Source: Fr. Ted's Blog
“…all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God,” (Romans
3:23)
When
we get passionate about the evils of sin, we often
feel the sins of others are worse than our own. An
old joke has it that a fiery brimstone preacher came
to a small country church. As he was preaching, a
woman close to the front shouted out: “Amen!
Preach the word!” to many things the preacher
said. The preacher denounced the demon of drinking
alcohol. She shouted: “Amen! Preach the
word!” He denounced the evil of playing cards
and she shouted: “Amen! Preach the word!”
He railed against dancing and she hollered:
“Amen! Preach the word!” He then
inveighed against stealing chickens from a neighbor.
The woman stayed silent. After church the preacher
asked the woman why she so enthusiastically supported
him when he mentioned drinking, dancing and playing
cards but was silent when he mentioned stealing
chickens. The woman replied, “Because I
don’t drink, dance or play cards.”
We readily justify our own sins as mistakes, petty,
weaknesses, addictions, personality traits and not as bad
as others. We are much like the Pharisee in the parable
with the Publican, pointing the accusing finger while
thanking God for not being like them.
St. John of Kronstadt (d. 1908) who was a pretty strict
moralist himself, also offers for us some advice about why
we should not imagine the sins of others are worse than
our own sins. He points out that we all are sinners, and
all share the same human nature, formed by the power of
sin.
“We
must not look with wonderment and malice upon the
various sins, weaknesses and passions of humanity,
because they form the old enticement, the infirmity of
all mankind, and men themselves by their own strength,
cannot anyhow free themselves from them, and therefore
a Savior of men was necessary, not an intercessor, not
an angel, but the Lord Himself incarnate. May He save
me wholly! This is why we should despise human
passions, even when directed against us; for instance:
envy, malice, pride, avarice, extortion – and
must not be exasperated with those who are subjected to
them, but must behave gently to them, and act upon them
by words, persuasion, and secret prayer, as did the
Lord and His Saints in relation to their enemies. This
is what the worldly wisdom of a Christian consists
in.”(My Life in Christ, p 243)
St. John advocates that we have some sense of compassion
for those we see locked in sin because they like us share
in “the infirmity of all mankind.” All of us
are sinners, and in Orthodoxy we each proclaim before
going to Holy Communion to be the foremost of sinners.
Perhaps we don’t think enough about that statement.
Maybe when we say it, we keep our fingers crossed knowing
like the Pharisee that there are Publicans all around us
who are far worse sinners than we are. They
should be barred from Communion.
Or,
we come to realize the significance of claiming that I
am the foremost of sinners. It really means something.
I should be humbled before Christ, not pointing that
Pharisaic accusing finger at anyone else. Seeing my own
sins and not judging my brother or sister. Each of us
has to answer before Christ for our sins. Rather than
judging the other, I can pray for them, realizing their
struggles with sin happen because they live in the same
world that I live in. They face temptation and they
fall for the same reasons that I do. We are no
different. Each of us faces temptations and sometimes
we fail. Sometimes we don’t even try to resist
sin. We need God’s mercies, and can find them in
seeking mercy for our neighbor, brother, sister or even
our enemies. As our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the
judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure
you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the
speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not
notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say
to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your
eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?”
(Matthew 7:1-4)
16 июня 2015 г.
