Lenten Quote

I just read this quote from St. John Chrysostom in a book I'm using for Lent and I thought I'd share it. I know it's not Lent yet, but this starts earlier than Ash Wednesday.

When the fast begins, let us get ready and polish our spiritual weapons; as cultivators, let us sharpen our sickles; as sailors, let us order our thoughts against the waves of extravagant desires; as travelers, let us set out on the journey towards heave; and as wrestlers let us strip for the contest. For the Christian is at the same time a solider, a sailor, a plower and a wrestler. St. Paul states, 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of evil. Put on therefore the whole armor of God.'

Put on the spiritual armor, and become a soldier. Strip yourself of worldly cares, for the season of Lent is one of wrestling. Cultivate your soul. Cut away the thorns of evil. Sow the word of godliness. Subdue the body, and bring it into subjection. Keep down the waves of evil desires. Repel the tempest of evil thoughts.

- St. John Chrysostom.

Let us keep these wise words from St. Chrysostom dear to our hearts as we approach this most holy season.

Political Sainthood?

I was just reading my friend Paul's blog (here) where he mentions that the canonization process is in place for Julius Kambarage Nyerere the African ruler who brought about the creation of Tanzania.

Paul links to an article from the Sunday Monitor which provides some details. Click here for that article.

I find this potential canonization very interesting. While I do not know a whole lot about Africa or the political happenings there, I do find it interesting that the church would consider canonization of a person who rose to political power via a military coup and who seems to be just a political figure.

I guess I don't have as many thoughts regarding this as I do questions:

- Is this the work of liberation theologians that are striving to carry their legacy through the Catholic church via the remembrance of political saints?

- Does this political figure truly represent sainthood? We have other political saints such as Constantine in the east and the many political/religious popes in the west, but these individuals were not just political ideologues they also served as guardians of the faith.

- Is political achievement enough to merit sainthood? How does this fit with the way that the early Fathers viewed the Christian's role in government?


This is surely and interesting case and it will be interesting to see if the process is completed. If I hear any more information on this I will pass it on, especially if I am able to find anything about this person's spiritual qualification for canonization.

Ash Wednesday

Today, marks the beginning of Lent for those of us who follow the western ecclesial calendar. Today is a day that we receive ashes on our foreheads to remind us of our mortality. From dust we were created and one day to dust we will return.

Unless our Lord returns beforehand we will all die. While it may be considered morbid by some to think on our looming death it is actually a long standing Christian teaching that we should remember our mortality. The fathers teach through the ages to think on our mortality not only on this day, but all days.

This teaching is hard, but it is good for us to remember our mortality not in a morbid "goth" sort of way, but so that we may place ourselves in proper perspective. We think on our death so that we may remember that we are not God and so that we may live every moment, treat every encounter, and think every thought like it may be our last. This practice helps us to cast out the sin in our life and embrace a life that is full of love and glorifying to God.

So let us begin our Lenten journey today and let us remember our mortality so that we may live truly dispassionate lives daily casting off the passions that cause us to sin. And so we as we receive ashes let the lenten prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian remind us of the passions we seek to throw off and the virtues we seek to embrace.

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.

In preparation of Lent

Yes, Lent is right around the corner. For those of us who follow the Western church calendar this years lenten season begins with Ash Wednesday on February 25. This past week it was my turn to write a brief article for our church newsletter. Below is what I wrote to encourage our congregation to begin looking towards lent even though it is a week or two off.

"Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you, thousands will be saved."
- St. Seraphim of Sarov


Though I didn’t discover the above quote until a few months ago, it has quickly risen to the top of my list of all-time favorites. It reminds me of the call placed upon us by our Savior and God when he told the expert in the law that the greatest commandment was to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37 NIV). But knowing full well that many would seek to find holiness without loving others, our Lord quickly reminded this teacher that the second greatest commandment is like the first, namely, “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39 NIV). John Wesley picked up on this concept when he described Christian Perfection as perfect love for God and neighbor. These two loves are inextricably bound together for those of us who are in Christ. It is, as we love God that we can do nothing other than love our neighbor.

