By Reader Michael
People generally want companionship, friendship, kinship, etc. We strive for community, in general. For the Christian, the question is: What kind of community do we strive for? Some of the most poignant statements from Christ are those regarding family and neighbor. Of course, we all know that the gospel is summed up in loving God and neighbor. In this particular passage of Luke 14:2, Christ says,
“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.”
Here Christ is explaining what loving our neighbor really means…in the ascetic way. Christ is not saying that we simply cannot eat with our wealthy friends or our immediate family. He is making a point…a point of humility and charity regarding the love for mankind. This requires more than a checklist for the poor and then a checklist for the family, etc. It requires the very building of one's culture and lifestyle. It involves becoming something that only a Christian can become…a person in Christ, which is the only true personhood. All humanity lives outside of this Trinitarian realm, constantly striving to become and discover what being a person is about, but constantly and consistently failing.
When we are baptized, we enter into this personhood of the Holy Trinity and are now able to experience the true love of mankind and God himself.Those outside of Christ are trapped in the world, constantly trying to creat personhood through various means such a politics and other social venues. During the times of the apostles, people emphasized heavily on becoming a person in theater. Seems odd, but if you really think about how theatre was their means of masking their unwanted self and beginning a new and “true life” behind the mask, it makes sense. They were very intelligent people, and they fully understood that their inner desires to ‘become’ simply could not manifest in most circumstances. They had express themselves in an action that was protected and encouraged by the pagan culture, and even the empire itself.
The world is the collective nature of the passions that forms its own cultures and even its own communities. A community that is unable to truly love is a worldly community. As Christians, enter into a community that actually can love, and this is why Christ commands us to serve our neighbors in such radical ways. He is showing us that we are capable of truly putting our hearts into it, something that simply cannot be done outside of Christ and his Church. The true test of our spirituality comes from serving those who are in need. It requires a heart energized through Christ’s Spirit.
Christ explains in the Gospel of John, Chapter 15:
“This is my command: Love on another. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
The command is to love outside of worldliness. The world cannot love like the Christian loves. The world always defaults to self…It does not want to be humble. It wants to care for self and not for others that will likely never benefit them.
St James, the brother of Christ, explains that true love (true religion) is serving the orphans and widows, and keeping oneself from the world (James 2). He is tying the two together, that being away from the world is to be with the needy.
Orthodox culture has always been very “philanthropic.” It has been so philanthropic that in established Orthodox nations, we will find “holy fools.” These are often poor people for the sake of Christ. In American, no such people exist. Why? Because we create fake community amongst ourselves like the poor do not really exist. This has much to do with the “Protestant work ethic” that has deep roots in America.
St Paul says that true love does not “seek its own” (selfish). Again, too many saints to quote for this topic. The ascetic way of building community is through literally caring for those in need. “When you give a dinner…” So interesting. Again, it’s not really about dinners in themselves. It is about lifestyle…culture…the way we go about our lives…who we are.
