Becoming a Bridge: Christ and the Woman at the Well
Note: An audio recording of this sermon is also available via Ancient Faith Radio.
Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, May 18, 2014
Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen. Christ is risen!
Today on this fifth Sunday of the great feast of all feasts, Holy Pascha, we meditate on the mystery of the Lord’s approach of the Samaritan Woman, the Woman at the Well. This woman comes to this well that had been founded by Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, so many centuries before, that she may draw water to bring home for her thirsty household. And there at the well, she finds Jesus sitting there.
She could immediately tell from His clothing and bearing that she had met a Jew Who followed the Law of Moses, because when he asked her to get Him something to drink, she responded, “How is it that Thou, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For as the Scriptures tell us, the Jews did not speak with Samaritans, and as is even now in the case in many places in that region, it was not proper that a man should address a woman alone. So she is taken aback when he speaks to her.
What I wish especially to emphasize today in this encounter between the Samaritan Woman and our Savior Jesus Christ is how He does not emphasize their difference but instead makes Himself into a bridge for her.
He becomes a bridge for her in that He chooses to reach out to her as a man to a woman. Even now, men and women, while we may be attracted to one another, often find each other almost impossible to understand and even sometimes we may think that the other is impossible to live with. This can be true even outside of romantic relationships. Men tend to group with other men, and women with women. And there is nothing wrong with connecting with people who are like you. But there is something wrong with shunning people who are not like you. Jesus here becomes a bridge for her and overcomes this opposition of men with women by taking the initiative and by addressing her with kindness and love, beginning by making a request of her: “Give Me a drink.”
He also becomes a bridge for her between peoples. He is a Jew, and Jews have traditionally treated the Samaritans with disdain. They are regarded as heretics who only have some of the Law of Moses, and they are also looked upon as miscegenated half-breeds whose forebears had inter-married with the surrounding pagan peoples. But He reaches out to her, becoming a bridge and connecting her to their father Abraham through their common reverence for Jacob at his well.
Christ also becomes a bridge for her between righteousness and unrighteousness. She had sinned and had been with many men, marrying many times and even at that moment, living sinfully with a man who was not her husband. Yet He still offered to her His own presence, His own words of wisdom and love. He did not turn away from her because she was an “undesirable” who did things that were not fitting for someone righteous like Him, someone Who followed the Law of Moses perfectly.
The Lord Jesus also becomes a bridge for her in the matter of worship. She knows only one kind of worship, and that is the worship of the Samaritans which took place on their holy mountain that Jacob had set apart many centuries before. She also knows that Jews say that worship is to take place in the Temple in Jerusalem. But of course no Samaritan could enter that Temple and offer worship there. And He offers her a solution, becoming a bridge not just for her as a Samaritan but indeed for the whole world—His Father is seeking true worshipers, who will worship in spirit and truth, not just on the Samaritan mountain nor in the Temple, but indeed in every place. The old boundaries were being taken down, and forgiveness and communion can happen anywhere.
He also becomes a bridge for her to hope. She knows of the Messiah, the One coming into the world Who will tell her all things, but as a Samaritan, as a sinful woman, as one separated, she has no hope for access to the Messiah—the Messiah of the Jews. And the Messiah is a figure of legend and ancient prophecy. That she would find that figure sitting at the well of her fathers would not have occurred to her. But here He is, the hope of all, the promised Anointed One, the Christ, bringing hope to her even in the midst of her separation and hopelessness.
And ultimately, He becomes a bridge for her to God. For in Himself, He is both God and man. He is the God Who is man and the man Who is God. She met a divine Person, but she was able to meet Him because He is man. She saw His human body which is an element of His human nature, yet she accessed His divine wisdom, His divine clairvoyance, His divine love, which are the energies and the actions possible because of His divine nature. In Him, she becomes a partaker of the divine nature.
And in all these same ways, He has become a bridge also for us. We who are at odds with one another because of differences of gender and race and culture and class and wealth can become one because of how He has bridged all of mankind together in Himself, giving us all to eat and drink of His glorified flesh and blood. We who are not born into the chosen people of God, not naturally of Israel, have been brought into that people because He has bridged the way for us. He has become the New Jacob, the New Israel into Whom all the nations of the earth may gather as one chosen people, the new race of Christians.
He also is the bridge for us to righteousness, something we could never accomplish on our own. Try being truly kind and loving for just one day! Yet He gives us His own holiness so that we can be transformed, released from the drudgery of merely “trying hard” on our own strength, given access to divine strength. And He also is the bridge for us to true worship. He not only provides for us the possibility of worship in spirit and in truth in every place, but He is Himself the priest Who offers the sacrifice, the One Who is sacrificed and the One Who receives the sacrifice. And He also is the One Who distributes the sacrifice, which is Himself. He is everywhere and become everything for us.
And in all this, He is the bridge between God and man, being Himself both God and man. We touch His humanity and so access His divinity. There is no other such bridge, no other way to contact our God except through His Christ, His Son, this Jesus Who is the God-man. And thus the ancient boundary of our sin is torn down, and we are set free to celebrate in the vast beauty of divine grace.
Having received all this, the Samaritan Woman—who soon takes the name Photini, meaning “the enlightened one,” for she had received light—she herself becomes a bridge. For she bridges the way between Jesus and her own people. She goes and tells them about Him, and then He is invited to come and stay with them. And when they meet Him, they believe.
In this beautiful account of how Jesus becomes a bridge for Photini and then how she does the same for her people, we should find ourselves in that same story. We should not, of course, be as the disciples, who stood to the side questioning the whole thing, even if mostly in their hearts.