With these words in mind we look forward ever so slightly to realize that the Lenten Spring is coming. In just a few weeks we cast aside that which clutters our vision so that we may clearly see our God and Savior Jesus Christ. That we may descend the way of the Cross so that we may come to a fuller and more true love of God – truly acquiring the peace of God within our hearts. And so my brothers and sisters let us begin our preparation for Lent, so that we may indeed as St. Seraphim of Sarov says; “acquire a peaceful spirit” so that, loving our neighbor as ourselves, thousands around us may be saved.

Reading the Fathers

There has been a lot of talk lately about protestants embracing their roots and turning to the Fathers of the Church for wisdom and guidance. If you need some evidence of this pick up the latest issue of Christianity Today or any one of magazines/journals that deal with the theological trends within protestantism. This marked interest in patristic reading (reading of the Fathers) is especially obvious when one looks around Asbury. There are a good number of students here that continue to express interest in patristic studies. Maybe I'm more aware of these individuals because this is my pet area of interest, maybe part of the trend on campus is fueled by the recent readers, or maybe it is just a part of this macrocosmic event happening in protestantism. Either way, the reason for this trend is unimportant to this post.

The reason I bring up this trend is because I find it disconcerting. This is something I've been thinking about for the past few weeks, but I recently was given some words to describe it by talking with my friend Nathaniel. I guess it's odd that I find this trend concerning because I'm such a lover of patristic studies and reading the Fathers has fed my soul for the past four years, so let me explain myself.

I find this trend concerning because of the way in which many people, especially at Asbury, approach the Fathers. This new found resurgence of the patristic witness at Asbury, in the Emergent communities, and in protestantism in general tends to approach the Fathers as nothing more than another source from which to feed personal agendas.

What I mean is that a plethora of individuals are reading the Fathers and Mothers of the faith, but that they approach them as if they were just another contemporary theologian that can be easily discarded if one disagrees with them. I would say these new readers treat the Fathers as just another Rob Bell, but fearfully Rob Bell is given much more respect and is more highly valued than any of the saints of old. These saints, who have died for the faith, who have lived through imperial exiles, who have loved the church even unto their last breaths are being treated as if they were peers, as Nathaniel aptly assessed.

In my opinion it is criminally prideful and nigh heretical for one to consider the Fathers and Mothers of the church as peers that can easily be used to profit one's theological agenda and then discarded like an old sweater when they disagree with how we want to live or think. As I have said these men and women are the ones who have preserved the Faith for us. They have fought, bled and died for that which they have passed on to us. They are not our peers! They are worthy of respect and honor and deserve to be considered our mentors and spiritual fathers and mothers.

Granted not all of the early church sources agreed on everything, of course there are matters of holy opinion, but we cannot be so willing to disagree with these men and women. They are the continuation of the cloud of witnesses talked about in Hebrews, they are those who preserved the faith that is the foundation on which the church was built, and it is their blood that serves as the seed of the church.

My argument is that we cannot claim the heritage of these Fathers and Mothers without accepting them as authoritative for our lives. We must give them the right to speak into our lives and allow them to have the authority to dictate how we must conform our lives to the Faith.

Granted my beloved Orthodox friends would likely agree with me and then argue that I am guilty of the problem that I lay out since I have not become Orthodox. I don't want to get into that issue right now, but nevertheless my point stands and protestant scholars, students, and lay people cannot continue to pretend that they are embracing the Fathers when they treat them as peers and do not allow them to speak authoritatively into their lives.

Without getting into a mess of tangential issues I think this goes to one of the roots of the Protestant problem. One of the beauties that I have seen in the time spent with my Orthodox friends is that the Orthodox church approaches the Faith as something handed down to which individuals and the Church itself must conform. The Faith is alive and exists in its fullness within Orthodoxy, but it is authoritative and something to which we must conform. Protestantism, on the other hand, seems to view the Faith as something fluid that must conform to personal belief. Thus there is no standard of authority save one's own belief system which dictates what the substance of the Faith is. I believe this is part of Protestantism's biggest problem and the reason why the Faith continues to be torn apart within Protestantism. And part of the reason why individuals think they can critique the Holy Fathers as if they were peers.

