Prayer in the Temple

The recent confluence of the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee and the Great Feast of the Meeting of our Lord Jesus Christ with Simeon and Anna is rare. (I think it’s even cooler than the fact that it fell on the date of 02/02/2020, which is a palindrome to boot!) In any case, it struck me as an unusual and difficult challenge to try to say something about both of these very different themes. That is, until I read the gospels (Luke 18:10-14 & Luke 2:22-40). The gospels have a way of bringing everything together.

Jesus begins his parable saying, “Two men went up to the temple to pray” (Luke 18:10).

And Simeon, “inspired by the Spirit…, came into the temple” and there, when he met Jesus, he “blessed God” and prayed to the Lord (Luke 2:27-29).

And the prophetess Anna, “did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day” (2:37).

You see the theme here? Here are four examples of prayer in the temple – three with something to teach us of how to pray in the temple and one with something to teach us of how not to.

But first of all, a question: What does praying in the temple have to do with us? Do we pray in the temple? Remember, Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth” (John 4:21, 23). Now, the temple is in Jerusalem, so to say that we’re no longer to worship the Father in Jerusalem but in the Spirit is to move our prayer away from the Jerusalem temple, isn’t it? So what does praying in the temple have to do with us?

It’s true that we no longer limit our spiritual sacrifice either to the place of the mountain, as the Samaritans do, or to the temple in Jerusalem, as the Jews did. But still we do go up to the temple to pray in the Spirit. Because the Word became flesh from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, our bodies have become the temples of the Holy Spirit and the place that we worship God (John 1; 1 Cor 6:19). So, yes, we still go up to the temple to pray and, yes, we have much to learn about it from the gospels.

Now, the embodied temple is always with us, making possible the unceasing prayer to which we are called and which is modeled also for us especially by the prophetess Anna (1 Thess 5:17).  She “did not depart from the temple” (Luke 2:37). Now, all who are in Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit never depart from the temple of our bodies. We are like Anna in this. Let us also be like her “with fasting and prayer night and day” (2:37). Let us also imitate her devotion in coming to the place of prayer. She was always in the temple, let us come constantly to church.

The church, understand, is the gathering of God’s people together in worship of him. Gone is the place of the Jerusalem temple as the exclusive or preeminent place for that worship and prayer, but not gone is the gathering of the people of God. Where two or three of us gather in Jesus’ name, there he is in our midst! Contrariwise, if we do not gather in his name, he will not be in our midst. If we do not come often to the church, like Simeon and Anna went often to the temple, we will not be here to meet Jesus.

It was probably not a Sabbath when Simeon and Anna came to the temple that day. Simeon came to the temple that day not because it was his habitual time to come, but because he was inspired to do so by the Spirit (Luke 2:27). Let us like Simeon listen to the Spirit’s inspiration to come and gather and pray to the Lord here with our fellow believers, even if it’s not a Sunday or a holy day of so-called “obligation.” Come because the Spirit moves you to - which is not the same thing as coming when you feel like, but it’s also not the same things as coming because you think you have to. Come in the freedom of the Spirit. When you come in the Spirit, like Simeon, you will meet the Lord Jesus here and bless God his Father.

Come constantly like Anna. Because she was constantly in the temple, she was there to meet the Lord when he came. Let’s take advantage of any free time we have and offer that time to the Lord in prayer – more time to Lord and less to the endless distractions our culture has on offer. I’m preaching here also to myself. When you retire, or if you have already retired from a full-time schedule of work, consider whether some greater offering of your time belongs to the Lord. The truth is, it all belongs to the Lord. Anna understands this and so went constantly to the temple, not only on the Sabbath and Holy Days.

The Spirit descends upon us in our parish churches even on weekdays, you know. And that Spirit makes present to us the very Lord God Jesus Christ there even when it’s an ordinary day. Even when there really are only two or three of us. Even when all we do is gather in his name to pray. We don’t need to limit our participation to those days highlighted on our calendars. Are we more motivated to go to church by the colorful shading of the calendar date on our wall calendars from the Byzantine Seminary Press than we are by the presence there of Jesus Christ our God? Jesus is there waiting for us every day. Don’t you yearn to be there with him? Doesn’t your heart ache to return when you must stay away? Let’s stir up the fervor in our hearts by prayer and fasting night and day, like Anna.

