Pharisaism

[John Lam]

I am a convert (I don't believe that necessarily handicaps me. I think it has its advantages and disadvantages) and want to throw something out there for discussion. I have "crossed jurisdictions" as it were since we have no eastern rite churches in my former jurisdiction (my patron is St. John Chrysostom and I fell in love with the church again through his liturgy. I could not abandon it). I really love our new church home and priest, and, although things have not been easy, I resist my former protestant inclination "to shop for a church," which I have always had problems with. Ok, tangent.

Anyway, when do many of the people in the church see something as "Pharisaic" in its application?

For example, I love the sacred space in the church. It's beautiful and entering that heavenly liturgy with the Body of Christ is just beautiful. But, sometimes, I find that Orthodox people get stuck on traditions of a certain kind (i.e. we stand all the time and they don't, we don't cross our legs in church and they do, etc.). It seems like a "one-upmanship" game to me. I am trying to be humble and be taught by those who are wiser and have been Orthodox longer, but I find myself asking "What if a poor man in rags came into the church and sat down and listened to the liturgy? would people have a problem with him because he is not following certain customs?" That said, I believe in the authority of the church and I can't wait till we are an American Orthodox church (I think it would be a miracle if it happened in my lifetime). The church is not an ethnic institution, but rather the Body of Christ that transcends all of our petty barriers.

Anyway, I want to hear from you all. I hope I didn't sound angry. I am not. Just want some clarity in a place where I can be somewhat annonymous.

[James Aubuchon]

Welcome John!

I am going to venture some ideas here. Being a great sinner, and fairly new to Orthodoxy myself (2 years as of Pascha), I am struggling still with some of the things that I think you are trying to get at.

First of all, God wants us to take the log out of our own eye. I'm sure you know this already. When we go to church, we need to keep this in mind, and "consider everyone as better than ourselves". Now being a great sinner, I do not always do this, but I strive for it. Almost everyone at a church can do things that will frustrate and displease us. I remember walking into our current church, talking with the priest, and immediately struggling with thoughts such as "Is he holy enough for me?" (Can any greater vanity exist in my soul?). Then when the priest started to talk about how much he wanted to see a new church building built, my wretched, sinful, devil-inspired soul thought "This man must not be very spiritual. Why does he prat so about a new building?"

Once I have mortified and thoroughly put to death all such carnal and sinful thoughts about "others" in the Church, then perhaps, with dispassion, I can begin to wonder why it is that Orthodox people do what they do. But perhaps by then I will be so thoroughly disgusted with my own self-righteousness, apathy, carnality, stupidity, carelessness, and pride that I will no longer care. When I see clearly that truly I am the chief of sinners (for at the present I still think I am really something special to God), and that others are better than myself, perhaps I can offer an opinion about Phariseeism in God's Holy Church.

I am a fool for even saying this. Forgive me, a sinner.

Jim

[Jennifer]

Dear John,

I am also rather new to Orthodoxy; I was just chrismated two Pascha's ago, about a year ago. I have had questions similar to what you are asking, so I will tell you my take on it.


It seems like a "one-upmanship" game to me. I am trying to be humble and be taught by those who are wiser and have been Orthodox longer, but I find myself asking "What if a poor man in rags came into the church and sat down and listened to the liturgy? would people have a problem with him because he is not following certain customs?"

Orthodox people have many practices (i.e. the liturgies and how they are performed) that they are proud of, and they have good reason to be proud of these. They have preserved these for all the world for many centuries. Therefore, when Orthodox people seem to drone on about how important it is for people to stand in church when they are able, we can see this as a strength that has allowed the church to preserve traditional practices.

Another important traditional Orthodox practice is hospitality. I beleive that hospitality and the idea that James talked about of not judging others, but only ourselves, sometimes trump the rules about standing in church and prevent them from becoming pharisaical. For instance, in all the Orthodox churches I have visited, chairs have been available for those who cannot stand. In my church, I have never seen anyone chastise a visitor for not standing. Usually visitors choose to ask questions about standing and other practices (kissing the cross, venerating the icons) and join in these practices when they are ready. I think they eventually begin to see the spiritual benefits of these practicies and want to join us in doing them.

