The Power of Christian Marriage

Here's my guest blog on marriage on the website of the Orthodox Christian Network
http://blog.myocn.com/current-topics/guest-post-fr-philip-lemasters-on-the-power-of-christian-marriage.html
Guest Post: Fr. Philip LeMasters on the Power of Christian Marriage               

Orthodoxy Christianity affirms the unique glory of the life-giving union of husband and wife as an icon of the Holy Trinity and of the salvation of the world. Marriage is a holy mystery, a sacrament, which does not simply grant civil sanction to the broken union of Adam and Eve; instead, it heals and blesses their common life as a sign of the relationship between Christ and the Church.

Man and woman wear the crowns of the Kingdom as their love for one another finds its true fulfillment in the Lord. God created us male and female in the divine image and likeness, giving opposite-sex couples the unique ability to bring forth new life from their own bodies out of love for one another. Through this blessed union, parents and children become an image of the Holy Trinity, sharing a union of love that binds them together and enables them to learn to love Christ in one another. By the restoration of the primal unity of male and female in God, Christian marriage becomes a sign of the salvation not merely of two individuals, but of all humanity and of the creation itself. Perhaps that is why our Savior so often used the image of a wedding feast for the Kingdom of God.

The Orthodox Church knows that man and woman are not interchangeable bundles of individual rights; instead, the two sexes play complementary roles in our common salvation. Jesus Christ and the Theotokos, the apostles and the myrrh-bearing women, St. Macrina with her brothers Sts. Basil and Gregory, and so many other examples from Scripture, hymnody, icons, and the saints demonstrate the abiding mystery of the male-female distinction and relationship in our pursuit of theosis. The same God who creates us as male and female saves us in relationship to one another. Instead of abandoning biological distinctions as though our bodies were irrelevant and the two sexes identical, we look to the Lord, His Mother, and ongoing generations of holy men and women to teach us how to live faithfully in relation to one another as male and female. We deal here with a great mystery, as the Logos who spoke the world into existence also made us man and woman in the divine image.

The early Christians impressed even the pagan Romans with their care for the dying and their rescue of exposed infants. It’s time for the current generation of Orthodox Christians to impress our society with the chaste love of man and woman as a sign of God’s covenantal fidelity in Jesus Christ. There is no better response to the challenges posed by the ongoing sexual revolution than the living icon of Christian marriage—of Adam and Eve healed and blessed as they wear the crowns of the Kingdom and bring new persons into the world out of their love for one another. That’s how God intends life to go on in His good creation. It’s precisely the differences between male and female that make the union of marriage life-giving, complementary, and a path to salvation. True marriage manifests the healing of our humanity in the image of God as man and woman.

Our challenge is not only to say words about marriage, but to live them out in ways that draw others to Christ and His Church. That’s the most fundamental political action of the Christian community: to embody a life that conquers death, that heals our broken, corrupt humanity—body and soul, male and female. Jesus Christ still turns water into wine by manifesting His divine glory through faithful, loving marriages that are living icons of what happens to men and women when they together become participants by grace in the divine nature.

In contrast, revisionist claims about “same-sex marriage” distort the truth about what it means to be man and woman in God’s image and likeness. They endorse sexual expression apart from the loving, covenanted unity of male-female difference that alone is blessed to bring forth new life. Though Christian and civil marriage are not identical, Orthodoxy will not embrace proposed redefinitions of the fundamental nature of marriage contrary to what God has established from the origins of the human race. The Church cannot bless same-sex unions as marriages, for that is not what they are. Sacraments restore persons and their relationships according to God’s original intention for us to be like Him; and He created us male and female in His image toward the end of our salvation.

Faithful Orthodox Christians do not, however, hate or shun those who order their lives differently. Like the Samaritan woman who became St. Photini, those who struggle with disordered sexual passions are more likely to respond to genuine expressions of compassion that point them toward the living water that satisfies at a level deeper than physical desire. The Church must speak the truth about sexuality, but also about pride and self-righteous judgment. Given the Lord’s definition of adultery in the Sermon on the Mount, none of us is in the position to condemn others for sexual sin.

No, God does not call everyone to marriage; yes, He does invite everyone to holiness; preserving sexual intimacy for the blessed state of marriage between a man and a woman is part of that calling, as the Church has taught consistently for two thousand years. In our current cultural context, the witness of true Christian marriage simply must become visible, vibrant, and robust, if it is to be taken seriously by mainstream culture. All the more is our need to be vigilant in our parishes and families, in our friendships and neighborhoods and schools, in our choices of entertainment and attire, to form ourselves in chastity both in our bodily actions and the thoughts of our hearts. Of course, we never do that alone, but in communion with the Church and with the support of fellow Christians who want to participate more fully in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.

The Rev. Fr. Philip LeMasters is the author of Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex (Light & Life Publishing Company, 2004) and The Goodness of God's Creation: How to Live as an Orthodox Christian (Regina Orthodox Press, 2008). An invited participant in international Orthodox theological consultations in Romania, Greece, and Syria, he has written on topics including the ethics of war and peace, healthcare, environmental stewardship, marriage, and sexuality. Fr. Philip is Dean of Social Sciences and Religion at McMurry University in Abilene, TX. He serves as the Corporate Secretary of the Board of Trustees of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and as the pastor of St. Luke Antiochian Orthodox Church in Abilene. He blogs at http://easternchristianinsights.blogspot.com, records podcasts for Ancient Faith Radio, and has been interviewed on OCN’s “Come Receive the Light.” His books may be ordered as follows:
Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex, Light & Life Publishing Company, 2004. $15.95. http://www.light-n-life.com/shopping/order_product.asp?ProductNum=TOWA100
The Goodness of God’s Creation: How to Live as an Orthodox Christian, Regina Orthodox Press, 2008 $11.97 (sale price) http://reginaorthodoxpress.com/goofgocr.html

