More from Alexander Schmemann:
"What is fasting for us Christians? It is our entrance and participation in that experience of Christ Himself by which He liberates us from the total depndence on food, matter, and the world. By no means is our liberation a full one. Living still in the fallen world, in the world of the Old Adam, being part of it, we still depend on food. But just as our death - through which we still must pass - has become by virtue of Christ's Death a passage into life, the food we eat and the life it sustains can be life in God and for God. Part of our food has already become "food of immortality" - the Body and Blood of Christ Himself. But even the daily bread we receive from God can be in this life and in this world that which strengthens us, our communion with God, rather than that which separates us from God. Yet it is only fasting that can perform that transformation, giving us the existential proof that our dependence on food and matter is not total, not absolute, that united to prayer, grace, and adoration, it can itself be spiritual.
"All this means that deeply understood, fasting is the only means by which man recovers his true spiritual nature. It is not a theoretical but truly a practical challenge to the great Liar who managed to convince us that we depend on bread alone and built all human knowledge, science, and existence on that lie. Fasting is a denunciation of that lie and also the proof that it is a lie. It is highly significant that it was while fasting that Christ met Satan and that He said later that Satan cannot be overcome 'but by fasting and prayer.' Fasting is the real fight against the Devil because it is the challenge to that one all-embracing law which makes him the 'Prince of this world.' Yet if one is hungry and then discovers that he can truly be independent of that hunger, not destroyed by it but just on the contrary, can transform it into the source of spiritual power and victory, then nothing remains of that great lie in which we have been living since Adam.
(p. 96)
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Lent and Fasting 3
from Alexander Schmemann's book "The Great Lent" - this is good stuff. This is similar in concept to John Milton's "Paradise Regained" which is basically Irenaeus' theory of "recapitulation" - that Jesus was representative Adam (and Israel) and faithfully lived out and won back through his life, death and resurrection all God's promises for a new humanity.
"Christ is the New Adam. He comes to repair the damage inflicted on life by Adam, to restore man to true life, and thus He also begins with fasting 'When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He became hungry' (Matt. 4:2). Hunger is that state in which we realize our dependence on something else - when we urgently and essentially need food - showing thus that we have no life in ourselves. It is that limit beyond which I either die from starvation or, having satisfied my body, have again the impression of being alive. It is, in other words, the time when we face the ultimate question: on what does my life depend? And, since the question is not an academic one but is felt with my entire body, it is also the time of temptation. Satan came to Adam in Paradise; he came to Christ in the desert. He came to two hungry men and said: eat, for your hunger is the proof that you depend entirely on food, that your life is in food. And Adam believed and ate; but Christ rejected that temptation and said: man shall not live by bread alone but by God. He refused to accept that cosmic lie which Satan imposed on the world, making that lie a self-evident truth not even debated any more, the foundation of our entire world view, of science, medicine, and perhaps even of religion. By doing this, Christ restored that relationship between food, life, and God which Adam broke, and which we still break every day." (pp. 95-96)
"Christ is the New Adam. He comes to repair the damage inflicted on life by Adam, to restore man to true life, and thus He also begins with fasting 'When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He became hungry' (Matt. 4:2). Hunger is that state in which we realize our dependence on something else - when we urgently and essentially need food - showing thus that we have no life in ourselves. It is that limit beyond which I either die from starvation or, having satisfied my body, have again the impression of being alive. It is, in other words, the time when we face the ultimate question: on what does my life depend? And, since the question is not an academic one but is felt with my entire body, it is also the time of temptation. Satan came to Adam in Paradise; he came to Christ in the desert. He came to two hungry men and said: eat, for your hunger is the proof that you depend entirely on food, that your life is in food. And Adam believed and ate; but Christ rejected that temptation and said: man shall not live by bread alone but by God. He refused to accept that cosmic lie which Satan imposed on the world, making that lie a self-evident truth not even debated any more, the foundation of our entire world view, of science, medicine, and perhaps even of religion. By doing this, Christ restored that relationship between food, life, and God which Adam broke, and which we still break every day." (pp. 95-96)
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Lent and Fasting 2
Here's the next paragraph from this great section on fasting by Alexander Schmemann (italics are his):