Rather, we first see ourselves as the woman, who encounters Christ and is connected by Him to so many things she had been lacking, most especially to the very presence of God Himself.
But we also try in whatever ways we can to see ourselves in Christ, that we may also become bridges to other people. We cannot allow the old boundaries to persist, the boundaries that keep us from each other, that keep us from righteousness, that keep us from worship, that keep us from God Himself. We become bridges so that those whom God brings us will be able to connect not just with one another, but in all these ways and in all these things to Jesus Christ.
And we again see ourselves as the woman, who herself becomes a bridge, connecting those whom she loves and who know her best to the Messiah Who has come into the world to save us and give us that living water that will never dry up and never run out.
To our Lord Jesus Christ therefore be all glory, honor and worship, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. Christ is risen!
Share this:
“We speak one language: Antiochian”: More Thoughts on the Future of the Antiochian Archdiocese and Orthodoxy in America
If you’ve done any reading from modern Orthodox saints, you know that there is a certain tone among the holy elders of Greece, another from Russia and so forth. Each culture enculturates the Gospel in its own authentic way and speaks of the truth of Jesus Christ with its own voice.
One of the things which makes the particular Antiochian voice distinct—although it is often not well known here in America, as I wrote in my previous post—is that it is not tied to any single ethnicity or culture. The ancient cultures and languages that have called Antiochian Orthodoxy home are diverse—Syriac, Greek, Georgian, Arabic, Cypriot, Central Asian—as are those which now are also home to the Antiochian church—English, American, Central and South American, Turkish, Australian, French, German and others. Ancient Antioch itself was a cosmopolitan city even in the time of the Apostles, and while the city of Antioch of today is now a small Turkish municipality, the spirit of Antiochian identity in its Christian form has remained cosmopolitan and multicultural. Some folks today equate Antiochian with Arabic, but that identification has never really been accurate.
Indeed, one of the greatest voices of the Antiochian church in America, St. Raphael of Brooklyn, regarded himself as being a man who identified with many peoples: “I am an Arab by birth, a Greek by primary education, an American by residence, a Russian at heart, and a Slav in soul.”
Yet while the voice of the Antiochian tradition is spoken in many languages and cultures, there is nevertheless a single “Antiochian language,” so to speak, a particular way of being and speaking in the Orthodox Church that is distinct.
I have been talking about this “Antiochian language” recently with friends who know it far better than I, and one of them mentioned to me a phrase used in the Arabic-language publishing and social media of the patriarchate, which gives this post its title: “We speak one language: Antiochian.” It has also been rendered in English as “Our Language is Antiochian. Our Language is One.” This certainly is not a reference to the Arabic language but rather to a kind of spiritual language, that particular voice which is the spirit of Antioch.
With the attention that our archdiocese here in America has received lately from the Patriarchate of Antioch, our connection to that Antiochian language has been strengthened, and I’ve noticed a particular tone—hard to describe, but definitely distinct. If I had to put adjectives to it, I might choose: accessible, direct, refreshing, bright, earthy, peaceful. It is not dark or hard, but it is also not too yielding or liberal. It is loving and un-self-conscious.
A bridge is being built between ancient Antioch and her children here in North America, and now there is traffic on that bridge, a kind of spiritual commerce and economy that has its own idiom. For many, this may be the first time that someone has “spoken Antiochian” to them. It is not that this has been absent from our archdiocese, but we have simply not had access to it in the way that we have over the past several weeks.
As I said, though, that voice is hard to define with adjectives, so I would like to give a few samples, both ancient and modern, which to me all sing in the same spiritual key, which speak with the same spiritual voice. The subjects are different, but the tone (to me) is the same:
Blessed is the person who has consented to become the close friend of faith and of prayer: he lives in singlemindedness and makes prayer and faith stop by with him. Prayer that rises up in someone’s heart serves to open up for us the door of heaven: that person stands in converse with the Divinity and gives pleasure to the Son of God. Prayer makes peace with the Lord’s anger and with the vehemence of His wrath. In this way too, tears that well up in the eyes can open the door of compassion.
- St. Ephrem the Syrian, “Armenian Hymn No. 1,” 4th c.
St. Ephrem is of course familiar to many Orthodox Christians, and he is not often thought of as “Antiochian” exactly, but this tone is still there. (And one recognizes the Semitic image of God’s “wrath” there, of course.) I especially love the phrase “close friend of faith and of prayer.”
Fast forward several centuries, and that same feeling is still there. Here’s Sulayman al-Ghazzi (Solomon of Gaza), an Arabic-speaking Palestinian bishop from the 11th century:
Not all baptized with water are Christians
Without the baptism of the life of the world to come;
In Christ the peoples of the earth have been baptized
Though some of them afterward showed hypocrisy.
They became like a body’s parts in its natural state—
Some helpful, some unreliable.
How many patriarchs are unpraiseworthy in their service,
Miserable bishops and metropolitans,
Who are among the heretics, in place of truth,
Preferring falsehood and slander!
Over them, God has favored a Church
Whose stones are gathered from all corners and climbs.
Truth has built her edifice
Rising to heaven on pillars and columns,
Fashioned from chrysolite,
Precious stones, sapphires, and pearls.
Her foundation is the rock of faith,
Rooted deep with pillars and walls.
All bodily creatures are pleased to see it
When it appears in races and colors,
Byzantines, Russians, and Franks
Joined with Indians, Khuzestanis, Abkhaz, and Alans
Armenians and Pechenegs in agreement
With the people of the Jazira, namely Harran.
And Copts too, in the Lower Egypt father together
From Upper Egypt to Qus and Aswan.
