Sunday, July 31, 2005

"Picking and Choosing" and Obedience

(6th Sunday after Pentecost) (Fathers of the First Six Ecumenical Councils)

Earlier this week, I read a news report about how nine women were supposedly ordained as priests and deacons in the Roman Catholic Church. These “ordinations” were performed by three other women who, in 2003, were supposedly consecrated as bishops; and took place on board a tour ship cruising the St. Lawrence River between the United States and Canada, so that, according to the participants, they were not in the jurisdiction of any particular diocese, either Canadian or American. Of course, the Church of Rome does not recognize any of these women as having valid orders as a bishop, priest, or deacon.

Why do I mention this? Among other reasons, I found the explanation offered by one of the women who claims now to be a deacon to be, in many ways, a statement about our culture today. She said, in effect, “I consider my ordination to be valid, even though it violates the law of the Church, because it is an unjust law.” In other words, if I think something is immoral or unjust – or maybe even merely unfair – I am not required to be obedient; I can do what I think is right, even if it is the Church that has said otherwise. This, of course, is a recipe for anarchy.

In a parallel example of this type of thinking – and it is, I think, an important development, as it has shaped the thinking of our culture to produce the perhaps extreme example of the supposed ordinations – we should consider the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura, and its accompanying teaching that everyone is capable of understanding the Bible by himself or herself, without the need for the guidance of anyone, or of any religious body. This, too, is a recipe for chaos; and, in part, goes a long way to explain how one book can be interpreted in thousands of ways, all different to one degree or another – as evidenced by the myriad number of denominations among the Protestants. In the Phoenix area Yellow Pages, for example, if you look under "Churches" you'll find 104 different listings. That's not 104 churches; that's 104 different kinds of churches! The saying, "Every man his own Pope" -- that is, everyone may read and interpret Scripture for himself -- has led to the development of this cultural mindset in which we think we can choose which laws we will obey, and which we will set aside.

These are not Orthodox ways of thinking. We are not free to disregard or disobey a law simply because we think it is unfair or unjust. We are not free to read and interpret Scripture in any way that seems to make sense to us. This is not to say that we must obey an unjust or immoral law. Indeed, if keeping God’s requirements means that we must break the law of the land, then break it we must; and if keeping the law of the land means that we will violate what God has commanded, then we must not obey that law. Of course, we must also acknowledge that these actions have consequences; but, of course, the martyrs and confessors show us what we must do! Nor am I saying that we are not supposed to use our minds – which, after all, are given to us by God – to think and reason about the Scriptures. Of course we are supposed to think about what we read in the Bible! But we do so within the teaching of the Church – and this keeps us from going astray.

Today we commemorate the holy fathers of the first six Ecumenical Councils. At these councils, heretical teachings were considered and rejected, and the understanding of the Orthodox faith was made deeper and richer as a result. But how do we know we can rely on the decisions of these councils? We know that what was determined at these councils because we know that the Holy Spirit guides the Church – but how do we know that the Holy Spirit was present at these councils?

Among other things, we can know by the quality of the lives of the fathers gathered there. Because they were men of prayer, because they kept the feasts and fasts, because they gave to those in need, because they struggled to live in a God-pleasing way, and because they taught others, ourselves included, to do the same, we know that they had turned to God, and away from this world. We know that their pursuit of holiness caused them to draw near to God; and He enlightened them so that they could see the true path to follow, and the right way to live and think and worship God. We see the teachings of the Bible carried out in their lives; we see the life of Christ made manifest in them; and so we know that we can trust what they have said to us, and follow it, even when we do not fully grasp why this is so, when the world says that what we believe is unjust or unfair.

Brothers and sisters, called to be saints: The wealth of the teachings and life of the Church is ours today because of the efforts made on our behalf by those who have gone before us. Let us fast and pray; let us give alms, and struggle to do what is pleasing to God, uprooting our sins, and putting in their place the godly virtues, so that those who follow us in the faith will be blessed as we have been blessed, with an unbroken line of faith and way of living, to the glory of God, and the salvation of souls.

Holy fathers of the first six councils, pray to God for us!

(For a related discussion, please see Women's Ordination and the Catholic Church at my other blog, "Observations from an Empty Well.")

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