50% IS NOT A PASSING GRADE!
by Al Fragola
The first eight years of my formal religious education were under the tutelage of the good nuns at Saint Catherine’s Parochial School. Among these venerable sisters, all of whom were addressed by a first and middle name (such as Sister Rose Gertrude, Sister Claire Marie), was the school disciplinarian, who had gained the nickname “Sister Mary Vociferous”. Sister Mary Vociferous was a truly imposing figure with a booming voice that my Drill Instructor would have envied. It was Sister Mary Vociferous who taught the eighth graders a class entitled “Living the Christian Life”.
You can imagine our expectations of this class. Surely, this strict disciplinarian would subject us to a never-ending laundry list of rules and regulations that would be intended to make us rigidly obedient robots for God. Yet, as Sister began the class, we were all taken aback by a transformation in her demeanor and the gentle and angelic nature of her voice as she spoke. Needless to say, this gained our rapt attention.
Sister began by asking us, “What are the two Great Commandments”. Easy, we thought, as youthful hands darted up into the air, and one of us answered with “Love God with your whole heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Sister then had us discuss which of the Commandments were related to each of these, and why. Again, a relatively easy exercise, as we categorized the Ten Commandments as to “love of God”, and “Love of neighbor”. A bit of consternation arose as to where “honor thy father and mother” fit in and Sister allowed us to see that as a separate, but important issue. Then, to a completely baffled group, Sister said, “What about the other six?”
To make a long story short, Sister was drawing our attention to Christ’s sermon of the Last Judgment. While the fifth through tenth Commandments tell us what NOT to do in relation to our neighbors, MT 25:31-46 gives us some very explicit “commandments” for what we MUST DO in order to love our neighbor and achieve life eternal. After much discussion, and as the period was drawing to a close, Sister said, “There are two aspects to living the Christian life. First is the love and worship of God. That is accomplished through a life of prayer, fasting, avoidance of sin, the sacraments, church services and the Eucharist. Second to this is to love thy neighbor as thyself, for failure to do so to one of the least will cast you among the goats. We must do both. Love of God and worship is only half the job, and 50% is not a passing grade”.
Sister’s introductory lesson was very clear. We cannot claim to be living a Christian life if the focus of our Christian activity is on prayer and worship, but lacking in a continuous active love for our neighbor. No matter how faithful we are in attending every service of our parish church, if we regularly fail to feed the hungry, we have failed to heed the words of Christ. No matter how many hours we spend in prayer before the icons in our icon corner, if we never visit the sick, we fail to heed the words of Christ. We are commanded to love God and our neighbor – no mention of ourselves. Indeed, as Sister once put it, “The message of the Gospels is about our salvation, not about us”.
There was a feature article in the paper the other day about a pastor of a very large congregation near my home. The article described the pastor’s success in having built a small congregation into a “$13.5 million dollar a year operation”. This definition of “success” got my interest, so I went to the church’s web site and read what they posted to promote themselves. Totally lacking, in any form, was any mention of charitable work. They had a laundry list of “ministries” to serve the needs of their members, encouraging folks to join the congregation to avail themselves of the ministries that catered to their personal needs. Noticeably lacking was mention of any care for those less fortunate outside the congregation who were hungry, thirsty, sick, in prison or strangers. The focus was on selves, not others.
An equally dangerous situation can arise within Orthodoxy. Nowhere is the worship of the people as rich and extensive as within our Church. If one is not careful, one can become so wrapped up in prayer, piety and worship that one can lose sight of one’s neighbors and their needs and suffering. We must be careful not to use the Church as a route to what the old drug guru, Timothy Leary espoused: “Tune in, turn on, drop out”. The Church is not an inward looking cult, but the Body of Christ, called to follow the message of Christ to love God and our neighbor.
It is not hard to find disturbing symptoms. In all the material on the various “Orthodox” Internet discussion sites, one can find volumes of debate about the “correct” way to make a reverence, the “correct” order of service for a vigil, who is truly canonical, the evils of ecumenism, why one jurisdiction does it “right” while another doesn’t, and so on. Yet, so very little is devoted to opportunities and means available to help the less fortunate among us. Are we in danger of obtaining a grade of 50%?
What should be commonplace in our Orthodox Christian communities? Is food for the hungry, clothes for the naked and a welcoming love for strangers as much a part of our parish life as raising funds for new icons, increasing the number of services or building a bigger and better sanctuary? Do we just pray for those in the hospital, or do we visit them as well? Do we see Christ in the disheveled person begging on the corner and give him a donation without question? A good clue to what we are called to do is what the Church, in her wisdom over the ages, includes in the Divine Services – the Sermon of the Last Judgment is a prominently scheduled Gospel reading at the Divine Liturgy. We hear it year after year so that we might not forget these important Christian imperatives.
Our Archdiocese provides a good starting point in loving our less fortunate neighbors with many activities like the “Food for the Hungry” program. We are not limited to formal programs, but can have a Christian impact on others by our individual acts of love and charity every time we meet “one of the least of these”. Love involves self-sacrifice. To lead the fully Christian life, we are called not only to make loving sacrifices for our God, but for our neighbor as well. I remember once hearing a Roman Catholic parish sing, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” As Orthodox Christians, let’s remember and understand Sister Mary Vociferous’ cautioning statement, “50% is not a passing grade” and be truly Christian by our love, for our God AND our neighbor.