People of Shiraz and Ahwaz in harmony
With Iraq, unto furthest Khorasan.
From the place of the sunrise to the place of its setting,
To the Euphrates, to Sihon and Gihon.
White, blond, and brown in their churches
Praise God with the yellow and the black.
All of them have come to the religion of Christ
And are guided, gaining profit from loss.
Seventy nations, each with a language
Branching off from one Syriac tongue.[*]
Hebrew was the speech of God’s apostles
Before they set out with the mission of the Gospel.
Each apostle gained a language,
Beautiful, reliable, and clear.
Not out of weakness but having heard proof,
Those to whom they preached responded with faith.
So they spread out among their nations,
None fearing the devil’s wiles.
When their service to God was done, they slept,
Having roused many sleepers.- Suleyman al-Ghazzi, from “Not All Baptized with Water Are Christians” (trans. Samuel Noble), in The Orthodox Church in the Arab World 700-1700: An Anthology of Sources, pp. 163-164
[*] Medieval Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, generally held that Syriac was the language spoken by Adam and Eve.
And roughly 1,000 years later, we still hear this same direct, refreshing voice from the leaders of the Orthodox Youth Movement:
The Church is the salt of the earth and completes the work of Christ in the world. The Church works, she is present, for the sake of the salvation of the world. We can say that she is the center of being, in her its destiny is achieved. The world corrupts and ages, but the Church is continuously renewed for the sake of the salvation of the world. But if the salt is corrupted, then how can it be salty?
The Church is the group of those who believe in the Lord Jesus and who have united around him to live the life of the Gospel, the life of God. They have no concern except to follow the Lord’s teaching and to follow in his footsteps. The group is in the world and for the world, but at the same time it is not of the world. From the beginning, from the ascension of the Lord to heaven, it is oriented toward the age to come, awaiting the return of the heavenly bridegroom and hastening him on. From now on, it lives in the last days, in the fullness of time, “it uses this world as though it doesn’t use it, and buys as though it doesn’t own.”
- Fr. Elias Morcos, “On Revival in Antioch,” 1964
We become children of the Resurrection when we become bridges of communication and encounter between those who are separated, and between those who are in conflict. Let us be bridges exactly like the Lord who did not ask anything for Himself, but gave the world everything, to such an extent that He offered Himself for the salvation of the world. Let us serve as ways of rapprochement for all. Through love, sacrifice and in deeds and truth we shall build our countries.
We become children of Resurrection when we live our faith in genuineness, depth and meaningfulness. External expressions are bound to change with cultures and ways of living, but the genuine Christian content preserves the trust which has been handed down to the saints under many different circumstances, cases and cultures. Let us imitate the courage of Christ who did not fear anything, even death. Instead He faced the cross with love and brought us to resurrection. Let us face the cross of this crucified East with overwhelming love for all those who are crucified on it, until we reach with them the resurrection we all expect. Let us live these painful days in simplicity, enjoying the bare necessities of life and experiencing the true wealth which is life with God….
Last but not least, we do not forget that God is the Lord of history, so we may always hold to patience and hope which do not fade away. Let us remember the words of the prophets and how much they called, in times of distress, for repentance and faith, until God intervenes and removes the distress. In these troubled days we are witnessing, we are in sore need of faithful witnesses. Let us move out of our distress with more faith, more purity and greater loyalty. When we understand that we only need God and no one else, the effects of resurrection will appear in us and in all our humanity. When this happens all around us shall be transfigured.
- Patriarch John X (Yazigi) of Antioch, Pascha 2013 Pastoral Letter
How should I conduct myself at Pascha? I try to become the Gospel, to become the word so that people may read me and live. Christianity is faces that are illumined in order to give light. This is the living Pascha. It is what causes me to pass through people to the Father’s face. How should I live? “I do not live, it is Christ who lives in me.” Christianity is not a religious system. It is love- that is, clinging to Christ such that you forget your own face in order to see His face and the whole world in His face. If we are people of Pascha, then we are in a state of constantly going beyond ourselves and the world in order to become Him and for Him to become us. It is not a matter of systems and it is not a matter of theoretical principles. Everything is His face, until all faces pass away or we read Him traced upon them.
- Metropolitan Georges (Khodr) of Mount Lebanon, “Who Shall I Be at Pascha?“, 2014
And now this “Antiochian language” is also being spoken to us here directly in America by the representative of our patriarch:
Christ defeated death in our lives! He set us free from fear: from fearing death, from fearing evil, from fearing illness and calamities, from fearing each other, from fearing the uncertainty of the future, from fearing insecurity and unemployment, from fearing violence and terrorism, and from fearing persecution and sufferings for His sake. Instead, He gave us the power and the means to seek the true freedom. The freedom to love each other even though we differ in character, education and profession. The freedom to forgive each other even though we have suffered. The freedom to ask forgiveness from each other even though we have badly hurt each other. The freedom to serve each other even though we differ in origin, background and culture. The freedom to work together even though we differ in thinking, worldview, ability and capacity. The freedom to abide by the truth and raise our children to seek Him. The freedom to defend the unjust and the needy and restore them their rights. The freedom to be at the Lord’s hand, obedient, prayerful and faithful.
Christ defeated death in our reality! He gave us the gift to start anew, to renew our heart, to purify our mind, and to reaffirm our commitment of faith at His service. He restored in us the dignity of our person, the beauty of our nature, and the bounty in our personality.
