognizes him. “Foreigners” recognize him. Even “dumb” animals worship Him! Once again, we return to the Orthodox Christian hymn:
What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man? Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks, The angels offer a hymn; The heavens a star; The wisemen gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; The earth, its cave; the wilderness, a manger. And we offer Thee a virgin mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!
In fact, one of the theological reasons we celebrate Christmas at the Winter Solstice (just a few days later on our present calendar…) is because of the point made by the universe at this time. What is that point?
The Solstice is the shortest day of the year. Each day thereafter, light increases on the Earth. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). The true light, Jesus Christ, has come into the world, and the darkness has not overcome him. For Christians, Christmas is a festival of the Light, Jesus Christ who announced, “I am the light of the world.”
The heavens demonstrate it; the stars point to Him; the ox and the ass gaze upon Him, showing us with their devotion what they cannot tell us with words. And we are left with the question Jesus later asks Peter and his followers, “Who do you say that I am?”
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
Originally printed in Charleston's Post and Courier on Sunday, December 17, 2006 and online at
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=122794
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The Journey to Bethlehem Continues (Part II of IV)
The Journey to Bethlehem Continues
(Part II of IV)
What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man? Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks, The angels offer a hymn; The heavens a star; The wisemen gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; The earth, its cave; the wilderness, a manger. And we offer Thee a virgin mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!
Last week, we began our “Journey to Bethlehem” through Rublev’s stunning Icon of the Nativity. We encountered St. Joseph, tempted by the devil, as well as the nursemaids giving our Lord his first bath; and we learned of the critical meeting of the divine and the human in Jesus’ birth.
According to the hymn I have shared above, the angels offer a hymn, the heavens a star, the shepherds—their wonder. What hymn do the angels offer? The very hymn sung still today in the Orthodox Churches as the “Small Doxology” in the Matins (morning prayers) services, and known in many Western Christian Churches as “the Gloria”: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men, with whom he is pleased.” We introduce this angelic hymn with a theological praise: “Glory to Thee, who hast shown us the light!”
The angels, glowing with the light of Christ, “the glory of the Lord,” also greeted the wondering shepherds. According to the Scriptures, these Jewish shepherds went and found the announced Savior, born as a child, and told all what they had seen and heard from the angels. Not surprisingly, “All who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.” What was the wonder? Quite surely the very same wonder uttered by Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another” (Luke 7:20)? More on the answer to that question when we speak about the ox and the ass who gaze into the manger.
While the shepherds were among the believing Jews, the “three” Magi, or wise men (not numbered in the Scriptures, but know traditionally in the Church as Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar), represent the offering of salvation to the “rest of the world”, known biblically as “the Gentiles”. The promise of salvation was not given strictly to the chosen Jews, even seen clearly in God’s words to the Patriarch Abraham: “…I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3, LXX). How shall Abraham “be a blessing,” and how is it that through him “all the families of the earth shall be blessed?” Because Abraham is the forefather of King David, who is the forefather of Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, this promise is fulfilled, and for this reason the star appears, the Angels rejoice, and the shepherds wonder!
These gentile astronomers offered prophetic gifts to the Infant King: gold foretelling his royalty; frankincense (a fragrant incense), his divinity; and myrrh (a fragrant ointment/oil especially used to prepare corpses for burial) foreshadowing his death. Equally as beautiful as their gifts and their representation of the salvation of the gentiles is what they learned from this experience. Consider this Orthodox Hymn of the feast:
Thy Nativity O Christ our God, has shown to the world the light of wisdom / for by it those who worshipped the stars, were taught by a star to adore Thee, the Sun of Righteousness / and to know Thee, the Orient from on High, O Lord, Glory to Thee!
The magi (not magicians or kings, but astronomers) who “worshipped the stars” were “taught by a star” to adore Jesus Christ.
