OrthoAnalyika Shownotes: 14 March 2010
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Homily on the Sunday of St. John of the Ladder
Do you want joy? Do you want peace? Do you want an end to anxiety? An end to despair? An end to boredom and loneliness?
Introduction: The need to get serious
You may think that these questions are rhetorical – they are not (see, for example, St. John 5:6 “Do you want to be made well?”). If you want these things, then you cannot wait for them to happen on their own: you have to work for them. It will not always be easy, but if you are not willing to work for joy and peace, and an end to anxiety, despair, boredom, and loneliness, then what did you mean when you said you “wanted them”? Perhaps you want them in the sense of idle desire or entitlement that people want “good careers” but have no dedication to their craft; or that people want “happy families” but spend no time loving (or learning to love) their spouses, children, siblings, or parents. You want them in the same sense that people want “health” but continue to smoke, binge drink, do drugs, eat poorly, and refuse to exercise. That is to say, you would prefer a life of joy and peace … as long as it came like a jackpot or lottery win and did not require that you give up any of your addictions or move out of your comfort zone.
If this is the case, then you do not really want joy and peace. You do not really want an end to anxiety, despair, boredom, and loneliness. If this is the case, then religion – and even our own Orthodoxy – will be for you no more than an opiate, helping you to deal with the effects of your bad decisions and failure to commit. God does not want you to suffer, so He may treat you in this way if it is the only treatment you will accept; but He doesn’t really want to just help you mask your symptoms, He wants to heal your disease.
But even being serious is not enough!
Most, if not all of you, are serious in your pursuit of joy and peace. Some of you may even consider yourselves successful. But the Christian ascetic tradition – as typified by St. John of the Ladder – forces us to reconsider our lives and whether we are really going about things in the right way. A man may want to get well, but if he takes the wrong medicine, he could end up getting worse. Orthodoxy offers the right treatment for that which ails us – it offers the sure Path to joy, peace, and perfection.
But not all treatments are easy, and even the best treatment cannot cure us if we do not commit to following it through. The disciples were given the power to cast out demons – in fact, it is within the power and calling of every Christian to repel these wicked parasites – and they were often successful (e.g. St. Luke 10: 17; Acts 8:7; 5:16; 16: 18; 19: 11-12). But just as lifting heavy objects requires strength and strength can only be built up through effort, so it is with this: today we hear about a demon that resisted the disciples; one that could only be cast out with much “prayer and fasting”.
It’s Not Just about You… and it won’t be easy
When you seek peace and joy, you are not just going against the culture of a fallen world, nor are you simply correcting habits that have developed in conformity to the fallen world: as St. Paul says (Ephesians 6:12); “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” How do you protect yourself against these enemies of joy? How can you keep selfish and mean-spirited enemies from destroying your peace?
As I said at the beginning, our teachers and witnesses all tell us that first we must take this effort seriously. We must recognize that the goal we seek is worth effort and sacrifice. But again, simple intention is not enough, nor is great effort: intention and effort must be properly applied. This, as we learn in physics, is the difference between strength and power: power is strength, properly applied. God doesn’t just want you to be strong and work hard; He wants you to be powerful and live well.
The First Way: The American Dream
For those who are serious about working towards peace and joy, there is one very common error; a temptation that looks right, but can’t really deliver the goods. This is the temptation to try and build up protections that will shield us from all the things that might do us harm. Just as the king surrounded with enemies would build up walls to protect against assaults and store up provisions as insurance against sieges and droughts, so too are we tempted to shut ourselves off from mean people and to hoard money so that we can survive hard times. Parables like the “three little pigs” teach us from childhood how important it is to do this well, and we admire people who have been able to isolate themselves from danger and enjoy the fruits of their labor. This is the American Dream.
The spiritually-minded person does these things and adds others; adding the protection of devoted friends to the “castle walls” and a “storehouse” of social capital in the form of “good deeds” and unreturned favors (this being the fallen understanding of charity) to the grain set aside for when times get rough.
But that’s not enough, because the enemy knows how to destroy and sneak through walls; stored grain is susceptible to theft, poison, and corruption; money can be stolen or lost; and the “good will” of others can be lost to libel and apathy. Remember our Lord’s words (St. Matthew 6: 19-20): “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal”.