Christ defeated death in our relationships! Christ is the only mediator between God and man. However, He made us “bridges” of salvation to reach others. As Antiochian Orthodox Christians in North America, we are bequeathed an apostolic “lineage:” tradition, inheritance and mission. In this regard, the image of the “bridge” summarizes the Antiochian witness that emerges out of the past, prompts the present and prepares the future of the Antiochian Orthodox Church on the eve of the election of a new Metropolitan to succeed to His Eminence, Metropolitan Philip of eternal memory.
- Metropolitan Silouan (Moussi) of Argentina, “How to Resurrect with Christ: Pascha 2014 Pastoral Letter“
I could give many, many more examples, and of course you can find a good bit of this sort of thing on the Notes on Arab Orthodoxy weblog. But I hope that these passages will suffice to give you some sense of the tone of “speaking Antiochian.” It is different from other languages, and while many of its speakers are these days from the Middle East, it is not the same thing as speaking Arabic, and there is no reason why non-Arabic speakers or people from outside the Middle East cannot speak it. It is a beautiful language, and it speaks to us of our Savior Jesus Christ with a peculiar accent and vocabulary of its own, itself building a bridge between persons, between peoples, and between mankind and God.
As I wrote last week, my hope for us Antiochians here in America is that we may hear more and more “speaking Antiochian” to us, so that we may better learn this beautiful language. And in so doing, not only will our own faith be strengthened, but we will also have something beautiful to offer to our Orthodox brothers and sisters throughout America.
Share this:
Light from Antioch: The Future of the Antiochian Archdiocese and Orthodoxy in America
Notes: The following is a personal reflection and represents only my own views. This piece is also available as an audio recording via Ancient Faith Radio.
This past Friday, I had the blessing along with other clergy of the Diocese of Charleston and Oakland and also the Diocese of Washington and New York to meet with His Eminence, Metropolitan Silouan (Moussi) of Argentina in Washington, DC. Sayidna Silouan’s purpose in calling this meeting, as well as many other similar meetings throughout North America, was to hear the voices of the clergy and faithful of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America, to hear what they yearned for in their future, in the light of the transition that is now upon us, namely, that within a couple of months we will be in the care of a new Metropolitan. +Silouan’s role here in North America is Patriarchal Vicar, and he is essentially in charge of the archdiocese until a new Metropolitan is elected. He serves as the voice of the Patriarch of Antioch in our midst.
The table where we met seemed to be mostly filled with listeners (which is a good thing in the clergy), but a few of us spoke when Metropolitan Silouan asked us directly to tell him what our hopes were. In his initial remarks on this, he said something that stuck with me: “Thinking according to the constitution is good, but thinking as the Church is better.” I’ll say more on that in a moment.
The other clergy who spoke mainly talked of their desire for the unity of the archdiocese to be kept intact, that we should not be divided. And +Silouan mentioned that he had been seeing peace everywhere in the archdiocese, wherever he went, that no one had to tell us to be unified and at peace, but that we simply were. And I have noted that this theme seems to be repeated in a number of the conversations between Antiochians I have been privy to. I have also noticed in my more than 16 years of experience in the archdiocese that there really is a common identity, a brotherhood among us. It would be a shame for that to be harmed in any way.
Some seem to believe that that unity would be harmed if, for instance, the archdiocese were divided into multiple metropolitan districts, “every bishop doing his own thing” in the words of one comment I read online. And that is typically contrasted with the system we have recently had, namely, a single ruling metropolitan with auxiliary bishops who served entirely at his blessing.
We also had a different system in place for a few years after the grant of self-rule, which was another iteration of the vision of Metropolitan Philip for our archdiocesan unity—diocesan bishops with more of their own authority in their dioceses, yet with a strong metropolitan at the head of the archdiocese. This was actually a traditional metropolitical system, in which the bishops on a synod do everything “with him who is first,” while the one who is first also does what he does with the consent of all. And it’s clear to me from my reading of Church history that there are many possible models that we could adopt which need not be read as “dividing the archdiocese.”
The exact details of how bishops who sit together on a synod presided over by their metropolitan can all work together and remain united and still have authority emphasized on the primate can have lots of different sets of details to define them. (Examples: Are finances shared? Is authorization of ordinations centralized? Can each diocese have its own educational institutions? Can bishops found churches and monasteries on their own?) I don’t see why any conversation about these things has to devolve into only two iterations—1) a sovereign metropolitan with auxiliaries or 2) fully independent dioceses each headed by a bishop who owes no particular allegiance to the metropolitan. These things sit along a continuum with numerous points in between, and they can all contribute to the question of unity.
This kind of thing seems to be on many people’s minds. But I have to admit that what comes to my mind when I think about the unity of the Antiochian Archdiocese and what came to my mind especially when Metropolitan Silouan asked us what we wanted for our future didn’t really have much to do with all these administrative details that are, to be honest, above my pay grade and not in my purview. I’m just a parish priest.
But +Silouan’s words stuck in my mind:
“Thinking according to the constitution is good, but thinking as the Church is better.”
I do not mean this as any slight to my brothers and sisters, but it seems to me that, while discussion about administrative details and rules (“thinking according to the constitution”) is important, there is something of greater importance that I hope will become more part of our conversations, especially as we head toward our special nominating convention on June 5. And what is that? It is our spiritual inheritance as Antiochian Orthodox Christians.
We rightly often speak of Ss. Peter and Paul and Ignatius of Antioch, and I love those parts of our tradition. But there is actually a great wealth of spiritual riches that have been developing in the Antiochian Church recently, as well, and it is almost entirely unknown to Antiochians in America.