The Lord of Creation and King of Glory uses all that he has created to point each and every one of us, in our own unique way, to know him, Emmanuel, God with us.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
(Part II of IV)
What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man? Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks, The angels offer a hymn; The heavens a star; The wisemen gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; The earth, its cave; the wilderness, a manger. And we offer Thee a virgin mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!
Last week, we began our “Journey to Bethlehem” through Rublev’s stunning Icon of the Nativity. We encountered St. Joseph, tempted by the devil, as well as the nursemaids giving our Lord his first bath; and we learned of the critical meeting of the divine and the human in Jesus’ birth.
According to the hymn I have shared above, the angels offer a hymn, the heavens a star, the shepherds—their wonder. What hymn do the angels offer? The very hymn sung still today in the Orthodox Churches as the “Small Doxology” in the Matins (morning prayers) services, and known in many Western Christian Churches as “the Gloria”: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men, with whom he is pleased.” We introduce this angelic hymn with a theological praise: “Glory to Thee, who hast shown us the light!”
The angels, glowing with the light of Christ, “the glory of the Lord,” also greeted the wondering shepherds. According to the Scriptures, these Jewish shepherds went and found the announced Savior, born as a child, and told all what they had seen and heard from the angels. Not surprisingly, “All who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.” What was the wonder? Quite surely the very same wonder uttered by Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another” (Luke 7:20)? More on the answer to that question when we speak about the ox and the ass who gaze into the manger.
While the shepherds were among the believing Jews, the “three” Magi, or wise men (not numbered in the Scriptures, but know traditionally in the Church as Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar), represent the offering of salvation to the “rest of the world”, known biblically as “the Gentiles”. The promise of salvation was not given strictly to the chosen Jews, even seen clearly in God’s words to the Patriarch Abraham: “…I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3, LXX). How shall Abraham “be a blessing,” and how is it that through him “all the families of the earth shall be blessed?” Because Abraham is the forefather of King David, who is the forefather of Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, this promise is fulfilled, and for this reason the star appears, the Angels rejoice, and the shepherds wonder!
These gentile astronomers offered prophetic gifts to the Infant King: gold foretelling his royalty; frankincense (a fragrant incense), his divinity; and myrrh (a fragrant ointment/oil especially used to prepare corpses for burial) foreshadowing his death. Equally as beautiful as their gifts and their representation of the salvation of the gentiles is what they learned from this experience. Consider this Orthodox Hymn of the feast:
Thy Nativity O Christ our God, has shown to the world the light of wisdom / for by it those who worshipped the stars, were taught by a star to adore Thee, the Sun of Righteousness / and to know Thee, the Orient from on High, O Lord, Glory to Thee!
The magi (not magicians or kings, but astronomers) who “worshipped the stars” were “taught by a star” to adore Jesus Christ.
The Lord of Creation and King of Glory uses all that he has created to point each and every one of us, in our own unique way, to know him, Emmanuel, God with us.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
Published online as "The Magi followed the Light to Bethlehem" at http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=121953
And in the Post and Courier on Sunday, December 10, 2006.
And in the Post and Courier on Sunday, December 10, 2006.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
The Journey to Bethlehem Begins
By Fr. John Parker(note: first in a series of four)
About seven hundred years ago, St. Andrei Rublev or one of his disciples painted perhaps the most memorable and beautiful icon of the Nativity of Christ. The 14th century icon is warped and cracked, but is in remarkable shape despite its age and history. It tells us, in earthen pigments bound to the gesso plaster, the story of the birth of Jesus, each facet of the good news surrounding the Virgin Mother Mary and the newborn Emmanuel—“God with us.” It teaches us with paint what we sing in one of the many traditional Orthodox hymns of the Nativity:
What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man? Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks, The angels offer a hymn; The heavens a star; The wisemen gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; The earth, its cave; the wilderness, a manger. And we offer Thee a virgin mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!
During this season—as it is most widely known “Advent” (from the Latin, “coming”)—of preparation, please join me on a four Sunday journey around this holy marvel, on a theological pilgrimage to the birth of Jesus Christ.
