Bonovox

 

IN this morning’s Gospel lesson, the very famous story of the Prodigal Son, we read of the young man who asks from his father his inheritance…..and his Father obliges him.  So what does the Son do with this blessing he has received?  He uses it to rebel AGAINST his father, whom was the bestower of the blessing, and blessed him with FREEDOM to make his own choices in what to do with his inheritance.   He journeyed to a far country and wasted it  in prodigal living. The Church fathers say that the prodigal is an image of Adam who represents ALL of humanity…all of US.  Adam was given many blessings….life, a soul, a body and like the prodigal, blessed with freedom to choose for himself how to use.  And like our Prodigal, Adam chose to spend his inheritance in exile, in isolation from God.  This is the meaning of our Prodigal’s journey to a FAR Country.  Exile from God.  And indeed, is not the story of humanity in general?  And of our OWN lives in particular?  We do not use God’s blessings to glorify Him or to serve our fellow man….we waste our inheritance in selfishly gratifying our sinful urges.

St. Paul makes this practical for us in today’s epistle reading as he talks about one such gift from God, that we exploit in our rebellion against Him.  Paul stresses the freedom that we have in saying “All things are lawful for me.”  Just like the father of the prodigal did not attempt to control how the son spent his inheritance, so too Our Lord has made all things lawful for us in the sense that he has given us freedom to Act.  But St. Paul goes on to say, that while all things are lawful to him….he can choose to do A or B….not all things are  helpful…..he can make choices that will lead to life in His Father’s House….or he can make choices that lead to his descent into a miserable life keeping company with pigs…

The specific gift that St. Paul is referring to, is our bodily existence.  Unlike the stomach which is made for food, and food for the stomach, Paul insists that the body is not made for sexual immorality.  There are many in our society who attempt to say that fulfilling bodily urges, specifically sexual urges is necessary for the body.  IN fact our culture is built upon this premise.  Whatever gratifies me I should pursue it.  If it feels good, do it.

St. Paul says, that on the contrary the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.  There is a use of our inheritance that leads to life in our Father’s kingdom, and a use that  leads to isolation, meaninglessness and debauchery.

Brothers and sisters, is not this life apart from God that we have chosen as a culture?  Just reading some statistics on pornography shows us how far that we have fallen.  The number one term searched for on Google?  Sex.  The number one business on the internet?  Porn.  Pornography is a 13 Billion dollar a year business.  If you add together the proceeds of the NBA, the NFL and MLB they don’t make enough money combined to outweigh the proceeds of the porn industry.

Our youth are affected by this …1 in the 3 13 year olds in this country have viewed pornography in the last year.  Sociologists tell us that among our youth, Dating is out of fashion, going the way of “courtship.”  Instead, young people look to “hook up,” that is pursue someone to have sexual intimacy with no “string attached,” no commitment.  Along with that is the idea of “friends with benefits,” that is friends who will give you sexual favors, with again, no strings attached.

50% of Christian men are said to have a serious porn addiction.

St. Paul puts its bluntly:  “Flee sexual immortality.  Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.  Or do you not know, that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have of God, and you are not your own?  For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

When we do otherwise, we suffer for it.  We waste the good gifts God has given too pursue things that give no meaning.  Ultimately the fun wears off and leads to a joyless, sad isolated existence.  We end up envying the food of pigs.  This applies to all of us, for as St. Paul says elsewhere, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  We are all guilty of wasting our inheritance to one degree or another, and we suffer for it.

But of course today’s parable does not end there, and it is a source of hope for all of us.  For the Lord tells us that this prodigal “Came to his senses.”  He realized that even his father’s servants have plenty of eat, while he was perishing with hunger.  So he made a decision.  “I will arise and go to my father’s house and will say to him: ‘father, I have sinned against heaven and before you and am no longer worthy to be called your son.  Make me as one of your hired servants.”  That’s great, but this conclusion wouldn’t have done him any good if he continued to lie there in the muck.  How often do we make a decision like his but continue on in our condition….what was important is the Scriptures say He arose!  Repentance is not just a cognitive decision….it takes action on our part.  We can’t just regret what we’ve come to, we have to get up and return to where we know we belong.

So he arose and went home, and contrary to his expectations, His father saw him afar off and ran to him and fell on his neck and kissed him.  He had his servants  put his best robe on him, and a ring on his finger….restoring him to full sonship.  They killed the fatted calf and celebrated the lost son who had returned.

Brothers and sisters:  you may have made terrible decisions in your life.  You may have wasted the good things that God has given to you.  You may have used your body in ways that have brought you to ruin.  You may have left your father’s house in pursuit of the good time and pleasing yourself.  But you don’t have to stay there.  You don’t have to eat the food of pigs.  Your Father in heaven is waiting and watching for your return.  BUT you have to decide to do so.  YOU have to come to your senses and decide to reject the way that you have been living.  You have to decide to return to you Fathers house…and you must arise and do so.  For he is waiting for you to return with open arms, and to restore you to life that you were meant for as his son or daughter.  Don’t lay in the pigsty any longer.

