Jesus acts in and through the Church which acts in his Name.  In the book of Acts, Luke tells us about the signs and wonders which characterized the life of the early Church – signs and wonders done in and through the Name of Jesus, signs and wonders that echo those Jesus performed before His death and resurrection.  For some observers and some followers, signs and wonders validated the ministry of Jesus. Peter preaches on Pentecost that “Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him.”  Likewise the Church is accredited by signs and wonders which God performs through the Church.  Peter says to the lame beggar, “‘Silver of gold I do not have, but what I have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.’ And at once his feet and ankles became strong, he jumped to his feet and began to walk, going with Peter and John into the temple where he jumped around praising God for such a miracle.”

The picture is simple: Through the Church, Jesus continues to do the saving work he did before his death and resurrection. This is ministry in his Name.  Charles de Foucauld puts it this way: “[Jesus] works through [the Church] and by means of it continues the work he began in the flesh while he lived among men: the glorification of God by the sanctification of men. This work is the purpose of the Church, as it was Christ’s and Jesus accomplishes it in the Church unceasingly throughout all the centuries.”[1]

The Church’s purpose is the glorification of God by the sanctification of men and women like us.  This is what we see happening in Acts through the power of Jesus’ Name.  As Jesus through the Holy Spirit in the Church acts to bring about this sanctification, the story of course includes signs and wonders, sometimes dramatic signs and wonders like those reported by Luke. But, even in Acts, not every lame beggar received healing.  I think there is another miracle at work here, one that works deep beneath the surface in all places where Jesus acts through the Church to bring about our sanctification.  And this miracle is more subtly present in the text of Acts, but it’s even more pervasive than signs and wonders. It’s the miracle of repentance.

To those who heard the Gospel on Pentecost, Peter said “repent and be baptized, every one of you, into the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.”  If we want to live in the Name of Jesus – to be baptized into his Name, then minister in his Name, preach fearlessly in His Name, get up and walk in the Name, proclaim healing in the Name, suffer disgrace for the Name, be willing to die for the Name – we must begin with repentance.

And if we begin with repentance in Jesus’ Name, we may see many more miracles taking place in that Name today than we previously recognized.  Repentance itself is a miracle, a gift, a grace given by God.  In the final verse of our reading of Acts last night, Peter said “When God raised up his servant Jesus, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” Repentance is blessing from the Lord.  Acts 5:31 says “[the Father] has exalted [Jesus] to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.”  Jesus gives repentance.  In Acts 11, Peter reports to the apostles in Jerusalem about what happened with Cornelius, and they apostles respond by saying “God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”  God grants repentance leading to life.

Even Peter begins his ministry in the Name of Jesus by receiving repentance.  God gave Peter the opportunity to repent of his denial of the Lord, and Peter accepted.  Is it possible that the power which flows through Peter in the book of Acts began with his repentance?  Perhaps Isaiah the Solitary’s words describe the repentant Peter: “when a man abandons his sins and returns to God, his repentance regenerates him completely.”[2] Peter is a very different character in Acts than he is the Gospels.  The Holy Spirit has been poured out upon him.  But what does Peter say about receiving the Spirit?  “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus . . . and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  Luke the Evangelist would say that if we seek the signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit without repenting, we are like Simon the magician in Acts 8.  Simon offered Peter and John money, “saying, ‘Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’ But Peter said to him, ‘May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.  You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God.  Therefore, repent. . .” (Acts 8:19-22a).  Similarly, St. Mark the Ascetic says the one “who seeks the energies of the Spirit, before he has actively observed the commandments is like someone who sells himself into slavery and who, as soon as he is bought, asks to be given his freedom while still keeping his purchase money.”[3]  What begins with repentance ends with the gift of the Spirit, who then empowers ministries of signs and wonders in the Name of Jesus.

And repentance may have even more power than external signs and wonders. In the passage we just heard (Acts 4:1-31), the rulers and elders and teachers of the law acknowledge, “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows that these followers of Jesus have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it.”  They could not deny that a miracle had taken place, nor could they deny that it had taken place in the Name of Jesus.  But they still refused to repent.

What if repentance is a larger sign and a more amazing wonder than making the lame walk? A dazzling healing may attract immediate attention, but the fruit borne of repentance will only grow better with age.  Our culture trains us to pursue instant gratification, signs and wonders here and now which we’ll crave again tomorrow.  Repentance bears its fruit through patience, starting with small decisions for and against, and resulting in “trees firmly planted by streams of water which yield their fruit in due season” (Psalm 1:3).  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Mt 13:31-32).  Perhaps the seeds of the Kingdom are planted with the tools of repentance.

As Acts continues from this point, the story of the Apostle Paul dominates the narrative.  Like Peter’s story, Paul’s begins with repentance and ends with powerful life and ministry in Jesus’ Name.  Saul’s reception of the gift of repentance transformed him from one who persecuted those who called on the Name into one who preached fearlessly in the Name of Jesus.  As one who died to sin by being baptized into Jesus’ Name, he became one willing to die for the Name of the Lord Jesus. To live in the name of Jesus is to be conformed to his likeness, to have the pattern of one’s life altered to resemble that of Jesus.  And the Apostle Paul’s story demonstrates this, not only in the signs and wonders which Paul performed in Jesus’ Name, but even more remarkably in the likeness of Paul’s suffering to Christ’s.  When Ananias didn’t want to go to Saul in Damascus, the Lord told him, “Go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my Name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, and I will show him how much me must suffer for the sake of my Name.”   By the time we reach Acts 21, Paul has been persecuted, interrogated, imprisoned, beaten with rods, stoned and left for dead.  With all this behind him, he’s waiting with the Church in Ceasarea when a prophet comes to him.  He takes his belt, binds his feet and hands and says to Paul you will be bound like this and handed over to the Gentiles if you go to Jerusalem.  Those closest to Paul try to dissuade him from going, they try to protect his life.  But Paul says “I am ready not only to be bound but to die for the Name of the Lord Jesus.”