Whenever we do go up to the temple to pray, spiritually speaking, whether it is in the church or alone in our prayer corners, let us do so with humility like the publican, and without judging others in any way. The publican can teach us how to pray: “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

Notice something else about the publican’s prayer: he does not mention the Pharisee at all. The Pharisee mentions the publican – saying, “God I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this publican.” But the publican makes no comparison at all – not even in an inverse way. He does not say, “O Lord, this Pharisee is so much holier that I am,” or any such thing. Even that is a judgment we are not fit to make. The publican does not compare himself at all. Comparison to others may not be the best way, when it is time to pray. The publican says only and simply, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

Humbling yourself is not the same thing as tearing yourself down or beating yourself up or demeaning yourself. Those things are an insult to the God who made you and made you his good image. Humility, rather, is truth. A recognition in the presence of the Lord of what we really are – his children made in his image – and what we have done. We are sinners, it is true – all of us – and if we acknowledge this in our prayer, crying out to God for mercy, he will justify us, as a father who longs to reunite with his child.

When we go up to pray in the temple, therefore, let our prayer be humble like the publican’s, constant like Anna’s, and filled with the Spirit like Simeon’s. In this way, we will encounter the Lord Jesus in our prayer and give thanks and praise to God his Father.

Oil Lamps

The Penitent Magdalene, detail
by Georges de La Tour, circa 1640-1645

At my church, we burn oil lamps in front of the icons on the icon screen. We used to burn votive candles, but some time ago – more than a year ago – we replaced these with oil lamps, which is more traditional for us. I had not had very much experience working with oil lamps of this kind. They tried to introduce them at the seminary while I was there, but they kept smoldering and going out. We couldn't figure out the problem, so they were soon abandoned in favor of more user-friendly, enclosed, disposable oil lamps. Then we got the oil lamps at Saint Athanasius and, at the beginning, I kept having the same problem with them. But, eventually, through a process of trial and error, I figured out what was necessary to keep them burning.

At first, I mistakenly assumed that all that was necessary was that they have oil in them, that the wick be submerged in the oil, and that the wick be extended far enough to burn brightly. Eventually I learned, however, that this is not enough. In fact, it is necessary not only that there be oil in the lamps, but that the oil be sufficiently deep – because the oil does not want to travel very far up the wick before it reaches the flame. If it has to travel too far it goes out much more quickly.

Secondly, it is much more important that the wick has been recently trimmed than that it is extended very far. If you have the wick extended like a half an inch, but you haven't trimmed it and the oil is not very deep it will still smolder rather than properly burning. Also, if it's extended that far but the oil is deep enough, the flame will flicker and produce black smoke causing a lot of soot to a build up at the top of the lamp. It's better for the wick to be extended just a little – like a quarter inch is enough or even less – be recently trimmed, and have sufficiently deep oil. If the lamp is prepared this way, it will burn long and brightly.

But what does all of this have to do with this great feast of Pentecost? The fiftieth and final day of Pascha, the feast of weeks (Ex 34:22), the seven times seven plus one day, the last and greatest day of the feast (John 7:37), the day of the first fruits (Num 28:26), the day Torah is given to Moses on Sinai, the day the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the apostles (Acts 2:1-4)? On this day, why am I wasting time with a tutorial about oil lamps?

Well, remember that when the Lord descended upon the holy mountain to give the Law to Moses, he descended upon it in fire (Ex 19:18). And when the Holy Spirit filled the holy apostles, "there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributed and resting on each one of them" (Acts 2:3). And remember when our Lord Jesus said, "I have come to cast fire on the earth and would that it was already burning" (Luke 12:49). And do not forget that "our God is a consuming fire" (Heb 12:24). The image of fire is worthy of our meditation, especially on this day of Pentecost.

It is not without reason that we burn the oil lamps in front of the holy images of Jesus Christ, his mother, and his saints. His mother, the Theotokos, herself is like the burning bush in the desert, always burning but never consumed, through which Moses encounters to the Lord. Through her, God becomes man, so through her, all people can encounter God. She and all the deified saints are themselves become all fire – a consuming fire, like God – one with God. The lamps burning before them remind us of the tongues of fire that rest upon all those filled with the Holy Spirit – and of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire they have all received, as prophesied by John the Baptist.

So I think these lamps are a good symbol and a good image of the Spirit-filled life we are to live. And I even think that the mundane task of tending these lamps can teach us something about the spiritual life. 

