NOTES for Joe 2:12-18; Mat 6:16-18

Great Lent begins today. The texts we read speak about what is most important at this time, yet how far all this is from our ideas of fasting. What the prophet Joel calls "tearing the heart" always means sadness and tears for us. But the Lord gives us His answer, paradoxical at first glance, that completely overturns the picture. Purification is joy; returning to Him can and should be a feast for us; fasting is a time of reunion between the Creator and creation. A "fasting face" is a human invention for justifying one's laziness and consoling one's vanity. But the Lord calls us to tear the crust of sin from the heart so that all the filth may come out. And then our faces will shine with the joy of Great Lent.

Prophets are often regarded as predictors of the future, sometimes joyful, but more often sorrowful and terrifying. But is that really so? Can the future be predicted at all? The answer would seem simple: God has His own plan, which He will certainly carry out, for He is God and we are human. Therefore the future can be predicted if God reveals it to a prophet, because God must already have planned everything.

Yet here is something interesting: the language of the Bible has no words that could be translated as “doom,” “fate,” or “destiny.” God does, of course, have a design for every person and every nation, but there is also freedom of choice, whether we are speaking of an individual or a people. A prophet may speak of an imminent and inevitable disaster, but it is almost never the case that he speaks of that disaster as something unavoidable.

This lack of predetermination in future events can sometimes even look like a prophet’s mistake. Take Isaiah of Jerusalem, for example, predicting the imminent destruction of his country at the hands of the Assyrians. Was that an error? Judah held out then, after all. Yet Isaiah himself, already during the siege, also predicted that the Assyrians would leave the walls of Jerusalem empty-handed. That is exactly what happened in the end.

Does this mean that God’s plans can change? Apparently they can. And this depends not on God but on people, on their choice and resolve. God does not need people to die because of their sins; He does not want this and never has. If people perish because of their sins, it is only because sin very truly separates a person from God, preventing Him from intervening.

God is, of course, stronger than any human being, but He respects human freedom too much to enter the life of one who neither wants nor awaits Him. A catastrophe, personal or national, then results from God’s inability to intervene. But if people do call upon Him, He is ready to intervene at any moment, even when it may seem too late. He desires no one’s death and is ready to use every opportunity to save as many people as possible, regardless of the fact that many of them, before turning to Him, did everything they could to make their salvation as difficult as possible.

The original meaning of fasting is mourning, whether personal mourning, connected for example with the death of someone close, or public mourning, for example on the occasion of some national disaster. It is no wonder that on a day of national mourning, in the streets of Jerusalem one could see people publicly expressing their grief; in the East such a practice is still quite widespread today. And one of the gestures that express grief is torn outer clothing. Meanwhile God says: tear not your garments, but your hearts. External signs are not needed; turning back and repentance are more important. Why is that? Is grief, sincerely expressed even if publicly, as was customary among the Jews of those times, not a sign of repentance? Apparently, not always. Grief certainly makes one think, and sometimes even reevaluate something in one's personal or public life. But not always: it can also produce hopeless sorrow, hatred of life, and a desire to take revenge on the one considered responsible for what happened. And outward, especially public, expressions of grief only inflame these feelings, often hindering the spiritual processes that could really help. What can help, clearly, is a sober assessment of what has happened, repentance for sins committed, and turning to God with a request for help. And the prophet offers the people just such a path: the path not of emotional outbursts, but of serious spiritual work that will help them make the right decisions and find a way out of a situation that may seem completely hopeless.

All kinds of troubles constantly happen in our lives. We somehow manage most of them, but sometimes something happens that we cannot handle. Then we say, "trouble, disaster." And because neither we nor anyone else can do anything to help, we fall into despair. There are different ways to express this despair. In ancient Israel, as a sign of extreme grief, people tore their clothes. That is what the prophet Joel is talking about: "Do not tear your clothes, because there are no hopeless situations if the Lord is there." Once we realize that we are at a dead end, we must urgently turn to the One who is good and merciful, and He, in His omniscience and almighty power, will provide a way out.