“If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?” — Ezekiel 33:10 …   It might also be asked, how should we then “eat?”  Eating is rarely seen as an ethical action.  We eat, as our bodies need sustenance to survive.  But this paper intends to show that eating is more than mere fuel for the human machine.  Eating has implications that reach into the spheres of culture, ecology, public health, foreign policy and economics.  Eating is of course a fundamental human activity; it may well be the fundamental activity.   Thus it can be said with Wendell Berry, that there is a need to “eat responsibly.”[1]

Author Michael Pollan and others have claimed that America is in the midst of a national “eating disorder.”[3]  This is perhaps the most pressing public health problem we face.  Children’s life expectancy in the US may actually soon decrease for the first time in our nation’s history, due to diabetes and other issues related to obesity.[4]  According to the Surgeon General, Obesity is officially an epidemic.[5]  Add to that heart disease and countless other health issues, plaguing both adults and children, and we have to ask ourselves, “What is different now than 100 years ago?”  There are a number of obvious contributing factors.  Certainly we are more sedentary than our forefathers were.  But one would have to be blind to not see that what we eat and how we eat, share a tremendous load of the blame.

Nevertheless, obesity in America is just one problem.  While Americans become fatter, the majority of the world faces a food crisis in the opposite extreme.  In 2008 the United Nations World Food Programme reported that more than seventy three million people in seventy-eight countries were facing the reality of reduced food rations.  Along with that, one in six people in the world—1.02 billion of them— are victims of hunger and malnutrition.[6]

Ironically, the world’s farms currently produce enough food to make every person on the globe fat.  According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, current food production could sustain world food needs, even for the 8 billion people projected to inhabit the planet.  The world is starving, but we are growing more than enough food.  Obviously, something in our food system is dysfunctional.[7]

But human health and nutrition are not the only food issues.  At a time when oil production is near its peak,[8]  Americans are consuming almost as much oil through the food they eat, as they do in driving their cars: almost 400 barrels a year per citizen.  Most of it is used for transportation from the farm to our pantry and refrigerator— an average of 1,500 miles per item.  The amount of food energy we consume is outweighed by the amount of energy used to produce, package and ship it to us.[9]

Modern technology has aided us in our fights against weeds, pests, extreme weather and depleted soils.  The products available to us on super market shelves, boast claims of being full of vitamins, minerals and whole grains. Ostensibly because of modern technology and science, the consumer, farmer and the world in general is better off;  yet this assumption, is a false one that doesn’t square with the reality of the world dietary crisis.  How we eat, and how we raise our food are crucial issues.

Writer and farmer Wendell Berry is famous for saying, “Eating is an agricultural act.”[10]  If we eat we should be interested in agriculture. But most Americans don’t concern themselves with where their food comes from.  We trust industry and government to protect us and provide for our nutritional needs.  It seems that trust is misplaced.

There’s a glut of problems in the way we produce food.  We overuse water, energy and chemicals in industrial farming, polluting our entire biosphere in the process; the nutritional value of food is compromised through an over-dependence on antibiotics for livestock; factory farms are the scene of animal cruelty, with a focus on food that is more profitable yet less nutritious…ad nauseum.  But in order to understand the problem and find our way to any solution, we need to examine ourselves and nature, particularly our relationship to created world.

Eating is the primary way we commune with nature.  We take the matter we find around us, plants and animals (also fungi and salt, a mineral), and take it into ourselves.  We use this matter for energy, and also to build and repair our body.  Our body is essentially then, composed of the world around us.  Unlike the angels, we are one with the material world.  Humanity is unique in that although we are spiritual like the angels, we are yet physical; again, literally made of dirt.   By straddling both the physical and spiritual realms, man is thus in a unique position as “priest of creation.”  It is only man who can offer creation back to God (in this context, material creation),for he is of the same “stuff” of that creation; “Thine own of thine own,”  In the words of the Liturgy.[11]  In the view of the Orthodox Church, Man is an animal; but he is a “Eucharistic animal.”  Thus eating is more than just getting amino acids to build cells or calories to provide energy.  It is a function of communion with the created world around us, and ultimately with the Creator Himself.

It is interesting that the Christian scriptures (and indeed the aeon, or the present age) both begin and end with the act of eating.  In the opening of the book of Genesis, God created the world, set Man in it and planted him a garden.  The Lord told Adam he could eat of the fruit of any of the trees, save one: The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But Adam and Eve disobeyed God.  It was their act of eating the forbidden fruit, which is responsible for not only the fall of Mankind, but the brokenness of nature and our relationship to it. (Gen. chp. 2, 3)  This fall also explains why we have the issues that we do with the created world.   The root of the dysfunction in the world began with the simple act of eating.  Or rather in failing to fast from eating!

Fr. John Meyendorff writes about the implications of the fall, in the context of the exorcisms at the blessing of water:

The “demonic” in nature comes from the fact that creation fell out of its original meaning and direction.  God had entrusted control over the world to man—His own “image and likeness.”  But man chose to be controlled by the world and, thereby, lost his freedom.  He then became subject to cosmic determinism, to which his “passions” attach him and in which ultimate power belongs to death…  Instead of using the potentialities of his nature to raise himself and the whole of creation to God, man submitted himself to the desires of his material senses.  As a result, the world which was originally created by God as “very good” became for man a prison and a constant temptation, through which the “prince of this world” establishes his reign of death.[12]

There are many lessons herein.  First, the disorder of Man’s relation to nature is of demonic origin.  Second, it came about by Man’s abuse over what God had given him to control and to offer back to God as a priestly function.  Thirdly, creation, including man, is now ruled by death.  Man is imprisoned by what he was intended to rule.

But the Scriptures, as well as the present age, also end with a meal: The marriage supper of the Lamb. (Rev. 19:7-10).  This feast occurs at the culmination of time, when Christ, the Lamb of God is united to His bride, the Church.  This eschatological celebration can be seen as the prototype for all human meals: the meal as a unifying “communion.”

Christians are graced to participate in this festal meal in the “here and now,” when we gather to celebrate yet another meal: The Christian Eucharist.  This Eucharist is at the very heart of Christian worship.  Again, this is seen as more than mere physical sustenance, although it is that, and significantly that.   The eternal almighty God became matter in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, (thus becoming an “eater of food”).  In doing so, He has undone the damage to the material world (suffering it Himself), brought about by Adam’s disordered eating in the Garden.  Christ defeated death, and raising His material body to a place at the right hand of God the Father.  We are called to participate in this reordering—once again through the act of eating.  It is in this action, and what is implied by its name, that the damage done by Mankind’s selfish eating is undone.  (Rather, it is undone by Christ’s saving works; we participate it in through our eating of His body and blood, which He gives to us in the bread and wine.)  It is through this communion with Him, this reception of food as mysterion (or “sacrament”), that we begin to recognize the created world as sacrament.  We are not “pantheists;” we know that creation is “other” than the creator.  Yet in a “panentheistic”[13] way, we see creation as a reflection of the creator.  With thanksgiving we can partake of the fruits of the earth that He has created and undergirds.   As Fr. Alexander Schmemann has said,

“All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, and to make man’s life communion with God.  It is divine love made food, made life for man.  God blesses everything that He creates, and, in biblical language, this means that He makes all creation the sign and means of His presence and wisdom, love and revelation: “O taste and see that the Lord is good!”[14]

 If we take a Eucharistic approach to the created world, it will have a major impact on, not only how we live, but in the health of the world around us.  If Man once more assumes the role of steward and priest in place of his accustomed role of consumer, we will begin to rectify the many food crises that we have created.  We are connected to this world.  A healthy earth, means that we are healthy.  A healthy humanity implies a healthy world.  Of course the inverse is true as well.

Industrial farming is an example of a fallen and unhealthy approach to nature.  The earth and its plants and animals are looked upon as a commodity, with an eye towards how much “value” can be gained from it.  Of course in this manner of thinking, value is gauged only in dollars and cents.  Agribusiness disregards the reality that things have value, all things, because they are created and blessed by God.  Cheap food has a cost.  What is the cost to our health?  The health of the planet?  To future generations? 

This attitude is evidenced in the various practices and methods used in “factory farming.”  A particularly grievous example is “concentrated animal feeding operations,” commonly known as CAFOs.  This industrial farming technique is exactly what the name implies; a bunch of animals confined to as small a space as possible for efficiency sake.  These cows (CAFOs are also used for chicken, turkey and pigs) stand ankle deep in their own manure, and are fed a diet of grain, which is not natural to their diet.  Because of the close quarters and filthy conditions, they are regularly dosed with antibiotics (along with the steroids and Bovine Growth Hormone for muscle growth.)

Laying aside the question of whether it is ethical to eat meat, is this really treating the animal, “according to its nature?”  Chickens were not meant to be  “egg-laying machine,” nor the cow a “milk machine”.  Left to themselves, cows are grass eaters.  As ruminants[15], their digestive system is set up for it, and farming should take into this into account, allowing them to take the bulk of their food from pasture.  The same applies to chickens, who should be running in the grass snatching insects, not sitting in cages on top of each other, with their beaks clipped so they don’t peck each other to death.  This principal also applies to crops.  Nowhere in nature is there a monoculture, with the same crop stretching on all sides to the horizon.  Yet this is how industrial agriculture attempts to grow their produce; acres and acres of the same species.  Without symbiotic relationships with other species, the crop is susceptible to disease and pests.   Also with year after year of the same crop being grown, and the fact that much of the year the ground sits bare, without the cycle of decaying plants to replenish it, the soil loses its fertility.   Thus an industrial farm by necessity uses copious amounts of  pesticides, herbicides (to keep out all but the singular species), and oil based fertilizers. 

But fortunately there are methods of farming that take into account the nature of the animal (non-coincidently in line with traditional agriculture), as well as having a respect for nature in general; the world as God created it. Joel Salatin’s “Polyface Farm” in the Shenandoah Valley of Virgina is one very good example.   Polyface is operated on several core principles:(http://www.polyfacefarms.com/principles.aspx)

TRANSPARENCY: Anyone is welcome to visit the farm anytime.  No trade secrets, no locked doors, every corner is camera-accessible.

GRASS-BASED: Pastured livestock and poultry, moved frequently to new “salad bars,” offer landscape healing and nutritional superiority.

INDIVIDUALITY: Plants and animals should be provided a habitat that allows them to express their physiological distinctiveness.  Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health.

COMMUNITY: We do not ship food.  We should all seek food closer to home, in our foodshed, our own bioregion.  This means enjoying seasonality and reacquainting ourselves with our home kitchens

NATURE’S TEMPLATE: Mimicking natural patterns on a commercial domestic scale insures moral and ethical boundaries to human cleverness.  Cows are herbivores, not omnivores; that is why we’ve never fed them dead cows like the United States Department of Agriculture encouraged (the alleged cause of mad cows).

EARTHWORMS: We’re really in the earthworm enhancement business.  Stimulating soil biota is our first priority.  Soil health creates healthy food.   

There is a lucrative bonus to Polyface’s natural approach: profit.  People drive there from all over Virginia and Maryland to get their meat or eggs.  It is not only responsible farming; by all accounts their meat tastes so much better.  And that stands to reason; as we live according to nature things are better.  Not only for the environment, and health, but also for our taste buds!

We can’t all be farmers. Farms like Polyface are not yet commonplace.  So what can we do in the interim?  Salatin challenges folks to “opt-out” of the destructive industrial food system.  What are the hallmarks of industrial food?  According to him we should avoid centralized production and processing, mono-speciation, genetic manipulation, CAFOs, things that end in “cide” (Latin for death), “ready to eat” processed food,  long distance transportation, pharmaceuticals, high fructose corn syrup, etc.  

Salatin suggests four essential ways that anyone can begin to “opt-out.[16]”  Contrary to Voltaire, the “good” is not “the enemy of the perfect.”  None of us can attain perfection in how we live in this regard, yet every little bit that we do, can only benefit the health of the planet and our own families.

First, he says that we need to cook again. According to Michael Pollan, 19% of the food consumed in America, is consumed in our cars.[17]  We probably don’t need research to show us that majority of the food that is eaten at home, “ready made,” and popped into the microwave to warm up.  We are on the verge of losing our whole heritage of eating.  But its presently still there awaiting us to rediscover it, but it means we have to slow down and eat the majority of our meal at home.  As it turns out, this too is good for our families.[18]

Secondly, we need to buy local.  An organic tomato isn’t good for the environment if its shipped all the way from California using fossil fuels, and putting carbon into the air.  Buying local has many benefits:  Less transportation, more money for the local economy, and farmers who are more accountable to the local community.  Certainly there are some foods that we can argue need to be shipped.  One cannot get pineapples here in New York State, so pineapples need come from Hawaii.  But there isn’t any good reason why our tomatoes or apples need to come from somewhere other than locally.

Third, Salatin says we need to re-learn how to, “eat in season.”  We’ve grown accustomed to walking into the produce department of the local grocery store, and buying what we want when we want it.  However, this disconnects ourselves from the ebb and flow inherent in our natural world.  If we want tomatoes in February, it is of great benefit if they came from our own shelves; canning and freezing the tomatos when they were in harvest.  It means to eat like our great grandparents again, and again it is of great benefit.

Finally, Salatin suggests that we should all take some responsibility for growing at least some of our own food.  Up until about 40 years ago, a good percentage of city dwellers had their own chickens, and thus their own eggs.  Certainly this lifestyle can be recovered.  How about a couple pots on the patio for tomatoes?  Or a 5’x5’ part of the lawn dedicated to squash and pumpkins?  The benefit is that at least that part of our food healthy, and obtained by non-destructive means. Additionally we will re-connect to the natural world, and get a healthier attitude towards food production.

We needn’t be victims or antagonists in the Global food crisis..  God has created us and given the world around us for food.  Obesity and world hunger can be solved, but only by restoring a natural relationship with the created world.  We must remember that by eating we commune with the natural world, and ultimately with God.  Food is not just an incidental characteristic of our lives, but how we partake of life itself.

 

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[1] Wendell Berry. “The Pleasures of Eating” in What are People For?, (New York: North Point Press, 1990) http://www.ecoliteracy.org/publications/rsl/wendell-berry.html

[2] C.-E. A. Winslow, “The Untilled Fields of Public Health,” Science, n.s. 51 (1920), p. 23

[3] Michael Pollan. Omnivore’s Delimma, (New York: Penquin Books, 2006), 2

[4] K.M. Venkat Naryan, et al. ,“Lifetime Risk for Diabetes Mellitus in the United States,“ Journal of the American Medical Association 290 (2003), 1884-90

[5] David Satcher. “The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity,” (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Heath and Human Service, 2001)

[6] Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, “http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20568/icode/,”  19^th June 2008

[7] One place all the food that is being produced is going, is into our nations cars.  10% of what goes into the tank is Corn ethanol.