That is a miracle, a sign, and a wonder. A persecutor of Christians transformed into Christlikeness, even to the point of suffering, beginning with repentance.  And this sort of transformation is vital for us if we are called to minister in Jesus’ Name.  The Good News for us today is that such transformation is possible, and is taking place even right now.  Behold the Name of Jesus performing miracles among us: The person set free from bondage to pornography or any other sexual sin is a great miracle.  The person set free from lies about her self-worth or image is a great miracle.  The greedy person who becomes generous, recognizing that the Name of Jesus is worth more than silver or gold – there is a miracle.  The manipulator who tried to exercise power over people, transformed by repentance into a loving servant – there is a miracle by the Power of the Name of Jesus.  The prideful person humbled, brought low – there is a miracle in the Name of the one who humbled himself and became obedient even unto death. The person addicted to comfort who becomes willing to suffer for Jesus’ sake – there is a miracle in the Name of the crucified Lord.  We who are experiencing such release from bondage should join together like the disciples who prayed after their release from prison, calling upon the Lord to “Stretch out [his] hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the Name of [his] holy servant Jesus” (4:30).

Thanks be to God, we are given companions on this journey of repentance, fellow pilgrims on the road with us now and saints who’ve gone before. One such companion who’s gone before us is Brother Charles de Foucauld.  I quoted him briefly near the beginning of this meditation because he’s yet another example of a miracle of repentance followed by a life lived in Jesus’ Name. Brother Charles was a French man who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  In his early life as a soldier and explorer, he knew loose living, gluttony, excitement and adventure.  Then he experienced a radical conversion to Christ.  Curious about Christianity, he visited a priest and asked for book recommendations.  The priest responded that books didn’t have the answer Charles needed.  What Charles needed to do, the priest said, was confess his sin and then receive Eucharist.  He did so, and he was transformed.  After that day he knew his personal calling was to imitate what he called the “hidden life of Jesus.” By the hidden life, he meant the first thirty years of Jesus’ life, before his public ministry, during which Jesus lived a simple and quiet life of poverty, work, prayer, and obedience. Brother Charles became a monk and eventually moved to Nazareth to imitate those years of Jesus’ life in the very place where Jesus lived.  After several years, Foucauld felt called to live this simple life of poverty, labor, and unceasing prayer in the midst of people who didn’t know Jesus.  So he moved to the deserts of North Africa and lived this prayerful life among the Tuareg people-group as a quiet form of witness to them. He earned a reputation among them as a holy man.  In 1916, thirty years after his conversion and calling to live a life in Jesus’ Name, he was martyred there.  Though he died thinking he was a failure in the eyes of the world, Foucauld’s example and his writings have since inspired thousands to follow him in imitating the hidden life of Jesus.  His repentance and the life he then lived in Jesus’ Name are still bearing fruit today.

As we seek to live more deeply in the Name of Jesus, I want to invite you to join me in praying a prayer written by Brother Charles.  It’s a bold prayer, one that is fitting for repentance, but one that also commits ourselves to ministry in Jesus’ Name.  And it is a prayer that I believe the Lord is eager to answer.  So if you will, please pray in your hearts with me:  Jesus, “live in us, rule in us, so that it may be no longer we who live, but you in us, [our] God.  Use our bodies and souls, which we give you unreservedly, continuing through them your life and work in this world, the glorification of God and the sanctification of men, as you yourself laid down in your eternal design, in you, through you, and for you. Amen. Amen. Amen.”[4]

Attentiveness is the heart’s stillness, unbroken by any thought. […] If we have not attained prayer that is without thoughts, we have no weapon to fight with.

– Hesychios

Prayer without thoughts.

What does it mean to have prayer without thoughts?

Has anyone ever told you that you need to learn to pray without thoughts before?

Most of the instruction I have received in my life has involved prayer with words – words of thanksgiving, confession, petition, intercession. Prayer, as it has been introduced to me in most of my Christian education, has involved talking to God. The question at the heart of this teaching was, “What should the Christian say to her God?”

For our teacher this evening, however, prayer is not fundamentally conversation. For Hesychios, the launching pad of prayer is not address, but presence.

Prayer without thoughts. We’re going to undertake and experiment. I want everyone in the room to close their eyes and stop thinking. I’m serious. We’re going to sit for a minute and do our best to clear our minds – to have, and to keep, them free from thoughts. Begin.

[Pause.]

Time’s up. How did it go? Did you hear, as some translators render Elijah having heard on the mountain, the sound of sheer silence? Or was it more like a hospital on the nightshift ­– supposedly still for the repose of the sick, but really – still and always – bustling quietly, doctors writing late orders, housekeepers scrubbing lately emptied rooms for 2AM admissions, nursing making rounds to pass the midnight and 3AM meds, the occasional sound of alarms. I know that my mind at rest sounds much more like the hospital where I sometimes work at night than a Carthusian monastery where all the monks have taken a vow of silence.

What were all those voices running around in your head? All those images and ideas? Worries. Fantasies. Shopping lists. Memories. Plans. Wants. Lusts. Cosmically significant musings and wrestling. (And I’m serious about that last. Each and every thought that crosses your mind really, really matters.)

Do you know your own thoughts? Perhaps it is time that you met them. Or, if you’re already acquainted, found out what they’re up to for the purpose of the next 20 hours of devotion.

The second exercise is like the first. Close your eyes and stop thinking. Only this time you know, if you didn’t know before, that you’re likely to fail. And so this time, when your thoughts make their inevitable appearance, take note of them. Find out what they’re up to. Make a list of them – but not more than two or three. Our purpose is noticing, not active engagement. Clear your mind and begin.

[Pause.]

Time’s up.

Do you have a list?

Or at least one thought you caught sneaking through?