We’ll start with the two scenes on the bottom. On the left sits an old man with an evident halo (a saint) confronted by a crooked fellow in a dark, hairy coat. St. Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus Christ is being tempted by the Devil to divorce Mary. Joseph is an old man, who, according to the tradition of the Church, was a widower obligated by his relationship to Mary to betroth her and care for her, who had been set apart as a temple virgin to bear the eternal Son of God in the flesh.
According to the Scriptures, “When [Jesus’] mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’” (Matthew 1:18ff).
The temptation was to “send her away quietly” so as to not draw attention to a pregnant, unwedded teenager betrothed to an old man—even though Joseph and Mary never ‘knew’ one another, that is, they never slept together. Joseph may have had good intentions to protect young Mary, but God had other plans for him. He was told by an angel that this pregnancy was, in fact, a miracle and nothing to be ashamed of; rather, it was to be celebrated as the fulfillment of God’s promises, especially through the Prophet Isaiah, to save the world through a son, born of a virgin, in the lineage of King David.
If the images of St. Joseph and the Tempter narrate the miraculous birth of the divine Jesus Christ, the scene in the lower right shows the humanity of the birth of the Son of God. Jesus was not dropped onto the earth by an extraterrestrial ship, nor did he simply ‘appear’ as a created being. Rather, as the beginning of the redemption of all humanity and the whole world, he entered just as every single one of us does: through the womb. The birth of Christ is totally extraordinary in conception—“of the Holy Spirit” as the Angel told Joseph, and yet it is totally ordinary in its accomplishment. And so, here, we see two nursemaids doing what is done at every birth: receiving the newborn child and washing him to present to his mother. O strange wonder: God is made man. Heaven and earth meet. O come, o come Emmanuel!
Today the Virgin gives birth to the transcendent one, and the earth offers a cave to the unapproachable one! Angels with shepherds glorify Him! The wise men journey with the star! Since for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child!
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in I’On. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 881-5010.
printed in the Post and Courier, December 3, 2006, and online at http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=120991)
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Salvation has many facets
Salvation: all the facets of a single diamond
By Fr. John Parker+
Author's note: This is the unedited version of my article published in the Post and Courier on SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2006 entitled, "For Christians, salvation has many facets"]
When an Orthodox Christian is asked the question, “Are you saved?” we don’t exactly know how to answer. It isn’t that we don’t know Jesus Christ; we’ve known Him from the beginning. It isn’t that we have a lack of understanding about salvation—history and theology books are filled with our teaching on these matters. We don’t know exactly how to answer because it is not a question with which we are familiar. In fact, we would say that the question raises a deeper question: What is salvation?
Consider these scenarios:
A sailor falls overboard into the swirling, stormy sea. His shipmates have their eye on him as they make preparations to recover him. In a shrill voice, muffled by the storm, he cries out to them, “Save me!” If they are not able to get to him in time, he will be regarded “lost at sea”.
A vibrant young tennis star is involved in a terrible car accident which crushes her right arm. Once at the hospital—things are looking grim—she musters a question for the surgeon amidst sobs mixed with pain and fear: “Can you save my arm, Doctor?” If the skilled medic is unable to perform such a medical miracle, she will lose her limb.
A wealthy woman is taken hostage. To spare her life, her captors demand a million dollars for her return. The cash is delivered to the drop site, and the relieved woman is set free.
An evil enemy is striking fear into the hearts of many and wreaking havoc on a certain people. Troops are sent in, the enemy is put down, victory is clear, and life returns to ‘the way it is supposed to be.’
Salvation is rescue, healing, ransom, and victory reflecting equally together [editor, please leave italics] what it is ‘to be saved’. The rescued man is saved. The tennis star’s life is saved. The hostage’s life is saved. The victory in and of itself is a salvation. These are all facets—the carefully fashioned sides—of a single diamond called salvation.
