First Blessings

The Daily Office Lectionary appointed Psalm 109 for Evening Prayer recently, but I found that I could not, in good faith, pray it. It is a classic example of the imprecatory Psalms, those that curse one’s enemies, that invoke God to bring evil on another. Though there is much more, these verses give a good sense of the whole:

Psalm 109:6–15 (ESV): 6  Appoint a wicked man against him;
let an accuser stand at his right hand.

7  When he is tried, let him come forth guilty;
let his prayer be counted as sin!

8  May his days be few;
may another take his office!

9  May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow!

10  May his children wander about and beg,
seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!

11  May the creditor seize all that he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!

12  Let there be none to extend kindness to him,
nor any to pity his fatherless children!

13  May his posterity be cut off;
may his name be blotted out in the second generation!

14  May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out!

15  Let them be before the Lord continually,
that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth!

How is it possible for one to pray this Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer — “…as we forgive those who trespass against us” — in very nearly the same breath? How can a follower of Jesus — who died to forgive his enemies — beseech the Lord to curse one’s own enemies?

Yes, there are metaphorical readings of such Psalms that make them more palatable, e.g., one’s enemies as one’s besetting temptations and sins. This is fine as far as it goes, and it has the weight of the Tradition behind it. But, this doesn’t seem to be the clear, grammatical meaning of the text, if that matters. No, this is a vindictive cry for punishment of very real, very human enemies. And, I simply cannot pray that against those who are possessed of a spirit of enmity against me.

But, perhaps they can pray it against me. Perhaps, either by what I have done or by what I have left undone, I have so embittered someone that he/she can pray and is praying this Psalm against me. Perhaps through my own sin I have driven someone to these depths of hatred toward me. If so, I have placed the soul of another in grave danger. Then, by placing these words in my mouth — by forcing me to speak them — the Lord is calling me to repentance and to prayer for the ones against whom I have offended. The evil invoked in the Psalm is the evil due not to the other, but to me. The vindication promised in the Psalm is promised not to me, but to the other.

This perspective made it possible — even necessary — for me to pray this Psalm.

Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Psalm 86: HELP, THANKS, WOW
(Ezekiel 10, Psalm 86, Luke 19:29-end)

Collect
O God, the protector of all those who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy, that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal; grant this, heavenly Father, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth;*
O knit my heart to you, that I may fear your Name.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Anne Lamott is a New York Times bestselling author of novels, nonfiction works, and reflections on faith. She is off-beat, sometimes off-putting, at least to me, and sometimes insightful. Here’s how she describes her faith:

“I’m a passionate, devout Christian. It’s just that I’m not a fundamentalist” (https://baptistnews.com/article/inside-the-spiritual-life-of-anne-lamott/).

That last part about fundamentalism is probably an understatement. On the long pew of Christianity, Lamott sits far to my left, past the point where orthodoxy is assumed. I am certain I would find much of her theology suspect, but not her genuine faith; I have no reason to doubt that she is, indeed, a passionate, devout Christian.

In 2015 her book on prayer was released. I’m certain I’ve spoken of it before, but it bears repeating. In this book she proposes three essential prayers; in fact, they form the title of the book: Help, Thanks, Wow. This is from the introduction:

My three prayers are variations on Help, Thanks, Wow. That’s all I ever need, beside the silence, the pain, and the pause sufficient for me to stop, close my eyes, and turn inward (Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow, Gardners VI Books (2015), Kindle location 125).

Three prayers seems pretty minimal to me. There are others I might want to add to her list like Sorry, Hallelujah, Woe or even just an inarticulate Groan. That’s just quibbling. It’s hard to argue with the power of the three she lists, a power emphasized by their heartfelt brevity. I suspect we’ve all found ourselves using them or some version of them when other words wouldn’t come.

The test results come back and they were not as hoped. The unpaid bills are piling up and we have no money. Family relations are strained to the point of breaking. The flood waters are rising toward our home as the wind howls around us. Help may be all we can manage, and it will do.

At the end of the season, the farmer brings in a bumper crop after a couple of lean years. You arrive safely home at the end of a white-knuckled drive through pounding rain and dense fog. Extended family and friends who have not seen each other for years are finally able to get together for a feast. Someone you love comes home from the hospital. Thanks is what rises up in your heart.

You witness an example of beauty — a sunset or a baby’s first smile — see an act of generosity and self-sacrifice or become momentarily aware of the nearness and goodness and glory of God. Wow: you have no other words, just Wow.

Thomas Cranmer was a literary genius, and his prayers are eloquent, rich, and memorable — and, yes, sometimes wordy. Yet, at the heart of many of his liturgies lies the simplicity of Help, Thanks, Wow. Take Morning and Evening Prayer as an example. The Invitatory at the beginning of each service contains these words:

O God, make speed to save us;
O Lord, make haste to help us (BCP 2019, p. 43).

Help.

Both services end with The General Thanksgiving:

Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made (BCP 2019, p. 51).

Thanks.

And between Help and Thanks there is plenty of occasion for Wow:

For the LORD is a great God
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are all the depths of the earth
and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands prepared the dry land.
O come, let us worship and fall down,
and kneel before the LORD our Maker (BCP 2019, p. 14).

This is our God, the creator, the great king, the mighty God: Wow.

If we wanted to be fancier and sound holier, we might translate Help, Thanks, Wow as Supplication, Thanksgiving, Praise.

I mention all this because during the summer our preaching, at least at the Sunday Eucharist, will be centered on the Psalms. And, it seems to me that we could subtitle the Psalms with the title of Lamott’s book: Help, Thanks, Wow.

Listen to the opening verses of Psalm 69:

1 Save me, O God*
for the waters have come up even to my neck.
2 I sink down in the deep mire, where there is no ground;*
I have come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me (BCP 2019, p. 354).

Help.

Or this great antiphonal hymn of Israel in Psalm 136:

1 O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is gracious,*
for his mercy endures for ever.
2 O give thanks unto the God of all gods,*
for his mercy endures for ever.
3 O give thanks unto the Lord of all lords,*
for his mercy endures for ever (BCP 2019, p. 451).

Thanks.