REVIEW: An Orthodox Response to “Same-Sex Unions” from Fr. Joseph Huneycutt

June 3, 2015 by Fr. Joseph Huneycutt 

What is the relationship between morality and the Eucharist? Do our actions, outside of the church building, define who we are in Christ? Essentially, does our bodily relationship with self and others affect our communion with the Other? These are the issues addressed by Fr Philip LeMasters in his book, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex. Given that “same-sex unions” is the hot topic of the day, this review will center on chapter six of the book.
Midway down the opening paragraph of the chapter, “An Orthodox Response to ‘Same-Sex Unions,’” we read: “The question of Christianity’s proper stance on homosexuality is the most controversial and divisive issue facing churches in North America today” (p.79). This is a quote with which few Christians can quibble. Fireworks among foes and arm wrestling among friends might be found further down the page:

There is no question about the teaching of the Orthodox Church on homosexuality; namely, sexual relations between persons of the same sex are “sinful and contrary to God’s will. Orthodoxy maintains the living Tradition of the Church on the question of homosexuality. The Scriptures, writings of the Father, lives of the Saints, and the Liturgy provide no basis whatsoever for the endorsement of sexual relations between two people of the same sex under any circumstances. Consequently, there is no debate on this question in the Church (p.79).

Much has changed in America in the ten years since the book, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex, was published (2004). For instance, in an Illinois Senate Debate that year, Barak Obama stated, “I don’t think marriage is a civil right.” He went on to state that gay people have rights …but marriage was not among them.[1]
One need not be a political news junkie to understand that Obama’s views have changed. When running for President in 2008, Candidate Obama stated: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.”[2] On May 9, 2012, Obama told an interviewer that he supported same-sex marriage.[3] Then, in 2015, one reads: “Calling state bans on same-sex marriage ‘incompatible with the Constitution,’ the Obama administration Friday filed a brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in support of couples who are making challenges in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.”[4]
Granted, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex is not about politics or the evolving belief of the President of the United States. But with such attention directed from the nation’s “bully pulpit,” is it any wonder that many Americans – even those within the Orthodox Church – are questioning the Church’s teaching on human sexuality?
Traditional media outlets – radio, television, movies – and, especially, social media, not to mention politically-correct public school systems, have indoctrinated the next generation of Americans with the notion that love knows no boundaries, and neither should laws regulating marriage. The speed at which we have reached this erroneous notion is dizzying. These days, to question this mandated mantra is viewed as backward, hate speech, bullying. It is for this reason that this book, especially the chapter on “same-sex unions” is a must read by those who seek to understand why the Church believes as She does.
Detailing commonly heard arguments of “orientation” and even citing those who make a good case for the same, LeMasters lays out the timeless position of the Church that “a homosexual relationship is [incapable] of bringing human beings to participation in the Trinitarian love of God in ways that are truly parallel to marriage between a man and a woman” (p.81). The foundation of God-pleasing union detailed throughout the book is our union with God in the Eucharist. With this in mind, LeMasters asks, “Is a homosexual relationship of the sort that may be a foretaste of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb?” (p.81) He is here referring to the eschatological imagery which permeates the Church’s scriptural witness:

From Genesis through Revelation, there is a continuity of God’s purposes for the man-woman relationship that is a unique means of our participation in the life of the Trinity. When man and woman die to self in the conventional love of marriage, they live eucharistically and participate in the very life of God, even as they prepare for the Kingdom. The fulfillment of God’s intentions for our nature as man and woman is possible only in Christian marriage. Hence, relationships which do not fulfill our nature as man and woman before God may not be instruments of grace or a means of participating in God’s reign. For this to happen, grace would have to become the foe of creation; in a dualistic fashion, nature and grace would then be enemies, rather than dynamic categories which together shed light on our standing before God as creatures who have strayed from the Lord’s purposes for us and who need a spiritual healing which is beyond our own ability to effect. Manachaean dualism once more would rear its ugly head” (p.85).[5]

Gnosticism believes that the spiritual cannot mix with matter; it does not matter what you do in the sensible realm as long as you understand the spiritual realm. Gnosticism – with its emphasis on knowledge as the key to power, science and religion – is dualism. It leaves men free to practice immorality.

Those who argue that the biological distinctions between the sexes amount to no more than spiritually irrelevant plumbing have fallen prey to the Gnostic dangers of radically distinguishing the person from the body. A faith which places so much weight on the Body of Christ – in connection to the incarnation, the resurrection, the Church, and the Eucharist – must never dismiss the importance of the bodily differences of man and woman, as they have been revealed to have tremendous importance in the economy of salvation from the biblical period to the present. It is unthinkable for the Church to bless unions which are so clearly perversions of God’s intentions for man and woman (p.85).