The man overboard is like St. Peter, called to walk to Jesus on the water. The wind and the tumultuous sea around him caused him to take his eyes off of his Lord, and to sink. “Save me!” he cried out, and stretching out his hand to raise him up, Jesus saved him.
The maimed tennis star is like the crippled man who was healed by St. Peter. “’I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.” Later, Peter and John were questioned about the means by which this man was saved (most English translations say ‘healed’ but the verb is ‘saved’). The means was a person: Jesus.
The hostage is like any one of us held captive in sin and death. We are bound up, and a ransom is necessary for our release. Jesus paid the ransom, saving us. But we must be very careful! We are not tied up by God, who made us Himself and loves us. Jesus did not pay off His Father by His own death—to assuage the “wrath of a justly angry God”. Nor is the Devil paid. To offer money to him would be to give him power equal to God, and we are not dualists. Rather, the ransom is paid to death itself. Our self-inflicted wound (running away from God) results in death. God died to release us from it. He beat death to save us from its eternal grasp.
The evil enemy in the fourth scenario is death. Death strikes fear into the hearts of men and women. No one is spared physical death, but Orthodox Christians believe that we are saved from the finality of eternal death, singing our belief about Jesus’ victory, “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.” St. John Chrysostom said this another way—in his homily which is preached in every Orthodox Church in the world on Pascha (Easter). “Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see…Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!”
Salvation is the fullness of life. It is sanity, health, communion with God. It is a return from rock bottom to the sure foundation made of stone. It is a rescue from eternal death. It is a restoration, in fact, of all creation, a renewal of the whole cosmos. Are we, can we be, saved in a particular moment? Surely! But it must be this moment…because this moment is the only one I have. I am not living five minutes ago or five days ago or five years ago. I am living in what some call the eternal now. Salvation, like life, is at once a process and a moment.
Timothy Ware, perhaps the most well-known Orthodox writers in the world (he wrote The Orthodox Church, one of the Penguin Classics), was once asked, “Are you saved.” His answer is the only one we can give, if we take salvation in the fullest, most ancient Christian way as I have described. His answer, “I was saved. I am saved. I am being saved.” Are you?
Fr. John Parker is Priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in the I’On community of Mt. Pleasant. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
By Fr. John Parker+
Author's note: This is the unedited version of my article published in the Post and Courier on SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2006 entitled, "For Christians, salvation has many facets"]
When an Orthodox Christian is asked the question, “Are you saved?” we don’t exactly know how to answer. It isn’t that we don’t know Jesus Christ; we’ve known Him from the beginning. It isn’t that we have a lack of understanding about salvation—history and theology books are filled with our teaching on these matters. We don’t know exactly how to answer because it is not a question with which we are familiar. In fact, we would say that the question raises a deeper question: What is salvation?
Consider these scenarios:
A sailor falls overboard into the swirling, stormy sea. His shipmates have their eye on him as they make preparations to recover him. In a shrill voice, muffled by the storm, he cries out to them, “Save me!” If they are not able to get to him in time, he will be regarded “lost at sea”.
A vibrant young tennis star is involved in a terrible car accident which crushes her right arm. Once at the hospital—things are looking grim—she musters a question for the surgeon amidst sobs mixed with pain and fear: “Can you save my arm, Doctor?” If the skilled medic is unable to perform such a medical miracle, she will lose her limb.
A wealthy woman is taken hostage. To spare her life, her captors demand a million dollars for her return. The cash is delivered to the drop site, and the relieved woman is set free.
An evil enemy is striking fear into the hearts of many and wreaking havoc on a certain people. Troops are sent in, the enemy is put down, victory is clear, and life returns to ‘the way it is supposed to be.’
Salvation is rescue, healing, ransom, and victory reflecting equally together [editor, please leave italics] what it is ‘to be saved’. The rescued man is saved. The tennis star’s life is saved. The hostage’s life is saved. The victory in and of itself is a salvation. These are all facets—the carefully fashioned sides—of a single diamond called salvation.