And then Psalm 100:

1 O be joyful in the LORD, all you lands;*
serve the LORD with gladness, and come before
his presence with a song.
2 Be assured that the LORD, he is God;*
it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
3 O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into
his courts with praise;*
be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name.
4 For the LORD is gracious, his mercy is everlasting,*
and his truth endures from generation to generation (BCP 2019, pp. 398-399).

Wow.

Sometimes — not infrequently — there is a progression within a given psalm from Help to Thanksgiving to Wow. It goes something like this, in a pseudo-psalm I have cobbled together from various bits and pieces:

O Lord, how many are my foes;
how they are arrayed against me.
O God, come to my defense
and fight against those who fight against me.

Help.

And then a bit later on:

The Lord has heard my prayer;
his ears have been open to my supplication.
Thanks be to God who has not let the wicked prevail against me,
but has deliver me from all my foes.

Thanks.

And finally:

Great is our God and greatly to be praised;
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
What god is like our God?
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Help, Thanks, Wow. Supplication, Thanksgiving, Praise.

This brings us to the Psalm appointed for this morning, Psalm 86, which you have on the handout. It is attributed to David, and I will treat David as the author. Can we read this psalm as a prayer, read it in terms Lamott’s holy trinity of prayers: Help, Thanks, Wow?

What is David’s condition as expressed in verses 1-2, 14?

1 Bow down your ear, O Lᴏʀᴅ, and hear me, *
for I am poor and in misery.
2 Preserve my life, for I am faithful; *
my God, save your servant who puts his trust in you.
14 O God, the proud have risen up against me, *
and the company of violent men have sought after my life, and have not set you before their eyes.

This is a plea for Help. I am poor, and I am miserable. Just a note on the words misery and miserable: they are not primarily related to how you feel, but rather to the reality of your situation. To be miserable is to be worthy of pity whether you feel badly or not. A person in a train enjoying a pleasant lunch or just gazing at the beautiful scenery through the window is nevertheless miserable if there is another train speeding toward him in the opposite direction on the same track. He is to be pitied. Why? Because his life is in danger even though he knows nothing about it. This understanding of miserable is there in Cranmer’s prayer of confession in the service of Morning Prayer:

We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders (BCP 1662 International Version, p. 3).

We may not feel miserable when we offer this prayer; but the truth is that our sin places us in a miserable state, a state to be pitied.

In the psalm, David’s life is in jeopardy from a company of violent, godless men, and he knows it. He is miserable. Save me. Help.

Notice also how David describes himself in verse 2: he is faithful and he trusts in God. Hold those two states together: a faithful, trusting servant of God who also finds himself poor and miserable and near death. This is a common theme throughout the Psalms: the unjustly persecuted righteous man, the faithful one suffering calamity. Reading these psalms is an important corrective to the prevailing Christian notion in the affluent West that our faith should somehow shield us against suffering. That notion reaches its unholy pinnacle in the health, wealth, and prosperity Gospel peddled by preachers like Joel Osteen and generations before him; I remember Reverend Ike as the Joel Osteen of my youth. But, the same kind of notion slips in unawares on those who really know that such a perversion is a false Gospel. You hear it when people — good Christians — say things like, “He is such a good person; he deserves better than this,” or “Why did God allow this tragedy?” The implication is that some — those sinners — deserve and should expect bad things to happen to them, while the righteous should expect better from God. There is not much of that in the Psalms and even less in the Gospels and Epistles. Just the opposite: it is assumed that the righteous will suffer, often precisely because they are righteous. David’s assumption in this psalm is not that he will not suffer, but rather that God will deliver him from that suffering. That’s what we see throughout the Psalms. And that is what gives David the confidence to pray, Help. It’s what still gives us the confidence to pray, Help.

So, what would Help look like for David? The answer is scattered throughout the psalm, and it is far more than just a rescue from the violent men who seek his life. Let’s continue with verses 3 and following.

3 Be merciful unto me, O Lord, *
for I will call daily upon you. MERCY (hesed in Hebrew — steadfast love)

4 Comfort the soul of your servant, *
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. COMFORT

5 For you, Lord, are good and gracious, *
and of great mercy to all those who call upon you.
6 Give ear, Lᴏʀᴅ, unto my prayer, *
and attend to the voice of my humble supplications. ATTENTION

7 In the time of my trouble I will call upon you, *
for you answer me when I call. ANSWER

11 Teach me your way, O Lᴏʀᴅ, and I will walk in your truth; *
O knit my heart to you, that I may fear your Name. KNOWLEDGE AND RELATIONSHIP

16 O turn then unto me, and have mercy upon me; *
give your strength unto your servant, and help the son of your handmaid. STRENGTH

17 Show me some token of your favor, that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed, *
because you, Lᴏʀᴅ, have been my helper and comforter. VINDICATION

We may find our own lives in jeopardy so that the help we need is rescue. But, on a more routine basis, the help that we really need is the help David cries out for: mercy, comfort, attention, answers, knowledge, a deepening relationship with God, strength, and vindication.

Help.

What of Thanks?

12 I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart, *
and will praise your Name for evermore.
13 For great is your mercy toward me; *
you have delivered my life from the nethermost Pit.

Here, David thanks the Lord with his whole heart for mercy and for deliverance. It is not clear in the psalm whether David is celebrating present-moment deliverance or whether he is remembering God’s past acts of deliverance, of which there were many. If it is an act of remembrance — which seems likely, to me — then that, too, is part of the Help that God provides. Memories of God’s past faithfulness provide strength in current troubles. St. Ignatius of Loyola counsels us when in times of spiritual desolation to remember when we were in a similar state before and to recall how God was merciful to us and delivered us then. Remembrance and thanksgiving are not really distinct from Help in this Help, Thanks, Wow process, but are part of the Help God gives us.

And we come now to Wow, to praise.

8 Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord, *
nor are there any deeds like yours.
9 All nations that you have made shall come and worship you, O Lord, *
and shall glorify your Name.
10 For you are great and do wondrous things; *
indeed, you are God alone.