A May 2015 Gallop poll reveals that 63% of Americans now find “same-sex unions” to be morally favorable (up 23% since the year 2000); furthermore:

The substantial increase in Americans’ views that gay and lesbian relations are morally acceptable coincide with a record-high level of support for same-sex marriage and views that being gay or lesbian is something a person is born with, rather than due to one’s upbringing or environment.
The public is now more accepting of sexual relations outside of marriage in general than at any point in the history of tracking these measures, including a 16-percentage-point increase in those saying that having a baby outside of marriage is morally acceptable, and a 15-point increase in the acceptability of sex between an unmarried man and woman. Clear majorities of Americans now say both are acceptable.[6]

If you couple this with the recent Pew Research Center findings that 71% of Americans identified as Christian in 2014 (down from 78% in 2007), one must assume that even those within the pews have redefined their moral beliefs based on a mandated politically-correct agenda rather than the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).”
Referring back to the chapter’s last quoted paragraph, above, no other conclusion can be reached than that many have indeed fallen into a Gnostic division of the body from the soul on the path to salvation. In other words, physical morality plays no part in the salvation of the soul. Such a belief is contrary to the witness of scripture, the fathers, and the saints of the Church. This deviation denies the witness of the Incarnation and distorts – nay destroys – a proper understanding of the Body of Christ as a communion of believers united in the Eucharist. Thus, as with any heresy, grace is denied.

God’s grace enables us for us the eschatological fulfillment and restoration of our nature, for the sharing of God’s reign through our participation in the life of the body of Christ. A homosexual relationship is not a fitting vehicle for coming to share more fully in God’s holiness. Regardless of arguments about whether homosexual activity is in any sense natural in our fallen world, Christians know the true nature of our sexuality if from what God has revealed about our creation and salvation as man and woman. Since grace restores and fulfills, but does not destroy our sexual nature as man and woman, to participate in homosexual relationships is to place oneself on a trajectory away from God’s gracious purposes for our sexuality. Hence, one who is not called to the vocation of heterosexual marriage should remain single and chaste, and take up the unique forms of ministry available to the celibate (p.87).

As with any review, there is a temptation to quote all the good stuff; alas, I have done some of this above. Yet, to fully understand the nature and import of Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex more than select quotes – or even the cited chapter on “same-sex unions” – is needed. While the issues discussed in the book have been politicized in contemporary society, they are not political but moral issues which have been politicized. Above all, Christians are called to remain true to the Faith revealed to us by God in the scripture, the fathers, and the witness of the saints. Fr Philip LeMaster’s book, Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex, explains and maintains this high calling.
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[1] Available: http://www.mediaite.com/online/obama-in-2004-homosexuality-not-a-choice-but-i-dont-think-marriage-is-a-civil-right/ (accessed May 27, 2015)
[2] Available: http://www.mediaite.com/online/obama-in-2004-homosexuality-not-a-choice-but-i-dont-think-marriage-is-a-civil-right/ (accessed May 27, 2015)
[3] Stein, Sam (May 9, 2012). “Obama Backs Gay Marriage”. Huffington Post.
[4] [March 6, 2015] http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/politics/obama-nationwide-same-sex-marriage/ (accessed May 27, 2015)
[5] Manichaeism: Manes (215-275) was a Persian and a Gnostic. He contrasted light and darkness, and maintained that Satan had hidden in man the particles of light, and that Jesus, Buddha, the Prophets, and Manes had been sent by God to help in the task of freeing men from the material and sensible world into the Light of Being. Manichaeism had a hierarchy, which distinguished the sensible, intellectual, and divine light. Manes was a proponent of knowledge of divine things, rather than faith. (Taken from an unpublished manuscript by the Rev. Dr. Charles Caldwell, 2010.)
[6] Available: http://www.gallup.com/poll/183413/americans-continue-shift-left-key-moral-issues.aspx?utm_source=Social%20Issues&utm_medium=newsfeed&utm_campaign=tiles (accessed May 27, 2015)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/orthodixie/2015/06/review-an-orthodox-response-to-same-sex-unions.html

Male and Female in God's Image

            It’s unfortunate when we become so focused on the symptoms of a problem that we ignore its underlying causes.  Some Christian rhetoric on same-sex marriage has done precisely that and has failed as a result to transcend the dynamics of conventional partisan politics.   Instead of illuminating the unique glory of the life-giving union of husband and wife as an icon of the Holy Trinity and of the  salvation of the world, the defenders of traditional marriage often merely skim the surface of public morality.  The fundamental problem isn’t that increasing numbers of Americans approve of same-sex marriage; it’s that many Christians and others have forgotten the holiness and unique vocation of the man-woman relationship.  Once we lose that key link, the possibility of thinking coherently—and faithfully-- about human sexuality is gone. 

In order to speak with integrity on marriage and family issues, we need first to take a sober look at the failure of the churches to equip our members to embody chastity and sexual purity, and thus to be a witness of holiness in stark contrast to the moral corruption so pervasive in our culture and world.   Especially since the dawn of the sexual revolution, Christians have too often turned a blind eye to promiscuity, pre-marital sex, serial divorce and remarriage, and a hedonistic culture that excuses all things in the name of an individual’s pleasure and self-defined happiness.   No wonder so many Americans seem to dismiss opposition to same-sex marriage as self-righteous hypocrisy and arbitrary discrimination.  Those who tolerate—and at times even seem to condone—sex and cohabitation for unmarried men and women have little standing to criticize the prospect of legal sanction for gay unions.  If there is no visible difference between how Christians and others handle these crucial life-shaping matters, why should anyone take seriously what we have to say?  If we do not call heterosexuals to holiness, why all the bother about the much smaller population of homosexuals?