I am reminded of one of the sayings of Amma Syncletica. She says,

In the beginning, there are a great many battles and a good deal of suffering for those who are advancing towards God and afterwards, ineffable joy. It is like those who wish to light a fire; at first they are choked by the smoke and cry, and by this means obtain what they seek, as it is said: 'Our God is a consuming fire' (Heb.12:24): so we also must kindle the divine fire in ourselves through tears and hard work.[i]

When we begin to move toward God – to live the life of the Spirit – we are at first very often frustrated. At the beginning, there is struggle and suffering. When I first tried to tend the oil lamps, I couldn't keep them lit. Amma Syncletica says that when we first try to light a fire we end up choked by the smoke. The smoke gets in our eyes causing them to tear up – causing us to cry. This is how the life of the spirit must begin – with tears.

Well, it's interesting the way that this works with these oil lamps. You get that black smoke pouring out of the lamp when your wick is too high. Now, the wick is the external part of the lamp. It's the part that burns – that gives light. Without it, you've got nothing. But with too much of it, you've got black smoke. The smoke which brings tears. The black smoke is our folly and our sin, over which we should weep. One way to raise a stink and lots of smoke is with too much focus on the externals – with too much wick and not enough oil.

The oil is the internal part of the lamp. And it's like our spiritual center. Remember we are chrismated with oil – with chrism that is the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's more important for the oil to be deep than for the wick to be long. If all we do is make a show of our faith and our religion and we have in our hearts no real loving relationship with God and our neighbor, it is like we have long wicks and shallow oil. We may burn brightly, but – if so – briefly and soon we smolder and go out.

If we really are filled with zeal for the house of the Lord but we often misdirect that zeal and turn people away from God's house and scare them off with our judgmentalism or our excessive pharisaical concern for external details, then perhaps we are like a lamp with deep oil and a long wick. We burn long and brightly but at the same time make more smoke and heat than light.

Now if we’re like those who get scared off or for whatever reason reject the Church and true religion and avoid the liturgical services and the holy mysteries. Or, if we claim to be spiritual but not religious, then it is like we have no wick at all. Our oil may be deep or it may be shallow, but it cannot burn.

The way to stop the flicker and the smoke is not to get rid of the wick, but to trim the wick. Weep and confess our sins. Cast off our own excesses. And after this do the hard work of tending the lamp – of constantly checking and refilling the oil – of constantly trimming the wick and extending it neither too much nor too little.

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I  purify my thoughts.  What else can I do?' Then the old man stood up and stretched  his hands towards  heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'[ii]

Our vocation is nothing less than this: By the power of the Holy Spirit to become all flame – like a consuming fire – like God

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[i] as quoted by Laura Swan in The Forgotten Desert Mothers (Paulist Press, 2001).

[ii] from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers

The Holy Spirit Inspires the Church

On Acts 20:16-18, 28-36 and John 17:1-13

Sunday of the Fathers at the First Nicene Council

Today, (did you hear?) Paul was hurrying to Jerusalem in order to get there for Pentecost (Acts 20:16). Pentecost is coming next Sunday, and with it our commemoration of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. Already, the Spirit is with us. And today we remember the fathers of the first ecumenical council, which met in Nicaea in 325, and who were also inspired by the same Holy Spirit.

The First Council of Nicea, wall painting at the church of Stavropoleos
Bucharest, Romania

At every Divine Liturgy and at every Compline, we repeat the Nicene Creed which these fathers began to craft under the inspiration of the Spirit. The Nicene faith is our faith, the God-inspired faith, the faith of our fathers and mothers.

The Holy Spirit inspires the Church. God is with us. Some fall into a trap of confining the presence and action of God to historical events like Pentecost or to historical documents like Scripture. Or, toward another extreme, some limit their understanding of the Spirit to private individual ecstatic experiences.

In truth, the Holy Spirit inspires the Church.

The Church is, but is not only, historical. It is also the living and breathing body of Christ. It is fully present here where we are gathered in the name of Jesus Christ, where the Holy Spirit descends upon us and upon our gifts, where the Father hears our prayer. And it is present throughout the world wherever orthodoxy is believed and wherever orthopraxis is observed.

