Happy Feast. Now, Be Overthrown

Today is the Feast of Nineveh, according to the Coptic Calendar.

Augustine writes,

God destroys sinners not only in anger but also in compassion[.] For sinners are destroyed in two ways: either...the men themselves are punished for their sins, or, like the Ninevites, the men’s sins are destroyed by repentance. God’s prediction, therefore, was fulfilled: the wicked Nineveh was overthrown, and a good Nineveh built up. For its walls and houses remained standing; the city was overthrown in its depraved manners.

-City of God, ch. 24

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In other words, Augsutine encourages me to be like Nineveh: to let the sinful me be destroyed and to crush my sins by repentance.

Why Do We Have Such a Hard Time Being Virtuous?

St. John Chrysostom has a very common sense answer:

"Let us then hear, as many of us as neglect the reading of the Scriptures, to what harm we are subjecting ourselves, to what poverty. For when are we to apply ourselves to the real practice of virtue, who do not so much as know the very laws according to which our practice should be guided?"

– Homily XLVII on the Gospel According to Matthew

Father Nicanor

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, we're introduced to a priest invited to officiate a wedding in an isolated Mexican village. There are a few noteworthy things from the passages about him:

First Impressions

Father Nicanor Reyna...was an old man hardened by the ingratitude of his ministry. His skin was sad, with the bones almost exposed, and he had a pronounced round stomach and the expression of an old angel, which came more from simplicity than goodness.

You just didn't want to look at this man. How about us? Are we embittered by people's "ingratitude" to the point that a we almost permanently bear a worn, wounded countenance? I think of my own priest, whose face is almost always the polar opposite of this. I look back over the years he has served us and all the ingratitude he inevitably faced. As I get a little older and begin to make my first contacts with the adult world, I appreciate his gift of radiance more and more.

What Value to Do We Add?

Thinking that no land needed the seed of God so much, he decided to stay on for another week...They would answer him that they had been so many years without a priest, arranging the business of their souls directly with God, and that they had lost the evil of original sin.

Reading up to this point - and after it -in the novel, the reader knows that in fact that there was a lot of brokenness in the community. Sin, evil and their consequences had not been wiped away. We who serve the church in the world face the challenge of a world which feels that it's "OK" with God - or without Him. It is this same world that is - perhaps because of this very attitude - full of fragmentation, anxiety, brokenness and hurt. What do we do to enter into this situation - mindful of our own nueroses - as healers? Are we just shoveling something or are we truly serving God and people?

Wrong Focus

Tired of preaching in the open, Father Nicanor decided to undertake the building of a church, the largest in the world, with life-size saints and stained-glass windows...

Rather than courageously work with people intimately, the priest hides himself in a giant project. We see this today: from the mega-church phenomenon to the countless church organizations with their "exectutive boards" and "officers". To be sure, every group - whether secular or religious - needs a place to meet and feel a sense of community and needs some organizational structure. The scandal justifiably comes, though, when the places of meeting and the organizational structures become ends and bury the central message. Perhaps we would be better off with smaller churches and fewer titles.

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For a contrast from Father Nicanor, see an article I found on Archbishop Christodolus of Greece, who recently passed away.

Your Money, For Now

Today's reading, according to the Coptic lectionary is Luke 16:1-12 (The Parable of the Steward):

St. Cyril of Alexandria writes (I've added the subheadings):

Entrusted with Wealth
Is there then no way of salvation for the rich, and no means of making them partakers of the hope of the saints? Have they fallen completely from God s grace? Is hell and the fire necessarily prepared for them, such as is the fitting lot of the devil and his angels? Not so: for lo! the Saviour has shown them a means of salvation in this parable. They have been entrusted with worldly wealth by the merciful permission of Almighty God.

Stewards for the Poor
They have been appointed stewards for the poor. But they don't discharge their stewardship rightly, in that they scatter, so to speak, what has been given them from the Lord: for they waste it solely on their pleasures, and purchase temporary honours, not remembering God, Who says, "You shall open wide your mercy unto your brother, even to him who needs you" (Deut 8), nor moreover Christ Himself, the Saviour of us all, Who says," Be merciful, even as your Father is." (Luke 6).

Whoever is in heaven is merciful. But they, as I said, do not take showing mercy to their brethren seriously at all, but concentrate only on their own pride. And this is what accuses them before the Lord of all.

The Net of Death
And of course upon the approach of death they must cease from their stewardship, withdrawing them as it does from human aifairs. For the net of death no man can escape from.

What therefore would Christ have them to do? It is, that while they are yet in this world, if they are unwilling to divide all their wealth among the poor, that at least they should gain friends by a part of it; and numerous witnesses to their charitableness, even those who have received well at their hands: that when their earthly wealth fails them, they may gain a place in their tabernacles.

For it is impossible for love to the poor ever to remain unrewarded. Whether therefore a man give away all his wealth, or but a part, he will certainly benefit his soul.

Jamie Lynn Spears on Being "Judgmental"

CNN reports that Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's sister, is pregnant. I promise you that is not the point of this post.

The point is her implied view on judgmentalism. From the article:

What message does she want to send to other teens about premarital sex? "I definitely don't think it's something you should do; it's better to wait," she told the magazine. "But I can't be judgmental because it's a position I put myself in."

If you really deconstruct that statement, she is saying she needs to avoid making a statement about sexual morality/responsibility because such a statement is, by definition, "judgmental." In essence: "How can I be 'judgmental' (i.e. make a statement about morality), when I have put myself in this situation?"

I know it's just Jamie Lynn Spears, but her comments really are a reflection of a common, simplistic assumption: A statement about sexual morality is inherently "judgmental".

We commonly attack others when when what they say makes us uncomfortable about our own life choices. We don't stop to think whether he/she is being judgmental or just rational and maybe even loving.

Here's a link to the article:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/19/spears.sister.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest