The Excellent Way

Part Three of a Contemplation of Christian Community

Apr 15, 2024

After completing a parish construction project, the church rewarded us with this lovely warm glow.

In part one of this contemplation on being saved together, I considered the communal nature of man’s fall and the sacramental nature of the Church. In part two I examined the weight of the Kingdom and how the body of Christ is uniquely equipped to support this weight for the life of the World. In this final part, I will examine the the finest point of how the Church is saved together. It is simple, but it is not easy.

John 13:34–35

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (ESV)

As we are currently in the season of Lent and the Church takes seriously this commandment to love one another, we cannot leave the topic of being saved together without addressing Christ’s words to his disciples.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his book Great Lent writes,

“When Christ comes to judge us, what will be the criterion of his judgement? The parable [of the Last Judgement] answers: love—not a mere humanitarian concern for abstract justice and the anonymous “poor” but concrete and personal love for the human person, any human person, that God makes me encounter in my life.”1

We can talk about the sacraments and the holiness and mysteries of the things contained in the Church all day long, but St. Paul shows us the “more excellent way.” After writing at length about the theology of the Body of Christ, and how every member is significant, he adds this: that without Love—sincere, Godly love, we are no better than a clanging cymbal—a noisemaker with no meaning.

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (ESV)

The companion to this love for one another, and indeed all of humanity is the condition of forgiveness. We cannot love if we do not forgive, and Christ tells us that if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven. The ultimate model of this, of course is Christ on the cross when he prays for the men who are actively engaged in murdering him, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

Orthodox Lent begins with Forgiveness Sunday, the first day of the season of fasting and greatest attention to our repentance in preparation for that bright day when Christ is revealed in glory through his resurrection and defeat of Death. On this day, an air of solemnity descends in the vesperal service, bright vestments are exchanged for dark ones, and the musical tones change to reflect the serious nature of the season. Perhaps the most important act that we undertake all year occurs at this service. Every member of the Church goes before every other member of the Church and humbly asks their forgiveness for any offense, committed in knowledge or ignorance. We exchange this forgiveness to one another. In no way is the service an airing of grievances or a time to converse about what we could have done better. Rather, it is the absolute acquittal of trespasses and debts and at the end of the service, everyone has a noticeable air of lightness about them.

On a personal note, when I was a catechumen, as our pastor instructed us about the way to proceed in an orderly manner I was overwhelmed with the very idea of what was about to happen, and I began to weep. I felt I did not know these folks well enough to have been offended by them, nor was I prepared for the incredible outpouring of grace and forgiveness that I was about to encounter. Seeing my dismay, a lovely member of the parish (who is now my friend!) leaned over and said, “It’s okay—if you’re not ready you can just watch.” That is what I chose to do. I was amazed that even today in a modern church, the idea of asking forgiveness in true humility and offering forgiveness in love to our brothers and sisters was taken so seriously that an entire service was dedicated to it. In my second year I was happy for the service—I had no grievances to forgive and was able to ask forgiveness if I had inadvertently hurt someone. It was great! In this current year, I encountered a rather different situation—I had things I needed to forgive. I even needed forgiveness from others. Forgiveness Sunday was not a light and friendly affair full of brotherly affection now—it was serious. I had to confront my own sin and my own horrifying ability to hold a grudge, lick a wound, and justify myself.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann writes in his book Great Lent: Journey to Pascha:

“Christian love is the ‘possible impossibility’ to see Christ in another man, however he is, and whom God, in His eternal and mysterious plan, has decided to introduce into my life, be it only for a few moments, not as an occasion for a “good deed” or an exercise in philanthropy, but as the beginning of an eternal companionship in God Himself….There is no “impersonal” love because love is the wonderful discovery of the “person” in “man,” of the personal and unique in the common and general. It is the discovery in each man of that which is “lovable” in him, of that which is from God.”2

As Christ himself hung on the cross, before taking his last breath he forgave those who were sinning against him, even before their abuse had ceased. Eternal companionship with Christ insists that we be like him in all things, including the act of forgiveness as an outgrowth of divine love for our fellow man. Can we forgive the well-dressed and affluent gossip who spreads rumors? Can we forgive the filthy, drunken homeless man who asks rudely for some cash? Can we forgive our priest when he overlooks our need in his exhaustion? Can we forgive a family member who slings barbs at our ego because they know us so well they can attack our weaknesses? Can we forgive the perpetrator of our abuse?

All of these things produce a sense of revulsion, anger, hurt, or defensiveness, but Christ bore all these things and still died so that sinners of every kind could be rejoined to His kingdom. Love “bears all things” and we are to bear one another’s burdens, even the burdens that are laid upon us without our say-so. If we do not bear the sins committed against us, especially those committed by people who call themselves Christian, how can we expect to present ourselves at the last judgement? Christ did not lay his life down so that we do not have to. He did it so that we could so so as well.

In The Ethics of Beauty, Dr. Timothy Patitsas brings together this notion of entering into the sacramental nature of the Church with our whole being when he writes in his chapter entitled “Beauty Will Save the World”:

This [helping the poor without humiliating] is the path to social peace, to friendship with our “adversary” (Mt 5:25), the poor, who will haul us before the Final Court in just a few short years when we die. Our brief lifetime on earth is but a journey to the court, to our own trial, and we are urged to make peace with our accuser before we arrive (Mt 5:25). Our “accuser” will be the poor in any form, the icon of Christ crucified, because the act of a rich person pouring himself out to help the poor is the telos, the standard we were made to live up to. The primordial Theophany which drew the world into existence was the shining out of Christ’s self-emptying love for the world.3

It is in this way that we, who have received the sacraments so thoroughly discussed in parts one and two become the sacraments for the world. We who are sanctified bring that light, the salt, and the healing balm for the life of the world. We who are not Christ become Christ through a mysterious chiasm. Dr. Patitsas writes concerning this:

Sacramental theology (in Orthodox Christianity our preferred term for the sacraments is the “mysteries”) is nothing but the study of chiasm; it’s a meditation on God’s condescension, his permitting things “to be what they are not,” but without corrupting them or ruining them in what they are. And He allows this, He orders it in fact, because in his love for us He wants to become what He is not – incarnate in us. Yet at the same time, He will not cease to be what He is, the transcendent God. And we don’t just receive sacraments; we are meant to become sacraments for others and for the life of the world. You don’t become who you really are until you attain this sacramental status, this level of symbol. We are meant to be the icons of God, his epiphanies in this world.4 (emphasis mine)

As we bear the crucified and risen Christ to the world through the love and forgiveness we show to every man, we become Christ Himself, the light of the world, the city on a hill, the salt of the earth. (Matt. 5:13-16) We become a living and active part of the sacramental redemption of the human race by our every interaction that is undertaken with humility, forgiveness, and love.

Parishioners laboring together on a construction project to improve the temple.

But it all begins at “home” —inside the walls of the parish temple, coffee hour, cleaning days, construction projects, meals for new mothers, visits to elderly parishioners, and any other number of ways we interact as a body. My dear mother (memory eternal) said when we were first married and I had received a beautiful set of fine china, “If it’s good enough for company it’s good enough for family.” By that she meant that we should serve the best we have to our family as a way to demonstrate our love for each other, because then we are in much better practice to show love to those outside of our home. It is the same with our home parish. As we show hospitality in myriad ways to the members of our church family, as we bear each other’s burdens, as we forgive each other our trespasses, we are equipping and enabling each person within the Church to go out into the world and be the Church to the world. By this we are saved together.

1 John 3:16–18

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (ESV)

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us and on thy Church and on thy world. Amen.