"In the Orthodox teaching, sin is not only the transgression of a rule leading to punishment; it is always a mutilation of life given to us by God. It is for this reason that the story of the original sin is presented us as act of eating. For food is means of life; it is that which keeps us alive. But here lies the whole question: what does it mean to be alive and what does 'life' mean? For us today this term has a primarily biological meaning: life is precisely that which entirely depends on food, and more generally, on the physical world. But for the Holy Scripture and for Christian Tradition, this life 'by bread alone' is identified with death because it is mortal life, because death is a principle always at work in it. God, we are told, 'created no death.' He is the Giver of Life. How then did life become mortal? Why is death and death alone the only absolute condition of that which exists? The Church answers: because man rejected life as it was offered and given to him by God and preferred a life depending not on God alone but on 'bread alone.' Not only did he disobey God for which he was punished; he changed the very relationship between himself and the world. To be sure, the world was given to him by God as 'food' - as means of life; yet life was meant to communion with God; it had not only its end but its full content in Him. 'In Him was Life and the Life was the light of man.' The world and food were thus created as means of communion with God, and only if accepted for God's sake were to give life. In itself food has no life and cannot give life. Only God has Life and is Life. In food itself God - and not calories - was the principle of life. Thus to eat, to be alive, to know God and be in communion with Him were one and the same thing. The unfathomable tragedy of Adam is that he ate for its own sake. More than that, he ate 'apart' from God in order to be independent of Him. And if he did it, it is because he believed that food had life in itself and that he, by partaking of that food, could be like God, i.e., have life in himself. To put it very simply: he believed in food, whereas the only object of belief, of faith, of dependence is God and God alone. World, food, became his gods, the sources and principles of his life. He became their slave. Adam - in Hebrew - means 'man.' It is my name, our common name. Man is still Adam, still the slave of 'food' He may claim that he believes in God but God is not his life, his food, the all-embracing content of his existence. He may claim that he receives his life from God but he doesn't live in God and for God. His science, his experience, his self-consciousness are all built on that same principle: 'by bread alone.' We eat in order to be alive but we are not alive in God. This is the sin of all sins. This is the verdict of death pronounced on our life." (pp. 94-95)
"In the Orthodox teaching, sin is not only the transgression of a rule leading to punishment; it is always a mutilation of life given to us by God. It is for this reason that the story of the original sin is presented us as act of eating. For food is means of life; it is that which keeps us alive. But here lies the whole question: what does it mean to be alive and what does 'life' mean? For us today this term has a primarily biological meaning: life is precisely that which entirely depends on food, and more generally, on the physical world. But for the Holy Scripture and for Christian Tradition, this life 'by bread alone' is identified with death because it is mortal life, because death is a principle always at work in it. God, we are told, 'created no death.' He is the Giver of Life. How then did life become mortal? Why is death and death alone the only absolute condition of that which exists? The Church answers: because man rejected life as it was offered and given to him by God and preferred a life depending not on God alone but on 'bread alone.' Not only did he disobey God for which he was punished; he changed the very relationship between himself and the world. To be sure, the world was given to him by God as 'food' - as means of life; yet life was meant to communion with God; it had not only its end but its full content in Him. 'In Him was Life and the Life was the light of man.' The world and food were thus created as means of communion with God, and only if accepted for God's sake were to give life. In itself food has no life and cannot give life. Only God has Life and is Life. In food itself God - and not calories - was the principle of life. Thus to eat, to be alive, to know God and be in communion with Him were one and the same thing. The unfathomable tragedy of Adam is that he ate for its own sake. More than that, he ate 'apart' from God in order to be independent of Him. And if he did it, it is because he believed that food had life in itself and that he, by partaking of that food, could be like God, i.e., have life in himself. To put it very simply: he believed in food, whereas the only object of belief, of faith, of dependence is God and God alone. World, food, became his gods, the sources and principles of his life. He became their slave. Adam - in Hebrew - means 'man.' It is my name, our common name. Man is still Adam, still the slave of 'food' He may claim that he believes in God but God is not his life, his food, the all-embracing content of his existence. He may claim that he receives his life from God but he doesn't live in God and for God. His science, his experience, his self-consciousness are all built on that same principle: 'by bread alone.' We eat in order to be alive but we are not alive in God. This is the sin of all sins. This is the verdict of death pronounced on our life." (pp. 94-95)
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Matthew 18:6-9, the severity of sin
Matthew 18:6-9
6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
It's critical to see this in light of what seems to be the central section of this chapter. Davies and Alison emphasize this, and I think they're right. Matthew seems to surround verses 15-20 (or really, verses 15-17: dealing with a brother's sin, with the possibility of ultimately having no fellowship with him) with teaching to guard and protect a potentially divisive and hurtful process.