To give but one example of this, one of the major developments of the 20th century in the patriarchate was the founding of the Orthodox Youth Movement. This movement was founded in the 1940s and was the instrument of an astonishing spiritual renewal over the decades that followed. It not only produced abbots, bishops and even patriarchs (Patriarch Ignatius IV was one of the founders of the movement), but it began church schools, founded and revitalized monasteries, emphasized personal holiness and asceticism, and rapidly expanded theological education throughout the patriarchate. It was a powerful and thoroughgoing reform movement that radically reshaped a church that, sad to say, had been moribund with nominalism for quite some time.
The results of the Orthodox Youth Movement, which celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2012, are a vital and spiritually rich Antiochian church in the Middle East, a church which even now is showing its spiritual strength as it endures crucifixion anew. Thanks in large part to the movement, there are now monasteries where there were none. There are charitable programs where there were none. There is theological education. There are holy elders. There are not just old monasteries that were previously on the brink of abandonment and are now filled with monastics, but there are even new monasteries.
And most Antiochians on this continent have no idea about any of this. Much of it, I only learned about recently myself.
So what did I say to Metropolitan Silouan when he asked us what our hopes were?
My hope for the future of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America is that we can receive some of these great spiritual riches.
Why is it that an Orthodox Christian in America can easily access the 20th century holiness of Elder Paisios, Elder Sophrony, St. Silouan, St. Porphyrios, St. John of Kronstadt, Elder Cleopa, etc., and not feel that they are becoming Hellenized, Russified, Romanianized, etc.? These holy people are naturally attractive to us, because they are saints, and their holiness transcends cultural barriers. But why are we almost entirely ignorant of the immense spiritual power of Orthodox Christianity in the Middle East?
There are probably a lot of answers to that question. One of them is that not much is getting translated from Arabic to English. We are blessed to have the Notes on Arab Orthodoxy weblog to help us connect to that great spiritual wealth, and its author has recently contributed to a new volume to help us connect with some of that historical inheritance, too: The Orthodox Church in the Arab World 700-1700: An Anthology of Sources (a wonderful book I recently got a copy of, by the way). But there needs to be more of that kind of thing—a lot more.
There is a beautiful, vast treasure trove of Antiochian spirituality that most Orthodox Christians in America—even Antiochians—are mostly unaware of.
One of the things that has struck me profoundly during the past several weeks since our father Metropolitan Philip reposed in the Lord is how immediately and how refreshingly our patriarchate has become involved with us. I am not part of the “administration,” but I have not felt for one moment that we were “under” some “foreign bishops” during this process (something one often hears within Orthodoxy in America). Rather, my feeling has been that we are being attended to as family by family, that we are being loved by spiritual fathers who really care what happens to us.
All this brings us to the question of what this attention from the patriarchate might mean. It certainly has not seemed to me to be overbearing in any way. Some have suggested that it means that the patriarchate wants to draw us closer to itself so that there may be more solidarity between us. Some fear that this may mean “Arabization” (for whatever that might mean). Some fear that this may put administrative unity in Orthodoxy in America in some jeopardy, i.e., if the American Antiochians become more Antiochian, they will be less American.
I cannot answer all of those fears, because I do not know what the future holds. But I will give one example to address one of them. For some folks, “Arabization” might mean a new emphasis on the Arabic language in worship. That would of course be a tall order, since roughly 3/4 of our clergy are converts and most converts have no knowledge of Arabic. But I do not think it would be ordered at all, to be honest. We have a patriarchate that has parishes in Turkey, just over the border from Syria, that worship in Turkish—not Arabic. We also have a patriarch who, when he was assisting with parishes in Europe, insisted on taking an intensive English language course so that he could both liturgize and preach in English before he visited any parishes in the United Kingdom.
What I would like to see is a new infusion of the spirit of Antioch, a new and increasing access to these spiritual riches—Middle Eastern saints and elders, monasticism, vigorous and traditional Byzantine music education, mutual visits, etc. In short, we are a family that needs to become closer.
None of this is meant to be a criticism of Metropolitan Philip, by the way. He was the man for his time—a great man—and he accomplished many remarkable things. And I felt a personal loss at his death. At the same time, I am also reminded of words spoken by Archbishop Joseph at Sayidna Philip’s burial, when he was speaking of what the new Metropolitan would need to do:
“David fought the wars, but Solomon built the Temple.”
I don’t pretend to know exactly what he intended that to mean, but one interpretation that occurs to me is that +Philip fought many wars and was a victorious warrior. And the next Metropolitan now has an opportunity to take us to another level, a place where the spiritual depth of Antioch is brought to us in even greater power.
So what does all this mean for our fellow Orthodox Christians here in America who may wonder if the Antiochians might become too preoccupied with being Antiochian to be as concerned with administrative unity?
Just as all the other Orthodox traditions in America each have their own contribution to make to the Orthodox Church here, the Antiochians do, as well. And we should bring our very best to the table. Frankly, there is a lot in our own tradition that we haven’t accessed yet. And I want it for myself and for my own children. And it’s not out of any ethnic sentiment on my part that I want it—I’m Lithuanian (though I barely know what that means). I want this stuff because it’s a whole world of holiness to explore.
So that brings me to my final point, which I believe answers both the question of unity in the Antiochian Archdiocese and also unity within Orthodoxy in America:
The more authentically Orthodox Christian we become, the more united we will be.
The root of all division is sin. And the basis for all true brotherhood in Christ is holiness. It’s really pretty simple. So if each of us adheres more closely to what is best within each of our traditions (without ignoring other traditions, of course), then we will become one. Administrative issues are really secondary to the question of spiritual renewal, and if there is authentic spiritual renewal, the administrative issues will work themselves out a lot more easily.