Now comes the hard part. Those thoughts are the enemies of your prayers. Even if they were boring: “Tomato soup for lunch tomorrow or chicken noodle?” Even if they were pious: “Perhaps I will go to India and be a missionary.” No matter what sort of thoughts they are, thoughts are the enemies of the sort of prayer Hesychios is trying to teach us.

The trouble with talking to Jesus is that – although He sometimes grants us glimpses of Himself in dreams and visions, although He is the visible image of the invisible God – He is, generally, not available for us to see with the naked eye. And we tend to do a pretty poor job of talking to people we can see. We do an even worse job of just being with people we can see. And being, I would like to posit, is the best precursor to real talking. Real being with – real, deep presence – leads to true conversation. Or, even better, to that which transcends talking: communion, the calling and meeting of deep and deep.

Tim and I had a conversation the other day that was pretty scattered. I was sitting in the kitchen of the house where he lives, working on this talk. He came down from the upstairs, where he had been working on his dissertation, to make a pot of coffee.

Tim: Lisa Sayre.

Lisa: Hey, Tim.

Tim: How’s it coming?

Lisa: Not so good. Work was rough last night, and I didn’t sleep well, and I’m having a hard time concentrating.

Tim: (Obviously to himself) Where are the coffee filters? Are we out? Oh, Caroline said she bought some new ones. Where are they? (To Lisa) Yeah, that’s hard.

Lisa: How’s your dissertation coming?

Tim: I don’t know. Plugging along.

Lisa: By the way, we’re out of toilet paper down here.

Tim: Oh, yeah. (To himself, measuring scoops) One. Two. Three. Four. (To Lisa) I’ll get some.

Lisa: Thanks. (To herself) I hope he gets it soon. I really have to pee. And I hope he’s making enough coffee to share. And I hope he goes away soon because I was about to have a really important thought. Even though it’s, like, his house.

Not the most profound exchange of inquiries that ever passed between two friends. Not that every conversation you have with your friends – or your spouse, or your coworkers, or your parents – has to be the most profound conversation you’ve ever had. But if that was the only kind of conversation Tim and I ever had, we wouldn’t be very good friends. But we have had conversations that involve communion of the heart, that involve drawing near to those things of which sighs speak clearer than words. It is those conversations that allow our more passing exchanges to pass for communication and to be, in their own way, sustaining.

And so – and more so – with God. For there is a limit to how close Tim and I can be and to how close it is proper for us to be. Even Time and Caroline, who have become one flesh in their marriage, are still separated by flesh and bone. Tim may say that Caroline is close to his heart, but she does not actually dwell there. But God dwells within us and desires that we should dwell in Him. And while Tim doesn’t have the right to come first in anyone’s thoughts – although he may be near the top of Caroline’s – the Lord, as Creator, is by the right the foremost of all that is and He demands that nothing come before Him. He desires you and wants no veil between Himself and your heart.

Prayer without thoughts.

Your thoughts are the enemies of your prayers.

How is it when we come to God? Are we so busy thinking about what we should say, or saying what we have already decided to say – or thinking about other things, or measuring scoops of coffee – to really notice the other Person in the room? If our truest prayers are prayed in the Spirit, then the heart of prayer is not thought or talk but availability to the One who knows both our hearts and the heart of God. Just as Tim and I can’t talk deeply unless we are able to set aside our thoughts and listen to one another, so we are not able to truly listen to God save in the absence of thoughts. It is in the place beyond words that the Spirit intercedes for us and the mind of Christ is born in us and we learn to have the thoughts of Christ and to speak the words of God.

What are we to do then? We who need to dwell in the presence of the Lord and yet who have such busy minds? We are, according to certain wise teachers of the ancient Church, Hesychios among them, to call on the name of Jesus.

“Attentiveness in the heart’s stillness, unbroken by any thought. In this stillness the heart breathes and invokes endlessly and without ceasing only Jesus Christ”: this is the end to which we have gathered for these two days, that our hearts might learn, or be deepened in their ability, to breathe and invoke without ceasing the precious name of Jesus.

We are to breathe the name of Jesus because His Name is oxygen which sustains and intensifies the fire of our souls.

We are to invoke Him – or call Him – because the name of Jesus is like no other name. I may speak Tim’s name without commanding His presence. But Jesus is the name of the One who is the Son of God and Himself God, and God is neither divided nor divisible. To speak the name Jesus is to mediate with your very breath, voice box and tongue the presence and power of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Kingdom present and the Kingdom to come, the One who fills all things, the One from Whom, and to Whom, and through Whom all things exist. To Him be the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. To say the name Jesus is not merely to refer to the subject of our liturgies or to mention a Jewish rabbi who died in Palestine long ago. It is both to beg and, by God’s mercy, to bring about the increasing revelation of One who is present in this very room. One who desires, like Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Present, that we may come and know Him better.

We are to call on the name of Jesus without ceasing because, as we have already seen, we are very inattentive creatures. Speak the name of Jesus and something in the air changes. Something in the heart changes. The bit of the universe which you inhabit becomes a bit more true. But speak the name of Jesus once and within ten minutes – or, if you’re like me, within two minutes – the power of that speaking will, likely as not, have dissipated. Not because Jesus or His power are ever less, but because the fires of our hearts blaze not without the Spirit’s blowing. To come to truly know a person, you must spend time with them. To come to the bottom of a thought, you must dwell upon it. And so with our prayers. My prayers must not be Jesus. Chicken soup or tomato? Jesus. What will I do tomorrow? Jesus. I need to return that call. But Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

The third exercise is like the first two – only better. Close your eyes and empty your mind that it might be filled with the name and presence of Jesus Christ. When your thoughts show up, put the name of Jesus between those thoughts and your heart. No thought should ever be nearer your heart than Jesus Christ. And at the presence of Jesus, those thoughts that cannot bear His gaze will flee, those thoughts that cannot be molded to fit the image of His name – which is the image of the indivisible God – will be broken, and only that which is Himself and of Himself will remain. Begin.