I can give an example of a time in my church when an important practice was somewhat overlooked for a visitor. During Great Lent, a visitor came to our church for the first time. He decided to stay for lunch and an egg-decorating party that we were having. However, the lunch was going to be take-out from a local restaurant. So, while most of the people were ordering shrimp or vegetarian dishes, our visitor ordered pork. There were some questions about whether or not meat could be allowed in the church during the fast, but nobody mentioned this to our visitor. I'm sure they were dreaming about eating what he had instead of their own Lenten meals, but nobody asked him not to order it. I believe this is a case where the Orthodox people followed the fast, but without pharisaism, because they were observing a rule of hospitality.

I hope that makes sense and helps.

Jennifer

[James Aubuchon]

Jennifer,

Thank you for that excellent reply to John. It was definitely far more helpful than my post.

I want to ask your forgiveness John. I feel that instead of warmly welcoming you to the forum, I set about to break out a bottle of castor oil. Fool that I am, I sometimes think of myself as actually being to help people, when I am so sick myself that I can hardly get out of bed (spiritually speaking).

I hope you will tell us some more about your doctoral program. It sounds interesting.

Now I am going to make an even bigger fool of myself. Our Holy Fathers caution against writing anything about spiritual issues unless one is writing to help others, or out of obedience. I fail on both counts, being one who likes to express my vain opinions with an eye to vaingloriously appearing to be something, when I am really nothing at all. But now I am going to foolheartedly attempt to say something about Pharisaism. For not saying anything, and flapping my lips about taking logs out of my eye was just one more vainglorious attempt to elevate myself in front of my peers (may the forum forgive me). Oh wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from the body of this death?

Anyway, here goes.

Pharisaism is mainly found in the idea that the outside appears clean, while the inside is filthy (take me for an example). This is something that is hard for we believers to discern in another, for we look on the outward appearance, but God sees the heart. The Pharisees, being white-washed tombs full of dead men's bones, sought long and hard to make disciples, only for them to become two-fold more children of hell than themselves. Now in light of their hypocrisy, they liked to bind burdens that were too hard to bear on their disciples. These "doctrines and traditions of men" were actually things that overode the teachings of Scripture itself. Jesus gives examples of how they would allow disciples to offer gifts at the altar rather than care for their parents, etc.

In Orthodoxy, there are two types of tradition. There is Holy Tradition, which is that which was handed down to the Church in oral form, mostly concerning the Liturgy, forms, etc. But there are also "traditions" within Orthodoxy that are not connected to Holy Tradition. These "traditions" are still not "traditions of men" because they do not seek to bind legalistic burdens on people in violation of the Scriptures for hypocritical reasons. They are just "ways of doing things." Some examples of "traditions" are when and how much people stand in church, whether an organ is allowed, etc.

People may or may not be pharisaical about these things. I have found that in actuality, most Orthodox Christians that I know are not. Most Greeks, for example, would not care if you stood for the entire service, and most Russians would not care if you sat the entire time (they might suggest that you stand if there are not enough chairs, and there is not room for the elderly and infirm to take a seat).

But I know some Orthodox Christians that struggle with a particular jurisdictions ethnicity. I do not. I love Greek culture, and I love Russian culture. (I have not been in any other jurisdictions, so I cannot comment on their culture). I have seen converts endlessly bash ethnic Greeks. I find ethnic Greeks to be lovely people (perhaps because I am like them in many ways). I have heard endless horror stories about ethnicity in the Church, but have yet to attend a church where I see this taking place. I hear that it is taking place in the church, but I never see it. I always try to treat the people with love and respect, and (fool that I am) I seem to get that back from everyone.

Most of my problems have been the hours I have spent in prayer uprooting the foul bitter roots that many converts have tried to place in my heart about how bad ethnic Orthodox are, how they are "goats" and not "sheep", how they just want their churches to be country clubs and not reach the lost, how they fail to give financially, etc. I have listened as converts have judged me, judged their neighbors, talked behind peoples backs, and generally had a bad attitude towards the ethnic elements in their church. No wonder ethnic Orthodox have a problem with we converts. We come into their churches with all of our non-Orthodox baggage, and JUDGE THEM!

Anyway, with virtually all "traditions" in Orthodoxy there is "economia", which is the very reflection of the idea that the Spirit rules, and not the letter.

