Sarx

The is the last post in the Praxis conversation (as far as I know). It’s a long one: I tried to edit it to make sense of the conversation as it happened: there were four of us.

THe Praxis pastor asked me some questions about Orthodox practise (ie, about our praxis). Her responses to my replies - as well as the feed-in from other members of Praxis who were present for the discussion - led us more to a discussion of “the hard places” than to our traditions. I may not have been the best person for this discussion because, although I know the answers as I was taught them, the defence of these practices - as when compared to anyone else’s - is not only beyond me, but no longer my desire.

First up I was asked about salvation by works. The common examples were given: fasting, various practices. My response was that she, too, offered a sort of salvation by works: social justice, hospitality. These are our responses, she said, to the love offered us in God. That’s what we teach about fasting - etc - I said. Fasting is not about making me get saved but, because of my salvation, I fast (or feast at Pascha, etc.)

The various Orthodox practices are not our salvation: I’m not saved by fasting, or even by the number of prostrations I make. *But* those things help me to “work out my salvation”. I fast not because GOd has forbidden meat to us but because by denying the things that I want, I can - hopefully - train my body to avoid sin. It’s not a sin to eat meat on a Friday, for example, but it is a sin to give in to the body’s desires just because “I want this” or “I want that”.

She returned with “Is it a sin to receive everything as a gift from God?”

No, certainly not. In fact, even when I’m fasting, if I receive a gift of hospitality, or am offered to dine: I don’t question the giver. I don’t even bring it up to my priest. I know the generous offer of love from a friend is more important than my own spiritual practice. The fathers teach this - I told her of the monk who said to answer the door for a friend even if one is praying, because God, whom we can not see, requires our love of the one we can see, just before us.

But, I said, the fasting is a training tool: we don’t fast because generations before us have fasted, but rather because generations before us have found fasting to be a useful spiritual tool. They grew in holiness by use of this tool, so we too, might so grow.

The pastor said that’s fine. But you (us Orthodox) require fasting - this makes it a legalistic rule, not simply a tool.

To this I had no reply other than to say that she - like me - may have been exposed to more pious sorts of folks who pretend the tools available to us are more like a new Torah of laws rather than a tool box.

Praxis knows of fasting and often fasts - full on abstention from food for a period of prayer. But to schedule fasts and to put them out weekly seems an undue burden on the community. She certainly did not worry that some of her community (ok, she allowed, one family, former RCs) did not have meat at all on Fridays. But she would worry if everyone in her community was constantly expecting others to be doing exactly the same things all the time.

Well, I said, we’re not supposed to “look at someone else’s plate, only our own.” She asked if it were that way in practice… and I allowed as I didn’t know. In my experience, most of us seem rather hung up on “doing it right”, including me: and while we may not judge someone else, we were quite willing to jump in and offer to “show the right way” to others. I spent a good part of my time learning the “right way” to do Orthodox liturgy and offering corrections - eventually becoming as annoyed with people who did everything 100% Full-tilt as with people who edited everything “for speed.” My own realisation that we all do it differently - and we’re all pretty much right or wrong in the same degree - was a big letting go for me.

Does this extend to other practices? “Like what?” I asked. She wondered about confession or about marriage. Well, I said, in the Orthodox church pretty much anyone will tell you two things: a) we NEVER do X Y or Z and ALWAYS do A B and C; b) BUT there is this exception and that exception and the other exception and even a few exceptions that make no sense. As an example, I noted that we never have women clergy - except when we do. We never have divorced clergy - except when we do. We always except Trinitarian baptism from other denominations - except when we don’t. And, for all the attempts of various Orthodox to pretend that “everyone everywhere always does” something, it’s pretty much not at all like that anywhere.

So, she said, how are you different from us?

In the spectrum. I said I’d finally come to realise that while some folks paint the “Christian Spectrum” across the whole rainbow, the Orthodox spectrum was only from, e.g., Infrared to pale pink: green and yellow and blue were right out of the question.