[8] http://www.newsweek.com/id/225529

[9] Richard Manning, “The Oil We Eat,” Harper’s Magazine, February 2004, www.harpers.org/theoilweeat.html

[10] Berry, “The Pleasures of Eating”

[11] The anaphora of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

[12] Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends & Doctrinal Themes, (New York: Fordham University Press, 1979), 135

[13] Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) “all”; ἐν (en) “in”; and θεός (theós) “God”; “all-in-God”) posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well.  Orthodox Chrisitans follow St. Gregory Palamas in seeing that God’s energies (as apart from His essence) undergird the whole creation.  Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe, but it is also a term insufficient in encapsuling Orthodox thought on God in creation.

[14] For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 14

[15] “Physiologically, a ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal’s first stomach, known as the rumen, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. The process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called “ruminating”. Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, bison, yaks, water buffalo, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas, wildebeest, antelope, pronghorn, and nilgai” (Wikipedia)

[16] “Declare Your Independence” Food Inc.: How Industrial Food is Making us Sicker, Fatter and Poorer—And What We Can Do About It, (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), 191-196

[17] Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, (New York: Penquin Books, 2006), 110

[18] “The frequency with which a teen eats family meals appears to be associated with a variety of psychosocial and behavioral variables, including cigarette smoking, alcohol and marijuana use, grades in school, depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. We found family mealtime to be a protective factor in the lives of adolescents for nearly all of these variables, particularly among girls. Specifically, kids who reported eating more family meals per week reported significantly less substance use and significantly better academic and mental health than those eating fewer meals with family. These associations were apparent across the spectrum of meal frequency each additional meal per week conferred some additional benefit.”  Neumark-Sztainer D, Story M, Ackard D, Moe J, Perry C. The “family meal”: Views of adolescents. Journal of Nutrition Education. 2000;32:329-334.

 

The question is asked, in Mark 8: 27-33, why did Jesus tell His disciples to not tell anyone, that He was the Christ?  The answer to that is that the disciples only understood partially and incompletely.  Thus, how could they proclaim that which they really did not get themselves?  Jesus had to suffer the cross before His messiahship could be understood by the Apostles.  Jesus’ messiahship could not be understood apart from the cross.  A “crucified messiah” was not how the disciples as Jews, understood the “coming one” to be.  Their eyes had to be opened.

What did the Jews expect from the Annointed King.   They expected a great political leader as the prophet Jerimah seems to suggest (Jer 23:5).  They were excited that Jesus, as Messiah, would throw off the rule of the tyrannical Roman regime, and usher in a period of peace and prosperity and autonomy for the Jewish people.  Yet Jesus gives validity to Roman authority, and tells the people to pay their taxes: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s …” (12:17)  The observance of Judaic Law would be of primary importance (Is. 11:1-5), yet Jesus didn’t appeal to Torah in his teaching, he spoke with His own authority.  (11:27)  That Jesus and the disciples were speaking in two different languages, undergirds this whole passage. 

The narration of this particular encounter in Mark 8 is basically this:  Jesus and his disciples were on the road to Caesarea and while enroute, he asks the disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”  They gave him some examples.  “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”  Then Jesus strictly warns them, that they should tell no one.  It is then that Jesus began to tell them that “the Son of Man must suffer many things,” and be killed, but rise again after three days.    Peter than rebukes him, but receives a stern rebuke from the Lord in turn.  Jesus says, “Get thou behind me Satan!  For you are not mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men.”

In the Gospel of Mark, this encounter in chapter 8 is led up to by many miracles.  The disciples had been privy to all these miraculous events;  casting out of unclean spirits, healing lepers, paralytics, healing the woman with the flow of blood, raising the dead daughter of Jairus (with a corresponding command, “that no one should know it”), the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus’ walking on water, and many more.  Yet the disciples remained clueless to the significance of this person in front of them.  Here they had spent all this time with Him, witnessed the events that He did, but didn’t get it?  Jesus, after attempting to explain things to them, seems exasperated when He asks, “Are you then without understanding?” (7:18)

In the beginning of chapter eight, Jesus performs another miraculous feeding, this time of “only” 4000.  After their foolish dialogue in their attempt to understand, again Christ asks, “Do ye not yet perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear, and do you not remember?  Do you not understand?  (Mark 8:17-21).  There is a real disconnect, between what the disciples have experienced with Jesus, and what they have perceived with their hearts.   And this is after the Lord had told them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God.” (4:11)

What is the issue here?  Why couldn’t these guys, who were privy to such mind blowing experiences and revelations, “perceive and understand?”     The gospel writer comes right out and says it:  “For they had not understood … because their heart was hardened.”    (6:52)  They were still living within their faulty paradigm.  Jesus was not living up to their expectations.  But things were changing.   