In the Church, our experience of God is, but is not only, private and personal. We encounter God alone in our prayer closets, but we also encounter Him in one another, in the least of his brethren, and in our communal prayer, in the mysteries of the Church and in the public proclamation of His Word.

In that public proclamation today we, with the apostles, overhear Jesus say to his Father, “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (17:3).

There are ten thousand sermons in this one verse, but today I am struck by an odd turn of phrase: Jesus Christ calls himself Jesus Christ in the third person. This points to an intriguing possibility. It is possible that this prayer of Jesus at his Last Supper was long remembered liturgically before it was committed to writing, which could explain why the prayer is both from Jesus Christ and about Jesus Christ.[i] The gospel of John is the latest gospel to be written and it benefits from the longest theological reflection. Its prose and rhetoric are finely polished. Chiefly for this gospel’s sake, John, whose feast is today, is rightly called the Theologian.

These facts call to mind the reality that while for a while there were Christians without any written gospels, there were never any Christians without worship, without liturgy, without anamnesis/remembrance, without Eucharist/thanksgiving. The inspired Divine Liturgy precedes the inspired written gospels.

Today Jesus says to His Father, “I have given them the words you gave me and they have received them” (17:3). But Jesus did not write down these words. The gospels tell us that Jesus could both read and write. But the only writing that he does, mysteriously, is in the sand – letters that the wind could blow away – perhaps a wind like that wind that blows in the upper room where the apostles hide.

Jesus does not give us a manuscript, but rather the testimony of women and men. He writes his revelation on their hearts. He chooses to reveal himself through people – the people of God - that is, through the Church.

The Holy Spirit inspires the Church, and we must follow the Church, never the Scripture alone. The Scripture is the inspired word of God and the Holy Spirit inspires it in and through the Church, never apart from or against the Church. Decontextualized from the Church, the Scripture can be distorted and perverted to any false teaching or wicked purpose the interpreter desires. Thank God, God did not leave us with the Scripture alone, but also gave us His holy Church.

Today in Acts, Paul tells the elders [that is, the presbyters] of Ephesus that “the Holy Spirit has made you overseers [that is, ἐπίσκοποι, bishops] to feed the Church of the Lord which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). The same Holy Spirit that inspires Scripture and that descends upon the apostles at Pentecost also makes presbyters and bishops for the Church. Ordination is an act of God, a holy mystery, an epiclesis. This isn’t a different Spirit, but the same Spirit. There is one Holy Spirit, one God, one faith, one Church. The Holy Spirit gives us the Scripture and he gives us the bishops too. We don’t get one without the other. We need them both absolutely.

This doesn’t mean that bishops are always good and holy. In fact, if we study the history of the ecumenical councils we discover an uncomfortable amount of all-too human politics, rivalries, and intrigues. Despite this, the Holy Spirit works through these councils, just as he works through Peter, who denied him, and through Paul, who persecuted his Church. Truth is expressed by God from out of the midst of human failings. God is with us, in the midst of us. The Holy Spirit inspires the Church.

When a presbyter, Arius, begins to lead people astray, teaching that Jesus is not of one divine essence with the Father, but rather some kind of exalted creature of God, the Holy Spirit inspires the Nicene council which we commemorate today.

The Arians misread today’s gospel. When Jesus says to his Father that he is “the only true God,” the Arians thought that this must mean that Jesus himself was not the true God. This is what I mean. How quickly the human mind can stumble into error when reading the Scripture alone unaided by the Church. The Holy Spirit has given us both because we need both in order to come to orthodoxy.

The Nicene Council provided the needed corrective. As we say in the Nicene Creed, Jesus Christ is “Son of God, the only-begotten, born of the Father before all ages.  Light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in essence with the Father.” Our Christology couldn’t get any higher.

Our holy father Athanasius, who was present at the Nicene Council as a deacon and who spent the rest of his life defending its teachings against the world, provides the true understanding of the word “only” in today’s gospel. He writes against the Arians,

“If then the Father is called the only true God, this is said not to the denial of him who said, "I am the Truth…” And so the Lord himself added at once, "And Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Now had he been a creature, he would not have added this and ranked himself with his creator. For what fellowship is there between the True and the not true? But as it is, by including himself with the Father, he has shown that he is of the Father's nature.”[ii]

The Holy Spirit was inspiring the Church before the gospels were written, and he continues to inspire the Church after they are written. This is never more evident than when there is an ecumenical council. At the council of Nicaea, the Holy Spirit taught the Church a new word: homoousios, that is, of one essence. The Son is of one essence with the Father. Jesus Christ is not less than God. He is God. And there are not two Gods, but one God. Many of the fathers of the council were reluctant to accept this word at first because it appears nowhere in scripture and because it had been employed in the past by heretics. But guided by the Holy Spirit and for the benefit of all the people of God, accept it they did.