With that in mind, here we have extreme language (very similar to what we heard in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:29-30) with regard causing others to sin - which may include undermining their faith or leading them to forsake the Lord, and with regard to dealing severely with sin in our own lives. It is almost like he's saying, "Don't you dare even think about calling your brother on his sin unless and until you deal with yours." Sounds like the "log in your eye, speck in your brother's eye" teaching (again in the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 7:1-5).
>I think it was Davies and Alison who commented that salvation (“the kingdom”) is in part a social process or project. Just as we hear the word preached by a sent one (Romans 10) and are saved; so it seems we can be scandalized, by another, and so potentially even lose “life.”
6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
It's critical to see this in light of what seems to be the central section of this chapter. Davies and Alison emphasize this, and I think they're right. Matthew seems to surround verses 15-20 (or really, verses 15-17: dealing with a brother's sin, with the possibility of ultimately having no fellowship with him) with teaching to guard and protect a potentially divisive and hurtful process.
With that in mind, here we have extreme language (very similar to what we heard in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:29-30) with regard causing others to sin - which may include undermining their faith or leading them to forsake the Lord, and with regard to dealing severely with sin in our own lives. It is almost like he's saying, "Don't you dare even think about calling your brother on his sin unless and until you deal with yours." Sounds like the "log in your eye, speck in your brother's eye" teaching (again in the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 7:1-5).
>I think it was Davies and Alison who commented that salvation (“the kingdom”) is in part a social process or project. Just as we hear the word preached by a sent one (Romans 10) and are saved; so it seems we can be scandalized, by another, and so potentially even lose “life.”
As we have often said, this new thing that is begun in Jesus is a new humanity, a new community. It is about so much more than me not going to hell; it is about so much more than individualism. Our lives are interconnected, we are to be interdependent on one another.
[It has also been suggested that perhaps Matthew is implying that this "cut off your hand or foot" section may be a more positive introduction to the concept of dealing with sin in the "body of Christ." While in a sense it could be applied in that way, this would be a very harsh way for Jesus to refer to members of his movement, his kingdom - especially when in the next sentence he will refer to straying sheep very compassionately.]
In discussing the "Aims and Purposes" of the ministry of the Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality, Dorothy Day wrote in 1940,
"Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing, and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate. We must 'give the reason for the faith that is in us.' Otherwise we are scattered members of the Body of Christ, we are not 'all members one of another.' Otherwise our religion is an opiate, for ourselves alone, for our comfort or for our individual safety or indifferent custom.
"We cannot live alone. We cannot go to heaven alone. Otherwise, as Peguy said, God will say to us, 'Where are the others?'"
Lent and Fasting 1
I have been rereading Alexander Schmemann's "Great Lent: Journey to Pascha". In particular, a section on fasting that is really good. I may end up just sharing paragraph by paragraph the section entitled "3. ...But by Prayer and Fasting." Stay with it, there are parts of this that are so good, it's worth reading all the installments!
"There is no Lent without fasting. It seems however, that many people today either do not take fasting seriously or, if they do, misunderstand its real spiritual goals. For some people, fasting consists in a symbolic 'giving up' of something; for some others, it is a scrupulous observance of dietary regulations. But in both cases, seldom is fasting referred to the total lenten effort. Here as elsewhere, therefore, we must first try to understand the Church's teaching about fasting and then ask ourselves: how can we apply this teaching to our life?
"Fasting or abstinence from food is not exclusively a Christian practice. It existed and still exists in other religions and even outside religion, as for example in some specific therapies. Today people fast (or abstain) for all kinds of reasons, including sometimes political reasons. It is important therefore, to discern the uniquely Christian content of fasting. It is first of all revealed to us in the interdependence between two events which we find in the Bible: one at the beginning of the Old Testament and the other at the beginning of the New Testament. The first event is the "breaking of the fast" by Adam in Paradise. He ate of the forbidden fruit. This is how man's original sin is revealed to us. Christ, the New Adam - and this is the second event - begins by fasting. Adam was tempted and he succumbed to temptation; Christ was tempted and He overcame that temptation. The results of Adam's failure are expulsion from Paradise and death. The fruits of Christ's victory are the destruction of death and our return to Paradise. The lack of space prevents us from giving a detailed explanation of the meaning of this parallelism. It is clear, however that in this perspective fasting is revealed to us as something decisive and ultimate in its importance. It is not a mere 'obligation,' a custom; it is connected with the very mystery of life and death, of salvation and damnation." (pp. 93-94)
"There is no Lent without fasting. It seems however, that many people today either do not take fasting seriously or, if they do, misunderstand its real spiritual goals. For some people, fasting consists in a symbolic 'giving up' of something; for some others, it is a scrupulous observance of dietary regulations. But in both cases, seldom is fasting referred to the total lenten effort. Here as elsewhere, therefore, we must first try to understand the Church's teaching about fasting and then ask ourselves: how can we apply this teaching to our life?