But there is one more thought here. Why did we end up in trouble? Because we closed ourselves off from God and hardened in our self-will, so that our hearts became covered with a crust. And the prophet says, "Tear your hearts," that is, break the stoniness of your hearts, open yourselves to others, come out of the prison of your "I" into living relationships with God and people, and disasters will stop happening to you. Troubles and sufferings will remain, but they will no longer be disasters.

God Himself never forces His mercy on anyone. Even His coming into this world takes place simply as the birth of an earthly Child. If we are called to become like His perfection (Mt 5:48), then our mercy and piety too must be neither showy nor intrusive, but a joyful expression of our hidden relationship with the heavenly Father.

Great Lent begins today. The texts we read speak about what is most important at this time, yet how far all this is from our ideas of fasting. What the prophet Joel calls "tearing the heart" always means sadness and tears for us. But the Lord gives us His answer, paradoxical at first glance, that completely overturns the picture. Purification is joy; returning to Him can and should be a feast for us; fasting is a time of reunion between the Creator and creation. A "fasting face" is a human invention for justifying one's laziness and consoling one's vanity. But the Lord calls us to tear the crust of sin from the heart so that all the filth may come out. And then our faces will shine with the joy of Great Lent.

Three times in the first half of the sixth chapter of Matthew's Gospel these words of the Savior are quoted. Let us note that He says this about almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. There is a small book by Vladimir Solovyov, "The Spiritual Foundations of Life," in which he writes about prayer, almsgiving, and fasting as the basic components of a person's righteous life. Indeed, each person's "position" in the universe is determined by his relationships along three "coordinate axes": his connection with God, his connection with other people, and his connection with nature. Prayer, almsgiving, and fasting are expressions of right relationships along these "axes."

Thus Jesus' words refer to the whole fullness of human life. He says that this life is carried out not so much visibly as "in secret," not so much in deeds as in the intentions of the heart, not so much in actions as in relationships. Accordingly, the visible reward of this world is not what matters for us, because it passes away together with this world; what matters is the reward from the invisible God, because that reward is eternal life.

Father Alexander Schmemann writes in his "Journals" (October 12, 1976, p. 297): "The beginning of 'false religion' is the inability to rejoice, or rather, the refusal of joy. Yet joy is so absolutely important because it is the unmistakable fruit of the sense of God's presence. One cannot know that God is and not rejoice. And only in relation to joy are the fear of God, repentance, and humility correct, genuine, and fruitful. Outside this joy they easily become 'demonic,' a distortion in the very depth of religious experience. A religion of fear. A religion of pseudo-humility. A religion of guilt: all these are temptations, all these are spiritual delusion. [...] Fear of sin does not save from sin. Joy in the Lord saves."

But this is exactly what the prophet Joel calls us to remember today. Yes, he speaks of "fasting, weeping, and mourning." But for what purpose? Why does such a great man as Theophan the Recluse, in his word for today, not want to see the words that follow these tragic ones? What makes him break off his reflections on such a hopeless note: "The priests do not stop crying out: 'Spare us, Lord!' But from the Lord there surely comes the stern answer: 'I will not spare, for there are none seeking mercy.' Everyone stands with his back to the Lord; they have turned away from Him and forgotten Him."

All this is true, but not the whole truth, not the whole truth. Yes, the world has become corrupt; we see this with our own eyes. But if we allow ourselves to stop at such heartrending notes, then our whole faith will become neurasthenia. And for most believers it already is neurasthenia, and 90% of them should be referred to psychiatrists - sadly.

But one need only hear at least what the prophet says today: "And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk", and immediately remember what the Apostle answers: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb 11:1). For people may tell us that the prophet is only promising us that this will happen someday, and that the fulfillment of the promise is being delayed. But precisely the assurance of things hoped for is our faith. This we must without fail remember, and somehow see and do in our own life.

