"Who says I must fast?
Just because the Fathers of the Church say that alms giving is a good
thing, must I give alms? And just because the Fathers of the Church specify
that on Cheese Fare Sunday, the last day before the beginning of Lent,
we are supposed to make an extra effort to forgive one another our trespasses,
does that mean that I'm supposed to do that?"
Well, let me clarify something for you. It is not the Fathers of the Church
who teach us these things and it is not the Church that requires these
disciplines of us. Rather it is Christ Himself who has laid down these
criteria for us to follow. Those of you who were in Church on Cheese Fare
Saturday heard the Gospel lesson from St. Matthew (6:1-15). If you are
familiar with that gospel you would realize that Sunday's Gospel lesson
is a continuation of it. (6:14-21) Now, let me give you an idea of what
Jesus lays down for us. First of all He says, in Saturday's Gospel, "When
you give Alms, do not have it trumpeted before you. This is what the hypocrites
do in the Synagogues and in the streets to win men's admiration. Your
alms giving must be in secret and your Father who sees all that is done
in secret will reward you." (6:2)
There are some people who, when they give alms, want to ring the bells
of the Church and Jesus warns us that our almsgiving should be in secret
especially when we give for the help of the poor. It is not NAC-SOYO that
has started the alms boxes for the Food for Hungry People. It is Christ
who urges us to do these things. He urges more. In the fifth chapter of
this gospel, the fifth verse, He says, "When you pray, do not imitate
the hypocrites. They love to say their prayers standing up in synagogues
and on street corners for people to see them. I tell you solemnly they
have their reward; but when you pray, go to your private room, and when
you have shut your door pray to your Father who is in that secret place
and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you."
Now you notice that He's talking in this instance about private prayer,
not corporate prayer and He didn't say "if " you pray or "when
you get around to praying." He simply took it for granted that He
was talking to people who prayed and that it was His function only to
correct their attitudes about prayer.
Now had He been addressing a community of people that were not in the
habit of praying, I think He might have said "if" you pray,
or "you had better get around to praying," but He simply said,
"when you pray," assuming that prayer was a natural part of
the lifestyle of the people to whom He was speaking. And so the Church
assumes when She speaks to you, because we assume that you are a prayerful
people, that in addition to this corporate worship of ours which makes
us the Family of God, each of us enters figuratively into that private
place, that secret closet where we offer up our prayers in secret so that
God will reward openly. (6:9-13) Now He comes to the statement that sets
this day apart from all other days because Cheese Fare Sunday is our day
of atonement, our day of forgiveness, not that every day isn't but on
this day we especially mark the importance of forgiving. The beginning
of the Gospel lesson for Cheese Fare Sunday is a conditional statement
by Jesus who says, "If you forgive you will be forgiven." So
we have alms giving, prayer and forgiveness and finally He sums it all
up when He says, "Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth
but store up treasures for yourself in heaven . . . Where your treasure
is there your heart will be also." (v. 19-21)
Now I hope that settles in your thinking the source of authority that
the Church has for laying down the spiritual disciplines of the Fast.
It comes from the word of Christ Himself and no Archbishop, Patriarch,
Priest, Deacon, Pope has the right to change that which was laid down
by Jesus. He says alms giving! He says prayer! He says fasting! These
things lay up for us treasures in heaven but if we are so concerned about
our houses, our TV sets and our cars and our monetary future that we forget
that the only real treasure is that which is stored up in heaven then
we're in trouble because all these things are corruptible, all these things
turn to dust. All these things can be lost in an instant. But our good
deeds, our prayers, our acts of love and mercy and the spiritual disciplines
that we impose upon ourselves in order to affect a spiritual growth, those
are incorruptible. Those can never be lost.
Where will the Church bells ring for us, in our pocketbooks or in the
kingdom of heaven? That's a question that can be answered affirmatively
by you in the style in which you live. So as we begin this Great Lent,
let us remember that it all rests with us. We pray for God's help and
that help is always forthcoming. We pray that He will strengthen us and
that strength is always forthcoming. We pray that He will make us better
than we are and somehow or other when we come out the other end of Lent,
if we have obeyed the conditions of Christ, we do come out better than
we were when we started.
From Word
Magazine
Publication of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North
America
March 1980
p. 15
