10.21.18

Some of you are familiar with the priesthood of all believers, an interpretation of the letter Hebrews as saying we all have direct access to God through Christ and priests are no longer needed as intercessors. Christ’s sacrifice was the final sacrifice for all. The Temple is now obsolete, as Christ’s body is now the temple. And so Isaiah is fulfilled, since “When you make his life an offering for sin, through him the will of the LORD shall prosper.”

Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote that, the ‘original’ sin is not primarily that humankind has ‘disobeyed’ God; the sin is that we ceased to be hungry for God and for God alone, ceased to see our whole life depending on the whole world as a sacrament of communion with God. The only real fall is a noneucharistic life in a noneucharistic world.

The cup Jesus drank and the baptism of the cross was a shocking and confusing way to bring us to a Eucharistic life. A life where we understand everything is of God and in God and it is our privilege to offer everything back to God; a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for the whole of creation.

This reminds me of a story about some student who were worried that their Rabbi had not been seen all day, so finally they went to his room and found him sitting up in bed. The Rabbi told them: "This morning, as every morning, I awoke and immediately said the prayer upon arising: I thank You, living and eternal King, Who has returned my soul into me with compassion – great is Your faithfulness! And then I stopped as the words hit me. I thank God? I…thank…God? Students, do you realize what a privilege this is, to commune with the Almighty? I realized the power of this statement! And I have been sitting here pondering the greatness of this ever since!"

Speaking of greatness, let’s see if we can find wonder in Jesus’ words, the way the Rabbi found wonder in his daily prayer. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” We’re so used to these words, that, like the cross, we can’t understand how truly mid blowing such a statement was. Let’s for a moment, try to forget any interpretations of this you’ve heard in the past. Forget any ways these words have been used to keep people in their place.  Forget the imperialism of helping, the ways in which we help people by assuming what they need rather than finding out what they want.

Let us ponder this like a Koan, a Buddhist form of trying to free your mind. “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” is perhaps the most famous. To be great you must be a servant, to be first you must be a slave.  Now a Koan is to be meditated on over time, not to be answered right away, so do please ponder this contradictory puzzle, and see what you find.

The part that isn’t a Koan, though, what Jesus is very clear about, is that we are not to Lord over others or be tyrants. This brings us once again to my dear Saint Ignatius’ Two Standards. Contemplate a battlefield with Satan in one camp and Jesus in another. On Satan’s flag (standard meaning flag in this exercise) are the temptations of Wealth, Prestige and Pride. On Crist’s flag are the defenses against those temptations, Poverty, Contempt for Prestige and Humility. I think the point though, is not to embrace Poverty, Contempt for Prestige and Humility for their own merits, but rather to balance things out. When god created the world, God said it was good. It is we who divided it into good and bad, and so created imbalance.

What if, by perfect, the author of Hebrews meant balanced? What if balanced means waking up stunned by the wonder of a relationship to God? Open to the sacred world God has given us. Might we be ready to live Eucharistic lives in a Eucharistic world? All things come from you O lord, and of your own have we given.