Yes, protestants are beginning to discover a great wealth of spiritual wisdom. This must be a good thing, but it saddens me beyond belief that these Holy saints of the church are treated with so much disrespect.

I often get chided for the fact that almost all of my deepest spiritual fathers and mothers have been dead for hundreds of years. But I must argue what better father and mother can one have than those that have been affirmed and validated by the church for hundreds and hundreds of years. They can dictate how I should live in holy pursuit of God any day because they are the ones who's writings have survived the test of time and the test of the Church and as such I will think long, hard, and prayerfully before I dare disagree with these holy saints.

May we all have such mentors that will encourage us to pursue God even unto death!

- Ben

The Feast of All Saints Day

For those of you in the west today is All Saints Day, the day that we remember the dead in Christ who will rise first at the coming of our Lord.

It is good for us to remember those in the faith who have gone before us and to remember that death has no power over those who are in Christ Jesus.

This is my first All-Saints Day since I first experience the death of some one close to me. And so the Spirit testifies just as boldly now as He did the day I found out my grandfather died, that Death has been conquered and has been trampled down by death!

Here are some words from St. John Chrysostom's Paschal homily that I had the privilege to preach at my Grandpa's funeral.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed [death] by enduring it.

He destroyed [Hell] when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O [Hell], where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

So take heart and joy with the Church in celebrating not merely the lives of the cloud of witnesses that have gone before us, but the glorious reality in which we live - a reality in which Death has been trampled down by death!!

Glory to Jesus Christ, Glory Forever!!

Amen.

Lent: Feasting During the Fast

This lent has been interesting for me. Though I've not had a great many Lenten epiphanies to blog about I think that God is still teaching me good things. Probably the most significant thing I'm learning is how to feast on him while I'm fasting.

The past week or two I've been fighting diligently against a constant bad/angry mood. It's all that I can do to keep from saying or doing something in my angst - something I will likely regret later. My frustration and my "pissyness" (for lack of a better term) seems to be perpetual. I don't want to get into all the reasons for this now, but let us suffice it to say that it is not caused by the Lenten fasting (though a burger would be great right now).

Despite this "funk" the Lord has been my constant help and comfort. The Holy Spirit has sustained me through a few significant things. It seems as if I must constantly feed myself or else I will break. Here is what is sustaining me.

Psalm 103: Bless the Lord, Oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, Oh my soul and forget not all his benefits. He forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases... The Lord, is compassionate and merciful, long suffering and of great goodness. Bless the Lord Oh my soul.

Though this is not verbatim with the text we sing this Psalm every Sunday in church and is has been my friend and food during this season. My mind and my soul sing it when things are quiet and it is the first thing that I force myself to utter when I feel this angst building.

Psalm 146: Praise the Lord, Oh my soul. I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have being. Put not your trust in princes and sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs he returns to his earth. On that very day his plans perish. The Lord, will reign for ever, They God oh Zion to all generations. Now and ever and unto ages of ages Amen.

This psalm is much like the first. although not word for word with the text we sing it every Sunday. It like Psalm 103 often springs forth from within me and sometimes I make is a forced prayer and cry to the Lord.

The Nicene Creed: I won't recap the whole creed here. This is also sung every Sunday at my church and it encourages me and fills my spirit with joy.

Colossians 3:1-4 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of god. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life, appears then you also will appear with him in glory.

We have been memorizing this passage as a chapel team and it has truly sustained me during these periods. This is incredibly ironic because most (if not all) of my frustration and angst comes during times that I'm doing chapel things. I'm not sure if that means anything except that it's interesting.

The Lord's Prayer: Lord teach me how to pray! This is often my cry and then I dive deep into the prayer our savior taught us to pray. This has become a form of strength and spiritual food.

Various prayers: I also find myself scrambling at night when I'm reflecting on the day or even throughout the day for the Lent Reader that Asbury put out. I find myself flipping through the pages and frantically prayer every prayer from every page. I ask the Lord to teach me how to pray some of the prayer and others just gush out from my being. These prayer are from a variety of places: the book of common prayer, various saints (St. Anselm, St. Ephraim), other Christian figures (Mary Fletcher) and I even wrote a few of them for the reader.