Orthodox worship, including the cycle of readings from Holy Scripture, takes on a Lenten character starting today. Today, as on a true fasting day, the liturgy is not celebrated, and at the sixth hour and at vespers we read the words of the prophet Joel. Two passages from the prophet's book are most closely connected with the beginning of the Fast, and the creators of the Church Typikon wanted us, before the Fast, to listen with them to these words of God.

The first reading begins with words about the meaning of fasting. They come after the prophecy about the day of the Lord, about the coming of God into the world being like fire that destroys every sin and every falsehood. The prophet sees and describes scenes of countless disasters coming upon the universe, "for the day of the Lord is coming." And the Lord's words become the answer to this vision of the prophet: "Yet even now, says the Lord, turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God; for He is good and merciful, patient and abundant in mercy, and He relents over disaster." God says that His will is for our repentance and salvation.

But, as in ancient times (and the book of the prophet Joel was written at the turn of the 5th-4th centuries B.C.), the words remain timely for us: "Tear your hearts and not your garments." All the efforts we make during the Fast are directed toward weeping with the heart, even for a minute, and in this sorrow finding Christ. The prophet speaks of this at the end of the passage: "And you, children of Zion, rejoice and be glad in the Lord your God." The Lord Jesus Christ will repeat this thought in the Sermon on the Mount, saying, "But you, when you fast, wash your face..."

The second reading, which includes the end of the book of the prophet Joel, calls us to regard the coming time as the last time. The day has come when repentance and turning back can no longer be postponed. The Lord comes to His people, and those who desire to find life will go out to meet Him.

According to the prophet Joel, the only thing that can save people from certain destruction on the great and terrible Day of the Lord is a sincere turning of the heart to God. ‘Rend your hearts, not your garments,’ the prophet cries out to the people. It is precisely these words that are continued by the promise he proclaims in verse 18: ‘Then the Lord will be zealous for His land and will have pity on His people. And the Lord will answer...’ Joel's prophecy, like the book of Job, written at approximately the same time, says that God responds when a heart turns sincerely to Him—a heart that truly suffers and therefore has no artifice or deceit. This answer from God itself becomes for people an abundant outpouring of life, overflowing into the world.

God's response to people's turning to Him, of which Joel prophesies, cannot be contained within the bounds of theological discourse. God answers, but what matters is not even what He says: the very fact that He answers brings people life. Thus, to Job, whose story reflects the spirit of the age no less than the book of Joel, God actually addresses a rebuke: ‘Who is this who darkens Providence with words without meaning?’ Yet it is in these very words that Job finds life and consolation, and all his tormenting questions disappear. In the same way, Joel says that if we cry out to God with all our heart, He will answer, and this answer will change everything. The prophet describes this gift in contrast to the devastating invasion of locusts: grain, wine and oil are given in abundance, enemies disappear, the pastures will grow grass, and the tree will bear fruit. God grants the early and the late rains, which ensure the annual harvest, through His response to the human turning towards Him; He makes up to people for every suffering and satisfies all their former hunger. In all this, God's greatness and glory will be revealed to people, and so the prophet speaks in His name: ‘And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God.’

Yet even this is not what the prophet sees as the greatest gift of God's response. The relief of sorrow merely accompanies it, as a visible sign of deeper realities. God answers the turning towards Him, and in that answer His Spirit is poured into the human heart that has opened to Him. In the canon for the Day of the Holy Spirit, St Theophanes the Branded († after 843) calls Him ‘the Source of life, in whom we believe, a stream of goodness, O Holy Spirit of God’. This is what Joel proclaims to us: the Source of life Himself enters the heart that has turned to Him, worn out by death's terrible dominion. The world is transfigured as it undergoes a terrible catastrophe; the sun turns to darkness and the moon to blood, but everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. For Joel, two sayings—the call and the promise—are inseparably linked: ‘Rend your hearts...’ and ‘I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh...’ The prophet sees that turning to God and His response deliver people from the common fate of perishable matter and make them participants in divine being.

