Guest Blogger: Fr. John Parker

Today’s guest blogger is Fr John Parker. Fr. John is Pastor of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Mt Pleasant, South Carolina.

MIRACLES AND THE MUNDANE LIFE

Could you name a miracle greater than raising the dead? In the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, those first Christian monks of the Egyptian desert (including the well-known St Anthony the Great), seeing reality as it really is in God is a greater miracle than raising the dead. In clearer terms: to know myself and my sin honestly, humbly, repentantly while at the same time knowing God to be as he is: merciful, compassionate, long-suffering, full of love and kindness. To know—that is, to live and experience—these two ‘things’ without compromise, without short-changing one or the other, is greater than raising the dead.

But be honest with me: seeing someone raised from the dead is far more appealing, don’t you think? Or speaking in tongues? Or some sort of large-scale religious moment? I can’t imagine we are any different from any other age—we want an ‘authentic experience’. We want something grand, the limelight. We don’t want to dabble in the mundane. We want to be significant, and to take part in significance. We want our name somewhere. We want to remember and to be remembered.

But the Christian life, as it has been handed down through the centuries demands that we flee from all of that. It demands humility, simplicity, repentance, focus. It demands mercy, long-suffering, endurance. It demands the difficult road, the narrow way, the backstage, selflessness, struggle.

For this reason the desert monks could claim what they claimed about a miracle greater than raising the dead. Because it is truly a miracle not only to know God as he truly is, but to be willing to look at oneself—warts and all—and see a person loved by God and at the same time called to be Holy—a Saint.

One of the few quotes that I can almost always totally recall is a word by the late Fr Alexander Schmemann, of blessed memory, who was once asked, “What is life?” or “What is life in the Holy Spirit?” His answer is mind boggling in the face of the experience-seekers of Holy-Ghost power. “What is life in the Holy Spirit?” he was asked?

His answer, “To transform the smallest, seemingly most insignificant detail of the routine drudgery of everyday existence in this fallen world, into paradise.”

Read that again. And then one more time.

Yes, yes, yes, the “Gifts” are in the Bible. But St Paul himself, writing to the Corinthians, says that the Christian life is not to speak in tongues (especially as some hallmark of one’s Christianity). It is not to prophesy or to heal. It is not to teach or dream dreams or interpret them.

Rather, it is to live the basic life that I have been given, as a saint. It is to deal with the cards I have been dealt in the holiest possible way. It is to treat every moment, every step, every breath as a moment of salvation, pleasing God in and by each of them.

It is to be concerned not simply with a 40 minute speech as a public figure, or an 8 hour surgery as a surgeon or a one hour argument as a lawyer, or an evening worth of tables for a waitress.

Rather, it is to sanctify every letter of the speech and every moment of preparation for it. It is to have studied the medical procedures with professional diligence and to pray “Lord, have mercy” on every hook of the needle and loop of the sutures in the surgery. It is to be concerned with the truth and eternal consequences of every piece of evidence in the court, and even to thank God for the lemon wedge in the tea of the customer at the restaurant. It is to act as a saint not simply when everyone is watching, but especially when no one is. It is to guard one’s tongue in private as much as in public, since we are accountable, according to the Scriptures, for every word we utter—not just the blessings in public, but the cursing in the break room.

It is to take care for even the letter “i”.

Did you know that at the First Ecumenical Council in 325AD, the font of the first 2/3 or so of the Nicene Creed, there was debate, GREAT debate over the letter ‘i’? Because even one ‘jot’, one ‘iota’ matters to God. Look it up sometime—here’s the hint “homoiousios”. It is a heresy. (http://orthodoxwiki.org/Homoousios)

One evening, I was flipping through TV stations. We only got a few without cable. A handful of the major networks—ABC, CBC, NBC, FOX, and several Spanish-language channels plus TBN, the “Trinity Broadcasting Network”, which I highly do not recommend. But I was transfixed by a foreign-looking man in a strange hat. It turned out to be an interview (how, it came to be, I’d love to know) with Pope Shenouda, the head of the Coptic (Egyptian) Orthodox Church. The host of the show and his wife were doing everything they could to pigeon-hole Pope Shenouda into their myopic and misguided charismatic worldview. “Surely, if you believe in MY Jesus, then you believe in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit…” the host said in his inimitable way.

Pope Shenouda’s response I will never, ever forget. Patiently, quietly, calmly, without distraction and without appearing incensed in any way, he said the following, in his rich, deep, and thick Egyptian accent:

“It is written in Galatians (he said, “wrrrriten”—with a trilled ‘r’ and “Ga-lah-tea-ens”!) 5 the fruit of the Spirit: ‘Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control.’ It is better,” he continued, “to seek the fruit of the Holy Spirit rather than the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Because the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they can lead to pride and selfishness. But the fruit of the Spirit will lead to holiness.”

This, I think, is another way of saying what the Desert Fathers say, and what Fr Schmemann suggested: run from miracles, dreams, tongues, the flashy, “authentic experience” kind of Christianity which circulates about, and ask God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, simply, “abide in me”. If God has miracles for us to perform in the grand sense, he will either get our attention, or find another way if we are not cooperative. But the greater miracle would be for us to listen to the still small voice which says, “Be ye therefore perfect, merciful, holy” as is your Heavenly Father.

And so, perhaps the ancient prayer to the Holy Spirit, revived for Pentecost and the season which ensues, might guide and help us:

O Heavenly King,
The Comforter,
The Spirit of Truth,
Who art everywhere present and filling all things,
Treasury of Blessings and
Giver of life:
Come and abide in us,
Cleanse us from every impurity, and
Save our souls, O Good One. Amen.