I would humbly suggest to any convert to Orthodoxy that they spend some time embracing the ethnic culture and "traditions" of their jurisdiction. Learn to love the people, sinful as they are. Be merciful, forgiving, understanding, meek, longsuffering, and kind. Let your light shine before them. Let them see your good works, and glorify God in heaven. If they ask you to stand then stand. If you must bow after making the sign of the cross then bow. If you must sit in a pew and listen to an organ, then do so. If they make a big deal out of it, and by doing so they despise their brothers and sisters in Christ, forgive them and pray for them.

By the way, I love converts too! I am one of them!

After all this, I do not feel that I have really said anything about what you are asking John. What a fool am I? I just ramble on, thinking that I know when I do not really know as I ought to know. Do I really know anything about Pharisaism? All my degrees seem to be worthless when it comes to spiritual things, and I find myself falling silent.

Pray for me,

Jim

[John Lam]

Welcome John!

I am going to venture some ideas here. Being a great sinner, and fairly new to Orthodoxy myself (2 years as of Pascha), I am struggling still with some of the things that I think you are trying to get at.

First of all, God wants us to take the log out of our own eye. I'm sure you know this already. When we go to church, we need to keep this in mind, and "consider everyone as better than ourselves". Now being a great sinner, I do not always do this, but I strive for it. Almost everyone at a church can do things that will frustrate and displease us. I remember walking into our current church, talking with the priest, and immediately struggling with thoughts such as "Is he holy enough for me?" (Can any greater vanity exist in my soul?). Then when the priest started to talk about how much he wanted to see a new church building built, my wretched, sinful, devil-inspired soul thought "This man must not be very spiritual. Why does he prat so about a new building?"

Once I have mortified and thoroughly put to death all such carnal and sinful thoughts about "others" in the Church, then perhaps, with dispassion, I can begin to wonder why it is that Orthodox people do what they do. But perhaps by then I will be so thoroughly disgusted with my own self-righteousness, apathy, carnality, stupidity, carelessness, and pride that I will no longer care. When I see clearly that truly I am the chief of sinners (for at the present I still think I am really something special to God), and that others are better than myself, perhaps I can offer an opinion about Phariseeism in God's Holy Church.

I am a fool for even saying this. Forgive me, a sinner.

Jim

I completely concur. I think we are all struggling with this, at least at some point in our journeys. Anyway, trying to be humble while. I am sure my saint would say the same.

JC

[M.C. Steenberg]

In Orthodoxy, there are two types of tradition. There is Holy Tradition, which is that which was handed down to the Church in oral form, mostly concerning the Liturgy, forms, etc. But there are also "traditions" within Orthodoxy that are not connected to Holy Tradition. These "traditions" are still not "traditions of men" because they do not seek to bind legalistic burdens on people in violation of the Scriptures for hypocritical reasons. They are just "ways of doing things." Some examples of "traditions" are when and how much people stand in church, whether an organ is allowed, etc.

Dear James and others,

I have enjoyed reading through the recent posts in this thread. I would just want to put a bit of a caution on this particular distinction, between 'Tradition' and 'traditions'. This is the common, or at least popular, way of distinguishing between 'the really big, central and important things' that the Church lives and does, and the 'smaller, less significant customs' that it lives and does, but which are not core to its life and action. But is this really the case?

Part of what makes Orthodox life Orthodox life, is the conviction that every element of that living is fundamentally connected to the Gospel. It is for this reason that the descriptor 'the life in Christ' has become dominant over Orthodox Christianity as 'a faith' or 'a religion'. It is the whole reality of one's life, lived in Christ, united to Christ - or in the attempt at that union. Dichotomies within this life are to be guarded against assiduously, as if this element or that is integrated, but that one not; this one essential, that one not; etc.

Of course there are hierarchies of significance. Whether or not one goes to the church to attend the Liturgy and receive the mysteries is a choice of fundamentally greater significance then whether one says two troparia for morning prayers rather than four, or says them in Greek rather than English. Properly preparing to receive the eucharist is of greater significance than whether one crosses oneself three times in the creed, twice, once, or not at all, and so on.