Thus Joel's prophecy speaks not only of the outpouring of the Spirit that took place on the day of Pentecost, but also of what the Church Fathers called the deification of the human being. And this gift of salvation, like every gift of God, infinitely exceeds every measure available to our understanding and explanation. That is why the prophet says that salvation is granted not only to Zion and Jerusalem, but also to the others whom the Lord will call.

We are not surprised that the Lord continues to care for people after the trials they have endured; the Bible constantly reminds us of His mercy. We also know that images of an abundance of earthly fruits often symbolize not only material well-being but also the Lord's spiritual gifts to His faithful. There is therefore nothing unexpected in a prophecy about the outpouring of the Spirit following the promise of plenty.

Let us note that everyone will be equal before the Spirit sent by God. The Spirit will give gifts to all who are capable of receiving Him, regardless of age or social position. Moreover, salvation is proclaimed to everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord, that is, who turns to Him—not only to those born among a particular people or brought close to the Temple's hierarchical structure. Salvation proves so accessible! And yet it is so often rejected...

Prophets are often seen as a kind of foreteller of the future. For many, a prophet is the same as a clairvoyant. Yet the biblical image of a prophet has nothing in common with the figure of a clairvoyant. And that is hardly surprising. Clairvoyance would be possible only if everything in the world were rigidly predetermined. But God gives human beings freedom. This does not, of course, mean that He is prepared to abandon His plans to accommodate human wilfulness. But He always has several possible ways of carrying out His plan.

Perhaps not even several, but infinitely many. To cover every instance of human wilfulness. The only question is which people will become part of His plan. Who will say ‘yes’ to Him, and who will say ‘no’. And this, among other things, will determine the price that one nation or another will have to pay for taking part, or not taking part, in His plans. First and foremost, of course, His own people. Here, every ‘yes’ and every ‘no’ carry particular weight. Mere emotion, merely tearing one's clothes, will not suffice.

Repentance must be real. It must reach to the depths of the heart. So that a genuine change of one's whole life follows. A change of the entire system of values and priorities. Otherwise nothing will come of it. But if this change really does take place, the people's future, their entire history, may change too. Precisely because God predetermines nothing for anyone. Not for any individual, nor for any nation. He only wants to include every person and every nation in His plan.

Not in order to make the fullest possible use of each of them, but so that later, when His plan is fulfilled, they may all—individuals and entire nations alike—become part of His Kingdom. For ultimately, that is precisely what is at stake. Who will become part of God's Kingdom and who will remain outside it. God wants to leave no one outside. But not everything depends on Him: human beings are free. And if a person's ‘no’ to God is constant and unwavering, there is every chance of ultimately remaining outside His Kingdom. You cannot force someone to love you. But this is not God's choice. It is the choice of those who refused to follow Him. And God respects their choice just as He does any other.

Why is an invasion by merciless, unstoppable conquerors called the day of the Lord? Is the Lord not good? Why does the prophecy use such a strange comparison? This is difficult to understand. And although we are not surprised when retribution for evil comes (for even while hoping to escape it and asking for forgiveness, we still understand that we deserve punishment), we should also remember something else: besides the danger of openly becoming an instrument of evil, there is the danger of growing accustomed to goodness, until it becomes as unnoticed as the air and is no longer valued. Then we may drift away both from goodness and from its Giver, without being at all aware of it. And if we adopt a detached view of God, if we think of Him as far away from us, ‘somewhere up in heaven’, He may let us feel that the world is still in His hands and that even amid all the horrors He is near, and will not leave us at the mercy of absurdity.