                Likewise, we misdirect our energies when we speak of civil marriage in contemporary America as though it were identical to Christian marriage.   Something accomplished before a justice of the peace and recorded at the court house impacts taxes, inheritance, and other legal matters, but cannot turn water into wine as a sign of the Kingdom of God.  Holy matrimony does not simply grant civil sanction to the broken union of Adam and Eve, but heals and blesses their common life as a sign of the relationship between Christ and the Church.  It is a calling, not a right, for anyone. Man and woman wear the crowns of the Kingdom as their love for one another finds its true fulfillment in the Lord.  God created us male and female in the divine image and likeness, giving opposite-sex couples the unique ability to bring forth new life from their own bodies out of love for one another.   Through this blessed union, parents and children become an image of the Holy Trinity, sharing a union of love that binds them together and enables them to learn to love Christ in one another.  By the restoration of the primal unity of male and female in God, Christian marriage becomes a sign of the salvation not merely of two individuals, but of all humanity and of the creation itself.  Perhaps that is why our Savior so often used the image of a wedding feast for the Kingdom of God.    

                Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes that man and woman are not interchangeable bundles of individual rights; instead, the two sexes play complementary roles in our common salvation.  Jesus Christ and the Theotokos, the apostles and the myrrh bearing women, St. Macrina with her brothers Sts. Basil and Gregory, and so many other examples from Scripture, hymnody, icons, and the saints demonstrate the abiding mystery of the male-female distinction and relationship in our pursuit of theosis.  The same God who creates us as male and female saves us in relationship to one another.  Instead of abandoning biological distinctions as though our bodies were irrelevant and the two sexes identical, we look to the Lord, His Mother, and ongoing generations of holy men and women to teach us how to live faithfully in relation to one another as male and female.  We deal here with a great mystery, as the Logos who spoke the world into existence also made us man and woman in the divine image.  The male Son rose from the dead and ascended into heaven; and the female Mother who bore Him followed into the Kingdom at her Dormition.   Even in the world to come, the distinction of man and woman will remain.     

No, God does not call everyone to marriage, not even all heterosexuals.  Yes, He invites everyone to holiness; preserving sexual intimacy for the blessed state of marriage between a man and a woman is part of that calling, as the Church has taught consistently for two thousand years.    Nonetheless, holy people have—and continue to—struggle with temptations of all kinds.  Through fasting and other forms of self-denial, nourishment by the Holy Mysteries of the Church, participation in healthy friendships and communities, and sincere confession and repentance when we stumble, all of us-- regardless of sexual inclinations—find strength and healing to press forward to the high calling that is ours in Christ Jesus.  The nature of one’s particular temptations is irrelevant; the point is to turn away from them and live faithfully. 

Christian witness on these matters faces serious cultural challenges today.  One hears that the growing support for same-sex marriage reflects positive portraits of homosexuals on both the small and the large screen, as well as the experience of knowing friends and family members who are gay.  Straight people are apparently marrying at declining rates, while many gay couples enthusiastically seek legal recognition of their unions.   Some people seem to be more impressed by the commitment of same-sex partners to one another than by that of the married couples they know.   Appeals to the equal rights of individuals to the benefits of marriage, however defined, clinch the argument for many.

 Until very recently, of course, no culture or world religion recognized same-sex relationships as holy, or even legal, matrimony. From the perspective of Orthodox Christianity the revisionist claims distort the truth about what it means to be man and a woman in God’s image and likeness.  They endorse sexual expression apart from the loving, covenanted unity of male-female difference that alone is blessed to bring forth new life.  They respond to the desires of individuals in terms of the categories of the corrupt world, not of the struggle of disciplining oneself in order to respond more fully to the divine eros.  Though Christian and civil marriage are not identical, Orthodoxy will not embrace society’s official redefinition of the fundamental nature of marriage contrary to what God has established from the origins of the human race.  The Church cannot bless same-sex unions as marriages, for that is not what they are.  Sacraments restore persons and their relationships according to God’s original intention for us to be like Him; and He created us male and female in His image toward the end of our salvation.         

Contrary to popular assumptions, this stance on marriage does not entail that we should condemn, judge, or shun people who are in intimate relationships with members of the same sex.  Orthodox priests concern themselves only with the sexual and other sins named in confession or with the very rare scandalous situation that has to be addressed in the parish.   And confession is not about condemnation, but forgiveness, healing, and growth, regardless of the sin confessed.  Like the rest of us, those who struggle with same-sex attraction need guidance and support throughout their lives as they progress in holiness.  Yes, all really are called to enter into the holiness of God, to become saints. A Church that honors King David, Photini, Moses the Black, and Mary of Egypt can ask no less.   Like the Samaritan woman, all who suffer disordered sexual passions are more likely to respond to genuine expressions of compassion and respect that point them toward the living water that satisfies at a level deeper than physical desire.  Yes, the Church must speak the truth about sexuality, but also about pride, self-righteous judgment, hatred, and gossip.  And given the Lord’s definition of adultery in the Sermon on the Mount, none of us is in the position to look down upon others for sexual sin.  After all, who doesn’t have disordered desires?  And the vast majority of sexual sin is surely between people of opposite sex.  We must be very careful with our words.

In our current cultural context, the witness of true Christian marriage simply must become visible, vibrant, and robust, if it is to be taken seriously by mainstream culture.   All the more is our need to be vigilant in our parishes and families, in our friendships and neighborhoods and schools, in our choices of entertainment and attire, to form ourselves in chastity both in our bodily actions and the thoughts of our hearts.  Of course, we never do that alone, but in communion with the Church and with the support of fellow strugglers who want to participate more fully in the divine nature.