But in point of fact, all these questions, all these acts, form part of the living Tradition of the Church. At some deep level of our lives, questions over the little, practical things, are connected to the dramatic, essential realities of our being. Again, I wouldn't want to do away entirely with a healthy acknowledgement that some things are of greater value and important than others ('Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you' seems a fairly straightforward directive in this regard); but rather suggest that the approach to this hierarchy ought to be rather like the approach to the clerical hierarchy. The central figures of the hierarchy are the bishops; 'no bishop, no church', as Ignatius of Antioch would put it. Their assistants are the deacons; their college of elders the presbyters (priests). Beneath the presbyters and deacons the subdeacons and readers, the candle-bearers, the altar servers, the cleaners. We can certainly say that the 'big three' are the bishops, priests and deacons (or really, getting down to divisions in a practical sense, this could - sadly - be bishops and priests only); but this is to draw a false wall through the centre of an organic whole. All form part of the hierarchical structure of the Church's ministry. The subdeacon, where the subdeacon is present, is part -- an integral part -- of the worshipping life of the community.

Language, customs, specific actions, may of a lesser significance on 'the grand scale' than the sacraments, teachings, etc.; but it is in acknowledging that there is really only Tradition, not 'Tradition and traditions', that the Christian life is unified and whole, rather than divided internally in a manner that eventually has outward manifestations.

XB, Matthew

[James Aubuchon]

Matthew,

Thank you for the corrective about the role of Tradition in the Church. What I said is what I was "told" about Tradition. I think it is important to respect the Tradition of the Church, and to realize that it is connected to our life in Christ. Of course, as it seems to be with all things in Orthodoxy, there is a fluidity that one must get used to. I would love to read a thorough Systematic Theology of Orthodoxy, but then is it even Orthodox to have one? Perhaps these things just have not been done yet in English, but what I find "in my experience" is that churches differ on what they do. I also found out today that sometimes even what is done in church may not be "by the letter" of the Typica because, as one reader told me, it is simply just too complex, and the proper materials to do it "exactly right" is many times missing. For example, they told me that during Pascha, there are at least 5 or 6 different books that are used for some services, and that some churches may not have access to all of these books.

So please forgive this ignorant sinner. I want to follow the Tradition, but perhaps I have not even been taught it completely? I don't know. In the Greek church in which I was chrismated, we certainly didn't do certain things that our current OCA church does as a matter of "custom", like kissing the chalice and the hand of the priest right after taking communion.

Another issue that I think might be more important is my attitude towards all of this. I choose to respect the tradition of the church that I am attending. I am not going to go and make a "big deal" out of something just because I might happen to know that they are not doing it "right". I am not going to take issue. I am going to be obedient and submissive to the authority of the priest and other ordained members of the church. That is part of why I became Orthodox. I am tired of trying to be "right" all the time. I just want to submit to the Church. I'll let God judge me based on that. I fear being judged for any sort of "opinion" that I might have of anything at all. No doubt I will be wrong. I am just a man under authority. If the Church tells me to do something, I want to just do it, but this is not always easy.

So if my church practices sitting in pews, I am going to sit in the pew, and stand when the church says to stand, and if they want me to stand for the whole service I am going to do it. If they want me to kiss the chalice, I will. If not, I won't.

Unworthily in Christ,

Jim

[M.C. Steenberg]

What I said is what I was "told" about Tradition. I think it is important to respect the Tradition of the Church, and to realize that it is connected to our life in Christ. Of course, as it seems to be with all things in Orthodoxy, there is a fluidity that one must get used to.

Dear Jim,

Thank you for your thoughtful recent post. Your approach to things sounds very humble and holy. And as I said before, there is in fact some aspect of truth to the 'Tradition vs. traditions' distinction; it's all a matter of keeping that distinction, when helpful, accountable to the fact that Christian life is also the whole of life, inseperable into distinct units here and there. As you put it, there is a 'fluidity' to life - this seems precisely right.

Returning to the original theme of Pharisaism, it is an appreciation of what you've talked about that keeps one from this temptation. 'Thank God that I don't have pews in my church like that lot' is a little too close to certain scriptural phrases we're taught not to emulate.

XB, Matthew

[John C.]

I am a recent convert to Orthodoxy, from a conservative evangelical protestant upbringing. Pharisaism is a problem with all worshippers whether they be Orthodox or heterodox.

What I found helpful was to recall what happened between Michal and David when the ark was being returned to Jerusalem. After the unfortunate incident with Uzzah being zapped for his irreverence, David has the ark carried in a proper procession, and he dances before it with all his might.

Michal, watching from a distance in disapproval, reproaches David for being inappropriate.

The point is, that Michal was not worshipping, but was too busy watching how others worship.