You may find some peace and joy by effectively pursuing “The American Dream”, but it will last only as long as the grain lasts and the walls hold up. Why would you want your peace and joy to be dependent on things that cannot be trusted? Why would you want to put your faith in something so fickle as good fortune? Wouldn’t it be better to develop a source of peace and joy that is permanent and reliable? Then stop laying up “treasures upon earth” for … as Christ goes on to say in that same lesson; “where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
The Right Way: the ascetic struggle towards perfection
The right way is to learn to live in such a way that evil has no effect on us. This won’t be easy. Our “heart” is full of selfishness. Even our acts that seem “good” are usually done to satisfy our selves (e.g. why else would churches need to reward donations with recognition, or would we expect that others appreciate our love for them?). We need to train our heats to truly love God and our neighbors as ourselves (St. Mark 12 28-31) if we want to move our hearts from selfishness to heaven (St. Matthew 6: 20-21).
Until then, every vice and bad habit that we have will thwart our joy. Oh sure, they may work with our body chemistry to create some passing happiness or euphoria, but it will be gone as soon as the high is over. And worse, vices and bad habits leave us open for manipulation. Remember, the goal is to become immune to the machinations and whims of outside forces; to be safe from the manipulation of mean people and fallen angels. Our vices are like hooks that these forces can tie strings to, then force us to dance around the stage like some kind of marionette. Do we really want to be the puppet of people we do not trust? Of people that do not love us? Of course not. So we must cut the strings and remove those hooks. We must file down every bump and knob that would allow someone to grab onto and control us.
Until we do this, we have effectively surrendered our free will and our humanity to the principalities and powers of darkness.
So how do we regain control over our lives, our free will, and our humanity? How do we avoid the temptations that cause us to dance with the devil? It’s no secret. It’s the Orthodox life. Fasting, prayer, secret charity, simplicity. You know, the things we are supposed to have rededicated yourselves to during Great Lent. This Sunday of St. John of the Ladder isn’t just designed to remind us of the ascetic disciplines that will free us to love completely; it sits halfway through the Fast, prompting us to evaluate how we are doing thus far – and how prepared we will be for the coming Pascha of our Lord.
So I ask you: how are you doing? Are your pants a little loser? Do your prayers come a little easier? Do you find your attachment to this fallen world a little weaker? Does joy linger longer? Is your peace more persistent?
If so, Glory to God! Keep up the good work. If not, then now is the time to get serious. Give up your addiction to vice and put your heart in heaven. With much prayer and fasting, even the most difficult demons can be cast out.
Mail:
More interesting noises in church. My own interactions with things unseen. What about dreams?
News:
“The Order” all over again? Top Roman Exorcist says that the devil is in the Vatican.
St. George Orthodox Military Association podcast.
Decadence at the OrthoAnalytika offices.
A talk on the Political Economy of Orthodoxy (next week?)
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Notes from a talk on “Spiritual Warfare” that Fr. Anthony gave for “Mission Night” on Friday evening 3/5 at St. Andrew’s in Boston.
The Story of George.
If it isn’t real… for everyone… then what is the point?
Last Sunday I gave a talk where I compared Spirituality to the body, to finances, and to relationships (review).
My conclusion? That we know what is healthy, but that we chose to do things that hurt us (body: drugs, bad food, no exercise; finances: debt, no savings, buy things we don’t need; relationships: extramarital sex, pornography; spirituality: no prayer, no preparation, idolatry, flirting with demons, ignoring angels).
But perhaps I was too hasty. Maybe we just don’t know the sorts of behaviors that lead to peace, joy, and happiness. Maybe we don’t understand the consequences of demon worship, apathy, and pride. Maybe we don’t understand what love is.
A Defense of the Truth of Orthodoxy – and the need to submit to it
Tonight I will share the teachings of our Church on these things. Please do not confuse them for pious opinions, to be compared with others as one might compare restaurants or items at a buffet.
The Church teaches these things because they are true. Opinions come and go, but the Truth remains. In His mercy, God has worked through prophets, saints, Ecumenical Councils, poets to reveal this Truth in its fullest form in Holy Orthodoxy.
The Holy Spirit moves where He wills, and the angels work to draw all men to the Truth – so you will find pieces of the Truth elsewhere. But you know its quality not based on your conscience, not based on how it compares to the morality of the world, not based on how many people believe it, and not (heaven forbid) based on whether you agree with it or not . The rightness of all things is evaluated based on how True it is – and because this Truth is revealed in its fullness here (i.e. in the Orthodox Church) it is evaluated on what the Church knows and teaches.
You can submit to the teachings of other things – political parties, your friends, your own feelings, the spirit of the age – and sometimes you will be right. But when you are sick, you go to the best doctor you can afford because she knows the most and can best bring you to health; when you have legal problems, you go to the best lawyer you can afford because he is the one who understands the system the best and can get you the best judgment; why wouldn’t you do the same for your spiritual health? Only a fool does not trust the best doctors, and only a fool would not trust the Church.