"Fasting or abstinence from food is not exclusively a Christian practice. It existed and still exists in other religions and even outside religion, as for example in some specific therapies. Today people fast (or abstain) for all kinds of reasons, including sometimes political reasons. It is important therefore, to discern the uniquely Christian content of fasting. It is first of all revealed to us in the interdependence between two events which we find in the Bible: one at the beginning of the Old Testament and the other at the beginning of the New Testament. The first event is the "breaking of the fast" by Adam in Paradise. He ate of the forbidden fruit. This is how man's original sin is revealed to us. Christ, the New Adam - and this is the second event - begins by fasting. Adam was tempted and he succumbed to temptation; Christ was tempted and He overcame that temptation. The results of Adam's failure are expulsion from Paradise and death. The fruits of Christ's victory are the destruction of death and our return to Paradise. The lack of space prevents us from giving a detailed explanation of the meaning of this parallelism. It is clear, however that in this perspective fasting is revealed to us as something decisive and ultimate in its importance. It is not a mere 'obligation,' a custom; it is connected with the very mystery of life and death, of salvation and damnation." (pp. 93-94)
Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Meaning and Mystery of God's Wrath
I'm reading another Marva Dawn book, "Unfettered Hope: Living faithfully in an affluent society" and she quoted Abraham Joshua Heschel while talking about God's anger. It's a section I have highlighted in my copy of "The Prophets, Volume II, which Marv Wilson had us read back at Gordon College. It's from chapter 5, "The Meaning and Mystery of Wrath" and it's really good stuff. I love the last line:
"This is the mysterious paradox of Hebrew faith: The All-wise and Almighty may change a word that He proclaims. Man has the power to modify His design... The anger of the Lord is instrumental, hypothetical, conditional, and subject to His will. Let the people modify their line of conduct, and anger will disappear. Far from being an expression of "petulant vindictiveness," the message of anger includes a call to return and to be saved. The call of anger is a call to cancel anger. It is not the expression of irrational, sudden, and instinctive excitement, but a free and deliberate reaction of God's justice to what is wrong and evil. For all its intensity, it may be averted by prayer. There is no divine anger for anger's sake. It's meaning is, as already said, instrumental: to bring about repentance; its purpose and consummation is its own disappearance."
"This is the mysterious paradox of Hebrew faith: The All-wise and Almighty may change a word that He proclaims. Man has the power to modify His design... The anger of the Lord is instrumental, hypothetical, conditional, and subject to His will. Let the people modify their line of conduct, and anger will disappear. Far from being an expression of "petulant vindictiveness," the message of anger includes a call to return and to be saved. The call of anger is a call to cancel anger. It is not the expression of irrational, sudden, and instinctive excitement, but a free and deliberate reaction of God's justice to what is wrong and evil. For all its intensity, it may be averted by prayer. There is no divine anger for anger's sake. It's meaning is, as already said, instrumental: to bring about repentance; its purpose and consummation is its own disappearance."
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
the worst has already happened
In an article entitled "Inventory" (1951) in which she is talking about the peace movement, about making sacrifices, and even martyrdom she writes
"we proclaim our faith. Christ has died for us. Adam and Eve fell, and as Julian of Norwich wrote, the worst has already happened and been repaired..."
In living and serving and loving and repairing the world, we followers of Jesus are to "fear not." The worst has already happened (!) when all creation was ruined, nothing worse can possibly happen. And in the second Adam it has been and is being repaired. Let us give ourselves in hope and courage and perseverance to this great work, this great story in which we find ourselves.
for the glory of the Lord
"we proclaim our faith. Christ has died for us. Adam and Eve fell, and as Julian of Norwich wrote, the worst has already happened and been repaired..."
In living and serving and loving and repairing the world, we followers of Jesus are to "fear not." The worst has already happened (!) when all creation was ruined, nothing worse can possibly happen. And in the second Adam it has been and is being repaired. Let us give ourselves in hope and courage and perseverance to this great work, this great story in which we find ourselves.
for the glory of the Lord
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