These are the things that are sustaining me. These are the things that the Holy Spirit has placed in my life to feed me and has allowed me to feast on during this great and holy fast. Looking back over this post it seems so rigid and dry. Believe me when I say this is anything but dry. These wells are full of living water which the Lord pours out to me. I drink to partake of the Lord and distance myself from the flesh. I drink often and deep. I feel as though I must drink or I will die! I have to sing the songs of Zion. I have to pray the prayers of God's people. I must recite the symbol of the faith!! The Lord has given us these good gifts to bring life and health and freedom to our souls. This they have brought to my soul. If it wasn't for these gifts of grace I shudder to think how much more offensive and mean I would be. Yes, I am still frustrated and angry but these gifts feed me in this desert. I'm looking at making changes to help eliminate some of this angst but until the Lord leads in those decisions I must rest in these gifts. I must grab them and not let go. I don't care if I am charged with using them as a crutch because it seems as if that's what they are for now.


May our God - the Giver of good gifts grant you all things on which to feast during this holy fast!!

- Ben

Lent I

Today for my devotions I was reading a community reader that our seminary puts out each season and the entry really spoke to me. I would like to share that entry here. I don't want to appear pompous by posting the work I did, but I really liked today's reading. Yes, it has my favorite quote from one of my favorite fathers of the church but God really spoke to me through it today so I thought I would share it. Here is today's (Feb. 22) entry:

Opening Prayer:
Almighty Father, who didst inspire Simon Peter, first among the apostles, to confess Jesus as Messiah and Son of the living God: Keep thy Church steadfast upon the rock of this faith, that in unity and peace we may proclaim the one truth and follow the one Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
- BCP 187

Luke 9:18-27 NRSV
Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Messiah of God." He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Then he said to them all, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God."

Reading:
Come fire, cross, battling with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil – only let me get to Jesus Christ! Not the wide bounds of earth nor the kingdoms of this world will avail me anything. I would rather die and get to Jesus Christ, than reign over the ends of the earth, That is whom I am looking for – the One who died for us. That is whom I want – the One who rose for us…What I want is God’s bread, which is the flesh of Christ, who came from David’s line; and for drink I want his blood: an immortal love feast indeed!
- St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans 5:3-6:2; 7:3


Prayer of Response:
Holy Father, you know our hearts and our desires. You know that often we fail in our pursuit of you. Though we are frail, give us strength. Though we fall, lift us up. Though we fall short all too often, empower us for the journey on which you have called us. Help us to live as those who have gone before us, willing to give our life and our all for the cross of Christ. Help us to bear the holy cross. Amen.

I promise not to continue to post the whole entries from the reader and to share more of my thoughts through this lenten season.


Blessings to you all,

Ben

Ash Wednesday - Lent Begins

"O Lord and Master of my Life, take form me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of Chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed are Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen"

- Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian.

Saints and the Prosperity Gospel

I just got back from attending St. Athanasias Orthodox Church today and while I was there I had a few thoughts that I thought I'd write about. Yes, I haven't been as committed to posting as I should be, I do have some thoughts that I've been meaning to post, but they'll have to wait for now. On to the issue at hand.

After the first hour or so of the liturgy the Priest (who is married, by the way) gave the sermon from the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. As he spoke about this he talked about joy in giving and blessing, specifically stating that he is not proclaiming to us some health and prosperity/name it claim it gospel. A little while later the priest mentioned something about a saint and my friend Nathaniel leaned over to me and told me about a saint of the Orthodox Church that lived in Siberia, who would go walk through the towns and as he saw beggars in need he would give his shoes and coat to the beggars and walk back to his home without shoes and a coat (remember Siberia is mostly cold, very cold).