The early Christians impressed even the pagan Romans with their care for the dying and their rescue of exposed infants.  It’s time for the current generation of Christians to impress our society with the chaste love of man and woman as a sign of God’s covenantal fidelity in Jesus Christ.   There is no better response to the challenges posed by the ongoing sexual revolution than the living icon of Christian marriage—of Adam and Eve healed and blessed as they wear the crowns of the Kingdom and bring new persons into the world out of their love for one another.  That’s how God intends life to go on in His good creation.   It’s precisely the differences between male and female that make the union of marriage life-giving, complementary, and a path to salvation.   True marriage manifests the healing of our humanity in the image of God as man and woman.  Our challenge is not only to say words about marriage, but to live them out in ways that draw others to Christ and His Church.  That’s the most fundamental political action of the Christian community:  to embody a life that conquers death, that heals our broken, corrupt humanity—body and soul, male and female.   If we do that, we will address not just the symptoms of the moral decay of our society, but also its underlying causes.                 

Dr. David C. Ford's Review of Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage and Sex by Fr. Philip LeMasters

Especially in light of the vast confusion about gender issues in our contemporary society, I believe this very excellent book needs to be read by everyone - and especially by Orthodox pastors, to help guide them in their ministry to their flocks.  It presents the clearest understanding of marriage as being only ever possible between one man and one woman that I've ever seen. It also beautifully explains why marriage is the only proper, secure, mutually enriching setting for sexual intercourse, in which deeply meaningful spiritual as well as physical oneness can be experienced.

 Fr. Philip bases his presentation upon a profound understanding of the Orthodox sacramental worldview, in which every dimension of the material realm is inherently good, even after the Fall, because it's all been made by our All-Gracious LORD Who loves mankind.  He bases his very positive understanding of marriage, including marital relations, in this context.  So how much more profound and awesome is the Orthodox understanding that for Christians, every marriage is called to be a living image of Christ's love for His Body, the Church - with husbands and wives giving tender self-sacrificial love to each other in ways that reflect how Christ loves His Church and gives Himself for Her.

An extra bonus in this book is the best explanation I've ever seen for why our Church does not and cannot invite non-Orthodox Christians to partake in the Eucharist.  An exceptionally clear explanation of the Orthodox understanding of birth control within marriage is also given, including a very balanced and insightful assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Roman Catholic approach to this issue.

http://www.light-n-life.com/toward-a-eucharistic-vision-of-church-family-marriage-and-sex.html

How to Respond to Contemporary American Culture with the Humble Faith of the Centurion: Homily on the Fourth Sunday of the Matthew in the Orthodox Church

Romans 6:18-23

Matthew 8: 5-13

           Especially in our time and place, no one wants to be a servant, a slave, or held accountable to anything that they did not freely choose.  We are much more likely to want to be free from all constraints with total liberty to define ourselves and live on our own terms.  The problem, of course, is that we are also susceptible to falling into delusions about who we are before God and where the paths that we follow will lead us in life.  In the name of freedom, we easily enslave ourselves to our own desires and passions in ways that make it very hard to set things right once again.  

            St. Paul reminded the church in Rome that the abuse of freedom is quite serious business, as “the wages of sin is death.” Before their conversion, his largely Gentile audience had been slaves of sin with one level of depravity leading to another.  As we have all learned by bitter experience, one sin so often gives rise to another, usually more serious than the first.  But St. Paul teaches that those who have faith in Christ have become slaves of righteousness toward the end of sanctification, holiness, and eternal life.  They will find freedom, not by enslaving themselves to disordered desires and corrupt practices, but by embracing the healing of our humanity made possible through our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ.  As the Church has taught from its origins, there is a path that leads to our fulfillment in Christ, that makes us more fully participants in the eternal blessedness for which He created us.  This path makes us free to share in the very life of God and to shine with the light of heaven even as we live in the world.   

            The Roman centurion in today’s gospel lesson provides an example of how to follow this path to true freedom in Christ.  He showed trust and humility so profound that the Savior said that He had not found such faith in Israel.  In other words, an officer of a pagan army of occupation, someone despised and condemned by the Jews, showed great faith in the Messiah, the one expected to fulfill the ancient hopes of the Hebrew people.  As the Lord made clear, some will begin the path to eternal blessedness from very unlikely places, as Gentiles “from east and west,” while some “sons of the Kingdom” (presumably some of the Jews) will not inherit such blessings. As was often the case, Christ’s words here must have shocked and offended many people.  He did not make Himself popular by saying such things.

            The humble faith shown by the centurion is very far from the self-centeredness that so often passes for freedom in our culture.  First of all, this fellow cared about his lowly servant so much that he risked embarrassment, if not something worse from his own superiors, by asking for Christ’s help.  But he was not ashamed to lower himself to be point of being dependent on the aid of this Messiah.  He also confessed his sinfulness publicly by telling the Lord that he was unworthy to have Him enter his home.   Think about how astounding that statement was from a Roman officer to a Jewish rabbi, a person quite far beneath him in every way according to the standards of the empire that he served.   In this man’s humility, he had the spiritual clarity to know that Christ needed simply to say a word from a distance in order to heal the sick servant.  He had the humble faith necessary to follow the path to freedom from sin and death.   And because of that, the Lord granted his request and used him as an example of those from all over the world, even hated Gentiles, who would share in the heavenly banquet with the great patriarchs of the Old Testament.  Remember that Jews would never eat with Gentiles, but here is Christ predicting that some Gentiles will dine with the founding figures of the Hebrew people in the coming Kingdom—while some of the Jews will be shut out of the celebration.  What a radical and disturbing thing to say.

            We all need the humble faith of the centurion in order to respond in a spiritually healthy way to cultural trends in our society.  A great many things are legal, accepted, and even celebrated in our culture in the name of freedom that the Body of Christ does not bless as being paths to greater righteousness. Our faith teaches that using freedom contrary to God’s purposes does little more than weaken us spiritually and enslave us even more to corrupting passions and unholy desires. That is true in all areas of life, including sexual behavior, regardless of our particular temptations. The abuse of freedom makes us even more the slaves of sin. If we want to be faithful Christians, we must use our liberty to live in accordance with God’s purposes for us, not in ways contrary to them.