In thinking through this psalm, I have presented the prayers — Help, Thanks, Wow — in a particular sequence. But life is more varied and more complex than that. Sometimes the situation is so dire that Help is all I can muster; Thanks and Wow have to wait. On a brighter note, sometimes, I am not praying from the belly of the great fish; I am not in trouble and I don’t need specific help. But there is always occasion for Thanks and Wow; thanksgiving and praise are always in order.

I don’t think these three prayers are the only ones we need, but I do think they are essential components of a rich life of prayer. And they are certainly the basis for many of the psalms and good lenses through which to read the psalms. They teach us the way of the Lord.

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth;*O knit my heart to you, that I may fear your Name.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is natural, I suppose, to grow reflective about the priesthood as one’s ordination anniversary approaches. To guide my meditations this year, I have chosen to re-read The Rule of Benedict and specifically the commentary on it by Sr. Joan Chittister. It is organized for daily reading, three times through in a given year. When I say I chose it, that is not quite right. I found recently that I needed to refer to a section in the Rule to guide me in a pastoral matter, and, having found the appropriate section, the thought occurred to me rather spontaneously that it might be good to read through the entire Rule just now. The Rule chose me in this instance; that is the limit of my Calvinism. Sometimes things choose us, or rather sometimes we simply become aware that God has chosen some thing for us.

I find the reading for this day speaks beautifully of the priesthood. Why am I a priest? For my salvation. Why am I a priest? I was the tenth sheep; read on and you will understand. What follows is from Sr. Joan.

Jan. 14 — May 15 — Sept. 14

The prioress and abbot must always remember what they are and remember what they are called, aware that more will be expected of one to whom more has been entrusted. They must know what a difficult and demanding burden they have undertaken: directing souls and serving a variety of temperaments, coaxing, reproving, and encouraging them as appropriate. They must so accommodate and adapt themselves to each one’s character and intelligence that they will not only keep the flock entrusted to their care from dwindling, but will rejoice in the increase of a good flock.

There are some interesting distinctions made in this paragraph. The abbot and prioress are to remember what they are and what they are called. What they and every other leader are is painfully clear: they are people just like everybody else in the monastery. They are not royalty. They are not potentates. They are only people who also struggle and fail just like the people they lead.

But what they are and what they are called — abbot, abbess, spiritual father, spiritual mother — are not unrelated. They are not called to be either lawgivers or camp counselors. They are not expected to be either rigid moralists or group activity directors. They are to be directors of souls who serve the group by “coaxing, reproving, and encouraging” it — by prodding and pressing and persuading it — to struggle as they have struggled to grow in depth, in sincerity, and in holiness, to grow despite weaknesses, to grow beyond weaknesses.

Abbots or prioresses of Benedictine monasteries, then, parents and supervisors and officials and bishops everywhere who set out to live a Benedictine spirituality, are to keep clearly in mind their own weak souls and dark minds and fragile hearts when they touch the souls and minds and hearts of others.

But there is another side to the question as well. It is not easy for honest people who hold their own failures in their praying hands to question behavior in anyone else. “There but for the grace of God go I,” John Bradford said at the sight of the condemned on their way to execution. Aware of what I myself am capable of doing, how can I possibly censure or disparage or reprimand or reproach anyone else? On the other hand, Benedict reminds us, how can those who know that conversion is possible, who have been called to midwife the spiritual life, for this generation and the next, do less?

The Hasidim tell a story that abbots and prioresses, mothers and fathers, teachers and directors may understand best. Certainly Benedict did:

When in his sixtieth year after the death of the Kotzker, the Gerer accepted election as leader of the Kotzker Hasidim, the rabbi said: “I should ask myself: ‘Why have I deserved to become the leader of thousands of good people?’ I know that I am not more learned or more pious than others. The only reason why I accept the appointment is because so many good and true people have proclaimed me to be their leader. We find that a cattle-breeder in Palestine during the days when the Temple stood was enjoined by our Torah (Lev. 27:32) to drive newborn cattle or sheep into an enclosure single file. When they went to the enclosure, they were all of the same station, but when over the tenth one the owner pronounced the words: ‘consecrated unto the Lord,’ it was set aside for holier purposes. In the same fashion when the Jews pronounce some to be holier than their fellows, they become in truth consecrated persons.”

Once chosen, it is their weakness itself that becomes the anchor, the insight, the humility, and the gift of an abbot or prioress, a pope or a priest, a parent or a director. But only if they themselves embrace it. It is a lesson for leaders everywhere who either fear to lead because they know their own weaknesses or who lead defensively because they fear that others know their weaknesses. It is a lesson for parents who remember their own troubles as children. It is a lesson for husbands and wives who cannot own the weaknesses that plague their marriage. We must each strive for the ideal and we must encourage others to strive with us, not because we ourselves are not weak but because knowing our own weaknesses and admitting them we can with great confidence teach trust in the God who watches with patience our puny efforts and our foolish failures (Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages, Crossroad (1998), pp. 43-45).

WARNING: MATURE CONTENT — SERIOUSLY

I heard Fr. Stephen Freeman reference the book “Enlargement of the Heart,” by Elder Zacharias of Essex in a talk posted on YouTube. He spoke highly of the elder and, apparently, the book is something of an Orthodox classic on the spiritual thought of Saints Silouan and Sophrony. So I did what one does; I searched for it on Amazon. Now, here is where things get interesting and telling. As soon as I had typed in “enla,” — I didn’t even get to finish the word — Amazon had a whole laundry list of suggestions for me, all of them involving enhanced male sexual performance pills, gels, creams, oils and who knows what else; I was embarrassed to look further. Now, I want to assure you that these suggestions were not based upon my personal past Amazon searches, but upon the search histories and purchases of nameless hoardes, on advertising dollars, and on some proprietary Amazonian algorithm. I want to enlarge my heart; Amazon apparently wants me to want to enlarge something else entirely. They want to enlarge their profit.