The man overboard is like St. Peter, called to walk to Jesus on the water. The wind and the tumultuous sea around him caused him to take his eyes off of his Lord, and to sink. “Save me!” he cried out, and stretching out his hand to raise him up, Jesus saved him.
The maimed tennis star is like the crippled man who was healed by St. Peter. “’I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.” Later, Peter and John were questioned about the means by which this man was saved (most English translations say ‘healed’ but the verb is ‘saved’). The means was a person: Jesus.
The hostage is like any one of us held captive in sin and death. We are bound up, and a ransom is necessary for our release. Jesus paid the ransom, saving us. But we must be very careful! We are not tied up by God, who made us Himself and loves us. Jesus did not pay off His Father by His own death—to assuage the “wrath of a justly angry God”. Nor is the Devil paid. To offer money to him would be to give him power equal to God, and we are not dualists. Rather, the ransom is paid to death itself. Our self-inflicted wound (running away from God) results in death. God died to release us from it. He beat death to save us from its eternal grasp.
The evil enemy in the fourth scenario is death. Death strikes fear into the hearts of men and women. No one is spared physical death, but Orthodox Christians believe that we are saved from the finality of eternal death, singing our belief about Jesus’ victory, “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.” St. John Chrysostom said this another way—in his homily which is preached in every Orthodox Church in the world on Pascha (Easter). “Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see…Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!”
Salvation is the fullness of life. It is sanity, health, communion with God. It is a return from rock bottom to the sure foundation made of stone. It is a rescue from eternal death. It is a restoration, in fact, of all creation, a renewal of the whole cosmos. Are we, can we be, saved in a particular moment? Surely! But it must be this moment…because this moment is the only one I have. I am not living five minutes ago or five days ago or five years ago. I am living in what some call the eternal now. Salvation, like life, is at once a process and a moment.
Timothy Ware, perhaps the most well-known Orthodox writers in the world (he wrote The Orthodox Church, one of the Penguin Classics), was once asked, “Are you saved.” His answer is the only one we can give, if we take salvation in the fullest, most ancient Christian way as I have described. His answer, “I was saved. I am saved. I am being saved.” Are you?
Fr. John Parker is Priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in the I’On community of Mt. Pleasant. He can be reached at frjohn@ocacharleston.org or by phone at 843-881-5010.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Study confirms pastor's mind on same-sex issues
Published as "Same-sex claims contradict Bible" in the Post and Courier here: http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/default_pf.aspx?NEWSID=113235
Like Jack Rogers [“Study changes pastor’s mind on same-sex marriage”, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2006], I have been an evangelical all my life, and I too, have dedicated my career to serving the Church: first as a volunteer, then as a youth pastor, as an Episcopal priest, and finally as an Orthodox Priest. Pastor Rogers has written a book on homosexuality, and so have I, for what it is worth—in the form of a thesis for my MTh.
Like Pastor Rogers, I too have reflexively opposed same-sex issues of all sorts. He noted, “It is just what I thought good Christians were supposed to do.” (That is, be opposed to these relationships and their extrapolations.) He changed his mind after serving on an investigative committee; but my studies have led me to embrace what Christians have always believed—in this case, that marriage is divinely ordained only between one man and one woman, and that any sexual activity outside of the bonds of marriage is sinful.
In fact, I learned that the whole task of a Christian is to believe what has always been believed. This is true about each facet of the faith, everything from who Jesus is to how a Christian is to act and behave in response to that claim. And not statically or in some dusty, stuffy, doctrinaire, or fundamentalist way, but rather by submitting myself to the “faith once for all delivered to the saints”. What I believe is consistent with 2000 years of Christian teaching and is therefore congruent with the teachings of Jesus Christ, who is “the same yesterday and today and forever.”