             The Supreme Court has made civil marriage between persons of the same sex legal throughout the United States. The Orthodox Church does not approach marriage in terms of arguments about civil rights or the principles of the American Constitution, but in terms of salvation.  Hence, the Church blesses only the marriage of one man and one woman for the growth of the spouses in righteousness as faithful servants of Jesus Christ, Who said "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matt 19:4) That is how the eternal Word of God, Who created us male and female in the divine image and likeness, spoke of marriage.

            St. Paul wrote something very similar to the Ephesians (5:31-32): “’For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’  This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” Along with many other types of sin, St. Paul describes desire for members of one’s own sex as a sign of humanity’s rebellion against God. (Rom. 1: 26-27)  And, of course, the union of man and woman is the only  kind of human relationship blessed with the capability of fulfilling God’s ancient commandment to “be fruitful and multiply,” bringing forth new life from the personal union of the spouses. (Gen. 1:28)  There is no basis in the Bible, the lives of the Saints, or any aspect of the Church’s tradition to bless other forms of marriage. 

How we approach the union of man and woman is part of the ancient and unchanging faith of the Orthodox Church, which we accept with the humble faith of the centurion.   He knew that he was unworthy to have Christ visit his home, and we are unworthy to take it upon ourselves to change the holy mystery of marriage or any other dimension of the path to the Kingdom that the Lord has given us.   Like the centurion, we may risk losing social standing or popularity due to faithfulness to the way of Christ.  We must remember, however, that Christians have sacrificed to follow the Lord from the very beginning of the faith.  Think for a moment about our suffering brothers and sisters in Syria and much of the rest of the Middle East, literally becoming martyrs and refugees because of their steadfast commitment to the Lord.

We must not feel sorry for ourselves due to changes in civil laws about marriage, but instead remember that Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world.  He calls us to become a city on a hill—a beacon in the night-- that attracts those who are sick and tired of slavery to sin to a new way of life, to the glorious freedom for righteousness of the children of God.  Current cultural trends demand greater faithfulness on our part, as well as vigilance against hypocrisy.     

With the humble faith the centurion, we must also remember that there is hope for every human being to enter the joy of the Kingdom.  The centurion was a hated foreigner, a despised Gentile in the army of occupation from a pagan empire.   The Romans were famous for their immorality and quite unclean from the perspective of the Jews.  But here we have Christ praising a Roman officer for his faith being superior to that of the Jews, together with a prediction that Gentiles will be guests at the heavenly banquet.  How amazing is that?  In other words, the Lord reminds us not to write off anyone, including those who presently order their lives in ways contrary to Christian teaching on matters of sex and anything else.

Judging the souls of other people is completely contradictory to the beautiful humility of the centurion.  That is God’s business, not ours, even when someone acts publically in ways contrary to our faith.  Whenever we are tempted to make ultimate pronouncements on others, and in effect to put ourselves in the place of the Lord at the Last Judgment, we are the ones who need to repent and should say the Jesus Prayer until that temptation goes away. Upholding the fullness of Christian teaching is one thing, while self-righteous judgment of particular people is quite another.  If we persist in that practice, we will shut ourselves out of the heavenly banquet.  As Christ said of the self-righteous in His day, “Prostitutes and tax collectors go into the Kingdom of God before you.”   (Matt. 21:31) Let us take that warning quite seriously.

            We should use everything in life for our salvation, for opening ourselves more fully to the healing and blessing of Jesus Christ.  Let us use current cultural trends as a reminder to become more faithful servants of righteousness, more faithful followers of our Lord on the blessed path to the Kingdom that He has given us in His Body, the Church.  We cannot control what others do and it is never our business to judge.  We must all press on with the humble faith of the centurion, trusting in Christ’s mercy as we pursue holiness in every dimension of our lives, no matter the cost or difficulty.  That is still the best way to witness for Christ in a world so terribly confused.  For if our lives do not shine forth with righteousness, no one will pay any attention to what we have to say about marriage or anything else.

            And why should they?  If we do not become living witnesses of a blessedness beyond the customs of mainstream culture, then we will have failed to manifest the joy of a Kingdom that calls all people to become who God created them to be in His image and likeness.    With the humility of the centurion, let us be faithful witnesses of what our Lord’s mercy can do with even the most unlikely guests at the heavenly banquet, including sinners like you and me. 

Orthodox Christian Couple Married 80 Years!

Antiochian Couple Receives Award for 80 Years of Marriage

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John and Ann Betar (Photo: M. Barone)A Connecticut couple, lifetime members of the Antiochian Archdiocese, have been named the longest married couple for 2013 by Worldwide Marriage Encounter, a Christian group based in San Bernardino, CA. John (101 years) and Ann (97 years) Betar shared their story with the Hearst Connecticut Media group: how they eloped and married in New York when Ann's father arranged for her to marry another man, and how they subsequently sustained their long and happy marriage.
John and Ann had already celebrated their 80th anniversary at St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church, in Bridgeport, CT on Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012. Additionally, the Worldwide Marriage Encounter Group presented them with a plaque and other gifts at their granddaughter's home in Fairfield on Saturday, February 9, 2013.
A photo gallery of the couple, along with the news post, can be found here.
http://www.antiochian.org/content/antiochian-couple-receives-award-80-years-marriage

After the Campaigns: Back to the Real Work of the Orthodox Christian Political Witness

            Since politics has received no small amount of attention in recent months, I thought that it would be good to remind ourselves that the primary political action of Orthodox Christians is not found in voting, carrying signs, spouting slogans, or putting bumper stickers on our cars.  Instead, our most fundamental political witness is to participate in the Divine Liturgy. No, that does not mean that the Christian life boils down simply to showing up at church, for to participate fully in the worship of God means that we live out our communion with the Holy Trinity every day of the week in all aspects of our lives.  The calling of the Christian life is to sanctify the world by offering every bit of the creation—including ourselves—to the Lord for fulfillment and transformation, for the holiness and peace of a Kingdom that radically transcends the broken and imperfect kingdoms of this world.     

