| As we have journeyed through these last two weeks in particular, and the many weeks prior, one thing is increasingly certain – America is in deep trouble. An insatiable pandemic lurks among us and has already taken more than 105,000 of our fellows. Some 40 million people have already lost their jobs to date. Growing numbers of our fellow citizens lack food, access to medical care, and the basic items that we expect for dignified human survival. If that wasn’t enough, now, across the land, our streets are set ablaze, a large army of legitimate peaceful protesters, augmented by ill-meaning anarchists, are caught up in the destructive forces that have been boiling in the human heart for hundreds of years. Property is destroyed, and a seething anger, that constantly lay beneath the surface of the social order, is once again rearing its ugly head in a far worse way than in 1968. Perhaps Dr. King was right: “Riots are the language of the unheard.” At the heart of this disturbing scenario is a more uncomfortable truth — that these problems are not, in the first instance, fundamentally political, or economic, or social problems. They are not primarily problems of police or public health, or of leadership. They are, at their root, moral problems, and as such every Church’s voice must be heard. When one enters the doors of an Orthodox Church, one is not entering a secret “hiding place”, a place of avoidance, a place of escape from the nasty and fetid wounds of the world and the bothersome, noisy cries of those whose only demands are health, justice, and equality. One is entering the place of witness, the megaphone that cries out in defense of what the ancient Hebrews called “the anawim Yahweh” – the poor and wretched of the earth. The interior spirituality that we preach and try to live personally in our lives, is of little value unless it is broken open, announced and defended on behalf of those who wallow in the mire of powerlessness. How do we know this to be true? The Lord Jesus has shown us that it is! Jesus returned to Nazareth and the Holy Gospel of St. Luke records: “And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:16-21) This is the same Jesus who, in Matthew’s Gospel, said something quite unnerving: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those of his own household.”(Matthew 10:34-36) St. Augustine comments on these verses pointing out that Jesus came to upset the city of man, to root out sin and oppression, to pull down the attitudes of a wayward society and to build up new relationships around His way, His heart, His mind – not ours. In the March 23, 2020 edition of the prestigious Commonweal Magazine, Fr. Deacon John Chryssavgis, Theological Advisor to His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew, wrote of the Patriarch’s new document For the Life of the World. In his article, Fr. John quotes His All Holiness:: “It is impossible for the Church truly to follow Christ or to make him present to the world if it fails to place this absolute concern for the poor and disadvantaged at the very center of its moral, religious, and spiritual life. The pursuit of social justice and civil equity—provision for the poor and shelter for the homeless, protection for the weak, welcome for the displaced, and assistance for the disabled—is not merely an ethos the Church recommends for the sake of a comfortable conscience, but is a necessary means of salvation, the indispensable path to union with God in Christ; and to fail in these responsibilities is to invite condemnation before the judgment seat of God.” In addressing such issues as racism (referred to by the late Bishop of Rome, John Paul II, as America’s ‘Original Sin’) poverty, human rights, bioethics, technology, and climate change, the Patriarch directly linked our active attention to these issues with our personal salvation. Private prayer is not enough. Wishing is not enough. Expressing sympathy is not enough. Good intentions are not enough. The Church (you and I) must act on these moral issues. The voice of God must again be heard! The Church must heed the counsel of the Apostle James: “Be ye doers of the Word, not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”(James 1:22) From the time of the Prophets, action to restore justice was required of the believer: “Thus has the Lord of hosts said, ‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’ (Zechariah 7:9-10) Or again in the Prophet Micah: “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) The line from the Old Testament to the New in this regard is unbroken: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and despises his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) Establishing an Orthodox ethos of social justice is not an option for the Church – it is the expectation of our Head and Founder, Christ the High Priest. It was this power given to the Apostles on Holy Pentecost that gave them the intestinal fortitude to run into the streets and announce, in languages they never knew or spoke, the way, the truth, and the life brought by Jesus of Nazareth. Fr. Chryssavgis points out: “A cursory reading of fourth-century writers like Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom reveals the prominence of the social dimension of the Gospel both in their thinking and their ministry. Certainly Basil the Great strenuously disapproved of retreat from the world. Any eschatology (theological study of the “end times”) that encouraged escapism from one’s time and place was denounced as heresy and hazardous.” At some point, that passion for justice, the deliberate efforts to reach out to the marginalized, and the fire of that first Pentecost, all waned, and an important voice in the human justice effort almost went silent. It was Orthodox figures such as His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos, of Blessed Memory, who took up the staff of justice and equality under the law once again – in the face of criticism by fellow Orthodox Hierarchs, clergy and laity. In the face of the current pandemic, and the wanton social violence generated by the brutal killing of George Floyd, what is the Church to say and do? More pointedly, what are you and I, as believing Orthodox Christians to do? David Brooks, the esteemed columnist and commentator at the New York Times, in his new book The Road to Character, provides some guidance for us. In the book, he suggests that a major factor in developing personal character (moral integrity), is humility – the tampering down of ego. He develops a “Humility Code” including the following: 1) Live for holiness not for happiness; 2) Understand that we have a flawed inclination to be selfish and short-sighted; 3) Recognize the human capacity to see flaws. Humility exposes prejudice and bigotry, even the kind we carefully politically “reason out” and for which we make well-sounding but inept excuses. Humility exposes self-righteousness and judgment. Humility exposes our deafening silence in the face of human suffering and oppression. Humility exposes our attempts to categorize and divide people from each other rather than bring them together in Christic love. We need to examine each of our hearts, to listen to that “honest inner voice” as we seek to answer hard questions – which may very well disturb us, which may lead us to repentance and conversion of heart. The Church — her Hierarchy, Priests, Deacons, and laity must do the same. Together we must actively reach out with the witness of Jesus, the Healer, the merciful and compassionate Judge, the One whose heart holds the love of God for us and Who expects our hearts to break open that love for those oppressed, poor, marginalized, and excluded. Brooks is right – we must live for holiness not happiness. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners! Faithfully in the Merciful Lord, |