Now, this could be passed off as humorous, I guess, but I think it is not. When I have spoken of the actors in this farcical search — me, other consumers, the advertisers, Amazon software engineers — I have left out one who lurks in the shadows: the satan. This ancient adversary wants me to enlarge not my heart but my passions: pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. It is not clear to me that anger and avarice are involved in this search, though clearly the other deadly thoughts are. And he uses culture and technology as his agents of temptation. Our culture is sexually obsessed and confused to an unparalleled degree. The notion of voluntary celibacy and chastity/faithfulness are incomprehensible. To be a man is to be sexually virile. And, ironically, to be a man is also to be androgynous or effeminate. To be a woman is to be sexually desirable. And, ironically, to be a woman is to be indistinguishable from a man. To be either is to choose, not to be given a sexual identity from birth but to construct it whole cloth. We think that is freedom. It is slavery. And while there are, I suppose, redemptive uses for social media, its de facto purpose, spiritually speaking, is to stoke the passions. If the satan is the father of lies, one of his offspring is social media. It is not only lies, but child sacrifice that is on offer. Is there anyone who doubts any longer that social media is wounding and killing our children? But, apparently we stand helpless to say no. That is the nature of the passions; they render us passive.

I downloaded a sample of the book for my kindle. I wonder if Elder Zacharias has ever searched for his book on Amazon, and if his results were similar to mine.

The conviction was expressed by an Orthodox priest — let’s call him Fr. Michael — whose insight and counsel I respect; the words were spoken as an excursus, as a tangential aside in an unrelated talk. He offered it not quite tongue-in-cheek but with the full knowledge that he was about to “step on some people’s toes.” Then he said with a note of wonder and incredulity in his voice that some people actually attend classes to become spiritual directors, That is not the way spiritual directors are made, he asserted.

Well, that caught my attention since I am an instructor in the St Benedict Center for Spiritual Formation (https://stbenedict-csf.org/) which offers a program in spiritual direction. I do not believe that Fr. Michael was wrong; nor do I believe that he was right. I believe instead that our cultures and languages — East and West — are talking past one another.

In the Orthodox tradition only a spiritual elder, a starets in Russian or a geronta in Greek, is gifted for spiritual direction. These holy men have received a charism, an anointing of the Holy Spirit, that allows them to see into the heart of things and people, to diagnose illnesses of the heart, and to apply the proper spiritual medicine for the cure of souls. These are men who have passed through purification and illumination and have known deification, the unmediated communion with God. And Fr. Michael is right that this gift does not come through classes or academic training. One may ready oneself for it by a life of holiness, a life of worship, a life of unceasing prayer. Even then, there are no guarantees. The Spirit gives gifts as and to whom he wills. Not so many parish priests are, in fact, spiritual elders; startsi and gerontas are generally found in monasteries or living as hermits nearby. And, if the monastic tradition needs justification, that alone is sufficient. Such elders may also be “found” in obscurity, going unnoticed about the normal routines of married or single life: working, raising children, going to church, sitting quietly in nursing homes, and all the while upholding the universe by their prayers. We may not notice them and they will never speak of it, and more’s the pity.

The faithful make pilgrimages to such sites as Mount Athos or Sergiyev Posad to receive just a word from a geronta or starets. And that is part of the difficulty with limiting the scope of spiritual direction to such men, as Fr. Michael insists; they are few, scattered, and largely inaccessible to most who need their spiritual guidance. The need for spiritual direction is great — I daresay most Christians are in need of it — and spiritual directors are so few, vanishingly few if we insist they be only Orthodox elders. And this is where I, with respect, must disagree with Fr. Michael. It is not so much a real disagreement as a clarification of terms. He is correct that no training course reliably produces spiritual elders: startsi and gerontas. He is incorrect to say that one cannot train to be a spiritual director. There is a difference between elder and director, between charism and vocation. While in the East the terms may be synonymous, in the West they are not.

So, how is a spiritual director “trained?” The foundation of classical training is repentance, a life of continual repentance which is a constant turning toward and returning to the Lord Jesus. The Great Tradition — both East and West — speaks of the threefold way: purification, illumination, and unification. Until the heart is purified, one’s vision of God and man is obscured and one cannot see clearly to remove the speck from another’s eye for the plank in one’s own. Such purification involves immersion in the life of the Church: Scripture, Sacraments, prayer, fasting, confession, obedience. Training is primarily formation, and formation is primarily purification. One must recognize, confront, and be substantially healed of one’s own passions before leading another into this battle. One must begin — repeatedly — to cultivate the virtues, the second nature of Christian maturity, through a life of prayer and asceticism by which to put off the deadly thoughts/sins. It is the primary purpose of the spiritual director to point his/her directees unerringly toward Jesus, to pray for and to work for the transformation of his/her directees into the likeness of Christ, the Holy Spirit being the helper and advocate. A director cannot point toward Jesus unless he/she is first oriented toward Jesus. Thus, the first work of a spiritual director is the inward work of the heart — his/her own heart. And that work is never ceasing.

This foundational work of the heart is also accompanied by the transformation of the mind (cf Rom 12:1-2). Right thinking — sound theology — is not sufficient for spiritual direction, but it is essential. Training must focus on the Great Tradition which, according to St. Vincent of Lérins (died c. 445) is “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all” (Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory). This Tradition is found in the Scriptures, the Creeds (Nicene, Apostles, Athanasian), the Ecumenical Councils, the Church Fathers, the liturgies of the Church, and in the living witness of the Church’s faithful, godly bishops and the flocks they shepherd. A solid grounding in the Scriptures and the consensus fidelium of the Church protects directors and those they direct from unintentional error or prideful heresy and schism.

This training of the mind also includes aspects of “spiritual psychotherapy” — not therapy in the modern clinical sense, but in the ancient sense of applications of spiritual curatives to the disordered soul, the recognition and treatment of the illnesses of the heart: ignorance of God, forgetfulness of God, hardness of heart. The director learns to identify the symptoms of these illnesses, the deadly thoughts: pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. It is not enough to diagnose spiritual illnesses; the directors learn to treat them with the “medicines” available to and through the Church.

The Rule of St. Benedict, which is foundational for the ethos of St Benedict’s Center, begins with an injunction to listen. That, too, is a skill that directors must develop continually: the ability to listen to oneself, to the directee, and, most importantly, to the Holy Spirit in all the ways the Spirit communicates. Listening leads to questions, and questioning is another art/skill that directors learn.

