THOUGHTS OF A MONK

“The Opposite of Never”

March 6, 2005

What season is it? Tax season! This is the time when people are desperately struggling to assemble all their documents and prepare their tax returns for Uncle Sam. Salvation before the law of the IRS is to follow the rules and get your tax return in before the deadline. Yet, it is also common for people to try to pay as little tax as possible. As long as no rules are broken, we’re OK. We’re following the letter of the law. Of course there are lawyers out there who will do all they can to help you avoid taxes even if you do break the rules! They strive to make it look like you didn’t break the rules, even if you did. But, in either case the mentality is the same: It is through the observance of rules that we achieve salvation. Our approach to taxes is part of a larger reality. We are products of our society and our nation is one that takes great pride in the belief that ours is a country that lives by the rule of law. Yet, this also means that we are a very litigious society: Not just living by rules but also often living for rules. 

Some of you may have had the experience of working in an office of the US Government that has been audited by the General Accounting Office (GAO).  I have had this pleasure. The idea and spirit behind the audit is that it should help the office do its job better and insure that the peoples’ money is being spent wisely and efficiently. Looking at government efficiency, or its lack, one might wonder how well the GAO has fulfilled its mission. One of the images in today’s gospel is that of people being separated into two categories: sheep and goats. Sheep have done well and go to their reward; the goats go to hell. When the GAO audits you, the main impression left by the entire process is that the auditors are simply trying to find rules that you have broken and point them out to you accompanied with threats of dire consequences if all is not corrected according to the wishes of the GAO. And theirs are not empty threats! They are hunting for goats; there are no sheep in their viewfinders. Everyone is a goat or a potential goat.  But in today’s gospel, St Matthew is describing a path to salvation that is a far cry from slavish adherence to rules and regulations.
           
Great Lent is approaching and with it a time of fasting. Through Isaiah, we hear that God is not interested in a fast where we intentionally inflict pain on ourselves, or put our pain on display so that everyone knows how much we are suffering. God asks: “hanging your head like a reed or spreading out sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call fasting, a day acceptable to the Lord?”  Rather, God is pleased by a fast that breaks unjust fetters and lets the oppressed go free. To shelter the homeless, feed the hungry and clothe the naked is a fast pleasing to God.  (Is 58: 4-7). This is the same message in Matthew. The sheep are the ones who give food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, hospitality to the stranger, visit the sick and those in prison. And the goats: They’re the ones who never did these things.

Never is truly an absolute. It casts issues into black and white. To never do something allows no room for other possibilities. Remember the Captain of the H.M.S. Pinafore? When he claims to have never done something, his incredulous crew countered, “What never?” And he insists, NO NEVER!  But still unsatisfied, they cried again, “WHAT NEVER?” And then he relents and admits “Well, hardly ever!” It’s hard to live according to such absolutes. And the Gospel does not demand it. In this gospel lesson, what is the opposite of never? Always?  “Do it always, do it until you are inflicting pain on yourself.” No. That would be a new and arduous rule that would run contrary to Isaiah’s warning. No, what we have instead is a call to be mindful of others in a way that is humanly possible. It means that we are not called to do something beyond our means.  When you did it to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me. Jesus didn’t say you must do it to everyone. That would be demanding perfection, and that is only found in God. “God who is love.” The call to us is to love others as Jesus did. It is the tonality of love that is expressed in the First Letter of John that is to govern our Lenten observances.
The self-giving that is the message of the Gospel and Isaiah is not self-conscious. The picture we have in the gospel is of people doing something good for others and not realizing that it is through them that we serve Christ. They ask Jesus “when did we do this to you? And he replies, when you did it to the least of these brothers of mine you did it to me.” As Eduard Schweizer commented on this passage, the intent is that we should engage in “spontaneous sympathy that regards only the other person’s good” (p. 479).  “The disciple of Jesus must never let anxiety about his (or her) own perfection, the development of his (or her) own personality, get the upper hand; what matters is the life (we) live for others” (p. 480).

As we enter the Lenten season, a time of repentance and fasting in preparation for and anticipation of the resurrection of Christ, we, as Orthodox Christians, can become more conscious of rules, because when it comes to fasting we probably have more rules than anybody else.  But the Typicon of the Orthodox Church in America, after giving all the fasting rules, states: “At all times it is essential to bear in mind that ‘you are not under the law but under grace’ (Rom 6:14), and that ‘the letter kills, but the spirit gives life’ (2 Cor 3:6). The rules of fasting, while they need to be taken seriously, are not to be interpreted with dour and pedantic legalism; ‘for the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17).”  So, remember the mindset of the GAO auditors and the scrupulous taxpayer who followed the rules for their own sake but missed the point behind the rules. This Lent, as we prepare to meet the risen Lord, let us seek after the deeper spirit of the Lenten season so that, as Isaiah says: “your light will blaze out like the dawn.”

Glory be to Jesus Christ!