After studying the Scriptures in his committee, Pastor Rogers ‘discovered’ that there is more than one way to interpret them. We must say that the battle over any topic can never be left to bowshots of proof-texting from one book of the Bible or another. Even Martin Luther, probably with reference to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, said, “Even the devil can quote scriptures to his advantage.” We must read the Bible with the whole in view.
While there have been differing levels of interpretation (literal, allegorical, spiritual, etc.) since the beginning, his ‘discovery’ is only possible if the task of Christianity is not as I have described it above. But since the task of the Christian is to pass on what has always been the faith, then any investigation into any topic must start with, “What has the Church always taught about this?” and “In light of the whole Biblical corpus, what do we believe?” In fact, there are teachings on homosexual activity from the earliest days of Christianity as well as sermons from 1600 years ago, available in English on the shelves of the Charleston County Library (not to mention online).
Christians also profess that the whole canon of Scripture is about Jesus Christ. Writing about the so-called “eight passages which speak about homosexuality”, Rogers notes, “None of these texts is about Jesus, nor do they include any of his words.” How could it be that the ‘proper way’ (as he describes it) to interpret the Bible, does not take for granted that the whole Bible is about Jesus? St. Augustine is credited with this little bumper sticker: “The New is in the Old contained; the Old is by the New explained.” To be sure, we must be very careful in our interpretations of the Old Testament, but even Jesus himself, when on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets…interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Christians from the beginning have never believed that the only “Scriptures” are those words attributed directly to the lips of our Lord.
As a side note, Pastor Rogers made the following false claim: “A focus on the supposed homosexual aspect of the Sodom story only comes later in nonbiblical literature.” In addition to 2 Peter 2, Jude speaks directly to this aspect in his epistle in the canonical New Testament. “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” Again, this needs to be interpreted, and carefully, but the suggestion that the sins of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were solely acts of inhospitality—and not mentioned in any other way in the Bible—is not accurate—and let’s not forget the very ancient (back through Latin and Greek to Hebrew) cognate, “sodomy”, which does not mean “inhospitable.”
When he says that the lens through which we interpret the Bible is the lens of Jesus, he shares the Orthodox approach to the Scriptures. But his own clarification of this simple point betrays a deeply flawed presupposition. He says, in other words, “we are to read the Bible through the lens of Jesus' redeeming life and ministry”. This is misleading. We, rather, are to read the Bible through the lens of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no Christianity without the Cross and Resurrection.
To talk about the ‘redeeming life and ministry of Jesus’ is to talk about ‘love’ without defining it. The Biblical definition of love is humble, self-denying crucifixion, and not a warm fuzzy feeling I get when you walk into the room. To talk about a “redeeming life and ministry” is to talk about life as if there is no sin. It is to quote Jesus speaking to the woman caught in adultery saying, “Nor do I condemn you;” without completing the quotation, “Go and sin no more.”
Having (at least attempted to) address Pastor Rogers’ claims point by point, does my demonstration of the Orthodox Christian Faith matter? No and yes.
No, if we have predetermined that gay marriage is the illumined way. That is, no, if we bring the answer to the question before the question is asked. No, if as Christians, we bring “my experience” to the table and demand that “my experience” somehow counts more than God’s own self-revelation to mankind and more than the collective experience of millennia of Christians. In short, no, if we are self-centered and prideful.
But yes if, first of all, we want to evaluate ‘all the evidence’ in clarity and in truth. Yes, in fact, if we are interested not in ‘my wants and desires’ but rather in what is ‘good, right, true, and holy,’ none of which, we believe as Christians, can be defined apart from the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In short, yes, if we are willing to be humble and humbled, and to be seekers of the Truth rather than demanders of a way.