[Pause.]

Time’s up – or, well, not really. For the state in which our minds just stood, or tried to stand, is the state in which Hesychios would always have them to be, says that they must be if we are to have true hearts. I don’t have an exercise to teach you that sort of day-in-day-out, every-waking-moment-and-even-in-your-dreaming sort of prayer – only a promise that time spent in intentional stillness has a tendency to creep and spread so that one’s heart, by grace, begins to find quiet in the midst of even the busiest and hardest parts of one’s days. It’s gardening God’s up to. He planted the seed and if you keep watering, it will grow – and grow beyond your wildest expectations.

So, how was it? Did you feel the presence of the Lord? If so, praise God for His goodness and mercy. If not, don’t feel too badly. Even Hesychios admits that it’s difficult. In a passage that we will read tomorrow, he writes: “To human beings it seems hard and difficult to still the mind so that it rests from all thought. Indeed, to enclose what is bodiless [that is, the infinite God] within the limits of the body does demand toil and struggle, not only from the uninitiated but also from those experienced in inner spiritual warfare. But he who through unceasing prayer holds the Lord Jesus within his breast will not tire in following him.” The journey is hard, but there is food for the journey, for our work and our reward is to cling to the one who is manna for our souls.

Pray then, tonight and tomorrow, the name of the Lord Jesus, that He might come to dwell before all in your heart and all your thoughts might be subject to Him. For tonight, do not come to Him asking the redemption and healing of yourself and the world. Do not come to him asking favor or gifts. Come to Him and call Him to come to you simply as He is, Himself Favor and the Gift and the rightful Lord of all. Be still, and you will know that He is God, and having sought nothing but Jesus, you will find yourself in possession of all things. Amen.

Why vigilance? If there is one aspect of the Christian life that I have grown in as I continue to read the Fathers and monks of the Church it is the understanding of the Christian life as a battle. When we accept Christ and are baptized, we are now free in Christ, but now are under the radar of the enemy. Satan is angry that we have sworn our allegiance to Christ and have enlisted into his Army. Now, Satan and his minions are doing whatever they can to destroy us by deterring us from our focus on Christ. It is in our vigilance in mind and body that we are able to guard against these attacks and therefore, stay focused on our Commander Jesus Christ.

Why repentance? I used to see repentance as something that I had to do because I did bad things and needed to become morally right again. With this mentality, I saw grace and forgiveness as something that was constantly in danger of being lost, not to mention I had to work for them. As I have grown in my understanding of my union with Christ in baptism, I now see repentance in a new light. Repentance is something that I want to do. In my repenting, I don’t receive more forgiveness; I have already received forgiveness in its fullness, I now repent out of thankfulness to the deep grace that I have.

If we want to continue to grow in our relationship to Christ like Symeon, and be swept up in His presence, growing in our desire for His commands and ordinances, then we must become vigilant and full of repentance.

Mary as Holy Yes

Mary is a model of joyful submission to the Lord. She had a choice, and she said yes to God. Mary paid dearly for this choice; her decision transformed and ordered her life. Yet it was her choice, her desire to say yes to God. We learn from her about acting in freedom and love. Jacob of Serug says her choice was beautiful because freedom was present, and contrasts her with “the sun [which] is beautiful but it is not praised by spectators, because it is known that its will does not give it light.” (p 25) And she kept saying yes, as she raised her son to be a humble, holy man, as she allowed him to go on his mission to the world, as she watched him die.

Jacob of Serug points out that God did not ask just anyone to be the mother of his son. Mary’s soul was beautiful and humble and her heart was desirous of serving God. As I contemplate Mary, I am inspired to prepare my soul to hear God speak. I wonder what the Lord may ask of me, and I ask for her courage to say yes.

Mary as Union with God

Mary experienced a closeness with our Lord that no other human being (or angelic being) has been privileged to know. Knit in her womb, carried in the fiber of her being, formed from her own flesh and blood, was the Creator of the Universe. What a mighty privilege! What a fearsome responsibility! What would it be like to feel the light of the world growing inside you, so real and present that you can feel him kicking? What can Mary teach me about what it means to be the bearer of the Lord to the world? I may not give birth to the next Christ child, but I do carry the Holy Spirit within me. As I ask her how she was transformed by her pregnancy and birth, I see more clearly how God’s presence within me is shaping and forming me.

Mary as Love and Service

Contemplating Mary as the one who births the savior of the world is awesome, overwhelming in its grandeur. Contemplating Mary as the mother who raised the Lord is earthly, humble. No one has loved Christ the way Mary has. But what if we did? What if we asked Mary to show us what it was like to hold the infant Lord, to feel his tiny fingers wrapped around ours? To help up the boy Jesus after he fell and bandage his skinned knee? Or to show us her grown son as he set out into the world, to see the veins in his hands and the dirt on his feet and to love every bit of him completely? What would that do to our relationship with Christ? I believe if we learn from Mary about her love for her son, our love will grow and expand and our gratitude for the sacrifice God made in sending his son to earth will swell.

There is no other human being who has known Christ as intimately, served him as closely, or loved him as deeply as Mary. I have found that as my knowledge of and relationship with Mary has grown, so too has my love for and desire to serve her son, Jesus.

But if it is possible to be saved | without love, O my Christ, |how shall this be? | Impossible!  If we were separated from the light, | how shall we flee the darkness? | If we were deprived of joy, | how would we be free from sorrow? | Having been found outside the bridal chamber, | how would we be completely happy? | Having fallen out of the Kingdom, | –I speak of seeing you, O Savior — | what other salvation, | and what sort of consolation, | or in what other kind of place | would we be able to find salvation? | Certainly, absolutely nowhere…

~ St. Symeon The New Theologian, Hymn 17.426-441, from his “Hymns of Divine Eros.”