A priest once told me that there are only two words I must never say from the pulpit. One of them is “change.” I’m not going to say the other word. But sometimes the Holy Spirit inspires change. Homoousios was a new word, once.

We must not forget the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church at all times, without whose presence we are not the Church.

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[i] (Suggit 1992). Malan, G.J., 2011, ‘Does John 17:11b, 21−23 refer to church unity?’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 67(1), Art. #857. http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/article/view/857/html

[ii] Discourses against the Arians 3.23.6-24.8-9.

Now Worship in the Spirit

On John 4:5-42. Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

Фотина Самаряныня в Протате1290-1310

 “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24).

“The hour is coming, and now is.” This is the first Sunday after Mid-Pentecost, the mid-point between Pascha and Pentecost, between that day when the Lord breathed the Holy Spirit upon his apostles for the forgiveness of sins and that day when the Holy Spirit will descend upon the apostles like tongues of fire so that the good news will be preached to all nations.

As we await the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we have not been singing our hymn to the Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who is everywhere present and who fills all things, who is the treasury of blessings and the giver of life, who is the gracious one who dwells within us, cleanses us of all stain, and saves our souls. This hymn is omitted until Pentecost. In its place, we sing, “Christ is risen.”

But we are now more than halfway to that feast of the Spirit’s coming, and on this day our Lord reminds us that the hour is coming when we will worship in the Spirit. We have not been praying “Heavenly King…,” but the Spirit of Truth is nonetheless among us and animates our worship. “The hour is coming, and now is.”

Even as the Lord Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman – not only before Pentecost but even before his own death and resurrection – he says that the hour is coming, and that the hour now is. Even then, the Spirit is already present everywhere and filling everything. Wherever there are blessings, there is the Holy Spirit, the treasury of blessings. Wherever there is life, there is the Holy Spirit, the giver of life. Wherever there is mercy and grace, there is the Holy Spirit, the gracious one, dwelling within us.

The Samaritan woman – called by tradition in various languages Photini, Svetlana, Fiona, or Claire – all names which mean “light” – is blessed and enlighted by the presence of Christ, the Light and by the unseen Holy Spirit, whose grace is the living water Christ promises. She is blessed, and so the treasury of blessings, the Holy Spirit, is with her.

Mercy and grace are present also to the Samaritan woman. The Lord shows her mercy and does not condemn her even as he reveals her illicit union saying “you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband” (4:18). Origen observes that her words – “I have no husband” – may be understood as a confession rather than an obfuscation. He writes, “She already had, as it were, something of the water that leaps into eternal life since she had said ... ‘I have no husband,’ having condemned herself on the basis of her association with such a husband.”[i]

She could have been admitting to Jesus that her union was not lawful – which would not have been an easy thing to admit in that culture to a strange man. Regardless, when the Lord rebukes her and reveals the full nature of her wrongs, she does not deny but admits that what he says is true because she calls him a prophet, which is to say that his words are the words of God. Clearly, mercy and grace are with her, and so the Holy Spirit, the gracious one, is with her.

The humble confession of wrongs always springs from the grace of the Holy Spirit as from a spring of living water. She says “Lord, give me this water,” and immediately the Lord provokes her confession – thus giving her the water she asks for. Immediately, she begins her entrance into eternal life.

It always begins with confession and repentance – the baptism of repentance – the baptism in living water – baptism into the death of Christ that we may rise with Christ. First, by baptism, comes death to the old self, the crucifixion of the old body of sin. Then comes life in Christ, free from sin, never more to die. (cf. Rom 6:3-12).

Baptism is our initiation into the Church. It makes sense, then, that after their talk of living water that gives eternal life, and after her moment of confession, the Samaritan woman asks about right worship – whether it is to be offered on Mount Gerizim as the Samaritans say or in Jerusalem as the Jews say – because worship is the life of the Church. Jesus of course answers that “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” We are baptized and chrismated once so that our life of true worship in the Spirit may begin.