Finally, I will mention discernment of spirits as developed and communicated most clearly by Ignatius of Loyola (died 1556) in his Spiritual Exercises: becoming aware of the spiritual dimension of life and the spiritual powers that draw one toward one path or another. Directors help their directees listen to their lives to notice the influence of the good spirit or the evil spirit, to be attentive to the consolations and desolations that accompany states of life and courses of action, to battle the often subtle strategies of the evil spirit and to embrace the encouragement of the good spirit.

All this training — and more aspects of it than I have mentioned — comprises a vocation of spiritual direction for which one can be trained. It is not the same as the charism of eldership. In the West we distinguish between acquired virtues and infused virtues. One can acquire/learn, through practice, such virtues as prudence (wisdom), justice, fortitude, and temperance. But other virtues, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love are gifts of God, infused. While we may pray for them and nurture them if given, we cannot acquire them by dint of our own effort. By analogy, the art of spiritual direction may be acquired; eldership is only infused.

It is proper to long for and to pray for the presence of a starets or geronta in one’s life. But, until such an elder appears, God might just provide a well-trained spiritual director. Thanks be to God.

“I don’t need to go to church to worship God. I can worship him just as well — maybe even better — by myself out in nature: in the mountains, at the beach, anywhere at all. It’s not about religion; it’s about relationship.”

You’ve heard this, or something like it, haven’t you? It has a ring of truth to it because most of us have had very deep emotional experiences in such places, and, for some of us, those experiences have lifted our hearts to God in praise and worship. St. Ignatius might call those experiences moments of consolation, gifts of God that should be accepted gratefully. But it is a mistake to generalize those experiences, to make them in any sense normative and so to diminish the importance of formal, communal worship in a space consecrated to God for just such a purpose.

I was reminded of this during Morning Prayer through the Old Testament lesson appointed for 11 May, Deuteronomy 12. Here is a portion of the lesson:

Deuteronomy 12:1–14 (ESV): The Lord’s Chosen Place of Worship

12 “These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. 4 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. 5 But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, 6 and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. 13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, 14 but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.

As Israel prepares to enter and possess the land that God has promised them, God warns them that they are not to worship him in the same way the indigenous tribes worship their gods: on the mountains and hills, and under every green tree — anywhere and everywhere they please. Instead, God himself will choose the place — the one place — where his people are to worship him through burnt offerings and sacrifices, through tithes and contributions, through vow and freewill offerings, and through feasting before the LORD. God specifies when, where, and how he is to be worshipped by his people, lest everyone goes astray and does what is right in his own eyes. By God’s command, you must go to the tabernacle at the appointed times with the appointed sacrifices and/or offerings to worship him in the way he has commanded. Pitting religion against relationship is a modern heresy, as is elevating the individual — and individual preference — above the community.

Well, that’s the Old Testament. Surely, everything changed when Jesus came? No.

Acts 2:42–47 (ESV): The Fellowship of the Believers

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Just as Israel’s worship had a place and pattern commanded by God, so, too, with Christian worship. The pattern is fourfold: the apostles’ teaching (the Word), the fellowship (life together), the breaking of bread (the Eucharist/Communion), and the prayers (liturgy). These first Christians met in the Temple; they were, after all, Jews and the Temple was the appointed place for Jewish worship. And, before dedicated church buildings were constructed, they met in homes for the observance of the uniquely Christian aspects of worship. But, the point is, they came together for worship in a dedicated place using the form that God had given them through the apostles. As the writer of Hebrews exhorts:

Hebrews 10:23–25 (ESV): 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

“I don’t need to go to church to worship God. I can worship him just as well — maybe even better — by myself out in nature: in the mountains, at the beach, anywhere at all. It’s not about religion; it’s about relationship.”

That is a hard sell in light of Scripture (Old and New Testaments) and the Great Tradition of the Church.

Now, please note that what I’ve said is not a critique of those who long to worship in church with God’s people, but who, through age, infirmity, or other exigent circumstances cannot. But it is an exhortation to those who could gather for worship but choose not to do. God specifies where and how he is to be worshipped; we, individually, do not.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord
(Acts 1:1-11, Psalm 47, Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:44-53)

Backwards and Forwards: A Reflection on Ascension and the Day of Atonement

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is typical and proper on the Feast of the Ascension to focus on the enthronement of our Lord Jesus in “the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Eph 1:20b-21). But, that is not the only theme of Ascension. There is a less familiar one, but no less important one, that I’d like to bring to the fore this evening.

In my former life as a mathematics teacher I often gave my algebra and calculus students this two-fold bit of advice when they were struggling with a problem.

First, go back to the beginning. It is possible that you made some minor error early on that has now cascaded into a major road block. If you start over, you may well either catch the error before it grows or else not make it at all the second time through. Or, it may be that you need to go back to the beginning of the chapter and review the earlier material, the prerequisite knowledge for this section and this problem. In either case, the way forward may actually involve going back to the beginning.

Second, look forward to the ending. Check with BoB, which was our acronym for Back of Book (BoB). That is where the answers to the odd numbered problems were found. Sometimes the form of the solution will give you a hint to the method of solution, or will at least suggest something else you might try. Some students excelled at this “reverse engineering” process. We just called it working backwards from the answers. Whatever you call it, the method is the same: look forward toward the ending.

So, here was my advice in a nutshell:

When lost in the middle, go back to the beginning, and look forward to the ending.

It was good, sound mathematical pedagogy, and I think it has broader applications, say to theology and interpretation of Scripture. Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a Biblical text — maybe in the heart of Romans (probably chapters 9 through 11) or somewhere in the tall weeds of Revelation — only to realize that you are utterly baffled or, perhaps a little better, just a bit confused about how this passage fits into the larger whole. Then, my advice to you is the same as to my mathematics students:

When lost in the middle, go back to the beginning, and look forward to the ending.

Now, I would like to show you how this principle works in practice, using a passage from the Gospel according to St. John, a passage in which Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the night he was betrayed.

John 16:4b–11 (ESV): “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

This passage may not confuse you, but it puzzled me for quite some time and left me with questions:

How could it possibly be to the disciples’ advantage, or to mine and yours, or to anyone’s that Jesus goes away?

What does Jesus mean when he says the Holy Spirit will not (perhaps cannot?) come until he ascends to his Father? How and why is the Ascension related to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit?