With that as the foundation let me share my thoughts. I have lamented the lack of recognition of Church history and lack of saints in the Protestant Church for some while now. I'm not necessarily arguing that we need to pray to saints, but our neglect of those who have gone before us in the Protestant tradition is absolutly dreadful, if not in fact sinful (and I do believe one could make a case for that). We as protestants like to recognize a select few (like an occasional missionary or Billy Graham) but primarily they are individuals who lived in relatively recently (or are still alive) and will soon be forgotten. Most of protestantism today barely knows who Wesley, Asbury, Calvin etc are, let alone Ignatius, Irenaus, Athanasias, etc are. We tend to exalt those in the Protestant tradition who do great things, rather than those who live lives of sainthood.

As I was thinking about all this I began to wonder what would have happened if the Protestant Church had maintained the use of saints? Could the prosperity gospel exist? It seems to me that I have to allow that it could exist; but that it would be considerably hard for it to exist in as wide spread state as it does. Why is this you may ask. Well it seems to me that only those who live saintly lives are canonized as saints. I don't know of any saints who are lifted up because of the life of affluence they lived. Saints are canonized because they model Christ's teachings, they give completely of themselves, they are an example to all believers. With a strong tradition of recognizing this life of sacrifice in men and women throughout church history, I would say that it would be hard for a teaching that proclaims something completely contrary to this (and Christ's teachings) to take root and become widespread.

The problem with the protestant church is that people who live these lives of sacrifice often fall through the cracks. We don't remember them becuase we view them as insignificant in our individualized self/purpose driven world. We don't look at ourselves as living in a tradition that starts at creation, proceeds through the Old Testament, to the New, through the church of the ages and finally to us. This is who we are and it is good to remember those who came before us (cf: Hebrews 11).

We also have a skewed view of the incarnation. We have allowed dualism to tarnish our worldview. We view the incarnation as a past event. As John Madden would say: "Boom!" it happened. We tend to view life as something that means little except for a time where we made decisions that affect where we go in the end. We don't view all of life as a being an incarnation of Christ to the world. I get so frustrated every time I see the stupid (and dare I say heretical) bumper sticker: "I'm not a physical being having a spiritual experience, I"m a spiritual being having a physical experience." It is this garbage theology that has allowed the Protestant Church to neglect the poor, to abuse the helpless and live in some bastardized state between orthodoxy and gnosticism. We think that we only need to worship God with our minds and our hearts, how much more should we engage all that God gave us, our mind, heart, and body (including all the sense)!

All that to say that we should be lifting up examples of men and women who have gone before us in the faith and have lived lives that are true incarnations of Christ. They teach us that it's not enough to think right, but to act and live right as well. Live and act, not in my own personal/individualistic sphere, but with in a community, within the whole world.

Why should we not celebrate the saints of the Church? Why should we not have aids to remember them and allow our hearts to be drawn closer to the Trinity through the example of their lives? Should we not allow their example to point us toward Christ and to the life that he commanded and lived himself?

To get back to the point, it seems to me that this strong emphasis would have helped the Protestant Church to see the health and wealth/prosperity gospel for what it truly is, namely a heresy that is not in line with what the church has believed and taught throughout the ages. That's what we are, we are bearers of the faith that has been handed to us. How dare we think that this is something new we are a part of! How dare we believe that we're starting something original! As A. W. Tozer says: "if the reader should discover here anythign really new he is conscience bound to reject it, for whatever in religion is new is by the same token false." (Pursuit of God, xiii). Or as C. S. Lewis (held as a 'saint' by some protestants) states: "if any parts of the book are 'original', in the sense of being novel...they are so against my will...I have tried to assume nothing that is not professed by all baptised and communicating Christians" (The Problem of Pain, xii)

I guess my ranting has started again and my point is now lost in the plethora of words. To summarize, it seems to me that if we, as protestants, hadn't rejected all church history prior to the reformation, and had continued to hold up examples of those who lived incarnationally in line with the words of Jesus, we would be having less of a problem now with false doctrines such as the prosperity gospel and the like. We desperately need to recapture our roots (not of protestantism, but of Christianity) and learn from our Orthodox and Catholic brothers and sisters. We dont' have to assimilate everthing they do (although it would be great to see the church whole again) but we do have to accept them as sharing our baptism in the name of the Trinity, and thus they are by nature Christians - our brothers and sisters.