Judging others

When we observe the things people do or have done, we need to remember that these are fruit. Another way of saying this is that everything we do or say is the consequence of our experiences and beliefs, even unrecognized. Experiences, thoughts, and things learned will influence and direct our actions and choices.  So instead of seeing someone and judging them, especially if they are different than us or different from what we find acceptable, we ought to ask the question (to ourselves), “What has influenced and motivated them to embrace such action?”

Far too often, we know little to nothing of people and therefore we have no ground upon which to stand in judging another.  It is not our place to judge someone, especially since we do not know them in any depth. Better, instead, is to assume the best and love that person anyway.

Malformed prayer

When we pray, there are many preconceived ideas about what is taking place. And I would argue, at least in the Western world, wrong preconceptions. Typically, when we pray, we are asking for things. Not necessarily bad things, selfish things or even physical things, but we are asking God to do or provide something that we think would be good or beneficial.  Does this not presuppose that we think we know what would be best or possibly good?

One needs to step back and honestly assess our position.  Almost all of us have been alive for less than 100 years, yet somehow, especially those of the 18-25 year range, seem to think that we know best.  Honestly, our exposure to reality, our experience with ourselves and with others and the volume of our knowledge is incredibly small.  When we honestly think about how small, insignificant and uninformed we actually are, how could we dare to think that we know best about anything?

The Orthodox position on prayer (the historical position) is radically different than what the Evangelical/Protestant world promotes.  Prayer is not an appeal to a divine Santa Claus. Prayer is not a casual chat with a buddy.  Prayer is learning to silence our ever busy, distracted minds and "listen" for the direction of the Holy Spirit.  It is bringing our mind into our hearts and simply listening. Ultimately, it is an appeal to God to have mercy on us.

We are so distracted, so temporally minded, so earthly, that we cannot even think straight, not to mention even pray "straight".  The "Jesus Prayer" has been a foundational standard for the Christian world for many centuries, some would argue even from the beginning of the church.  This is the place to start to learn how to pray.

Judging others

When we hear someone speak and we disagree with what is being said, we are saying, in essence, that the speaker is wrong.  It is our responsibility, as Christians, who ought always to  strive to love our neighbor, to understand the source of that error (either his in speaking or our mistake in hearing him) and respond appropriately.  We must never attack, belittle or demean someone else for an error, logical, presuppositional or otherwise, for what we perceive as an error in the speaker, may be an error in our hearing/understanding. 

This is especially true when we are hearing someone speak from a different worldview.  In this case, there are surely presuppositional differences, of which, neither we nor they may be aware.  Humility is the key, as one should always be growing in understanding, therefore one will be wrong at various times.  As we grow in understanding, we ought to grow in humility, for we ought to be repeatedly seeing our errors.

Short sighted

There is a reason that the early church fathers, the monastics and our priests speak of the overarching importance of humility.  It is easy to compare one self to others, especially when one can cherry pick those to whom comparison is made.  It is easy to criticize and condemn others.  But it is much more difficult to only compare ourselves to those above and beyond us.  This is one of the reasons that having a spiritual mentor is so valuable.  We find someone that is spiritually superior to us and then we emulate them and hear their instruction.
But to really hear, we must first recognize and acknowledge our lack. This means we identify where we are ignorant, immoral and weak.
This is about humility.
But even besides all of this is recognizing our short sightedness.  As temporal and distracted mankind, we cannot see further than the moment.  We cannot even accurately remember the past.  Science has shown us over and over again just how faultily and romantic we remember past events.  And the further back we go, the less accurate these memories become.
Looking forward is even worse, for we cannot see past the "right now".  We might think that we can plan for the future, but we do not even know if we will be breathing tomorrow.  We cannot even rightly interpret the events of what is taking place right now.  Sure, we can see these events, but we cannot know how they will affect us tomorrow, or next week, next month or next year.
Something we see as terrible or troubling might every well be the exact thing we need to become more holy in our future.
We must have faith that God is working all things for our good.

Fool?

The homily this Sunday morning was based on Luke 12:16-21, the parable of the rich man with a plentiful harvest.  In summary, the story was about a very wealthy farmer who had a very successful harvest season, so much so that he decided to tear down his current barns and rebuild bigger ones to hold the unusually bountiful harvest.

Interestingly, God responded with derision.  God calls the farmer a fool because of his long term plans.  The farmer, instead of responding in love to his neighbor and share his bountiful harvest, decides to invest in bigger barns and enjoy the excess in overly comfortable living.  Basically God says, you are a fool for thinking that that you will live long and selfishly enjoy all of your temporal blessings.  

The really interesting final point is seen in verse 21.  Here we read, “So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”  God states that the man who invests and focuses on temporal riches but ignores one’s health and relationship with God is a fool.  

So the question is, “are we living according to this passage?”  Do we live with a focus on things spiritual, rather than things temporal.  Obviously, because we are not monastics, we cannot completely ignore the needs of the temporal realm.  This is not to suggest that monastics have no involvement in physical things. One thing that is definitely required in the monastic world is hard work. The monk is required to be productive.  He must, by all legal means, produce something so as to provide for himself.  This means, using historical examples, weave baskets, gardening, produce wooden religious items (crosses, icons, etc.) or making prayer bracelets that can be sold.  But the focus, for the monastic is simply that of a good use of time and providing for one’s actual needs.

We, in the world, have those requirements as well, but we also have the needs of spouses, children, jobs, churches, mortgages, etc.  But, I would argue, even with these additional responsibilities, we still can, and must, follow the direction of this parable.  So are we?

This is probably one of the most difficult messages that we, as Americans, can hear. In our day, wealth, comfort, ease, technology and culture are in perfect opposition to this passage.  Everything in American culture, from the very beginning, has been about rugged individualism, prosperity and comfort.  These are goals that have been in place and have been the singular motivation factors in our culture.  This will be a difficult path to change and re-direct.

So what then does it mean to be “rich toward God”?  If we take the parallel that is given us in the parable, blessings come not only from our hard work, but also from the hand of God.  Just as a bountiful harvest comes from our hard work and the blessing of God via good weather, a bountiful spiritual life comes from our hard work and the love of God via the sacraments, the church and confession.  

I really believe the point of this parallel is not to drive us away from hard work, but to learn how to balance hard work in things temporal and things spiritual.  It is sheer folly to focus simply on things temporal to the neglect of things spiritual.  Both require hard work from us and from God.  But simply because God blesses our temporal hard work, does not mean that we are doing what we should be doing.  In the parable, the farmer does enjoy a bountiful harvest, but this does not mean that the farmer was doing what the was supposed to be doing.  The farmer did his hard work, God gave his blessings on that work, but the farmer did not respond rightly to that blessing.

What then does this mean for our spiritual effort and the blessings we see therein?  We are responsible to put effort into that work and God is responsible to put his hand into it as well, as he sees fit.  But it is our responsibility to respond rightly to those blessings.  

This probably means humility.