by Fr Gabriel-Allan Boyd
Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out Why.” I believe that Mr Clemens was onto something, and so let’s spend a few moments pondering that theme right now. Why are we here? Why do we attend Church? What’s our purpose on earth? What’s our purpose as Orthodox Christians?
As Americans, we tend toward the short answers, because, in our fast-paced society, we appreciate things that can be summed up quickly, in nice neat little packages. We live in a culture where being able to close a deal is built on the foundation of a good elevator-pitch of 20-60 seconds. And while it may feel good to wrap things up in a hurry... can you really say that that’s been a good recipe for maturing your faith?
So, if we’ve had any spiritual education at all, we’ll typically answer the questions about the Orthodox Christian’s purpose in life with a neat little answer to quickly wrap it up...and then move on, feeling satisfied that we’ve passed the test. Some, in quoting Saint Seraphim of Serov, will say, we’re here “to acquire the Holy Spirit,” and they will be partly right. Others, will point to the Church’s theology of theosis and say, we’re here “to become by grace what God is by nature,” and they will be partly right. And then there are those who would refer to Saint Paul’s call to Christlikeness, and bring up something from one of his letters to the churches like, we’re here “to become the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13), and they too will be partly right.
Usually, however, in our desire for a neat little package, we’ve not bothered to learn the rest of the picture. Or maybe we simply wanted something that wouldn’t challenge us to go too far outside our comfort zone. So, we never inconvenience ourselves enough to discover the implications of the various answers we gave above about our purpose. We too easily get the idea in our heads that all of those things mentioned above is for our sake alone. We sometimes get the idea that if we stress having an inwardly focused encounter with God, then that is the ultimate experience of spirituality. And we forget that the Holy Spirit’s ministry is to point people toward Christ. By limiting ourselves to one simple phrase by the saint, we too easily forget that by Saint Seraphim of Serov’s example of acquiring the Holy Spirit, he never limited himself to merely praying before his icons, but that he also spent a great amount of time devoting himself to self-sacrificial acts of love and teaching others around him about Christ. We too easily forget the reason that the Holy Spirit is acquired by us is not only for us to be pointed to Christ...but also for us to point others to Christ. We also forget, considering God’s outwardly focused way of offering love, the implications of “becoming by grace what God is by nature,” that we could never become by grace what God is by nature as long as we only remain inwardly focused. And likewise, we too often forget the implications of Christ’s incarnation—His leaving heaven to take on human flesh and heroically conquer death by dying—that this was an entirely outward focused act. Thus, it’s simply impossible for someone to remain inwardly focused with their faith and ever hope “to become the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” An Orthodox praxis, whose sole purpose is to keep itself inwardly focused, has traded its God for a distorted, counterfeit god...and is no longer Ortha doxa—right glory. When we come to believe that the practice of our faith should be at others’ expense, then we’re no longer really practicing our faith, but instead have chosen an idol.
As I look around at the current state of our country...with the spirit of self-absorption cultivated into anarchy—of everyone “doing what is right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25; Jeremiah 18:12), at the temperament of self-righteous outrage, I can’t help but wonder, how could we have gotten to this condition? Have we Orthodox Christians, in our inward focus, had some part to play—some culpability—in the way these events have been unfolding? When was the last time that you saw Orthodox Christians lovingly take up the self-sacrificial, prophetic role, regarding the surrounding chaos, to stand in the midst of the people we interact with daily to do-and-say things that point others toward Jesus Christ—the God/Man—and toward repentance-in-Him as our *only* hope for beauty and peace in this world? For that matter, when was the last time you, yourself did that? Have we sown the wind of our own self-absorption, and now we’re reaping the whirlwind?
And I wonder, is there hope of our own repentance...of righting the mistakes of our past for the world around us? Is there some act of redemption we could do, through which Christ may bring salvation to all of that chaos? What hope could there possibly be? Then I look into the eyes of the little ones in our midst, and I see the future’s only hope in Christ.
There’s an old proverb that I love that says, “Blessed are the people whose elders plant seedlings, offering fruit that only future generations will enjoy.” Can you imagine what it would be like for these young ones if all of us together poured our energy into helping them be excited about coming to church? Can you envision what it would be like if we *all* devoted ourselves to helping them engage with our worship? What could their lives become if all of us could only look into their eyes and see the image of Christ being formed in them...and we honored that formation as the most important act of worship we do all day? What a redemption that would be! I know that it’s sometimes difficult to see them in that light when they’re being rambunctious, with all the energy that young ones typically have stored up in them. But this is God’s challenge to all of us, that our worship was never meant to be merely an inwardly focused thing. As much as these littles need training in how to be considerate of others when worship is taking place...all of us so-called “mature” ones are just as badly in need of training, to make our worship, in Christlikeness, outwardly focused. Do you really think you could have anything more important to do? Saint Porphyrios once said, There is only one way to avoid problems with children: Holiness. Become saints and you won’t have any problems with your children.
Glory to God that through these precious little ones, He’s given us all the opportunity to redeem ourselves in Him! Glory to God that through these beloved children of His, He’s offered to us “mature” people such a beautiful way to mature in our own faith, learning to make our worship outwardly focused.
This Sunday, our Gospel (Matthew 14:14-22) recounts the story of Jesus’ multiplying of the fishes and the loaves. In Jesus’ outwardly focused ministry, He had compassion upon those who were there to follow Him. John’s Gospel (6:1-13) tells us that a little boy was the source of the loaves and fish that fed all those people. Think of that. The role that a little boy played in making his own offering to Jesus’ ministry is important enough, that John’s Gospel gives reference to him. And Christ honors that little one’s offering by multiplying it to minister to others. Nevertheless, as our Gospel in Matthew points out, by our Lord’s grace, we who worship and follow Christ also have an outwardly focused role to fulfill, as He tells us (His disciples), “You feed them.”