            Granted, that may sound so mystical that it is hard to connect with something as practical as American politics. But perhaps that is precisely the point.  Christians are to be salt and light wherever they find themselves, not just another interest group worshiping at the altar of worldly glory and power.   How sad, then, that what passes for a spiritually informed political agenda often amounts to little more than politics as usual in our corrupt world.   Contrary to the hopes of religiously inspired voters of whatever ideological stripe, we will look in vain for substantive conversation about moral issues in the recently completed campaigns.

For example, discourse about society’s responsibility to unborn children and their distressed mothers was replaced by ham-fisted comments about rape, contraception, and an alleged “war against women.”  The glory of the union of man and woman, which alone brings forth new life as an image of the Holy Trinity from generation to generation, was obscured by our societal obsession about the rights of individuals to do as they please.  Economic theories—largely driven by the self-interest of various partisan groups-- took precedence over serious consideration of the common good in debates about poverty, health care, and environmental stewardship.   In other words, we endured well over a year’s worth of unedifying and interminable arguments that barely scratched the surface of an Orthodox vision of God’s purposes for the collective life of human beings.

            Well, big surprise.  Despite what politicians and their chaplains on the right and left proclaim, American elections are about little more than the competing interests of partisan groups for power.    Some of their spokespersons have been remarkably effective at times in convincing various segments of the Christian population that their agendas are virtually synonymous with the Kingdom of God.  But it doesn’t take much discernment to see that they all fall well short of such a high designation.  For example, women in difficult circumstances do not choose to have abortions in isolation from a whole set of social, economic, and moral circumstances which politicians seem to have no real interest in addressing seriously.  It’s much easier to cast a vote and denounce the opposition than to get to the heart of why our culture has formed so many people in such poor ways both morally and spiritually.      

Those who cheered for abortion rights as though they were applauding job creation displayed an appalling lack of moral sensitivity, even as they excluded the most vulnerable human beings from legal protection in the name of individual liberty.  How strange that those who support government regulation to protect the weak in so many other areas of social concern change their tune so radically on this issue.  Their sudden burst of libertarianism functions to obliterate any compassion for life in the womb, recognition of the legitimate stake of husbands and fathers in the fate of their offspring, and acknowledgement that the moral tragedy of abortion simply cannot fit within the happy narrative of freedom.     

When it comes to marriage and sexuality, mainstream American culture has lost virtually any sense of a sexual ethic more profound than the consent of individuals to do as they please with a nod toward public health.  In this context, chastity becomes a nonsensical notion even as the public square refuses to acknowledge that the union of man and woman holds a uniquely privileged place in all known human civilization.  In a society that is blind to the marital nature of intercourse, it would be shocking to have a substantive moral consensus about the meaning of marriage. In the absence of such convictions, we quickly revert to the default position of American politics:  individual liberty. If marriage is nothing more than a freely chosen romantic union of two individuals, no wonder that the obvious intersections of marriage, sex, and parenthood are so hard for many to see.      

That may be the politics of the world in which we live, but it’s not the social order of God’s reign.     We will not be salt and light in our darkened world by pretending that the spokespersons of the corrupt ways of living and thinking that got us into these messes will somehow magically become our saviors.  Instead, the primary political witness of Orthodox Christians is to become living icons of our Lord’s salvation on even the most difficult matters involving sex, money, and power.  Our witness—yes, how we live each day-- must stand in stark contrast to the ways of the world as a sign of the blessed life for which human beings are created.  Holiness in our parishes, our families, and all our relationships is our politics and the basis of how we offer the world, and ourselves, to God.  Now that the distractions of the campaign are behind us, let’s get busy with the real challenges of the Christian life.         

                 

On Taking Up the Cross and Confessing Christ in Contemporary Culture: Homily for the Sunday of All Saints in the Orthodox Church

            

       

          We live in a time of great confusion. Our contemporary culture forms many people who cannot imagine any purpose in life higher than the pursuit of self-centered pleasure on their own terms.  For example, patient care for the dying and disabled, sacrifice to welcome and rear children conceived in inconvenient circumstances, and even basic sexual morality in singleness and marriage are often rejected today in ways that keep people from growing in God’s image and likeness. Our society produces too many people who love and fantasize about violence, worship money and what it can buy, disregard their needy neighbors, hate those who disagree with them, and recognize no standard higher than fulfilling their own immediate desires.   Such ways of living simply diminish us and enslave us to our passions.      

            On this Sunday of All Saints, the Church reminds us that we are called to follow a very different and much better path.  Last Sunday at Pentecost, we celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has been poured out richly upon all in the Body of Christ, showing that God intends to dwell in the hearts and souls of human beings such that we all become partakers of the divine nature by grace.

