The late theologian, Fr. Thomas Hopko reminded us: “Maybe the Publican kept on sinning; how do we know? But in any case, at that moment before God, bowing down to the earth in the back of the building, his prayer was heard because his prayer was true. But the Pharisee’s prayer was not even a prayer; it was just a rehearsal of his own righteousness before his own mind.” Why was the Publican’s prayer “true”? It was authentic because it arose out of an awareness of an admittedly fragile relationship with God, an honest struggling, an open encounter with the One who would show mercy. His cry for mercy grew out of compunction. The Pharisee, on the other hand, was concerned with all the externals, with fulfilling the Mosaic prescriptions of the law, with boasting rather than compunction, with religion rather than faith.  He approached God as if God were a score-keeper. It is the same for us.  If we have an ongoing, intimate relationship with God, that is, faith, we will have a true awareness of our need.  Then our prayer will be authentic. If we are satisfied with merely doing the external actions and activities of religion, we will be out of touch with the real health of our soul and easily estranged from the One who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in kindness.” (Psalm 103:8; 145:8)  Then out prayer will be but empty, pious-sounding words. Sunday’s Gospel calls us to remember three things: that there is a difference between faith and religion, that that difference can only be known through genuine self-awareness, and that self-awareness is linked inextricably to silence and prayer.

Faith and Religion   The esteemed Greek Orthodox theologian, Christos Yannaras, wrote:  “The greatest problem of Western Christianity – and of the Orthodox also – is that they have ‘religionized’ Christianity and have turned the Church into a religion.” He means the externals of religion (rules, practices, activities, institutions, organizations, clubs,  tithing, and ethnic identity) have taken precedence over the internal experience of faith and koinonia – a relationship, intimacy, and encounter with God in the human heart.  In doing this, we mistake the external things for genuine interior spirituality. The ascetic life is about interiority, not about shine but about substance. That was the error of the Pharisee, he mistook fidelity to external actions for an actual, living relationship with God in his heart.  We are often guilty of the same mistake, figuring that in keeping the externals we are living the Orthodox faith.  Even the misplaced priorities of some churches reveal the penchant for living from the outside in rather than the inside out. Without an ongoing, personal relationship with God in Christ, without a daily intimacy, all external manifestations are empty and of little meaning. In the words of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov: “If a person puts all their righteousness in external actions—like it seems that the Pharisee did—and thinks that they’re really living the spiritual life, well, they are just in the hands of devil.” 

Discovering Faith through Self-Awareness   Nurturing this kind of internal faith calls us to develop spiritual self-awareness, or self-knowledge.  Self-awareness is about understanding our own needs, desires, failings, habits, passions, and everything else that makes us who we are and creates the seedbed for a relationship with God. Archbishop +Anastasios of Tirana writes: “To know God is to know ourselves and to know ourselves is to know the One who woos us into a relationship with Himself.” This was one of the foundational principles of the Desert Fathers.  Their life was bereft of external pleasures and supports and laser-focused on the inner life of the soul. For the Publican, the reason why he begged God for mercy, was because he knew himself deep within, his strengths (I’m sure he had some!) and his sins and failings.  Each of us needs to do that kind of introspection not with the sole purpose of seeing how BAD we are, but of realizing how much we are loved by Him who said: “Behold, I have loved you with an everlasting love and with loving kindness I have drawn you unto myself.” (Jeremiah 31:3) How easy it is for us to avoid seeing our sin, to run from talking about it, to escape its serious nature claiming it makes us too sad, brings us down, and dulls the happiness of Christian believing.  To avoid sin is to avoid the Cross. To avoid the Cross is to make the Resurrection pointless. We’re driven today to keep aware of our physical health and monitor our well being. We need to develop the same awareness and daily care for our souls – where the stakes are decidedly much greater.  

Self-Awareness is Linked to Silence and Prayer   To be aware of our spiritual selves, to get to know our heart and tend our soul better, silence and prayer are needed.  Evagrius of Pontus notes in the Philokalia: “The language of God is silence.” We spend so much of our day running from or purposely avoiding silence. It makes us uneasy or we are afraid of what we will discover in ourselves when all the distracting noise dies down. We become forgetful of Socrates’ adage: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” (“? … ?νεξ?ταστος β?ος ο? βιωτ?ς ?νθρ?π?”) But as Father John Breck, an American Orthodox theologian, expresses it: “Silence fosters stillness; it is indispensable for stillness. Inner stillness, however, goes beyond silence insofar as its aim is to purify the heart and bring us to knowledge of ourselves and of God.”  This is a challenge for Orthodox Christians living in the “tyranny of noise” that we call society.  Every day, each of us has to find our personal “kellia” (cell) — that quiet space and time, apart from others, where we can allow stillness to calm us, to rest our bodies, and to focus our inner attention and prayer on what St. Paul calls “our life hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3) In the end, God will pierce through the cacophony of the noise outside us and within us to say: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) The parable of the Publican and Pharisee is not only about humility, it is about genuine faith, self-awareness, and the power of silence and prayer.  As we prepare for Great Lent, I pray that each of you may come to know your faith and your prayer as deeply authentic. 

Your servant in Christ Jesus,
Fr. Dimitrios