HOW EACH OF US CAN AND OUGHT TO SERVE THE CHURCH

by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky

IF WE LOVE the Church, if She is dear to us, then how can each of us serve Her? And if someone were to ask you: “How have you served Her?” what activities can you boast of?

When this question was put to the holy Apostle Paul and he had to defend his authority before the Corinthian Christians, he answered in this way: I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities (II Cor. 11:30). Glory in our infirmities? Without question, the humble realisation of our infirmities is beneficial for each of us, but how can we serve the Church in this way? At the same time, the holy Apostle insists on his answer and explains: For when I am weak, then am I strong (II Cor. 12:10).

Furthermore, this is no paradox, no play on words, no contradiction. The Apostle shows no trace of being “imaginative” or “witty.” He writes from the fullness of his heart, from deep conviction. His meaning is direct. He speaks of the Christian principle of life.

Christianity upset the usual concepts dominant in the world, and in particular the concept of power. According to Christianity, power is what “seems” to the world to be impotence, what appears to its short-sighted view to be a contemptible weakness. Christian power is meekness. Meekness is the law of the new life and action, under whose banner the Gospel declared war on the world: Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they that mourn. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek - is this not infirmity (weakness) in the usual human understanding?

Yes, “in the world,” without Christ, without faith, outside the Church and apart from Christianity, one cannot pit meekness and spiritual poverty (humility) against the mighty, against all that has power and authority in the world; nor can they oppose the proud power of the will, so often brutal, hardened, and harsh. They cannot stand against sheer physical power, the power of naked force; nor can they withstand the power of a refined and clever mind or the power of the simple majority. How is it possible to take up arms against the entire arsenal of this world armed only with the weapons of “meekness and temperance, purity and chastity, love of brother and the poor, of patience and vigilance,” as we hear, for example, in the prayer to St. Job of Pochaev, one of the strugglers for the life, rights, and dignity of the Orthodox Church in Western Russia against Roman Catholicism.

But He of Whom the prophet said “A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench” (Es. 42:3), Who bore His obedience, being obedient even unto death, even to the death on the Cross: He, our Lord, stated even before His sufferings on the Cross: Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

The meek Christian virtues are a mighty power in God’s world - they are an artery by which the power of God comes down into the world. In order to understand this, we must pull back the veil from our own personal world-view. A veil usually hangs before our mental eye that limits our thoughts and our actions in earthly life. But when we pull back the veil, before us open perspectives of eternity, with faith in the immortality of our soul, with faith in God, with faith in the radiant kingdom of eternal life. In the face of eternal life, concepts are completely changed: much that is great becomes of no consequence, and the insignificant becomes great. He who believes and beholds the Kingdom of God with spiritual eyes is like a giant whose head reaches the heavens. Who has strength enough to throw him down? They can slay his body, they cannot kill his soul and spirit. The words of St. Paul can be applied to such spiritual giants: For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39).

Here there is an authentic feeling of his power, which the Apostle expresses in the words: We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves (Rom. 15:1).