 In the narrative up to Mark 8, the underlying theme is that the recurring question, “Just who is this guy?”  Who is it that can perform such deeds, and that evil spirits as well as the wind and waves obey?  As shown, even the disciples were to almost the same degree clueless as to whom this man was.  But now we begin to see signs of life; that there is some capacity for understanding that just hasn’t been tapped into yet.

This passage is key in understanding Mark’s Gospel, and acts as sort of a “hinge” upon which the narrative turns.  Up to this event, the story seems to be about Jesus’ miracles and wonderworking. After this event the story turns to Christ’s journey to Jerusalem and His passion, and His teaching that His followers must also be like Him in bearing their own crosses.

But first, Jesus sets this up by performing another miracle; the healing of a blind man.  (8:22-26) But this healing is different in several ways from most of his other healings, as recorded in all the Gospel accounts.  Indeed it is different from the healing of a blind man to come on the other side of the “hinge.”   In this account, Jesus actually seems to struggle to heal him; that is the healing is not effected immediately.  He spit on his eyes, and put his hands on him.  When He asks him if he sees anything, the man replies “I see men like trees, walking.”  His healing was incomplete.  In every other healing of the blind by Christ recorded in the New Testament, the healing was instantaneous. (Mark 7:37, 10:46, Matt 20:29, John 9 etc.)  But those men had sought out Jesus and worshipped Him. This man was “brought to Christ.”  He seems to have been blind to who Christ was; blind spiritually as well as physically.  But Jesus does not leave him there, incomplete in his sight.  Having awakened the senses, both physical and spiritual, He completes His revelation by reaching out with His hand and touching his eyes.  The man’s sight was restored and saw everyone clearly.

This progressive healing sets the stage for our selected passage.  Jesus asks His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”  (a dialogue also recorded by Matthew in his gospel (Matt 16:13-30)).  They repeat back to Him, the scuttlebutt: some think he is John the Baptist resurrected (the idea offered by King Herod), Elijah the prophet or “one of the other prophets.”  Jesus’ miracles had attracted much attention, and evidently was the subject of conversation from King Herod to the religious leaders and common people. 

“But who do you say that I am?”

Peter, speaking for all the disciples, has just witnessed the feeding of the four thousand, and the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida.  Evidently he (they) had received some healing of his own sight, as he says prophetically and accurately, what the reader of this Gospel has known since Chapter 1, verse 1: “You are the Christ.”  A new paradigm is beginning to emerge for Peter and the others.  But, while he is seeing with clarity, Jesus all too well knows that his healing is not complete; his sight is not fully restored.  Thus, the immediate admonition that was the same as given the recently healed blind man: He says that “they should tell no one about Him.” (v. 30)

Jesus, striking while the iron is hot, takes full advantage of this teaching moment.  He begins to teach them that “the Son of Man must suffer many things …” Among the things He is to suffer is rejection by the religious authorities, after which He will be killed and rise again after three days.  But still, Peter betrays that his spiritual sight is not completely healed, for he then rebukes the Lord.  Peter and the others still had a misunderstanding of Jesus messiahship.  The idea that the messiah was “the Son of Man who must suffer many things” was scandalous, and not what Peter wanted to hear.

But it is he who receives a rebuke, Jesus calling him “Satan.”  “Get thee behind me!”  The Lord clearly pointing out that despite Peter’s earlier bold, profound statement, he is still missing the boat.  “You are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”   You can almost hear Christ say to the disciples and the others whom He had healed, “How can I have you running around proclaiming the Kingdom, when you don’t even know what you are talking about?”

From this point on, Mark show a new phase in Christ’s ministry and focus.  He is clear; to be a disciple of Jesus one must “take up the cross and follow.” (8:34)  Sharon Dowd says, “The evangelist places the first passion prediction unit immediately after Peter’s confession of Jesus as “the Messiah” and Jesus’ command to silence in order to show that before Jesus can be proclaimed the Messiah, the component of suffering must be integrated into the messianic role.”[1]

“Christ, and Him crucified,” is the very heart of the Gospel message.  Just as you cannot miss it in St. Paul’s epistles, so it is true in the Gospel of St. Mark.  The Cross illuminates every event in the gospel.  It is precisely this scandal that is the crux itself.  The Cross either illumines our understanding or is the very cause of our blindness.  Mark’s audience knew this.  But Mark would say to them, you are capable of missing it, just as the disciples were.  Even the demons could identify the Jesus was the Messiah.  Yet the only way to proclaim it, is not with words, but in embracing our own cross in imitation of Him.  “Don’t tell a soul.  Proclaim it with your own cross.”

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Dowd, Sharyn. Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Second Gospel. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2000

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999

Oden, Thomas and Hall, Christopher, editors. Ancient Christian Commentary Vol. II: Mark.  Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1998

Tarazi, Paul Nadim. The New Testament: An Introduction; Vol.1 Paul and Mark.  Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999

 

 

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[1] Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Second Gospel (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2000) 86

 

 Plato once said, “To know God is hard, to describe him impossible;”[1]  to which the Christian Church Father “St. Gregory the Theologian” responded centuries later, “To tell of God is not possible … but to know him is even less possible.”(Or. 28.4)  He goes on to say that language can impart some knowledge to those who would hear, but “to mentally grasp so great a matter is utterly beyond real possibility,” at least for those of us cloaked as we are in flesh.  So what is the point of all the words written on the topic? 