Sometimes my son, Zeke, will mess his diaper and immediately ask to be changed, and all is well.  If the messy diaper goes unnoticed by parents and un-confessed by Zeke, and he’s in it for longer than a few moments, he is less likely to want to be changed.  This may seem counter-intuitive, but if you sit in your own mess for a long period of time, though it’s uncomfortable, you get used to it.  The cleaning process becomes a frightful thought, because the change seems more unbearable since it will require harder scrubbing.

Does this sound familiar?

My wife loves my son very much (so do I, but this story isn’t about me), he knows that she loves him, and he loves her in return.  Just recently, Kelly knew that Zeke’s diaper was dirty and needed to be changed, but he didn’t know that she knew that.  He just wanted to be near her, so he called out, joyfully, “Mommy!” and ran toward her.  Kelly reached out her arms to embrace him, and said, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”  Zeke replied with, “Noooooooo!!!”  And he began to fight her.  Kelly was cleaning him up, but he was calling for her as if she wasn’t even there.  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”  In effect, he wanted the comfort, love, affection, and assurance he receives from Kelly, without actually wanting Kelly herself, at that moment.

Does this sound familiar?

We often speak of what Jesus saves us from, but let me ask: to what does Jesus save us?

Yes, Jesus saves us from sin, death, and hell.  Yes, he frees us from the bonds of our fleshly desires.  Yes, he protects us from our enemy, the one who “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).”  But…is that all he does?  It is true that all of these are amazing and we rightly should want them!  However, if we are playing in a mud puddle (sin), and then get stuck in the mud, Jesus is not content to simply pull us out of the mud and send us on our way.  Nor does he offer that option.  Instead, he pulls us out, embraces us cleaning us up, then he puts his own clothes on us, nourishes us, and bids us to follow him, assuring us that he’ll be with us and we’ll be with him.  But don’t we often think, “Jesus, I really just want you to pull me out of the mud and then let me go on my own way…”?  Here’s the thing, Jesus offers us more than we want.  He offers himself (Light, Joy, Intimacy).  I think we could easily add to Symeon’s set of rhetorical questions in Hymn 17:  “If we were separated from Purity, how would we be made clean?”  If Zeke were separated from his parents, how would he be cleaned, fed, nourished, and loved?

Again, we can go our own way, attempting to escape (or simply accepting) darkness, sorrow, unhappiness, and our own filth, on our own terms, by our own efforts, seeking to fabricate our own rest and peace.  We have that option, but it’s useless, says Symeon, because there is no other dwelling of Light, Joy, Intimacy (or Purity) outside of the Savior’s Kingdom.

How then shall we ever obtain these things that we all so desperately want and need if we can’t find them, take them, or make them ourselves?  This is where fear comes in.

The Gospel is fearfully Good News!  By God’s grace, he offers it to us freely, though it is at great cost to him; we cannot earn it or make it, but it can be received.  God wants to show us “the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7)!  Can you imagine a King coming to you and saying, “I’d like to adopt you.  Though you’ve hid from me, disobeyed me, and even fought me, I want to make you part of my family.”  “What do I have to do?” you ask.  “Nothing, I’ve done everything for you,” he replies, “just say ‘yes,’ and come live with me.”  This sounds too good to be true, and you’re still skeptical.  “What’s the catch?” you ask.  He lovingly looks you in the eyes and says, “You will become part of my family and live as one of my heirs” (cf. Col 1:10-12).

For me, and for Symeon, this rightly causes “fear and trembling” (cf. Php 2:12).  But as we accept his amazing grace and live with him as our Father-King, we grow in our knowledge of his love and care for us, and as we continue to experience this gift of love and adoption, we cannot but love and joyfully obey our Father-King in return (cf. Eph 3:14-19; Php 1:9; 1 John 4:19-21).  Seeking the King’s will, then, because he loves us and we him, is our greatest desire as grateful, loved and adopted members of his family.  John Newton wrote, “ ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear…and grace my fears relieved.”  The fruit of this fear is love, which leads to obedience!  Now, some may obey the King out of fear but not love, but this is a sinful fear, which observes the King’s rules in hopes of earning his favor while avoiding the King himself.  His favor cannot be earned, nor the benefits of the Kingdom gained without loving the King himself.

Friends, God has “rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Col 1:13).  Jesus saves us into his Kingdom.  Jesus saves us to himself.  Like Kelly to Zeke, the King will clean us, feed us, care for us, and protect us, because he loves us.  Likewise, this purification, nourishment, sustenance, and protection are inseparable from intimate, loving relationship with him.  This is Jesus’ only offer: himself.  No more, no less.  Salvation can be found nowhere else.  Will you accept his offer?

Skin, dirt, blood, grass.  Oil, ink, paint, metal. Handshake, caress, slap, punch.

Look at our hands.   Think of the mundane everyday grime we get on our hands and casually wash off.  Think of our hands’ utility, their thumb-twiddling fidgets, their immense power when holding the correct tools.  Think of the persons our hands have touched, have soothed, have harmed.  Symeon’s hands were just like ours – dirt under our nails and stains of sin on our palms – and by God’s incredible grace he marvels at the glory of Christ in them: “How do You make my wretched hands resplendent? / Hands that have sinned, and I have defiled them with the defilement of sin” (Hymn 19, lines 15-16).

Defiled though they may be, it is these very hands by which and through which the Lord sets us apart and uses us in his service. In Hebrew, the idiom that is often translated as “ordain” or “consecrate” literally means “fill the hands” (מָלֵא יָד - mālē’ yāḏ).  It’s an odd saying, but one that represents literally the content of priestly ministry.  Exodus 29 describes an elaborate sacrifice of a bull and two rams as part of the ordination ceremony.  Verses 22-24 read:

“You shall also take the fat from the ram and the fat tail, and the fat that covers the entrails and the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them and the right thigh (for it is a ram of ordination [literally 'a ram of filling']), and one cake of bread and one cake of bread mixed with oil and one wafer from the basket of unleavened bread which is set before the Lord; and you shall put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and shall wave them as a wave offering before the Lord.”

