Blessed is he who knows in truth that we are but tools in God’s hands; that it is God who effects within us all ascetic practice and contemplation, virtue and spiritual knowledge, victory and wisdom, goodness, and truth; and that to all this we contribute nothing at all except a disposition that desires what is good. — Saint Maximus the Confessor, Third Century
I mentioned yesterday that when we are forgiven, we end up with a, “minty fresh soul,” a quote from the children of a friend of mine. But, I also mentioned that the Orthodox believe in synergy. What is synergy? The website of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese says the following:
In any case of “synergy” (cooperation) between God and man, God leads, and man follows; God works, and man accepts God’s work in him, as God’s coworker in subordination to Him.
In other words, when the Orthodox speak of synergy, we are NOT speaking of our somehow exerting ourselves and making it to righteousness on our own. In fact, we are not even talking about our efforts being anywhere near decisive. Synergy is about our making a decision that we will cooperate with God. Remember my example from AA yesterday? Let me list the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as copyrighted by A.A. World Services, Inc.:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Can you perhaps see a little better what the Orthodox mean by synergy? Of course, we would never say, “God, as we understood Him.” And, when we talk about admitting, “to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs,” we would speak about a spiritual father and about regularly going to Confession. Of course there are some differences, and we would say that there is much more depth to the faith and to the relationship with God. Nevertheless, perhaps the steps above give you a better idea of how we see our ascetic life as Christians working. And it is our ascetic life. It is not merely for monks.
You see, all Christian life is ascetic because in every step of our Christian life we are always making decisions to say no to our flesh. For instance, have you ever had to change a baby’s diaper? And, have you ever had a strong desire go through your mind to put off changing that diaper for an hour or so? But, then you stop yourself because you know that you cannot do that, because you love that baby, even if it is not yours. When you make the decision to change that diaper, you have made a decision to deny your wrong passion. Well, guess what? That is another of those areas where we do not pay enough attention to definitions. When you deny your wrong passion(s), you are making an ascetic decision. We all too often make asceticism something that only monks do, when asceticism is woven through all our Christian life. We life a life of self-denial, if we are at all Christian, not necessarily a life of heavy fasting and prayer each and every day, but nevertheless a life in which if we wish to grow into Our Lord’s image, then we have to consistently make decisions to deny our wrong passions. We may not all be monks, but we are all are called to practice asceticism.
But, remember how I began. Saint Maximus the Confessor did not expect us to do all that on our own. Rather, his statement, and the statement of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, is that the only thing we contribute is a, “disposition that desires what is good.” God does the real work of inner transformation. This reminds me of an example that a pastor friend used many years ago. He asked us to imagine an archway, under which we would go when we enter God’s presence after our death. He said it would be as if on the side we could see as we approached were carved the words, “whosoever will.” But, as we go through the arch, we look back and see a different message carved, “chosen from the foundation of the world.” I suspect that there is a lot of truth in that imagery.
And so our Lenten journey leads us toward sinlessness, but with the confidence that it is really God who is fully at work in your life. We do put in our part, but we can live in the confidence that it is God who is at work in us both to will and to do for his good pleasure. Synergy!
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