So what is it that the Church teaches?
Created for unity and communion (like in Avatar); to share in perfect love.
This unity is broken by our sin.
Through Christ, we can become sinless. Through His Church, we can become perfect lovers. We can restore our relationships with each other, with God, and with all of creation. We can grow eternally as we move from one revelation of blessings to another; sharing in delight as we move “onward and upward”.
But this is all so theoretical – and we cannot become perfect through theories, but only through changing our lives so that we resonate with the perfection God offers to us. How can we resonate with the perfection? How can we tune ourselves to the perfect “harmony of the sphere’s”? What, exactly do we need to do? Let me give you three sets of teachings that have been revealed through Our Church. In this, I will be drawing primarily from the “mystical” tradition – the teachings of the Desert Fathers, the Philokalia, and what is broadly termed the “Athonite” approach to perfection.
First: admit that there is such a thing as “spiritual health” – that, like physical health some behaviors harm our health and that some behaviors help our health. Admit that your spiritual health is affected by others in your community; just as there are diseases (and health) in the community that can affect your physical health, so too can spiritual diseases (and health) in the community affect your own spiritual health; admit that, as is true with regard to directed threats to our physical well-being (whether through crime, terrorism, war, or simple malice), so it is with directed threats against our spiritual well- being: there really are people and spiritual forces that want to do us harm; and lastly, admit that, as in a well-ordered society like our own has people who see at as their duty to protect us from physical harm (and to heal us when protections fail), so to are there people and forces whose duty it is to protect us from spiritual harm (and to heal us when protections fail).
If you admit that the spiritual world is real – I mean every bit as real as the world you see with your eyes – then you have taken the first step towards health, security and joy. This is true because the supernatural is real, and it is inseparable from every other part of creation. Ignoring it is like ignoring the fundamentals of nutrition, virology, or physics: it’s just not an efficient and healthy way to live. Spirituality is not magic or fairy tales: it’s basic and simple, and as clear to the saints as night and day. And it can be clear to you, as well, because we are all called to and capable of becoming saints. In fact, that is the whole point.
But until then, we have to rely on their descriptions of how to improve our spiritual health, which leads me to the second and third sets of teachings that have been revealed through our Holy Orthodox Church.
This division is somewhat arbitrary – it is the nature of things that all things True and useful are inter-related. But in order to simplify my presentation, I would like to follow the basic method doctors use to help us improve our bodily health (at least this is what I was taught in basic first aid training… I actually failed out of pre-med… but the principle here is simple, straightforward and accurate). The first step is to stop hurting yourself with dangerous behavior (aka “stop the bleeding”), and the second is to begin healing yourself with healthy behavior. Another way to think of these two steps is to first stopping making things worse, and then start making things better. In spiritual terms, this means stop sinning and start loving.
Stop sinning. You know the list of temptations that must be resisted – if you need a refresher, our prayer books are a good place to start.
Pride, Greed, Adultery, Envy, Impulsiveness, Anger, Laziness
But I am much less interested in lists than I am in how to resist whatever temptations come along. You see, sin is not about breaking rules: God is not an overzealous policeman looking for an excuse to deny you unity. He is perfection itself, and those things that are not perfect have no place with Him. Forced proximity would be the “River of Fire” – burning the unworthy, but bringing comfort and joy to those who have “become through grace what He is by nature”. SO it is not about lists – it is about learning how to live without sin (and then, as we will discuss in a moment, to grow in grace).
[Fasting] The basic way to resist temptation is well known to you now, because we are in the midst of Great Lent. Fasting is such a useful method that the Church calls us to do it half the year! [describe how fasting works]. If you are not fasting (and if health prohibits fasting from food, then your spiritual father can suggest other ways), then you need to go back to step one: you are not taking your spiritual health seriously.
[Logosmoi] Fasting gives us the strength to resist temptation, but what is temptation? What is it that we are to resist? Let me tell you how many of our monastic saints describe it: there are thoughts that circulate and move into and out of the edges of our consciousness. Some are random and vary a great deal while some are well known and predictable; some are mundane and others fantastic; some poetic and others brutally wicked. Like flies, they surround us, distracting us from the task at hand.
Because they would pull us from the path of righteousness, these are temptations. It is not a sin to have such logosmoi surrounding us – it is simply a condition brought about from living in a fallen world. It is a sin to focus on them, to bring them from the edge of our consciousness into the center of our thoughts. When we do this, we have become distracted from our true purpose. Even if the logosmoi under consideration is benign, it is still a distraction. But because we are sinful, and because there are demons who know our weaknesses, many of the logosmoi that we bring into our hearts are bad.