This seems to be a timely passage for us to tackle just now since it relates to this day’s observance of the Ascension (Jesus going away) and to Pentecost (the coming of the Holy Spirit) ten days hence. We’ll try our two-fold strategy on it:

When lost in the middle, go back to the beginning, and look forward to the ending.

All right: back to the beginning, in this case all the way back to the beginning of all things, to the creation story. Whatever else we might observe about the creation account in Genesis 1:1-2:3, it has the repetitive, progressive structure of a great liturgy: And God said…and there was…evening and morning…it was good, repeated six times all the while progressing toward the penultimate event, the creation of man, male and female. Those who study such Ancient Near Eastern texts tell us that this creation account has the structure of a temple dedication liturgy. It presents God’s creation of the universe, and particularly of the earth, the Garden, and man as the construction and dedication of a temple, nearing completion on the sixth day when God’s image bearers — not idols of wood or stone, but image-bearing humans — are placed in the temple and animated with the breath of God. It culminates on the seventh day when the high God takes up his residence in the holy place. Now, let’s get this because it’s central to all that follows: this temple, and particularly this holy place, was to be where God uniquely dwelt with his people. That was the purpose of the temple of creation — to be the dwelling place of God with his people. That’s the beginning.

Now, let’s look forward to the ending — to the end of the record, though not the end of the eternal story.

Revelation 21:1–4 (ESV): 1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

As in the beginning, so at the end. The first heaven and earth that God had created as a temple in which to dwell with his image bearing humans has passed away. But there is a new — a renewed — heaven and earth and a new Jerusalem which lies at their intersection. And it, not the Garden, is the final dwelling place of God with man. God’s purpose has remained constant from beginning to end: to dwell with his holy people. So much for those poor souls — Sartre and his existentialist devotees, and the new atheist sons and daughters of Hitchens and Dawkins — all those poor souls who say life has no meaning and the world has no purpose. The purpose, the telos, of all creation is to be the dwelling place of God with his people. And the human purpose is to dwell with God as his holy people.

The story of the whole of Scripture is of how God, in his providence, takes man from the Garden to New Jerusalem, from the beginning to the end. It is a long, winding, and sometimes torturous tale, and I’ll mention just a few of the most important milestones along the way.

The first woman was tempted and deceived by the father of lies, the ancient serpent, and the first man embraced her deception along with her. And by that action they forfeited the God-given holiness that allowed them to dwell in the holy place with God. The result was exile away from the presence of God. Call it punishment, if you will, but it was also protection. Sinful man cannot dwell in the presence of the holy God and live. That is the great conundrum that runs throughout Scripture: God created man to dwell with him as his holy people, but because man squandered his holiness he cannot dwell in the presence of God.

Adam and Eve are now exiled into a chaotic world, a hostile world in which their descendants will be born not into holiness, but into sin and slavery and alienation from one another and from God. And the human species, created to be holy image bearers, spirals downward into corruption, unable any longer to bear the presence of God.

So, what is God to do? He doesn’t abandon his purpose to have a holy people among whom to dwell; rather, he starts anew, a second creation (actually a third, if we count the flood). He calls a man, Abram, his wife, Sarai, and a few family members to form the nucleus of a new people, who will be for him a holy people, a kingdom of priests among whom he will live — a holy enclave in the midst of a fallen world. And, he will use this people as agents of holiness, to make God known, and ultimately through whom to purify the whole world so that God might once again dwell with humans.

This plan proceeds by fits and starts over centuries, through generations of Patriarchs until we reach Moses and a new chapter in the story of Israel. From the original old couple, Abraham and Sarah, God’s people have grown to six hundred thousand men, besides women and children. It is now time for God to dwell among them. On Sinai, God gives Moses a vision of the heavenly tabernacle and commands him to build an earthly counterpart in which God’s presence will reside, in the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle, between the outstretched wings of the cherubim, over the mercy seat. And God gives Moses a Law by which to purify his people so that God may dwell among them: not regulations only, but rituals of sacrifice to atone for sins committed, in order to restore holiness.

At the heart of this Law, as the greatest act of purification for the restoration of holiness, lies the Day of Atonement. Though sacrifices for the people’s sin are offered daily, sin leaves a residue, a taint, that contaminates the ark of the covenant with its mercy seat, the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place, the altar and its utensils, the tabernacle and its court, the people, the entire encampment, and ultimately the land promised to Abraham. And that must be addressed once each year, once every year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement when the high priest takes the blood of a goat behind the veil of the Holy of Holies, into the very presence of God, and sprinkles the blood on the mercy seat to make atonement for it, to purify it. The high priest then works his way outward purifying the entire tabernacle complex and the people and the land with the blood of the goat so that God can dwell among them for another year. Unless the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies with the blood of the goat, there is no purification and God cannot dwell among his people. The alternatives are exile or death, and there is little difference between the two. It is important to remember that this ritual purifies Israel only, not the nations of the world; God dwells in the midst of Israel only, and not among the nations of the world. Not yet, at any rate, though God will promise through the prophets that one day, through the seed of Abraham, the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea (see Hab 2:14).

Let’s pause a moment to get our bearings.

In our quest to understand St. John’s challenging text about the Ascension, we have gone back to the beginning, and we have looked forward to the end. Now, perhaps, we can plunge into the heart of it.

On the day of resurrection, Jesus greets Mary Magdalene at the tomb and says to her:

John 20:17 (ESV): “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

May I paraphrase Jesus’ words?

“Don’t hold on to me, now; we both still have work to do. Your task is to proclaim my resurrection to my other disciples. My task can only be completed when I ascend to the Father.”