To be set apart for the Lord’s service under the Old Covenant was to have your ordinary human hands filled with the bloody reality of the Lord’s sacrifices.  Ministry was not about having clean hands, but about having hands filled with the things of the Lord. And under the New Covenant, our unclean hands are to be filled with Jesus Christ. “At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people” (Acts 5:11).  Everyday objects become vehicles of Christ’s glory (Acts 19:11-12). The people we touch become Christ Himself (Matthew 25:34-40).

But it does not stop there. For Symeon, to say that we are the Body of Christ is more than a metaphor.  Hands that have been filled with Christ’s ministry  which touch Christ in the world also become partakers of Christ:  ” . . . Christ becomes my hand and the foot of all-wretched me, and wretched I become the hand of Christ and the foot of Christ” (Hymn 15, lines 142-143).

These hands which are being transformed into Christ are the same human hands – once filled with harm and filth – now being filled with Christ through worship.  We ask with Symeon, “how would I approach your table? / How would I take your immaculate body / when I have hands completely stained?” (Hymn 20, line 75).  Our stained hands approach His table only because these hands have been baptized into Christ and thus made Christ in order to be filled with Christ in both sacrament and mission.  And from Christ’s presence in such hands, glory shines.

All God’s gifts of grace are flawless and the source of everything good; but the gift which inflames our heart and moves it to the love of His goodness more than any other is theology. It is the early offspring of God’s grace and bestows on the soul the greatest gifts. First of all, it leads us gladly to disregard all love of this life, since in the place of perishable desires we possess inexpressible riches, the oracles of God. Then it embraces our intellect with the light of a transforming fire, and so makes it a partner of the angels in their liturgy. Therefore, when we have been made ready, we begin to long sincerely for this gift of contemplative vision, for it is full of beauty, frees us from every worldly care, and nourishes the intellect with divine truth in the radiance of inexpressible light. In brief, it is the gift which, through the help of the holy prophets united the deiform soul with God in unbreakable communion. So, among me and among angels, divine theology – like one who conducts the wedding feast – brings into harmony the voice of those who praise God’s majesty.

Once the spiritual way has become a reality for us, we shall find it proper and helpful to follow the Lord’s commandment and sell our possessions immediately, distributing the money we receive, rather than to neglect this injunction on the excuse that we wish always to be in a position to obey the commandments. In the first place, this will secure our complete detachment, and a poverty which is in consequence invulnerable and impervious to all lawlessness and litigation, since we no longer have the possessions which kindle the fire of crime in others. Then, more than all the other virtues, humility will warm and cherish us; in our nakedness she will give us rest in her bosom, like a mother who takes her child into her arms and warms it when, with childish simplicity, it has pulled of what it is wearing and thrown it away, innocently delighting more in nakedness than in pretty clothes.

A person who is not detached from worldly cares can neither love God truly nor hate the devil as he should, for such cares are both a burden and a veil. God is not prepared to grant the gift of theology to anyone who has not first prepared himself by giving away all his possessions for the glory of the Gospel; then in godly poverty he can proclaim the riches of the divine kingdom.

I have been captivated since childhood by that line in the hymn “Come Thou Fount” in which we pray, “Teach me some melodious sonnet / Sung by flaming tongues above!” For as long as I have known that written language and, more specifically books, exists I have wanted to be a writer. “Come Thou Fount” contains the only reference I know of in liturgy or hymnody to a specific literary form – which is not to say that there are not others, only that my experience is limited – and so it has been my life-long, church-given prayer to the Christian muse, the Holy Spirit. O God, O Spirit, let me write. Give me words. And someday, please give me the sonnet sung by flaming tongues.

The story of each Christian life is both complex and simple. The simple form is this: Our Father, in His mercy, draws us nearer to Himself through the wound in the side of His Son Jesus Christ. As the blood and water and Spirit pour out, we, through Jesus, are drawn deeper and deeper into the Father’s heart. I will spare out the more complicated version of my story for now, save its most recent development. Some of my brothers and sisters in the House of St. Michael have told me that they believe that to come to know the melodious sonnet might be one of my callings in life. And that I ought to begin pursuing it. Now.

Now? But how? Ah, but in the Faith, allowing God to make us something often comes before our being it. Abraham was a father through faith long before he was a father through the flesh. And whether baptized as Christians or as adults, we were all Christians before we had a very good idea of how to be them. Similarly (I suppose) one decides to be a Christian writer before one may become one. At any rate, I decided, and, tentative as that decision may have been, God responded to my choice with mercy.

Enter Diadochos: Pursuit of the Flaming Sonnet, Lesson One.

In the passages I have excerpted above, Diadochos gives a basic outline of the development of Christian life. It is the story of the treasure hid in the field. We are the field, and the treasure is grace, hidden by God at our baptism deep within our intellect. While grace remains hidden, we look like any other field – both to the world and to ourselves. But then one day, as we are walking along, God allows us to catch a glimpse of the treasure poking up through the soil. Perhaps we have been gardening in the field. Perhaps pesky moles have been digging up the garden we have been trying to make in it. Perhaps our field is on the coastline and a storm came – a storm we thought we would never survive – and washed away the soil. At any rate, suddenly, we see the treasure. And from that moment, nothing will ever be the same.

Once we know there’s a treasure in the field, our life becomes about the acquisition of the field. We must go and sell all we have to buy the field. We must follow Jesus’ command to the rich young ruler: “Go, sell all you have, and, come, follow me.” Twice the Scriptures tell us that we must sell all we have. We must sell all we have to buy the field. We must sell all we have to follow Christ. To buy the field, which is ourselves, we must follow Christ. And the purchase of the field, the following of Christ, is the field’s transformation.