Gregory addresses the subject of “theology,” in a series of orations that he delivered (most likely) in the summer of 380 while he was Patriarch of Constantinople.  These are known as the “Five Theological Orations”[2] and are probably his best known writings.  They deal with the nature and content of “theology.”   They are basically a summary of classical Greek patristic thought, and address the requirements for speaking in a meaningful way about the divine reality, derived from the Scriptures.  According to Brian Daley[3], these writings remain early Christianity’s “classic and most comprehensive expression of the late fourth century’s new consciousness of God, as three ‘hypostases,’ three irreducibly and inseparably  related poles of being, who form together—precisely in their relatedness—the single, ineffable, ontologically foundational ‘substance’ Christians adore as ultimate and immediate reality.”

These theological treatises were written in large part to combat the heresies of the Arian descendants, the Eunomians.  The Eunomians were a 4^th century sect of Arians who expressed the view that Jesus was of a different nature and in no way like God the Father.[4]  Gregory and the other Cappadocians spilled a lot of ink combating these heresies.  Gregory’s first two theological orations, give guidance towards proper theologizing, that will both lead us towards truth, and keep us safe from falling into dangerous heresy.

Gregory’s first Theological Oration, is an attempt to “protect” theology and put limits and restrictions on it.  Gregory begins this oration (Oration 27) with an attack on those who attempt to “theologize” inappropriately.   He quotes scripture against their “pride,” “itchy ears,” their delight in “profane and vain babblings” and their “contradictions of knowledge falsely so-called.”  He criticizes their “versatile tongues” and “resourcefulness in attacking doctrines nobler and worthier than their own.” (Or 27.1)    He is not only characterizing “the insatiable desire for theological debate,”  but setting the stage for what he sees as true theologizing.  But he’s not quite through railing against his antagonists.

Gregory in a somewhat humorous passage compares his opponents to wrestling promoters.  “They are like the promoters of wrestling bouts in the theatres, and not even the sort of bouts that are conducted in accordance with the rules of the sport and lead to the victory of one of the antagonists, but the sort which are stage managed to give the uncritical spectators visual sensations and compel their applause.” (Or 27.2) Gregory could have been talking about the WWF!  He is somewhat harsh, but his tone is about to turn a little more gentle.

Gregory then attempts to be pastoral.   He says that he is “moved with fatherly compassion.”   (Or. 27.2) He tells them that they should not be surprised to if what he says is “contrary to your expectations and contrary to your ways.”  But he cannot help but throw some shots at the same time, saying that they have “… an attitude which is too naïve and pretentious: I would not offend you by saying stupid and arrogant.”  Yes, good thing he didn’t say that, he might have offended them!

Gregory is certainly not afraid of offending and in the 3^rd section of this oration, he makes some exclusive remarks that would definitely offend people today.  According to Gregory, “Discussion of theology is not for everyone.”  This is quite offensive to our modern culture that doesn’t like to think that anything is off limits to anybody.  But Gregory states,

“Nor … is it for every occasion, or every audience; neither are all its aspects open to inquiry.  It must be reserved for certain occasions, for certain audiences, and certain limits must be observed.  It is not for all people, but only for those who have been tested and have found a sound footing in study, and, more importantly, have undergone, or at the very least are undergoing, purification of body and soul.  For one who is not pure to lay hold of pure things is dangerous, just as it is for weak eyes to look on the sun’s brightness.” (Or. 27.3)

 To Gregory, theology is serious business; nothing to be messed around with.    Only those who have been “tested” and have “found a sound footing in study” should theologize.  Because it is dangerous, it is most important that they are being purified in “body and soul.”  He goes on to qualify who should theologize and when it should take place. 

So, when is the right time to theologize?  When we are free from the mire and noise “outside,”  and our nous is not confused by “illusory, wandering images” that would lead us to mix the fine with the ugly and the “sweet” with the “slime.”  Gregory says that what is important is that we need to “be still,” for its as the Psalmist says, “Be still and know God.”  (Ps. 45:11) We should not be discussing theology in the marketplace, or with the television on, as just one more diversion.  We need to be still so God can illumine us from within to that we may understand His truths.  Then we can “judge uprightly.” (Or. 27.3)

Gregory then asks, “Who should listen to theology?”    He answers, “Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small talk, after the races, the theatre, songs, food and sex.”    Again, he was disheartened by those who counted theology as just one more thing among their many amusements.