Above all, the true worship in Spirit and in Truth that the Lord prophesies is the Divine Liturgy. Fr. Alexander Schmemann writes that our Divine Liturgy “is entirely, from beginning to end, an epiclesis, an invocation of the Holy Spirit” (222). And so, even though we are only halfway to Pentecost, in a way, it is Pentecost at every Divine Liturgy.

Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas conceives of the Eucharist as a “continuous Pentecost” and writes that, in the Divine Liturgy, “the Holy Spirit, who is ever present in the Church, [is] animating and vivifying the Church, transforming the assembly into the Body of Christ” (181). The Holy Spirit, who is already and always with us, comes upon us before the gifts to prepare us to receive and become the body of Christ, the Son of God, in the Eucharist. “In the Eucharist,” Calivas writes, “we become Spirit-bearers so that we may receive Christ” (182). 

Every blessing offered in the Liturgy only blesses inasmuch as the Holy Spirit – the treasury of blessings – gives the blessing. Without the grace of the gracious one dwelling within us, our ceremony would be empty. It would not cleanse us of our stains and it would not save our souls. “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps 127:1). Unless the Holy Spirit comes upon us in the Divine Liturgy, those who offer it labor in vain. Thanks (εὐχαριστία ) be to God the Father, who does hear the prayer of his priests and so does send his Holy Spirit first upon us and then upon our gifts of bread and wine making them the precious body and blood of his Son that we may partake of them for the remission of our sins and for life everlasting (Liturgikon 75-77, 92).

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[i] Commentary on the Gospel of John 13.50.

The Power of the Word

from the Bedford Hours, Paris, 1414-1423

At one time, the whole earth had one language and few words. And at this time on a plain in the land of Shinar men made bricks and mortar, with which they made to build themselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, so as to make a name for themselves.

The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have one language; and nothing will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another." So the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel (Gen 11:1-9).

Now some believe this story is just an etiology – an explanation of why there are so many languages – plain and simple – and that there is nothing else to it. But I believe it means something more for us – and that it has much to do with today’s feast of Pentecost. Today’s Kontakion refers to Babel when we sing, “When the high most descended and confused tongues, he scattered nations.”

The people of Babel were greatly powerful. Nothing would have been impossible for them – the Lord himself says so. They were so powerful because they had the power of the word – they all spoke one language. Remember that it was by the power of the word that God created the heavens and the earth. And now what did humans propose to do with the power of the word that God had given them? (Remember that they could have done anything – nothing would be impossible for them.) They sought not to give glory to God but to make a name for themselves. They sought to build a vain thing. By the word, God created the heavens and the earth, and by the word, the people in Shinar tried to reach the heavens from the earth with their tower to give glory to themselves and to equate themselves with God. 

This tower of Babel brings to my mind the secular humanism growing ever more prevalent in our time, which glorifies humans and regards humanity apart from God as the highest good. This tower is not the way for man to enter heaven – by an act of vanity and hubris – by a work bent on self-glorification rather than the glory of God. And so the Lord removed from among the people the power of the word he had given them.

But not forever. The word comes back to earth from heaven in a new and better way when the word becomes flesh and dwells among us. And this time the power of the word would bring human nature from earth to heaven in the proper way – not by seeking to make a name for himself, but by the supreme act of self-sacrificial love and for the glory of God his Father.  The Word of God who is God does not lift humanity up to heaven by building a tower to human glory apart from God, but becomes human and unites the earthly with the heavenly in himself by laying down his life for us, rising from the dead, and ascending up in glory. 

The Word is first lifted up from the earth not in a tower but on a cross. Then, not content to unite only the living with God, the word descends into the place of the dead, and then, (forty days ago) rises from dead, and then (ten days ago) ascends in glory - finally bringing our human nature to the right hand of the Father in heaven. But even this does not complete his salvific work for us. 

Speaking of his coming ascension, the Lord Jesus says to his disciples, “It is to your advantage that I go away. If I do not go away, the Paraklete – the Comforter – will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you…. [and] When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16: 7, 13)

The Lord says it is better for him to go away, but it doesn’t feel that way, does it? Don’t many of us long to live in the time of Jesus, to see him face to face, and to hear his voice?