Before the field was known to contain a treasure, what was its value? The value of a piece of land is determined by many things: its potential or apparent fertility, the natural resources it contains, its location. Before the discovery of the treasure, the field may have been worth something. But it was not worth Everything. But the future of the field before the treasure is discovered and the future of the field after it is discovered are two different things. After its purchase the field with the treasure must become not a barren wasteland or a parking lot or a gas station or a shopping mall, but the sort of field owned by one who owns a treasure and a field—and nothing else. For the one who owns the field sold all she had to buy it. What else will the owner of the field improve then with the riches she has gained, if not the field itself? And the riches she has gained are not in diamond or emeralds or long-lost gold, but in the person of the Holy One Himself. This means that the field, in its improvement, must become grounds for a temple. And there is no temple save the One Temple of the One Throne of God of which the Father sits, and Jesus with the Father, and we with Jesus. And round that throne, the angels sing the flaming sonnet “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

This is the destiny of those in whom the grace of God is hidden through their baptism.

But “God is not prepared to grant the gift of theology to anyone who has not first prepared himself by giving away all his possessions for the glory of the Gospel; then in godly poverty he can proclaim the riches of the divine kingdom.”

Think of this not as a forbidding, but as an invitation. Jesus loved the rich young ruler, and the rich young ruler would have been the Lord’s servant as soon as he had desired in his heart to sell his possessions – though he still possessed them all. For possession of the body is nothing compared with possession of the heart. Matthew was a disciple as soon as he stood up from the tax collectors table, for in Jesus God does not refuse to dwell with sinners. Indeed, in Jesus God came to us in the likeness of sinful flesh, selling all He had to buy the field of the world so that co-heirs with Christ might benefit from His purchase. When we make the costly purchase of the field of ourselves, we make no purchase not already made through Jesus’ blood. Do you understand? The purchase is already made. We have been bought with a price. But through the gift of free will, the Master hands us the money that we might have the honor of paying for our freedom with our own hands, that our former “masters” might be grieved at the honor and love bestowed on us by God.

Let us be clear, however: we must give all and sell all to buy all. The Scriptures and the saint are clear. The things of this world are snares and traps, waiting to occupy the space in our heart that God would occupy. If we let them, our possessions will occupy the very throne of our heart. Greed is idolatry. God, in His great desire for us, is very happy to give us Himself and receive some of us in return. Indeed, God died for us while none of our hearts were fully His: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.” But Jesus will never be satisfied until He has all of us and we all of Him. And as long as we insist on having any thing, we cannot be fully His. We may begin by knowing less than the fullness of truth and life. That is normal. But in Jesus our journey must be always forward and never back. If we ever become content with less than the fullness of truth and life ­– if we ever come to realize that we want to keep a thing more than we want Jesus and, seeing that, do not cast that thing away – the truth which we possess will become an empty lie and our lives living death. The choice is not whether we will sell all to buy the field or keep our many possessions. The choice is whether we will have Jesus, who is all in all, or, in the end, have nothing.

The gifts are great and the stakes are high. A field with the treasure of hidden grace. The flaming sonnet sung in the temple of our breasts. Look around your room, then, and begin letting go – not in theory, but in practice – of the tangible things of this life. I cannot tell you how to journey into the desert, for I do not yet know how myself. But I am looking around my room. Hard. But from teacups to laptops to houses and cars, let us keep nothing that will separate us form the love of God, nothing that would keep us from owning, in Jesus, the field of the Holy Temple.

Pray for me. If I am going to serve God as a writer, it is going to cost me my life.

Pray for me. If I am going to be a Christian, it is going to cost me my life. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”

“Come Thou Fount of every blessing / Tune my heart to sing thy grace.”

Reading St. John of Karpathos has been a source of great encouragement.  This ought to come as no surprise since the preface revealed that John wrote “Texts for the Monks in India” precisely to encourage young monks being tempted to abandon the monastic life.  This reading comes, I think, at a wonderful time for us as we at the House continue to persevere in the disciplines to which we have been called.  I have seen tremendous growth within each of us over the course of the past year and I thank God for the mercy he has shown us all, for I know that this growth has certainly come at a great cost and with much struggle.  And this is what St. John has done for us I think.  He has recognized our struggles and the difficulty with which we progress, and while remaining sympathetic towards these spiritual battles, he also reminds us of the patience great progress requires and the dedication and commitment that anything worthy of achieving involves.  And I think we would all agree that this thing to which we have been called is the greatest and most worthy thing to which we could possibly be called; and so the very purpose and ultimate goal of our lives is laid out before us:  to live in Christ.  And so, keeping in mind the familiar themes of prayer, repentance, watchfulness, and stillness, I thought it might be profitable to be reminded by St. John what this journey looks like as we continue walking in the way of Christ, with Him ever by our sides, each step drawing us further into the splendid light and glory of Him who is able to keep us from stumbling.

84.  Do all in your power not to fall, for the strong athlete should not fall.  But if you do fall, get up again at once and continue the contest.  Even if you fall a thousand times because of the withdrawal of God’s grace, rise up again each time, and keep on doing so until the day of your death.  …you will be like a brave soldier who faces the blows of the enemy;  and God will commend you, because even when struck you refused to surrender or run away.

By way of illustration:

I grew up on a farm in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.  I rode my first horse at the age of 5 and fell off my first horse not too long after that.  I remember very clearly my dad picking me up and dusting me off even while I, in the midst of shock and tears, was still trying to figure out what had happened.  And I remember also my dad’s insistence that I get back on that horse and ride again.  Now, my dad was instilling one of those life lessons (I suppose quite literally):  when you fall, you get back up.  But interestingly, I find that this lesson has evolved as I look back on this moment through eyes colored by the words of St. John of Karpathos.  And so I hope that this metaphor may serve useful to some of you as well.