These are the things that my friend George called “time bombs”: once we focus on them, there is a logical, automatic progression to sin. For example, if the logosmoi is sensual, the male brain that focuses on it will lead the body to release chemicals that will deepen and quicken the sinfulness. For women, the logosmoi and chemicals released are different, but they are no less susceptible.
The best way to defeat logosmoi is to never let them land in your attention. Fasting will help; but so will keeping your mind and heart busy doing something engaging. This is one of the reasons laziness is such a sin (and widescale unemployment so dangerous for society): idleness is the breeding ground for logosmoi.
The monks use piecework and psalmnody to keep their minds busy. We can do the same. When the assaults are especially strong, the work may need to be all the more engaging, and the prayers all the more fervent (to include crossings, bows, and prostrations). The Jesus Prayer – with a prayer rope – is a fantastic way to drive away persistent logosmoi. Any time our minds are idle, whether before we sleep, while we are driving, or while we are doing simple chores, we should fill our mind with the name of Jesus and with the Jesus Prayer.
If you are not driving away your temptations, then, again, you need to go back to step one, because you aren’t taking this seriously. And because you are not taking it seriously, you have no self-control; you are subject to every shiny thing that comes along, like will-o-the-wisps to pull you from the path of perfection. Anger and frustration are habits for people who are not engaging in this battle.
Because logosmoi are also generated by the people and events that surround us. Bringing them into our hearts does not allow us to respond to the world logically or rationally.
We need to get to a place where our happiness, joy, and peace are not disrupted by the actions of others or of this world. Fasting will help. Fighting logosmoi will help. But in order to get to this place, we need to learn to love.
[Complete eradication of pride and the desire to please ourselves.]
Start loving.
Now that we are avoiding sin, what do we do to live well? Sometimes the Church gives us specific rules, such as those found on page 390 of our prayer book:
Observe the ecclesiastical Holy Days.
Attend Church services on Sundays and Holy Days
Keep the fasts prescribed by the Church.
Confess our sins and receive the Holy Eucharist (Communion) at the very least once a year, during the Great Fast, but preferably a minimum of four times a year, during each of the Church’s fasting periods.
Abstain from holding marriage feasts or parties during days of fasting.
But those will seem kind of random if you do not understand the more basic guideline for living well that these rules are designed to help us follow. This basic guideline can be summed up as it is in our Gospel:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love. Now that we have removed the sources of division between us and God and between us and our neighbors, it is love that will actually bring us closer together, and in so doing, draw us towards perfection, peace, and joy.
We have to learn how to love. It is what makes union with perfection so enjoyable; it is what makes life worth living.
How do we do this? We cannot do it by defining it according to our own opinions. This is deadly. Because we and the culture that teaches us are sinful, our opinions on this are not to be trusted. Redefining love is as foolish as redefining physics or economics to our own opinions. Because there is a real world that operates according to real principles, you have to learn what they are, not just make up what you want them to be.
There is no better guide than scripture:
1 Corinthians 13
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
This is a high bar.
While there are obviously many dangerous perversions of love (e.g. romanticism, sensuality, addictions), most of what passes for even genuine love is actually selfishness: we act like we love people because it satisfies our version of what is right. It is really set up to feed our ego; whereas real love is completely kenotic and outside of ourselves.
Here is a good way to see if your love is genuine:
If your action is not appreciated (or is even denigrated), how do you react? If it drives you from your purpose, then you were not doing it for another – you were doing it for yourself and your love is not real.
If your love is conditional – on appreciation, reciprocation, good behavior, or anything else – then it is not real.
If your love cannot forgive, then it is not real.
If you are brought to anger, or impatience in your dealings with others, then your love is not real.
If you cannot evaluate another person or a situation rationally and objectively, then your love is not real.
If you are not willing to suffer everything for even the worst of your enemies (e.g. insults from them, the scorn of your “friends”, “wasted time”), then your love is not real.
The only way to develop this kind of love is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The only way to develop this kind of love is by keeping your heart as a vessel and temple of the Holy Spirit. The only way to live within this kind of love is through a life lived within the Source of Love.
In Conclusion
Stop the bleeding: confess your sins, repent, then sin no more. Keep your life strong in Christ through regular prayer, Confession, and Communion. If you do this, not only will you find peace and joy, you will become a source of peace and joy to everyone around you. The spiritual world is real, but by living a sinless life dedicated to a life of love, it will become a blessing to you and you to all of creation.