Have you ever, say, gone swimming while vacationing at the seaside and left a bag with money on the beach? You splash around in the water, but something spoils your pleasure: you keep looking back at your things... "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Of course, this is a very primitive illustration of Jesus' words, but are you and I really such complicated beings? The same mechanism for distributing our attention operates in more "spiritual" situations too. Of course, earthly matters are important, and they must be given attention. Will we be able each time to keep within ourselves the right vertical order of what matters most, where God, the Spirit, and love are above all?

The following words of Christ about God and mammon, or wealth, speak about the same thing. Jesus is not against wealth or well-being. He says that they must not be placed at the center of our service and attention; that place must be reserved for God.

The recommendations for keeping the fast sound surprisingly current, as if two thousand years had not passed. Still, when rereading the Gospel, one often remembers the words that "Christianity is only beginning." Imitating piety by keeping a fasting diet with a "fasting face" has turned out to be much easier than growing spiritually by passing through the fast. But it is meaningless to act before the One Who sees the true motives of our actions.

There seems to be nothing to add to what has been said about storing up treasures. Every day we receive many opportunities to observe how what people tried to place their hopes in crumbles into dust. Nevertheless, every day we again and again try to increase those same unreliable earthly treasures. They are not necessarily treasures in the literal sense; their role can be played by everyday trifles and necessary household objects. But even what is necessary can be turned into an idol that blocks out God. And when a hard choice stands before us: God or mammon? - it becomes very easy to choose God in words while rejecting Him by our deeds.

If we are truly with Him, then His light dwells in us and lights our path, keeping us from losing our way on difficult roads. But when we leave Him, we turn away from His light too, though we do not admit it at once. Then with distorted spiritual vision we begin to take the darkness dwelling in us for light.

But if evil that pretends within us to be light, and is therefore "softened," is monstrous even in such a weakened form, then what must be the darkness of undisguised evil, toward which we risk heading when we turn away from the Source of Light?

The unfamiliar word "mammon" actually means a "stronghold," something one can rely on, a source of hope. Of course, the Lord understands that all of us need to eat, drink, dress, earn a living, and so on, but He says that in a person's life there cannot be two hopes, two treasures, two goals. He uses little birds and flowers of the field as examples to show that one can be free, happy, and beautiful while hoping not in "treasure on earth," but in God. Moreover, this beauty is purer, this freedom clearer, than anything the "trouble of the day" can offer us. And this is not about fleeing life, not about irresponsibility or getting something for nothing, but about turning to the most precious and most meaningful content of life - to God, who is absolutely more wondrous than any treasure.

At first glance, today’s reading calls us to be entirely carefree, if not irresponsible. Indeed, if we do not think about tomorrow’s problems or concern ourselves with tomorrow (vv. 25–32), will this not bring all work to a standstill—not only human work, but God’s work as well? After all, even God’s work in our world is most often done by human hands. But on a closer reading, things turn out not to be so clear-cut. The point is certainly not that Christ’s followers should live like disembodied angels, having nothing to do with anything earthly. Jesus simply advises us to set our priorities properly: first the Kingdom, then everything else that Gentiles usually seek and that Jesus’ disciples receive as an addition to the Kingdom (vv. 31–33). In this context, the saying about two masters also becomes clear (v. 24): in life we sometimes have to attend to all sorts of affairs, but if our priorities are set correctly, none of them will obscure the Kingdom. Yet how are we to avoid mistakes in setting our priorities? Here, evidently, only what Jesus calls a ‘pure eye’ can help (v. 22). It is no coincidence that the words about the ‘pure eye’ follow immediately after the words about treasures and the heart (vv. 19–22): in the Bible, the heart denotes a person’s spiritual ‘self,’ the center of the human person. It is here, in the heart, at the level of the spiritual ‘self,’ that choices are made and decisions taken. These decisions determine what a person will live by and how, what they will choose for themselves: heaven or earth. The value system by which a person will be guided in life also depends on this choice. Together with the spiritual ‘self,’ this system of values forms the core of the human person: it is precisely our value system that determines which choice we will make and toward what our will will be directed. Here, everything depends on the integrity and consistency of our value system, which also determines the ‘purity of the eye’: this purity depends on the quality of our spiritual life, on the condition of the spiritual core of our personhood. The ‘pure eye,’ in turn, enables us to set our priorities so that the Kingdom comes first and nothing obscures it.