I hope it does because we have all fallen off in the past year.  Sometimes it was due to our own sinful desires and at other times due to the direct attacks of the demons.  Nevertheless, we have, each of us, found ourselves lying on our backs wondering how we had come so suddenly to this place.  We have also, I am sure, realized the opportunity this affords us to grow in humility, for we were forced to reckon with the fact that we were not nearly the great rider we had begun to think we were.  For me, it seemed to be those moments when I felt comfortable enough to take the reins for myself that I ended up losing all control.  And so in the freedom that the Father gave me to do this, he was also gracious enough to, as John puts it, ‘withdraw his grace,’ in order that I would not boast in anything but Him (1 Cor. 1:31).  I fell, and yet at some point I, indeed we, were forced to recognize that the horse was still standing there waiting to be ridden and our Father was in the process of picking us up, dusting us off, and turning us into a rider with more skill than we could have ever imagined.

Now, I suppose that it is at times easier to see the scrapes and the bruises one accumulates from falling a bit clearer than it is to see one’s improvement in riding.  The cuts and the blood are more colorful and are marked by clear events and often followed by disappointment, shame, and regret.  But let us not forget that when we courageously face these blows bestowed upon us by earthly passions (or the hard packed ground) our Father commends us because we refuse to surrender.  Not only does He lift us back up and show us how to be a better rider if we do happen to fall, he also heals those wounds that we have endured for his sake and greatly blesses us because of them.  So, take heart, brothers and sisters, and stay in the saddle, but even when you don’t, remember that there are arms waiting to pick you back up.  Also remember that the marks of your failures may also be the markers of your progress.

Praise be to God, who does not leave us covered in the dirt of our failures, but raises us up anew, continually fashioning us into the glorious and radiant image of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

“Accept scornful criticism rather than words of praise; for a flatterer ‘is no different from one who curses’ (Prov. 27:14).” #11

We are created to crave love, for God is love, and we are created to desire Him. We warp this holy pursuit, however, into the pursuit of the love and approval of man. There is love that is good and holy, an ordered reflection of God’s love for us, love that can teach us about the mysterious identity of our Lord. And there is disordered love, which we make an end out of in itself, and use to feel better about ourselves.

We – or at least I –crave the approval of others. I like to be liked. Subconsciously, I think, ‘if they like me, I must be at least as good as them.’ I tend to see myself through the eyes of others, instead of the eyes of Christ, who sees us all as beloved sinners.

I have been aware of this tendency in myself for years, and have not yet broken free of it. When I am praised, it warms that part of my soul that craves the approval of others. Praise is not evil, but I know, for me, that it is a temptation. It can be an invitation to settle for something less than the Lord, to allow the acceptance of others to be the blanket I curl up under at night, instead of resting in the Lord, who John reminds us, “is our rest” (#53).

Because of this, I see how scorn and criticism can be a blessing. That is almost hard to write, because I have actively avoided them and the pain they can cause. I know, though, that I can choose to hear scorn and criticism as ‘do not look for your worth in me. Do not fix your eyes on me. You’ll not find what you are looking for here.’ As praise is an invitation, scorn is a rejection: you cannot rest here. And I can use it to point me to my true rest: our Lord, Jesus Christ.

A theme of my faith over the past few years has been to see it in terms of vision: where do I fix my gaze? There are a million things in this world to focus on; and only one which is true. In my interior life, in my spiritual pursuit, do I allow all of the other things – even my blessings, like my house, my husband, my son – to point me to God and to teach me about Him? Or do I allow them to be my focus, filling my vision? Do I make gods of them by resting my soul there instead of in Christ? Do I settle for less, or do I look for the truth and the light?

And so I praise God for that which breaks my gaze and turns my eyes towards Him, even when it tastes as bitter as scorn and is as uncomfortable as criticism.

This brings me to this month’s reading of St. Diadochos of Photiki and his work On Spiritual Knowledge. To begin, I found it comforting that Diadochos was a priest and with these responsibilities, he lived a life that was perhaps a bit different than the other monks of the desert variety that are in the Philokalia. [a]Diadochos practiced the faith with a fierceness that is unlike any other writer that I have read in The Philokalia so far. It was through his writing this month that I am inspired to see that a radical pursuit of Jesus is more than possible in contexts other than the caves of the desert and that it also possible for us who are called to minister to people as pastor. Like me, I am sure Diadochos found it hard to balance the pursuit of spiritual fruits such as: stillness, watchfulness, patience, gentleness, and self-control in the midst of all the responsibilities of being a priest. But, in this writing, Diadochos shares powerful insight into this journey.

In my reading, I am specifically struck by his robust understanding of baptism and how it is the basis for his pursuit of Christ. He specifically speaks of us receiving the divine grace through baptism in two ways. The first way is at once, as our soul is renewed and cleansed in the actual waters from all the stains of sin and thus restoring the image of God in us. Secondly, he says, “being infinitely superior to the first” (p288), that through our co-operation, baptism actually makes us also into the “likeness” of God. This is powerful. He goes on further to say, “when our intellect begins to actually perceive the Holy Spirit with our full consciousness, we should realize that the grace is painting the divine likeness over the Divine image in us” (p288). Diadochos is pointing to the power that we receive in our baptism and as a result, our natural response is to pursue Christ through the virtuous life in whatever our context. It is through our baptism that we have received the power of Christ and therefore carry it around in us wherever we are. As a result, baptism points to the process of our lives going from simply having the image of God restored in us, to being made in his likeness.

In conclusion, my response is to thank God for his grace and the wonderful example of Diadochos, who, inspires me to pursue a life of holiness that leads to being more and more shaped into the likeness of God. I am also reminded through my baptism the beauty and power that I carry around in me as a child of God wherever I go.