And what is Jesus’ task? From our look backwards, we know. It is the great and final Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, not to purify Israel only, but to make atonement for the sin of the whole world, as Hebrews tells us:

Hebrews 9:11–14 (ESV): 11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 9:24–26 (ESV): 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Christ our Great High Priest ascended into heaven to enter the Holy of Holies — into the very presence of God the Father Almighty — to purify forever those who are his and to sanctify the whole world, so that God — in the person of the Holy Spirit — might be set loose in the world to dwell among his people at last. As St. John writes:

1 John 2:2 (ESV): 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

It is too small a thing for the Great High Priest to purify an ark or a tent or a temple or a nation or a plot of land in the Middle East. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. The God who created his image bearers so that he might dwell among them, will now, at last dwell among people from every family, language, people, and nation. Now all peoples may be included among his holy people. Now his holy presence is not limited to one place, but is everywhere present filling all things. Now, it is not only our Great High Priest who may come into the Holy of Holies one day each year, but also us:

Hebrews 10:19–23 (ESV): 19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

That is the good news of the Ascension: the world purified so that God, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, may dwell with his holy people — all his holy people — wherever they may be found, and so that his holy people — all this holy people — may enter into his presence without fear.

Was it to the disciples’ advantage, or to yours and mine, or to anyone’s that Jesus went away in the Ascension? Oh, yes; for in his Ascension, Jesus purified the world.

And what has all this to do with the coming of the Holy Spirit? The descent of the Holy Spirit is the firstfruits of God dwelling with his holy people at last, made possible by the final Day of Atonement. It is a foretaste of the new Jerusalem in which God will be all and in all.

What are we to say to all this? Psalm 47 gives us words:

1 O clap your hands together, all you peoples;
O cry aloud unto God with shouts of joy.

2 For the LORD Most High is to be feared;
he is the great King over all the earth.

6 O sing praises, sing praises unto our God;
O sing praises, sing praises unto our King.

7 For God is the King of all the earth;
think upon his mighty acts and praise him with a song (BCP 2019, pp. 328-329).

Amen.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

The Problem of Suffering: A Reflection on 1 Peter 5
(1 Peter 5, Ps 18:1-20, Luke 6:1-19)

1 Peter 4:16 (ESV): 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The problem of suffering is often presented as a particularly Christian problem, and I suppose it is in this limited sense: if you are not a Christian you do not have to explain the presence of suffering or find meaning in it or justify how belief in an all-powerful, all-good, all-loving God is consistent with the presence of almost unimaginable suffering in the world. Suffering is just part of life — natural — and while you have to learn to manage it, there really is nothing to explain, no meaning to be found, and no god to justify in the face of painful evidence to the contrary. The world manages, but doesn’t explain suffering.

If you are a hedonist, your management philosophy is straightforward: maximize pleasure and minimize suffering. There is nothing good in suffering and nothing noble in bearing up under it. Avoidance is the ideal. The only problem with that approach is its impossibility. Sooner or later, suffering comes for us all, and we can no longer avoid it. Ironically, the very act of seeking to maximize pleasure often produces the very suffering it seeks to avoid. Seek the pleasant oblivion of alcohol and wake up with a hangover. Do that often, and become enslaved to drink.

The stoics among us have another approach, along the lines of Bobby McFerrin’s song Don’t Worry Be Happy. Since you have no control over when, where, and how suffering might come, there is no use in worrying about it. Live life to the full, put suffering out of mind, and deal with suffering if and as it comes. And, when it comes, the best approach is the classic British “stiff upper lip” or “Keep calm and carry on.” The way to manage suffering is to put it out of mind until it comes, and to bear it with dignity when it comes.

Another option, this one characteristic of Buddhism, is simply to deny the objective/external reality of suffering. Suffering is not “out there;” instead, suffering is an internal problem, an illusion born of human attachments. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, realized this in his moment of enlightenment and expressed it his Four Noble Truths:

1. All of life is suffering.

2. The cause of suffering is craving.

3. The end of suffering is getting rid of craving and grasping.

4. The method to use in overcoming suffering is the Eightfold Path.

We need not seriously consider the Eightfold Path; unless you are a Buddhist the notion that suffering is merely an illusion is all blue smoke and mirrors, nice on paper, but useless where the rubber meets the road. That said, I would not want to dismiss too quickly the Buddha’s conviction that the end of suffering is getting rid of craving and grasping. I would want to baptize the idea, to infuse it with Christian meaning, but I would not want to dismiss it out of hand. Clinging to the wrong things can produce a kind of suffering.

I am certain that I have caricatured all these non-Christian suffering management strategies. Since I don’t share them, I am not expert on them, and I don’t have much sympathy for them. Even though we do not fully understand or share them, modern Christianity sometimes does have leanings toward each of these errant views. Like hedonists, we often try to avoid suffering or at least to minimize it, and I suppose there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But, it must not be avoided at all costs. And, sometimes, it must be positively embraced. Like stoics, we too often put suffering out of sight and out of mind until it hits us like a ton of bricks and we find ourselves unprepared for it. We shouldn’t borrow trouble; Jesus tells us not to be anxious about tomorrow. But, we also should not be spiritually unprepared for suffering when it comes. Like Buddhists, we sometimes very piously pretend that suffering is an illusion. In the face of real tragedy we smile and say, or someone smiles at us and says, “God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good.” And while that is true in some sense, it is hard to mouth it through tears.

Suffering is a human reality common to us all, Christians and non-Christians alike. But, there is a uniquely Christian way of understanding it. And, there is also a kind of suffering that is uniquely Christian, a suffering that comes to us by virtue of being Christian: forgiving instead of taking revenge, sharing the burden of the world in prayer and service, ridicule or rejection for bearing the name of Christ, alienation from friends and family, financial or physical hardships. It wasn’t hyperbole when Jesus said that whoever would be his disciple must take up his cross daily and follow him. The cross, as a Christian symbol, doesn’t just point backward to Jesus, but proclaims an ever-present reality for all who bear his name, and that reality includes suffering.

So, how do — or how should — Christians deal with suffering? That question is implicit throughout St. Peter’s first letter, not least in the immediate prologue to the text appointed for us in the Daily Office and then throughout the appointed text itself.

1 Peter 4:12 (ESV): 12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.

One of the great differences between first century and twenty-first century Christianity is the expectation of suffering: they did; we seem not to. The early Christians seemed to take suffering — and especially suffering for being a Christian — as a given; it was almost certain to happen sooner or later. We, in the West, think of suffering for being a Christian as an aberration, as something that may happen elsewhere or in another time, but not here, not now, not to us. So, we are shocked when it comes and uncertain how to handle it theologically and practically. We have lost the emphasis that, in baptism, the Church is making not just saints, but martyrs. So, Peter reminds us that suffering is nothing surprising; the near exemption from Christian suffering that we have had historically in the modern Western world is the exception, not the norm. Don’t be surprised; suffering as a Christian is nothing strange. Don’t be surprised; be prepared.