So my hope is this: If anyone in the Holy Synod may happen to read this, and if any Antiochian or any Orthodox Christian happens to read this, that all our prayers will be joined together in the Holy Spirit so that the outcome of the next couple months’ deliberations pertaining to the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America is this:
Whatever might happen with the election of a Metropolitan or even questions of how we are to be administered, may it open up new channels for the abundant streams of grace from the Antiochian tradition to flow to us here in North America.
May God’s will be done.
Share this:
Raising Authentically Christian Children: Good News and Bad News
My friend Seraphim Danckaert published an article today on the O&H site that I think every Christian (Orthodox or not) should read: Losing our Religion: On “Retaining” Young People in the Orthodox Church. Why? Almost every kind of church throughout America is losing kids. So read it first before reading the rest of this.
Okay, done?
First, some bad news: If you’re counting on your church having awesome programs for your kids to make them be and keep them being good Christians, you’re going to be let down. There is only so much they can do, and expecting that they will do all the heavy lifting in your child’s spiritual life is extremely unrealistic. On a personal note, I’ve spoken with many 20- and 30-somethings who were very active in youth groups, Bible studies, outreach projects, etc., who all checked out of church after they left home. Their problem wasn’t that they weren’t active in public religiosity. It goes deeper, to the day to day stuff. Follow the path home. That’s where they learned to be adults. If the faith isn’t visible at home, which should be regarded as a “little church,” then it’s not going to be visible when your children start their own homes. You cannot outsource the spiritual side of parenting. And simply taking them to Sunday School (even consistently, which itself doesn’t seem to happen often any more) isn’t enough, either.
Okay, some good news: This piece is good news for all those parents who are striving to make their faith real in the home. Mothers especially are the heroes here, but fathers are critical, as well. Pray together with your kids, and not just over meals. Pray before they go to bed and at other times. Read the Bible to them. Read saints’ lives to them. Talk with them about what you read. Let your kids hear you talk about your faith, your hopes, your trust in God, your wish that you could spend more time in church, more time in prayer. Let them see you reading the Bible and other spiritual books. When you’re alone in your study and praying and your toddler sneaks in to play with forbidden things, pick him up and keep praying. All that agonizing you’re going through to make faith alive in your home is not in vain.
Another obvious conclusion is that you shouldn’t choose godparents for your kids based purely on familial or friend relationships. Your child needs to have an adult spiritual mentor who will model adult faith. Your pastor probably cannot be that person, not just because he cannot be an at-home part of your child’s life with great frequency but also because his status as a clergyman puts him outside the “role model” world for most kids. Most kids don’t imagine themselves as clergy, but they are more likely to imagine themselves to be like an aunt or uncle or close family friend. Imagination is critical in terms of spiritual possibility. If a child knows what it looks like to be a serious Christian adult, he’s more likely to be able to do it.
Regarding Seraphim’s third point, that a child needs not only authentic home spiritual life and a non-parent spiritual mentor, but that he also needs to have a spiritual experience of some kind before he hits his late teens, well, that can be a bit harder. You can’t make a kid experience the grace of God. But one thing we can count on is that there will be crises. And the direction we go when we experience a crisis will very much determine whether we experience grace. Do we model for our kids that we take such things to our pastors and into the sacrament of confession, that our first remedy is prayer and fasting? Or do we look for other solutions? (This is not to say that sometimes medical help may not be validly required, but it shouldn’t be sought out to the exclusion of spiritual guidance.) Someone who is raised going to confession regularly (not just once a year!) will likely think of his confessor as a go-to resource for dealing with a crisis. And while there’s no guarantee, he’s more likely to experience God’s grace there than if he turns to some other remedy.
I write all this in the context of working on the youth ministry in my own parish. It seems to me that it should probably mostly be geared to teaching how to make all these things a part of daily life, not just making time to get together and be spiritual and/or religious for a while and then go home. I also write this in the context of learning how to be a better father to three little Christians. I’m no expert. But I’m working on it. And I’m glad my wife is working hard on raising our children as Christians, too.
Share this:
Ten (Possibly) Surprising Facts about Fred Phelps
Besides being a heretical hate-monger who pushed the envelope of the definition of constitutionally protected speech, Fred Phelps, the late leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, had a number of perhaps surprising facets to his life. Here are ten of them, all culled from the Wikipedia article dedicated to him.
1. In the ’60s and ’70s, Phelps was a notable civil rights lawyer in Kansas, defending African-Americans against the “Jim Crow establishment” in the police and school system, as well as in public utilities and universities. He once said of his efforts, “I systematically brought down the Jim Crow laws of this town.”
2. In the 1980s, he won awards for his civil rights defense work from the Greater Kansas City Chapter of Blacks in Government and the Bonner Springs branch of the NAACP.
3. He once sued Ronald Reagan for appointing an ambassador to the Vatican, arguing that such an appointment violated the separation of church and state.
4. He was a Democrat, running for office in four different primaries (all lost), garnering as much as 30% of the vote in the Democratic primary for senator from Kansas.
5. He strongly believed in Five Point Calvinism, calling the Arminian doctrine opposed to it within Protestantism “worse blasphemy and heresy than that heard in all filthy Saturday night f*g bars in the aggregate in the world.”
6. He worked on Billy Graham crusades, though later denounced Graham as the “greatest false prophet since Balaam.”
7. In 1993, Phelps had a big blow-up on the Ricki Lake Show.
8. In 1997, Saddam Hussein gave Phelps’ church permission to come and preach in Baghdad. After Hussein’s execution in 2006, Phelps announced that Hussein was in Hell along with Gerald Ford.
9. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed multiple lawsuits defending Fred Phelps and his church for their picketing activities.