To top it all off, we must put into context this incredible struggle. Not everyone who is ‘in favor’ of legitimizing gay relationships is militant about it. In fact, there are surely countless scores of folks who wrestle with this at a deeply profound and personal level which neither you, dear reader, nor I may ever know or comprehend. This does not ‘excuse the sin’ but it roots the matter in Gospel terms. Remember, the same Lord Jesus who said, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” also said, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” and was foreshadowed in Isaiah as one who would neither snuff out a dimly burning wick nor break a damaged reed.
Because of the Christian faith and the way it is handed down, we simply cannot call homosexual acts anything other than sin. Same-sex attractions, as one of my professors puts it, “are a cross to be borne, and not a gift to be celebrated”. And still, Christians are obliged to show mercy and compassion to everyone, which, as this same priest has taught me, “would certainly include defending the civil rights --- like equality before the law, equal housing opportunities, visitation rights and privileges to people in hospitals and institutions, loving care for children, and unconditional condemnations of ‘gay-bashing’ in any form.”
Finally, as Christians, we cannot agree with the questionable conclusions of the various medical associations which report that “gay and lesbian parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide healthy and supportive environments for their children”. But how many of us in this debate squash the rebellion as twice or thrice married men or women? And if not, then as adulterers or as fornicators—sleeping around outside of marriage? Again, the same Lord who said, “go and sin no more” also said,” first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”
Lord, have mercy.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Mt. Pleasant. He can be reached at 843-881-5010 or at frjohn@ocacharleston.org.
Like Jack Rogers [“Study changes pastor’s mind on same-sex marriage”, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2006], I have been an evangelical all my life, and I too, have dedicated my career to serving the Church: first as a volunteer, then as a youth pastor, as an Episcopal priest, and finally as an Orthodox Priest. Pastor Rogers has written a book on homosexuality, and so have I, for what it is worth—in the form of a thesis for my MTh.
Like Pastor Rogers, I too have reflexively opposed same-sex issues of all sorts. He noted, “It is just what I thought good Christians were supposed to do.” (That is, be opposed to these relationships and their extrapolations.) He changed his mind after serving on an investigative committee; but my studies have led me to embrace what Christians have always believed—in this case, that marriage is divinely ordained only between one man and one woman, and that any sexual activity outside of the bonds of marriage is sinful.
In fact, I learned that the whole task of a Christian is to believe what has always been believed. This is true about each facet of the faith, everything from who Jesus is to how a Christian is to act and behave in response to that claim. And not statically or in some dusty, stuffy, doctrinaire, or fundamentalist way, but rather by submitting myself to the “faith once for all delivered to the saints”. What I believe is consistent with 2000 years of Christian teaching and is therefore congruent with the teachings of Jesus Christ, who is “the same yesterday and today and forever.”
After studying the Scriptures in his committee, Pastor Rogers ‘discovered’ that there is more than one way to interpret them. We must say that the battle over any topic can never be left to bowshots of proof-texting from one book of the Bible or another. Even Martin Luther, probably with reference to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, said, “Even the devil can quote scriptures to his advantage.” We must read the Bible with the whole in view.
While there have been differing levels of interpretation (literal, allegorical, spiritual, etc.) since the beginning, his ‘discovery’ is only possible if the task of Christianity is not as I have described it above. But since the task of the Christian is to pass on what has always been the faith, then any investigation into any topic must start with, “What has the Church always taught about this?” and “In light of the whole Biblical corpus, what do we believe?” In fact, there are teachings on homosexual activity from the earliest days of Christianity as well as sermons from 1600 years ago, available in English on the shelves of the Charleston County Library (not to mention online).
Christians also profess that the whole canon of Scripture is about Jesus Christ. Writing about the so-called “eight passages which speak about homosexuality”, Rogers notes, “None of these texts is about Jesus, nor do they include any of his words.” How could it be that the ‘proper way’ (as he describes it) to interpret the Bible, does not take for granted that the whole Bible is about Jesus? St. Augustine is credited with this little bumper sticker: “The New is in the Old contained; the Old is by the New explained.” To be sure, we must be very careful in our interpretations of the Old Testament, but even Jesus himself, when on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets…interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Christians from the beginning have never believed that the only “Scriptures” are those words attributed directly to the lips of our Lord.
