Friday, December 28, 2012

Chapter 1: The Life of the World

Fr.Alexander standing on the walkway between the bookstore and the New Facility building at St.Vladimir's Seminary.


This book was first written as a study guide and was never meant to be a systematic theological treatise of the Orthodox liturgical tradition. However, after reaching a wide audience the demand could not be ignored and it was eventually published by St. Vladimir’s Press. 

The first chapter is entitled “The Life of the World”. The analogy Fr. Alexander gives as his thesis for the chapter is based on a quote that was echoed by the German philosopher Feuerbach “Man is what he eats”. The major focus point is on the creation account of Adam and Eve. 

What Fr. Alexander is saying here is that everything in creation is meant to be good. Everything given to us by God is for good. Unfortunately, the corrupt nature of humanity has made things “bad”. But if we are to understand the concept of the goodness of creation then the food that was created and given to man to eat must not be understood as food being given for the satisfaction of the stomach but rather it is given as communion with God. Every action then is done is understood as a form of constant prayer, liturgy and communion with God. The food then we eat should not be understood from a material accept. It should be viewed from the point that all food and all that exists is God’s gift to His creation, and it is given to man in order that his creation knows God. We then must come to know God in order to make our complete life in communion with God. God has blessed everything in creation so when we look at creation and everything around us we should never criticize because criticism at creation is criticism directed towards the creator. If we then understand God’s creation as encompassing goodness then His creation is the foundation of all wisdom. In order however to see the goodness of creation I can tell you of this goodness however, me telling you is depends on you and tasting this goodness as Christ said “O taste and see that the Lord is good”. 

In order to understand and see the good in creation we must understand the role of humanity in this situation. What are we as God’s creation defined as? Father Alexander would say that by definition we are the priest. Now Fr. does not mean the physical priest that wears his vestments on Sunday and takes confessions. The priest in this situation is the one who stands in the center of the world and unifies the world in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world (creation and all that is good) from God and then offering it back to God. During the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom during the Anaphora prayers the priest recites a part that speaks of this dynamic. “Your own of your own we offer unto you on behalf of all and for all”. Notice how the priest does not say “I” but rather he speaks on behalf of everyone. This goes back to the priesthood of all and that the entire community gathered is offering the sacrifice that is placed on the holy of holies. In doing so then the entire community is offering back what God gave to them; the beauty of the entire creation. By filling the world with this Eucharist the community then transforms the dynamic of this life as they receive the beauty from the world, making it life in God which ultimately results into communion with God. 


Everything we do then in life becomes a unifying factor in God. From the food we eat, from going to school, from working, from watching a movie etc. Everything we do we offer to Christ because He created it and it is good to offer. The world then, as creation, was created as the place where humanity embraces the material which is encompassed by the Eucharist, and man was created as the priest of this cosmic sacrament. If we understand the priest as an offering we then can see how it is that the entire community offers the sacrifice to God because it is not meant to be understood as the priest making the sacrifice but the entire community because our entire life in centered on sacrifice. This point then goes back to the analogy Fr. Alexander made when he began this chapter on food.         

In order to understand the fall we must understand why the forbidden fruit was eaten. The fall is centered on food. Men ate from the forbidden fruit, the fruit of the tree, whatever else it may signify, and was unlike every other fruit in the Garden. It was not offered as a gift to man. It was not blessed by God, and not being blessed by God the fruit’s eating was condemned to be communion with itself alone, and not with God. The fall is then understood as the image of the worlds love for itself, and eating it is the image of life understood as an end in itself. Eating from the tree showed the selflessness of humanity. The beauty and the good of creation were sucked out because the eating of the fruit was not done in communion with God but rather for man own selfless gain. The world and creation is fallen because it was not perceived the notion that God is all in all. This was seen all the way back from the fall itself because sin entered into the world through the realization that God presence was not made aware to humanity. This disregard for God was the aim of the first sin of humanity that continues to blight the world. Religions of this fallen world cannot heal or redeem it, because humanity today has become accepting of the reduction of God to areas called spiritual, sacred and supernatural. The world has accepted secularism which attempts to steal the world away from God.
      
What is then the purpose of life? The purpose of life is then to embrace the world as the creation made for all good by God. Embracing the good we come to be in full communion with God because God is the essence of all good. Fr. Alexander stresses the point of the book again in this chapter when he says:

The purpose of this book is a humble one. It is to remind its readers that in Christ, life—life in all its totality—was returned to man, given again as sacrament and communion, made Eucharist. Page 20.

This is then the meaning of all life; to return back to God in his image and likeness (cf. Gen 1.26-28). We were created in communion with God to share in the one body of Christ. However, today reductionism has prevailed in western thought. Everything we do we reduce to a mere set of activates thinking we are satisfying the soul when really we are fooling ourselves in the shallowness we have created around. It is almost like Christians are living a life that if we try hard enough that somehow the crucifixion will somehow be reversed. It is almost like we preach that Christ was not meant to crucified. This is simply due to the fact that Christianity has forgotten itself, forgotten that always it must be first of all stand at the cross like the beloved disciple and Mother Mary did. Replacing the traditions and the beauty of the church will never work because it was never meant to be replaced. Matins, vespers, liturgy, prayer of the hours, and psalmody is all in part of the beauty of the church; heaven on earth. When we begin to build handicaps and replace vespers with prayer meetings and any form of modern worship then the beauty begins to be lost in the façade we construct thinking it is beautiful when really we have lost all beauty thinking that we need to restore it with modern form of worship. We must embrace all creation because it is good but we must also be discerning of any modern form of worship creeping into the church because just like Adam and Eve eat from the tree of the forbidden fruit because it was not blessed we might do the same by incorporating aspects in living out our theology if it is not blessed by God.

The following are a few quotations from the first chapter:  
      
In the Bible the food that man eats, the world of which he must partake in order to live, is given to him by God, and it is given as communion with God. The world as man’s food is not something "material” and limited to material functions, thus different from, and opposed to, the specifically "spiritual” functions by which man is related to God. All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God. It is divine love made food, made life for man. God blesses everything 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.” Page 14 

The first, the basic definition of man is that he is the priest. He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God—and by filling the world with this Eucharist, he transforms his life, the one that he receives from the world, into life in God, into communion with Him. The world was created as the "matter,” the material of one all-embracing Eucharist, and man was created as the priest of this cosmic sacrament. Page 15

It is not accidental, therefore, that the biblical story of the Fall is centered again on food. Man ate the forbidden fruit. The fruit of that one tree, whatever else it may signify, was unlike every other fruit in the Garden: it was not offered as a gift to man. Not given, not blessed by God, it was food whose eating was condemned to be communion with itself alone, and not with God. It is the image of the world loved for itself, and eating it is the image of life understood as an end in itself. Page 16.

The world is a fallen world because it has fallen away from the awareness that God is all in all. The accumulation of this disregard for God is the original sin that blights the world. And even the religion of this fallen world cannot heal or redeem it, for it has accepted the reduction of God to an area called "sacred” ("spiritual,” "supernatural” )—as opposed to the world as "profane.” It has accepted the all embracing secularism which attempts to steal the world away from God. Page 16.

The purpose of this book is a humble one. It is to remind its readers that in Christ, life—life in all its totality—was returned to man, given again as sacrament and communion, made Eucharist. Page 20.

Christianity often appears, however, to preach that if men will try hard enough to live Christian lives, the crucifixion can somehow be reversed. This is because Christianity has forgotten itself, forgotten that always it must first of all stand at the cross. Page 23

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