Today we remember all those who have been filled with the Holy Spirit, whose lives have borne witness to the holiness of God.  The meaning of the word “saint” is holy, and surely most saints have not been officially canonized by the Church.  Nonetheless, they are known by God and glorified in the Kingdom because they embraced His transforming love and became beacons of light.  They followed the true and blessed path for which God created us as His sons and daughters; consequently, they became truly human in the divine likeness.   

In today’s gospel text, Jesus Christ teaches that He will confess us to His Father in heaven if we confess Him before other people.  But if we do not, He will not claim us before the Father.  He says that we must love Him more than anyone or anything else.  The persecuted Christians of the Middle East and elsewhere certainly follow His teaching when they become refugees, prisoners, and victims of torture, abuse, and execution for their faith in Him.  But we may wonder what our Lord’s words mean for those of us who live in places where we do not experience such obvious threats.  Do we have any hope of Christ acknowledging us before His Father when we do not suffer that kind of persecution?

 The good news of the gospel is that the Holy Spirit enables us all to become holy in whatever life circumstances we face.   The divine breath gave us life in the first place in God’s image and likeness and empowers us all to grow eternally in becoming more like Him, to become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.  As hard as it is to believe, God calls us all to that kind of holiness.  He intends to make our lives shine with the glory of His Kingdom, right now and throughout all eternity. For that to happen, we must follow the path trod by all the saints, which is open to every human being in every generation.

Think about what Christ said concerning whether we confess Him before others.  That is relevant not only for circumstances of persecution, but also for every day of our lives.  Do we act and speak in ways that show we are united to Christ?  Are we living witnesses of His victory over sin and death?  Does the light of His resurrection shine through us by the power of Holy Spirit?  The hard truth is that, whenever Christ is not evident in us, we deny Him.   If we speak or act according to our own self-centered desires or the corrupt ways of the world, we indicate that we are not His.  That is to veer from the path to the Kingdom followed by all the saints; it is to turn away from what it means to be a human being in God’s image and likeness.  When we recognize we have done that, we must repent, reorienting our thoughts, words, and deeds toward Christ in humility.    

The Savior gives us an exacting standard to determine whether we are truly united with Him.  Namely, He says that those who love even family members more than Him are not worthy of Him.  Instead, we must take up our crosses and follow Him in order to be His.    As much as we do not like to hear it, even our deepest and most profound relationships in this life must be transformed by an even deeper and more profound allegiance to Christ if they are to become icons of the blessedness of the Kingdom.   Otherwise, they will become idols that diminish all concerned and keep us from fulfilling our high calling.

Family life by itself is not the salvation of the world.  The relationship between man and woman so easily becomes distorted and brings misery on them both, which is why there is so much divorce today.  Parents and children have it no easier, as witness child abuse, abortion, and the neglect of the elderly. When it comes to siblings, just remember Cain and Abel.  Even the best human inclinations so easily fall prey to the worst when they are not healed by sacrificial offering to the Lord. 

Christ went to the cross for us, bearing the consequences of all human corruption to the point of death, burial, and Hades in order to conquer them and bring us into eternal life through His resurrection.   The Father gave the Son and the Son offered Himself up on the cross for salvation.  That is the ultimate act of love.  If—together with our family members and loved ones-- we want to share in the new life that Christ has brought to the world, we must not make idols of any human being or relationship.  We must not pretend that they come before God or are fine just as they are.  No, we must offer our families and relationships to the Lord and bear the cross of sacrificing the idolatry even of our spouses, children, and parents. For like us, they are simply human beings and not God.  And if we make false gods of them, we will bring sorrow to them and ourselves.   We will bend everyone concerned out of shape, putting more weight on them than anyone can bear.  Instead, we must take up the cross of loving others according to God’s will for them and us.

Purely out of love, the Son went to the cross for the salvation of the world.  That is sacrifice beyond what we can understand.  And if we share in that love, we must sacrifice the ultimately self-centered illusion that we will find or give other people true fulfillment and happiness apart from Him.   And if we put ourselves or others before faithfulness to the Lord, we will end up confessing some false god in place of Jesus Christ.  It is not as dramatic as worshiping an idol, but the spiritual significance is the same.  It is not the way of the saints, and it must not be our way if we want to open our lives to His glorious blessing and fulfillment.

 If we really love others, we will bear the cross for them and offer them to the Lord as best we can.  For example, when man and woman join in marriage in the Orthodox Church, they wear the crowns of the Kingdom, which are crowns of martyrdom.  Each dies to self in loving and serving Christ in the other.  We must not look for unrealistic romantic, financial, or social bliss in marriage, for that leads only to dissatisfaction and divorce.  The true calling of husband and wife is to make their life together an icon, a living image of the Kingdom of God.  Mutual forgiveness, patience, self-sacrifice, self-control, humility, and steadfast commitment are the signs of a holy marriage.  Faithful husbands and wives pray for and with one another.  Faithful fathers and mothers do the same with their children.  When families worship together and use their financial and other resources to serve God’s purposes in the world, they offer their common life to the Lord.  They confess Jesus Christ to one another and the world.  They open their lives to the holiness of God and follow in the way of the saints.

Yes, this kind of family life is a cross to bear, and it requires forgoing much that we may well desire.  In our age of internet pornography, promiscuity, and routine divorce, there is not much today that supports the holiness of marriage and family.  We face great struggles in fulfilling our calling to confess Jesus Christ as Lord with integrity each day in a world that worships pleasure, wealth, and selfishness.   Fortunately, the Holy Spirit strengthens us all to take up our crosses, which means confessing our Lord each day of our lives in all we say and do.  If we will do so, then we will open ourselves to His mercy and know already the peace and joy of a Kingdom not of this world together with all the saints who have gone before us.