She asked about fasting again: I’d heard it compared to death. I’d heard many things in Orthodoxy compared to death: Monasticism, marriage, some prayers. (Sleep, I added, mindful of the night prayers from the ER Prayerbook.) Why are you all so focused on death? Didn’t Jesus say, “I’ve come to give you life, and that more abundantly”? Before answering her, I told her about the prayerbook and also about the cross which sometimes hangs over a bed: not always as protection but, sometimes, as a reminder of a tomb.

“We are in the midst of death” the Psalms say. It is a constant reminder. I pointed out the well-used line that there is no feast without a fast. It provides the contrast. Does not, she said, our own fullness of life in Christ find contrast in the loss of life that is beyond him? If the world is all messed up, and the Kingdom joyful: is that not enough contrast?

Here, someone who had been listening pointed out that he had spent a lifetime on the streets, in addiction. He knew what torment was like: he didn’t need to fake it by avoiding meat. As a Christian, even, he spent hours a week helping people in a 12 step programme. He relived his own addiction for their sake near-daily and sometimes the temptation to partake was so great that he would simply come home and hold his wife and cry. (Here his wife put her hand on his in support.) Why did he need to fast? Why did he need to pretend that his bed was a tomb. Why did he need to remember the poor or the sinful simply by play-acting, which, in the midst of American wealth, was what fasting was. Should we not be giving our money to the poor full time instead of pretending, a few days out of the year, to be monks?

The Pastor said he’d struck an important question: if you don’t give your money to the poor on the other days, what use is it to do it on fasting days?

While I had no answer for the gentleman’s interjection, I pointed out the use of fasting as training for the soul and she agreed: wondering how we could avoid the legalism and still get the benefits. She wasn’t at all sure. Neither was I.

But the whole death thing - I couldn’t compete with the analogy. I said, Jesus own death led us to emulate it. Why? She asked. He died once for all. St Paul’s own journey aside, did that mean that we all had to do the same thing in order to be saved?

No, I said: certainly not. But wasn’t it possible that in the same way that many Orthodox seem to fetishize death and doom and gloom, wouldn’t also be possible to make a fetish out of being happy, out of being comfortable? Yes: clearly. And some did - but there’s a difference between a religion that can seem to focus on the down side of things and a religion that makes a sole focus on “the up side” an option. certainly they didn’t shy away from the down side.

I thought they did, I said. Many who are “progressives” don’t have fasting, don’t have Lent, don’t have Good Friday. They tend to ignore what they can’t - or don’t want to - deal with and move on to other things. What about the scriptures that teach uncomfortable things: do we just ignore them, laugh at them?

I shared my experience from St Gregory’s Church: of editing verses in the scripture, to seemingly cut out the bad parts, or making certain holidays to be more about mental health than about the things we couldn’t believe - resurrection, death, incarnation, etc. While there is a room in a “progressive community” for these ancient teachings is there a way to hold a progressive faith without encouraging people to reject them?

We find that there are some who want to engage those parts of scripture, of the faith: some want to rationalise them, some want to follow them and some want to pretend they are not there. But that’s why we use a lectionary: it forces us to deal with each part of the Bible on it’s own. But we have a wider range of responses possible, yes. Including social commentary, modern psychology and even comments from other faiths. We have to deal with the material - but the doctrines that arise are not always traditional.

There are a lot of us in our community that reject those traditional doctrines. This was offered by the other gentleman’s wife. She shrugged: I know my own husband has trouble with them sometimes. So what? It is our place to, as you say, “work out our salvation” is it not possible for these people to work out theirs without the same tool box?

I didn’t know.

The pastor said, it’s like Church seasons or liturgical colours or even robes or icons or Church buildings or altars. They are all good options: so is dancing, praying in tongues, “holy laughter”, healing. So is working for social justice, fasting, giving money to the poor, holding political actions, writing letters to the editor, signing petitions. We can focus on the glass half full. Or Half empty. We can focus on “more abundant life” or “death to the world”. Whatever it is: work out your salvation. Is it the part of the Church to limit your tools or to help you use the tools to chose? She seemed to think that some Churches limited tools - possibly just for control issues - whereas Praxis and other such progressive Emergent bodies allowed a wider variety of tools. Yes, the one could devolve into Legalism and the other could devolve into a sort of anarchy but each could also bring one to finding salvation.