COLLECTIVE OBLIVIOUS SINFUL SCHEMES – Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica
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A characteristic of the unenlightened mind is to bind to earthly schemes (patterns) in order to secure his own security, and even his heavenly future.
The unenlightened mind needs security for itself.
The enlightened mind craves and cordially yearns everyone to be saved.
The ten men who were lepers are great example of today’s Christianity (see: Luke 17, 11-19).
The ten men who were lepers are beseeching (begging) Christ and they seek healing (purification), and He says to them:
“Go, show yourselves to the priests!” (see Luke 17, 14)
Christ shows the way of obedience to everybody. They depart and as they went, they were cleansed – they purified the energy of their mind.
But, obedience is not a goal in itself, nor it is merely the cleansing (purifying) of the energy of our mind. We purify the energy of our mind in conjunction with the Purifying Grace of God, in order to see our own sins, not the sins of other people, and not to judge (condemn) others.
Today, many people would like to have the gift of ceaseless prayer of the heart, (Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me) but they cannot receive it.
Therefore, we can see this gift at the Samaritan, an icon of the true servant, he obeys and goes, he experiences purification of the energy of the mind and he returns to Christ.
The Samaritan is in obedience until the receiving of the gift (ceaseless prayer of the mind in the heart), but obviously no longer than that. He does not continue to go in order to show himself to the priests, he does not continue to follow the usual church institutionalization, as Christ said to him, but first he returns to Christ and he thanks Him.
And the God-Man justified him:
“Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”
And He said to him, “Arise, go your way!
Your faith has saved you! ” ( See Luke 17, 18-19)
In other words, (Jesus says) you no longer have the need of a spiritual guidance because you received from Me the gift of the ceaseless prayer.
Do you see how difficult it is when someone gets into a particular scheme and in a particular way of thinking, as the Jews were accustomed then. They were only formally adhered to the Law, just like the present clergy (especially the bishops) of the Orthodox Church, trained only in a theological schools, but not in the one Liturgy of the Church and not from a personal long-time ascetic struggle.
They get into one pattern, a certain way of thinking and reasoning, and they no longer know whether there is another way of thinking and experiencing the spiritual life, nor would they know how to get out of the present thinking scheme in which they have entered, nor they can show the way to others.
For the Samaritan of the Gospel, it is easy to accept the Truth, because he has not entered into any previous scheme of thinking.
And do you see, the whole Orthodox Church is still a living-Church; only because of the people who are not from that thinking scheme, the thinking scheme derived only from the educational process. It is a living-Church because of the people raised and educated in one Liturgy (Eucharist) of the Church and in a personal struggle.
The nine men who were lepers are going (to show themselves to the priests) according to some well-known scheme of thinking, according to some habit – which is futile, but the Samaritan is going because of the real wholehearted obedience.
Christ tells him to go to the priests and he goes, although he is Samaritan, i.e. he has nothing to do with the Old Testament priests, nor with their faith.
He does not follow any predetermined scheme of thinking, but he goes according to the way that Christ shows him. The other nine men that were lepers are going according to the known and usual to them scheme (pattern) of thinking.
While going and following the scheme, although something new is happening to them – they all receive the gift of purifying the energy of the mind, as we do today when we begin to go to the church, but nobody gets anything more than that.
The goal that has been missing is Christ Himself.
Whilst the Samaritan, who was not slave to any thinking (behaving) pattern and was open to the new ways, did not continue to follow the shown scheme, but he returned and first, he expressed his gratitude to the God-Man Christ.
He did something normal – he went to Christ and he expressed his gratitude, something that every normal person does.
Most of the people at the beginning of the spiritual life, cleanse the energy of their mind, but they do not start functioning, they continue in their old ways (with closed hearts for God and fellowmen, with an old way of sinful thinking), they do not cross from an unnatural into a natural way of life.
The true obedient people purify themselves and they start functioning. They cross into a natural way of life, which is a life of giving, and they activate or actualize (according to Saint Gregory the Sinaite) the grace of the Baptism.
Why is this happening to them (the ones that do not function)?
Because, before they receive the gift of ceaseless prayer, that is, the gift of enlightenment, in their heads and in their hearts someone instils a certain thinking pattern, and, until they liberate themselves from it, it will forever block the access of their mind to their heart.
In addition to the sinful schemes of satisfying their passions (especially the passions for human power and glory), which are personal sinful schemes implanted by the pattern of life that this world imposes upon us, there are collective oblivious (unmindful, unconscious) sinful schemes in the Orthodox Church, that is, heresy, which a believer must not accept.
The main thinking scheme which to the believers in the churches is being instilled (implanted) in their hearts is the scheme of identification with the human forms of human organization, i.e. identification with the state and the nation, and their goals and interests.
For example, when some faithful man accepts that thinking scheme, that is, heresy, then you can easily implant in him the one which is worse – which is spiritually suicidal, for example: that the MOC-OA is a schismatic organization.
Accepting this thinking scheme in the heart, ultimately blocks the access for the mind (of the one who has accepted it) to enter into his heart.
Since the clergy of the Orthodox Church (with all the respect to the exceptions) entered into a particular earthly scheme from which they do not know or they do not want to come out, therefore the churches as institutions have entered a scheme of identification with earthly human forms of organization and interests, the country and the nation. The churches have entered the scheme of the so-called canonical national churches outside the Eucharistic way of living and thinking, that is, they have entered into the heresy of ethnophyletism.
And it is not possible for them to get out of that scheme of thinking.
You say to him/them, “Man, you are not fighting on your own ground! The Liturgy is your field!
Why do you sit down and negotiate on a simple (plain) table?”
You are called to another table – in the communion on the Holy Table. “Man, you missed the table!”
Brother, it is true even that (simple) table is set up in the temple, but for idiotic trade and earthly interests, and you know what Christ did with such a tables placed in the God’s house, in the home of His Father (see Matthew 21, 12-13).
Christianity should not have been associated with any forms of social order from this world, that is, it should not have entered into earthly schemes.
The only thing needed is pastorally connection, but in no way essentially. Pastorally it is connected, so it can act in this world – in order to exist, to evangelize in a particular country or nation which has been formed, but not to be identified with them.
The canonical national churches that identify themselves with the earthly forms of social organization and who aspire like them towards the earthly centralization of power, are also an earthly scheme and heresy, but also are an excellent scheme for the coming of the antichrist.
The so-called canonical churches that function like the one of the earthly schemes are also a bad basis through which the misguided minds of their believers most often make their soteriological – but very demonic mathematics: that, they will be saved only, and the whole world will go to hell – especially the schismatic.
Dear them, what do they even imagine that they are doing when they stand before Him, before The One Who spreads His hands to embrace and save all people and all creation?
Are they obliviously still holding His hands nailed so spread out on the Cross, in order to secure themselves that the embrace will never close for them?
Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica
(16.12.2017 09:56)