Well, the day has come. A modern saint once said, ‘Glory to God—we have lived to see Lent.’ Indeed, you look forward to it so much that when the time finally comes, you feel relieved: at last you can spend time with God unhindered. And in today's Gospel reading we hear Christ's words about forgiveness. About God's forgiveness, which alone restores us and creates new life within us. About the forgiveness that only grows when you share it.

As Great Lent begins, the Church calls us first of all to touch the mystery of forgiveness. This matters so much because we are almost incapable of forgiving on our own. Only the gift of the Holy Spirit in our hearts can help us in this; only the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who forgave us all on the Cross. Thus, in forgiving, we encounter Christ, Crucified and Risen. And the purpose of Lent—to draw closer to God—is achieved. Let us remember this mystery hidden behind the labour of forgiveness, and try to forgive one another for Christ's sake and by His power.

And today we ask all who read our website to forgive us. Forgive us for what you sought here and did not find, for what we were unable to help you with. Forgive us for the clumsy, foolish or mistaken words with which we have saddened, troubled or offended you. Forgive us for our lecturing tone, for irreverent inflections or anything else that may have caused you pain. Forgive our sins for the sake of Jesus Christ Crucified.

It is probably not so difficult to understand what Jesus means when He says: where your treasures are, there your heart will be also. After all, treasures are not simply money or valuables in themselves, even if they are securely hidden. Treasures become treasures only when, and only for the person for whom, they become the goal and meaning of life. Neither money, nor gold or silver, nor precious stones have anything in themselves to do with spiritual life; but the attitude towards them of the person who possesses them is directly and immediately connected with it. The question of values thus becomes not a question about treasures, but about the system of values that constitutes what biblical language calls the heart. The heart, of course, in the spiritual sense in which the word is used in the biblical books, reveals itself primarily in acts of the will. The life of the heart determines what psychologists today call intentions: impulses of the will together with the external, physical, or internal, psychological objects towards which those impulses are directed (and they must be directed towards something; it cannot be otherwise). But what precisely an impulse of the will is directed towards depends on one's system of values: the real system that actually determines our priorities in life, not the system we profess, which sometimes has little to do with the real one. And Jesus reminds us that the Kingdom must be at the centre of our system of values. Otherwise nothing will come of it: the road to the Kingdom is hard, and under any other arrangement we will not be able to complete it.

Forgiveness Sunday is one of the most remarkable days in the church year. And the old custom comes to mind: when someone asks for forgiveness, to answer, "God will forgive." To a modern person these words grate on the ear. That is the fate of language. But I think our ancestors had no less spirituality than we do, and so let us think about this once more.

We do not value these words because we treat God's forgiveness too easily, as though it were something self-evident because of His great mercy. We say to ourselves: a person, yes, can forgive or can refuse to forgive, and so when we ask for forgiveness we want to hear not "God will forgive," but "I forgive you." And here precisely we must remember the words of today's Gospel reading: if you forgive people their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive people their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. In other words, the situation turns back on you yourself (and that is how it should always be in life!).

But what do we know about forgiveness? At times a person is guided by the common saying: I forgive everyone who owes me. But seriously, in reality the first true teacher of forgiveness is, of course, Joseph, who forgave his brothers. Let us learn from the great teachers.

And I would like to say one more thing. It is no accident at all that the words about forgiveness are joined here in the text with words about asceticism. These two aspects of life have the deepest connection, which can be pictured this way: fasting - humility, in the biblical sense and not the everyday one - the suppression of pride - forgiveness.