10. He may have been excommunicated from his own church in August of last year. No one seems to be saying why.
Given some of his earlier and more charitable history, is it possible that the excommunication was because Fred Phelps repented before the end? We may never know. One thing I believe, though, and that is that God loves Fred Phelps. Because He loves everyone, no exceptions.
Also: People are complicated, even people who present themselves as caricatures. We all have both evil and good within us. May God forgive and heal us of the evil and magnify the good.
Share this:
Returning to the Paradise I’ve Never Seen
Sunday of Forgiveness, March 2, 2014
Rev. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.
Today is called the Sunday of Forgiveness, most especially because of the service that we will celebrate here this evening, Forgiveness Vespers, when all of us will ask each other to forgive what we have thought, said and done in our sinfulness. But there is another theme that is woven throughout the hymns for this Sunday that stands before the beginning of the Great Fast. That theme is also a theme of beginnings, though it may also be thought of as a theme of endings. And what is this theme? It is the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.
We know what happens when Adam and Eve sin, when they eat of that one thing forbidden to them by their God, when they rip themselves away from the perfect harmony they enjoyed with the Creator—they are driven out of Eden. And God sets up one of the cherubim there at the entrance of the garden with a flaming sword, guarding the Tree of Life.
Although the Scripture does not depict their reaction to this exile, the hymnographers of Orthodoxy have imagined what happens next—Adam sits outside of Paradise and weeps for what he has lost.
There is a common expression: “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” And perhaps that applies here in some sense to Adam as he sits outside of Paradise. But I have never been to Paradise. How can you know what you’ve lost if you’ve never had it?
We who were born after the loss of Paradise find ourselves on this side of the flaming sword of the cherubim do not know what it is that Adam lost. We are born into this world like people born blind. How does a blind man who has never seen anything know how to understand when someone tries to tell him about what it means to see? Or about sunlight? About color? About beauty?
This is where we find ourselves. This is why so much spiritual exhortation can seem like nonsense. For a blind man who does not know how to see at all, telling him about sights like sunlight, about details like color, or about more transcendent abstractions like beauty is just so much non sequitur. He has no frame of reference, no experience to connect those words to.
Here we stand, at the threshold of Great Lent, and we are being asked to strive, to work, to struggle, to attain to a place we have never been, to beauty we have never known, to behold a light that we do not know how to see. How can Great Lent be a “return” to Paradise when we do not even know what Paradise looks like?
We live here, on the other side, where everything is broken, corrupted, incomplete, wounded.
Those born this side of the Fall of Adam and Eve are born without the memory of Paradise. We do not know what we have lost, because we never had it. We have never seen it. We never walked in Eden, smelled its air, tasted its fruit, named the animals, or walked with our God in the cool of the day. We have never known what it means to love without any selfishness or reservation whatsoever, what it means to have total peace, what it’s like to know that God is there and that He loves us without any question.
The good news of the Gospel that is revealed to us in a particular, powerful way during this holy season of Lent is that there is a light that shines into our blindness, a beauty that shows itself in our ignorance, a music that gets beyond our deafness. For you see, while Adam lost for us what was given to him by God, a new Adam has come.
This new Adam has emptied Himself and by His own will taken up the frailty of our flesh, the weakness of our birth, the exile of our expulsion from Paradise.
Christ’s experience of human suffering, of taking all our sins onto Himself, breaks through the “Catch 22” of trying to find our way back to a Paradise we have never known. Neither the season of Lent nor any part of the Christian life is about groping around for a Paradise that we cannot see, cannot touch, cannot know and wouldn’t know how to recognize if we came upon it. No, it is about connecting with Jesus Christ.
God sees our disconnection, our blindness to the glory of the Paradise that Adam lost. He knows that we are lost, that we are born so lost that we do not even know what to look for. He does not wait for us to find Him. He is finding us. He has come here to us by sending His Son. He shows us the way to Paradise through the Cross and Resurrection.
In seeking out Jesus, we do not have to seek something we cannot know, someone we cannot find. He is here. He is human, just as we are, of the same species as we are. He is present to us, and He has provided us with numerous ways to connect with Him. We do not have to grope around in the dark. In a sense, spiritual life is really quite simple. We just have to show up and do it.
There are so many ways to seek Jesus, to be with Him. We hear His voice in the Gospels. We see His face in the holy icons. We touch Him directly in the sacraments. And when we lay aside our earthly cares through fasting and non-possessiveness, we can experience those things all the more intensely. And perhaps most powerfully and poignantly in this blessed season, when we offer up even our hurt and our suffering and our emptiness and our loneliness to Him, He joins it to His own. For He knows what exile is like. He knows what it means to be far from home.
During His time on this Earth, Jesus was a man of sorrows. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was homeless. He was hated. He was beaten. He was rejected. He was ridiculed. He was nailed to a cross. He carried all human sorrow within Him. He is the Second Adam. And just as the first Adam brought all this upon us through his disobedience, the Second Adam carried it all through His obedience, an obedience even unto death itself.
That is why we can go to Him, why we can meet Him, why He meets us in our own pain and brokenness. He enters into our darkness. He is accessible. He is present.
And why is it that the key to returning to Paradise is Jesus? Why is it that we seek Him out in order to find the home that we really have never known?
Here is the secret to why this beautiful Lenten springtime works: It is because Jesus is Paradise.
You see, what Adam truly lost was not just residence in a beautiful garden. That may have been true, whether literally or metaphorically, but what is truly lost in the fall from grace is, well, grace. What was lost by Adam was his communion, his closeness with God. That is what made Paradise what it was. It was that there was no separation from God, no imperfection, no corruption, no brokenness at all. There was life and light and beauty and glory, because there was God and because there Adam knew God and was known by God. And when Adam sinned, God comes looking for him and Adam hides himself—not because God did not know where he was or because Adam could truly hide, but because there was now a separation between them.