As a side note, Pastor Rogers made the following false claim: “A focus on the supposed homosexual aspect of the Sodom story only comes later in nonbiblical literature.” In addition to 2 Peter 2, Jude speaks directly to this aspect in his epistle in the canonical New Testament. “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” Again, this needs to be interpreted, and carefully, but the suggestion that the sins of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were solely acts of inhospitality—and not mentioned in any other way in the Bible—is not accurate—and let’s not forget the very ancient (back through Latin and Greek to Hebrew) cognate, “sodomy”, which does not mean “inhospitable.”
When he says that the lens through which we interpret the Bible is the lens of Jesus, he shares the Orthodox approach to the Scriptures. But his own clarification of this simple point betrays a deeply flawed presupposition. He says, in other words, “we are to read the Bible through the lens of Jesus' redeeming life and ministry”. This is misleading. We, rather, are to read the Bible through the lens of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no Christianity without the Cross and Resurrection.
To talk about the ‘redeeming life and ministry of Jesus’ is to talk about ‘love’ without defining it. The Biblical definition of love is humble, self-denying crucifixion, and not a warm fuzzy feeling I get when you walk into the room. To talk about a “redeeming life and ministry” is to talk about life as if there is no sin. It is to quote Jesus speaking to the woman caught in adultery saying, “Nor do I condemn you;” without completing the quotation, “Go and sin no more.”
Having (at least attempted to) address Pastor Rogers’ claims point by point, does my demonstration of the Orthodox Christian Faith matter? No and yes.
No, if we have predetermined that gay marriage is the illumined way. That is, no, if we bring the answer to the question before the question is asked. No, if as Christians, we bring “my experience” to the table and demand that “my experience” somehow counts more than God’s own self-revelation to mankind and more than the collective experience of millennia of Christians. In short, no, if we are self-centered and prideful.
But yes if, first of all, we want to evaluate ‘all the evidence’ in clarity and in truth. Yes, in fact, if we are interested not in ‘my wants and desires’ but rather in what is ‘good, right, true, and holy,’ none of which, we believe as Christians, can be defined apart from the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In short, yes, if we are willing to be humble and humbled, and to be seekers of the Truth rather than demanders of a way.
To top it all off, we must put into context this incredible struggle. Not everyone who is ‘in favor’ of legitimizing gay relationships is militant about it. In fact, there are surely countless scores of folks who wrestle with this at a deeply profound and personal level which neither you, dear reader, nor I may ever know or comprehend. This does not ‘excuse the sin’ but it roots the matter in Gospel terms. Remember, the same Lord Jesus who said, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” also said, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” and was foreshadowed in Isaiah as one who would neither snuff out a dimly burning wick nor break a damaged reed.
Because of the Christian faith and the way it is handed down, we simply cannot call homosexual acts anything other than sin. Same-sex attractions, as one of my professors puts it, “are a cross to be borne, and not a gift to be celebrated”. And still, Christians are obliged to show mercy and compassion to everyone, which, as this same priest has taught me, “would certainly include defending the civil rights --- like equality before the law, equal housing opportunities, visitation rights and privileges to people in hospitals and institutions, loving care for children, and unconditional condemnations of ‘gay-bashing’ in any form.”
Finally, as Christians, we cannot agree with the questionable conclusions of the various medical associations which report that “gay and lesbian parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide healthy and supportive environments for their children”. But how many of us in this debate squash the rebellion as twice or thrice married men or women? And if not, then as adulterers or as fornicators—sleeping around outside of marriage? Again, the same Lord who said, “go and sin no more” also said,” first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”
Lord, have mercy.
Fr. John Parker is priest-in-charge of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Mt. Pleasant. He can be reached at 843-881-5010 or at frjohn@ocacharleston.org.
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