As I have been posting on an appealing, engaging Gospel, and going into the subject of self-denial, there have been two other bloggers who have commented on these posts, but have ended up writing their own blog posts that deal with what I consider two other aspects of living the Christian life, and what it means to live out the Gospel.
One of them is Pithless Thoughts. He posts a picture and a brief comment on a post titled Asceticism I Can Live With:
The comment he makes with his picture is:
I buffet my body… (I Corinthians 9:27) Thank you St. Paul.
It is an obvious play of words on the idea of a buffet restaurant and buffeting our bodies. It is all too true that this is a wonderful metaphor for the American idea on what it means to engage in self-denial.
But, the other one comes from a blog named Sarx, and a blog post titled Americans Christians are Wusses. The post does a wonderfully sarcastic job in pointing out some of the many contradictions in our American Christianity. In part it says:
Increasingly, I think American Christians are weak and fearful.
In Communist countries the persecution is as bad as it ever was. In the Arab countries, where permission is needed to celebrate the Eucharist, Melkite, Orthodox, Baptist and Anglican communities fellowship freely because there is so much hatred that any priest will do – much to the scandal of Americans who want a “pure” church. Christians in Israel put up with Islamist suicide bombers on the one hand and Jewish people stealing their homes on the other, Jewish Soldiers and Islamists shoot at them. Muslims own the holy sites and adjacent land and Israelis can and do close them at will. And we worry about Christmas trees and manger scenes.
We’re distracted with what Wal*Mart employees get to say or do not say in the “holiday season”, yet we forget to feed the poor, visit the prisoner, to offer hospitality in God’s name. We’re terrified of a new mosque being built in out town or city, yet we put more import on rebuilding “touchdown Jesus” than we do on learning how to love like Jesus. We put more concern behind rebuilding a destroyed Church than evangelizing to fill our empty, but already existing Churches.
We confuse ethnic and political battles (both present, and in recent or ancient history – Byzantium, Russia, Turkey) with God’s promises that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. And while we daily relive our resentment about those secular battles, we forget to turn the tables ourselves, asking how, as Americans, we benefit from enslaved Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists in China and Indonesia and India . . . [You will have to go to his blog post to read the rest.]
In America, we do not truly understand the saint who throws away his/her right to a fair trial and even seeks out martyrdom in order to bear witness to a God who loves and has himself died to save us. In America we do not truly understand that we must pray for the “king” and honor him regardless of the fact that they may be the head of an Empire, and that we must pray for peace. [We have trouble honoring a legitimately elected President.] In America we have trouble understanding that regular fasting is what is expected of us in both Old and New Testaments, for that is putting us under the Law, and we have the freedom to be obese. In America we consider it a great sacrifice when we volunteer (or let ourselves be recruited) to be present at a church event outside of Sunday, let alone considering daily twice a day prayer as a minimum.
No, the idea of self-denial is not truly present in American Christianity. And the paragraph that I just finished is certainly not the presentation of an appealing, engaging Gospel.
===MORE TO COME===
And why is this, you ask?
Well, for the most part, except for people who are bound by obvious things that are destroying them, such as alcoholism or other addictions, the concept of salvation is, for more Americans, being forensic, is rather abstract and external, basically a matter of “fire insurance” for the hereafter. To the extent that it is in any way existential, there is a tendency for it to be seen in “name it and claim it” terms, even if that specific theology is rejected. Because of that, we turn our efforts at self-denial toward external domination of our environment (home, workplace, etc.) and acquisition in terms of upward economic mobility and away from becoming more healthy (except to the extent that such efforts make us more marketable) and Christ-like.
Another Orthodox priest-blogger writes of being recently confronted with an Evangelical street preacher type who wants to argue. Finally, in exasperation, the street preacher asks Father, “And what do you think salvation is?” “Union with Christ,” answers Father. This concept is apparently completely foreign to the street preacher.
It is easier to focus on taming the externals–ie the strictest fasting and self-denial of material things and etc. harder at least for me is to “deny” myself the “right” to gossip, the “right” to “protect” myself with righteous offensive anger, the “right” to Machievellian maneuvering that borders on selective truth or even crosses the line of outright lies, the “right” to secret manipulation, the “right” to BE right even when I am patently wrong…all these “rights” which defy justice AND mercy AND even love.
True, I strive to keep the fast, to pray, to give alms, to care for the sick and the unfortunate….but these things seem easier than taming my tongue, than resisting the opportunity of “defending” myself with accusations and sarcasm, than actively showing mercy and being kind even when my tender feelings are hurt, than demanding of myself that I be truthful but lovingly truthful, than no longer living in denial and rationalizaton. If I want to be truly Christlike, if I want to be like Him, if I want to unite myself with Him, it is (as He once pointed out to those for whom the external signs of holiness had become the extreme focus) that which comes out of my mouth, my harsh actions, my manipulation, my guile which defiles me. So I find myself with a deeper and deeper realization of my own sin (which I oft time attempt to cloak as virtue and must ever strive to see for what it really is) and fall on my face before Him begging for His mercy and His healing. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”