Notes for  30 June 2020

As can be seen, Paul is quite skeptical about the possibility of judging a person's Christianity by face, or "person." It would seem that such skepticism is not always justified: often a person's face, in the broad sense of the word, can say much about him. Lifestyle, behavior, and even manners sometimes give a fairly complete idea not only of the outward world but also of the inner world of the one who has them.

And yet, after reflection, one has to agree with the apostle: a face, even understood as broadly as possible, says very little about a person's Christian life, and perhaps nothing at all. Of course, if Christianity were simply one more new religion, a person's face could say much about his Christianity, for religiosity, or its absence, largely forms that very face. But Christianity is not a religion; it is life in the Kingdom. And here, without one's own experience of such life, it is practically impossible to understand anything.

Of course, one could recall love, joy, and many other characteristic features of such life, but reflections of the Kingdom are sometimes found even in the untransformed world. And if one also takes into account that joy, for example, like much else, can be caused by very different spiritual reasons, we involuntarily come to the conclusion that judging how much a person has shared in the life of the Kingdom by outward signs alone is very difficult, if it is possible at all.

One criterion remains: commonality of experience. Indeed, the life of the Kingdom, like life in general, can be very different outwardly; its forms are practically inexhaustible. But its essence is one, and anyone at all familiar with this life will never confuse it with anything else, unless for some reason he himself wants to be deceived. And the apostle, as can be seen, appeals precisely to this experience, which allows one without doubts or hesitations to determine whether a given person has any relation to the life of the Kingdom or not.

If a person knows about himself that he lives one life with Christ, and if this is really so, then the one living Christ's life can have no doubt about what life he is living. And about another person, if only he senses in him the presence of the same life by which he himself lives, he will say with complete confidence: he and I live one life.

As can be seen, there is no other criterion. And this is not surprising: in the untransformed world, by definition, there can be no instrument that would register manifestations of the Kingdom. We ourselves can see them only insofar as we do not belong wholly to this world. And Paul proposes that everyone, when it comes to spiritual life, rely on this sense of the Kingdom, on the only reliable instrument that allows us to distinguish the life of the Kingdom from the life of "this world."

The Lord understands that we are always inclined to evade the need to make a clear choice. We find this almost physically unpleasant, and we begin to protest: Help, they are taking away our freedom! How can they do this?! What if we do not want to give an answer? This is an assault on the individual! But God does not play such games with us. He knows that freedom does not mean making no decision at all, and that what matters is not the ability to evade, but a courageous decision—agreement with either one option or the other. Of course, it is not hidden from Him that until the very end we can keep finding counterarguments and rejecting every option He offers: we do not like the place here, the time there, or the company elsewhere… Although He allows us to carry on misbehaving, He still waits persistently and with astonishing, incomprehensible patience—humanly speaking, “without losing His temper”—for the moment when we will finally make our choice. He is ready to wait until the very end, until the very last moment when we are still capable of an effort of will. All the more so because His will for our salvation must eventually be fulfilled!

“You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities,” says the Lord. It follows that truly great grace places great obligations upon us. Indeed, if the Lord were indifferent to what we do, it would mean that He simply did not care about us. Is that what we want? Would we really want God not to care about us? If so, then we do not need Him. We should then be honest and admit that life would be easier without Him. But if we want Him to love us, we will have to accept that our conduct matters to Him and that He does not want us to sin. Only then can we call upon His name honestly, knowing that if He intervenes in our life, much will collapse: everything in which there was no place for Him.

God cannot reproach the inhabitants of Jerusalem for insufficient religiosity: they offer sacrifices, pray, and even remember the One God among the other gods and believe in Him—yet they have “turned their backs to Him, not their faces.” From God, as from the other gods, they want help, blessing, anything at all except God Himself. They want to speak, but not with Him—only to Him: they want Him to listen to their requests without making them listen in return. They “did not incline their ear,” though He had asked, “Obey My voice.” All of this is an indictment of ordinary religious consciousness everywhere, not only that of ancient Jews. People need the idea of God so that there is someone to whom they can pray; this is natural religiosity. But they do not need a God whom they must listen to—not merely by observing commandments and rituals, but by truly coming to know His will. This is a religiosity that is not natural but genuine: the kind God desires from the human person.

These words of John the Baptist are perhaps the best description of the life of a person who has discovered why he lives. For as long as the foundation and meaning of a person's life remains the person himself—his life, his love, his faith, his achievement, and so on—he will never be able to say: “I must decrease.” On the contrary, he will say: “My goal is my own growth. I want to learn more, see more, experience more, accomplish more...” The line separating such a life from the life of the prophets and Apostles—remember Paul's words, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,” in Gal 2:20?—is very fine. We truly do need to learn, understand, experience, and accomplish a great deal. But only along this path does the highest calling in the world await us: to become the Bridegroom's friend rather than remain “of the earth, speaking of the earth.”