We feel a sense of loss – a kind of sadness on Ascension Thursday. Our Lord has left us staring at the sky. But he says that it is better for him to go so that the Spirit can come. This is hard for us to believe: that this age in which we live – which is the age of the Church – the Pentecostal age – the enspirited age – is somehow better than the time of Christ. How often we long to be with Jesus in the flesh. But this is because we have so little faith that we are with him in the flesh – that the Spirit makes him present to us in the flesh in the Eucharist and in our neighbor. We don’t always believe what Jesus said: that whatever we do to the least of his brethren, that we do unto him. If we did, we would see how it can be that this – even this vale of tears – is the better time: the time of the Lord. We would see that the Lord is with us. He has not abandoned us. He has sent us his Holy Spirit. 

12th century cloisonne enamel on gold
The State Museum of Fine Arts of Georgia

This is what happened on Pentecost: We were given again the power of the word. The Holy Spirit came down upon the apostles like tongues of fire, which represent the gift of the ability to speak and preach in many tongues so that all the people from all the nations, who had been scattered at Babel, could hear in their own tongues the Gospel that the Word has become flesh, was crucified, died and was buried, rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father. In this way, the Lord lifted the curse of Babel. He restored to his people the power of the word – and with that, nothing shall be impossible for us. "When the Most High descended and confused tongues, he scattered nations. When He distributed the tongues of fire, He called all to unity." 

The Lord lifts curses in unexpected ways – not in the way we would. He doesn’t simply reverse the bad things in our lives. He brings us through them to a still greater good. He doesn’t restore to us the immortal life of the Garden of Eden. No, he gives a better way to live forever through death and resurrection in union with him.  

And he doesn’t restore to the world a single language so that we could all understand each other. No, this was not a restoration to one language, but an inspiration of many. This was a calling not merely to civic unity, but to spiritual unity. The Most High doesn’t just restore us – he brings us to a new and better life. The diverse tongues given at Pentecost are still better than the universal language enjoyed before Babel. In their manifold variety, they more fully express the majesty of God. With many voices it is possible to make harmony. 

This reminds me of the many rites and traditions through which the Holy Spirit has revealed the Gospel to the many cultures of the world. The Holy Spirit does not inspire a monolithic church, but a church rich and full of various complementary gifts. Not to all are all gifts given, but to each his or her own gift, for the glory of God.  

Many Rites

Among Catholics, I have often heard voiced the opinion that, if things were as they should be, the Church would have only one Eucharistic liturgy, ever the same, always and everywhere. The one true Church, it seems to many, ought to have one true liturgy.

The Holy Spirit, apparently, had something else in mind.

A friend and I were recently discussing the variety of liturgies used by the Church throughout the world and which of these could be said to be closest to the original liturgy. A mutual friend is of the opinion that the Classical Roman Rite, (a.k.a. the Tridentine Mass, the Traditional Latin Mass, the “extraordinary form,” etc.) best preserves those traditions handed down to us from the apostles. Our Byzantine Catholic priest, on the other hand, is thoroughly convinced that it is the liturgies of the Byzantine tradition that most closely resemble those of the Apostolic Church. Neither of these opinions is provable or disprovable, though each is quite capable of stirring up a lot of anger and indignation from those who hold to the other. The purpose of such dispute, I imagine, is to settle the question once and for all of whose liturgy is the “best” and ought to be used always and everywhere.

Our conversation then moved to the original liturgy itself. I had supposed we were talking about the liturgies described by St. Justin Martyr (c. 160 A.D.) and the Didache (80 – 100 A.D.). My friend, on the other hand, was talking about the Last Supper as described in the Gospels. Even regarding what constitutes the original liturgy there is dispute.

Already in the first century we have two differing accounts of how the Eucharist is offered. The Didache (9: 1-5) instructs us to first give thanks for the cup and then for the bread. The Gospels describe Christ as first offering His body and then His blood (Mt 26:26-28; Mk 14:22-24; Lk 22:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-25). There is difference from the first.

I see a parallel between the gift of tongues and the many rites of the Church. When the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles on Pentecost, he gave to them the gift of "divers tongues" (Acts 2:4) In so doing, He lifted the curse of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). Just as the Holy Spirit did not remove the curse of Babel by restoring one language to all peoples, so He also did not give the Church one liturgy for all peoples. Rather, He gave the Apostles many tongues and through them established many liturgies. Just as there is one Spirit who gives the gift of many tongues, there is one Church who gives the gift of many liturgies.