Thus, the Paradise that we lost in Adam and yet never knew we can gain in the New Adam, for He is that Paradise. And even though in this life it will never be complete, we can still know that beauty, that wonder, that sweetness and consolation, for He is that Paradise that was lost to our blindness. And then one day, we will see Him face to face.
To our God therefore be all glory, honor and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Share this:
The Gift of the Cross
He could not have known.
In the joy only a 21-month-old is capable of at successfully worming his way into papa’s inner sanctum, he began to explore its secrets and soon made his way to that low table that had so many wonderful things lying on it. Amid the prayerbooks, candles and even a brass hand censer was a ceramic Celtic standing cross papa had brought back from the holy island of Iona many years before and thousands of miles away. He did not know that his big sister had, a few years before, approached that same table, opened up the little bottles she found there and actually swallowed some of the soil brought back from that same holy place. He laid hold of the ceramic cross and swung it around in happiness.
He did not know that it would break so easily.
The broken cross has been sitting on my desk at home for the past couple of weeks, and when I came home from a short trip to discover it had been broken, my heart sank. Losing it made me quite sad, and I posted briefly about it online, noting that the experience tested my ability to be non-possessive.
It was irreplaceable. I had gotten that standing St. John’s Cross when I went on pilgrimage to the British Isles in 2001.
That pilgrimage was transformative for me. I had just graduated college (finally), still sorrowful and a bit mopey from the break-up a few months before with a girlfriend I’d dated for about a year and a half. My parents bought me the plane ticket, and I spent nearly a month traveling around the British Isles—in England, Scotland and Ireland—visiting holy places and doing a little touristy sight-seeing, as well. Spending nearly a month traveling mostly alone, breathing the air of a country I’d read about all my life, connecting with places that for me had been just legends in my heart—all these renewed my faith in a way that no convincing argument or even reading ever could.
I foolishly bought a few t-shirts as souvenirs, but I also got a few more lasting things, as well. On the little island of Iona, where St. Columba began his holy exile and from where he converted Scotland to Christ, I got that cross, a small replica of a large standing cross that is not far from Iona Abbey.
After I got back that summer, I wondered for a while if I’d reconnect with that young lady, eventually moved on and tried with another I met through church, though that one didn’t work out, either. The following April, I met my wife. I didn’t know it was her, of course, and it turns out we’d met before, though, to this day, neither of us remembers that earlier meeting.
Our first in-person meeting (that we can recall) was at Global Village Organic Coffee (a.k.a. “Tree-hugger Coffee”) in Raleigh, North Carolina. I’d been going there for a couple years by that point (from its opening day, in fact), and I’d been a customer for some years at the coffeehouse that had previously been housed in the same space. I also frequently talked with the proprietor Mike, a devout Catholic. So this was good ground for me to meet a girl—public, comfortable, hospitable. We talked mainly about the Church, and I invited her to come sometime. She did. And I’m glad she did.
Over the years, those souvenirs—souvenir; French for “I remember”—were a reminder of what God had done for a beat-up heart, a child just a few years old in His Church. That pilgrimage steadied (and I hope, deepened) me for what was to come—manhood, marriage, seminary, priesthood, fatherhood, parish ministry. There have been many bumps and bruises along the way. Many. And a lot of them have been self-inflicted. I’ve failed at all those things.
Some of those failures are ongoing, and I’m not sure yet how to overcome a few.
So yesterday, I was at the post office to drop off some letters and packages, and I brought with me one of those “sorry you weren’t there” notes that the mail carrier leaves when he can’t deliver a package. I had no idea what the package was. I just found the note at the church. I must admit to being a little annoyed when I found it, because deliveries to the church are unreliable like that. I always get packages sent to my home. But I gave the slip to the woman behind the counter, and she found the package and handed it to me.
It had a customs notice on the outside, and I could see that it had been shipped from the little town of Oban—of all places. I’d been there. That was the final mainland stop in Scotland for those journeying to Iona. A ferry, a bus ride, and another ferry, and you were there. Oban? Who was shipping me something from Oban?
I brought it home and opened it up. Inside was a St. John’s Cross, almost just like the one my little boy had unknowingly broken, but made of pewter. A packing slip was included, and the billing name and address were those of Mike, the Raleigh coffeehouse owner. I haven’t frequented his shop in nearly ten years, but we’d reconnected on Facebook a couple of years ago. He must have seen my little lament about the cross.
Putting all these various narrative strands together doesn’t quite add up to a particular story, but when I opened the package and saw the cross, I was moved enough that I began to wonder how to make sense of these pieces of the story that are indeed all connected in one way or another. And it occurred to me that what weaves them together is precisely the Cross.
As anyone who attempts to be serious about Christian faith experiences at various points in life, crucifixion is required. The Lord says, after all, that anyone who would come after Him has to take up his cross and follow Him. We can sometimes romanticize what this must be like, that we are going to be suffering for a Cause, perhaps. But the biggest cross that I have to take up and carry to Golgotha really is my vanity, my pride, my desire to be right—and my need to, well, need.
And I also remember that those around me are carrying crosses, too.
It is no accident, I think, that this holy object—just an object, yes, but nonetheless one that is holy—connects between so many different times of transition: coming of age, confirming my faith, getting married, being a husband, being a father, being a priest. For the Christian, the gift of the Cross of Christ is always a crossroads.
And we keep returning to the Cross until that final Day, which is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and live.
