Cross: half way through Great Lent. Meant as an encouragement, a rallying point planted in the midst of the battle to gather and reinvigorate the troops.
What is virtue? What does it take to be virtuous? What does it take to be good?
The Yankee (and Cossack) Ideal: Individual QualitiesSelf-reliance. Independence. Hard work. Frugality. Stoicism in the face of adversity. Having enough to help out family and friends in need. We have communities based on these ideals. They are resilient. Because their members are tough, they can weather difficult times. But are they necessarily good? Are they godly? Are they Christian?
The Christian Ideal: Social QualitiesI am going to exaggerate this a bit, but Yankee virtues are primarily individual virtues. They contribute to the community because the frugality, hard work, and generosity of each individual allows him/her to contribute to it and to those who are struggling. I think this is where most of us are at or trying to get to. When we say that we are trying to be good, we mean that we try to have enough extra time, money, and patience to help others. For instance, a good son will work to arrange things so that he has enough time and money to care for his invalid parents; good parents will try to arrange their budget so that they have enough money to help send their children to good schools; a good parishioners will sacrifice their free time and money to support the material needs of their parish. Sometimes this means children, parents, and parishioners do without things they would really like. They sacrifice.
Using this scale, we measure how good we are based on our ability to support the things we really care about. Seen in this way, “being good” is not about how much stuff we have or how big our houses are, but on whether we have worked hard enough, been frugal enough, and been successful enough to have surplus time and money to sacrifice in support of family, friends, and community. And while there is a lot to be said about this kind of virtue, for instance, it is certainly better than working hard and making sacrifices to support a luxurious lifestyle or dangerous addictions, is it really good? Is it really holy? Is it really the kind of attitude – and action – that makes for godly people and communities?
This is the Call: Give Up Everything You Hold Dear, and Follow Christ Hard work is important. Frugality is important. But if we think that giving our spare time and money in service of others is the path to holiness, then we have written our own Gospel, because that is not what Christ told us it would take. The rich young ruler who followed the Jewish Law must have tithed everything he had. But Christ did not praise him for his great support of the temple and the poor – even though his contributions must have been quite large (in the modern vernacular, a rich person making six figures would be tithing more than $800 a month). He was told that if he really wanted to be good, he needed to give up all that he had and follow Christ (St. Matthew 19:16-29; St. Mark 10:17-30; St. Luke 10:25-28). This is something that Christ repeated again and again: being good – being a Christian – is not about how we spend our free time and money, but about whether we have completely offered our lives – to include everything we are and everything we have – to Him (which is to say toward the service of others). This message is reaffirmed in today’s Gospel: we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. If you have already dedicated yourself to the application of the Yankee virtues, then your day-to-day routine (and your budget) may not end up changing much. In that case, denying yourself to follow Christ may mean doing much the same as what you have been doing. But even so, the spirit would be different. True Christian virtue is not about having enough of ourselves and our treasures to give to worthy causes, but about giving ourselves completely over to The Way and losing ourselves in love. Every moment, every thought, every penny directed towards a single purpose. Were we to do this, the transformation in us and in our communities would be nothing short of miraculous.
Conclusion:
Trust God. Give away everything you “own”, take up the Cross, and follow Him. This is the way to virtue, and it the Way to perfection. For us, for our families, for our parish, and for the world.