1 Peter 4:1-16 (ESV): 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

St. Peter also insists that the suffering we bear for Christ is the suffering we bear with Christ; it is our share, our portion, our participation in Christ’s sufferings. And Christ’s suffering was redemptive. It was the prelude to glory. Even more than that, in a great paradox and mystery, Christ was glorified in and through his suffering. His glory was not just on the far side of suffering, though it certainly was there, too; it was also manifest in his suffering. On the night of Jesus’ betrayal, just after Judas had left the Upper Room to arrange for Jesus’ arrest:

John 13:31 (ESV): 31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

In and through betrayal, arrest, denials, trials, beatings, mocking, crucifixion, and death, Jesus was manifesting the glory of God. Amidst shame, Jesus was glorified. You know that one of the characteristics of crucifixion — and a source of great suffering in it — was the shame heaped upon the victim: paraded through the streets as a criminal, stripped naked, staked out on a cross for public viewing, body left to decay on the cross and to feed the scavengers. It was shameful to the victim, to the family, to the community. The same is true with all our suffering for Christ; it is an attempt by the powers to shame the one who bears the name of Christ. St. Peter absolutely rejects that notion and turns it on its head.

1 Peter 4:16 (ESV): 16 Yet is anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

And then this:

1 Peter 4:19 (ESV): 19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

If you are suffering for Christ, it is not that God has forgotten or abandoned you, but rather that you are fully embraced in the will of God. This is difficult to understand and perhaps to accept, but it is essential. If it was the will of God to save the world by entering into its suffering in the person of Jesus Christ, then it is also his will to continue, to work out, the redemption of the world through the suffering of those who bear the name of Christ. Trust that. Trust God. And keep doing good.

Then, St. Peter turns his attention to his fellow elders: bishops, priests:

1 Peter 5:1-5 (ESV): 1 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Why single out the elders in a discussion of suffering? If you want to kill a snake, so the saying goes, you cut off its head. If you want to eradicate a movement, you kill its leaders. In times of persecution, the elders — bishops and priests — were the most likely targets, the ones most most likely to suffer. And that may be why St. Peter here reminds them of the gravitas of their office, of the need to be examples to the flock as Christ was an example to them, and of the reality that an unfading crown of glory lies on the far side of suffering.

And then to everyone, St. Peter says:

1 Peter 5:6-11 (ESV): 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

There are three agents in this mystery of suffering: God, who allows suffering and who will bring you through it, and who will restore, strengthen, establish, and exalt you; you, the one who is suffering and who must be sober-minded and watchful; and the devil who seeks to exploit the suffering to your destruction. We have already spoken a bit about God, so let’s address the other spiritual agent, the devil. What is his role or purpose in suffering? He prowls around, looking for chinks in your armor, looking for breaches in the wall of faith, practice, and trust that he can exploit. He intimidates and frightens — or at least tries to — with his roaring. And the third agent — us: how are we to respond? Not by cowering or hunkering down, but by resisting in all the ways the Spirit enables and the Church gives us: by prayer and fasting, by repentance and confession, by Scripture and liturgy and psalmody, by the Sacraments, by the cultivation of the virtues, by assembling with the saints and by remembering and praying for those saints far from us who are experiencing the same — and often greater — suffering. There is great comfort, I think, in knowing that we are not alone in suffering.

And then St. Peter assures us of the one truth above all others that makes us able to endure suffering: God is sovereign now and ever. Our suffering is not outside the bounds of God’s will or dominion, which means that it has purpose and meaning and that it is intended for and will redound to our good.

There is really no place in our secular Western culture for suffering. Our goal is to avoid it, put it out of sight and mind, and eliminate it. As Orthodox priest Fr. Stephen Freeman says, the ultimate way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate the one suffering. This elderly person is suffering; in our mercy we will euthanize him. This baby will be born with a mental or physical disability that will include a certain amount of suffering — as we envision it — not just for the child but for the parents whose lives this child will complicate; in our mercy we will abort the baby. Death is preferable to suffering, particularly if the suffering is mine and the death is someone else’s. So our culture believes.

But that is not the mind and example of Christ, nor the way of the Church, as St. Peter knew it and taught it:

1 Peter 4:12–13 (ESV): 12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, who willingly embraced the shame and suffering of the cross for our sake and for our salvation: Grant us so faithfully to follow you that, when by God’s providence we, too, endure suffering for your Name’s sake, we may rejoice to share your sufferings, and endure with hope until your glory is revealed; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

JUST LUCKY, I GUESS

After co-facilitating another excellent three-day cohort gathering of those training in spiritual direction with the St Benedict Center for Spiritual Formation (https://stbenedict-csf.org/), I am relaxing this afternoon with an iced coffee and one of my favorite books: “A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos.” As the book nears its end, the author has made his way from atheist to Orthodox Christian. In a few of the final chapters he seeks to describe the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western Christianity. I appreciate the simplicity and humor of these words:

In my experience, really committed Protestants tend to think of themselves as “saved” because they have accepted Jesus; Roman Catholics, on the other hand, see themselves as “sinners” in need of weekly absolution. Orthodox just think themselves luck.

There is, it seems to me, enough of the living truth in each of the three Churches to bring its members to Christ. Just as each has enough of fallen humanity to give the Holy Spirit a hard time (Peter France, A Place of Healing for the Soul: Patmos, Atlantic Monthly Press (2002), p. 168).

Despite being English, the author doesn’t specifically address the Anglican Church, perhaps because he sees it as Protestant or perhaps because, as in most things Anglican, there is no firm consensus on this issue. And for me? I agree with Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, of blessed memory. I “have been saved” through baptismal regeneration. I “am being saved” through participation in the Sacraments and the faith and life of the Church. I hope finally “to be saved” solely by the grace and mercy of the one who loves me and gave himself for me. If that can be described as “luck,” then I am lucky indeed. I think it is grace.