Finally he addresses what aspects of theology should be explored and what areas should be restricted:  “Only objects in our grasp, and only to the limit of the experience and capacity of our audience.”  Food is good, but if you eat too much it will injure you.  Some loads are too heavy to carry.  What is needed but too much of it floods the earth.  “We too must guard against the danger … of our discourse may so oppress and overtax our hearers as actually to impair the powers they had before.” (Or. 27.3)  It seems Gregory sees our ability to comprehend on a spectrum; Christian leaders should consider their own ability to comprehend, based upon their “experience and capacity,” but also their audience.

In the fourth section, he strives to make it clear, that he is not talking about being mindful of God.  We should all be mindful of Him at all times, from most learned pastor to smallest child.  “… It is not continual remembrance of God I seek to discourage, but continual discussion of theology.” (Or. 27.4)  And he is not against the discussion of theology, but only when its “untimely” or goes on to excess.    Laughter is unseemly at a funeral as are tears at a drinking party.  We should be careful not to cast our pearls before swine.

Gregory goes on to discuss how even their arguments should be governed by rules of decorum, using wild horses as a metaphor as they “spit out the bit” and “run wide of the turning post.”  Rather, St. Gregory admonishes we should “conduct our debates within our frontiers and not be carried away to Egypt or dragged off to Assyria.  Let us not ‘sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land.’”  Basically, “Let even our contentiousness be governed by rules.” (Or. 27.5)  There are rules that govern the most base of human affairs, so it stands to reason that our highest speech, that having to do with God and our relationship to Him, should be conducted appropriately.

The rest of Oration 27 is more undercutting of the Eunomians authority to interpret the Scripture.  He asks how this discussion should be interpreted by one who “subscribes to a creed of adulteries and infanticides, who worships the passions, who is incapable of conceiving of anything higher than the body …” (Or. 27.6)  In the concluding chapters, he leads his opponents through a dialectic question and answer finally rebuking them with St. Paul’s reproach, “Are all apostles?  Are all prophets?”    He teases them about what he thinks they should be speculating about: the universe, matter, the soul, etc… in which he says, “… to hit the mark is not useless, to miss it is not dangerous.  But God Himself we should refrain from speculating on, as in this life we have so little knowledge to go on.

So the first oration addressed who should theologize, and when, where and what about.  Or as Gregory says in the first line of his Second Theological Oration, he “used theology to cleanse the theologian.”  He says that we are now prepared to go with him, up the mount to discuss the doctrine of God.  He says that if any follow him, they must be like Aaron, while those who are less purified must stand at a distance.  Gregory was certainly not a fan of egalitarianism nor embarrassed by hierarchy.

In chapter 3 of the second theological oration, Gregory articulates the experience of “entering the cloud of knowledge of God” like Moses.  “I penetrated the cloud, became enclosed on it, detached from matter and material things and concentrated, so far as might be, in myself.” (Or. 28.3) This is no philosophical pondering of truth that he is talking about here.  “I scarcely saw the averted figure of God, and this whilst sheltering in the rock, God the word incarnate for us.”  Gregory says that this is the only way you can speak of God; this “averted figure.”  For not only does God’s peace pass all understanding, so does exact knowledge of even His creation.  (Or 28.5) So what can we hope to accomplish through deduction?

Deductive logic plays little role in discerning the Divine.  “What can your conception of the Divine be if you rely on all the methods of deductive argument?  To what conclusion will closely-scrutinized argument bring you, you most rational of theologians, who boast over infinity? (Or. 28.7)  Once again, he stresses that knowledge of God is not a mental or intellectual activity.  God is more than just ideas set down on paper, and argued over.

But Gregory seems to be no fan of apophatic, or negative, theology either, the approach embraced by so many Orthodox theologians in the ages to come.  “A person who tells you what God is not but fails to tell you what he is, is rather like someone who, asked what twice five are, answers ‘not two, not three, not four, not five, not twenty, not thirty, no number, in short, under ten or over ten.   He is does not deny it is ten, but he is also not settling the questioner’s mind with a firm answer.  It is much simpler, much briefer, to indicate all that something is not by indicating what it is, than to reveal what it is by denying what it is not.”  It doesn’t seem like he is discounting the apophatic approach all together.  He is simply saying the negative approach is useless if you also don’t have something positive to say.

 

In this day where adherents in thousands of Christian sects, [5] fearlessly speculate about God, particularly the Logos Incarnate, the Man Jesus Christ, Gregory’s voice (and that of the other Church Fathers) is needed to help us find our way knowing God and finding our union with Him.  Gregory shows us how to theologize and warns us from the dangers of going into it without undergoing preparation and purification.  There is an Evil One who in the past has “caught at their unguided longing to search for God, meaning to divert power to himself and cheat that desire of theirs—it was like taking a blind man’s hand when he is eager to find the road.  He pushed them headlong down a variety of cliffs.” (Or. 28.15)  St. Gregory would have us follow reason in our pursuit of God, refusing “to travel without guide or helmsman.”

 

 

 

 

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[1] Plato Timaeus, 28c.

[2] Or Orations 27-31 in his greater corpus.

[3] Brian E. Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (New York: Routledge, 2006), 17

[4] Disimilarists

[5] Or quite divorced from any other assembly of believers and therefore all on their own